Pandemic, Week 32 (The Reckoning)

This week Pope Francis endorsed same-sex unions, stating that as children of God, homosexuals have a right to be in a family. Democrats boycotted the committee vote to advance the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett; the full Senate vote is expected eight days before the election. The Justice Department has been unable to locate the parents of 545 migrant children separated from them by the Trump administration. The President announced a peace deal with Israel and Sudan. Intelligence officials concluded that an email purportedly from the Proud Boys threatening violence if recipients didn't vote for Trump was actually sent by Iran. An Executive Order was issued which will except certain federal workers involved in policy making from civil service protections. Trump and Biden faced off at their final (though only second) Presidential debate and the first one ever to employ a mute button. There is now a website that will tell you if the ice cream machine at the McDonalds near you is broken.

The number of total COVID-19 cases in the world hit 42.9 million while deaths rose to 1.2 million. The U.S. reached 8.8 million cases and 230,000 deaths, after reporting its largest daily number of new cases since the pandemic began on Friday (though the President claimed during the debate that the virus was "going away"). Hospitals are reporting shortfalls of basic drugs needed to treat the virus while hospitalizations increased in 38 states this week. Texas now has the most case of COVID-19, at 908,000. 

We managed to get in a bike ride at the Arboretum (though it ended a little abruptly due to complaints about hills...) and dinner with the Telfair-Chas. I dropped a Diet Coke from the top-shelf of our cupboard which proceed to explode and the resulting 20 foot blast radius took a half hour to clean up. Owen got his official concert suit for Duke Ellington and his first tie-tying lesson from his father. He also had a zoom cello recital. Meanwhile, Nora has written two Acts and six songs for a musical with her friends (that they had kind of forgotten about).

But most poignantly, this week a new art installation opened up by RFK Stadium which represents each COVID-19 death in the U.S. with a white flag. Allen biked there early Friday morning; when I walked there on Saturday afternoon there were already 1,755 more flags. And, sadly, there will be thousands more by next week

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(To see all of this weeks pictures, click here.)