Second Wave Archives • kemeny.ca | Website and Blog of Horatio Kemeny

November 24, 2020

Crazy, irrational people have always been around and will always be around. It’s part of living on earth, and as long as their craziness doesn’t negatively affect you, let them do their thing.

That’s more difficult in the midst of a pandemic, because some champion of civil liberties, coupled with a good dose of conspiracy paranoia, can actually affect you very negatively. Like some anti-masking moron who purposefully coughs on you, just to prove the point that it’s all a hoax.

There will come a point when some idiot doing that will be of minimal concern, and, of course, we’re not there yet… but let’s talk about immunity.

The chances of you getting mumps, measles or rubella are negligible if you’ve had the MMR vaccine, properly administered. Properly administered means two doses, and in doing so, the efficacy is 97% against measles, 97% against rubella and 88% against mumps.

Measles is a good one to discuss because the vaccine is so good, yet the illness is so contagious. As per the numbers above, even if you’re in the vicinity of someone who actually has measles, if you’ve been immunized, you only have a 3% chance of getting sick. Conversely, if you haven’t been immunized, there’s a better than 90% chance you’ll catch it. And that’s why even though measles is pretty rare, it flares up here and there… the perfect little storm of someone who’s been exposed, running into a cluster of enlightened Southern-California moms who’d never poison their precious kids with vaccines, when we all know essential oils are all you need to keep them healthy.

Sadly, it’s relevant to note that 2021 is likely to see outbreaks of measles in many places due to missed vaccinations. Around the world, some 94 million children have missed their scheduled vaccines… due to C19. If anyone is wondering how effective vaccines really are, just have a look at the unfortunate measles numbers next year.

When things get back to normal, measles will once again be brought under control. With a coordinated effort, like was done with smallpox, it could actually be extinguished. And the same could be said for C19. Since it’s a virus, in theory… it could be eradicated.

My chances of getting smallpox are zero. My chances of getting measles aren’t zero, but thanks to my immunity and the herd immunity caused by enough people having been administered, over many years, a vaccine that’s more than 95% effective… they’re very, very low.

And so it will be with C19 one day. You will be vaccinated, enough people around you will be vaccinated, and that will be that. At that point, it will take a lot for you to get C19… and the evidence we’re seeing seems to imply that in all cases, if you’ve been vaccinated, it’d be, at worst, a mild case.

There will, of course, still be anti-vaxxers and Covidiots around. There are also the quiet anti-vaxxers… they’re not out in the streets screaming about Bill Gates is trying to inject you with 5G trackers… but years of misinformation has made a difference. A recent report states that in the U.S., it’s pretty much 50/50 as to who’s willing to be vaccinated and who isn’t.

Around here, the numbers are better… our denier-precentage is in the 20 to 30 range… but we have them too – the quiet anti-vaxxers, and the loud ones… who will march on the steps of The Art Gallery for years to come. Alien abductions, 9/11 was an inside job, the moon landings were faked, the earth is flat, covid was a hoax. All looney birds of the same feather. I look forward to the day, hopefully sooner than later, when their craziness can once again no longer directly affect me.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-24T19:41:59-08:00November 24th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: Pandemic, Masks, Numbers, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Vaccine, Graphs, Science, Second Wave, Herd Immunity, Measles|0 Comments

November 23, 2020

One might be a fluke, but two implies some consistency… and three pretty-much says, “lock” – and that is where we’re at with respect to vaccines.

Another announcement this morning from yet another vaccine manufacturer, this one from AstraZeneca, showing an average efficacy of 70%, but going up to 90%, depending on the dosage. Regulators from the FDA and Europe will be having a look at it soon.

From a timeline point of view, the two frontrunners, Pfizer and Moderna… may have their vaccines hitting the streets in the last two weeks of December, assuming the present timeline and FDA approval (set to be discussed Dec. 10th). Pfizer expects to make 50 million doses by the end of the year (and up to 1.3 billion next year). Moderna will have 20 million doses ready this year. Who will get it first? Mostly Americans, I would expect… and, honestly, they need it.

That great American Founding Father Patrick Henry proclaimed, “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” back in 1775. Americans, known for wanting it all, are taking those words to heart… potentially changing the “or” to an “and”.

Over the weekend, over 3 million people passed through security checkpoints in American airports. Something like one in 111 Americans travelled on a plane in the last 48 hours, the majority on their way home for Thanksgiving, where they will mingle in close quarters for several hours if not days… before boarding those same planes and heading back to wherever.

The timing with “vaccines vs. the virus” will be interesting… and will be the grand crescendo of 2020. In fact, let’s call it for a specific day – Dec 20th, 2020, precisely one month before Donald Trump exits, stage left. On that day, many places in the U.S. will be facing a catastrophic and unmanageable surge in cases, with hospitals completely overwhelmed. And right alongside that, there will be the knowledge that the vaccine is out there, and “How the hell do I get my hands on it?!”

The amusing-if-it-weren’t-so-tragic part of it will be the conspiracy spin… from those people who for the better part of a year have been claiming it’s a hoax and it’s all bullshit… who will now be screaming that only the elite have access to it and how come we don’t all get it, like, *now*, and it’s my right to have a vaccine… my *constitutional* right as part of the Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Clearly a vaccine fits into that. Like, you know, I don’t want a vaccine, I don’t need a vaccine, vaccines are for crowd control, vaccines are to murder us, Bill Gates, 5G, etc, etc… *BUT*, even so, if I want a vaccine, I should be able to get one. OK.

Keep your seatbelts securely fastened… the roller-coaster has just begun that big downhill. This is the part where you can put your hands up in the air and scream… or just hold on for dear life. Like I keep saying, there’s a finish line… but it’s going to be a wild ride getting there.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-12-03T18:59:31-08:00November 23rd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19, Humour, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: Moderna, AstraZeneca, COVID-19, Pandemic, Vaccine, Vancouver, Canada, Masks, Science, Coronavirus, British Columbia, Second Wave, Pfizer|0 Comments

Day 250 – November 21, 2020

No B.C. numbers today, but here’s a brief look elsewhere…

Parts of Ontario (Toronto and Peel) are in a lockdown of the sort we saw around here at the start of this pandemic. Very tight constraints with respect to with whom you can get together, and strict rules around what that needs to look like. Everything else is pretty-much closed, except the essentials.

Saskatchewan saw a huge increase in numbers today, something they saw coming; measures were put in last week, but they’re now dealing with the effects of what came before. As we know, it can take a couple of weeks to realize the effects of these measures.

Alberta also set its record for new cases in the last 24 hours.

Today’s lesson in exponential growth comes from Nunavut… where, for the longest time (like till November), they’d seen zero cases. They got their first one Nov. 6th… their second one Nov. 7th… and then two more Nov. 8th. Then 8, 18, 26, 60… and they’re now over 100. Their graph is not a gentle slope or a hockey stick… it’s a literal cliff wall which they slammed into, after 7 months of flat road. That’s how this thing can take off.

In the spring, it was all about flattening the curve. For those late to the game, like Nunavut and Saskatchewan, where they never got a first wave, that’s where they’re at.

For places like Ontario and Quebec, it’s not just about flattening the potential frightening growth… it’s that the numbers, as flat as they may be (which they’re not) are already really big.

What’s worse… if you have 100 hospital beds available… to see cases go from 2 to 8 to 20 to 50 in a few days? Or to see them go 98, 99, 103, 98?

The answer is… it depends… on what measures are in place. Drastic measures are needed in example A, but example B is just as frantic, because it’s evidence of a problem that’s stressing the limits and that’s not going away unless something is done about it. Roughly speaking, example A is Nunavut and example B is Ontario.

The rate of growth is interesting to look at, on an apples-to-apples basis. I’ve added Time To Double (TTD) lines to the provincial graphs, and I’ve set them all (for now) to 20 and 25, so you can compare the data against those straight lines… and across provinces. Don’t worry too much about where those lines cross, just look at the slope of the data compared to the TTD lines. B.C. and Alberta are examples of consistent growth… you can see the recent growth is virtually parallel to the TTDs of 25. And at their steepest recent points, both Saskatchewan and Manitoba had recent TTDs approaching 10.

You’ll notice that Quebec and Ontario are a lot flatter. Indeed, their TTDs are 50 and 77 respectively. Their issue isn’t so much exponential growth… it’s just that any growth is already putting pressure on a system that at some point won’t be able to handle it.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-12-03T18:57:46-08:00November 21st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: Masks, Time to Double, Saskatchewan, Alberta, COVID-19, Numbers, Ontario, Graphs, Second Wave, Exponential Growth, Pandemic, Math Explained|5 Comments

November 19, 2020

Earlier today, Dr. Henry laid down the law… a detailed and lengthy list of restrictions, which are now in place for at least two weeks (Dec 7th)… and this now applies to the entire province. The whole thing can be read at www.bccdc.ca – but here’s the summary… go back to how you were doing things in March and April: No social gatherings outside your immediate bubble. No non-essential travel. And by the way, masks are now mandatory. Finally, some clout behind the good sense. If you’re out in public, indoors, wear a mask. It’s that simple, and every business and every person walking into a business… needs to respect that.

As heavy-handed as it sounds, it’s with a finish line on the horizon… and the idea is to get there without overwhelming our medical system. The numbers don’t lie; if we don’t change course, we will run out of hospital beds and equipment before we get there… yet, we know there are people who won’t follow the rules. We know there are people who held lavish parties over the weekend. Heck, I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but police in New York busted an actual Fight Club, with 200 fighters and numerous participants all crowded together. The U.S. went over 12,000,000 cases today… over 2,000 deaths today, for the first time. Almost 200,000 new cases today. Ouch.

It takes a while to see the effects of these orders… so, again, like back in March/April… we sit and wait… and hope things don’t spiral out of control.

From a flattening-the-curve point of view, when we’d actually flattened it… back in June, the cases Time To Double was 175 days. That dropped to 100 in July. In October, cases were doubling every 43 days. In the first week of November, that number dropped to 26. In the second week of November, down to 24. Right now it’s at 23. I’d be surprised and delighted if it managed to stay above 20, but nothing changed till today, so the trend that got us here is likely to continue before it turns around. Now, we just wait and see how much worse it gets before it gets better.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-19T21:11:30-08:00November 19th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: Second Wave, Fight Club, Dr Bonnie Henry, British Columbia, Masks, NYC|0 Comments

November 17, 2020

Back at the start of the pandemic, when things were growing frighteningly out of control, there were a lot of charts and diagrams being published about the present and future potential “Time to Double”. When you’re dealing with exponential growth, the steeper the curve, the quicker the numbers double from where they are today. For a while, things got frantic. Then they got flat. Now they’re not so flat anymore, but certainly not as steep as they were back then. Which is perhaps why there’s less panic about these ever-increasing numbers.

But maybe there should be a bit more concern than what’s actually being seen. It’s harder to move bigger numbers. But that’s because they’re already big, and we’re not just dealing with relative numbers here. We’re dealing with absolutes.

If you look at B.C, it’s pretty consistent over the last week… a 3% growth of cases on a daily basis. That translates to a TTD of about 25 days… meaning, at the rate things are increasing, we will go from 23,500 cases to 47,000 by Dec. 12th. We’d be hitting 100,000 by early January. The demand on hospital beds, ICU beds and ventilators will scale up proportionally as well. Today’s hospitalization and ICU numbers are the highest ever in this province. What’s also the highest, by a lot, is the 11 deaths over the last 24 hours.

I’m growing uneasy at the nonchalance that’s out there, potentially starting at the top. I’ll be honest, if I were in charge, commanding traffic, there would be some stiff measures being thrown into place. I’m clear on the reasons being given as to why that’s not happening; that the majority of transmission is taking place in private homes, by the nonchalant crowd who simply won’t listen to reason. And while that’s going on, restaurants and many other businesses are all open, because they have all the safety measures in place.

That’s all fine in theory, but for some reason I keep hearing about people catching this; people who are taking all the safety measures they can, and they simply get it, and they have no idea when or where or why. So yes, I would be heavy-handed and I would take a lot of flak for it and some businesses might fail, especially those who count on the holiday season to see them through the much leaner rest-of-the-year. But I would mitigate this with some intelligent guesswork with respect to what the future has to offer. Nobody likes to make announcements they can’t live up to, so we get ‘safe’ guesses. On the flipside, never underestimate the human potential when our backs are against the wall.

I have a bet with a friend that I think I’m going to cash, made back in March – me saying there will be a vaccine by the end of the calendar year; perhaps not one readily available, but the one we’ll all eventually get by the time they manufacture enough. But the public, not just test-subjects, will be getting jabbed with it by Dec 31st. And it’s looking likely that might happen.

We’ve all heard vaccines typically take 3 to 5 years. We’ve all heard this one will be super-rushed to get it down to 12 to 18 months. Here we are, 9 months into it… with a very real possibility that this particular finish line has already been hit. Way to go, humans.

Which brings me back to the point… a very viable finish line on the horizon, with a time period of “now till then” which is shorter than what we suffered through the first time. We’re hearing summer. We’re hearing by this time next year. And I’m saying it’ll be sooner than that… because it won’t be a magic switch. This will be like trying to get a car going, starting in 6th gear. You have to let that clutch out super-slowly, and you might damage it, but if you do it right, you won’t stall the car and eventually you’ll be up to speed. It’s a painful process to get there, but at some point, you realize your foot is completely off the clutch… and you’re driving normally. Similarly, as things slowly re-open for real, one day you’ll realize it’s back pretty-much back to normal.

When we locked this province down back in the spring, there were outcries of “overkill” and “our economy” and all that. But it worked. With a big, vast unknown future in front of us, we bought into it, we did it, and it worked.

I think it’s time to take that deep breath, suck it up, and do it all again… this time, with that finish line well in sight. Call me Captain Overkill – I don’t mind. I know a bit about risk/reward, and I’m not known for not taking risks… but that means carefully thinking about it and picking your spots. And this one, to me, is a no brainer. Everyone go home for a few weeks, close schools early, suffer through a very weird holiday season… and then things, sooner than later, will be better. A lot better. I promise.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-17T19:39:56-08:00November 17th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics, Science of COVID-19, Sports & Gaming|Tags: Measures, Pandemic, COVID-19, Masks, Vaccine, Cars, British Columbia, Numbers, Second Wave, Analogy|0 Comments

November 16, 2020

Terrific news today regarding Moderna’s vaccine trial… an unheard-of efficacy rate of 94.5%. In the study, 30,000 volunteers received a vaccination. Half of them got the real thing, half of them got salt water. Out of all those volunteers, 95 of them got infected with C19. Of those 95, 90 had gotten the placebo, and 5 had gotten the vaccine. Of those 5 who’d gotten the vaccine, none had a serious case of C19. Out of the other 90 cases, 11 of them were serious, a number that lines up with what’s been seen with some consistency out in the wild. In summary, as expected with any vaccine… it doesn’t guarantee you won’t get sick, but it dramatically cuts down your chances. And, if you do get sick, it’s likelier to be a milder course of illness. And, added bonus, this Moderna vaccine doesn’t need extreme cold to be transported or stored. It lives at the same temperature (conventional refrigeration) as many other common vaccines.

It’s great news if it holds up, like nobody in that study suddenly gets super-sick and has serious side-effects or anything like that. On that assumption, Moderna is already manufacturing for production, and some of the public (those at highest risk) might be getting the jab by late December. Perhaps by spring, we’ll be seeing a much larger general rollout. If that’s the case, there will be one hell of a lot of incredible summer parties. I’ll be sure to host a few. You’re all invited. Well… most of you.

However… we’re not there yet… and, as every day goes by, we seem to be drifting further and further from it. We will ultimately hit that finish line, but the idea is that most of us get there, and in good health.

I’ve added a new row of graphs… a graphic representation of deaths, just below the corresponding case-counts, just to keep a little reality in the picture… because there is a double-edge to the sword that will ultimately slay this virus, and that is… that this vaccine’s existence, whether today or in the future, gives many people the idea that this is all almost over and we can just gently glide to the end, and it’s party time now.

This is exactly not the time to let our collective guard down. The virus is still out there, the weather is getting colder and we’re all going to be indoors a lot more. The steepness of case counts and death counts – see attached. The gently rising curve of death hasn’t hit the levels we saw back in April, but it’s not hard to see the trend. We saw how quickly it blew up last time; not taking the proper measures could lead to this getting far worse. It’s up to us to not let that happen.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-16T21:34:04-08:00November 16th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Business & Economics, Science of COVID-19, Life in Vancouver|Tags: Science, Social Distancing, News, Moderna, Pandemic, COVID-19, Masks, Vaccine, Second Wave|0 Comments

November 13, 2020

Out of the top 20 worst countries to be in, with respect to this virus, there is only one that can claim less than 100 deaths per one million of population. For comparison, as per the attached data, U.S. has 750 and Canada has 283.

But India, a country of 1.4 billion people and widespread poverty and overcrowding and nowhere near enough infrastructure to handle the medical catastrophe this could be if it got out of control — they’re doing surprisingly well. Their number is 93.

They are second in the world for number of total cases; only the U.S., a country with a quarter the population of India, has more. But while 250,000 (and counting) people have died in the U.S., that number is only 130,000 in India. Even Brazil, a country with less than one seventh of India’s population (and a leader as despicable as Trump), has more. So… what’s going on?

Perhaps it’s better testing? But it’s not. The U.S. has tested about 500,000 per million. India has tested 89,000 per million. And through that testing, the U.S. has learned they have 33,000 cases per million, as opposed to India’s 6,300. There are presently almost 4 million active cases in the U.S. There are less than half a million in India.

No… the answer is actually pretty simple. Following the rules…. and masks. There have of course been lockdowns and a level of somewhat sophisticated and targeted Unlocks in different regions… but what has made a big difference is national buy-in with respect to masks, where 90% of the population believes they should be mandatory. There is a fine for not wearing a mask, around $20, but 40% of people think that fine should be increased.

For a while, a couple of months ago, it looked like India might spiral out of control. Their graphs looked a lot like what you see here… except they managed to get it under control… and it starts with people doing their part.

On a related note… Diwali this year begins tomorrow.

Diwali is the 5-day Indian festival of lights. I’m not familiar with the intricacies and symbolism, but the celebration part of it… I think if you change Diwali to Chanukah and the 5 to an 8… it’s pretty close. The whole family gets together, you eat great food, you hang out. Good times. Chanukah is in less than a month. A few weeks after that, Christmas. Right after that, Kwanza. If none of that applies to you, there’s always Festivus.

Dr. Henry reminds me a bit of British policemen, before they were allowed to carry guns. “Stop! Or I will say ‘Stop!’ again!”. Well, there’s only so much she can do. Especially now, as numbers are rising alarmingly… either you get it or you don’t. Two weeks ago was Halloween. Here we are. Where will we be in two weeks? This isn’t rocket science. Cause and effect are taught in grade school.

Whatever you’re celebrating… you know what’s ok and what’s not. For your benefit, for your family’s benefit, for everyone’s benefit… be responsible.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-13T19:37:20-08:00November 13th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19, Life in Vancouver, Humour|Tags: Graphs, Second Wave, Diwali, India, Dr Bonnie Henry, Masks, Brazil, COVID-19, Trump, Canada, Numbers, Science, USA|0 Comments

November 12, 2020

Today’s update is about numbers, because I’m looking at them… and they’re not great. At all. Dr. Bonnie is not pleased. B.C. has just gone over 20,000 cases. By tomorrow, Manitoba will have gone over 10,000… and Ontario over 90,000… and Quebec over 120,000.

And the U.S… wow. They blew through 10 million cases recently, but every day their growth is increasing sharply. Today’s new-case number of +164,878 is by far their biggest ever.

The pictures reflect all of this better than the words. Those are steep ramps everywhere, and even the logarithmic graphs are slanted upward… the U.S., Canada, everywhere. Around the word, daily, 10,000 people are dying.

Here are two little examples of exponential growth:

Imagine a chessboard… put a grain of salt on the first square. Put 2 on the 2nd square. Put 4 on the 3rd square… and so on. By the end, you’ll probably have a pretty big pile of salt, right? Enough to fill the room? Enough to salt the road from here to Whistler?

Well… after a couple of rows of the chessboard, it’d be about 3lbs of salt. Not a big deal.

At the end of the next row, you’d have enough to coat the floor of a big room. Hmm… perhaps more than you thought. I’ll cut to the chase… by the end, you’d have 18 trillion dollars worth of salt, and you’d need a box a mile long, wide and high to store it all.

Here’s a better one, and a chance to make some money! Imagine a piece of paper… you fold it in half. Fold it in half again… no big deal. How thick would it be if you could fold it 20 times? The answer is… 1km. Crazy, eh? You can’t come even close. Not even halfway close. So here’s a challenge… send me a video of you folding a piece of paper successfully in half 8 times… that’s it, just 8 simple little folds… any piece of paper you want. But it has to be in half every time, because that’s true exponential growth. Do it successfully and I will send you $1,000. Go for it.

That’s the thing with exponential growth… it’s simple and dismissable to begin with, and suddenly, it hits a tipping point, and it’s drastic. The latter half of the chess board is hugely problematic. The last 4 folds you’re about to attempt are a lot more difficult than the first 4. Like, incomparably more difficult.

And that’s exactly where we are now. I’m not sure where we are on the chessboard, nor on which paper-fold we’re at. But it feels like we’re pretty close to jumping from “this isn’t so bad” to… “Oh oh.”

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-12T20:04:18-08:00November 12th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: Quebec, Second Wave, Canada, Exponential Growth, Ontario, Math Explained, Money, Economics, Dr Bonnie Henry, Manitoba, COVID-19, Numbers|0 Comments

November 9, 2020

Tonight… November 9th, marks the 82nd anniversary of an event known as “Kristallnacht”. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a brief summary:

On the evening of November 9th, 1938, the mobs took to the streets in Nazi Germany. Jews were assaulted, beaten, and dragged from their homes… which were then ransacked. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were looted and destroyed. Hundreds of Jews lost their lives, many by suicide. Over 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.

The word “Kristallnacht” literally means “Crystal Night”, named for the piles of broken glass left behind. Indeed, if you were to try to find a “kick-off’ event for the Holocaust that ultimately claimed the lives of 6,000,000 Jews, this was probably it.

The German police stood around and did nothing to stop it. German citizens not participating stood around, many of them horrified at what they were seeing… but also did nothing.

Historians have been writing about, discussing and analyzing this event (and what led up to it, and what came from it) for decades. And every year, it is commemorated… with events where those who were there talk about their experiences, what they witnessed, how it affected their lives. Every year there are fewer of them… but it is important to remember it, to never forget. Those events are happening tonight, like they do every year… except, this time, via Zoom.

I was at one of these events four years ago, and it was more sombering than usual. Donald Trump had been elected the previous evening, and for many people, it was hitting a little too close to home. Nobody knew what lay ahead. Those historians were nervous; they’d seen this before.

Four years later, here we are… and I can assure you, the tone of this piece would be far different had we seen a different election result. I am not saying another four years of Trump would have led to something like that, but if something like that were being led to, we were in the midst of what it would’ve looked like. I’m sure we can all agree that if Hitler had been “un-elected” four years into his term, Kristallnacht, and everything that came after it, almost certainly wouldn’t have happened.

As ridiculous as they looked, dancing in the streets of Charlottesville with their Tiki Torches purchased at the local Walmart, the brown-shirts-to-be are no joke. That’s the “stand down and stand by” crowd, ready to follow their leader. That “leader” is on his way out, and he’ll eventually leave… flailing, kicking and screaming, firing people indiscriminately… like his Secretary of Defense today. Who knows what else he’ll try to pull in the next 72 days, but 72 is a lot less than 1,533.

I feel very relieved to not have to keep writing these “what if” pieces, because they’re tough to write and fill me with dread. Or, at least, used to. It’s like in one fell swoop, problem gone. And maybe you vehemently disagree that things could ever have gotten so bad. Perhaps you’re right. But now, all the conversations become hypothetical, and that’s a truly wonderful thing. And, to be clear, the underlying problem isn’t gone… there’s plenty of healing and plenty of fixing that needs to happen… but all of that starts from the top, with a true leader.

November 9th. November 11th. These are times to look back and remember, and an important part of remembering is learning; learning from what went wrong… learning so that it doesn’t happen again.

And they’re also times to look forward. It’s a time for optimism, and certainly that’s helped by today’s announcement from Pfizer, and their continuing study whose preliminary results show a vaccine that’s up to 90% effective at preventing C19. Maybe this is the one. Maybe this is close to the one. Either way, it implies it’s a solvable problem and we’re far along the path. It’s an appropriately-timed light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel announcement.

People have been telling each other this for a long time, and I’ve said it here many times… but it bears repeating, especially today: “It’s going to be OK.”

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-09T19:12:32-08:00November 9th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19, History|Tags: Germany, Charlottesville, USA, Mark Esper, COVID-19, Nazi Germany, Vaccine, Racism, Genocide, Science, Second Wave, Pfizer, US Election 2020, Kristallnacht, Trump, Holocaust|9 Comments

November 8, 2020

The effects of the 2-week restrictions that went into effect 19 hours ago won’t really be known till the end of that time period… so until then, we’re in a bit of a wait-and-see. It’s interesting to note that I’ve was typing out almost the identical sentiments back in late March… for example… https://kemeny.ca/2020/03/27/march-27-2020/

There’s really no difference except the numbers are far more frightening now, considering the potential trends. This could blow up horribly within these two weeks, and looking around at the rest of the country, there’s little about which to be optimistic. It’s not a question of whether it’ll get bad. The only question is to what extent. If it’s any indicator, I’m sad to report that Nunavut’s shutout has been broken. Their two cases aren’t much, but they’re no longer at zero.

Similar to the Covidiots down south who have a mushed-up (and messed-up) version of reality that combines conspiracies, freedom, vaccines, masks and hoaxes and, now, election fraud, closer to home, we have a bunch of “freedom-fighters” holding rallies across the country. Yesterday it was in Ontario. Today it’s on Vancouver Island. It’s incredibly annoying.

With Remembrance Day just around the corner, and keeping the heroes that died for our actual freedom in mind, instead we get clueless morons who think they’re making a monumental statement against government oppression by livestreaming their defiance of not wearing a mask on a BC Ferry… like I keep saying, I wouldn’t care if the stakes weren’t so high. Go stand on your soapbox outside the art gallery and tell us all how Bill Gates is trying to control the entire (flat) world by injecting us all with G5 trackers or whatever; just don’t impose your nonsense on people who can’t defend themselves against it. I sincerely hope one day soon that the band of crazies is once again free to voice their opinions without it potentially affecting us all.

Until then… I don’t have a great answer except that maybe it’s time to clamp down a little harder on those that not only ignore the rules, but flaunt it as well. Freedom also means everyone else’s right to not have these selfish fools imposed upon us.

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By Horatio Kemeny|2020-11-08T19:49:24-08:00November 8th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: Numbers, Freedom Fighter Rallies, Data, Ontario, USA, British Columbia, Graphs, Covidiots, Second Wave, Vancouver, Nunavut, Masks, Vancouver Island|5 Comments