The cherry trees are officially at peak bloom! For a spectacular live look at the Tidal Basin ringed in white and pink, check out the new #BloomCam, courtesy of our friends @TheNationalMall and @CherryBlossFest. Look in any time at https://t.co/vBYY3Qgj4d. #BloomWatch pic.twitter.com/PRsyOJ2Xdv— National Mall NPS (@NationalMallNPS) March 20, 2020
— National Mall NPS (@NationalMallNPS) March 21, 2020
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Very easy to wander from tree to tree safe in the open air, and even stay more than six feet apart. Why would being OUTDOORS be discouraged. I also thinks it’s stupid to close national parks and send the personnel home. Why? No one hikes within six feet of others normally and we can do social distancing just fine outdoors with MORE SPACE.
Japan's cherry blossom festivals have been cancelled, of course. But people can still enjoy the beauty.
I checked the live Bloom Cam. There are couples walking together, but others are keeping their distance. It doesn’t seem to be a problem on this Sunday at about noon.
There's hundreds of people milling about in this cam. Why isn't Washington, D.C. being quarantined? I thought we were shutting down non-essential nonsense in this country.
Get your asses home and obey the lockdowns. You can always see the blossoms next year, or in 2022 or 23.
My sister was in the court of the NC Cherry Blossom Princess in the mid 70's. I guess the balls and parade in DC (each state has a princess) are long gone.
This twitter thread shows some of the problems in the Medium article I criticized and some here praised.
https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1241522140559503360
Japan is discouraging traditional parties among the cherry trees.
We decided not to walk the trees this year. Yes, it is possible to walk through the trees. However, the paved walkway is not wide and it is still quite muddy from recent rains so going through the trees would be sloppy.
Very easy to wander from tree to tree safe in the open air, and even stay more than six feet apart.
Ever been to the Jefferson Memorial when the cherry trees are blooming? It's insanely crowded. People are packed in cheek to jowl.
All part of Tojo's and Hirohito's evil plan ...
I am anti-panic by nature. But more importantly God doesn’t want His children to panic. The Bible counsels against anxiety using flowers as an example of how God clothes His creations. Everything I’ve posted on Althouse over the last few weeks has been written with the purpose of countering panic with logic, with reassurance, with calm. America has responded and slowed the virus’ spread, which was our only good move to handle it. We’ve slowed the rate of infection and changed the slope of the curve. We ARE winning and you will soon see a peak in daily deaths and a decline to follow. Supply chain problems are being solved. Stop and smell the roses. Or log on and look at the cherry blossoms. We are doing well medically. It’s the economic damage that concerns me.
We have a line of Japanese Cherry trees along a small connector street that runs through one of our public golf courses and along the Botanic Garden frontage. (These were planted after WWII in a fit of civic embarrassment over the destruction of the nice Japanese Garden at Overton Park after Pearl Harbor.)
I didn't get by there yesterday to see if spring was officially here: you always know by the mostly Asian folks who turn out for graduation and wedding photos by the roadside.
Narr
It's delightful
Forty years ago the area around the Tidal Basin was packed for the cherry blossoms, and wife and I stopped going down. It’s only gotten worse. Still, if you want to see the blossoms then I would assume this is the year because of people sheltering in place.
I did check out BloomCam. It is nothing being there in person. Sorry.
Megan McArdle tweets that due to the warnings she went to the Arboretum instead.
Calling them JAPANESE cherries is RACIST!
Cherry blossoms only exist in the matrix.
Still waiting for the flowering cherry tree in my yard to bloom - probably next week or so if the weather continues warming in pugetopolis. I think I did read that the UW has asked folks to NOT come to campus and view the blossoms there. They do have a webcam up for them though.
“ Very easy to wander from tree to tree safe in the open air, and even stay more than six feet apart. ”
No, it wasn’t, hence the restriction.
You can do outdoor things if it’s not crowded. This attracts crowds.
It’s a problem.
“ Get your asses home and obey the lockdowns. You can always see the blossoms next year, or in 2022 or 23.”
But only if you live.
Don't know about today, but yesterday the scene was fairly crowded with groups of people in close proximity to other groups.
And all this personal irresponsibility and failure to heed the call for precautions is Trump's fault.
Cherry blossoms are not for closers, they’re for distancers.
We've been in DC a long time and avoid the cherry blossoms like the plague. This year we figured it would be empty... Nope! Same as every year. Maybe aggregate numbers are down, but the traffic and crowds felt just the same.
Dupont circle farmers market was booming today as well... I was just going to CVS for Covid 19 vaccine. They were all out unfortunately.
We've been in DC a long time and avoid the cherry blossoms like the plague. This year we figured it would be empty... Nope! Same as every year. Maybe aggregate numbers are down, but the traffic and crowds felt just the same.
Dupont circle farmers market was booming today as well... I was just going to CVS for Covid 19 vaccine. They were all out unfortunately.
Gonna have to switch strategies to strictly isolate the at risk because the not at risk don't seem to want to obey strict quarantines. Don't get right up in people's faces, don't go out if you have symptoms, don't cough or sneeze on people, stay away from the old and immuno-compromised: sure. No one minds doing that. But short of the National Guard in the streets you're not going to get people to not go out at all, and maintain a strict 6 foot distance from other humans (no one is crossing the street to not be on the same sidewalk as another person where I live, for example, and cash register transactions remain the same as they always were with more hand sanitizer and a few gloves on cashiers). Granola Shotgun had a bunch of pictures of 'lockdown' San Francisco yesterday with the streets full of people much closer than 6 feet to each other jogging, chatting, walking, shopping, etc.
I will say that based on my limited forays into social media, there is a cohort of people who are making this into an exercise in moral masturbation as far as how strictly they are observing 'contactless society.' The mom's group for my kid's college has a thread full of people boasting that they aren't letting their kids, including grown-ass adult college students, leave the house at all. "Whose death is worth you taking a walk with your friends?!?!?!" One of my friends posted an article saying basically you have the blood of old people on your hands if you take your kids to the playground. This moral hectoring isn't necessarily connected to reality as far as how the virus is transmitted but some people are arranging their choices around it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8140079/Governor-Cuomo-slams-arrogant-New-Yorkers-going-outside-gathering-parks.html
New Yorkers, apparently, don't get it either. As they're gathering by the thousands in the city's parks and open venues.
"There is a density level in New York City that is wholly inappropriate," the governor said. "You would think there was nothing going on in parts of New York City. You would think it was just a bright sunny Saturday. I don't know what I'm saying that people don't get. I don't know what they're not understanding."
They probably just don't believe the dire predictions. This is what happens when, through the years, confidence and trust in our institutions is systematically destroyed. People stop trusting the government has their best interests at heart and they just go about living their lives.
I imagine if the predictions come true, we'll see less and less of this and also that especially in Democrat-controlled areas of the country, there will be a tendency to become far more fascist about controlling the masses than we've seen thusfar.
Also of note:
Democrats are balking at passing spending bills that don't include money for Planned Parenthood.
Remember what I was saying earlier about trust in our government being systematically destroyed. Yeah ... this is a good example of what I'm talking about.
I'm reminded of Glenn Reynolds' old maxim: "I'll start thinking it's an emergency when they start ACTING like it's an emergency."
https://pjmedia.com/trending/democrats-refusing-to-support-2-trillion-stim-bill-unless-it-includes-a-bailout-for-planned-parenthood/
she went to the Arboretum instead.
They have (or had 30 years ago) an impressive collection of dogwoods and bonsai azaleas. Unfortunately, from VA you had to drive through some dodgy NE DC neighborhoods and crap roads. We should have gone 'round the Beltway into MD.
This is stupid stuff.
transmission rate in the open air and sunshine is as close to zero as you can get.
even in an enclosed cruise ship for weeks, what, 15% got infected.
save us from the bureaucrats. please for the love of god.
or lynch them. I don't care at this point.
Tidal basin in DC is always absolutely packed during the day when it's peak bloom. Utterly impossible to maintain 6 ft distance. That said, at least in past years, they illuminate the cherry blossoms at night so if you go in the evening you can enjoy it under much less packed conditions. Very different from enjoying a blue sky and pink and white clouds of cherry blossoms though.
Re: mockturtle:
Japan's cherry blossom festivals have been cancelled, of course. But people can still enjoy the beauty.
The festivals have been cancelled, but people are still out and enjoying the cherry blossoms -- they haven't shut down the parks. I do worry that people are getting a little more lax than they should about mask use, and that a coronavirus cluster is going to slip past their surveillance as a result. It's totally different from the situation in the US -- no lockdown, and people are out and about -- but that all rests on a foundation of the citizenry being appropriately vigilant about hand hygiene, mask-use, and flu etiquette. If that weakens, the whole thing could come down badly and it could end up like New York or something.
Two years ago I wired a store bought orchid to a tree here in South Florida. You should see it now. It almost glows with a kind of radiance.
"even in an enclosed cruise ship for weeks, what, 15% got infected.”
Do you mix with the crew a lot on a cruise? Do you think it’s like that steerage scene from Titanic, everybody yucking it up together?
Tim-the air handlers democratize the virus, not to mention the foodservice. Are you saying the infections were all aming the staff and they were 50% or 80% infected?
the crew isn't out and about all over the ship?
what's your point?
Even with that mixing it up, what, 15% got infected.
I'll repeat. Your chances of infection in the open air and sunshine are slightly above the zero of staying shuttered completely and forever inside your own house with no outside contact.
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