COVID-19

March 24, 2021

On July 12, 2018, an elongated dump truck, entering the Knight Street bridge via an onramp – a little too quickly – rolled over and dumped its contents all over the bridge deck, leading to a closure (in both directions) that lasted hours. Unfortunately, it started leaking diesel as well, which led to hazmat team showing up. Further complications (including the truck driver being trapped – he was fine, but it took a while to extract him) led to this entire episode going on for several hours; no traffic flowing either way.

The cascading effect of that was interesting to see. Knight St. being blocked led to Marine Drive being backed up… beyond the point where alternate routes were accessible. Trying to get out of Vancouver towards Richmond and Surrey is next to impossible from the south end if Oak St. is backed up and Marine Drive is clogged… so people started trying to head east from avenues that were further north… and slowly, 49th, 41st, King Ed… all the way down to Broadway and, eventually, downtown… all clogged. Standstill. For hours.

From an engineering point of view, the Knight St. bridge is a SPF – a Single Point of Failure. When it fails, there is a cascading effect that leads to bigger and bigger problems because everything that depends on it will also fail. It’s what you always try to avoid, but sometimes, it’s inevitable… as is usually the case with bridges. Traffic in Vancouver is at the mercy of our bridges… because we’re on the coast, and because we have rivers and inlets. The trade-off of not having 9 bridges spanning every arm of the Fraser River is that once in a decade or two, this will happen… and there’s really nothing to fix, and there’s really nothing to mitigate. Once in a long while, an accident will close that bridge and chaos will ensue, and we will deal with it. The previous time, you might recall, back in 2000… a boat carrying a crane miscalculated something, and 15cm of the top of the crane hit the bridge and ruptured the water and gas lines. Good times.

Those are SPFs at a municipal level. What do SPFs at a global level look like? The Panama Canal is an obvious one. Plug it up for a significant period of time, and global chaos will ensue.

Close behind that is the Suez Canal, where more than 10% of international maritime traffic travels… and where, yesterday, a 200,000 ton/1,300 foot container ship managed to ground itself diagonally and block the entire thing. An army of tugboats is there as we speak, furiously trying to un-wedge it… because there is an ever-growing traffic jam of oil tankers and other ships… on both sides.

Back to the local level… a vaccine rollout is a complicated endeavour, and nobody wants to be the SPF. Nobody wants to be that weak link. We got a hint of it recently, and we will label that SPF “Telus”. You might have loads of vaccine and nurses and tents and parking lots and clinics and doctors and syringes and all the rest of it, but the entire infrastructure is at the mercy of its weakest links; its SPFs. That’s why, properly done, you have not just phone banks, but every other version of communication available as well for booking appointments.

I don’t need to harp on this, because it’s already been discussed at length and solutions are being implemented and all the fingers have been pointed in the appropriate directions.

But it’s worth mentioning because, thanks to a very different sort of SPF, specifically the mishandling of the AstraZeneca messaging, we will be getting a lot more vaccine sooner than we’d expected. And I would love it if it were able to flow, unimpeded, into all of the arms that are eagerly awaiting it.

… because the only SPF I really want to be worrying about is the rating of the sunscreen I’ll be putting on, enjoying a Covid-free late summer on a crowded Kits beach, lying in the sand, staring at the blue sky, swimming in the ocean and watching all those big container ships transiting in and out of the harbour… hopefully not running into anything.

By |2021-03-24T17:03:03-07:00March 24th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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March 23, 2021

It’s a good thing AstraZeneca makes a good vaccine… and perhaps that’s where all their money goes… because their PR/marketing/outreach/spin-control department certainly isn’t as world-class.

First, the whole blood-clot non-issue that spun out of control. It’s since spun back, but not before permanently eroding confidence in that vaccine among many people; irreparable damage.

Hours after that was all cleared up, another scandal, this one to do with reporting efficacy data… AZ reporting 79%, but then being accused of cherry-picking data, and that the number is probably closer to 69%. Their questionable data and the questionable inclusion/exclusion will all be sorted out in the next 48 hours, but, once again, “irrefutable” ammo for the anti-vax camp. “See, they’re lying to us.”

One number that isn’t in dispute is a number that agrees with the other relevant (to us) vaccines… AZ, Moderna and Pfizer… and all of the regulators who scrutinize their results, collectively, will tell you that 2 weeks after receiving a single jab of any of those three, your chances of getting seriously ill go down to zero. Zero is a bold claim, but there has yet to be a case of a hospitalization from someone who’s had one shot and given it a chance to kick-in. And no, it’s not zero if you count the guy who went home to celebrate, got drunk, fell over, hit his head and wound up back at the E.R…. but I do mean that nobody has developed serious C19 symptoms.

It’s so unfortunate that this recent messaging will most certainly cause hesitancy among those still on the fence, especially because aside from what I just said with respect to it preventing serious illness, at the end of the day, a 69% chance of getting a mild cold is not a lot different than a 79% chance. On top of that, when the “real” results are published, it may end up being what they originally claimed. Or higher. It certainly won’t be lower.

Last year, when the concept of vaccines for C19 was still being discussed, when the question of “Can we even develop a vaccine for this?” was being asked, efficacies of 60% would’ve been considered a great success. 70%? Awesome.

The 95% that Moderna and Pfizer came up with is off the charts, but here’s the thing… imagine you’re stepping up to bat at Fenway Park in Boston. Off to your left, 310 feet away and 37 feet tall is “The Green Monster” – that wall so famously targeted by all right-handed hitters whose only desire it to sail a ball over it. So you step up and uncork a “Moderna” — 395-foot crushing home run. Or maybe a “Pfizer” – a 394-foot homer.

Or… a lesser “AstraZeneca” – only 369 feet in the air. But guess what, it counts – exactly the same as the other two… and when you cross home plate, having just won the World Series with that hit, nobody is bringing out the tape-measure to see how far it went.

Perhaps not the most applicable metaphor, but it’s true in the sense that if all we had was the AZ vaccine and we were all taking it at the same pace as the other two, the further development and eventual end of this pandemic would likely look very similar. Nobody is adding up the length of the home-runs that were hit. It’s the final score that counts, and that’s what gets reported. Even by AZ, who even though is not so good at messaging, at least can hit a ball/develop a great vaccine.

By |2021-03-23T17:04:11-07:00March 23rd, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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March 22, 2021

Here’s what seems to be a logical progression… some witty/smart/creative troublemaker comes up with an idea and “puts it out there”. The idea enters an echo chamber of like-minded people who welcome it with open arms. The idea gets tossed around, talked about, enhanced upon… grown in different directions, exaggerated and then commandeered to suit the narrative of whoever is propagating it.

Eventually, the original source of the idea backs away… but that’s now irrelevant. Those who need the idea to exist hold onto it and continue to manipulate it to their heart’s content. When logical people argue against it, they get shot down. When those believers are told it was all made up and whatever was said originally simply isn’t true, they refuse to accept it. When the original guy comes out and says, ”Hey, I was kidding”… believers will assume he’s bought out/paid off/threatened… whatever. Then that person backs away from the mess they’ve created, and all that’s left is a big mess of people believing nonsense they want to believe.

Every single conspiracy theory imaginable can trace its origins to something like this. Some religions as well.

But also… good old common fake news.

The former president of the US made “fake news” a thing. I don’t think any of us had heard those words until Donald Trump began uttering them on an hourly basis, a response to anything that didn’t fit his narrative. And now it’s become the de-facto argument for when people disagree with something to which they have no counterargument.

This follows-up on yesterday’s post, because in reading what people have to say about the AstraZeneca vaccine, one thing is now clear. It was smeared briefly with misinformation, and that smear, for those who want to believe it, will never get polished off. There is no science, no data, no version of facts that can now be presented to someone that’d decided that the AZ vaccine causes blood clots. AZ vaccine causes blood clots in the same way water and fresh air and blinking causes blood clots, but nobody wants to hear that. If vaccines are evil, here’s one more gargantuan piece of evidence. Forget that it’s wrong; that doesn’t matter. Of course, scientists will tell you it’s safe, etc etc.

What can you do? Actually, nothing. I saw a piece of a reported wandering into a restaurant in a very red state; a 90% Trump-voting district. He went in there and asked for a show of hands… “Who’ll be getting the vaccine?”

Not a single hand from the dozens of unmasked people. Not one. He then interviewed a few of them and asked why not… and got the usual answers you’d expect… they’re trying to poison us, they’re trying to control us, they’re trying to kill us… or, it was rushed, it’s not safe, there’s no covid, fake news, etc.
One person was asked the exact question I wanted to hear answered: “If Donald Trump today came out and said to do it… like he did… he got the vaccine, albeit quietly without telling anyone… would you then get the vaccine?”

That particular answer: “No way… why would I listen to Trump? He’s a Liberal New Yorker. Can’t trust him!”.

“But you voted for him.”

“Whatever.”

This is not a “steep uphill”… it’s a vertical, slick and slippery and unclimbable wall. Not even worth trying.

By |2021-03-22T17:03:45-07:00March 22nd, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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March 21, 2021

Two wrongs don’t always make a right… but three rights make a left! – a good rule to remember when it’s between 3pm and 6pm and you really need to turn left… but all the signs prohibit it. Skip ahead a block, turn right a few times… and you’re set.

But… back to two wrongs… first, there was a lot of misguided bullshit about the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots. Then, secondly, as a result of that, the European Union halted it “till further notice, out of an abundance of caution”…. caution of what? Caution of exercising critical thinking? Caution of not overreacting? Caution of not undermining a global initiative?

That all lasted a few days until some clearer thinkers came along and said, “Wait… wtf are we actually doing here…” but, by then, it was a little too late. A lot of time, and a lot of confidence, was lost.

The EU did the expected 180 and AZ vaccinations are ramping up. In fact, now, the EU chief is threatening to ban exports of AZ vaccine until Europeans can first get their hands on what they need. You know, the stuff that a week ago was considered toxic.

But, it’s a little late… not just because some of their vaccine rollouts have been significantly affected, but because a lot of that vaccine has already been shipped out, and it’s been sitting on U.S. shelves… and the U.S. has yet to approve the AZ vaccine… and so, rather than let it expire, they’re sending it off to be used… to Mexico, and… to Canada. We are getting one point five million doses of AZ vaccine, and that will most certainly accelerate things on this side of the border.

I said two wrongs… but reading back on all that, it took more than just a couple.

The result of all of that is now the EU’s problem, and it’s to our benefit. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes an abundance of caution is called for… but this entire episode (whose consequences, here in Canada, we’ll gratefully accept) could’ve and should’ve been avoided. A little bigger-picture thinking is called for, especially when the stakes are so high. It’s not a question of breaking rules; it’s a question of understanding when to apply them.

Like, for example… you want to turn left and it’s 4:30pm and the little red-slashed-circle says no, don’t do it… but there’s nobody coming and there’s no cop behind you. I’ll be honest… sometimes… temporarily banning myself from making that left turn makes as much sense as temporarily banning the AZ vaccine.

By |2021-03-21T17:03:05-07:00March 21st, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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March 20, 2021

Last Summer, there was a question I wanted to ask Dr. Henry… it was after the big initial wave had died down, and things looked ok at the time, but Dr. Henry kept warning about the impending second wave in the fall (which certainly happened) and how it would overlap with “respiratory season” (which didn’t… more below) – the time when all of us get sick and numbers always spike up, just not so seriously.

Colder temperatures leading to lowered immune systems, the climate where viruses thrive, people being inside more and in closer proximity… it’s annually the combination to leads to everyone, at some point, catching some version of the sniffles.

The question that I wanted to ask was… why would we expect anyone to be catching colds and flus from each other? With masks and social distancing and hand sanitizers everywhere, how would it work? Like how would we transmit a common cold to each other… but not C19?

The question was eventually asked by one of the reporters at one of the daily update briefings, but the answer wasn’t too convincing, from what I can recall. It was a bit vague… more to do with those illnesses being more contagious, etc… but still, they’d have to be pretty darn contagious to make their way past a lot of defences we’d all put up.

As it turns out, nature answered the question better… which was, there was next to no “respiratory season” at all. Speaking for myself, I inevitably get sick at some point over the winter… and I can usually tell you where or from whom I caught it. Stuck in a crowded ski lodge for an hour with a room packed with heavily breathing people and poor ventilation? Stuck in an airplane for a few hours? Getting infinite kissy-kissies from relatives?

Not really surprised that this year, I didn’t get sick. How could I? From whom? When and where? For the first time I can ever remember, no winter cold.

Did you? Certainly, nobody in my immediate circle got sick with any virus. A spot of food poisoning perhaps, but nothing contagious.

Which leads to ask an interesting question, one that Asians answered centuries ago… but we didn’t follow suit: Are masks now going to become much more normalized in Western society? They most certainly will not be mandated, but it’s the same as sunscreen… no one should be giving people dirty looks for doing whatever works for them… and I wonder… how common will masks be on planes? On public transit? These habits that we’ve normalized actually make a big difference. Forget C19 and the risk of death; let’s just talk about the risk of inconvenience. The risk of catching a cold, perhaps having to miss work or some event you were looking forward to.

And I do get it, some people will say to hell with it, I don’t care about catching the sniffles for a few days if it means I don’t have to worry about it after that. Just catch the seasonal cold, get it over with, and get on with your life. Makes sense too.

I’m undecided, to be honest. Chances are, if I don’t take it seriously always… ie, all the masks and social distancing and hand sanitizer I’m doing now, I’ll probably catch something at some point… and, therefore, what’s the point at all. That’s probably my version of it; get the seasonal flu shot, which from now on will be juiced up with the latest and greatest C19 formula… and go back to living… with a little bag of Kleenex in my pocket.

By |2021-03-20T17:03:07-07:00March 20th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , |6 Comments
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March 19, 2021

Chaos Theory is an area of math that deals with complex systems which seem to appear to act randomly because of the unpredictable nature of what’s being observed… but, in reality, there’s a very well-defined set of deterministic rules underlying what’s going on; it’s just that the initial conditions make all the difference… and, minor variances in those initial conditions change everything.

Indeed, that’s where the concept of the “Butterfly Effect” comes from… that a little butterfly flapping its wings in Japan today might be responsible for a hurricane on the other side of the planet next week… and it’s true. Weather is a hugely complex chaotic system that the world’s biggest supercomputers endeavour to model and predict… and that’s exactly what they’ve found. Sneeze at the wrong time, and everything changes.

Without getting into an entire philosophical discussion about Free Will — whether everything is pre-determined or not — I think we can agree that your one little action today can have a profound effect on the entire planet, without you even knowing about it. You showed up a few minutes late to your dentist appointment, which set the whole schedule back a bit… and some patient three hours after you had to wait, and then was late leaving and had to hurry back to some meeting, but was speeding and caused an accident… nobody was seriously hurt, but the paramedics that were called to the site would’ve otherwise been able to attend to some old guy who had a heart attack… and that delay meant the difference between the old guy living and dying. See? Don’t be late to your dentist appointment.

And what if that old guy that died was the swing vote in parliament with respect to a bill that would introduce sweeping changes with respect to environmental responsibility… and now, without his vote, the bill doesn’t pass… and it has to wait seven years to get passed, by which time it’s too late, the planet is doomed. Antarctica melts, sea levels rise, global temperatures go off the charts… all because you, seven years ago, couldn’t be bothered to show up in time. Way to go.

Interestingly, there’s now some evidence that this entire pandemic could easily have been avoided… could easily have never happened… if only a few key things hadn’t aligned. Like, the initial patient zero… if that guy hadn’t gone to that Wuhan wet market, and just stayed home because he wasn’t feeling well… and/or if he’d gone to the market but not interacted closely with the one or two people he infected… and/or those people, in turn had stayed home or been elsewhere or not breathed right at that moment. Who knows. Unfortunately, all of the stars aligned in the worst possible way… the necessary initial conditions… and here we are.

Not that there’s anything we could’ve done to prevent it, of course. This chaotic system we live in, whether it’s a simulation or reality of an invention of our consciousness… whatever it is, we’re at its mercy. We just do what we do, and things happen… c’est la vie. What can you do with this life? …just live it.

But also, seriously… just in case, don’t be late to dentist appointments. It can really mess things up.

By |2021-03-19T17:03:31-07:00March 19th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , |5 Comments
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March 18, 2021

As I like to say (and have experienced numerous times in my life), the first 90% of any project takes up 90% of the time, effort and resources. Then, that last 10% actually ends up taking 90% of the time, effort and resources to finish the project. It’s so incredibly easy to start something, but as time goes on, everything becomes a little more difficult… and continues on that path, with every aspect becoming a bit more challenging as time goes on. The “Time/Effort” graph looks exactly like the exponential growth graphs we’ve been trying to avoid for a year.

Ironic that as we approach the finish line of this pandemic, that’s what the end of this adventure is beginning to look like; in some places, because cases are once again growing at an alarming rate… but even where they’re not, the “We’re done with this” attitude of people who’ve already “checked out” of the effort. The “Forget everything, we’re fine” crowd reminds me of the people who start bailing on projects in that final 10%, because they figure they’ve done enough… the momentum will carry it through to the end, other people will pick up the slack, and so on. I don’t think I need to spell out what happens when a critical mass of people suddenly all switch to that mindset.

You’d think if you have a bad infection, the worst thing you can do is leave it untreated… while the best thing is to throw some antibiotics at it and cure it. But actually, the worst thing is to throw some antibiotics at it in a half-assed way, and then drop it because you yourself came to the brilliant conclusion that you’re cured, even while the doctor, pharmacist, Google and everyone will tell you: Take the antibiotics for the entire recommended course. Do not leave a single pill behind, even if you’re feeling 100% and think you’re cured.

If you don’t stamp out the infection properly, then the 90% of the bugs you killed won’t hurt you, but the 10% that are left… the strong ones… will be happy to make a re-appearance. These are the 10% that were tough enough to withstand your 90% effort in dealing with this in the first place, and now they’re mad. And resilient. Now you’re back to square one, fighting a tougher opponent.

We are at the 90% point now in this pandemic, but that 10% of rapidly-growing variants could quickly become the 90% of cases, and then we’ve all taken a huge step back. While we’re well-down the path of vaccines, if the new variants require a booster or a modification or whatever, we’re back to trying to vaccinate everyone… and now it’s also a steeper uphill because the anti-vax crowd will use it as ammo: “See, vaccines are useless! What, we’re going to need a new one every year?” – yeah, ironically, because of their attitude, we might. The people who tell us we don’t need masks will be responsible for us all needing masks. The people who tell us we don’t need vaccines will cause us all to need them.

An awful lot can happen in the last furlong of a horse race, something to which a lot of people reading this can attest. The best thing any jockey can do is put themselves in a position to win, do what they can… and hope things work out… though there’s always plenty outside of their control that will enter the story. 90% got them to the head of the stretch, perhaps in first place. But that last 10%… where we are now… this is where it gets real. This is where the race is won or lost.

And… this is not a project any of us want to throw out and start over.

By |2021-03-18T17:03:40-07:00March 18th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , |6 Comments
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March 17, 2021

March 17th… St. Patrick’s Day, of course. Many, many years ago, this would’ve meant a green Shamrock Shake at McDonald’s. Years after that, it would’ve meant green beer pub hops, though I must admit those memories are pretty hazy. In recent years, a pint or two of Guinness.

Last year, none of the above. Last year, right at this time, a state of emergency was declared, and, instead of imbibing pints, I was reading through a bunch of stuff, like the rest of us… trying to make some sense as to what the hell is actually going on here. It led me to find an interesting little table of numbers… showing how Italy had gone from 100 cases one day to 1,000 in less than a week to 10,000 about 10 days later… and how the U.S. growth in cases was mirroring that, step by step, only 11 days behind. I wondered how Canada would compare, so I found the data and lined it up… and to make things easier to visualize, graphed it. And realized we were on the exact same track, a week behind the U.S. And thought, simultaneously, “Wow, cool”… and, also… “Holy shit”.

I thought it worthy enough to post… and since enough people were interested to see how it would evolve, I resolved to update it and post it at 5pm every day. And I resolved to myself to update this thing for as long as I could… ie, the end of the pandemic.

Facebook was kind enough to remind me earlier today, so I didn’t have to scroll back 365 articles to find it. It’s reposted below this. That lame little graph and tiny columns of numbers pale in comparison to what I’m cranking out these days, but I must say… I felt dread looking at those graphs for the first few weeks.

So, yes… that was exactly a year ago… and during that time, I have posted the ever-evolving numbers and charts and details exactly 365 times. Yeah, I find it remarkable too – I haven’t missed a day. I’m a computer guy, so the numbers and graphs are now at the point of complete automation… click-click-click and today’s picture and numbers are ready to upload. That’s the easy part. But what’s more remarkable is what you’re reading right now… because behind this, there are 365 versions of my rambling, extemporaneous (adj. spoken or done without preparation) thoughts… some serious, some funny, some confrontational, some informative… and all of it, coming from a place in my brain I truly didn’t know existed. I keep saying I need to slow down, and one year would mark a good cut-off… except, you know what… I enjoy it too much. It’s fun to sit down here and just unload whatever my brain decides is worthy of providing for public consumption.

For me, the unfortunate aspect of the end of the pandemic (let’s find a little cloud in a huge silver lining) is that I’m having less and less time to write. And there’s lots of other stuff I’d like to be writing too. A book (that has nothing to do with any of this) will emerge from this keyboard one day, and I’d like to devote some time to that.

But… yeah, I’m not going anywhere. Until this pandemic is over, I’ll be around posting this… which today is relatively long, but often will just be a placeholder for the numbers and pictures. And looking back, those numbers and pictures sure tell a story. And these stories that go along with them; they also tell a story, haha. Reading through a bunch of them just now, there’s a common thread… and it’s like I’ve been saying all along… we’ll get through this, together. It’ll all be ok… eventually.

You often regret getting on the roller-coaster in the midst of that first, huge drop… or during those tight loops that impose enough G-forces on you to think you’ll pass out… but once the ride over, and once you can once-again walk straight and you’re not feeling nauseous… part of you is happy you went for the ride, if for no other reason than you can tell everyone you did it… and made it out alive.

And… so it’ll be with all of this… especially now, with a finish line well in sight; let’s not paint it rosy… it’s been a year of hell, and a year that has been catastrophic to many people’s lives; their health and their livelihoods altered in ways they’d never imagined. Nothing will make up for it, and the healing will take decades.

But, you’re still here… and, while this pandemic still rages… or, at least, till it’s snuffed out… so am I.

I raise my pint of Guinness to you: Cheers! … to a better year ahead. And see you tomorrow.

By |2021-03-17T17:03:24-07:00March 17th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , , |11 Comments
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March 16, 2021

As I’ve said before, instead of “Do unto others…”, I much prefer the subtle but distinctly different: “Don’t do unto others… as you’d have them not do to you.” In other words, don’t impose your crap on others… unless you’d be happy with them doing the same.

So… for those who keep screaming about their human rights with respect to masks, perhaps it’d be easier to shift in your mind the mask to something like a big cigar. A huge cigar, just to make it a little more offensive… one of those gigantic Cohibas that Fidel Castro used to smoke.

Now, imagine you, flaunting your anti-mask awesomeness, sitting in Starbucks, glaring at anyone that gets close to you, let alone tries to address your masklessness. Now imagine me… I wander in with my gargantuan cigar, puffing away, and sit down right next to you. You start screaming at me to get the hell away from you. In fact, obviously, the entire coffee shop, customers and baristas alike, are all yelling at me… “WTF do you think you’re doing!”, “Get the hell out of here!”, “Hey, that’s Cuban, there’s an embargo, I’m going to have you arrested for treason!”

First of all, this is Canada… so Cuban cigars are available everywhere… and let’s at least agree on something: That’s hardly the issue.

The issue is, I’m invading your space (and everyone else’s) with this foul stench that you find indescribably awful, toxic and unhealthy. Fair enough, many people can’t stand cigar smoke, and why should I have the right to exhale it all over you. In fact, there are laws protecting your rights specifically because it’s known that not only is it unpleasant for many people, but it’s also a health hazard. Appropriately, it’s banned in public spaces and it’s banned in private places to, to the extent that the owner of said private space is entitled to make their own rules.

We all agree that in my own private space, I can do whatever I want. I can sit on my deck and smoke cigars all day long, and nobody can do anything about it… nor should they able to… and nobody should care, either. It’s my business and it’s not hurting you and it’s not being imposed upon you. And if I invite you over, you’re free to stay… and perhaps enjoy your own cigar… or you’re free to leave. Can we please agree that you’re not entitled to tell me to put out my $40 cigar? My house, my rules. Starbucks’ house, Starbucks’ rules. SkyTrain’s house, SkyTrain’s rules too.

There’s a remarkable 11-minute video of a woman on the SkyTrain who refuses to wear a mask and refuses to leave the train. A policeman, very calmly and politely tries to explain this to her, repeatedly… certainly with more patience than I would… but, even so, it escalates to her assaulting the officer and getting arrested.

I am certainly at the point where I understand the fact that someone who, these days, is still refusing to wear a mask… is someone who will never wear one. So… it’s pretty simple. You stay away from me, and I’ll stay away from you. I don’t have the right to tell you to put on a mask, you say… well, in my home, I do. In my place of business, I do. And I have the right to tell you to go away if you don’t want to play by my rules.
This is a pretty good comparison. The difference is that we can all see and smell cigar smoke… so it’s blatantly obvious when it’s headed in your direction. Not so with tiny virus balls, but the fact we can’t see them doesn’t mean they might not be there…and you have the right to be protected from it. It might help people to understand the concept that a mask requirement is a bit like a no-smoking sign. Just like you can’t expect to smoke somewhere, because you may be breathing something dangerous on people… these days, for now, you might be doing exactly that and not know it. Doesn’t everyone else also have the right to be just as protected as you are?

I think so… and I’m not just blowing smoke here.

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By |2021-03-16T19:05:45-07:00March 16th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Follower Favourites, Humour|Tags: , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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March 14, 2021

You know… if you take a pizza with radius “z” and thickness “a”, its volume can be calculated as pi•z•z•a – and that is my π contribution for the day – so Happy Pi Day!

Pi, like many people, is irrational… and Pi, also like many people, goes on forever… but it goes on forever after the decimal point, so it doesn’t get much bigger after a while. But let’s talk about numbers that *do* get big, and what happens when they collide with the fallacies of causality.

For example, unfortunately, sometimes people die unexpectedly. It happens a lot. People unexpectedly choke to death or have heart attacks or strokes or burst aneurysms or whatever else, and when they do, especially when it’s unexpected, people tend to try to blame it on something… because, somehow, our brains don’t like to accept the fact that sometimes, bad shit happens… and there’s nothing that caused it and there’s nothing anyone could have done to prevent it.

If someone ran the stats, I’m sure one would find that more than 99% of heart attacks happened in people who’d had a glass of water in their last 2 hours. Did the water cause those heart attacks?

At the moment, the AstraZeneca vaccine has been paused in Ireland… the usual “abundance of caution” reasoning, which pleases some liability lawyers tremendously, but does little to instill public confidence in vaccines, a topic where there’s still a lot of uncertainty and hesitancy. “Just in case, until we figure this out.”

I’m not sure what they’re hoping to figure out. This started in Norway, where “a number” of cases of blood clots were discovered in people who’d recently received the AstraZeneca vaccine. That number was 4… out of hundreds of thousands of shots. Italy banned a particular batch of AZ vaccine following the death of a serviceman in Sicily… who died of cardiac arrest one day after his shot. Cardiac arrest, blood clots… same thing. It must be the vaccine.

When you look the actual large numbers, 17 million people in the EU and UK have received the AZ vaccine… and the number of people who’ve developed blood clots, some number in the hundreds, is actually lower than the expected number out of a random sampling of the population. The number of people who’ve unexpectedly dropped dead shortly after getting the vaccine is probably similar to the number of people who unexpectedly dropped dead after drinking some coffee. Or yawning. Or breathing. But… that’s unacceptable; there must be something to blame.

I get it; in this day and age of lawyers ready to pounce, it’s easy to see where the abundance of caution comes from. I wonder how long it’ll be before they all realize there’s much ado about nothing here… except preventing the rollout of the vaccine to areas that now, more than ever, need it; Italy is suspending the vaccine at the exact time they’re seeing a frightening, exponential growth in cases. Because one person died, of causes almost certainly that have nothing to do with the vaccine.

They might tell you “better safe than sorry”, and with that, I agree… except I think their implementation of the concept is backwards. Far more people will die of C19, having not received their shot in a timely manner, than might be “saved” by an issue that’ll turn out to have been non-existent to begin with. It’s really that simple… as simple as apple… strudel.

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By |2021-03-14T17:04:15-07:00March 14th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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