Category: Journal Entry

The DC metro area dodges summer weather ills and hospital shortages – An attempt to blow up the Capitol and its unedifying sequel – Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party takes a leaf from Donald Trump’s book – Impending full FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine – Evening statistics

It seems so strange to hear about some of the ills afflicting other areas of the country that appear to have bypassed the DC metro area entirely.  In much of the western part of the country, for instance, people have been undergoing continual heat waves, drought, and wildfires.  In this region we certainly have had a hot summer, but our heat waves have been interspersed with periods of less torrid temperatures and we certainly had nothing comparable to last year, when we endured 19 successive days of more than 90 degrees.  Woodland streams have begun to run dry, as they generally do at this time of year; but this past week has seen moderating temperatures, as well as numerous rainstorms for the past several days and a good steady soaking rain for much of last night.  From a purely local point of view, it has not been an especially troublesome summer, at any rate as far as weather is concerned.

Similarly, our hospitals are not running out of ICU beds.  There have been increases in hospitalizations and in some cases patients have been diverted from certain hospitals in central Virginia to others; but in no case has anyone been obliged to wait in an improvised treatment area until a bed becomes available.  This is due, no doubt, to the fact that the vaccination rate is significantly higher than the national average.  Nearly 80% of Maryland’s adult population, 77.5% of DC’s adult population, and 76% of Virginia’s adult population have received at least one dose of a vaccine. 

This is not to say we have not had our share of troubles.  Yesterday one Floyd Ray Roseberry drove a black pickup truck onto the sidewalk in front of the Library of Congress and proceeded to deliver an hour-long rambling video in which he threatened to blow up the Capitol.  The police managed to talk him into surrendering and to defuse the situation without any ill consequences.  And that might have been the end of the matter, had not Representative Mo Brooks – he who had spearheaded the movement to overturn the ratification of the Electoral College vote in January – issued a statement which, after expressing rather perfunctory concern for the safety of the police and the first responders, added, “I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom, and the very fabric of American society.”  That is to say, we have just been treated to the spectacle of a member of Congress expressing open sympathy for a would-be domestic terrorist.  It is at times like these that we in the Washington DC metro area feel envious of those in other regions who have to cope with mere ordinary, natural disasters.

I have frequently had occasion to remark on how numerous American politicians have stooped to underhand methods in order to obtain campaign funds, but it appears that the tactics of their Canadian counterparts are no less murky.  The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario has recently sent out fundraising letters – carefully crafted to resemble mail-order bills, with the phrase “INVOICE ENCLOSED” on the envelope, the word “INVOICE” in large bold letters in the top right corner of the letter, the phrase “Balance Due” underneath a three-column table whose headers are “DESCRIPTION,” “QUANTITY,” and “TOTAL,” and a one-line item for “Election Readiness Fund” as the sole table entry.  The word “donation” (all lower-case) does not appear in the body of the letter – only on the detachable bottom that one customarily encloses with bill payments.  So it is quite easy to see how people scanning their mail in a hurry could be fooled into thinking that it is simply another bill they incurred from ordering a product by telephone or even online. 

Veronica Doyon, one of the recipients, was so incensed by this piece of duplicity that she posted an image of the letter on Reddit, adding “I couldn’t believe the gall of whoever put this together to try and tell me I owed them money while at the same time trying to ask me to voluntarily donate it.”  The Ontario Liberal party has denounced the scheme and is calling for an investigation, but it is unclear whether such letters actually violate any election rules.  Elections Ontario oversees the provincial elections to prevent fraud during the election process, but no one appears to know whether fundraising letters come under its purview.  At least one recipient, however, has filed a complaint with the Ontario Provincial Police, who accordingly are determining whether a criminal investigation should be launched.  The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is also looking into the matter.  Even if the election rules do not cover such a situation, it is possible that such letters constitute a violation of Canada’s Post Corporation Act.  The PC party has belatedly realized that it has the makings of a first-rate scandal on its hands and issued an apology of sorts yesterday, trying to foist the blame onto Responsive Marketing Group, one of its vendors.  Someone within the party had to sign off on the letters’ format before they sent out, of course; but the PC party is maintaining a discreet silence about that.

The Pfizer vaccine may be receiving FDA approval soon, perhaps as early as next week.  More than a few anti-vaxxers have alleged that their reluctance to take any of the COVID vaccines is due to the fact that they are currently qualified for emergency use authorization (EUA) only.  A recent poll showed that about 30 percent of those still unvaccinated say they would be more likely to get a fully approved vaccine than an EUA vaccine.  There still is the possibility of last-minute delays, but in any case the FDA gave a target date of early September for reaching a final decision and it appears to be on track.  The need to sway the anti-vaxxers is more urgent than ever; today we have again seen a death toll of more than 1,000, well over 10% of the daily deaths worldwide. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 211,485,747; # of deaths worldwide: 4,426,477; # of cases U.S.:  38,384,240; # of deaths; U.S.: 644,281.

Musk’s and Bezos’s lunatic quarrel – Jupiter and Galileo – The over-used Colorado River – ICUs in Alabama and Mississippi – Evening statistics

Ivan Boesky, the stock trader who became infamous for his prominent role in an insider trading scandal that occurred in the United States during the mid-1980s, once heard his wife remark during a certain night upon the beauty of the moon, to which he responded:  “What good is the moon?  You can’t buy it or sell it.”

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos would beg to differ.  Those two determined wheelers-and-dealers are arguing over which of them should possess the moon – or, at any rate, which of them will be the center of attention when NASA resumes astronauts landing on the moon.  Musk’s and Bezos’s space companies are developing lunar landers, vehicles capable of landing gently enough to avoid damage when they touch the moon’s rocky surface.  Originally NASA handed out three contracts to SpaceX (Musk), Blue Origin (Bezos), and Alabama-based Dynetics, which were intended to initiate development of lunar landers and were worth about $100 million to $600 million each. NASA then planned to select up to two companies to receive the final contracts.  When Congress allotted the agency $2 billion less than NASA had originally anticipated, it selected only a single technology, SpaceX.  Bezos is now suing the government on behalf of his Blue Origin technology to protest the decision.  Protests of this nature, of course, are not uncommon for high-priced government contracts.  Resorting to a Twitter war in which each competitor publicly abuses the other’s products, as Musk and Bezos have done, is somewhat more unusual.  Both have a personal stake in the matter, since the NASA initiative is being conducted with the eventual goal of building a permanent lunar settlement, and each of two multi-billionaires is anxious to have his name associated with it.  There used to be a time when robber barons gratified their vanity by building libraries, endowing museums, subscribing heavily to charities, and in other ways subsiding works of genuine utility with their surplus wealth, but that era is over now.

Jupiter is in opposition with our planet tonight, i.e., it will appear opposite of the sun from the perspective of the Earth.  It is the time that Jupiter comes closest in distance to the Earth, so that it not only is easily visible without a telescope, but is close enough for an ordinary modern telescope to view the Galilean moons:  the four moons Galileo discovered and recognized as satellites in 1610.  This discovery was not accepted by many well-known astronomers and various other authorities of the day, including the Catholic Church, since it went against the Aristotelean cosmology, then generally regarded as infallible, in which all heavenly bodies revolve around the earth.  His publication of the discovery was the beginning of the long sorry affair that led to in subjecting Galileo to trials by the Roman Inquisition in 1616 and later in 1633, and ended by placing him in house arrest for the remainder of his life.  Much has been written about the cowardice shown by Galileo during his trial; but considerably less is said about the cowardice of the Church in the matter.  Yet it is worth remarking upon.  During the trials Galileo presented the results of his laborious studies and said, in effect, “Here is the data.  Look at it.”  And Church responded, “We will not.”  The preconceived ideas that the Church had formulated were more important to its representatives than any evidence that suggested that they could have been mistaken.  As a result, they closed their eyes when such evidence came to light, and they afterwards closed their minds.  Such attitudes among both ecclesiastic and secular authorities are not unknown in modern times, as the events of the past year and a half during the pandemic have shown.

Greeley, CO, is a booming town; both the city and Weld County, in which it is located, have grown in population by 30% in the last ten years, one of the fastest growing regions in the nation.  It has a pleasant climate, since it usually does not experience fully developed storm systems; warm fronts, sleet, and freezing rain are virtually unknown in the area.  Nighttime low temperatures never rise above 68 degrees, even during the hottest summers.  Principal employer firms are numerous, and they include JBS USA (meatpacking), the North Colorado Medical Center, the county government, the University of Northern Colorado, and State Farm Insurance.  Its Union Colony Civic Center is one of the largest performing arts venues in the state.  The North Colorado Medical Center, the primary source of health care for the county, is a state-of-the-art facility.  Moreover, the city is less than an hours’ drive from Denver and the numerous cultural facilities that the state capital contains.  Crime rate is significantly lower than the national average.  For a mid-sized city (slightly over 100,000 population, as per the last estimate given in 2019) it has a fairly extensive public transportation system, with seven different bus routes, a regional bus service that connects the city to Fort Collins and Windsor, and buses to Denver and to Buffalo, WY.  It would appear that Greeley has everything going for it – everything but one, that is:  namely, water.

As with so many cities in the American West, Greeley is largely dependent upon the much-beleaguered Colorado River, which at this point has been declared by the Federal government as undergoing a water shortage, the first time in the river’s history.  Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, is at its lowest ebb since it was first formed in the 1930s.  Mandatory water cuts have been instituted throughout the Southwest.  Arizona will see an 18% reduction of its total Colorado River Supply and Nevada will lose about 7%.  Colorado, being among the Upper Basin states, is not affected by the cuts directly.  However, the Colorado River Compact obligates the Bureau of Reclamation to release an annual average of 8.23 million acre-feet from Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir.  Runoff into Lake Powell this year is about 30% of the average yearly amount, and to make up for the shortfall, the Bureau of Reclamation will release more water from three Upper Basin reservoirs: Flaming Gorge in Utah, Blue Mesa in Colorado, and Navajo on the Colorado-New Mexico border.  Yet people apparently look upon the river as inexhaustible and continue to flock to areas in the proximity of Denver, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix as if they were as well-watered as the Aleutian Islands or the west coast of Norway.

There are now no unoccupied ICU beds in Alabama.  As of today, there are 29 more patients than there are beds available in the entire state.  Hospital staffers have been forced to convert hallways, regular patient rooms and emergency spaces into areas where they can treat patients in need of ICU room.  The state has a rate of 35% of its population vaccinated, the second lowest in the country.  Mississippi, which now has the lowest vaccination rate of all states, is in a similar situation, with only 7 ICU beds available statewide.  Dr. Jawauna Stewart, a hospital worker at Hattiesburg Clinic Hospital Care Service, has said that one of the most difficult aspects of her job now is to talk with the families of patients about treatment plans:  “To be honest, that’s one of the most frustrating things because I rarely have good news.”

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 210,784,682; # of deaths worldwide: 4,416,088; # of cases U.S.:  38,228,384; # of deaths; U.S.: 643,091.

Great North Mountain:  Big Schloss and Little Schloss – Booster shots to become available – Governor Abbott and Texas school districts – The sad case of the Daniel family – An anti-vaxxer recants – Evening statistics

I led a hike yesterday for the Vigorous Hikers, going along an 18-mile loop in the Great North Mountain area that included views from the rock formations known as Big Schloss and Little Schloss, both of which resemble battlements.  The forecast included some rain in the afternoon, but the area where we roamed remained dry.  And happily, the torrid temperatures of the preceding week have moderated.  It was quite humid, of course, but the temperature was never more than 80 degrees at the most.  Not many people attended, on account of the uncertain weather and the long drive; it is approximately a two-hour trip from our usual departure point in Centreville to the parking area.  The sky was overcast, but not to a degree to interfere with the splendid views to be seen from both.  The two “castles” are on opposite sides of the valley that encompasses the Stony Creek watershed, well under 2 miles apart as the crow flies, but requiring about 9 miles of walking along trails to reach one from the other.  Little Schloss, which we visited first, actually has the more challenging climb of the two, for the spur trail leading up to it ends at a point about 70 feet below the summit, and going up to the top is rather a scramble.  Big Schloss is the more frequently visited of the two, since it can be reached relatively easily coming from the opposite direction of the Wolf Gap recreation area.  Even though we saw no one else on any other part of the hike, we did encounter three or four people at its summit.  Under these circumstances it gives an added zest to the view from Big Schloss to espy Little Schloss across the valley.  Even though I have done this hike more than once, when I gaze upon the high ridges and trace the length of the route I have just traversed along both sides of the valley I find myself exclaiming, “Did I really do that?”  We maintained a fairly brisk pace, starting close to 9:00 and finishing between 3:30 and 3:45, pausing for lunch where Sandstone Spring crosses the Mill Mountain Trail and on both of the castles to take in the views.  

Coming down from the mountains I returned with reluctance to the concerns of daily life, with the ever-increasing spread of the virus taking pre-eminence.  The CDC has recommended that vaccinated people get a booster shot eight months after receiving their second dose, and the Biden administration has announced that boosters will be available for distribution starting on September 20^th.  There are differing opinions as to how necessary they are.  The WHO has said that current data does not confirm a need for booster shots and European Union officials say that they are not distributing them to the general population, although they are making them available to seniors and to immuno-compromised people.  However, the CDC has some justification for being more cautious than either of these agencies.  The U.S. is regrettably now the world leader again both in rate of new infections and rate of new deaths.  The increase for today accounts for over 22% of new infections and 10% of new deaths globally.

Yet another politician who has done his best to thwart efforts to contain the virus has become infected:  Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who has forbidden all school districts in the state to impose a mask mandate.  It is to be noted that he is not an anti-vaxxer – having received a vaccine himself in 2020, well before they became available to the general public – and that his case is not serious.  In all fairness, he is showing some prudence by isolating himself in the governor’s mansion and receiving antibody treatment.  The announcement that he became infected occurred just a day after he posted a picture of himself on the Internet, not wearing a mask while speaking indoors near Dallas to a group of Republicans, most of whom were likewise unmasked.

For that matter, Texas school districts are openly defying the ban he has striven to impose.  The superintendents in Dallas and Austin have issued a mask mandate for all schools in their districts, and health authorities for the city of San Antonio and of Bexar County health authority have followed suit for their schools.  One school district has come up with a novel method for defying Abbott’s ban on a mask mandate.  The Paris Independent School District, which contains about 4,000 students, has made facemasks a part of the schools’ dress code. 

An unvaccinated couple in Georgia has fallen to COVID, although in this case their resistance to the vaccines is sadly understandable.  All members of the family contracted the disease in June, and Martin and Trina Daniel died within hours of each other, leaving behind two teen-aged children.  Martin Daniel was a chemist and, as his nephew explained afterwards, trusted vaccines that had had a long history of effectivity, such as the polio vaccine.  But he was wary of the COVID vaccines, feeling that they had been developed too hastily.  It is true that their development was accelerated, but the technology have been prepared for over the course of several years and when the pandemic began government funding for completing it was contributed to an unprecedented degree.  However, Daniel had an additional reason for mistrusting vaccines in general:  the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, which charted the progression of syphilis in black men who were unaware of that they carried the disease, who never gave consent for being subject to experimentation, and who were not provided with treatment, even though penicillin became available in 1943 for combatting it.  Daniel was not alone in looking upon vaccines with mistrust for this reason:  the amount of vaccinated African-Americans lags behind the amount of vaccinated whites by 11 percentage points.  The Daniels had actually become reconciled to the idea of vaccinated and they were scheduled to receive vaccines in mid-July; but they contracted the disease in late June and it quickly spiraled out of control by July 4^th.  Martin Daniel died on July 6^th and Trina’s death followed just hours later.  Miles and Marina Daniel, the two children, came down with milder cases and were battling the disease at the time of their parents’ death.  They were released from the hospital on July 7^th, but had to quarantine for two weeks – a severe restriction under any circumstances, but doubly so when coping with the loss of both parents in rapid succession.  They are now planning to get vaccinated, not trusting to the antibodies alone that they acquired through surviving a bout of the disease.

Other skeptics are being swayed by the influx of new cases and deaths.  Roger West, of Callahan, FL, was a vehement anti-vaxxer who repeatedly, as co-owner of the Westside Journal weekly newspaper, issued opinion columns to discourage his readers from getting the vaccines.  “I do not trust the Federal Government,” he wrote recently. “I do not trust Dr. Fauci, I do not trust the medical profession, nor the pharmaceutical giants.”  But shortly afterwards three of his friends came down with the virus and one of them died.  At that point West’s mother and other relatives urged him to get vaccinated, and he decided to follow their advice. 

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 209,326,903; # of deaths worldwide: 4,393,412; # of cases U.S.:  37,886,998; # of deaths; U.S.: 640,073.  

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 210,075,393; # of deaths worldwide: 4,405,342; # of cases U.S.:  38,065,433; # of deaths; U.S.: 641,306.   Today’s death toll was over 1,000.  We have slipped in the ranking of nations by COVID mortality rate, now occupying the 20^th instead of the 21^st place.

Hiking in Sky Meadows – Travel plans – The Taliban seizes Afghanistan – Another true believer winds up on a ventilator – Employers pressuring employees to get vaccinated – The U.S. leads the world again in infection rates – Evening statistics

Yesterday we had another winery hike, taking a 7-mile loop in Sky Meadows.  The weather was cooperative, being much less oppressive than the weather earlier in the week – humid, to be sure, but less than 80 degrees, and quite breezy and comfortable on the ridgeline.  The hike had an additional purpose, providing a means for LM and JM to distribute materials about the Idaho trip planned for September.  Considering that the trip was improvised to replace the original trip to France that was canceled, it appears that we will be getting comfortable accommodations and well-coordinated flight arrangements.  There were an abundance of butterflies to be seen throughout the hike, black swallowtails and tiger swallowtails in particular.  I remarked to DC that I have been seeing more butterflies than usual this year on the hiking trails, and he said that that is a result of the cicada cycle; several birds have died as a result of the parasites they ingested after eating the cicadas and as a result more caterpillars have lived long enough to form chrysalises and transform themselves. 

Afghanistan is now in control of the Taliban.  Biden has received a great deal of criticism as a result, from Democrats and Republicans alike, and it may be that he was somewhat precipitous in withdrawing troops from that nation.  But while I am sorry for the Afghanis I can’t blame him overmuch.  We have, after all, been bolstering the government for twenty years.  The fact that it fell within a week or so of our troops’ departure suggests that it never was able to exert a very strong hold on its populace to begin with.  There comes a time when nationalities must be allowed to control their own destinies, without outside interference.  If the Afghan government was not able to contain the Taliban in the course of being subsided for two decades on end, no wonder that it fell.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, a former arch-bishop of St. Louis, has been an outspoken critic of inoculation and has claimed that the best weapon for battling “the evil of the coronavirus” is a relationship with Jesus Christ.  In light of the fact that he contracted the virus this past Saturday and is currently on a ventilator, he might perhaps consider resorting to Pfizer or Moderna instead. 

More employers are imposing a vaccine requirement for their employees:  Tyson Foods (the nation’s largest meat producer), Morgan Stanley (investment bankers), Microsoft.  Job postings that mention a COVID-19 vaccination requirement have increased by over a third, compared with just a month earlier.  The pace of first doses being administered averaged 441,198 new vaccinations per day of August 5^th, an increase of 95% since one month earlier.

Such pressures from employers are to be encouraged, since we are now accounting for over 18% of the daily increase in cases.  In deaths, it is true, the ratio is considerably lower.  A significant number of the cases are less serious than previously and our therapeutic treatments of the disease have improved over the past few months.  But still, we are leading the world in the rate of infections, just as we had done about a year ago.  About 72.1% of all American adults have received one dose by now.  But that means that about 72 million American adults are still unvaccinated, allowing the delta variant a wide range in which to wreak its havoc.

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 207,944,965; # of deaths worldwide: 4,374,233; # of cases U.S.:  37,466,718; # of deaths; U.S.: 638,736.  Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 208,638,253; # of deaths worldwide: 4,382,882; # of cases U.S.:  37,719,467; # of deaths; U.S.: 637,561

A tropical week – Mitigation of Biden’s border policies – Increase in vaccinations – Evening statistics

There is an explanation of why the personal element is missing from recent entries.  It has been so hot this entire week that my excursions out of doors have been minimal.  At times it has been like a steam bath outside, with temperatures close to 100 degrees and well over 90% humidity.  There have been heat advisories and warnings to avoid unnecessary outdoor activity posted during the entire week.  Such periods are not unknown in the DC area, of course, although they usually occur earlier in the summer season.  Nor has this issue been confined to a single region; this past week is said to have been one of the hottest on record for the entire nation, on both coasts and in the interior.  Temperatures moderated today; it was still well into the 80s and at one point was just under 90 degrees, but at any rate I could go outside without wilting and was able to mow the lawn without any strain.  According to the forecasts, tomorrow will begin a series of days with more seasonable weather, in the 80s for the most part but not going much beyond the mid-80s.    

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Federal judge, has blocked the Biden administration’s efforts to overturn the policy that requires migrants to stay in Mexico until their US immigration court date is held.  It is unclear why Biden is showing such an extraordinary blindness in this matter.  State and Federal agencies tasked with defending the border have been greatly overburdened as a result of his earlier directives.  It is much easier to bar a person from entering the country at all until his legal status is determined than to allow a person to enter on a temporary basis, provide lodgings for him for an indefinite period until a hearing decides whether or not he can remain, and then attempt to repatriate him if the judgment goes against him. If the potential emigrants were all confined to a single isolated location (as they were many decades ago on Ellis Island), that would be another matter; but when they are scattered across a border that extends nearly 2,000 miles they become much more difficult to track.  The states of Texas and Missouri had filed a lawsuit against the administration earlier this year, stating that “Dangerous criminals are taking advantage of the lapse in law enforcement and it’s resulting in human trafficking, smuggling, a plethora of violent crimes, and a massive, unprecedented burden on state and Federal programs for which taxpayers must foot the bill.”  Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision will probably not be allowed to remain the last word on the subject, but at any rate it will put a temporary halt to the madness of admitting several thousand persons of indeterminate legal status and little documentation to the country, particularly while it is in the throes of a pandemic.

The spread of the delta variant has resulted in an increase of vaccination rates.  The number of people receiving a first dose each day has nearly doubled since July 11, when that figure stood at 7.5 new doses per 10,000 people.  Now it is nearly 15 new doses per 10,000 people.  In Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, and Missouri, vaccinations have increased by 95% since mid-July.  This increase should not be exaggerated; the pace of vaccinations is still far below the amount of doses seen in the period from January to April.  But at any rate the trend is now in the right direction.  At this point the tallies of Americans who are vaccinated are as follows:  80.7% fully vaccinated and 90.9% single dose for seniors, 61.6% fully vaccinated and 71.8% single dose for adults 18 years or older, 59.2% fully vaccinated and 69.6% single dose for everyone 12 years or older, and 50.6% fully vaccinated and 59.5% single dose for all Americans regardless of age.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 207,473,688; # of deaths worldwide: 4,366,048; # of cases U.S.: 37,435,422; # of deaths; U.S.: 637,438. 

Why the anti-vaccine sentiment persists – The refusal to examine data – The increasing rate of hospitalizations – Marjorie Taylor Greene’s love for her fellow-Georgians  – Evening statistics

I have written a good deal in these pages against the anti-vaxxers, but in one respect I can understand where they are, as we say in the U.S., “coming from.”  There is a good deal of arrogance among those who would dictate to them and to the populace generally as to what they should and should not do, which naturally rubs some people the wrong way.  A couple of months ago Dr. Fauci said that “attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.”  Quite frankly, Dr. Fauci is not the embodiment of all that science is capable of achieving.  He has had a long and distinguished career, but that is all the more reason to be wary announcing himself infallible.  It is not for refusing to conform to the accepted medical wisdom of the day that I blame in the anti-vaxxers; the accepted medical wisdom of any age is far from reliable.  For example, over the course of many centuries blood-letting was used as a response to many different diseases.  This is not quite the barbarous practice that its reputation would lead one to believe; in some cases it might have counteracted the effects of hypertension.  But in the long run it undeniably did more harm than good.  During much of the history of human medicine, to quote Charles Reade’s “The Cloister and the Hearth, “for one Mr. Malady killed, three fell by Dr. Remedy.”

My quarrel with the anti-vaxxers, then, is not that they challenge the accepted wisdom of contemporaneous medical experts but that they refuse to accept or even to look at the evidence of the data that are available to everyone, regardless of whether or not they are scientists.  The ratio of unvaccinated to vaccinated patients requiring hospitalization varies from one locality to another, but the range is 999:1 to 19:1.  Similarly, the range of those who have succumbed to the disease is 499:1  to 15 2/3:1.  No one can be definitely proven as having died as a result of having received the vaccines and the number of adverse reactions to any of them that are not limited and temporary appear to be 1 in 200,000 at the most.   And it is not as if we are dealing with a small statistical sampling emerging from one or two isolated laboratories.  In the U. S. alone, nearly 168 million people have been fully vaccinated.  Any fears that the anti-vaxxers about the vaccines’ effects in light of this evidence are, to say the least, overblown.

Our hospitals are now clogged with cases that for the most part consist of people who have resisted the vaccines.  In North Texas (including Dallas and Ft. Worth), no pediatric ICU beds are available; at this point any child who is materially injured in a car accident or who comes down with the disease will have to be transported to another county or even to Oklahoma for treatment.  In Middle Tennessee no ICU beds, pediatric or otherwise, are available; while Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Florida, and Georgia have filled more than 90% of their ICU beds.    San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenber has said that “Yesterday in San Antonio, we had 26 minutes where the seventh-largest city in the United States was without EMS units to transport people.”   Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, and Texas account for half of the recent surge in hospitalizations, and, with the exception of Florida, every single one of these states has a vaccination rate well below the national average.

Speaking of Georgia, I must not neglect Marjorie Taylor Greene’s poignant display of concern on behalf of her constituents.  When questioned about hospitals exceeding capacity on account of COVID, she replied with majestic simplicity:  “We can’t live forever.” 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 206,878,352; # of deaths worldwide: 4,357,276; # of cases U.S.:37,336,706; # of deaths; U.S.: 637,132. 

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain – The anti-anti-vaxxer sentiment – The delta variant increases steadily – Evening statistics

Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, began a 72-hour cyber-symposium in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Wednesday in an attempt to obtain support for his theories about the election being stolen and other dire plots of that nature.  Lindell has offered $5 million to anyone who can disprove his theory, on condition that such a challenger attends the symposium in person.  This event is not open to the public; invitees included various politicians, cyber experts, and media personnel.  It was, however, streamed on his website with the declared objective of obtaining 1 billion viewers.  He reserved 800 rooms for the event.  Since, for some inexplicable reason, the majority of those invited did not even bother to respond, let alone attend, most of these rooms were not exactly crammed to the rafters with participants when the streaming began, and they became emptier still by the second day.  There is reason to suppose, also, that the actual number of viewers has been rather below his expectations, considering that the first presidential debate received the comparatively modest total of 73 million viewers and even the sacrosanct Superbowl itself received a paltry 114 million viewers. It is a pity in a way.  Those who tuned in could have the pleasure of observing his reaction when news reached him that his motion to dismiss Dominion Voting System’s $1.3 billion lawsuit against him was denied and that it consequently will proceed in full.  He abruptly quitted his seat, rushed from the stage, and disappeared behind a dark curtain.  Here he differs somewhat from the Wizard of Oz, who took these precautions before Dorothy and her three companions entered the room. 

As more and more people are falling ill with the delta variant, and more children in particular, popular sentiment against those who refuse to receive the vaccination is intensifying.  Muriel Muric, a mother of a 9-year old daughter stricken with COVID, lashed out against the anti-vaxxers and the facemask opponents on her Facebook page.  “LOOK AT MY CHILD.  THIS is why people are afraid. THIS is why people beg for you to wear a mask. Who are you hurting by wearing one? What freaking rights are you losing?!”  The comment accompanies a picture of her daughter Blair on a ventilator.  She is off of the ventilator now and shows signs of recovering, but a 14-day struggle with the disease that inhibits something as vital as breathing, a horrifying experience under any circumstances, must have been especially so for a young child. Her situation is hardly unique.  COVID cases among the youth of Tennessee, the state in which the Murics reside, account for 27% of the new increase, while more than 1,400 children under the age of 13 nationwide have been hospitalized during the recent surge.  North Texas has run out of beds for pediatric intensive care units.  There are 73 confirmed pediatric patients hospitalized in the region, the highest level of pediatric COVID patients to date.

Several states, including Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Mississippi, are now averaging more daily cases than at any other point in the pandemic.  This past 24 hours has seen an increase of over 130,000 cases nationwide, the highest increase since January.  About 40% of the new hospitalizations occurred in Florida and Texas.  Nearly 9,700 patients are being admitted to hospitals each day, up by 31.3% in the last week and marking the highest number of patients seeking care since February.  Americans between the ages of 18 and 49 now account for about 40% of the hospitalizations.  It is hardly surprising; at this point more than 90% of all seniors have received at least one dose.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 206,155,894; # of deaths worldwide: 4,346,672; # of cases U.S.:  37,182,117; # of deaths; U.S.: 635,937.   No longer are we accounting for less than our due proportion of cases and deaths globally.  Today’s increase in cases today comprised over 17% of the world’s total and our increase in deaths was nearly 6.5% of the world’s total. 

Masks mandates near and far – Air travel begins to slacken again – Pressure on the unvaccinated intensifies – Dominion Voting System lawsuits – Evening statistics

I went to several stores today and in all of them both customers and employees were wearing masks.  Neither the county nor the state has instituted a mask mandate (although Virginia has required the use of masks in schools), the surge in cases has made people apprehensive and they are wearing them of their own accord.  Washington DC, Baltimore, and several Maryland counties have already required facemasks for indoor venues; the counties with such mandates are Anne Arundel, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince Georges, i.e., the counties within the DC-Baltimore-Annapolis triangle that are by far the most populous counties in the state.  Some states have instituted state-wide mandates:  California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Washington.  Oregon has a pending mandate that will begin on Friday.  The mandates in Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon, and DC apply to vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, whereas those in the other states apply to unvaccinated only.

Airline travel is starting to decline again, on account of fear of the delta variant.  The Transportation Security Administration officials yesterday screened just over 1.7 million passengers at U.S. airport security checkpoints – the lowest amount since June 15.  Ironically, this development comes just as more destinations are opening up for travel:  Canada, for instance, began to allow vaccinated Americans to cross the border earlier this week.  Southwest Airlines has seen an increase in passengers canceling their reservations and has projected the surge in cancelations to continue into September.  People are becoming hesitant about international travel in particular, since a traveler might not be able to come back into the U.S. for some time on account of the testing requirement.  And of course, anyone who tests positive as a result of contracting an infection abroad will have much greater difficulties in re-entering the country.

An increasing number of organizations are now putting pressure on its unvaccinated employees.  Amtrak has announced that all of its employees must be fully vaccinated by November 1^st or else undergo weekly testing.    Employees of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority and Port Authority will have to be vaccinated by Labor Day or undergo weekly testing.  The New York Stock Exchange will require proof of vaccination for all personnel to access the trading floor.  Education Secretary Miguel Cordona has advocated requiring all teachers to get vaccinated, while Governor Gavin Newsome of California has already announced a vaccination requirement for all teachers in the California school system.  West Virginia Wesleyan College will be charging a $750 “COVID fee” from unvaccinated students.  All students at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama will be charged a $500 fee for the fall term to offset the cost of weekly testing and quarantining, but vaccinated students will receive an immediate refund once they submit proof of having received their doses. 

U. S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols denied motions of dismissal from Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindall of the defamation lawsuits brought against them by Dominion Voting Systems.  Dominion has since filed three additional defamation lawsuits against right-wing media networks One America News, Newsmax, and Fox News.  Nichols’ judgment virtually gives the Dominion lawsuits a green light to proceed.  In the verdict that he delivered Nichols came down heavily on Powell in particular.  Powell has claimed that her statements were hyperbole made in the course of political debate, but Nichols said that Powell must have had prior knowledge that her claims were false, that she may have personally fabricated sections of some affidavits, and that one “expert” she cited in her lawsuits was clearly a conspiracy theorist.  The expert in question, who was not named, has publicly claimed that George Soros, President George H.W. Bush’s father, the Muslim Brotherhood, and “leftists” helped form the “Deep State” in Nazi Germany in the 1930s – in which case, George Soros must have been a master conspirator when he was three years old; he was born in 1930.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 205,408,150; # of deaths worldwide: 4,336,418; # of cases U.S.:  37,013,021; # of deaths; U.S.: 635,538.  At this point over 11% of the population has come down with the virus since the pandemic began.

The downfall of Andrew Cuomo – ICU bed shortage in Arkansas – Mississippi’s governor becomes a recluse – Vaccination initiatives in Pennsylvania – Evening statistics

Among the topics my friends and I discussed while lunching at the winery yesterday were the potential consequences of the New York Attorney General’s report on Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo resigned his governorship today, unable to withstand the calls for him to step down.  The rapidity with which he has been discarded is actually somewhat astonishing, considering that he was something of a media darling a bare year earlier, during the first stages of the pandemic.  His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, resigned this past Sunday, feeling that her position was no longer tenable; Nancy Pelosi, a long-time political ally of the Cuomo family, was among the first to call for his resignation; and President Biden, who is (or was) a personal friend, lost little time in doing likewise.  Hardly anyone in his own party tried to defend him and, had he insisted on remaining in office, he would have been the second governor in the history of the state of New York to be impeached. 

At the beginning of this year, Cuomo seemed in an impregnable position.  He was widely praised for his governance of New York during the pandemic and many experts were predicting that he would be running for a fourth term, after which he might well have considered himself positioned to be a presidential candidate for 2028.  Moreover, Cuomo must have been aware of what awaited him if news of his behavior towards women in his employ had leaked out.  Eliot Spitzer, who was governor of New York for only one year, was ousted from his position in 2008 when it was revealed that he was a long-time client of a prostitution ring and had used state resources to set up his assignations.  Cuomo himself was New York’s Attorney General at that time, so he can hardly plead ignorance of such matters.   It requires a strong head and a strong will not to allow political power to go to one’s head, causing to its possessor to regard himself as a member of an elite to whom ordinary rules do not apply; and most American politicians, regrettably, do not possess these traits.

The fourth wave continues to increase in intensity.  Today Governor Asa Hutchinson announced that only eight ICU beds were currently open in the entire state of Arkansas.  The state reported 995 new cases on Monday and 21 additional deaths, according to Hutchinson.  On yesterday alone 103 people were hospitalized, marking the largest single-day increase in hospitalizations.  Arkansas is particularly vulnerable to the disease, having one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country:  only 37.6% of its population has been fully vaccinated, as opposed to 50.3% of Americans generally. 

In Mississippi every ICU bed has been taken.  Unlike Hutchinson, Governor Tate Reeves has no plans to impose a mask mandate anywhere in the state and has given only the most tepid of endorsements for vaccination.  (Mississippi has recently become the state with the lowest vaccination rate, having displaced Alabama for this dubious distinction.)  He is, however, a believer in taking precautions against the virus – for himself.  He has lived in virtual quarantine for weeks.  He spends most of his time at the Governor’s Mansion, rarely venturing outside of it except for purposes of travel.  He has isolated himself from many of his closest advisers in recent weeks and is holding no press conferences.  He has been losing staff members rapidly since he took office in January, 2020, with four senior staffers and several policy staff members leaving by June, 2021 and four additional staff members in the past six weeks.  None of them have been replaced.  Those who remain in his administration are scrambling to keep the state government operational.  Liz Welch is currently splitting duties, acting as Reeves’ his interim chief of staff as she continues to run the Department of Finance and Administration. Prominent officials who have been striving in vain to get in touch with Reeves are now reaching out to David Maron, the governor’s chief counsel and deputy chief of staff, who has never previously worked in state government. 

In Pennsylvania, by way of contrast, Governor Tom Wolf has announced a new vaccine initiative.  All state employees in state health care facilities and high-risk congregate-care facilities will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by September 7^th.  All new hires in those facilities must be vaccinated before starting work.  On October 1^st, all vaccinated state employees are eligible for an additional 7.5 to 8 hours of paid time off.  Pennsylvania is ranked as the fifth highest state in vaccination rates, but Wolf is determinedly continuing to press state residents to get the vaccines.  “Pennsylvania has had a lot of success in our vaccination efforts, but 63% is not the goal,” he said. “Sixty-three percent still leaves far too many eligible Pennsylvanians unvaccinated, which puts their communities at risk.” 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 204,713,148; # of deaths worldwide: 4,325,608; # of cases U.S.:  36,888,351; # of deaths; U.S.: 634,636.  Today’s increase was slightly under 98,000, so I suppose that’s an improvement.

A winery hike – Lunch at the winery – Attempts to encourage people to receive the vaccines – An unvaccinated person becomes a vaccination advocate – An unvaccinated person who still refuses the vaccines – An anti-vaxxer demonstration in London – Evening statistics

I met with a few others for a winery hike; and, being a winery hike, it was relatively short:  we went along the Appalachian Trail three miles to the junction with the Fisher Hill Loop Trail and then turned back (six miles total).  I took the loop as an addition, thinking that it would add only a mile, but it was somewhat longer – between 1½ and 2 miles is my guess.  The forest foliage was dense and green and luxuriant, although I found, to my regret, that the summer heat, which on most of the other hikes I’ve done this season was mitigated by shade, lower temperatures at high elevations, and breezes, was felt in full force today.  It was not unusually hot for the season, but extremely humid, and, brief as the hike was, I was quite tired by the end of it. 

Afterwards we went to the Naked Mountain Winery, which I have often noticed in passing (it is on the road to a couple of the parking areas for the trillium hikes that we take annually in May) but had not visited until today.  We had the place to ourselves; now that the school year has started, the number of people making excursions to such places during the weekdays has diminished.  We ate outside, but the dining area was shaded with a white canopy that shaded us from the sun and the temperature was quite comfortable.  Virginia wines have certainly improved in quality over the years; we ordered a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white wine for the five of us, and both of them were very flavorful.  LH and MM provided, as might be expected, ample provisions for lunch, including some trout and an excellent Cambozola cheese, and we conversed leisurely as we sat and ate and drank together.

Quite naturally, one of the most animating topics was the fourth wave and how it is aggravated by the obstinacy of so many people to take the vaccines.  The number of people getting vaccinated has certainly increased, but the total is still about 0.1% of the population per day – which means it will take many months to realize a goal of, for example, 80% of adults getting fully vaccinated.  Various organizations, it is true, are doing their best to encourage the process.  For instance, the Pentagon is attempting to require members of the U.S. military to get the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 15^th.  It cannot mandate the COVID vaccines as long as they are still listed as emergency use authorization by the FDA.  However, their administration can be authorized as a security measure if it receives sanction from the President, which it probably will. 

We mentioned how many who have resisted taking the vaccines changed their tune quickly when they became ill.  For instance, Travis Campbell, a father of seven, aged 43, delayed taking the vaccine and eventually was stricken with the virus, which in his case nearly wound up putting him on a ventilator.  He has now issued several videos on Facebook demonstrating his condition – he has to struggle continually in order to breath — and pleading with viewers to get vaccinated.  In some of these, he mentioned how he contacted various friends to be pallbearers at his funeral should the worst happen, and how he has asked his 14-year old son to give his older sister away in his stead at her future wedding.  These appeals may have had some effect:  Campbell told the Bristol Herald Courier that he knows of at least 20 people who received vaccines after watching the videos.

And there are some who resist the vaccines tooth and nail even when the disease becomes impossible to ignore.  Robert and Vi Herring, an Arkansas couple in their 70s, refused to take the vaccine; eventually they contracted the virus and died from it.  The last communication sent from Robert Herring to his daughter Shandra Parish was a voicemail sent from his hospital bed. “It doesn’t even sound human,” she said of the noises he was making. “I don’t like hearing it, but I can’t delete it.”  Even so, Parish, who incidentally is a hospital nurse, still refuses to take the vaccine herself and says that she has no regrets about her parents declining to do so.  (Is it merely a coincidence that her surname is a homonym of the word “perish”?)  She has quarreled on this account with her brother David Herring, who has expressed considerable resentment towards the purveyors of sentiments that induced his parents to decline the vaccine.  “I’m absolutely angry and frustrated,” Herring said. “Their age and health conditions – they should have gotten vaccinated really early.   And then trying to talk to friends of theirs and hearing these ridiculous things about depopulation and computer chips.”

Sometimes the anti-vaccination sentiment takes a form that is frankly comic.  Today several British anti-vaccine advocates attempted to storm the news headquarters of the BBC for what they called purveying of misinformation.  There was only one slight problem:  the protestors congregated at the Television Center building in West London, which was indeed the news headquarters until 2013, at which time the BBC sold it to a developer who converted it into a building of private residences.  Andrew Neil, chairman of The Spectator and GB news, summed it up best:  “Anti-vaxxers protest BBC coverage of pandemic by storming a building in White City.  A building the BBC vacated in 2013 and is now luxury flats. Is there a link between stupidity and anti-vax? Opinions vary but evidence is growing.”

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  204,089,181; # of deaths worldwide: 4,315,452; # of cases U.S.:  36,771,525; # of deaths; U.S.: 633,788.

Hiking in the Frederick Watershed and on the Catoctin Trail – The struggle to resume normal social activities – Anti-vaxxers of my acquaintance – State governors expressing resentment towards the unvaccinated – Mask mandate in Louisiana – An unexpected proponent of federal anti-COVID measures – Evening statistics

I met up today with various hiking friends in the Frederick Watershed, where we roamed on one of its numerous unnamed trails until we came to the intersection with the Catoctin Trail, and went south for a few miles before turning back.  The Frederick Watershed Cooperative Wildlife Management Area (CWMA) contains about 7,000 acres of forest surrounding the county reservoir and its trails are popular with mountain bikers, of whom we encountered several.  It tends, however, to be less frequented by hikers and we spent the greater part of the hike without seeing anyone else on foot.  Even though the day was hot and nearly cloudless, the paths were well-shaded and frequently breezy, and the hiking conditions were thus quite comfortable.  The portion of the Catoctin Trail that we covered lies between the steeper areas just outside of Gambrill State Park and in the vicinity of the Cunningham Manor; nonetheless, the various ups and downs totaled to about 1170 feet of elevation gain.  The group who attended the hike today was fairly large, more than 15 in all.  Afterwards we ate and drank and conversed together. 

One topic that arose was the subject of future plans for Wanderbirds hikes, since AD, the organizer of the hikes I’ve been participating in during the weekends, is a member of the club and one of the Wanderbirds Board of Directors, while most of the participants are Wanderbirds members as well.  This club’s approach is somewhat more cautious than that of the Capital Hiking Club and  it will not be re-instituting bus hikes for some time.  Instead, it will set up carpool hikes.  The Board is currently working out the guidelines for the leaders of such activities.  There are several issues to be resolved, such as how to ensure that the participants of any given hike are vaccinated and whether the hikers should regroup at junctions instead of, as in the past, go each one of his or her individual pace from beginning to end.  By degrees these two clubs, along with many other social groups, are attempting to reweave the social fabric that has been unraveled by the pandemic; but it is a difficult and uncertain process, thanks to the fourth wave created by the spread of the delta variant.

The number of hospitalizations among Americans from the COVID virus is now over 50,000, as opposed to 16,000 only one month earlier.  The pace of vaccinations has increased; nonetheless, at the current rate it will take until mid-February before all of the people eligible for vaccinations will receive at least one dose.  I myself know several people who still refuse to get one.  One has had the disease and believes that such immunity as he has acquired has made the vaccine unnecessary for him.  Another has rejected it because he feels that the likelihood of his being afflicted with the disease is minimal, since he lives in an area with a low rate of infection and is in excellent health.  It’s impossible to argue with them on this point.  They know better.  It must be so, for they have said so themselves.

I can readily enter with the frustration expressed by Spencer Cox, governor of Utah.  He has said outright that he is “fed up” with those who resist the vaccines.  Neither he nor the state school system has the authority to issue a mask mandate – in Utah such decisions are made on a county-by-county basis.  But he has not been slow to voice his resentment towards those who have had the opportunity to receive the vaccines but who have refused to accept them.  “I’m not really excited,” he said, “to have to sacrifice to protect someone who doesn’t seem to care.”  Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey went further, lashing out at a group of anti-vaxxer protestors by calling them “ultimate knuckleheads” and adding “because of what you are saying and standing for, people are losing their life!”

Cox, incidentally, is Republican, but on this point he is certainly diverging from the mainstream of his political party.  However, it appears that others have been shaken by the recent surge as well.  Governor Bel Edwards of Louisiana has reinstated his state’s mask mandate for all people ages 5 and older, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, in indoor public places. The mandate goes into effect Wednesday.  The number of COVID-related hospitalizations in Louisiana was 2,119 on Thursday, a new record for the state.  Of these, 222 are on ventilators. 

And there certainly is one curious example of a notable GOP statesman who has indicated that the current administration has not taken a sufficiently militant stance against the pandemic:  namely, Donald Trump.  During an interview yesterday with Fox News’ Dan Bongino he said:  “Could you imagine if I were president right now and we had this massive attack from the coronavirus?”

Well, actually, it doesn’t require any great stretch of the imagination to envision such a scenario, because it already happened.  There are a great number of records itemizing Trump’s numerous blunders during the last year of his presidency in his handling of the COVID crisis, among which this journal of mine may be included. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 203,404,398; # of deaths worldwide: 4,306,942; # of cases U.S.:  36,543,338; # of deaths; U.S.: 633,116.

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 1^st.  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.

The fourth wave continues – Increase in vaccinations – The eleventh hour repentance of one state governor – Belarus and Iran both defied at the Olympics – Evening statistics

It has been relatively uneventful the past few days, both on a personal and on a national level.  The vaccination rate has increased a bit as a result of the fear of the delta variant.  At this point 50% of all Americans are fully vaccinated, while 60.9% of all adults and 80.3% of all seniors are fully vaccinated.  This recent flurry of vaccinations will require some time to take effect.  Those who are receiving their first dose will have to wait 2-3 weeks before receiving their second (unless they receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is a single dose only) and after that it will take at least an additional two weeks for the immunity to develop.  In the meantime we are receiving over 100,000 new infections on a daily basis.  It should be added that our mortality rate is considerably lower than it was at this time last year – at this point it is about 0.6%.  The prevalence of vaccines has made it unlikely that the so-called “break-through” cases will require hospitalization and our therapeutic treatment of the disease has greatly improved.  Still, we have been losing several hundred every day for the past few weeks.

At least one state governor has abandoned his hardline stance against mask mandates, albeit rather late in the day.  Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas publically announced that he now regrets having banned the mandate in April.  Unfortunately, the ban has passed into law and therefore will have to be overturned before he can put such a mandate into effect – a troublesome and time-consuming process, even assuming that the state legislature will cooperate, which is by no means certain.  In the meantime, Arkansas has seen an increase of 517% in cases between April and July.  Hutchinson is an exception among state governors of his party.  Ron DeSantis (Florida), Greg Abbott (Texas), Pete Ricketts (Nebraska), Kim Reynolds (Iowa), Doug Ducey (Arizona), and Kristi Noem (South Dakota) have all ridiculed the CDC recommendations for mask-wearing and declared that they will do nothing to enforce them.

Belarus continues to make headlines.  The International Olympics Committee has revoked the accreditation of athletics head coach Yuri Moisevich and team official Artur Shumak, who were directed to leave the Olympic village.  Moisevich and Shumak had attempted to force sprint runner Krystsina Tsimanouskaya against her will to go to the airport to take a flight back to Kyiv, the Belarus capital.  But Tsimanouskaya had already been advised, through private communication with her grandmother, of repercussions if she were to return home and she had made up her mind to get away from Lukashenko’s loving embrace at any cost.  She managed to elude this undesired escort, to obtain the protection of the Tokyo police, and eventually to find her way to the Polish embassy, where she was granted asylum.  In response to the IOC’s action, Moisevich and Shumak slunk away from Tokyo and returned to Belarus by plane this evening, their departure being regretted by no one.

Tsimanouskaya is not the only athlete at the games who has used them as an opportunity to defy a repressive regime.  Saeid Mollaei, who won the silver medal in judo, is originally from Iran, although he has left the country and is currently a citizen of Mongolia.  He dedicated his medal to Israel.  He had left Iran two years earlier when the government directed him to lose a match at the 2019 World Judo Championships to ensure he wouldn’t have to face the Israeli champion Sagi Muki in the final.  He and Muki subsequently became close friends and were frequently to be seen cheering each other on in various judo competitions.  When Mollaei, with Muki’s encouragement, competed at an international judo competition in Tel Aviv in February, he lauded the hospitality of the Israeli people. It is unclear how he wound up settling in Mongolia, but I have no doubt that it is a haven of freedom in comparison to the country he left behind him.

Tomorrow promises to be more interesting, from my point of view at least.  It will see the first official hike of the Capital Hiking Club since the hikes were suspended nearly a year and a half ago.  The slots available for signing up were taken rather quickly, but I and a couple of other members of the Board will be on the bus to ensure that everything goes according to plan.

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 201,630,503; # of deaths worldwide: 4,279,243; # of cases U.S.:  36,297,583; # of deaths; U.S.: 631,859.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 202,345,271; # of deaths worldwide: 4,289,579; # of cases U.S.:  36,438,182; # of deaths; U.S.: 632,627.

Whiteoak Canyon and Hawksbill Mountain – Mayor Muriel Bowser lapses –Governor Andrew Cuomo under fire – The thuggish regime of Belarus – Herd immunity in Tennessee – Evening statistics

I went today with the Vigorous Hikers up Whiteoak Canyon, and from there we continued taking the trail past Skyline Drive to the junction with the Appalachian Trail, after which we went south along the AT to Hawksbill, the highest point in Shenandoah National Park.  It was a wonderful day, cool enough to make the long ascent (about 2500 feet in 4½ miles for the Whiteoak Canyon Trail and about 1000 feet more on the Appalachian Trail and on the Salamander Trail that leads to Hawksbill’s summit) less arduous than might be expected in mid-summer.  Hawksbill itself was breezy and quite cool, almost to the point of being chilly, and at least one person in our group brought out his jacket as we ate lunch there.  The view from the stone observation platform is advertised as a 360-degree view, but the validity of this claim depends on the season.  During late autumn, winter, and early spring, when the foliage has fallen, the view is indeed 360 degrees, but at other times the view to the east are obscured by the trees.  But the view to the west is one of the most striking in the park; Hawksbill is over 4,000 high and, as a result, one is looking down from the summit towards a greater depth than usual into the Shenandoah Valley and the Virginia piedmont.  Even though the day was cloudy, the verdant hues of the valley formed a brilliant contrast to the blue sky and white clouds above.  I will admit, though, that it was a pleasure rather dearly bought when we descended along the Cedar Run Trail, which is extremely rocky and reminded me, not very pleasingly, of some of the boulder fields I had endured this past year when exploring the portion of the Appalachian Trail that goes through northern Pennsylvania.  But even this portion of the hike had its compensations:  the stream contains a few waterfalls that terminate in pellucid green pools at their base and during the latter part of the descent I saw a scarlet tanager pausing briefly on a branch just a few feet away from me. 

I have thought well up to this point of Mayor Muriel Bowser for her responsible attitude towards the pandemic and for her governing of the city in general, and I would like to continue to do so, but my favorable opinion of her has been somewhat shaken by her behavior over the past weekend.  The mask mandate was imposed on Washington DC on Saturday morning.  The previous evening she had celebrated her birthday at a reception in which everyone was maskless – and while the party had taken place out of doors on a rooftop and had been held a few hours before the mandate was imposed, such conduct is certainly inconsistent.  But on Saturday she did worse:  she officiated at a wedding at the Line DC hotel in Adams Morgan, a ceremony that was held indoors after the mandate was officially imposed, and nearly all of the guests, including the mayor herself, were maskless.  This seeming insouciance is especially startling for someone who lost a sister to the virus just five months ago.  One cannot help thinking of politicians outside of this country such as Angela Merkel of Germany and Jacinda Aherne of New Zealand, who willingly comply in their own person with the measures they prescribe for others; but, alas, statesmen of that breed have died out here long ago.

Bowser’s lapses, however, are mere peccadilloes in comparison with the alleged actions of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.  A report released by Attorney General Letitia James – who, it may noted in passing, has been conducting a criminal investigation against Donald Trump and hardly be said to be biased in favor of Republicans – claims that he sexually harassed at least 11 women in his employ and that retaliations were made against anyone who made accusations of being harassed, creating, in the report’s wording, a “toxic” work environment.  Many party leaders, both Republican and Democrat, are calling for Cuomo’s resignation, including Nancy Pelosi (a long-time ally of the Cuomo family) and President Biden himself.   Cuomo has denied the charges and has given no indication that he will resign, but his political career is unlikely to last long in any case; the New York state legislature is currently conducting an impeachment examination, and this report in all probability will give the examination more impetus.

After a period of receiving relatively little interest from its neighbors, Belarus has recently been gaining international attention – not of the most flattering kind, however.  Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, a track sprinter in the Tokyo Olympics, did not board the flight back to Kyiv as expected, but instead fled to the Polish embassy in Tokyo to request asylum, which the Polish authorities granted.  She had criticized Belarussian sports officials in public and, as a result, fully expected to be imprisoned or even executed if she were to return to her native land.  That her fears were not entirely without cause was confirmed by the discovery of the hanged body of Vitaly Shishov, an activist who had fled to the Ukraine and was involved in helping other dissidents to flee the country as well.  Ukrainian police are already conducting an investigation to determine whether, as seems likely, it was a murder made to appear like a suicide.  Authorities in Belarus have ramped up the pressure against non-governmental organizations and independent media, conducting more than 200 raids of offices and apartments of activists and journalists in July alone, and detaining dozens of people.  President Alexander Lukashenko has responded to demonstrations against the election that awarded him his sixth term with a massive crackdown that resulted in the arrest of 35,000 people.  He is as unwilling to tolerate any breath of criticism as vehemently as Donald Trump himself; and regrettably has much more power to punish those who disparage him than our unlamented deposed 45^th President.

Previous entries have noted how the state government of Tennessee recently fired one of its chief medical officers for promoting vaccinations among adolescents and has consistently refused to offer incentives of any kind to encourage people to receive COVID vaccinations.  Never let it be said, however, that state officials make no effort towards the much-publicized goal of herd immunity.  Tennessee’s Herd Health program currently reimburses participating farmers up to $1,500 for vaccinating their bulls and cows against respiratory diseases and other maladies, handing out $492,561 over the past two fiscal years.  By an amazing coincidence, Governor Bill Lee has a family ranch business, Triple L Ranch, which breeds Polled Hereford cattle.  Whether any political or humanitarian considerations will eventually persuade Governor Lee to display a similar concern for his own species, is unknown to mortal man.

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 199,547,478; # of deaths worldwide: 4,239,621; # of cases U.S.:  35,884,940; # of deaths; U.S.: 629,840.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  200,213,325; # of deaths worldwide: 4,258,031; # of cases U.S.:  36,036,799; # of deaths; U.S.: 630,458.  Some sad statistics were tabulated today:  the number of COVID cases is now over 200 million globally, and the U.S. has seen nearly 100,000 new cases today, the biggest increase we have had for months.

Basalt columns and a waterfall – A break-through infection – Resistance to CDC mask guidelines – Giuliani speaks definitively about the next world – Evening statistics

The  morning began ominously:  rain came down periodically during the night and the sky was gray and overcast, threatening more rain to come.  But in Shenandoah National Park, at any rate, the rain held off all day and eventually the sun emerged from the clouds, while the recent rainfall reduced the temperature to well under 80 degrees.  Five of us met to hike along the Appalachian Trail from Jenkins Gap to view the basalt columns close to Compton Peak.  This site is one of the finest examples of columnar jointing, the formation of regular polygonal columns as a result of cooling lava flow.  In this case, the columns are hexagonal in shape and consist of metamorphosed basalt from lava that flowed in the area about 800 million years ago.  From there we continued to Lands Run waterfall via the Dickey Ridge Trail, and then backtracked, taking the Spring House trail on the return to the AT.  The waterfall levels were rather low, unsurprisingly in view of the previous series of hot, dry days.  Afterwards we snacked on fruit and cheese in the Jenkins Gap parking area, sitting on outdoor foldout chairs and chatting comfortably about various topics.  The sky did not exactly clear, but it became less overcast and the atmosphere was less humid than it had been in the morning, so that it felt like sunning on the beach on a warm but not sultry summer afternoon.  The virus did not loom large in this conversation; and indeed, under such circumstances, it seems very remote and far away. 

Still, the day did not pass without reminders of the increase in infections.  RK texted me about a mutual friend of ours who has become one of the “break-through” cases, i.e., someone who has caught the disease even though he has been vaccinated.  He is in his late seventies and has undergone considerable breathing difficulties as a result of the illness, but so far hospitalization has not been found to be necessary.  No vaccine, of course, confers 100% immunity.  That has been one reason that, as of last week, I have taken to resuming the wearing of facemasks in places such as shops and banks, even though Fairfax County has no mask mandate as yet; the increase in COVID cases is too rapid and widespread to be ignored. 

The CDC guidelines about wearing facemasks is, as might be expected, meeting considerable resistance.  The communities that are the most vulnerable are the ones least likely to be cooperative.  Washington DC, as I have noted, has recently re-imposed its mask mandate for public indoor activities.  It currently is seeing about 8 new cases per 100,000 on a daily basis.  But Springfield, MO, which has a much lower rate of vaccination and is currently seeing 77 new cases per 100,000, has flatly rejected the CDC’s recommendation for a mask mandate, saying that such a measure would only discourage people from getting vaccinated.

In view of the legal jeopardy that is impending over him for his actions as Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani has announced that he is willing to go to jail if convicted but that those who place him there will “suffer the consequences in heaven.”  The statement is somewhat puzzling:  does Giuliani believe that his accusers will be sent to heaven as a punishment?  If so, he can be assured that he is not at all likely to encounter them there. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 198,970,331; # of deaths worldwide: 4,239,621; # of cases U.S.:  35,767,126; # of deaths; U.S.: 629,380.

Plague fatigue – The virus in East Asia and the Antipodes – Patrick Buchanan on the January 6^th riot – The border crisis – Why the investigation is needed – Evening statistics

“I feel more discouraged now than I did a year ago,” one friend told me, “even though the numbers for this new wave are not as much as the other ones.  It doesn’t make sense, does it?” 

I think it makes perfect sense.  In some ways the situation is more difficult psychologically than it was in the earlier phases.  In accounts about plagues not much attention is given to the trials people undergo during the recovery phase.  In general it is assumed that the plague recedes, after which the survivors – weary and sad, undoubtedly, many of them grieving for lost relatives and friends – begin to pick up the pieces again and by degrees embark on the business of restoration.  But this half-and-half situation, in which one part of society lives in an environment in which the plague is effectively contained and matters are nearly restored to normal, while another part continues to get infected and its death toll continues to mount is, I believe, somewhat less common, or at any rate not written about very much.  A year ago the population as a whole were aware that the disease was a threat to everybody and that we all needed to rally together to combat it.  It cannot be said that we Americans were particularly successful in this respect; still, the perception was there and the need to take protective measures was acknowledged, even if we could not reach agreement about the nature of the measures to take.  Now the nation is effectively split in two, with those who are protected as a result of the vaccines are at odds with those who have rejected them.  Many health care professionals in particular resent those who have been hospitalized as a result of their refusal to accept the vaccines – it is not openly discussed, but the resentment is widespread, and some have simply dropped out altogether, saying that they have done enough already and that they are not obliged to fish foolish people out of the mud they have walked into.  The unvaccinated, in turn, feel that they are being bullied into accepting a vaccine that has not obtained full FDA approval (the vaccines have the status of Emergency Use Authorization, full approval being a careful and painstaking process that requires many months to complete).  In short, we are suffering when what I call “plague fatigue,” and everyone’s nerves are a bit on edge as a result.

This new wave, of course, has been affecting many other countries besides our own.  Nations that were previously all but free from the disease have now experienced surges in cases.  Vietnam, which once had known hardly any cases on account of its rigorous controls imposed since the beginning of the pandemic, has by now experienced nearly 150,000 cases of COVID.  It is still quite a small number in proportion to its national population, less than 0.15%.  Malaysia, again, has changed from its status as a national with a minimal number of cases to that of something of a hotspot, with 3.3% of the population having come down with the disease.  Japan, Australia, and Thailand have also seen dramatic increases.  New Zealand, however, has held firm; it has only 45 active cases at this point; out of a population of slightly over 5 million, it has sustained 26 deaths.

Patrick Buchanan wrote an article on the investigation into the riot of January 6^th, which I was sufficiently curious to read.  Patrick Buchanan’s name is, I suspect, less familiar to later generations than to my own.  He was a well-known political commentator in his day, of the type that is sometimes described as “paleo-conservative,” and at one point he ran as an Independent presidential candidate, without, however, any very notable success – he obtained no electoral college votes and a bare 0.4% of the popular vote.  He was always a bit too extreme for my tastes, but he was an honest man in the main; for instance, in the controversy about the confusing design of the Florida ballots in the 2000 election, he said that when he first saw the ballot he could readily understand how it might be possible for a voter to cast a vote for Buchanan himself in the belief that he was voting for Democratic candidate Al Gore instead.  Moreover, Buchanan wrote an eloquent tribute about Ronald Reagan upon the death of the latter; and for that reason alone I was willing to give him a hearing, feeling fairly well-assured that he would not attempt to defend the antics of Donald Trump during the aftermath of the 2020 election.  I may say at once that he did not and that, indeed, he barely mentioned Trump’s name at all.  The argument he gave against having an investigative committee delve into the events of January 6^th is not in line with the usual rhetoric of Kevin McCarthy and his like, and is worth looking at in some detail.

Basically, Buchanan’s position amounts to this:  that the people besieging the Capitol were conducting a demonstration that eventually expanded into a riot, as many political demonstrations have done, and that while the riot was a disgraceful episode – and he uses the word “disgraceful” – it was simply that:  an episode, and not an event deserving a focus that he describes as obsessive.  It would be far better, he argued, that the Congress concentrate on a far more wide-ranging crisis:  namely, the influx at the border of numerous illegal aliens, and the fact that Biden has consistently hampered the efforts of various state governors to contain them.

Biden has certainly been handling the border crisis recklessly and irresponsibly.  Governor Abbott of Texas, for example, recently issued an order allowing Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to reroute civilian vehicles back to their origin point or a port of entry, or to seize the vehicles, if police suspect the driver is transporting migrants who have COVID.  The Biden administration has sued the state on this account and one federal spokesman argued that singling out people for interrogation simply because they are undocumented is an invasion of privacy – completely ignoring the fact that entering a country clandestinely and without documentation of any kind is in itself an invasion, particularly when multiplied by a factor of several hundred thousand.  It has been projected that Biden’s policies will enable about 2 million undocumented foreign nationals to enter the country annually.  He has persisted in this program with dogged obstinacy and – what is particularly remarkable – against his own interests.  He desires to be known as the president who was able to contain the virus and to restore the country to its former degree of health and prosperity.  But the influx of thousands of undocumented people from Latin America, which has one of greatest concentrations of the virus on the planet, cannot fail to introduce a large number of infected people into the general population and thereby to undo, to some extent, the benefits of the vaccines Biden has striven so vigorously to administer.  The issue is a pressing one and it certainly deserves more attention both from Congress and from the popular press than it is currently receiving.

Nonetheless, Buchanan’s claim that the attack on the Capitol was merely an ordinary riot that got out of hand is disingenuous.  It was not an ordinary riot.  It was an attempted coup d’état.  The rioters entered the building with the explicit intention of compelling Congress by threats to rescind its ratification of the Electoral College votes; and, if they had had the opportunity to come in contact with any Congress members, it is more than probable that they would have gone beyond mere threats.  The exact role that Donald Trump played in this event is still unclear.  Presumably the investigation currently ongoing in Congress will shed some light on the matter.  It would be inaccurate to say that he orchestrated it – that would imply strategic abilities and a capacity for detailed planning that he simply does not possess.  At this point no one knows the extent to which he deliberately goaded them in advance or whether he confined himself to cheering them on after the fact.  But there can be no question that they launched their attack with his full approval, that he urged them in their violence, and that, had they succeeded in intimidating Congress to overturn the Electoral College vote, he would have used the opportunity to remain in the Oval Office.  It is bare justice to acknowledge that he has made no secret of his determination to overturn the results of the election by any means that come to his hand, be they fair or foul. 

Boris Johnson’s wife Carrie announced today that she is pregnant with a second child.  She had miscarried earlier this year, but if this birth comes to term it will bring the total number of children fathered by the British Prime Minister to  . . . no one knows, exactly.  He has had four children by a previous wife and another one from a brief liaison with an art consultant.  There were numerous other episodes of this nature, some of which undoubtedly had consequences.  He has refused to disclose how many children he has had from these affairs; possibly he himself has lost count by this time.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 198,499,214; # of deaths worldwide: 4,232,165; # of cases U.S.:  35,743,144; # of deaths; U.S.: 629,310.

Visiting Buzzard Rock – Vaccination regulations for federal workers – Vaccination regulations for Broadway theater participants – Rise in vaccination rate – Evening statistics

Today I went with RS to continue investigating the best way of getting up to the ridgeline on the Virginia side of the Potomac to access Buzzard’s Rock and, what is more to the point, the best way of getting down to the river bank afterwards.  There are the remains of a footpath along part of the ridge, although it is broken in parts here and there, while any way down from the heights to the Potomac remains quite a scramble.  Still, it is something of a surprise that there is no trail cleared out for such a route.  Buzzard Rock provides a bird’s-eye view over the Potomac to Weverton and, from the evidence of saplings cut down in places and of grasses and other low-growing plants trimmed down and pruned on the rudimentary footpath, others besides RS and myself have made our way to see it.  The area is within bounds of park property, so it is possible to reach the rock outcropping without going through private property.  The weather was somewhat less hot than it has been for many days previously, and during all of the time we were on the ridgeline and even when we were descending towards the river, a fresh breeze blew continually, making the hike surprisingly comfortable.  I cannot say that we were entirely successful in finding a good way to get down – we had to scramble over many loose rocks at a very steep incline in places – but at any rate we found a less difficult way than the ones we had chosen during our previous excursions, and we are able, from the knowledge of the terrain we have acquired from this and previous excursions, to determine a route that, while still strenuous, could be made into a serviceable trail.  On the previous occasions that I went with RS to Buzzards Rock, the weather was either too cloudy or too wet to provide much opportunity for viewing, but today was sunny and clear, with the haze from the wildfires nearly gone, and so I had the opportunity to gaze across the river to the town of Sandy Hook and the outcropping on Weverton Cliffs, where I have often ascended in the past.

Federal workers and contractors are now required to supply proof that they are vaccinated or submit to regular testing.  President Biden was initially reluctant to impose extreme measures, but the rising number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths place all Americans at risk, vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, and also threaten to undermine the economy.   He is paying a political price for sticking to his convictions in this matter.  Several unions, which up to this point have been a significant faction in his political base, are pushing back against this requirement, saying that such a requirement violates employees’ right to privacy.  Such unions include the American Postal Workers Union, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the National Treasury Employees Union, National Nurses United, and the American Federation of Government Employees, several of which represent well over 100,000 members apiece. 

And another, somewhat unexpected agency is enforcing vaccinations upon its participants – namely, the Broadway theaters.  When various theaters open during the coming weeks, all audience members will be required to wear masks and be able to show proof that they have been vaccinated.  Vaccinations will also be required for all performers, crew members and theater employees.  It will be rather curious to see how theater managers will enforce such regulations – for their own employees the matter is straightforward enough, but how will they be able to check on audience members?  Will each one be required to display his vaccination card (or an authenticated copy of one) along with his ticket before entering?  It does not seem practical; lines of people entering to take their seats will move much more slowly if ushers or ticket-sellers are required to scan vaccination cards of every person entering and, in general, make theater-viewing a less comfortable experience, which discourage many from seeking it.

There is an increase generally in vaccinations as the delta variant continues to spread. The number of first vaccine doses, or new people getting their first shots, is up 31% compared with a week ago and is rising in nearly every state. Nearly 800,000 shots were recorded nationwide on Sunday, the highest single-day total in weeks, while the seven-day average of reported vaccinations, including first and second shots, has risen by 16% over the past week to 615,000 shots per day as of yesterday.  Unquestionably it is time.  Today alone witnessed an increase of more than 90,000 new infections.  The pace of daily shots remains far from peak levels, when more than 3 million daily vaccinations, counting both doses, were being reported in mid-April.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 197,951,334; # of deaths worldwide: 4,223,143; # of cases U.S.:  35,677,736; # of deaths; U.S.: 628,929.   At this point about 500,000 Americans have become infected with the virus over the past week.

Hiking in Calvert Cliffs and Cypress Swamp – Recurrence of mask mandates in several areas – COVID fells another anti-vaxxer – Further Republican demonstrations of treachery – Evening statistics

I scouted the hike in Calvert Cliffs State Park that I am to lead for the Capital Hiking Club on August 28^th, and it is a good thing that I did.  I have not been there for at least two years, and many of the details of the hike had faded in my memory.  In addition, the boardwalk is closed on account of blowdowns, which necessitated some re-routing.  The long hike is about 9½ to 10 miles, but the elevation gain is only 900 feet, and it seems to be still less on account of the gentle slope of the majority of the hills.  The hike at one point skirts along a marsh that at this season is covered with beautiful pink-tipped, white-petaled water-lilies and it eventually reaches a beach along the Chesapeake Bay, which is the site of numerous shark-teeth fossils.  The water is very warm at this time of year and I enjoyed a swim there, despite the presence of sea nettles.  Sea nettles are a type of jellyfish, but their sting is not especially dangerous or lasting.  They are quite numerous this year on account of temperature of the water, which is higher than usual; but I did not allow them to deter me.  Although I got stung a few times, the tingling quickly faded once I eventually got out of the water and dried myself.    

Afterwards I went to Battle Creek Cypress Swamp, a forested wetland near Prince Frederick that is one of the northernmost sites of naturally occurring bald cypress trees in North America.  We generally stop there after finishing the Calvert Cliffs hike; it is a small place (only 100 acres) with trails totaling to perhaps a mile in all, but these lead through (or over, for much of it is boardwalk) a swamp with the majestic trees (even the smallest of them are well over 30 feet), their densely-growing lacy green leaves forming a protective canopy that provides a cool and comfortable stroll even during a humid day in July.

Many states and cities have been re-instituting the mask mandate as a result of the CDC guidelines.  Washington DC is among these, which is hardly surprising.  Muriel Bowser, the city mayor, lost a sister to the pandemic, so she naturally is fairly wary about the rate of infection within the area in her jurisdiction.  In any case, most DC residents have not ceased to wear masks out of doors even after the CDC relaxed its guidelines.  Other cities that have re-instituted the mask mandates include Atlanta and Kansas City, while the states of New Mexico, Illinois, and Oregon have issued the mandates on a state-wide level.  Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, has not issued a mask mandate for his state yet, citing the fairly low levels of new infections there; but he has indicated that he will put one in place if the infections increase.  On the other hand, the governors of Michigan, Maryland, and Pennsylvania have all said that they have no plans to re-instate a mask mandate at this time. 

Yet another anti-vaxxer has discovered rather late in the day that the vaccines, after all, might have some merit.  William Ball of Mississippi staunchly declined to receive the vaccines after his wife Alicia had received her doses.  In this he is hardly alone:  Mississippi now holds the undesirable title of being the most unvaccinated of all 50 states, with only 34.4% of its residents being fully vaccinated.  He suffered a heart attack and, while he was recovering in the hospital, was stricken with COVID.  At the St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was being treated, 59 COVID patients are hospitalized, and as he learned to his cost, the Delta variant in particular is very infectious.  Now he is unable to sit up, his lungs are filled with fluid, and his recovery is uncertain.  In any case, he will be bedridden for days, if not weeks.  Alicia Ball was also infected, but she recovered quickly.  As a result of her husband’s experience, she is vigorously urging others to accept the vaccines.  “We have really tried to, after this, talk to as many of our friends and family as possible that they should get it,” she said.  “I never really realized how bad it would be – how bad this Delta variant would be.”  Quite a number of people are probably echoing her regrets:  today the nation’s daily increase in new cases was nearly 85,000 and the number of new deaths approached 400.

A Festival of Fools was held in the House of Representatives today – no, wait, I’m getting that mixed up with the Festival of Fools held in Burlington, VT, which is an annual 3-day event that brings together musicians and street performers to provide music, circus acts, and comedy for the participants.  While no one can question the folly of the activities of certain members of the House, their intentions are a good deal less benign:  specifically, members of the Freedom Caucus have urged Kevin McCarthy to expel Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the House Republican Conference for their temerity in wishing to bring the inciters of the besiegement of the Capitol of January 6^th to justice.   And McCarthy has shown himself to be senseless enough and pusillanimous enough to be likely to cave in to their demand.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 197,298,080; # of deaths worldwide: 4,212,951; # of cases U.S.:  35,571,633; # of deaths; U.S.: 628,467.

Vaccination requirements for some IT professionals – The two increasingly dissimilar groups of U.S. counties – Resistance to the mask mandate recommendation – One dissentient in particular – Evening statistics

Several large companies in information technology are requiring vaccinations for their U.S. employees in to get COVID vaccinations before entering campuses.  This cannot exactly be regarded as an inducement to receive the vaccine, for quite a number of IT professionals are perfectly contented with working from home and have no desire to commute again on highways whose congestion is now approaching pre-pandemic levels.  The strategy is more likely to work in retail, since employees must obviously be on site to sell products to customers.

Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, has been pressured to explain why the vaccinated should pay the penalty of donning facemasks again in the counties label as “red” and “orange” (i.e., the counties with the greatest number of unvaccinated and of rising new cases of the virus, about two-thirds of all of the counties in the U.S.) when it is the recalcitrance of the unvaccinated that has put them at risk.  Indeed, the contrast between areas where the vaccinated are now a majority and those that are largely unvaccinated is a strange one.  In many parts of the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, the virus has been described as now being “almost rare” by medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner.  But in much of the Midwest and the South, the virus has been accelerating.  Missouri, for instance, has experienced a five-fold increase of COVID cases in less than four weeks.

Walensky, however, has stood her ground.  The main objective is to limit transmission, and vaccinated people as well as unvaccinated are quite capable of transmitting the disease.  In any case, as I have repeatedly stressed in this journal, wearing a facemask is not exactly a killing sacrifice.  I have recently taken to resuming the wearing of facemasks myself while shopping or visiting public indoor facilities, even though I do not reside in one of the counties falling into the most susceptible categories; the effort is a trifling one and if there is a chance that my undertaking it reduces the amount of infection, why should I wish to shirk it?  How fond my compatriots have become at transforming a trifle as light as air into a crushing burden!

One of them in particular has reacted rather vehemently to such a policy. Thomas Connally, of Greenbelt, MD, is now facing federal charges after sending threatening E-mails to Dr. Anthony Fauci, including one vowing that Fauci and his family would be “dragged into the street, beaten to death, and set on fire.”  His ferocity is understandable:  Fauci has, over the course of his work during the pandemic, inflicted the recommendation that Connally, along with others, adhere a strip of cloth to cover his lips and nostrils when he goes out in public; how could any red-blooded American fail to exact condign revenge for this deadly insult?

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 196,620,360; # of deaths worldwide: 4,202,537; # of cases U.S.:                 35,469,204; # of deaths; U.S.: 628,058.  Our brief superiority to India in number of critical cases has died a swift death:  we are now heading the list again of nations with the greatest number of these.  The number of daily new cases across the globe has increased by 21% within the past week.

Hiking up Robertson Mountain and Stony Man – Possible therapeutics for COVID – The CDC changes recommendations about masks again – The investigation into the January 6^th riot – A failed press conference – Evening statistics

I was not looking forward to today’s hike with the Vigorous Hikers, since the weather was forecast to reach well over 90 degrees, and the hike begins with the ascent up Robertson Mountain, 2200 feet of elevation gain within three miles.  But I need not have worried.  We began the climb fairly early, when it was less hot, and the trail is well-shaded throughout.  The haze at the summit was less dense than what we saw last week, so it appears that the smoke from the wildfires is dispersing.  Afterwards we continued ascending until we reached the summit of Stony Man, where we had lunch.  At well over 3500 feet high, it was considerably cooler than the fire road where we began, and breezy as well – quite comfortable, in fact.  When we returned back via the Corbin Mountain and Indian Run Trails the air became much more sultry as we descended into the hollow.  However, one of the best swimming holes in Shenandoah National Park lies along the Nicholson Hollow Trail (our return route), about a mile from the parking area.  Even though its level was lower than usual, on account of the recent hot, dry days, it was still deep enough to reach over one’s head in some places and large enough to swim a few consecutive strokes without encountering any rocks.  The little waterfall at its end has a massage-like effect when you position yourself so that it pounds the shoulders.  So even though it was a strenuous hike (3800 feet of elevation gain total) at the hottest time of the year, it proved to be surprisingly pleasant. 

We spoke together about the virus, of course, and of the possibility of masks being mandated again.  A couple of the hikers mentioned that various therapeutics being developed in Israel are showing promise.  If these treatments prove feasible, then a combination of a significant portion of the population being vaccinated with therapeutics effective enough to cure those being hospitalized may bring down the virus to the level of a disease such as flu:  an endemic disease that will be an annual issue of concern chiefly during the winter months, but not serious enough to affect how businesses operate or to impinge on most people’s daily habits.  Even at this point the mortality rate is considerably less than it was in earlier stages.  Formerly it was well over 2%; now only 0.6%-0.8% of those who contract the disease result in fatalities. 

In the meantime, however, the CDC is recommending that everyone wear masks indoors, either vaccinated or not, indoors when in areas with “substantial” and “high” transmission of the virus.  These areas include nearly two-thirds of all U.S. counties.  Currently the vaccination rates are as follows:  49.2% of the total population, 57.6% of all Americans over 12 ,  60.1% of American adults, and 79.8% of American seniors are fully vaccinated.  56.9% of the total population, 66.6% of all Americans over 12,  69.1% of American adults, and 89.5% of American seniors have received at least one dose. 

The investigation of the January 6^th riot (or, as I prefer to call it, the January 6^th insurrection) began today.  The only two Republican members on the panel hearing the testimony are Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.  Kevin McCarthy proved to be so unwilling to cooperate with Nancy Pelosi in the matter that she had little choice but to make her own selections for panel members.  Initially she offered Republicans an independent commission with an equal number of members from both parties. McCarthy refused. Pelosi thereupon invited McCarthy to choose five House GOP members for the special select committee.  He responded with choices of members who clearly had no interest whatever in delving into such matters:  one of them was Jim Jordan, a personal friend of Donald Trump. 

The first day consisted of testimony from four of the police officers who endured the brunt of the violence from the rioters:  Aquilino Gonell, a Capitol Police sergeant; Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Officer; Michael Fanone, another Metropolitan Police officer; and Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police Officer.  The testimony from each comprised a disheartening catalogue of wanton violence, racial invective, and blatant disregard for the basic principles on which the country was founded on the part of the rioters; and of callous indifference on the part of the GOP law-makers towards the men who risked their lives to protect them.  Fanone in particular had bitter words to say about the latter:  “My law enforcement career prepared me to cope with some of the aspects of this experience. Nothing has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day and in doing so, betray their oath of office.”  Dunn likened rioters to criminals carrying out illegal orders from a “hit man.”  He did not specify Trump by name, but everyone knew what he meant. 

The Republicans are not likely to come out well as a result of the inquiry no matter what they do, but their current attempts to divert attention from it only makes them look worse. 

A group of Trump’s most vocal allies, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Louie Gohmert – that is to say, some of the most disreputable people in the two chambers – tried to hold counterprogramming in the form of a press conference outside the Justice Department to demand a status report on imprisoned Capitol riot defendants.  It failed, however, in a ridiculous manner.  A group of counter-protesters continually heckled them until they abruptly terminated the event, fleeing the scene in short order and, in the confusion of their retreat, leaving their microphones behind.  Liz Cheney denounced the attempted distraction as a “disgrace,” and few are likely to disagree with her.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 195,923,263; # of deaths worldwide: 4,192,177; # of cases U.S.:35,343,829; # of deaths; U.S.: 627,379. 

Mask wearing becoming common again – Mandates may be impending – State governments scale back on COVID reporting – Slight increase in pace of vaccinations – Pressure from employers and government agencies for employees to submit to vaccination – France goes one step further – Evening statistics

I came to a resolve during the weekend to resume wearing masks again in indoor public places.  Clearly a number of people will not receive the vaccine no matter how often they are reminded that the latest hospitalizations consist almost exclusively of the unvaccinated.  The number is large enough not only to enable the delta variant to spread rapidly but also to provide a breeding ground for other variants, against which it is by no means certain that the vaccines will supply full protection.  When I went shopping for groceries today, it was obvious that many others have arrived independently at the same conclusion.  Nearly everyone in the store wore a mask, including all of the cashiers, even though the official policy is that masks are optional for the vaccinated.  The scene was a curious mixture of the old and the new:  the store featured a salad bar and a bar for hot foods, both of which would have been unthinkable last year at this time; but from the behavior of people almost uniformly wearing masks and taking care to ensure that they were at least six feet apart from one another, one could have imagined that we were in the days of the pandemic at its height. 

It would appear to be a matter of time before mask mandates are officially in place again.  Both Anthony Fauci and Jerome Adams (the former U.S. Surgeon General) are in agreement that the CDC is reconsidering its recent abeyance of measures such as mask-wearing, closures of certain businesses such as bars and restaurants, and teaching school students virtually.  COVID cases have increased 171% nationally and the death rate has increased 19% from last week due to the Delta variant.

The surge in new infections has undoubtedly caused some people to be discouraged.  The state governments of Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota have such tender hearts that they wish to spare their residents from the effects of depressing news – so they have scaled back reporting of COVID-19 statistics this month, thereby depriving the public of real-time information on outbreaks, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in their communities.  Nebraska actually stopped reporting on the virus altogether for two weeks after Governor Pete Ricketts declared an end to the official virus emergency.  News reporters were forced to file public records requests or turn to national websites that track state data to learn about COVID statistics. Florida changed the frequency of its virus reporting in early June from daily to weekly, its officials arguing that such a change was appropriate in light of the fact that the number of cases was decreasing and the number of people being vaccinated was increasing.  Shortly afterwards, cases began to soar.  Earlier this week one-fifth of the country’s new coronavirus infections came from Florida.   As a result, Florida’s releases – typically done on Friday afternoons – have consequences on a national level for understanding the current summer surge, with no statewide COVID statistics coming out of the virus hotspot for six days a week.  The notion that ostriches bury their heads in the sand when they feel frightened or threatened turns out to be a myth; but among certain humans, unfortunately, such behavior is only too common.

A slightly hopeful note is being sounded in some areas, at least, where the spiraling rates of COVID infections and the sight of relatives succumbing to the virus are causing people to reconsider whether shunning the vaccines is such a good idea.  The country has averaged 699 first doses per 100,000 residents in the past seven days, whereas in the previous seven-day period the average was only 590 per 100,000. 

Then, too, certain agencies are putting pressure upon their employees to accept the vaccine.  The Department of Veterans Affairs has required Title 38 VA healthcare personnel (including physicians, dentists, and registered nurses, among others) to become fully vaccinated within eight weeks.  New York City municipal workers have a choice between getting vaccinated and undergoing weekly COVID testing.  In California, beginning on Aug. 9^th, state employees and health care workers must show proof of vaccination or get tested regularly.

France, which has only 44% of its population vaccinated, has decided to put more pressure on those who are shunning the vaccines.  A bill has been approved that will mandate “health passes” for anyone traveling within the country or attending restaurants and other public places.  These passes will be used as proof that the owner is either vaccinated, has acquired immunity as a result of recent recovery from the virus, or has shown a negative result for a recent COVID test.  Anyone working in health care must get vaccinated by September 15^th; those who fail to do so shall be suspended. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 195,318,875; # of deaths worldwide: 4,182,144; # of cases U.S.:                 35,275,530; # of deaths; U.S.: 626,998.  We no longer lead the world in the number of critical cases; India now surpasses us and Brazil is catching up as well.  In all probability the numbers in those two countries are considerably greater than the figures officially given.  Despite the recent surge in cases, we now rank 16^th on the list of nations rated by virus infections rates (ours is now about 10.6%). 

Hiking from Keys Gap again – Planning for CHC’s first bus hike – Relatively high vaccination rates in the DC metro area – Heresy concerning the Olympic games – Evening statistics

Another hike today from Keys Gap with AD and others, this time going south instead of north to a viewpoint close to the Blackburn Center.  It was similar in length and elevation gain to the one we took yesterday, but it felt more challenging on account of the heat.  This summer has not been as extreme as the one last year, which had 19 days in succession of temperatures over 90 degrees, but July up to this point has had numerous clusters of very hot days, albeit interspersed with a few days that were less sultry.  The views, as before, were shadowed with haze as a result of the wildfires.  Parts of the trail were overgrown, due to the decline in the mountain ashes, thereby allowing various grasses and shrubs to grow more profusely and encroach more obviously on trails generally. 

Hiking also was very much on my mind this evening, when I attended a virtual meeting with the CHC Board to finalize plans for the first bus hike.  RW and AT, who will be leading this hike, also participated, to ensure that the answers to any questions they might have could be settled in advance.  For example, what is the rule regarding masks?  (Masks are mandated on the bus; this is not only the policy of the bus company but is a regulation for any vehicle used for interstate commerce.  They will not be used on the hike itself.)  Will leaders provide refreshments, as they did before?  (We hope to set up this feature eventually, but for the moment we want the process for resuming the bus hikes to be as streamlined as possible.  Leaders will not provide refreshments for the first few hikes; after that, the question as to whether it is feasible will be discussed by the Board again.  Leaders may provide bottled water to be on hand for any hikers who may run out of water on their own.)  Can people bring their own food for snacking after the hike?  (Yes, provided that they do not eat or drink on the bus.)  Will leaders be expected to verify whether people boarding the bus are vaccinated?  (They are not.  I was fairly adamant during the previous Board meeting in my stance that hike leaders should not be burdened with this additional administrative task.  I must add that I did not receive much resistance on this point.)  And so on.  There were a good many issues concerning the mechanisms for Meetup, which CHC uses as the vehicle for hikers to sign up for their hikes.  It was reassuring to see that the Board had worked out matters well and that all questions could be answered readily.  There are a few details that we will have to verify with the bus company, but in general it appears that the preparations for the first group hike of the season are nearly complete. 

It seems strange to make plans of this nature when we are still technically undergoing a pandemic.  One hopes that the delta variant, and any other new variants for that matter, does not reverse the healing trend too extensively.  There is a hopeful note, as far as this area is concerned at any rate; the DC metro area generally is well above the national average in its rate of vaccination.  DC, Maryland, and Virginia have 64.5%, 70.4%, and 64.8% of their respective adult populations fully vaccinated.  Maryland in particular has done very well:  72.9% of Maryland adults and 90% of Maryland seniors have received at least one dose. 

No doubt readers of a certain mindset will also find it strange that I devote so much space to the concerns and activities of a single hiking club while saying nothing about the Olympic games, the opening ceremonies of which were held four days ago.  That is because, as might be inferred from previous entries on the subject, my attitude towards games funded by mega-businesses and especially towards those held at an international level is similar to George Orwell’s, as expressed in his essay “The Sporting Spirit”:  “sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will” and “international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred.”  “On the village green,” he continues, “where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. . . . Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.”  My own experience bears this out.  When I see students at a junior high school or a high school playing an informal game of football or baseball, I’m delighted that young people are getting the opportunity for exercising out of doors; when I see universities investing millions of dollars in elaborate stadiums and luring students to teams by means of numerous privileges, regardless of their academic ability, I feel an emotion akin to outrage.  In the first case it is perfectly possible for the participants on the opposite teams to party together afterwards; whereas members of an audience cheering the college team of their choice profess an unrelenting hatred of the faction that cheers the other team, and there is every reason to believe that they are thoroughly sincere in their expressions of intense malice and ill-nature.  Well, well, woe be to the man who blasphemes against his national gods!

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 194,796,404; # of deaths worldwide: 4,174,644; # of cases U.S.: 35,199,465; # of deaths; U.S.: 626,762.

On the Loudoun Heights Trail – No way to predict when COVID will become merely endemic – Backlash against Tennessee’s recall of vaccination outreach – Phil Valentine – Possible revival of mask mandates – Evening statistics

Today I went with AD and others on a hike starting from Keys Gap to the Loudoun Heights Trail down to Split Rock and back, about 12 miles and 1800 feet of elevation gain.  This segment of the AT is quite rocky in spots, but it is well-maintained, like most of the trail; and after the experience of attempting to grope along the Big Savage Hiking Trail a couple of days ago, it was such a relief to be walking on a well-defined path without any hesitation about whether or not I was going in the right direction.  As always, the view of Harpers Ferry from Split Rock was splendid, with even more variety than usual provided by the gaily-colored rafts floating in the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. 

After the hike several of us discussed plans of the Wanderbirds about the circumstances in which proof of vaccination from participants in club hikes should be required.  The discussion was inconclusive on this matter, but at one point I asked EB, who is an epidemiologist, whether experts had any idea as to when COVID would cease to be classified as a pandemic and assume the status of an endemic disease such as flu or diphtheria.  Sadly, the answer was that there are still too many unknown factors to make any firm estimate.  The disease is raging more or less unchecked in many corners of the world, which means that new variants are continually emerging, and the efficacy of the vaccines against such variants is uncertain.  The increased communicability of the newer variants, such as the Delta variant, means that at this point in order to attain so-called herd immunity we would need about 85% of the population vaccinated instead of the previously recommended 70%.  That simply is not going to happen.  The anti-vaccine movement is too firmly entrenched.  At this stage, through extensive outreach from the Biden administration and through some of the state governments, we have just managed to scrape up a total of 60% of adults fully vaccinated, but that total is not likely to increase significantly in the future. 

As an example, the state of Tennessee may be cited.  It has already been related how the state’s Department of Health fired Michelle Fiscus, its top vaccination official, and abruptly halted its vaccination outreach to minors.  Dr. Lisa Piercey, the state’s Health Commissioner, would not discuss Fiscus’s ousting, but she said yesterday that there may be “fringe and nuanced” situations in which a COVID vaccine may need to be given to a minor without parental permission.  This statement contradicts a claim from Republican lawmakers, who said the health commissioner had previously agreed to stop such a practice.  As the tension mounted, Dr. Piercey perceived that the state was receiving a great deal of negative publicity on account of its high-handed maneuvering, and she evidently decided to rid her eyes of this abomination – so she promptly took a flight to vacation in Greece.

One Tennessee resident at least is belatedly regretting his decision not to receive the vaccine.  Phil Valentine, a conservative radio show host, is currently hospitalized in a critical care unit as a result of pneumonia brought on by the virus.  He needs breathing assistance, although he is not as yet on a ventilator.  His family issued a statement saying that he is now ruing his refusal to get the vaccine and that he intends to advocate the vaccine vigorously when he recovers and is able to get back on the air. 

The delta variant of the coronavirus now accounts for more than 83% of all COVID-19 infections in the country. The vaccines protect people at a high rate against serious illness or death from the variant; but they are not 100% effective and as community spread increases, so do the number of vaccinated Americans who test positive and transmit the virus to others.  The Biden administration is currently discussing with the CDC as to whether or not mask mandates should be re-instated as infections continue to rise.  While it is true that the CDC says that vaccinated persons can resume normal activities without wearing a mask or social distancing, unvaccinated Americans are also dropping their masks in the absence of mask mandates.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 194,362,619; # of deaths worldwide: 4,167,668; # of cases U.S.: 35,182,105; # of deaths; U.S.: 626,700.

Adventures in West Virginia and western Maryland – Frostburg, its historic district and its college – Governor Ivey’s call for Alabamians to get vaccinated – Resistance to the vaccines – A new challenge to Roe vs. Wade – Evening statistics

I went on a brief trip to hike in West Virginia and in western Maryland, but the hikes were a disappointment.

On Wednesday (7/21) I went to Spruce Knob.  The hike around the knob itself is only a ½-mile circuit, paved, and quite flat.  The path was placed there only because the knob is the highest point in the state.  There are several views from this path, as well as from a watchtower that rises above the tallest trees.  But these were all obscured and dimmed by the smoke from the wildfires in the Western states, which covered everything in sight with a greyish pall.

However, I wasn’t expecting much from this hike.  I was anticipating something more rewarding from another hike that starts from the Spruce Knob parking area, a loop that goes to Seneca Rocks and back.  It turned out to be an obstacle course:  the first trail was full of boulder fields, the second (an old logging road) had numerous and extensive mud puddles strewn with slippery rocks, and a third was so overgrown that grasses and overhanging branches were continually blocking the way.  In the end I got so frustrated that I cut off about 2 miles from the hike; even so, it was 14½ miles and it felt as if it were much, much longer.  It wasn’t as if I was seeing very much in return for all of this exertion.  There are a few views of the mountains from the Horton Trail (the one that has so much overgrowth); but, as with the hike around the knob, they were all blurred by the haze from the wildfire smoke.  The vegetation is a bit unusual for the area, since it is higher than much of the other parts of West Virginia and Maryland.  It consists mainly of spruce forest and it is probably more typical of parts of Canada than the mid-Atlantic states.  But outside of that, there was little to remark upon.  Since the hike began at Spruce Knob, it naturally went down for much of the first half of the hike.  Upon the return, there was 1700 feet of elevation gain to recover, much of which was in the first mile of the ascent.  All in all, the hike was a lot of trouble for something that didn’t amount to very much.

That evening I checked into a motel at which I had booked reservations in advance.  Its exterior was unprepossessing, and I had a brief moment of dread as to whether I would experience a repetition of the memorably repellent motel at Wind Gap.  But my fears were groundless.  I checked in without difficulty.  There were no odd characters lounging about in front.  The room was spacious, clean, and comfortable.  It even had kitchen facilities, which meant that I could make breakfast for myself and thereby get an early start in the morning.  Curiously, the proprietor insisted on showing the room to me first to see if it met my approval – the first time that has ever happened to me at any hotel I’ve checked into. 

The following day I explored the Big Savage Hiking Trail.  This was the main object of the trip, for I was supposed to use a measuring wheel for a revision of a description of this trail in a book of hikes in western Maryland.  The measuring wheel slowed me down considerably, of course, but I had anticipated as much.  What I did not anticipate was the level of difficulty in adhering to the trail.  It is greatly overgrown throughout and at times the only indicator of where to go forward was a blaze on a tree some yards distant.  The trail was quite well-blazed in the beginning; even so, there were many places where I went astray and had to retrace my steps.  All went reasonably well until I crossed under a power line about 2¾ miles into the hike.  On the other side of the power line, the undergrowth became much denser and the blazes less regularly spaced.  And finally, at one point, I could go no further – there were no blazes to be seen and no path was at all discernible.  It was simply a sea of ferns and grasses interspersed with rocks.  Even finding the blaze that I had last left behind me was quite a struggle.  It was no longer necessary to use the measuring wheel going back, and thus my progress on the return was much more rapid.  But I spent nearly 7 hours to complete a round trip of less than 9 miles.

The description on the signboard at the trailhead begins with the phrase “This popular hike  . . .” but I did not see a single other person on the trail and no one else was parked in the parking area.  It could have been quite a pleasant hike if the trail were in better condition.  It is fairly rugged, with rock piles in several areas and numerous small ups and downs, but the forest area is scenic, and there are tantalizing gleams of a view of the valley below now and then.  As it is, I doubt whether it is manageable at all without a GPS.

When I returned I went to the college town of Frostburg, which was a couple of miles from the motel at which I was staying.  It is a pleasing place, with a few blocks of historic district.  The most striking features are St. Michael’s church and the Gunter Hotel.  St. Michael’s church is much more elaborate and imposing than the Episcopal church a few blocks away.  It was built in the latter part of the 19^th century, and its congregation consisted chiefly of Irish Catholics who had emigrated to the area to work in the coal mining industry.  The Gunter Hotel is one of those splendid turn-of-the-century hotels that is filled with original artwork to decorate its halls, including some stained-glass windows, and a grand central staircase along which one can walk from one floor to the next with ease – unlike the system in modern hotels, which places the staircases in forlorn darkened corners of the building to reinforce the impression that walking up and down stairs instead of taking the elevator is rather an indecent and indelicate affair.

The college campus occupies a beautiful setting with vistas of mountain ranges to the south, but it is not beautiful in itself.  It has benches scattered here and there for sitting out of doors, but no parklike enclosures, and the architecture of the majority of the buildings is serviceable rather than stylish, although not especially uncomely.  To my surprise, there was scarcely a single person to be seen.  It was mid-summer, to be sure, and most of the classes are in abeyance, but I would have assumed that at least some courses would be offered during the summer, and in any case the majority of the students reside close to the campus.  But for whatever the reason, going through the campus was like going through a ghost town.

So much for my doings during this three-day interval; what of national developments at large?

Arkansas used to be the state with the smallest percentage of fully vaccinated residents, but now that sorry title has descended to Alabama, with only 33.9% of all residents having received the vaccines.  Governor Kay Ivey has made a plea for the unvaccinated to take the vaccines – unlike the majority of Republican leaders, who either have refrained from doing so or have actively encouraged their followers to decline them.  Average daily cases in Alabama are nearly double what they were a week ago, and more than four times higher than they were two weeks ago.

It is unlikely that Governor Ivey’s exhortations will have much effect.  According to a recent poll among the unvaccinated, 45% say that they definitely will not take the vaccine and an additional 35% probably will not.  It is true that this poll was conducted before Republican leaders such as Ivey have decided to urge followers to abandon their hostility towards the vaccine.  But the main reason for their opposition seems to be a determination to deny Biden any credit for combatting the pandemic, since Biden has displaced their beloved idol Donald Trump.  Trump may be officially out of power, but his malign influence is as potent as ever, like the sting of a dead wasp.

And Alabama’s neighbor, Mississippi, is also in the news.  It has imposed a ban on all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy in an attempt to challenge the Roe vs. Wade decision.  The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court during the autumn.  A similar attempt was made by Louisiana a year ago, which was blocked by a bare 5-4 majority, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote alongside the court’s four liberal justices.  But the composition of the Court has changed since that time.  Now that Supreme Court consists of six conservative judges and three liberal ones, and it seems unlikely that other conservative judges will follow Judge Roberts’ example. 

Statistics for July 21^st as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 192,772,397; # of deaths worldwide: 4,141,705; # of cases U.S.: 35,135,098; # of deaths; U.S.: 625,790.

Statistics for July 22^nd as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 193,351,571; # of deaths worldwide: 4,150,569; # of cases U.S.: 35,204,521; # of deaths; U.S.: 626,157.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 193,884,439; # of deaths worldwide: 4,157,953; # of cases U.S.: 35,279,835; # of deaths; U.S.: 626,622.  Over the past three days we have had more than 50,000 new cases (today the case count was well over 60,000) and several hundred deaths.  The fourth wave is accelerating.

Hiking in Shenandoah National Park – Haze from the wildfires nearly 3000 miles away – Astonishing behavior of commentators from Fox News – Indiana University permitted to protect itself – Undercounting of deaths in India – The virus interrupts festivities in Muslim countries – Evening statistics

I went with the Vigorous Hikers on a there-and-back along the Appalachian Trail between Thornton Gap and the overlook at Little Stony Man.  Normally this hike features many excellent viewpoints at Mary’s Rock, the Pinnacle, Jewel Hollow, the Pinnacles picnic area, and Little Stony Man itself.  But the views were very disappointing today.  It is normally rather hazy during the summer (with last year being a brilliant exception, on account of the lower industrial and automotive emissions) but today the haze went well beyond the usual loss of clarity.  When I remarked on this, EC said that the smoke from the wildfires in the West have reached the area and have completely enveloped the Shenandoah Valley.

On the other hand, there was an abundance of lilies, both Turk’s-cap and Canada lilies, and numerous butterflies.  The tiger swallowtails were particularly noticeable at the Byrd’s Nest shelter and the ascent on either side of it.  The temperatures were much less hot along the ridgeline than they were on the lower elevations, and at Little Stony Man, where we had lunch while seated upon the rock outcroppings, a breeze blew so steadily that it became pleasantly cool. 

On the return I went together with HL, who gave a rather humorous account about an acquaintance of his who on occasion goes barefoot, not only upon turf and sand, but on trails like the one we covered today, with its plethora of exposed rock and scree.  She spoke to him about the “enlightenment” she receives from being “closer to earth”; we lost no time in agreeing that we prefer to use hiking boots and to receive both less enlightenment and less pain.

There has been a rare occurrence that is surely worthy of national attention, if not stunned disbelief:  namely, that various Fox News commentators have publicly admitted that two and two is four.  Sean Hannity, who earlier claimed that COVID was no more harmful than flu and that Democrats were using it to discredit Donald Trump, is now urging viewers to get vaccinated.  He is not the only one among the Fox staff to do a complete volte-face:  “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade compared skipping the Covid-19 vaccine to cliff diving, saying on Monday that people who don’t survive the disease made the “choice” to die; while co-host Steve Doocy addressed those who have resisted getting the vaccine as follows: “If you have the chance, get the shot. It will save your life.”  Perhaps they are belatedly realizing that the main casualties of the new wave of the virus are Republicans and Trump supporters, from whom the non-vaccinated are overwhelmingly recruited; so that at this rate the Democrats will be able to prevail in the 2022 elections by sheer attrition.

Along these lines, Indiana University has set up a vaccine requirement for students and employees alike; and, although a lawsuit predictably erupted when this requirement was announced, a federal judge has refused to uphold it and has ruled that the university injunction may stay in place.  The number of students, faculty, and staff who access the campus amounts to 100,000, so the concern of the university management is understandable.  As Judge Damon Leichty observed, no one has a constitutional right to a college education and students who do not wish to get vaccinated can simply leave.  It is not at all uncommon for colleges to require vaccinations from its student body:  Indiana requires all public university students to receive vaccinations for diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, and meningococcal disease.

I have said little of other countries during the past few weeks, but the progress of the pandemic in India continues to ravage the country.  Officially the death toll is nearly 420,000.  But a report published by Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government’s former chief economic adviser, and two other researchers at the Center for Global Development and Harvard University, said that the excess deaths in India are in the range of 3-to-4.7 million between January 2020 and June 2021.  In other words, the death toll could be under-estimated by as much as a factor of 10.  The Partition of the British-ruled Indian subcontinent into independent India and Pakistan in 1947 has up to this point been considered the most deadly tragedy in Indian history, since it led to the killing of up to 1 million people as gangs of Hindus and Muslims slaughtered each other.  It now appears, however, that the pandemic has snatched these undesirable laurels from this event, being at least 3-4 times as costly in human life.

Today is Eid al-Adha, the last day of the hajj.  As was the case last year, the hajj has been heavily scaled back, with only 60,000 pilgrims allowed to participate (the average yearly number in normal times is about 2½ million).  The governments in various Muslim nations have taken measures to restrict the usual celebrations.  In Indonesia, Vice President Ma’ruf Amin, who is also an influential Islamic cleric, appealed to people to perform holiday prayers at home with their families, following a new wave of the virus that began in May.  In Malaysia, measures have been tightened after a sharp spike in infections despite a national lockdown since June 1^st.  People are banned from travelling back to their hometowns or crossing districts to celebrate. House visits and customary trips to graveyards are also banned.  Iran on Monday imposed a week-long lockdown on the capital, Tehran, and the surrounding region. The lockdown began today.  India’s Muslim scholars have been urging people to exercise restraint and adhere to health protocols. Some states have restricted large gatherings and are asking people to observe the holiday at home.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 192,205,804; # of deaths worldwide: 4,124,191; # of cases U.S.: 35,077,098; # of deaths; U.S.: 625,244.