Wednesday, June 24th, 2020
When I woke up this morning I could not help but wonder why my bedroom was warm and stuffy, when it was cool with a nice breeze going through the house everywhere else. The mystery was quickly solved, turns out the handyman who had come to repair the broken strings of my living room window readjusted all the old windows to ensure they run smoothly and had diligently closed all storm windows. As a result, not a breath of airflow in the room. Suffice to say all three windows are now wide open again and teh screns down.
Our daily Hood walks have been replaced by daily swims. Arriving at the “Y” we had a bit of a scare. When taking EM’s temperature at the entrance she showed 100.4F, which is considered a temperature. I send her of to chill in the shade under a tree and within ten minutes the temperature had come down to 99.4F and she was allowed to enter. We have now decided that I will drive to and she from the “Y” as she seems to be more affected when exposed to the sun in our convertible. It is nice to leave the house once a day with a purpose. We just need to remember to book lanes as soon as the booking system opens as they fill up very quickly. Not a single lane to be had for Saturday; though I noted swimming starts later and ends at 15:45 on Saturdays. I will need to get online at 10:30 tomorrow to book for Sunday. For Saturday we have no choice, but to head to Lake Arrow Head in Shenandoah again for a swim; not the worst thing to happen seeing sunny and hot day is forecast. Maybe her friend Anna and Anna’s mum will join us. That would be fun and there is a winery I would like to stop at on the way back. For Friday fortunately we already booked a lane, for the evening seeing we want to take a boat out before. The wind is forecast at 14km/h, which should make for nice sailing rather than the doldrum experience we had the last two times.
Otherwise everything has been quiet, no fall outs on the Listserv, no major crisis other than the ongoing pandemic.
The USA continues to perform worse every day than the day before, with 33.3k new infections reported today alone bringing the tally to 2.42 million, while the world is quickly approaching 10 million (9.39 million today) reported cases. Unsurprisingly, states which enforced #stayhome longer and are slower to reopen will require anyone arriving from high spread States such as Florida, Texas, Utah and so on to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival and fines for violations are steep. Very understandable. I hope the DMV will require the same, given we have been really strict to stay healthy.
Amidst the growing spread the administration is defunding testing, especially in the States most effected such as Texas, requesting the States take over the responsibility and fully in line with the call of the moron in chief for less testing to reduce reported numbers.In the meantime, scientists are predicting that total deaths will reach 180k in the USA by October and while the USA is currently accounting for 4% of the world population, it owns 25% of global Corona induced death, scary.
The policies in this country are just too frustrating for words. I love my house, my garden the dojo and the Aikidoka, but I am having ever more doubts if that is enough reason to stay. Almost every country in the world seems a far more attractive location at this stage (well, scratch Brazil, Russia and a few others). Oh and hten there is my brilliant friend of course. The idea of time shared is enticing and may be areason to hang out longer than strictly necessary for EM to finish school. Then again maybe not, as we will not meet as long as the virus is around, and that cna be for a very long time if they do not find a viable vaccine.
Fortunately 13 vaccines have proceeded to clinical trials in several countries around the world with China leading the charge in terms of numbers and Oxford the most advanced, testing in phase 3. If nothing else, at least there seems to be an effective treatment to make the course the virus takes less deadly. I wonder if that would be sufficient for my immune compromised friend to see me.
Everyone’s worst nightmare of protests causing spikes in infections do not seem to come to pass. This appears to be primarily due to those not protesting #stayhome.
Sometimes it takes a virus to make innovation happen, like this one for cleaning airplanes inside using UV light.
25.06.2020 21:11
David
Canadians look at what's going on south of the border and shake their heads in disbelief. It's truly hard to believe.