Elsewhere

Opposition honks were a steady blaring of the horn, sometimes accompanied by a raised finger. Support honks outnumbered the other about 5 to 1.

In my career as an architect, urban planner and urban designer I spent decades talking about the merits of mixing uses together . But now I see this through a new lens.

The wearing and non-wearing of masks serves as a convenient statement in this rural county. Wearing one in town I definitely felt like I was signaling my tribal identity, which seems crazy, but there it is."

I have been taken by how everyone in the village seems to still be enjoying the public spaces. They are just doing this while being mindful of the safety of others. This attitude of collective responsibility is what we most noticed when we first arrived.

As the sole resident of Protection Island, the two-mile long bird refuge at the entrance to Discovery Bay, west of Port Townsend, Marty Bluewater has to be one of the best-distanced souls in Puget Sound country.

One can sense a collective sigh of relief that we may have beaten this awful thing.

The British briefings on the pandemic come across as disciplined and professional with punctual timing, good clarity, reasonable brevity, and no impassioned hostility or displays of temperament. Certainly none of the speakers – even those suitably professionally qualified- would ever recommend to the public speculative but un-researched cures for the virus.

With people confined to their homes, unable to dine out, one result has been a boom in home cooking. Supermarkets are out of flour – baking is suddenly in.

The reason people in India can see the Himalaya again is because of Covid 19. The whole country has shut down; pollution plummeted; skies have cleared. Before us rises a possible future.