Morning statistics – A hiking incident – Unseasonable weather continues – Tele-marketing spam calls – NFL football season in jeopardy – Another outburst of Trump at journalists – Re-opening of beaches – Evening statistics
Today’s statistics as of 9:00 AM — # of cases worldwide: 4,210,318; # of deaths worldwide: 284,448; # of cases U.S.: 1,368,036; # of deaths U.S.: 80,789. As predicted, Russia is now third on the list of number of cases, trailing behind only the U.S. and Spain. At this rate it will overtake Spain as well in a couple of days. Spain has been hit very hard. Its daily death toll is decreasing but it still lost over a hundred people in the last 24 hours. Its incidence rate is over 0.57%. Brazil is still eighth on the list of total number of cases, but it is overtaking Germany and France. The presidents of both Paraguay and Venezuela have denounced Bolsonaro’s attitude as irresponsible. The incidence rate is also increasing swiftly in Peru, Mexico, and Ecuador. On the other hand, Belize and Suriname have no active cases.
Yosemite National Park is closed, but a hiker attempted to view Angel Falls a few miles outside of the park’s south entrance. In attempting to cross the falls he got caught in a whirlpool and would have drowned, had not an off-duty police officer who was also hiking in the area managed to throw a rope to him and then pull him out. Water from the snow melting during the spring thaws can be treacherous and it is not advisable to cross rapid water in that season. And it’s easy to under-estimate the force of the flow; some streams and lakes appear fairly placid on the surface but have strong currents underneath. Still, I saw photos of the stream and I doubt very much whether I would have attempted it. The torrent was flowing swiftly even along the surface and the temperature of the water could not have been more than 50 degrees.
Today’s weather was not disagreeable: it was in the high 50s, somewhat blustery but not overly so, and cloudy but with a bit of sunshine now and then. Why, then, did it feel so unsatisfactory? We continue to have cooler temperatures than usual; today was not at all a bad sort of day for March but by mid-May one expects warmer weather. One must beware, however, of directing wishes to Heaven in that respect; the forecast is for quite torrid temperatures by the weekend.
The devil can find work for busy hands as well as idle ones, so he sent a commission to the telemarketers, which they undertook immediately. Today I’ve been getting calls purporting to be from Verizon stating that my account has been suspended. I knew very well that Verizon would not do so without contacting me first and that it would certainly not convey such a message by means of a recorded voicemail, so I simply blocked the caller. But it was like eliminating Hydra’s heads; when one was cut off, another took its place. I am on the Do Not Call list, but it makes no difference. The only way to eliminate these scams is to ban telemarketing altogether, and this step the Government and the phone companies consistently refuse to take.
Dr. Fauci has strongly urged against resuming football games at this point, since the players are almost certain to infect one another if they meet on the playing field. The NFL football season doesn’t begin until the fall. When asked whether we will have NFL football this year, Fauci said “The virus will make the decision for us.”
In today’s press conference about the virus, Trump displayed yet another one of his tantrums, walking out abruptly after a heated exchange with some of the journalists. Weijia Jiang of CBS asked Trump, who frequently compares the United States’s testing ability and mortality rate with those of other countries, why the statistics surrounding the virus are a “global competition” to him. “Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world, and maybe that’s a question you should ask China,” Trump responded. “Don’t ask me. Ask China that question, OK? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer.” “Why are you saying that to me specifically?” asked Jiang, who was born in China and raised in West Virginia. “I’m not saying it specifically to anybody. I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that,” Trump replied before moving on to another reporter. And there is no question that if there is one subject on which Trump is an expert, it is nastiness.
Beaches are re-opening all over the country, from Ocean City, MD to Myrtle Beach, SC and even at Lake Tahoe. New Jersey, the hardest-hit state after New York, has not re-opened beaches yet, but Atlantic City is planning to have hotels and dining available to visitors by June 1st.
Today’s statistics as of 9:00 PM — # of cases worldwide: 4,253,802; # of deaths worldwide: 287,250; # of cases U.S.: 1,385,834; # of deaths U.S.: 81,795. The U.K. total case count has shot up again, so that it is now third and Russia is now fourth in the list of nations with the highest counts. Spain’s case count is significantly higher than either but it does appear to be stabilizing, which is not the case for the other two. Brazil’s case count is now only slightly less than Germany’s.