Yes, yet another in our mysterious, riddle-iffic series of oddly-named Covid-19 Briefings. So far we’ve had

• Muddy (today)
• Grumpy
• Sparky
• Heavy Metal
• Happy

Guessed the connection yet?

Mud season is definitely here, as Buddy the dog and all the carpets in the house can confirm. Buddy is, of course, our Ottawa office manager, and he is supervising today’s briefing bingo from the luxurious confines of his corner office.

Mark your first square: Technical Difficulties, as my internet crapped out right off the get-go.

Our video is here:

And we’re off. Squares: facial hair, mask, vaccines, Somebody’s In A Good Mood Today (not a square, but should be). And Begins In English and Vocal Malfunction or whatever I called that square too. And AstraZenica. Blue Suit square too. We never do find out what colour the shoes are, because the camera operator cuts off the exiting shot at the knees. Very clever. VERY CLEVER. I see what you did there.

“Got your backs” as we knew would be here. And now we have Pfizer and Moderna as well. Speaking of which, someone’s put what they claim is the full mRNA sequence of the Moderna vaccine up on Github. Could be poodle sperg for all I know, don’t even have time to look, but here’s your link. Enjoy? Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya!

it was sequenced by stanford university students, afaik they got the green light from moderna.https://t.co/nPtQZ7rOtW

— Bonzufo (@BlackwellParks) March 31, 2021

Oh shoot me, a Facebook Live event. SOME OF US ARE PERMABANNED YOU KNOW, a brand new kind of marginalization. Cut off from Federal government Covid info sessions because they’re done on a privately-owned platform instead of done on a government website first and ALSO streamed to the privately-owned platform. Fine. Whatever. Nobody listens to me.

And our cards are here:

• First Generation
• Second Generation
• Third Generation
• Fourth Generation
• Fifth Generation
• Sixth Generation
• Seventh Generation
• Eighth Generation card at last!
• and all of our other Covid Briefing Bingos are on the category page.

I really need different squares for different ties, but “Red” or “Blue” isn’t a lot of variation. And hey, “Finds a new way to give Canadians money” I’m gonna give you that one even if it’s just money for transit, because the bus is cheaper than the car.

Teacher is giving you a good lecture on why not to get together for Easter. I mean, it’s basically the shittiest religious holiday anyway. Let’s all get together and celebrate the death of god! We killed him! Have some chocolate fertility symbols!

Combined with the 12.3 million more Moderna doses expected in this Q2 period — we will have 30.1 million mRNA vaccines delivered over the next three months. (7 million mRNA will be delivered by the end of this week, for a total of 37.1 million in Jan.-June period.)

— John Paul Tasker (@JPTasker) March 30, 2021

And now Minister Ananad is up, and going over the whole vaccine supply, rubbing in that we’re ahead of schedule in getting doses and distributing then to the provinces. As far as I can tell, they’re all sitting in the beer fridge at Doug Ford’s house.

CBC News reported that COVID-19 is out of control in Ontario. Thanks for nothing, Doug Ford!

— Canadian Resistance 🇨🇦 (@CanadensisMax) March 30, 2021

Remember how Toronto City Council stripped Rob Ford of all of his power because he proved himself useless and incompetent again and again? Can we do the same provincially with @FordNation?

— Sofi Papamarko (@sofipapamarko) March 30, 2021

French language journalist asking what Ottawa can do to help Ontario do better, like in Quebec.

I have to say, that should be embarrassing for Doug Ford.

— John Mark Taylor (@jmt_18325) March 30, 2021

Not that BC is failing to shit its own bed, despite a great start by Dr. Bonnie Henry.

OK, generous reading. We were kind of seeing gradual non-exponential growth, but only if you didn't look at variants. So she is right, but ignoring the mathematical fact that you can't put variants and non-variants in the same bucket, then make decision on changes in that bucket

— Tyler Olsen (@ty_olsen) March 30, 2021

And of Alberta, we shall not speak.

The UCP's mishandling of this pandemic wasn't due to incompetence.
It was due to malice. https://t.co/w3jYTWwqMR

— Count Floyd 🇨🇦 (@CountFloyd2020) March 30, 2021

And Jesus Christ, two weeks off and my French has gone back to like Grade Three level. I WAS bilingual, some time in the last Century.

Dr Tam is not softballing this, she’s telling you things are starting to spike. Over 4600 new cases and 26 new deaths daily, and hospitals are under massive strain.

“Over 9000 variants of concern” she says, alarming me BIGLY, but she continues… “cases.” Okay, not nine thousand variants. Just nine thousand variant cases. And no cases of that AstraZenica vaccine-caused thrombosis in Canada.

And mark your “NASI” square. And of course “religious holiday mentioned” and “Someone appears by video monitor.”

Mark your “Drinks water” square, that’s one. And now to the questions.

Testing out my farming skills at the #IPM2014… so far, so good! @IPMandRE pic.twitter.com/kKM1IwU2Ln

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 18, 2014

Oh, “Every step of the way” and “keeping Canadians safe” mark those, and earlier Anand gave us “From the very beginning” I believe.

Mark your “Gesticulates” and “Donc” squares. And mark your “Sign language interpreters swapped out” and “from the very beginning” squares.

“The best vaccine for you is the very first vaccine that is offered to you” is true enough, as long as the federal health agency is competent, which it is in Canada and may be (after a four year caesura) in the US. I fucking LOVE the word “caesura.” But who does not, possums? Who indeed?

Mark your “Twinkleface” square. Like I said, he’s in a good mood today. “Keeping Canadians Safe” square too.

Mark your “Camera follows Trudeau out of the room even though someone else is speaking” and congrats to whoever that was who told him to put on his fucking mask, although I suspect she used different language. Which reminds me to mark your “Forgets to translate answer into other official language” square. And now mark your “Maple leaf accessory” square for the mask.

NEW: Anand just said we can expect the delivery of the J&J one shot vaccine to begin "at the end of April."

— Rachel Gilmore (@atRachelGilmore) March 30, 2021

Anand is PISSED to continue to be asked for details about confidential contracts. Why contracts entered into on behalf of the public are confidential continues to baffle me, but nobody listens to me.

Cocktail napkin math:
9.5-million total doses by end of week
12.3-million Moderna April-June
17.8-million Pfizer April-June
4.4-million AZ from all sources April-June

44-million total doses by Canada Day plus more shipments to be confirmed.

— David Cochrane (@DavidWCochrane) March 30, 2021

Update: Each week throughout April and May, we’re scheduled to get a million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. And in June, they’re moving up doses that were expected later this summer – which means we’ll get 9.6 million doses that month from Pfizer alone.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) March 30, 2021

Mike LeCouteur with a good question about vaccine hesitancy, and Dr Tam gives reassurance that we are basing decisions on ongoing intel and scientific data that continue to come out, so as time goes on we know more and more, and now we know more about who each vaccine is suited for.

We'll be there sooner than July, but yes, second dose is very disparate.

Given the number of studies coming out, showing the real world efficacy of one dose in the short to medium term, this is an important metric.

— John Mark Taylor (@jmt_18325) March 30, 2021

Battery about to crap out, so if I vanish, catch you on the flipside. What say you, is it worth doing another Briefing Bingo card? And our office manager needs to go pee in the yard so BRB…

and, for now, that’s a wrap. I’ll come back later today and fill in the missing details. Gotta frappe la rue (look, there I go being bilingualish).