On the Tuscarora Trail – When to end the journal – Biden’s efforts to supply and distribute vaccines – Governor Abbott ends COVID-related restrictions in Texas – Evening statistics
After the wretched weather of the past two days, today was cloudless, with little wind. Although the temperature never rose above 40 degrees where I was hiking, it felt much warmer on account of the sunlight. I went with the Vigorous Hikers along the Tuscarora Trail to a fire road, down the fire road to Back Creek Road, up the Lucas Woods Trail to the Tuscarora, and along the ridge back to the parking area on Capon Springs Road: about 17 miles and 2500 feet of elevation gain. The paths were reasonably clear, but a few spots on the Tuscarora were still covered with a layer of snow and/or ice, and caution was needed while walking on them. The roadwalk along Back Creek Road turned out to be more interesting than I would have expected; it is a quite country road that passed by several farms, with horses and cattle (some of them longhorns) grazing in the pastures. The section of the Tuscarora that we traversed offered views to the west into the valley on the West Virginia side of the trail and, at Eagle Rock, views of the Shenandoah Valley and the ridgeline of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east. Even in the clear sunlight that tops of the mountain in the Blue Ridge range had a dark purplish-blue color, from which it was easy to see how they acquired their name.
When we were having lunch together on the ridge DG mentioned the journal to me and asked, with curiosity, “When do you plan to stop?” It’s a fair question, and I wish I had a clear answer. Towards the end of the original “Journal of the Plague Year” by Daniel Defoe, the termination of the epidemic was summed up as follows:
“However, it pleased God, by the continuing of the winter weather, so to restore the health of the city that by February following we reckoned the distemper quite ceased, and then we were not so easily frighted again.”
It is not at all certain that we shall ever reckon this particular distemper “quite ceased.” The likelihood, according to the medical experts, is that the virus will indeed subside as a result of vaccination on a large scale and at one point will diminish to such an extent that it is no longer a pandemic, but that it will not disappear entirely. It will be a disease lurking in the background against which the populace at large will be obliged to take preventative measures continually, as is the case with many other diseases. In all probability people will be getting an annual vaccination against COVID, as they do now for influenza. So in order to have a complete record of the phases of the pandemic, I shall probably have to continue the journal until the third quarter of this year – that, at a guess, will be the time to claim that the account of the pandemic and its effects is at an end; and even that is only a very rough approximation.
President Biden has said that we will have a sufficient supply of vaccines by the end of May to inoculate the entire US adult population. He stressed, however, that a supply in itself is only part of the solution: there must be a sufficient number of people to administer the vaccinations and a system in place for tracking the portion of the population that still requires inoculation. He has brokered a deal for Merck to produce Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine to boost supply nationwide, although the two firms are rivals: the same sort of collaboration, as he noted, that commercial firms displayed during World War II. It is not the first time, and it probably won’t be the last, for me to note how gratifying it is at last to have a president who is taking active steps to combat the virus.
Some people appear to believe that the pandemic is over already. Today Governor Abbott of Texas ended the statewide mandate to wear masks in public places and has opened up the state 100%. Judges will no longer be able to impose penalties upon anyone who does not wear a mask and businesses may operate to full capacity, unless the individual county in which the business office resides has imposed restrictions of its own. Even in such cases, businesses must be allowed to operate on at least 50% capacity. The rollout of vaccines has certainly been efficient in the state. During the course of today alone over 216,000 people received their inoculations – well over 1 in 150 of the state’s entire population, an impressive result for a single day. Coronavirus patients now account for less than 15% of the hospitalizations. Nonetheless not all health authorities are in agreement about ending the restrictions. Various health officials in Dallas are still using the same protocols as before in city hospitals. Eric Johnson and Betsy Price, mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth respectively, while acknowledging that they no longer have the power to enforce a mask mandate, are still urging citizens to continue the practices of wearing masks and social distancing. Texas has, as a state, ranked very solidly in the middle with regard to both incidence rate and mortality rate; so it cannot be said that Governor Abbott is being unduly reckless. Nonetheless I hope that other states where vaccine rollout has been less efficient do not follow its example – certainly not Virginia, which still has over 95,000 people to vaccinate before it can complete Phase 1B.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 115,279,384; # of deaths worldwide: 2,559,175; # of cases U.S.: 29,370,202; # of deaths; U.S.: 529,192.