Month: April 2022

A winery hike – A hike among the wildflowers – Vice-President Harris contracts COVID – The percentage of Americans who have contracted COVID – Madison Cawthorn – An example of the pandemic’s psychological toll – Evening statistics

Yesterday I went with various friends on another winery hike, roaming through Sky Meadows and afterwards lunching together at the Blue Valley winery nearby.  I was feeling rather sore as a result of the long hike on Sunday, but this excursion was a perfect way to limber up:  it was only six miles, and it began with a longish but not especially steep ascent of about 1000 feet that eventually put me in working order.  Another member of our group was coping with a similar situation.  He had recently had a knee replacement and he was now attempting to readjust after the hiatus of several weeks that the operation had forced him to take.  He did quite well, completing the ascent in good time and moving without apparent difficulty.  In his words, his knee felt fine; it was the rest of his body that had to become accustomed to such exercise after it had been at rest for such a long time.

The day was an odd one with respect to the weather, with the morning being cool, misty, and rather damp, but with sunshine breaking through and temperatures rising considerably while we were laying out the food for lunch after we had completed our wine purchases and assembled upon the outdoor dining area overlooking the valley below.  Masks were not required for entering inside the winery and neither the staff nor the other customers were wearing any.  We were joined by AN, who was not able to get away from her work in the morning but was free in the afternoon.  She works in vaccine development and she echoed my surmise that as the virus evolves its likeliest course is an increase in the rate of infection alongside with a decrease in rate of mortality.  Also, it appears possible that a single vaccine will eventually be developed to prevent both COVID and influenza, so that we will end up taking one vaccine annually, just as we do now for influenza alone.

Today I went with the Vigorous Hikers on the Appalachian Trail, starting from Manassas Gap and going there and back to the edge of Sky Meadows, about 9 miles each way and perhaps 3500 feet of ascent – none of it especially steep, however.  The Linden area, as this part of the forest is called, is noted for its abundance of wildflowers and we were there at the best time of the year to see them:  columbine, starry chickweed, bloodroot, spring beauties, blue violets, and yellow violets were scattered everywhere.  It is also the site of one of the greatest concentrations of trillium in the nation, perhaps in the world.  I had not expected to see many, for it is slightly early in the season for them, but they were in full bloom – not quite at peak but nonetheless carpeting many parts of the forest floor alongside the trail with white- and pink- and magenta-colored flowers.  I’m not certain why they are blooming so early.  This spring has been somewhat cooler than usual.  The May apple plants were on the verge of opening and we actually came across one that had already bloomed – again, somewhat earlier than expected.  Three of us went ahead of the rest of the group, partly because we were concerned about the rain that was forecasted for the afternoon.  It did, in fact, begin to rain during the last mile of our return, but very lightly and it had not fallen long enough to make the rocks slippery by the time we reached the parking area.  Indeed the weather was rather favorable that day than otherwise, for the cloud cover kept the temperature down and the continual breezes mitigated the humidity of the air. 

We stopped at the Whiskey Hollow shelter for lunch, where we met several section-hikers.  They were looking forward with some anxiety to continuing their hike in the upcoming days upon the “Roller Coaster,” a 13½ -mile section of the trail with continual ascents and descents.  I reassured them as best I could, saying that the reputation of the Roller Coaster’s difficulty is somewhat exaggerated; it has numerous ascents, to be sure, but they are relatively short (the longest is about ½ mile) and they are only a few hundred feet apiece. 

I am sorry to say that Vice-President Harris has contracted COVID.  Thankfully her case appears asymptomatic.  She is isolating herself for several days and working from her residence, following the CDC guidelines.  Her husband, Doug Emhoff, had come down with the virus on March 15^th but has since recovered and there is every prospect of her recovering as well.  Many other public figures in Washington have come down with the virus by this time, partly on account of the Gridiron Club dinner and partly because the virus continues to spread.  But this news has an element of cautious optimism:  none of the cases to date have had serious effects and those afflicted with the disease appear to be recovering much more rapidly and thoroughly than has been the case with previous variants.

According to official statistics, 1 in 4 Americans have contracted COVID, but the actual figure may be as high as 3 in 5.  Traditional disease surveillance methods do not capture all COVID cases, or even the majority of them, because many people are asymptomatic, not diagnosed, or not reported.  It is, in fact, quite possible to have contracted the virus without being aware of it.  I have speculated in earlier entries about the risk of my infecting residents of the elder care facility where my mother lives on that account.  That is one reason I still wear masks for visits to stores, public transit, and so on, even though the mask mandate has been officially lifted.  The scientists who ran the study analyzed tests that measured antibodies produced in response to COVID infection.  Hospital admissions remain low at about 1,600 per day. But for the second week in a row, they are slowly trending upwards, with an increase of about 9% this week from the prior week.

Madison Cawthorn has been charged with a criminal misdemeanor for bringing a loaded handgun to an airport in North Carolina.  This is not the first occasion that he has committed such an offense:  in February 2021, Cawthorn brought an unloaded Glock 9mm handgun to the Asheville Regional Airport in his carry-on bag, which TSA workers confiscated once they found it in his possession.  He has had some other notable achievements as well.  In March, Cawthorn was charged with driving with a revoked license. He had faced the same charge in 2017, but that charge was dismissed.  He has faced two citations in North Carolina for speeding: once for driving 89 mph in a 65 mph zone and another for driving 87 mph in a 70 mph zone.  Cawthorn is currently the youngest representative in office, being 26 years old; but he seems to have a mental age of about 10.

Here is one COVID story that I find troubling.  A woman who is identified only as “Stephanie” had a common-sense attitude towards matters such as vaccines for most of her life.  But during the pandemic she became a subscriber to the anti-vaxxers’ conspiracy theories, and part of the reason was physical.  She had been an active tennis player for most of her life but as she entered her 70s this activity had taken its toll on her knees and she was finding it difficult to walk.  At one point she had to have a stair lift installed in her house.  The loss of her favorite physical activity and her enforced sedentariness had a ruinous effect on her mental outlook.  She began to watch videos on the Internet that pandered to all sorts of conspiracy theories – that John Kennedy is still alive, that reptilians were controlling the U.S. government, and so on.  Eventually she subscribed to the notion that COVID was a gigantic hoax and she not only refused to get vaccinated but shunned the company of her daughters when they received vaccines.  After attending a Thanksgiving dinner in 2021, she developed symptoms of COVID but refused to get tested.  Instead she ordered supplies of ivermectin and hydroxochloroquine, which naturally proved to be ineffective.  She developed blood clots on her lungs as a result of the virus – a painful condition, in which the patient feels in a state of perpetually suffocating or drowning.  Eventually the only option was to put her on a ventilator, which she declined, saying “I’ve had enough. This is not a life. I can’t live like this anymore.”  She died shortly afterward.

What troubles me about this story is not that Stephanie and others like her subscribed to conspiracy theories – that is to be expected among a certain portion of the population.  As Edith Wharton once rather cruelly observed, it is much easier to believe oneself persecuted than insignificant.  What troubles me about this particular instance is that Stephanie had no inclinations that way until she was no longer able to obtain solace in her favored activity. 

And this raises the thought:  how would I react if, as is conceivable, I develop in later years some condition or other that makes hiking over mountain trails and rocky summits inadvisable?  Not very well, I suspect.  I don’t think I would go to the extremes that Stephanie did, but I’m not at all confident that I would have the mental resources to cope with such a restriction. 

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 509,845,095; # of deaths worldwide: 6,244,616; # of cases U.S.: 82,703,699; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,018,475. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 510,644,473; # of deaths worldwide: 6,248,488; # of cases U.S.: 82,784,686; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,018,939.

Indoor visits, at home and elsewhere – Leesburg, Meadowlark, and Brookside – The MLK loop – Reversion to pre-pandemic behavior – The approaching end of the pandemic – Reprieve for women in Kentucky – Evening statistics

The claims of journal-writing must yield to the claims of hospitality:  for the past couple of days I’ve been entertaining JF, as well as two other guests who joined us on the 22^nd (Friday), and then yesterday I went to Baltimore to visit others.  The drive to Baltimore and back was very wearing, much more troublesome than it usually is.  It took nearly two hours in both directions and ordinarily it is a drive of little less than half that time. 

JF and I agreed merely to “saunter” Thursday in view of the rather gray weather, but after going to various stores, strolling through the historic part of Leesburg, and winding up by exploring Meadowlark Garden in Vienna, we ended up covering about 10 miles.  Meadowlark Garden has become considerably more elaborate since my last visit there (which admittedly was several years ago); it has numerous winding trails, a lake stocked with koi, and a Korean bell garden – the only one in the Western hemisphere.  It contains a 3-ton bell created in South Korea that was then shipped to Virginia and placed in an ornate classical pavilion.  The bell is of the same pattern used for bells created in the past, going as far back as the 8^th century.  The garden also contains a second pavilion with wall panels adorned with impressions of various flowers, such as peonies, chrysanthemums, and lotus flowers.  We had a rather elaborate lunch in Leesburg, somewhat unexpectedly.  We had selected a restaurant that called itself a diner and had a modest exterior, but its food was rich and plentiful and beautifully prepared. 

Friday was less strenuous; we confined ourselves to exploring the lovely gardens at Brookside and afterwards, since it is located not far from where I grew up, briefly visited the neighborhood in which I lived during my childhood and adolescence.  It has not changed greatly since the time that I lived there, which was decades ago.  The houses were built in 1959 and 1960 by a construction group that purposefully designed them to differ slightly from one another, so that it never displayed the beehive effect that afflicts many of the more modern suburban developments.  The neighborhood was a good place in which to grow up – not least on account of its proximity to the Northwest Branch Trail, which supplied many delightful explorations in the woodlands and along the stream during my childhood years.

Afterwards my other two visitors arrived in the early evening, and eventually we all went out to dine at a fairly unusual Chinese restaurant, which features the Sichuan style of cuisine and is considerably more authentic than that of the majority of Chinese restaurants in this country.  On Saturday, again, there was a certain amount of party food, including various pretzels, chips, and desserts in which I do not ordinarily indulge.  In consequence, I was beginning to feel somewhat sluggish as a result of all of this rich feeding. 

But today I obtained the perfect antidote for this condition:  hiking with RS, which always supplies some invigorating exertion and which on this occasion consisted of a loop starting from the MLK monument and which eventually ended up to be 23 miles long.  We have done a similar route in the past, but it has changed dramatically in some areas since the last time that we completed it together.  The route goes through both the Wharf area in the southwest part of the city and the Anacostia riverfront, both of which have been developed to an astonishing extent.  I still was able to recognize parts of the Wharf area from the days that I used to attend performances at the Arena Stage theater (before it acquired an Artistic Director whose influence I detested), where some of the older residence buildings are still standing; but the Anacostia riverfront has been redone almost completely.  Once a byword as one of the most rundown and dangerous parts of the city, it is now a series of restaurants, stores, and newly-built condos; while the river, notorious in former days for its pollution, has lost its turbid, clouded appearance and its ripples today sparkled and danced in the sunlight, greatly improved by the massive cleanup that has taken place over the years. 

The experiences of dining out on Thursday and Friday illustrated how much people have relaxed since the beginning of the pandemic.  Hardly anyone wore masks upon entering.  I myself have become somewhat lax in this respect, since one has to remove the mask in any case for the purposes of eating and drinking; but I still try to keep it on before I am seated at the table and after I have finished dining.  But I appear to be more cautious in this respect than the average.  Even in New York people wore masks much less frequently than they did during my previous visit.

 The rate of increase in COVID infections continues to decline.  The WHO has said that nearly 5.59 million cases were reported between April 11 and 17, 24% fewer than in the previous week. The number of newly reported deaths dropped 21% to 18,215. 

So when does a pandemic end?  The influenza virus that caused the devastating pandemic of 1918 never went away; it simply evolved into the seasonal flu.  Most survivors, however, developed some degree of immunity to it and at one point simply decided to move on with their lives.  The COVID pandemic may display a similar pattern, particularly if the new variants that emerge remain milder in their effects than the original ones.  We can’t be certain at this stage whether a variant with a higher mortality rate will emerge, but it seems less likely than before.  The virus, after all, has evolved to live in the hosts that it infects, and it can’t do so very efficiently if it kills off its hosts in the process.  The likelihood appears that the virus will continue to produce variants that are both more infectious and less likely to cause death. 

One mustn’t be reckless in extrapolating direct parallels between this pandemic and previous ones.  For one thing, the disease has already created a potential tidal wave of long COVID, the full effects of which the worlds’ nations have has not yet confronted.  On the whole, however, it appears that people are reverting to their habits of pre-pandemic times, and that, officially or not, the pandemic will be ending soon as far as effects on daily life are concerned. 

US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings granted a request from Planned Parenthood to halt enforcement of the law in Kentucky eliminating all abortions 15 weeks after conception.  This court order is less of a victory than might appear at first for the pro-choice party.  The order did not make a decision about the constitutionality of the law.  It merely states that abortion clinics are currently unable to comply with the guidelines that the state has made for running them because such guidelines are unclear and insufficiently detailed.  The legislators of Kentucky still have the option of clarifying the guidelines and then requesting that the law takes effect. 

Statistics for April 21^st as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 507,638,586; # of deaths worldwide: 6,235,329; # of cases U.S.: 82,550,027; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,017,555. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 509,466,985; # of deaths worldwide: 6,242,875; # of cases U.S.: 82,662,612; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,018,335. 

Strolling among the bluebells – Controversy about the overturning of the mask mandate – Evening statistics

JF, my visitor from New Jersey, is not a hiker per se – that is, he does not care to undertake steep ascents and rocky mountain trails.  But he is quite a good walker on flatter trails, so we went together to Broad Run and afterwards to Manassas Battlefield Park, where we went on the First Manassas Loop – something over 12 miles in all for the two hikes combined.  The bluebells were in full bloom along the Broad Run trails and along parts of Bull Run as well; slightly past the peak indeed, but overwhelmingly profuse nonetheless, along with other seasonal flowers such as bluets, spring beauties, white violets, and blue violets.  We did not see many birds, somewhat to my surprise, for they are generally active at this time of year.  But we did view a couple of hawks overhead along the Broad Run trails and a heron on the lookout for prey on an islet within Bull Run.  After the rather chilly and grayish past few days we had perfect weather today, sunny, clear, with temperatures starting at 50 degrees in the morning and rising to the mid-60s in the afternoon. 

Judge Mizelle’s overturning of the mask mandate is not the final word on the subject, it seems.  The Department of Justice will appeal the ruling at the CDC’s request.  I can understand why the CDC is displeased with the ruling, but this measure will probably not help matters.  Any appeal process will surely take longer than the two weeks that the CDC has extended the mandate.  Moreover, if the appeal reaches the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority and is hostile to such mandates, its endorsement of Judge Mizelle’s ruling will hamper the CDC still further. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 506,757,955; # of deaths worldwide: 6,231,235; # of cases U.S.: 82,461,250; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,016,626.

Visit to New York (including an excursion on the Appalachian Trail) – Accelerated social life – Overturning of the federal mask mandate for public transit – The troubled waters of the Colorado River – A conservative opponent of Trump  – Evening statistics

We celebrated Passover on Saturday evening rather than Friday, to accommodate people’s traveling schedules, with my New York cousin and his wife hosting.  He has been a professional chef and still teaches cooking classes, so we could be assured of getting well-fed.  And so we were:  gravlax, lamb partly roasted and partly braised, roasted herb chicken, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, potatoes mashed with parsnips and turnips, and the traditional matzo ball soup.  Wine and spirits flowed in abundance and there was no lack of desserts (I made a flourless torte with chocolate and ground almonds).  With myself, my brother, my aunt, three of my cousins, and my cousin’s wife and son, we were eight in all:  the largest number of close relatives we’ve been able to assemble together since the beginning of the pandemic. 

The atmosphere was much more relaxed than it had been during the pandemic’s previous phases, although there was still a note of caution sounded.  Mask=wearing was enforced on the train that I took from New Jersey to the city and the news contained reports about the rising number of cases in the area.  But the increase in cases has not brought about a corresponding increase in hospitalizations or deaths, and as a result people are much less on their guard.  Although masks are nominally required on all public transit, many riders on the buses and subways were bare-faced.  This was, as I remarked to my cousin-in-law, in marked contrast to the policy at Monterey, where mask-wearing was strictly enforced; to which she replied that bus drivers in Monterey are much less likely than those in the Bronx to be attacked by an aggrieved bus rider with a knife in hand – which, as I had to admit, amounted to a very reasonable thing to say.  Masks are no longer required in restaurants, nor are customers checked for proof of vaccination. 

For Friday evening I joined my cousin, his son, and my brother for a “guys night” and on Sunday my aunt and her two daughters had the day to themselves for a girls-only occasion.  I stayed with my aunt on Thursday evening and Friday but went to my cousin’s place for the remainder of the stay so that my Floridian cousin could stay with her mother.  On Saturday before the dinner I went along Van Courtland Park and the Riverdale Trail – both of them lovely areas, with the trails in splendid condition, while on Sunday I took a somewhat more unusual option.

Close to Pawling, NY, there is a railroad station along the Appalachian Trail – the only such station along the entire length of the AT.  It can be reached by a journey of about two hours from Grand Central Station (the time is somewhat lessened by leaving, as I did, from the Bronx, where my cousin resides).  Originally I had planned to do this on Saturday, but in the end I decided that such an excursion might put my attendance at the gathering that evening in jeopardy, so I elected to go on Sunday instead.  I went to the station at Fordham and when I asked for a round trip to the Appalachian Trail station, the salesperson was rather amused:   in her words, “That’s not a request we get very often.”  She was very pleasant, expressing her wishes for a good hike and taking care to direct me as to which line I needed to take.  I rode on the so-called Harlem Line, which ends at a town called Southeast; from there I picked up a local train (it has only seven stops in all) to the AT station.  It looks as if it could have been assembled from a kit on a shelf in a toy shop and indeed is little-used; the train stops there only four times a day, twice going from NYC and twice returning to it, and only on weekends.  Only two other people got with me on the outgoing train and I was the lone passenger waiting at the station for the return journey.

Upon leaving the train I took the AT east towards the state border with Connecticut, about 7 miles each way (actually a bit longer on account of a detour near the state border, as a result of a bridge having been washed out).  It was a frustrating hike in some ways.  The trail is not well-maintained in this area.  It has no water runoffs and drainage in consequence is very poor; some parts of the trail, submerged in water from the rain of the preceding night and excessively muddy, constitute a virtual invitation to erosion.  The trail contained many blowdowns, none of which had been cleared – which is somewhat surprising for mid-April, since trail maintainers generally become more active once the spring season begins.  But the weather for most of the day was clear and sunny, and it crossed over numerous little rivulets bordered with wildflowers.  It was somewhat chilly, and while I felt warm enough while I was moving, I wore my facemask while waiting at the station for the return train; not, as might be supposed, from fear of infection from other hikers passing by, but simply for as much additional warmth as I could obtain.  It even hailed for a couple of minutes during this period – quite gently, however, and the white pellets formed attractive clusters on the ground before they melted away quickly. 

On the way back yesterday I spent part of the day with a friend in the Trenton area (although well outside of Trenton itself, thankfully) and today a friend from one of the beach towns in New Jersey stopped by to stay for a few days.  Two mutual friends will join us on Friday evening, and then on Saturday I will be meeting with other friends in Baltimore.  It feels like quite a social whirl after 2020 and 2021.  Of course I met with various fellow hikers on many hikes during that period, but indoor gatherings of any size were much less common.  But this month has broken that pattern, with visits to friends in Sacramento and Monterey during the first week, attending a party on the 9^th, staying with my aunt and cousins this past weekend, and currently hosting a guest of my own, with two more coming here on Friday.  Such behavior seems typical of my social network generally; people are feeling much more confident about interacting with others indoors now that nearly everyone in the area is vaccinated, and several are making up for lost time.

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle appears to be equally optimistic, having overturned the CDC’s health order to the TSA, thereby striking down the mask mandate for public transit nationwide.  In one flight during which the announcement of the end of the mandate took place, the passengers cheered and tossed their face coverings on the seats, while one conductor on a New Jersey commuter train (the same type of train I took from Hamilton, NJ, and back during my recent visit) told the riders “feel free to burn them at will.” 

There is still considerable confusion as to where travelers must wear masks and where they are no longer required to do so.  Certain localities, such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Connecticut, continue to enforce mask mandates on their own account.  Masks are required on Amtrak and also on Metra, the regional commuter rail service for Chicago.  As an example, a commuter from New Jersey to Manhattan might ride the New Jersey transit to Penn Station without wearing a mask, only to find that it will be necessary to don one for an extension of his journey on the New York metro.  “It’s like this patchwork of different rules and enforcement of it,” said Erik Abderhalden, a Chicago commuter. “I mean, it’s like Swiss cheese . . . there’s no uniformity and it seems pretty laissez faire.”

The Colorado River has lost 20% of its water levels over the past 22 years.  It is now at the top of the country’s most endangered rivers list.  As a result of twenty-three years of drought conditions in the West and Southwest, the water level is at its lowest at the Hoover and Glen Canyon Dam reservoirs since they were filled.  Lake Mead and Lake Powell will likely never refill to previously normal levels.  About 42% of California’s population is now under a drought emergency:  every part of the state except Southern California and the San Francisco Bay area, in which regions, by an amazing coincidence, the very wealthiest inhabitants of the state reside.  In the past, when there was not enough surface water and water in reservoirs, states would pump as much groundwater as needed.  But by now that option has resulted in groundwater level declines in the Phoenix and Tucson areas by anywhere from 300 to 500 feet. 

Residents in the West cannot be accused of wastefulness.  Currently per capita water use is 16% lower than 2013 levels in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.  But in one respect the Western region as a whole has been thriftless and improvident. 

The population of the West is growing by leaps and bounds.  It is the fastest-growing region in the country, with an increase in large cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas of 9.1% since 2010.  No doubt its climate is more comfortable than that of the East.  But I for one am willing to put up with some snowfalls in winter and humid days in summer to obtain the security of having enough water to drink.

The most likely option for the future is desalinization of water from the ocean.  The cost of treating seawater is about $2,000 to $3,000 an acre foot, which is at least twice as expensive as water conservation.  There is also the question of where to put the salt and sediment once it has been removed; returning the additional salt and minerals to the sea would act as a pollutant.  Nor is it particularly efficient to pump the water from the coast to more inland states such as Colorado.

J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge and leading conservative, said that he is willing to publicly testify about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.  He is known for having urged Mike Pence to resist Donald Trump’s overtures for him to take steps to try to delay or even block the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory.  He has links to others involved in the January 6^th riot:  both Ted Cruz and John Eastman are former Luttig clerks.  His attitude, to put it mildly, differs from those of these protégées.  “At the moment, there is no other way to say it: This is the clearest and most present danger to our democracy,” he said. “Trump and his supporters in Congress and in the states are preparing now to lay the groundwork to overturn the election in 2024 were Trump, or his designee, to lose the vote for the presidency.”

Today’s statistics as of 6:30 PM – # of cases worldwide: 505,703,256; # of deaths worldwide: 6,226,843; # of cases U.S.: 82,397,021; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,016,015

Recent hikes – Family get-togethers become easier – The new upsurge – Evening statistics

I am with my New York relatives for a few days.  It was quite warm today, almost sultry, although the walkway along the East River was much cooler and pleasanter.  At one point my aunt remarked, “I see you haven’t been hiking as much lately.”  I can understand why she got that impression, since I have not spoken about my most recent hikes in the journal entries, but in fact I hiked this past Sunday (at Broad Run to see the bluebells there, which are just as prolific as in the Bull Run area and with far less crowded trails), Monday (a winery hike, involving a there-and-back on the AT from Manassas Gap to the Denton shelter), and Tuesday (Meadowood and Pohick Bay with the Vigorous Hikers).  Also, I investigated the Bull Run/Occoquan Trail yesterday to ascertain whether a certain creek crossing that had been washed out at least a couple of years ago has been repaired (and it hasn’t).  All in all, I covered nearly 40 miles in the past four days, in addition to various urban walks, so I think I can claim not to have been inactive.

It will be Passover tomorrow and we are celebrating with a somewhat larger family gathering than we’ve been able to have for the past two years.  My aunt, my brother, my cousin from Chile, my cousin from Florida, and myself will all be convening at my eldest cousin’s apartment in Riverdale. And on Saturday I will be undertaking a project that has been on my mind for some time.  It is possible to take the train from New York to a railroad station on the Appalachian Trail — the single one that can be used to access the AT along its entire length.  (I can’t help contrasting this situation with that of countries such as Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, where public transportation can be used to access any number of trailheads.)  We will be pursuing other family activities with one another on Sunday, and on Monday I plan to spend some time with a friend in New Jersey on the way home.  Thus it will be seen that the effects of the pandemic have been greatly modified since 2020, when every single one of these scheduled activities would have been out of the question.

The picture is not universally rose-colored, since the COVID case count has recently surpassed one half-billion worldwide (approximately one in every 16 of the world’s population).   The highly contagious BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has led to surges in more than 20 countries.  It now accounts for 86% of the world’s current caseload, according to the WHO.  About 64.8% of the world’s population has received at least one vaccine dose, but in undeveloped countries this number is far lower.  Russia’s Federal Service for State Statistics (Rosstat) added 105,427 deaths from 2020 which were earlier not reported by the country, bringing its total to nearly 800,000 and thereby confirming it as the nation with the second-largest death toll from COVID — our own nation, of course, being the proud owner of the title of the nation with the largest. 

It is still unclear, as Dr. Fauci has noted, whether this latest upsurge will lead to a major wave of hospitalizations and deaths. The BA.2 variant seems no more likely than its parent to cause severe illness. “It depends on how high we go up in the surge, and it depends on whether the surge is associated with an increase in severe disease,” he said.  “I can’t say where we are right now, because we’re transitioning.”

Today’s statistics as of 10:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 503,027,224; # of deaths worldwide: 6,217,872; # of cases U.S.: 82,252,965; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,014,902.

Impeachment of Attorney General Ravnsborg – The mask mandate extended – The public health emergency extended nationally and internationally – Evening statistics

Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg is the first official to be impeached in South Dakota history.  It may be recalled that he ran over a pedestrian over during the course of driving one night in 2020, initially believing, as he claimed, to have struck a deer.  In which case, Ravnsborg must believe that deer habitually wear eyeglasses, since those of Joseph Boever, whom Ravnsborg struck while the latter was walking along the side of the road (and incidentally carrying a flashlight at the time), were found on the passenger seat of Ravnborg’s car during the investigation of the episode.  Ravnsborg was traveling 60 MPH on the road’s right shoulder, crossing the rumble strip that separated the shoulder from the main road at the time of the collision.  He still appears to think of his victim as a deer at some level, as he has shown since that time as little remorse as a hunter might display for shooting an elk or a buck.  He pleaded no contest last year to the charges leveled against him on account of the accident; but since the charges were simply a pair of traffic misdemeanors with trifling fines attached to them, he underwent no great penalty for his negligence.  It isn’t as if Ravnsborg has enjoyed a reputation for flawless driving before the crash occurred.  On July 23, 2020, and September 6, 2020, Ravnsborg nearly crashed his car into two different police vehicles, getting off with warnings on both occasions. 

The CDC has extended the mask mandate on public transportation and airplanes for another two weeks.  It was expected to lift this mandate on the 18^th, but the removal of the mandate has now been set to May 3^rd.  Airlines and the hospitality industry have been lobbying the White House to overturn both the mask rule and the requirement to test before returning to the United States from abroad.  The CDC, however, claims that the recent spike in cases would make such a measure imprudent just at present.  Personally I believe that it would do well not to specify a date for removal, since there is no way of guaranteeing that such a deadline can be met; an increase in cases or the emergence of a new variant could occur at any time.  The virus, as many have pointed out, is simply not predictable at this point.

Similarly, the declaration of COVID as a public health emergency, which had been initially declared in early 2020 and then was renewed every subsequent quarter, has been renewed yet again for another three months.  This means that Americans will be able to receive free tests, vaccines, and treatments, which certainly sounds generous – but who is to pay for it? 

Along the same lines, the WHO has declared that COVID remains a global public health emergency even though COVID deaths have fallen to the lowest level since March 2020.  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the decline of itself is good news, but added that some countries are still experiencing a spike in cases. The WHO has called for world leaders to ensure that 70% of their countries’ population is vaccinated, but at this point 75 nations still have a vaccination rate of less than 40% and 21 have a vaccination rate of under 10%.   As Dr. Didier Houssin, chairman of the WHO’s international health regulations emergency committee, has said:  “It’s always easier to declare a pandemic than undeclare one.”

Yesterday’s statistics as of 9:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  500,838,107; # of deaths worldwide: 6,209,173; # of cases U.S.: 82,133,342; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,013,044.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 501,850,634; # of deaths worldwide: 6,213,412; # of cases U.S.: 82,186,366; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,014,056.

The Richard III controversy – Attempts at distortion of history – Mask mandate in Philadelphia – The current upsurge of COVID – Evening statistics

At a friend’s recommendation I have just completed reading “The King’s Daughter” by Sandra Worth, a novel based upon the life of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII and ancestress of the Tudor dynasty.

It’s not particularly well-written and its subject matter is the usual farrago of the Richardians, who believe that, since history is written by the victors, Richard III has been greatly maligned by the Tudors who triumphed over him.  If Hitler had won out, Worth comments in her ham-fisted way, the reputations of Roosevelt and Churchill would have suffered as a result.  There we have it:  Henry VII is the 15^th-century equivalent of Hitler and Richard III is a misunderstood statesman of Churchillian stature, if indeed he is not Too Good for This Sinful Earth. 

As far as Henry VII is concerned, there can hardly be two opinions about his abilities as a ruler.  After his forces won the Battle of Bosworth and he began his administration, England was in a state of chaos as a result of over 30 years of civil war and was further hindered by a bankrupt exchequer.  At the end of his reign the government was stable and England was not only financially solvent but a major player among European powers.  Unlike his more famous son, he had no mistresses or illegitimate children, and all accounts of his marriage to Elizabeth show evidence of deep affection on both sides.  He certainly was not a model of liberality, but casting him in the role as a villain of Hitlerian proportions is, to say the least, a bit of a stretch.

The portrayal of Richard in Shakespeare’s play, by which he is principally known, is certainly rather over the top.  He was not a hideously deformed dwarf; he merely had some curvature of the spine and in other respects was sufficiently healthy and well-looking.  He did some good things as a ruler.  He lent his support to a few improvements to the British legal system.   He appears to have been on happy terms with his wife.  How his reign ultimately would have turned out we cannot tell.  It lasted only two years, and it was a period of continual unquiet, marked by numerous rebellions, of which one in the end terminated his rule and his life altogether. 

By this time most of the Richardians have abandoned the idea that Henry VII engineered the deaths of the two princes, the sons of Richard’s brother Edward IV, since even they are perplexed to justify such a theory in light of the fact that Henry lived in Brittany during the entirety of Richard’s reign until the Battle of Bosworth.  For a while the Duke of Buckingham was designated as the originator of the scheme, but now Margaret Beaufort, Henry’s mother, is the favored candidate.  No doubt Margaret, who was devoted to her son, plotted along with many others to bring him into power, even to the extent of participating in Buckingham’s rebellion; and no doubt, also, she was an important figure at court once Henry assumed the throne.  There is not the slightest evidence, however, that she assassinated anybody, and it is difficult to see how she could have managed the murder of the princes even if she desired to do so.  It is not, after all, as if she could casually pay a visit to the princes in the Tower for the purpose of slipping some undetectable poison into their afternoon snack.  Once the princes were confined to the Tower, no one outside of Richard’s henchmen had access to them.

We don’t know how the two princes died and it is even possible that they succumbed to illness rather than foul play – quite a plausible explanation, as they were confined all day long for months on end in a damp, ill-ventilated building on the edge of a mosquito-infested river.  The fact remains that Richard placed both of them under house arrest, without the slightest justification, as soon as he assumed the reins of power and that nothing was ever heard of them afterwards.  Richard’s supporters frequently argue that Elizabeth Woodville, the princes’ mother, would not have entered negotiations with him if he had been guilty of the murder of her sons.  They conveniently forget, however, that Richard executed both one of her brothers and one of her sons by her first marriage at the earliest opportunity, and there is no reason to suppose that she felt less attachment to them than to the sons of Edward IV. 

Elizabeth Woodville’s behavior, incidentally, is typical of that of many of the prominent women during the Wars of the Roses, which in general offers a number of puzzles for modern observers.  Anne Neville is one example.  At one point she married Edward, the son of Henry VI.  Edward was killed in the Battle of Tewksbury by the forces of Edward Duke of York, who then crowned himself as Edward IV – and indeed it is possible that Edward IV was personally responsible for the young man’s death.  Later Anne married Richard, at that time Duke of Gloucester.  Didn’t she find it rather odd to be marrying the brother of the man who killed her first husband?  Shakespeare certainly did. 

Then there is Cecily Neville, the mother of both Edward IV and Richard III.  During the first months of his reign Richard’s agents spread the rumor that Edward IV was in fact not the true son of Richard, Duke of York, in order to bolster Richard’s assertions that the two young sons of Edward came from an illegitimate line and thus had no claim to the throne.  In other words, Richard publicly accused his own mother of adultery.  If she felt any resentment at this treatment, she gave no sign of it.  She remained on cordial terms with her son throughout his lifetime and appears to have shrugged the matter off as a piece of necessary realpolitik. 

I have delved at some length into what may appear to be a fairly minor matter because I feel curious about how, in some remote future period, certain figures of our own era might be portrayed once those who have played a role in major events are long dead and their motives become obscured over time.  In particular, I wonder if, say, about a century from now whether some historians will attempt to construct a kind of hagiography about Donald Trump and try to justify his support for an insurrection, or about Vladimir Putin for his brutal and vicious ravaging of Ukraine, much in the style that Richard III’s adherents are tirelessly attempting to rehabilitate a man who, when all is said and done, obtained power by unscrupulous means and who ruthlessly eliminated opponents without any regard for the legality of his actions. 

Philadelphia announced today it will reinstate an indoor mask mandate, the first major U.S. city to do so.  The mandate goes into effect next week.  Currently the average number of daily new cases for the city is 142, greatly below the 4,000 average it was experiencing in January.  But the case rate has been rising sharply for the past few days, prompting the city officials to take a pro-active approach. 

The CDC is not, at this point, followed suit.  Mask wearing indoors remains optional.  Certainly people have been using masks very infrequently after the mandates have been lifted.  In recent days I have been in stores in which I have been nearly the only person wearing one; staff members as well as customers have discarded theirs.  The nationwide increase in cases has been about 3% from that of two weeks ago, but the increases are far from evenly distributed.  Many large cities in the Northeast besides Philadelphia, such as DC and New York, have seen increases as large as 50%.  But the national daily case rate is still far lower than the increase we have experienced during the past winter and the mortality rate remains low (less than 0.5%).  The new BA.2 variant does not appear a cause for special concern.  It is, like its parent variant omicron, is relatively mild in its effects and vaccinations are proving to be equally successful in providing protection against it.  The use of ICU beds to date has not significantly increased during this upsurge. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 499,635,315; # of deaths worldwide: 6,205,439; # of cases U.S.: 82,093,030; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,348.

Is COVID endemic yet? – The turpitude of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow – Evening statistics

Another fairly uneventful interval since the latest entry, Friday being taken up primarily with lawn work, which was greatly needed after spending a week away from home; whlle yesterday evening I was at a party among friends with whom I had traveled to Idaho this past summer, it being our custom to hold “post mortem” celebrations to commemorate the adventures we have enjoyed together.  Indoor gatherings of this nature are undertaken much more lightly than they were as little as six months ago.  In fact, one topic of conversation that arose was:  are we now at the endemic stage in all but name?

There are certainly indications that this may be so.  Masks are worn much less frequently than before, very sporadically within public indoor gatherings, such as stores and restaurants and hotels, and outdoors not at all.  People are less hesitant to use public transit, as I found during my return from the airport a few days ago, and airplane flights are booked to full capacity.  Infection rates are (temporarily?) on the rise for both DC and New York, but the number of people who are seriously affected remains relatively low.  Several states are already treating the disease as endemic, i.e., something to be lived with but not to the extent of disrupting daily habits.  On February 18^th California became the first state to unveil a response plan that treats the virus as a manageable risk. The plan is called SMARTER (shots, masks, awareness, readiness, testing, education, and Rx treatments).  In Utah Governor Spencer Cox laid out a state response that shifted to a plan called “Steady State” by March 31^st.  Missouri’s Governor Mike Parson announced the state will be shifting to an endemic phase April 1^st.  New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order to lift the state’s COVID-19 public health emergency and a statewide mask mandate in schools and daycares, which went into effect on March 7^th.  In Arizona Governor Doug Ducey announced the state has terminated its COVID-19 emergency declaration as of March 30^th.

We have made improvements in our vaccination status.  The recent surges in late 2021 and early 2022 have shaken the anti-vaxxers to some extent.  At this point 82% of the population over 5 years of age have received at least one dose and nearly 70% are fully vaccinated.  More than three-quarters of those 18 years and older are fully vaccinated and nearly 49% have received a booster.  More than 95% of all U.S. counties are rated by the CDC as low risk for incurring death as a result of the virus.  Even the much-publicized resurgence of COVID cases among prominent Washington politicians (68 by now among the Gridiron dinner attendees alone) has not, at this point, resulted in any deaths or any hospitalizations.  Does this mean that we can declare victory now?

Alas, not yet.  The mortality rate for COVID is certainly much lower than before.  Still, we lost more than 1,000 people over the past Friday and Saturday, which is not negligible.  The mortality rate for influenza in the 2018/2019 season was 34,157 for a twelve-month period; if the mortality rate for COVID remains constant at this point, the total for a twelve-month period starting from today will be nearly 6 times that amount.  Several experts have said that if we manage to reduce the average daily death rate to about 100, we will be doing pretty well (even though this figure seemed high during the early phases of the pandemic).  New variants will continue to emerge, and it is unknown whether they will be relatively mild, as omicron has been.    It took the 1918 flu pandemic three years to settle into a more regular pattern.  During that period, the U.S. had a significant wave in 1920 that killed more people in some cities than the previous waves had.  Finally, the severity of the disease has little to do with whether it is categorized as a pandemic or endemic. It is primarily based on the disease’s rate of spread.  And we are still undergoing large unexpected outbreaks in various locations, such as the current one in central New York. 

“What we have with COVID-19 is not predictable,” said Cynthia Leifer, an immunologist from Cornell. “I think everyone can agree that over the past two years, the one thing we can agree on is this is not predictable. Until we get to a stage where we know from year to year approximately who’s going to get sick, what type of people are going to get sick, and what the variants might be from year to year, if we don’t have that, we haven’t reached endemic.”

In other news, Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, has apparently decided to celebrate Palm Sunday by re-enacting the role of Caiaphas, the high priest who betrayed the innocent in his efforts to knuckle under to the secular authorities and thus ensure his retention of high office.  The enterprising prelate called on Russians today to rally around the authorities as Moscow pursues its military intervention in Ukraine.  He has repeatedly expressed approval of the invasion (he is careful not to use the term “invasion,” thereby complying with Putin’s censorship law) and has blessed the Russian soldiers fighting and plundering and butchering there.  After the Bucha massacre on April 3^rd he praised them for their “feats of service” during a ceremony in the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces.  In other projects he has urged Latvia to make Russian its official language and Bulgaria to express groveling submission to Russia on account of the latter nation’s role in obtaining Bulgarian independence from the Ottoman Empire; even though the Bulgarians, understandably enough, consider that they themselves played a significant role in their liberation that Kirill appears to have overlooked.  Both of the Russian Orthodox churches in the Netherlands and in Lithuania have decided that they have had enough of this man full of years and wickedness, and are currently making strenuous efforts to disassociate themselves from Moscow entirely. 

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  498,570,009; # of deaths worldwide: 6,201,796; # of cases U.S.: 82,053,242; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,131. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 498,964,614; # of deaths worldwide: 6,202,915; # of cases U.S.: 82,062,159; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,147.

Austin and Furnace Mountains – Visit to Sacramento and Monterey Peninsula – The Gridiron Club dinner – Evening statistics

It has been an eventful week, but since I had only intermittent access to a workstation there have been no entries until now. 

A week ago on Tuesday I went with the Vigorous Hikers to the hike along the Austin and Furnace Mountain Trails in the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park.  It is a substantial hike, 17 miles in length with nearly 4500 feet in elevation gain, and it encompasses the view from the summit of Blackrock, one of the finest in the entire park.  The trail skirts around a great tumbled heap of boulders, but even from the side of the rock pile it is nearly a 360-degree view looking down upon nearby Trayfoot Mountain and various other peaks further beyond.  It is a longish drive to the trailhead (more than 2 hours each way), and moreover I was obliged to participate in the annual Wanderbirds club meeting via Zoom after I returned, so I had little time remaining to prepare for my journey that evening and thus made no entry before my California trip began on the following day.

Now that the effects of the pandemic are easing, travel has become somewhat less taxing and I had determined to visit some friends of mine in Sacramento and Salinas, whom I had not seen for some time – six years for those in Sacramento, nine for those in Salinas.  As these timespans indicate, the pandemic alone is not entirely responsible for this long hiatus, but it certainly has hampered me in renewing face-to-face contact with them.  The beginning of April seemed like a good time to see them, since I will be occupied a great deal in succeeding months with various other trips. 

I flew in to the San Francisco airport, and even with this flight it became apparent how much less inconvenient air travel has become.  Despite the crowds, the passage through security took about ten minutes in all.  It appears that the scanners for checking out the passengers have been improved, for we were told not to remove our shoes, whereas in the past we were required to do.  From the airport I picked up my rental car and drove to Sacramento.  My host was occupied during the afternoon, so I strolled through Curtis Park before arriving at his house; it is a long grassplot lined with trees and flowering shrubs with a trail around the perimeter, whose streets contain elegant houses with elaborate gardens on the edge facing the park.  Afterwards I went to my host’s house.  We had a quiet dinner, which suited me after having traveled by plane for about five hours and by rental car for an additional two.  On the following day we spent a good deal of time in Old Town and the day after that in the downtown area.

Sacramento is a pleasant city that has the potential of being a very attractive one.  For quite a while the downtown area had a rather shabby and disheveled appearance, but it is being cleaned up gradually – very gradually, perhaps, but it has certainly improved over the past several years.  In particular, renovations have been made to an extensive covered mall that leads into Old Town and that for a long time was decaying and acquiring a depressed, downtrodden appearance.  Now, however, it is an open-air walkway reserved for pedestrians, and it wends its way around a new and elaborate arena for sports events and stage performances.  People were thronging the road and the adjacent stores seem to be doing a thriving business.  This improvement has come with a cost, of course.  I was told that the arena in particular aroused considerable resentment, since taxes had to be raised for pay for its construction and the city already has an arena not far from the new one.  The controversy it inspired, in fact, is similar to that surrounding the Verizon arena in the Chinatown area of Washington. 

The Old Town is of great historical interest, whose preserved buildings and wooden sidewalks give a vivid impression of what life was like during the gold rush of the mid-19^th century.  Most of the area’s 53 original buildings date from this period.  It possesses a museum-like quality, however, since most of the buildings are no longer residences and are now used as stores and restaurants.  The Old Town includes the Delta King, a large paddlewheel steamboat that is at this point permanently moored on the American River and has been converted to a hotel with restaurants and a special venue for wedding festivities.  We did not dine there, but we did visit the deck for the views of the river curving around the border of the city proper.

Although I like the city on the whole, I would not make a special trip to see it on its own account.  Monterey is a different matter.  My friends actually live in Salinas, but most of the hotels available for the area are in Monterey, which is only a 20-minute drive from their place.  Monterey is a former cannery town, whose sardine industry was most active in the early 20^th century.  But its history goes back much further.  It was founded in 1770 and was the capital of Alta California when the area was owned by Spain.  Even before it was established as a town various lagoons in its proximity were used by the Spanish explorers to guide their boats into a safe harbor.  Numerous old adobe houses set up by the most prominent of the colonial families are scattered throughout the downtown area.

The physical setting alone is beautiful:  a bay of mingled green- and blue-tinged water framed against pine-forested mountains rising in the background and beaches broken up here and there with large rounded boulders which numerous marine mammals use as stopping points during their migratory routes.  Marine life is extensive and varied:  not only mammals such as seals, otters, sea lions, and whales, but many varieties of birds, including gulls, terns, glebe, loons, and pelicans.  Kelp forests are extensive, particularly along the Cannery Row area.  A large marina stocked with yachts of all sizes and designs dominates the bay area close to downtown, as well as an old wharf whose space is now devoted to various shops and restaurants. 

The Cannery Row neighborhood lies further to the north and west along the peninsula.  It is not quite what I expected.  I thought that it would show more signs of the canning industry that once dominated the area.  But it is now a collection of fashionable hotels and upscale restaurants.  In a sense it has reverted to its original design.  In early days a few of the most influential people in the city had toyed with the idea of making it the equivalent of the Riviera.  Once the canning industry was established, however, those plans had to be abandoned:  the odors from the factories made it impossible to set it up as a tourist center.  Now the industry has long gone, and the neighborhood has simply become a spruce, smart, high-priced area along the beach.  It is sufficiently pretty, but the main interest of Monterey lies in the downtown area, with its historic homes (many of them converted to small museums) and the marina, where the seals swim and occasionally bask on the rocks, while the seabirds wheel overhead.

I arrived on a Saturday.  A combination of a fair and an outdoor market was being held in the park adjacent to the old Customs House near the marina.  Here I lunched before checking into the hotel and then walked extensively to explore the city, perhaps 14 miles in all.  The hotel itself was located a couple of miles from downtown and that evening I stayed in its vicinity rather than travel to downtown again; it had been a long day, though a pleasurable one.  The following day I met with my friends.  We went from the hotel to the downtown area and the marina as well.  Colonies of seals were floating by the pier; a few had taken shelter underneath the pier itself for relaxation.  There were numerous signs warning tourists that marine mammals, and sea lions in particular, are far from harmless; they have been known to attack people who get too close to them, and they have the ability to maul humans if they are provoked, being quite rapid in their movements despite their size.  For dinner that evening I ate at one of the restaurants on the wharf, tasting sea dabs for the first time:  their flesh is white and delicate, and since they are small (about six inches long) it is easy to overcook them; fortunately the chef who prepared my meal grilled them to just the right texture.  This day also I walked a great deal, going as far along the beach as Pacific Grove before returning to the hotel. 

On Monday I went to my friends’ house in Salinas, the town to the northeast of Monterey, and a few miles inland.  It is a somewhat less interesting city than Monterey –fairly prosperous or at any rate well enough, but not worth seeing on its own account.  My friends settled there because, as they told me, property values in Monterey are very inflated and one gets relatively little square footage in return for rent or mortgage payments, whereas Salinas prices are much more reasonable.  One of my friends has an interest in history and acts as a guide to one of the museums in downtown Monterey formed from the adobe homes in colonial days .  Under his guidance we took a drive to Spreckels, an old corporate town that is one of the best-preserved in the country.  Its emporium, which was established in 1898, is still operative.  Spreckels used to house workers for the Spreckels Sugar Company plant, which operated from 1899 to 1982.  It was the largest sugar beet factory for many years.  The houses there are somewhat surprising.  Most of the company towns centered about factories provided fairly rudimentary quarters for their workers, often cramped and jerry-built; these houses, however, were comfortable, solid, and, while not large, were sufficiently spacious to rear a family of children.  All of them had yards to the front and to the back.  Unlike Cannery Row, it has not altered in appearance, even though the town is now more of a bedroom community to Monterey and Salinas rather than a factory town.  A few new houses have been added, but their architectural style is similar to those of the earlier dwellings. 

At one point during the late evening I passed by a hotel where free COVID tests were being offered.  It seemed to me that I might as well take advantage of this opportunity, since I had recently traveled five hours by plane and had since dined out in restaurants more frequently during the past few days than I had done for many months combined.  The process took only a few minutes and the results came back much more promptly than I expected; on the following day I received a text that my results were negative.

Various tasks that are always associated with return from travel occupied much of my evening on the day of my return.  In addition, the weather affected my mood; the days in Sacramento and Monterey were warm and fairly sunny, becoming very clear for the last two days of the trip; and while the nights were cold, they were not at all damp.  In contrast, the weather during the evening of my return and the two days following seemed surpassingly dreary:  rain continually off and on, with gray, sullen-looking clouds and an atmosphere infused with water droplets, creating a perpetual chill despite temperatures being in the fifties.  On the other hand, even though I was away for less than a week, a kind of botanical explosion appears to be occurred in my absence:  trees and shrubs are unfurling their leaves and hardly any of the boughs are now bare, while ground flowers that were budding when I departed from California are in full bloom. 

Amidst all of these private pleasures I have, as may be inferred, not been avidly following developments in the news, and there is a great deal of catching up to do.  But one item may be noted, since it has implications for the DC metro area.  The annual Gridiron Club dinner is something of an institution in Washington, one of the few large-scale, white-tie events that are still held in the city.  The club is one of the most prestigious journalistic clubs in the nation.  Its annual dinner traditionally features the United States Marine Band, along with satirical musical skits by the club members, and often by members of the two House chambers as well.  It was not held during 2020 or 2021, on account of the pandemic, but conditions were deemed to be much less risky this year and the dinner was accordingly reinstated, with about 630 guests in attendance.  However, a few days after the dinner was held, 14 attendees tested positive for COVID.  Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff (CA) and Joaquin Castro (TX) are among these.  It is suspected – or rather more than suspected – that many others attending the dinner have also been afflicted, but have not yet publicly announced it.  In short, the dinner might prove to have been a super-spreader event. 

This outcome might have a side effect that admittedly is minor importance in comparison with the illness of many influential politicians, journalists and public officials, but is nonetheless undesirable from my point of view.  The Wanderbirds club has, as I indicated, recently been making plans to restore its bus hikes; but this development is causing its Board members to reconsider its decision.  I hope we can revert to using the bus again, despite the risk.  After all, people are taking public transit every day – although, as one Board member pointed out, subways and city buses open their doors every few minutes, causing air to circulate freely and disperse droplets that may spread the virus, and this would not be the case for bus rides to Shenandoah and the Massanuttens.  Well, one must bow to the decision, whatever it may be, of the Board’s Health Committee, whose members are considerably more knowledgeable about such matters than I am.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  496,157,333; # of deaths worldwide: 6,194,803; # of cases U.S.: 81,987,733; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,011,087.