Good morning, kittens! We’re ready, coffee by our sides (well, my side. I’m always on my side. I dunno about you) for today’s Covid Briefing Bingo. I could have pre-blogged all of this pre-amble last night, but I had a Zoom meeting at 9am and said fuckit. So, here we are.
via LinusQuotes.Tumblr.Com
And our briefing bingo today is brought to you by the 1920 German silent film The Devil Worshippers, starring Bela Lugosi. I thought “The Covid Briefing Bingo Worshippers” was better than “The Devil Covid Briefing Bingo”, for marketing purposes. Which, I may be wrong about that. And Die Covid Briefing Bingo Teufelsanbeter was a no-go from the very beginning. That dog just would not hunt.
Fun fact: I did some A/B testing, and thumbnails which feature a pic from a Bela Lugosi movie outpull thumbnails which feature a picture of Justin Trudeau. I’d have lost a bet, but then as I’m always saying, Bela Could Get It.
Now, here are your bingo cards. I’ll try and get the next one done soon. I just bought a pound of Starbucks beans, I might have the energy to get this out before the next briefing!
- First Generation
- Second Generation
- Third Generation
- Fourth Generation
- Fifth Generation
- Sixth Generation
- and the long awaited Seventh Generation Card.
- and all of our other Covid Briefing Bingos are on the category page.
Here’s your video:
Mark your “reporter sits in the front row” square and “Blue suit” and “Blue suit with brown shoes WHICH IS JUST MORALLY WRONG” squares. Alas. We begin with a mention of Duane Earle, the sailor who went overboard in the Pacific.
“Begins in French” too. And now we’ve moved on to a discussion of the 168,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine destined for Canada (mark “Vaccine“) which can be transported easily, and the Pfizer vaccine, and a reminder that we have more doses reserved for us than there are, uh, us. The Moderna vaccine is destined for the North, since it’s much easier to distribute logistically. It’ll be shipped out within 48 hours of approval.
Arch Biopartners gets 6.7 million for a made-in-Canada treatments, mark your “Specific Canadian company mentioned”. How happy is Trudeau to be able to say “Vaccines are coming. Vaccines are already here.”? Very, kittens. Very, very happy.
“PPE” and “Rapid Tests” squares and your “To end it anywhere, we have to end it everywhere” square or whatever however I worded that. It’s on the 7th generation card, if I recall.
It’s the fifth anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report. And Trudeau is running down some statistics of successes on meeting those goals. “We have moved forward, but we’re not done yet.” And I’ll remind you that yesterday the man who killed a First Nations woman by throwing a trailer hitch at her got manslaughter. Like it was some kind of accident.
Dr Tam is running through the stats, and I am taking advantage of this to backfill the blog post and publish it. Sorry, Dr. Tam. I shoulda done that at 3am last night when I thought of it, but I had a 9am Zoom course. Oooh, you need a second dose of the vaccine? I did not know that. Definitely makes things more complicated.
Stats:
Mark your “Button down Oxford shirt” square. And your “Florals” for Minister Anand’s mask. Which is also “Poppy!” so a twofer. And “Maple Leaf Accessory”, for Trudeau’s mask. And “From the very beginning” which you knew was coming, in response to question about the fact that a company that owned Long-Term Care Homes that needed the military to come in and help when the pandemic hit also sent out dividends over the course of the year which, are firing squads totally off the table? I’m just asking. Trudeau looks Not Well Pleased with those companies, and threatens investigation and I say the sooner the better. Did you read that report? I’m a crime reporter and my parents and grandparents are dead and at no risk of being abused in that fashion, but holy hell! I couldn’t get through it in one sitting. It took a lot of head-clearing walks to read it, and it’s only a few pages.
Minister Anand is basically just straight-up saying “I answered this last week, so I’ll just repeat that response, since it still applies”. You can tell they wish they could just hit copypaste and get on to the next question when the answer hasn’t changed.
And since I know some people are still concerned:
Canada, which has reserved enough doses to vaccinate residents against COVID-19 several times over, is in talks with other governments about a plan to donate shots to lower-income countries, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Separately, a COVAX source confirmed discussions were going on between Canada and other governments and organizations involved with COVAX, a facility created to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Reuters
And mark your “Fails to translate answer into the other official language” hey moderator YOU HAD ONE JOB.
Well, I missed all of that because somebody delivered a parcel and the dog went insane. Will have to review that later. In related news, yay, my Sephora order is here! Mark your “Swaps out sign language interpreters” square. I said “Drinks water” yes? He’s drinking quite a lot. Big drinkers, Canadian Prime Ministers. Comes with the job.
VERY pointed question about Dominic Barton and his past with McKinsey pushing Oxycontin, “The banality of evil, MBA edition” wowzer. https://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/china-chine/offices-bureaux/ambassador_ambassadeur.aspx?lang=eng The response by Trudeau is strongly pro-Barton and pro-government’s response to the opioid crisis. They’ve just given up translating these answers into the other official language. Do they think my French is THAT good? I only installed Duolingo on Friday!
Well, I can always detect my favourite word. Mark your “donc” square.
“The appropriate measures are being taken by the appropriate organizations” says Fortin, giving the nation a dose of military “we got this” cool.
Trudeau is heavy on the “uh’s” today, drinking a ton of water, and very deliberately pushing the questions to the various subject area experts, eg pushing the logistical questions to Anand and Fortin.
It seems to me that every member of this federal government has excellent hair. Their political record will be judged by history, but there can be no question: this is the best hair cabinet in Canadian history.
Mark your “Camera follows Trudeau out of the room even though someone else is speaking” square. And nice way to model compliance, as he uses the hand sanitizer before leaving the desk; he did, after all, touch the desk, chair, and water glass as well as his papers. Ooh, and the moderator now makes space for the translated answer. I should have a square for that in the next card.
Njoo is explaining why the North is getting Moderna product rather than Pfizer, because of the logistical restrictions like storage at -70 for Pfizer.
Mark your “My aunt calls during the briefing” square. And not for the first time, I think Justin Ling knows his shit. A very pointed question about Panorama, a program which manages “broad sweeps of public health programming” according to Dr. Tam, who says the provinces have systems already to track things like vaccination records.
Aaaaaand once again, I have completely forgotten to use my newly-installed transcription software, even though as I was sitting down to blog this I said to The Roommate, “Oh, I can use my newly-installed transcription software!” Well, maybe I’ll do it in an hour or so. Wonder what fun results we’ll get during the interval of the dog losing his mind because we got a delivery.
Meanwhile, in the US, I see Putin has begun taking out the trash. Wasn’t this a plot point in “The Call of Cthulhu”?
Again we see who is the monkey and who is the organ grinder.
raincoaster 