Monday, May 11
Statewide: 130 deaths, 3,286 cases, 77,542 tested (Deaths: +3) (Cases: +58)
Over the last ten days, the Oregon Health Authority has reported an average of 2.6 COVID deaths per day. That rate has been mostly unchanged since my record keeping began on March 26th. So the curve is flat as can be. Will it ever go down? Or will it go up as restrictions are eased? We shall see.
Tuesday, May 12
Statewide: 130 deaths, 3,358 cases, 79,595 tested (Deaths: +0) (Cases: +72)
It’s rainy and cooler today, a welcome change. E had an exercise class in the morning and then went walking in the OSU research forest in the afternoon. The OSU forest has just been reopened after more than a month of closure. E reports that the woods are beautiful this spring and that she saw only a few other hikers. Meanwhile, M was in the garage working on refurbishing the cordless trimmer. Also down here in the city, it’s iris season.
With reported fatalities totaling 130, Oregon has reached the level of 3 deaths for every 100,000 residents. For comparison, the states with the highest number of deaths per 100,000 are New York (138), New Jersey (107), Connecticut (85), and Massachusetts (75). States with the fewest are Utah and Montana with 2 per 100,000 and Wyoming, Hawaii and Alaska with 1 per 100,000. (These numbers are from the Washington Post, May 12.)
According to Johns Hopkins, the current number of deaths per 100,000 in the U.S. as a whole is 25. Some other countries are Belgium (76), Spain (57), Italy (51), U.K. (48), France (39), Sweden (32) and Germany (9).
As we look at these figures, let’s do keep in mind that in times such as ours concerning matters such as these, numbers always lie. According to M, that’s part of why these are so interesting.
Wednesday, May 13
Statewide: 134 deaths, 3,416 cases, 83,909 tested (Deaths: +4) (Cases: +58)
Another hike in the OSU forest today, this time with M coming along. Man, it’s green out there! Plenty of healthy-looking poison oak for example. On the way home we stopped at a nursery for E’s Portulaca starts. They’ve been hard to find, but we got ‘em.
In the afternoon M tried out his cordless trimmer with its new cutting head installed. Whoa! The tough grass that once resisted the trimmer’s whirling strings now falls to its whirling blades. But with great power comes danger. M’s technique is appalling. Dirt and bark chip were flying everywhere.
In the latest episode of Black Money Love we see that despite the best efforts of their enemies to break them apart, Elif and Ömer remain in love and are still officially engaged to be married. But the mystery about who fathered İpek’s child hangs like the sword of Damocles above their heads. And now Nilüfer, Elif’s headstrong younger sister, has sneaked off and got herself married to her intensely romantic psycho-man boyfriend-from-hell Fatih. Elif is angry and distraught. Meanwhile, Arda and Pelin are smiling again because–but no, that’s enough of that.
Thursday, May 14
Statewide: 137 deaths, (Deaths: +3)
Hiked today at Chip Ross Park, which is just up the road. Beautiful views through light rain. Earlier, E had a Zoom class and then dared visit BiMart where she secured, among other things, some disinfectant wipes and a bottle of Josh cabernet, two basic necessities in times of plague.
M’s mother has received another letter concerning her economic stimulus payment. It is again addressed to Patricia A Petrich, DECD and the return address on the envelope is again the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. The letter inside, however, is from no mere functionary. It is on what purports to be White House stationery and is signed by the President. He says that he is “pleased to notify you that as provided by the CARES act, you are receiving an Economic Impact Payment of $1,200 by check/debit card.” M is also pleased as he now has the complete set.
Friday, May 15
Statewide: 137 deaths, 3,541 cases, 89,444 tested (Deaths: +0)
Another day of zero reported deaths in Oregon, the fifth one this month. Here’s an updated chart.
M reports that our local Market of Choice grocery now has tons of toilet paper, but no paper towels. He has also confirmed that our local French pastry shop continues to have very good pain au chocolat. The big news in the state is that our county, along with 31 others in Oregon, has been approved for a Phase 1 re-opening, starting today. All stores are now allowed to open provided that proper distancing and other safety measures are enforced. The reopening applies to barber shops, salons, clothing stores and a number of others. Interestingly, the reopening does not apply to bookstores and thrift shops. Why? Because they were never ordered to close in the first place.
We are debating what to do with this long-awaited news. Are we going to rush out right now and go to a restaurant? Well, not today. Today we’re having salmon at home. Tomorrow is a Saturday and for the last little while Saturday has become take-out night. We may just do that again. Not sure we want to sit in a restaurant where all the staff are masked and gloved. Sounds eerie. But we shall see.
Saturday, May 16
Statewide: 137 deaths, 3,612 cases, 92,121 tested (Deaths: +0) (Cases: +71)
Another day with no reported COVID deaths in Oregon, the second in a row. Coinciding, as it does, with the partial re-opening, this makes the governor look good, as if she were prescient. (Competent is nice, but so is lucky.) The number of confirmed COVID cases is still going up, but it’s difficult to interpret this since there has also been an increase in the number of tests processed per day. In April Oregon was testing between 1,000 and 1,500 per day. Lately it has been more than 2,000 per day.
It’s cloudy and cool today with occasional drops of rain. E and M both worked in the garden in the morning, then went to Burger King for take-out lunch. E’s had an impossible burger while M had an unsustainable one. It’s a wonder we can eat at all. Burger King was not yet open for dine-in. The Vietnamese Baguette, our first choice, was not open at all. We guess they are busy making needed modifications to be able to open for dine-in service per the new rules sometime next week. On the way home we passed our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Rockita, which had been completely closed from the beginning of the crisis. A large sign proclaims that they are now open. So that’s something to look forward to.
The opening of the restaurant scene comes just in time for E and her friend H, who have the custom of taking each other out for their birthdays. Helen’s birthday is coming up next week, giving them time to figure out which places will be open by then and find out how hard it is to get a reservation.
Sunday, May 17
Statewide: 137 deaths, 3,623 cases, 94,275 tested (Deaths: +0) (Cases: +11)
For the third day in a row Oregon reports no new deaths. Also, only 11 new cases out of 2,154 new tests.
M went to Trader Joe’s this afternoon and found a line of people waiting to get into the store. The line was so long it was hard to find the end. Of course it doesn’t take many people to make a really long line these days. Six maybe? At TJ’s the line moves fast and when it’s your turn, an employee pushes a disinfected cart toward you and waves you in. So the procedures are easy. Other customers, though, can be less easy. In a time of pandemic, says M, special rules of grocery shopping etiquette apply. One of them is that this is not the time to lean casually against a shelf for five or ten minutes with a box of TJ’s dried abalone flaked quinoa in your hand while you attempt to read all of the tiny print on the label. Just don’t do it.
Monday, May 18
Statewide: 138 deaths, 3,687 cases, 97,232 tested (Deaths: +1) (Cases: +64)
For quite some time the President has been touting hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, as an effective treatment for COVID infections. Today he announced that he now takes this drug every day, presumably as a preventative. For some, this raises the question (again) as to whether he is an idiot. Others wonder if he is telling the truth or not. Basically, though, this looks pretty straightforward. We’re just not used to presidents doing celebrity endorsements. This one harks back to earlier times when tobacco companies paid baseball players and medical doctors to extol the health benefits of smoking.
Back in the real world, rain in the early morning, then clouds. M finished his sod project by noon. E walked to the store to get jello to make H’s birthday cake. She is surprised that M has never heard of adding jello to a cake mix. M asks how that could be legal. Says it must be an east coast thing. Still no paper towels on the shelves at Market of Choice. On the way to the store E passed La Rockita and stuck her head in. Turns out they are open for take-out only, no dining in. That’s understandable. The place is quite small with lots of little tables all very close together. Six foot spacing would leave them with maybe two tables that were usable. Hardly worth it.
It’s a good year for peonies here in Oregon. As you can see here, our peonies are were may have been spectacular. Oh threats of hell and hopes of paradise…
One thing is certain and the rest is lies…
Tuesday, May 19
Statewide: 140 deaths, 3,726 cases, 99,630 tested (Deaths: +2) (Cases: +39)
A gray, cool day. We did another walk in the forest. The rule is to carry a mask and put it on when encountering anyone on a narrow trail. We did that, and had just one encounter. Later we celebrated with a couple of take-out lattes from Coffee Culture.
It was also our day to take our friend out for her birthday and we decided, perhaps foolishly, to dine in at one of our friend’s favorite places. It’s a Thai place, one that’s been in Corvallis quite a long time. In the early nineties, a couple of the the founders’ kids were our students at the old English Language Institute.
The food was fine, but the experience was odd, off kilter you might say. When we arrived, just three tables were set up for dine-in business. One was occupied; we took another; the third remained unused. We arrived at 5:35 or so, just in time for the evening rush of take-out orders. This meant that there was a steady stream of people walking past us to get to the back of the space where they could pick up and pay for their orders. That was annoying. Perhaps one in ten of these visitors were wearing masks.
After giving us water and menus our server got caught up in the rush of pick-up orders and left us to wait for quite a time. Suddenly we saw him jump up and give a startled glance our way. He then took our order and basically all was well. It was a different server who brought us our courses and later our bill. She wore a mask, but of the three employees we saw, she was the only one who did. Was this a violation of the Stage 1 opening rules? Yeah, we think it probably was. Both when we entered the restaurant and when we left there were quite a few young people on the sidewalk. Were they wearing masks? Nah, get serious. E thinks that they are being very irresponsible while M found them pretty normal. (The Thai place is near the university; we were on their turf.) After dinner we went home and had lemon cake, on which Eve had placed one candle for each 82-year segment of our friend’s life.
Later we watched a couple more episodes of our Turkish soap opera, about which M is writing a long essay to explain why it must be watched despite its terribleness.