Numbers

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 5, 2021

There’s that old saying… “Never ASSUME, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME”. There’s an assumption I made a while back that’s clearly wrong… and it changes a lot of other assumptions that go along with it.

My assumption was that when a vaccine finally arrived, it’d be welcomed with open arms. You wouldn’t be able to plug it into people fast enough. Sure, there’s the fanatic “Bill Gates/5G/mind control/conspiracy” crowd, but I’d thought it’s a handful of people, similar in numbers to the tiny pockets of anti-vaxxers who cause measles outbreaks from time to time. But this was a very bad assumption, because it’s coming to light that a lot of people, for reasons that don’t make sense to me (but that’s not the issue), are choosing to not get vaccinated. These aren’t crazy people screaming and banging pots and pans in the streets. These are, for example, well-trained medical professionals. In California, something like, 20-40% of frontline workers in L.A. county have turned down the vaccine. Head inland a bit to Riverside County, and the number goes up to 50%. This is causing head-scratching confusion in what had been assumed to be a pretty straightforward process.

In some of those hospitals, those refusals were popping up so unexpectedly that the vaccines risked being wasted. Once thawed, there’s only so much time before it’s useless. Accordingly, some nurses were calling up spouses and other family members… come quick, there’s a jab here for you if you want it. This is a violation of federal guidelines, of course… but I’m all for it. That’s far better than chucking them in the garbage. And apparently, there are some so anti-vaxx, that they’ll purposefully destroy the vaccine, given the opportunity… like that hospital employee in Wisconsin who threw 57 vials of Moderna into the garbage.

The unfortunate nature of the feedback loop/echo chamber of social media is that if you were at some point questioning the new vaccine (not from a conspiracy theory point of view, but a legitimate concern… you just wanted to know more about it), after clicking a few things and then perhaps clicking on a few more questionable ones, you suddenly plunged yourself into the “question everything” camp. Accordingly, all you get now is story after story that make you skeptical of the vaccine. Is it safe, does it actually work, is it really necessary… and so on. Once you’ve thrown yourself into that rabbit hole, it can be hard to emerge.

I wrote something a while back, just before the vaccines became publicly available… here’s a link to it:

If you or someone you know is questioning the vaccine from the “there’s no way they could come up with something so safe and effective so quickly” point of view, it’s worth a read.

The flipside to all of this is how many people *do* want the vaccine but can’t get their hands on it, due to inefficient deployment plans. I’m going to give it some time before criticizing everyone; it’s early in the game and the kinks are being worked out, but jeez, it’s not like there wasn’t a lot of time to plan ahead. Perhaps the ultra-low temperature requirements threw a big wrench into it… but everyone is way behind.

Well, almost everyone. One place where the overlap of organization and forward-thinking and technology and urgency came together impressively is Israel, who, on a per-capita basis, are one or two orders of magnitude ahead of everyone else when it comes to vaccinating their population…

U.S. 1.52%
Canada 0.42%
Israel 15.14%

Wow. Instead of complaining it can’t be done, it’s worth looking at how they’re doing it. The notification/registration/reservation system was in place. The innovation to be able to transport the ultra-cold vaccine to remote areas was in place. Volunteers were in place. When the word went out to go online and book an appointment, there was a huge rush…but the website didn’t crash. People signed up, showed up and got vaccinated in 15 minutes.

And… a touching note; for those who showed up, they were given gifts to take away… of kids books and games. What an odd thing to be giving away, especially since it wasn’t little kids who are being vaccinated. That comes later… these injections were mostly front-line workers and the elderly. And that was exactly the point; here you go, respected elder – take your vaccination, and also take some books and games for your grandkids… because, we know… you haven’t hugged them in almost a year, and when you show up to do so, no need to show up empty-handed.

Israel has 9 million people and 150 vaccine clinics around the country and roving vaccine vans. It obviously helps that Israel is a small country (it’s about the size of Vancouver Island)… but they’ve so far managed to administer 1.4 million doses. For comparison, Ontario has 14.5 million people and 19 vaccine clinics. They’ve managed less than 60,000 doses so far. B.C. has a population of 5.1 million and has administered 28,000 doses.

Like I said, it’s early in the game… but these assumptions… that everyone would want it when it gets here, that it’d be easy to get once it’s here, that the infrastructure to deliver it would be in place… were all just plain wrong. As per the opening paragraph… Never ASSUME… but just in case, here are a few more:

– I assume vaccine distribution will become more streamlined and efficient as time goes on

– I assume people will see that those getting the vaccine aren’t growing a third arm, and that it’s safe, and they’ll go get their shot

– I assume we all want to go back to normal as quickly as possible and will do our part to make that happen

I assume I’ll be right about at least some of that.

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By |2021-01-05T17:03:27-08:00January 5th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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January 3, 2021

No new B.C. data since last year… and it seems the Alberta data is just some guy guessing over the last few days. Those perfectly round numbers for new cases are, as my teenage children’s parlance would suggest, “pretty sus”. So, we will leave all that till tomorrow when hopefully everything gets updated. Some numbers (vaccination counts in the eastern provinces) actually went down. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

Tomorrow will bring forth a lot more than numbers, though… south of the border, the currently-sitting president is running out of time and out of options. When it comes to “fight or flight”, Donald Trump is very much a “fight” sort of guy, and the dirtiest sorts of fighters are the ones that are against the ropes with nothing to lose. That’s where the low blows and ear bitings come in.

On Saturday, the president committed an act called “sedition”, defined as “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.”

Sedition, treason, attempted coup – call it what you like. I guess it started earlier in the week with Republican senator Josh Hawley, the guy who’s leading the charge in trying to get congress to not certify the electoral college vote. This is quite simply an authoritarian hoping to overthrow the results of an election because it didn’t go his way. He will fail, of course, but he should actually face an ethics charge and expulsion; he’s clearly violating his oath of office… you know, the one that talks about supporting and defending democracy. And now a number of GOP members are hopping onto that bandwagon, for a showdown on January 6th.

GOP stands for “Grand Old Party”, but it’s certainly not that anymore… perhaps “Formerly-grand Old Party” is more appropriate. FOP. For what it’s worth, the word “fop” has been around since the middle ages. Its original meaning was, quite simply, a fool of any sort. How appropriate.

On Saturday, Trump… the leader of the FOP… called up Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and spent an hour on the phone with him. Like any exemplary narcissist, Trump tried every angle of persuasion… nice guy, bad guy, compliments, threats.

Raffensperger is a Republican and Trump supporter, so this clearly put him in a weird situation. Some clips of this phone call were leaked to the Washington Post, and have now been picked up and released by every news outlet… even Fox. It’s worth a listen… hearing Trump begging the guy to find him 11,780 votes (Biden won by 11,779) from somewhere. Anywhere. Make shit up if you need to.

Raffensperger didn’t cave, of course, and the intonation in his voice is telling… a mixture of a little fear, but also the sort of tone you might take trying to explain something to a child. And by the way, even if the state of Georgia were flipped, Trump still loses the election. By a lot.

But these are the actions of a desperate man; he’s on the ropes, flailing away, hoping to land something. He won’t stop swinging till he’s laid out on the canvas.

One thing that fortunately didn’t land was the enormous storm that formed a few days ago over the North Pacific Ocean… so powerful it was labelled a “bomb cyclone”. Winds over 100 MPH, 45-foot waves in open water. That storm formed in 2020… and fizzled out in 2021. Hopefully like the FOP’s latest (and final) attempts to bomb democracy.

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By |2021-01-03T17:03:18-08:00January 3rd, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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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 29, 2020

It was nice to finally get some numbers to back-fill all the missing data; it’s been a while since it’s all looked complete, especially B.C. The last update we had around here before today’s was Dec 24th. The B.C. numbers look good, dropping down like that; it looks good on paper… but it likely implies less testing these days. If you’re planning to break the rules and get together with family, it’s probably better to stick your head in the sand. That’s better than going and getting a positive test and then knowingly violating the mandatory 14-day quarantine. It’s simply better to take the risk and hope for the best… and it’s that agnorant askholish behaviour that will unfortunately turn these numbers around in the coming days.

In the meantime, I’ve taken the opportunity to clean things up a bit, and add a very important row of data. You’ll notice the gray-shaded area up top… it’s now a bit clearer to read… a summary of totals for each region, with columns for: per million, percentage and delta (change since yesterday)… for cases, deaths, and… now, also… vaccinations.

That’ll be an interesting row of data to follow, especially the “% pop” number. In fact, it’s such an important number, I’ve highlighted it. Depending who you ask, you’ll get a different answer with respect to what’s needed for herd immunity. 50%? 70%? 90%? At what point are enough people vaccinated that we can stop worrying about it?

We have lots of time to discuss it, because we’re still far away. The U.S. has vaccinated 0.64% of its population; Canada is only at 0.19%. Broken down a bit more, B.C. itself is at 0.23% for our 5 million people. For comparison, Quebec leads the nation at 0.26% while Ontario has managed only 0.12%.

The one thing all of Canada has in common is that all of those numbers round to zero; it’s still very early, obviously… but whereas in the past we’ve all been rooting for numbers to go down (we still are, for all those numbers below the gray area…), at least now we can cheer for a number to go up… hopefully exponentially. Unfortunately, the only numbers likely to grow quickly in the next two weeks are those bad ones below… but that’s short-term. Keep an eye on those singular, highlighted numbers in the coming days, weeks and months… they are the beacons of light guiding the way out of this dark tunnel.

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By |2020-12-29T17:03:28-08:00December 29th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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December 28, 2020

Here’s an interesting fact that means nothing but is an interesting coincidence… the vast majority (ie. 49 out of 50) U.S. states are mostly south of us. South of what? The 49th parallel. Forty-nine states are south of the forty-ninth parallel. Yes, I’d never realized that. Yes, Puerto Rico would like a word with me. Yes, it’s spelled forty, not fourty… even north of the forty-ninth.

Comparisons to our neighbours (not neighbors) to the south get made all the time, and this pandemic is no exception. “At least it’s better here than in the states” is often heard, and it’s true… but that’s not a great comparison, because nobody on the planet is doing worse than the U.S.

But apples-to-apples, exactly how do we compare? Where would we fit in?

If you look at the daily new cases per million (DNCpM) of population for each particular state or province, here’s how it looks…

First of all, similar to how difficult it is for Canadian musicians to establish themselves in the American market, pandemically-speaking, we haven’t cracked the Top-40… not even close. If Quebec, our worst-performing province, were a U.S. state, it’d barely make the Top-50… being out-performed only by Washington, Oregon, Vermont & Hawaii.

The worst three states have DNCpMs that look like this:

California: 985

Tennessee: 927

Arizona: 800

North of the 49th, it’s this:

Quebec: 265

Alberta: 235

Saskatchewan: 152

For comparison, B.C. is 58

So… 50 states plus 10 provinces plus 3 territories… bundle them all together and what do you get? With the exception of a little bit of overlap in the 48 to 52 range, the U.S. occupies the entire top of the chart, and Canada, the bottom. You can literally draw a thick line through spot 49 and it would cleanly separate the two countries. Another interesting yet meaningless coincidence.

Except it’s not so meaningless… especially because while these numbers are an interesting snapshot today, they will soon change, possibly rather drastically as news arrives that the far-more contagious U.K. variant is here. We’re not exactly sure when it flew into town, though likely Dec. 15th… but it’s arrived, and undoubtedly the Boxing Day crowds (including the one-hour-plus lineups to get into the airport’s shopping mall) aren’t going to help things.

The numbers are expected to go up anyway, but this 70%-more-contagious curve-ball will likely affect the models. By how much…? Good question. We’ve talked about how it takes just one person… it was one person who flew in from the U.K. that brought it into B.C. It was one person who flew in from the U.K. and did not follow the quarantine protocol in Ontario and then gave it to a couple there. That’s all it takes, and now it spreads like wildfire.

Everyone is tired of hearing it… but, unfortunately, it’s true. Not following the simple rules has far-reaching consequences. This soon-to-be rapid spread… the one that that will unfortunately push Ontario and B.C. up the charts… is more than just coincidence.

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By |2020-12-28T17:03:34-08:00December 28th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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December 25, 2020

Some of you stuffed yourself full of turkey last night. Some, this afternoon. Some are about to.

Whatever your path to tryptophan overdose, that point when your brain reaches a state where you have to read something three times for it to sink in… ok, I won’t make you do that. Nothing too deep today, just a simple observation… starting with the fact that there are no new numbers to report today. It’s Christmas, of course, and no one is working. Well, curiously, not totally true. Some guy in New Brunswick showed up to work… to report one new case. And that’s all we know, across the entire country. Half the U.S. isn’t reporting either… so, no numbers there either… just annoying yellow boxes till I sort it all out over the next few days… and I’ll back-fill what I can… though who knows what that’ll look like as it’s also the weekend. By next Tuesday, we’ll see where we’re at, and a week after that, we’ll really start seeing where things stand.

But, for the moment, numbers don’t lie… and the graphs reflect that. West of Ontario, the significant efforts being made are making a notable difference. Like I said, we won’t know what it all looks like till the after-effects of the holidays pan out, but this at least is like… well, to put it in Canadian terms, heading into the third period with a one-goal lead. A month ago, at the start of the second period, we were down a few goals… nice comeback. It doesn’t mean we’ve won, but we’ve got some momentum. Let’s hope it carries through to the end of the game. It could be a scrappy third.

Happy turkey recovery! And there’s no hockey to watch, but a nap right about now sounds pretty good…

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By |2020-12-25T17:03:02-08:00December 25th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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December 22, 2020

Here’s a great word to add to your vocabulary, if you already haven’t done so: Askhole

An askhole is someone who asks for advice, listens to it, does the complete opposite, and then complains when things go wrong. They just seem to be coming out of the woodwork these days.

In some cases, the advice wasn’t explicitly asked for… but you’re told – don’t travel, essential travel only, don’t go to the U.K, and so on. There were many non-essential travelers stuck on the Coquihalla last night, who this morning are whining about their misfortune. There are Canadians who flew to London last week who are now whining they can’t come home.

The King of the Askholes is the man who’ll be president of the U.S. for another 28 days. He’s the biggest askhole of all, because he actually keeps asking for advice, and then shuts down the people giving him responses he doesn’t want to hear. Then he asks other people, hoping for a different result. The Latin term for his species is Askholo Perpetuo.

As a result of Trump’s askholish behaviour in recent weeks, his inner circle has shrunk to a tiny number of soon-to-be footnotes, but a lot can happen in four weeks when you’re arguably the most powerful man on the planet.

This all came to a bit of a head over the weekend where an Oval Office meeting resulted in some staffers running to the phones to contact the press. After a lot of screaming by the president, it got scary when he starting asking for advice on how exactly to go about establishing martial law in a few specific states. That sent the sane people fleeing for the hills.

Intelligent people don’t listen to, nor feed, the askholes. But even better, don’t be an askhole. And if you’re an askhole, don’t whine. If you’re mature enough to ask for advice, and to listen to replies, you’re certainly mature enough to understand that if things don’t go your way, it’s your responsibility. Unless you’re the president; then it’s apparently everyone else’s fault.

Tomorrow is the last day before the Christmas trifecta of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. And this trifecta is locked in, because the horses have already left the gate; I’m pretty sure everyone already has set in stone their plans for those three days. It’ll be sad to see the numbers rise, because they’re relatively stable these days; flat or better across the country.

That’ll change… and I’m not here to tell you what to do or what not to do. But I would ask that you don’t act all shocked and surprised as a result… stuck on the highway in a snowstorm? Stuck in the U.K? Stuck with a positive test… you and your family? Unfortunate. But don’t whine. Don’t say you couldn’t possibly have seen it coming. Don’t be an askhole.

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By |2020-12-22T17:03:01-08:00December 22nd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , |16 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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