While in Hilton Head and Savannah, we engaged daily in dangerous activity. We did so as carefully as possible, but we knowingly took greater risks than I wish. Our flight back was filled almost to capacity. This was a smaller Canadair built jet with only two seats on each side of the aisle. No one was sneezing or coughing and all wore the mandatory face masks.
Going through TSA in Savannah I was picked for a random hand swab test for explosives. The first time that has happened to me. I was directed to a man who swabbed both my palms and then held the swabs in front of a small yellow box that after a few seconds flashed ‘No Alarms’. He then pleasantly wished me a good flight and a good day.
As we were taxiing to the terminal after landing at O’Hare I found an email from Larry that contained a chart rating activities during the pandemic by degree of risk.
That may be unreadable. If so, opening the mail is at top and the least risky, rated as 1. Going to a bar is at the bottom and most risky, rated as 9, along with going to a large music concert or a sports stadium, or attending a religious service with more than 500 other worshipers.
We have done none of those, but I was reading the email on an airplane, which is a 7, and we had been staying in hotels, a 4, been in stores and shops, and on several days in proximity to several unmasked construction workers.
South Carolina has been in the news recently as one of the states with the greatest percentage increase in COVID 19 cases, but the numbers are increasing from a small base. In Beaufort County where Hilton Head is located the number of cases per 100,000 is 877 and the number of deaths per 100,000 is 12. In Cook County where Evanston is located the number of cases per 100,000 is 1,815 and the number of deaths per 100,000 is 91.
The next two weeks will tell.
Not eating in restaurants, I returned to Evanston weighing exactly the 153 pounds I did when I left.
I only did my standard workout twice while we were gone. Today I resume. Seven floors of stairs already done. Fourteen to go. And the full workout this afternoon.
The monthly Cornell Lab of Ornithology newsletter contains a link to an interesting and beautiful video about the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. There are too damn many of our species on the planet. I am all for leaving what little we have not yet ruined untouched. The ocean is my wilderness.
From the WASHINGTON POST via Apple News comes a to me fascinating article following a gourmet hamburger from artificial insemination to the dinner plate and the changes in human lives of those in this progression during the pandemic.
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