Friday, July 17th, 2020
Today was day one of what is likely going to be the hottest week in DC this year and for once I spend the entire day working from inside with the AC set at 25C. I did get my fresh air time though – first a two hour late afternoon sail on the Potomac with a colleague who acquired his sailing license last weekend, followed by a 45 minute swim in the outdoor pool at the “Y” as I got lucky for once and managed to book a lane there. I did notice though the water was rather warm making for a slow start to my exercise routine. Still the 7pm slot is nice as it is a full 45 rather than 30 minutes. So, on the days when we do not have outdoor weapons practice, I will try and get the late slot. It makes the evenings less long. On the downside, it makes the day longer.
Compared to the first 100 days of #stayhome my weeks are becoming more lively. Tomorrow and Sunday we have a noon to 14:00 slot at the local public pool, then there is weapons class tomorrow in the morning and friends for a BBQ on Saturday and Sunday.
I am very proud of EM who has landed a new babysitting job starting in a week or two looking after a little French girl. Not only is she working five hours three days a week, she is also now on the dive team of our community pool and of course doing the Pre Calculus summer class, doubling up and doing the A and B course in parallel. She is finding it frustratingly hard to do mostly online as there is no proper instruction and now one to ask and she has two check ins coming up on Monday, one for each class. From what I can tell she is mainly using YouTube instructors and tutorials. I am assuming this is what "teaching" will look like for the next school year as MCPS hsa stated they are testing their new concept in summer school. This does not make me hopeful and more adament that if anyone does go back to school it should be senior students. Fortunately, she does not need the credits, so a fail or pass is not material. Her primary motivation for taking the classes is her fear of IB math, where Pre-Calc is recommend but to a prerequisite. Week one is done, four more to go. Maybe one of the positive side effects of this pandemic is the incredible amount of discipline this senior year is learning.
As global infections reach 13.9 million the USA reaches 3.68 million and the death toll has passed the 141k barrier. In a single day the USA had as many new infections as an entire country has had – 78k in one day, a new world record. America is certainly leading the way, with one in five infections globally now coming from three states: Texas, Florida and California, which is shocking to read. Medical staff from these States who helped in New York are despairing with the policies and people in their home states. It is as if Americans believe the virus is unreal or they are invincible, well neither is the case as evidenced by the 139k dead Americans and countless stories of 13 or 24 or 70-year old dying.
I did find a funny link today to a site featuring different variations of face masks to order and give to friends including variations with mask and scrunchy matching. Well, my friends are out of luck as I have ordered a bunch for EM and myself to add to our ever-growing collection. We now are also in the possession of a few packs of medical masks courtesy of a care parcel from Germany; who would have thought?
The EU is now pre-procuring vaccines on behalf of all EU countries in an effort to provide equal access. Seems their distribution mechanism will be far more organized and equitable than whatever the US is likely to put on. As regards the vaccine development China appears to be progressing at rapid rates with vaccine testing, partially because of “volunteers “ The Chinese vaccines are based on a dead virus, while those under development in the UK, Germany and the US are based on synthetically developed virus genome. While South Korea is allowing clinical trials of a potential treatment drug. So encouraging developments.