OK, it’s not quite September yet, but the time has arrived to revise my 2020 calendar a little.
What next, pray tell?
Aug 272020
Aug 062020
I know, I know, the idea is far from original, and I feel compelled to apologize for turning tragedies into a form of dark humor but still, this calendar that I made last night accurately sums up how I feel about this glorious year of 2020:
And I didn’t even include everything (e.g., BLM protests and accompanying riots). But then, there are nearly five more months to go… plenty of time for more stuff to happen, even without aliens or killer asteroids. Or a massive second wave of COVID-19 infections.
Yes, let’s just say, I am mildly concerned.
Jul 112020
Today’s editorial cartoon in the Toronto Star perfectly captures how many Canadians, myself included, feel about the Canada-US border:
What can I say. Things are not looking good in Trumpia. In fact, things are looking so bad that after months of denial, even the narcissist-in-chief decided to wear a bleeping mask today while visiting a hospital.
I have been trying to remember why the American attitudes towards COVID-19 felt vaguely but strangely familiar. It just hit me. It was the 1970s oil crisis, and the general attitude by leaders in the former Soviet Bloc. This was a crisis of the decadent capitalist West, they told us. The pandemic of fuel shortages, mile long lines at gas stations, high energy prices would not reach us, they told us. Well… they were wrong. Just like those Americans who refuse to wear masks, who refuse to take precautions, who refuse to accept the need to shut down nonessential businesses, because, you know, it’s just like a bad case of the flu…
Jul 082020
I grew up in a country with closed borders. I despise closed borders. I find the right to travel, unimpeded, almost as fundamental as the right to breathe.
Yet… For the time being, I support fully the closure of the US-Canada border. As a matter of fact, I wish it was kept even more tightly closed.
What Americans are doing to themselves is unfathomable. That they have an narcissist idiot, an incompetent imbecile running the White House is one thing. But all the other idiots, from state governors to individual citizens, who ignore the threat, cheer as their nation abandons the World Health Organization, even condemn their immunocompromised children to death?
When you live next to a lunatic asylum, you do want to keep your front door under lock and key.
Jun 252020
Here are the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases per day, here in the province of Ontario:
In the whole of Canada:
In the great United States:
And in the entire world:
The plots tell the story. I don’t think that there is anything that I can add.
Jun 162020
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Parliament of Hungary granted Viktor Orban’s government extraordinary powers to rule by decree. Opponents likened this to the infamous “enabling act” that marked the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933.
In response, Mr. Orban and his supporters argued that the government has no intention of abusing these powers, and that Mr. Orban should be judged by how he relinquishes these extraordinary powers once the crisis is over.
So here it is: Parliament just voted to end the state of emergency and requested the government to take the necessary steps to return to normalcy. So far so good. The corresponding act of Parliament is short and sweet, and to the point. The legal part of the text is only four terse clauses. In my translation:
1. The Legislature requests the government to end, in accordance with section 54, paragraph 3 of the Constitution, the state of emergency that was declared in government decree 40/2020 (March 11) (henceforth: the state of emergency).
2. The act of Parliament concerning measures against the coronavirus, Bill 12 (2020), is no longer in force.
3. (1) The present act – with the exceptions defined in paragraph (2) – shall be considered in force the day after it is proclaimed.
(2) Clauses 2 and 4 shall be considered in force when the state of emergency ends.
(3) The calendar day when clauses 2 and 4 shall be considered in force will be decided by the Prime Minister as soon as the date is known, by immediately proclaiming the date in the Hungarian Gazette.
4. Clause 2 of this bill, in accordance with section 29, paragraph 3; section 2, paragraph 1; section 24, paragraph 9, section 31, paragraphy 3; section 35, paragrapha 1; and section 54, paragraph 4, is considered fundamental.
All looks kosher, right?
But just in case you are still paying attention… there was also a second bill on the table. It has an unassuming title: “About the rules of transition concerning the end of the state of emergency and health preparedness”. Seems eminently reasonable, since under the state of emergency, the government has taken many steps, all of which must be reconciled with the system of laws and regulations.
And there is a lot. This supplementary bill is not four pages. It is 247 (two hundred forty seven) pages in PDF form. Yikes!
And on page 135, we read clause 97:
97. Changes to Bill 128 of 2011 concerning emergency preparedness and modifications of related laws
§339 Section 5 of Bill 128 of 2011 concerning emergency preparedness and modifications of related laws will be amended by the following subclause 24/A:
“24/A Emergency acts of government in case of a state of emergency concerning a human epidemic causing mass rates of infection”
§51/A. (1) The Government, in order to prevent, or mitigate the consequences of, a human epidemic that causes mass rates of infection, threatening lives and property, in order to protect the health and life of citizens of Hungary in a declared state of emergency – in addition to the emergency measures and rules described in subclauses 21-24 – in order to guarantee the lives, health, personal security, security of property, and legal protection of citizens and the stability of the national economy, may, by decree, suspend certain laws, deviate from existing laws and make other extraordinary decisions.
(2) The Government may practice the authority prescribed in paragraph (1) – to the necessary extent, in proportion with the desired outcome – in order to prevent, deal with, and eliminate an epidemic, and furthermore, to prevent or avoid such an outbreak.
There you have it. There are many other clauses concerning other laws, and most seem quite reasonable and appropriate considering the circumstances. But this one?
I highlighted the problem text in red. The law gives the government extraordinary powers. But, though the words seem reassuring on the surface, it offers no checks and balances concerning any justification of invoking these powers and the extent to which they are practiced. In the right hands, these are powers that can be used wisely in case of another pandemic or a resurgence of COVID-19, and I am sure Mr. Orban’s supporters believe that this is precisely how the government will use these powers (if at all). But opponents of Mr. Orban are concerned, not without grounds, about the lack of checks and balances and the very real possibility that these powers can go unchecked in the wrong hands.
In short, this is precisely what many feared: That though the state of emergency is lifted, a backdoor remains, a means for Mr. Orban’s government to have its cake and eat it, too, relinquish its extraordinary powers yet keeping them at the same time.
In the end, it of course all depends on how the law is put into practice. But for now, my conclusion is that the concerns of Mr. Orban’s opposition are not unfounded.
Jun 022020
I don’t always like commercial publishers. Some of their textbooks are prohibitively expensive, yet often lacking in quality. (One persistent exception is Dover Publications, who published some of the best textbooks I own, as low-cost paperbacks.)
Last night, however, I was very pleasantly surprised by Springer, who made several hundred textbooks across a range of disciplines available for free, on account of COVID-19.
I did not get greedy. I didn’t download titles indiscriminately. But I did find several titles that are of interest to me, and I gladly took advantage of this opportunity.
Thank you, Springer.
May 242020
Still playing with some COVID-19 maps, so here is another one: This one ranks countries by the number of COVID-19 cases per 1,000 square kilometers.
What’s the point, you might ask? Well, when there are lots of people confined to a small area, even a few cases can mean trouble; in contrast, when you have many cases but spread over half a continent, you may never come across a single infected person in your travels.
Again, the color legend remains a little whacky; it is logarithmic, but I don’t know how to convince this R package to display it nicely.
The numbers are pretty high. It goes without saying that densely populated microstates like Monaco win the contest, but then there is Qatar (3494), Belgium (1866), the Netherlands (1324), the UK (1051)… numbers that are way too high. For comparison, the USA is at 180, Hungary at 41, Russia at 20 (no surprise there), China at 9 (!), and so is Canada.
May 232020
Maps that show the spread and mortality rate of COVID-19 are worrisome, to say the least.
So here is something slightly more encouraging: the day-to-day growth rate of COVID-19 infections, in the world, the United States, Canada, and the province of Ontario where I live.
What this plot shows is that the growth rate has been consistently and steadily decreasing (note that the vertical axis is logarithmic). Furthermore, the overall behavior of the worldwide, US, and Canadian plots is remarkable similar.
Of course this plot is also a reflection of the fact that the cumulative number of cases increases, so even if the number of new cases remains steady, the growth rate will indeed decrease. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that at least for now, the pandemic’s exponential spread has been arrested. This can, of course, change for the worse quite dramatically if we lose our collective patience and start relaxing too soon.
May 232020
I suppose the most important thing to know about COVID-19 is not so much the total number of cases or deaths, but the number of cases or deaths per million people. A number like 1,000 deaths is huge in a country of one million, a drop in the bucket in a country like India or China.
In that vein, I produced two maps using my rather rusty R programming skills. I am sure I could have done a better job labeling the legend, but there is only so much time I wanted to spend on this. The color bar legend is logarithmic between its two end values.
First, the cumulative number of cases per million people (May 22 data):
Next, deaths per million:
Not a pretty picture. It appears that the countries that are the most disproportionately affected (or the most likely to offer accurate reports?) are in Europe (including Russia), North and South America and the Middle East.
But now, here is perhaps the scariest map of all:
Yes, in many countries more than 10% of the confirmed cases result in death. The global average is 6.4 per 100 confirmed cases. The fact that COVID-19 is deadly in countries with underdeveloped health care systems is perhaps understandable, but the fact that the reddest parts of the map are places with the most sophisticated health care systems in the world is food for thought.
Apr 152020
Just as things are beginning to look ever so slightly hopeful with infection rates at least stabilizing, conspiracy theorists are now having a field day.
In case you are wondering, we “know” that SARS-CoV-2 was manufactured (or at least released) by that Wuhan “bioweapons” lab, as its intended purpose was to weaken China’s strategic opponents, in particular the US military, so that they can mess with Taiwan. And even more blatantly, they did so using in part funding from the United States, according to information that was “just revealed”. And all in the service of some demonic Chinese plot to achieve some nefarious goal, such as the subjugation of the renegade province of Taiwan.
Like all good conspiracy theories, this nonsense is also based on a carefully picked set of selected facts. So much so that it reminds me of those old Soviet-era Radio Yerevan jokes.
Meanwhile in the real world…
- We know that SARS-CoV-2 is “not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus”. [Andersen, K.G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W.I. et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med 26, 450–452 (2020).]
- The funding provided in part by the NIH was never a secret in the first place. The funding source is explicitly listed in research published by scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And while the research was indeed about SARS-related coronaviruses, its aim was (and remains) to help prevent or mitigate the illness, not cause it. In fact, some of the recipients of this grant went so far as to warn us that their “work provides new insights into the origin and evolution of SARS-CoV and highlights the necessity of preparedness for future emergence of SARS-like diseases.” [Hu B, Zeng L-P, Yang X-L, Ge X-Y, Zhang W, Li B, et al. (2017) Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus. PLoS Pathog 13(11): e1006698.]
- Yes, the two nuclear powered US aircraft carriers usually patrolling the Pacific are presently in port because of COVID-19 cases on board. Yes, China is parading their toy carrier in the region. But an amphibious assault ship, the USS America, is also in the region, and in case “amphibious assault ship” sounds less impressive than “aircraft carrier”, it may help to note that the USS America is similar in size to China’s Lianoning and unlike its Chinese counterpart, it is a modern warship commissioned in 2012, not something built upon the hull of an unfinished 1980s Soviet carrier that was once sold for scrap.
None of this matters to conspiracy theorists, of course. If they want to believe that it was all some evil Chinese plot, they will do so, damn the evidence. (Sadly, I think it is a safe bet that they get at least some help from Russian troll farms. Unfortunately Putin’s regime has not stopped spreading disinformation about health care, epidemics, pandemics, vaccines and now, the origins of COVID-19.)
So to all the conspiracy theory fans out there, please keep this in mind: Conspiracy theories serve a single purpose. They turn us: individuals or entire nations, against each other. They are the means to sow discord. Just when the world has to act in unison more than ever, they pull us apart. Conspiracy theories are weapons: dangerous in the wrong hands even when used unintentionally, but deadly if used purposefully.
Please… listen to the actual science. Don’t believe every piece of garbage you hear.
Apr 132020
I haven’t blogged in two weeks. In my excuse, I was rather busy. The good kind of busy, that is, busy with paying work, busy with scientific research, not busy with illness or anything on that front.
Anyhow, even though I haven’t blogged, I’ve been keeping track of the numbers. And for the past few days, a ray of hope began to emerge.
To make a long story short, there are significant signs that mitigation measures are working. Here, this chart shows the doubling rate of COVID-19 infections worldwide:
Infection rates doubled every 5-6 days back in late March; now, the doubling rate is over 15 days and rapidly rising.
Perhaps the world data are manipulated. But then, here is the doubling rate for Canada. The data are much more noisy (the population is much smaller, so this is to be expected) but the similar trend is unmistakable:
But there is another sign that things just might be working. I’ve been following US data in more detail, and lately, the simple SIR model’s predictions began to match the data rather well. If the model is to be believed, we may not be out of the woods quite yet, but we may be surprisingly close:
What a difference a few weeks make: Back in late March, the same model predicted catastrophic numbers. Now, it seems to tell us that we are mere weeks away from life gradually beginning to return to normal.
I dare not believe it just yet, but it is a ray of hope.
Mar 292020
While I applaud the fact that there are very few partisan voices in Canada, and that governments at all levels constructively cooperate with each other, I cannot help but wonder if the measures taken are sufficient to fight this demon of a virus, COVID-19.
Take these two notifications that I received on my phone from the Radio Canada app yesterday:
- 11:23 AM: À compter de lundi midi, les Canadiens ayant des symptômes de la COVID-19 ne pourront plus prendre des vols intérieurs ou le train
- 11:38 AM: Justin Trudeau affirme qu’Ottawa n’envisage pas de fermer les frontières interprovinciales
My question is… why exactly do we still have non-essential travel within Canada? And why exactly are the interprovincial borders still open?
This virus will not be beaten with half-measures. If we are not able to bring down the infection rate, soon an extremely large number of people will become simultaneously sick, completely overwhelming the intensive care capacity of our health care system. Which means that a great many people who could survive with adequate medical care will die.
SIR model prediction based on US data as of March 28, 2020.
See this simple simulation of the US situation that I put together, using the simplest epidemiological model. If its predictions come true, at one point in late April more than 20% of America’s population will be sick. If 5-10% of these patients require intensive care, that is up to 6 million people or more, only a small fraction of which will receive the care that they will need to stay alive. The rest will die. The same thing can happen here in Canada if we don’t take the necessary measures.
Mar 252020
Ottawa looks like a ghost town these days. Here are a few images from this morning’s “rush hour”:
The one good thing about this is that when you actually have to go somewhere, it has never been this easy.
Oh, and gas is cheaper than… well, pretty much cheaper than it has ever been in my experience, since I moved to Ottawa in 1987.
Mar 232020
Two weeks, or to be precise, fifteen and a half days ago, I was walking the streets of downtown Vienna, enjoying a bright late winter day, eating a bit of authentic Viennese street food and a fabulous slice of cake in a Vienna coffee house. The next day, I boarded a flight at a busy Vienna Airport. To be sure, some signs were already present that not everything was normal. The plane had fewer passengers than usual, especially in business class. There was news of Lufthansa grounding all their A380 superjumbos, and when I asked our pilot about this, he just shook his head, not knowing what the future would bring. But all this felt distant; the world around us, by and large, still felt normal, busy as usual, with people lining up at checkpoints, roadways busy with traffic, airplanes landing and departing at regular intervals.
Today, fifteen days later, we visited our favorite deli store in a nearly completely deserted Byward Market in downtown Ottawa. I literally could have parked in the middle of the street. The store was open (we phoned ahead to make sure) but deserted as well. All the good food there… will it ever sell? Will they at least get a chance to donate some of it, e.g., to the Food Bank or to a nearby shelter? Will they be able to stay open? Will they be able to stay in business?
I don’t know what hit me more, this store or the Web site of Vienna Airport. You know, the same airport where I stood in line, two weeks ago, to go through customs and security.
Not much of a chance of a lineup today.
How will our world recover from this?
Mar 232020
My wife and I went on a shopping spree.
No, we didn’t win the lottery. But apart from our desire to support our local economy in times of crisis, we were also rather worried that our favorite deli store in the Byward Market may be forced to close for an indefinite period of time.
So we stocked up on things. That said, I hope they are able to stay open. I hope they are able to stay in business. Other deli stores have shut their doors. I hope Continental remains open and that the owner and employees stay healthy.
In the meantime, I thank them for serving us.
Mar 222020
Working from home is easier for some than for others.
Members of a symphony orchestra have to get a little more creative than most of us, but that didn’t stop members of the Danubia Symphony Orchestra of Óbuda, from Budapest, Hungary:
Nicely done!
Mar 182020
Looking at papers presenting predictions about the COVID-19 outbreak, one thing is evident: Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Today, we passed the 200,000 mark for confirmed infections worldwide, and the curve continues its super-exponential rise for the time being. We are quite a long way away from “flattening” the curve, and that means that millions will get infected, health care systems will be overwhelmed even in the most advanced industrialized societies, and some of us who could be saved, will die, because there will not be enough hospital beds, respirators, medication, or health care professionals available to help.
Yet… I cannot help but wonder if this calamity is, perhaps, a blessing in disguise. Here is why.
This is the year 2020, when we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of one of the most devastating wars in history. Back when I was a young child, growing up watching the Spaceship Orion (Europe’s answer to Star Trek, with, ahem, slightly inferior production values) on our black-and-white television, I don’t think there was a sensible adult anywhere in Moscow or Washington, Ottawa or Budapest, who was not quite certain that by the year 2000, the world would have lived through an even more devastating world war.
Yet WW3 never happened. Instead, here we are, after 75 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity, a Golden Age that brought benefits to more people than at any time in the history of humanity. It is not unreasonable to worry that this Golden Age would not last forever, that eventually, it would crumble, just as the old world order that characterized Western civilization between 1849 and 1914 crumbled when the “lights went out all over Europe” in August 1914.
But imagine… for one moment, imagine what would have happened if the last global pandemic, the Spanish Flu, hit the world not in 1918 but in 1913. Imagine towns and cities shutting down, borders closed, but also nations helping each other, exchanging medical information, improving their communication, all in an at first haphazard, but later increasingly coordinated effort to overcome this scourge. And eighteen months later, when the last wave of infections subsides, global euphoria: A new fraternity of nations who, using the powers of modern science and working together, overcame this challenge and preserved our shared civilization.
And… no Great War. No collapse of the old world order. Instead, countries that previously seemed incapable of reforming themselves, now willing to take the necessary steps, as Russia, Austria-Hungary and Imperial Germany transition to constitutional monarchies, and a new, modern Europe emerges without the devastation of war, without the horrors of the Holocaust… all because of the pandemic that hit the continent before it had a chance to go berserk on its own.
So perhaps… perhaps COVID-19 is our era’s Spanish Flu and it is hitting us in our equivalent of 1913, before our next Great War, instead of devastating us after years of horrific warfare. Perhaps COVID-19 is what our societies need to preserve the values of our existing world order even as we reform it and ensure its survival for decades to come.
Is this a pipe dream? Perhaps. Then again… just thinking about this possibility made me feel substantially less apprehensive about the coming months, despite all my concerns, despite knowing that the worst is yet to come.
Mar 172020
There are photos of empty store shelves circulating on the Internet, promoted in particular by Americans supporting Donald Trump, as examples of what stores would look like under socialism.
No, my friends, this is what stores looked like under socialism. Socialism that I experienced first-hand, not some abstraction. And it wasn’t pleasant. But the stores were… well, see for yourself. This is no propaganda photo, but a picture from the collection of my late father-in-law, who was a professional photographer. (The hand-written blue arrow is there to point out that under a sign advertising first-class poultry, there are meats hanging that definitely don’t appear to have come from any chicken):
In contrast, and contrary to what the poster tweeted, the following is a picture of Trumpian capitalism in a moment of crisis:
In fact, as some commenters pointed out, a centrally planned command economy in a police state may be better able to cope with a crisis of this nature than market capitalism, even with competent political leadership.
Mar 172020
A Trumpist friend of mine (yes, I have Trump-supporting friends; I refuse to let politicians, left or right, to make me distrust my neighbor just because our political opinions differ) made a disparaging comment about Justin Trudeau, calling him xenophobic on account of Canada shutting its borders to foreigners.
No, my friend, that is not xenophobic. If you want to know why I call the American president a xenophobic asshole (again, forgive my language, dear readers, but I am done being nice to that boneheaded moron), here is a perfect example:
Yes, this is a tweet by a xenophobic schmuck.