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Statement by

Premier and Minister of Finance,

Honourable Andrew A. Fahie

9 July, 2021

Lets Bring the COVID-19 Situation Back Under Control

Good day and GOD's Blessings to all the people of the Virgin Islands and beyond.

Over the past few months I have been keeping my promise to update you on a bi-monthly basis on the work of your Government and other matters of interest to the national community.

I am here this evening to encourage us, in a time when we continue to grapple with the realities of COVID-19.

Tonights update comes as we begin a period of nightly curfews from 7:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. due to an upsurge in COVID-19 infections in the Territory, and as the Virgin Islands records its third confirmed death attributed to this disease.

This is a situation that we all worked hard over the preceding 15 months to avoid.

But unfortunately, despite all our efforts and all our sacrifices, we are now faced with community spread.

The Minister for Health and Social Development, the Honourable Carvin Malone, would have addressed you over the last few days, giving updates on this spike which began around 30th June, 2021.

And, your Governments plan for bringing the situation back under control so that our people can be safe from COVID-19, so that we can curb further loss of life, and so that our economy can continue back on the path to stability and growth, providing jobs and income for you the citizens and residents of this Territory.

Earlier today, the Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Ronald Georges, also issued a statement, advising of the situation where 821 active confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been officially recorded in the Territory along with the third confirmed death.

Testing of persons is continuing at various locations across the Territory and as the results are confirmed your Government will ensure that you are kept updated.

To all persons who have tested positive especially those who are critical and in the high-risk category, we continue to pray for your safe recovery, and urge you to stay at home to prevent spreading the virus further.

To those who have lost loved ones, your Government, on behalf of all the people of the Virgin Islands, offers our heartfelt condolences.

We pray that the families who are left to mourn will find comfort in GOD during this difficult time.

In the Virgin Islands, it is our DNA to support each other. We are a close-knit society, and each loss is felt personally.

It is vitally important that as a community we do everything in our control to protect those we love.

I want to assure you that your Government has been working to put the necessary measures in place to bring the current spike in COVID-19 cases back under control.

Since an increase in cases was observed about a week ago, your Ministers, the professionals in the Health team, public officers in the various Ministries and Departments and other stakeholders, have been meeting, discussing, planning and implementing sometimes behind the scenes critical measures that are needed to contain the further spread of the virus and to ensure that medical resources are in place.

The evidence is clear that the measures implemented by your Government since the start of the pandemic were working.

They worked because everyone played their part by adhering to the quarantines and curfews, washing hands and sanitising, wearing masks and maintaining social distance.

Already during the pandemic, we have had glimpses of how fragile the situation is.

You will recall there were a couple of instances where persons who showed no visible sign of the virus but who were really asymptomatic attended events, and the virus was spread to persons at those events.

We were able to very quickly contain the spread through contact tracing, and we were able to keep persons safe and to keep the economy on the path to full reopening.

Now we have community spread, and we know that is because some persons have not been adhering to the protocols.

Can I tell you that there are persons who have tested positive and they are refusing to cooperate with the contact tracing team?

There are persons who know or suspect that they have been exposed who do not want to present themselves for testing because they do not want to have to self-isolate or quarantine?

I urge everyone to fully cooperate with the contact tracing team.

I urge everyone who needs to be tested to get tested.

If you do not do this you are putting other persons and their families at risk, and your families as well.

Persons who may have been exposed to COVID-19 need to know so that they do not pass it on to the children, the elderly and the vulnerable in their homes and communities.

COVID-19 is not playing around with us and we must not play around with COVID-19.

If you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, I am pleading with you to call the medical hotline at 852-7650, that is 852-7650.

We must be vigilant for symptoms and strict about staying at home to limit the spread of the infection.

Your Government and other authoritative voices have been warning that COVID-19 is fluid, and despite our past successes, neither the BVI nor any other country in the world is out of the woods.

We have kept seeing and hearing this as big and small countries experienced explosions of the virus in their population and as new variants and strains of the virus emerged.

COVID-19 is not playing with us and we must not play with COVID-19.

Your Government remains extremely concerned about the increasing rate of infections in the Virgin Islands, but we know that we can overcome this.

The BVI can succeed in this task if everyone does their part starting with the basics of washing and sanitising hands, wearing masks, social distancing and also cooperating with the contact tracing and getting tested as necessary.

We continue to hear persons arguing about vaccines, even as the infections come closer to home and the deaths increase.

There are debates about persons rights.

May I reiterate that vaccination remains voluntary and it remains a personal decision.

We must respect each others choice and their rights.

However, whether you have taken the vaccine or not, you have a personal responsibility.

That responsibility is to be cautious and responsible in your interactions at home and in public.

Your responsibility is to follow the public health protocols.

And, if you are the owner or operator of a business, your responsibility is to ensure your employees and your customers are being cautious and responsible in following the protocols.

If you see an individual, a business, an employee or another customer not following the protocols, report it to the manager, and if necessary report it to the authorities.

COVID-19 has no smell; no taste.

It is invisible.

You cannot see it with your eyes. You cannot hear it coming. You cannot feel it with your fingers.

There are persons who have COVID-19 but they are asymptomatic they show no symptoms, so you have to be careful.

Do not play with COVID-19.

I continue to urge persons who are able to take the vaccine to take it.

I can share with you my familys personal experience over the last week.

My mother, who is in her 80s, one of our Golden Citizens, had to be taken to the hospital where she tested positive for COVID-19.

The doctors were able to explain to our family that due to her being fully vaccinated, significantly contributed to saving her life.

Thank GOD she is now safely recuperating.

This encounter was indeed very scary and traumatising.

I would not wish anyone else to go through that experience.

That is why I am saying that yes it is possible for one to contract COVID-19 while being fully vaccinated.

But the reality is, the vaccine allows the body to fight the virus with a high level of success.

So, that is why I come to you with my personal experience strongly recommending that you get vaccinated.

Get your first dose, get your second dose.

Do it for yourself.

Do it for your family.

Do it for your children.

Do it for your elderly.

Do it your for your loved ones.

Do it for the present and future of these Virgin Islands.

Do it for your economy so that we can continue to work together balancing lives and livelihoods.

Simply put, there is no magic to how we get this current situation turnaround other than through prayers, adhering to all approved heath protocols.

I believe that many of us had the notion that when the borders reopened that the protocols were only for those coming in through the controlled process.

So we became complacent rather than vigilant, forgetting that COVID-19 never left as persons could have still been walking around asymptomatic.

We got too comfortable.

We have to change our behaviour one person at a time to get this situation under control. The power to change around this situation is in each of us.

That is why I ask you all again to be careful, act responsibly and with consideration for each other.

We are not out of the woods.

Your Government has done a lot over the past months to adjust to the New Regular of living and working with COVID-19.

For example, we have passed a number of pieces of legislation to support e-Government and making more Government services available online. So the proactive measures of your Government will ensure that Government services remain online and you will be hearing more about that.

We have boosted our health infrastructure, refurbished the old Peebles Hospital into a major COVID-19 centre, invested in our own testing lab at the Dr. D. Orlando Smith Hospital, we have implemented effective protocols, and we have made vaccines and testing available with the assistance of the UK.

Your Government and our agencies continue to be guided by our very competent and qualified medical professionals.

We have been working to develop and implement a four-to-seven-week plan of how we project to get the numbers down, stop the spread and increase vaccination. This plan was shared by the Minister of Health as he outlined the Cabinet Decision last evening.

This puts us in a stronger position to fight this. But this plan can only succeed with everyones cooperation.

The past 15 months have proven that the BVI can fight off COVID-19 when we work together.

In the last 15 months, we were able to keep persons safe, and to keep most businesses in the position to be able to reopen and to provide jobs.

We have been able to receive tourists since December 2020.

We have been able to revive economic activity.

And while the recent developments represent a serious and major setback to our aspirations, our commitment to taking this economy into overdrive has not changed.

I am confident that we will get there.

We will do it through hard work, sacrifice, unity, cooperation, and the support of Abba our Father.

We continue to recognise that we have gotten this far with the hands of GOD guiding us.

I am inviting you the people of the Virgin Islands to join together as we engage in a prayer fast for 21 days starting Sunday 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for 21 days- A prayer fast.

Choose your own time in the day and individually or collectively petition GOD to continue to keep us all safe and protected from the plans of the enemy.

We will win this battle.

I look forward to our people coming together, praying together, and believing in GOD together, as we once again watch GOD work.

You can look forward to your Government updating you regularly on how we are progressing with managing and containing the spread of COVID-19 in the Virgin Islands.

See the original post:
Statement by Premier Fahie - Let's Bring the COVID-19 Situation Back Under Control - Government of the Virgin Islands

As sure as night follows day, social media memes follow a big sporting event, and so England fans on Wednesday night enjoyed sharing jokes and clips of events around the Euro 2020 semi-final win almost as much as the victory itself.

Mason Mount was showered with praise after this video clip of him giving his shirt to a young girl in the Wembley crowd took off on social media. Her emotional reaction summed up how many England fans must have felt after such a long wait to reach a major tournament final again.

This enthusiastic fan won plaudits for the brave way in which he attempted to continue singing and celebrating, even after gracefully falling down several rows of seats.

The actor Ingrid Oliver implied, however, that she had not found supporting England on Wednesday night that relaxing or enjoyable.

Social media users had some significant questions about the award of a penalty in extra time to England, and why the video assistant referee (VAR) did not overturn the decision.

The hashtag #cheating was trending on Thursday morning, leading to some interesting theories about who might have been in control of the VAR operation on the night.

A clip of ITV pundit Gary Neville was also massively shared, as at the end of the match he delivered a verdict on not just Southgate and the England team, but on the countrys leadership as a whole.

Thank you for your feedback.

The former Manchester United and England player went viral for saying: The standards of leaders in this country for the past couple of years has been poor, and looking at that man there, thats everything a leader should be. Respectful. Humble. Tells the truth. Genuine. Hes fantastic, Gareth Southgate. He really is unbelievable and hes done a great job.

Speaking of leaders, there were plenty of observations after Boris Johnson rocked up to the game wearing a replica England shirt. Some cast aspersions on the prime ministers football knowledge.

And Johnsons whole football shirt plus office shirt and tie combo was roundly mocked.

Political points were not hard to find whether it was people expressing surprise at leftwing public figures suddenly seeming to discover a nationalistic fervour

or schadenfreude at those on the right who at the outset of the tournament had taken such offence at England players taking the knee before matches. The Conservative MP Lee Anderson, who had announced he was boycotting England matches while they continued to make the anti-racism gesture before kick-off, was a popular target for memes.

Some harked back to that famous Norwegian commentator back in 1981:

If you were not supporting England, well, there is still another match around the corner, and time to get some different flags in for your bunting.

Atomic Kittens song Whole Again has been adopted by England fans as an anthem, and they have rerecorded it as Southgate Youre the One (Footballs Coming Home Again). It has caused some raised eyebrows.

But it made for an astounding atmosphere at the stadium.

And Gareth Southgate was getting praise not just for his tactics and substitutions, but for almost single-handedly saving the name Gareth.

Atomic Kitten delighted fans by performing the new version of the song live on the BBC after the match had ended.

But perhaps most of all on social media, after months of difficult times, for England fans it felt like there was just a tremendous celebration of the nation coming together, a huge sense of relief, and a wave of admiration for Southgate and his team.

And so on to Sunday, and the clash with Italy.

See the rest here:
Southgate Youre the One: social media reacts to Englands win - The Guardian

Senior coach Luke Beveridge is expecting a fierce contest when his side meets Sydney at Marvel Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

While a win would see the Bulldogs reclaim top spot on the ladder, Beveridge said that wont be their main focus.

Theres a lot nipping at our heels last night was one of those pivotal games where (the result) matters a lot with Port and Melbourne, Beveridge told media on Friday morning.

You cant focus on the end result and outcomes youve got to make sure that were taking care of the things that are going to help us play at our best.

The peripheral things, as important as they are and especially the ladder position, will just take care of itself.

Both sides will enter the clash off comfortable wins, with the Bulldogs overcoming North by 29 points, and the Swans recording a 92-point win over the Eagles away from home.

(The Swans) have been impressive - theyve got a really good blend and really good mix, Beveridge said.

John (Longmire) and all his crew have got them playing a really exciting brand. Theyll be a very challenging opponent but were finding that every week.

We thought North Melbourne had made some leaps and bounds from the last time we played them - as much as we played well earlier in the year against them, they really challenged us on the weekend.

After (Sydneys) big margin down at the Cattery, theyll be full of beans and confidence so were expecting them to come out and try and put us on the back foot.

Sundays match will also be Beveridges 150th at the helm.

The Bulldogs will confirm their team of 22 plus four emergencies tonight at 5pm.

Link:
Beveridge: We'll focus on what we can control - Western Bulldogs

Article content

B.C.s 2021 wildfire season began officially when the George Road fire seven kilometres south of Lytton was reported on June 17. Three weeks later the Village of Lytton was destroyed by an unrelated blaze and there were 100 active fires.

It is asking residents to have a plan to transport all family members or co-workers outside of the area if an evacuation order is issued.

About 300 fires have flared up over the last 10 days, many of which were sparked by lightning. Most of the blazes took place in the Cariboo and Kamloops fire centres.

Canadian Press

The District of Coldstream has rescinded an evacuation order on Clarke Road because of a wildfire burning near Coldstream, east of Vernon.

That means residents can return home but they remain on evacuation alert.

The BC Wildfire Service says the fire is estimated at 20 hectares in size and is now classified as being held, which means that sufficient suppression action has been taken and the fire is not likely to spread beyond existing boundaries.

The BC Wildfire Service is assisting the District of Coldstream, City of Vernon and the Regional District of North Okanagan on the Clerke Road (K41708) wildfire located approximately 4 kilometres southwest of Vernon, adjacent to Highway 97.

More than a week after a wildfire swept through town, Lyttons main street is an alien place.

Trucks with melted wheels sit outside charred shops. Brick chimneys anchor piles of debris. A picket fence encloses the ashy ruins of a house. Skeleton trees border a lawn that is somehow still green.

Lytton residents and journalists toured the devastated town on Friday, more than one week after residents fled for their lives as a wildfire surged through town, killing two people.

The town on the banks of the muddy Fraser River is dramatically altered. Only a handful of structures remain, including the post office and church, and there is a dreadful symmetry to the grey ruins.

Power lines lie in tangles on the sidewalks. Several buildings seem to have collapsed, while others were incinerated. Gone is the clinic, the RCMP detachment and an assisted-living home.

Crews cleared a path through the debris for the tours, and participants were required to wear N95 masks as protection against toxic smoke.

The town was quiet apart from the sound of a generator and the occasional helicopter passing overhead toting water to a fire on nearby hillsides.

Read more HERE.

-Glenda Luymes

B.C. has been dealing with a lot of grief lately, from the pandemic and opioid health crises to the grisly discovery of bodies in unmarked graves at a residential school to a deadly heat wave and wildfires.

Its a lot to process.

Jonny Morris, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association, B.C. Division, said the impacts of the heat and wildfires and the overall climate emergency are having a significant impact on the emotional and mental health of B.C. residents.

Its also really important to remember that with more than 750 sudden deaths (during the heat wave) there are a lot of people experiencing grief and bereavement right now, he said.

That is on top of all the anguish caused by the pandemic, the opioid crisis, and the residential school findings. Morris added that anxiety may also be affecting past disaster victims, for example those who had to flee their homes in 2017 because of the devastating wildfires or the 2018 Grand Forks floods.

Any kind of event that is traumatic and you see it again happening elsewhere, people can feel triggered, have flashbacks or worries, even if you are not in a community being affected, he said.

Some residents also have what experts now call eco-anxiety or climate change grief because they are watching these disaster events, which scientists predicted would become greater in frequency and intensity with climate change, and they become stressed about the future.

Morris said climate change grief needs to become part of the health care planning by the province.

What kind of mental health supports are going to be needed? What framework is needed to deal with the mental health impacts of climate change and they are significant, he said.We need to talk about the mental health impacts of these big existential threats.

Read more HERE.

-Tiffany Crawford

A menacing ball of smoke blew from downtown Lytton towards Erik Siwiks home and, within minutes, the trees lining his property exploded, pushing heat and smoke into his living room and sending him running for safety to a nearby schoolyard.

He took shelter behind a large metal garbage bin, but was suddenly engulfed in dense, acrid-smelling smoke that he could not see through and made it nearly impossible to breathe.

When this black cloud came over, I figured thats it, thats where I die, Siwik recalled.

Then the RCMP station across the street exploded in a fury of intense heat and flames that, in a matter of seconds, singed his skin, leaving him with first- and second-degree burns. The fire was shooting like a blow torch.

Siwik stumbled down a flight of stairs into the schools playground and collapsed on a bench, where local first responders spotted him and took him to a community muster station. Volunteers rubbed ice on his burns while waiting for an ambulance and their kindness made him feel like he had escaped hell and ended up in heaven.

Read more HERE.

-Lori Culbert

Friday, July 9

The Transportation Safety Board is sending investigators to Lytton to look into whether a train may have caused the wildfire that destroyed the town and left at least two people dead.

In a short statement issued Friday, the TSB said it will gather information and assess the occurrence of a fire potentially involving a freight train.

#TSBRail is deploying a team of investigators to Lytton, British Columbia following a fire potentially involving a freight train. The TSB will gather information and assess the occurrencehttps://t.co/HNPniLYnfI

The deadly fire swept through Lytton more than a week ago following an intense heatwave. Two people were killed, and the majority of the village was burned to the ground.

Officials are investigating the fire, but have not mentioned a possible cause.

The TSB is also sending an investigator to a train fire involving a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train near Sparwood.

Media and residents are being permitted back into Lytton, B.C. on Friday for their first look at the town following a devastating fire last week.

Reporter Glenda Luymes is in attendance as a part of a media tour and will be sharing observations and images from the scene.

Check back for updates HERE.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra is ordering most trains in the vicinity of Lytton to halt as residents return temporarily to the wildfire-scorched community.

Alghabra says the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways must cease movement for 48 hours, except for emergency fire response and maintenance and repair work, on stretches of track spanning parts of the British Columbia interior.

He says the aim is safe rail operations and public safety as residents arrive in Lytton today by bus to inspect their homes after evacuating the village when a wildfire swept in last week.

-The Canadian Press

Local governments and First Nations in 54 communities have been approved to receive their share of more than $1.8 million in provincial emergency preparedness funding to support the work of emergency operations centres, the government said Friday morning.

The intent of this funding stream is to support eligible applicants to buy equipment and supplies to maintain or improve their emergency operations centres and to enhance the capacity of these local emergency co-ordination hubs through training and exercises.

Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said thefunding for emergency operations centres is crucial, and it will give communities a boost in their ability to respond.

Though the approval of funding for these projects has been going on for some time, recent extreme wildfire events demonstrate just how vital emergency operations centres are in responding to emergencies, he said, in a statement.

Since the September 2017 Budget update, communities and governments throughout B.C. have received more than $67 million through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund.

The money goes to flood risk assessment, flood mapping and flood mitigation planning, emergency support services, emergency operations centres and training, structural flood mitigation, evacuation route planning,Indigenous cultural safety and cultural humility training, and volunteer and composite fire departments equipment and training.

#BCWildfire Service is supporting the Elko Fire Department in responding to the Kikomun Creek fire (N11604), ~6.5km NW of the community of Elko. It is currently estimated at 0.5 ha. There is an initial attack crew currently on scene, being supported by a helicopter bucketing...

Thursday, July 8

The B.C. SPCA rescued 41 animals from fire-ravaged Lytton on Thursday.

Staff from the animal welfare agency was granted access to the village beyond evacuation lines between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Based on lists provided by residents to the SPCA, the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and Lytton First Nation, the SPCA found 12 cats, five kittens, four dogs, and 20 farm animals and transported them to safety.

Pets were taken to the SPCAs animal evacuation centre in Kamloops or to veterinary clinics, while the farm animals were taken to foster homes.

Forty-six homes at a mobile home park in East Kootenay were evacuated Thursday afternoon due to a wildfire burning along the railway track.

The Regional District of East Kootenay has set up a reception centre for residents of Caithness Mobile Home Park at the Elko Community Hall.

The 0.6-hectare Kikomun Creek fire is burning along a railway line near Highway 3 in the community of Elko, about 30 kilometres south of Fernie.

UPDATE: Ground crews were able to more accurately track the fire and it is now approximately 0.6 hectares in size. pic.twitter.com/Retg0KMsgU

B.C. Wildfire crews as well as firefighters from the regional district are on the scene. Eight fire trucks are fighting the blaze from the ground, while a helicopter and air tanker drop water and fire retardant from the air.

The fire is visible from Highway 3. Officials are urging drivers to avoid stopping in the area.

Premier John Horgan says he will lobby Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to deploy Canadas military to help prevent wildfires.

Trudeau and Horgan are meeting later on Thursday with local and First Nations leaders to discuss the recent wildfire devastation of the Fraser Canyon village of Lytton and the ongoing extreme fire situation across the province.

Horgan says B.C. is experienced and accustomed to dealing with wildfires during the summer months, but massive, destructive fires over the past five years now demand governments look at new approaches to prevent and fight fires.

During a news conference with Trudeau today about child-care funding, Horgan said the military could be called upon to serve in a fire prevention role by clearing forest debris to reduce fuel before fires start.

Trudeau says the federal governments primary concerns are currently focused on supporting the residents of Lytton, but future methods of fire prevention must be considered.

There are more than 200 active fires burning across the province, of which 15 are classified as highly visible or potentially threatening, including the blaze that destroyed Lytton last week and a 392-square-kilometre fire northwest of Kamloops.

Canadian Press

More than two dozen wildfires sparked overnight across B.C. and the BC Wildfire Service website shows nearly half are believed to have been caused by lightning.

One of those blazes has already charred more than two-square kilometres of bush in northwestern B.C., forcing an evacuation order and alerts for properties around Bulkley Lake.

The wildfire service says the fire is classified as out of control but 15 firefighters, backed by five pieces of heavy equipment, worked through the night to keep flames away from any structures.

The evacuation area covers a section of Highway 16 northwest of Burns Lake as well as part of CN Rails main line to Prince Rupert but DriveBC, the provinces online road condition website, does not list any travel disruptions.

There are more than 200 active fires burning across the province, of which 15 are classified as highly visible or potentially threatening, including the blaze that destroyed the Village of Lytton last week and a 392-square kilometre fire northwest of Kamloops.

Both those fires remain out of control with the fire danger rating for most of B.C. ranked at high to extreme.

Canadian Press

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in B.C. today, and will first meet with members of his cabinetsIncident Response Group this morning to discuss wildfires burning across the province and the heat wave.

In the afternoon, he will meet with Lytton Mayor Jan Polderman, Chief Janet Webster of the Lytton First Nation, and chair of the Nlakapamux Nation Tribal Council Chief Matt Pasco in Coquitlam to discuss recovery effortsfrom a wildfire that destroyed thevillage last week.

B.C. is the third province on Trudeaus cross-country tour,following visits to Alberta and Saskatchewan.

-The Canadian Press

The Regional District of Bulkley Nechako issued an evacuation order late Wednesday night for the area of Rose Lake, about 10 kilometres to the west of Bulkley Lake and anevacuation alert for an area north of the order area.

The BC Wildfire Service says the Bulkley Lake wildfire, which was discovered Wednesday, is burning out of control four kilometres west of Rose Lake.

The cause of the blaze was a lightning strike.

Wetsuweten First Nation has issued a Band Council Resolution for Duncan Lake IR #2 due to immediate danger to life safety because of the the wildfire.

Members of the RCMP and Search and Rescue will be expediting the evacuation order, which affects homes east of Bedore Road to West of Broman Lake Road, and south of Bulkley Lake including Duncan Lake IR #2, not including Highway 16 and CN rail line.

Wednesday, July 7

An evacuation order for nearly 100 homes threatened by the out-of-control Napier Lake wildfire has been rescinded.

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued the order at around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday for 96 properties located in Electoral Area J (Copper Desert Country), Electoral Area L (Grasslands) and Electoral Area M (Beautiful Nicola Valley-North). Two hours later, the evacuation order was downgraded to an evacuation alert.

UPDATE: Due to the rain and suppression efforts on the Napier Lake wildfire (K21556), the Thompson-Nicola Regional District has downgraded the Evacuation Order to an Alert for the 96 properties affected. Please contact @TNRD for more info. #BCWildfire

The Napier Lake wildfire, which was ignited today, is burning about 30 kilometres south of Kamloops.

The B.C. Wildfire Service said six firefighters are fighting the blaze, with support for air tankers and three helicopters. The fire is estimated at about a quarter of a square kilometre Wednesday night.

The B.C. SPCA has been granted access to Lytton to rescue pets and farm animals left behind by residents who had to flee their homes as a devastating wildfire swept through the village.

SPCA special constables will enter Lytton Thursday, armed with a growing list of requests from animal owners worried about their pets and livestock.

We have officers and transport vehicles standing by to attend the properties as soon as we have access tomorrow, said Lorie Chortyk of the B.C. SPCA in a release. It is our goal to get every animal out but we are working with a one-day window, which is challenging.

Read more here:
B.C. wildfires update for July 10: Evacuation alert issued for residents of Canim Lake | Evacuation order lifted near Vernon | Lytton residents...

The volume of central-bank warnings about the rise of private cryptocurrencies and the potential impact on the ability of central banks to conduct monetary policy has become ear-splitting. This criticism only serves further to convince libertarians that reducing the power of central banks and governments is desirable. Certainly, the hostility of Chinas authorities towards private cryptocurrencies can be presented as evidence that they are viewed by the state as a defence against intrusive social control. But whether that point of view is correct, or where it concerns monetary control rather than social control it is dangerously naive, there is another, undeniably serious problem with cryptocurrencies. Its a problem so far only hinted at by central banks, but about which libertarians should be the most worried. The problem is about bubbles.

There are now many bubbles in the world but they differ in nature and consequences. An equity bubble can be perfectly rational. The price of equities can keep rising without end, assuming that real (adjusted for inflation) interest rates do not go up and stay up. Assuming a growing global population, the supply of greater fools to sell to at a higher price is theoretically endless. The idea of a bond bubble is harder to rationalise. Unlike equities, virtually all bonds have a terminal date their maturity date. If you buy a bond with a negative interest rate (a negative yield), you know for sure that you will suffer a nominal loss if you still own it when it matures (the loss will be even worse in real terms). So if you are worried that other assets are overvalued and might crash, why not just hold cash?

Yet many professional investors currently own bonds trading on negative yields. This only makes sense if they expect rates to go even more negative, producing a capital gain (bond prices and bond yields move inversely to one another). But even then, the price of the bond must eventually go back to par (its face value), inflicting a capital loss on whoever had bought it at a price above par. Implicitly then, the expectation is that the ultimate greater fool will be the central banks, who are not motivated by returns and can expect to be re-capitalised by their governments albeit at considerable cost to their independence should capital losses threaten their solvency.

Bubbles both in bonds and in equities are symptoms of a deep-rooted disequilibrium in todays advanced economies. The downward trend in real long-term interest rates which has persisted throughout this millennium and has only been accentuated by the pandemic, fuelled the bubbles which have been needed to regain and maintain full employment and fend off deflation. Why has this happened?

Interest rates are intertemporal price signals they balance supply and demand for money across time. When these signals go awry, it results in the misallocation of resources across the economy. Our current disequilibrium stems from the second half of the 1990s. Then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan failed to allow real long-term interest rates to rise at the right time in response to very buoyant entrepreneurial expectations in the internet-driven new economy.

As a result, not enough spending on consumption was deferred during this period. Indeed, the dotcom-era equity bubble boosted spending even further. As a result, when extra new economy supply came online, there was no pent-up demand from previously-deferred spending (ie, savings) to take it up. That error, combined with the far less innocent catastrophe of monetary union in Europe, ensured that intertemporal price signals ie, interest rates went badly wrong and have been wrong ever since. A secular trend to ever-lower rates and ever-bigger bubbles was put in place.

The equity bubble, in particular, has created the illusion of wealth. It is illusory for economies as a whole because it is not based on vastly increased future productive potential (if anything, estimates of such potential have persistently been cut). The political implications of the resulting wealth inequalities are disturbing, but have not so far produced serious trouble. Thats because they have not caused overheating in the economy: the extra spending generated by this illusory increase in wealth has offset the drag of the intertemporal disequilibrium (in which past bringing-forward of spending from the future leaves a hole in demand as the future becomes the present).

But if dangerously high levels of public investment spending produce inflation as many fear they might in the UK and, particularly, in the US some holders of equity wealth might think they should spend more of that wealth before its real value falls. But the only way they could do that without producing a spiral of ever-increasing inflation, is if everyone elses spending were to fall. Distributional concerns then really would become a major political issue.

Yet there is another, even more dangerous bubble that has developed in the past few years. This is one that, if unchecked, is bound to produce cataclysmic changes in wealth distribution. That bubble is in private cryptocurrencies. As with equities, cryptocurrencies have no terminal date. So a bubble can be rational in the same way. However, once the macroeconomic context is considered, it becomes clear that the bubble must pop.

Why? Either the market price of bitcoin, for example, can become infinite or it cannot. If it cannot, then at some point the only possible change in the market price of bitcoin is negative. At that point, all holders would want to sell (unless central banks as with bonds were expected to support the bitcoin price indefinitely!).

If instead the price can and does move towards infinity, then the use of an infinitesimal amount of a single persons bitcoin wealth would exhaust all the worlds productive potential; that is, each holder could command all the worlds resources by being the first to sell and spend. The rise in the general price level towards infinity as bitcoin holders competed for resources would impoverish everyone else.

It is clear that many governments most relevantly the US government now want to produce huge wealth transfers. Whether they are right or wrong is a matter for debate. The key questions are: how to distinguish in practice between what I have called acceptable wealth (wealth whose possession does not entail a reduction in lifetime consumption possibilities for everyone else) and unacceptable bubble wealth, whose possession does reduce lifetime consumption possibilities for everyone else?; and how to eliminate unacceptable wealth without crashing the economy.

But whatever your view, the wealth transfer that bitcoin threatens to produce is definitely not the one that the US government or any other wants to produce. When the bubble is growing, it does not create extra wealth in the form of future productive potential for an economy as a whole. It simply transfers wealth to existing holders of bitcoin from everyone else. That creates pressure on everyone else to join in.

To avoid serious social and political discontent, leading to unrest and ultimately sociopolitical breakdown, the authorities will have to burst the bitcoin bubble before its macroeconomic importance becomes much greater. The similarity with bank runs is rather clear. If none of, say, the ten biggest providers of liquidity to Lehman Brothers had withdrawn their funding, in all probability no-one else would have done so. If those ten withdrew their funding, in all probability everyone would do the same. Similarly, as the ratio of illusory-wealth-to-potential-income in the economy gets bigger and bigger, the temptation for someone to jump ship and be the first to use their assets to acquire real resources becomes greater and greater.

Indeed, one can view the inverse of this illusory-wealth-to-potential-income ratio as the equivalent to a banks capital ratio during a financial crisis. That ratio moves in the wrong direction as the illusory nature of many of the banks assets becomes apparent. In turn, the incentive for its debt-holders to withdraw grows ever greater. It is deeply ironic and tragic that while the reaction of central banks and regulators to the financial crisis (which they themselves created) was to insist on higher capital ratios for banks, monetary policies have operated, and continue to operate, to weaken the economys capital ratio. Barring a radical change in the policy framework, the likely result will be a devastating economic, financial, social and political crisis far worse than anything that might have been produced by the 2007-9 financial crisis. Marxists might rejoice in such a prediction. Libertarians should be anxious to prevent it from coming true.

The longer that central banks wait before taking action to prevent a swelling of cryptocurrency bubbles, the more difficult they will make their task. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has warned bitcoin investors that they risk losing all of their money. But if the bubble first gets much bigger, its bursting will have significant macroeconomic effects, as spending financed by borrowing against bitcoin wealth vanishes. Worse, devastating losses will be inflicted on speculators, among whom will be more and more ordinary households. The fact that they have been warned will not prevent potentially seismic reactions.

Central banks and regulators thus now have an unenviable choice. Presumably, they will not want to be blamed by crypto investors for a burst bubble. So they may hope that it subsides of its own accord, then regulate it out of existence. But if the bubble keeps growing, they must grasp the nettle and inflict losses now, or face a future sharp-elbowed scramble to convert crypto holdings into goods and services, which will produce hyperinflation and destroy society.

Continued here:
How a bubble in bitcoin could lead to hyperinflation - MoneyWeek