Coronavirus Journey, Part 5

Part five of my ongoing journal entries about life in the time of the 2020 Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Part One (Jan-Mar, 2020) is here. Part Two (April 2020) is here. Part Three (May 2020) is here. Part Four (June 2020) is here.

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July 4, 2020

Happy Birthday, America. It seems an appropriate time to reflect. It’s quite a mess of things we’ve made at the moment. 

The virus rages worldwide and especially in the States. Global cases are growing by a staggering one million per week. US cases are running more than 50,000 per day. Only two states are trending downward; 40 states and territories are trending up.

Numbers:
Global cases: 11,100,000; Daily average: 170K; Total Deaths: 525,000
USA cases: 2,850,000; Daily average: 50K; Total Deaths: 132,000 
Maryland cases: 69,400  Deaths: 3,223 
US cases trending upward: 40 states/territories; top 5: CA, TX, FL, IL, PA 
US cases mostly the same: 12 states/territories; top 5: NY, NJ, MA, MD, VA
US cases trending downward: 2 states/territories: top 5: RI, NH  

Locally, we are spending the 4th watching “Hamilton” with Leslie. She’s bringing her own snacks and drinks. Tomorrow we will do it again with Betsy Pelovitz from Barb’s work but we will also grill steaks and asparagus. It’s a festive 4th within our bubble. We’re eagerly anticipating Allie’s arrival next Friday and hope that things don’t go deeply south between now and then or while she’s here. 

I had a call yesterday from Laurie who reports that restrictions continue to lift in Spain. There are no more restricted walking hours for old folks and the streets of Segovia are filled with people taking day trips from Madrid. Foreign tourists can start coming as well. Laurie’s been able to spend lots of time with Maggie and the boys. They, in turn, are doing OK though both the boys have dental issues which require multiple trips to specialists in Madrid. Life is returning to something close to normal there and Laurie is hoping to be able to visit her friends in Norway in August…if she can get her Spanish residency visa renewed in time. She doesn’t want to travel on just her American passport because she’d have to quarantine.

I feel like I can’t watch fireworks because Trump has commandeered them. He held an odious celebration at Mt. Rushmore last night that I avoided, complete with flyovers, fireworks and a vengeful speech. Today he’s doing much the same on the Mall with a speech and flyovers on the South Lawn followed by an especially ostentatious fireworks display despite the fact that most jurisdictions in the area have cancelled their displays. Mayor Bowser urges DC residents not to go to the Mall. There will be some protests as well. Hopefully it will all just go away, like Trump keeps wishing the virus will.

Yesterday, while Barb was at Dan’s pool and after I mowed the lawn, I decided to start tackling the Fisher family albums for Billzpage. I elected to go with the oldest looking one. Turns out it is the family scrapbook assembled by Barb paternal grandmother, Helen Fisher. It is quite astonishing. Barb claims she didn’t know we even had it. I think it came to us after Fred’s death and we just popped it on a shelf with other albums without really looking at it. Barb had a strained relationship with Grandma Helen and I only met her a few times. One story I need to add to Billzpage was when Barb and I decided to take our cat Ziggy to see Helen at her nursing home in Falls Church. Helen loved meeting Ziggy and was her warmest, most animated self. Barb wondered why she couldn’t always be like that.

It turns out that Helen’s family had (has?) a long and somewhat distinguished history going back to 17th century New Amsterdam. Their forebears arrived in America just 30-some years after the Mayflower. The scrapbook contains some remarkable gems, particularly an envelope of Civil War letters from a Union officer relative who was on campaigns in Louisiana, Maryland and Virginia (Vicksburg). The letters range from 1861 – 1864. They are legible enough for me to read and I was trying to parse through them yesterday. It’s quite humbling and intimidating to handle letters more than 150 years old. I want to try to decipher them and the other scrapbook contents; it seems an appropriate exercise to start on July 4. Once I’m done, I think we need to find a better curator — these are borderline historical documents. Maybe the DAR is the right spot. Helen was a proud member. Barb and Betsy cannot be because they are adopted, a DAR policy that seems cruelly retrogressive. 

My other nod to America’s past is to start reading my newest library book, “Benjamin Franklin, An American Life” by Walter Isaacson. It seems a fitting companion to reading about Napoleon and watching Hamilton. So, rather than keep prattling on, I’ll get to these tasks.

July 9

Allie’s coming tomorrow and we’re very excited!

The last few days have been quiet here. We made it through our Hamilton viewings on July 4 and 5 and indeed quite enjoyed seeing it twice in a row, Barb included. Closed captioning helped greatly as did the ability to Google things and fact check as we went along.

I’ve spent the last few days working through Helen’s scrapbook. I only got a few pages in and decided I needed a family tree to keep everyone straight. That led me to get a Family Tree add-on for WordPress and I’ve been entering individuals and building trees for the last two days. It’s been a useful exercise, I think, and I will probably spring for a lifetime license to the add-on so it can stay in Billzpage. I’ll let Allie take a look and see what she thinks.

In the course of doing this, I stumbled upon the Duncan and Goodloe trees that already exist in Geni.com. Some of them have been curated by Leecy Barnett and Susan Rech before that. Both these trees and related branches span back an uncounted number of generations and include many tens of thousands of people. It was overwhelming to bump into that yesterday. Before yesterday I’d basically known back to my own grandparents, had some hazy rumors of our great grandparents and nothing before that. Today, I have a genealogy that spans back centuries and a football stadium full of relatives I know nothing about. I still don’t really know anything about them but there’s room to begin to research if I’m so inclined. I probably will but it’s a whole other bucket of time and effort. I’m not sure it’s really worthwhile or what priority to assign it. I’ve written Leecy to see if she can offer any guidance or details on any of these forebears.

I showed Barb some of the work I did on Helen’s family tree which itself goes back about 10 generations so far. She emphatically didn’t care, hewing to the DAR opinion that her adoption cuts her off from that line. It’s a valid reaction, I guess, but I argue that it emphatically is her family, the only one she’s known. How to handle adoptions within genealogies is a topic of debate I hadn’t really considered before. I suspect there may be more discussion of this within the family but it’s a sensitive area, justifiably so.

On the virus front, the US passed 3 million cases and the world passed 12 million (adding one million in just four days). The US set a record with 59,000 cases yesterday. Meanwhile, Trump is prattling on about opening schools next month and getting fans to attend baseball games. 

Numbers:
Global cases: 12,100,000; Daily average: 190K; Total Deaths: 550,000
USA cases: 3,110,000; Daily average: 50K; Total Deaths: 134,000 
Maryland cases: 71,400  Deaths: 3,275 
US cases trending upward: 38 states/territories; top 5: CA, TX, FL, PA, GA 
US cases mostly the same: 14 states/territories; top 5: NY, NJ, IL, MA, VA
US cases trending downward: 2 states/territories: top 5: NH, VT

I think that’s it to report for now. I will get back to Helen’s scrapbook. I’m on the verge of getting to the Civil War letters of Giles Allen which seem to be the highlight of what I’ve seen so far. I’ve refrained from actually looking through the whole scrapbook. I feel like the archaeologists in China who have refrained from digging into Emperor Qin’s tomb because they’re not ready.

July 13

It’s Monday. Allie is here which is delightful. She arrived Friday evening — her flight on Southwest was not eventful and not at all full. I got her at the airport, we wore masks and refrained from hugging until she got home, showered and started her laundry…then we welcomed her into our bubble. The weekend was nearly normal. Barb and Allie did a little shopping on Saturday and went to Dan’s pool on Sunday. Today, both the girls are at work here in the house, Barb in the dining room and Allie in her study upstairs. Barb’s in her t-shirt as usual and Allie is in a nice dress because she does lots of Zoom calls. I’m on the deck with Manny enjoying the decent weather before it gets too hot later in the day. Home is the new office.

While the ladies were at work, I chased down some odds and ends this morning including the status of our refinancing loan. We are now set for closing next Tuesday, 7/21. They will send a notary to the house for the final signings. Something to look forward to, I guess. The virus makes everything more interesting.

Speaking of that virus, it continues to explode around the U.S. like so many illegal fireworks in the hands of idiots like our neighbor (a different story). Florida set a single day record yesterday with more than 15,000 cases and the country neared 70,000 for the day. The death rate has also started to tick up, now over 500 per day in the US after getting under 400.

Numbers:
Global cases: 12,900,000; Daily average: 190K; Total Deaths: 571,000
USA cases: 3,370,000; Daily average: 55K; Total Deaths: 137,000 
Maryland cases: 73,700  Deaths: 3,319 
US cases trending upward: 42 states/territories; top 5: CA, FL, TX, IL, AZ 
US cases mostly the same: 10 states/territories; top 5: NY, NJ, MA, CN
US cases trending downward: 2 states/territories: top 5: NH, ME 

Trump wore a mask in public over the weekend which qualified as news. He also sent his PR attack dogs after Dr. Anthony Fauci, leaking an opposition-style collection of his less-than-correct statements (notwithstanding that Trump makes more false statements in a day than Fauci has this year). Trump’s poll numbers are low with approval under 40% and there are articles that Democrats think they can sweep the presidency, House and Senate in November. There was also a good article (which I’d link to but can’t find right now) reminding us that the outlook was similar in September 2016 the Saturday after Trump’s grab-them-by-the-(  ) tape went viral but he rebounded within days with the release of Hilary’s leaked emails. Only God and Roger Stone, whose prison sentence Trump commuted on Friday night, know what will happen between now and November.

On Wednesday we will attempt our little getaway to the Eastern Shore and the Chesapeake Hyatt. It’s our bid for something close to the old normal, giving the girls a chance to hang out at the pool while I wander around the Eastern Shore. I’ve downloaded an app for the Harriet Tubman trail that I’m eager to try. We’re all looking forward to the break. Here’s hoping everything goes well.

Later in the day, I listened to a podcast about The Lafayette Trail, an interesting project that maps Lafayette’s 1824 farewell tour of the U.S. In the wake of my interest in American and French revolutionary times, Lafayette was on my radar as the next person I want to know more about, and this looks like an excellent vehicle. It turns out he drove right down the National Pike, our Route 40 and 144 heading from Baltimore through Ellicott City to Frederick. There are lots of other sites in Maryland to visit. The podcast also mentioned Sarah Vowell’s book about Lafayette which now goes on my reading list. 

The Lafayette Trail project is put together by Julien Icher who seems to be a very personable young French historian very dedicated to promoting Franco-American relations. The project aims to especially commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s trip in 2024 and the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution in 2026. Some worthy things to look forward to. We hope for better days by then.

Friday, July 17

We spent the last two days and nights at the Chesapeake Hyatt. It was a (relatively) nice little break, a little nerve wracking but a little relaxing. I’ll detail the trip in a separate post.

The hotel seemed at least half full, though it was hard to tell precisely. People were generally be good with wearing masks in common areas. The pool areas were quite busy. There were a lot of families and kids, happy to have something to do, no doubt. Virus-wise, we three seem to be healthy but I guess the proof will be in how we do over the next two weeks. We raised our exposure chances dramatically over these three days but we did it reasonably carefully, we thought. Time to get back in our bubbles and hope for the best.

The world outside is not looking good. The U.S. topped 75,000 cases yesterday, a new record. Brazil has topped two million cases and India topped one million. The U.S. response remains totally scattershot. School systems in many places, including Howard County, are announcing that they are going to have distance learning in the fall (like, next month). Trump continues to implode, replacing his campaign manager and flailing in public appearances, but that just makes him seem even more dangerous. It’s not encouraging, but then again it would be more surprising and at least equally worrisome if he suddenly became a competent leader. The sad fact is that it means more people get sick and die. We hope that we do not become statistics though in our case it would be through our own choices and actions. Time will tell.

Numbers:
Global cases: 13,800,000; Daily average: 200K; Total Deaths: 591,000
USA cases: 3,530,000; Daily average: 60K; Total Deaths: 138,000 
Maryland cases: 76,200  Deaths: 3,347 
US cases trending upward: 42 states/territories; top 5: CA, FL, TX, IL, PA 
US cases mostly the same: 10 states/territories; top 5: NY, AZ, NJ, MA, CN
US cases trending downward: 2 states/territories: top 5: DE, ME 

July 23

I wish I had some good news to report about the virus, state of the world or national affairs but things just seem to keep plunging downward. A smattering of the bad news, in no particular order:

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• The virus in the US is running over 65,000 new cases and over 1,000 deaths daily. We’ve passed 15 million cases and 600,000 deaths worldwide and 4 million cases and 140,000 deaths in the US. 
• The Covidexitstrategy.org map looks pretty bad, though honestly the Northeast is a little better than I expected.
• Hospitalizations in the US are evidently at levels equal to the worst phase in April, but the data is not readily available from the government. 
• Maryland is back on the list of states with rapid growth in cases.
• Trump has resumed his coronavirus briefings which are now more clearly labeled as the Trump Show at 5pm daily, “a good slot”. He let us know his administration is beginning to formulate a plan. Good. Get back to us. 
• Oh, and masks are OK now but still not a requirement, he says. 
• Trump had an hour-long interview with Chris Wallace on Fox last Sunday and the chattering classes are still chewing through the fog of misstatements that spewed from Trump’s mouth. Wallace did a credible job of real-time fact checking but it didn’t seem to faze his highness.
• Some cities and states are mandating masks and a few (including Baltimore) are rolling back openings of bars and indoor dining. This is probably a good thing, but it’s all so scattershot and remains highly political.
• Trump’s Troops are invading American cities including Portland, Chicago and Albuquerque (why Albuquerque?), with more cities (including Baltimore) threatened. The strategy of inflaming law-and-order issues in Democratic cities is transparently obvious but is so blatant it might succeed over the rest of the summer; it will be a test for all involved. 
• Congress is back in session after seemingly taking the last month off; the GOP is squabbling among themselves and the White House on what the next relief plan should look like…before even beginning to discuss things with the Democrats. 
• News broke of Trump leaning on his UK Ambassador (NY Jets owner Woody Johnson, which is gag-inducing on its own) to try to get The British Open to return to Trump’s Turnberry resort, another blatantly corrupt move to add to the pile.
• Have I mentioned the heatwave? July has been pretty ugly. It seems like we’ve had more than 20 days of 90+ degree temperatures, most with high humidity but not much rain. It’s been gross. The US heat wave map looks a lot like the coronavirus map — lots of red across the nation, especially the Sunbelt. 
• Biden is up in the polls but it seems pretty meaningless at the moment.
• Baseball is starting but it’s a ridiculously compromised season and format. Still, I’ll probably watch, if only for the distraction. But it’s aggravating all the same.
• The list is endless (haven’t mentioned ratcheting up tensions with China, pushing on schools to reopen, rising unemployment levels, excluding resident aliens from the census, extending restrictions on immigrants and DACA children, impending rise of rent evictions…) but that’s clearly part of Trump’s strategy. Just spew out noise and smoke. Some egregious actions will stick, some won’t, many won’t get noticed, others will distract. Raise anxieties. Exhaust the opponents. Every day is a battle. 

Numbers:
Global cases: 15,300,000; Daily average: 200K; Total Deaths: 624,000
USA cases: 4,040,000; Daily average: 66K; Total Deaths: 145,000 
Maryland cases: 80,700  Deaths: 3,405 
US cases trending upward: 42 states/territories; top 5: CA, FL, TX, IL, GA 
US cases mostly the same: 10 states/territories; top 5: NY, NJ, CN, UT, NM
US cases trending downward: 2 states/territories: AZ, DE  

Fortunately, our own status in our bubble stays more or less the same. I can do the same sort of list:

• We, so far (knock on wood), don’t seem to have any ill effects from our adventures with Allie on the Eastern Shore last week.
• We closed on our home mortgage refinancing yesterday and they made it easy, the notary coming to the house and sitting on our deck. We signed off on 100 pages of mortgage details in less than 30 minutes. 
• I’ve more or less finished entering Helen’s Scrapbook into Billzpage. My wander down the genealogy trail is probably done for the time being, but I have learned a lot and have some pretty detailed family trees to show for it. There’s lots more there to research if I (or anyone) ever wants to.
• The biggest inconvenience within our bubble was that my lawnmower broke down a couple of days ago, but it was picked up for service yesterday and I hope to get it back soon.
• I’ve scheduled Barb’s car for service next week, along with our A/C and water maintenance checks…so I need to clean the basement before they come.
• Yesterday our neighbor Jerry floated the prospect of putting a flagpole on the corner next to our traffic circle. I could only imagine him sticking a huge US flag and a Trump flag on it. Janice came over, incensed. The idea seems to be squashed by the rest of the homeowner’s association but we’ll see.
• Deb came over for lunch (that I picked up at Walkers) on Monday after her tennis game at Circle D. It was nice seeing her. Barb is game to do it more often.
• Arathi stopped by today to pick up some stuff and stayed to chat with Barb on the deck for a while (and took an aloe!).
• On Saturday we will venture down to Reston for an early dinner with Mary and John. Barb will see another of her friends on Sunday.

So we’re starting to see more people and trying to come to grips with this level of normal. If I keep my nose out of the news of the outside world, I might actually be happy. But I can’t stop watching what’s going on and it never fails to outrage. It feels like a trap.

Circling back to Barb’s grandmother Helen and her scrapbook, one of the last things in it were some newspapers from Fort Des Moines where she was evidently stationed as a nurse in 1918-1919. It happened to be at the time when the Spanish flu was just having an impact. There were two articles that may as well have been printed today, including “Twelv(e) Rules Given to Aid in Guarding Against Spanish ‘Flu’ Epidemic”.

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July 27

It’s Monday, four-and-a-half months into our viral world, or 19 weeks by my count. My outrage meter ticked down just a notch since my last post; there’s still plenty of outrage to go around, but slightly less new stuff in the last couple of days. Plus it was the weekend and everyone seems to want to take a breather now and then.

The numbers are still atrocious but leveling off slightly in the U.S. The global situation is still ramping higher at a steady rate, adding over a million cases per week. Brazil and India are on especially bad trajectories, still. Maryland is on an upslope for cases in July, which is worrisome.

Numbers:
Global cases: 16,300,000; Daily average: 200K; Total Deaths: 649,000
USA cases: 4,310,000; Daily average: 65K; Total Deaths: 149,000 
Maryland cases: 84,300  Deaths: 3,440 
US cases trending upward: 36 states/territories; top 5: CA, IL, GA, MA, PA 
US cases mostly the same: 17 states/territories; top 5: FL, NY, TX, NJ, OH
US cases trending downward: 3 states/territories: AZ, UT, USVI  

It appears the U.S. is going to content itself with trying to wear masks and maybe cut back on bars, nightclubs and indoor dining in some places. That will likely blunt the growth of the virus but won’t bring the rates down sharply. There don’t seem to be any states willing to go back into a stronger shutdown of their economies, much less the dramatic shutdowns that Europe and other countries imposed to really bring down rates of infection. Particularly with the election cycle now within 100 days, there’s no political will to take sharper measures. Congress and the White House can barely get themselves together to discuss one more round of stimulus between now and the election, even though supplemental unemployment benefits expire in a week for many millions.

There are glimmers of hope on the vaccine front as several providers are moving into wide trials at a record pace. There’s also a glimmer of corruption as stock prices bounce wildly on speculation and government contracts seem to go to those with best connections to Jared and his crew. Even at this accelerated pace, wide deployment of any vaccines (and there will likely be several, if not many, which will create issues of their own) will be “some months” into 2021 (according to Dr. Fauci) though even that seems optimistic to me. 

So, it appears we’ll stay in a mode of muddling through for at least another 6-12 months. Schools will have a very hard time opening in the next month or two and resentment from parents is justifiably rising, which only feeds myriad social, economic and political pressures. There are prospects of a gigantic Democratic wave in the November election, but a long way to go between now and then, with shenanigans guaranteed. Questions over mail-in ballots loom as a huge issue for November. It may be weeks or longer before many races are decided. Think Trump will have fun with that? Mr. Trump’s Wild Ride will continue at least until January. Hopefully not beyond, but even if the Democrats gain a huge sweep, the problems will not disappear. Ugh. Now I’m depressed again. Sorry.

In local news, on Saturday evening we ventured down to Virginia for an actual outdoor dinner with friends, Mary and John Salhus. We all had a good time. Barb desperately needs people to talk to, and so did Mary, it seems. We (mostly they) blathered for nearly five hours between the restaurant and their house. Sharing notes on television shows and people at Barb’s work seemed to take up 90% of the conversation. The best thing was we didn’t spend much time at all bitching about Trump or the state of the world, which was refreshing. Barb also spent time with her aerobics class ladies and her friend Sheila, so it was a very social weekend for her. She needs it; work seems to be getting worse with the Trumpies trying to shove more questionable programs into the pipeline while they still can.

We also visited Cattail Creek Country Club for a tour and membership talk. We’ve decided to go ahead and get a social membership which gives us access to the pool, tennis and dining. We’re doing it largely for Barb to use the pool for sunning and a place to get away. We’re committing to two years and will see how it goes. The main clubhouse is about to undergo extensive renovation so they’ve cut the initiation fees and some of the monthly expenses…the costs are about as reasonable as they will ever be. I have mixed feelings about being in that crowd of Republicans and some of my least favorite Glenelg Country School parents, but am willing to give it a try for Barb’s sake. There’s a chance I could get sucked into their tennis programs if I gave it a chance, but mostly I’m just interested in using the club as a dining alternative. If Barb can use it as a mental sanctuary then it will be well worth it.

Thursday, July 30

Local matters are at the top of mind for the moment. It’s a Thursday, the Maids are here cleaning the house and I’m exiled to the porch for a while, though it’s warm. We have broken a local record with 28 of 30 days in July at 90 degrees or higher in DC (25 of 30 at BWI, I’ve learned, but that’s still a record). It’s been a toasty month. 

We are in maintenance mode, it seems. We have a water service guy coming today and an air conditioner service guy coming tomorrow, both for regular check ups. I took Barb’s car in for service on Tuesday for a major maintenance check at 130K miles. Such is the nature of chores for me, nowadays. I’m mostly a general contractor getting other people to do the things I’m either unwilling or unable to do myself. I suspect it would be healthier to work up the spine and will to do more myself but it is so much easier to pay other people to do it. I tell myself I’m keeping the economy going.

The outside world news is bad again and I’m not up to cataloging all of it. Perhaps most egregious of today’s headlines is Trump’s floating the idea of delaying the election. It seems ludicrous and not something in his power, but who knows nowadays. I suspect it’s a trial balloon to see how many Republicans salute or squawk. That and an effort to distract from John Lewis’s funeral where Obama is speaking today and from an especially bad economic report on falling GDP in the 2nd quarter. 

The U.S. topped 150,000 deaths within the last couple of days, depending on who’s doing the counting. The Washington Post did a good article trying to personalize this awful number; each section starts with the same paragraph relating the total number of deaths in the country, state and county before detailing a single person.

Numbers:
Global cases: 17,000,000; Daily average: 200K; Total Deaths: 667,000
USA cases: 4,520,000; Daily average: 65K; Total Deaths: 153,000 
Maryland cases: 86,800  Deaths: 3,478 
US cases trending upward: 30 states/territories; top 5: NJ, IL, MA, PA, TN 
US cases mostly the same: 18 states/territories; top 5: CA, FL, NY, GA, NC
US cases trending downward: 6 states/territories: TX, AZ, SC, KS, VT 

The U.S. seems to have topped out of this recent rapid growth stage but there’s no sense the numbers will start trending down significantly, just a new awful plateau. Death rates will likely rise for another week or two before plateauing again themselves but still at an unacceptable level. We might see 200,000 deaths by Labor Day or soon after, maybe 250,000 by election day…assuming there is one. And one million deaths worldwide. Still staggering to contemplate, and we may not yet be halfway through this virus’ rampage.

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