Hike leader certification – Biden castigates Facebook – State governments vs. vaccines – Masks recommended in Las Vegas – Canada to re-open borders – Evening statistics
I am now an officially certified hike leader.
As the journal entries indicate, I’ve been leading hikes for years. But I’ve never had any formal training. The knowledge that I picked up about leading hikes and about behaving on the trails generally has been learned on the job, so to speak.
However, the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) is currently redesigning its hike leader training. I am well-acquainted with several people on the group that designed the revised course, and as a result I, along with several others whom they know from hiking alongside them, was invited to a test run of the course materials. A previous test run had been performed this past Wednesday, via Zoom; for this test run, all of the participants met in the same room, although a couple of the course designers had logged in via Zoom to evaluate how well the test run went.
It turned out to be quite worthwhile. No matter how often one has led hikes, there is always something to be learned from other experienced hike leaders; and on this occasion I picked up several techniques that I either have not often used in the past or have not used at all, but which I will incorporate into any hikes I lead in future. For example, I always scout my hikes, but I generally have not made note of potential bailout points for hikers who may be undergoing difficulties during the hike itself; now I will do so whenever I scout a hike. Again, I occasionally have made note of the telephone numbers for contacting land management personnel (park rangers, local police, etc.) while leading a hike but not consistently, and it is a practice that needs to be done for every hike that I lead, even for seemingly trouble-free ones such as the Lake Fairfax loop. The course is two hours long, but it packs a good deal within a relatively small compass.
The test run established, among other things, that while the course can be administered both via Zoom and by the traditional method of teachers and students assembled in a single room, a combination of the two, with some students live and some students logging in remotely, is not feasible. The course designers who were logging in were able, for the most part, to follow our discussions; but it would have been a matter of some difficulty for them to participate in them directly. This conclusion indeed jibes with the experiences of my teacher friend RK when she was teaching online earlier as a result of the pandemic restrictions, with some students assembled in a classroom and others online; it proved to be a logistical nightmare. Each method of course has its advantages. Discussions flow more freely when every participant is in the same room. On the other hand, the PATC has potential leaders ranging from southern Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, and it may not always be possible to have the participants travel to their headquarters in Vienna, VA; in which case, a course conducted by Zoom is much more convenient.
After the course is officially approved, trainees will be required to lead two hikes under supervision of the trainers; but because the participants this morning had played a role in testing it out and because each of us has already led hikes under the observation of several of the course designers, the requirement was waived for us; thus, as a result of participating in the class this morning, my status as PATC-trained hike leader has been certified.
The apartment in which we met, incidentally, was one in which visitors had to be admitted via a guard at the front desk or, if the guard is absent, calling the host and asking him to come down to admit them. In this case the front desk was empty and we had to call our host to admit us. One of the visitors asked whether facemasks were necessary in the building but he said that it was not for those who are vaccinated. It is one of the many indicators of how uncertain the wearing of masks can be, at any rate in our area. For the most part the mask requirement is waived for those who are vaccinated, but one never can tell in advance. There may always be the odd public building or private apartment that requires one over and above any recommendations that the city or county might impose. The inference is clear: never leave home without taking a facemask to have on hand in case it is needed.
There is relatively little going on nationally, although Joe Biden has lashed out against Facebook for allowing misinformation about the vaccines to hinder the U.S. in reaching its goal of more than 70% of the population getting its first dose by July 4th. His exasperation against the anti-vaxxers, as they are called, is understandable. Cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have increased by 70% over the previous week and deaths by up 26%. But it seems unfair to point to Facebook as the source of the problem. About 85% of Facebook users are vaccinated. Moreover, Facebook has explicit rules against making false claims about COVID-19 and the vaccines for it.
In Biden’s place, I would have no hesitation in calling out the state governments that have hampered national inoculation efforts. I have already noted how Tennessee boasts a “Department of Health” that is analogous to the “Ministry of Love” in George Orwell’s 1984. Just as the latter belies its name by administering fearsome tortures to any perceived enemies of the state, Tennessee’s Department of Health is the most resolute of all state governments in its goal of distributing as few vaccinations as possible. But it is not alone; states such as Missouri and South Carolina also have numerous government officials seemingly dedicated to keeping the vaccination rate as low and the rate of COVID infection as high as they possibly can.
Other localities are showing a somewhat greater sense of reality. Las Vegas has followed Los Angeles’ lead in recommending masks indoors for the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Nevada as a whole has not fared especially badly – it ranks 19th among the states for its infection rate and 22nd for its mortality rate – but Clark County, in which Las Vegas is located, has seen a steadily increasing COVID test positivity rate (it is currently about 12%) and the state as a whole has undergone a surge in infections, with hospitalizations now numbering over 700 a day – a substantial amount for a state whose entire population is only a little over 3 million.
Canada is set to re-open borders in mid-August, although a firm date has not been set. At this point 80% of Canadians eligible for the vaccine have taken their first dose and 50% are fully vaccinated. Some restrictions have already been eased. Fully vaccinated Canadians or permanent legal residents may return to Canada without quarantining, although they must prove a negative COVID-19 test before returning and another once they get back. There is a considerable economic incentive for re-opening the borders: Canada had about 22 million foreign visitors in 2019, of whom about 15 million of them came from the United States.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 190,744,059; # of deaths worldwide: 4,098,347; # of cases U.S.: 34,953,125; # of deaths; U.S.: 624,713.