Morning statistics – Unseasonable weather – The Eden Center – Consultation with an electrician – The webinar – Visit with friends – Possibility of re-instatement of Brett Crozier – Funeral for a Hasidic rabbi – Boris Johnson’s new son – Evening statistics
Today’s statistics as of 9:00 AM — # of cases worldwide: 3,160,779; # of deaths worldwide: 219,265; # of cases U.S.: 1,035,765; # of deaths U.S.: 59,266. No changes in the U.S. figures since last night, so clearly the figures have not been updated yet. The number of active cases in China, officially, is down to 647. Russia has seen a huge increase in new cases, almost 6,000. Spain, sadly, has had an increase of more than 450 deaths. Its case incidence rate is now over 0.05%. On the whole, the number of new cases and the number of new deaths appear to be reaching a plateau.
The weather has been cool, damp, and overcast for the last several days, but today it has cleared up at last. It is sunny and warm, a near-perfect spring day. It seems a pity that the weather was not like that yesterday when I was hiking through the concentration of trilliums; but then, if it had been, the trail would doubtless have been much more crowded.
One of the casualties from the virus may be the Eden Center, the shopping center in Falls Church that was set up by the Vietnamese community in 1984 after shops and restaurants in the so-called “Little Saigon” area were being crowded out by the construction of the Clarendon Metro station and the opening of various shopping areas in Ballston. It provided a wonderful assortment of restaurants along with an extensive supermarket where one could easily pick up items (such as fresh water chestnuts, for example) that were not readily obtainable anywhere else. Store after store is being boarded up and it is not certain how many will re-open once the lockdown is over. How, indeed, can any store remain operative when its rate of business has dropped by as much as 90%?
Today has been eventful, at any rate by the standards of the solitude enforced by the stay-at-home restrictions. In the morning I admitted an electrician to my house, since I have recently undergone temporary power outages when the rest of the neighborhood was unaffected. He explained to me that there were issues with my circuit breaker, which was installed when my house was built sixty years ago and that in all probability it should be replaced soon. That was certainly not welcome news, but he replaced a faulty breaker that seemed the most likely cause of the outages, and on the whole I consider that I got off lightly.
Then I heard the webinar for which I had signed up earlier in the week. In brief, the recovery period will probably take a couple of years to complete. Many people have been thrown out of work, and in some cases the incentive to seek employment is lacking, because they are earning more money through unemployment benefits than they could have earned while working. Investments will continue as usual, with the investors seeking out those stocks that are most likely to increase as the economy starts to rebound. It seems likely that we will as a nation experience a measure of inflation, particularly as the interest rates have been abnormally low for years. Also, some industries will revert to normal more quickly than others. Only about 30% of the workers will be able to tele-commute; the remainder of them will be forced to be at the workplace in person to discharge their responsibilities, and the restrictions for their being able to commute will not be lifted all at once. It appears that the stimulus was probably the best course of action to take under the circumstances, and the presenters bestowed some credit on the administration for coming up with it so promptly. I have often inveighed against Trump, so I must impartially record this praise of him from persons with greater financial expertise than me.
The afternoon I spent in company with close friends, a married couple whom I have known for years, and we walked together in Huntley Meadows Park. I have not had many social occasions, as may be imagined, in recent weeks. The hikes with the Vigorous Hikers have not really been group occasions; for the most part, we would meet at the beginning of the hikes, greet one another, and then go at our own paces. Sometimes we would re-assemble for lunch, but more frequently we continued on our own. I did join a couple of friends of mine for coffee at their place one morning last week, where we carefully maintained a distance of six feet from one another. Today’s visit was more extensive. My friends and I walked together several miles in Huntley Meadows Park, the largest county park in Fairfax County. It is a preserved wetlands and appears to have a micro-climate of its own, since in some places the trees are unusually tall and slender, reminding me of the growth one sees in the Great Smokies. Afterwards we returned to their house and ate ice cream together, and chatted about various matters. They knew that I was keeping a journal and requested beforehand to bring them a copy. They began to read it and commented on what they called my conversational style. I hope that they are right. I am not striving for any great standard of eloquence in these memoirs, but I like to think that my style is reasonably vigorous.
Some sort of justice may be done in the sorry case of the USS Roosevelt. The Navy’s top leadership, after making an official inquiry of the case, has recommended the re-installation of Brett Crozier as its commander. One thousand of its sailors, more than 20% total of the crew, have been stricken with the virus, thanks to the Navy’s dragging its feet in this matter as a result of Trump’s anxieties about the bad publicity Crozier’s pleas for treatment of the crew might have aroused. However, James McPherson, the new acting Secretary of the Navy, knows very well on which side his bread is buttered. He has launched a broader investigation, which will delay matters. He says that he has some “unanswered questions” that the preliminary inquiry did not address. One of these unanswered questions, no doubt, is whether or not Trump will erupt in fury at the notion of Crozier’s presence in the armed services again, where he can only be a walking reminder to all the world of Trump’s folly, vanity, arrogance, conceit, and pride.
A group of Orthodox Jews in New York City have participated in funeral procession for Rabbi Chaim Mertz, thereby incurring the resentment of Mayor De Blasio. He has addressed a message to “the Jewish community” that participants in any other large gatherings will be subject to arrest. This in turn has drawn ire from many of the New York Jews, who pointed out that they were no less disapproving than he was of the incident and that it was irrational to hold them responsible for the actions of one small splinter group. But de Blasio’s response is understandable as well; about 2,500 people crowded to attend the funeral, completely disregarding the lockdown restrictions. Thus in this case the fundamentalist Jews have shown themselves to be just as negligent as the fundamentalist Christians in other parts of the country.
Carrie Symonds, Boris Johnson’s fiancée, has given birth to a healthy baby boy. Symonds had contracted the virus, though in a relatively minor form; whereas Johnson, as previously noted, was incapacitated by the effects of the virus for some time. But both are in good health now and their child is doing well. I shall treasure, however, the remark that concluded the article reporting this propitious event: “The precise number of how many children Johnson has, both inside and outside his previous marriages, is unknown.”
Today’s statistics as of 8:30 PM — # of cases worldwide: 3,217,325; # of deaths worldwide: 228,005; # of cases U.S.: 1,063,863; # of deaths U.S.: 61,635. The total number of new cases is now highest in Brazil and Russia. The U.S. has the greatest number of new deaths. Our mortality rate is now about 5.7%. This rate is better than that of many other countries. Some examples: 15.7% in the U.K., 13.5% in Italy, 14.4% in France, 12.1% in Sweden, 10.2% in Spain. Even in Germany the mortality rate has gone up to 4%.