OK, *now* we're in trouble ...

[rslade]

For some reason, on the Johns Hopkins CoVID-19 dashboard, Canada, as a country, has disappeared.  (If you switch to the province/state/dependency mode, the individual provinces with infections still show up.)

This is disturbing, for someone who lives there ...

[rslade]

Stay the [pr0n filter] at home!

Or here.

[rslade]

Be more like Sandra the Orangutan.

[rslade]

Some time today we're going to hit the one million mark.

Come on people!  We can do this!

[rslade]

Right.  As random chance would have it, I was clarifying some points for someone in regard to the RISKS-Forum Digest (which I strongly recommend to anyone in security), and happened to come across one of my old (32 years old, this month) postings, that seemed strangely relevant.

At the time, I had been collecting some of the discussions, from a number of the mailing lists on the nascent Internet, on the topic of computer viruses, and was making them available--via snail mail, since having your own server was a bit of a dream at that stage.  I was talking about "Viruses at Customs":

Robert_Slade@mtsg.ubc.ca <Robert_Slade@mtsg.ubc.ca@um.cc.umich.edu> Wed, 20 Apr 88 07:43:16 PDT

I am still working on the virus file (cf volume 6 number 45). It is now longer than 360K and so will be archived and shipped with a copy of PKXARC (if you use it etc.) However, the means of distribution to the States is through my wife, who runs a theological college in Vancouver. American mail is stamped with US postage and taken to border towns in Washington where some of the American students live and work. Often they are challenged at the border as to what they are carrying.

What with all the concerns over technology transfer and so forth, I can just see the conversation between the hapless student (my wife told him he was carrying a file of virus material) and the customs agent ("...you're trying to bring what into the country?") If some of you don't get your disks back, contact customs and immigration. (Come to think of it, we haven't seen Russ since he took that last set of disks down last week...)

(I also realized, only this morning, that I could use RISKS as a kind of blog going back more than three decades ...)

[rslade]

The German government is advising people to stock up on sausage and cheese.

(It may be a wurst Käse scenario ...)

[rslade]

Wildlife is returning to Britain's streets!

(For the Dr. Who fans out there  🙂

[rslade]

In BC we have the World's Greatest Public Health Officer.  During the CoVID-19 crisis we are getting almost daily briefings.  She is calm, realistic, informative, informed, clear, and reassuring, all at the same time.

On Friday's edition of the Dr. Bonnie Show (co-starring Adrian Dix and Nigel Howard), at almost exactly 1:02:00, Mike Hager, of the Globe and Mail, starts "asking" a long and obviously opinionated "question," implying that Dr. Bonnie should give us a projection of deaths from CoVID-19. When he finally gets to the end, Dr. Bonnie says, "No." And stops. The segment ends at almost exactly 1:02:35.

This is one of the reasons we love Dr. Bonnie.

(Somebody made me a clip of just this bit.  Thanks much.)

(She does go on to explain that there is no real point to projecting deaths, while projecting cases and severity can save lives.)

[denbesten]

Here is an interesting demonstration of cross-contamination.   

https://www.facebook.com/molly.mckillop/videos/10100252201408846/

[rslade]

And, in the latest news on the "think of how stupid the average person is, and then remember that half of them are dumber than that" front ...

[rslade]

I just realized that I failed to post this parody of "Into the Unknown" from Frozen 2. 

Lia Frankland is, I believe, local to the Vancouver area ...