Thursday, May 28th, 2020

Unravelling

Today is a rainy day. Thank goodness I had the foresight to cover the garden furniture as once the rain has stopped all cushions are dry and I can move the laptop outside. Because of the rain we had to skip our daily walk.

Instead Max kept me company for most of my working day; deciding he had to lie on my lap just as I was going to start editing a paper. Of course, while I was on calls he was busy inspecting the rain sitting on the windowsill. I wonder how it is that cats know when they cause maximum inconvenience and proceed to do just that.

Tiding up in the basement over the weekend I came across a basket of wool which has moved with me from Cairo to Cape Town to Hamburg to Frankfurt to Hanoi to Istanbul and is now residing in Bethesda (in the basement shoe rack, who would have put it there?) inspired me to take up knitting again. I started by taking out some yarn planning to roll it into a ball. Suffice to say I was left with a gigantic knot that we have been busy untangling in recent days. It is somewhat meditative. There were however also three balls of Angor wool, and have begun a sweater with those. I may need to buy more though if it is to become an actual pullover.

Loosing patience after waiting for a shipment of plants to arrive for two and a half months I had cancelled the order yesterday. It was a real downer as all the waiting was in vain. Today I receive a notification that the order has shipped. How weird is that? Maybe I should have canceled a month ago for the shipment to arrive a month earlier. If it arrives before the weekend I have some gardening to look forward too, seeing that after rain today and tomorrow it is suppose to be nice over the weekend. Other weekend plans may include taking out a boat if there is wind.

It seems the world is wrapping its head around reopening. I am a bit ambivalent on how I feel about that. On the one hand, it is a nice idea to go back to some semblance of normal. On the other hand, this pandemic is not nearly over. However, I figure in the absence of a vaccine societies and businesses will need to find a way to live with it.  Offices are thinking about maximum capacity and who should go back when and for how long. In the same spirit Austrian Airlines announced today it would take back to the skies. It is wooing its customers to come back. What is now sold as safety has been on the cost cutting chopping block for airlines for a while: in person check-in, in-flight service and any other services relying on human interactions. Once people get used to this there will be no incentive to go back to high touch business models, so as a result expect to see staff cuts.

The alternative is of course virtual travel, here one can go on a visit to Vietnam, though admittedly if I go anywhere I'd much rather go in person. 

News on the Corona Virus is mixed. The good news is that globally the rise in infections has most certainly slowed down. Today 1.76 million are reported worldwide, 1.75 million of which in the USA and 40% of new infections in Latin America.

On the good news front I also note that the EU is finally stepping up for more international cooperation. This is badly needed, as is joined European action for recovery of the European economy. Now more than ever we need to stand together. The proposal to fund economic recovery jointly can be a first important step towards greater integration and a joined fiscal policy.

The bad news is that there are still snags on testing in the USA. While the occupants of the WH has now for weeks been stating testing is not a problem, it continues to be a mess. First no tests, then no swaps, then no chemicals and now no machines. I cannot help but wonder two things: 1) over the past four months was there no one who was able to come up with a plan of all that was needed to meet testing targets, based on this develop forecasts and initiate procurement of what was needed? And secondly, are other countries as dysfunctional as this one appears to be?

Despite sobering news on the national level Governor Hogan announced phase 1 of reopening Maryland today. Initially I was thrilled. Based on information shared on the government Corona website things seem to be going well. Testing has been ramped up and supposedly anyone can get tested with about 10k people tested daily now. Contact tracing capabilities are in place. Numbers have been declining. Newly reported cases today were 37, four of which required hospitalization. Total case are just shy of 50k, but the curve is not flattening, rather it is going up and down somewhat erratically. Still, we seem to be on a good trajectory - or so I thought - until I came across an article reviewing how many States meet all or any of the five criteria for reopening.

Two meet all, some meet one or more, Maryland meets NONE. That is very disconcerting. As part of the reopening Hogan announced outdoor pools may reopen at 25% capacity to maintain social distancing. Our community pool send out a messages about planning to open, which had me ecstatic, fantasizing about laps. Now I wonder....

Nonetheless, EM has reached out to Bethesda Aquatics to express her interest and availability to work as a life guard. And seeing outdoor day camps are allowed to go ahead she has also contacted Calleva to reiterate her interest in working as camp counselor. Seeing group sizes are limited to ten children they may need a lot of counselors. She has also lined up a job as a fulltime babysitter to parents needing to work with unoccupied kids at home over the three months summer break. She is concerned about a bleak summer ahead, unable to travel to Europe, college tour cancelled and no friends to hang out with so working seems like a good distraction.

The boss is watching me

The boss is watching me