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.