i wish they weren't going to force me off the list for subsidized housing...

i've already learned that there is no market for smoke-free housing in this city, that the only way to find a smoke-free unit is to move into housing where non-smoking is enforced by bylaw. i've moved twice, now, to avoid second-hand smoke. there's no real solution besides moving somewhere where there's a bylaw, and repeatedly complaining.

so, i'd certainly take the extra $260/month (which is what it works out to for me) and say thank you, but it's not worth it to me if it means i have to take my name off the wait for smoke-free housing.

do i need the cash? i kind of don't....

i'm going to keep an eye on this, maybe they'll change it.

but, it's more important to me to get into smoke-free housing than it is to get the extra $260/month.

https://windsor.ctvnews.ca/housing-benefit-to-help-low-income-households-in-windsor-essex-1.4934323

meanwhile, in canada...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/2016-census-age-gender-1.4095360

it's another subplot, here - it initially looked like this was going to be brutal in iran, and then sweep through the middle east. concerns about the reliability of the data out of iran aside (and that's not an accusation, exactly), we haven't really seen that happen.

well...

i know that there's some reasons that syria, yemen and iraq are a little lower.

but, the point is what it is.

in order to see substantive mortality for a disease that mostly affects old people, you have to have high enough life expectancy for people to get old, first.

less than 2% of the population is over 80.

if you have less vulnerable people, you'll have less death.

it could very well be rampant, but they're too young, on average, to notice...

13% is actually higher than i thought. but, that number has been rising very quickly, too. it was 9% five years ago, which can give you a rough bound for the population over 70. and it was barely 5% fifteen years ago, which gives you a rough bound for the population over 80.

i know that movies like the old asian ku fung guy as a stereotype, but the reality is that there would be almost nobody in china over the age of 90. life expectancy was under fifty a mere few decades ago.

so, i keep saying this - china has made a lot of progress, but it's still china. and, you have to understand what that means, just how far they had to come to get to where they are.

apparently, only 6% of the population in india today is over 65, meaning the number of very old people is very, very small. again - i know that hollywood likes the old yogi stereotype. it's not real.....life there is nasty, brutish and short, still. and, it'll be quite a while before that changes.

these are numbers for european countries:

i've made my point, i think.

i don't want you to misunderstand what i'm going to say, here.

some of the countries in this list have had some of the smallest outbreaks, so pointing to life expectancy doesn't reflect on mitigation efficacy, or lack thereof. further, it's worth noting that neither the united states (which has had a lot of dead people) nor china (which hasn't, or at least hasn't officially) are in this list because they both have relatively low life expectancy; china's is under 77, and the united states' is under 78, and apparently declining. i've pointed out a few times that the united states also has a very serious problem with diabetes and obesity.

however, it is to be expected that the size of an outbreak should be proportional to the size of the very elderly population, something that was sort of hinted at when the numbers started coming out of italy, and is kind of being confirmed as they come out of other places.

it's just one factor. but, realize this: there simply aren't as many very old people in china as there are elsewhere, and there are a lot of old people in most of europe. it's not the only thing, but it's probably going to turn out to actually be a pretty big thing.

ideally, a country would be able to keep it out of the geriatric facilities.

but, if they can't, it causes havoc....and the more old people there are to start, the more dead people there are in the end.

so, when you see numbers like this from sweden:

....you shouldn't be that surprised.

sweden is much larger but otherwise not very different from norway. however, it has substantively higher life expectancy than denmark (which is 31 in the list) and is even a good distance from finland, statistically. iceland is an island, and should be treated as an outlier.

certainly, sweden is doing very well, in comparison to italy, spain and france.

and, has it peaked? the update is that it's looking more and more like it has, yes.

it's a little surreal to notice how similar his speaking expressions and mannerisms are to my nana's.

i understand that a lot of people are likely to react rather negatively to his general approach, but that's a cultural thing, and i'm really on the other side of that - i'm identifying more strongly with his mindframe and finding it refreshing.

again - he's coming to the same deductions that i did through other means.

i'm actually glad i saved this, as it really is it's own thing.

it's no longer an official release, though, so it's going to mostly get passed over. well, i guess i'll have to update the notes for inrijected.

my lungs feel way, way better.

i'm pretty sure it was air pollution, not the virus.

the only drug i take habitually or want to take habitually is caffeine.

so, i seem to have finally gotten some sleep, at least. that was more than i usually get at one time, including an unheard of unbroken six hours.

i don't understand what's going on with me, right now....

i wanted to be productive this weekend, but the fucking pig upstairs was smoking all weekend, which just made me unfocused and unproductive. i was neither able to work, nor to sleep - i just found myself staring at the wall.

the migraine never triggered fully, but it's still there, ready to kick back in.

and, i still don't know if i actually got the virus or i'm just suffering through the second-hand smoke.

what next, then? i wanted to get done most of the rebuild over the weekend, and then do some court stuff early this week. i only got through six days of january, 2014.

i'm going to push through for another day or two, but i may have to stop mid-week.

i moved here to avoid this. it's very frustrating and very depressing :(.

i'm in the category of people that would find constant inebriation to be a cause of depression, rather than a solution to it, and i don't have any ambiguity or confusion around the point - i am fully cognizant of the fact that i don't like it, and don't want to be around it on a habitual basis. i don't need to experiment. i know...