Week 3 - Day 16, Saturday April 11

Easter notice outside a church: Jesus rode an ass into Jerusalem. You keep yours at home …

Why stay home? This morning’s numbers from Johns Hopkins might convince:*
Worldwide: 1,698,416 confirmed cases; 102,764 deaths
US has the highest number of infections: 501,419; 18,586 deaths
SA: 2,003 confirmed cases; 24 deaths
(*Compare this afternoon's numbers, below.)

History and the lesson of the 1918 influenza pandemic:

Tell the damn truth: “The government lied. They lied about everything”: A historian on what went wrong in 1918.
The US president is incapable of telling the truth. He’s failing, and Americans are paying.

What’s going on out there?

The good news

• Kerala response: How an Indian state successfully fought and contained the deadly coronavirus 
• Thai newborns getting face masks

The not good news…

• South Africa: SANDF and police’s violent Easter gift to Masiphumelele
• Pakistan: Pakistan doctors beaten by police as they despair of 'untreatable' pandemic

Let’s hear it for women

• Kansas Governor Sues GOP Leaders For Subverting Order Limiting Church Meetings
• She came to the rescue during the Great Depression. Her work is still aiding jobless Americans
• On March 27, Trump attributed his own broken promises about ventilator production to General Motors, now headed by a woman unworthy of even a last name: “Always a mess with Mary B…
• And then there's "That woman in Michigan…” 
• “Fifty Democratic congresswomen have signed a scathing open letter that calls out President Donald Trump over his “continuing derogation of women” in his rhetoric and policies.” 

Meanwhile back at the ranch…

Shocking observation from a reluctant mower of lawns: grass keeps growing!
I push through the fourth or fifth segment of this garden’s fast-growing, thick, Kikuyu lawn and realize the first segment is still growing… In other words, there’s no end to this!

President Ramaphosa’s lockdown extension, now thorough the end of April, means I must redouble my efforts to maintain sanity.
Carrying an old-style camera around the garden helps. And patience. After waiting for what felt like an hour for this crab to perform for a video clip, I gave up and shot stills.
Note to wildlife photographers: I salute your patience and dedication.

Research shows this damselfly is Africallagma sapphirinum, the sapphire bluet, a species in the family Coenagrionidae. Endemic to South Africa, its natural habitat is ponds and lakes with floating aquatic plants. Guess where I saw it? Yes, posed on a floating aquatic plant.

click to enlarge.

I'm impatient for the day this garden reveals some long-mourned endangered species. So far, while extraordinary anyway, most of the critters I've stumbled upon have been of the "Common" variety.

(Visit Photo Album for more photos ...)
***
Six hours after I presented the numbers above, they have increased:
Worldwide: 1,701,718 confirmed cases; 102,867 deaths
US has the highest number of infections: 501,615
SA: 2,003 confirmed cases; 24 deaths (i.e., no updates)


Read Pandemic Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3