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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.