Science

May 14, 2021

After so much abundance of caution, the CDC has finally realized that there simply may no longer be cause for alarm… a conclusion reached after analyzing actual data that confirms what’s been evident for a while now.

The CDC has simply said… if you’re fully vaccinated, you have nothing to worry about. Masks off, forget social distancing… you’re good. Go live your life.

The blanket assumption, borne out by the data, simply suggests that if you’re fully vaccinated, your risk of illness is now at the same level of other things we hardly pay attention to. To be clear, we fasten our seatbelts and we wear bike helmets… but we drive and we cycle.

Vaccines are not 100%. Some fully vaccinated people will get infected… but… will they get really sick? Will they wind up in the hospital? Will they die? Exceedingly unlikely, to the point of not needing to worry about it.

There are numbers out with respect to “breakthrough infections” – people who’ve tested positive after vaccination. Here in B.C., breaking down the ~79,000 positive tests between Dec 7th and May 1st, ~78,000 (98.1%) were people who were unvaccinated. ~1,000 (1.7%) had one vaccine. ~100 (0.2%) were 7 days past their second vaccination.

How many of those test-positives wound up in hospital or worse? It’s not broken down with respect to one dose or two doses, but 141 required hospitalization and 30 died. The average age of those who required hospitalization was 81, and the average age of those who died was 87.

It’s important to note that vaccines simply don’t work for everyone, and one of the reasons is that our immune systems deteriorate as we get older. For some people, there is no immunity response to the vaccine; and overwhelmingly, those are the ones who show up in the stats.

Summary – for the majority, vaccines work, and they work very well. They’re the quick path out of this… and, here in Canada, “out if this” means 75% of us fully vaccinated. At present, while our partially-vaccinated number is around 43%, our fully-vaccinated number is just 3.4%.

Restrictions may come and go until we get to partially-75% / fully-20% — sometime this summer – but when we get to that point, we’ll be gliding down towards the finish… and assuming enough of us are fully vaccinated, by fall… we should be arriving where others have already landed.

May 13, 2021

The concept of social engineering usually has a sinister implication… like when someone calls you up and cleverly extracts your banking password. Less sinister is a charity calling you up and guilting you into donating… by craftily knowing which heartstrings to pluck. There’s a whole spectrum of social engineering, and anyone who’s ever parented a kid has engaged in it, possibly without even knowing it.

Getting a toddler to eat food they don’t want? Make it fun… the train going into the station, the plane going into the hangar… whatever. Weeeee zoom…. munch munch.

When the kid gets older, convince them it’s food they like. Eat along with them… ohhhh so yummy!! MmmMmMMm!!!

When they’re older than that, bribe them… ice cream after dinner if you finish your vegetables. Or blackmail; eat your vegetables or you’re grounded this weekend.

To the extent it’s getting someone to do something they otherwise might not want to… but end up doing so – and it’s their decision – that’s a successful implementation of social engineering.

On a separate note, if you’ve been reading what I’ve been writing for a while, then you’ve heard me talk about planning… and you’ve heard me talk about the strategy of starting at the finish line… and working backwards from there. Rather than defining a starting point, simply start at the end… as far away as it might be and as impossible as it may seem. Then plan the baby steps that aim in that direction.

And… perhaps you’ve also heard me say… that if a problem is too big to solve, break it in half. Solve the halves separately, and once you’ve done that… problem solved. And if the halves are too big to solve on their own, break them in half again. Break it down till you have a small piece you can solve.

So… putting all of that together… one finish line that’d be nice to reach (though likely impossible) is: everyone socially distances, everyone wears masks, everyone gets vaccinated.

That’s a big problem, and is easily broken into three distinct pieces… so, how do you solve them individually?

The answer might involve some social engineering, but… sometimes, incredibly, some problems solve themselves.

The anti-vaxx/anti-mask crowd has put the word out that vaccines are dangerous. They’re dangerous because people who’ve been vaccinated are “shedding certain proteins” onto the unvaccinated, and that can cause the defenceless unvaccinated people some serious health problems. Let’s be clear: they’re saying that it’s dangerous for an unvaccinated person to be near someone who’s vaccinated.

I’ve written about this baseless nonsense before, and destroyed the logic behind it into the tiny pieces of crap of which it consists. This is beyond stupid, and anyone who believes it should just… oh… wait a sec…

The anti-vaxx/anti-mask/anti-social-distance/anti-intelligence/anti-science crowd also says… the only way to protect yourself from these dangerous vaccine proteins is… socially distance and wear a mask.

Yes, you read that correctly… the anti-everything crowd… they’re not afraid of a virus that’s affected 160,000,000 people worldwide, killed between 3 and 10 million of them, and has caused tens of millions more some serious lingering or permanent health issues… no, that’s not the problem. The problem is the vaccines to neutralize all that. But the solution? Masks and social distance. Huh.

I guess perhaps if you ride the crazy train long enough, you end up at the same station where everyone else has already arrived.

You know what… great. Wonderful. All that social engineering? Not needed. Whatever works.

See that guy over there, respectfully standing a few metres away and wearing a mask? He might be a level-headed intelligent, informed person such as yourself. Or… he may be a stark, raving lunatic. Does it matter? Hell no. Welcome aboard, crazy-guy. We’re all in this together… and you just keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. We’ll both be ok. And, with that… two thirds of the problem is solved.

The final third… how do you get that guy to get vaccinated? That’s more difficult.

One of the simpler social-engineering tactics is already being thrown at it: Bribery. It works for some little kids and food… perhaps it works for some adults and vaccines.

Locally, homeless residents of the DTES have been offered $5 gift-cards… but that pales in comparison to the U.S… where you can get beer, pizza, train tickets, scholarships and, starting this week in Ohio… $1 million dollars. Yes, a random name will be pulled once a week for the next 5 weeks… and if the name pulled is someone who’s been vaccinated, they’ll receive one million dollars. Expensive… but, one would have to assume, effective.

Or… for the truly crazy… who’ll believe anything, and like propagating nonsensical conspiracies… how about this…

Put it out there that they’ve created a vaccine that prevents your skin from absorbing the evil C19-vaccine-shedded proteins! It’s really hard to get; they don’t want you knowing about it… but… I know a guy… and, hey… totally coincidental and ironic how that new secret vaccine comes in little vials that are identical to what you get from Pfizer or Moderna… and the side-effects are similar too… but no no no… it’s totally different. See the label? Totally different.

It’s worth a shot.

May 12, 2021

A few months ago, I was talking about vaccine envy… how all these people around the world had access to vaccines, and we didn’t. The natural consequence of that is to develop “reopening envy”… which is something we’re going to see a lot of in the next few months. Sure, we’re all getting vaccinated at a record pace now… but we’re months away from everyone being vaccinated, and even longer for getting back to normal.

I’ve been hearing from friends around the world, but you don’t need to go far. Wander into any nightclub in L.A. and it’s like 2 years ago… crowds, no masks, party time. “How irresponsible” you might think… except every single person in there has been fully vaccinated, and their second shot was several weeks ago. This is what the world looks like when things go back to normal, so don’t be shocked; it’ll take some getting used to after more than a year of paranoia, but if there’s any silver lining to being effectively last in the first world with getting back to normal, it’s that when we get the all-clear, the world will be waiting for us with open arms… because we will pose zero risk. Vaccination works, and the places who’ve been doing it for a while are now reaping the rewards. The U.K., where daily cases are down 99% and daily deaths can be counted on two hands, is set to significantly ease restrictions in 5 days… and, assuming that goes well, is set to fully re-open June 21st, the first day of summer. And fully reopen means just that. Fully. Full blast. Restaurants, clubs, theatre, concerts, museums, sporting events. No masks. Life as we once knew it.

We get to watch from the sidelines because we’re behind, but… rest assured, we’re very much heading in the right direction. Locally, more than 40% of B.C.’s population has been vaccinated… and that’s counting everybody. If you count only those who are currently eligible (18+), the number is over 50%… and we start approaching the lower levels of assumed herd immunity at round 70%.

Also, if you look below… I’ve thrown my two vaccination graphs. The one of the left shows the comparison between us and the U.S. with respect to daily vaccinations… what percent of people got a shot today? Less than 0.2% there, More than 0.7% here… and that trend is widening, and we are days away from, per-capita, having a more vaccinated population than our neighbours to the south… even though they’ve been drowning in surplus vaccine for a long time. Yo, once again… if you’re not using it, send it up here… we have lots, and we’re plugging through it, but we could certainly use more.

So… in a nutshell… there’s bad news in the past, there’s good news in the future… and there’s a bit of frustration that it’s going to take longer than we’d hoped to go from one to the other. But… rest assured; we’re getting there, and, rather than being envious, perhaps it’s comforting to see other places that already have. That’ll be us.

May 4, 2021

Facebook is kind enough to remind me every single day of what I wrote last year… on this exact day. A rolling one-year reminder of what I posted.

It’s interesting… to see where my mind was at, and what may have changed. Some of it is still very relevant. Some of it is so incredibly out of date; who knew.

In any event, it’s also convenient… on days like this, where I didn’t have any time to actually sit down and write something… so I will simply plagiarize myself a bit… and if some of this sounds familiar as you read it, thanks… it means you’ve been here almost as long as I have. In light of the conflicting vaccine news we’re getting these days, it’s as relevant as it was last year.

Consider this sentence: Over 20% of people tested positive.

Now consider this one: Only 20% of people tested positive.

Without even knowing what we’re talking about… without even knowing if testing positive is a good thing or a bad thing… like, perhaps we’re talking about infections. Perhaps we’re talking about antibodies. Perhaps we’re talking about random drug testing in your office. Perhaps we’re talking about cyclists and performance-enhancing drugs. Perhaps we’re talking about asking random people on the street what their outlook is for the future.

We don’t yet have a clue what we’re talking about, but the very first word of that sentence is already guiding your thought process. Better stated, the writer of that sentence (that’d be me) knows what he wants you to think, and is subtly suggesting it. I want you to agree with me. Maybe I want you to think that anything under 20% is fine. Or maybe I want you to think that anything over 20% is bad. But wait a minute, what if testing positive is a good thing? Then it’s the other way around.
Let’s take out those first words… what are you left with…. “20% of people tested positive”

Yeah… now what. What are you supposed to do with that? Think for yourself and decide? Indeed, the vast majority of content we consume these days is written more towards getting you to think a certain way, or agree with a certain viewpoint — than to simply present the information. And further to that, once the algorithms have figured out what you like to think/read, they’ll spoon-feed you those sorts of stories… mostly because they know you’ll click on them, and that’ll generate ad revenue for them. This has pretty-much nothing do to with conveying news.

“Shockingly, close to 1 in 100,000 people who’ve taken the AZ vaccine will develop blood clots!!!”

“An insignificant number – less than 1 in 100,000 AZ vaccinations — will lead to blood clots.”

Happy Stars Wars Day… May The 4th be with you… and may it empower you with The Force of critical thinking.

May 3, 2021

I’m writing this while watching today’s provincial update with Dr. Henry and Minister Dix. I used to watch this every day, but not so much anymore. What’s interesting is that, recent details aside, it’s the same old thing… and why wouldn’t it be? The message hasn’t really changed. Or, at least, shouldn’t. This is a perpetual Public Service Announcement. Act responsibly, be kind, do the right thing, etc. To a great extent, I think they realize they’re preaching to the choir. There’s not a single person watching this today thinking, “Gee – that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll start doing that.”

One thing to clarify… hearing them claim that 41.5% of eligible B.C. residents have received at least one dose of vaccine. The key word there is “eligible”… because if you remove that word, the correct number – the number I’ve been tracking – is 36.5%… and the reason is that, at some point, the eligibility list, which at present does not include anyone under the age of 18, will change… and that denominator will change, and the percentage will drop. But for now, according to what they’re saying, it’s 41.5%… and that number should grow to 100% well-before July 1st. It won’t, because, as we know, not everyone who’s eligible for a vaccine will want one… but it’s a good target. It would be achievable, but it won’t happen… not because of lack of supply or logistical challenges. It’ll simply be because of vaccine hesitancy and denial.

What happens after that is as good a guess as any. Will that mean we’ve reached herd immunity? Probably not. The answer last year might have been yes, but these new variants are more contagious, meaning a higher Rø… meaning a higher percentage threshold of immunity is needed. The hard-set 15% of naysayers were never going to have their minds changed. But it’s in the next 25% where you’d find that tipping point… the “maybe” crowd. Somewhere in the 60% to 85% range, where herd immunity exists.

But also, reaching herd immunity here in B.C. might not mean much when we’re such an international hub of travel. We’re 30km from the U.S., which will never reach herd immunity. We have flights coming and going from every high-risk area, present or future.

I am all in favour of vaccine passports and anyone screaming about freedom and human rights might be forgetting the convenient fact that nobody has the human right or freedom to impose disease upon anyone else. Keep your mask-less face and anti-vaxx attitude far away from those who want no part of it. If you think you’re free to not wear a mask or get a vaccine, you must to agree that those who disagree with you should be free to not want you around. I fully support a “Covid-free passport” requirement for entering this province… and notwithstanding the optimism with respect to locally getting things under control sooner than later… we are not an island, and we will never be truly isolated from this virus.

But that doesn’t mean things can never get back to normal. They can… and they will. It might just take longer and it might look a little different. One way or the other, though… we are racing towards a finish line.

April 29, 2021

Today’s brief summary requires nothing more than a brief look at the vaccination graph I’ve posted below the usual charts. And if this were being presented as a brief summary in some boardroom somewhere, there would be some hushed whispers. “Hey… what’s the deal with the blue line?”

We’ll get to it.

This is a graph of smoothed-out daily data of the number of people being vaccinated by region, normalized to a number per million.

If you look at the tail-end of the graph, which is from the last day or two, you can see the thick red Canada line somewhere near 7,500… which means, on a daily basis, 7,500 out of a million Canadians are being vaccinated. That number was 4,500 a month ago.

In fact, here’s a look across the country of rough seven-day averages:

BC, a month ago: 4,600. Today: 7,100
AB, a month ago: 3,700. Today: 7,300
SK, a month ago: 3,600. Today: 6,000
MB, a month ago: 3,000. Today: 8,800
ON, a month ago: 4,700. Today: 7,600
QC, a month ago: 5,200. Today: 7,400

Across the board – very good. Vaccination programs across the country gearing up and/or delivering at increasingly-effective rates.

Now, let’s look at that thick blue line… our neighbours to the south. That’s the line that seems to be going in the wrong direction, opposite to all the others.

US, a month ago: 5,300. Today: 3,700

The irony of course is that the U.S. is comparatively drowning in vaccine… but demand is waning. This is the pattern that took them to a 43% vaccination rate, but the next 43%… well, it’ll be beyond difficult. It may actually be impossible.

Forget all of the complicated supply/demand market elasticity theories you may have come across. All of it is irrelevant. If this were a business, the boardroom presentation would be a PowerPoint full of lousy explanations and poor excuses… because the fundamental value proposition is gone. The business model is going to fail, because, as good as the product may be, demand is drying up. R&D department? They did what they were asked and delivered beautifully. Legal? Check. Logistics and distribution? Check. Marketing? Ouch.

It still boggles the mind. This is the part that I and many others simply didn’t see coming. That, after creating, in record time, what’s arguably one of the greatest achievements ever in medical science, an awful lot of people simply don’t want it. A massive failure, arguably due to nothing more than awful, irresponsible, criminally negligent messaging. The marketing department responsible got fired in November and the new team took over in January… but as hard as they’re trying to fix the damage, it may be too late.

Brutal. Meeting adjourned.

April 27, 2021

Take a map of Canada and tip it to the left… like rotate it about 45 degrees. Now you have British Columbia on the bottom. If you imagine the population being 38 million little specs of dust all over the map, you shake it a bit, and the specs all fall towards B.C. To some extent, this is the understood path of migration of people in this country. Should you choose to move from wherever you are, there’s a good chance you’re heading west. Vancouver is continually voted one of the best cities in the world to live in; choosing to move somewhere around here is pretty sane.

On the flipside, our neighbours to the south do it very much the other way around. First of all, you have to tip the U.S. map 45 degrees to the right. That leaves Florida on the bottom. And then, the little shakeout is not the sane people… quite the opposite. How else can you explain disproportionate insanity that seems to emanate from The Sunshine State.

News headlines from Florida are in a league of their own… things like “Thousands of gun owners in Florida planning to ‘shoot down’ Hurricane Irma”

In fact, whenever you see a news story that starts off with “Florida man…”, you know you can expect the crazy. It’s such a thing that there’s even a Twitter account of exactly that – a collection of Florida Man headlines… with gems like:

Florida Man tries to rob GameStop while wearing transparent bag on his head

Florida Man denies drinking and driving, says he only swigged bourbon at stop signs

Florida Man stabs tourist despite having no arms

Florida Man asks trooper if he can leave the scene of crash to get more meth

Florida Man bursts into ex’s delivery room, fights her new boyfriend as she’s giving birth

Florida Man bored, calls 9-11 to talk about Hitler

Florida Man tries to evade arrest by cartwheeling away from cops

Florida Man trapped in unlocked closet for two days

This is an endless list that grows on a daily basis, and serves as a perfect introduction to the “crazy of the day” – a private school in Miami that’s barring contact between students and vaccinated teachers. Because, somehow, vaccinated teachers may pose a threat.

The school’s position: “Tens of thousands of women all over the world have recently been reporting adverse reproductive issues from being in close proximity with those who have received any one of the COVID-19 injections.”

That’s bullshit. There have been no such reports.

Also, “No one knows exactly what may be causing these irregularities, but it appears that those who have received the injections may be transmitting something from their bodies to those with whom they come in contact.”

Also bullshit… of the spectacular sort.

There is, of course, zero scientific credibility to any of this… and it’d be next to impossible to come up with anything plausible to explain it. Magical evaporation of vaccinated blood somehow making its way to bystanders? Just make up the insane narrative, shove it down peoples’ throats, and hope they swallow it. And many do.

The school’s response to being questioned on this policy: ““We’re doing what we think is in the best interest of the children because children shouldn’t be around teachers who are vaccinated.”

This is amusing at first glance, and then terrifying when you think about it some more. It’s frightening to think what else might be being taught to the kids there. We rhetorically ask… how can there exist people who think this way? The question and the answer are the same. Where do university-educated anti-vaxxers come from? Places like this.

The bigger problem is that this is all part of why the U.S. may actually never get to a vaccination percentage high enough for herd immunity. They have millions of doses available for whoever wants one… but the demand is waning. They’re at 43% of the population having at least one dose, but now some are saying they don’t want the second one… so there’s no real purpose in arguing what’s needed for full herd immunity. 70% 80% 90%… they’re all the same, because the way things are going, none of them will get reached.

It’s not incorrect to label this an issue of ignorance and bad messaging. The previous administration, the demonizing of science, the miseducation of large swaths of people… factors which add up and conspire against critical thinking and common sense. It’s perhaps not a lost cause for those who genuinely don’t know any better, but it’d require a big public-service effort of education. Back to school for everyone. Just… please… not that one in Florida.

April 25, 2021

Lazy Sunday… good one to sit on the couch and not do much… but a special shoutout to all my fellow Gen-Xers who managed to secure an AstraZeneca vaccine and are feeling somewhat hungover. Like the old days, the hangover fades after a few days… and, like in those old days, you sit around and wonder if it was worth it. And the answer back then is the same as the answer today.

Well worth it, eh… we’ll be all ready for next weekend. Let’s meet at Luv Affair or Twilight Zone… then maybe head over to the Purple Onion after a bite in Gastown somewhere.

OK, so this isn’t 25 years ago… none of that is likely to happen… especially since none of those places are still around… but this hangover is still totally worth it.

Back tomorrow with updated numbers across the board… then, with a clearer head, we’ll see where we’re at…

April 22, 2021

What a beautiful day… to get vaccinated. Though, technically, any day you manage to get vaccinated is a beautiful one.

So… finally. It was my turn.

At the start of this thing, I optimistically agreed with the 12-18 month guesses, as opposed to the 2-3 year pessimists… and I landed right at 13 months.

How does it feel? Perfectly fine for the moment. Not even a sore arm… but if my reaction to the Shingrix vaccine is any indication, I may be in for a rough couple of days.

But that’s not the correct “How does it feel?” answer.

The correct one talks about profound gratitude… to the countless people, brains, hard work and perseverance that led to this. What’s the big deal, a little shot in the arm… the whole event taking less than 2 minutes?

The big deal, of course, is everything that led up to that moment… and the bigger deal is the implications for me and for everyone around me that lead from it. My chances of getting really sick or dying from C19 are near zero. My chances of getting sick at all, even a mild case, have gone down dramatically. And if I do catch a mild case, so what. Most people don’t care about catching a cold; you expect it every year. A few days of discomfort, and that’s it. And that’s how it’ll be with this… the next time I have the sniffles, it might be C19. Probably the rest of my life, every time I catch a mild cold, I’ll wonder. But won’t really care.

For now… relief. Every moment of every day is the beginning of the rest of your life… but we all have those moments where the impact hits hard; the day of your high-school graduation when you’re handed your diploma on stage. Or the day you hear “You’re hired.” Or the day you bring your kid home from the hospital, and there he or she is, a few days old, still strapped into the car-seat… staring at you, with a look in their eyes: “Now what?”

Yeah, now what… well, here’s what. For me, the beginning of the end of worrying about getting seriously ill from this thing. It’s actually a pretty wonderful feeling, though tempered by the fact that the kids who stared at me from that car seat so many years ago are themselves not yet vaccinated. But we’re getting there… every day is one day closer to the end of this thing for all of us… and that day, which will also be a beautiful day, can’t come soon enough.

April 21, 2021

Finding a pharmacy that’s dishing out AstraZeneca is very hit-and-miss. If you’re fortunate enough to call up and find one that’s got vaccine and is booking appointments, please feel free to share the info here in the comments. Even though that info may be stale 10 minutes later, there are a lot of people looking… and they’ll be happy to take a chance. If you’re trying to find a place, feel free to check these comments as often as you like. Facebook doesn’t mind you refreshing this page every 10 seconds.

In the meantime, there’s a bit of confusion with respect to where you’ll be allowed to travel after Friday, once some temporary restrictions kick in. Essential travel is ok, but if you just want to go somewhere for fun, can you? And, if so, where can you go?

To simplify things, I’ve come up with a very simple formula that lets you know where you can travel. If you’re in Metro Vancouver, simply do this:

a. Take the first number of your postal code

b. Multiply it by 3

c. Add 3

d. Multiply it by 3 again

e. Whatever number you’re at now, add up all the digits in it

f. Look that number up on the list below. That’s where you can go:

1. Victoria
2. Kelowna
3. Nanaimo
4. Kamloops
5. Prince George
6. Vernon
7. Courtenay
8. Campbell River
9. Stay at home
10. Port Alberni
11. Fort St. John
12. Cranbrook
13. Terrace
14. Salmon Arm
15. Powell River
16. Quesnel
17. Prince Rupert
18. Williams Lake
19. Kitimat
20. Oliver

See… not so complicated. Easy-peasy-travel-easy.

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