Along the southern bank of the Potomac in Loudoun County – A new face mask – Possible accelerated schedule for vaccine – Desperate remedies – Evening statistics
Today I went on a combination hike/exploring expedition with RS to determine possible routes of extending the Potomac Heritage Trail. It was about 12 miles in all, with perhaps 1000 feet in elevation gain. This hike had everything: fording Catoctin Creek, climbing over a few fences, a fair amount of bushwhacking, and even a brief sally along a field full of grazing cattle. I took the lead in fording Catoctin Creek, where the water was deep enough to come more than halfway up to my knees – which doesn’t sound like much, but can be troublesome when the current is both swift and strong. I looked chiefly for – not where the water was the most shallow – but where the surface underneath provided rocks instead of silt to walk on. I threaded my way through without too much difficulty. It was worth the effort to get the opportunity to go alongside Catoctin Creek up to the point of the confluence with the Potomac River, and afterwards to continue east and south skirting past Beaver Island. Loudoun County at this point has no formally designated trails going alongside the Potomac – which is rather curious. Some of the land in the vicinity of Beaver Island has been designated as a future public park, but when it will actually become one is still rather uncertain.
We had parked in the back lot of a gas station and afterwards we visited their convenience store, where I picked up another mask. I was glad to obtain one, since the face mask I have been using for some time now is getting worn and probably has become less effective in shielding me from infection. No one at this point is able to say when the recommendations from wearing masks upon leaving one’s home will no longer be issued. In some areas it is more than a recommendation. In at least a few of the cities of California people are fined for not wearing them in public places.
Dr. Fauci has given encouraging reports about a vaccine becoming available, perhaps as early as January. It is of course uncertain at this stage whether such a time-table is feasible, but if a vaccine can be developed then it will appear that the coronavirus will be reduced to a status similar to that of the flu: a disease that can be serious enough and that will account for some fatalities every year, but at any rate containable.
In the meantime, of course, people are turning in desperation to other methods:
“Zinc, Zinck, zinco: they make tubs out of it for laundry, it is not an element which says much for the imagination; it is gray and its salts are colorless, it is not toxic, nor does it produce striking chromatic reactions; in short, it is a boring metal.” Such is Primo Levi’s verdict in The Periodic Table, that wonderful collection of stories that are each based on a single element. If it has no particular appeal to a professional chemist, however, it has been hypothesized that zinc can help in staving off the virus. Zinc lozenges have sometimes been recommended for inhibiting colds in the past. The evidence is conflicting as to whether or not they have been effective. At the very least, however, they can do no harm. The same cannot be said about hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug whose virtues have been extolled by that far-famed expert, Medicinae Doctor Donald Trump. It has virtually no effect as far as mitigating the disease is concerned, but it does have other features, such as the promoting of heart arrhythmia – not a condition that is particularly helpful to a body already tasked with fighting off a virus. Some studies have suggested that COVID-19 patients ingesting this drug have a 37%-increase risk of death.
There have been other supplements that have been touted as well, such as Vitamin D, ultra-violet light from exposure to the sun, and so on. Even cannabis has been suggested as a possible treatment. (There’s no evidence that it has any effect one way or the other, but those who smoke it don’t seem to care.) And of course there are all sorts of fringe theories about various foods. The WHO has already gone out of its way to debunk the notion that eating lots of garlic or adding hot peppers to one’s soup are effective virus preventatives.
Today’s statistics as of 8:45 PM — # of cases worldwide: 5,189,178; # of deaths worldwide: 334,072; # of cases U.S.: 1,620,457; # of deaths U.S.: 96,295. Our incidence rate is now nearly 0.5% — that is to say, nearly one in every two hundred has been infected by the virus. Brazil’s case count has shot up enormously today. At this rate it may catch up with Russia within a day or so, making it second only to the U.S.