Pauses in the journal — COVID here and abroad — Long COVID — The approach to the endemic phase — Surface serenity while hiking — Evening statistics
Another hiatus in this journal, for similar reasons. My time has been filled up. I led hikes on July 31st and yesterday as well, while I scouted for a third hike on the 6th. During the middle of last week I visited friends in New Jersey, where access to a workstation was limited. Then, too, the amount of COVID-related events has greatly diminished over the past several months. One might easily suppose that the pandemic is over at last.
That, however, is a delusion. COVID is still with us. For example, we received two cancellations for the hike yesterday, one upon learning that he tested positive the day for the hike, and one who had to cancel because his son had contracted the disease and, to use his own words, “it was just a matter of time” before he would become infected himself. At the hike yesterday, LH remarked that she knew hardly anyone who had not fallen ill with COVID at one time or another. As far as I know, I have not had the disease myself, but I can’t be certain. If I have contracted the disease without symptoms at one point in the past, there is no way of detecting that now. I have been vaccinated and received boosters as well, so the antibodies would be present if I were to take a test.
In other parts of the world, COVID is still wreaking havoc. China has just locked down Hainan Island, a popular resort location that is sometimes known as “China’s Hawaii.” Some 80,000 tourists are stranded in the resort town of Sanya, where they are required to stay for seven days and clear five COVID tests before leaving..
However, we can always turn to the example of North Korea for consolation. Recently its government has announced that all of its COVID patients have recovered, marking the end of its first wave of the pandemic. State media has said the “anti-epidemic situation has entered a definite phase of stability.” It also is offering a bridge in Brooklyn for sale – no, wait, I made that last part up.
The effects of long COVID are now starting to become apparent. Many are unable to resume their old jobs even after recovering from the disease. Some estimates place the number of people too greatly weakened by long COVID to recover their former lifestyle in the millions. A typical example is Georgia Linders, who fell ill with COVID two years ago and who still labors under debilitating symptoms to this day: heartbeat suddenly accelerating for no apparent reason, bouts of fever on an almost daily basis, continual fatigue, brain fog. She had to be terminated from her position (which coordinated health services for the military) because her productivity rate dropped to about a quarter of what her co-workers were doing, even though she had previously excelled at her profession. Recent data from the CDC suggests that one person in every five infected with COVID are suffering from long COVID. Based on data from the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and the Lancet, Katie Bach, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, estimates that 4 million former full-time employees are out of work because of long COVID, about 2.4% of the American workforce.
James McDeavitt, the vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine, claims that we are now entering the endemic phase and that in fact this phase may already have begun. “It’s going to be with us for the long-term like flu is with us for the long-term,” he said. Although COVID test rates have increased, hospitalizations and death rates have not. About 99% of COVID patients in ICUs are unvaccinated. Therapeutic treatments such as Paxlovid are becoming more effective. COVID is thus settling down into a disease whose status resembles that of influenza, although with somewhat mlore extensive consequences. Flu kills between 20,000 and 80,000 Americans a year. McDeavitt expects COVID to settle in around 100,000 deaths per year and to remain a top-ten cause of death in the country.
It seems strange that all of this turmoil has no apparent effect on one’s daily tasks and leisure activities. Everything I see during the course of my recent wanderings looks as tranquil as ever. Indeed, the mountain forests are unusually green for this time of year as a result of the abundance of rain this summer (generally the driest season in the area). From the Jewell Hollow Overlook of Shenandoah National Park, where I and my two co-leaders scouted our hike planned for the 28th, there was none of the usual browning and withering of tree leaves in the summer heat: the Shenandoah Valley spread out below us, with the Massanuttens on the valley’s western edge and the Alleghanies beyond, dotted with the houses and buildings of the town of Luray, looking positively Alpine. Yesterday’s hike, which covered the Appalachian Trail from Weverton to Turner’s Gap (about 14 miles), was densely shaded throughout. I may say that the hike yesterday was the easiest of them all to lead; only one other person elected to take this longer option (the others started from Gathland, which is 7½ miles from Turner’s Gap), which meant that we could hike together and that there was no need for me to pause to lay down markers at junctions.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 589,856,088; # of deaths worldwide: 6,437,895; # of cases U.S.: 93,962,966; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,058,891.