I was thinking about going to CVS today, as I'm running low on the stuff I put on my ingrown toenail, and I have a 40 off coupon that expires today, but I just checked the weather forecast and the high is expected to be 97. Since I surely won't be awake to go in the morning before it gets too hot, and CVS now closes fairly early in the evening, which will be before it gets cool enough to be tolerable, it's unlikely I'll feel like going. The only coolish day coming up is Sunday, when it is predicted to get up to 73. Perhaps if I don't use the coupon they will send me another. That happens sometimes, but I can't count on it.
Of course there is also the usual concern about the coronavirus. The suspended local weekly still maintains a web site, and their Monday article about the first County resident to die of Covid-19 included this line: "In the three weeks since the implementation of stage two reopening in Butte County, the number of COVID-19 cases has more than tripled—from 16 on May 9 to 51 as of June 1." The local health department had confirmed seven new cases on Monday (paperwork is delayed by the weekend so that represents about three days worth of reports,) so there is definitely a spike underway.
California has been lucky so far, thanks mostly to having shut down earlier than most other states, but the luck could be running out. As the symptoms take up to fourteen days to appear after infection, we'd likely have two weeks of increases even if the regulations were reimposed immediately, which I'm sure they won't be. Another tripling is definitely possible over the next three weeks, and having 150+ cases, most of them developing over a short time, might run the risk of straining the local hospitals. So it would be sensible for me to stay home, even without the appalling heat. I don't know that I'm actually a sensible person anymore though, plus it' only going to get worse. It might be safer for me to just get this stuff over with now.
There's a demonstration scheduled for today at the City Hall, and another for Thursday in the downtown park. More chances for the virus to spread. Whether Chico gets violent or not remains to be seen. The place has had outbursts before&mdash in fact a couple of decades ago a long-running annual event called Pioneer Days was permanently scuttled because riots had broken out three years in a row. The region hasn't got much of a left, but it has a lot of rightist fringies of various sorts who might take advantage of a protest to act as provocateurs. I guess we will see.