Coronavirus

January 16, 2021

If you live in London, England (or recently travelled there, and are now stuck), you’re very familiar with Trafalgar Square… the large plaza in front of the National Gallery. Also facing the square is Canada House, which houses the offices of the High Commission of Canada. If you’ve ever lost your passport in the U.K, you’ve been there. It’s also a great place to visit on July 1st… there’s usually a good party going on.

Also at Trafalgar square, right in the middle of the plaza, is an almost 200-foot pedestal, upon which stands the statue of the great British naval hero, Horatio Nelson.

The excellently-named Nelson was a true war hero, having fought in numerous battles (including the American War of Independence), but he’s most well-known for his efforts in the Napoleonic wars, and his greatest victory, the Battle of Trafalgar. In the waning minutes of that battle, having led the British to victory, he was shot by a Spanish sniper and died a few hours later.
But before being shot through the spine that day, he’d already suffered quite a beating over the years. He’d lost part of his arm in one battle, and an eye in another. As a result of that latter injury, he wore an eye-patch, looking every part the fierce warrior. In fact, with half an arm and an eye patch, he looked more like a pirate than a British naval officer.

Interesting point about eye-patches, and pirates specifically… our stereotypical view of a pirate with missing limbs… perhaps a wooden stump for a leg, perhaps a hook for hand, and always an eye-patch. Pirates wore them for another reason; not just to cover a shot-out eye.

When you’re the captain, you spend a lot of time running around the ship… on the deck and outside in the brilliant sunshine one moment, below deck and in near-darkness the next. As you know, like when you head to the movies for a matinee on a sunny summer afternoon, going from blaring sunshine to darkness takes some adjustment. When you turn off the lights in any room, it’s pitch-black for a bit… and then, things start coming into focus as the rods and cones of your eyes do their thing and adjust.

Before suitable artificial light, captains and pirates didn’t have time to wait for their eyes to adjust all the time, so they’d keep one eye “in the dark”, and switch to it when needed. That eye would always be ready for darkness. Indeed, you never see that part in the movies, where the pirate goes below deck and removes the eye patch.

There’s lots of symbolism that can be drawn out of this… like, covering up something good in the short-term for a beneficial payoff down the road. You wander around in the sunlight half-blind… but that hidden vision is ready and waiting when you need it.

Or, sometimes we cover up in ourselves what we don’t want to see. You need some pretty good eye-patches to have been part of the crowd that stormed The Capitol the other day. What exactly is an off-duty cop seeing when he runs into his buddy, who happens to be on-shift that day? What does some pro-Trump Jew think, standing next to a nazi with a T-shirt that says Camp Auschwitz, or one claiming that 6 million wasn’t enough? What do senators, hiding for their lives, think when they’re staring at their similarly-sheltered compatriots who may have been part of organizing this?

Like saving your vision from sunlight, some people need to come to terms with the patches they’ve been wearing… not over their eyes, but over their conscience. People who need to be able to rip off all the patches, and look in the mirror, and come to terms with what they see.

I wonder how much of that sort of reckoning is going on these days. The McConnells and Pences of the world are one thing, but the run-of-the-mill typical American, specifically the 70+ million who threw their votes into the darkness… what do you see now, if you remove that patch? Part of me really wants to know, but the other part of me really doesn’t… because some people wear those patches, literal and/or figurative, like a badges of honour.

True American patriot or MAGA deplorable? They can look alike. The greatest British Naval hero in history looked like a stereotypical pirate; you can’t judge a book by its cover… and actions speak louder than words.

Here’s one more cliché to add to the list: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And now it’s that time for the U.S. Now it’s time to just get on with it. They came a lot closer than they think to seeing it all disappear a week ago. Now that all of the eyes have been opened and many of those patches ripped off… now begins the hard work of fixing it all.

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By |2021-01-16T17:03:33-08:00January 16th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , |4 Comments
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January 15, 2021

Nothing too exciting to report in the U.S. today – well, other than the revelation that the insurrectionists did indeed intend to take hostages and assassinate government officials. But other than that.

So… let’s get back to vaccines…

As promised, some Canadian jurisdictions have blown through their supplies, jabbing as many arms as they can, with the vast majority of those being first doses… many people having now decided that that’s the way to go – get it into as many people as possible, stretch the time frame a bit, and catch up in due course.

The advantage of that is that it maximises the number of people who are at least a bit immune, which is obviously better than nothing at all. If not being vaccinated is a 0 and being fully vaccinated and immunized is a 9.5 (there is no 10; there are no guarantees), it’s not like the first dose gets you to 2 or 3. Depends who you ask, it’s anywhere from a 5.2 to a 9.0… and then the second dose gets you up to 9.5.

That being the case, the right strategy for the big picture is to give everyone a first dose… and counting on getting the second dose in time. But don’t pick 50 people and give them both. Or don’t do it where 33 people get two, 33 people get one, and 33 get zero.

Here in B.C., we’ve administered 98% of the vaccine we’ve received, and the plan is in place to keep doing that; that we have the infrastructure to dish it out as fast as they can serve it to us, and that the limiting factor is supply. It should be noted that 100% of that 98% are first doses.

Interestingly, Alberta has administered 112% of their vaccine. They’ve received 74,000 doses from Pfizer and have injected 84,000 arms… also all first doses. How is that possible? Notwithstanding the fact that every vial of vaccine ostensibly ships with enough for 5 doses when thawed and diluted, doctors have found you can squeeze out perhaps 5.2 or 5.3… so 5 doses per vial might turn into 6 or even 7 after a while of collecting scraps. Pfizer has not said that’s ok, but they haven’t said it’s not. We’ve all scraped the bottom of the peanut-butter jar… with a spoon, with a finger, with whatever… because we all know there’s no difference in yumminess. Hopefully the vaccine is the same.

In Quebec, though… they may be stretching things a bit far. They’ve similarly administered 110% of their vaccine… but that’s not the issue; it’s not the extra doses they’re squeezing out… it’s that they’re aiming to measure those second-dose timings in months, not weeks… and the risk is that Pfizer pulls the plug on that. The province has said that of course they’ll follow those guidelines if it comes down to not getting the vaccine at all, but for now… they will pedal-to-the-metal red-line it while they can. And for the moment, 100% of that 110% has been first doses… over 127,000 of them. Why does this sound like it might be even remotely ok? Because there’s some British science to back it.

According to Pfizer, the vaccine is only 52% effective after the first dose. But according to British scientists, who are measuring the results differently, that number is 89%.

For comparison, according to Moderna, their vaccine is 80% effective after one dose, 96% after two…. and with respect to the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac in China… none of these results have been peer-reviewed and they’re all over the place, so hardly worth comparing… but here they are. The press releases from countries using it vary widely: Turkey says 91% effective… Indonesia 66%, Brazil 50%… and all of those results are based on the full two doses.

A few days ago, I wrote about this aspect of it, and was corrected by a few people… in my case, I was uneasy about B.C. stretching the dose-gap to 35 days. As I’ve learned, that’s no big deal. In fact, even though Pfizer has recommended 21 days for their vaccine, and Moderna 28 days for theirs… Canadian guidelines, ie the Federal Public Health Advisors have OK’d up to 42 days for both.

But, Quebec… 90 days. Three months instead of three weeks. Their argument for doing that? Well, see above. Good idea? Again, as per above… it’s a definite maybe.

Meanwhile, New Brunswick has administered around 8,000 doses, but 2,000 have been second doses. That being said, New Brunswick today had 25 new cases and zero deaths. Quebec had 1,918 new cases and 60 deaths. A very different sense of urgency.

Today we hear the dire projections from models that imply things could get a lot worse if we don’t clamp down… and immunizing as many people as possible in that scenario is the right call. About the only thing that could mess this up is if not enough vaccine shows up for those first doses (let alone the second).

Since early 2021 hasn’t completely let go of the 2020 shitshow quite yet, today we hear that there will be vaccine delays. To be sure, don’t worry, we’ll be able to catch up in due course, a minor hiccup, etc… but of course, the issue is that we need them now. We’ve been assured that the timeline to get everyone vaccinated by the end of the year is not in jeopardy… and I believe it, especially given the quantity of vaccine Canada has procured… 10 doses for every person, specifically to mitigate this sort of situation. But it’s the bird-in-hand vs. birds-in-the-bush situation… I’d rather have one rickety old fire engine show up quickly… than five glistening bright-red new ones after everything has already burned down.

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By |2021-01-15T17:04:34-08:00January 15th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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January 14, 2021

Talk about too little too late.

Donald Trump yesterday released a video with a message he should’ve put out ages ago, or at least, certainly before Jan 6th. In it, he asked for peace and quiet yadda yadda, yawn. The whole thing was read monotonously off a teleprompter. It was so out of character that it had me looking for clues, the sort you see when a captured American soldier messages “torture” by blinking Morse code. Trump isn’t capable of doing something like that, but imagine if he’d blinked out “attack”…

It’ll be interesting to see what happens now, with his army of zombies who were ready to simultaneously attack all 50 state capitol buildings. Either they will stand down… or, they will claim that Trump was clearly coerced into making that video, and that its superficial message should be ignored, and that it’s game on. Or, that there is indeed some hidden message, but you have to look hard. For example, like six seconds in, there’s a big pause… and from seconds six to nine, he says, “events of the last week”. At second 20, he says, “spectrum”. 6 7 8 9 20… as letters of the alphabet, that’s F G H I T. Unscramble them and you get, “FIGHT”. So… he’s saying, “Like the events of last week, but now across the spectrum, we fight!!”

“You can’t possibly be serious” would be the logical conclusion of that sort of reasoning, but as we’ve seen, we’re not exactly dealing with rational thinkers. For the record, that’s the same sort of reasoning you attempt to use when you bet on a horse race, and you bet on a longshot only because you like the name… and it wins… and now your friends are demanding to know how the hell you came up with that. “Well, you see, last year, ten races ago, he ran from post 7 on dirt after a heavy rain… at which time he came second to a horse whose half-brother came third three days later in a race where the winner went on to place in a Grade I race where the trainer of the winner’s wife’s brother’s jockey booked off the favourite just to ride this horse’s half-sister. It was a lock.” Look deep enough, and you’ll always find answers. Especially if you already know the answer you’re hoping to find.

That latter possibility is troubling… the genie-out-of-the-bottle scenario. It’s like Mickey Mouse and all of those dancing brooms in Fantasia… once you open Pandora’s Box, it’s not so easy to stuff things back into it. And then what… a beheaded “patriotic” movement running wild. At that point, it’s really nothing more than a somewhat-organized group of domestic terrorists… thoughtfully provided as a parting gift by the outgoing president. How do you get rid of that? Perhaps you don’t. Trump, we can get rid of… like the vaccination for C19, immunity from Trump required two doses… of impeachment. But also like C19, the long-term effects can stick around forever. Aryan Nations, KKK, Alpha 66, The Order… add to that, Trump’s “Covfefe” of Covidiots.

The long-term effect of all of that? Who knows. For the short term, the national mall will be closed on January 20th for the inauguration. Trump screamed for years that his inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s (it wasn’t) but, sadly, Biden won’t get his moment… and notwithstanding the circumstances, you know Trump will have something to say. Sure, in the midst of a pandemic, an inauguration crowd of a million people is a bad idea… but a crowd of near-zero is also not ideal. It’s supposed to be a celebration of democracy and progress. One day again, it will be… but with what’s going on today, that day seems pretty far away.

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By |2021-01-14T17:03:51-08:00January 14th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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January 13, 2021

I can’t wait till the end of the week… and I don’t mean Friday, a couple of days from now… I mean a full week… because, by this point a week from now, Donald Trump will no longer be president. Perhaps, having overthrown the United States of America, he’ll be The Emperor of the newly-crowned nation of Trumperica… or, perhaps, he’ll be in the process of being mug-shotted, fingerprinted and thrown into a jail cell.

Those are two very different outcomes, and neither are too likely… but, as we’ve learned from recent events, nothing is impossible. That being said, if I had to bet on either alternative, I’d go with the latter.

It must be gut-wrenchingly difficult for some staunch Republicans (not Trump supporters, just Republicans) to see what a tattered mess they’re a part of. Those that get it, and the associated implications, have been jumping ship as fast as they can; even with no lifeboat below them, they’ll toss their fortunes into the icy waters and hope for the best… because staying on this boat now is a quick journey to the depths of the ocean… from which there is no return. Hopefully they can somehow get back to shore and start the process of rebuilding. But first, they have to survive.

And by the way, I’m talking about regular people, your run-of-the-mill American who’s finally coming to terms with what they helped create. I’m certainly not talking about the 197 House Republicans who voted earlier today to *not* impeach Donald Trump. To be sure, the vote passed, 232-197 – an excellent outcome, because now it goes to trial, and even if he gets tossed after he officially leaves office (which is what would happen, because it won’t go to the senate before at least next week), he will lose every privilege granted to former presidents. No old-president’s club, no secret service detail, no Trump 2024 and no pension. That’ll need a two-thirds majority, which is certainly not guaranteed… and I shake my head… even after all of this, after their guy led the charge to overthrow the government – the very political system they’re a part of – 197 of them are still behind him. Add those 197 names to what needs purging from the American political system.

And, it’s not just political… Trump and his organization are being abandoned. The City of New York is cancelling its contracts. Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank will no longer do business with him. His online credit card processor Stripe has dropped him. Shopify had been operating some online stores for the organization but have dropped him. The 2022 PGA Championship won’t be played at a Trump course, as had been previously scheduled. The list goes on and the list will grow. Good.

Unlike every other president in the history of the U.S., this one deservedly leaves power with a lot less than what he entered with… and a very uncertain future. If it were just bankruptcy he were facing, he might be able to claw his way out of it, now armed with his army of tens of millions of brainwashed devotees who’d do anything for their near-mythical cult leader. Ten bucks a month times tens of millions of people should keep the doors open for a while. But it’s not just that.

After the Watergate scandal, president Richard Nixon resigned… but subsequent president Gerald Ford pardoned him. That pardon cost Gerald Ford the re-election, an election he narrowly lost to Jimmy Carter. Enough people were pissed off about it; “you shouldn’t let him get away with it”… and that lesson has hopefully been learned. All of this “we have to come together as a nation” and “we need to move on” and “it’s a huge distraction while we have far more important things to worry about…”

No… that is totally wrong. The most important thing now, by far, is setting an example for the future. Every single person that was responsible or was a part of this insurrection should face the maximum that the law can throw at them. It’s remarkable what we’re hearing now about how much of an “inside job” this was… how actual leading Republicans not only knew what was going on, and not only were encouraging it, but may actually have had a leading role in planning it. As time goes on, we’re hearing more and more details about what went down, and how much worse it could actually have been. A bunch of misguided hooligans breaking into a sacred building and suddenly realizing “oh shit, what are we doing” is a lot different than calmly walking in there with guns and handcuffs, ready to take hostages. There should be no little slaps on the wrist for the Cruz’s and Hawley’s of the world; they need to fully face the consequences of their actions, and those consequences need to be significant.

You’ll recall the Stanley Cup Riots of 2011 here; it’s disputed how many actual ringleaders there were (at most a few hundred) and how many people (tens of thousands) just got caught up in the moment. There’s a big difference between looting The Bay because suddenly everyone around you is doing it… and having shown up there with a knapsack full of matches, rags, gasoline and bottles, ready to cause some real damage. Both are very wrong, completely unacceptable, and need to be prosecuted (and kudos to the VPD who spent years meticulously tracking down every single identifiable participant that they could). Not everyone went to jail, but everyone who could be identified was held accountable for their actions.

Similarly, down south… even though there’s a difference between an explanation and an excuse, every single one of them needs to be made an example of… so that future generations understand, at least in the U.S. with its first amendment and rights of free speech; go ahead and say whatever you want… but if you actually start trying to mess with the infrastructure that’s been in place since 1789, you will pay the steepest price possible. There’s no explaining or excusing or pardoning… treason.

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By |2021-01-13T17:02:39-08:00January 13th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , |4 Comments
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January 12, 2021

There was a presumed silver lining to this pandemic… that the masks and social distancing and just plain staying away from each other would lead to the number of seasonal colds and flus being less than usual. To be sure, those illnesses are around… and if you didn’t catch a cold this year, you’ll probably get it eventually… but, for that to happen, it has to get near you, and, like C19, if it can’t get close to you, it can’t infect you.

Catching a cold or flu is easier than C19; these things are generally more infectious. They’re also, of course, far less lethal… and the conventional trade-off with life in general is that you expect to get sick once in a while, especially during winter when these viruses/bugs are around, and our immune systems are more susceptible.

As per the CDC… let’s pick the 3rd week of December, where in 2019, 30,000 samples were tested for Influenza A…. 16.2% came back positive. This year, ie 2020, ie a few weeks ago… that same sample set of 30,000 came back with a positivity rate of… 0.3%. A drop of two orders of magnitude. Hugely statistically significant.

Some of that can be attributed to the fact that flu-shots were way up this year… but if you’re a rabid anti-vaxxer, you’ll have to pick your poison here… because something worked, and it worked very well. Was it the flu vaccines? Was it the masks and social distancing?

Whatever the cause (a lot of both is the answer), that’s a huge drop, and similar huge drops are being seen across the board of illnesses, including the common childhood infections of not just flu, but also croup and bronchiolitis.

As per above, it’s not that these things are gone… it’s just that they’re just more difficult to catch these days. Once measures are relaxed, these things will come back and numbers will be way up… but hopefully some of the measures we’ve become accustomed to stick around. The whole “hug-hug kiss-kiss everyone” that’s so prevalent in some cultures; good riddance. Go ahead and hug and kiss strangers if you like, but let’s make it optional and not frown on others who choose to not partake. And if you’re asking yourself “WTF is he talking about”, I’m guessing you’re Canadian, American, British… from one of these “low-contact” cultures.

There are cultures where saying hello with three kisses (alternate cheeks, start on the right) is the norm. In parts of France, that number is actually four. Heck, there are cultures where kissing on the lips (a quick peck, no tongue!) is a normal greeting. Latin American culture has a wide variety of customs, and they vary significantly from place to place… but they all have one thing in common; if someone is already sick, everyone will be getting sick.

At the risk of being accused of cultural appropriation, going forward, might I suggest what ancient cultures have been practicing for centuries: “Namaste”, or a similar bow – it conveys respect, and it respects personal space. And it also keeps the bugs far away.

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By |2021-01-12T17:03:20-08:00January 12th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , |2 Comments
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January 11, 2021

If you really want to blow your mind, try to keep up with what’s going on in the U.S. right now… it is uncharted territory in so many different aspects that it’s impossible to keep up with all of it. Not just because it changes by the hour, but because there’s just too much to process and there are too many unknowns. Whatever I write will be out of date by the time you read it, so let’s talk about something that’s not so fast-moving… like vaccine deployment.

I realize the U.S. has a lot on its mind these days, so perhaps it’s no surprise that things are lagging behind a bit. They’d planned to vaccinate 20 million people by January 1st. They’re at roughly 8 million. There are many problems with the distribution, as evidenced by the fact that they’ve got 64% of their doses sitting on shelves. Indeed, Pfizer and Moderna have done their part; they’ve distributed more than 22 million doses. That they haven’t found their way into arms is a logistical problem.

Closer to home, you might be surprised to learn that the country that has over-ordered more vaccine than anyone else is… Canada. We’ve ordered 414 million doses… and the simple math of 414 divided by 38 equals more than 10 doses for every man, woman and child in this country. Why? Good question… cover all the bases, you don’t know what’s going to work, you don’t know the timelines, you don’t know anything… let’s spread out the risk. Let’s hedge every bet we can. Such is the luxury available to wealthy nations.

Back in April, the World Health Organization realized that it was going to be the rich countries getting their hands on the vaccine first… and sought to find a way to equalize things for the impoverished nations of the world. They formed an initiative called COVAX… which hopes to secure 2 billion doses of vaccine for those nations that can’t do it on their own. Canada has pledged to provide COVAX with whatever we won’t need… though the timing of what that looks like is anyone’s guess. Will we dish some out slowly when we realize it’s all arriving at so so fast that there’s no logistical way to make use of it? There are reports in the U.S. of vaccine simply going to waste; after all of the effort, the last mile of the journey – from vial to arm… just doesn’t make it.

Like any chain, supply or mechanical, the usefulness/efficiency is measured by the weakest link. Outside of Israel, up to now, getting doses into people seems to be the choke point. As time goes on, one would hope those wrinkles get worked out… because at the pace things are at now… well, let’s do a bit more math.

Canada is presently vaccinating 40,000 people per day. It would take 950 days (two and a half years) to get to everyone. In B.C., at present, we’re averaging around 5,150 people per day. The only thing good about that number is it makes the math easy to divide into our 5.15 million people… ie, 1,000 days… 2.7 years.

It would be nice to be able to blame someone else other than ourselves when it comes to how slow it’s going… and it looks like, very soon, that’ll be the case. While recently we were only able to get around 65% of what we had into arms… we’ll be approaching 100% very soon… and from then on, injecting as fast as we can get it. Assuming that’s true, it’s encouraging for when vaccine deliveries ramp up. We’re being told March for that… where we might see a significant jump in availability. That plus the fact that not everyone will get it plus the fact not everyone needs it for herd immunity… my 2.7 years is the edge of the worst-case scenario. It can only get better, and it will. The only question is by how much.

I spoke above about the U.S. and how they’ve only managed to serve up 36% of their vaccine on hand. They’re doing around 300,000 injections a day these days, which extends out to 1,100 days… 3 years till they get to everyone. Of course, that number will go down quickly as they figure it out as well… and the fact that half the people don’t want it anyway… but, for now, they have other things to worry about. It’s hard to believe that there’s a pandemic raging down there, infecting more than 200,000 people per day and killing more than 2,000… and that’s not even remotely close to their biggest problem.

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By |2021-01-11T17:03:01-08:00January 11th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , |9 Comments
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January 10, 2021

Like a petulant child that’s lost his TikTok and Instagram privileges, Donald Trump sits alone, unable to share his thoughts, dank memes or pictures of cute cats… with his friends. In his case, it’s Twitter and Facebook, but same idea. And for him, emptying the dishwasher or doing his homework… isn’t going to get it back.

As the presidency draws to a close, there are calls to remove him before the 20th… and there are very good reasons to have that happen. As we’ve learned, there is no bottom to this psycho, and one thing about psychotic narcissists that’s worth keeping in mind is that if, after everything, they’re going down, they’ll often take down as many people with them as they can. Recall, their usual M.O. is to elevate themselves at the expense of everyone else. Accordingly, when there’s no way to elevate, the only way to get the same effect is to bash everyone else down. It’s the whole “It’s not enough that I win; everyone else has to lose” thing. Blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours brighter, but some people don’t get it. They’d rather stick a firehose in your mouth if you’re drowning.

The Pandora’s Box unleashed by Trump will take a lot longer than 10 days to sort out, so does it matter if he’s in power during that time? Absolutely and emphatically, yes.

First of all, it’s important that he leave this presidency like he deserves; dishonourably. The stamp of disgrace needs to be all over it, if for no other reason than it boots him out of politics forever. Impeached or 25th’d out of there; it doesn’t matter. If it happens, he’s gone for good, though I assure you, no matter what, he’ll continue to insist he might run in 2024. Because that’s what’ll keep the grift afloat. The millions will roll in from his brainwashed cult followers. If he’s not booted before the 20th, the process still needs to continue to that conclusion. At least Trump can have something unique; not only the only president to ever lose two popular votes, but also the only one impeached twice.

What’s the worst thing that can happen if he’s left to stay for another 10 days? That’s an uneasy question because the far-fetched answer is as truly frightening as it gets. The age-old question of just how much power does a president have with respect to launching a nuclear strike is easily answered: All of it. And quickly.

By design, there’s very little in the way of him deciding launch nukes. At the heart of The Cold War, it was understood that if the U.S.S.R. launched nukes at America, there’d be 4 minutes before they hit. Four minutes to assess the situation and react. Conventionally, deciding who and what and when and where to strike would involve the president consulting top advisers, strategic command, military command, the secretary of defense, etc. In fact, the suggestion to do so usually originates from one of those; not the president himself. But there’s no time for any of that if a retaliatory strike is called for. When the order is given by the president, it goes direct; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House Chief of Staff, the secretary of defense, the vice-president… none of them are in that decision chain and none of them can legally stop it. The president flips open the nuclear football, that fancy briefcase that’s always nearby… he pulls out the authenticator (conventionally known as “the biscuit”), and he uses that to validate who he is to the duty officer at the National Military Command Center. Then he says something like “Launch Strike Package Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”, and the duty officer, having received a valid order from the validated president, passes that order straight to the missile bases, submarines, bombers… whatever is called for. And the duty officer has to make a decision… launch the nukes, or be charged with mutiny or treason. Not a great position to be in for some kid from Nebraska who only joined the army to get his college paid for.

It’s understood that this is an archaic system and it needs to change; nowhere else in the world is this the case. Not even Russia. Even Putin doesn’t have this power; it has to be approved by his second.

All that being said, what would actually happen if Trump attempted it? There is a lot of history, on both sides, of almost launching the nukes. In all cases, an individual did their own sanity check and averted catastrophe. After the fact, it was found to have been a false alarm, due to mechanical error, technical error, human error, sunlight, miscommunication, lack of communication. There’s a long list of people who could arguably be charged with treason, but in reality, they’re all heroes.

There won’t be a pre-emptive strike on Russia, nor anyone else who could retaliate… but a limited attack on Iran? That’s far from impossible. In his present aggressive state of mind, angered and confused by what he considers to be betrayal… how about one final exclamation point for this presidency. Let’s show them all who’s really the boss.

He could do it, and it’d be hard to prevent him from attempting it. But it might not be so hard to deflect it. I sincerely hope the call has gone out to all of the relevant people; as unconstitutional as it might sound, ignore anything from Trump from now on when it comes to military decisions. Or, beyond that, I would sincerely hope there’s at least one free-thinking individual in the small chain between Trump’s insane brain and the big red button that would be willing to take the hit… possibly charged with treason or mutiny, but, more likely, called a hero and be pardoned by President Biden.

Or, here’s the best idea… get Trump the hell out of there. Now.

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By |2021-01-10T17:03:02-08:00January 10th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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January 9, 2021

There will be a slight delay in posting the pretty numbers and graphs… I haven’t been near a computer all day. This post comes courtesy of my iPhone. And the place-holder video explains why… we took the dog up to Mt. Seymour to wander in the snow a bit… so if you’re here for just the data, come back at 6pm… (EDIT: numbers and graphs are up… but the dog video stays ????) and if you’re here to read what I have to say, let’s go back to yesterday for a bit…

Like I’ve said before, I enjoy being wrong… it gives me an opportunity to learn something.

Certainly, when you post an opinion, it’s up for discussion… I’ve had a lot of contrarian opinions over the last several months when it came to my attitude towards Trump. It was much more fervent at the beginning; I’d post something negative about him, and the comments section would erupt with ugliness… as would my Inbox. I used to answer all of them, but I stopped when I learned to distinguish the difference between someone with genuine points worthy of discussion… as opposed to rabid pro-Trumpers that we’re all too familiar with now. But unless you were one of those foaming-at-the-mouth types, I’m always happy to share my thoughts.

It was a pleasant surprise yesterday to be wrong, but not be slammed by crazy people. On the contrary, the rational intelligent information provided to me by professionals, researchers, more-informed people; what a refreshing change. I’m happy to pass along what I’ve learned in 24 hours; some of it is in the comments from yesterday’s post, others came from calls and texts and emails… from people more familiar with the topic than myself.

The topic-du-hier was the vaccine, but, more specifically, the timing between the two required shots. I went off applying my experimental and empirical knowledge, and mapped it onto a subject that maybe doesn’t apply. Like I said yesterday, I’ve built IKEA furniture without reading the manual; the wooden pegs go in these holes, the round rotating fastening things obviously go in those big holes, the metal things they attach to go in these smaller holes; it’s not rocket science but nevertheless, if you do a step wrong, there’s a lot of rewinding. You may as well read the manual. Also, as per yesterday, I’ve actually landed an Airbus 320 that was way too heavy on an icy runway… and didn’t slide off the end. This was in an Air Canada Flight Simulator, not real… but the co-pilot/flight instructor next to me was saying… you’ll see why this is a bad idea.

So… as it turns out, my assumption that stretching the time between jabs being bad is… not entirely correct… it’s not a simple question of right and wrong. There’s certainly a gray area, and it looks like this…

On one side, you have Pfizer and the FDA… both of which have significant potential liability if they’re wrong. Accordingly, they can’t recommend something and stand behind it on just a whim. There’re both quite adamant: Stick to the script.

On the flipside, you have a couple of things that might make you see things differently… one are the logical conclusions based on the vast experience that exists in the field. While this vaccine is new, vaccines in general certainly aren’t… and there’s behavior around them that in this case can be assumed to be no different. The other is the frightening pace at which the pandemic is accelerating, especially in the U.S.

It’s that latter point that might be the tipping point; the staggering difference it makes getting as many first doses into people as possible. The immunity that one shot provides — enough to prevent a serious outcome (if not prevent infection entirely) means worrying about the second dose later. To that point, there’s plenty of evidence that delaying it a week does nothing to lower the efficacy… and stretching even further might have little detrimental effect. And, further to that… there’s always time in the future to fix that, once everyone has had their first shot and possibly-ill-timed second shot. Perhaps come back for a third if it’s found you really need it.

I’d certainly still prefer to do this on the prescribed and tested schedule, but now certainly understand the merits of stretching it out… which summarizes to hundreds of thousands of potential hospitalizations and deaths prevented.

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By |2021-03-01T23:24:46-08:00January 9th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19, Our Dog|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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January 8, 2021

There’s a right way to do things… and a wrong way… and if you think I’m about to talk about the removal of Donald Trump from office… I might. But not today… there’s time for that later, and, as I’m writing this, the people capable of doing exactly that are thinking about the right way to do it. By the time I get around to writing about it, he might be gone. Wouldn’t that be cool. At least he’s been permanently removed from Twitter. Four years too late. But the same thing could be said about the entire presidency.

So, on a completely different topic, what’s the right way to build IKEA furniture? What’s the right way to land a plane? In many cases, you can just wing it, though it’s highly advisable to listen to the people who designed it, built it, and presented it to you with specific instructions. That’s probably the best outcome. The bookcase might be fine (nobody will notice you had to remove a panel and flip it around because you did it backwards the first time) and you might land the plane with too much fuel on a runway that’s too slippery… and not slide off the runway… but going against the design specs is never recommended. As the famous acronym RTFM says… Read… The… Manual…

I’ve been a big supporter of the vaccine and have cheered on Pfizer and Moderna and all the rest of them… and a big reason why is because I understand the process that went into their creation. I understand how it was done so quickly and where the bureaucratic corners were cut to save time and where the relevant science was kept pristine, specifically the clinical trials and testing and follow-up. Out of all of that detailed science came the very detailed instructions.

Nobody was too sure what these vaccines would look like when they finally emerged; the super-cold requirement of the Pfizer vaccine was unexpected. The fact you’d need two jabs instead of one… that was expected, but the timing between them wasn’t clear. Weeks? Months?

Pfizer came out with their vaccine… and, first thing, the temperature requirements. Here’s the number. Transport it at that temperature. Thaw it like this, mix it like that. Can we transport it a little warmer? No. Can we dilute it a bit differently? No. Can we thaw it for longer? No.

These “no” answers aren’t Pfizer trying to be difficult; it’s quite simply the range of what’s tested and what’s expected for the outcomes they’ve projected. Which is why there’s appropriately a lot of head-scratching and pushback on Dr. Bonnie Henry’s strategy of spacing out jabs, well-past the recommended time frame. Pfizer says space them three to four weeks apart. Moderna says four weeks. Dr. Henry wants to push it to 35 days. Why? Here’s her argument…

A first jab provides significant protection. Pfizer has said 52% after just one dose, though England’s own studies argue it’s 89%. Moderna is purported to be 80% after one dose. If the intention is to protect as many people as you can, then you try to get the vaccine into as many arms as possible… and you give everyone first doses and then wait around for the next shipment.

Apparently, the timing works out in such a way that if you stretch the time between shots a bit, more people can get that first one. Dr. Henry stated their plan was to use everything they got initially as first doses. That’s fine, if you can stick to the script. But… this on-the-fly modification, contrary to the specs from Pfizer?

I’ll be honest, if I signed up to get the vaccine with the understanding that I’d be getting the follow-up shot within the specified time period… and was later told, no… we’re going to do it a bit differently… I’d be upset. I might have chosen to wait a bit, until I can be guaranteed the right period of time is being adhered to. There is already enough vaccine anxiety out there; a lot of people are skeptical and worried and, while not being anti-vaxx, want to make sure things go well before they take it themselves. To introduce a variable into this equation that can, at best, maintain the status quo but, at worst, derail things… seems like a bad idea. If a bunch of once-vaccinated people become ill, now we have to figure out why and when and how – did the vaccine fail? Were they infected between jabs… or did they not develop the proper immunity, thanks to the spacing of doses? This would do nothing to instill confidence. On the contrary.

I didn’t sign up to be a test subject, to test the boundaries of efficacy. Around here, nobody did. That doesn’t mean this will cause problems… certainly, it might be ok. In fact, other jurisdictions, under the same plan of “get the first one into as many people as possible”, are stretching that time even further. In Denmark, up to six weeks. In the U.K., up to 12(!) weeks.

But let’s be clear, when you introduce a variable, this is no longer an execution of a plan. This is now an experiment, and the BCCDC may as well be tracking the results of playing with these time frames, as should the U.K. and Denmark; collect the data… because if there are issues down the road, it will be useful to know. It’d be also be useful to know that 35 days (or 42 or 84) works just as well as 28.

I’m guessing their thinking is that “pretty good” for a lot of people is better than “really good” for far fewer people… especially when “pretty good” might actually turn out to be “really good” as well.

Except… that’s not what a lot of people signed up for; if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. The argument that this is “right” or “right enough” doesn’t hold a lot of water when the designer/manufacturer itself doesn’t agree. I think for a lot of people, myself included… we’ve waited this long, and we can probably wait a little longer… there’s just too much at stake.

Who was the great mind that came up with this quote… Plato? Socrates? Nietzsche? Oh yeah, no… it was Eminem: “You only get one shot to take your shot so don’t blow it.” Or something like that. See what happens when you veer off-script? Sometimes it doesn’t work so well.

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By |2021-01-08T17:03:21-08:00January 8th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |9 Comments
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January 7, 2021

Kool-Aid has gotten a bad rap over the years. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has become synonymous with believing in something crazy. It was over 900 people who died by suicide… many of them children, fed cyanide-laced Kool-Aid by their parents… parents who poisoned their own kids before taking their own lives. Over 300 kids.

This was all thanks to Jim Jones, a charismatic cult leader who’d rather die, and take everyone down with him… instead of facing the music. There’s obviously a lot wrong with this picture… that one man could convince so many people to die for his cause.

The first thing that’s wrong is the Kool-Aid itself. It wasn’t actually poisoned Kool-Aid that they all drank; it was Flavor Aid. No big deal, what’s the difference, who cares… well, I’m sure the marketing department at Kraft-Heinz would beg to differ. It’s impressive the good-will that Kool-Aid must have had before that massacre that they would choose to keep the name instead of just re-branding the flavoured juice crystals. Oh, yeah.

Kool-Aid aside, just how deep down the well do you need to be to go along something like that? The aforementioned Jonestown massacre of 1978 is the most well-known, but cult mass suicides happen… well, not “all the time”, but they’re perhaps more common than you might believe.

There was the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in 1997, where 39 people in California killed themselves because their cult leader, Marshall Applewhite, had convinced them that a UFO was lurking behind the Hale-Bopp comet that was heading towards earth, and that “leaving the human world” was the only way to hitch a ride on it. Accordingly, Applewhite provided some poisoned applesauce for the group…who put on identical black tracksuits and matching Nikes (they got a good deal on the bulk purchase), poisoned themselves, and waited for their ride to another planet. One of those was the brother of Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on Star Trek… but that’s about as close to a spacecraft as they got.

There was the Order of the Solar Temple suicides, led by charismatic leaders Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret… where are total of 74 people killed themselves to “escape the world to a higher dimension”. They were from Switzerland, Canada and France.

In March of 2000, there was “Judgement Day” for a cult in Uganda who believed it was time for the end of the world. It’s unclear how many were suicides and how many were murdered, but the death toll was close to 800.

This list goes on, but the summary above is a good indication that if you have a charismatic leader with a group of well-indoctrinated fervent followers, they will do anything. And if they’re willing to kill themselves, certainly storming the Capitol is not much of an ask. Certainly not after the 4-year build-up that it took to get to that point.

At first, it’s just the typical cult indoctrination… you’re with us, or you’re against us. We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys. We’re the truth, they’re the fake news. Exaggerate, polarize, fictionalize… you’ll recall, it all started on day one. It actually started on hour one… less than one hour after the inauguration in 2017, with White House Spokesman Sean Spicer pleading to the bewildered world to believe him when he told you that Trump’s inauguration crowd was the biggest ever. And off we went, with more divisiveness and Charlottesville-type scenarios along the way, paving a road to a point that really has no destination. At some point, there’s nowhere left to go. Time to pay the piper… but the lead piper will be holed up somewhere, possibly in Florida or possibly not in the U.S. because, especially after yesterday, he may be facing an arrest warrant.

Now what? A good question with many possible answers… but to answer the question of “How could this happen?” – how about, honestly acknowledging, how could it not? Where else was this headed? How is what’s playing out now not exactly what should’ve been expected with four years of trying to pry this country apart? Shocking? Sure. Surprising? Not in the least.

The worse is gets, the more people jump off the cult bandwagon… but, jeez… it took this long? This is what it took? This was your breaking point? This is certainly really bad, but what about what came before? His misogynistic statements before he was even president weren’t enough? His embracing of white supremacists? His complete mishandling of this pandemic? His calling Biden a pedophile? His continual lies? This is a very long list, for those who’ve been paying attention. Every week of this “presidency”, many people were asking the question, “How low can he go?” because as difficult as it was to imagine how he’d do it, he always did. One notch lower, much to the horror of most people, but to the delight or indifference of others. It took this long for you to get it? It took this long for Twitter and Facebook to figure out what giving this guy a platform might do?

Much of that latter group is now diving to the exits. Sure, welcome aboard… welcome to the lifeboats many have been clinging to for four years… but, for some of them… not so fast. There is a long list of Republicans who sided with yesterday’s violence, at least in that they propagated the charade of the stolen election and objected to the certification and all that. Their names should not be forgotten… many of them thinking only for themselves, thinking this would further their political ambitions while actually all violating their oaths of office. I can’t wait to see Senator Josh Hawley try to throw his name into the 2024 election ring. I can’t wait to see him eviscerated by both sides of the aisle for what he’s done. Call it what you want; I’ll call it treason.

“I didn’t vote for this”
“This isn’t America”

You’ll hear that a lot in the future, but here’s some news for a lot of you… yeah, you did vote for him… and yes, just maybe… this IS America. It always has been, with an undercurrent of ugliness that was surfaced and normalized by a cult leader who understood that all along.

Some 74,000,000 people voted for him, but I’m sure in 20 years you won’t find many who’ll admit to it. Here we are after four years… what would’ve happened in another four? The question doesn’t need answering because if Trump had been re-elected, that would’ve been the last American election for many years… perhaps ever.

Good riddance to this cult leader. It’s less than two weeks, but I hope they 25th-amendment his ass out of there sooner and completely wreck whatever legacy might have been left for the completely brainwashed that are still clinging.

And, might I end with that… if, after all of this, you’re still supporting him, thinking he’s the good guy, the victim, etc… then you are indeed beyond salvation by normal means, and I’d suggest you drag yourself (or have yourself dragged) to the nearest cult-deprogramming facility.

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By |2021-01-07T17:03:28-08:00January 7th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , |14 Comments
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