The View from the Hermitage, Day 278

The numbers continue to be astounding, like more than 17,000,000 coronavirus cases in the US. In Los Angeles, two people are dying of covid-19 every hour. If two people were dying in car accidents, drive-by shootings, or so many other things, there would be a public cry for action to be taken and quickly. I wish I could say that that was because those other causes of death seem more important to society in general than covid-19. But no, to quote the menfolk in my family, many people are stupid. A psychiatric hospital in California with 1,527 beds reports that 335 patients and 327 staff members are positive for covid-19. Don't get seriously ill in California; there are virtually no ICU beds available. 

The numbers in Virginia are not going up, which does not mean that they are going down. I am very afraid of how things will look in mid-January, when the Christmas surge comes. As with Thanksgiving, public health officials recommend people not travel, that they stay at home. As with Thanksgiving, a lot of people won't do that. I would love to have my mom come for Christmas dinner, but if she leaves her facility, she will have to isolate herself for two weeks after she returns. We'll Zoom with her instead. Is Zoom the next best thing to being there? For the time being, yes.

I felt so productive yesterday taking care of little things. Even without lifting heavy boxes or twisting, my back is back to sore today. No, I am not happy. Neither is The Professor since his steroid shot in the knee was rescheduled due to the snow that wasn't. I can't blame the doc's office for rescheduling. It may not have snowed, but the roads were more slippery than they would have been with snow. 

We will decorate the Christmas tree tomorrow, with help from Son #1. He is the only person allowed to put the Christmas Ape atop the tree. I don't remember how that started, but we have a stuffed ape that sits at the top of the tree wearing the Christmas star as a hat. There is even a Christmas ape ditty that might be sung, but no one outside the family will ever hear it. 

VP and Mrs. Pence got vaccinated on live TV this morning, as did CNN's chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta. Uncle Joe will be vaccinated, again on live TV, next week. The Lame Duck says he won't get vaccinated but doesn't care to explain that people who have had covid-19 won't be vaccinated until at least three months after they had it. At least that's what my mom was told. She and The Duck should have some antibodies protecting them for several months after their respective infections.

A week from right now, Christmas Day will be winding down. A week after that, 2020 will become history. How many footnotes will there be to any discussion of 2020? And, with two weeks remaining, are we still waiting for another shoe to drop? I would not be at all surprised if one did.