Hiking in Sky Meadows – Picnicking after the hike – Vaccination in the U.S. and other nations – Marjorie Taylor Greene’s psychological disorders – The lifting of mask mandates – Deteriorating conditions in India and Nepal – Evening statistics
Yesterday was a day for what I call “regrouping,” i.e., attending to various chores that piled up while I was on the trails: mowing the lawn, shopping for groceries, etc. Today, however, I joined LM and several others to hike in Sky Meadows. It was a beautiful day – one of the many beautiful days we’ve been enjoying during this season – and we went on a 7-mile circuit hike that included the best views that the park contains, one at an upper point on the South Ridge Trail and one at the junction of the Ambassador Whitehouse and Appalachian Trails, the latter of which is known as the Paris Overlook (“Paris” is the name of the little hamlet that adjoins the park to the north). This hike had several purposes: 1) to enjoy the scenery of the park, affording views of the valley located between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the foothills to the east; 2) to discuss arrangements for a trip LM has organized to King’s Canyon and Sequoia; and 3) by far the most important, to repair afterwards to a local winery, where we sampled the wines and shared the various dishes supplied by several of us. We spent about two hours enjoying our picnic lunch on the winery grounds. It is noteworthy that we spoke about the COVID virus very little, if at all. Restrictions are lessening, vaccinations are readily obtainable, and the general atmosphere is much more cheerful and confident than it has been for a long time.
There is ground for optimism, certainly. Vaccines have been approved for the 12-to-15 year-old age group, and as vaccines are administered to young adolescents our rates continue to drop. The nationwide average of new cases per day is now about 36,700, the lowest it has been since mid-September. The latest seven-day average of daily deaths is 618, a 9% decrease from a week ago. Of the senior citizens, 84.4% have received at least one dose and 72.4% are fully vaccinated. The figures are somewhat less encouraging for the total population 18 years or older: 55.7% have received at least one dose and 43.5% are fully vaccinated. It’s a substantial number, but we still are a long way from the goal of 70% fully vaccinated. Of those who are hospitalized as a result of the COVID virus, 99.7% are unvaccinated. We are still accounting for about slightly over 4% of daily new cases and daily deaths – much better than before, of course; but still not lower than the number of Americans in proportion to the global population.
Other countries are steadily vaccinating as well, with varying degrees of success. In China the rate of vaccination has doubled in the past month and is comparable to that of the U.S. China now accounts for a third of the daily vaccinations worldwide. The rate of vaccination in the EU, after a slow start, is now outpacing both the U.S. and China; at least 30% of the population has received one dose. India’s vaccination rate has slowed on account of lack of access to vaccines; only 10% of the population has had a single dose. Russia’s domestic rollout has been slow, since even its medical establishment is vary of the vaccine developed within that nation; only 9% have received one dose. Japan’s rollout has been even slower, for a different reason. The Japanese have not felt the urgency to get vaccinated that other countries have, since the efforts to control the COVID virus there have been more successful than in the U.S. or the EU. As a result, only 3% have received one dose. Of the African nations as a whole, only 1% have received one dose. Vaccines are in short supply there. Currently, an average of 397,000 doses is being administered per day. At that rate, it will take 11 years for 60% of the continent’s population to be fully vaccinated
Once again, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has demonstrated her mettle. When Marjorie Greene confronted her outside the House chamber and hurled various insults at her (scandalizing even some Republicans in the process), AOC simply walked right by her without deigning to respond, and noted afterwards that Greene is the same type of obnoxious loudmouth that she threw out of bars when she worked as a bartender. Representative Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat member from California, has declared his intention to get Greene expelled from the chamber; and one can only hope that his attempt to dislodge this undeniably schizophrenic woman from her current position will be successful.
Certain retailers, such as Trader Joe’s, Costco, Sam’s Club, and Walmart, say that vaccinated customers are not required to wear masks at stores in certain locations. They might just as well say that they are rescinding their mask mandate altogether; there is no way that they can verify whether an unmasked customer has been vaccinated or not. I certainly don’t carry my vaccine card with me every time I enter a store, and I expect that most shoppers feel the same way. In any case, the vaccine cards are proving to be easy to forge. Some of the more elaborate forgeries even use different hues of ink color for the two vaccine dose entries on the card to enhance the impression that the card is recording doses administered on separate occasions.
In India the crisis continues to rage. More than a dozen of its states are reporting a 20% positivity rate. The death toll is officially over 310,000; but the actual number may be as much as five times higher. This figure would still leave India’s mortality rate significantly less than our own – 1000 per million of population, as opposed to 1800 per million here – but we have been losing people over a period of many months, at a steadily decreasing rate in recent months, while they were relatively unaffected until recently, with deaths going steadily upwards at a rate whose velocity greatly exceeds that of nearly every other nation. The rates appear to be stabilizing now that lockdowns are in place for most of the states, but they are still losing 4,000 per day.
Nepal is now reporting more cases per million than India. Nepal has long been one of the poorest countries in Asia, and its medical care system was rudimentary at the best of times, with fewer than 600 ventilators and about 18,000 doctors for a population of over 29 million. In a rather bizarre development, mountaineers have been asked to return the oxygen cylinders they use while scaling Everest so that they can be refilled for COVID patients. China has canceled all permits for climbers to approach Everest from its side of the mountain range, for fear of contracting the virus from contacts between climbers from the Chinese side and climbers from the Nepalese side. May is traditionally the best month for attempting to scale the summit, and a significant amount of Nepal’s economy depends upon the tourism provided by mountain climbers. But at least one guide, Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, has called off his attempt to complete the climb along with his team of over a dozen mountaineers, because of concerns about the COVID virus, stating that the crowded conditions at the base will probably cause the virus to spread rapidly among the hundreds of other climbers, guides and helpers who are now camped there.
Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 162,517,550; # of deaths worldwide: 3,370,738; # of cases U.S.: 33,662,564; # of deaths; U.S.: 599,296.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 163,162,033; # of deaths worldwide: 3,383,004; # of cases U.S.: 33,695,864; # of deaths; U.S.: 599,862. Sweden has recently surpassed us in percentage of population that has been infected with COVID, pushing our nation down the list to #10 in the nations with the greatest proportion of cases. Our number of critical cases is no longer the largest in the world; that dubious honor goes to India. Brazil outranks us now as well.