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 15th 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.