Morning statistics – Potential second wave of COVID-19 – The new “normal” – The deceptions of nostalgia – Donald Trump takes refuge – Loot and pillage if you must, but stay healthy – Suburban calm – On the Neabsco Creek Boardwalk and the Potomac Heritage Trail – South Korea backtracks – News from other countries – Another Russian defenestration – Evening statistics
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 AM — # of cases worldwide: 6,291,969; # of deaths worldwide: 374,369; # of cases U.S.: 1,837,830; # of deaths U.S.: 106,208.
It was quite a doleful entry yesterday and I don’t know that today’s will be much better. There will probably be more clashes between protestors and police over the next several days. Also, the fact that people have been congregating in swarms during these protests means that an acceleration in the number of the virus cases is likely. Many states have shown a downward trend in recent days, and the mass gatherings might undo all of the progress made on containing the virus. For that matter, lockdowns are being eased all over the world, despite the fears of a second wave of COVID-19. Health officials in the U.K. have issued a plea to the government to defer the lifting of the restrictions, but it is unlikely that the government will comply. National governments in general are getting increasingly anxious to get their economic structure in place again. The national debt of nearly every country on the planet has increased to alarming degrees as a result of the pandemic.
Certainly a modified version of the precautions will continue to be in place for some time to come. Work has been underway on various possible vaccines, but until one is confirmed to be safe and effective, face masks, hand sanitizer, and standing six feet away from people will be the new “normal” behavior.
From Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The New Atlantis,” a story set in the future, when its narrator tries to relax by reading a novel from a previous age: “It was about small-town sex life in the last century, the dear old 1970s when there weren’t any problems and life was so simple and nostalgic.” The joke, of course, is that the story itself was written in the 1970s, when life seemed anything but simple and nostalgic to those who were actually living in that era. Still, however strong the tendency is to idealize the past, it seems doubtful that future generations will look upon this moment of our history with longing.
Donald Trump has taken to shelter in a secure underground bunker in response to the protests being held close to the White House. During the past several days while the protests were ongoing, Trump made no public address to the nation and instead delivered inflammatory messages on Twitter urging violent retaliation on the protestors, which of course did nothing to subdue their resentment. Many of the local authorities pleaded with him to stop making a bad situation worse with his provocative tweets. They might just as well as spared themselves the effort. So now he is residing in the same bunker that sheltered Vice President Cheney during the attacks of 9/11 nearly twenty years ago. Cheney, of course, was being protected against potential threats from a foreign terrorist organization; Trump needs to be defended from his own countrymen. I do not believe that any previous president I have experienced during my lifetime has inspired the degree of hatred that he has. Even when people passionately disagreed with the policies of Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, the two Bushes, Clinton, or Obama, these men were not loathed and despised by their opponents to such a degree on a mere personal level. Perhaps Nixon aroused a more visceral reaction than the others, but it was less widespread and less intense; he had many defenders even at his most beleaguered moments, he had not alienated his own political party by running roughshod over them, and once he resigned the resentment against him died down relatively quickly. It is impossible at this stage to predict how long Trump will be held in odium once his term of power comes to an end (whether it happens in November or four years from now), but I believe people will be speaking of him with abhorrence for a long time to come.
Sometimes medical experts display a naïveté which, if a little surprising, is not altogether unpleasing. A number of doctors have urged the protestors to wear face masks during their demonstrations. While the majority of the protestors may be non-violent, those who are taking advantage of the situation to loot stores and torch buildings are not likely to be troubled overmuch with scruples over potential infections.
Life goes on amidst all of this turmoil, to be sure. I mowed the lawn yesterday; today I brought my car to the local service supplier for a filter and oil change. When I walked back from the car service to my house (they are little over a mile apart and it is much pleasanter after dropping the car off to spend the interval before the repairs are complete at home than in a waiting room), I noticed that the T. J. Maxx in the local shopping area was opening its doors for the first time in several weeks as a result of the Phase One easing of lockdown restrictions. Various other stores were showing signs of greater activity than before. I’ve always admired that touch in Zola’s Germinal when, at the end of the mass demonstration by miners besieging the mine-owner’s home, a pastry-cook’s van follows the gendarmes quelling the disturbance and an errand-boy jumps out to deliver an order of vol-au-vents to the family. Indeed, probably many of us in the area will be taking advantage of today’s fine weather to walk and bike and hold picnics with their families. It is doubtful that anyone will be overly perturbed by the image of Trump cowering in a bunker.
In compliance with this sentiment I went out after the car was released back to me, and since it was not returned until the early afternoon, I did not wish to drive very far. But I went to Rippon Landing and from there I walked along the Neabsco Creek Boardwalk, which has been re-opened. The creek (wide enough to be accounted a river in England) is now in the full glory of a wetlands in late spring: cattails in cottony ripeness, red-winged blackbirds soaring overhead in great numbers, large yellow water lilies just beginning to flower, tiger swallowtails and zebra swallowtails fluttering among the reeds. It was gratifying as well to see people of all races enjoying themselves along the boardwalk, perfectly at ease with one another. I had thought merely to stroll along the boardwalk and afterwards through the wetlands to the border of Leesylvania before turning back, but the best-laid plans, etc., etc. When I got to the boundary of Leesylvania the afternoon was still young and I thought I might as well press further onward; and so I did, for several miles, until I came to where this particular segment of the Potomac Heritage Trail ends at Rte. 1 – about six miles each way. The trail bypasses many private houses and occasionally I saw children of different races playing together in concord. One would never imagine that protests based on racial issues were being held in a city that is less than 35 miles away.
And it was as I predicted: the plight of Donald Trump fleeing to the bunker did not appear to dampen anyone’s spirits overmuch. Trump’s supporters are said to be somewhat more numerous in proportion as the area one traverses becomes more rural, and I could only suppose that several of the house-owners whose properties I skirted were among this faction. If there was any wailing and gnashing of teeth on his behalf, however, it left few traces on any of their faces as they tended their barbecues and relaxed in their hammocks.
Almost everyone was not wearing a mask when being out-of-doors. The accepted wisdom at this point is that masks are not necessary for activity that takes place outside, because droplets dissipate and disperse much more rapidly than indoors. We may, however, need to rethink this policy. South Korea has just closed numerous schools, museums, and parks on account of a new spike in coronavirus cases after easing its lockdown restrictions. The numbers are not huge – 177 new cases in three days – but they are sufficiently discouraging for a country that had believed to have gotten the virus under control.
There is good news from Spain: no deaths from the virus in the last 24 hours – the first time in months that this has happened. But many countries are showing substantial daily case incidence increases: India, Pakistan, Peru, Iran, Chile, and those two perennial favorites Russia and Brazil. Italy’s death toll in the past 24 hours was 60, which is lower than it has been in previous days; but it still has had more deaths than that of any other country except the U.S. and the U.K.
Russia has had yet another accident involving someone falling out of a window in a hospital: a police lieutenant colonel who was also a forensics expert. She was a patient being treated for the virus at the time. She survived the fall and is now in intensive care. I think I have the solution to the dangers posed by Russian hospitals. The government should declare every single hospital in the country a classified area, and as such unable to have access to any windows at all. Such an approach would have the additional advantage of appealing to that preference for mystification and confusion that among Russians appears to be all but innate.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM — # of cases worldwide: 6,361,889; # of deaths worldwide: 377,150; # of cases U.S.: 1,859,451; # of deaths U.S.: 106,923.