Not This Year

from Trinidad Head a few summers ago

Obviously a lot of events have been cancelled this year, and they continue to be.  But in this case the reason varies a little.

In recent years I've made a ritual hike up the Trinidad Head on my birthday.  The next one is next week, and I've been undecided about it.  We haven't been restricted here from driving and walking where we could safely distance from others.  That's even more true in recent weeks.

One of my favorite spots over the years, taken last June on a foggy birthday.

But the trail to the top of the Head is narrow for most of its length, with a few widely spaced turnouts, usually where there are benches facing the sea.  It would be impossible along most of it to pass someone going in the opposite direction with more than a foot or two between you, and sometimes less.

But with masks and the light risk of getting much virus passing someone for a moment in the open air, I was still considering it.  Even after my car battery died again.

Until Tuesday, when I read a story in the online Lost Coast Outpost, a report of a Zoomed meeting of county supervisors and the public health officer.  All the supervisors talked about questionable activities and noticing hostility about any covid crisis restrictions.  Then there was this:

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone spoke urgently about an inundation of tourists in his district. “We’re being overrun in Trinidad, literally,” he said, “by hundreds and hundreds if not thousands” of people he described as “arrogant” and defiant, refusing to wear face coverings even when asked.

“So we’re gonna see a major outbreak out of Trinidad — that’s my prediction,” Madrone said. He asked the sheriff’s office to get involved. “Frankly, we need help in Trinidad right now. It is out of control, literally. … Please, give us some daily patrols that are highly visible.”

A couple of paragraphs down, the story read: "During the public comment period, several people expressed frustration, skepticism and outright defiance toward public health measures."

These included extreme and abusive comments towards public health officials, accusing them at one point of "borderline child abuse" because of restrictions on ball games.

It is true that Humboldt County has few covid cases (though there has been a small surge this week) but nobody seems to credit public health officials with contributing to the smallness of that number.  Nationally there is such disgraceful and violent behavior towards public health officials that dedicated and experienced leaders are quitting.

Apart from the self-defeating behavior that is more and more leading to a self-created epidemic, there is that arrogance of those who refuse to take precautions, endangering others as well as themselves and their families.  The fundamental respect for others that is signaled by wearing masks is disdained, and the social contract is visibly broken.

The social contract is more specifically broken with seniors.  The cant that seems to be more and more quoted is to the effect that people have a right to take the risk of getting infected, but that those who are especially vulnerable, especially old people, "should stay the hell home."  Presumably forever.

Even more than that, masks and common sense distancing have been demonically transformed into political/cultural statements.  If I wear a mask as I pass someone, do I want to invite hostility and arrogance on an isolated trail?  Believe me, there are times when the answer is yes.  But I'd rather not go there.  In any case, there might be more danger from attitude than infection.  Both are profoundly uncomfortable.

So I won't be going to Trinidad this birthday.  I won't even be driving up there anymore (assuming I get my car fixed) because I'm a bit leery of my own anti-social tendencies.  I'll be staying the hell home, which is not hell at all, as a matter of fact.

Meanwhile, the self-induced epidemic spreads, with record hospitalizations in seven states as well as surges of new infections in many others.  And infections (like climate crisis effects by the way) are a lagging indicator, meaning that the causes are in the past.  According to Johns Hopkins’s Erik Toner, “It’s basically the same reason for all these states: It was Memorial Day.” And we've had some three weeks of post-sequestration activities since then.  It's no wonder that Dr. Fauci said Tuesday that the next two weeks will be crucial in getting control of the epidemic.

But the federal government is not only ignoring the epidemic (reportedly considering withdrawing the state of emergency officially) but the Republican candidate who holds the title of President angrily denounces anyone who recognizes it.  There happens to still be a majority in the country who do recognize it, but those numbers are slipping.

And the rest of the world is noticing that it's out of control here, and the government seems to have stopped trying to do anything about it. Accordingly, as of Tuesday, the European Union was considering banning visitors from the US to protect their own citizens.  (Canada already does that, but quietly.) That's not exactly transitioning to greatness.  That's an historic humiliation.

But perhaps this is all because nobody is smart enough to understand the advanced thinking of the very stable genius in the White House.  Evidently, when he talks about the virus he is discussing it on the quantum level.  It's a demonstrated fact that indeed on the quantum level you might have to observe a particle in order for it to exist.  Therefore, if you don't want the virus to exist, you just don't look at it.