Our COVID Crisis – Video Games Have Trained Us For This

On April 17th, 2021, Ontario’s Premier announced additional COVID-19 lockdown measures to help curb the spread of the virus, since the province has experienced a record number of COVID-19 cases recently, and that number is still steadily increasing.

We all knew that this was bound to happen. For the past year, I’ve seen (mostly young) people regularly and blatantly disregarding all COVID safety guidelines. You could blame this behaviour on the impetuousness of youth, their general rebelliousness or their distaste of authority, or even their perception of our government acting as parental figures. While I am annoyed, I’m more baffled and astounded that young people are behaving in this way, and to this extent.

Why does their behaviour leave me scratching my head? Let’s examine the situation from The Bob Angle…

Many years ago, I used to play video and computer games quite regularly, and a particular favourite of mine was Command & Conquer: Red Alert II (and its expansion pack, Yuri’s Revenge). It was a military combat game, with a focus on strategy. You played against one or more computer players at a variety of difficulty levels.

In this game, you play the role of a military commander, and have an arsenal of vehicles, ships, planes, weapons and troops at your command. Your opponent has a different arsenal, but their equipment possesses different capabilities. The more you play the game, the more engaging it becomes. With each successive battle, you become more familiar with the capabilities of each weapon type, their effectiveness on various types of terrain, and against the enemy. Some weapons are next to useless when pitted against specific pieces of your opponents artillery, and others will easily decimate them. Over time, and after many battles, you will be able to formulate an effective defense against your opponent’s military onslaught. As well, the game’s rudimentary AI means allows the computer player to (slowly) learn and adapt to your strategies. It’s a lot like chess, but with much better graphics and sound effects.

Many people have criticized Millennials for spending so much of their free time playing video games, but in my opinion, nothing could have better prepared an entire generation to take on the coronavirus. Here is a generation that grew up playing not only video games, but similar combat simulation games. Over several years, these kids likely spent hundreds of hours (if not more) immersed in these worlds.

Image credit: NVIDIA

Therefore, when the pandemic was declared in March, 2020, I expected that most of them would think as I did.

• The realization: Hey – this pandemic is like a real-life version of a battle simulation! COVID-19 is the new enemy, and it has invaded our peaceful neighbourhoods. We, collectively, are the video game warriors, and it’s now time to use our extensive training, and spring into action.

• The strategy: What can I learn about this new enemy? How formidable is it? What’s in its biological arsenal? How exactly does it spread and how quickly? How much of our territory has it already infiltrated? What are its weaknesses? (soap, alcohol, hand sanitizer) How can I exploit these weaknesses? What strategy can I develop to stay alive as long as possible, and eventually, win?

From a gamer’s point of view, this is actually pretty exciting! It’s a new mission, but now this is real life. What’s more, you won’t need a high-end video card to play at your best. You can also count on hundreds of experts to help you.

You’ve Already Trained For This

In the movie The Karate Kid, I’m sure that you recall the classic scene in which Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel to “wax on, wax off”. Daniel didn’t see the utility in this exercise at the time, but the repeated motions were the same motions used in defensive moves. This constant repetition was conditioning and building his muscle memory, and thus helping his brain to perform a certain range of motions quickly and effortlessly.

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Variants, Pawn Promotions and Superweapons

In Red Alert II, both you and your opponents have the ability to build a devastating superweapon, which, as expected, takes a great deal of time and resources. However, once it’s built, it gives you (or your opponent) a huge tactical advantage. If you can see (from the aerial view) that your opponent is working on one of these weapons, then a good strategy is to concentrate your efforts (and redeploy your resources) to prevent it from being completed.

In chess, when a pawn is able to move across the entire board, it can be promoted to any other piece (but usually a queen, since it’s the most powerful). This pawn promotion event is a game-changer, and can instantly tip the balance of power between players.

Enough time has passed since the beginning of the pandemic that the virus has mutated. In a sense, the coronavirus is adopting a divide and conquer approach: it split into several different, more virulent variants – B.1.1.7 (UK), B.1.351 (South Africa), P.1 and B.1.1.28.1 (Brazil), B.1.427 and B.1.429 (California) – and is now emerging stronger and spreading more rapidly than ever. There’s now a new double mutant strain from India that was recently detected in San Francisco.

The emergence of the COVID-19 variants was, at least to me, the real-life equivalent of this superweapon, or a pawn promotion. I sometimes compare it to the discovery of a computer player’s AI. That is, while you were busy playing the games and learning all you could about your computer opponent’s strategy, it was simultaneously analyzing you. It possessed an intelligence and was slowly becoming a more formidable enemy. When you play video games, do you feel a thrill when your enemy appears to be intelligent? Does that make you try harder and strategize more? I hope so…

This ramping up of the pandemic’s difficulty level shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Since most of us receive annual flu shots, we already know that viruses mutate – otherwise, we wouldn’t need our flu shot each year. We knew in advance that the coronavirus would eventually mutate, and probably in less than a year.

While vaccination efforts are well underway, victory is far from assured. This virus is still evolving and mutating. Who knows what the next mutations might bring?

• They could evade our current crop of vaccine and render them completely ineffective. A new variant, just detected in Oregon (dubbed B.1.1.7-O, due to its similarity to the UK variant), is doing exactly that. It’s expected that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be only 10% effective against it, and that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine efficacies will be reduced by 90%.
• The virus could become airborne, in addition to spreading via respiratory droplets.
• Its mortality rate could increase significantly.
• The virus’s lipid and protein shell (which is destroyed by soap could develop an additional layer which is impermeable to soap. This would means that washing your hands would not kill the virus.

Your opponent is still formidable and the game is a long way from being over. However, no matter what evolutionary route the coronavirus takes, the winning strategy remains the same: stop moving. Stay away from other people, and deny it the opportunity to find new hosts to infect.

This survival advice was also present in the movie Jurassic Park. As the velociraptors were closing in, Dr. Alan Grant said “Their visual acuity is based on movement like T-Rex, he’ll lose you if you don’t move.” This is how the main characters remained alive in the movie, and this is what we all need to do now.

Closing Thoughts

As I watch the nightly news and see image after image of young people on the beach during Spring Break, having lunch on a restaurant patio, gathering in groups without wearing masks, and behaving as if we weren’t in a pandemic, I’m still more baffled than annoyed. You are a generation that grew up playing video games. Despite what your parents and teachers may have told you, I don’t believe that those hundreds (or even thousands) of hours were wasted – they helped you internalize a valuable response to an encroaching enemy. This is it – now is the moment to start applying that training, and prove yourselves!

The Byrds, Darwin and COVID-19

During the final week of 2020, one of my Facebook friends posted a short video clip of herself, taking a stroll through her neighbourhood. As she reflected upon the past year, the pandemic, and the changes to just about every facet of our lives, she was reminded of a Bible verse that she had read recently: Ecclesiates 3:1. She added that the verse helped her come to terms with a world that has changed so completely in less than a year: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose.“

If this phrase sounds familiar, it’s because these words are also part of the chorus of the Byrds’ 1965 hit, Turn! Turn! Turn! This song may be 55 years old, but its lyrics are surprisingly relevant (and even helpful) in a coronavirus-ravaged world.

Right now, some of you music aficionados may be thinking “Wait a minute – why are you crediting The Byrds? Those song lyrics aren’t original – they (except for the final two lines) were copied almost word-for-word from Ecclesiates 3, verses 1-8!“. Yes, I realize that, but no one is going to listen to me if I start quoting scripture, waving a Bible and exclaiming “Behold and heed my words, fine townsfolk, for it is written!“. Most people will be more far more receptive to taking a deep dive into the lyrics of a popular mid-1960s anti-war song instead.

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Is This Song a COVID-19 Survival Guide?

While it’s tempting to adopt a tabloid style of writing and say things like “Did The Byrds leave behind a road map for dealing with COVID-19?“, it’s better to take a more analytical view. What I see in the lyrics, is an application of Charles Darwin’s trademark phrase for describing natural selection: survival of the fittest (a term coined not by Darwin, but by English philosopher Herbert Spencer). Being the fittest doesn’t mean being the strongest, physically – the ones who have the best chance of surviving are those who can most easily adapt to changes in their environment.

The key to survival – whether in Darwin’s time, or today – is taking regular inventory of our surroundings, and then modifying our behaviour accordingly. During extraordinary times, some of our old habits – shaking hands, hugging – may no longer be appropriate, or even safe.

“A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing”. In challenging times, we will naturally place more emphasis on the importance of our family, extended family and friends. These are the constants in our lives and a source of love, comfort and reassurance. After 9/11, everyone held their loved ones a little closer. It is difficult to imagine any circumstances in which it would be prudent to refrain from embracing… yet here we are.

The Deadly Irony

Since the song lyrics are Bible verses, one would think that churches across the country would be the first to seize upon and promulgate the wisdom and advice contained in those lyrics. Since the coronavirus pandemic started, most places of worship have ceased their in-person gatherings, and have comforted their parishioners by saying “We don’t need to gather in-person, because God is everywhere“. Sadly, many places still have not, and this behaviour absolutely confounds me. In July, 2020, One pastor defended keeping his church open by saying “We are not a non-essential service“. More recently, in January, 2021, a church in Waterloo, Ontario held in-person services, and its pastor argued “Look, we can’t close the church doors in a time of despair.” These stances just reeks of hubris, which as you know, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. In fact, according to Wikipedia, hubris is the most egregious of them. Placing the lives of your parishioners at risk in this way is, in my opinion, unconscionable.

Image credit: Patrick Sweeny, Wikimedia Commons

“A time to gain, a time to lose”. We humans may sit comfortably at the summit of the evolutionary pyramid, but we – especially the anti-maskers and the wilfully-blind religious leaders – need to recognize that there are forces in the world that are far greater than we are. This is the time to show some humility and flexibility. This pandemic is not a battle of the wills. The more arrogant we are, the more we will eventually suffer. Some of us will die. Worst of all, our arrogant behaviour will cause innocent people to catch the coronavirus. All for a public display of ego, and a misguided belief that our rights are being infringed. Think about Matthew 23:12 “And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled.”

“A time to be born, a time to die”. I have a message for those who insist on keeping their churches open during a pandemic: As a religious leader in your community, you have a responsibility to protect your flock, and by keeping your church open, you are encouraging people to attend in person. Consider creating a YouTube channel to deliver your sermons each week. This format has the advantage of receiving and replying to user comments, which can be used as a forum to address concerns, answer questions and provide additional context. Channel Charles Darwin, and adapt to these changing times. Follow the advice of Ecclesiastes, and show your parishioners that you actually practice what you preach.

The season has arrived, and it’s time to adapt to our new circumstances. So don’t be a bird-brain… be a Byrd-brain instead.

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It’s 2021 – Happy New Year! Now, Please Stay The Course

As December 2020 draws to a close, I’m sure that you’ve all seen the news articles and social media posts welcoming 2021, and also bidding good riddance to 2020. It’s been a horrendous year. With all due respect to Queen Elizabeth, 1992 pales in comparison with our current annus horribilis. It will be a relief to finally put this stressful, tumultuous and tragic year behind us, but it’s also important to place too much importance on drawing that line in the proverbial sands of time.

There is a danger in these posts, and we mustn’t allow that message to change our behaviour in the coming months.

Long ago, in B.C. (Before Coronavirus), January 1st was the symbolic day of renewal. It represented a fresh chapter in our lives and of a promising future. We made a list, and resolved to work on a new and improved version of ourselves during the coming twelve months.

The current crop of New Year’s articles and social media posts show something concerning. The focus has shifted. Rather than encouraging us to work on ourselves, they are now dispensing with the year 2020, as if all of society’s troubles are somehow attached to a calendar. Don’t fall for this skewed view of our circumstances. We can’t adopt this mindset in 2021 and pretend that we’ve defenestrated our troubles. Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel – two COVID-19 vaccines have already been approved (Pfizer and Moderna), and there are several more in the pipeline (AstraZenaca, Janssen and Novavax). 2021 will certainly be a better year than 2020… but not right away.

We are not turning a page in our lives, only in the calendar. 2020 was a nightmare, but the dawn of 2021 doesn’t mean that the book will be closed on this horror story. January 1, 2021 will be just like December 31, 2020. Life will continue to be just as miserable for everyone. In fact, the first two months of 2021 will be worse than anything we’ve experienced during 2020. Our Christmas get-togethers and New Years Eve parties will cause two more surges in the COVID-19 case numbers in mid-January, and then, a few weeks later, the inevitable surge in COVID-related fatalities.

Hosting an in-person New Year’s Eve party to usher out 2020 may see, like a symbolic triumph, but it is a terrible idea. It’s a pyrrhic victory, but without the actual victory. I completely understand that many of us will feel like gathering together, amid pints of ale, like a bunch of medieval warriors celebrating the vanquishing of our enemy. However, our enemy is the coronavirus – not the year 2020 itself – and it still lies in our midst. Our celebratory gathering is an opportunity for it to strike once again – silently, insidiously. This isn’t our typical action movie adversary, and we shouldn’t behave as if we’re a bunch of comic book superheroes. When it strikes, we won’t even realize that it happened.

If you want to make a list of resolutions for 2021, then resolve to stay the course:

• Continue social distancing.
• Be kind and helpful to others. People will not be magically called back to work in January – there will still be a lot of unemployment and hardship.
• Be charitable, if you can afford it.
• Keep wearing your mask even after you’ve been vaccinated.

Source: CTV National News, December 8, 2020, (starting at 5:42)

Full immunity doesn’t begin until seven days after the second dose for the Pfizer vaccine, and 14 days after the second dose for the Moderna vaccine). Can vaccinated people can be carriers, and spread the disease to others? According to several news outlets, this is possible, which is why it’s essential to keep wearing your mask, even after being vaccinated.

These 2020-2021 social media posts are cute, but don’t fall for their implications. The end of 2020 will not mean the end of the virus, or of our problems. We will turn the corner in 2021, but things will continue to get worse for a couple of months before they get better. That’s why, at least until the vaccine rollout is complete, we need to stay the course and remain vigilant. Only then will 2020 finally become a distant memory.

The Coronavirus – Some Novel Ideas

This pandemic has been difficult for all of us, but at the same time, it has also provided some incredibly fertile material for writers. For the past two months, my mind has been going in a dozen different directions, and intriguing story ideas pop into my head with astonishing regularity. If you’re a writer, you could easily spend your entire self-isolation period writing one novel or short story after another. If you’re not sure what to do with all of your free time – start writing! Work on that novel, short story, movie script, blog post, song parody or inspirational poem. Let’s give the rest of the world some creative ways to view our shared experience.

Here are brief summaries of some of the storylines that have been percolating in my brain these past few weeks – stories that could easily be expanded into novels in a variety of different genres..

Angle: Horror movie plot variation
Title: Emergence

Summary: It’s a popular horror movie plot device: a developer builds a subdivision on a cemetery or an ancient burial ground, without bothering to remove the bodies first, or without showing any reverence for a sacred place. Since the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, the same thing has been happening all over the world. However, in this allegorical novel – a dissertation against greed and commercialism – there are no evil spirits seeking revenge. Instead, a new type of virus has emerged from the decomposing bodies themselves after they were dug up, and surreptitiously dumped near a local town’s wastewater outlet pipe… wastewater which contained fertilizers, various prescription and street drugs, and an assortment of pre-digested GMO foods.

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Angle: Television script idea
Title: The Big Bang Theory, The Cross-Contamination Conundrum.

Summary: I actually came up with this script storyline several years ago, shortly after Google Glass was introduced, but it’s still relevant today. Sheldon has a friend who is a Google engineer, and he lent Sheldon a prototype of Google Glass for a couple of weeks, to get some feedback and improvement suggestions. Sheldon, of course, found a way to hack into the glasses and write his own apps for it. He wrote an app that makes bacteria and viruses radiate a bluish-green light while someone is wearing these glasses. The effect is similar to shining a UV light on hotel bedsheets – everything that is contaminated glows brightly.

When Sheldon starts wearing the modified glasses, his entire world changes. He can now see which surfaces are contaminated, and he is painfully aware of who hasn’t washed their hands. Of course, no one else knows about his new sensory ability, and he can’t reveal anything because he signed an NDA. Now everyone thinks that Sheldon has suddenly gone off the deep end. Sheldon, on the other hand, is now trapped in his own personal hell. Contamination is everywhere, only he can see it, and he feels that it’s his duty to protect those he cares about… much to their consternation..

Angle: Man vs. Nature literary conflict
Title: Don’t Poke The Sleeping Bear

Summary: Inspired by James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, Mother Nature is presented as a sentient being, who up until now, has been dormant and tolerating the encroachment of humans into her domain. However, thanks to the industrial revolution, fossil fuel consumption and deforestation, we have finally gone too far, and awakened the sleeping giant. While most of us might assume that climate change would merely cause an equilibrium shift, resulting in a planet with higher temperatures and altered weather patterns, it seems that we underestimated Mother Nature. Possessing an intelligence that we weren’t able to detect, she fought back with this virus – knowing exactly what our responses would be: no flights, limited driving, industry shutdowns and self-isolation. It was a calculated move toward a rapid reduction of our carbon footprint, and her own self-preservation.

But how far will Mother Nature take this retaliation? Will it end when we have learned to live in harmony with our environment? Or as a sentient being, will she now start to exact her revenge?.

Angle: Political thriller
Title: WWIII, Part One and Two

Summary: The dictatorial leader of a fictional foreign power, imbued with equal measures of aspiration and corruption, has his scientists engineer a bio-weapon in a laboratory, and simultaneously, a vaccine for their country’s exclusive use. With no warning at all, the virus is unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. Then, they wait and watch. There are many casualties, but a passable life continues for many countries, thanks to the Internet. Once it is established that the global Internet infrastructure is robust enough to support societies during a pandemic, they deliver their second payload: a cyber-warfare attack directed toward single country, that will bring down its Internet, thus severing its essential communication channels and supply lines, and making it defenseless against an invasion..

Angle: Renegade scientist
Title: The Anti-Vaxxer Purge

Summary: A group of scientists forms a clandestine group on the dark web, to discuss their mutual hatred of anti-vaxxers and the turmoil that their ignorance is causing. They want to show them a world without vaccines, and make them realize what morons they are. So they hatch a diabolical plan that is, at least in their eyes, benevolent. Phase 1: they spend months monitoring all anti-vaccination groups on social media, and write down the names of all of their members. Phase 2: They engineer a devastating virus, and simultaneously, develop a vaccine for it, which they will patent. Phase 3: They release the virus, and start manufacturing the vaccine. Once it spreads around the country, they will then – as a private company – offer the vaccine to anyone who needs it, for a reasonable price… with one caveat of course. If you’re a known anti-vaxxer, then you will shown evidence of your anti-vaxxing social media posts and be denied the vaccine..

Angle: Religious fundamentalism, Biblical apocalypse
Title: Invisible Jesus

Summary: After almost 2,000 years of waiting, one would think that Jesus would receive a hero’s welcome after being born on Earth once again. Perhaps humans were expecting what they were conditioned to see: a white robe, long flowing locks, a beard, and sandals. Maybe they just couldn’t conceive of their saviour dressed in contemporary, or even stylish attire. Despite being a perfect gentleman, and consistently setting a good behavioural example for others, no one paid any attention to this modern-day Jesus (who also had a common first name). He lived into old age, and during his final two decades, it seemed that people everywhere were so busy staring at their phones, that they failed to notice and appreciate the world around them. No one was actually looking for a saviour. After “Jesus” finally died of natural causes, he speaks with his father.

Son: “I have no idea what they claimed to be waiting for, but it obviously wasn’t me. After almost 2,000 years, and billions of proclamations, they’re still a bunch of egotistical twits.“
God: “OK, what do you think we should do?“
Son: “I’ve had it with these people. Let’s wipe them out and start over.“
God: “That wouldn’t be fair – not all of them are bad or even selfish. On the other hand, we could give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they don’t need saving or a saviour.“
Son: “Father, trust me… these people need guidance. They are hopelessly lost.“
God: “Then let’s try a little experiment instead. If we unleash a new virus, one for which no one has any immunity, then they will need to put aside their differences, help society’s weakest members, and work together to find a cure. Then, they’ll have to share this cure freely in order to save as many people as possible. Selfishness or greed will work against them and will only diminish their numbers, but placing others first and being charitable will save them.“
Son: “No one will know that this is actually a test.“
God: “Of course not. That’s like tidying up your house just before you have guests over. This is a pop quiz – no preparation. But if you know your material, and make it part of your daily habits, then you don’t need to worry.“.

Angle: Renegade scientist
Title: The Amish Experiment

Summary: After a two-week vacation to Pennsylvania’s Amish country, an epidemiologist was so taken with their rustic and contented way of life that he wondered whether it would work on a larger scale. There would be so many advantages: abandoning much of our technology would not only reduce our ecological footprint, it would help us to focus on what’s important in life, and ultimately lead to a more contented existence. Unfortunately, no one is going to give up their high-tech, connected life and live a modest Little House on the Prairie existence – at least not willingly. If only there were a way for force people to slow down this hectic pace, and make them to stay at home for an extended period of time. Before long, everyone would certainly come around to his way of thinking….

Angle: Maniacal sociopath
Title: The Incel Insurgence

Summary: A particularly militant and angry cell of incels (or one led by a deranged leader) has a warped view of the world. Rather than look inward and realize that they need to become better people before they can secure female companionship, they instead blame the rest of the world for their ongoing social rejection and lack of intimacy. They hatch a dastardly plan. This time, they are not going on a killing spree – their ambitions are much grander. They are going to force the rest of the world to enter theirs – one of extended loneliness and isolation. Their twisted scheme has a simple goal: everyone else must walk the proverbial mile in their shoes, and then they will finally see the light. When the danger has finally passed, a new, more understanding and enlightened society will emerge from the social ashes – one that will embrace the incels and finally give them the intimacy they’ve been craving all their lives. At least, that’s what they expect will happen….

Angle: Non-fiction
Title: The Invention That Saved Humanity

Summary: A non-fiction book that compares the 1918 Spanish Flu with the 2020 coronavirus, and credits our response and eventual triumph over it to a single invention: the Internet. This high-speed global network has allowed many of us to work from home and remain employed. We use it to keep in touch with our loved ones (via VOIP, video chats, texting, e-mail). News outlets and television stations are still able to function, which keeps viewers and readers up-to-date. Without this infrastructure in place, leading to an informed (and for the most part, a responsive and educated) public, COVID-19 would have been much more devastating..

Angle: Humour, Satire
Title: Coronavirus Conspiracies

Summary: A lighthearted look at some of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories to emerge from the pandemic, as well as couple that the author simply made up himself. For example “This pandemic is a diabolical plan by shampoo manufacturers to increase their sales. Think about it – if you can’t get a haircut for 6-8 months, then with each passing week you’re going to use more shampoo.”.

Angle: Cheesy romance novel
Title: Viral Love – Finding Romance During Social Distancing

Summary: What’s an eager young woman in her sexual prime supposed to do when society is suddenly depriving her of the human contact she so desperately longs for? There is a tingling deep within her loins – a hormonal call to action – and with each passing week, its calls become increasingly insistent….

Angle: Detective fiction, thriller
Title: The Final Exam

Summary: A novel in the style of The DaVinci Code. The protagonist is a detective who is also a religious scholar, and he believes that the pandemic was caused by God Himself. Initially dismissed as a quack by the scientific and medical communities, he shares some of his compelling research. For years, he studied ancient Biblical manuscripts in their original Aramaic, to eliminate any translation errors, and discovered that the pandemic is actually what fundamentalists believe is the Rapture.

However, those who identify as born-again won’t be plucked up and taken to heaven, while everyone else is left to fend for themselves. That bizarre, self-serving interpretation was not in the manuscripts. Our collective task for the past 2,000 years, was to exist harmoniously, work together and help each other. The Rapture – in the form of this pandemic – is our final exam. If we are going to survive it, then all humans must have learned and practised the lessons in the Bible. We need to work together, help each other with whatever skills we possess, share our resources and knowledge, and most importantly, make individual sacrifices for the common good. If we behave selfishly, then we will fail this final exam, and will eventually perish.

Those are his revelations… but is the rest of the world willing to embrace and adopt this new interpretation of their holy book?

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Note: I designed all of the book covers myself, with the help of a program called Canva. All book cover images are either public domain or Creative Commons.

Use Your Computer’s Spare CPU Cycles to Help Researchers Study the coronavirus

This coronavirus pandemic has been very difficult for everyone. I think it’s safe to say that we all want to do whatever we can help, because we share a common goal: vanquishing the coronavirus, ending the suffering, and finally, reclaiming our lives.

Today’s undisputed heroes are the health care workers, who put their lives at risk every day for our benefit. Our future heroes are those with specialized knowledge: medical researchers and epidemiologists. They are the ones who are studying this virus and learning all they can about the nature of the beast. This is done to develop an effective vaccine, but it’s also done in the true spirit of Sun Tzu: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.“

If we hope to win this battle, then we need to understand our enemy… and that’s where you can help. Seriously! You can help scientists understand the inner workings of the coronavirus, which will accelerate the development of a vaccine.

Stanford University, working with medical researchers across the United States, has launched a global distributed-computing project called Folding@Home. This is a large-scale computational biology initiative that simulates protein folding on a computer.

Proteins are surprisingly versatile and can perform a lot of different roles within our bodies: they can regulate cells, act as enzymes, or function as antibodies. However, before they can do any of these things, proteins must first fold into the proper three-dimensional structure. This is usually done automatically, and the specific shape will depend on its particular sequence of amino acids. Sometimes, proteins can fold in undesired ways, and this mis-folding can be a cause of a number of serious diseases: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Creutzfeldt–Jakob, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s, sickle-cell anemia, Type II diabetes, some forms of cancer, and as of March, 2020 – the coronavirus. Simulating protein folding on a computer can help researchers understand under what conditions a protein misfolds and (ideally) what can be done to prevent this from happening.

The computing power required to simulate protein folding is prodigious, and is far, far beyond what is available to any university. Stanford University is assisting in this effort with their Folding@Home initiative. They are breaking down the work into millions of bite-size pieces, called work units, and inviting anyone who owns a computer to join the project. Those who sign up will use their computer to process some of these work units, and in return, act a catalyst in this massive protein folding undertaking.

This video explains, in a simplified way, Stanford’s Folding@Home distributed computing project.

When you sign up for Folding@Home, you will be pushing coronavirus research forward. After installing the folding program, it will download a work unit from Stanford, and your computer will begin processing it as a background task. A work unit will take between four hours and two days to process, depending on the size of the unit and the speed of your computer’s CPU. When the processing is complete, the results will be sent to Stanford automatically, a new work unit will be downloaded, and that first work unit will be credited to your account.

As the work unit is being processed, you can enable the animated screen saver and view the protein that your computer is currently working on. Below is a sample image. As you can see, there is a world map behind the protein. Each white pixel on the map represents a computer that is processing a work unit at this moment. As of this writing, there are over 3.8 million active CPUs in this project, with a combined processing power of 1.3 million teraFLOPS (trillions of floating-point operations per second).

Stanford University’s Folding@Home project has been studying the diseases mentioned above, but in March 2020 they pivoted, and shifted their focus to the coronavirus. Coronavirus research has been now given priority over the other diseases, so the work units you download will (unless you specifically indicate otherwise in the program settings) be devoted to coronavirus research projects. There are a number of projects being worked on simultaneously. Here are summaries of some of the projects that my computer has worked on during the past week:

Video Card Owners
If you have a video card in your PC, then you can be an elite folder! You will be able to process between 5-50 times as many work units as you would using only a CPU. That’s because the Folding@Home software is written to make full use of the the prodigious parallel processing power in video cards (also known as Graphics Processing Units, or GPUs). A CPU may have two, four or six cores, but a video card typically has hundreds of cores (called CUDA cores. High-end video cards have over 2,000 CUDA cores). While individually, these aren’t nearly as powerful as CPU cores, their sheer numbers mean that even a modest video card will far outdistance the processing power of high-end CPUs.

We all want a vaccine to be developed as quickly as possible, but there’s a lot of research that needs to be completed first. If you’d like to shorten the development time, then please consider signing up for Stanford’s Folding@Home initiative. There’s no compensation offered, but I can guarantee that you will receive a warm, fuzzy feeling – from the heat generated by your computer, and the knowledge that you are doing something tangible and measurable to help humanity in this time of crisis.

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As The Masks Go On, Our Masks Come Off.

When I was in university, I remember my sociology professor telling us about the various masks we wear in society. He explained “You probably don’t speak the same way to your parents that you do around your friends. You present one version of yourself to your friends, another version of yourself to your kids, and still another version around your parents or your employer.” This was his introduction to one of our textbooks, The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman.

Shakespeare famously wrote, in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players“. Goffman proposed that we are all similarly theatrical, and change our behaviour for different audiences. In this age of social media, his thesis resonates with me even more. Most of us, through the judicious selection of our profile photos, are curating an online image, or (for those who think especially highly of themselves) developing a brand.

If we’re all wearing these various masks, then how can we observe people as they really are?

• One way, as noted in above quote, is to be unimportant. In the TV series Undercover Boss, the CEOs of large corporations would disguise themselves, and work as front-line workers in their own companies, in order to find out what their employees really thought of them.
• Another way is by having someone experience intense or protracted stress. Paramedics and firefighters often face communication difficulties, since people who speak more than one language will often revert to their mother tongue when under a great deal of stress.

Right now, as the coronavirus pandemic is spreading to every country on the planet, we are all under a great deal of pressure: loved ones are sick and dying; entire industries have shut down, causing instant and indefinite unemployment; self-isolation is causing an increase in domestic abuse. What’s happening is also ironic: As we don our N95 (or homemade) masks, the coronavirus pandemic has simultaneously removed the societal masks we used to wear every day, and is now exposing to the world, our true nature as individuals.

If there is something encouraging I can say about this pandemic it’s that we have all been granted a new (but temporary) superpower: we now possess the equivalent of those comic book x-ray specs, which give us the ability to see beneath everyone’s carefully-crafted public persona, and discover who they really are beneath the surface.

And now, with apologies to Charles Dickens, “It was the best of humanity, it was the worst of humanity.”

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The Bad Actors

* A shopper in a Woolworth’s supermarket Sydney, Australia pulls out a knife in an argument over toilet paper.
* An Asian student is physically assaulted in London in a coronavirus-related attack.
* Scammers call people and tell them that they have tested positive for COVID-19. Then they ask for their credit card information.
* A Vancouver couple was trying to clean up by buying as many Lysol wipes as they could, in order to sell them at a profit.
* A store manager recounts abhorrent customer behaviour in the midst of the pandemic.
* A Toronto man created and sold fake COVID-19 testing kits.
* In Hamilton, Ontario, an 18-year-old woman wanted to get out of work, so she forged a doctor’s note stating that she had COVID-19. The restaurant had to close down, send everyone home, and hire a professional cleaning service to sanitize the store.
* It’s exceedingly difficult to get food delivered in New York City these days, so some people are luring Instacart shoppers with incredibly large tips – only to change them to zero when the food is actually delivered.
* In Newport, Oregon, some people are calling 911 because they’ve run out of toilet paper.

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The Angels Who Walk Among Us

• First and foremost, the front-line workers. Not just health care workers, but bus drivers, police officers, and everyone who works in a grocery store. These are the people who regularly put their own lives at risk – every day – to care for us and alleviate our suffering. They are the true heroes and heroines of this pandemic, and when the danger has finally passed, we will owe them a debt that can never be repaid.

• Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, better known as LVMH, is reconfiguring its perfume factories to make free hand sanitizer.
• Distilleries in Oregon, Georgia and North Carolina are using their in-house alcohol supply to make hand sanitzer and distribute it for free.
• Many Supermarket chains are opening an hour earlier, typically from 7:00 – 8:00 am) and reserving that time for seniors to shop. The rationale is that the stores will be less crowded, which is important for people with weak immune systems. Since the stores are restocked and disinfected each night, they will also be clean and fully-stocked.

• Many musicians are serenading their fans with at-home mini-concerts, to help them through the self-isolation.
• Burton Cummings.
• Kim Mitchell.
• Sheryl Crow.
• John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival).
• Michael McDonald (Doobie Brothers).
• Paul Stanley (KISS).
• Brian May (Queen).
• Dennis DeYoung (Styx).
• Rick Springfield.
• Melissa Etheridge.
• Neil Diamond.
• Cat Stevens.
• Carole King.
• Sting.
• Jimmy Buffett.
• Norah Jones.

• Yo Yo Ma is presenting a series of performances on his Twitter feed called Songs of Comfort.

• Patrick Stewart is helping us to endure this self-isolation by reading A Sonnet A Day.

• Neil Sedaka delights us with a different medley of tunes each day.

• Tim Horton’s is giving free coffee to health care workers.

• Schools in Nebraska are donating their 3D printers to manufacture hospital supplies.
• A long list of Florida restaurants are offering various discounts and well as free delivery during this pandemic.
• Hospital parking, which has always been horrendously expensive, is now free in British Columbia.
• In Texas, South Carolina, and various other states, people are offering to lend their campers and RVs to doctors and health care workers for free, so that they can self-isolate from their families as they continued to work in hospitals during the pandemic (photo credit: CNN).

• Michigan’s governor is offering that state’s essential workers (those without a college degree) a “tuition-free pathway to college”.
• A preacher is offering free Bible study classes on his YouTube channel.
• Using large sheets of acrylic, a Chicago restauranteur is using his pizza oven to mold face shields for hospital workers.
• A Cambridge, Ontario textile company is now manufacturing masks and gowns and selling them at or below cost.
• People in Toronto are offering free groceries to those in need.

• This Nevada student created a network of volunteers to provide groceries to the elderly, for free.
• A man just bought $169 of groceries, but his debit card wasn’t working. A lady in line behind him paid his grocery bill for him.
• In Kitchener, Ontario, a starving man resorted to shoplifting at a supermarket to feed himself. When caught, the security guard listened to his story and said “It’s OK. We will feed you, we’ll feed you. We will get you food”.
• A New York City hotel is donating the contents of their mini-bars to front-line workers.

• Little things can often make a big difference. A Mississauga lady has been painting whimsical designs on rocks, and then placing them around the neighbourhood to, as she puts it “spread a little cheer”.

• This is just one example, but ordinary people all over the country are making masks and providing them to anyone who needs one, for free.
• And finally, those of us who venture out to our balconies and front yards every evening, banging pots and making noise – giving thanks to the health care workers and everyone else who are risking their health daily for our safety. As individuals, we may not have any in-demand skills, or even feel that we have anything to contribute, but at least we can show our appreciation.

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The Coronavirus Doesn’t Care About Your Freedom

I saw this photo on my Facebook feed this week, and it really stood out among the hundreds of coronavirus news stories that are populating social media feeds these days.

On April 20, 2020, in Denver Colorado, people dressed in scrubs and masks (who are likely health care workers) blocked another group of citizens who were protesting the state’s coronavirus lockdown measures.

On the surface, this is a study in contrast: Two diametrically opposed sides in the coronavirus wars. The man in scrubs is likely educated, well-informed, analytical, simultaneously courageous and cautious, and (I would imagine) has a dominant, data-driven left-hemisphere. The lady (from what I can infer) runs on emotion: bold, egotistical and defiant, wrapping and hiding her ignorance in a shroud of puffed-up patriotism. She is maskless, and sitting only two feet away from the vehicle’s driver. The letters “USA” are emblazoned boldly across her shirt, along with red stripes along her left sleeve, and stars along the right sleeve, mimicking the American flag. As these two ideological adversaries proceed to stare each other down, she leans out of the open passenger window, holds up a large white placard with the words “LAND of the FREE”, and shouts at the man in scrubs: “Land of the free! Go to China if you want communism!”

This is a fascinating snapshot: it’s not merely a still frame of the Denver protest, and it’s more than a broader depiction of our divided society. When I look at this image, I see what my English teacher would describe as two of the classic literary conflicts: Man vs. Man on a micro level, but more importantly: Man vs. Nature on a macro level. In the latter conflict, the protagonist is pitted against the prodigious power of Nature, and is called to battle forces that are beyond his/her control. These obstacles must be surmounted in order to survive, or to restore order to their world. Their response to this challenge will often reveal their core values and deepest fears.

We are now in the role of this protagonist, and are presently engaging the juggernaut that is Nature. Despite humankind’s exalted position at the summit of the evolutionary pyramid, we are not masters of our domain. We are merely guests on this planet, and we must function within a large and intricate ecosystem.

Statistically, the lady in the truck is more likely to get COVID-19 than the man in scrubs. All of the defiance in the world will not make any difference. Nature doesn’t care about our histrionics, our constitutional rights, or whether we want to play golf or get a haircut. The coronavirus – often described as the great equalizer – doesn’t care about your political affiliation or your station in life. The only thing that matters is our behaviour, which is influenced by many things, including: humility, open-mindedness, our level of education, our collective understanding of basic epidemiology, and our understanding of the behaviour of the coronavirus itself.

When I was a kid, I used to watch Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and various National Geographic documentaries on television. These wildlife programs would seem horrific today – animals routinely fought to the death, and predators would lie in wait to attack an unsuspecting, weaker prey. A pride of lions would chase down a herd of gazelles and pounce upon the unfortunate one who wasn’t able to keep up with everyone else. It was brutal and unforgiving, but that was Nature.

These documentaries also made me think about humankind, how civilized we were by comparison, and some of the stark differences between humans and animals:

• For one thing, we have respect for human life, and value it above all else.
• As individuals, we formed social networks, which over time, coalesced into tribes, communities, societies, and finally cultures.
• We care for those in our community, and we also support the weakest members of our society.

As this planet’s most successful species, it’s easy to believe that we are, collectively, the fittest, and thus destined to survive anything that Nature could hurl at us. However, that’s not exactly what Charles Darwin meant when he wrote about survival of the fittest. We need to be flexible and we need to adapt to a constantly-changing environment. Rigid defiance is the antithesis of adaptability.

The dangers of arrogance and self-importance shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, since it’s been ingrained in popular culture for the past 2,000 years. I’m sure that we are all acquainted with the Biblical phrase “Pride goeth before a fall“. If you look up the Seven Deadly Sins in Wikipedia, you’ll see that hubris (pride) is referred to as the most serious of these sins.

We humans have created a luxurious little bubble for ourselves on this planet, and we often forget what things are like outside of it. Ascend 30,000 feet from the Earth’s surface and there is no longer enough oxygen to support life. Even at ground level, the weather is often ruthless and harsh. Hurricanes destroy homes and make communities uninhabitable. Tornadoes carve an unpredictable path of destruction through neighbourhoods. Volcanoes erupt with billowing clouds of toxic ash, while their rivers of lava mercilessly consume everything in their paths. Lightning strikes kill 6,000 people every year.

U.S. President Barack Obama consoles a tornado victim in Moore, Oklahoma, May 2013.

As technologically advanced as we are, we must never forget that we are not (and will never be) the rulers of this planet. We are merely temporary guests in Mother Nature’s house, and she is a strict and unforgiving hostess who will not hesitate to do some proverbial spring cleaning every now and then. Defiance, shouting about our constitutional rights, claiming that the coronavirus is a hoax… none of that will make any difference. Nature doesn’t care. The best defense is education, humility and adaptability – understanding as much as we can, realizing that we are merely tenants and not landlords, learning our planetary “house rules”, and finally, modifying our behaviour so that we can work within those rules. If we choose to make our own rules, then we will be unceremoniously evicted.

We are now the gazelles and our herd is being culled by Nature. Just like the National Geographic documentaries, those of us who are most likely to be the victims will also be the slowest… to adapt.

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