Last Friday, March 12th, was my brother's birthday, as well as Lee-Anne's father's. The day before was the anniversary of the pandemic and I'm pretty sure Canada declared our initial shutdown on the 13th.
I went home for the weekend. By my count, this is the sixth time I've been to Guelph in the past year. This would mean that, if I visited an average of once per month before the pandemic, on average, my family visits have only been cut in half. I really thought it would have been by more.
My brother's unfortunately placed birthday also marks one year since he's been able to see some significant people in his life.
For the occasion, Mom made curry. This was made from a recipe that was until recently a secret (actually, it probably didn't exist until recently). It's based around a character in a video game we've all played, who owns a cafe that's known for its' curry and coffee (I guess the theme was supposed to be scent, that would be one fragrant cafe). Fittingly enough, one of the curry's ingredients is coffee, which leads me to believe that his signature coffee must contain curry.
I won't post the entire recipe, but I will say that it contains grated carrot and apple, chocolate, red wine, coffee and an eight spice mix among many other things. Pretty intricate for a video game recipe. I'll have to make it myself one day.
I brought some back for Lee-Anne, and she really liked it. She said it reminded her of a Sri Lankan restaurant that she used to go to.
Just a quick COVID update now, I know it's not everyone's favourite topic.
Last time I talked about COVID, I mentioned the new UK variant. Now we've got two new strains, one from Brazil and one from South Africa. It feels kind of odd that we shot down the term "Chinese virus" for being xenophobic, but we're okay to refer to the new strains as the "UK variant", "South African variant", and "Brazil variant". I guess it's okay to use nation labels now. It makes it a little weirder too when you take into account that while the UK variant was discovered in the UK, it likely wasn't developed there.
I've got a chance to get vaccinated a little bit in advance, since my job sometimes involves interaction with people who are immunocompromised. Right now Ontario's using a three-phase vaccine rollout plan. It's funny, we had a recovery plan that used "phases" before we swapped to the colour system.
Anyway, I belong in a stage 1.5 of sorts. I think we're in the same timeline as uber drivers. Waterloo Region's low on vaccines though, because we got put in the same size category as Guelph, which is significantly smaller. So the Guelphites who have jobs similar to mine will probably get vaxxed sooner.
We've got four vaccines going in Ontario now. There's the PfizerBiontech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson (Janson). I never know what to call that last one. Should I call it Johnson & Johnson, or should I call it Janson? Or should I call it J & J, or Triple J? Bah.
I think I mentioned the first two. The second two are newer, and I understand they only need one shot instead of two, which has been standard, and they can be stored at lower temperatures, which is better for more wide-scale distribution. However, they both have a lower reported efficacy rate, although we're supposed to keep in mind that when they did their trials, it was in the presence of the variants, unlike the first two vaccines. This would skew their results. Medical advice is to not "shop around" and just take whatever is offered. Even if you catch the virus after being vaccinated, it's supposed to make the symptoms lighter. I think everyone I know who's got the vaccine has gotten the Moderna.
What's a little odd is that the CDC still has AstraZeneca in phase three clinical trials and is not available in the States. Us Canadians are fine with it though.
Somebody that I've known professionally for a good eight years is in hospital for non-COVID related reasons. Third person I know to move through the medical system in these times.
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