It’s late June here in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Up here in the highlands, the mountain laurels in my yard are in bloom. I know from experience that the vast expanses of laurel in places like Hickory Run State Park, and in Sullivan County, on the Loyalsock Trail, will also have erupted. It’s time for some hiking and photography.

Here in Luzerne County, we are finally in the “green” phase of our coronavirus lockdown. Our benevolent overlords will finally let us live life in a quasi-normal state. Businesses can reopen, providing they attend to mask-wearing, and social distancing.

We can now sit at a bar, even one indoors, and enjoy eating in a restaurant so long as the capacity is properly limited, and the tables appropriately spaced. There are some quirky rules, like the requirement to wear a mask on entering a restaurant, but not after you are seated. People, I think, sense the illogic of this, which will ultimately erode compliance.

Of course, while we all politely comply with the state edicts, all sorts of people are out on the streets of our larger cities rearranging the statuary. I suspect their mask usage has less to do with protecting others and more to do with protecting their identities.

We are seeing additional cases of COVID reported. In our county, the numbers of new cases per day are generally in the low single digits. Hospitalizations and deaths also continue to decline statewide. There have been no changes in this with the phase changes, suggesting that perhaps a seasonal effect is indeed happening.

In reviewing the numbers from the various states, there are certainly curiosities. First, while it is true that daily numbers of cases in Florida and Texas are increasing, when you review the overall curve, you get the impression that they actually never peaked. This is true also of some of the Western states like California. There the curve has been slowly rising since March. Interestingly though deaths per day are flat or decreasing perhaps again suggesting a decrease in virulence of the virus.

Florida had a very minimal early peaking in early April, began to gently decline, and now has had a precipitous rise starting perhaps a week ago. Mortality, however, remains flat to decreasing. Deaths are obviously a late effect however so there still may be a bump there.

Georgia is also seeing an uptick in cases. They originally peaked in early April and were having a slow noisy decline in activity. Within the last couple of days, they had a second higher peak. Georgia as you may recall lifted its lockdown in late April, but still declined for weeks afterward. Another state with this profile is Washington which also peaked in April and now has had a higher second peak again within the last several days.

Given that Atlanta and Seattle have been the sites of some significant mayhem starting perhaps 3-4 weeks ago, I do wonder whether there is a relationship.

Another interesting detail is that the new cases are shifting to the young, which is probably explainable by the fact that they tend to be the ones most eager to take advantage of reopened social venues (not to mention the protests, etc…). It may also be why the death rates have so far not increased.

Perhaps I’m suffering from fear fatigue, but I’m at least personally not as frightened at the possibility of acquiring this infection. Other people still are though, and particularly of contact with me. This is hopefully because of my status as a healthcare worker. It is kind of ironic, because as the cases dwindle, I am largely confined to my office, and have not had any known COVID exposures in more than a month. I suspect there is more risk of exposure out in public than here at the VA, where we screen everyone who enters the building and test everyone we treat.

Anyway, it’s nice to be out and about, to catch up with friends and acquaintances, and to sip a draft beer (albeit from a plastic cup). And is nice to see my 94-year-old father be able to emerge from his quarantine and enjoy a restaurant (on an outdoor deck). Conversely, it sad to see those businesses could not tolerate the lockdown and will never reopen. I hope the owners and workers find other opportunities.

Still, it’s still worth being careful. The virus is still in the population, hopefully, weakened and decreasing in prevalence. I sincerely hope it fades away over summer, not to return.

In the meantime, I’ll be out with my camera and my tripod surrounded by the white blossoms of a Pennsylvania June (and probably the damn blackflies).

Enjoy your new freedom. I hope it lasts.