Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Sunday, June 28th, 2020

Summer Cooking

We had all of these plans for hikes and swims or going to swim in a river in West Virginia at the cottage of a friend today, none of which materialized. Mainly because the socially distanced slumber party EM had with her best friend out in the garden lasted until noon. The fact that a night around a firepit with two of my girlfriends had me out until midnight and hence sleep in until 9 also did not help. I cannot remember when I have been out this late…. It was fun!

As a result we mooched around the house all day. I did venture out for a pedicure when the nail spa said there was no one there. It felt safe enough. I was a bit miffed to have three other people come in before I was done, but everyone was wearing a mask and it is a very large space, so hoping we are all okay.

Most of the day was spend in the kitchen cooking. I had scored Rhubarb at Wegman’s yesterday so made Rhubarb-Strawberry and Rhubarb-Blackberry compotes. Also after harvesting my kitchen garden marinated a pound of Feta Cheese for future salads. Then proceeded to deal with the cucumbers in the fridge to produce some Tsatsiki, which is nice refreshing condiment with grilled steak. The fennel was grated and converted into a salad with filleted oranges for consumption tomorrow as we had a feast of white Asparagus today. Sadly, the Sauce Bernaise did not work out as the bowl was too hot for the egg’s liking. It was delicious none the less after I scraped it through a sieve. And so the day went.

In terms of Corona today marked two sad records: More than 10.1 than million reported cases and over 500k dead in the world today. The USA continues to hold the record in number of infected per capita and dead per capita marking the day with yet another increase by 43k new cases, though death tolls have been reclining and linger around 500 per day. That is likely going to change over coming weeks as newly reported cases turn form infected to severe. 2.6 million cases are reported in the USA today and over 128k people have perished as the Virus continues to spike. Texas, one of the current hot spots, is amazingly unprepared to conduct testing at scale, when the mantra for reopening has been to raise testing and contact tracing abilities. With its aggressive reopening one should think they invested in both of these, clearly that is not the case. How incompetent does a government get?

In the meantime, Trumpsters continue to protest wearing masks or #stayhome. What is wrong with these people? Just looking at NYT's morning brief with pictures of people prowling through Miami has me upset; packed streets, no masks of course and a governor whose only regret is opening bars too soon. Meanwhile workers in Florida, another of the nations hot spots, are concerned about going back to work in reopening amusement parks, worried to get infected. Firstly, why would any governor allow amusement parks to reopen amid infection surges? And secondly, who in the right mind would want to crowd into an amusement park? Unless of course you are brain amputated.... And to add insult to injury reporting of cases and ICU bed occupancy in Texas has now been curbed. It is like the emperor’s new clothes. ICUs already are overwhelmed with 10 out of 10 beds occupied; and that is before patients in the spike of the past week are likely to reach critical state. Somehow all that winning is not happening, looks more like a lot of losing is going on, culminating in loss of lives, tragic. Which maybe the folks over at FOX & Friends partially to blame for as they have been spreading the administration’s propagated myth that the virus is harmless and under control, contributing to increasing infection rates among its viewers research now finds. Not sure why it took research to come to this conclusion, but here it is.

Especially given the strangeness of the virus and the little we know about how to treat it and why it affects people so differently this is irresponsible reporting. Some stay ill for a long time, for some the illness is super severe, for other it comes and goes unnoticed. Medical professionals and scientists have learned a lot about the virus since it began its spread six months ago, which may go a long way to saving lives.

Research on use of Llama antibodies is now complimented by research of using Alpaca antibodies to limit the spread of the virus.  Early research shows that alpaca antibodies can stop the virus from spreading in humans.These findings are in essence the same as the results of ongoing reseearch of the Llama called Winter in Belgium. Not a big surprise seeing Llama and Alpaca are of the same family. I would like to be part of that study!

And as people are working from home and expect to do so for a long time to come, houses with gardens are in high demand.

Not quite official yet, but very likely to be tomorrow is the EU “safe list” a list of countries from where visitors to the EU open boarder zone are welcome. There are two more lists which may expand the number of countries and one list with travelers banned from entering the EU. The latter currently features three countries:

1. Brazil

2. USA

3. Russia

As countries with the virus mostly out of control and little to no political will to get it under control. Personally I would probably add India.

While on the subject of travel, I do not think I will be boarding any American carrier any time soon, given they are booking flights at capacity with basically no safety measures, beyond cabin cleaning and stopping service, during flights in place.

Happy to read EUR 6 billion have been raised by the EU and artist for vaccine development, to ensure all countries, not just the rich benefit from a vaccine 

While China is making progress with its vaccine development and a second vaccine found to be safe and effective in phase 2 testing, now moving to phase 3  So hoping Oxford, Sinopharm and Cambridge will have viable vaccines by November, as I really want to go home for Christmas.