Common Sense Virus

[Warren Toda]

This is why  I'm now selling anti-viral two-ply Pandemic Poopy Paper™.


I vote we never use the phrase "going viral" for anything ever again.


For all those times my Grade 6 teacher said I should be more social and join in class groups - Ha! Now look who's right, Mrs. Campbell!


Have you been humming that song from The Police:

          New virus, the subject
          Of public panicking
          It's spreading so quickly
          I have to wash my hands
          In cities there's lockdown
          I have to stay inside
          No money, my job's gone
          This makes me want to hide

          Don't stand, don't stand so
          Don't stand so close to me
          Don't stand, don't stand so
          Don't stand so close to me



So the US is putting troops on the border to prevent people from sneaking into the US from Canada.  Well, let's take a look at the replay:

February 26: Canada   50 cases.        March 26: about     4,024
February 26: USA        15 cases.        March 26: about   86,000

If anything, maybe we need to stop Americans trying to sneak into Canada.



Some cities like New York are limiting groups to just one person. This leads to the strange situation where, if you want to be alone, you go out in public.

This also brings to mind the obvious phrase: alone together.

Is alone together the inevitable conclusion of social media? Will people who've spent the past ten years of their life on social media even notice social distancing? Or maybe social media is social distancing.




Edit: added a link to The Police for those who may be musically challenged.

[Warren Toda]

In an earlier post I wrote:

In dark times like this, one might think our government would invest more money in web design.

Thank goodness someone in charge is listening to me. The federal site now has better graphics, some nice rollover effects on the map and even some animations (push "play")! My panic has subsided.

You'll note that things went really bad starting March 15. But you expected that, right? Remember your history about the Ides of March. The Curse of Caesar is true!


This is the first time, but not the last time, that you can serve your country by staying home and watching TV. It's easy to be a hero and you don't need a cape. Although I bet many of us would still like to wear a cape.


If you're a parent of young children, remember all those times you told your kids, "Turn that off and go play outside" ?


Here in Toronto, why are there so many discarded rubber gloves and face masks littered on the ground?

Toronto people: if you're self-isolating in your parked car and playing with your cell phone, at least turn off the engine.



The top three people leading the fight against COVID-19 in the UK have all tested positive. British people are still not amused.



RBC bank is telling its customers: "In the event of a branch closure, a notice will be posted on the branch door."

Thanks goodness, a sign on the door. For a while there, I was worried about my finances.

RBC will even loan you more money so you can get further in debt.



Spiegel has an interview with Stefan Drager, the CEO of Dragerwerk, the world's largest manufacturer of hospital ventilators. Even though Dragerwerk is hiring 500 new employees and will quadruple production, Drager said they and all other manufacturers combined cannot meet current demand for ventilators.

When asked if auto manufacturers can switch from building cars to assembling ventilators, Drager suggested that auto manufacturers can build ventilators as much as he can build cars.



If nothing else, the current situation is preparing you for your future life in retirement:

Spending a lot of time at home, the highlight of your week is grocery shopping, worrying about your income, not seeing your kids and grandkids that much anymore, friends no longer stopping by, and noticing that there's nothing good on TV anymore.



For those of you playing along at home:

China went from    1 to  82,000 in about 19 weeks. (November 17, 2019, to March 28)
USA went from      1 to 123,000 in about 10 weeks  (January 19 to March 28)
Canada went from 1 to    5,500 in about   9 weeks. (January 25 to March 28)

Canada tripled its count in the past week. Thank goodness people didn't travel for March break   


China denied and covered up the existence of the virus for the first six weeks (November 17 to December 31).
 
The US (aka. Trump and supporters) ignored the virus and downplayed its threat for the first six weeks (January 19 to end of February).

Canada was ready and waiting three weeks before its first case but was arguably slow to screen incoming travelers and close international borders. Although everything is easier in hindsight.



Ontario has lowered allowable gathering size from 50 to 5 people. Well, there goes square dancing.



If a spreading virus followed by international economic collapse isn't enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, how about rising taxes? All levels are government are spending enormous amounts of money and will be receiving much lower tax revenues. Some Ontario municipalities are saying that a stiff rise in property taxes will be their only solution if higher levels of government don't help them.

And farmers are warning of a food shortage and higher food prices.

Have a nice day.


And wash your hands.




Edit: Normally I have an intern who proofreads my posts. But due to hygiene and social distancing, I've told her to stop licking the crumbs from my keyboard and go lie down in the corner. My dog is doing okay, too. [rimshot]

[Warren Toda]

Dear Diary:

• Finished the Internet

• Organized sock drawer. All socks pointing north.

• Completed still life photos of all fruit in refrigerator

• Have eaten all fruit in refrigerator

• Buy more fruit

• Fed squirrels in backyard

• Started long-term project: time-lapse video of dust buildup on coffee table

• Checked cameras - all work fine

• Topped up all batteries

• Organized sock drawer. All socks pointing west.

• Neighbour owes me $60 says he can't pay due to social distancing. I returned his chainsaw but coughed all over it.

• Lots of squirrels in backyard

• Cleaned lenses in order of increasing focal length

• Cleaned lenses in order of decreasing focal length

• Lenses look clean but should get more lens cleaner

• Checked cameras - all work fine

• Topped up all batteries

• Organized sock drawer. Cotton socks pointing north, poly-blends pointing west.

• Chased squirrels out of backyard

• Things getting desperate. Have started drinking own urine.

• Note to self: stop drinking own urine

• Checked cameras - all work fine

• Drained batteries so I can top them up

• Pandemic will last months. Have thrown out all socks.

• Googling squirrel recipes

• Drinking hand sanitizer and eating toilet paper

• Not looking forward to Day Two of isolation.

[Warren Toda]

Talk about March Madness.  In Canada, cumulative totals:

March   1:     15 cases               0.04 per 100,000
March 10:     77                        0.20 per 100,000
March 20: 1004                        2.66 per 100,000
March 30: 7500 (approx.)        19.9     per 100,000   (China  is 5.7 per 100,000)


The old saying still rings true: March comes in like a flu and goes out like a pandemic.

Can anyone remember all the way back to March 1st? You could rub up against strangers in the grocery store, shake hands with everyone you met and lick as many handrails as you wanted. Ah, those were simpler, carefree times back then.

At the start of March, newspaper headlines screamed about panic and doom unlike today where they scream about panic and doom. Newspapers have to learn to pace themselves and dole out the fear and panic more slowly. Having the sky fall every day is a quick way to jade their readers.  One would think that the news media would've learned this lesson from every other disaster over the past half-century or so.

Anyone over 50 years old – so that rules out almost every journalist today – won't ever forget the pandemic that swept around the globe in the 1970s and lasted almost the entire decade: Disco Fever.

It was horrible. Outbreaks of spandex and polyester everywhere.

Early symptoms of the disease included jive talking and digging it. There was no vaccine. As the disease progressed, victims would shake their booty and boogie all night long.

Fortunately it went away because those infected with it were social distanced by everyone else around them. But from time to time, there are flare-ups of Disco Fever usually on cruise ships and at holiday resorts.



McDonalds said it won't be bringing back its popular McBat sandwich.



Each week, health officials say that the upcoming week will be critical. Yet we continue to act like a joy-riding teenage driver blowing past stop signs.



Toronto's Emergency Operations Centre has been mobilized for 20 days. No idea how this differs from the city's regular operations centre. I like to think the Emergency Operations Centre is hidden inside a mountain or in a frozen Arctic fortress. I'll be really disappointed if it's located in a downtown Holiday Inn.



The Ontario government wanted to have some mandatory online courses for all students in the province. Teacher unions fought against it and the government backed off. That was a long four weeks ago. Irony of ironies, online courses may be the only thing left.



It's been my long-held theory that a country's overall intelligence is proportional to its distance from the equator. This may or may not have anything to do with the current pandemic.



To take your mind off the pandemic, here are some fun statistics about war, genocide, political purges and diseases:

Wikipedia (sorry for linking to Wikipedia) has a list of all wars, genocides, political purges, etc. throughout most human history. Even if you take this list with a big grain of salt, the list is so long and the number of deaths so high, it's unbelievable. Makes you glad not to be part of the human race.

Here are some colourful charts showing all causes of death worldwide and for each country. Spoiler alert: don't smoke, eat more vegetables, turn that off and go outside.




Edit: updated some numbers as Canada's numbers are always changing.

[Warren Toda]

Remember the last pandemic that swept the world about 10-1/2 years ago? Back then, an Ontario public health official said that he didn't foresee any panic being triggered by an H1N1 pandemic declaration. And he was right. There was no hoarding and no rush to buy toilet paper or hand sanitizer. There was a mild rush to buy face masks.

When a vaccine became available there was a mild panic to get vaccinated – remember photographing the loooong lineups? Remember the controversy when some of the early batches of vaccine, intended for healthcare workers, first responders and other at-risk people, were "diverted" to wealthy private clinics and pro sports teams (and here)?


The 2009 to 2010 H1N1 pandemic, (and here), not to be confused with the H1N1 pandemic of the 20th century, was quickly spread by people traveling from country to country. Sound familiar?

Canada:
     Confirmed cases: +25,000           (Covid-19: 7,500 so far)
     Hospitalized: 8,600 - 15,000       (Covid-19:    446 so far)
     Deaths: 428                                 (Covid-19:      89 so far)

Worldwide:
     Estimated cases: about 60 million      (Covid-19: 800,000 so far)
     Deaths: about 18,500 (lab confirmed) but estimated: 151,700 to 575,400    (Covid-19: 38,000 so far)
     (Back then, worldwide data reporting wasn't as good as today. It was improved right after this pandemic.)


What was the advice to avoid H1N1?

Wash your hands frequently, cough into your sleeve, keep your hands away from your face, and yes, the exact phrase "social distancing" was a thing back then (at least in 2010).

For your reading enjoyment, there are many available reports, both Canadian (another here-pdf) and international, about the 2009–2010 H1N1 pandemic. Many reports recommended stocking more medical supplies and more ventilators.


Another recommendation that came out of the H1N1 pandemic is that, to minimize virus spread during a pandemic, governments should consider closing schools and promote social distancing by limiting public events/public gatherings. So what we're seeing today is governments acting on lessons learned from the previous pandemic.


I have not seen any news outlet publish a week-by-week comparison of the H1N1 pandemic vs Covid-19 pandemic. That's right, (deep voice) The Battle of the Pandemics™.  During the H1N1 pandemic, the government put out weekly numbers and now during Covid-19, it's doing daily numbers.

Covid-19 numbers are lower than H1N1. But H1N1 lasted a year and Covid-19 is only four months old, there's still more to come. Technically H1N1 is still around, in Canada as recently as last fall, but the H1N1 pandemic is over.


What the H1N1 recommendations didn't mention are the economic and psychological side effects of closing things down. Both of these make a pandemic seem worse.

Economically, Covid-19 will easily cost Canada  10X more than H1N1. Don't be surprised if it ends up costing   100X more than H1N1.

On the psychological side, Covid-19 needs a better public image, it needs Pandemic PR™.

You're not shutting down businesses, you're giving people more holidays! Woo! A free staycation for everyone!

Calling it quarantine or isolation only builds fear. Someone should not be forced into isolation but rather they should win a Pandemic Party™ for one! Give them a party hat, balloons, toilet paper and a month's free Netflix.



What makes Covid-19 seem worse than H1N1:

1) Increased, improved and faster data reporting since H1N1. More statistics than you can cough on.

2) Today we've got a newer version of Microsoft Office and we have better web design. Not a joke. The ability to easily and quickly create pretty bar graphs and having more entertaining web graphics mean that more people are following the Covid-19 pandemic. If you like this pandemic, click here to subscribe.

3) During the 2009 to 2010 pandemic, Instagram didn't exist, Twitter was a minor distraction and Facebook had only 350 million users (about 20% of its current users).



I hope you're still washing your hands.




Edit: added a bunch of links.

[Warren Toda]

Statistics can be both useful and useless and sometimes even at the same time.

Vatican City    =>  750 cumulative cases per 100,000 people
Luxembourg   =>  372
Iceland           =>  359
Spain              =>  222
Switzerland    =>   206
Italy               =>   183
Belgium         =>   121
Austria           =>   119
Germany        =>     93
Norway          =>     90
France           =>     89
Portugal         =>     82
Netherlands   =>     81
Israel             =>     71
Ireland           =>     70
USA               =>      65
Denmark        =>     57
Sweden          =>     49
UK                 =>     44
Czechia         =>      33
Canada         =>     26    Poland (same population as Canada but higher density): 7 per 100,000.
South Korea   =>     20
Australia        =>     19
China             =>       6
Brazil             =>       3
Japan             =>       2

[Warren Toda]

Is it safe to assume that our next several monthly clip contests will just be pictures of people in face masks?


A US man was charged with assaulting FBI detectives by allegedly coughing on them.

Added April 10: Also in Canada.


At my local Loblaws grocery store, the front-door security guard said that no cloth bags are allowed in the store because you might put them down on the floor.



City of Toronto last week had to shut down at least 514 businesses that were told to shut down the week before.



There must be a lot of companies busy printing social distancing floor stickers. I saw floor stickers inside and outside several stores and banks.

Some of these stickers used purple and yellow Easter colours and a happy font: "I'm social distancing!" 

There were bright green stickers with "Social Distance" and illustrations of feet. Or maybe those were dance steps to be followed?

Some stickers used yellow, the official warning colour, and bold black text: "Stay six feet apart."

I would've used black and white stickers with a skull and crossbones: "Stand here or die."



T-shirt: Went on March Break and all I got is a virus



Seven percent of Canadian drivers don't wear seat belts. They account for 40% of collision fatalities. Does this suggest that a small percentage of people who aren't practicing our nation's Pandemic Principles™ are causing much of our current healthcare problems?



For geologists, the big one is an earthquake that will destroy the western edge of North America and kill tens of millions.

For epidemiologists, the big one is a pandemic that will infect almost everyone and kill tens of millions.

For the military, the big one is a nuclear world war that will kill tens of millions.

For the rest of us, the big one is all-you-can-eat wings night.




Edit: added a link

[Warren Toda]

Not bragging but Covid-19 is my 7th pandemic.

ICYMI: there are currently two other pandemics happening around the world. But those are boring pandemics. Only about 3.5 million deaths per year (in 2018).


Would things be different if we had used "physical distance" instead of "social distance?"


With 16,000 cumulative cases in Canada (42.4 per 100,000 people), it's now almost the same as winning a free Lottery 649 ticket (45.8 per 100,000 people).


Tomorrow, April 7 (the founding day of the World Health Organization), is World Health Day. So how healthy is the world?  This year's theme for World Health Day is a celebration of nurses and midwives.  How appropriate! And necessary.

[Warren Toda]

Spent much of today washing my money – normal cycle, medium temperature. The coins made an awful lot of noise in the dryer, maybe should've added a few towels. Thank goodness Canada moved to polymer banknotes a few year ago. That stuff doesn't need to be ironed.

This is the only time when it's good to be a money launderer.

Pro tip: don't use bleach when washing the banknotes.



I just finished stocking up on toilet paper and now I've got to start hoarding coffee filters?

Just to get ahead of the curve, I'm starting to hoard furnace filters, vehicle air filters and oil filters, Brita water filters and ShopVac filters. Thank goodness I already have a good stash of lens filters.



You know modern day technology has failed us when we have to rely on 18th century techniques (put a piece of cloth over your mouth) to protect us from a modern day plague.

Big tech wasted all that time on developing self-driving cars, cell phones that have multiple lenses, and cutesy photo filters. What if they had spent that time and money developing a way to re-sterilize face masks and other one-time-use surgical gear? Instead of one-time-use masks, we might have reusable masks which would be a big help when supplies are low. (Can you steam clean or UV clean an N95 mask?) But then, supplies have never been low before and I really want a self-driving car and a cell phone with six camera lenses.



Canadians told: wear a non-medical mask when shopping or using public transit.

C'mon folks, that's a challenge waiting to be accepted! Scuba mask and snorkel, gas mask, a bucket, plastic bottle, welding helmet, a panty, umbrella helmet, and other fun masks. My favourite has to be the classic Medieval Plague Mask (a bit of history here).

And in case you missed it, the federal government just tossed newspapers a bone.

You learned the word "epidemiologist" and now here's new word #2: origamiologist. Who said a pandemic couldn't be educational?

Get your newspaper to contact a local origamiologist, someone who's an expert in origamiology, and have them provide instructions on how to fold a sheet of newspaper into a face mask. Boom! Newsprint sales through the roof. You're welcome.


How soon before the government has to warn people not to put plastic bags over their head?




Edit: added some links.

[Warren Toda]

Panic loves company as much as misery does.


With so many people wearing face masks, at the bank today it was tough to tell the pandemic people from the bank robbers.


The World Health Organization (WHO) faced criticism about its pandemic performance. In response, WHO acted quickly and launched a new web site with easy-to-remember URL, faster load times, better graphics, more colour and nicer rollover effects.

I want to take a moment to recognize the unsung heroes working the front lines of this pandemic: web designers.

If it weren't for these web designers working at unsanitized keyboards, eight hours per day, we wouldn't have so much to panic about. "Ignorance is bliss," I always say. "What you don't know can't hurt you."

Thanks to these flashy web sites, news outlets can write articles about how to read a graph, how to understand numbers, best virus graphs, best coronavirus charts. How long are you willing to stare at the dots?

CBC news actually had a reporter explaining how a line graph works - this is where the graph begins, this is called "the slope" and this is the top.

Too bad people, or at least some news outlets, aren't as smart as a fifth grader.



Many businesses have published statements about "these uncertain times", "these difficult times" and that they are "acknowledging social distance."  These companies "are monitoring the situation closely and taking important steps" to protect the health and safety of their customers and employees.

McDonalds is now enforcing "strict hand-washing and cleaning procedures." I guess before this they had only casual cleaning procedures.

How are companies closely monitoring the situation? I bet it's like this or maybe this. I hate to think it's just someone watching TV news.

Behind those special doors next to the grocery store butcher counter, store clerks are probably monitoring the situation closely.



Here at Wiggly's Deli Sandwiches, Pool Chemicals, Daycare and Bait Shop, we are closely monitoring the situation. We have taken important steps to protect the health and safety of our customers and our employees.

In support of social distance, we have moved most of the bait buckets six feet away from the sandwich counter. This should also lower the chances of our employees accidentally mixing up the pastrami and the red wigglers again.

We will enforce new hygiene procedures for the next few weeks:
         (1) we won't use the same spoon for preparing the potato salad and mixing the pool chemicals.
         (2) employees will be strongly encouraged to wash their hands before preparing your food.
         (3) any child vomit on the floor will now be cleaned up within 24 hours.



How are Canada's blood banks doing?



Within a week, Canada should break into the top twelve countries with most coronavirus cases. The good news is that by entering the top twelve, Canada will become a featured country on the WHO's new web site!

In a much earlier post, I wrote that Canada would not be among the top ten countries. I'm now either proud or sad to say that Canada could break the top ten before the end of April.



What if they had a pandemic and nobody showed up?



Two viruses each board a train at Union Station in Winnipeg. Each train is carrying 1,000 passengers. One train heads west toward Vancouver at 150 km/hr with an infection rate of 50 people per hour. The other goes east to Montreal at 60 km/hr with an infection rate of 90 people per hour.

(1) At what point along the route will each train run out of club sandwiches?

(2) What year will the Maple Leafs win the Cup?

Remember to show your work.




The rain had been beating a steady rhythm against my office window for several days. But it was still not enough to wash away the years of grime and neglect. Business was slow and I was spending the day isolated in my office getting to know the bottle of whiskey I keep in my desk drawer. I wasn't certain what time it was because these were uncertain times.

The streets were cold and empty, just like my wife Purell who ran away with the heir to a toilet paper fortune.

I was nearing the bottom of the bottle when my office door burst open.

She rushed into my office like she was rushing into a hospital emergency ward with a contagious virus. One look at this dame in her tight-fitting face mask and I was feeling a fever.

Said her name was Epi Demiology. Sounded Greek to me.

She needed my help finding the guy who was ruining her life.

I know all about lowlife and scum. I deal with these plagues on humanity all the time.

The name's Vaccine, Vinny Vaccine. And I'm a PI - a pandemic investigator.

Epi gives me all the details.

The guy's name is Covid and he's been making her sick. She said her life's been turned upside down ever since he came to town. She's afraid to leave home.

Seems this Covid is a bit of a charmer. He can sneak up on you and, before you know it, he's under your skin and you can't shake him. He's been working his way through shopping malls, nightclubs, any place where crowds gather.

Epi's got a bad case of the guy and she wants me to wash him out her life.

This sounded dangerous. I packed a fully loaded bottle of hand sanitizer into my holster and headed out into the night.

[Warren Toda]

This pandemic is bringing us all closer together. But back up a few feet.


We will help each other get through this. But don't ask me to loan you any money.


Coming soon to those waste-of-time photo web sites:

          How I shot a wedding while in isolation in my living room

          How I shot a corporate annual report in my kitchen while in isolation

          How I shot a TV commercial from my front porch with only a cell phone while in isolation


A few vacuous news stories this week: how to decorate your home office; what to wear while working at home; with nail salons closed, how to apply your own nail polish; what music to listen to during isolation.


Toronto is getting about 300 complaints per day of people standing too close together. One person actually complained about police officers standing too close together while they were investigating a crime.


The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team last week donated 10,000 face masks to hospitals. Why didn't any reporter ask the obvious question: What is a hockey team doing with 10,000 face masks and how many more do they have?


How to sew your own face mask:
        1) Buy a sewing machine
        2) Find a fabric store that hasn't closed
        3) ...


Obviously someone important has been reading this thread because a few days ago the John Hopkins web site updated its site to include number of cases per 100,000 people ("Incidence Rate"). 

It now allows Americans to track the virus on a county-by-county basis. By next pandemic, I think we'll be able to track a virus on a street-by-street basis. Maybe with video game graphics. Couple this with Google Maps Streetview . . .



Pandemics are also a good way to learn geography. Before Covid-19, could you locate San Marino or Andorra? These are two of the most infected countries.



I can be just as non-essential as someone who make five times more than me. This means I'm more cost-effective at being non-essential.



If you have time on your hands, Stats Canada needs you. This may be the only time you'll actually want to do an online survey.



I think it was T.S. Eliot who wrote, "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a virus."



Do you ever get the feeling that politicians and the assorted news media "experts" are just winging it? Granted there's no twenty-first-century history to draw upon and no one remembers anything before that.

With most governments and news media using war references, this brings to mind the famous phrase that "the first casualty of war is truth."

Truth becomes a casualty not automatically but when it is disregarded or ignored by governments and the news media.

Some news outlets today report unchecked pandemic information or they take online information as fact. They copy from other publications.

As a journalist, some of us were taught to "believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see," (a phrase attributed to Edgar Allan Poe). This meant that you should always be skeptical, don't assume anything and always check sources.

Every photographer should know the Harold Evans quote: "The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth."

Every photographer knows that what you crop out of a photo is just as important as what you leave in. But this knowledge hasn't seeped into the non-photo side of journalism.

What you don't report is just as important as what you do.  But it seems that some news outlets simply follow the mantra: it can't be wrong if we all do it. (Photo taken from this site)

This is how the news media kills the truth. Information and other facts are selectively reported, often out of context and without the needed perspective. The news becomes an accessory to untruth.



Why are sports departments rewriting old sports events as if these sports are happening today? Are writers and readers that lost for ideas of what to do?  If that's the best sports can do, why not just layoff the sports dept. and save a few bucks? (Apply for federal wage subsidies, of course).

Since sports reporters are being paid to rewrite old stories, I bet sports photographers are making good money on resales/reuse of their old photos, right?



Newspapers have a prime opportunity right now to re-think, re-jig, re-deploy their business and (re)connect with readers. So far, the best some newspapers can do is unlock a few coronavirus pages.

There is a captive audience right in front of you! Do something! There are only 15 months left in this pandemic.

Put all pandemic information in one section. One section. Stop scattering information all over the place.

Limit what you publish about the pandemic. More is not better, it just adds to the confusion. Be a daily newspaper not a minute-by-minute newspaper. You don't have to compete with 24-hour TV news.

Understand both the value of numbers and the futility of numbers.  A principle of tabloid newspapers is/was to always emphasize the numbers. But just as you sometimes can't see the forest for the trees, sometimes you can't see the story for the numbers.

Stop rerunning online stories with just the headline changed (*cough* CBC *cough*).

Stop using misleading, out-of-context, useless stock pictures as "news" photos to show what it's like in a hospital, in a bio lab, in a home office, etc. You're fooling no one but yourselves.

Stop using photos from China, Italy or New York City to illustrate what's happening, or could happen, in Canada.

If a columnist doesn't know or understand science, medicine, technology or healthcare, then don't let them write about it.

Who cares what celebrities are doing?

Report what is happening or has happened. Why waste readers' time and insult their intelligence by reporting what might happen if....

          If 10 million people get infected ....

          If 20 million people lose their jobs ....

          If we hadn't outsourced everything to China .....

What purpose does this serve? How can any of this information be used by readers?

Make readers smarter.

Give them actionable information.



On an unrelated note, why do so many cities now have ground-level, three-metre-tall letters spelling out that city's name? Is this for Instagram selfies? Is this for lost tourists? Is it for satellite images used by map apps?

Why don't cities put up another city's name instead, just to confuse people?




As of March 2020:

Canada's population is 38.0 million.  If you click on that link, you watch the population change!  On an average day, there are 777 deaths and 1020 live births.

Canada has 31 million people of working age (at least 15 years old). I remember when working age was 18 years old and then it became 16. Now it's 15.

Canada's labour force is 20.1 million people (the number of civilian, non-institutionalized persons 15 years of age and over who were employed or unemployed.)

Canada has about 18.8 million people who are employed (the number of people who worked for pay or profit, or performed unpaid family work or had a job but were not at work due to own illness or disability, personal or family responsibilities, labour dispute, vacation, or other reason.)


In March 2020, about 3.1 million people said they were affected by job loss or reduced hours due to the pandemic. (On that web page, select either the "1 month % change" or "Index" tab and then select "Employment persons" or "Actual hours worked at main job" indicators. These have current data).

By April 13, 2020, almost 6 million people applied for financial help.


The point to all these statistics is to show that individual numbers are large but the scale is relatively small, despite what newspaper headlines may suggest. *But* it also shows that it doesn't require much wind speed to push the country, its healthcare system and economy off course. That's what you really need to worry about.


At least the empty trains are still running on time.





(Edit: fixed  some typos)

[Warren Toda]

As most Toronto drivers know, during a snow storm, traffic laws are suspended. You can drive at any speed, turn anywhere you want, drive the wrong way on one-way streets, park anywhere, and stop signs are just a suggestion.

However the city of Toronto yesterday put out a press release telling drivers that traffic laws still apply during a pandemic. The last two weeks of March saw a sharp increase in speeding, street racing, illegal parking and red-light running.



My local grocery store is closely monitoring the situation and is doing everything it can to protect my health and safety. My bank is doing the same for me, too. A local drug store, the post office and a nearby takeout pizza joint are all doing it, too. Even Burger King, the place that will sell me a triple burger with triple cheese, double bacon, 2,100 mg of sodium, 80 g of fat and 1,200 calories, plus fries and a Coke, is "taking important steps to help protect (my) health and safety."  I've never felt so protected.

The businesses that provide my car insurance, home insurance, business insurance, cell phone service, Internet service, home phone, TV cable, utilities and home heating are all closely monitoring the situation and are doing everything they can to protect my health and safety. The fact that all these companies need me to send them money every month is just a coincidence.

The only place that isn't closely monitoring the situation and couldn't care less about my health and safety is a local mom-and-pop fish and chips store. As long as I don't use up all their ketchup and don't ask to use their washroom (which, according to the cardboard sign, is for employees only), they will permit me to enjoy their deep-fried creations. Based on the depth of dirt on the worn-out floor, archeologists have estimated that this store is about 200 years old. But mom still knows how to mix up a good batch of batter and pop can work a deep fryer like nobody's business.



More important news stories from the past two days:

          How to colour your hair at home

          How to use Apple FaceTime

          How to work at home using a kitchen table or dining room table

          Surviving the post-pandemic workplace

          We may need lockdowns until 2022

          City of Toronto planning to reopen          -- That was the lead headline on a news radio station yesterday. Of course it was wildly misleading. The city is *beginning* to make plans for when the city *might start* to open in a *couple of months.*


          Vaccine Watch: Live updates on the race to a COVID cure.         --  Live? Minute by minute updates? Hourly? Daily? Monthly?  Hey, let's do play-by-play coverage of a +14-month process but we'll do it like we're covering a two-hour sports events.

What about live updates on the vaccine race for another current pandemic? The one that kills about 770,000 per year (from 2018). (Added: 690,000 deaths in 2019). That "race" has been ongoing for 25 years.  What about the race for a SARS vaccine, how's that going? The race for an Ebola vaccine only took 15 to 38 years depending on how you count the Ebola epidemic.

It's dangerous, stupid and irresponsible for a news outlet to drive the subject of the news and create false expectation.

Why not something more reasonable:  Maple Leafs Watch: Live updates on the race to a Stanley Cup




Hand sanitizer + gas stove =  fun science experiment or viral video?



During these difficult times, have you noticed that telecoms (Bell, Rogers, TekSavvy) have stopped offering discounts from their list prices?  The discount brands, Virgin and Fido, have only small discounts.

The cost for my cable internet was set to rise at the end of April. I called Rogers a few times times over two weeks asking for a better price. I was told that there are no discounts "right now" and they can't help with a lower price "at this time."  In the past, it was *always* possible to get 30% to 50% discounts just by asking.

My car insurance company is offering a pandemic discount. It should be about $10 to $15/month for three months. That will amount to 1.25% to 1.88% off my annual premium.





Edit: added an updated link to AIDS-related deaths.

[Warren Toda]

Do you have a favourite coronavirus portrait?  I like this one because of the friendly pastel colours.



At what point should stock photo companies take responsibility for the photos on their sites?

Stock photo sites like Getty, Adobe, Dreamstime, etc. all have stupid and even outright irresponsible coronavirus photos on their sites.

A search of any stock site will turn up loads of crap stock images showing fake coronavirus images, fake doctors, fake science, fake labs, fake testing, upside-down test tubes, toy syringes, etc. It's one thing to illustrate something but it's another thing to just make things up.

Wearing a face mask incorrectly and upside down.  Laughable labeling, (and idiotic syringes), on tubes of red stuff, blue stuff and yellow stuff.

You know how you feel, as a photographer, when you see an actor holding a camera incorrectly, having the wrong lens attached or using a film camera to get digital images? Well, I've worked in pharmaceutical labs and I've photographed in lots of medical labs. It's lazy and irresponsible not to get these pictures right.

The issue is that some mainstream news media are using these stock pictures to accompany news articles and the photos are outright wrong.  Some stock pictures are so silly it should be obvious that they're fake. But some photos could easily be used to fool people.



Telecom company Bell donated 1.5 million masks worth $7.5M.

1) Where did they get 1.5 million masks and why couldn't any government do this?

2) They paid $5 per mask? Were the masks bought at auction?

3) The company said these 1.5 million were surplus. How many millions of masks did they buy?

4) Why do so many private companies, and some pro sports teams, have stockpiles of medical supplies but governments have problems buying any?



If you haven't watched it yet, here's the now famous Bill Gates video from 2015 where he talked about the world not being prepared for a major epidemic.

Here's the 2014 Barack Obama video where he spoke about the importance of the USA being prepared for the next epidemic (start about the 15-minute mark).




If you're wondering about the other virus that was sweeping across Canada, using the most recent government numbers:

• 2019-2020 flu season: 55,194 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza and at least 2,382 hospitalizations and 103 deaths. (It says "at least" because not all provinces report these numbers).

• 2018-2019 flu season: 48,818 laboratory-confirmed cases and at least 3,657 hospitalizations and 224 deaths.

• for comparison, as I write this, Covid-19: about 37,300 cases, 2,369 hospitalizations and about 1,725 deaths. These numbers will continue to rise.




I once had an economics professor who said that if there were to be a recession, choose not to participate. A recession is a state of mind driven by fear not facts.

So by extension, if there is panic and fear caused by a pandemic, choose not to participate.

But for some people, that's almost impossible to do. Some people choose panic and fear because then, they think, they will no longer be responsible for their future. I'm not responsible for what's happening to me because I'm living in a state of panic and fear. The pandemic controls my life.

Panic is the loss of reason or logical thinking caused by fear.

Fear is being afraid that bad things, or even just a big change, might happen sometime in the future.

Current pandemic events have probably changed your normal routine and that's a good thing. Don't be afraid of change; it's routine that's bad for you!



Our current pandemic officially started on March 11. It's been happening, so far, for about 3,628,800 seconds.

Emotions like fear and panic last less than 90 seconds:

When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.

Something happens in the external world and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body it takes less than 90 seconds.

This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away.

After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking that are re-stimulating the circuitry that is resulting in you having this physiological response over and over again.

- Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, from her book "My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientists Personal Journey" or the first 7-1/2 minutes of this video.



Exit your emotional loop (e.g. ignore loud headlines and stop watching pandemic numbers, which are meaningless to the average person).

Don't participate in the panic and fear.




(Edit: Added two sentences about Covid-19 at the end of the section about the flu).

[Warren Toda]

Don't participate in the panic and fear. But feel free to participate in the stupidity:

• More than 140,000 people die each year from one of the world's most contagious diseases – measles – and there's a vaccine for that!

• The state of Missouri is suing China.

• Residents of New York are suing the World Health Organization

• Some Americans want tattoo parlours to be an essential service.

• Many Americans are against socialism but yet they want their government to send them monthly cheques during the pandemic shut down.

• Here in Canada, some people who have tested positive for the virus are ignoring demands to stay home. They are still going out and socializing with friends.

• Now that you've got your $2,000 from the government, you can spend it on designer face masks. They even have a face mask for smokers. (It's a Romanian site but the photos are in English).

• There's been a rush on vitamins as people have suddenly become interested in their health. Chewing a few vitamins will make it all better.

• Herbal supplements and herbal teas that promise any type of immunity are also big sellers.



"Governments, [in] Canada and elsewhere, do not invest in preparedness," said Ron St. John, a former director general at the Public Health Agency of Canada who once served as the country's quarantine officer.

Another fun read here from 2017: "Indeed, many health systems around the world remain broken. ...  numerous countries have major problems in their vaccine supply chains".



Why does every major bad news event need to have a ground zero or an epicentre?



We reached a bit of a milestone at 38,000 cumulative cases. This means 100 per 100,000 Canadians have or have had the virus (about a third have recovered). That's equivalent to 1 out of every 1,000 Canadians or 0.1% of the population.



Remember when plastic bags were bad and some cities tried to outlaw them? Now those bags are helping us. Go plastic!



I've got cheap gas, drive-thru fast food and no job. It's like being a teenager again.



Total cumulative cases listed every ten days because we're dealing with a metric virus: 

Feb      1:             4
Feb    10:             7
Feb    20:             9
March  1:           24
March 10:          77
March 20:     1,004
April   1:       9,613
April 10:     22,148
April 20:     34,786

With the number of new daily cases seemingly dropping and it's been *generally* dropping since late March, we might soon be able to lower the alert level from abundance of caution to normal caution.

They say the reopening of businesses will be done slowly and in stages. Businesses will first stand down from closely monitoring the situation and move to casually paying attention. Then they will drop to slightly ignoring the situation and finally go to couldn't care less.


=>Added April 26 - May have spoken too soon. Just released new data shows an *increase* of daily cases over the past ten days. Complete national data for daily new cases used to be only a few days behind but is now about ten to fourteen days behind as the Public Health Agency of Canada waits for formal notification from each province.



With influenza, nothing gets shut down, there's no distancing, no face masks and no hand washing. There is a free flu vaccine but most Canadians don't bother with it. Even so, the vaccine is about 50% effective or thereabouts. There are around 50,000 flu cases during each year's flu season that lasts about five months or so.

For Covid-19, most things are shut down and people are staying home or staying away from each other. Face masks and hand washing are common. Even with widespread precautions, Covid-19 has spread to over 38,000 Canadians during the past eight weeks and it will still go much higher.

Covid-19 is clearly more contagious than the flu (or maybe people aren't distancing themselves or washing their hands properly). The mortality rate of Covid-19 in Canada is at least ten times higher than the flu.

On a per capita basis, (US: 330 million; Canada 38 million), the US has a lot more Covid-19 cases and a higher mortality rate than Canada. This was perhaps expected because the US also has a very high rate for influenza compared to Canada.  This past flu season, the US had about 14,000 cases per 100,000; Canada had about 145 cases per 100,000 but that's only laboratory-confirmed cases.



Why do some news outlets use silly headlines like:

          What we know and what we don't know about ...

          What we know so far ...

          What you need to know ....

As George Carlin once said.




Do you ever wonder why viruses exist?

... the most common and abundant biological entities on earth are viruses

– From here. It's very long, maybe wait for the movie version.


Viruses just replicate. But what purpose do they serve other than to inspire sci-fi writers?

We don't have cures for viruses but we do have vaccines that can prevent the transmission of some viruses. If enough people get vaccinated, a virus eventually stops spreading and dies out.

To date, no clear explanation for the origin(s) of viruses exists. Viruses may have arisen from mobile genetic elements that gained the ability to move between cells. They may be descendants of previously free-living organisms that adapted a parasitic replication strategy. Perhaps viruses existed before, and led to the evolution of, cellular life.

– From here.

[Warren Toda]

I missed this huge business opportunity – selling coronavirus lens filters. You know you want one.



Over the past two years, my car insurance went up 40% for no reason whatsoever. (The Ontario government for the past 20 years has been saying that it will fix the province's broken auto insurance system.) This week, my car insurance company was generous enough to refund 2% as an acknowledgement of these difficult times. Without a doubt, my car insurance will go up another +10% at year's end.



At a local grocery store today, a woman was wearing googles, two face masks, rubber gloves, pyjamas and slippers.

Lots of toilet paper on store shelves. I guess when it comes to hoarding toilet paper, people are pooped out.


A person ahead of me in a checkout line asked the cashier, "Are the (plastic) bags free?"

As soon as the cashier said yes, the person reached over the counter, grabbed the entire bundle of bags and hurried out the door. The cashier turned to me and said, "She's not the worst customer today."



So far during my home isolation, I've composed two symphonies, wrote a book of poetry, read the entire works of Shakespeare, built a backyard deck, learned a foreign language, started up and then sold an online tech company, and earned a masters degree in economics.

At least that's what I'm going to say if anyone asks.

There's no way I'm going to mention that I set a new record for how many days in a row I stayed in pyjamas, that I hit the limit in my "unlimited" internet package, or that I gained a new appreciation of the phrase "all day breakfast."



Over the past few decades, the world moved to more and more globalization, more free trade. Many countries outsourced manufacturing to the cheapest countries. We don't need to do the low-end manufacturing, we only need to do the high paying research and development.

But as history has shown, time and time again, during war and other major disasters, the low end becomes the high end. Basic needs and supplies are what matters most.



Michael Moore's latest documentary, Planet of the Humans, might be the scariest horror movie ever. (Spoiler alert: the most dangerous virus on the planet is the human species. It has infected the entire planet surface.)


Bill Maher's recent commentary about how US news organizations are reporting the pandemic also applies to Canadian news media.



Edit: added a couple of video links