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Monday/ death toll approaches 11,000

‘But we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We have 15 people [sick] in this massive country, and because of the fact that we went early. We went early; we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great. We are so unified. We are so unified. The Republican Party has never ever been unified like it is now. There has never been a movement in the history of our country like we have now. Never been a movement’.
– trump, at a rally in South Carolina, Feb 28

By late Monday night the number of deaths in the United States from the coronavirus approached 11,000. This number of reported deaths has doubled every 3 or 4 days since mid-March. At this rate, the 100,000 mark will be reached by the end of April.

There are signs in New York City that the peak of the epidemic there has been reached, though. Some models now predict a lower number than the estimated range of 100k- 240k total deaths in the USA by August range (80k or so).

From today’s New York Times: ‘The United States on Monday crossed the threshold of 10,000 deaths from the coronavirus. The first 5,000 deaths came in just over a month’s time, and in fewer than five days, the second 5,000 followed’.
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Sunday/ the South Philippine dwarf kingfisher

Check out this stunning picture Miguel David De Leon for the Robert S. Kennedy Bird Conservancy, in a forest in the .

The little birds are just about impossible to catch sitting still, and it took three years of patience and trying to get a picture of the bird.

 

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Saturday/ once upon a time on Doon Drive

Here’s a sneak peek at my current LEGO project.
I call it ‘The Doon Drive House’. It’s a replica of the house that I grew up in, in South Africa — in a town called Vereeniging, and on Doon Drive, of course.

I had photos of the outside of the house to help me with the dimensions. As for the inside: I still recall every nook and cranny, down to the furniture and appliances that were installed.

So it’s quite a trip down memory lane for me, with the little bricks from Denmark. I used to play with them in that very house, all of 6 years old.

It’s all still very rough, but getting there. I’m using old-fashioned little red doors and windows, to keep the scale of the house down to a reasonable size (about 1:100). LEGO stopped making those doors & windows way back in 1976. The roof bricks have a 33° slope; the 45° ones would make the roof way too tall. I ordered more roof bricks from a seller in Norway & other bricks from Germany (from BrickLink). Yes: nothing is going to stop me now from completing the house!
Here are the door sizes that a LEGO house builder can choose from (dimensions in LEGO studs): the 1d x 2w x 3h, the 1x3x4 or the 1x4x6. The yellow one is FOUR times the size of the red one, and as a consequence a house built with it will be roughly four times as large, as well. Maybe I will try using the middle one for a next iteration of the Doon Drive House.
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Friday/ cover your face (in enclosed public spaces)

The CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force today said to cover one’s face with a cloth mask when going into a store or an enclosed public space.

As someone on Twitter noted: how come masks are required for healthcare workers, but wearing nothing at all was recommended for the public, when they can come into close contact with other people .. even as they try to avoid them, and given that persons might be asymptomatic but still contagious? It never made sense.

A doctor on TV pointed out that wearing any kind of mask sends an important signal to others: something is seriously amiss (aka: a P-A-N-D-E-M-I-C). So everyone in public should avoid close contact, and not spread germs (and viruses). It also reminds the wearer not to touch his or her face.

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Thursday/ Stay At Home extended

Washington State’s Stay At Home order has been extended to May 4.

About 1/4 of the reported Covid-19 cases in the world are now from the United States (245k out of a million), with fatalities now approaching 6,000 in the USA, and more than 53,000 worldwide. (Information from the dashboard from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University).

‘Yes, this is exactly what I feel like right now’, I thought as I walked by the mural at 10th Ave & Pine today. I was making my way to the pharmacy on Madison St, navigating the desolate street blocks of First Hill.
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Wednesday/ here’s April

The little bergenia ‘Bressingham White’ that I have in a pot, has produced its first flowers.

Bergenias have leathery, shiny, rounded leaves that get a bronze tinge in winter time. The little flowers are bell-shaped.
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Tuesday/ graupel

I learned a new word today from our local TV weatherman: graupel.

Graupel is precipitation that forms when tiny, super-cooled water droplets glom onto snowflakes. The soft snowy pellets then fall down to earth.

This must be sleet or fine hail (hard pellets), that fell here in my yard today, and not graupel. Graupel’s consistency is that of opaque white snowy pellets.
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Monday/ the ‘wabbits’ are under quarantine

I ran out to the grocery store again on Saturday.
Hopefully, the time will come again in the foreseeable future, when I would not have to dodge the other shoppers, nor be in a rush, so as to minimize my time in the ‘dangerous’ public space of the store.

My two Easter bunnies from Lindt still have a day or so to go before they are done with their 72 hour quarantine .. but I will probably wash the foil wrappers with soap anyway, before I tear it open.

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Sunday/ trying to peer into the future

‘Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.’—Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher

To help keep my sense of time and seasons intact, I drew up a little timeline of the 9 months that still stretch ahead of Seattle and the world in 2020.
Major sport events in the world have now been cancelled through July (including Wimbledon tennis at the famous ‘All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club’, and the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics).

After that – well, we just don’t know right now.

Sure looks like it’s going to be remote learning for Seattle schools through June, and NO proms, NO high school graduation ceremonies. Confirmed: NO 2020 Opening Day for Seattle Yacht Club. I don’t think there will be a 2020 Seattle Pride Parade (late June), nor 4th of July fireworks gatherings. Seafair Weekend is the end of July .. not yet cancelled. Will kids go back to school on Sep. 2? Don’t know yet. The 2020 NFL season is slated to start Sept. 10, and insiders are said to be ‘skeptical’ of that start date. And by then Thanksgiving and Christmas loom.
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Saturday Night Out: Cancelled

The streets were very quiet, late afternoon around Capitol Hill’s so-called Pike & Pine corridor — where all the bars and restaurants are. None of these establishments are open, of course.

Doors are closed; none of the usual crowding outside the Comet Tavern at 922 East Pike, and no cars on the streets.
The Oddfellows Café + Bar on 10th Ave in Capitol Hill, not only closed, but all boarded up, as for a hurricane.  ‘Can’t Wait to See You Again!’ and ‘Stand Six Steps Back And Promise You Love Me’, says the artwork on the boards. The Oddfellows Hall building was completed in 1908.
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Friday/ tulips and the Dutch Golden Age

Tulips were coveted in the late 1500s in Europe, for their saturated, intense petal color — that no other cultivated plant had at the time.

At the height of Tulip Mania in the Dutch Golden Age (February of 1637),  tulip bulbs sold for some 10,000 guilders: enough money to buy a mansion on the Amsterdam Grand Canal.
The market for tulip bulbs collapsed soon after that.

There is no Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley north of Seattle this year, but a few can be seen here & there in gardens in my neighborhood. I found this beauty a block down from my house.
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Thursday/ tracking the pandemic’s toll

The Financial Times publish these graphs of Covid-19 fatalities every day, here.

This graph shows that deaths in Italy, Spain and the United States are still increasing at a more rapid pace than they had in China, at a similar time (number of days after the 10th death in the country).

 

This graph shows that the New York State, the Catalonia region and the Madrid metro, could eventually pass Lombardia, Italy, as the worst affected subregion. Washington State and California seems to be doing relatively better than New York State. The higher rate in New York State could be related to the very dense population in NYC, and the heavy use of crowded public transportation there.

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Wednesday/ what’s in, and what’s out?

You don’t make the timeline. The virus makes the timeline.
So you’ve got to respond in what you see happen.
And if you keep seeing this acceleration, it doesn’t matter what you say.
1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks – you’ve got to go with what the situation on the ground is.
– Dr. Anthony Fauci, member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force

Below is a handy infographic from the Seattle Times, that shows what is allowed, and what is not, under the governor’s Stay-At-Home directive.

For the extra-careful (paranoid*?), there are YouTube videos that advise to wash or sterilize the outsides of packaged groceries, or to carefully dump out food from take-out containers onto clean dinner plates.  Packages from Amazon or elsewhere, should be quarantined for 24 or 48 hours. Wear gloves when going into a store, to minimize direct touch with shopping carts & screens, and so on.

*The late Andy Grove from PC processor manufacturer Intel Corp., wrote a business book titled ‘Only The Paranoid Survive’.

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Monday/ another rough one

The stock market was down today by ‘only’ – what? 4% or so, I think. I am not even looking anymore. Congress is still trying to pass a $2 trillion economic package. (That’s a 2 with 18 zeros; about 10% of the entire US Gross Domestic Product). As the New York Times says: Republicans insist that we should fight a plague with trickle-down economics and crony capitalism. Democrats, for some reason, don’t agree, and think we should focus on directly helping Americans in need. 

There was Trump today, again at the podium with the daily press conference, his tedious self. He has done very little to stop or slow the pandemic. He now tries to claim, that it is going to be possible to resume business as usual in another week or so. (Unbelievable. And good luck with that). The press conference today went on so long, and so off the rails, that it was abandoned by the three national TV networks.

The USA is still a patchwork of some States with statewide Stay-At-Home orders, some with orders just in some metro areas (Florida, Texas), and many ‘red’ states (Republican controlled) with no restrictions at all. [Source: New York Times online].
Trump as his press conference today. ‘To watch Trump is to witness the awesome and terrifying power of the American president over life and death – a burden he is unqualified to bear’. [The Guardian online newspaper].

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Friday/ sheltering in place

It has been beautiful outside this week, so I went for a few walks around the block a few times — but definitely avoiding people on the sidewalk. Yes, I’m steering clear of you. Don’t care if you are offended .. it’s good for both of us.

I find going to the grocery store harrowing*, and maybe I will get supplies for a whole month with my next trip.
Of course: I can always order from Amazon or even online, from the grocery store, as well.

*The last time I went, there was a woman with a persistent, bad cough in the store. So you absolutely had to come into the store? I thought.

It’s early days, but the number of positive tests on this dashboard from the University of Washington, looks promising. (The number of positive cases is stable and not increasing rapidly).