The View from the Hermitage, Day 380

I'm not sure there was any positive news regarding the novel coronavirus that really isn't novel at all any longer. I did find some interesting distractions, though, so I'll see what I can do about inserting them in random locations. I have not looked at it in depth, but XPot has a new website, 45office.com. Would you like XPot or his lady for personal appearances or greetings? This is the place to go. The form you will have to fill out includes questions such as "Will Media be Present?" and asks whether any "Notable Attendees" might be there. There is a narrative on XPot's term that strangely omits any mention of two impeachments, an economic crash, the covid death toll, and the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Did he do anything else really?

International scientists are saying that we may need new vaccines as the current ones become ineffective. Two-thirds of the 77 scientists from 28 countries polled say that this could happen within a year. The other one-third? They give it nine months or less. Why might new vaccines be needed? Persistent low vaccine coverage may make it more likely for vaccine-resistant mutations to appear. Just one more argument for getting vaccines out to developing countries as soon as possible. 

Across the pond, Dutch covid cases rose for the seventh consecutive week, with only a five percent increase for cases in people over the age of 80. The national health agency expects cases will peak in late April as vaccination levels increase. In Sweden, the number of covid patients needing care in an ICU increased nine percent over last week. And Russia says that a third wave is emerging there. 

It shouldn't be surprising that visits to the world's top 100 museums and galleries fell 77 percent due to the pandemic. The Louvre remained the most visited, though its 2.7 million visitors were down 72 percent from 2019. The monetary loss was about 90 million Euros. The other most visited  places, though all lower than the year before were the Tate Modern in London, the Vatican Museums (down 81 percent), the British Museum, and the Reina Sofia in Madrid.

A group of medical experts in Japan have questioned whether the Tokyo Olympics should be held this summer. They have said that they think 50 to 70 percent of the general public should be vaccinated first, and that is not going to happen by July. Health care workers are the only Japanese to have been vaccinated so far.

As of yesterday here in the US, we've seen an average of over 65,000 new cases a day over the past two weeks, a 19 percent rise over the daily average two weeks ago. We're seeing some 1,000 deaths daily as well. Contributing factors include the relaxation of restrictions including mask-wearing, the growing prevalence of variants, and increased travel. On Sunday, March 28, 1.5 million people went through TSA screening at airports. One year ago, that number was 180,000. While more than one in three Americans has gotten at least one shot of vaccine and nearly one-fifth are fully vaccinated, we are still a long way from the 70 to 90 percent needed for herd immunity.  

France is dealing with toy thieves specializing in Legos. The US, Canada, and Australia have also dealt with Lego thievery. Evidently, there are collectors who want specific sets. A Cafe Corner Lego set that cost 150 Euros when it was released in 2007 sold, in its original box, last year for 2,500 Euros. Needless to say, sales of Lego sets have increased markedly during the pandemic. 

Should there be an international treaty to combat the future pandemics we know are coming? Leaders in the European Union and WHO along with heads of some nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have released a letter calling for such a treaty. They note that the current pandemic is a "stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everybody is safe." I admit to loving the notion that nobody is safe until everybody is safe. Can we remind vaccine-hesitant people who don't wear masks and want to stand right next to us of that thought? I wish.

In terms of the rising rates here in the US, consider the following. In terms of businesses, no states are considered "mostly closed." Hawaii, Oregon, California, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are considered "mixed" in terms of opening, All the other states fall into a "mostly open" category. Masks? More states continue their mask mandates, but 16 have no restrictions. There are three states with partial mask mandates. Finally, four states--California, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Kentucky--have stay-at-home advisories; all others no longer have any restrictions.

Nobody is safe until everybody is safe. Words worth remembering.

Set an Alarm? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Alarm!

When we visited Iceland last year, we thought we'd set the room alarm to a time that would let us eat the hotel's free breakfast and the get ready for our excursion to a lava cave at noon. We screwed up on how to set the alarm and slept until 10:00, at which time the hotel breakfast was over. We got dressed (no showers if I remember correctly), found a coffeehouse that wasn't too far away, and actually were waiting for the excursion bus without being out of breath.

We had no set plans for today save for visiting a museum or two. Still, we both wanted to shower not to mention get a free breakfast, so we set Blaine's phone alarm to the chosen time. Should I also set my phone, I wondered. We decided that one alarm was enough given that we knew we were setting it correctly. Old Man Time got the best of us. We slept through the alarm we know went off. We did make it down in time for breakfast, though showers waited until after. We ended up only making it to one museum, the Norwegian Maritime Museum, but it was a good one.

Photos, at least with my camera, were few given the on-again-off-again rain. I finally just packed my large camera into my rucksack and let Blaine use his pocket-sized one. As it turned out, cameras were not permitted in the museum, so we have nothing to show from there unless I now take a photo of the book we bought on the rune alphabet.

We've been to our share of maritime museums including the ones in Newport News, Virginia, and Reykjavik, Iceland. The one here was small compared to those two, but still very interesting. The section on the Vikings was especially interesting given that last night I finished reading The Book Of Viking Myths that younger son  gave me for Christmas. The fact that we'd visited the Viking ship Museum in Oslo twice also helped fill in any gaps there were here.

We spent a fair amount of time there and, upon leaving, decided one museum was enough so we'd stop for coffee and a snack and then get back to the hotel in plenty of time for the 5:15 bus to the ship. It was too dark and rainy to adequately photograph the triangle of coffee shops at one intersection. We skipped the first as it looked fairly crowded and two people were entering ahead of when we would. We skipped the second because it was Starbucks, and went to the third, the Camel Coffeeshop. Besides Starbucks, other establishments we chose not to enter were Burger King, McDonalds, Seven Eleven, and Subway.

It was impossible to get a photo showing both together, but it caught us by pleasant surprise to see two bookstores within spitting distance of each other. There used to be a couple that close together on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall, but I don't think there are today.

While killing time in the hotel lobby, I took this photo already up on Facebook.

It was just a hair before 4:30 in the afternoon, giving us a taste of the days to come. It was even darker when the bus picked us up at 5:15.

So we're now aboard, having attended the mandatory safety presentation and eaten dinner. For dinner, I invited a couple to join us at our table for four. He works in South Africa; she works in Khartoum. Because it had been raining, I was not wearing Della, my confidential hearing assistant, what I heard was that he worked in cartoons. Fortunately, the husband asked an appropriate follow-up question before I asked an inappropriate one. As might be expected, they had questions about the current happenings in the States. We told them we hoped that the air traffic controllers or TSA personnel did not all call in sick by then due to mandatory work and nonexistent pay.

We are now sitting in a presentation on the various excursions possible. We know a bit about these having already registered for the one we want, Into the Ice, on polar exploration. We had also registered for a trip to a brewery but for some unknown reason that one was cancelled. My principal goal here is to ask if I really can fish off the deck of the ship. The reservation agent with whom I booked told me that because of the small size of the ship, it was possible to fish from the deck. I do intend to ask if that about deck fishing if it does not come up as part of this presentation.

They just announced that the weather for the next few days is forecast to be good. Up north, the forecasts are more uncertain. In rough weather, we are supposed to always hold onto one thing and, above all, not go out on deck. They do have "stormy weather bags" available at various points around the ship. Interestingly (or not), they're identical to the airsickness bags one finds on commercial planes.