The inaugural bus hike of Capital Hiking Club – The steadily increasing fourth wave – Organizations that put pressure on the unvaccinated – Organizations that do just the opposite – Evening statistics
The Capital Hiking Club conducted its first hike using a chartered bus since the beginning of the pandemic a year and a half ago. It was, if I may say so, a resounding success. We had excellent hike leaders and all of the hikers expressed satisfaction with the hike itself, which took place at Sugarloaf Mountain, the monadnock a few miles south of Frederick. I had been obliged to reroute the hike when we were planning it out because we were obliged to begin at the base of the mountain rather than at one of the large parking areas about three hundred feet higher. The roads are so narrow and they wind so much that it was doubtful that the bus could navigate them successfully. This meant that the moderate hike had to be longer than originally planned, and it ended up being about 7½ miles in length, with 2000 feet of elevation gain. But while many found it strenuous, all were delighted with the opportunity of getting out of doors in such a setting. Many had been leading fairly reclusive lives since the beginning of the pandemic; I overheard one of them say to another, “This is the furthest I’ve been from my house for over a year.” The weather was cooperative as well. There had been rain in the forecast, and I discovered later that indeed it had rained downtown; but in this region the sky was cloudy only, not especially grey, with temperatures in the high 70s and with a series of breezes to moderate the humidity. After the hike we relaxed on the lawn near the entrance as we waited for all of the hikers to complete the route, several of us eating food we had supplied for ourselves individually and all of us conversing animatedly with one another.
We had to restrict ourselves in certain ways. We limited the number of attendees so that the bus was only half-full. I was told later that club members eagerly scanned the Meetup website for the time that one could register for the hike (8:00 AM on the preceding Saturday) and that all of the slots were taken up in a matter of minutes. Masks were worn on the bus. And no refreshments were served by the leaders, as is our usual custom; for the first few hikes, at least, the hike leaders will have enough responsibilities to look after as it is. Later, perhaps, we can get a closer approximation to conditions as they were before the pandemic began, with a full bus and refreshments provided after the hike, but it is first necessary to re-establish the old setup and to advance to previous conditions by degrees. Even with these limitations, it was very pleasant to be able to go back and forth to the trailhead without having to worry about driving there on one’s own, without having to worry about finding one’s way to the trailhead or finding parking space for a car, and with the opportunity to relax thoroughly and even to nap on the way back, and thereby to counteract the initial fatigue that follows the completion of an extended hike.
The only discordant note came when PF told me that the Board will have to discuss whether we can continue the hikes in this limited format or be obliged to suspend them again in light of the rapidly increasing delta variant. I hope that it will not be necessary to do so. Everyone on today’s hike had been vaccinated and the risk of severe illness generally has greatly decreased, at any rate in areas such as ours, where the vaccinated form the majority. After all, public transportation is being used now on a daily basis, and I cannot see that a bus ride like the one we had on this occasion differs from a ride on a city bus or the Metro for the purposes of commuting. Of course it is not only trips such as these that may be affected by the increase in cases. It is possible that interstate travel as a whole will become subject to restrictions as it was during much of 2020.
From having averaged about 11,000 new cases daily in June, the average number of new COVID cases has grown to over 100,000. At this point 61% of all adults are fully vaccinated and 70.8% have received at least one dose. That means, however, that nearly 80 million adults still remain unvaccinated, giving the virus ample opportunity to cut a wide swath. Already many institutions are clamping down on those who refuse the vaccine. CNN requires employees who report to a work site in person to be vaccinated and has recently fired three of them for coming to one of its offices without having been vaccinated first. United Airlines has told its employees that they must be inoculated by late October if they wish to retain their jobs. Frontier Airlines has done the same, except that the deadline its management has set for full vaccination is October 1st. California’s health department is requiring all of its health care employees to be vaccinated, and a similar requirement is pending in Oregon. New York will require workers and patrons at indoor businesses to show proof of vaccination starting on Sept. 13, the first major city to do so.
Many others, however, are behaving as if the pandemic simply doesn’t exist. Yesterday Florida recorded 22, 783 new cases, the highest ever recorded in a single day in the state since the pandemic began, accounting for over a fifth of the new cases that day nationwide. It also broke the record for hospitalizations for a fifth day in a row, with a total of 12,864 hospitalizations. But Governor Ron DeSantis adamantly upholds bans on mandates, both for facemasks and for vaccines. And in South Dakota the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally began yesterday, with thousands of bikers descending on the town as relentlessly as locusts. The event is expected to attract 700,000 guests over a period of 10 days. It is true that about 67% of adults in the state have received at least one dose, with about 60% fully vaccinated – not much below the national average. But for Meade County, in which Sturgis is located, the number of fully vaccinated adults is a good deal lower: only 46%. Unlike the participants of the excursion I described above, the celebrants will be flocking in great numbers to indoor public places such as stores, restaurants, bars, and hotels, and the great majority of them will not be wearing masks.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 202,928,490; # of deaths worldwide: 4,298,643; # of cases U.S.: 36,518,908; # of deaths; U.S.: 632,987.