Analyzing the Pandemic - Social Responsibility

This morning's local CBC radio morning show (Daybreak Kelowna) carried an interview with an entrepreneur who is now recovering after picking up the virus on a ski trip near Golden, BC.

" 'Selfishness has repercussions': Dragon's Den star recovering after catching COVID-19 on ski trip Lane Merrifield ‘frustrated’ and ‘angry’ to find out fellow skier had been overseas days before group trip."

Apparently, one of the other guests at the lodge had been to Angola just before the ski trip and was exhibiting some symptoms (which he hid), until he wasn't able to go out skiing and one of the man's children notified lodge staff that he was showing symptoms and that he had traveled recently.

The man was helicoptered out and other guests were notified.

"Selfishness has repercussions, and I think this gentleman decided to ignore all warnings, ignore all requests and just do what he wanted to do."

"He was adamant that either it's no big deal or maybe it couldn't happen to him or people are making much ado about nothing," Merrifield said.

The result was that seven others from the trip tested positive for the virus. Merrifield described his illness as pretty severe, although he didn't need to be hospitalized.

"It's taking awhile for my body to kind of come back from this one, unlike a cold or typical flu," he said."  He noted in the interview that all of the ski trip participants were in excellent physical condition with no underlying medical issues.  They still came down with the illness, hard.

"Merrifield urges people to heed warnings from health officials in regards to COVID-19 and staying home.

"Now's the time to be as selfless as we possibly can be and help each other out.""

It's worth repeating that it's been a directive from public health officials here in Canada for quite a few weeks that IF you have been out of the country, you need to self-isolate for 14 days after you return.  Following that advice would have prevented this outbreak from happening.

Merrifield also noted in the interview that he had parents in their 70s and was very concerned about what could have happened had he visited them before he knew he had been exposed.

Analyzing the Pandemic - The South Korean Response

I've been listening to and reading various analyses of how other countries have been handling the COVID-19 outbreak. Take South Korea, for example. That country didn't hear about the outbreak any sooner than any other country, so whatever one can say about the WHO, South Korea had the same information as every other country to deal with and the same amount of time to take action.

As of today, April 20th, South Korea has had 5 deaths/million population. The USA data shows 128/M and Canada 45/M

How South Korea Managed to Flatten the COVID-19 Curve.  Testing, contact tracing, attention to detail and leadership have helped get pandemic under control.

South Korea did this with a combination of following up on lessons learned from an earlier viral outbreak back in 2013, early preparation and some pretty impressive policies that were enforced right from the beginning.

I've noticed a number of comments and articles claiming that Canada was slow to act, perhaps too accepting of WHO recommendations, and so on. My challenge is for people to read this article, carefully, and see what South Korea did. 

Now, let's imagine that the Canadian government and every provincial government had taken exactly those steps and taken them as early as South Korea did. My feeling is that there would have been massive screaming and protests about government overreach, excessive invasion of privacy, civil disobedience and all the rest. Perhaps not the same as what's going on now in the USA, but I'm sure you know what I mean. 

If you feel that Canada was too slow to act, or that the WHO didn't warn us early enough, or that China delayed warning the rest of the world (this is at least partly true), explain how South Korea managed to do what it did. And would you have gone along with actions like those in South Korea? Be honest.

Living The Pandemic - Morning Rant II

Isolation Manor - April 16th, 2020

Total Confirmed Infected: 2,098,000       Total Deaths: 135,900

In a way, this isn't so much a rant as it could be.  More disappointment than anything.  I suppose what I feel could be summarized by the content of this small graphic:

Or, perhaps, by this one:

Simply put, it's all the completely ridiculous, far-fetched, silly, nonsensical, xenophobic, racist twaddle that we see every day, put out there by people who seem to have absolutely no clue about anything, especially science.

So, the other day, I decided to see what I could collect by way of lies, misinformation and conspiracies related to the current pandemic.  Very quickly, I realized that this was too big a task for one person (me) so I enlisted some help in the form of Wikipedia.  That organization had one very specific article dedicated to exactly what I was looking for.

Misinformation related to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic.

To briefly describe what I found, the article covered:

Conspiracy theories (the virus is a Chinese biological weapon, a US biological weapon, the Muslims had something to do with it, or the Israelis had something to do with it, or it's a spy operation or a form of population control.) [How the virus could be a product of all of these would be a good question].

Or, it could have been leaked accidentally from a lab somewhere.

There has been Medical Misinformation (there was already a vaccine, Africans are already immune, cocaine will cure the illness, the 5G cell network is responsible, vegetarians are immune, gargling with bleach will cure you [really??????], cruise ships are safe places to be....).

Or perhaps this is all a hoax to scare us into agreeing to a vaccine which will secretly implant a microchip in oour bodies designed by Bill Gates.  I mean...seriously?

Various governments have been spreading their own misinformation (America has promoted its own variety of this ranging from "it's a hoax", to the claim that there would be a vaccine very soon, that chloroquine was an approved and very useful treatment - "what have you got to lose?" - and so on.  Some of this has been discussed elsewhere).  The Brazilian president has steadfastly refused to recognize this as a problem.  Other countries around the world have reacted with varying degrees of stupidity, lies or inaction.  Sometimes all three.

Suffice it to say, it is a lengthy article and covers a lot of ground.  On Facebook (I know, why do I bother?) I've seen some posters claim that you can't make a vaccine for viruses because, you know, vaccines don't work for viruses.  Never mind that smallpox (a virus) was eliminated by a vaccine and polio (also a virus) has been nearly eradicated as well and measles (once again, a virus) is controlled pretty well by a vaccine, just as long as people actually get their vaccine when they're supposed to.  Such basic lack of knowledge is really quite stunning.

 What was really happening, though, a surprising number of people didn't want to talk about.

And this is the state of the world as it relates to science understanding in the early part of the year 2020, some 700+ years after Bubonic Plague rampaged through Europe.  As this article explains, we don't seem to have learned much since then..

Coronavirus and the Black Death: spread of misinformation and xenophobia shows we havnen't learned from our past.

This article from the Globe & Mail tells a similar story:  When misinformation goes viral: A brief history of plague panic, from the 1600s to today’s coronavirus crisis

And we like to think we're so smart.

Crisis in the Red Zone

Book Review - Crisis in the Red Zone by Richard Preston

This morning, I have a book that I would highly recommend. I know, I know, our days are so filled with frenetic activity (Netflix, Facebook, Zoom meetings....) that it's hard to squeeze in even one more thing. Seriously, we need more hours in each day.

It was almost entirely by coincidence that I put a hold on this book on BC's online library several weeks ago. Crisis in the Red Zone, by Richard Preston, tells the story of a series of Ebola outbreaks in Africa, the most recent of which more or less only ended in 2014.

There are many eery similarities with the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, although there are a few very definite differences. For one, Ebola had a mortality rate of around 50% and its effects on the body were devastating - hemorrhaging from body openings, uncontrollable diarrhea, vomiting ... it was a dire picture for anyone infected. Ebola wasn't a pandemic. It didn't spread around the world and the fact that it mostly happened in a few African countries meant that it received far less attention than the current virus.

Like the current outbreak, though, there was no vaccine and nothing really by way of treatment. Only now are there ongoing clinical trials for vaccines for Ebola.

The author notes that IF this virus had evolved just a little bit differently, it could have spread around the world, getting to know the human body as it spread, unimpressed by nationality, color or creed. To the virus, we are all just one thing: a host.

In the end, the outbreaks were quelled, not by medicine, but by human behaviour. "At some point, the people just got it". They finally accepted the truth: "Ebola wasn't a fiction or a plot by foreigners, it was a communicable disease." "People learned the symptoms.... They avoided contact with anyone who ... had the disease. They stopped going to funerals...." "They gave up their loved ones to an isolation ward so they could save other members of their families."

And, most tellingly, "When the stakes are your life and the lives of your family members, you figure things out pretty fast."

If you want a good description of the kind of chaos that goes on during outbreaks like these and the seemingly no-win decisions that medical authorities are forced to make, you need to read this book.

Why I Have No Spare Time

Isolation Manor - April 10th, 2020

The van build project continues.  Progress is slow at times, but it's starting to look more like a camper van from the inside, not just the outside.

I installed the solar panels a couple of weeks ago.  These are flexible panels rated at 100 watts each, glued with polyurethane to the roof of the van.  They've been busy keeping the house batteries charged ever since.  I'm also running a 12 volt fridge and some lights as well as charging the van's battery.  Today, in the sunlight, I was getting around 11 amps of charging current.

All the windows are in, as of a few weeks ago.  The last one to be installed was the large window in the sliding door which happened a few weeks ago on one of the unusual nice days we got this winter.  The others went in last fall before winter arrived.

I still have one more hole to cut and that will be where the water heater goes.  That's for later on.  We can heat water on the stove until then.

The inside is shaping up gradually.  This shows the fridge, part of the counter and the solar charge controller.  And, of course, odd bits of construction detritus scattered here and there.

At the back end of the van is the bunk's location along with the table.  We use a stove/oven combination.  Many of the van conversion projects I've seen get along with just a stove top or some other kind of minimalist cook stove.  We have an oven in our old, soon-to-be-retired van and we have loved having it over the years.  For one thing, there is far, far more you can do in the food department with an oven, and on long trips, that's important to us.

The sink, which is not quite visible, is a full-size, standard, single basin stainless steel sink.  We've never liked the mini sinks so common in RVs, so we put in a regular-sized kitchen sink.  Counter tops are close to normal kitchen height which should make them much easier to work at.  And there are drawers and small cupboards as well as storage under the seats.

Lots more to do, but we're almost at the stage where we could take it out for a test run and an overnight.  The project continues.

Isolation Manor, Out

Into the Pandemic - Finger Pointing

Isolation Manor - April 7th, 2020

Total cases: 1,511,333    Total Deaths: 88,400

Yes, it's already started.  Actually it started awhile ago with President Trump

First, he was gushing with praise about how well China was handling the virus.  Then it changed when he started calling it the Wuhan virus.

Donald, of course, wasted close to 2 months not taking the virus threat seriously.  Fortunately, he doesn't get to decide many things that matter.

The Democrats, of course have put this denialism into campaign videos already.  Count on seeing it until November.



And for inexplicable reasons, the far right seems to have decided that the messenger should be blamed for curtailing their "freedums"....

Just the other day, a Texas woman died, a self-proclaimed MAGA Trump supporter.  She basically went to her grave claiming that the virus was a hoax, nothing to worry about, nothing that common sense and good sense and...of course...guns...couldn't handle.  She's now dead.

And, if that wasn't enough, Trump was claiming that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were sure-fire treatments for the virus.  Two people drank aquarium cleaner (which contains chloroquine sulphate).  One dies, the other survived.  There was a saying, years ago, that loose lips sinks ships.  These days loose lips can kill, especially when your deluded followers actually believe everything you say.

The USA's National Security Council actually had a 69-page document outlining how to handle a pandemic, and, god knows, they do have people in that country with the knowledge and experience.  Trump and his administration ignored all of that advice.

The Daily Beast weighed in with some rather uncomplimentary remarks about Trump and his "handling" of the entire mess.  Kind words were very few and far between.  One out of many of my favourite quotes:

The catalog of excuses for Donald Trump's mishandling of the early, vital weeks of the Coronavirus story will go down in the annals of political mendacity, in part because the evidence is so abundant, so much video exists, and the change in tone from complacency to panic is so evident. 

As this whole mess continues on into April, The Atlantic has come out swinging.  In an article by Republican David Frum, dated April 7th, Trump and his Administration is, essentially, pilloried for it's inaction and lies. 

The failures and self-serving behaviour doesn't even stop there.  According to this story, there could be an underlying reason why DJT was so enthusiastic about hydroxychloroquine a few days ago.  Significant, hard to say, but it would fit a pattern.

And every day it gets worse.  I suppose I'll have to bring this post to some kind of conclusion because there isn't really an end to the egregious things that keep happening.  For instance, there was this article in the LA Times which reported that medical providers are finding orders for equipment not sent, orders taken away and equipment being seized.  They don't know if the equipment and supplies will come back when they're needed because nobody is talking about this with them.  And people affected by these actions can't talk about it because they fear retaliation from the White House.  What can one say, other than WTF?

Some people take a more humorous approach, as in this short piece from The New Yorker, saying that you need to sanitize your TV (and yourself) after Trump has been on.

And then there is Boris Johnson.  On April 6th, the news carried the story that Mr Johnson had gone into Intensive Care.  Now, Mr Johnson, some will surely believe, has been doing a great job managing the crisis in the UK.  The truth isn't so flattering.  In the beginning, Boris was suggesting that Britain should just let the virus run its course until heard immunity prevailed.  Obviously a person with no head for maths, Boris seemed to forget that such a tactic (if one can call such negligence a tactic) would have resulted in several hundred thousand to a million deaths.  He dropped that notion pretty quickly.  But he wasted time.  Time that could have been spent preparing.

Moving on, there is the President of Brazil.  I'm not a religious person, but in this case, all I can say is: God help Brazilians".  They have a belligerent idiot for a leader.  And if that wasn't bad enough, Brazil has "evangelicals" to make things even worse.

In Israel, there is growing criticism of some of that country's political leaders.  Seriously, people who should know better.

And there is more.  Always more.  Gone is the era where whole countries suffered in isolation.  Now we are in isolation with the actions of everyone else in the world on full display.  

Into the Pandemic - Morning Rant # 1

I should know better than to use Facebook.  Many really great people are out there bolstering everyone spirits, trying to find humour in the face of societal upheaval and passing on useful tips, but..... there are others......

This is my response to one class of post that I've seen in the past few days:

Over the past couple of days, I've seen a number of posts criticizing Canada's public health officials for their position in not recommending face masks. Terms like "flip-flopping", "slow to act" and so on.... To those making such posts, I have this to say: 

It must be nice to be the kind of person who, when asked to make a decision about something that is completely unprecedented, and to make that decision without much information and data, it must be nice to never, ever, have made a bad call. Or to have made a decision that you might have to change later on, once you had more information. 

Canada's public health people have been doing an incredible job in the face of limited and rapidly changing information. If they make decisions, they are at least based on the best data they have at the time, unlike - very unlike - some of the statements that come from the mouths of certain "leaders" in some other countries. Canada's public health people are not soothsayers or people who can see the future. They have no magical powers. They can only apply their training (which, I'm sure I don't need to point out, most of us DO NOT have), and their experience, using only the data they have available, in making decisions that will have huge implications on the lives of millions of Canadians. And for which they will accept responsibility, again, unlike certain other "leaders".

          Unless YOU think you could function better in such an environment, you really need to STFU. 

As for the issue at hand, face masks. The best advice we can all follow is to wash our hands, try to not touch our faces and stay away from people we don't already live with. Face masks, unless you're talking about special N95 masks, will do almost nothing to prevent YOU from inhaling the virus. Wearing something on your face might help prevent you from spreading droplets that could pass the virus on to others. But they will not allow you to revert to life as normal prior to this outbreak. Most of us do not know how to use masks properly anyway. As evidenced by people's careless actions with gloves and such, we don't seem to know how to dispose of them either. There aren't enough face masks to go around, even if they were useful in some way. Masks ARE needed by people in high-risk situations like health-care workers. Their needs MUST come first. 

Honestly, people, let's not let our anal orifice get ahead of our critical thinking skills.

[Update - April 10th]

In an article from the Toronto Sun, adding to the bitching about masks, flip-flops, ad infinitum....  I posted the following comment to their page:

Sorry, Sun. Once again, you've either got it wrong or you've glossed over important considerations on this issue. First and foremost - there apparently is a limited supply of the only masks that will actually trap the virus (N95 masks viruses 95%). Healthcare workers need them. Very few of the general public do. Second, the masks will NOT protect you from the virus (unless you have an N95 mask and you're happy with the 95% effectiveness) so they won't life to "return to normal". The masks will help stop the spread of water droplets that carry the virus, thus helping to prevent transmission to others. Third, most people have NO CLUE how to use these masks properly. There are many, many anecdotal reports of people touching the masks, not covering the nose and the mouth, wearing them under their chin, not fitting them tightly enough and lifting them up to lick their fingers, for Pete's sake. Fourth, studies on viral persistence on various surfaces have found that they will "survive" on surgical masks for up to 7 days, making them a potential hotbed of viral contamination. Fifth, people aren't disposing of their gloves properly. They're discarding them in parking lots, in parks, on the streets. In what parallel universe do you believe people are going to dispose of these possibly contaminated masks any better? As a media outlet, these are just some of the issues you could have addressed, but instead, you chose to undermine public health officials who are trying to make decisions in the bet interests of the public at large AND the healthcare system, all with limited and rapidly changing information. Frankly, we should be able to expect better of you. Please try to up your game here.

Into the Pandemic - Shopping for Food

Isolation Manor 2 - April 4th, 2020

Total confirmed infected: 1,182,999   Total deaths: 64,000

Made a solo foray out to get supplies this morning.  Usually the other occupant of Isolation Manor comes with me and we do a team process.  She goes in the store and I "man" (person?) the getaway vehicle with the washing station and disinfection equipment.  Then we go home and do the sorting and washing process,  Today, though, I was all alone, having come down to Isolation Manor 2 so I could do some other renovations for a couple of days.  This occupied most of the morning and it went like this:

First, my never-leave-home-without-it sanitation kit.  An ice cream pail with warm water for washing, a thermos of hot water to warm up the warm water, a bar of soap and spray bottle of bleach solution (probably 10 ppm, although I haven't tested the concentration so far) and a "bleach cloth" for wiping things down, especially vehicle door handles, steering wheel, shift lever....  I keep this kit in the back of the truck, which is where all the bags go.

Before I get into the technicalities, I need to say how impressed I was with the way stores are organized to make this work.  Each store I was in had someone assigned to clean shopping cart handles, there was hand sanitizer available and in two stores I was asked to use it before I entered the store.  There were markers on the floors indicating 2-meter distances.  In one store they were in each aisle along with direction arrows.  Shields were in place to protect cashiers.  The shelves were well stocked (even TP was available in quantity although there was a one package limit), everything was even cleaner than usual AND people were friendly and helpful and efficient.

Some stores have designated certain times that are for seniors and those with special health risks.  I was at it early this morning and the stores were not that busy.

The shopping "experience" was almost normal, just with a few minor adjustments.

After each store visit (I had to go to 3 different stores and 1 garden center) I put the bags in the box of the truck and then washed my hands on the tailgate of the truck.  Only then did I get into the truck to go to the next location.

Once home, the real process began.

First, I took my shoes off at the door and went to the basement where I put my clothes in the washing machine (sorry - no pictures available...), started that up and had a shower, before going back upstairs.

Then, I cleaned two kitchen areas and filled one sink bowl with hot, soapy water.  One area close to the door is designated the "dirty" area and the one to the right of the sink is the "clean" area.

As I brought things in, I washed and wiped down each package and set it aside to drain before packing it away wherever it need to go.  The bags I put back outside and sat the cardboard boxes outside too in the sun.  I'm assuming that some UV will help.

This process was described in a video that I watched a week or so ago.  We've used it a few times now and we seem to have the whole process working properly.  If you haven't seen it, you can see it here:

Happily, all this only took about 3 hours.  

I know some of this might seem like massive overkill, but I actually know how small a virus is and what the risk factors are for someone my age and until someone comes up with a way you can see where the little buggers are and until there's a vaccine, I'm going to err on the side of caution.

One note:  I didn't use plastic gloves or a mask.  Wash your hands, don't touch your face and stay away from people.

Isolation Manor 2 ... Out