Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

Hanya Yanagihara: I have the right to write about whatever I want – The Guardian

Posted: January 9, 2022 at 4:25 pm

Hanya Yanagiharas debut novel taught her not to give up her day job as a travel writer and editor. The People in the Trees was the story of a scientist jailed for sexually abusing children he adopted during his Nobel-winning research on a Pacific island. It impressed reviewers with its exhaustive inventiveness and its refusal to offer redemption or solace, but sold only a few thousand copies when it was published in 2013.

Two years later, the Manhattan-based writer released a novel that was twice as long and even less forgiving. It was about the fallout, among four college friends, from the appalling childhood sexual abuse of one of their group, and it hit the jackpot, becoming one of those vanishingly rare literary break-outs. Victoria Beckham and Dua Lipa declared themselves fans, while an equally passionate group of readers condemned it as gratuitous, even evil. A Little Life sold a quarter of a million print copies in the UK alone, where it was shortlisted for the Booker and the Womens prize for fiction. But far from giving up her day job, Yanagihara took on a bigger one, as editor-in-chief of T, the New York Times style magazine.

When we meet up, at an upmarket London hotel in October, she is combining a whistlestop publicity trip for her third novel, To Paradise, with two weeks of European fashion shows that have left her with a mysterious illness which, she hastens to add, is definitely not Covid. The jaunt is a twice-yearly ritual: menswear and furniture shows the spring and summer, then womens ready-to-wear in the autumn. I do New York, Milan and Paris, and I always end up getting sick. Usually its a cold or flu, so this is a new one for me, she says, brandishing hands flushed with tiny red spots.

She is determined not to let her mystery ailment get in the way of a promotional campaign that began six months earlier when news of To Paradise was teased to the book trade. Do you remember where you were when you finished A Little Life? And where were you when you heard that Hanya Yanagiharas new novel arrives next year? Right here, tweeted Waterstones at the time an enthusiasm rewarded by Yanagihara in proof copies of To Paradise, with a personal note of thanks to all the booksellers who had pressed her work into readers hands.

Like its predecessor, To Paradise is a brick of a book that checks in at well over 700 pages and is set largely in New York. But there the similarity ends. This is a very different city, which is seen in three different iterations in a trio of time zones. Theres perhaps another motive behind Yanagiharas note to the booksellers: until you get the hang of it, which takes the length of an ordinary-sized novel, its all a bit disorientating, not least because for reasons to do with its preoccupation with inherited privilege the protagonists in all three timezones are all named David, Edward and Charles/Charlie Bingham.

It is, however, most definitely worth hanging on in. Its a mature masterpiece, which makes A Little Life look overcaffeinated, says veteran novelist Edmund White, who emerged as an early champion with a Facebook post that To Paradise was as good as War and Peace.

In the first section were in 1893, at the heart of fin-de-sicle society with clear Jamesian resonances (it centres on a big family house in Washington Square), except that this New York is a breakaway republic where same-sex marriage is the norm. Id always wanted to write a marriage story, but marriage stories are about money, and I wondered, if you wrote one that wasnt about gender norms, and gender rules, what would that marriage story be? And beyond that, what would that history be? says Yanagihara.

In the second section we move to 1993, where an unnamed plague is laying waste to the complacency of the next generation of Davids, Charleses and Edwards. In the third section were in a dystopian 2093 where the personal and social freedoms of David, Charles and his granddaughter Charlie have been sacrificed to the demands of controlling wave upon wave of pandemics. Its all scarily plausible: a what if? novel combined with a what when? one, I suggest. And what is, says Yanagihara.

What it is not, though, is a response to Covid. She had the idea of the novel in 2016 and started researching it in earnest shortly after the election of Donald Trump, at a point when history suddenly started to move very quickly, raising questions about whether we were who we had always thought we were. She cant explain why she started interviewing scientists about the probability and likely consequences of the next pandemic. But I can say that it didnt arise from any special oracular powers, she wrote in her note to booksellers. By the time New York was locked down, the novels structure, characters and themes were in place, the first part was finished and the other two were partly written.

Of course, it would occasionally strike me as strange that I was writing about this pandemic in the midst of one, but not terribly, she says. And listen, theres no way to say this without sounding completely heartless, but Covid really gave me a lot of time. It was not an anxious period for me, because I was extremely lucky to have a job that I knew was secure. I had health insurance, I had savings. I had a place to live that was safe. And suddenly, as someone who needs eight or nine hours sleep a night, I had time.

After the taxonomical precision of The People in the Trees, where scientific identification and naming is central, and the introversion of A Little Life in which external history is airbrushed out, leaving no distraction from the agonies and ecstasies of Jude, JB, Willem and Malcolm, over three decades the bleaching out of identity associated with names in To Paradise is particularly striking.

One of the Davids is actually a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, the reluctant centre of a running argument about sovereignty and the appropriation of people and objects. Nor is this anonymity limited to the novels characters: in the world of the 19th-century Binghams, there is no word for gay, while the diseases that sweep through the later sections are never named. Its a bold formal move for a writer whose breakout readership is likely to be expecting another agonised circle of friends.

For Yanagihara this play with naming represents one of many negotiations with Americas idea of itself. Were often renaming things in the United States, either to eradicate a bad memory or to try to dissociate it from a person who history has not treated kindly or who deserves to be treated with more respect. Theres this idea that naming something changes the fundamental nature of it, but does naming who we are make us more real to others? Or is it simply a way of making ourselves more real to ourselves?

Above all, To Paradise offers a profound challenge to the idea of democratic society. The very concept of paradise, she says, is that it is not for everyone but for the chosen few. The idea of sacrifice for a kind of freedom, the idea of personal freedom, as opposed to social freedom, the idea of a freedom for some, but not for all these are questions that are integral to the founding, and continuation, of America.

The current disarray around management of wave after wave of Covid pandemic bears out her point, giving the novel a shadow that seems to have warped and elongated even in the two months since I first read it. This is particularly true of its chilling representation of a young woman whose independence, and capacity to make adult relationships, have been sacrificed by her doctor grandfather to the task of keeping her alive.

Did Yanagihara have any qualms about being seen as playing to the anti-vax gallery? I didnt think about it that way, she says firmly. My fathers an oncologist. He doesnt treat children, but there are certain forms of treatment, as I understand it, that save children while really hurting them and causing long-term complications: I was thinking about the sacrifice that Grandfather, and unwittingly Charlie, end up making for her life. He has a much colder and more clinical idea of meaningful life until she gets sick.

For all this books differences from Yanagiharas previous novels, all three have one striking thing in common: they barely touch on the consciousness of women. Rendered infertile and perpetually childlike by the antidote to the virus, Charlie has little agency. Why such an absence? You know, says Yanagihara, after youve written your third book, certain patterns and motifs begin to announce themselves that youre not conscious of. Sometimes they have to do with your biography, but sometimes they dont. I dont know why theres a grandparent in each one of these books, because I wasnt close to my grandparents. There are no mothers in any of my books, and Im not sure why, because I have a perfectly fine relationship with my mother. There are very few women and again Im not really sure why, but theres always disease and the body falling apart. The short answer is Im not sure why Charlie is the only woman.

If one were to go down the psychoanalytical route, one could cite the many interviews in which she has spoken extensively of the influence of her father, who when she displayed an interest in art at the age of 10 took her to a pathologists lab so that she could draw a cadaver. I was always interested in the disease, not the human, she told one interviewer.

I always say that my father came from the last generation of quasi-intellectual men who were completely open and saying that they expected one thing from their daughter, and another thing from their wife, she says now. I didnt want to be a wife and a mother, and was probably very dismissive of the lessons my mother had to teach me, which I regret. And so I deliberately never learned how to do certain things like cook or clean. And as a teenager everything seems like such a binary: you would either be at home cooking and cleaning, or you would be out doing what you wanted, and I wanted to be out doing what I wanted.

Yanagihara was born in Los Angeles, one of two children, to a family that had lived in Hawaii for three generations but were not of Hawaiian blood. Her childhood was itinerant, following her fathers jobs across the US, though she spent three high-school years at the private school in Honolulu that Barack Obama had attended a decade earlier. Punahou School was founded on land given to an American missionary called Bingham, whose grandson, an explorer turned US senator, is listed among its famous alumni (all the surnames in the novel, it turns out, are from prominent 19th-century missionary families in Hawaii).

Does she feel American? Yes, 100%, she says, though she has Japanese ancestry and considers Japan to be the country of my heart. Travelling abroad, she admits, disarmingly, is a process of constant humiliation. I feel very gauche most of the time. This ugly American behaviour which I can see in myself is kind of what people expect. Especially if you are a non-white American, you will never feel more American than that when you go back to the country of your ancestry, as I do to Japan.

In Hawaii, she grew up at the height of the sovereignty movement with parents who were classic liberal boomers and favoured the less radical state-within-a-state solution. In the second section of To Paradise, a range of hopelessly naive separatist movements lay claim to the islands. I hope the book offers no moral judgment about a craving to return to this era in which things seemed simpler and more noble and respectful. It only says something about how hard it is to try to go back, when history is always in the way, she says. The Bingham house is stuffed with Hawaii artefacts, which become part of a larger conversation about the ethics of protectiveness: or, as she puts it, who gets to decide whats best for people and for cultures.

Theres an unflinchingness in Yanagiharas writing that can seem gratuitously punishing a reminder of the little girl who was more interested in disease than people. By the third section of To Paradise, Hawaii has been destroyed. In A Little Life, she pushed the torture and self-flagellation of lawyer Jude so far that some readers recoiled while others hung on in horrified fascination. This book and its champions seem bound to each other by their mutual disgust and discomfort, wrote Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Review. Its rare to encounter literary discussion of such dissonant zeal, such enthralled distress, observed the Australian critic Beejay Silcox, in an essay summarising the Little Life phenomenon.

How did Yanagihara herself feel about inspiring such strong feelings? I dont read anything about my books and Im not on Twitter, which is, as I understand it, where the majority of these conversations tend to get slugged out, she says. She is particularly impatient with the #ownvoice movement, which might question her right, as a woman, to tell the stories of gay men. Its very dangerous. I have the right to write about whatever I want. The only thing a reader can judge is whether I have done so well or not.

While A Little Life was a dark adolescent fairy story of a group of friends who attempt to hold historical institutional evil at bay by making their own family, To Paradise takes a more history-hardened view of relationships. People always ultimately choose their family over friends, asserts one of the Charleses. Though Yanagihara says that she disagrees with that position, I wonder how much as someone who is resolutely single and lives alone her own idea of friendship has altered during the pandemic.

I think if people did live with someone, whether it was their partner, their family, or so on, they almost always prioritised those people over their friends, she says. Does that mean she personally lost friends? It led to some meaningful conversations, she replies, and then there were friends who I became much closer to. She is wearing a chunky gold necklace featuring her star sign, Virgo, given to her by a friend who is the artistic director of a leading couture house.

I dont have family, she says, correcting herself a beat later to: I do, but theyre in Hawaii and theyre fine. (She spent two Covid summers there, watching the wildlife return to tourist-bare beaches and disappear again as the industry returned.) Her point, she clarifies, is I think people divided according to grades of fear, and who they had to protect.

Its hard to imagine how the 47-year-old author manages to combine such a high-profile, jet-setting job with writing such big books, but she says that being the boss has its advantages, as everything works around you. Im not the smartest or hardest-working or most educated person, but I am the best at time management, she says. Its a skill that Ive worked hard to develop, which is not to say that Im disciplined. Im not really that disciplined. But once I set aside time for myself, I know how to sit down and use it.

And besides, she adds, journalism has made a valuable contribution to her writing: It teaches you to be respectful of grammar and spelling, which sounds like a small thing, but really isnt. It teaches you structure, which I think is an underrated skill. It teaches you how to turn things in on time. And it teaches you that at a certain point, you have to let it go.

After three novels, her project is becoming clear: as Edmund White puts it, she is chronicling her country just as panoramically as Tolstoy did his, with a similar confidence that the story is interesting. Ive really thought about how young America is as a nation, says Yanagihara. Despite the frustration and despair even in countries like France, which pretend they dont care about it there is such an admiration for America. Its our vitality, our childlike qualities, you know our optimism and generosity, but also our spoiltness, our tantrum-throwing, our inwardness, our myopia. I really do think of it as a precocious and quite bratty child, heading into adolescence: every quality that you would admire in that child and every quality that will frustrate you exists within America as well.

The issues to which America is now applying this adolescent brattiness are undeniably global. The arguments were having about vaccine mandates; the ones were having about the kinds of sacrifices we might make to effect greater global change and deal with the climate crisis; the ones that involve a reframing of history, especially when it comes to race and immigration. Those questions feel more urgent now because the threat is much more intense, especially when it comes to climate change and disease, says Yanagihara. They are questions that fiction needs to address, because there are no easy answers in fact.

Read the original:

Hanya Yanagihara: I have the right to write about whatever I want - The Guardian

Comments Off on Hanya Yanagihara: I have the right to write about whatever I want – The Guardian

The levels and axes of the Chinese vision in practice to deal with Washington – Modern Diplomacy

Posted: at 4:25 pm

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a grand development plan adopted in 2013 by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). It involves over a thousand projects investing in several international organisations and countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The main activity is to develop infrastructure for transportation by land and sea from China to various regions of the world. The BRI was designed to promote connectivity and trade between different continents, as well as to create new jobs and stimulate economic growth.

This paper seeks to identify the causes and consequences of the Belt and Road Initiative while taking into consideration that it is a relatively new and on-going strategy; hence some implications may not be precisely predictable yet. It will firstly focus on the economic and political factors that favoured the implementation of this plan, including what could be perceived as the main objectives the Chinese government seeks to achieve. This essay will later analyse the political and economic impact of the BRI in China and the other countries involved, including current risks and obstacles that may arise. In this section of the paper, consequences will be differentiated into two categories: the first subsection will focus on the effects, while the second will identify and examine the challenges that may be encountered.

The decision to adopt the Belt and Road Initiative was influenced by several factors that are subject to interpretation according to diverse views of the world. For instance, a western perspective would explain the objectives of the BRI as merely political and strategic, with the main aim of increasing Chinas influence around the globe. On the contrary, the Chinese government claims it was principally designed to address issues facing the national economy and to improve connectivity among different regions of the world. The potential reasons behind the implementation of the BRI can thus be explained in both economic and political terms.

The first factor to highlight is the economic slowdown in China since 2012, which could justify the need for a grand strategy to recover and boost the economy. The government especially needed to deal with the countrys industrial overcapacity and stagnating exports. The low domestic demand was inadequate to deal with the high level of production, and therefore China needed to improve connectivity with developing economies to conquer new markets around the globe. The Belt and Road Initiative was thus conceived to improve trade and cooperation between different regions and continents of the world. According to the World Bank, the BRI will succeed to increase foreign investment and improve living conditions in the participating countries. A further benefit is the removal of the obstacles to commerce, such as trade barriers, which would benefit all governments involved. In fact, the reductions in transport costs and trade liberalisation attributed to this plan are estimated to generate large GDP benefits for countries along the BRI corridor.

Furthermore, the BRI reaches regions of the world that were marginalized from globalisation, and it does this by developing transport networks and thus facilitating trades with those countries. For instance, the project of the China-Pakistan corridor attempts to reduce the distance between the PRC and the Middle East: from the current 12.900 kilometres by sea, the distance would be shortened to 3000 kilometres by land. This point brings us to another factor to consider, which is Chinas need to mitigate its energy security concerns, as the countrys demand has been rising and almost 60% of the oil reserves are located in the Middle East. Hence, the PRC sees the Belt and Road Initiative also as an opportunity to obtain regular energy supplies in the fastest and most secure way.

The Chinese government aims to use economic cooperation also to address challenges in both domestic and foreign policy, such as the political tensions with neighbouring countries, especially those in Central Asia. The BRI could serve as a means to connect Xinjiang with its central Asian neighbours and Europe, while also mitigating perceived threats of terrorism and separatism originating from this region.

It could be also argued that while the US were choosing a rather isolationist approach, China saw the opportunity to achieve global governance and become the new model to follow. Osnos suggested that as Donald Trump surrenders Americas global commitments, Xi Jinping is learning to pick up the pieces, implying the Chinese government has a great opportunity to gain global leadership, whereas the US are slowly retreating. This is plausible since one of the main drivers of the BRI is considered to be Chinas desire to create a new silk road: a new Sino-centric network of economic, political, and security relations, that would promote Chinas vision of global governance. As a result, this strategy could effectively enhance its political power and influence over other countries, hence improving the national image and soft power.

Indeed, Summers argues that it could be compared with the US Marshall Plan for Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War: in the same way as USA gained geopolitical influence over Western Europe with this initiative, the BRI could allow China to gain influence over several countries in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Another element to include is the so called String of Pearls theory, which represents Chinas potential intentions in the Indian Ocean. The Belt and Road Initiative will allow the country to establish ports in maritime routes to increase influence in the Indian Ocean, especially since Indias aggressive maritime strategy may contrast with Chinas objectives. An important location that affects Chinas affairs and influence over the ocean is the Malacca Strait, which is controlled by Singapore and protected by the US military. This poses a dilemma to the Chinese government, and the BRI seeks to solve this problem by building the Karat Canal in Thailand. In this way, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea will be successfully connected, and China would reduce its dependence on the Strait of Malacca.

As previously introduced, it is complicated to effectively determine the consequences, given that many BRI projects are on-going or have not started yet. However, it is possible to identify the immediate and estimated effects concerning China and the other countries involved. In addition, we can detect the risks, including the repercussions that may arise in years to come if the challenges are not adequately addressed.

An immediate consequence is the economic growth in both China and the countries along the BRI corridor, as well as the creation of new employment: it is estimated that almost 300 thousand jobs were created since the start of the project. In addition, a report published by the World Bank calculated that the BRI-related investments could drastically reduce the rates of global extreme and moderate poverty. Contributions to the Chinese plan are thus estimated to increase, especially the overseas direct investments (ODI). However, some scholars argue that, rather than improving economic conditions in foreign countries, the increase of ODI will mainly enhance Chinas soft power over the countries involved in the initiative.

Another projected and expected result is the improvement of the relations between China and the EU, which will allow the increase of trade and investments between these two regions of the world, hence also improving the economic stability of the old continent. Therefore, the EU could benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as have the opportunity to enhance its global influence.

One can argue the immediate effects of this plan are beneficial to all the governments involved, but it is also true that the majority of the projects are assigned to Chinese companies, rather than foreign ones. Freymann also argues that many Chinese corporations are exploiting the Belt and Road Initiative brand as a shortcut to get funds from Chinese state banks. Labour and manpower are also mainly Chinese, and therefore the BRI might not create much employment in foreign countries. In addition, the standards we are accustomed to, such as workers rights, may not be the same under Chinese supervision: in fact, many African countries are starting to put up resistance against certain projects because of low wages and poor working conditions.

Along with the economic and political consequences, there are also risks and obstacles to take into account. The most imminent threat originates from the outbreak of Coronavirus, which affected more than half of the BRI projects. The Chinese government has announced that the initiative will adapt to this circumstance: more resources will be put on public health, environmental sustainability, and technology, in order to facilitate its progress and attract more partners. However, it is complicated to establish how these strategies will be implemented, and what will be the long-term impacts of the Covid-19 crisis.

A crucial challenge is the environmental impact, as the large-scale construction of several infrastructure could have negative effects on biodiversity, such as increased wildlife mortality and restrictions of animal movement. In addition, transport is estimated to increase carbon dioxide emissions by up to 7 percent in the countries where production will expand. The various projects could also create pollution of various sources, such as noise, chemicals, and light, which would seriously affect the ecosystem in the areas involved. This aspect should thus be getting more attention from policymakers and the BRI management, in order to successfully mitigate the several environmental risks before the situation deteriorates.

An additional aspect to consider is the debt accumulated by borrower countries. Since 2013, China has made several loans to many governments, and there is the risk that it would use that debt to exert political and economic influence on those nations. According to a policy paper published by the Center for Global Development, eight countries are estimated to be pushed into a debt crisis because of BRI-related loans. Hence, the PRC could make use of a strategy commonly referred to as dept-trap diplomacy. An example is the case of Sri Lanka, which could not repay its debts and had to hand over an important port to a Chinese state company for the duration of 99 years.

Moreover, in a very costly and global plan such as the BRI, corruption is another factor that requires a deep focus. According to the World Bank, bribery in transport projects can account for 5 percent to 20 percent of transaction costs. Therefore, corruption is one of the main risks that the Chinese government should manage in order to guarantee transparency in the BRI projects. Such concern is often associated with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which could support the Belt and Road Initiative undermining good norms of governance.

The last aspect we should focus on involves perceived threats to human security. Security-related challenges are crucial to address, and particularly in this case. Some BRI corridors are located in countries affected by ongoing conflicts, extremism, and terrorism. Therefore, the level of risk in these areas is very high, especially if we consider that the Chinese government is often accused of discrimination towards ethnic and religious minorities. It is also believed that the PRC may not have sufficient military power to deal with this issue, hence failing to protect building sites and infrastructure, such as roads and railways along the route.

Despite the Belt and Road Initiative being in constant development, we can already infer it will have serious economic and geopolitical implications. Two diverse visions of the world interpret the purpose of the BRI differently, and both perspectives are based on valid arguments. China will most probably see a rise in its economic influence and will gain strategic dominance across three continents. It will use the BRI for its own benefit and recovery, but it will also improve relations and cooperation with many countries, as well as create employment and reduce poverty. The Chinese government will create a new Silk Road to invest in regions of the world that were left out of globalisation and trade, while also enhancing its national image and exerting political influence in order to secure Chinese goals. While Trump-led USA turned towards protectionism, China has opened its market with the rest of the world and has taken advantage of the situation. The BRI could effectively allow the Chinese government to take control of most of the maritime and land routes across Africa, Asia, and Europe.

However, it is still early to determine whether the BRI will be successful or not, as it will also depend on its impact in the countries involved. After the Coronavirus outbreak, some countries may not decide to invest in projects that were seriously affected by the Covid-19 crisis, which could lead to further complications in the following months. Foreign governments could choose a different approach towards the legitimacy of the Belt and Road Initiative, especially if we consider the ambiguity in some aspects of the Chinese plan. For instance, the US led by Biden have adopted a different approach towards Chinas global initiative, as opposed to Donald Trump. In addition, there are environmental and security challenges to address, that could drastically affect the progress of the BRI.

Nevertheless, it is premature to state that these obstacles are being overshadowed by the PRC for mere political agenda because the Chinese government may decide to take further measures and find valuable solutions in the years to come. As a result, future events and developments will be helpful to better understand and evaluate the implications of this grand strategy, as well as Chinas position in the global political and economic landscape.

Related

Go here to read the rest:

The levels and axes of the Chinese vision in practice to deal with Washington - Modern Diplomacy

Comments Off on The levels and axes of the Chinese vision in practice to deal with Washington – Modern Diplomacy

Coronavirus Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Posted: at 4:24 pm

1 : any of a family (Coronaviridae) of large single-stranded RNA viruses that have a lipid envelope studded with club-shaped spike proteins, infect birds and many mammals including humans, and include the causative agents of MERS, SARS, and COVID-19 Coronaviruses can cause a variety of illnesses in animals, but in people coronaviruses cause one-third of common colds and sometimes respiratory infections in premature infants. Rob Stein in 2003 a previously unknown coronavirus caused an outbreak of SARS in humans. Ali Moh Zaki et al. abbreviation CoV, CV 2 : an illness caused by a coronavirus especially : covid-19 Italy has seen the most coronavirus cases in Europe, with more than 2,000 people ill and 76 deaths associated with COVID-19. Dayton (Ohio) Daily News abbreviation CV

'; container.parentNode.insertBefore(header, container); // Add the div for the openweb comments. var openwebDiv = document.createElement("div"); openwebDiv.className = "pitc-div"; openwebDiv.setAttribute("data-spotim-module", "pitc"); container.parentNode.insertBefore(openwebDiv, container); // Create the openweb tag. var openwebScript = document.createElement("script"); openwebScript.type = "text/javascript"; openwebScript.src = "https://launcher.spot.im/spot/sp_704FKM73"; openwebScript.setAttribute("data-spotim-module", "spotim-launcher"); openwebScript.setAttribute("data-post-id", "owl:coronavirus"); openwebScript.setAttribute("data-post-url", "http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coronavirus"); openwebScript.setAttribute("data-messages-count", "3"); container.appendChild(openwebScript); }, 5000);

Read the original post:

Coronavirus Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on Coronavirus Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Coronavirus: should the UK make vaccination mandatory? – The Guardian

Posted: at 4:24 pm

In Italy, it is now obligatory for people aged 50 or over to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Greece is pondering a similar move. In France, which has seen record numbers of positive cases, President Emmanuel Macron has also announced that he wants to piss off the unvaccinated, while Austria is contemplating a law to make the vaccine mandatory for all its citizens. By contrast, in the UK, Boris Johnson has confined himself to accusing anti-vaxxers of talking mumbo-jumbo.

But is that enough? Should the UK take a harder line on those who refuse to be vaccinated? After all, this is a virus that threatens to overwhelm the NHS. As doctors continue to point out, hospital beds are now filling up with more and more seriously ill Covid patients, many of whom are unvaccinated. So, should vaccines against Covid be made mandatory, not just in certain workplace settings but for all individuals?

What is the case for making Covid vaccines mandatory?

Most British scientists believe that increasing numbers of vaccinated people will give a major boost to efforts to limit hospitalisations from serious Covid complications. However, many question the wisdom of doing this by making vaccination mandatory. The issue is summed up by vaccine expert Peter English.

Unvaccinated people are very much more likely to become ill and consume disproportionate healthcare resources. A single case of Covid-19 requiring admission to an ICU can block a bed that could be used for many critical operations, he told the Observer. However, the backlash that could occur as a result of compulsory vaccination which is not part of our culture, unlike in Italy might mean even fewer people coming forward for vaccination, so it is not something that I would recommend.

What vaccines are mandatory in the UK?

The answer to this is straightforward, said child health expert, Professor Helen Bedford of University College London. We dont mandate any vaccine in the UK. We recommend that people have certain vaccines and advise parents to have their children vaccinated against particular diseases but we do not enforce that in law. In fact, the only vaccine we have ever mandated in Britain was smallpox and the legislation enforcing its use was repealed in the 1940s.

Other countries have more of a tradition for mandatory vaccinations, however. For example, Italy now has a total of 10 vaccines that are mandatory.

What has been the impact of the Omicron variant, which is easier to catch but is thought to be less likely to cause serious illness?

This is a key question, said psychologist Marie Juanchich of Essex University. I believe Omicron is changing things. People feel a bit safer with it. It may spread really rapidly but its severity is perceived to be lower. People are much more concerned about the severity of an illness and less concerned about the infectiousness of the virus that causes it.

This point is backed by psychologist Simon Williams, at Swansea University. There is now a widespread perception that Omicron is milder and I think a lot of people have taken that to mean they dont have to worry about it and are not adjusting their behaviour., he said.

A particular problem was the take-up of the booster vaccine last month, which was helped by the publics wish not to disrupt the festive season with the virus. The fact that this risk has passed might have removed some of the drive to take up the vaccine, Williams added. One of the things we have come across is a factor we call variant fatigue, which translates as people saying: Oh, here we go again, a new variant. This is what viruses do; we just need to get on with our lives. Thats not great from a public health perspective.

So how should we improve Covid-19 vaccination rates?

An important issue is to differentiate between a diehard anti-vaxxer and someone who has nagging doubts about getting a vaccine, said Bedford. If you lump them together, you will miss the chance to persuade those who have genuine concerns but who could change their minds and get vaccinated.

We need to get to the people in this latter category although that takes time and resources. Some GPs have been ringing up all their unvaccinated patients to have a chat and that has proven to be effective. However, it is hard work. Nor does it have to be a doctor, it might be a religious leader or community leader.

Certainly, from my own experience, I find that if you actually sit down with a doubter, listen to what their concern is, and respond appropriately, very often, you can encourage them to be vaccinated. Certainly, I dont think we should be thinking about mandating or making a vaccine compulsory.

Continue reading here:

Coronavirus: should the UK make vaccination mandatory? - The Guardian

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on Coronavirus: should the UK make vaccination mandatory? – The Guardian

A Surge in Hospitalized Young Children Infected With the Coronavirus – The New York Times

Posted: at 4:24 pm

The number of hospitalized young children infected with the coronavirus rose precipitously last week to the highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data released on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The increase was observed in children who were 4 and younger, who are not eligible for vaccination, and the data included children who were admitted to hospitals for reasons other than Covid.

The rise may be partly explained by the surge of Omicron cases, which affects all populations, and the spread of other respiratory infections.

But the data do not show a similar steep rise in coronavirus infections among hospitalized children of other ages, and federal health officials were considering the possibility that Omicron may not be as mild in young children as it is older children.

Children infected with the variant are still at much less risk of becoming severely ill compared with adults, and even young children seem less likely to need ventilators than those admitted during previous surges, doctors said.

We have not yet seen a signal that there is any increased severity in this age demographic, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C.s director, told reporters at a news briefing on Friday.

More than four in 100,000 children ages 4 and younger admitted to hospitals were infected with the coronavirus as of Jan. 1 double the rate reported a month ago and about three times the rate this time last year.

By contrast, the rate of hospitalized 5- to 11-year-olds with Covid was 0.6 per 100,000, roughly the same figure reported over past many months.

Dr. Walensky noted that only 16 percent of children from 5 to 11 had been fully vaccinated, and she urged everyone who was eligible for vaccines and boosters to receive them as soon as possible.

Sadly, we are seeing the rates of hospitalizations increasing for children 0 to 4, who are not yet currently eligible for Covid-19 vaccination, she said. Its critically important that we surround them with people who are vaccinated to provide them protection.

The rise has been noticeable at a number of regional medical centers. The hospitalizations of young children now are blowing away our previous Delta wave at the end of the summer, early fall, which had been our highest prior to that, said Dr. Danielle Zerr, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at Seattle Childrens Hospital.

Experts are typically cautious about interpreting an increase in pediatric hospitalizations as a sign that a variant is particularly severe in children relative to adults. There were similar fears about the Delta and Beta variants, but the rise in pediatric hospitalizations then turned out to be more a consequence of the contagiousness of the variants.

This time, too, at least part of the increase in cases is a reflection of Omicrons surge across all age groups. The nation is now recording roughly 600,000 cases on average per day, about one in five of them in children.

The more kids that get infected, the more youre going to have kids who are going to be sick enough to be hospitalized, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chair of the committee on infectious diseases at the American Academy of Pediatrics and a physician at Stanford University.

Jan. 9, 2022, 3:48 p.m. ET

At Seattle Childrens Hospital, for example, about 21 percent of children are testing positive for the coronavirus, compared with the average of about 1 percent and a high during the Delta wave of about 3 percent.

That is just a game changer, Dr. Zerr said of the more recent figures.

Doctors may be quicker to admit a young child than an adult with similar symptoms, and that may account for some of the rising rates in young children. But some experts said the increase this time might be too steep to be explained only by the usual factors.

One alternative hypothesis for the rise may be that young children are particularly vulnerable to infections in the upper airway exactly where Omicron is thought to be more concentrated in comparison with other variants.

Theyre smaller, their airways are smaller, Dr. Kristin Oliver, a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said of young children.

It does seem reasonable in a disease that if it looks like its affecting the upper airway more, that they would be more impacted, she added. They are more at risk for that for longer, prolonged cases, as well as the hospitalization that can come along with a more severe case.

That may explain why more hospitalized children aged 4 and younger have tested positive for the coronavirus throughout the pandemic than those 5 and older. Its also why young children are more vulnerable to other pathogens, like respiratory syncytial virus, and to having the seal-like cough associated with croup.

For parents of young children, the numbers add another layer of worry as they wait for vaccines to become available.

Alicia Henriquez, a public-school teacher in Chicago, has three children, two of them younger than 5. Her younger children Maxi, 4 and Sofia, 2 are both infected with the coronavirus, but Maxi has no symptoms at all, and Sofia has only a cough.

Still, Ms. Henriquez said she was monitoring their symptoms carefully. You dont know if your child is going to end up in the hospital or not, so I think you still have to be careful, she said.

The C.D.C.s new data were collected by Covid-Net, the agencys hospitalization surveillance network, which includes 14 sites and covers about 10 percent of the U.S. population. The rates are likely to be underestimates because of the lack of availability of tests, according to the agency.

Many children who become severely ill have other conditions or have weak immune systems. Those kids are definitely at high risk right now, Dr. Maldonado said. Were seeing more of them now than we were before.

Dr. Julie Binder, a gastroenterologist in Philadelphia, has two daughters under 5. Her older daughter, Annie, 4, has an undiagnosed medical condition that results in some very bizarre reactions to viruses, Dr. Binder said. After a viral infection landed Annie in the hospital two years ago, she had complications for months.

Dr. Binder and her husband have been adamant about maintaining as normal a life for Annie as possible, even during the pandemic. But they have kept her home from day care the past couple of weeks to shield her from the post-holiday spike in infections.

Hearing this information, Im certainly glad that I did, Dr. Binder said of the data released on Friday. I would have felt much more comfortable through this wave right now if she had been vaccinated.

A coronavirus vaccine is not yet available in the United States to children under 5, and is unlikely to be for a few more months. But many older children are also still unvaccinated.

Fewer than 25 percent of children from 5 to 11, and just over 60 percent of adolescents from 12 to 17, have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

If youre really worried about your child getting sick, you should be vaccinating your child, Dr. Maldonado said. Its the easiest thing we can do right now to keep our kids healthy.

As of Oct. 31, about one in three children hospitalized with Covid was obese. Still, about half had no other known medical conditions, according to data collected by the C.D.C.

Follow this link:

A Surge in Hospitalized Young Children Infected With the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on A Surge in Hospitalized Young Children Infected With the Coronavirus – The New York Times

Coronavirus Briefing: A Pandemic of the Forgotten – The New York Times

Posted: at 4:24 pm

We asked readers who are immunocompromised, along with their family members, to share their pandemic experience and their outlook for the year ahead. Their responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

I feel like Im required to be my own epidemiologist. Theres not enough known about Covid and people on B-cell inhibitors. Im trying to give myself the grace to be imperfect in figuring this out, and to give other people space to do their own risk calculations. But its not always easy. You dont want to always be arguing for your right to not be killed by other peoples decisions. I assume Ill wear a mask for the rest of my life. It actually feels empowering to admit to being immunocompromised although it also feels like its taken two years for people to be able to have some understanding of what that means. Adria Quiones, New York, N.Y.

I have been on immunosuppressants for nine years as a result of a bone-marrow transplant. I feel left behind by friends who are moving on with their lives, free to socialize in their vaccinated bubbles, and who fear being near me since they do not want to risk infecting me. I fear I will lose my identity and individuality and continue to shrink into anonymity. Risk-free options do not exist for me, and I do not see them coming anytime soon. Shari Kurita, Oakland, Calif.

I have serious lung disease and until vaccination was locked away in my house like Rapunzel. The pandemic cost me my relationship, social life and livelihood. Since being vaxxed, Ive been able to get out and about, see friends and family, even attend a few concerts. I flew to New York over Thanksgiving without ill effects. Ive figured out ways to teach private music lessons safely. Now, with Omicron spreading so fast, Im back in lockdown. Ill be wearing a mask in public spaces for the rest of my life. I doubt Ill have the same parade of private students through my living room again. T.P., Los Angeles

How do you describe the feeling of suddenly being trapped? It feels worse when I realize theres nothing holding you back except the selfishness of others. I could go to the movie theater when cases are low, but if just one jerk comes in and refuses to wear their mask, I could potentially end up in the hospital. I could go on dates and be careful, but if my date is careless, I could bring it home to my also-immunocompromised mom. It was a relief for me when things got worse and Governor Newsom reimposed the mask mandate because at least Im safer when Im out at a store. Daniella Gruber, Orange County, Calif.

Having cancer in a pandemic has, at least for now, turned me into a wary misanthrope. Neighbors I used to greet cheerily on the elevator, or acquaintances I see on rare trips to the grocery, are sometimes unmasked even indoors when signs are posted. They really dont care if I die is a recurrent thought, and I fear Ill never return fully to my openhearted self. Ann Bancroft, Coronado, Calif.

Read more:

Coronavirus Briefing: A Pandemic of the Forgotten - The New York Times

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on Coronavirus Briefing: A Pandemic of the Forgotten – The New York Times

COVID-19 surge has overwhelmed some Pa. hospitals and now their workers are getting sick, too – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted: at 4:24 pm

As omicron spreads, filling hospital beds and flooding emergency rooms and urgent cares with anxious patients, the employee hotline at Lehigh Valley Health Network has been ringing nonstop: Doctors, nurses, and other workers are calling out sick because of COVID-19. One day last week, the line was averaging more than one call a minute and some of the people who would usually be taking the calls were out sick, too.

In the last week, the unprecedented number of infections has sidelined teachers, bus drivers, trash collectors, and others in significant numbers, in some cases disrupting services and schools. The omicron variant is more transmissible and can evade vaccine protection; as health-care workers also catch the fast-spreading virus, it has added a new challenge for hospitals already strained by the worsening surge.

This particular wave has been intensified and has been magnified by the superimposed staffing crisis, said Timothy Friel, the chair of the department of medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network. That has just made it even tougher.

Geisinger Health, which operates nine hospitals in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, had more than 10% of its staff in quarantine or isolation. About 270 Penn State Health employees a larger than usual number, but just over 1% of its staff were out of work Thursday.

Right now it seems like everybody knows many people who are infected, said Gerald Maloney, chief medical officer for health services at Geisinger. The number of people sick is crazy.

Some hospital leaders said their contact-tracing efforts showed workers generally catch the virus while out in the community, like everybody else, rather than at work.

READ MORE: Pa. nurses after 22 months of COVID-19 and a new surge: It is so defeating

Last month, several Pennsylvania hospitals, mainly in the western and central parts of the state, were already at capacity.

Since, the number of new infections has skyrocketed and the crisis has worsened hospitalizations, mainly of unvaccinated people, have increased from about 4,700 to more than 6,400 statewide just since Christmas causing even facilities in the Philadelphia region to cancel elective surgeries or tighten visitation policies.

Every day feels like a crisis, Friel said. The challenge is not knowing where the crisis is going to be what practice, what locations are going to have the most employees out sick.

In Pennsylvania, nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 tests are coming back positive, up from 15% last week. New Jersey officials said hospitals were preparing to see up to 30% of staff out because of COVID-19 exposure based on the states positivity rate.

Other places were reporting even higher numbers: Philadelphia, for example, had a nearly 40% positivity this week. And officials believe the number of cases is being undercounted because many people are testing at home or unable to find tests.

At hospitals, staffing was already a challenge, said Donald Yealy, chief medical officer at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Now you add on this short-term threat.

Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday announced the Department of Health and Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency would set up overflow sites and send medical staff, a signal of how critical the situation has become.

The regional sites will not open until February, however, and it was unclear when support staff would arrive. A spokesperson for the governor said the administration had not yet identified where the sites would open or which staffing agencies they would use. The office did not answer other questions about the plan. A few hospitals said they were waiting to learn more.

READ MORE: Why is it so hard to find a COVID-19 test? Sites are short-staffed, and rapid supply is low.

In York and Scranton, Department of Defense medics sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived at two hospitals this week and are set to stay 30 days. New Jersey has also requested FEMA help, while the state National Guard will assist long-term care facilities, officials said.

The virus-related absences mean some are now having to move workers to different jobs or ask employees to pick up extra work. It also contributes to longer waits and backlogs, already a problem due to the high volume of patients and existing staffing shortages.

Geisinger has been recruiting staff to do additional jobs for extra pay, Maloney said for example, a pathologist whose workload is lighter than normal because the hospital has postponed many surgeries could pick up shifts giving vaccinations.

WellSpan Healths York Hospital has opened nearly 200 extra beds and converted spaces into patient wards and was so short on staff that it received the military medics from FEMA.

Theyre expecting those numbers to keep rising, which could put the hospitals ability to deliver care in jeopardy, CEO Roxanna Gapstur said Thursday.

No hospital is yet at a point where administrators say they are unable to provide acute care. But existing fatigue and burnout are compounding for employees at work.

I dont want anyone to think we are compromising on care, said Deborah Addo, Penn State Healths executive vice president and chief operating officer. But it might mean we are compromising on the livelihood of a caregiver.

As the United States continues to see a sharp, steady climb in the numbers of people infected and hospitalized, hospital rates in Pennsylvania and New Jersey were higher than the national average, according to federal data analyzed by the New York Times.

New Jersey had more than 5,600 people hospitalized on Friday, the highest number since the states spring 2020 peak. Pennsylvania had more than 6,400, its average number of daily hospitalizations climbing toward the winter 2020 peak.

ICU beds have steadily filled over the last few weeks. On Friday, the percentage of available beds ranged from 14% in northwest Pennsylvania to just under 10% in the northeast.

Hospitals in Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery Counties still had capacity this week.

But the strain was intensifying in Philadelphia and Delaware County. Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said the citys hospitals were extremely stressed on Tuesday, and the city on Thursday reported 1,162 COVID-19 patients in hospitals.

READ MORE: About 90% of COVID-19 patients in some of Pa.s hardest-hit hospitals are unvaccinated

We are getting close to the kind of dire situation we all dread in which treatable conditions can be fatal, she said, because our hospitals simply dont have room.

Delaware County medical adviser Lisa OMahony said medical reserve corps workers are being called in to fill staffing gaps, while all of the countys six hospitals were at capacity.

Some of the Pennsylvania hospitals that were overwhelmed a few weeks ago with COVID-19 patients say they are doing even worse now, and they expect it to get tougher before the surge abates. Geisinger was above capacity systemwide, and all UPMC facilities were at or near capacity.

If the situation worsens at Guthrie, it may have to designate one hospital for COVID-19 patients and others for non-virus-related care, said Michael Scalzone, chief quality officer.

South Jerseys hospitals are fuller than in April 2020, and more children are currently hospitalized for COVID-19 in New Jersey than at any point during the pandemic, Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said.

Exhausted hospital workers are hoping models predicting that the omicron surge could soon peak New Jersey officials said that could be as soon as Jan. 14 for hospitalizations prove accurate.

One hope that we cling to is [given] how quickly omicron has driven up numbers, we will see a rapid decline, said Friel, of Lehigh Valley Health. We keep telling each other, One more week, two more weeks, we can keep doing it.

Continued here:

COVID-19 surge has overwhelmed some Pa. hospitals and now their workers are getting sick, too - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on COVID-19 surge has overwhelmed some Pa. hospitals and now their workers are getting sick, too – The Philadelphia Inquirer

How TV Shows Are Moving Past the Coronavirus Pandemic – The New York Times

Posted: at 4:24 pm

Sex and the City always existed in a fantasy version of New York City, but in its HBO Max sequel, And Just Like That, theres a different sort of illusion at work. In the opening scene, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) are waiting for a table at a very crowded, very indoor restaurant.

Remember when we legally had to stand six feet apart from one another? Carrie quips.

And just like that Covid is over. At least it is in this shows Manhattan, as well as in a cohort of other series that try, wishfully, to press the epidemiological fast-forward button.

In the real world, the Omicron variant may be driving case counts into the stratosphere, but on TV, the pandemic is playing dead. In the Season 11 premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry Davids HBO comedy of ill manners, chaos breaks out during a party (specifically, a premature funeral) at Albert Brookss house when Larry finds a closet stuffed with Purell, toilet paper and KN95 masks, exposing the Lost in America director as having been a Covid hoarder.

You know during the pandemic. The one that is definitely over.

For nearly two years now, representing (or avoiding) Covid on TV has been a choice among bad options. Most shows ignored it altogether. A few, like Social Distance on Netflix, made the pandemic a direct subject, earnestly if clunkily.

But maybe most awkward have been the series that acknowledged Covid existed but declared or implied it was over long before Covid decided it was over. NBCs time-skipping This Is Us played the pandemics greatest hits throughout Season 5 quarantine, video calls, pandemic unemployment but this weeks Season 6 premiere suggests that the show has moved on. Season 2 of HBO Maxs Love Life, a story that spans several years, includes one pandemic episode, then begins the next in a version of 2021 where an audience is sitting unmasked in New Yorks La MaMa theater.

Some prime-time series about doctors, police and other emergency workers made fitful efforts to depict Covid, but their mask discipline sagged over time. Greys Anatomy, for instance, brought the pandemic full-on to Seattle Grace hospital in fall 2020. By fall 2021, it opened with the disclaimer that it now portrays a fictional, post-pandemic world which represents our hopes for the future.

These are all understandable choices, and maybe the only creatively practical ones. But they make for some potent cognitive dissonance. When I watched a post-pandemic Greys episode recently on Hulu, it opened with a pre-roll ad urging me to get a booster shot.

For programs that simply try to show how people live daily life, the pandemics challenges are both subtler and more pervasive than those presented by past catastrophes. After 9/11, there was no need for homeland-security alerts to impinge on Friends, and the subsequent fixation on terrorism was even a natural driver of plot for action thrillers.

The pandemic, on the other hand, quelled action. Covid touched every aspect of mundane life. Masks limited facial expression. Real-life distancing practices meant that the basic engine of sitcoms people in a room or a bar or an office, talking was now fraught with angst.

Very occasionally, series have managed to capture this reality, as in the second and final season of HBOs naturalistic comedy Betty, whose young characters skateboarded through pandemic-era New York in various states of matter-of-fact maskedness.

The remake of Scenes From a Marriage split the difference oddly, opening with the fourth-wall-breaking image of the cast and crew working under Covid protocols, then letting its domestic dissolution play out sans masks.

More often, TV has breezed past the situation, or wished it away. As long as a year ago, series were declaring early victory over Covid. NBCs Mr. Mayor, which premiered last January, starred Ted Danson as the mayor of Los Angeles, a job in which managing public health is not a small detail. The pilot yada-yadas the pandemic away by having him mention that Dolly Parton bought everyone the vaccine. (A later episode does involve a lice outbreak.)

To its credit, a series like And Just Like That is at least trying to acknowledge the pandemic, rather than shunt it offscreen. It just does so in the past tense.

The Peloton on which Mr. Big (Chris Noth) takes his fateful last ride was a habit many other shut-ins of a certain income acquired during lockdown, which was also when he and Carrie began their evening ritual of listening to vinyl LPs. Anthony (Mario Cantone) runs a bakery, the offshoot of one more Covid-acquired sourdough hobby. And when Carrie calls Miranda out for her drinking in a recent episode, Miranda shoots back: I am drinking too much. Yes. We all were in the pandemic, and I guess I just kept going. Make mine a double.

Theres a note of wistful, wishful thinking in all this retconning of reality would that we could write a time jump into our own scripts! But theres also the simple matter of timing. TV generally works on a faster schedule than movies or books, but its not instantaneous (and shooting during Covid tends to take longer).

So TV creators suddenly conscripted, like educators and restaurant managers, into making public-health decisions they never expected to be part of the job description have been left to guess at Covids future like a hapless pop culture C.D.C.

In some cases, whats onscreen now is a time capsule from the heady early days of vaccine optimism. The post-Covid Curb season wrapped production a few mutations ago, in May, when the virus seemed to be fizzling into oblivion. (The executive producer Jeff Schaffer told The Hollywood Reporter that the season takes place Right now, if everyone had the brains to get vaccinated.) A comfy chic challenge in the newest Project Runway season, produced in spring, had contestants adapt those awful couch clothes that weve all been living in for over a year, presumably for a post-Covid future.

South Park, which released a two-movie Post Covid special on Paramount+ in November and December, has one of the quickest turnaround times in TV the first installment was released just as Omicron was discovered and the second worked in a reference to the variant. But it put the post in its Post Covid premise by using time travel and alternate reality to depict a future in which humanity had well, almost beaten the virus. (Maybe the most far-fetched twist is its resolution, in which, with the seriess frustrating both-sidesing, vaxxers and antivaxxers shower each other with apologies for getting so worked up during the plague years.)

Still, its striking that TV, whose strength is the ability to stay on top of the moment, has generally worked so hard to avoid the biggest thing to happen to its collective audience in the past two years. You could easily imagine face masks becoming a staple, even a clich, of period dramas some day a visual shorthand for the turbulent days of 2020 the way a shot of the corner of Haight and Ashbury says the 60s even as future rerun-watchers puzzle at why theyre nowhere to be found in the TV of our own time.

Maybe its only fitting that TV producers should muddle through this garbage storm like everyone else, unsure what the rules will be by airtime, wishing they knew where the pandemic fell on the spectrum between temporary emergency and permanent way of life. And Im sure plenty of viewers would rather be reminded of anything else.

But youre reminded anyway, if only by the twinge of uncanniness from seeing TV characters act as if the pandemic were history, even as youre still trying to get your hands on rapid antigen tests. I bet Albert Brooks has a ton of them.

Read the rest here:

How TV Shows Are Moving Past the Coronavirus Pandemic - The New York Times

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on How TV Shows Are Moving Past the Coronavirus Pandemic – The New York Times

COVID-19: When to quarantine or isolate? Whats the difference? – fox4kc.com

Posted: at 4:24 pm

by: Caroline Bleakley, Nexstar Media Wire

A man swabs his nose at a COVID-19 testing on the Martin Luther King Jr. medical campus Monday, Jan. 3, 2022, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revised its guidelines on coronavirus, raising questions about who should quarantine or isolate and for how long.

Last week, the CDC shortened its COVID-19 isolation and quarantine recommendations and clarified that the guidance applies to kids as well as adults.

Isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch the coronavirus were cut from 10 to five days and similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine.

There is a difference between quarantine and isolation. You should quarantine if you come into contact with someone who has coronavirus and you think you have it. You should isolate if you confirm you have coronavirus even if you dont have symptoms.

If you come into close contact with someone with COVID-19, you should quarantine if:

If you come into close contact with someone with COVID-19, you do not need to quarantine if:

The CDC suggests a person quarantine for five days following their last contact with an infected person. Your day of exposure is day 0. Stay home and away from other people. If you are around people at home, wear a well-fitting mask. You should watch for a fever, shortness of breath, or other COVID-19 symptoms. If symptoms develop, get tested immediately and isolate until you receive the results.

If you test positive, the CDC suggests you follow guidelines for isolation. If you do not develop symptoms after five days and you receive a negative test, you can leave your home, but you should continue to wear a mask until it has been 10 days since the exposure.

People in isolation should stay home in a specified sick room to be separated from others and wear a well-fitting mask if they must be around others in the home. You should isolate a full five days. Day 0 is the first day of symptoms or the date of the positive test for a person with no symptoms. You can end isolation after a full five days if you are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medication and other symptoms have improved. However, you should wear a mask for an additional five days while in public.

You can find more detailed information on the CDC website.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read the original post:

COVID-19: When to quarantine or isolate? Whats the difference? - fox4kc.com

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on COVID-19: When to quarantine or isolate? Whats the difference? – fox4kc.com

Rapid nasal COVID tests feared to be returning false negatives – Axios

Posted: at 4:24 pm

There appears to be yet another layer to America's coronavirus testing chaos: People may not test positive on rapid nasal tests until after they're infectious, which would make the tests an unreliable measure of whether it's safe to gather.

The big picture: Rapid tests have been hailed as a way to weather the Omicron surge without mass disruption to everyday life. But they've been in short supply for weeks, and now new research along with loads of anecdotal evidence suggests there may be significant limitations to their usefulness with this variant.

Driving the news: A small preprint study released Wednesday found that, among a case study of 30 people who took nasal rapid antigen tests and saliva PCR tests at the same time, four of them transmitted the virus following a false negative rapid antigen test.

State of play: The study builds on emerging evidence that saliva swabs may be better for detecting Omicron than nasal swabs.

Our thought bubble: Almost everyone I talk to professionally or personally knows someone who tested negative on a rapid antigen test but positive on a PCR test (the gold standard), or who tested negative on rapid tests while symptomatic for days before getting a positive test, or who attended a gathering where someone had a negative rapid test ahead of time but went on to infect others with COVID.

What they're saying: "We have seen far too many people who are clinically ill who are in their third and fourth day of negative antigen tests but test positive by PCR," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

The bottom line: If you can get ahold of a rapid test, and you test negative on it, that may still not mean it's safe to visit your elderly grandparents or that you can go to work without worrying about spreading the virus.

Read more:

Rapid nasal COVID tests feared to be returning false negatives - Axios

Posted in Corona Virus | Comments Off on Rapid nasal COVID tests feared to be returning false negatives – Axios