When Test Positivity stuttered in September, then peaked in mid-September (urban mask mandates & restrictions) experts with @PopAlberta kept warning of danger.
My analogy then was a 1000-km wide wildfire at 80 km/h.
Because there weren't strong province-wide safety measures.
So while Test Positivity in Calgary & Edmonton was:
• falling below 10%
• dragging down the provincial average
• masking the choppy rise in North, Central & South.
I remembered @GosiaGasperoPhD warning of (early) exponential growth of B117 Alpha in Jan, and Delta in May.
I'm just talking about leading indicators here: Test Positivity and New Cases.
We always knew the back half of the canoe - Hospitalization, ICU and Deaths- was still rising the roller coaster.
Canoes, Rollercoasters, Wildfires, Hurricanes... sorry about all the metaphors.
Looking again at the @ucalgaryCHI chart, notice how in all 3 previous waves, test positivity would stutter, maybe retreat a bit, and then keep rising.
4th Wave didn't get that, rising without a break from ~0.5% to 11%.
Our CMOH & Premier were beholden to their secret models.
Even India - hit so badly by the Delta variant images of people dying outside hospitals short of oxygen or ventilators - got back under some control.
Not Alberta. We plowed ahead, benchmarking to the worst decisions in the US and UK to cover our own.
This gratuitously frightening, dog vomit of a presser on Wed 15 Sep:
• measures effective at midnight
• Health Min reading Kenmore Canister Vac model 1407 Owner Manual into his chin
• 8pm emergency alert on our phones with link to useless website
This meeting of Calgary Metro Region Board on 17 Sep was lauded for Mayor Nenshi response to the Foothills County Reeve's persistence at spreading ant-vax "bs".
(Nice diplomatic work by Chair @GregClarkAB too, trying to stay on topic and on fact.)
The hidden value in that meeting was the metro area board trying to fix the dog-vomit from GoA two nights before:
• leverage Calgary efforts including great Q&A
• High River Mayor Snodgrass blasting GoA for putting his town's businesspeople in danger
8 days ago, this psychiatrist/neurosurgeon in UK wrote "how do you convince people that the people in power actually want them to die?"
If you come to Palomino early enough on a weekday, the soup of the day may still be available.
Having lunch here now at 1.30pm and first time for me, and it is heaven.
Clam chowder with a delicacy in the spices and herbs you wouldn’t expect from a “BBQ Joint”.
Thank you Chef.
My mistake. CORN chowder, not clam chowder as I said above.
First bite blew me away, so I tweeted right away. They have a similar classic base, IIRC.
I can’t eat pork, so I got it without bacon garnish (therefore also vegetarian).
For those who do 🐖, party on people.
For “main course” you need video, not photo.
This is Elote Taco Salad, with the smoked turkey I added, to the music of Talking Heads “Burning Down the House” which Palomino provides with your meal.
After the soup, at least half of this will go home for dinner/midnight snack.
I was going to tweet about my early dinner tonight at Palomino (cliché food pics) but just got hit with wall of SWEET sound when I went downstairs to use the washroom, and opened the steel door to basement concert hall.
WOW.
This is "Olde Ghosts" warming up - in this program.
I am a nerdy 58-yr-old engineer who surprises people with 2 unexpected traits: a love for good metal, and endless jokes.
On the latter, I am like Leslie Nielsen who could easily get even people braced for his hidden fart accordion to crack up. But I'm not using one....yet.👺
With metal, I was raised with Indian music my parents played, like the Pakeezah soundtrack, until the cassette literally broke.
This is one of the songs from that movie. It builds until Meena Kumari (Indian's Marilyn) dances with those 2 😍 backups.
I’ve been eating a lot of rich, flavourful food recently, and I went from a salmon/capers omelet at OEB to the passcode protected washroom in food court at Fifth Avenue Place. Took a massive, relaxed dump.
Laughing as I type.
So I’m washing my hands - even had the foresight to take a restaurant napkin to dry my hands and use on the door lever to exit (trust me on this) and a distinguished gentlemen t about 60 walks in.
And visibly buckles, and groans.
I’m trying not to laugh out loud.
I step out of washroom and all of this is hitting me as I walk slowly to exit escalator, down to a bench on 5 Ave, where I am typing this now.
I’m almost crying not to burst out laughing.
And the Punjabi woman security guard sweetly asks me “Are you OK?”
🧵 Alberta's Reigning Queen of deceptive cherry-picked public health stats, Health Min LaGrange, was back at it Monday, this time over measles immunization.
Bonus Topic: Where is the source for the widespread claim that airborne measles is only infectious up to two (2) hours?
@TheBreakdownAB @JMeddings @PfParks @LukaszukAB @JenLeeCBC @GosiaGasperoPhD @Mark_Ungrin @dupuisj @DrFiliatrault @TimmCTV Let me provide the links for the above two graphics:
@TheBreakdownAB @JMeddings @PfParks @LukaszukAB @JenLeeCBC @GosiaGasperoPhD @Mark_Ungrin @dupuisj @DrFiliatrault @TimmCTV On the deceptive, cherry-picked measles immunization stats, LaGrange said "Since March 16, there has been a 67% increase in comparison to last year."
The VP who oversees the restaurant was not on, but I left my business card.
My @Hyatt loyalty card, which shows zero as it has not updated for my purchases since February, when my car died, and I found walking there convenient. High prices, but matching food & service (!)
@Hyatt Now, I don’t care about my points, as I will never visit @HyattCalgary again, for any reason.
I won’t spend much time with the VP if he or she calls me. This is their problem to solve, not mine. I’ll get nothing from it either way - I’m gone.