Category: Journal Entry

A winery hike – A hike among the wildflowers – Vice-President Harris contracts COVID – The percentage of Americans who have contracted COVID – Madison Cawthorn – An example of the pandemic’s psychological toll – Evening statistics

Yesterday I went with various friends on another winery hike, roaming through Sky Meadows and afterwards lunching together at the Blue Valley winery nearby.  I was feeling rather sore as a result of the long hike on Sunday, but this excursion was a perfect way to limber up:  it was only six miles, and it began with a longish but not especially steep ascent of about 1000 feet that eventually put me in working order.  Another member of our group was coping with a similar situation.  He had recently had a knee replacement and he was now attempting to readjust after the hiatus of several weeks that the operation had forced him to take.  He did quite well, completing the ascent in good time and moving without apparent difficulty.  In his words, his knee felt fine; it was the rest of his body that had to become accustomed to such exercise after it had been at rest for such a long time.

The day was an odd one with respect to the weather, with the morning being cool, misty, and rather damp, but with sunshine breaking through and temperatures rising considerably while we were laying out the food for lunch after we had completed our wine purchases and assembled upon the outdoor dining area overlooking the valley below.  Masks were not required for entering inside the winery and neither the staff nor the other customers were wearing any.  We were joined by AN, who was not able to get away from her work in the morning but was free in the afternoon.  She works in vaccine development and she echoed my surmise that as the virus evolves its likeliest course is an increase in the rate of infection alongside with a decrease in rate of mortality.  Also, it appears possible that a single vaccine will eventually be developed to prevent both COVID and influenza, so that we will end up taking one vaccine annually, just as we do now for influenza alone.

Today I went with the Vigorous Hikers on the Appalachian Trail, starting from Manassas Gap and going there and back to the edge of Sky Meadows, about 9 miles each way and perhaps 3500 feet of ascent – none of it especially steep, however.  The Linden area, as this part of the forest is called, is noted for its abundance of wildflowers and we were there at the best time of the year to see them:  columbine, starry chickweed, bloodroot, spring beauties, blue violets, and yellow violets were scattered everywhere.  It is also the site of one of the greatest concentrations of trillium in the nation, perhaps in the world.  I had not expected to see many, for it is slightly early in the season for them, but they were in full bloom – not quite at peak but nonetheless carpeting many parts of the forest floor alongside the trail with white- and pink- and magenta-colored flowers.  I’m not certain why they are blooming so early.  This spring has been somewhat cooler than usual.  The May apple plants were on the verge of opening and we actually came across one that had already bloomed – again, somewhat earlier than expected.  Three of us went ahead of the rest of the group, partly because we were concerned about the rain that was forecasted for the afternoon.  It did, in fact, begin to rain during the last mile of our return, but very lightly and it had not fallen long enough to make the rocks slippery by the time we reached the parking area.  Indeed the weather was rather favorable that day than otherwise, for the cloud cover kept the temperature down and the continual breezes mitigated the humidity of the air. 

We stopped at the Whiskey Hollow shelter for lunch, where we met several section-hikers.  They were looking forward with some anxiety to continuing their hike in the upcoming days upon the “Roller Coaster,” a 13½ -mile section of the trail with continual ascents and descents.  I reassured them as best I could, saying that the reputation of the Roller Coaster’s difficulty is somewhat exaggerated; it has numerous ascents, to be sure, but they are relatively short (the longest is about ½ mile) and they are only a few hundred feet apiece. 

I am sorry to say that Vice-President Harris has contracted COVID.  Thankfully her case appears asymptomatic.  She is isolating herself for several days and working from her residence, following the CDC guidelines.  Her husband, Doug Emhoff, had come down with the virus on March 15^th but has since recovered and there is every prospect of her recovering as well.  Many other public figures in Washington have come down with the virus by this time, partly on account of the Gridiron Club dinner and partly because the virus continues to spread.  But this news has an element of cautious optimism:  none of the cases to date have had serious effects and those afflicted with the disease appear to be recovering much more rapidly and thoroughly than has been the case with previous variants.

According to official statistics, 1 in 4 Americans have contracted COVID, but the actual figure may be as high as 3 in 5.  Traditional disease surveillance methods do not capture all COVID cases, or even the majority of them, because many people are asymptomatic, not diagnosed, or not reported.  It is, in fact, quite possible to have contracted the virus without being aware of it.  I have speculated in earlier entries about the risk of my infecting residents of the elder care facility where my mother lives on that account.  That is one reason I still wear masks for visits to stores, public transit, and so on, even though the mask mandate has been officially lifted.  The scientists who ran the study analyzed tests that measured antibodies produced in response to COVID infection.  Hospital admissions remain low at about 1,600 per day. But for the second week in a row, they are slowly trending upwards, with an increase of about 9% this week from the prior week.

Madison Cawthorn has been charged with a criminal misdemeanor for bringing a loaded handgun to an airport in North Carolina.  This is not the first occasion that he has committed such an offense:  in February 2021, Cawthorn brought an unloaded Glock 9mm handgun to the Asheville Regional Airport in his carry-on bag, which TSA workers confiscated once they found it in his possession.  He has had some other notable achievements as well.  In March, Cawthorn was charged with driving with a revoked license. He had faced the same charge in 2017, but that charge was dismissed.  He has faced two citations in North Carolina for speeding: once for driving 89 mph in a 65 mph zone and another for driving 87 mph in a 70 mph zone.  Cawthorn is currently the youngest representative in office, being 26 years old; but he seems to have a mental age of about 10.

Here is one COVID story that I find troubling.  A woman who is identified only as “Stephanie” had a common-sense attitude towards matters such as vaccines for most of her life.  But during the pandemic she became a subscriber to the anti-vaxxers’ conspiracy theories, and part of the reason was physical.  She had been an active tennis player for most of her life but as she entered her 70s this activity had taken its toll on her knees and she was finding it difficult to walk.  At one point she had to have a stair lift installed in her house.  The loss of her favorite physical activity and her enforced sedentariness had a ruinous effect on her mental outlook.  She began to watch videos on the Internet that pandered to all sorts of conspiracy theories – that John Kennedy is still alive, that reptilians were controlling the U.S. government, and so on.  Eventually she subscribed to the notion that COVID was a gigantic hoax and she not only refused to get vaccinated but shunned the company of her daughters when they received vaccines.  After attending a Thanksgiving dinner in 2021, she developed symptoms of COVID but refused to get tested.  Instead she ordered supplies of ivermectin and hydroxochloroquine, which naturally proved to be ineffective.  She developed blood clots on her lungs as a result of the virus – a painful condition, in which the patient feels in a state of perpetually suffocating or drowning.  Eventually the only option was to put her on a ventilator, which she declined, saying “I’ve had enough. This is not a life. I can’t live like this anymore.”  She died shortly afterward.

What troubles me about this story is not that Stephanie and others like her subscribed to conspiracy theories – that is to be expected among a certain portion of the population.  As Edith Wharton once rather cruelly observed, it is much easier to believe oneself persecuted than insignificant.  What troubles me about this particular instance is that Stephanie had no inclinations that way until she was no longer able to obtain solace in her favored activity. 

And this raises the thought:  how would I react if, as is conceivable, I develop in later years some condition or other that makes hiking over mountain trails and rocky summits inadvisable?  Not very well, I suspect.  I don’t think I would go to the extremes that Stephanie did, but I’m not at all confident that I would have the mental resources to cope with such a restriction. 

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 509,845,095; # of deaths worldwide: 6,244,616; # of cases U.S.: 82,703,699; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,018,475. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 510,644,473; # of deaths worldwide: 6,248,488; # of cases U.S.: 82,784,686; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,018,939.

Indoor visits, at home and elsewhere – Leesburg, Meadowlark, and Brookside – The MLK loop – Reversion to pre-pandemic behavior – The approaching end of the pandemic – Reprieve for women in Kentucky – Evening statistics

The claims of journal-writing must yield to the claims of hospitality:  for the past couple of days I’ve been entertaining JF, as well as two other guests who joined us on the 22^nd (Friday), and then yesterday I went to Baltimore to visit others.  The drive to Baltimore and back was very wearing, much more troublesome than it usually is.  It took nearly two hours in both directions and ordinarily it is a drive of little less than half that time. 

JF and I agreed merely to “saunter” Thursday in view of the rather gray weather, but after going to various stores, strolling through the historic part of Leesburg, and winding up by exploring Meadowlark Garden in Vienna, we ended up covering about 10 miles.  Meadowlark Garden has become considerably more elaborate since my last visit there (which admittedly was several years ago); it has numerous winding trails, a lake stocked with koi, and a Korean bell garden – the only one in the Western hemisphere.  It contains a 3-ton bell created in South Korea that was then shipped to Virginia and placed in an ornate classical pavilion.  The bell is of the same pattern used for bells created in the past, going as far back as the 8^th century.  The garden also contains a second pavilion with wall panels adorned with impressions of various flowers, such as peonies, chrysanthemums, and lotus flowers.  We had a rather elaborate lunch in Leesburg, somewhat unexpectedly.  We had selected a restaurant that called itself a diner and had a modest exterior, but its food was rich and plentiful and beautifully prepared. 

Friday was less strenuous; we confined ourselves to exploring the lovely gardens at Brookside and afterwards, since it is located not far from where I grew up, briefly visited the neighborhood in which I lived during my childhood and adolescence.  It has not changed greatly since the time that I lived there, which was decades ago.  The houses were built in 1959 and 1960 by a construction group that purposefully designed them to differ slightly from one another, so that it never displayed the beehive effect that afflicts many of the more modern suburban developments.  The neighborhood was a good place in which to grow up – not least on account of its proximity to the Northwest Branch Trail, which supplied many delightful explorations in the woodlands and along the stream during my childhood years.

Afterwards my other two visitors arrived in the early evening, and eventually we all went out to dine at a fairly unusual Chinese restaurant, which features the Sichuan style of cuisine and is considerably more authentic than that of the majority of Chinese restaurants in this country.  On Saturday, again, there was a certain amount of party food, including various pretzels, chips, and desserts in which I do not ordinarily indulge.  In consequence, I was beginning to feel somewhat sluggish as a result of all of this rich feeding. 

But today I obtained the perfect antidote for this condition:  hiking with RS, which always supplies some invigorating exertion and which on this occasion consisted of a loop starting from the MLK monument and which eventually ended up to be 23 miles long.  We have done a similar route in the past, but it has changed dramatically in some areas since the last time that we completed it together.  The route goes through both the Wharf area in the southwest part of the city and the Anacostia riverfront, both of which have been developed to an astonishing extent.  I still was able to recognize parts of the Wharf area from the days that I used to attend performances at the Arena Stage theater (before it acquired an Artistic Director whose influence I detested), where some of the older residence buildings are still standing; but the Anacostia riverfront has been redone almost completely.  Once a byword as one of the most rundown and dangerous parts of the city, it is now a series of restaurants, stores, and newly-built condos; while the river, notorious in former days for its pollution, has lost its turbid, clouded appearance and its ripples today sparkled and danced in the sunlight, greatly improved by the massive cleanup that has taken place over the years. 

The experiences of dining out on Thursday and Friday illustrated how much people have relaxed since the beginning of the pandemic.  Hardly anyone wore masks upon entering.  I myself have become somewhat lax in this respect, since one has to remove the mask in any case for the purposes of eating and drinking; but I still try to keep it on before I am seated at the table and after I have finished dining.  But I appear to be more cautious in this respect than the average.  Even in New York people wore masks much less frequently than they did during my previous visit.

 The rate of increase in COVID infections continues to decline.  The WHO has said that nearly 5.59 million cases were reported between April 11 and 17, 24% fewer than in the previous week. The number of newly reported deaths dropped 21% to 18,215. 

So when does a pandemic end?  The influenza virus that caused the devastating pandemic of 1918 never went away; it simply evolved into the seasonal flu.  Most survivors, however, developed some degree of immunity to it and at one point simply decided to move on with their lives.  The COVID pandemic may display a similar pattern, particularly if the new variants that emerge remain milder in their effects than the original ones.  We can’t be certain at this stage whether a variant with a higher mortality rate will emerge, but it seems less likely than before.  The virus, after all, has evolved to live in the hosts that it infects, and it can’t do so very efficiently if it kills off its hosts in the process.  The likelihood appears that the virus will continue to produce variants that are both more infectious and less likely to cause death. 

One mustn’t be reckless in extrapolating direct parallels between this pandemic and previous ones.  For one thing, the disease has already created a potential tidal wave of long COVID, the full effects of which the worlds’ nations have has not yet confronted.  On the whole, however, it appears that people are reverting to their habits of pre-pandemic times, and that, officially or not, the pandemic will be ending soon as far as effects on daily life are concerned. 

US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings granted a request from Planned Parenthood to halt enforcement of the law in Kentucky eliminating all abortions 15 weeks after conception.  This court order is less of a victory than might appear at first for the pro-choice party.  The order did not make a decision about the constitutionality of the law.  It merely states that abortion clinics are currently unable to comply with the guidelines that the state has made for running them because such guidelines are unclear and insufficiently detailed.  The legislators of Kentucky still have the option of clarifying the guidelines and then requesting that the law takes effect. 

Statistics for April 21^st as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 507,638,586; # of deaths worldwide: 6,235,329; # of cases U.S.: 82,550,027; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,017,555. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 509,466,985; # of deaths worldwide: 6,242,875; # of cases U.S.: 82,662,612; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,018,335. 

Strolling among the bluebells – Controversy about the overturning of the mask mandate – Evening statistics

JF, my visitor from New Jersey, is not a hiker per se – that is, he does not care to undertake steep ascents and rocky mountain trails.  But he is quite a good walker on flatter trails, so we went together to Broad Run and afterwards to Manassas Battlefield Park, where we went on the First Manassas Loop – something over 12 miles in all for the two hikes combined.  The bluebells were in full bloom along the Broad Run trails and along parts of Bull Run as well; slightly past the peak indeed, but overwhelmingly profuse nonetheless, along with other seasonal flowers such as bluets, spring beauties, white violets, and blue violets.  We did not see many birds, somewhat to my surprise, for they are generally active at this time of year.  But we did view a couple of hawks overhead along the Broad Run trails and a heron on the lookout for prey on an islet within Bull Run.  After the rather chilly and grayish past few days we had perfect weather today, sunny, clear, with temperatures starting at 50 degrees in the morning and rising to the mid-60s in the afternoon. 

Judge Mizelle’s overturning of the mask mandate is not the final word on the subject, it seems.  The Department of Justice will appeal the ruling at the CDC’s request.  I can understand why the CDC is displeased with the ruling, but this measure will probably not help matters.  Any appeal process will surely take longer than the two weeks that the CDC has extended the mandate.  Moreover, if the appeal reaches the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority and is hostile to such mandates, its endorsement of Judge Mizelle’s ruling will hamper the CDC still further. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 506,757,955; # of deaths worldwide: 6,231,235; # of cases U.S.: 82,461,250; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,016,626.

Visit to New York (including an excursion on the Appalachian Trail) – Accelerated social life – Overturning of the federal mask mandate for public transit – The troubled waters of the Colorado River – A conservative opponent of Trump  – Evening statistics

We celebrated Passover on Saturday evening rather than Friday, to accommodate people’s traveling schedules, with my New York cousin and his wife hosting.  He has been a professional chef and still teaches cooking classes, so we could be assured of getting well-fed.  And so we were:  gravlax, lamb partly roasted and partly braised, roasted herb chicken, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, potatoes mashed with parsnips and turnips, and the traditional matzo ball soup.  Wine and spirits flowed in abundance and there was no lack of desserts (I made a flourless torte with chocolate and ground almonds).  With myself, my brother, my aunt, three of my cousins, and my cousin’s wife and son, we were eight in all:  the largest number of close relatives we’ve been able to assemble together since the beginning of the pandemic. 

The atmosphere was much more relaxed than it had been during the pandemic’s previous phases, although there was still a note of caution sounded.  Mask=wearing was enforced on the train that I took from New Jersey to the city and the news contained reports about the rising number of cases in the area.  But the increase in cases has not brought about a corresponding increase in hospitalizations or deaths, and as a result people are much less on their guard.  Although masks are nominally required on all public transit, many riders on the buses and subways were bare-faced.  This was, as I remarked to my cousin-in-law, in marked contrast to the policy at Monterey, where mask-wearing was strictly enforced; to which she replied that bus drivers in Monterey are much less likely than those in the Bronx to be attacked by an aggrieved bus rider with a knife in hand – which, as I had to admit, amounted to a very reasonable thing to say.  Masks are no longer required in restaurants, nor are customers checked for proof of vaccination. 

For Friday evening I joined my cousin, his son, and my brother for a “guys night” and on Sunday my aunt and her two daughters had the day to themselves for a girls-only occasion.  I stayed with my aunt on Thursday evening and Friday but went to my cousin’s place for the remainder of the stay so that my Floridian cousin could stay with her mother.  On Saturday before the dinner I went along Van Courtland Park and the Riverdale Trail – both of them lovely areas, with the trails in splendid condition, while on Sunday I took a somewhat more unusual option.

Close to Pawling, NY, there is a railroad station along the Appalachian Trail – the only such station along the entire length of the AT.  It can be reached by a journey of about two hours from Grand Central Station (the time is somewhat lessened by leaving, as I did, from the Bronx, where my cousin resides).  Originally I had planned to do this on Saturday, but in the end I decided that such an excursion might put my attendance at the gathering that evening in jeopardy, so I elected to go on Sunday instead.  I went to the station at Fordham and when I asked for a round trip to the Appalachian Trail station, the salesperson was rather amused:   in her words, “That’s not a request we get very often.”  She was very pleasant, expressing her wishes for a good hike and taking care to direct me as to which line I needed to take.  I rode on the so-called Harlem Line, which ends at a town called Southeast; from there I picked up a local train (it has only seven stops in all) to the AT station.  It looks as if it could have been assembled from a kit on a shelf in a toy shop and indeed is little-used; the train stops there only four times a day, twice going from NYC and twice returning to it, and only on weekends.  Only two other people got with me on the outgoing train and I was the lone passenger waiting at the station for the return journey.

Upon leaving the train I took the AT east towards the state border with Connecticut, about 7 miles each way (actually a bit longer on account of a detour near the state border, as a result of a bridge having been washed out).  It was a frustrating hike in some ways.  The trail is not well-maintained in this area.  It has no water runoffs and drainage in consequence is very poor; some parts of the trail, submerged in water from the rain of the preceding night and excessively muddy, constitute a virtual invitation to erosion.  The trail contained many blowdowns, none of which had been cleared – which is somewhat surprising for mid-April, since trail maintainers generally become more active once the spring season begins.  But the weather for most of the day was clear and sunny, and it crossed over numerous little rivulets bordered with wildflowers.  It was somewhat chilly, and while I felt warm enough while I was moving, I wore my facemask while waiting at the station for the return train; not, as might be supposed, from fear of infection from other hikers passing by, but simply for as much additional warmth as I could obtain.  It even hailed for a couple of minutes during this period – quite gently, however, and the white pellets formed attractive clusters on the ground before they melted away quickly. 

On the way back yesterday I spent part of the day with a friend in the Trenton area (although well outside of Trenton itself, thankfully) and today a friend from one of the beach towns in New Jersey stopped by to stay for a few days.  Two mutual friends will join us on Friday evening, and then on Saturday I will be meeting with other friends in Baltimore.  It feels like quite a social whirl after 2020 and 2021.  Of course I met with various fellow hikers on many hikes during that period, but indoor gatherings of any size were much less common.  But this month has broken that pattern, with visits to friends in Sacramento and Monterey during the first week, attending a party on the 9^th, staying with my aunt and cousins this past weekend, and currently hosting a guest of my own, with two more coming here on Friday.  Such behavior seems typical of my social network generally; people are feeling much more confident about interacting with others indoors now that nearly everyone in the area is vaccinated, and several are making up for lost time.

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle appears to be equally optimistic, having overturned the CDC’s health order to the TSA, thereby striking down the mask mandate for public transit nationwide.  In one flight during which the announcement of the end of the mandate took place, the passengers cheered and tossed their face coverings on the seats, while one conductor on a New Jersey commuter train (the same type of train I took from Hamilton, NJ, and back during my recent visit) told the riders “feel free to burn them at will.” 

There is still considerable confusion as to where travelers must wear masks and where they are no longer required to do so.  Certain localities, such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Connecticut, continue to enforce mask mandates on their own account.  Masks are required on Amtrak and also on Metra, the regional commuter rail service for Chicago.  As an example, a commuter from New Jersey to Manhattan might ride the New Jersey transit to Penn Station without wearing a mask, only to find that it will be necessary to don one for an extension of his journey on the New York metro.  “It’s like this patchwork of different rules and enforcement of it,” said Erik Abderhalden, a Chicago commuter. “I mean, it’s like Swiss cheese . . . there’s no uniformity and it seems pretty laissez faire.”

The Colorado River has lost 20% of its water levels over the past 22 years.  It is now at the top of the country’s most endangered rivers list.  As a result of twenty-three years of drought conditions in the West and Southwest, the water level is at its lowest at the Hoover and Glen Canyon Dam reservoirs since they were filled.  Lake Mead and Lake Powell will likely never refill to previously normal levels.  About 42% of California’s population is now under a drought emergency:  every part of the state except Southern California and the San Francisco Bay area, in which regions, by an amazing coincidence, the very wealthiest inhabitants of the state reside.  In the past, when there was not enough surface water and water in reservoirs, states would pump as much groundwater as needed.  But by now that option has resulted in groundwater level declines in the Phoenix and Tucson areas by anywhere from 300 to 500 feet. 

Residents in the West cannot be accused of wastefulness.  Currently per capita water use is 16% lower than 2013 levels in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.  But in one respect the Western region as a whole has been thriftless and improvident. 

The population of the West is growing by leaps and bounds.  It is the fastest-growing region in the country, with an increase in large cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas of 9.1% since 2010.  No doubt its climate is more comfortable than that of the East.  But I for one am willing to put up with some snowfalls in winter and humid days in summer to obtain the security of having enough water to drink.

The most likely option for the future is desalinization of water from the ocean.  The cost of treating seawater is about $2,000 to $3,000 an acre foot, which is at least twice as expensive as water conservation.  There is also the question of where to put the salt and sediment once it has been removed; returning the additional salt and minerals to the sea would act as a pollutant.  Nor is it particularly efficient to pump the water from the coast to more inland states such as Colorado.

J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge and leading conservative, said that he is willing to publicly testify about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.  He is known for having urged Mike Pence to resist Donald Trump’s overtures for him to take steps to try to delay or even block the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory.  He has links to others involved in the January 6^th riot:  both Ted Cruz and John Eastman are former Luttig clerks.  His attitude, to put it mildly, differs from those of these protégées.  “At the moment, there is no other way to say it: This is the clearest and most present danger to our democracy,” he said. “Trump and his supporters in Congress and in the states are preparing now to lay the groundwork to overturn the election in 2024 were Trump, or his designee, to lose the vote for the presidency.”

Today’s statistics as of 6:30 PM – # of cases worldwide: 505,703,256; # of deaths worldwide: 6,226,843; # of cases U.S.: 82,397,021; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,016,015

Recent hikes – Family get-togethers become easier – The new upsurge – Evening statistics

I am with my New York relatives for a few days.  It was quite warm today, almost sultry, although the walkway along the East River was much cooler and pleasanter.  At one point my aunt remarked, “I see you haven’t been hiking as much lately.”  I can understand why she got that impression, since I have not spoken about my most recent hikes in the journal entries, but in fact I hiked this past Sunday (at Broad Run to see the bluebells there, which are just as prolific as in the Bull Run area and with far less crowded trails), Monday (a winery hike, involving a there-and-back on the AT from Manassas Gap to the Denton shelter), and Tuesday (Meadowood and Pohick Bay with the Vigorous Hikers).  Also, I investigated the Bull Run/Occoquan Trail yesterday to ascertain whether a certain creek crossing that had been washed out at least a couple of years ago has been repaired (and it hasn’t).  All in all, I covered nearly 40 miles in the past four days, in addition to various urban walks, so I think I can claim not to have been inactive.

It will be Passover tomorrow and we are celebrating with a somewhat larger family gathering than we’ve been able to have for the past two years.  My aunt, my brother, my cousin from Chile, my cousin from Florida, and myself will all be convening at my eldest cousin’s apartment in Riverdale. And on Saturday I will be undertaking a project that has been on my mind for some time.  It is possible to take the train from New York to a railroad station on the Appalachian Trail — the single one that can be used to access the AT along its entire length.  (I can’t help contrasting this situation with that of countries such as Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, where public transportation can be used to access any number of trailheads.)  We will be pursuing other family activities with one another on Sunday, and on Monday I plan to spend some time with a friend in New Jersey on the way home.  Thus it will be seen that the effects of the pandemic have been greatly modified since 2020, when every single one of these scheduled activities would have been out of the question.

The picture is not universally rose-colored, since the COVID case count has recently surpassed one half-billion worldwide (approximately one in every 16 of the world’s population).   The highly contagious BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has led to surges in more than 20 countries.  It now accounts for 86% of the world’s current caseload, according to the WHO.  About 64.8% of the world’s population has received at least one vaccine dose, but in undeveloped countries this number is far lower.  Russia’s Federal Service for State Statistics (Rosstat) added 105,427 deaths from 2020 which were earlier not reported by the country, bringing its total to nearly 800,000 and thereby confirming it as the nation with the second-largest death toll from COVID — our own nation, of course, being the proud owner of the title of the nation with the largest. 

It is still unclear, as Dr. Fauci has noted, whether this latest upsurge will lead to a major wave of hospitalizations and deaths. The BA.2 variant seems no more likely than its parent to cause severe illness. “It depends on how high we go up in the surge, and it depends on whether the surge is associated with an increase in severe disease,” he said.  “I can’t say where we are right now, because we’re transitioning.”

Today’s statistics as of 10:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 503,027,224; # of deaths worldwide: 6,217,872; # of cases U.S.: 82,252,965; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,014,902.

Impeachment of Attorney General Ravnsborg – The mask mandate extended – The public health emergency extended nationally and internationally – Evening statistics

Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg is the first official to be impeached in South Dakota history.  It may be recalled that he ran over a pedestrian over during the course of driving one night in 2020, initially believing, as he claimed, to have struck a deer.  In which case, Ravnsborg must believe that deer habitually wear eyeglasses, since those of Joseph Boever, whom Ravnsborg struck while the latter was walking along the side of the road (and incidentally carrying a flashlight at the time), were found on the passenger seat of Ravnborg’s car during the investigation of the episode.  Ravnsborg was traveling 60 MPH on the road’s right shoulder, crossing the rumble strip that separated the shoulder from the main road at the time of the collision.  He still appears to think of his victim as a deer at some level, as he has shown since that time as little remorse as a hunter might display for shooting an elk or a buck.  He pleaded no contest last year to the charges leveled against him on account of the accident; but since the charges were simply a pair of traffic misdemeanors with trifling fines attached to them, he underwent no great penalty for his negligence.  It isn’t as if Ravnsborg has enjoyed a reputation for flawless driving before the crash occurred.  On July 23, 2020, and September 6, 2020, Ravnsborg nearly crashed his car into two different police vehicles, getting off with warnings on both occasions. 

The CDC has extended the mask mandate on public transportation and airplanes for another two weeks.  It was expected to lift this mandate on the 18^th, but the removal of the mandate has now been set to May 3^rd.  Airlines and the hospitality industry have been lobbying the White House to overturn both the mask rule and the requirement to test before returning to the United States from abroad.  The CDC, however, claims that the recent spike in cases would make such a measure imprudent just at present.  Personally I believe that it would do well not to specify a date for removal, since there is no way of guaranteeing that such a deadline can be met; an increase in cases or the emergence of a new variant could occur at any time.  The virus, as many have pointed out, is simply not predictable at this point.

Similarly, the declaration of COVID as a public health emergency, which had been initially declared in early 2020 and then was renewed every subsequent quarter, has been renewed yet again for another three months.  This means that Americans will be able to receive free tests, vaccines, and treatments, which certainly sounds generous – but who is to pay for it? 

Along the same lines, the WHO has declared that COVID remains a global public health emergency even though COVID deaths have fallen to the lowest level since March 2020.  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the decline of itself is good news, but added that some countries are still experiencing a spike in cases. The WHO has called for world leaders to ensure that 70% of their countries’ population is vaccinated, but at this point 75 nations still have a vaccination rate of less than 40% and 21 have a vaccination rate of under 10%.   As Dr. Didier Houssin, chairman of the WHO’s international health regulations emergency committee, has said:  “It’s always easier to declare a pandemic than undeclare one.”

Yesterday’s statistics as of 9:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  500,838,107; # of deaths worldwide: 6,209,173; # of cases U.S.: 82,133,342; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,013,044.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 501,850,634; # of deaths worldwide: 6,213,412; # of cases U.S.: 82,186,366; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,014,056.

The Richard III controversy – Attempts at distortion of history – Mask mandate in Philadelphia – The current upsurge of COVID – Evening statistics

At a friend’s recommendation I have just completed reading “The King’s Daughter” by Sandra Worth, a novel based upon the life of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII and ancestress of the Tudor dynasty.

It’s not particularly well-written and its subject matter is the usual farrago of the Richardians, who believe that, since history is written by the victors, Richard III has been greatly maligned by the Tudors who triumphed over him.  If Hitler had won out, Worth comments in her ham-fisted way, the reputations of Roosevelt and Churchill would have suffered as a result.  There we have it:  Henry VII is the 15^th-century equivalent of Hitler and Richard III is a misunderstood statesman of Churchillian stature, if indeed he is not Too Good for This Sinful Earth. 

As far as Henry VII is concerned, there can hardly be two opinions about his abilities as a ruler.  After his forces won the Battle of Bosworth and he began his administration, England was in a state of chaos as a result of over 30 years of civil war and was further hindered by a bankrupt exchequer.  At the end of his reign the government was stable and England was not only financially solvent but a major player among European powers.  Unlike his more famous son, he had no mistresses or illegitimate children, and all accounts of his marriage to Elizabeth show evidence of deep affection on both sides.  He certainly was not a model of liberality, but casting him in the role as a villain of Hitlerian proportions is, to say the least, a bit of a stretch.

The portrayal of Richard in Shakespeare’s play, by which he is principally known, is certainly rather over the top.  He was not a hideously deformed dwarf; he merely had some curvature of the spine and in other respects was sufficiently healthy and well-looking.  He did some good things as a ruler.  He lent his support to a few improvements to the British legal system.   He appears to have been on happy terms with his wife.  How his reign ultimately would have turned out we cannot tell.  It lasted only two years, and it was a period of continual unquiet, marked by numerous rebellions, of which one in the end terminated his rule and his life altogether. 

By this time most of the Richardians have abandoned the idea that Henry VII engineered the deaths of the two princes, the sons of Richard’s brother Edward IV, since even they are perplexed to justify such a theory in light of the fact that Henry lived in Brittany during the entirety of Richard’s reign until the Battle of Bosworth.  For a while the Duke of Buckingham was designated as the originator of the scheme, but now Margaret Beaufort, Henry’s mother, is the favored candidate.  No doubt Margaret, who was devoted to her son, plotted along with many others to bring him into power, even to the extent of participating in Buckingham’s rebellion; and no doubt, also, she was an important figure at court once Henry assumed the throne.  There is not the slightest evidence, however, that she assassinated anybody, and it is difficult to see how she could have managed the murder of the princes even if she desired to do so.  It is not, after all, as if she could casually pay a visit to the princes in the Tower for the purpose of slipping some undetectable poison into their afternoon snack.  Once the princes were confined to the Tower, no one outside of Richard’s henchmen had access to them.

We don’t know how the two princes died and it is even possible that they succumbed to illness rather than foul play – quite a plausible explanation, as they were confined all day long for months on end in a damp, ill-ventilated building on the edge of a mosquito-infested river.  The fact remains that Richard placed both of them under house arrest, without the slightest justification, as soon as he assumed the reins of power and that nothing was ever heard of them afterwards.  Richard’s supporters frequently argue that Elizabeth Woodville, the princes’ mother, would not have entered negotiations with him if he had been guilty of the murder of her sons.  They conveniently forget, however, that Richard executed both one of her brothers and one of her sons by her first marriage at the earliest opportunity, and there is no reason to suppose that she felt less attachment to them than to the sons of Edward IV. 

Elizabeth Woodville’s behavior, incidentally, is typical of that of many of the prominent women during the Wars of the Roses, which in general offers a number of puzzles for modern observers.  Anne Neville is one example.  At one point she married Edward, the son of Henry VI.  Edward was killed in the Battle of Tewksbury by the forces of Edward Duke of York, who then crowned himself as Edward IV – and indeed it is possible that Edward IV was personally responsible for the young man’s death.  Later Anne married Richard, at that time Duke of Gloucester.  Didn’t she find it rather odd to be marrying the brother of the man who killed her first husband?  Shakespeare certainly did. 

Then there is Cecily Neville, the mother of both Edward IV and Richard III.  During the first months of his reign Richard’s agents spread the rumor that Edward IV was in fact not the true son of Richard, Duke of York, in order to bolster Richard’s assertions that the two young sons of Edward came from an illegitimate line and thus had no claim to the throne.  In other words, Richard publicly accused his own mother of adultery.  If she felt any resentment at this treatment, she gave no sign of it.  She remained on cordial terms with her son throughout his lifetime and appears to have shrugged the matter off as a piece of necessary realpolitik. 

I have delved at some length into what may appear to be a fairly minor matter because I feel curious about how, in some remote future period, certain figures of our own era might be portrayed once those who have played a role in major events are long dead and their motives become obscured over time.  In particular, I wonder if, say, about a century from now whether some historians will attempt to construct a kind of hagiography about Donald Trump and try to justify his support for an insurrection, or about Vladimir Putin for his brutal and vicious ravaging of Ukraine, much in the style that Richard III’s adherents are tirelessly attempting to rehabilitate a man who, when all is said and done, obtained power by unscrupulous means and who ruthlessly eliminated opponents without any regard for the legality of his actions. 

Philadelphia announced today it will reinstate an indoor mask mandate, the first major U.S. city to do so.  The mandate goes into effect next week.  Currently the average number of daily new cases for the city is 142, greatly below the 4,000 average it was experiencing in January.  But the case rate has been rising sharply for the past few days, prompting the city officials to take a pro-active approach. 

The CDC is not, at this point, followed suit.  Mask wearing indoors remains optional.  Certainly people have been using masks very infrequently after the mandates have been lifted.  In recent days I have been in stores in which I have been nearly the only person wearing one; staff members as well as customers have discarded theirs.  The nationwide increase in cases has been about 3% from that of two weeks ago, but the increases are far from evenly distributed.  Many large cities in the Northeast besides Philadelphia, such as DC and New York, have seen increases as large as 50%.  But the national daily case rate is still far lower than the increase we have experienced during the past winter and the mortality rate remains low (less than 0.5%).  The new BA.2 variant does not appear a cause for special concern.  It is, like its parent variant omicron, is relatively mild in its effects and vaccinations are proving to be equally successful in providing protection against it.  The use of ICU beds to date has not significantly increased during this upsurge. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 499,635,315; # of deaths worldwide: 6,205,439; # of cases U.S.: 82,093,030; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,348.

Is COVID endemic yet? – The turpitude of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow – Evening statistics

Another fairly uneventful interval since the latest entry, Friday being taken up primarily with lawn work, which was greatly needed after spending a week away from home; whlle yesterday evening I was at a party among friends with whom I had traveled to Idaho this past summer, it being our custom to hold “post mortem” celebrations to commemorate the adventures we have enjoyed together.  Indoor gatherings of this nature are undertaken much more lightly than they were as little as six months ago.  In fact, one topic of conversation that arose was:  are we now at the endemic stage in all but name?

There are certainly indications that this may be so.  Masks are worn much less frequently than before, very sporadically within public indoor gatherings, such as stores and restaurants and hotels, and outdoors not at all.  People are less hesitant to use public transit, as I found during my return from the airport a few days ago, and airplane flights are booked to full capacity.  Infection rates are (temporarily?) on the rise for both DC and New York, but the number of people who are seriously affected remains relatively low.  Several states are already treating the disease as endemic, i.e., something to be lived with but not to the extent of disrupting daily habits.  On February 18^th California became the first state to unveil a response plan that treats the virus as a manageable risk. The plan is called SMARTER (shots, masks, awareness, readiness, testing, education, and Rx treatments).  In Utah Governor Spencer Cox laid out a state response that shifted to a plan called “Steady State” by March 31^st.  Missouri’s Governor Mike Parson announced the state will be shifting to an endemic phase April 1^st.  New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order to lift the state’s COVID-19 public health emergency and a statewide mask mandate in schools and daycares, which went into effect on March 7^th.  In Arizona Governor Doug Ducey announced the state has terminated its COVID-19 emergency declaration as of March 30^th.

We have made improvements in our vaccination status.  The recent surges in late 2021 and early 2022 have shaken the anti-vaxxers to some extent.  At this point 82% of the population over 5 years of age have received at least one dose and nearly 70% are fully vaccinated.  More than three-quarters of those 18 years and older are fully vaccinated and nearly 49% have received a booster.  More than 95% of all U.S. counties are rated by the CDC as low risk for incurring death as a result of the virus.  Even the much-publicized resurgence of COVID cases among prominent Washington politicians (68 by now among the Gridiron dinner attendees alone) has not, at this point, resulted in any deaths or any hospitalizations.  Does this mean that we can declare victory now?

Alas, not yet.  The mortality rate for COVID is certainly much lower than before.  Still, we lost more than 1,000 people over the past Friday and Saturday, which is not negligible.  The mortality rate for influenza in the 2018/2019 season was 34,157 for a twelve-month period; if the mortality rate for COVID remains constant at this point, the total for a twelve-month period starting from today will be nearly 6 times that amount.  Several experts have said that if we manage to reduce the average daily death rate to about 100, we will be doing pretty well (even though this figure seemed high during the early phases of the pandemic).  New variants will continue to emerge, and it is unknown whether they will be relatively mild, as omicron has been.    It took the 1918 flu pandemic three years to settle into a more regular pattern.  During that period, the U.S. had a significant wave in 1920 that killed more people in some cities than the previous waves had.  Finally, the severity of the disease has little to do with whether it is categorized as a pandemic or endemic. It is primarily based on the disease’s rate of spread.  And we are still undergoing large unexpected outbreaks in various locations, such as the current one in central New York. 

“What we have with COVID-19 is not predictable,” said Cynthia Leifer, an immunologist from Cornell. “I think everyone can agree that over the past two years, the one thing we can agree on is this is not predictable. Until we get to a stage where we know from year to year approximately who’s going to get sick, what type of people are going to get sick, and what the variants might be from year to year, if we don’t have that, we haven’t reached endemic.”

In other news, Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, has apparently decided to celebrate Palm Sunday by re-enacting the role of Caiaphas, the high priest who betrayed the innocent in his efforts to knuckle under to the secular authorities and thus ensure his retention of high office.  The enterprising prelate called on Russians today to rally around the authorities as Moscow pursues its military intervention in Ukraine.  He has repeatedly expressed approval of the invasion (he is careful not to use the term “invasion,” thereby complying with Putin’s censorship law) and has blessed the Russian soldiers fighting and plundering and butchering there.  After the Bucha massacre on April 3^rd he praised them for their “feats of service” during a ceremony in the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces.  In other projects he has urged Latvia to make Russian its official language and Bulgaria to express groveling submission to Russia on account of the latter nation’s role in obtaining Bulgarian independence from the Ottoman Empire; even though the Bulgarians, understandably enough, consider that they themselves played a significant role in their liberation that Kirill appears to have overlooked.  Both of the Russian Orthodox churches in the Netherlands and in Lithuania have decided that they have had enough of this man full of years and wickedness, and are currently making strenuous efforts to disassociate themselves from Moscow entirely. 

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  498,570,009; # of deaths worldwide: 6,201,796; # of cases U.S.: 82,053,242; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,131. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 498,964,614; # of deaths worldwide: 6,202,915; # of cases U.S.: 82,062,159; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,147.

Austin and Furnace Mountains – Visit to Sacramento and Monterey Peninsula – The Gridiron Club dinner – Evening statistics

It has been an eventful week, but since I had only intermittent access to a workstation there have been no entries until now. 

A week ago on Tuesday I went with the Vigorous Hikers to the hike along the Austin and Furnace Mountain Trails in the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park.  It is a substantial hike, 17 miles in length with nearly 4500 feet in elevation gain, and it encompasses the view from the summit of Blackrock, one of the finest in the entire park.  The trail skirts around a great tumbled heap of boulders, but even from the side of the rock pile it is nearly a 360-degree view looking down upon nearby Trayfoot Mountain and various other peaks further beyond.  It is a longish drive to the trailhead (more than 2 hours each way), and moreover I was obliged to participate in the annual Wanderbirds club meeting via Zoom after I returned, so I had little time remaining to prepare for my journey that evening and thus made no entry before my California trip began on the following day.

Now that the effects of the pandemic are easing, travel has become somewhat less taxing and I had determined to visit some friends of mine in Sacramento and Salinas, whom I had not seen for some time – six years for those in Sacramento, nine for those in Salinas.  As these timespans indicate, the pandemic alone is not entirely responsible for this long hiatus, but it certainly has hampered me in renewing face-to-face contact with them.  The beginning of April seemed like a good time to see them, since I will be occupied a great deal in succeeding months with various other trips. 

I flew in to the San Francisco airport, and even with this flight it became apparent how much less inconvenient air travel has become.  Despite the crowds, the passage through security took about ten minutes in all.  It appears that the scanners for checking out the passengers have been improved, for we were told not to remove our shoes, whereas in the past we were required to do.  From the airport I picked up my rental car and drove to Sacramento.  My host was occupied during the afternoon, so I strolled through Curtis Park before arriving at his house; it is a long grassplot lined with trees and flowering shrubs with a trail around the perimeter, whose streets contain elegant houses with elaborate gardens on the edge facing the park.  Afterwards I went to my host’s house.  We had a quiet dinner, which suited me after having traveled by plane for about five hours and by rental car for an additional two.  On the following day we spent a good deal of time in Old Town and the day after that in the downtown area.

Sacramento is a pleasant city that has the potential of being a very attractive one.  For quite a while the downtown area had a rather shabby and disheveled appearance, but it is being cleaned up gradually – very gradually, perhaps, but it has certainly improved over the past several years.  In particular, renovations have been made to an extensive covered mall that leads into Old Town and that for a long time was decaying and acquiring a depressed, downtrodden appearance.  Now, however, it is an open-air walkway reserved for pedestrians, and it wends its way around a new and elaborate arena for sports events and stage performances.  People were thronging the road and the adjacent stores seem to be doing a thriving business.  This improvement has come with a cost, of course.  I was told that the arena in particular aroused considerable resentment, since taxes had to be raised for pay for its construction and the city already has an arena not far from the new one.  The controversy it inspired, in fact, is similar to that surrounding the Verizon arena in the Chinatown area of Washington. 

The Old Town is of great historical interest, whose preserved buildings and wooden sidewalks give a vivid impression of what life was like during the gold rush of the mid-19^th century.  Most of the area’s 53 original buildings date from this period.  It possesses a museum-like quality, however, since most of the buildings are no longer residences and are now used as stores and restaurants.  The Old Town includes the Delta King, a large paddlewheel steamboat that is at this point permanently moored on the American River and has been converted to a hotel with restaurants and a special venue for wedding festivities.  We did not dine there, but we did visit the deck for the views of the river curving around the border of the city proper.

Although I like the city on the whole, I would not make a special trip to see it on its own account.  Monterey is a different matter.  My friends actually live in Salinas, but most of the hotels available for the area are in Monterey, which is only a 20-minute drive from their place.  Monterey is a former cannery town, whose sardine industry was most active in the early 20^th century.  But its history goes back much further.  It was founded in 1770 and was the capital of Alta California when the area was owned by Spain.  Even before it was established as a town various lagoons in its proximity were used by the Spanish explorers to guide their boats into a safe harbor.  Numerous old adobe houses set up by the most prominent of the colonial families are scattered throughout the downtown area.

The physical setting alone is beautiful:  a bay of mingled green- and blue-tinged water framed against pine-forested mountains rising in the background and beaches broken up here and there with large rounded boulders which numerous marine mammals use as stopping points during their migratory routes.  Marine life is extensive and varied:  not only mammals such as seals, otters, sea lions, and whales, but many varieties of birds, including gulls, terns, glebe, loons, and pelicans.  Kelp forests are extensive, particularly along the Cannery Row area.  A large marina stocked with yachts of all sizes and designs dominates the bay area close to downtown, as well as an old wharf whose space is now devoted to various shops and restaurants. 

The Cannery Row neighborhood lies further to the north and west along the peninsula.  It is not quite what I expected.  I thought that it would show more signs of the canning industry that once dominated the area.  But it is now a collection of fashionable hotels and upscale restaurants.  In a sense it has reverted to its original design.  In early days a few of the most influential people in the city had toyed with the idea of making it the equivalent of the Riviera.  Once the canning industry was established, however, those plans had to be abandoned:  the odors from the factories made it impossible to set it up as a tourist center.  Now the industry has long gone, and the neighborhood has simply become a spruce, smart, high-priced area along the beach.  It is sufficiently pretty, but the main interest of Monterey lies in the downtown area, with its historic homes (many of them converted to small museums) and the marina, where the seals swim and occasionally bask on the rocks, while the seabirds wheel overhead.

I arrived on a Saturday.  A combination of a fair and an outdoor market was being held in the park adjacent to the old Customs House near the marina.  Here I lunched before checking into the hotel and then walked extensively to explore the city, perhaps 14 miles in all.  The hotel itself was located a couple of miles from downtown and that evening I stayed in its vicinity rather than travel to downtown again; it had been a long day, though a pleasurable one.  The following day I met with my friends.  We went from the hotel to the downtown area and the marina as well.  Colonies of seals were floating by the pier; a few had taken shelter underneath the pier itself for relaxation.  There were numerous signs warning tourists that marine mammals, and sea lions in particular, are far from harmless; they have been known to attack people who get too close to them, and they have the ability to maul humans if they are provoked, being quite rapid in their movements despite their size.  For dinner that evening I ate at one of the restaurants on the wharf, tasting sea dabs for the first time:  their flesh is white and delicate, and since they are small (about six inches long) it is easy to overcook them; fortunately the chef who prepared my meal grilled them to just the right texture.  This day also I walked a great deal, going as far along the beach as Pacific Grove before returning to the hotel. 

On Monday I went to my friends’ house in Salinas, the town to the northeast of Monterey, and a few miles inland.  It is a somewhat less interesting city than Monterey –fairly prosperous or at any rate well enough, but not worth seeing on its own account.  My friends settled there because, as they told me, property values in Monterey are very inflated and one gets relatively little square footage in return for rent or mortgage payments, whereas Salinas prices are much more reasonable.  One of my friends has an interest in history and acts as a guide to one of the museums in downtown Monterey formed from the adobe homes in colonial days .  Under his guidance we took a drive to Spreckels, an old corporate town that is one of the best-preserved in the country.  Its emporium, which was established in 1898, is still operative.  Spreckels used to house workers for the Spreckels Sugar Company plant, which operated from 1899 to 1982.  It was the largest sugar beet factory for many years.  The houses there are somewhat surprising.  Most of the company towns centered about factories provided fairly rudimentary quarters for their workers, often cramped and jerry-built; these houses, however, were comfortable, solid, and, while not large, were sufficiently spacious to rear a family of children.  All of them had yards to the front and to the back.  Unlike Cannery Row, it has not altered in appearance, even though the town is now more of a bedroom community to Monterey and Salinas rather than a factory town.  A few new houses have been added, but their architectural style is similar to those of the earlier dwellings. 

At one point during the late evening I passed by a hotel where free COVID tests were being offered.  It seemed to me that I might as well take advantage of this opportunity, since I had recently traveled five hours by plane and had since dined out in restaurants more frequently during the past few days than I had done for many months combined.  The process took only a few minutes and the results came back much more promptly than I expected; on the following day I received a text that my results were negative.

Various tasks that are always associated with return from travel occupied much of my evening on the day of my return.  In addition, the weather affected my mood; the days in Sacramento and Monterey were warm and fairly sunny, becoming very clear for the last two days of the trip; and while the nights were cold, they were not at all damp.  In contrast, the weather during the evening of my return and the two days following seemed surpassingly dreary:  rain continually off and on, with gray, sullen-looking clouds and an atmosphere infused with water droplets, creating a perpetual chill despite temperatures being in the fifties.  On the other hand, even though I was away for less than a week, a kind of botanical explosion appears to be occurred in my absence:  trees and shrubs are unfurling their leaves and hardly any of the boughs are now bare, while ground flowers that were budding when I departed from California are in full bloom. 

Amidst all of these private pleasures I have, as may be inferred, not been avidly following developments in the news, and there is a great deal of catching up to do.  But one item may be noted, since it has implications for the DC metro area.  The annual Gridiron Club dinner is something of an institution in Washington, one of the few large-scale, white-tie events that are still held in the city.  The club is one of the most prestigious journalistic clubs in the nation.  Its annual dinner traditionally features the United States Marine Band, along with satirical musical skits by the club members, and often by members of the two House chambers as well.  It was not held during 2020 or 2021, on account of the pandemic, but conditions were deemed to be much less risky this year and the dinner was accordingly reinstated, with about 630 guests in attendance.  However, a few days after the dinner was held, 14 attendees tested positive for COVID.  Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff (CA) and Joaquin Castro (TX) are among these.  It is suspected – or rather more than suspected – that many others attending the dinner have also been afflicted, but have not yet publicly announced it.  In short, the dinner might prove to have been a super-spreader event. 

This outcome might have a side effect that admittedly is minor importance in comparison with the illness of many influential politicians, journalists and public officials, but is nonetheless undesirable from my point of view.  The Wanderbirds club has, as I indicated, recently been making plans to restore its bus hikes; but this development is causing its Board members to reconsider its decision.  I hope we can revert to using the bus again, despite the risk.  After all, people are taking public transit every day – although, as one Board member pointed out, subways and city buses open their doors every few minutes, causing air to circulate freely and disperse droplets that may spread the virus, and this would not be the case for bus rides to Shenandoah and the Massanuttens.  Well, one must bow to the decision, whatever it may be, of the Board’s Health Committee, whose members are considerably more knowledgeable about such matters than I am.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  496,157,333; # of deaths worldwide: 6,194,803; # of cases U.S.: 81,987,733; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,011,087. 

Making a mark in the hiking community of the area – The U.K. moving towards the endemic stage – Endemic is not synonymous with mild – Evening statistics

Today I received the new edition of “Hikes in Western Maryland,” for which I myself did some exploration upon the Savage River Trail the previous July.  It contained an insert of a pleasant note of acknowledgement for my efforts from the PATC Publications Committee head.  I am also listed in the Introduction as one of the numerous volunteer hikers who verified and updated the trail descriptions in this edition.  Thus in my own small way I have made a contribution to the hiking community at large in the area, first by participating in the efforts to produce this edition and also by my working with the Potomac Heritage Trail Association, particularly in aiding RS to carve out new trails in order to fill in the gaps currently existing in the PHT.  All of which has given me a new appreciation of the effort involved in plotting trails over huge distances and then producing guidebooks and maps to navigate them, trails and guides which in earlier days I took more or less for granted. 

The U.K. appears to be on the verge of declaring COVID to be in the endemic stage, at any rate as far as within its own borders is concerned.  Free COVID testing will no longer be available after the 31^st, except for certain groups who are considered vulnerable, and the government has cut funding to several COVID surveillance programs.  But even if COVID becomes genuinely endemic, i.e., with case numbers constant across the population without any rapid surges or falls, “endemic” does not necessarily imply low severity.  “You get the impression that people are using endemic now to mean that it is a mild infection,” said Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in infectious diseases at the University of East Anglia. “That is not implied in the term endemicity.  Malaria is an endemic disease and that kills hundreds of thousands of children each year.  Nobody would say it is mild.”

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  482,800,117; # of deaths worldwide: 6,150,938; # of cases U.S.: 81,644,016; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,003,950. 

The Workhouse and Occoquan Regional Park – American women suffrage – Brooks turns on Trump – The evanescent quality of Biden’s courage – Why some people have escaped COVID – A long-deferred diploma – Evening statistics

RS led a hike from the Workhouse, a former prison that was shut down in 2001 and then converted, somewhat improbably, to a collection of art studios.  The facility was notable in its time, for several reasons.  When it was first created during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, it was unusual in that it concentrated on rehabilitation.  The prison contained some acreage that the prisoners worked to raise food for themselves and several worked at other handicrafts in addition, which in some cases served them well once they were released.  On the other hand, it was the prison selected for punishing the suffragettes who protested at the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s administration – and when I say “punishment,” I am not exaggerating.  The prisoners were force-fed, beaten, and abused in the most shameless fashion, even though their offense was ostensibly the minor one of blocking city traffic.  One of the prisoners had her head bashed against a wall, causing her to become unconscious as a result of the concussion, and a second prisoner had a heart attack upon witnessing this assault, in the belief that her companion had actually been killed. 

There is a monument to the events that led to women suffrage in the neighboring Occoquan Regional Park, where one loop of the hike took us.  It was completed quite recently.   I was last there less than a year ago, and the monument was still under construction.  It contains a series of handsome panels outlining the course of events that led to women suffrage in this country – nineteen in all, to coincide with the 19^th Amendment that gave American women the right to vote. 

Indeed the park and its environs are still being developed; the second part of the hike went along an area that when RS and I for the most part bushwhacked when we were last there and which now has well-defined trails.  RS, in fact, plotted out the route of several of these, and he is good enough to say that my accompanying him on his exploratory excursions in this region has been of some use.

Mo Brooks has testified against Donald Trump, stating that Trump had urged him to overturn the 2020 election, including the months after President Biden took office.  This development is to some extent gratifying, marking the first time that a Trump ally has accused the latter of urging illegal actions in order to restore his presidency.  On the other hand, Brooks has maintained a discreet silence about his own conduct on January 6^th, 2021, when he exhorted the rabble – no, no (begging their pardon), the tourists – to undermine the certification of Biden’s win by any means possible.  Still, his admission may not be without its use.  John Eastman, Trump’s legal adviser, has challenged his subpoena from the investigating committee, on the grounds that he was providing legal advice based on his own interpretation of the Constitution in urging Mike Pence to halt the certification.  If Trump is ever forced to mount a legal defense on his own behalf, he is likely to plead along similar lines.  But Brooks’ allegations undermine such claims, since it shows that Trump had continued his campaign after leaving office and long after he could lay any claim to holding on to the White House. 

I have, regrettably, given Biden credit for more spine than he actually possesses.  After he said, with (as I thought) refreshing honesty, that Putin “no longer should remain in power,” he is now backpedaling.  When a reporter asked whether he was advocating a regime change, he simply said “No,” and various officials are anxiously assuring the public that he never even hinted at anything so shocking and improper.  “The U.S. does not have a policy of regime change in Russia,” said Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO. “Full stop.”  And it appears that it indeed is a full stop to any determined opposition on the part of the U.S. against this vicious and bloodthirsty tyrant intent on shattering the peace of the entire European continent.

Ma Sang-hyuk, a physician in South Korea, has provided an explanation of why some people have not yet caught COVID:  they have no friends.  “The adults who have not yet been infected with COVID-19 are those who have interpersonal problems,” he wrote on Facebook for his March 16^th entry – and then hastily deleted it after the amount of backlash it created.  South Korea is only slightly below the U.S. in infection rate – 23.0% as opposed to 24.4% — but that still means that over three-quarters of its population has managed to escape COVID to date.  It strains the imagination a bit to assume that all of them are living in complete isolation.  There are slightly more plausible theories as to why some have escaped the disease after it has been raging for more than two years:

1. The vaccines, use of facemasks, and social distancing have been effective preventatives, even if they are not perfect;
2. A significant number of the immunocompromised have indeed cut back on social interaction as a protective measure, thereby reducing the risks of spreading the infection among their associates;
3. Some people may have contracted the disease without symptoms and thus have not realized that they have been infected (one study suggests that as many as 43% of Americans have actually been infected, even though the official figure is barely over half that amount);
4. Household transmission, though it occurs frequently, is not inevitable, so that even if a member of a household comes down with the disease it does not mean that everyone else in the household will automatically become infected;
5. Some people are just lucky, I guess.  I like to think that I’m one of them.

I have phrased that last one rather facetiously, but in fact Dr. Kevin Dieckhaus, chief of infectious diseases at UConn Health in Connecticut, has said pretty much the same thing:  “There’s a lot of randomness to COVID.  There are people who seem to have minimal exposure who come down with it, and there are people who have heavy exposure who seem to do OK.”

Sometimes a sad story has a happy ending.  Merrill Pittman Cooper had attended Storer College from 1934 to 1938, at which point he was forced to drop out after his family moved away from Harpers Ferry to Philadelphia for financial reasons.  Storer College was founded just after the Civil War to provide black students with an opportunity for education and indeed was the only such resource for them in the entire state of West Virginia for many years – decades, in fact.  Eventually, as restrictions against black students moderated, the institution shut down in 1955.  One can hardly imagine a more beautiful setting for a school.  It is perched high on the hill overlooking the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, as well as the lower part of Harpers Ferry itself.  I have been on its grounds many times, by means of a spur trail from the town that skirts through the former campus to the Appalachian Trail.  To return, however, to Cooper’s story:  He went on to complete a long and successful career in the transportation industry, eventually becoming union vice president.  Nonetheless, during a family visit to Harpers Ferry in 2018, he uttered some remarks to his relatives about the regret he felt in never having been able to obtain his high school diploma.  Whereupon his family reached out to park service members (Storer College is now part of Harpers Ferry National Park), and they in turn worked with local, regional, and state official partners to honor Cooper with a ceremony and diploma on March 19^th.  So just a few days ago, at the age of 101, he has acquired his diploma at long last.  A photo shows him proudly holding up his diploma for all the world to see, his features radiant with a joyousness that is impossible to forget or describe.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  481,859,155; # of deaths worldwide: 6,147,878; # of cases U.S.: 81,621,888; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,003,467. 

Oxon Cove and Oxon Hill Farm – The Capitol then and now – Biden’s surprising comment about Putin – Second booster is available, but is it needed? – Evening statistics

I went to Oxon Cove Park today, which contains the trailhead for an isolated segment of the Potomac Heritage Trail.  The idea was to determine whether the PHT can be extended and connected to other segments.  I found that it is possible, for it leads to a bike route that can be taken all the way to Anacostia.   From there, a number of routes lead to Georgetown, after which one can go over the Key Bridge to Roosevelt Island and resume the PHT from its parking area.  It must be admitted, however, that the bike route in question presents some difficulties; it runs through some rather drab neighborhoods around the border between Southeast DC and Prince Georges County – not unsafe, but not especially pleasant either.  The route I took skirted by Oxon Cove, a wide expanse of water over which one may view the eastern side of Washington in the distance.  I also went around Oxon Hill Farm, a complex whose earliest buildings date from the early 19^th century.  The farm contains the original manor, a brick stable (unusual for the time—most stables were built from wood), a root cellar that provided the equivalent of a modern-day refrigeration, and examples of 19^th-century farm implements.  The manor is a comfortably-sized house but not a stately mansion by any means.  There was a sobering note among the placards describing the life of the original family living there; even a relatively modest house was largely maintained by slave labor.  Samuel Welby, the original owner, left an estate of about $3225 (a fairly large sum for the time, but again, not enormous), and over three-quarters of its value was reckoned in the slaves attached to it.

Oxon Hill provided another cause for interest.  The house is situated on an eminence that overlooks the eastern edge of the capital and the original inhabitants were thus enabled to witness the Battle of Bladensburg during the War of 1812 from a distance.  One of the placards quoted a letter from Mrs. Welby writing to her relatives about the intense distress she felt upon seeing the Capitol in flames.  More than two centuries later, the Capitol again became a source of sympathetic anguish on account of its being besieged, and on this occasion the assailants were not an army of foreign invaders but our own countrymen.

Biden has said that Putin “cannot remain in power” during his visit to Poland.  That remark goes considerably further than anything he has said up to this point about the invasion, and one wonders about the extent it will commit our nation to participate more directly in the Ukrainian resistance than it has done up to this point.  It is not clear whether this statement was part of his prepared speech or was a reaction of spontaneous outrage.  Lviv, the closest major Ukrainian city to Poland, has witnessed several explosions from Russian attacks, and flames and billowing smoke are coming close to the Polish border.   I certainly have no quarrel with advocating Putin’s overthrow; but I would like to know how Biden plans to reach this goal.  The very least he can do, it seems to me, is to equip Ukraine with sophisticated fighter jets for the purpose of assailing the Russian invaders. 

Biden is also offering a free second booster to Americans 50 and older, with distribution beginning as early as next week.  Ordinarily I have little sympathy with the anti-vaxxers, but I can readily understand that sentiment that inspired one to respond “if you make it to 20 without dropping dead, you get that shiny toaster or a VCR.”  One can make a case for an annual booster, but not for getting one just a few months after receiving the first one.  The CDC has said that the Pfizer and Moderna boosters remain 78% effective at least five months after they are administered.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  480,839,751; # of deaths worldwide: 6,145,441; # of cases U.S.: 81,614,255; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,003,418. 

A day of pleasures – Mask mandates in schools – Slight increase in influenza cases – Evening statistics, with a caveat

Today was a good day, at any rate on a personal level.  I met with RK, whom I have not seen for months.  Our friendship has endured for decades, but she has had some health issues and as a result has been much more cautious than I have about during the past year about meeting with people indoors.  But the decrease in COVID infections has given her more confidence, so today we lunched together in Shirlington at a Thai restaurant of which we are both very fond and which has miraculously weathered the pandemic without any loss of quality or of reasonableness in price.  Afterwards we went to Mount Vernon, which I have not visited for years.  We lingered at the museum there, which is relatively new and which delves extensively into George Washington’s life and achievements.  The day was sufficiently warm to allow us to wander down to the old and new tombs and the wharf, as well as to the prominence behind the mansion to view the Potomac from above.  It was good to reconnect with her; in Samuel Johnson’s words, “Friendships must be kept in constant repair.” 

RK, as I have mentioned, is a teacher in a private school.  We discussed how the removal of mask mandates has affected her work.  For a time in the early stages of the pandemic she taught via webcamming, but she has been back to classes in person for well over a year by now.  Until recently both teachers and students were required to wear masks; now, of course, mask mandates have been removed.  Some still wear masks but many do not.  She continually wears masks herself while teaching, as indeed I would do in her place.  The risks of contracting COVID are lower than before, but why take unnecessary chances when being in close proximity with several dozen people five days per week and seven consecutive hours per day?  Free testing is available to staff and pupils alike on a weekly basis, but it is not mandatory; RK has friends in other private schools, in which weekly testing is supplied by the school and which all of its teachers and students are required to undergo. 

Incidentally, the rate of influenza has gone up as the mask mandates have been removed.  Overall this season, an estimated 3.1 million flu cases have been reported. There have been an estimated 1,800 flu-related deaths, including those of 13 children.  This result is still significantly lower than would be the case for a typical flu season, which can cause tens of millions of illnesses and tens of thousands of deaths.  But during the flu season of the previous year, when mask mandates and social distancing directives were firmly in place, there was virtually no flu activity in the U.S.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 479,306,156; # of deaths worldwide: 6,137,741; # of cases U.S.: 81,590,763; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,002,919. 

But these figures need to be treated with caution.  The number of excess deaths (i.e., the number of deaths in excess of the usual annual death rate) in countries across the globe suggests that the death toll from COVID is in reality much higher.  More than 100 countries do not collect reliable statistics on expected or actual deaths at all, or do not release them in a timely manner.  Even in countries that are fairly meticulously in tabulating death statistics, some of them, such as the Netherlands, counted only those individuals who died in hospital after testing positive for COVID.  In countries where reliable statistics are somewhat more difficult to obtain, such as Mexico and Russia, the number of excess deaths is greater than the number of deaths officially ascribed to COVID by a factor of 2 or 3.  India has reported 500,000 COVID-related deaths, but its count of excess deaths may be as much as ten times that amount.  In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, even statistics on excess deaths can be difficult to obtain.  All in all, according to demographers, the probabilities are that the amount of deaths from COVID is probably between 12 and 22 million worldwide, or between 0.15% and 0.3% of the global population. 

An explanation for the recent dearth of news in the journal entries – Biden remains non-committal about aiding Ukraine – The abortion law of Idaho – Side-effects of the pandemic, bad and good – A potential pro-active measure for lessening infection – Evening statistics

I have been out and about the past several days, in part because I am helping RS verify a route that will, when finalized, lead from Harpers Ferry to the Occoquan.  On Sunday, we went from Harpers Ferry to Snickers Gap (21 miles); on Tuesday, from Balls Bluff to Morven Park (14½ miles, but since we did this hike as a loop for the Vigorous Hikers, the actual length along the north-south axis covered is considerably less); on Wednesday, from Edwards Landing to Seneca Road (24 miles, but again the actual length is less because we lost some mileage in the course of going off-route during our bushwhacking); today, from Colvin Run Mill to Seneca Road (13½ miles).  There have been other tasks to distract me as well, such as developing the hiking schedule for the Capital Hiking Club for the second quarter of the year and making preliminary plans for the Wanderbirds hiking schedule during the third quarter of the year – these being the times that the two clubs currently plan to revert to bus hikes.  All of which has made me neglect the news for the much of the week. 

Perhaps it is just as well, for the news is rather gloomy.  Biden has held a news conference following his meeting with European leaders in response to Zelinskyy’s pleas for NATO and the U.S. to aid the Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion more substantially.  Biden has, characteristically, striven his utmost to assume an air of gracefulness while sitting on the fence.  He said that there’s a “real threat” of Russia using chemical weapons in Ukraine and he added that “there will be a response” if Russia actually does so, but on what the response will consist he was, to use the most charitable word, vague about the details.  Zelininskyy has asked NATO to provide Ukraine with tanks, fighter jets, and other planes to combat the arms that Russia has deployed, without any restrictions; but so far he has not received an answer and it does not appear likely that he will get one.

Governor Brad Little of Idaho has signed into law a measure that allows people who would have been family members to sue a doctor who performs an abortion after cardiac activity (or what passes for cardiac activity; for, as has already been noted, the human heart is not fully formed until 20 weeks into a pregnancy) is detected in an embryo.  Rapists will not be able to sue under such circumstances, it is true; but their relatives would be allowed to do so.  The law is scheduled to take effect 30 days after the signing.  Court challenges are naturally expected.  Opponents have said repeatedly that many women are not even aware that they are pregnant a bare six weeks after conception.  

What is surprising is not the extremity of the anti-abortion sentiment on behalf of this Republican governor, but his open admission that such a law is probably unconstitutional.  “Deputizing private citizens to levy hefty monetary fines on the exercise of a disfavored but judicially recognized constitutional right for the purpose of evading court review undermines our constitutional form of government and weakens our collective liberties,” he wrote, and he added that a similar approach could be used to restrict gun rights, a measure that would not be very popular in a state where a large number of its residents are enthusiastic hunters.  He also expressed concern about the provision that allowed the relatives of rapists to sue.  But despite these reservations, he has signed in the law, in the hope of currying favor with the faction that currently endorses a far-right opponent for the upcoming gubernatorial election.

Among the many side-effects of the pandemic is the exodus of residents from major metropolitan areas.  New York City was the greatest loser, from which nearly 328,000 citizens moved out.  (It should be added that new residents from abroad and new births have more than made up for this loss.)  Metropolitan Los Angeles lost almost 176,000 residents, the San Francisco area lost more than 116,000 residents, and greater Chicago lost more than 91,000 people from 2020 to 2021.    The San Jose, Boston, Miami, and Washington areas have also lost residents, although to a lesser degree.  The pandemic facilitated these flights from urban areas by driving businesses to direct their workers to operate from their homes.  With daily commuting becoming less common, many are taking advantage of the situation by moving to less expensive neighborhoods without concern for being in the vicinity of the office that employs them. 

Another effect has been a noticeable increase in deaths from heart disease and strokes, due to the over-crowding of hospitals that the pandemic induced.  Deaths from these causes had actually declined during the period 2011-2019, but during the first year of the pandemic deaths from heart disease increased by 6.4% and deaths from strokes increased by 4.3%.  Overall, from 2019 to 2020 the estimated age-adjusted mortality rate increased by 15.9%, largely due to COVID-19 mortality. Sadly, the official death toll from COVID has surpassed 1 million in the U.S.

On the other hand, influenza and various other virus-related respiratory diseases have actually decreased during the pandemic.  The measures to prevent infection from COVID have been effective in curbing other viruses.  Flu activity during the 2020-21 season was the lowest it has been since current reporting began in 1997.  The overall cumulative hospitalization rate for the 2020-21 flu season was 0.8 per 100,000.  By way of contrast, for the 2019-20 flu season, the overall cumulative end-of-season hospitalization rate was 66.2 per 100,000.

Towards the beginning of the pandemic a certain political leader made the following suggestion to physicians treating the emerging disease:

“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous – whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light.  I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it.”

Incredible as it sounds, Donald Trump may have been correct in this assessment, no matter how widely he has been mistaken in others.  A new paper, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, has found that filling a room with a special type of ultraviolet light can reduce the presence of microbes in the air by up to 98 percent – effectively making the indoors as safe as outdoors in terms of person-to-person virus transmission.  This light is known as far-UVC .  The technology for producing UVC has actually been in place for well over one-and-a-half centuries.  It has shorter wavelengths and higher photonic energy than both its UVA and UVB brethren.  It was first used for sterilization purposes in 1878.  In 1903, Niels Ryberg Finsen received a Nobel prize for using it to treat disfiguring diseases such as lupus.  By 1910 it was routinely used for disinfecting water supplies. 

UVC light, however, has numerous unpleasant side-effects, including, if the exposure is too high, second-degree burns and eye injuries.  About ten years ago, however, a group of scientists refined UVC light by heavily filtering it so that only the lowest wavelengths were beamed out.  This “far-UVC” light is powerful enough to kill viruses and bacteria, but not sufficiently powerful to affect the human skin or the human eye.  It is inexpensive and easy to produce, and as its use increases it has the potential of reducing not only the rate of infection by COVID through transmission indoors, but of other viruses as well.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 477,733,152; # of deaths worldwide: 6,132,371; # of cases U.S.: 81,548,976; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,001,616. 

Uncertainty of news about the Ukrainian invasion and the pandemic – Personal hiking adventures – Absence of facemasks in a local brewery – A two-year retrospective – Evening statistics

If the previous entries have concentrated mainly on the personal level, it is not because I have lost interest in more pressing issues such as the pandemic or the Ukrainian invasion – very far from it – but on account of the impossibility of getting either new or reliable information about these matters.  With regard to the Ukrainian invasion, for example:  the Russians are passionately protesting against the war and Putin’s regime; the Russians who support the war outnumber those who oppose it by a factor of two-to-one.  The Russian losses are confined to a few hundred; the Russian losses number in the thousands.  The Russians have deployed their arsenal with less expertise than outside observers had expected; the Russians are using hypersonic weapons to great effect, causing much damage and loss of life.  And so on.  I simply find it impossible to determine any clear picture of the war at large from such accounts; and to judge by the contradictory assessments emerging from the Pentagon, our military experts are as perplexed as I am. 

As far as the pandemic is concerned, we seem to be in a holding pattern.  It has been “winding down” for weeks on end, but both the CDC and the WHO have been reluctant to say when it will pass to the endemic stage.  And understandably so – new variants are continually emerging, and no one knows whether any of these will expand to the point of displacing the omicron variant and, if so, whether such a variant will be more lethal in its effects than the relatively benign omicron, whose mortality rate is considerably lower than those of the variants that preceded it.  So the pandemic remains officially a pandemic for some indeterminate period. 

And in the meantime we in the U.S. continue to look after our own affairs, as is usual, buffered as we are by oceans to the west and to the east, and without much regard to what is happening in other countries.  After the winter storm of the previous week, weather in the East has been calm and warm for the most part, and indeed unseasonably warm over this past Friday and Saturday. 

On Saturday I went with other members of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Association to go over a possible extension of the trail route along the grounds of the Noman Cole Pollution Control plant with representatives from the county and from the plant itself.  Going alongside a pollution treatment plant does not, in the abstract, sound like the most attractive route for a trail, but in fact the plant facilities are surrounded by tracts of undeveloped woodland for the purpose of allowing odors from the tanks used for treating the sewage to disperse so that they do not become an irritant for the inhabitants of the nearby housing developments.  It was quite gratifying to see how the various officials reacted with enthusiasm to the possibility of filling in one of the gaps in the PHT, which currently is still non-continuous in places. 

Also, I had an interesting conversation with one of them, who has been a participant in Civil War reenactments.  He was telling me about the differences between hiking for relaxation and going over battlefields such as Antietam in preparation for such reenactments.  The loads they carry (including muskets, which are very cumbersome) hinder them greatly, and of course they wear 19^th-century standard military boots, which are much less comfortable for hiking than the boots I select from outfitters with due regard to their fit and weight.  I mentioned a visit I had taken some years ago to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, MD; he had never been there, but we both discussed various aspects of medical treatment in those days (operations without anesthetics, medicines based on heavy metals such as mercury and antimony, etc.) and concluded with profound thankfulness for living in an age with much more sophisticated treatments both for wounds and for diseases.

The presentation of the proposed route was concluded by noon.  After lunch, RS and I went a few miles together, going from Mason Neck West to Lorton, with most of our route taking place in Meadowood.  It was very warm that day, and although rain had been in the forecast earlier, it remained warm (though not humid) and fairly sunny for the duration of our hike.

Then on yesterday, the first day of spring, RS and I joined the Harpers Ferry Bolivar Trail and Town Alliance for a hike along the Appalachian Trail from Harpers Ferry to Snickers Gap, ending up at the Bear Chase Brewery on Rte. 602:  a hike of well over 21 miles and with about 4000 feet of elevation gain.  The group that went on this hike contained several members considerably younger than RS or myself; but, if the truth must be owned, they were for the most part not especially swift, and RS told me afterwards that they were somewhat confounded by the ease with which I outdistanced them.  There was a bit of confusion at one point.  We were supposed to wait at the David Lesser shelter to regroup.  But I arrived there at 11:10 and a few others came in over a period between 11:25 and 11:40.  We waited for a time but the remainder of the group was slow in coming.  Finally we noticed a couple of group members simply hiking past the intersection between the AT and the trail leading to the shelter, so we decided that it was best to continue.  This day, thankfully, was more seasonal in temperature, for the latter part of the hike included the beginning of the “Roller Coaster,” a 13½-mile segment in the AT that derives its name from going up and down over several steep hills in succession, and it can be unpleasant to cover in extreme heat.  

I arrived at the brewery at about 3:40.  I had expected to see others there, because I thought that a greater number of hikers in our group had bypassed the shelter than was actually the case.  So I was the first to arrive and I spent several minutes looking in vain for some of the others.  The brewery is located on a plateau above Snickers Gap and is unprotected by trees.  The weather became very blustery and I eventually waited inside, venturing out periodically to check whether any other hikers had arrived.  The brewery, to my mind, is a less inviting place to linger than the various wineries that I had visited after various other hikes.  The taproom, which is the main room for the customers, is a large rectangular area enclosed by windows with full-length glass panes to enable one to savor the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  But the crowd of people and the background music in an enclosed area make it difficult to hear others even when they are seated next to you, and the seats are little better than stools, consisting of flat metal plated material supported by high thin legs that elevate one’s feet well above the floor when seated.  There is no denying, however, that the grounds are handsome and that, in addition to various brews, they serve wine and various foods as well.  Eventually I found the wife of the hike organizer, who had been tasked to meet with us and provide transport to some of the hikers to the point where we began.  She was accompanied by her 8-month old baby, an infant with a very happy disposition, serenely nestling in her mother’s arms and not displaying the least amount of fretfulness in response to the noise about her.  I was glad to obtain their company, for I had to wait for some time.  With one other exception among the group, the first wave of hikers did not arrive until about 5:00. 

Although I had a facemask in my pack, I did not use it.  None of the other customers or any of the personnel tending the bar was wearing one, and if I had put one on I would have had to remove it in any case whenever I began to drink or eat.  To wear one upon entering therefore would have seemed like an affectation and, since we were in an area that the CDC has declared such measures to be no longer necessary, I decided against using mine in such surroundings. 

Yesterday, in addition to being the first day of spring, marked an anniversary of a sort.  The official declaration of the beginning of the COVID pandemic, of course, took place on March 11, 2020.  But it was on March 20^th of that year when I first embarked upon keeping this record.  It therefore seems appropriate to take a retrospective glance at this point and to see the extent to which matters have changed since the pandemic began.

I am very thankful to say that my personal health remains unaffected during the events of the past two years.  It is not merely that I had escaped the ravages of COVID, but I have not been afflicted with ailments that attend many when they are in their sixties:  no  bursitis, no bone loss, no need for crowns or root canal work, and so on.  I have remained active during this time and my stamina remains unaffected.  The hike of the preceding day was, as I said, nearly 22 miles, but while I was certainly tired when it ended I was not prostrated and I could attend to other tasks (such as the hour-and-a-half drive back home, for example) without strain. 

I continue to bring a facemask with me (either on my person or in the car) whenever I leave my house.  It has become as much of a habit by this time as checking to ensure that I have my keys in my pocket before I close the house door.

Physical activity appears to have increased generally, even though the impetus to get out of doors in waning.  It is possible that many people, after being forced to go out of doors more often on account of the pandemic, have discovered how beneficial and enjoyable such activity can be, and have therefore incorporated it into their daily lives.  Certainly I encounter more people on the trails than I did formerly.  There were many on the Appalachian Trail yesterday, even though the weather was less encouraging than it had been a day or so previously.

By degrees the inhibitions on social life and convening in crowds have been lifting.  Indoor gatherings are more frequent and all interstate travel restrictions have long since disappeared.  Both the Capital Hiking Club and the Wanderbirds are planning to resume bus hikes.  Details are still being worked out, but it seems likely that we will be reverting to the arrangements we have had in the past.  Masks are still required for public transportation but more people are using buses and the Metro than I had observed previously.

Travel has become easier, although it is still somewhat more complicated than it has been before the pandemic began.  Travel within the country’s border is not difficult.  At this point wearing a mask on airplane flights is the only additional complication.  International travel is still somewhat more cumbersome, although that may change.  Many countries do not require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test result within 24 hours of the airplane flight.  It is still necessary to submit to such a test to re-enter the country, however, and that circumstance is not likely to change for some time.

Theoretically it should be possible for me to visit museums more frequently and take in entertainment such as concerts or theater performances.  Practically I have not yet done so.  A kind of inertia, I suppose, has set in with regard to such activities, and it will require some effort to overcome it.

It is rather sad to look back at previous predictions and to see how far off of the mark they have become.  In July of 2020 I suggested that the virus case count worldwide could expand to as many as 800 or 900 million – but I did so by way of hyperbole.  The case count is currently approaching 500 million, so such a prediction no longer seems extravagant.   The development and deployment of the vaccines, of course, have slowed down both the infection rate and the mortality rate.  But COVID has claimed the lives of over 6 million to date.  Several months earlier I predicted that our own nation would see over 1 million deaths from the pandemic; it seemed a remote possibility at the time, but currently our death toll is approaching that undesirable milestone.  Over 24% of living Americans have contracted the virus – and that is only the official figure, for many may have received positive results from home testing and have never reported it.

In addition to the toll that the pandemic has taken on our health care system , it has also played a role in damaging the nation’s social structure at large.  But that is so complicated a topic that it must wait for a separate entry to cover it in more detail.

Today’s statistics as of 9:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:471,912,762; # of deaths worldwide: 6,104,113; # of cases U.S.: 81,428,553; # of deaths; U.S.: 998,212. 

Along the Potomac – A new bridge between Europe and Asia – COVID studies – Evening statistics

I went with RS today on a variant of a hike we’ve done in the past along the south bank of the Potomac (i.e., the Virginia side).  We started from Brunswick, crossed the bridge, and eventually ascended to a high meadow that provided an extensive 360-view not unlike some of those I have seen from the so-called “balds” on the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee and North Carolina.  After that we went down to the river bank and then climbed up steeply to Eagle Point, an area along the ridge of the high hills about 1200 feet above the river that provides untrammeled views about 2 miles east of Harpers Ferry, including that of the river winding towards the town in the distance and of several large islets with groves of sycamores.  After that we descended down towards the river again.   This portion of the hike was a bushwhack.  But it was not unusually difficult, since the undergrowth is not dense at this season.  It was, to be sure, somewhat more arduous than walking on defined trails but the unique vistas it provided were worth a certain amount of exertion.  The weather was a great contrast to what it had been a week ago; after the snowstorm of the previous weekend, the temperatures have been steadily rising and today it went up to nearly 80 degrees.  No one would have guessed, without consulting the calendar, that we are still in winter, even if at the very end of the season.

In the midst of the tumult that Europe in general is undergoing, a great achievement has been completed.  The 1915 Canakkale Bridge was officially opened today by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.  It spans the Dardanelles, thereby connecting Europe and Asia.  (The “1915” in the bridge’s name refers to the year of an Ottoman victory in battle during World War I.)  There are three other bridges between Turkey’s European and Asian shores, but they are all in Istanbul.  Up to this point, vehicles travelling between the crossing of the Dardanelles between Anatolia and the Gallipoli peninsula required a one-hour ferry journey.  The additional waiting time could prolong the journey’s duration to as much as five hours. Now automobiles will be able to get across in about six minutes.  The bridge is about 3 miles in length and it has the longest main span, or distance between the two towers, of any suspension bridge in the world.

By this time numerous studies have been conducted about the COVID virus.  Some of the conclusions these have reached are:

1. Neurological risks have not been increased by the vaccines.  Bell’s palsy (facial weakness), encephalomyelitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord), and Guillain-Barré syndrome (a nerve condition) were no more common in the vaccine recipients than in the general population.  However, there has been a slight increase of these conditions among those who have contracted COVID and have since recovered.  In other words, those who shunned the vaccines for fear of incurring neurological conditions actually increased their chances of becoming afflicted by them. 
2. People who have been bedridden for seven days or more with COVID are at increased risk of anxiety and depression.  I’m not certain why an elaborate research project (the study analyzed data from Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the UK collected between March 2020 and August 2021 on more than 247,000 people, including 9,979 who were diagnosed with COVID) was thought necessary to reach this conclusion.  I should think that most people would become anxious if they contracted a disease with a significant mortality rate and an even higher rate of leaving behind a large number of adverse after-effects.  However, for what it is worth, those who had COVID and were bedridden for at least a week had a 61% higher risk for symptoms of depression and a 43% higher risk for anxiety, for up to 16 months after their diagnosis, as compared to those who were never infected.  On the other hand, patients who had COVID-19 but who were not bedridden actually had significantly lower rates of depression than people who had never contracted the virus. 
3. Those who have had an inflamed heart muscle (myocarditis) in the past can safety receive the COVID vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech without causing the problem to recur. Myocarditis is a common complication of COVID and of other viral infections,  It has been a rare side effect associated with some COVID vaccines, primarily in young males.  But the sampling of those who had previously experienced myocarditis and who had received the vaccines have not recorded a relapse in even a single instance.

Today’s statistics as of 9:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 467,755,956; # of deaths worldwide: 6,093,107; # of cases U.S.: 81,385,104; # of deaths; U.S.: 997,100.   Although cases have been rising again in Europe, COVID-related deaths have not.  Today’s death toll was less than 5,000 worldwide – the lowest it has been in a very long time. 

No VP slot for Pence – The GOP begins to move away from Donald – Surprising effectiveness of Ukrainian resistance – People still wear masks, despite the CDC’s lenient recommendations – Evening statistics

Donald Trump has announced that if he should run for Presidential office again, Mike Pence would not be a potential running mate.  Pence’s reaction to this statement has not been recorded, but in all probability it will be one of intense relief.  He had been Trump’s loyal adherent during the four years he served as Vice-President and he has consistently refused to say as much as a word condemning his former superior’s treasonous attempt to usurp the 2020 election; but even his sycophancy, it appears, has limits and he does not appear at all inclined to associate again with the man whose followers openly advocated his lynching during the assault on the Capitol.

Pence is not alone in his alienation.  It appears that one unexpected side-effect of the Ukrainian invasion is a loosening of the fetters Trump has imposed upon the Republican party.  Trump’s endorsement of Putin – on which he later back-pedaled when he belatedly perceived how it rebounded on him – was so distasteful to the majority of the populace, liberal and conservative alike, that the Republican Party is distancing itself to a further extent than before from Trump and is attempting to out-rival the Democrats in its hawkish attitude towards the Russian invaders.  For example, in the campaign for a North Carolina Senate seat, Pat McCrory has attempted to discredit his rival (and Trump’s favored candidate) Ted Budd by representing him as a Putin sympathizer.  Budd’s comments were actually lifted out of context and he has gone on record as being a supporter of the Ukrainian defenders; but the mere fact that such a tactic can be deployed during a significant mid-term campaign is an indicator of how the Republican Party is at last beginning to shift away from their brazen idol.

While it is clear that the Ukrainian resistance cannot force 150,000 Russian troops out of their country, it has inflicted more damage on its opponents than experts expected.  As many as 7,000 Russian soldiers may have been killed and as much as 10% of its armor has been lost, or at least so the latest estimates would have us believe.  Many Russian soldiers were so poorly briefed they were surprised even to be invading Ukraine, and even more surprised to be shot at once they crossed the border. Special forces “were told it was a three-day excursion,” according to one account.  Peace talks between the two sides have gathered pace in the last 48 hours as the war shows no sign of coming to a resolution.  Zelenskyy has offered to abandon Ukraine’s quest to join NATO and seek a neutral status along the lines of Sweden or Austria. But it is unclear whether Putin will settle for that concession alone, after all of that he has invested into the invasion.

The number of Americans who live in counties for which the CDC still recommends mask mandates is now about 1.7 million, or well under 1% of the population.  But masks are still worn in this area a good deal; nearly every customer had one in the supermarket where I shopped today.  Habits die hard.  Indeed, Dr. Fauci anticipates a rise in new cases as the latest variant has caused increases in many European nations. 

Today’s statistics as of 9:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  465,616,803; # of deaths worldwide: 6,086,873; # of cases U.S.: 81,350,430; # of deaths; U.S.: 996,066.  

Hiking in Lost River – Echoes from the past in the nooks of Shenandoah National Park – Putin’s onslaught continues – Difficulties confronting occupation of Ukraine – Signs of the waning pandemic – Evening statistics

I spent this past weekend with various friends at cabins in Lost River State Park, a park located in the valley beside the Big Ridge Mountain.  Initially we had planned to have dinner during one of the evenings at a local restaurant, but the snowstorm that came over the weekend forced us to alter our plans and dine together every night at the largest cabin.  That did not matter, for the group (14 of us in all) brought so much food that we easily accommodated the need for eating on our own for an extra evening.   The meal on Friday set the pattern for the rest of the evenings, with us all converging to the largest cabin at about 5:00, snacking on various appetizers until the main courses were produced between 6:30 and 7:00, with much feasting and chatting comfortably together and sitting about a blazing fire until 9:00 or thereabouts.  “Et le vin donc, mes enfants! ça coulait autour de la table comme l’eau coule à la Seine” (And so the wine, my children, flowed about the table like water flows in the Seine” – Ėmile Zola, L’Assommoir); we brought several bottles of wine to contribute to the festivities, and we did justice to all of them.

The snowstorm did not really settle down until well into Saturday morning, and we did not start hiking until 11:00 AM.  It was cold and blustery and overcast – not dull-gray but not bright either.  As we went into higher elevations the snowdrifts added to the challenges of ascending.  Both on this day and on Sunday the drifts on occasion nearly up to my knee.  On Saturday we went along a service road that winds upward to the White Oak Trail, which we used (still ascending) to reach the Cranny Crow overlook, whose view extends over five counties.  The mountains in the distance had a terraced appearance that was enhanced by the snow cover.  I returned by the Howard Lick Trail once I descended and went along a couple of additional short trails before returning to the cabin.  But eventually my hands were getting chilled and so I returned to the cabin rather than risk getting frostbitten.  The hike was only 7½ miles in all, with 1200 feet of elevation gain, but the effort of plowing through the snow made it somewhat more arduous than these figures would indicate.

On Sunday the trails were likewise covered with snow, but it was a splendid day:  sunny, very clear blue sky, hardly any wind at all.  This time we went up along the East Ridge Trail, whose ascent is similar in scope to the one to Cranny Crow.  The others returned by way of the Light Horse Harry Lee Trail, but I extended my hike to going up the Red Fox Trail to the southwest corner of the park – which I had not seen before, although I have been to the park many times.  Then I descended down Piney Ridge Road (the pavement was not visible at all on account of the snow cover) and then the Copse Cove Trail.  This last trail was a bit of a challenge, because the snow covered the trail path completely.  The blazes are sometimes placed rather far apart, and various animal tracks occasionally misled me into veering off of the trail slightly.  But it was easy enough to work out with a little patience.

Today’s hike with the Vigorous Hikers went along the Pocoscin Hollow area, where we did a substantial amount of bushwhacking to obtain glimpses of various objects we would not have been able to see from the established trails:  a grove of immense tulip poplars (one so wide that the only way that six of us could extend our reach around it was to extend a hiking pole in one hand and grasping our neighbor’s with the other), the remains of a few homesteads, an old deserted graveyard, a steam engine used for heating purposes, a machine for making barrel staves.  Shenandoah National Park was formerly a miscellaneous collection of private farms and the majority of their owners were forced by the state’s use of “eminent domain” to sell their land to the government.  It is still possible to come across these reminders of a time, close to a century by now, in which the land was privately owned and consisted of farms rather than forest.   The snow fell much less heavily in this area than it did further west, and most of it had melted by the day of our hike.

Former White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has said that Russia’s intensifying of its onslaught on Ukraine and its attacks on civilians are signs that its government is getting “desperate.”  Last week Putin has also set up a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss what it called “the military biological activities of the U.S. on the territory of Ukraine” – a patent fabrication, which may be a tactic for bringing in the use of chemical weapons.  It is clear that the passionate resistance of the Ukrainians to the invasion has taken Putin by surprise, but how long can they continue to struggle against such odds? 

Nonetheless, while Putin might very well conquer Ukraine, he almost certainly cannot occupy it.  It takes, on the average, about 1 soldier per 20 inhabitants to contain an occupied country, especially when the inhabitants bitterly resent the intruders.  Even if half of the Ukrainians become refugees, Putin would need a force of about 1 million to occupy the country permanently, and he simply does not have the resources to sustain it.

Slowly the pandemic’s impact is lessening.  At this point about 2% of Americans lives in counties with a “high” COVID community level.  The remaining counties are rated as “low” or “medium,” meaning that there is no recommendation to wear a mask or where the immunocompromised should take extra precautions.  Hospitalizations and deaths continue to fall and probably will decrease as the winter season ends and warmer weather sets in.  Mask mandates are more or less gone (Hawaii, the last state to maintain one, will terminate its mandate on the 25^th), but in this area, at least, people are still wearing them.  My bank requests customers to wear masks and when I go to food stores and other services most customers wear masks voluntarily.  But there are exceptions.  At the office for tax consultation, for instance, none of the employees wear masks and the request for customers to wear them has been scrapped.  As one goes further from the capital, of course, the use of masks sharply decreases.  My fellow-hikers and I stopped at the store of the gas station in Madison, VA.  The area is quite rural:  the town contains less than 300 people, while the population of the entire county is barely over 13,000.  Needless to say, all of the customers and staff were bare-faced.

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  459,229,934; # of deaths worldwide: 6,066,461; # of cases U.S.: 81,207,341; # of deaths; U.S.: 990,920.  

Today’s statistics as of 9:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  461,530,962; # of deaths worldwide: 6,073,176; # of cases U.S.: 81,244,076; # of deaths; U.S.: 992,302.  

Internet-related frustrations – Hiking on the Appalachian Trail – Lifting of mask mandates – The situation in Ukraine – Our damaged electoral system – Evening statistics

I was too out of sorts to make notes yesterday.  It was a busy day and, among other things, I was attempting to reserve flights for a trip to visit some friends out West.  Using both booking.com and expedia.com turned out to be an infuriating experience:  nearly every return flight these sites presented to me left either at midnight or so late in the evening that the time the plane alighted in one of the Washington airports would have been on the following morning.  In desperation I turned to the United website, where I was fortunate enough to find a flight from California to DC had both departure and arrival times scheduled for a reasonable hour.

Today was much more pleasant.  I went to the Appalachian Trail close to Buchanan and hiked from the Sunset Field area, where the Apple Orchard Trail forms a junction with the AT, down to Jennings Creek.  I hired a shuttle between the start and end point, and I am glad that I did.  It would have been very discouraging doing a there-and-back hike, particularly as the point where I started the hike was more than 2000 feet higher than the point where I ended.  It was rather chilly and overcast when I began hiking but the weather quickly became much less cloudy and – somewhat less quickly – rather warmer.  For those who wish to avoid crowds I can heartily recommend this area, at any rate during the winter season.  In the 11½ miles of the hike I encountered only one other person, and the portions of the path that were covered with leaves several inches deep indicated that the trail is not heavily used.  There is only one overlook but the hike was scenic nonetheless, going over numerous ledges and valleys defined by meandering little streams.  The descent to Jennings Creek was particularly dramatic on account of glimpses of the scattered houses of the little village of Arcadia to the east that accentuated the wildness of the setting.

The completion of these 11½ miles means that I have a segment of approximately 40 miles in the Pearisburg area remaining in order to fulfill the goal of hiking all of the AT that goes through Virginia (about 550 miles in all, or one-quarter of the entire AT).  My friends AD and RH, with whom I’ve hiked a large amount of the AT, have already scheduled a trip later this year that will cover this segment, so it is possible that I will have completed the Virginian portion of the AT during 2022.

The mask mandate for public transportation has been extended from March 18^th to April 18^th.  At this point, however, nearly all states have rolled back their indoor mask requirements.  Hawaii, the last state to do so, has announced that its mandate will be lifted on March 25^th. 

It is impossible to get any reliable statistics from the Ukrainian invasion, but the Pentagon has estimated that Russia already lost 4,000 soldiers.  By comparison, 2,461 U.S. troops died in the war in Afghanistan over 20 years.  President Zelinsky has said that Putin will soon negotiate to end the war on account of the unexpectedly strong resistance from the Ukrainians.  It sounds like wishful thinking to me, but it may be so.  The Russian economy has taken a beating as a result of the Western sanctions, as even the Kremlin has acknowledged.  In addition, Russia may not have sufficient manpower to occupy the country.  Approximately 190,000 Russian troops are believed to be in Ukraine now.  That is a substantial portion of Russia’s army, which is estimated to have 280,000 personnel and 900,000 armed forces overall.  Russia claims to have 1-2 million of reserves, but only a minority have had the military training for active war, possibly as few as 4,000-5,000.   Currently Russia is recruiting fighters from Syria and has deployed paramilitary units, including from the Muslim Russian region of Chechnya.   That is, possibly, a sign that the Russian government is unable to sustain the war with its own army unaided. 

The damage that Donald Trump has inflicted on our electoral system is both ugly andlasting.  About 20% of election workers are at this point considering leaving the profession altogether.  They are frustrated both by interference from politicians after the latter lose elections and by threats to their physical safety.  The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law conducted a poll that, among other things, documented more than 900 threatening and hostile messages to election administrators and staff in 17 states, almost all alluding to Trump’s mendacious of a stolen election.  Of those who said they are “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” to remain in their posts through the next presidential election, about a third said a key factor in their decision is that “too many political leaders are attacking a system that they know is fair and honest.”

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  453,251,646; # of deaths worldwide: 6,050,491; # of cases U.S.: 81,107,413; # of deaths; U.S.: 990,220.   With only 4% of the world’s population, Americans account for over 16% of COVID-related deaths – lower than before, but still four times greater than the worldwide average.  This pandemic is not over yet.

A strenuous hike – A hiker who lacks judgment – Guy Reffit’s conviction – The Freedom Convoy – Further economic penalties for Russia – COVID still a pandemic – Evening statistics

Today I went with the Vigorous Hikers on a hike that was . . . vigorous.  Specifically, we took the Appalachian Trail from Rte. 522 to Compton Peak, then descended down to Lands Run Road, ascended up to the Dickey Ridge Trail, ascended again to the AT, and then descended back to the parking area, which included another ascent during the last mile that MC, our hike leader, referred to as “Heartbreak Hill” because it was rather discouraging to encounter a 400-foot climb after hiking 18 miles and climbing over 4000 feet before arriving at it.  But the day was not unseasonably warm, as it has been for the past couple of days, and the weather for the most part was rather cool but comfortable.  Wildlife is beginning to stir after being relatively inactive during the winter season.  We saw many deer roaming through the forest and numerous birds flying above, including pileated woodpeckers and bluejays. 

On lower elevations, spring has definitely arrived.  The early plants, such as forsythia, crocus, and hellebore, are in full bloom and the cherry trees are flowering.

I write about hiking a good deal and in general I like to believe that it promotes both good health and greater mental alertness.  But occasionally I have my doubts about the latter, especially upon hearing reports of how erratically certain hikers behave.  This past Wednesday a hiker from New York, whose name was not released, called 911 at about 7 PM to say he got lost while hiking on the Humphreys Trail in the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff.  Fair enough – it is a difficult trail, ascending nearly 3400 feet in the course of about 5½ miles on rocky terrain between the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort and Humphreys Peak, the state’s highest point (12,633 feet, quite sufficient to cause altitude sickness if one is not careful).  Snowcat vehicles from the ski resort drove the man off the mountain and he declined medical attention.  But the very next day he called 911 again to say he needed help after injuring himself in a fall near the saddle area of Humphreys Trail.  A helicopter was dispatched to pick him up, along with another hiker who had stopped to aid him.  Understandably, officials from the Sheriff’s office of Coconino County, after providing the hiker with some preventative education about trail conditions during the winter season, “encouraged him to not attempt the hike again.”

Guy Reffit has been convicted.  He is the January 6^th rioter whose case had been taken to a jury trial, at his own request.  The jury unanimously found him guilty of all charges and his sentencing is set for June 8^th.  Nicole Reffit, his wife, said that the verdict was “against all American people” and that she and her husband were planning to appeal the guilty finding.  The trifling circumstance that Reffit threatened his own children with gunshot if they testified against him seems to have made no impression on her at all.  In any case, the most negative evidence against Reffit was produced by Reffit himself.   He recorded himself in various forums talking about what he planned to do and of what he eventually did. He even bragged about his conduct on a Zoom call that he recorded himself and that the government afterwards located on an external hard drive.

The Freedom Convoy has gone down to sorry defeat after encountering one of the most formidable enemy forces of all time:  the DC metro rush-hour traffic.  Many participating truck drivers got separated and lost amongst the numerous commuters in their cars, while a white pickup truck’s hood flipped open on the Greenbelt area in the afternoon and several vehicles broke down near the Temple Hills and Landover exits.  Just as the smaller, lighter, swifter English craft assailed and dodged the unwieldy ships of the Spanish Armada, the car drivers of the Maryland and Virginia suburbs zoomed around the trucks and shoehorned themselves in front, causing many truckers to jam frantically on their brakes, in typical Beltway fashion. 

It’s very difficult to obtain definite news about the invasion of the Ukraine, because both sides continually exaggerate the amount of casualties they’ve inflicted on their opponents.  But Russia is certainly paying a heavy price economically for its ill-judged foray. 

Major companies are ending decades of business with Russia, including BP, Estée Lauder, Apple, Spotify, Ikea, Disney, Warner Bros., Expedia, Adidas, Exxon, Harley-Davidson, General Motors, Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Netflix, Tiktok, Puma, Airbnb, Lego, IBM, and Levi’s.  This last one might be the most devastating of all to the Russians, who are obsessed with obtaining blue jeans. 

The U.S. has banned imports of Russian oil, which, however, accounts for less than 10% of U.S. imports.  More to the point is a similar resolution from the U.K. and the EU to be independent of Russian oil by 2030.  Indeed, it is quite possible that one of the long-term results of the conflict in the Ukraine will be a lessened dependence on fossil fuels generally. 

Despite the decline in hospitalizations and deaths, COVID remains the nation’s third-greatest killer, after heart disease and cancer.  A loss of about 1,150 deaths per week from flu and other respiratory diseases such as RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) is considered an acceptable rate for an endemic disease.  As of the first week of this month, the U.S. was still experiencing 35,000 hospitalizations per day and 12,000 deaths per week from COVID.  So it appears that COVID will not lose its pandemic status for some time to come.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 449,490,158; # of deaths worldwide: 6,034,438; # of cases U.S.: 81,012,694; # of deaths; U.S.: 987,608.  

Possibility of attending live performances again – Hantavirus cases – The People’s Convoy in Washington – Signs of Russia’s flailing – Putin and judo – The death toll, reported and actual – COVID on a local level – Evening statistics

Yesterday was an anniversary of sorts.  On March 6, 2020, I went with RK to a performance of the King’s Singers, the first performance I attended after the pandemic began and the last one I attended for many months afterwards – not until December 12^th of this year, in fact, do I go to one and even that was on a reduced scale, taking place in a local church rather than in a concert hall.  Presumably going to concerts and theater performances is feasible now, but it takes a while to get into the mindset of being willing to venture into crowds of people indoors again.

Yesterday we received a reminder that there are other diseases besides COVID.  Rat infestation has caused the first hantavirus outbreak in Washington, DC.  A report was recently issued about two people contracted the virus, experiencing severe hemorrhagic and respiratory problems.  One of these occurred in May, 2018 and the second occurred in November, 2018.  This episode is not the first instance of the hantavirus in the country; since 1993, over 800 cases have been reported in various areas of the country.  As the figures indicate, it is not very widespread but it is severe; the mortality rate is about 35%. 

The so-called People’s Convoy has arrived at Washington.  As protests go, it is a bit understated.  Possibly the participants feel somewhat at a loss protesting mandates that no longer exist while everyone’s attention is currently fixed on an international war crisis across the Atlantic.  At all events, the truckers convened Saturday at the Hagerstown Speedway, a racetrack in Maryland about 80 miles northwest of the city, and both yesterday and today they drove slow laps around the Beltway.  Most residents would agree that driving around the Beltway is not a particularly pleasurable activity.  I am reminded of the remark of Bertie Wooster when he found his valet Jeeves having tea with a depressed-looking colleague alongside the spoiled brat whom the latter was obliged to chaperon (Wodehouse, incidentally, is particularly good with his spoiled brat characters):  “If that’s your idea of a large afternoon, go ahead.”

The People’s Convoy, by the way, does not seem to be very familiar with the patterns of traffic in the DC Metro area.  In clogging up the Beltway, they have succeeded in preventing drivers from reaching many of the suburban streets that ordinarily are very cluttered during certain hours of the day, but which have been blissfully traffic-free as a result of their maneuvers.  For this reason, many of us locals are regarding them with a sort of amused indulgence that one usually bestows upon little children.

Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations if Kyiv meets a list of conditions:  cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.  Outrageous as these demands are, they are in a sense encouraging, being an indication that Putin is getting dispirited by the fierce resistance that the Ukrainians have been displaying, as well as the economic hardships as a result of various sanctions and the numerous protests among the Russians themselves.  One must not exaggerate the number of those involved in such protests.  For the most part Putin has been popular among his fellow-countrymen.  Throughout their history the Russians have invariably shown a fondness for the boot that stamps upon their faces, and they appear to have no doubt than other nations, once they submit to such dominance, will feel a reciprocal enjoyment. 

Putin certainly has invested a great deal in this invasion, far too much to make it likely that he will retreat.  Senior Defense Department officials said last Thursday that Russia had moved roughly 90% of its pre-staged combat power across the border into Ukraine. Officials increased that estimate to roughly 92% last Friday and to roughly 95% yesterday.

No doubt Putin was particularly hard-hit by the announcement from the International Judo Foundation that he and Arkady Rotenberg (the co-founder of SMP Bank and co-owner of SGM, which is the largest gas pipeline construction company in Russia) were stripped of their honorary titles and removed from all positions held in the organization.  Putin likes to promote an image of extreme manliness and takes great pride in his black belt status, even to the point of having co-authored a book on the sport. 

The death toll from the pandemic is now over 6 million worldwide.  At least, that is the number of reported deaths.  But if various nations’ excess mortality rates are examined, the actual number may range between 14 million and 23.5 million.  India, for instance, has recorded more than 500,000 deaths.  But experts believe its true toll is in the millions, primarily from the delta variant.

I had a conversation with one of my neighbors today that showed how the pandemic has been affecting people on an individual level.  He, his wife, and his children all came down with the virus in the autumn of 2020.  The cases were mild but, even so, the time they spent while struggling against the virus was “a rough two weeks,” in his words, and his wife in particular was greatly affected, although she eventually recovered.  They took to home-schooling their children as the pandemic continued and the schools stopped holding classes in-person.  Their children simply did not adjust very well to receiving instruction via Internet, whereas they have been making great strides as a result of getting lessons at their home.  Even now, when restrictions have been lifted and children are returning to classrooms, they have elected to continue home-schooling.  It seems probable that the pandemic has encouraged this trend and that home-schooling will remain more prevalent even after the virus recedes completely.

Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  446,611,495; # of deaths worldwide: 6,019,434; # of cases U.S.: 80,917,522; # of deaths; U.S.: 984,020. Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  447,684,355; # of deaths worldwide: 6,015,048; # of cases U.S.: 6,026,362; # of deaths; U.S.: 985,556.  

In the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park – Trump’s new social media falls flat – Vagueness about the end of the pandemic – Evening statistics

The weather has become spring-like, even though officially we still have over two weeks of winter left.  I took advantage of the conditions today (in the high fifties-to-low-sixties, dry and clear) to go to the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park and finish up bits and pieces of the Appalachian Trail I’ve missed out in the past.  Even though the southern third of the park between Swift Run Gap and Rockfish Gap is by far the least used, there were several people on the trails.  I was particularly pleased to encounter a hiking group of African-Americans.  In general, people of color are under-represented on the trails, but I’m in hopes that this trend is being reversed.  The party included a few conscientious hike leaders, who were carefully monitoring the others and communicating with one another by walkie-talkies.  But none of the hikers appeared to be having any particular difficulties during the ascent to Hightop Mountain (about 900 feet over the course of two miles) and they were all enjoying themselves. 

“Your wait is over! Tap here to start using Truth Social.”

And what might Truth Social be?  It is nothing less than Donald Trump’s response to his being banned from using Twitter.  He has set up a social media app of his own for his followers to use.  Tweets or posts are labeled as “Truths” and retweets are called “ReTruths” (the capital T in the middle is not a misprint).  Quite simply, there is not much activity on this application.  It has fewer than 1 million users, far below the much-quoted figure of 75 million who voted for Trump in the 2020 election.  Twitter, by way of contrast, has an estimated 6 million unique visitors per month. 

Moreover, a good number of these who access Truth Social are doing so in order to troll it.  For example, one user, who called himself “Jon Conn,” made the following post about a partnership between Planned Parenthood and Walmart:  “We are pleased to partner with Planned Parenthood in offering abortions in all Walmart locations up to 1 year after birth.”  In another parody account, this same user issued the following “Truth”:  “In honor of gay pride month, we will be restricting access to @truthsocial for non-LGBTQ users on the App Store.”   Both of these created something of an uproar.  Trump’s followers tend to be behindhand in technological matters, and so far the trolls have had no difficulty in baiting them unmercifully.

“I don’t think people should get the impression that we’re saying that this is all over,” Dr. Fauci said in a video interview with Samantha Manning of the Cox Media Group. “We are going to be dealing with SARS-CoV-2 for quite a while. We want to prevent the necessity of shutting anything down.”  I could wish him to be a little more specific.  It acknowledged in most quarters the COVID will be with us for a long time to come.  The question is:  what are the conditions that will enable us to say that it is no longer a pandemic?  We seem to be close to such conditions now, with mask mandates disappearing and travel requirements easing.  Masks are still required on public transportations (although a few people appear to believe that the virus will in some mysterious way offer them a dispensation when they remove their masks to talk on their cell phones).  But even that may change by the middle of the month.

According to Johns Hopkins University, which has been maintaining daily measurements since the onset of the pandemic, deaths from COVID have dropped 11% from last week.  But the U.S. is still averaging over 1,500 new deaths per day, which is much worse than a disease such as the flu. Many are still vulnerable.  About a third of the population is unvaccinated (though it is true that a large number of these are children, who tend to be less vulnerable to COVID than adults) and the immunocompromised, about 3% of Americans, or 9 million in all.  “Clearly, it isn’t over yet. There are still people we need to protect,” said Dr. Claudia Hoyen, the director of pediatric infection control at UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland . “But hopefully, maybe, just maybe this is the beginning of the end. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” 

It would indeed.  But when exactly is “soon”?

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  445,122,961; # of deaths worldwide: 6,015,048; # of cases U.S.: 80,912,619; # of deaths; U.S.: 983,837.  

More developments in Ukraine – The truck convoy as anti-climax – Evening statistics

The fears that radiation would be released after the Russian forces set fire to one of the reactors of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have been put to rest.  But the plant remains under Russian control, which is a severe blow to the Ukrainians.  It supplies about a fifth of Ukraine’s power.  As President Zelensky has pointed out, the very fact Russia is launching attacks in the vicinity of Ukrainian nuclear plants is extremely dangerous, especially in light of that country’s incompetent response to the meltdown of Chernobyl in 1986.  “There are 15 nuclear reactors in Ukraine. If one of them blows, that’s the end for everyone, that’s the end of Europe. All of Europe will have to evacuate,” he said.  Indeed, the Russians may use the threat of deliberately releasing radiation to intimidate the European nations currently lending aid to Ukraine.

The Russian stock market has been closed for four consecutive days, the longest period it has done so since that nations’ economic crisis of 1998.  Equity index provider MSCI Inc. called Russia’s equity markets “uninvestable” after the U.S. and other western countries imposed their sanctions.  “The reclassification decision will be implemented in one step across all MSCI Indexes, including standard, custom and derived indexes, at a price that is effectively zero and as of the close of March 9,” MSCI said in its statement.

Lindsay Graham has urged Russians to assassinate Putin, and for once I agree with him.  It was injudicious for someone in his position to say as much aloud, I suppose, but undoubtedly the world at large would breathe much more easily once Putin was out of the way.  There is little chance of that happening, however; reckless as he may be about the safety of his fellow-Russians, the Ukrainians, and the inhabitants of other European nations, he takes good care that his own skin is well-protected. 

At the moment he is ensuring that not the tiniest breath of criticism may be heard within the borders of the country.  He has just signed a bill that threatens up to 15 years in prison for what the Russian government deems to be “fake” reports about the war.  He has also blocked Facebook, Twitter, and five foreign media organizations (the BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and Latvia-based website Meduza) that publish news in Russian.

There is a fable about a mountain that went into labor, emitting a great deal of smoke and causing quakes that sent trees crashing to the ground and rocks tumbling, only to produce a single mouse at the end of its upheaval.  That story is no inapt analogy of the truckers’ convoy currently on its way to Washington.  Presumably its intention is to protest various mandates, but what mandates are left to protest?  More than 90% of the population is no longer required to wear masks anywhere.  Then, too, public attention has been diverted from them.  Their grievances seem somewhat trivial alongside with those of the Ukrainians whose country is being invaded.  They are scheduled to arrive in the DC metro by Sunday, and we shall see whether people will greet them with any enthusiasm or indeed even notice them at all.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  443,703,298; # of deaths worldwide: 6,009,162; # of cases U.S.: 80,894,257; # of deaths; U.S.: 983,440.   The death rate is not slowing as it should be: there were more than 1400 COVID-related deaths today.  This figure is lower than it has been earlier and it is of course to be expected that there is a certain lag time between the deceleration of the infection rate and of the death rate.  Still – of the world’s new COVID cases today, the U.S. accounted for less than 3% of them.  But it accounted for more than 18% of today’s deaths from COVID worldwide.  I had expected the two rates to show more parity by now.  No one among the CDC or the various other medical experts appears to be particularly concerned, and it may be that I’m fretting too much and that the rates will even out in time.  But I would feel a bit easier in my mind if someone addressed this issue.

PHTA meeting – The Ukrainian invasion worsens – COVID declines; mask mandates diminish – Evening statistics

I met with the Potomac Heritage Trail Association today.  It is one of the few live meetings I’ve attended since the pandemic began.  We convened at the PATC headquarters in Vienna, which is about six miles from my house.  Since my car has been having some difficulties I had to leave it at the auto dealer’s to fix it and I went there by foot, both coming and going, so that I may claim that I have not eaten the bread of idleness today.  The meeting itself had some interesting features.  WN, the chairman, informed us about a study that has been done by the Northern Virginia Regional Commission Economic Benefits Study, which concluded that a system of hiking trails provides benefits in the form of reduced health costs (as a result of people getting more exercise and being more of doors more frequently) and increased employment amounting to $490 million per year.   This finding, obviously, will be of some use in helping to persuade state and county officials to support our efforts to connect the trails with one another. 

Ironically, the further one gets from the city the less supportive such officials tend to be.  One issue that the PHTA is grappling with is the Nice Memorial Bridge that connects Rte. 301 in King George County, VA, to Newburg in Charles County, MD, about 50 miles south of the Beltway.  It has no facilities for pedestrians and is not likely to get any.  The bridge is not heavily used by commuters, since neither King George County nor Charles County provides much in the way of employment; the Morgantown Generating Station, which is the main source of employment in Newburg, is being phased out and will be completely inactive by 2027.  The trail system at this point includes one that goes through Dahlgren, but it will take some doing to connect it to any point on the Maryland shore.

The Russian invasion gets uglier and uglier.  Currently one of the reactions of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant near Kyiv – the largest one in Europe – is on fire as a result of Russian shelling.  Firefighters cannot access it because they are being shot at.  In addition, many towns and cities along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia have been reduced to rubble by Russian forces.  Both Kyiv and Kharkiv, the biggest cities of the country, have been bombarded relentlessly with missiles and artillery shells.  Russia has made important strategic gains in recent days across southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. Securing the south would cut off the Ukrainian government’s access to vital ports and could allow Russia to bring troops and supplies in by sea. 

Does anyone remember when COVID dominated the headlines?  It’s still around, even if the turmoil in Europe has diverted everyone’s attention.  At this point less than 10% of the population lives in areas where facemasks are recommended when indoors in public places.  Masks are still required for planes, trains, and buses.  This requirement will expire on the 18^th; it is not yet known whether the CDC will extend it.  Hospitalizations are down 77% from the peak level during the omicron wave. About 35,000 people were hospitalized with COVID today, down from nearly 153,000 on Jan. 20^th.   

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  441,809,948; # of deaths worldwide: 6,000,648; # of cases U.S.: 80,841,877; # of deaths; U.S.: 981,720.

The elephantine pace of the pandemic waning – A Capitol raider’s eulogy – The Ukrainian invasion continues – Evening statistics

Fairfax County has a ranking of “low-risk,” meaning that masks are worn on the basis of personal preference.  Yet when I was out doing a few errands today, virtually all store employees and the overwhelming majority of customers were wearing masks.  This behavior is a dramatic contrast to that of various counties which are still rated as high-risk, where as often as not people decline to wear masks in defiance of the mandates that still exist there.

In the State of the Union address, Biden outlined the strategy that the government will be pursuing towards ending COVID-related restrictions.  Shutdowns are no longer in place and “most Americans in most of the country can now be mask free.”  The fact remains, however, that while the pandemic began at a steady relentless pace, the wind-down is occurring in fits and starts.  We are still losing several hundred per day and, although mask mandates are being lifted in many areas, masks are still required for public transport and for airplanes.  Several experts have been saying for weeks that we are “going” to enter the endemic phase shortly, but no one will venture to give a firm date as to when this will happen. 

“Matthew Lawrence Perna died on February 25, 2022 of a broken heart,” his family said in an obituary. “His community (which he loved), his country, and the justice system killed his spirit and his zest for life.” 

Who exactly was the man who inspired such a touching tribute?  Why, he was one of the rioters who vandalized the Capitol on January 6^th of last year, and who was afterwards charged with witness tampering, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and two counts of disorderly conduct.  He pleaded guilty to all charges and was awaiting sentence for them, when he decided to take matters into his own hands by committing suicide.  Video footage showed that he was in the Capitol for 20 minutes that day.  Afterwars he posted claims on his Facebook page that individuals with Antifa were “chiefly” responsible for breaking the doors and windows at the Capitol and then added, “It’s not over, trust me. The purpose of today was to expose Pence as a traitor.”  If these are typical results of his “zest for life,” it is just as well that this enthusiast is no longer with us.

Russia has captured the first major Ukrainian city since it began its invasion last week:  Khersov, a city of nearly 300,000 residents on the Black Sea.  Its heavy shelling and missile attacks have hit residential buildings, an orphanage, kindergartens, and a children’s hospital. 

The International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into possible war crimes committed by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.  Even if Putin were tried and convicted, it would have little immediate effect.  But it would discourage other senior Russian figures from participating in Putin’s crimes.  If convicted, he would have to avoid traveling outside of Russia afterwards, at any rate if he wishes to avoid the fate of Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia, who is now in prison for life as a result of his arrest in Nigeria in 2006 for his crimes against civilians in Sierra Leone.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 440,114,577; # of deaths worldwide: 5,992,054; # of cases U.S.: 80,760,362; # of deaths; U.S.: 979,637.