Online schooling – Banking via drive-in – Let no man put asunder – Focus on Mississippi – Tragedy in Atlanta – Lake Urmia – Evening statistics
Kindergarten will be starting soon for the daughter of one of my neighbors; but happily, it is all online. As we both remarked to one another, children are by no means immune to the virus – and the teachers certainly aren’t. My neighbor says that his daughter has very little problems of adjustment, because she’s already been accessing Internet for some time.
The temperature never rose above 90 degrees all day and although it could have been a few degrees cooler without harm it was quite tolerable in comparison with the searing heat of much of July. Yet few people were on the streets today. When I was out I saw long lines of cars for the banks’ drive-in windows. Bank offices are still closed in the area, so drive-in service is now the only way one can handle transactions that are not covered by ATMs.
An enterprising young bridegroom apparently has taken his philosophy of life from that of the Defendant in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury:
But this I am willing to say,
If it will appease her sorrow,
I’ll marry this lady to-day,
And I’ll marry the other to-morrow!
Actually, according to the Youtube video circulating the rounds, he didn’t bother to marry the first of the ladies in his life; he merely impregnated her before marrying his second. The pregnant woman crashed the wedding to vent her fury at him, at one point shouting “Anthony, I know you hear me!” Both the groom and the bride, however, never gave her as much as a glance during her outcries and voiced their wedding vows without missing a beat. The cleric officiating at the wedding displayed an impressive degree of professional composure. He appeared to regard such behavior as normal and went on conducting the ceremony as if there had been no interruption at all.
Yet another hot spot has developed in the South. Nearly one in four of every person tested for the virus in Mississippi has turned out positive over the past two weeks. The state has been more or less open for several weeks; spacing in bars and restaurants has few restrictions and is very loosely enforced, and most of the counties have no mandates to wear face masks.
Many individual tragedies are mounting up, as may be expected. Justin Hunter, a 17-year old high school student from Atlanta, along with his father and mother, tested positive for the virus about two weeks ago. He was asymptomatic, but his father died from the virus on July 26th and his mother followed on July 30th. He has no idea of how they contracted it, since all three went through daily precautions to protect themselves, including the wearing of face masks whenever they went out. It seems unimaginable to be forced to watch each parent die within the space of four days and to be forced to quarantine while they are buried. He is displaying more fortitude than I would have been capable of at such a time of life, gratefully recording their final words of love to him and resolving to “keep going and get a scholarship and get my schoolwork done.” Eugene and Angie Hunter were happily married for 35 years; they and their son together appear to have been a model family. How merciless the virus is! Surely they of all people could have been spared!
The discrepancy between Iran’s official case count and what the case count might be in reality (the estimates of outsiders say that the figures could be anywhere from 3 to 15 times greater than the numbers actually reported) has already been noted, but it has other difficulties as well. Decades of over-use of water from lakes such as Lake Urmia, once one of the world’s largest salt lakes, has drained them. Lake Urmia is now a tenth of its former size as a result of the dams constructed along the rivers that flow into it. Shahi Island (where one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons is buried) is now an island no longer; it has become a peninsula as a result of the dwindling water levels. Boating, once a source of a good deal of tourism, is no longer possible there. There is some effort on the part of the government to restore the lake and prevent it from going by the way of the Aral Sea (one of the many environmental disasters created by the late, unlamented Soviet Union). But at this point the increasing salinity of the water has given rise to numerous salt storms. These salt storms pose a serious threat to the eyes and the lungs of at least 4 million people who live in the area.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 18,424,187; # of deaths worldwide: 696,794; # of cases U.S.: 4,861,522; # of deaths U.S.: 158,906. Another day with less than 50,000 new cases. The death toll today was 545 – far too high, of course, but much better than the increase of over 1,000 that we’ve been seeing for several days previously.