COVID-19

January 4, 2021

Imagine a parallel universe… there’s an earth there too, and everything is pretty similar. They’re going through a C19 pandemic as well, but it’s a little different. On that parallel earth, the virus behaves quite differently. There, it’s very, very contagious. So contagious, in fact, that by the time people realized it even existed, everyone already had it. The good news is that as contagious as it was, it seemed relatively harmless. No big deal.

Except, as time went on, it was realized that the longer it lingered in your body, the worse it got. It’d mutate inside of you and, over time, make you sicker and sicker. The fact it mutated so easily made it difficult to formulate a vaccine… but, great news, there was a simple way to purge this thing; the more you associated with other people, the better the outcomes. It seemed that people breathing all over each other and sharing their exhaust would provide others with the anti-virus tools their bodies needed to heal… and, the more variety you got, the better.

The provincial health orders went out; nobody go to work; instead, congregate with as many people as you can. Big, thick crowds, ideally strangers. Pack the gyms, sweat… and breathe all over each other. Tight spaces with little ventilation are ideal. Spread the goodness around. Party on. Spend as much time with as many different people as you can. It’s for the greater good.

The government begins offering people 2 grand a month to not work, but instead… just socialize. Wealthy people rent out entire venues… clubs downtown, Rogers Arena… even BC Place. Come one, come all – free food and drinks (within reason) as long as you promise to stay at least 3 hours and mingle with as many strangers as you can. Tens of thousands of people show up every night; needless to say, this is embraced by a tremendous amount of people. This year becomes the best and most memorable time of their lives.

For others, though… it becomes a nightmare. For the introverts of the world, being forced to party and mingle – with strangers, no less – is as far out of their comfort zone as it gets. Once in a while… maybe. But every single night?

So… these people start looking for ways to duck the orders… what if we don’t go out every night? What if it’s with a few people, not just huge crowds? What if it’s in a private place, not out in public? What if it’s with some people we know, not just all strangers?

“Covidiots!!”, yell the masses, “… stop trying to bend the rules. Stop trying to think you’re special. Get the hell out there, party and mingle and meet as many strangers as you can. It’s for the greater good!”

Crowds of people go door to door, banging on doors, shaming those who’ve chosen to stay home. “Save your books and chess and Netflix for next year!!”, they scream in your face, “It’s your responsibility! It’s your duty! Get the hell out here… come on man, there’s this great Rave going on in this warehouse in Chilliwack… like 5,000 people… it’s on till 6am!! Let’s go!!”

Personally, I am an affirmed introvert. I score 90% in those personality tests where it comes to introvert/extrovert. So, while for me, the isolation part of this pandemic has been no big deal, I’m well aware the mental toll this is taking on others. How would I feel having to go out every day, partying all night with a bunch of strangers? If we flip all of these circumstances around, how would I feel? When I think about what I just described, if I had to live like that… I think I’d be losing my mind. And so, I realize… that for people for whom that’s the norm, this has all been a significantly bigger struggle.

I know people who spend 200 days a year traveling… airports, airplanes and hotels are their norm; their safe space; their comfort zone. Being forced into this present experience is just as jarring as it’d be to me to have to leave this comfort zone of mine and party all day. Actually, it’s probably far more jarring for them; if the entire world is your office, your workspace, your play-zone… having all that disappear, pretty-much overnight… it’s a huge jolt.

I say all this because while I’m firmly on the “follow the rules/get the vaccine/wear a mask in public/this will soon be over” bandwagon, I realize that for a lot of people, it’s far more easily said than done.

Later this month, January 28th, will be the tenth anniversary of the “Bell’s Let’s Talk” campaign, which aims to raise awareness around mental illness. It’s very clear what this year’s topic of discussion will be, because long after the virus is physically gone from our lives, the mental impact will linger.

For the moment, it helps us all to put ourselves in other people’s shoes… because talk is cheap, but actions speak louder than those words… and while it’s very easy for people to preach to others “Stay home!”, that’s a difficult ask for many, and we need to understand that.

“What’s the big deal – just stay home” – it works for me, but it might not work for you…and I sympathise. And hopefully one day, sooner than later, you can all be throwing your big parties. Feel free to invite me; I’ll probably show up for a bit, say hi… and then stand by the wall for a while… and sneak out when no one’s looking.

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By |2021-01-04T17:03:04-08:00January 4th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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January 2, 2021

Somewhere downstairs in the storage room, there’s a box with a lot of old papers. Among them, a few select school papers I chose to keep, for one reason or another. Among the surprisingly good ones (8 or 9 out of 10), there is one with nothing on it but a big, fat, red zero.

I wrote that paper in grade 9, for Social Studies. I’d been sick for a few days, and a friend had called me up to let me know what I’d missed. A paper had been assigned, due Monday… with a weird topic, but ok… I’d missed several classes and didn’t really know what was going on. The topic was something like “Discuss the potential implications of youth in Asia in Canada.”

Odd… but, I’d recently done a big project on Japan, and knew all about Japanese schoolgirls and their influence on the world, how marketing companies in Japan were catering to their wishes and how the world was watching that, etc. This was the early 80s, and “Made in Japan” was a lot more common than “Made in China”. I had plenty of material, and I wrote what I thought was an excellent paper.

The teacher was a super-cool guy, Mr. Turner… who years later went off and founded a very successful outdoor school. On this day, he handed back all of the papers except mine. “See me after class” was all I heard.

So, I stuck around after… and he was usually very chill, but for once he was actually mad. “What the hell is this?”, he asked, as he threw the paper in my direction. He thought I was making a stupid joke, but the truth is, up to that point, I’d never heard the word “euthanasia”.

There was a moment of great confusion… then laughter… and he let me go home and re-write it… but the jokes kept coming… for years. He also taught grade 12 Geology… so three years later, on a test where I wrote an answer to a question about plate tectonics, he commented something like “the magma gets it moving but the youth in Japan keep it going!” Yeah, LOL. Cheers, Tim… wherever you are.

All that being said, there’s plenty to learn from Japan. Their handling of this pandemic has been exemplary, especially when you consider how crowded it is, and the advanced age of their population. This pandemic should have decimated that country, yet it’s been the opposite.

For comparison, here are some numbers…

Tests per million of population:
Canada — 363,000
U.S. — 772,000
Japan — 39,000

Cases per million of population:
Canada — 16,000
U.S. — 63,000
Japan — 2,000

Deaths per million of population:
Canada — 410
U.S. — 1,074
Japan — 28

More people will have died from C19 in the U.S. in the last 24 hours than in Japan since the very beginning.

What did they do right?

Did they do massive lockdowns, like so many other places? No. Did they try the “let it run wild but shelter the elderly” approach, like Sweden and, briefly, the U.K.? No. Did they massively test everyone over and over? Clearly not.

What looked like a cloud but turned out to be a very silver lining was the ill-fated cruise ship Diamond Princess, consumed with C19, that arrived in Japan in February. Their 3,700 passengers with 712 cases (699 recoveries, 12 deaths) were studied; it was a very good learning opportunity, and they took full advantage of it… and, out of it, developed a plan called the three Cs:

Closed spaces
Crowded places
Close-contact settings

They simply bashed that message into everyone’s heads repeatedly, because they understood the nature of transmission of this virus: Avoid all of that, and you’ll be ok. Yes, it’s good to wash your hands and not touch your face and all of that… but that is hugely outweighed by what they understood to be the real risks.

In Japan, some people carry around devices to measure airflow. Any place with a CO2 ppm of more than 1,000 implies poor airflow; stay away and/or get out. Subways are ok if windows are open and passengers wear masks. Sitting diagonally instead of across from someone can reduce the risk of infection by 75%. Well-ventilated movie theaters where people are eating popcorn and drinking Coke? No problem. Lots of other little warnings, some very specific: dinner parties with alcohol… groups of more than four… talking without masks at close quarters… changing rooms… break rooms… dormitories.

Their list of risks was far more detailed, and, therefore, far less restrictive. And, evidently, very effective when respected… and that’s perhaps where the biggest difference comes in… a culture willing to strictly accept certain restrictions. Not the wishy-washy, bend-the-rules, find-the loopholes sort of attitude; actually adhere to it. The long line-ups in Japan weren’t for toilet paper and paper towels and hand sanitizer… they were simply for masks.

On June 19th, the day the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a requirement for face masks and social distancing at Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, people in Japan were lined up for hours, waiting to purchase the just-released breathable-fabric Uniqlo masks. They sold out almost instantly. The website crashed. Everyone wanted masks.

Japanese people have been wearing masks long before this pandemic. It’s culturally welcomed, accepted, not-frowned-upon and, most of all, clearly understood… so this wasn’t a tough sell. The breakdown of mask-wearing data around the world stops tracking north of 80%… but that’s where Japan is… > 80%. Canada and the U.S… depends what state/province. As low as < 10% in many places, 10-20% in a few. A handful at 40-50%, everyone else… less. You want proof masks are effective? Japan for the win. It’s unfortunate that, culturally, around here, we’re a lot more like the U.S. than Japan… and that’s why our restrictions seem harsh; because anything less, we wouldn’t listen to them. As it is already, we’re not listening enough… I’m not even going to talk about the U.S… where wearing a mask is an affront to personal freedom and all of that absurd bullshit; even around here, everyone listens to the rules and then pats themselves on the back for finding out clever ways around them. “What difference do masks really make?” you ask, rhetorically… well, there’s your not-so-rhetorical answer… a profoundly better situation in every sense… they’ll be back to normal long before us. Arguably, they’re already there. Arguably, they always were. Summary: stick to those three Cs and wear a mask. The only question left to answer is… what to order for dinner tonight… yeah, sushi… of course.

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By |2021-01-02T17:03:20-08:00January 2nd, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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December 21, 2020

We keep hearing about *the* vaccine, but of course, there’s more than one. Besides Pfizer, there’s Moderna… and we’ve all heard of some Chinese one and the Russian one which Putin gave his daughter but refuses to take himself.

Any others? Yes… plenty of others. This petal-to-the-metal race (locally) was won by Pfizer, if that’s how you want to look at it, and Moderna is set to come in second and Oxford-AstraZeneca will likely be third.

But really, there are multiple winners in this race… to win, you just have to cross the finish line. How many horses are in this race? Surprisingly… more than you might imagine. There were originally 90. Not all will finish the race, and while crossing the finish line counts, it’s probably a bit hollow if it happens in 5 years. However… the more, the merrier.

At present, Pfizer is approved and Moderna is approved for emergency use only (for the moment), but Canada is looking at it as we speak and it’s likely to get the green light within weeks. Beyond that, there are a few approved within China and Russia, but we’ll never see them here.

Beyond that, there are actually 18 different vaccines in phase-3 trials… most of them in the U.S and China, but other countries thrown into the mix and approaching the finish line are Japan, India and Australia. And Canada.

We don’t hear a lot about it, but we sure will if this gets beyond phase 3… Quebec-based Medicago, a private company, began their phase 2/3 trial on Nov 12th. In a somewhat eyebrow-raising arrangement, they’re being partially funded by cigarette maker Philip Morris. Medicago literally grows vaccines in plants – specifically, the Nicotiana Benthamiana plant, which is a wild species related to tobacco. The Canadian government has 76 million doses on order in case it all works out.

The fact you can grow vaccine inside tobacco raises some interesting possibilities, not the least of which is slanting the marketing towards “all natural” and “organic”. For all the anti-vaxxers with their “I don’t know what’s in it so I’m not putting it in my body!!!” crowd… notwithstanding I can assure you, you have no idea what’s in a McNugget but you’ll happily ingest that… but all that nonsense aside, hey… this vaccine grows out of the earth, in a plant that billions of people happily inhale into their lungs every day. The irony of that, given that this virus attacks your lungs…

You know, all of that is just one step away of creating a very unique vaccine delivery device… forget injections or suppositories or sublingual sugar cubes… how about…

“Hey dude, smoke up! This is some good shit!”

“Yeah man… whoah… where’d you get this?”

“Doctor B.”

“Who’s he? Never heard of him!”

“It’s a she… and don’t worry about it.”

“Awesome dude, can you hook me up with some more?”

“I can hook you up with one more; that’s all you need.”

“Whatever dude. Awesome.”

Vaccination rate… at least, in B.C….? 99.44%

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By |2020-12-21T17:03:14-08:00December 21st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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December 20, 2020

No B.C. news to report till tomorrow, but here’s an assortment of other news:

The bad news is that there’s a new, apparently far-more virulent strain of C19. It’s up to 70% more transmissible.

The good news is that it isn’t around here… it’s in Europe, mostly the U.K.

The bad news is that who cares where it is, it’s still going to affect us… because many of us have friends and family over there, and, anyway, it’ll soon get on a plane and make its way over here.

The good news is that likely all of the current vaccines will be effective against it. Like… The Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Georgia Straight, The Courier, The North Shore News… whichever one it is, rip a page out of it and scrunch it up into a ball and toss it into the fire; it’ll burn. Unless someone is suddenly (and very surprisingly) publishing the news on asbestos, it’ll burn. Like all C19 new-strain mutations, given the vaccine.

The bad news is that there is a huge outbreak presently underway because of it… and whereas most people in London were expecting to be able to spend Christmas in town, with family… they’re all fleeing the city, leading to crowded, crammed trains as everyone bails to every corner of the country, where there are fewer restrictions.

The good news is that while this new strain is far easier to catch, there’s nothing to indicate that the illness it causes is any worse.

But the bad news is… as per all of the above… that this virus will soon have reached every corner of the United Kingdom.

I want to end this with good news… and it’s this: Vaccination programs are well-underway in many places, including the U.K… and as pedal-to-the-metal as they are already, they’re going to get a turbo-boost with the approval and quick distribution of the Moderna vaccine.

I’ll end this news update with the same one-word sign-off that Dan Rather used for a while: “Courage”.

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By |2020-12-20T17:03:13-08:00December 20th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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December 19, 2020

When I was in high school, we had a coach who employed a very unique form of punishment. When you screwed up, everyone had to run a lap around the field. And when I say field, it was actually four rugby fields… roughly a 600-metre jog for everyone. Well, almost everyone… you, the perpetrator, did not run. Just everyone else.

In fact, the first time that happened to me, I wanted to run too. I didn’t want everyone else even angrier at me. But no, that was the point.

“Sir, I’d like to run the lap as well.”

“No, Kemeny… you stand here with me and enjoy the consequences of your actions.”

The only thing missing was him providing some hot chocolate while I got to watch my friends and teammates being punished for my transgression. Just to really hammer home the point.

I mention this, because it’s interesting to note that collective punishment of this sort, where the said collective (friends, family, acquaintances, teammates, etc) is targeted, is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It is literally a war crime.

If wearing the wrong jersey to rugby practice is so serious a crime that it warrants a punishment so severe that it’d require an international court to sort out, what do you do with a significant number of Republicans trying to overthrow the U.S. government?

The end-game of this election is starting to look like a horror-version of whack-a-mole… where there’s no cheap prize at the end, but that’s irrelevant… because the game never seems to end. You could argue it’s been going on for four years, but it’s certainly been going on since the election. After 46 days, those are some pretty tired arms. With still 32 days to go.

Every day, some nonsensical mole makes an appearance, and it’s swiftly whacked back into the hole by evidence, lack of evidence, a court ruling… or just plain common sense. And yet, the moles persist. The most recent mole to get whacked was Mitch McConnell, but that wasn’t enough. Now come some Republicans who literally want to overthrow democracy. Martial Law, and the whole thing.

Far beyond just cutting through the bullshit of Trump trying to pre-emptively pardon himself and his family, maybe it’s time for Joe Biden to make a much stronger statement. Number one, anyone who gets pardoned with some sort of cobbled-together Frankenpardon shouldn’t feel too safe. Those pardons will be rescinded within hours of the new administration, chopped up into little bits, just like the parts that came together to form this attempted monstrosity of legality.

And number two, anyone from this point forward trying to actively mess with the very foundation upon which American Democracy is based… will be charged. I don’t know if “attempted treason” is “a thing”, but it should be. Even if Biden gets tossed after four years, there needs to be something in place to prevent this derailing nonsense in the future… that those who instigate this sort of thing have some real consequences to face, not just running some laps in the dark, pouring rain.

But this is what the president is focusing on. This is what he’s re-Tweeting… while every single day, the new cases and deaths pile up. While some rogue nation, still not sure if it’s China or Russia, digitally broke in and stole everything. While a Covid relief bill still hasn’t wound its way through the process.

Allow me to quote Joe Biden: “C’mon, man.”

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By |2020-12-19T17:03:13-08:00December 19th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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December 18, 2020

Louis Armstrong was perhaps the greatest and most innovative trumpet players of all time, so it’s a bit ironic that he’s probably best known as a vocalist, for his timeless rendition of “What a Wonderful World”. Similarly, Wayne Gretzky, perhaps the greatest and most innovative hockey player of all time… might be more remembered for something he said; something that’s been repeated about five hundred million times, in every context imaginable: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it’s been.”

To some extent, that tired, hackneyed phrase has lost all meaning, having now become so ubiquitous and diluted.

But… it has its uses. For example, if you’re Dr. Bonnie Henry, by now you have some vision as to how things work… how the pandemic works, how hospitals work within its confines and, most importantly, how the general public seems to behave.

So… if I had to criticize Dr. Henry for anything, it would be for her failing to skate to where that particular puck was going to be on Halloween. It was becoming evident that things were about to break at the seams, and more should have been done.

On October 31st, B.C. was seeing about 350 new cases a day, and about two deaths a day. Then came the parties and the crowds and the “it’s no big deal, come on man, it’s Halloween!!” excuses.

Around 10 days after the numerous private parties and the overrunning of downtown, there was a sharp rise in daily case counts; they had doubled. But deaths hadn’t gone up, so everything was fine, right?

Ten days after that, there was a sharp rise in daily deaths… to levels we haven’t yet managed to recover from.

This isn’t rocket science, and this isn’t unpredictable… because it’s the exact same pattern we’ve seen several times. Where the puck has been, and, more importantly, where it’s going, has now become glaringly obvious.

From the “this is why we can’t have nice things” point of view, Dr. Henry has imposed measures over the holidays that seem harsh. It’s unfortunate she didn’t impose them before Halloween, because there’s a chance this would be a far more normal holiday season if she had. As it is, these measures are now necessary, but probably not sufficient. Without enforcement to back them up, these orders are merely good suggestions, and many people are planning to ignore them entirely. This has always been an issue of education, and many people simply don’t get it. Accordingly, we will see the consequences of these actions in the next 6 weeks.

If I had to predict it, the sharp rise in infections will all take place starting tonight and lasting till New Year’s Eve. That will start appearing as a rise in daily new cases during the week between Christmas and NYE. The deaths resulting from those new cases will peak heading into the second week of January, but the last of those new cases won’t have “kicked in” until two weeks after NYE… which means those deaths won’t hit the books till the end of the month.

So there you have the prediction… new cases will keep rising till mid-January, and then start to tail off. Daily death numbers will start dropping off in late January. If the question is “When will all this be over..?”, I can’t tell you the end of the end, but the beginning of the end…? February. When things start improving in February, I would expect them to continue to improve to the end. Between vaccines and summer, there won’t be a third wave… just a slow and steady path to the end of this nightmare.

At the end of a long shift, Dr. Bonny just fired the puck into the corner. She’s skating to the bench to catch her breath. In the meantime, for all of us still on the ice… where should we go? To where she shot the puck from? To where the puck is now…?

I think to myself… we should skate to where the puck is going to be. And I think to myself… there’s an end to this game… hopefully soon. And also, all together now…. I think to myself… what a wonderful world…

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By |2020-12-21T02:10:40-08:00December 18th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Follower Favourites, Science of COVID-19, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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December 17, 2020

A quick thought with respect to the winding-down of what history will undoubtedly call the ugliest presidency ever… I wonder if it’s occurred to those who support Donald Trump – at least 74,000,000 Americans – that after all is said and done, no matter what you believe is broken and needs fixing… that this wasn’t the guy to do it.

Notwithstanding he didn’t keep the very election promises upon which he was originally elected (the border wall that Mexico will pay for, the healthcare plan that’s just a few weeks away, etc), suddenly there appeared this whole notion of a large, left-leaning group of overlords that’s controlling everything… well, if that’s the case (which it isn’t, but let’s say it is) – Trump has failed miserably in dealing with it. If you’re a staunch Republican who thinks these are real issues, I think you have to admit your guy failed you. You, like him, can scream fraudulent election and all that… so, ok, let’s say it was… it was a huge fix, all aimed at getting Biden elected – Trump, with his genius intellect and intuition saw through it all along; he identified countless examples of voter fraud. But then what?

In four years, he’s appointed more federal judges than any president in history… placing these people in roles with lifetime appointments – roles that had been gleefully held open by Mitch McConnell. These guys, with their frenzied zealous desire to stay in power, did everything they could… and it still wasn’t enough. With all his appointed judges, with all the vague but passionate handwaving, with all of the alleged evidence, look what he managed. Nothing. From the sounds of all that, you’d think it’d be a slam dunk. But no. Zero. What. A. Loser.

Forget for a moment what he’s broken (and there’s plenty) – in some crazy world, one could argue it was for the greater good, and you have to break eggs to make omelettes or whatever. OK, let’s entertain that for a moment… so, sure… lots got broken, yet… nothing got fixed. If there exists a Deep State (there doesn’t) that’s controlling the radical left (it isn’t), then… despite knowing all this, he couldn’t do anything about it. That deep state now sits well-entrenched, now in power, ready to take over the world. Your guy failed you miserably; more miserably than somebody caught by surprise, who didn’t see it coming. This guy saw it all coming, for four years, and was unable to do a damn thing about it. All talk. Zero action. Is this the guy you want leading you?

Setting aside the obvious fact; it’s hard to fix something that’s not broken because it doesn’t actually exist – notwithstanding it’s his main money-raising platform… but let’s forget all that crap. Let’s look at real things where Trump could’ve made a difference… things he promised.

There’s no better healthcare plan, there’s a bit of new border wall, but most of it is renovation… and Mexico didn’t pay for any of it. Hilary isn’t locked up. There’s no renegotiated Iran deal. There are lots of illegal immigrants still around. There’s no right to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states. There’s no freeze on hiring federal employees. There is no end to birthright citizenship. There’s no automatic death penalty for cop killers. Eliminate the federal debt in 8 years? It’s higher than when he came into office. And, oh yeah, his tax returns… we’ll see those any day now, as promised.

Actually, that last one – we might, because of a court order coming next month. Between that and going to prison for contempt, he’ll probably eventually provide them. And then he’ll go to prison for what’s on them.

And yet… some staunch Republicans still stay by his side, sending him their hard-earned money, believing everything he says. Up to you, I guess… he’s going to need friends and he’s going to need money. But, between you and me… I think you could do a lot better than this Loser.

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By |2020-12-17T17:03:00-08:00December 17th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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December 16, 2020

Today, we’ll take a step back from gambling advice and bashing Trump and discuss… yes, how about the pandemic…

As usual, there is good news and there is bad news.

Let’s start with the good news, and that is that around the entire planet (with one notable exception), things are getting better. That doesn’t mean things are great, but if you look at the numbers and graphs below, it’s clear things have stopped getting worse in Canada. They’re either just bad, or improving. At some point, I’ll throw together some world data for comparison, but the graphs will look similar; sharp drop-offs in the rates of new cases, which in turn should show fewer hospitalizations and eventually fewer deaths. Where they were growing quickly, they’re growing more slowly. And in some places, stopped. Entirely. New Zealand is the first country on the planet where C19 is gone. Period. Restrictions lifted. Workplaces, restaurants, sports stadiums… packed with happy, healthy people. This was the place that locked down early and hard, and almost did away with it on the first go-around… but it came back, so they took more drastic action. And this time it stuck. Brutally ironic and pathetic was Donald Trump, at that time, mocking them… “It’s over for New Zealand. Everything’s gone.” That was Trump, trying to imply something like, “See? No matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it. Why bother wrecking the economy, when it won’t make a difference?”

Trump wasn’t the only one with that attitude, but the attitude is wrong. Strong decisive action can make a big difference.

While things look to be getting no worse pretty-much everywhere, the huge exception is, of course, is the U.S… where things are getting drastically worse. The collision course between the pandemic, people who don’t care, and the vaccination… it’s a perfect storm, made more complicated by that second factor… people who still don’t believe there’s a serious virus and/or people who do but won’t get vaccinated. If all Americans were to go out and get vaccinated as quickly as possible, the entire country would be rid of the virus by summer. There will probably be enough vaccine to go around to do that. All the timelines we’ve heard rely mostly on the understood supply of Pfizer vaccine that’s on its way, but there is more good news… that we can soon throw the Moderna vaccine into the mix… and that’s more of a game changer, because it’s doesn’t need the ultra-cold transport and storage; that one can (and will) be made available far and wide.

The bad news is that the pain of this pandemic, from an economic point of view, will be very harsh. Every sector has been radically affected… and the issue now is that there are many businesses that rely on the holiday season to get them through with enough momentum to last them till next December. Many of those businesses are already running on fumes, and are really only still in business because it’s the Christmas season and they may as well scrape what they can from it before they pull the plug. Many that stuck it out this long were hoping for a relatively normal holiday season, and it’s not going to happen.

On that note restaurants are suffering terribly, especially many of which count on the Christmas office parties and the party season in general… and while that won’t happen this year, it’ll all come back eventually. Certainly by this time next year.

Until then, there’s no simple answer… though might I throw in… support your local restaurants if you want them to survive. It doesn’t mean go there with a group of friends; not yet. But order their food and pick it up, or get it delivered from them directly, so it’s not some third-party that’s getting all the margin. Buy gift certificates and stuff some stockings with them.

The economic landscape will look like a 9.0 earthquake roared through it, once this is all over. Hopefully, for most, it’ll just have been a big, rattling shake… and not a complete collapse.

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By |2020-12-16T17:03:06-08:00December 16th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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December 15, 2020

A little more on yesterday’s topic… according to the Washington Post this morning, Trump has doubled-down on his dubious election claims 15 times. Two to the power of 15 equals almost 33,000. So now, he’d have to be putting down over $65,000 to try to win back his original $2 bet… if he were betting red, which I suppose, in a certain way, he is. He’s gone from loser to Loser to LOSER… the only thing that’s changing now is the point-size of the font, but like betting systems that eventually run out of money, the screen can only fit so much as well. We’re pretty-much looking at nothing more than a big capital L now… and yet, if this morning’s torrent of even more election-fraud Tweets is any indication, he’s not done yet. Even Mitch McConnell has thrown in the towel… but Trump? Nope.

If doubling down is the wrong way to bet, is there a right way? Yes… as long as you keep in mind that if you’re betting against the house, you’re going to lose in the long run… no matter what. Unlike poker or horse-racing, where you’re playing against other people, you’ll never beat the house in the long run. Not that it’s easy with poker or horses, but at least it’s possible, and there are some people good enough that they actually do it professionally. But casino games? Nobody is making a living playing slot machines, blackjack, roulette or craps… assuming it’s a “fair” game. There are ways to “game” advantages in all of those, with mechanical aids or card counting… but those change the house odds, and then it’s a whole different story. But assuming you don’t have a roulette computer jammed into your shoe, and/or assuming you’re not able to count cards without getting caught, the house has an edge, and every dollar you bet plays into that edge. If you’re going to bet $100 in Blackjack, mathematically, the soundest way to do it is bet it all at once. That way, the house only gets one shot at imposing that edge on you… not countless times to chip away.

But… it is possible to win in the short term, and it’s possible to have a lot fun doing so… so what do you do to maximize your chances? You do the opposite of doubling down.

With doubling down, all you’re doing is chasing lost money with your own money. Throwing the good after the bad. The key to winning is trying to maximize the opportunity to win while putting the house’s money at risk, not your own. This means taking the big shots with money you’ve already won; not out of your wallet. Here are two examples.

Let’s say you’re going to play roulette… and roulette is a good one because it offers a lot of (close to) 50/50 bets. Roulette has a green zero (and sometimes also double-zero, and, for the truly-clueless, triple-zero), which is where the house gets the edge, but other than that, there are 36 numbers. Half are red, half are black. Half are even, half are odd. Half are 1-18, half are 19-36. All 6 of those half-this/half-that bets are effectively coin-tosses, and return a win of a $1 for every $1 bet.

So… if you’re going to play roulette, say you’re willing to risk losing $200. Take that $200 and cut it into 10 pieces of $20 each. Each of those $20 is one shot, and you will have 10 shots.
You bet your first shot, and we will call that first bet “level one”… and you can bet any of those spots. Say you bet red… and it comes up… black. Oops. It’s ok, you’re only down $20… now, second shot, level one… you try red again, and this time it hits number 7, which is red.

Great! Now you have $40. You take that entire $40 and bet it on… let’s say, black… and this is now level two. Boom, it hits 17 black. Now you have $80. So you take all $80 and bet it on… hmm, 7 and 17 were low… so you bet it on 19-36 – (this was level three) and it hits 35, and you win!

Now you have $160. Now you are on level 4, the final level. Hmm… three odds in a row. You bet your level 4 on even, it hits 2, and now you have $320. And you take that $320 and you put it in your other pocket, and you don’t touch it for the rest of the night. And you go back to level one, with your third shot of $20. And you do that with all ten shots. Some will die right away. Some will advance a level or two. And hopefully, you manage to run a few of them through level four.

Of course, that’s not so simple… but it only takes one out of those ten shots to go the distance for you to walk away a winner. If you do this right, after 10 shots, the $200 gambling pocket will be empty… but, hopefully, the other pocket has $320 in it. Or maybe $640… or more…

The key, of course, is that you’re trying to capitalize on winning bigger amounts by risking only what you’ve won. The adrenaline rush of those level four bets is quite something… and a real sledgehammer to the gut when you lose. Just try to remember, you didn’t just lose $160 – you only lost $20.

Similarly, next time you’re at the racetrack, try this… take $5 and bet it “to show” on the horse you like. As long as the horse you like finishes in the top three, you’ll cash your ticket. It might not be much, but that’s ok, because now you take what you won, maybe $8, and bet it all to show on whatever horse you like in the next race. And if you win, you take that $17 and bet it all to show in the following race. The thrill of running a show parlay up to $400 is also quite a rush; and you’ll learn a lot about yourself when you’re now called upon to bet all of it on some horse whose only redeeming factor is that you like his name.

Gambling, in general, should be treated like an entertainment expense… so as long as you’re willing to lose every penny you’re throwing at it, as long as you have a good time, go for it – and, hopefully, some of this advice helps you win… at least in the short term.

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By |2020-12-15T17:03:51-08:00December 15th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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December 14, 2020

There is a very common betting strategy called the Martingale — you can apply it to red/black on roulette, or blackjack, or any simple game with close to 50/50 odds – where, if the odds are truly 50/50 and you have infinite wealth, you will never lose. Unfortunately, the odds are never really 50/50, and nobody has infinite wealth… so, in the long run, you will actually always lose. And when you lose, it’ll be ugly.

Martingale is more commonly known as the strategy of doubling down, and here’s how it works: Say you’ve decided to bet red on roulette… so you bet 10. If you win, you’ve won 10. Now you bet another 10 and hopefully win again.

But if you lose, you bet 20. Now, when you win, you’ll not only win what you just bet, but you’ll also win back your original loss. And when you win, you can go back to betting 10.

If you lose again… well, now you have to bet 40… but, no worries, it’s 50/50 or whatever, it’s due to come in, etc. And with that bet of 40, you’ll win back everything you’ve already lost… right?

As we’ve learned, exponential growth gets ugly… in a hurry. 10/20/40/80/160/320/640… if you thought it can’t possibly come up black 7 times in a row, you’d be mistaken… it happens far more often than you think, and now you’re having to bet 1280 just to win back everything you’ve lost… and just to profit 10. Eventually you hit the casino limit. Eventually you run out of money.

So, no… doubling down doesn’t work, because there’s no finish line; because infinity is nobody’s version of a finish line. For whatever reason, people still tend to employ this strategy, and I’m not just talking about casino gambling. Today itself provided two examples.

One small example would be this morning’s Wall Street Journal editor defending the disgusting Jill-Biden-bashing piece that I wrote about yesterday. Instead of just apologizing for his appalling lack of judgement, he’s saying it’s no big deal, he’s blaming “team Biden” for the backlash and he’s accusing critics of playing the race card. He’s doubling-down on his mistake, and now he’ll appropriately face further backlash… to which the WSJ will respond with an apology, or, they’ll double-down again. There’s an ugly finish line to examples like that, depending how far they’re willing to take it. Eventually people start unsubscribing. Eventually they lose advertisers. And eventually, when they’ve shredded themselves into the ground, they meekly apologize.

Whatever the reason that prevents them from backing down… business decision, reputation concern, fragile ego… if they could simply admit when they’re wrong, that would be the end of it. But no, they double-down… and without a bottomless wallet of excuses to support their bad judgement, they eventually lose… and it’s much worse than it should have been.

Which leads us to the much bigger example of doubling-down to the point of insanity, and this one also hit the ugly end of the line today – and that is Donald Trump’s insistence that he’s won the election. Today, after numerous and continual double-downs of bullshit, he’s out of ammo with which to bet red. Now the electoral college has cast its votes, as expected, confirming Joe Biden. Now what?

I guess the equivalent would be the guy who’s been betting red on roulette all day and just watched a streak of 15 black show up. He’s out of cash, screaming and yelling that it’s not fair, and as he’s being dragged to the door by security, continues to scream he’s being robbed and denied the opportunity to win it all back.

It’s not altogether a bad analogy. The guy in both examples started with a bad premise, executed poor judgement, doubled-down on it for as long as he could… and will continue to blame, to whoever will listen, everyone else except himself for the outcome. Both deserve to be shown the door.

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By |2020-12-14T17:03:05-08:00December 14th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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