Month: March 2021

On the Tuscarora Trail – When to end the journal – Biden’s efforts to supply and distribute vaccines – Governor Abbott ends COVID-related restrictions in Texas – Evening statistics

After the wretched weather of the past two days, today was cloudless, with little wind.  Although the temperature never rose above 40 degrees where I was hiking, it felt much warmer on account of the sunlight.  I went with the Vigorous Hikers along the Tuscarora Trail to a fire road, down the fire road to Back Creek Road, up the Lucas Woods Trail to the Tuscarora, and along the ridge back to the parking area on Capon Springs Road:  about 17 miles and 2500 feet of elevation gain.  The paths were reasonably clear, but a few spots on the Tuscarora were still covered with a layer of snow and/or ice, and caution was needed while walking on them.  The roadwalk along Back Creek Road turned out to be more interesting than I would have expected; it is a quite country road that passed by several farms, with horses and cattle (some of them longhorns) grazing in the pastures.  The section of the Tuscarora that we traversed offered views to the west into the valley on the West Virginia side of the trail and, at Eagle Rock, views of the Shenandoah Valley and the ridgeline of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east.  Even in the clear sunlight that tops of the mountain in the Blue Ridge range had a dark purplish-blue color, from which it was easy to see how they acquired their name.

When we were having lunch together on the ridge DG mentioned the journal to me and asked, with curiosity, “When do you plan to stop?”  It’s a fair question, and I wish I had a clear answer.  Towards the end of the original “Journal of the Plague Year” by Daniel Defoe, the termination of the epidemic was summed up as follows:

“However, it pleased God, by the continuing of the winter weather, so to restore the health of the city that by February following we reckoned the distemper quite ceased, and then we were not so easily frighted again.”

It is not at all certain that we shall ever reckon this particular distemper “quite ceased.”  The likelihood, according to the medical experts, is that the virus will indeed subside as a result of vaccination on a large scale and at one point will diminish to such an extent that it is no longer a pandemic, but that it will not disappear entirely.  It will be a disease lurking in the background against which the populace at large will be obliged to take preventative measures continually, as is the case with many other diseases.  In all probability people will be getting an annual vaccination against COVID, as they do now for influenza.  So in order to have a complete record of the phases of the pandemic, I shall probably have to continue the journal until the third quarter of this year – that, at a guess, will be the time to claim that the account of the pandemic and its effects is at an end; and even that is only a very rough approximation.   

President Biden has said that we will have a sufficient supply of vaccines by the end of May to inoculate the entire US adult population.  He stressed, however, that a supply in itself is only part of the solution:   there must be a sufficient number of people to administer the vaccinations and a system in place for tracking the portion of the population that still requires inoculation.  He has brokered a deal for Merck to produce Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine to boost supply nationwide, although the two firms are rivals:  the same sort of collaboration, as he noted, that commercial firms displayed during World War II.  It is not the first time, and it probably won’t be the last, for me to note how gratifying it is at last to have a president who is taking active steps to combat the virus.

Some people appear to believe that the pandemic is over already.  Today Governor Abbott of Texas ended the statewide mandate to wear masks in public places and has opened up the state 100%.  Judges will no longer be able to impose penalties upon anyone who does not wear a mask and businesses may operate to full capacity, unless the individual county in which the business office resides has imposed restrictions of its own.  Even in such cases, businesses must be allowed to operate on at least 50% capacity.  The rollout of vaccines has certainly been efficient in the state.  During the course of today alone over 216,000 people received their inoculations – well over 1 in 150 of the state’s entire population, an impressive result for a single day.  Coronavirus patients now account for less than 15% of the hospitalizations.  Nonetheless not all health authorities are in agreement about ending the restrictions.  Various health officials in Dallas are still using the same protocols as before in city hospitals.  Eric Johnson and Betsy Price, mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth respectively, while acknowledging that they no longer have the power to enforce a mask mandate, are still urging citizens to continue the practices of wearing masks and social distancing.  Texas has, as a state, ranked very solidly in the middle with regard to both incidence rate and mortality rate; so it cannot be said that Governor Abbott is being unduly reckless.  Nonetheless I hope that other states where vaccine rollout has been less efficient do not follow its example – certainly not Virginia, which still has over 95,000 people to vaccinate before it can complete Phase 1B. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  115,279,384; # of deaths worldwide: 2,559,175; # of cases U.S.: 29,370,202; # of deaths; U.S.:  529,192. 

Accelerated pace of vaccine distribution in Fairfax County – Signs of the pro-Trump faction beginning a retrospective justification of the COVID response – Evening statistics

At long last Fairfax County has moved on from those who registered on January 18^th.  The total number of people who registered during the period January 19-22 is just under 42,000.  The vaccine distribution must be moving at a faster rate than earlier, for it was not long ago that it was reported that 37% of those who registered on the 18^th still remained to be scheduled.  Perhaps getting a vaccine sometime in March may be possible; at all events getting it by the end of April seems quite probable.  The county will be receiving shipments of the new vaccine this week, which should facilitate matters to an even greater extent. 

“Of course the crisis was awful, but on balance, overall, the United States handled it as well or better than many of the world’s most advanced countries.” 

This statement comes from the Washington Examiner.  Its analysis concentrated primarily on the rollout of the vaccines.  In that respect our nation probably has done as well as, or even better than, many EU nations.  But a significant period elapsed between the onset of the virus and the development of the vaccines.  During that time Americans accounted for 25% of the world’s COVID cases and over 20% of the deaths – a fairly disproportionate amount for a country with 4% of the world’s population.  Only the Czech Republic and a handful of micro-states have a higher incidence of the disease than we do, and the U.S. is 10^th on the list of countries with the highest death rates (and three of the countries with higher death rates are micro-states).  So I do not see how Byron York, the analyst who wrote the article, was able to arrive at this conclusion.

The article adds, further, that the “vast majority of Americans of all ages have been wearing face coverings since April,” implying that Biden’s contribution in this respect to enforce the measure is negligible.  This statement, however, glosses over the extraordinary virulence on the part of those who, encouraged by our former president, resisted facemask-wearing in this country, staging violent protests in places such as Lansing.  I do not believe the violence of their opposition has been equaled in any other nation.  Just this past Friday one John Shallerhorn tried to attend a basketball game at George Washington Carver High School in New Orleans without a mask.  He got into an argument with a school staffer about this issue.  At that point Martinus Mitchum, a Tulane police officer, intervened, trying to de-escalate the situation.  Shallerhorn responded by pulling out a gun and shooting Mitchum in the chest, wounding him fatally.  In how many other countries would a police officer be likely to lose his life for trying to enforce the wearing of a facemask at a public event?

It may be wondered why I expend so much attention to a single article; and it is, of course, not important in itself.  I believe, however, that it represents the beginning of a trend that will increase over the next several months, in which defenders of the pro-Trump faction will attempt to cover up the past with a patina of foresight and responsibility on the part of the administration, and thereby pave the way, as they hope, in influencing the 2022 elections to recover the ground they have lost this previous November.  

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  114,982,194; # of deaths worldwide: 2,549,635; # of cases U.S.: 29,311,446; # of deaths; U.S.:  527,171.