QUARANTINE BLOG # 37

May 6, 2020

It is not good news. In large cities like New York City, Chicago, and New Orleans, the number of new cases of coronavirus is decreasing, but in other places with historically low numbers, that trend is reversing. Smaller towns and rural counties in the Midwest and South have suddenly been hit hard, underscoring the fact that the country is still in the grip of a pandemic with little hope of immediate release.

Any notion that the coronavirus threat is fading away appears to be wishful thinking, at odds with what the latest numbers show.

More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new coronavirus cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States – which has the highest number of known cases in the world with more than a million – is expanding by between 2 and 4 percent daily.

Infectious-disease experts are troubled by perceptions that the United States has seen the worst of the virus. As states continue to lift restrictions meant to stop the virus,  Americans are returning to shopping, lingering in restaurants and gathering in parks. Because of the time it will take for infections to spread, incubate and cause people to die, the effects of reopening states may not be known until at six weeks after the fact.
One model used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes an assumption that the infection rate will increase up to 20 percent in states that reopen. Under that model, by early August, the most likely outcome is 3,000 more deaths in Georgia than the state has right now.

Gathered from New York Times reports.

**  Norwegian Cruise Line, one of the world’s big 3 cruise companies, said yesterday that there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to survive the coronavirus pandemic. As the coronavirus continues to spread, NCL said it is “expected to continue to adversely impact our results, operations, outlook, plans, goals, growth, reputation, cash flows, liquidity, and demand for voyages.” The company said bankruptcy proceedings are not out of the question. During the temporary suspension of cruise voyages, all cruise lines will be required to pay cash refunds – or offer substantial onboard savings – of advanced ticket sales. NCL had advanced ticket sales affected by voyage cancellations through June 30 that add up to $850 million.

** In hopeful news, Pfizer and German pharmaceutical company BioNTech said that their potential coronavirus vaccine began human trials in the United States on Monday. If the tests are successful, the vaccine could be ready for emergency use as early as September.  360 healthy volunteers will be tested for the first stage of the trials, with up to 8,000 volunteers added by the end of the second stage.

**  After a five-week delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) began its season yesterday. Instead of fans in the stands, there will be pictures of fans wearing masks. To the surprise of almost no one, ESPN has reached a deal with the KBO to air six live games per week – with the network getting the game feed from South Korea and using ESPN announcers to call the action remotely. And while Major League Baseball continues to weigh its options for playing in 2020, I will watch some of these moments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIbtBKCcmc0 There was no doubt about it!

** And for fans of the sport whose ball is pointy on two ends, there is the plan offered by the Miami Dolphins for fall football. The Dolphins suggested that they will cap attendance at 15,000. If their fans want to come to a game, they will have to wear a mask. People will be sitting staggered every few seats. There will be no roving vendors, instead fans will have a specific time to pick up their refreshments (I wonder if there will be a cry of “No beer here!”). And fans won’t be able to leave in the middle of the fourth quarter to beat traffic, but rather exit when their row is called.

That announcement rings hollow this week with the announcement that the Dolphins legendary coach, Don Shula, died on Monday.  He was the winningest coach in NFL history with 347 total wins, including the only perfect season – 1972 –  with the Dolphins. The NFL has not released details, but there is no indication it was connected to the coronavirus.  Don Shula was 90 years old.

 ** On this day in 1994, in a ceremony presided over by England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel was officially opened, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age. As the world’s longest undersea tunnel, the Chunnel runs under water for 23 miles, with an average depth of 150 feet below the seabed. Each day, about 30,000 people, 6,000 cars and 3,500 trucks journey through the Chunnel on passenger, shuttle and freight trains. The Chunnel’s $16 billion cost was roughly twice the original estimate, and completion was a year behind schedule. It did not show a net profit until 1999.

Rumors of a near collision between a helicopter and a train in the Chunnel have been discounted.

** A few days ago, I took you on the Way Back Machine to Mountain Lake Park, Maryland.  I turned up an interesting piece of history this week.  Two favorite hymns, “Power in the Blood,” and “Since Jesus Came Into My Heart,” were written in the Park during camp meeting season.  Even though Mountain Lake Park was founded by Methodists, and was for years was greatly influenced by the Methodist Church (for instance, the Epworth League, the precursor to the Methodist Youth Fellowship met annually in Mountain Lake Park) neither hymn appears in 1989  United Methodist Hymnal.

That is hardly surprising when one considers that the masculine pronoun for Jesus was changed in verse three of “Angels We Have Heard on High.”  Instead of “Come to Bethlehem and see he whose birth the angels sing,” it now reads “Come to Bethlehem and see Christ whose birth the angels sing.”  The committee which produced the 1989 hymnal devised a guideline which dictated “it should usually be possible to retain the poet’s original forms of address, descriptions, and metaphors for God in all three persons, but to substitute for unnecessarily repeated gender metaphors, nouns, and pronouns” (emphasis mine).  

This is not a new complaint.  I have raised it since I started singing out of the United Methodist Hymnal in 1999.  I understand that the times have changed, and the day when “men” was used to refer to the entire human family is well and properly  past.  I do not object to “men” being  changed to “all,” as in “Joy to the world, the Savior reigns! Let all their songs employ.”

But the political correctness went beyond any acceptable limit with a change in a hymn that denies the existence of suffering in our world.  I think specifically of the line in “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” – one of my all time favorites – which contains references to blindness, deafness and muteness: “Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ; ye blind, behold your Savior come, and leap, ye lame, for joy.”  That verse in Charles Wesley’s magnificent hymn is marked with an asterisk to indicate that it may be omitted.

The committee for revision denies the hearing impaired, the speech impaired, the vision impaired, and the walking impaired the joy of rejoicing in the presence of their  Savior.  That’s just too much.

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