Mystery over WSL’s patient zero intensifies: Covid-19 positive surfer Yago Dora says, “I’m no typhoid Mary!”

"COVID is no joke," says Yago.

A helluva lot of speculation, much of it unkind, about “patient zero” after the Pipeline Masters was indefinitely suspended following WSL CEO Erik Logan and four other WSL staff members’ positive tests for the COVID-19 virus.

The question moistening lips: Who was surfing’s Typhoid Mary? Erik Logan? Maybe Pat O’Connell?

Typhoid Mary aka Mary Mallon was a wild thing, oowee. Carried typhoid but didn’t get it (asymptomatic), worked as a cook, left a trail of dead kids and had to be locked up, on two separate stretches, for twenty six years.

Earlier today, Yago Dora, the Brazilian who was released from quarantine in Texas after ten days despite his COVID-19 test remaining positive, has announced he ain’t surfing’s Typhoid Mary.

You’ll remember, in a now deleted Instagram post, Yago wrote that the WSL had helped him receive an exemption “from the Hawaiian government” thereby allowing him to bypass the state’s fourteen-day quarantine for arrivals who can’t show proof of a neg COVID-19 test three days before their flight.

Yago, who won his round one heat before the contest was called off, jumped on Instagram to explain why he avoided Hawaiian quarantine.

He also included expository videos, which you can watch here. 

Those are strict protocols i had to follow on my case, just like everybody else does as recommended by cdc and Hawaiian state government, if you have been tested positive and went into isolation,once 10 days have passed and you haven’t shown any symptoms, you’re no longer considered contagious and can leave isolation after being seen and cleared by a specialized doctor, and this are the health protocols for these kind of cases as recommended by cdc. Dead cells of the virus can be found on your test samples for more than a month even if after 10 days of no symptoms you’re no longer contagious. I have so much love and respect for the Hawaiian people and every year that i come here i receive so much love and respect back, i would never in my wildest dreams want to put anyone at risk of contamination, covid is no joke and i’ve been following it very closely and trying to learn the most i can about it. I emailed Hawaiis safe travels program myself to know what kind of protocols i had to follow and what my options were, i followed every single detail very strictly and only on the 12th day of isolation i got cleared up to get on a plane. If i meant any risk to anyone i wouldn’t even be allowed into Hawaii and neither into the contest. All i did and will continue doing is following strict safety protocols and i hope everyone else is also doing it. If you still feel offended by my actions i sincerely apologize, but i can assure you that i never put anybody at risk at any time. Appreciate it Much love.

If it ain’t Yago, is it Erik, currently propped up on satin pillows in his canopied emperor bed, hair a snowy heap piled atop his ruined doll’s face?

Or Pat O’Connell, whose condition remains unknown but who is still a stunner, even at forty-nine?


Breaking: In updated document sent to Australian television partners, the World Surf League points to “productive conversations” with Hawaiian officials, but given no green light as of yet!

Whiplash!

This whiplash. This on again off again, will she won’t she, love me love me not is JUST TOO MUCH! And let’s catch up on the action from the very beginning. Four days ago, World Surf League CEO Erik Logan released a statement declaring he, and five helpers, had contracted the dreaded Coronavirus. He very much wanted to make sure fans scattered around the globe new that he was ok and only experiencing light symptoms so posted a reassuring update. U.S. Olympic coach Brett Simpson demanded that Logan and helpers be incarcerated, the WSL’s social media became the very front line of culture wars, calls grew louder and louder for Logan’s resignation but then a possible break, a secret internal message suggesting everything had been worked out with the State of Hawaii and the pieces were in place to restart the Pipe Masters in Memory of Andy Irons presented by Hydro Flask as soon as yesterday.

But it did not start yesterday, nor did it start today, and a new internal message, sent to Australian television subscribers, suggests that the WSL maybe painted a rosier-than-accurate picture to its own employees.

Here is what Australian television subscribers received:

UPDATE

Good Evening-

We continue to work with the State of Hawaii officials on lifting the event suspension. These conversations are productive, but we do not have confirmation yet.

With the swell declining further over the next several hours, we will not be looking at running competition tomorrow (yesterday).

Official call: NO Competition for Tomorrow, Tuesday December 15th

We will provide more updates as soon as they become available.

But what does it all mean?

Oh. I guess it’s fairly self-explanatory.

As of this moment, there are four more days left in the waiting period plus the women.

Is it possible to slot it all in?


Stab magazines goes to subscription model, kicks BeachGrit in lower spine before closing door: “For those left it will be a race to the bottom, and speaking from experience, when you’re chasing clicks, you get lost in the outrageous and contagious.”

"Think graphic shark attacks and Ellie-Jean Coffey nudes."

Stab magazine announced today that Covid-19 has forced the hand and it will be going behind a paywall. Per the lengthy missive from Sam McIntosh:

Stab going to a subscription is something we’ve talked about for some time, but when Covid rolled into town, 10 years happened in 10 months and our hand was forced. Google and Facebook take 60 to 70 percent of all digital marketing spend and we expect that percentage to grow. The sun has passed midday for ad-supported media. For those left it will be a race to the bottom, and speaking from experience, when you’re chasing clicks, you get lost in the outrageous and contagious. Think graphic shark attacks and Ellie-Jean Coffey nudes.

Outrageous and contagious.

The new anti-depressive.

But back to the news at hand. How does it make you feel? What does it make you think? A bold move or ill-advised? Apparently there will be some news etc. accessible for free but all films, longer journalism pieces, will be OnlyFans. Will you crack your wallet for the best of Ashton Goggans or take your business to Unboxing with Koa Smith?

I’ve so enjoyed trying to re-create the yellow journalism wars between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, with Stab as foil, over these past years. I think the Stab crew did not have the same historical perspective and, therefore, did not have fun but glory days nonetheless.

Well, the end of an era I suppose.

Back to searching for outrage and contagion.

Got anything for me?


Listen: Hollywood movie star and jiujitsu black belt Scott Caan on being summoned by Eddie Rothman, how Chas should’ve slain Ashton Goggans after the “slap that stopped the world” and the rise of VALs, “I remember when surf was punk. You didn’t see Range Rovers in the parking lot and rich people with foamies!”

Surfing, fighting, lounge kissing!

Mr Scott Caan is a star of screen and television who played the adorable Danno in the television series Hawaii Five-O, was a Mormon in the Oceans 11 series and is the son of Hollywood tough guy James Caan.

Scott, who is forty-four, is a black-belt in the not-so-gentle art of Brazilian jiujitsu and a lifelong surfer who once optioned the movie rights to Charlie Smith’s book, Welcome to Paradise Now Go To Hell.

In this interview, Scott advises Charlie on the correct course of action when faced with an enraged rival, describes the time he visited Uncle Eddie Rothman on the North Shore to soothe local tempers after he had said unkind things about Hawaiian food in an interview and waxes on a life given to surfing and grappling.

At one point, we discuss Daddy Caan’s best films.

I choose Rollerball; Scott is fond of The Thief; Charlie, The Godfather.


“Mammoth” Great White that forced multiple closures of popular Australian beach is caught and tagged; recorded as “second-biggest on record” as surfers warned of “Abnormally high number of sharks!”

"Not an isolated incident."

A “mammoth” Great White shark that forced a Western Australian beach to be closed twice after being spotted just offshore, and which was subsequently caught and tagged, has been recorded as the second-biggest in the state’s history, falling four inches (10cm) short of  the record. 

Peter Godfrey from the Department of Fisheries told 9News, “It’s very rare to have such a big White shark so close to the metropolitan area.” 

Fisheries laced four drumlines with pink snapper to catch and tag the White. After a wrestle with the lines and a deckhand using his hands to untangle the beast, it was eventually released. 

The beach was opened, then closed after the White came back. 

For generations, pretty Cottesloe Beach, seven miles (11 km) from the centre of Perth, was known for its dreamy grass terraces and even dreamier afternoons in its hotels’ beer gardens, a tangled sea of brown bodies and loose lips. 

Then, in 2000, one year after Great Whites became protected by law, a swimmer, Ken Crew, was attacked and killed by a fifteen-foot Great White in waist-deep water and in front of other swimmers, early morning joggers and cafe diners. He bled out in the arms of a Catholic priest on the beach. 

And here we are.

Surf Life Saving WA said thirty-one sharks had been spotted in the last week, closing eleven beaches and warned of an “abnormally high number of sharks.”

The “mammoth” Great White swimming so close to a popular beach, it said, was “not an isolated incident.”