Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Monday, August 24th, 2020

Grumpy

The day started well enough, even though EM complaints the house has three climate zones, her floor, the ground-floor and the first floor in which I reside. – Each floor has its own temperature control. The first floor, as is my preference, has all windows and sliding doors open and there is a nice breeze, albeit warm and slightly humid. It feels as if it should rain, but of course does not. The sun is out and clouds pass by overhead.

Bacon and eggs for breakfast for EM, for me half a melon with some prosciutto. Life is good!

At around 10:00 I get antsy and we make our way to Cape Henlopen State Park, where we end up at the fishing pier beach, so called because Americans with their big trucks can drive onto a section on the beach. I have observed this in several places. The trucks open up, out comes the fishing gear the canopy, the beach chairs, the cooler boxes and so on. It is like an entire household is transported to the beach. Fortunately, it is only a small part of the beach. We are further up. Everyone, trucks and people walking onto the beach keep their distance. We set up our umbrella and spread out. And when two elderly couples set up to close for our comfort we ask them politely to move ovver a few feet and they do.

Because it is still cool, we lounge in the sun for a bit. When it begins to get to hot I go for my walk to where there are less people, the section wiht the trucks;  fishing rods firmly planted in the sand behind them. As a result, I need to duck every now or then so as not be beheaded by the lines. From where we have set up to the nature reserve and back is about a mile. I feel a bit tired, so coming back I decide to go for a swim.

The teenager is still hanging in the sun and listless, so as not to say grumpy and declines to join the play in the surf. This does not stop me from spending the better part of an hour body surfing, before returning to playing lizard.

The grumpy child refuses to talk, read or come play in the water. Not sure what has gotten into her. We used to be great travel partners, and this was meant to be a fun vacation. I say as much before returning to the surf. Just to make a point, knowing she wants to go, I insist on staying in the ocean. This does not improve her spirits. She will just have to suck it up. If she will not, I WILL have fun. She is grumpy the entire drive back, as am I as she left me with the heavy beach bag and grabbed the umbrella only with a snide remark that she carried it coming so I get to carry it going back.

Once back at the house we each mind our own business, though I do set up everything to make food once she snaps out of whatever has gotten into her. I think her overhearing me complain to mum does the trick. So in far better spirits we set out on another mission to buy swim wear. Five miles of strip mall with outlet stores do not feature a single sports store. It is amazing. We do manage to spend some money. She finds a top, I a bottom so we have half a bikini each and end the outing with ice cream.

At the house she actually asked me to read her college essay, which is coming along nicely, and we play a bit of UNO. So all is well and I guess everyone can have a bad day.

The Corona Virus briefing in the New Yok Times today is excellent.  Noteworthy is the fact that a man form Hong Kong has gotten CV twice, but the second infection showed almost no symptoms. The main take away of course is that herd immunity will not occur, and it does not do so for the common cold either, but that a vaccine can help the world manage the virus as the body can be trained to successfully fight the virus. This is rather encouraging.

Less encouraging is the political pressure the administration keeps exerting once there is even the slightest positive news. This time political pressure was applied to make the FDA approve “a miracle cure”, which isn’t one, blood plasma of recovered people. It has a long way to go before there is any real proof of how effective this may be as a treatment.

I am certain the same will happen for a vaccine, in this case presumably the Russian one, thought there are rumor that the orange agent is trying to get the English vaccine approved ahead of the election to improve his chances of reelection. They have no moral, no ethics and will do anything to retain power and four more years of Trump would be an unmitigated disaster. For the climate and the US, though I care more about the former than the latter. People get the governments they deserve, but the rest of the world does not deserve what they would be getting. The USA is supposedly the worlds greatest democracy with strong institutions, courts, etc. If people do not rise up against what is going on, they deserve wahtever is coming. I just feel for those who do try to effect change and are silenced.

So far the only place which seems to have gotten the virus under control is China, where local transmissions have almost ceased to exist, in the wake of which life has returned to normal. 74 days of severe lock down, 166 days after a cautious reopening, a total of 240 days, but the prize is life as we knew it.

Sadly, Americans absolutely do not have what it takes. While Europeans brought the second wave on through letting their guard down to early. Still, Europe is faring far better than the United States and governments are taking action to get infections back under control, including isolated lock-downs, bar closures and mask mandates. Total new infections in Europe are a fraction of those in the USA, where reported new infections are declining, but are still in the 40k while all of Europe together is below 10k. The USA today has 5.9 million infections of the world total of 23.4 million.

Other than China there are ten Pacific Island States where people live normal lifes. Somehow these countries managed to not import the Virus at all.

Maybe it is time to relocate to a Pacific island nation.