I bought this award-winning board game about three years ago not guessing how relevant it would become. Now that many of us are sheltering in place from COVID19, what could be better than a science-based game where the goal is to cooperate in order to defeat life-threatening viruses!
The game is designed to mimic the behavior of contagious diseases which if left unchecked kill thousands of people (sound familiar?). There are several mechanisms to spread germs from one locale to another. Individual cities can become quickly overwhelmed (“outbreaks” in the game’s terminology). Outbreaks add to a “burden of disease” tracker on the side of the board. If you reach the final skull-and-crossbones–it’s game over!
source:@thatbgshow
The game unfolds quickly by drawing “infection” cards with names of cities onto which you place infection markers (small colored cubes). Several events can occur that will accelerate these infections to the point they become outbreaks (as outlined above).
Pushing back on this process is the actual game play. Each player has a special role (medic, researcher, etc.) with special abilities. Unlike most games the point is to maximize the benefit for everyone. This leads to discussion and cooperative problem-solving.
Pandemic is appropriate for older children, works best with four players, and takes less than an hour to complete.
The last time I went hunting for Pitcher Plants was 2017. This year I went about two weeks earlier and learned more about their distribution and lifecycles. I visited six sites in all, moving from Florida into Alabama. [Gallery] I saw mostly pitcher plant flowers as I moved west, apparently the flowers emerge days to weeks before the funnel-shaped leaves.
Clear Creek Boardwalk
My first stop was Clear Creek Nature Trail (which is actually part of Whiting Field Naval Air Station). They maintain a nice boardwalk so you can walk over and among numerous White-Top Pitcher Plants.
I had not been to this site since 2013, and the plants were just beginning to emerge. I took a few photos of what was there, and caught a cryptic denizen I did not see until I reviewed the photos at home.
Green Tree Frog on White-Top Pitcher Plant
My next stop was nearby, the Yellow River Marsh Preserve. Unfortunately for me (not the preserve) there had been a recent prescribed burn in that area. I could find only one clump of pitcher plants on the perimeter of the small pond where they had been plentiful in the past.
Fortunately I did not have to go far, just a few steps over to the ditches on either side of the local road!
There were also many Sundews present, including the “Threadleaf” species I’d wondered about in the past (saying it looked like a cross between a “sundew and a fern”). Turns out I was half right!
Threadleaf Sundew
I ended the first day at Tarkiln Bayou Preserve with about an hour of daylight remaining. They had a nice boardwalk and there were many White-Top Pitcher Plants present in one wet area, along with several Grass Pink Orchids!
Grass Pink Orchid
The next day was a bust as far as Pitcher Plants go, but I got a chance to explore two new areas that in a few weeks will probably be full of new growth. The first was Weeks Bay Pitcher Plant Bog with extensive boardwalk over and around a large wetland. There were a few flowers emerging from the straw and lots of Fern Fiddleheads unfurling.
I also caught this Green Anole displaying his throat patch.
Green Anole
The second site was much larger, the Splinter Hill Bog Preserve (owned by the Nature Conservancy). There appeared to be several acres of last year’s Pitcher Plants with a few leaves and flowers beginning to emerge. It should be spectacular in a few weeks if there is enough rain.
I went on a long walk into a large tract of Longleaf Pine uplands and was rewarded by several unexpected sightings. After a short boardwalk I saw my first Butterwort (another carnivorous genus)!
Yellow Butterwort (Pinguicula lutea)
Then something even more surprising, peeking out of the straw along the trail were several miniature Blue Irises?! It turns out these are Dwarf Woodland Irises. The ground was not obviously wet and I was climbing a gentle hillside. Wow! I did not see that coming…
Dwarf Woodland Iris
I had planned to camp at Wright Lake in the Apalachicola National Forest but it remains closed after last year’s hurricanes. So I stayed in a motel and headed down there on my third morning not knowing what to expect. I was amply rewarded with the best showing of the entire trip!
About four miles north of the little town of Sumatra I noticed a large, recently burned area with many large yellow blooms of Trumpet-Leaf Pitcher Plants. I parked and started walking over the slightly wet uneven ground. I was not disappointed. In addition to the large pitchers there were Purple Flower Pitcher Plants, and what I think were last year’s Parrot Pitcher Plants (not yet emerging this year). There were also Orchids in abundance, at least two species of Butterwort and Sundews everywhere! A True Motherlode!!
I’ve annotated this NY Times graphic, rounding the estimates for COVID19 (aka the 2019 novel coronavirus) to 2% mortality and 2 people infected for every one who has the disease. What this suggests is the infection rate will be similar to a bad cold season, but unlike the common cold, a significant number of people will die of the disease.
This is not good news, but it is also not catastrophic.
By comparison the 1918 “Spanish” Flu had a similar infection rate but killed 1 in 10! The 1918 Flu infected approximately one third of ALL the people on earth… and that was before air travel!
Based on these numbers alone, up to 110 million people in the US could be infected. 80% of these cases should be mild, 20% will need some form of special care in hospitals or at home, and 2% (2.2 million) could die.
One area where the 1918 Flu differs from COVID19 is the latter does not seem to kill children, which is a small bright spot. However, children may be a source of infection for vulnerable adults!
Note that the currently reported mortality rate is over 3% but here in the US we have done almost NO testing, so the total number of infected individuals is unknown, but likely to be much higher. This means the reported mortality rate is probably inflated due to lack of good data. I’ll stick with 2% as a conservative figure for now.
It is also important to remember one of the lessons of the 1918 epidemic, things may look better when warmer weather returns but this should not be reassuring. In the spring of 1918 it looked like the disease was weakening, but it returned with a vengeance in the fall and winter!
Social Isolation and Hand Washing
For the general public, not living with or caring for a sick person, wearing masks really doesn’t help. Social isolation (eg, staying home) and effective hand washing remain the best things you can do to prevent getting most viral respiratory diseases (the common cold, influenza, and the new coronavirus). Just being in the same room with a sick person is not that risky, but touching surfaces and objects in that room and then touching your face is a good way to catch one of these viruses. Note that hand washing studies suggest we generally neglect our fingertips (including the nails) and wrists.
The best information available comes from CDC and WHO (which I consider the best source since it is not caught up in US political shenanigans). For up-to-date worldwide information download the most recent WHO Situation Report.
