Anniversary of Wuhan lockdown – China’s recalcitrance – Date for impeachment set – Hiking in the Alleghenies – Evening statistics
Today is an anniversary that no one would wish to celebrate: that of the first lockdown in Wuhan after an outbreak of COVID was detected. All transport to the city was severed and every one of the city’s 11-million was ordered to stay at home and not to venture out even for the purposes of shopping for food. Wuhan has enjoyed a long interval recently of no new COVID cases at all and the situation there is very much business as usual: bustling markets, crowded restaurants, traffic jams.
At this point the belief in Wuhan and indeed in China generally is that the virus came from outside the country; some are calling COVID “the American virus,” just as Trump labeled it “the Chinese virus” some months ago. The prevalent theory among the experts is that the virus originated in the vicinity of Wuhan as a result of a “zoonotic” leap from another species, probably some type of bat. China, however, has not been particularly cooperative in pursuing the studies that would pinpoint how the virus emerged: for example, testing historic human samples stored by hospitals to determine where and when the virus really started spreading. It may have done such studies on its own; if so, it is not sharing the results with any other nation or with the WHO.
The impeachment trial of Donald Trump is now scheduled to begin on February 8th. It remains to be seen whether it will have any effect. It will require at least 17 Republican Senators to vote in favor of conviction, and that is assuming that every single Democrat Senator will vote against him. Much depends on Mitch McConnell, and what he means to do is a mystery. He has the power to rope in a sufficient number of Senators if he wants a conviction. He has already gone on record condemning Trump for the riot of January 6th and he almost certainly looks upon Trump as an encumbrance that the Republican Party would do well to get rid of. But whether he is prepared to risk alienating the pro-Trump faction is doubtful, to say the least. He thinks in terms of expediency only, and whether or not his “long game” includes jerking the cuckoo out of its nest is anyone’s guess.
My brother, who is considerably more optimistic in temperament than I am, assures me that Trump’s political stock is down and out. The backlash from the riot of January 6th, the number of lawsuits pending against him, his declining health, and his diminishing mental capability combine to make it very unlikely that Trump will attempt to run again in 2024. He may be right, but nonetheless I would like to obtain a firm guarantee of Trump’s quietus: either a conviction resulting from the impeachment, followed by a debarment from running for office again, or a good stiff prison sentence in response to his numerous financial defalcations. Fani Willis, the District Attorney for Fulton County in Georgia, is considering whether to open a criminal investigation against him for his blatant attempt on January 2nd to bulldoze the secretary of state for Georgia into falsifying the results of the state’s election. I can only hope that she has the resolution to carry it through.
On a personal level it was a good day to be out. The temperatures, as predicted, were more wintry, but the clear skies and almost total absence of wind make it feel warmer than it actually was. I went to Backbone Mountain and to various other trails within the Monongahela Forest today, where it was considerably colder than in the Blue Ridge Mountains (under 20 degrees), being on the other side of the Eastern Continental Divide. In addition, the ground was covered with about two inches of snow. Backbone Mountain is the highest point in Maryland, but it is approached from a parking area in West Virginia; the mountain is one of many in a range in the Alleghenies that cuts across the state border. A border marker stands close (less than 1/10 mile) to the high point itself. The trail is a little over a mile each way and ascends about 700 feet. It would be fairly easy under normal conditions, but of course the snow slowed my progress a bit. But it may have been better that way; the area is extensively logged and I have been told that the trail can get extremely muddy after even a brief shower or two. Certainly the views at the top were all the lovelier on account of the coating of snow in the valley to the east.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 99,298,143; # of deaths worldwide: 2,128,754; # of cases U.S.: 25,566,185; # of deaths; U.S.: 427,634.