COVID-19 waning? RRV waxing




Never build a car wash
above a neighborhood
duck pond.
Learned today that building a self-serve car wash + vacuum station directly above a neighborhood duck pond is a really bad idea. And while outside I realized that this is probably the best spring ever in North Texas. It's tropical. It rains or sprinkles at least twice a week with tepid temps. Plants are growing strong and healthy without human touch. And families are growing healthier with more human touch. 
Eating healthier stuff cooked at home,  spending more time together. Learning to appreciate the real basic necessities like toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Parents who didn't already know it are finally discovering that school teachers and caretakers are severely underpaid and underappreciated.
Has anyone else noticed how clean the air smells?
Less cars on the roads results in fewer greenhouse gases. Emissions from cars and trucks contribute one-fifth of the United States' total global warming pollution. In India, which has 21 of the world's 30 most polluted cities the average concentration of harmful particulate matter plunged by 71% in the space of a week. Ten-year-old children are seeing blue skies for the first time.
And on the subject of "virus." Remember the RRV virus? Last year it was all over the news.
RRV stands for Rose Rosette Virus, which seems to be to the rose what COVID-19 is to the human body.
Whereas COVID-19 is a virus that replicates or causes infection only inside a living animal cell. RRV is a virus that replicates or causes infection only inside living plant cells. 
COVID-19 pneumomia damages the thin
layer of abeorlar cells. The lining of the lung
becomes thicker until they choke off the little
air pocket needed to get oxygen to the blood.
Both are spread through particles released into the air which attach themselves to a new host. When the virus enters the host’s body it attacks. A protein on the receptors of the virus can attach to a host cell's receptors and penetrate the cell.
It’s not been determined if the COVID-19 will be less viral as temperatures rise. But the dog days of summer will bring with them another contagion of Rose Rosette Virus, which  loves warm weather.
Like COVID-19 there is no cure for RRS. It affects every bit of the rose, which must be completely removed, roots and all to keep the virus from spreading. Those infected roses are then bagged up and placed on the curb for yard waste pickup. The yard waste then goes into a common compost heap and given away for free to unsuspecting residents to load up and carry off to their own gardens.
It's like spending Spring Break with dozens of others on a Florida beach during a "shelter in place" lock down. Passing the COVID-19 virus around for everyone to cultivate it in their own gardens.



RRV transmission occurs most often in the summer. The virus is systemic infecting the entire plant. Symptoms for RRD include abnormal reddening of leaves and stems, unusual and rubbery thorns, deformed leaves, and witches’ broom (multiple stems grow out of one node, causing a bunching effect.

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