9:04 am - Friday - March 26th - Seal Rock, OR - 39° F, 93% humidity, wind - zero mph out of the north.....cloudy today, but no rain in the forecast with a forecast high of 50° F. On this date in 2013 we were in Augusta, GA, and I was standing in front of the sign for Augusta National.....the golf course where the Masters is played each year.......↴
I want to say right off the bat that TLE and I continue to be asymptomatic to the Wuhan Flu aka: COVID-19, aka: Corona Virus. It has been over 1 year since this virus was designated a 'world-wide pandemic'. Original predictions were for tens of millions of deaths world-wide, with a few million of those in the U.S. After one year what are the actual numbers? Instead of millions of deaths in the U.S. there have been 555,000 deaths out of 30 million diagnosed cases, so you have over a 97% chance of NOT catching it....if you live in the U.S. and catch it you have a 1.82% chance of dying....world-wide there have been 2.7 million deaths out of 124 million diagnosed cases*. I feel silly pointing out the obvious, but every death of a loved one is tragic, no matter what the cause, and I am not minimizing that at all, but the numbers are the numbers. The Spanish flu was a real world-wide pandemic and killed over 50 million people world-wide. In our own little, tiny corner of the world (Lincoln County) there have been 21 deaths during that one year span. I do not know anyone personally who has died from this flu, but I do know many who have had it. Many had very mild cases, and a few quite severe, but they all survived. I do know, however, people who have had relatives die from this flu.
Neither TLE, nor myself have had the vaccination, and unless we are required to take it we will probably not get it. If, at some point, our current employer insists we get vaccinated, we will probably move on down the road. Neither of us has ever had a flu shot.....ever. The last time I had a flu of any sort was 8 years ago, and for TLE probably closer to 15 years. I do, however, belong to several demographics for whom this flu can be deadly.....I am over 70, I have high blood pressure, have had a stroke, and a heart attack. TLE, on the other hand, is quite healthy, and really only belongs to one demographic of concern.....she, like I, is over 70. I have never had any respiratory issues, which is a demographic which is quite at risk for any sort of flu, including the Wuhan flu. We only wear masks when required by our employer, or local businesses we frequent, otherwise we are mask free 90+% of the time....we do not wear them while walking down the street, in our car, in our Newell, or while hiking, or biking. During the past year we have purposely avoided densely populated areas of the country, and spent the broad majority of our time in very rural locales. Our forays into urban areas have been as brief as possible. I say all of the preceding to say this.....while we do take this flu seriously, we are attempting to live our lives as normally as possible. What we are doing works for us, but may not work for others. We firmly believe the dangers of this "pandemic" have been blown out of all proportion to what is really happening, and are living our lives accordingly, but not doing anything risky, or stupid, and are complying, where required, with mask requirements.
On the "what did you do Thursday" front I worked a two hour shift for the 5th successive day, but did get rained upon for about 1/2 of my shift. While Blake mowed sites C, D, 43 & 44 I repeated my Wednesday routine of checking all incoming and outgoing sites to be sure the electrical was up to snuff, and I actually took the Stihl string trimmer up to site A-3 to trim the grass as we actually had a customer coming into that site for 3 days....the first time we have had anyone next to us (except the one night our friends Claude and Gale visited us) in six months.
It rained on and off all afternoon, but I did manage to get out to the trailer for about an hour to work on my Haibike SDURO telescoping seat post, which had quit telescoping on our trip home from Arizona. As it turned out it just needed a little lube, and it began working once again....I'm sure all the weather we drove through had something to do with that.
Thanks for stopping by!
*Source = https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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