On the Loudoun Heights Trail – COVID claims a centigenarian – The effect of COVID on bird species – Grisham’s new book – Evening statistics
Today I repeated the hike on the Loudoun Heights Trail that I did with AD and others in late July. There was a large group of us on today, 13 in all – not surprising, for the day was lovely: clear skies, low humidity, comfortable temperatures. At the junction between the Appalachian Trail and the Loudoun Heights Trail I encountered a group of boy scouts with two women who were providing a bit of training. The boys were deciding which route they were expected to take and the two trainers maintained an impassive reserve, forcing them to choose the correct route on their own. I was a little apprehensive that they would more or less take possession of Split Rock before our group could reach it, but I was mistaken. In the first place, they paused again when the Loudoun Heights Trail reached the ridgeline, thereby enabling our group to arrive first; and when they did come to Split Rock they approached so quietly and kept their voices so low while they were lunching there that I was not aware of their presence for some time after they arrived. The views from Split Rock of Harpers Ferry, the pedestrian bridge, the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah, Maryland Heights, and the C&O towpath were enlivened by sightings of pedestrians on the bridge, the overlook, and the towpath and by rafters sliding over the rapids of the river.
Primetta Giacopini, who was 2 years old during the 1918 influenza epidemic, has died at the age of 105 of COVID. Her mother was one of the influenza epidemic victims, and her father, unwilling to bring up his children on his own, gave Primetta to the care of a foster family in Italy, which eventually moved to Italy in 1929. Since she was still an American citizen, her situation became precarious as Mussolini gained power and allied himself with Hitler, and she was eventually able to flee to the U.S. There she worked at a General Motors plant in Bristol grinding steel to cover ball bearings for the war effort. She met her husband on the job, and they remained married until his death in 2002. She appears to have received the infection from her caretaker, whose husband contracted COVID after attending a wedding in Idaho. All three had been vaccinated, but of course the immune system is more susceptible when one is past 100 years of age. It is sadly ironic that one who survived a global pandemic when just out of her infancy should has died as a result of another pandemic more than a century later.
Birds have been indirectly affected by the pandemic. The decrease in vehicular traffic and airplane travel has resulted in a substantial increase in 80% of the 82 species studied by a joint effort between the University of Manitoba and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The study examined records of around 4.3 million birds between the months of March and May in the years 2017 through 2020. Bald eagle sightings increased in cities with the strongest lockdowns, and red-throated hummingbirds were three times as likely to be within two-thirds of a mile of an airport. Red-tailed hawks, interestingly enough, declined in numbers; the decrease in vehicle traffic has led to significantly less roadkill, which is one of their main sources of food.
A new book by Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump’s press secretaries, is to be published next week, and extracts have been confided to various reporters, who re-confided them to the public at large. Predictably, readers are exclaiming over the “revelations” of the non-stop dishonesty that was characteristic of the previous administration; whereas in my view revealing that Trump is dishonest is like “revealing” that Virginia is one of the fifty states of the nation. Some details, admittedly, are new: for example, that his visit in 2019 to Walter Reed Hospital, which was shrouded in secrecy and gave rise to all sorts of wild conjectures of possible ailments, was simply to have a routine colonoscopy and that he insisted on this elaborate concealment because he was afraid of the jokes from comics on late-night TV that might ensue if this information were disclosed. Grisham is showing some humor in her tell-all account: famous as the press secretary who never held a press conference, she has entitled her book “Now I Will Take Your Questions.”
Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 235,018,908; # of deaths worldwide: 4,804,849; # of cases U.S.: 44,427,437; # of deaths; U.S.: 718,870.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 235,392,978; # of deaths worldwide: 4,810,796; # of cases U.S.: 44,490,464; # of deaths; U.S.: 719,674.