We are bombarded with constant updates on the novel coronovirus as it storms its way across the globe. Those countries which have not yet been touched by the outbreak of the global pandemic have good reason to be apprehensive, for more join the ranks of the affected nations each day. It begins with one individual diagnosed with the dread COVID-19 who had travelled abroad where the virus has affected many, bringing that nasty souvenir home with them.

Ironically, while China advises the outside world that the number of cases have dwindled markedly there, Chinese travellers who had gone abroad for the Chinese New Year, some undoubtedly taking the virus with them, have returned bringing back with them the virus acquired in Europe, Australia, the United States and elsewhere. And the returning vacationers have as well initiated a second phase of the virus in Singapore and Hong Kong whose immediate clamp-down on their population had succeeded in minimizing contact and contagion.

Of course, it's difficult to really credit anything that comes out of official China when they claim to have conquered the virus that they will not have referred to as Wuhan coronavirus, claiming that to be racist, though the virus emerged there, as a result of cultural dining habits which themselves have done much to radically reduce the numbers of endangered wildlife. China, after all, instead of putting a preventive clamp on the virus to control it, denied at first that there was any such viral threat. The virus is nature's way of hitting back on presumptuously entitled humanity for thinking they could ravage nature's other creatures without consequences.

It's not too far a stretch to imagine that there are few people who go to bed at night feeling calm and relaxed. Most people would be haunted by the fear of contracting the coronavirus, and with good reason. The parlous situation in Italy is a case in point, where so many cases have developed that the health care system has come to the conclusion that there must be sacrifices for the greater good of the entire population, to conserve hospital space and equipment. That limited medical equipment and increasing numbers of medical personnel themselves falling victim must result in a decision not to admit the elderly and health-compromised -- the most vulnerable of all people -- to extensive care.

There are many people everywhere worldwide where hygiene required to help stave off the virus is not available and they will fall. Even in the developed world, where people in crowded living arrangements like apartment complexes make it difficult to maintain a social distance there will see dreadful fallout. Panic has long since set in among many people acting quite unreasonably allowing their fears to set aside their common sense, by stockpiling food, hygiene products and pharmaceuticals, taking far more than they need, and in the process leaving little for others.

The mental health declines in world populations desperate to evade the doom of oblivion in the face of a zoonotic coronavirus, variously referred to as the SARS novel coronavirus, will live long after science has somehow managed to quell the emergency. People are urged to self-isolate voluntarily for the good of society and for their own health, and feelings of fear, boredom and misery will take their toll, to be long remembered and inevitably affecting the psyches of much of the population worldwide.

We engaged in our own positive mental health option this afternoon, bowing both to routine and to necessity, by heading out to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie on a heavily overcast, 4C, windless day. The creek in the ravine is still running full with meltwater, and it will be increased this evening when overnight rain falls, as expected. The absence of bright, spring sun has slowed down the melt, but there are some areas adjacent the forest trails where we can already see snow-absent patches of mud and green revealing themselves on the forest floor.

The newly-revealed underlayers of snow and ice hold endless fascination for Jackie and Jillie, as new smells rise up and entice them to keep their scent-sensitive little noses down and sniffing wildly. That, and the embarrassment of riches they find in revealed twigs and branches offering chewing delights keeps them busy now on our outdoor ventures. It's much harder to make our way uphill now, since the thick layers of alternating ice and snow are becoming soft and slippery when it's mild like today and hard and icy on cooler days, so we trudge uphill and fall backward in a spring ritual that can be exhausting making our way up the many hills in the ravine.