Picto Diary - 22, 23 April 2020 - The Consequences of Overkill
Above: Rail Trail Terminus, Echo Canyon. TIMDT. 22 April 2020.
Summit County Quarantine
Daily three miler
Extreme physical distancing.
Beaucoup ghosts here... Brigham Young, Leland Stanford, Tamsen Donner, Albert Sidney Johnson, Collis Huntington, George Hearst... It creeps me out as I try to channel their presence.
Above: Duc. Echo Canyon. 22 April 2020.
Summit County Quarantine
Out and about on the Duc.
Extreme HK social distance enforcement training.
Also, this AM while walking the Echo terminus Rail Trail with TIMDT, talked to some guys looking through binoculars at the Echo Cliffs. They said they were looking at "peregrins," as in peregrine falcons.
On my return this PM, in addition to the HK, brought the Lumix camera and the binocs. Looked for the birds, but didn't see. But, I've got my eyes open in future. — at Echo Canyon Utah.
Summit County, UT During Corona Virus: A Personal Note. 22 April 2020.
While living under the Summit County, UT "Stay at Home Order," and limited in our ability to travel beyond the county line,TIMDT and Mwah (sic), not content to let the grass grow under our feet, have entered a new world of discovery: Summit County, Utah.
Who knew there was such a wealth of interesting places to visit in Summit County that combined history and scenery in a glorious, outdoor daily "three miler" walking/hiking experience?
The Summit County "Stay at Home Order," issued 23 March 2020, says, "Residents are not barred from going outside but must practice social-distancing when visiting trails or other outdoor recreation areas. If social-distancing is not possible in these areas, they should be avoided."
TIMDT and Mwah (sic) have also been encouraged by our county leaders' advice to get out and about while the "Stay at Home Order" is in force. On 16 March 2020, Summit County Commissioner Roger Armstrong issued some very constructive advice on Facebook. Among other helpful suggestions, he noted "take advantage of hikes with your family in one of the most spectacular environments in the country." And, "Take your child fishing or hiking - versions of social-distancing."
Being very familiar with the walking options around Park City, and noting a fair number of people...not necessarily crowds... on Park City trails, we decided to look beyond the city limits, but within Summit County, for new "extreme physical distancing" walking options.
To facilitate county leaders' admonition to get out and about, under controlled circumstances, the Summit County state parks have remained open and ranger supervised. Because of a Summit County Quarantine order, the Summit County State Parks (The Rail Trail, Echo State Park, and Rockport State Park) were open only to residents of Summit County. So we started there!
We discovered the wonderful, scenic, and mysterious juniper forest, Lake View Trail, at Rockport State Park. On the one hand, we were surprised to see very few people at Rockport State Park, but, on the other hand, our visit there (and for all of our Summit County outings) allowed for easy social distancing. Most of the social distancing we practiced at Rockport was social distancing from birds.
During one of our Rockport "three miler" walks I saw, for the first time in having spent forty years living in Utah, my first bald eagle.
For our daily three mile walk, we have enjoyed several different options walking the Rail Trail, between Wanship and Coalville. Rural scenes combining fields full of cattle at calving time and distant snow capped mountains have opened up for us a new appreciation for our home county, heretofore seen as interesting mostly for its ski runs.
The area in and around Echo combines spectacular red rock cliff scenes with the ghosts of history. Echo Canyon has been on one of the principal routes across America since fur trapper days. John Henry Weber, American, German born, fur trapper, first trapped the nearby Weber River in 1824. The Donner Party, 80 thousand Mormon pioneers, Albert Sidney Johnson and his 2000 federal troops, the Pony Express and the transcontinental railway all passed through Echo Canyon into the Weber River valley.
North of Echo is the spectacularly scenic Echo to Henefer Historic trail. There are striking views of Weber Canyon to the north. The trail passes the eerie looking Witches Rocks. Thomas Moran, the great lithographer of Yellowstone, etched a lithograph of Witches Rocks in the 1860's. There's a good chance you'll see a very long Union Pacific freight train plying the original transcontinental railway route adjacent to the trail.
All this in Summit County!
Frequently, in addition to our daily thee miler, I have been able to explore the above Summit County destinations by motorcycle.... and at Echo Canyon, practice extreme HK Social Distance Enforcement training.
When not out and about on a county excursion/hike, consistent with the Summit County "Stay at Home Order," we spend our time at home. There is plenty to do. I write, deal with correspondence, engage in various zoom colloquies, and read (currently, Rick Atkinson's "The British Are Coming," the first volume of a three volume set on the Revolutionary War). TIMDT is knitting up a storm, reading, and telephoning friends and relatives. Together, TIMDT and Mwah (sic) have been watching TV streaming series, including such as "The Good Karma Hospital," "Beecham House," and "Mrs. Wilson."
I do the shopping list about once a week at Park City Market. I'm always the first customer there at 6:00 AM, usually, Sunday morning. I've completed the shopping list by 6:30 AM and am usually the only customer in the store. Before Coronavirus, we probably ate out at least sixty percent of the time. Concocting meals at home is a bit of a new experience, but, we have enjoyed it. Initially resistant to buying meals curb side at local restaurants, I've in the last week bought favorite dishes (Thai curry with chicken, and meat loaf) a few times from Squatters. We're likely to up this curb side meal buying a bit, going forward.
In all of our Summit County wanderings, we have never been closer than six feet to any individual other than ourselves. Look. No one is invulnerable to getting sick. But, we are trying to do the best we can to conform to the guidance of our county leaders, who have done a good job in executing their disease mitigating program. Summit County's curve is coming down. Active Summit County Covid-19 cases new cases net of estimated recoveries) in the county have declined from 284 active cases on 06 April 2020 to 140 active cases on 18 April 2020.
Notwithstanding, I have felt from the beginning, that in enacting disease mitigation strategy, state and local public policy makers have erred in not putting more responsibility on individuals to take responsibility for their own health and in not putting unique focus on those most vulnerable to disease complications and death.
Businesses, acting within proper, county imposed, sanitary and social distancing guidelines, could have stayed open all without straining hospital capacity. Schools could have stayed open. We have not taken into account the cost of school closings, lost jobs, suicides, drug use, suppressed immunity and domestic violence among others. We are now learning (Stanford: Ioannidis, Bhattacharya, and Levitt) that the denominator of infections is up to 80x larger than previous estimates, and that the death rates for Coronavirus, in most US locations, approximate the death rates for common flu.
In hindsight, but conforming to my own expectation in early March, estimates of infection, deaths, hospital capacity utilization, including modeling for social distancing for Summit County were wildly overstated.
I do not blame local policy makers for what, in hindsight, was an overreaction in disease mitigation strategy. There was a lot not known, that we know today, that would have justified reasonable people, then, using an economic shut down as a disease mitigation strategy.
However, I applaud our state and county policy makers, for executing a disease mitigation strategy that was not so draconian as to prevent citizens from getting out and about as they long as they acted responsibly.
I was concerned early on about misleading reporting of case levels which did not take into account the number of "cures" in case reporting. The county and state, if belatedly, have, showing responsibility, fixed that problem by netting cures out of the new case category and reporting cases, net of cures, or "active cases."
So... net net.... while considering the state and county disease mitigation strategy to be an overreaction, kudos to city, state, and county leaders for (1) executing a responsible strategy consistent with what they believed to be true at the time, (2) executing a strategy allowing for outdoor excursions consistent with good sense and social distancing (3) improvement over time in transparently keeping the citizenry informed, and (4) considering rapid reduction in active county coronavirus cases, moving quickly to a measured, monitored, move to re open the county economy.
The consequences of overkill...suicides, drug overdose, lost jobs, domestic violence, lost school time, bankruptcies etc., won't be known for a year or so. I fear they will be unnecessarily severe.
Above: TIMDT. Old US 189. Rockport State Park. 23 April 2020.
Summit County Quarantine
Daily three miler.
Old US 189 (abandoned 1957 on completion of Wanship Dam [Weber River]).
Walking on this old highway, not maintained for over sixty years, reminded me of the mile long path from the parking area to the 1700 year old Sumela, Greek Orthodox monastery near Trabzon , Turkey, which TIMDT and Mwah (sic) visited in 2014.
Both routes were being slowly obliterated by the regenerative powers of the earth. US 189 is "going to seed." The Sumela Monastery access trail has required ongoing maintenance over 17 centuries, else there would be no evidence of a Monastery entry trail today.
Looked at in the context of geologic time, in the earth's 4.6 billion year history, mankind is a near imperceptible blip. Methinks that long before earth is rendered uninhabitable by the machinations of a "greedy and selfish" mankind, the same regenerative forces which disappear old US 189 and the Sumela Monastery access trail, will overrun all that ephemeral, arrogant mankind has built.
Addendum:
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DrummerJ
Lehi, UT