Politics

March 10, 2021

There’s a lot to learn from looking at the list of countries who managed to secure significant doses of vaccine early in the game, because it begs a lot of questions. Why are they doing so well? Where did they get it from? Why did they get it and not us?

Starting at the top of the list and sorting by Doses… either by “population percentage with at least one dose” or simply “doses per 100 people” – the results are pretty much the same. There, it makes sense to remove the “big” names because the answer is obvious… those that are making the vaccines are using it for themselves as much as they can. The U.S., the U.K, China, Russia. Also remove from there places whose numbers are skewed because of low populations. The Maldives, the Seychelles… tiny populations, mostly vaccinated.

The top of the list now is of course Israel, who was on top of the list before anyone else was removed. They have a population of 9,000,000. They’ve administered 9,000,000 doses. They’re not all first doses, but most are. I saw a picture of a café in Tel Aviv yesterday… and outdoor patio, crowded, no masks, people having a blast. We’ll be there one day… but they’re there now.

How did Israel do it? A pretty sweet deal with Pfizer – one that worked out well for everyone. Lots of data, lots of healthy people. There are plenty of articles to read about how it all came about.

But who’s next on the list now? A terrific outlier to study, as far as I’m concerned.

Chile… and I’m interested because I was born there. Because I have friends and family there. Because I used to travel down there on an almost annual basis, and I know how things work; I know more about doing business with Chile than anyone would ever want to know… which led me to ask the relevant question… who’d they hustle and how’d they do it? Their population is about half of Canada. 22% of those people have had at least one dose. We’re at 5%.

May of 2020 was a bad month down there… 100,000 new infections and almost 1,000 deaths. That’s when they began taking their vaccine plan seriously. Their ministry of health set up meetings with 11 labs around the world, a number that went down to 5 as talks progressed. Internally, it was agreed that when the health regulators of those jurisdictions approved those vaccines, they’d be auto-approved in Chile. To lock in those supplies, meetings were scheduled *in person*. The Chileans flew out to numerous places, including Abu Dabi and the UAE, principal operational hubs for Pfizer and BioNTech. And this is where the Chilean way of business kicked in. I wasn’t in those rooms, but what I know is that those Chileans did not leave without firm deals to receive vaccine; letters of intent, confidentiality agreements… and, probably, agreements not so different from Israel – yes, for sure, we’ll give you the data… we’ll red-line vaccinations… whatever you need… just get us the stuff, AND, if *you* don’t comply with your end of it, there will be hell to pay, as enforced by whatever international laws apply.

I’m speculating a bit and drawing on my knowledge on how things work, and what sort of leverage (the only sort that could possibly be applied) might have worked… because it ultimately worked, and worked well. Very early in the game, Chile was already ahead. By September of last year, Chile was setting up clinical trials for Sinovac and Janssen. Some 3,000 Chileans happily volunteered between October and November. And, for doing so, Chile locked in a $14/dose cost of vaccine and top of the delivery schedule. Chile stuck to their end of it, and the manufacturers have stuck to theirs. Win-win.

Around here, we’re paying $35/dose, when we can get it. Yes, I know – we’ve all read the same news – we will get it all in due course, and just because we keep getting dropped down the list it doesn’t mean anything. Patience, etc. By the time our anger and head-shaking subsides, the pandemic will be over and we’ll have moved on and nobody will care. But allow me to put it in writing; our government let us down. Good intentions are not good enough. Intention to have enough vaccine in a timely manner. Intention to have an infrastructure for booking appointments. Getting up in front a podium and TV cameras isn’t worth anything if you don’t deliver. Nobody is interested in finger pointing and lame excuses, especially how it’s “out of our control”. Your job as our leaders is to find a way to put it into *your* control. Our control. Many governments around the world, with far less resources at their disposal, managed to navigate this process far better.

Ultimately, I’m familiar with the Canadian way of doing business too. The 300,000,000 doses we’ve procured – in the same way Seinfeld “procured” a car reservation in that famous episode – was done with lots of emails, phone calls, Zoom meetings. Whiteboards and PowerPoints. Lawyers and contracts and back-and-forth mark-ups, with nothing in there that could incur any liability. And with nothing to offer in return, very little teeth in those agreements. How can we be sure they’ll hold up their end? It doesn’t matter… and don’t worry about it because with all the “best efforts” language in there, we have zero recourse anyway. Let’s just hope for the best.

Chile started at the finish line. They simply asked, “What is the fastest way to get vaccines into the arms of our population?”… and assigned a group of intelligent resourceful people to just get it done. And they did. Pisco Sours all around. Salúd.

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By |2021-03-10T17:03:18-08:00March 10th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |9 Comments
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March 9, 2021

From now on, every day will mark a one-year anniversary of something pandemic-related. Today happens to be the day that marks exactly one year since the first death of C19 in Canada… at the Lynn Valley Care Center. On this day last year, we were all wondering… how many more will it be before this is over…? How bad will it get…?

It’s unlikely to get any worse than it’s already been, so that part of it has probably been answered… but the slow descent to the finish line – the rate of it getting better — is still undefined… because there are plenty of unknowns. For example, how and when can you book your appointment for a vaccination…

A year ago, I knew very little about pandemics. But I knew a lot about computer infrastructure and computer systems and IT designed to handle thousands of people and millions of transactions per second. Accordingly, if a year ago you’d asked me to put together a system to handle vaccine bookings… from top to bottom – log in, identify securely, book an open slot, have that info make its way to the proper health authority, send reminders, integrate an app, use a QR code, etc etc… off the top of my head, I could have it designed on paper in a week, built into alpha-testing in six weeks, beta-tested it in three months and have a fully bug-free system – reliable enough for release into the wild — in six months. Then another six months waiting for the actual vaccines to materialize. And that’s conservative, and that’s just me. There are people far more knowledgeable with the present-day infrastructure possibilities (I was doing this 20 years ago), so it’s likely far easier these days.

The key to projects like this is to not re-invent the wheel. This isn’t complicated, but it has to be reliable… and, these days, chances are… no matter what you’re doing, someone else has already done it, and done it well… and so you take that, and you customize it instead of re-creating it. We have been booking online for decades. The only thing that needs any sort of customization is the B.C.-friendly user interface, and hooking it into the existing health network. The rest already exists; just because it doesn’t exist here, it doesn’t mean somewhere else in the world hasn’t been doing it for ages. The guts of it are out there and have been well-battle-tested. Attach to it whatever localization is needed and expected… need to be able to book online, need to be able to phone in, need to be able to handle FAX requests, need to be able to accept telegrams. Check check check & check. Integrate it all. Whatever.

It boggles the mind that Vancouver Coast Health, having had exactly a year to prepare for this day, managed to create a system that allowed exactly 369 vaccination appointments to get booked. A “phone-only” system. That system saw 1.7 million attempted calls in the first 3 hours… and more than 3 million by the end of the day. I’m pretty sure it was the same 30,000 people calling 100 times each. There were countless stories of people trying to get through all day: Most of them were met with busy signals and/or dropped calls… and for those that got through, many waited for hours on hold before the call vanished into thin air. Queue the finger-pointing… the government, Telus, whatever. Who could possibly have foreseen this demand? The answer is… everyone.

Excuses are fair to serve up when something unexpected enters the picture, but there was nothing unexpected yesterday. It’s unacceptable and inexcusable. Fishing around for the silver lining, I can come up with only one thing: It can only get better.

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By |2021-03-09T17:03:21-08:00March 9th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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March 8, 2021

Setting aside the vaccine optimism for a moment, let’s remember we’re not quite there yet… although, slowly, things will trend in that direction. It depends where you are and it depends how things are going. For example, today, New Brunswick shifted from level “orange” to level “yellow”… which means, for them, bubbles can grow to 15 people, sports teams are allowed league play across zones and in larger tournaments, formal indoor gatherings are allowed (with some restrictions) and informal outdoor gatherings of up to 50 people are also allowed.

But we are far from New Brunswick, in more ways than one.

B.C. is the only province in Canada where our 7-day rolling average of new cases has been consistently going up. Every other place has seen it bounce around, a little up and a little down. Ours is very consistently a little… up. A month ago, our 7-day average of new cases was 436. A week later, 452. A week after that, 482. Today, it’s 557.

So what, that’s just testing… but what matters are hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths, right? I’d argue that’s not quite true, but even if that’s what you believe, then all I can tell you is that all of those numbers, over the last month, are virtually unchanged. Around 250 people in hospital, 65 of them in ICU… but 136 people have died since then, so there’s a consistent pipeline. It’s neither a downward spiral nor an upward spiral. Just a churn.

It’s easy to fiddle with the numbers, but let’s remember these are real people, not just statistics. Every one of those 136 people have family and friends deeply affected. As do the 136 presently in the system. And as will next month’s 136 if nothing changes.

Things, fortunately, are changing… just more slowly around here, for the usual reasons. Like staunch Republicans who are still supporting Trump, we are now well past the point of changing people’s minds. If you were never into masks and social distancing, you’re certainly not about to change your tune now. If you’re adamantly against vaccines, that won’t change either. The flipside of that is that today was the first day to call in and book for vaccine appointments for the general public, starting with those aged 90+. The phone lines were flooded with calls… like 1.7 million calls for only 40,000 or so eligible people. That’s actually pretty encouraging. We’ll get there, but the impatience is evident… everywhere.

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By |2021-03-08T17:05:11-08:00March 8th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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March 7, 2021

We’ve all had colds before… the little sniffles. It’s annoying, but nothing some chicken soup and/or lemon tea and/or NeoCitran and/or a warm blanket and/or lots of water can’t cure.

And if someone said to you ok… here’s the deal… the pandemic is now over, but you have a 50% chance of catching a mild cold in the next 6 months… would you take it?

The overwhelming “HELL YEAH!” that you’re all screaming leads to a path we’re on now, though probably not by original design… because there’s a fundamental aspect to C19 and vaccines that perhaps wasn’t entirely expected, but that emerging data suggests… which is that a single shot of any vaccine of our “big 4” – Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and now Johnson and Johnson – prevents serious illness 100% of the time. Yes, it’s a bold statement, one worthy of marketing departments… but this one is coming from the science.

Two shots of Pfizer and Moderna suggest a 95% chance of not getting sick at all… and the appropriate doses of the other ones also suggest a remote chance of illness if you follow the directions… but proper recommended usage aside, one single shot… and you’re good.

Entering the mix (in Canada) as of Friday is the newly approved J&J vaccine… which, in the context above, is a true game changer. Its numbers don’t reach the lofty heights of 95% efficacy, but it’s becoming apparent that’s not so important. Should we take the Ferrari with a top speed of 340km/h? Perhaps the Porsche, but it only goes to 280kmh. How about the Tesla, which accelerates faster than those two… but is capped at 200km/h?

Dude, we’re going to the 7/11 that’s a block away. Take the bike. Or walk. We don’t need to get fancy here.

The J&J vaccine efficacy is in the 65%-75% range… compared to the 95% of Moderna and Pfizer. J&J serious illness and death rate 28 days after the dose (at which time its full effects have kicked in): Zero. Not a single case of hospitalization or death.

From a “fancy” point of view, J&J isn’t top 2… but who cares. It gets us there… and it does so in game-changing ways: It’s single dose, and it’s easily stored at convenient temperatures… for months. Don’t like needles? It’s only one. Don’t like side-effects? Far less reported with J&J. Allergic to preservatives in vaccines? J&J seems more tolerable. And, unlike mRNA vaccines, this one is optimized to both antibody and T-cell responses. Accordingly, it doesn’t need tuning to new variants… and therefore has been shown to be more effective against the South African variant. Pfizer and Moderna have modified their vaccines for these new variants, but J&J doesn’t require it… which implies it probably won’t require it for future variants either.

Red-lining the first doses seemed a little premature and perhaps not-so-well thought out when it started. In fact, I wrote some words to that effect; why mess with the science? The answer to that rhetorical question is the basis of science itself. To some extent, we’re all part of a big experiment… but assuming it’s being handled correctly, we should be able to trust the results… and the results are telling us a lot. Different people interpret them in different ways, but this is all not speculative guesswork… there’s a method to the madness. For example, it’s dawned on me that perhaps the province of Quebec has no intention of *ever* giving out second doses of Pfizer or Moderna… because, as per above… what’s better…. 95 people out of 100 who will never get sick at all… or, 200 people, none of whom will develop a serious illness or die? They’re betting on the latter, and so far, perhaps correct in their assumptions. Their hospitalizations and ICU admissions have been trending sharply down consistently; just look at the pretty pictures. They might just keep doing this until the pandemic fizzles out, and the answer to “When do we get our second shot?” will be “Next flu-shot season”.

The issue with vaccines that we’re quickly approaching has more to do with vaccine acceptance, though that’s also turning a good corner in some places. There seems to be a core of around 20% of people that adamantly refuse to consider the vaccine. The other 80% has been a spectrum based on hesitancy, but it’s mostly sliding in the right direction; more and more people seeing what’s going on around them and realizing that indeed… the vaccine is useful, the vaccine is safe and the vaccine is an integral part of all of us getting back to normal. That’s here in Canada. Our neighbours down south?

Last November, before any vaccines had actually been approved, 51% of Democrats said they’d get vaccinated when possible… as opposed to 43% of Republicans. Asking that question today yields this: 78% of Democrats would say yes… but only 47% of Republicans would agree. In fact, 44% of Republicans say, adamantly, “Never”. Interesting — but not surprising — that their cult leader and his entire family all quietly got vaccinated when no one was looking.

I’ll stop here because you know exactly what the next 3 paragraphs would say.

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By |2021-03-07T17:03:52-08:00March 7th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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March 6, 2021

Unrelated to everything… although relevant in that people have opinions they like to share… comes this, from a story that made waves a few years ago…

When you mention Nestlé around here, it’s like mentioning the Satan of corporate greed. These miserable people come in here, steal our water, and then sell it back to us for criminally high prices. It’s outrageous, it’s unacceptable, our government sold us out for next to nothing, somebody do something.

We, here in B.C., are blessed with some of the most bountiful and freshest water on the planet. We completely take it for granted, and only occasionally feel the pain when our water needs to be shut off for the day for repairs. Oh, the humanity, how will we survive. We are so, so lucky.

For centuries, people have been bottling fresh water and taking it to places where it’s needed. There are places in the world where you simply can’t drink the tap water, and you come to depend on it. Sidenote, when I lived in Northern Chile in 1987/1988, water was the equivalent of $3 a bottle, while beer was about 25 cents. I spent a lot of time pretty buzzed… because that water was totally undrinkable. The water was so loaded with calcite that if you didn’t dry it off after washing your hands, you’d quickly find them coated in chalk. The water was sticky and gross – and that was when you could get some actual water pressure.

Around here, there’s nothing wrong with the tap water. Far from it. It boggles the mind that people literally fill up bottles from our tap water, and then sell it back to us… and we buy it, like it’s magically better for some reason. It’s not. A cheap home filter will give you the same quality. An expensive home filter will give you much better quality, but most people don’t actually need it. Not around here. We have amazing fresh water, and more than we know what to do with. Accordingly, forever, the policy has been “take as much as you want” – so long as you don’t pollute the environment. Businesses have been parked on the banks of the Fraser for decades.

One day, a few decades ago, Nestlé showed up and set up shop, taking some of that Fraser River water and bottling it. No one said much, because nobody knew and or cared.

The government, at some point, did care. These guys are taking our water for free and then making a commercial enterprise out of it. Shouldn’t they be paying at least something for it? Maybe they should.

The government approached Nestlé and said, hey, maybe you should be paying for this water. Nestlé said sure, how much? We’re not sure, said the government… we’re going to study it and get back to you. Sounds good, said Nestlé.

Then the government figured out it’d cost a lot of money to study this issue… who’s using water, how much of it, how much should we charge, how much can we charge, how to we meter it, how do we control it, who’s going to manage it… and so on. It’s complex. The government figured it’d cost close to $10,000,000 to study it properly, and came up with the genius idea to get some of these commercial enterprises to pay for it.

Hey Nestlé… how about you pay for this study? Sure, said Nestlé.

OK, said the government… here’s how we’ll do it. We want ten million dollars… you guys pull out a zillion gallons of water a year, and we will charge you enough cents per zillion that we can get our money… and once we’ve figured it out, we will charge more, but this is a good start. Sure, said Nestlé.

And that is where Nestlé, who had been paying zero for the water, now began paying a nominal amount for their water. And when that tidbit of info hit the newswire, the shit hit the fan. Because the story that got told was very simple; the government just sold us ut. How can the government let them steal our water for fractions of a penny per litre… and then sell it back to us for 10,000x the cost. They should be charged $1 a litre! $2 a litre! $10 a litre! They should all be arrested and thrown in jail!!! Our poor precious water!!!

Do you know how much water Nestlé pulls out of the river? If you could dam the river for a certain period of time, how long would it take to accumulate all the water that Nestlé takes in a year? A month… no… of course not. A week? A day? OK, a day… that’s still a lot, sort of. Except it’s not a day. It’s not even an hour. It’s less time than it’s taken you to read this far. In seventy-two seconds, Nestlé takes their annual haul of Fraser River water… because, unfortunately, as priceless as our crisp, clear, pristine drinking water is, 99.99999% of it flows into the Pacific Ocean. It’d be nice to be able to tap into a lot more than that, but the infrastructure isn’t there.

I’m not sure what the status is of these water studies, nor what the plan is to bill industries that rely on it. It’s come to light that any meaningful increase in industrial water cost would cause big problems for some of those businesses who count on super-cheap (if not free) water. Like I said, it’s complicated.

If there’s any aspect of this that relates to the pandemic, it’s the part where well-spoken agendas, as one-sided as they may be, sometimes fill the echo chamber at the expense of a balanced opinion. There’s often more to the story.

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By |2021-03-06T17:06:15-08:00March 6th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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March 5, 2021

Yesterday’s post generated a lot of interesting responses, as expected… with no real answers, just everyone’s individual opinions. Also as expected, because there’s no right answer.

The summary is probably this: A lot of people, dare I say perhaps the majority, have some negative part of their life that is irrelevant with respect to what they provide to the world. They are brilliant musicians, but they beat up their spouse on occasion. For some people, especially those for whom there’s a personal connection, that’s too much. For others, the quality of their work outshines their personal shortcomings, especially if said shortcomings don’t matter to them. If you’re not trans or couldn’t care less about LGBTQ issues, you’ll keep reading Harry Potter without missing a beat. If you’re sympathetic enough to the cause, perhaps it’ll cause you to think about it. To each, his or her own… and that’s a big, wide chasm… a huge spectrum. There’s no fine line where this falls to one side or the other; it’s very personal – and different – for everyone.

I guess I would similarly draw the line. If it’s important and personal to me, perhaps it crosses that chasm. I sure as hell would not go to a Roger Waters show to watch anti-Semitic propaganda thrown in my face. But I would certainly go to a post-mid-80s Pink Floyd concert headlined by David Gilmour, should that ever happen again. And as far as the music that’s a mix of those two things… yeah, it’s tainted, but its importance to me will never go away.

On a similar note (haha!!), exactly 200 years ago, Beethoven was in the midst of composing his Missa Solemnis, and his 9th symphony… perhaps as close to musical perfection as we’ll ever get. But Ludwig himself… after his brother died, he spent years fighting with his brother’s widow, Joanna. The biggest fight was a custody battle over Karl, his nephew (their son)… and it was vicious… so much so that it led Karl to attempt suicide some years later. Beethoven, as it turns out, wasn’t the most pleasant of fellows… controlling, overbearing… traits that got only worse as he got older and his hearing worsened and his slow lead-poisoning kicked in.

And… I’ll be honest… there’s absolutely nothing that could come to light about Ludwig Van Beethoven that’d ever make me turn off his music. It would be optimistic to think that just because someone can create perfection, they themselves would be so perfect as well… and we can leave it at that. I’m good with that.

And speaking of being optimistic… let’s head into the weekend with some optimistic news: Given the new vaccines, the expected shipment schedules, the extending times between doses and the increasingly good weather, Dr. Bonnie Henry thinks we may start turning the corner to “post-pandemic” as soon as summer. That’d be less than four months before things feel pretty close to normal. I’m good with that too.

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By |2021-03-05T17:03:46-08:00March 5th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , |3 Comments
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March 3, 2021

Hot on the heals (haha) of yesterday’s post about vaccines… what they might be worth to people if there were an option to pay for them… comes a revelation I wasn’t aware of. In Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, people are being offered $5 to get vaccinated.

On the pro side, these are people at higher risk, for a number of reasons. The argument would be that having all of these people vaccinated benefits us all, because it gets us all closer to herd immunity… and if people need a little convincing, what’s the harm.

On the flip-side, there’s something paternalistic about that $5. Like $5 should make a difference to someone, whether to get vaccinated or not? Five bucks? And yes, I realize 5 dollars is significant to some people, and that’s my point… we are manipulating poor people for the benefit of the greater good. It might make sense on paper, but it feels a little dehumanizing to me. But on the flip-flip-side, many of them would get the vaccine anyway, so give them the $5. They can use it.

The DTES is a well-known colossal mess, one which the present governments, both provincial and municipal, have been struggling with for years. Before Covid-19, most of us had never heard of Dr. Bonnie Henry, but she was around… a driving force behind trying to deal with the opioid/fentanyl crisis. She published a very thorough report about all of it in 2019, a year before everyone’s plans went all to hell, including what had been planned for the DTES.

Uncharted territory… it’s what we’ve all been dealing with, and for those who make the big decisions, it’s no different. Somewhere, in some meeting, someone put up their hand and said, “What if we paid them to get vaccinated?”. I always applaud thinking outside the box, and if a little bribe is what it takes… well, I think back to my visits to the dentist when I was a little kid. That treasure chest full of little plastic junk; by far the best part of the visit… always something to look forward to. Maybe the tipping point between going voluntarily… and going, kicking and screaming.

I moved on from my kid dentist decades ago, and I’m not sure my current dentist is reading this, but in case he is… suggestion… a treasure chest for the adults. You have no idea how popular it’d be. Not sure what you’d put in there, but I assure you, everyone would love it. Little travel toothbrushes and toothpaste? A pack of sugar-free gum? How about a Starbucks gift card… but for how much?

Five dollars sounds about right.

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By |2021-03-03T17:03:03-08:00March 3rd, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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March 1, 2021

I’ve been tuning in to the 3pm news updates pretty regularly, especially on Mondays or Tuesdays, so I can get the real weekend numbers. I used to stick around for the whole update, but find myself checking out early, because, like life itself for so many people these days, it’s the same thing over and over… and, when it’s not, it can be easily summarized in a few brief paragraphs.

Today brought news of the vaccine rollout and the AstraZeneca availability… which is a bit of a game-changer. It’s not recommended for those older than 65, but it’s perfectly and conveniently (room temperature) suited for younger front-line workers, and many of them will be getting the option of that vaccine sooner than later. To find out what the vaccine rollout looks like for you, check the BCCDC for the most up-to-date info… but, to summarize, the older you are, the sooner it’ll be. See you in the lineup in July… hopefully.

But what I want to write about today is a topic that came up in conversation recently… how every event these days held in a public place or on TV or anywhere with a microphone… is preceded by an acknowledgment that the event is occurring on unceded land… and names the relevant Indigenous peoples from whom the land was “improperly” ceded.

To be clear, “unceded” really means “stolen”. This is a vast, complicated topic, and to some extent, around here, steps are being taken to alleviate the damage caused by the “winning” side. In the meantime, it’s interesting to read history from both sides. They tell very different stories.

In Canada or the U.S., you might learn about the great Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés, who in the early 16th century undertook dangerous expeditions to the New World, conquered huge lands and brought back great riches. In Mexico, I suspect it’s taught a little differently… that this rapist, pillaging, genocidal maniac showed up with his fancy weapons and illnesses, figured out how to make friends turn on each other, caused the Indigenous people to fight each other… and ultimately conquered the Aztec empire.

You can change the names and dates, but that story has taken place from present-day Alaska to present-day Punta Arenas. And everywhere, there’s a different slant on what happened and how to fix it. A literal and figurative whitewashing of history.

To me, there’s something annoying about standing up and just saying those words, as if that’s enough. Actually, as if it means anything at all. We acknowledge we’re on stolen land, and by saying so that makes us awesome responsible outstanding generous and thoughtful people. Now drop the puck and let’s play some hockey.

This perhaps triggers me more than it should, and here’s why. Many centuries ago, I was a student at SFU… and to pass the time during boring lectures, I would read “The Peak” – the SFU student newspaper which was available for free, everywhere on campus. I’d grab one on my way into the lecture hall, much the way we all used to grab a free “Georgia Straight” on the way to our seats at the Capitol-6 or Vancouver Center theatres.

In the course of a one-hour lecture, I’d get through the entire Peak… every single word… I knew more about the Christy Clark Student Society election scandal than anyone.

Every word… including the entire masthead… contact info, phone number, address (some trailers on campus)… and the final little sentence: “Unfortunately, The Peak is not wheelchair-accessible at present.”

Week after week, month after month, year after year. It bothered me, this grandstanding… look at us, we care enough to be aware of something that might be important to someone… but we won’t do anything about it. I wrote letters, which were never published. I actually tried to take it up with the president: During my tenure at SFU, the president was Dr. William Saywell. There was a thing set up… called “Say it to Saywell” where, ostensibly, you could show up on a Wednesday afternoon in a small room in the AQ… where President Saywell would be available to hear student grievances directly. Except… he never showed up. I tried to go like 10 times, and 10 times he cancelled on short notice. And one day, a sign on the door (and an announcement in The Peak) said it was cancelled forever.

I knew only a few people in wheelchairs and none of them had anything to do with SFU, but it bothered me that much. This wasn’t some great cause I was championing. I was just annoyed at the smug hypocrisy of acknowledging something and not doing anything about it. If it’s worth mentioning, then do something about it. Or shut up. It clearly still bothers me to this day… perhaps my serious issue with people who blow a lot of hot air but never do anything started there.

Stop talking about it like you care, and just get it done. Sit down at the table, listen, and negotiate. Go out and sign some vaccine agreements that actually have some teeth. And just build a freaking ramp.

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By |2021-03-01T17:03:05-08:00March 1st, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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February 21, 2021

The numbers will all be accurately updated tomorrow. In the meantime…

There once was a doctor named Henry
Whose gentle words, kind and most friendly,
Said, “Please, just stay home,
This is no time to roam”,
But for many, those words were just merely…

A voice full of spite… so annoying!!
“We’d rather be out, and enjoying
The pubs and the fun,
And the parties and sun,
We’ve just had it with life that’s so boring!!”

The numbers crept up, somewhat slowly
But suddenly jumped… holy moly…
The hospitals slammed,
And the ICUs jammed,
“Oh no”, said the people… “if only…

We’d listened when last we were told
Those words that will never get old:
Be calm, safe and kind,
We can leave this behind,
But it’s not just like some common cold.”

OK… the good news is that the numbers haven’t yet exploded off the chart… but they’re at that point where it could go either way…. and here’s the deal… as long as they stay low, I’ll keep writing about interesting things… like vaccines and science and bitcoins and my life and my dog and whatever else has kept you around, reading this. Maybe I’ll bash Trump a bit more, too… just for old-time’s sake.

And if numbers go up, you will all instead be subjected to more terrible poetry. As per above, it’s up to you. You’ve been warned. Don’t make me do it. Please.

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By |2021-02-21T17:03:05-08:00February 21st, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , |13 Comments
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February 18, 2021

Around five years go, Donald Trump famously said that he was so popular, he could stand on Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone, and not lose any voters. Indeed, I have to agree… anyone today who’d consider again voting for Trump is certainly someone whose mind is made up to the point where him murdering someone in cold blood would do little to change it.

What’s presently left of the Republican Party is full of people like that, who realize that no matter what, they’re now dealing with an unshakable core… and, therefore, anything goes. While it was Trump who took that limelight for the better part of four years, he’s presently faded from the forefront, some it’s up to some other despicable full-of-crap demagogue to step up.

Enter Ted Cruz, who didn’t hesitate to show America (and the world) where his loyalties lie. He fully supported Trump’s insurrection from start to finish, if for no other reason than to hold on to that core for his potential 2024 run.

But don’t let it fool you. Cruz, like Trump, cares about nothing but what matters to him… and realizing that he can do no evil, will simply do whatever the hell he wants. So… while his great state of Texas is greatly suffering from bitter storms and power outages, off he went to sunny Cancun.

Hypocrisy is nothing new for these guys, but sometimes… the “Are you kidding me?” factor is just too much. In a radio interview on Monday, Cruz told people to “stay home” and “not risk it”. And to “Keep your family safe and just stay home and hug your kids.” That was a few hours before he and his kids jetted off to the sunshine of Mexico. Cruz, who in the past has criticized other public officials for vacationing or golfing during times of crisis. Cruz, who violated a travel ban. Cruz, who works for a government that at present is telling everyone that Mexico is out of bounds.

Pandemic, ice storms, freezing cold, no power, people dying in the streets. Their vaccine distribution infrastructure paralyzed. More than 2,000 new C19 cases today. Whatever.

Texas is in a heap of trouble because they’re fiercely independent and their power grid doesn’t connect to the rest of the U.S… and as much as others might like to help, the infrastructure doesn’t support it. That’s a whole other story, but there are plenty of people who’d argue Texas isn’t a state but its own independent whatever that never actually whatever’d their way into the U.S. It reminds me a bit of Quebec and how every so often, likes once every generation, the “Vive le Québec Libre” bullshit fires up. When you dig into it, Québec would be an instant 3rd-world country if that were to happen… because if you’re truly independent, a lot of national things you take for granted go away.

So Texas wants their own power infrastructure; here’s an issue that might come up. But don’t worry about it… as long as their fearless leaders can jet off and leave the problems behind, no problem. Nobody will care, and Cruz will get re-elected because… well, because “Republicans” I guess, though that word has now achieved a completely new meaning. This group of “leaders” needs a different word than the same one attributed to the likes of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan. And their present group of followers… don’t get me started.

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By |2021-02-18T17:03:42-08:00February 18th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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