News blues…
KZN now has the second highest rate of Covid infections in the country, surpassed only by densely population urbanized Gauteng province.Meanwhile, the post-holiday surge is on in the US
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As the world watches the US fracture into further factions, an ABC News/Ipsos poll indicates how few Americans are coherent in their view of The Donald.
The majority (56%) say Trump should be removed from office, while just 43% believe he should not be removed.“Just 43%”? That’s an amazingly high percentage of Americans believing the US can afford to keep him in office.
These numbers do not bode well for the next few weeks, never mind the future of democracy in that country.
Healthy planet, anyone?
For nearly three months I lived in virtual confinement with the occasional visit to the corner shop being my only respite – my only chance to see people …Read “Amid the gloom of lockdown, I have taken solace in nature” >>
The only thing that pulled me out of my doldrums was nature: from my small terrace, watching the daily flights of various birds of prey, including black and griffon vultures, lifted me no end. As did a male spotless starling, whose home territory included a television aerial on a nearby rooftop. I watched him claim his coveted song post, singing his heart out, attracting several females, mating with one of them and eventually bringing his family back to the aerial where it all began. There was something very satisfying about seeing nature unfold in daily episodes.
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It is "doubtful" that the Amazon forest could remain resilient into the future given the layers of threats facing it. A new report for Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development concluded that the Amazon rainforest will collapse and largely become a dry, shrubby plain by 2064. Development, deforestation and the climate crisis are to blame….
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Closing in: One upside of “being American/a visitor” to KZN? Not having a wide circle or acquaintances and friends offers a smaller probability of exposure to Covid.
I stay in touch with the acquaintances and friends I do have via phone and WhatsApp audio messaging. Many of them, embedded in communities, report surging infections among their acquaintances and friends.
One alarming story tells of residents of a retirement community leaving the facility to spend three days with family over the festive season. One person returned with Covid. Now the entire facility – up to 20 people, all elderly - are infected.
While total lockdown in the care center in which my mother resides means neither I nor any of her family may visit, at least my mother will not be exposed to Covid. Her current state of health, post-surgery after a fall, would never allow her to fight off the infection if exposed.
I continue to pursue ways in which we can contact my mother despite lockdown preventing face-to-face visits.
Last week’s first Zoom call was cancelled due to my mother’s ill health. We’ll try another video call on Wednesday.
After the failed Zoom call, I sent my mother an audio recording via a staff member’s cell phone. That worked well enough that I’ve decided to return the cell phone that I’d purchased for my mother and that she’d given up on, saying it was “too hard to use.”
I hope she’ll find hearing and/or seeing family on her own cell phone enticing enough to overcome her antipathy of cell phones.
I stay in touch with the acquaintances and friends I do have via phone and WhatsApp audio messaging. Many of them, embedded in communities, report surging infections among their acquaintances and friends.
One alarming story tells of residents of a retirement community leaving the facility to spend three days with family over the festive season. One person returned with Covid. Now the entire facility – up to 20 people, all elderly - are infected.
While total lockdown in the care center in which my mother resides means neither I nor any of her family may visit, at least my mother will not be exposed to Covid. Her current state of health, post-surgery after a fall, would never allow her to fight off the infection if exposed.
I continue to pursue ways in which we can contact my mother despite lockdown preventing face-to-face visits.
Last week’s first Zoom call was cancelled due to my mother’s ill health. We’ll try another video call on Wednesday.
After the failed Zoom call, I sent my mother an audio recording via a staff member’s cell phone. That worked well enough that I’ve decided to return the cell phone that I’d purchased for my mother and that she’d given up on, saying it was “too hard to use.”
I hope she’ll find hearing and/or seeing family on her own cell phone enticing enough to overcome her antipathy of cell phones.
