709-218-7927 The Landfall Garden House 60 Canon Bayley Road Bonavista, Newfoundland CANADA A0C 1B0 |
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Sunday, April 12, 2020
How Viruses Spread
For all those of you who are self-isolating at home, making full use of the internet in this time of crisis, I thought I’d shed a bit of light onto the problems that humans face in this time of man-made crisis. Since the majority of politicians are men, the attribute man-made is appropriate.
I have no idea who Don Spencer is, nor have I ever met John Wervers, but they are already on my spam-blocker list. I made sure of that.
The image above was a snapshot taken from an email this morning. Note that I do not reproduce the email addresses in text form, only in a PNG image form.
The person who sent me this email is one of the many (dozens) who are trying to keep me informed and amused by viral issues, specifically those issues brought about by the Covid-19 virus.
I maintain the stand that everyone in Bonavista has been exposed to this virus for four months. I am laughed at because – doh – no one in Bonavista has yet tested positive for the virus. Because to date, we are kept at home and the RCMP is not yet going door-to-door with testing kits and cans of red paint and paintbrushes with which to paint a red “X”.
The bulk of the population still believes that “we don’t have it here”. The truth is we must surely have it here. Here’s why:-
(1) Bonavista is 3˝ hours drive from St John’s; each way.
(2) St John’s airport is at the eastern edge of the city. Anyone driving to or from the airport must traverse the city of St John’s.
(3) At least two, possibly three taxi services provide a same-day trip to the airport and all points in between.
(4) St John’s airport is an International Airport, with flights to foreign places such as Montreal, Florida, Boston and Toronto. I have lived and worked around the world, and know their public transportation systems rather well.
(5) People who land at St John’s, man-handle their luggage off the carousels from among the many other suitcases that were loaded by baggage handlers in foreign places such as Paris, Hong Kong, and Toronto after their passengers had transferred from flights from Vancouver, Rome, and Cairo.
(6) The flights from Vancouver, Rome, and Cairo may have originated in Beijing, Sydney and Singapore for all I know, but not necessarily in that order. Beijing, Sydney and Singapore have extensive public transit systems, that I do know.
(7) Bonavista folks are friendly, so although the Covid-19 virus was first reported in November 2019, for the four+ months to March 2020, our friendly local taxi drivers have been shaking hands “Welcome to Newfoundland!”, and man-handling suitcases into the trunk of the car, or the body of the van.
(8) Since you are wondering, the taxi-driver spends a couple of hours in St John’s collecting various urgent parcels and packages for distribution along highways #230 and #235.
(9) The day I spent ten minutes in Clarenville getting my photo taken (a story of provincial ineptitude that must wait for another time) I was collected in Bonavista at 6am, dropped off in Clarenville at 8, was collected from Clarenville at 4 and was home in Bonavista by 6pm.
(10) On the way back from Clarenville we dropped off passengers and parcels at Lockston, Trinity, Port Rexton, Melrose, Port Union, Catalina and Elliston. I say “we” but it was the driver (“Welcome to Newfoundland!”) who dropped off the parcels and said goodbye to the passengers.
(11) The remaining Bonavista passengers were dropped off at the Hostel, and The Lancaster Inn (“Welcome to Newfoundland Why, thank you very much, Sir”) while I walked down to the Convenience store to buy some cheese to cheer me up.
(12) I will bet that by nine that night, everybody who had spent part of the day in St John’s had made physical contact with at least one resident of Bonavista.
(13) My guess too is that at each parcel drop-off variety store, a phone call was made and the targeted (in the real sense of the word) recipient of the parcel made hand-contact with baggage-handlers, and passengers of public transit systems in places such as Paris, London, Toronto Vancouver, Rome, Cairo Beijing, Sydney and Singapore. But you could see that coming, right?
(14) So the good folks of Bonavista had been exposed to people in Paris, London, Toronto Vancouver, Rome, Cairo Beijing, Sydney and Singapore. And this was still only November.
(15) The taxi services run five days a week. I don’t know about Saturdays. Sundays folks go to church and pray to God to be spared from the virus.
So why the PrtScr snapshot?
I was struck by the fact that all of Canada is self-isolating to prevent the spread of a virus, while all of Canada is spreading other viruses.
To see why, answer this question: What do you know of Don Spencer or John Wervers computing habits? And the others in the list? Do these nice folks TO: or CC: members of their families in other cities, similarly bored colleagues at home? And now you don’t even know who these people you don’t know about are spreading your email address to people that even more so you can’t know, and they in an ever-radiating sphere of contacts.
Suppose, just suppose, that Don has a buddy who has a friend who has a partner (currently marooned off-shore in Toronto), who has a colleague whose computer is effected with an email-harvesting bot. Your name and email address is now on its way to a spam or marketing database.
Come with me, up one level, and think of the mentality of virus spreading. I know that a computer virus is different from a human virus (but see “ A Devil’s Chaplain ” by Richard Dawkins) but how can we expect people to understand the concept of true self-isolation when the same people think nothing (literally) of infecting other peoples computers?
I see I am at 1,048 words, so I shall stop here.
You might consider dropping the use of CC and To in favour of BCC. I think that the UK made it illegal to use CC some five years ago.
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709-218-7927 The Landfall Garden House 60 Canon Bayley Road Bonavista, Newfoundland CANADA A0C 1B0 |
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