Ziad 😷 Fazel 🇨🇦🇺🇦 Profile picture
Sep 28, 2021 16 tweets 13 min read Read on X
#COVID19AB Balanced Scorecard
Mon 27 Sep

If you remember my hurricane analogy from yesterday, today we emerged from a weekend without communications from Alberta Health.

There was no sunshine. No respite between bands. Only the 250 km/h eyewall.
@jvipondmd @GosiaGasperoPhD @RajBhardwajMD @TehseenLadha @drdagly @plasercalgary @GermHunterMD @kwburak @PfParks @dupuisj Test Positivity

4th Wave was unusual as Test Positivity was a steep, unhesitating rise.

⬆️not 📈

We have seen that frightening line with Delta all over the world.

Researchers sometimes change their graph to log scale and are shocked to still see it.

covid-tracker.chi-csm.ca
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.

coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases
So where does that leave us after the weekend?
• 29 new admissions to ICU*
• 23 deaths
• 265 people fighting for life in ICU

* 17% of baseline capacity in 1 weekend.
• From 1 cause
• We're not into flu season yet
• And have a long weekend coming

public.tableau.com/app/profile/jk…
Remember this graph from the 3rd-Wave presser? Where @AHS_media Dr Yiu said pre-covid record for a respiratory virus was 31 cases in 2016?

We just admitted 29 people into ICU. 1 weekend.

Alberta is in a hypnotic state. We don't realize how sadistically we are being treated.
Vaccinations.

Looks impressive, huh? That upswing in the last month?

Remove the 3rd doses, which are largely happening in continuing care for the elderly & most vulnerable.

Zoom in some more.

Upswing over. Fizzling out again.
What did GoA do in Sep to stop spread?

Predictably useless $100 incentive that had no effect but to divide Albertans.

alberta.ca/release.cfm?xI…

Bait-and-Switch "Capacity Increase" that was only a $36m taxpayer subsidy to private group homes & home care.

alberta.ca/release.cfm?xI…
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

alberta.ca/release.cfm?xI…
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.)

livewirecalgary.com/2021/09/24/lie…
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?"

See @jvipondmd #intentionallycruelwave or @DuaneBratt "self-inflicted"

IMHO: It's not incompetence; it's intent.

Thanks all, who read all this way as I built the long thread this evening.

Be good to each other. Protect yourself. As much as you can, behave as if there is a hard lockdown.

This is going to be like Italy or New York in Spring 2020.

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More from @ZiadFazel

Jun 16
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 photo of my clam chowder with unexpected cornbread loaf on the side.
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. My photo of chalkboard sidewalk sign.
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.
My screenshot of “Greens” section of menu.
Read 5 tweets
Jun 7
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. My photo with permission of Olde Ghosts 4-piece band warming up (I'd say they're already on fire) as I went to basement washroom at Palomino (shared with underground concert hall).
In the program they are listed as "Old Ghost" which may just be a miscommunication between Palomino mgmt and Band mgmt. Still gets the message across.
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.

Read 9 tweets
May 30
Kinda proud of myself. Also.. life is hilarious.

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?”

No, Bhenji. I’m not.
Read 4 tweets
May 25
This @NewsHour story too new to have transcript as well as published video interview with Dr @jasonmnagata but here's his website for his research:

ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/providers/dr-j…

@tylerblack32 @TheBreakdownAB @KmarkovCTV @picardonhealth @JenLeeCBC @MurrayManera @JSJamato @gabefabreau x.com/NewsHour/statu…
Didn't have room for @TehseenLadha @orlaghokelly @John1MD @dupuisj @vettergreenart
@TehseenLadha @orlaghokelly @John1MD @dupuisj @vettergreenart @threadreaderapp unroll please

The transcript is up now at:



@tylerblack32 @TheBreakdownAB @KmarkovCTV @picardonhealth @JenLeeCBC @MurrayManera @JSJamato @gabefabreau @drDavidKeegan @amandalhu @CalgarysChild @MarciaOnTheGo pbs.org/newshour/show/…Ali Rogin:  Dr. Nagata, thank you so much for joining us. Social media children, lots of questions, few answers. What did your study find? Jason Nagata:  We followed 12,000 preteens over three years and we actually found big rises in social media use. So during that period, social media on average increased from seven minutes a day to over 70 minutes a day. So a tenfold increase.  And in our analysis, we actually found that rises in social media from year to year among these 9 then 10 then 11-year olds were actually associated with future depressive symptoms in the following year. So I thin...
Ali Rogin:  So what you're saying is that you found the correlation here to be with social media use leading to more depressive symptoms, not the other way around. You're saying that depression doesn't necessarily indicate use of social media? Jason Nagata:  Yes. In our study, were able to follow these same 12,000 kids year to year. So were able to look at both their depression and their social media use every single year. And so we could look at patterns in their use. And we found that those kids who had big spikes in their social media use from year to year then subsequently had bigger sp...
Ali Rogin:  And talk to us about the size and the scope of this study. This sounds massive. How did you track this many children and has that been done before? Jason Nagata:  So, yeah, the data comes from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. It is a national study that follows these 12,000 kids from over 21 different states, study sites across the U.S. and it's funded by the National Institutes of Health and is I think one of the largest studies on child development and social media and brain health ever.
Ali Rogin:  That's such a fascinating ancillary piece of information that you found in looking at this data. I do want to ask though, what is your advice for parents with the understanding that this data brings us to. Jason Nagata:  Yeah, we actually looked at parent actions for rules and monitoring in the study and we actually found that the biggest predictors of kids screen use was actually their parents screen use. And as a new parent I think it's really important to practice what you preach. So if you're going to tell your kids to put down their phones to important that you role model g...
Read 4 tweets
May 8
🧵 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? Screenshot from Goa 5 May 2025 press release, where Health Min LaGrange made the same claim in the YouTube press conference:  [below is the quote verbatim, but I would put sarcastic quotes around "facts"] "Quick facts • Currently, appointments in the central zone are available within one day, while in the south zone appointments are available usually within one to two days. • Following increased efforts to educate Albertans on measles and the importance of immunization, there has been a significant rise in immunizations across the province. Since March 16, there has been a 67...
Excerpt from GoA lengthy web page on measles  "How measles spreads  Measles is an extremely contagious disease, spread easily through the air.  You do not need to be in direct contact with someone who is infected. You can get measles just by passing through a room or location where a person who is infected was up to 2 hours before. The person who is infected does not still need to be there to put you at risk of disease.  Measles can also be spread through coughing, sneezing, yelling, singing and breathing."
@TheBreakdownAB @JMeddings @PfParks @LukaszukAB @JenLeeCBC @GosiaGasperoPhD @Mark_Ungrin @dupuisj @DrFiliatrault @TimmCTV Let me provide the links for the above two graphics:

• cherry-picked measles immunization stats

alberta.ca/release.cfm?xI…

• purported 2-hour limit on infectious airborne measles

alberta.ca/measles
@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."

Let's look at actual graphs & data tables.

alberta.ca/measles#jumpli… "Figure 2a. Measles containing immunization doses administered by week and geography, 2023-2025 for Alberta" showing the 2025 line does not cross over 2023 and 2024 lines until 16 March 2025.  Prior to that, 2025 was well below both 2024 and 2023.
Closeup of graph, showing the yellow 2025 line does not cross over black 2023 and red 2024 lines until 16 March 2025.  Prior to that, 2025 was well below both 2024 and 2023.
Closeup of graph, highlighting the yellow 2025 line to show better that it does not cross over black 2023 and red 2024 lines until 16 March 2025.  Prior to that, 2025 was well below both 2024 and 2023.
Data table for GoA's graph, showing the actual numbers of measles immunization shots per week in those 3 years.
Read 42 tweets
Apr 24
I was just treated TERRIBLY by @HyattCalgary. Manager just denied me service in restaurant for some vague reasons behind:

“None of the staff are comfortable with you and want to serve you.”

Huh? You just lost polite, loyal 20% tip customer. Maybe my friends too.

See you never.
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 (!) Image
@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.
Read 4 tweets

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