Clear skies after the storm – Hiking in Rock Creek Park – Long COVID causes tantalizingly elusive – Conflicting dietary advice – Evening statistics
We may not have had a white Christmas this year, but we certainly had a very cold one. Temperatures moderated today, however, and in addition the sky possessed the striking clarity that here generally follows after a prolonged rainstorm. I once speculated that our area is probably more fortunate in this respect during winter than much of northern Europe, and this theory gained reinforcement when I ate together with various others at a restaurant after hiking in Rock Creek Park. One grew up in England, one had lived in France for a number of years, and another had spent a similar amount of time in the Netherlands; and they all attested that the weather during the winters there is uniformly gray and dreary. Our periods of brilliant winter days must come as a revelation to foreign visitors, at least to those from some regions.
We are fortunate in other respects. How could an outsider have guessed that a city like Washington DC is able to provide trails for a 12½-mile hike during which one’s feet hardly ever touches pavement? Directly after one turns from Connecticut Avenue onto the Melvin Hazen Trail one is plunged into a scene of forested hills sloping down precipitously to a winding stream that drains into Rock Creek, and after a short distance no buildings can be seen from the bottom of the gorge. I say 12½ miles because that is the distance we covered today, but it could have been extended easily enough. The numerous ascents, though relatively brief, cumulated to a total of 2000 feet. I had expected that, after the incessant rain on Thursday that went on until well into the following morning, that both roads and trails would be covered with ice; but it was not so. The combination of untrammeled sunlight and continually blowing wind that immediately followed the storm dispersed most of the puddles and the number of icy patches on the trails was surprisingly small. We could see the effects of the storm, however; there were numerous fallen trees whose trunks and branches sometimes stretched over the trail, which the hike leader said had not been present when they scouted the hike some days earlier.
Long COVID continues to evade explanation. Scientists are unable to explain why some people wind up with symptoms that continue for months and why a small portion experience symptoms that are more serious and longer-lasting. At this point some conclusions can be drawn from the data. Women tend to be more prone to long COVID than men, possibly because their immune systems are stronger and thus react more violently to the virus. In some cases inflammation resulting from the COVID virus can activate herpes viruses, such as Epstein-Barr, which in turn may (for this finding is tentative) lead to chronic fatigue. Obesity is almost certainly a factor. Most of the people afflicted with long COVID should eventually recover, according to Lawrence Purpura, an infectious disease expert at Columbia University. But an unfortunate minority will remain afflicted with heart and lung problems more or less indefinitely, and what causes persons infected with COVID to develop such predilections remains unknown.
“Say goodbye to rubbery cheese and watery milk! A review of 65 studies in the Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience suggests enjoying one or two servings of full-fat dairy daily (regular or lactose-free) cuts the risk of chronic stress in half. Full-fat dairy’s transpalmitoleic acid prevents anxiety-triggering blood sugar lows.” So say Brenda Kearns and Alexandria Brooks in an article for Woman’s World, and I would love to know how reliable their information source might be. Not that I’m decrying their conclusions; I am, as the most casual reader of this journal could discern, a tyrophile. However, in an earlier entry (from October, 2021, to be exact) I noted a recommendation from the Mayo Clinic for seniors over 65 to avoid soft cheeses such as Brie and Camembert, and it’s a bit of a surprise now to be told the exact opposite. One is reminded of the amazed comment from one of the nutrition experts in Woody Allen’s “Sleeper,” a farcical account of a man who is revived out of cryostatis 200 years into the future, when she learns that at one period in history people ate alfalfa sprouts to safeguard their health: “But didn’t they have any deep fat? thick-cut steaks? hot fudge sundaes?”
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 662,042,676; # of deaths worldwide: 6,686,858; # of cases U.S.: 102,247,575; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,116,095. It must be said that the spikes in COVID infections and deaths, though troubling, are considerably lower than those of 2020 and 2021 at the same time of the year. Perhaps, after all, the CDC will withdraw COVID’s state of emergency status after the end of winter.