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 22nd (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 8th 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 21st 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.