Category Archives: Covid-19

Over two dozen stateshave filed lawsuits aimed at dismantling the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandate that affects nearly two-thirds of the workforce.

Nearly 100 million workers will be required to get the vaccine by Jan. 4, with some allowed to test weekly instead, under federal rules released Thursday.

Since then, five lawsuitsinvolving 26 Republican-led states combined have been filed in federal court seeking to overturn what they claim is an unlawful mandate.

Seven states -- Idaho,Kansas,Kentucky,Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia -- fileda lawsuitagainst OSHA in the 6th Circuit.

Eleven others-- Alaska,Arizona,Arkansas,Iowa,Missouri, Montana,Nebraska,New Hampshire,North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming --joined together to filea lawsuit against Biden and OSHA in the 8th Circuit.

Five states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina,Texasand Utah -- filed a lawsuit against OSHAin the 5th Circuit, and three more -- Alabama,Florida and Georgia -- filedin the 11th Circuit.

The Biden administration has said lawsuits were expected but that the federal government should win in court.

The administration clearly has the authority to protect workers, and actions announced by the president are designed to save lives and stop the spread of COVID,White HousespokeswomanKarine Jean-Pierresaid Thursday.

-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett

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COVID-19 live updates: US at 'inflection point' heading into winter months - ABC News

In September, visitors sit amid white flags that were part of artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's "In America: Remember," a temporary art installation that commemorated Americans who have died of COVID-19, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Patrick Semansky/AP hide caption

In September, visitors sit amid white flags that were part of artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's "In America: Remember," a temporary art installation that commemorated Americans who have died of COVID-19, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Global deaths from COVID-19 have now surpassed 5 million, according to the data released Monday from Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker.

The U.S. leads the world in the number of confirmed deaths from the virus with more than 745,800 people dead from COVID-19. Brazil (with more than 607,000 deaths) and India (with more than 450,000 deaths) follow the U.S. in the number of lives lost since the start of the pandemic.

Yet another tragic milestone of the pandemic comes just as the U.S. prepares to start vaccinating children between the ages of 5 and 11.

But in other parts of the world, health officials are seeing worrying signs of a coronavirus surge just as some nations are relaxing measures to international travelers.

This official global tally only accounts for confirmed cases around the world, according to Amber D'Souza, professor of epidemiology at the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health, who spoke to National Geographic.

Prior to Johns Hopkins releasing the latest global data on Monday D'Souza told the outlet: "It's quite possible that the number of deaths is double what we see. But 5 million is such a staggering number on its own. No country has been able to escape it."

A medical worker prepares a shot of Russia's Sputnik Lite coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination center last week in Moscow's GUM department store in Red Square with the St. Basil Cathedral in the background. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 5 million. Pavel Golovkin/AP hide caption

A medical worker prepares a shot of Russia's Sputnik Lite coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination center last week in Moscow's GUM department store in Red Square with the St. Basil Cathedral in the background. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 5 million.

The World Health Organization recently reported a rise in cases in Europe during October.

As of Oct. 26, the European region experienced an 18% surge in new COVID-19 cases. Southeast Asia, a region experiencing a similar rise in new COVID cases, also reported a 13% increase in new COVID-19 deaths.

Globally, as of Oct. 26, the health organization reported more than 2.9 million cases and more than 49, 000 new deaths, a 4% and 5% increase respectively.

Last month, Russian officials registered the highest death toll in Europe: more than 235,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Due to skyrocketing infections from the delta strain, officials there launched a temporary lockdown in an attempt to defeat the virus.

But there is skepticism over whether the numbers being shared in Russia are actually the official count. Some believe the numbers may be higher.

On Friday, Reuters reported that Poland's total number of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic passed 3 million. Daily cases are quickly gaining pace as the country is in the middle of the fourth wave of the virus.

In Singapore, where officials have decided to coexist with the coronavirus and cease lockdown measures, a jump in cases has been reported there, too.

More than 80% of Singapore's population has been immunized against COVID-19. Yet as of Oct. 30, cases jumped to well over 3,000 cases a day in about two months.

Excerpt from:

The COVID-19 pandemic has now killed 5 million people around the world - NPR

If there's one thing we've learned since March 2020, it's that pandemics are all about hard decisions. It's hard to keep track of the information that helps us make those choices let alone notice or remember when new science and expert recommendations come along. At FiveThirtyEight, we want to help. Weve read the science and have come up with broad assumptions you can make based on where the evidence is. When the science changes, so will the assumptions: Well be updating this page regularly as new research is published.

We think these assumptions will help you more easily make decisions for yourself and your family. (But do let us know if there are risk-assessment questions you think were leaving out.) We want this tool to be something that helps take the stress out of decision-making so that you can worry more about the best way to live and less about the virus.

Breakthrough cases especially symptomatic ones are rare, even with the reduced effectiveness of vaccines against the delta variant. If you do catch COVID-19 but you are vaccinated, you can spread it but are probably contagious for a shorter period of time and are probably less likely than an unvaccinated person to spread it.

It is possible for the delta variant of COVID-19 to spread outside, even among the vaccinated. That said, outdoor transmission is probably still unlikely if you avoid crowds. If youre vaccinated and not all up in one anothers business, outdoor transmission shouldnt be a major fear.

Long COVID is real, and it is possible for anyone to get it. That includes kids and vaccinated people although both are probably less likely to end up with long COVID than unvaccinated adults. But we dont really know the rates, largely because there still isnt any universal definition of what does and doesnt count as long COVID. Be cautious with assuming anything too precise from very imprecise research.

Yes. Everyone (kids included) is more likely to catch COVID-19 than they were earlier this year. The delta variant is more contagious, though it doesnt seem to be worse for kids than for adults, either in likelihood of transmission or severity of illness. Kids who spend their time around vaccinated adults and teens are at lower risk, but the benefits of vaccinating kids outweigh the risks.

As of early November, the CDC approved vaccination for children ages 5 and up. That was based on results of Pfizer's clinical trial and an analysis of the potential risks. An independent FDA analysis considered both Pfizer's finding that its vaccine is 91 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 in children ages 5-11 as well as the risks of both severe illness and a rare (but mild) vaccine side effect that has caused inflammation of heart tissue, particularly in young men. But Pfizers data included no instances of heart inflammation in the children ages 5 to 11 who received the vaccine, despite it occurring in an estimated 71.5 cases per million 16- and 17-year-old boys vaccinated. Ultimately, the FDA concluded that the benefits of vaccination outweighed the risks. Even if the number of kids hospitalized for heart inflammation exceeded the number of kids hospitalized for COVID-19, getting vaccinated would still be worth it because being hospitalized for heart inflammation is still that much less risky than being hospitalized for COVID.

They do. But effectiveness depends on the type of mask you and those around you are wearing.

Instant at-home tests and PCR tests can both be useful. But it matters when you're using them and what you're trying to do.

Compared with at-home antigen tests, PCR tests are less likely to deliver a false negative over a longer period of time, but when it comes to the critical three days when a COVID-infected person is most contagious, the at-home antigen tests and the PCR tests are both very accurate, according to Michael Mina, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University. Before and after the peak of infectiousness, the PCR tests are likelier to spot a COVID-19 infection. But at-home tests can be used effectively as a tool for public health, too. One example Mina uses is if everyone had to take a test at the beginning of a school day. If there were five people actually infected, the PCR tests would be more likely to identify them all but you'd need to wait for the results and, in the meantime, all those people would be wandering around the school for a day or two. The instant antigen tests, meanwhile, might only identify four of the infected people, but you'd know immediately and could send them home. And the other one might be identified by a rapid test the next morning, if you were testing every day. Overall, fewer people are exposed and less disease is spread.

Its still best to follow the CDC guidelines, which currently recommend a quarantine for 14 days (from the point of exposure) for unvaccinated people. They also recommend testing at least five days after exposure. Vaccinated people, according to the CDC, can skip quarantine if they show no symptoms, but they should still be tested three to five days after contact and wear a mask indoors in public until they have the results. (The CDC also says there are ways to shorten the quarantine period.)

Most infected people will show symptoms or a positive test result within 14 days of exposure, said Michael Springer, a professor of systems biology at Harvard University. But theres a reason some quarantine periods arent 14 days long. Recommended quarantine timelines are based both on scientific evidence about how long it takes for COVID-19 to make a person sick or contagious, and on attempts to balance that with other kinds of concerns, including economic constraints, child care availability and plain ol' not wanting to be trapped in the house that long. The deviations from CDC guidelines dont mean experts cant agree on the science, Springer told us. Instead, the deviations demonstrate that different communities are trying to balance the competing needs of science and society in a variety of ways. A long quarantine that ends up ignored could lead to more transmission than a shorter quarantine that allows some cases to slip through but has a higher compliance rate. Changing science and circumstances are also factors. Most recently, CDC guidelines changed to give vaccinated people an easier, quarantine-free path because research shows they're less likely to catch and transmit COVID-19. And you should expect recommended quarantine lengths to change in the future, Springer said. If a new variant turns up and has high rates of vaccine breakthrough or takes longer to develop symptoms, that'll change the calculus. On the flip side, if vaccination rates get high enough, quarantine recommendations could disappear altogether.

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The Science You Need To Make Your COVID-19 Decisions - FiveThirtyEight

Object recognition systems have made spectacular advances in recent years, but they rely on training datasets with thousands of high-quality, labelled examples per object category. Learning new objects from only a few examples could open the door to many new applications. For example, robotics manufacturing requires a system to quickly learn new parts, while assistive technologies need to be adapted to the unique needs and abilities of every individual.

Few-shot learning aims to reduce these demands by training models that canrecognizecompletely novel objects from only a fewexamples, say 1 to 10.In particular,meta-learning algorithmswhichlearn to learnusing episodic trainingareapromisingapproachto significantly reduce the number of training examplesneeded totrain a model.However, most research infew-shot learning has been driven bybenchmark datasets that lack the high variationthat applications face when deployed in therealworld.

In partnership with City, University of London, we introduce the ORBIT dataset and few-shot benchmark for learning new objects from only a few, high-variation examples to close this gap. The dataset and benchmark set a new standard for evaluating machine learning models in few-shot, high-variation learning scenarios, which will help to train models for higher performance in real-world scenarios. This work is done in collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team, including Simone Stumpf, Lida Theodorou, and Matthew Tobias Harris from City, University of London and Luisa Zintgraf from University of Oxford. The work was funded by Microsoft AI for Accessibility. You can read more about the ORBIT research project and its goal to make AI more inclusive of people with disabilities in this AI Blog post.

You can learn more aboutthe workin our research papers:ORBIT: A Real-World Few-Shot Dataset for Teachable Object Recognition,published atthe International Conference of Computer Vision (ICCV2021),andDisability-first Dataset Creation: Lessons from Constructing a Dataset for Teachable Object Recognition with Blind and Low Vision Data Collectors, published at the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2021).

Youre also invited to join Senior Researcher DanielaMassicetifor a talk about the ORBIT benchmark dataset and harnessing few-shot learning for teachable AI at the firstMicrosoft Research Summit.Massicetiwill be presenting Bucket of me: Using few-shot learning to realize teachable AI systems as part of the Responsible AI track on October 19. To view the presentation on demand, register at the Research Summit event page.

The ORBIT benchmark dataset contains 3,822 videos of 486 objects recorded by 77 people who are blind or low vision using their mobile phonesa total of 2,687,934 frames. Code for loading the dataset, computing benchmark metrics, and running baselines is available at the ORBIT dataset GitHub page.

The ORBIT dataset and benchmark are inspired by a real-world application for the blind and low-vision community: teachable object recognizers. These allow a person to teach a system to recognize objects that may be important for them by capturing just a few short videos of those objects. These videos are then used to train an object recognizer that is personalized. This would allow a person who is blind to teach the object recognizer their house keys or favorite shirt, and then recognize them with a phone. Such objects cannot be identified by typical object recognizers as they are not included in common object recognition training datasets.

Teachable object recognition is an excellent example of a few-shot, high-variation scenario. Its few-shot because people can only capture a handful of short videos recorded to teach a new object. Most current machine learning models for object recognition require thousands of images to train. Its not feasible to have people submit videos at that scale, which is why few-shot learning is so important when people are teaching object recognizers from their own videos. Its high-variation because each person has only a few objects, and the videos they capture of these objects will vary in quality, blur, centrality of object, and other factors as shown in Figure 2.

While datasets are fundamental for driving innovation in machine learning, good metrics are just as important in helping researchers evaluate their work in realistic settings. Grounded in this challenging, real-world scenario, we propose a benchmark on the ORBIT dataset. Unlike typical computer vision benchmarks, performance on the teachable object recognition benchmark is measured based on input from each user.

This means that the trained machine learning model is given just the objects and associated videos for a single user, and it is evaluated by how well it can recognize that users objects. This process is done for each user in a set of test users. The result is a suite of metrics that more closely captures how well a teachable object recognizer would work for a single user in the real world.

Evaluations on highly cited few-shot learning models show that there is significant scope for innovation in high-variation, few-shot learning. Despite saturation of model performance on existing few-shot benchmarks, few-shot models only achieve 50-55% accuracy on the teachable object recognition benchmark. Moreover, there is a high variance between users. These results illustrate the need to make algorithms more robust to high-variation (or noisy) data.

Creating teachable object recognizers presents challenges for machine learning beyond object recognition. One example of a challenge posed by a human-centric task formulation is the need for the model to provide feedback to users about the data they provided when training in a new personal object. Is it enough data? Is it good-quality data? Uncertainty quantification is an area of machine learning that can contribute to solving this challenge.

Moreover, the challenges in building teachable object recognition systems go beyond machine learning algorithmic improvements, making it an area ripe for multi-disciplinary teams. Designing the feedback of the model to help users become better teachers requires a great deal of subtlety in user interaction. Supporting the adaptation of models to run on resource-constrained devices such as mobile phones is also a significant engineering task.

In summary, the ORBIT dataset and benchmark provide a rich playground to drive research in approaches that are more robust to few-shot, high-variation conditions, a step beyond existing curated vision datasets and benchmarks. In addition to the ORBIT benchmark, the dataset can be used to explore a wide set of other real-world recognition tasks. We hope that these contributions will not only have real-world impact by shaping the next generation of recognition tools for the blind and low-vision community, but also improve the robustness of computer vision systems across a broad range of other applications.

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Announcing the ORBIT dataset: Advancing real-world few-shot learning using teachable object recognition - Microsoft

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecasted Wednesday that there will be a big drop in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the next four weeks.

Per CNN, the CDC forecast suggests there will be 740,000 to 762,000 total reported deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 by Nov. 6. This would be a decline for the third straight week.

Hospitalizations are expected to drop, too. The CDC predicted about 500 to 10,100 new confirmed COVID-19 hospitalization by Nov. 5, which will represent a decline for the fifth straight week, according to CNN.

In September, the University of Washington released a forecasting model that predicted another 100,000 people could die from the novel coronavirus by the end of 2021. When the model was released, 663,913 had died so far. This would suggest close to 764,000 people will die from COVID-19 by the end of the year.

A model from the University of Washington was a little more conservative compared to the CDC prediction, putting COVID-19 deaths close to 762,000 by the beginning of November.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on the Today show at the time of the University of Washingtons prediction that vaccines can bring about the end of COVID-19.

Similarly, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director for the CDC, said the U.S. will avoid another COVID-19 surge if vaccination rates climb.

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CDC COVID predictions: Whats next for COVID in the US? - Deseret News

BALTIMORE (WJZ) Maryland reported 871 new COVID-19 cases and 5 new deaths, according to state health department data released Sunday morning.

The percentage of people testing positive decreased slightly by 0.25% to 3.44%.

Doctors say the new cases are fueled by dangerous strains targeting the unvaccinated. During an August press conference, Gov. Larry Hogan said the Delta variant, a strain that is reportedly two to four times more contagious than the original virus strain, accounts for nearly every new confirmed case in Maryland.

The vaccines are without a doubt our single most effective tool to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 and the surging Delta variant, and Marylands vaccination rate continues to outpace the nation, Hogan said.

More than 3.96 million Maryland adults are fully vaccinated.

Hospitalizations decreased by 10 to 681. Of those hospitalized, 500 remain in acute care and 181 are in the ICU.

Since the pandemic began, there were 550,550 total confirmed cases and 10,476 deaths.

There are 3,964,072 Marylanders fully vaccinated. The state has administered 8,196,251 doses. Of those, 4,017,857 are first doses with 1,770 administered in the past 24 hours. They have given out 3,656,119 second doses, 3,162 in the last day.

Thanks to the millions of people who have rolled up their sleeves, Maryland continues to be one of the most vaccinated states in America, said Governor Hogan of the eight million milestone mark. We have achieved these numbers with strong public health outreach, innovative lottery and scholarship promotions, and a relentless focus on equity.

The state began to administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine again in April after the CDC and FDA lifted their pause on the vaccine due to a rare blood clot found in some women.

A total of 307,953 Marylanders have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, 263 in the last day.

On September 24, after the CDC granted final approval for Pfizers booster, Gov. Hogan announced the immediate authorization of the booster shot for Marylanders who have received their second Pfizer shot at least six months ago. Hogan had already approved use for vulnerable populations in early September.

The state has administered 214,322 additional or booster vaccine doses, 7,247 in the last day.

The state reported 85.2% of all adults in Maryland have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

In August, the state launched a post-vaccination infections dashboard that is updated every Wednesday. There have been 25,476 total cases among fully vaccinated Marylanders as of last Wednesday, October 13.

Less than 0.71% of fully vaccinated Marylanders have later tested positive.

Of those cases, 1,842 vaccinated Marylanders were hospitalized, representing 10.8% of all Covid cases hospitalized in the state. 233 fully vaccinated Marylanders have died, representing 8.36% of lab-confirmed Covid deaths in the state.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES:

Heres a breakdown of the numbers:

By County

By Age Range and Gender

By Race and Ethnicity

Link:

COVID-19 In Maryland: More Than 800 New Cases & 5 Deaths Reported Sunday - CBS Baltimore

Robert Durst, seated with attorney Dick DeGuerin, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday without chance of parole for the murder of Susan Berman more than two decades ago. Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via AP hide caption

Robert Durst, seated with attorney Dick DeGuerin, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday without chance of parole for the murder of Susan Berman more than two decades ago.

LOS ANGELES New York real estate heir Robert Durst, who days ago was sentenced in a two-decade-old murder case, has been hospitalized after contracting COVID-19, his lawyer said Saturday.

Defense Attorney Dick DeGuerin said he was notified that Durst was admitted after testing positive for the coronavirus. DeGuerin said he didn't know Durst's condition and was trying to find out more details.

The Los Angeles Superior Court said in a statement Saturday that the court was notified someone present for the sentencing hearing Thursday had tested positive for COVID-19.

"As a result, the Court will follow CDC and LA County Department of Public Health guidelines for assessing close contacts of the infected individual," the statement read.

No additional COVID-19 cases have been reported.

Durst, 78, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without a chance of parole for the murder of his best friend more than two decades ago. Durst, who has numerous medical issues, sat in a wheelchair with a catatonic stare during much of the sentencing hearing.

"He was very, very sick in the courtroom," DeGuerin said Saturday.

He was convicted in Los Angeles Superior Court last month of first-degree murder for shooting Susan Berman point-blank in the back of the head at her home in December 2000.

The killing had been a mystery that haunted family and friends for 15 years before Durst was arrested in 2015 following his unwise decision to participate in a documentary that unearthed new evidence and caught him in a stunning confession.

DeGuerin said Thursday that Durst will appeal.

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Lawyer: Robert Durst is in the hospital with COVID-19 - NPR

There have been at least two dozen lawsuits filed around the U.S. demanding hospitals give ivermectin, a deworming drug, to COVID-19 patients, The Associated Press reported.

The lawsuits follow much of the same format; families have gotten a prescription for the drug, but hospitals refuse to use it on the patients, many of whom are on a ventilator, close to death, the news outlet noted.

Many of the lawsuits are filed byRalph Lorigo, an attorney in Buffalo, N.Y. who says doctors "are not gods because they wear white jackets," adding that he takes issue with the choice not to useivermectin on patients, according to the AP.

He also said hospital administratorsare the only ones able to make the decision.

"Im not accepting that as a rule of law for us, he told the AP.

Lorigo filed his first of many ivermectin casesin January afterthe family of an 80-year-old woman in the hospital on a ventilator came to him for help.Another lawsuitcame later that month, this time for a hospitalized 65-year-old woman. In both cases, the judges ruled to give the women ivermectin as their families wanted. Both survived their hospital visits.

While the drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat tiny parasites in people, the administration, state health departments and even the drugs leading manufacturer,Merck,have all warned against using it for COVID-19.

The FDA also warned that taking it in large doses can cause harmful side effects, such as vomiting, seizures and even death. However, Lorigo said his clients have not asked for those types of doses.

Nevertheless, other judges have refused to order hospitals to administer the drug. Hospitals have argued their standards of care will not allow doctors to give patients a drug not yet approved for COVID-19, adding that it could potentially cause harm, the AP reported.

Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New York Universitys Grossman School of Medicine, said he is also concerned that allowing laypeople and judges to overrule hospitals is a dangerous road.

The way medicine works is, they are the experts, the doctors and ... the hospitals, he said, according to the AP. When you go there, youre not going to a restaurant. You dont order your own treatments.

You cant have a medical field thats subjected to having to practice according to patient demand backed up by court orders," he added. "That is positively horrible medicine."

Originally posted here:

Dozens of lawsuits seek to force hospitals to treat COVID-19 with ivermectin | TheHill - The Hill

Throughout the pandemic, media outlets and online dashboards have provided constant updates on the number of people who have died from COVID-19. Far less prominentbut just as strikingare the tallies of those left behind.

According to an estimate published recently in the journal Pediatrics, at least 140,000 American children had lost a parent or caregiver because of the coronavirus by the end of Junemeaning that one of roughly every 500 children lost one of the most important adults in their life. Susan Hillis, a co-author of the study and an epidemiologist at the CDC, told me that as of earlier this month, the total had reached at least 170,000.

Fully grasping this complicates some of the standard narratives about the tragedy of the pandemic. It is not only the number of lives cut short by COVID-19 that should mark the scope of our losses, but also the millions of people who had a loved one die. And it is not just older Americans who suffereven if kids are less vulnerable to the virus itself, they are no less vulnerable to the loss it causes.

In a typical, non-pandemic year, many children lose a parent, but globally, an additional 1.5 million children were estimated to have lost a parent or caregiver from March 2020 to April 2021. And in the U.S. alone, the number of people who have lost a close relativewhether a child, sibling, spouse, parent, or grandparentto COVID-19 is thought to be about 6.5 million.

Read: 4 numbers that make the pandemics massive death toll sink in

For children in particular, the death of a caregiver is tremendously destabilizing. It essentially shatters kids assumptions about the world when their parentsthese figures who are supposed to provide a sense of security and safety and meet basic needsdie, Tashel Bordere, a professor of human development and family science at the University of Missouri, told me. Many kids who lost a parent during the pandemic will continue living in the same home, but some will move in with another family member or close friend. Others will enter the foster-care system or become homeless.

The racial disparities among this group are stark. According to the Pediatrics study, Hispanic children have been almost twice as likely as white children to lose a caregiver because of the pandemic, Black children have been more than twice as likely, and American Indian and Alaska Native children have been more than four times as likely. Hillis told me that these inequities reflect the facts that Americans of different races have died of COVID-19 at different rates and have different fertility rates.

Bordere said that the way children respond to a death can vary based on their developmental stage, gender, and personality, among other factors. But in general, children who lose a parent tend to be at higher risk of experiencing physical- and mental-health problems, housing instability, academic and behavioral issues, and sexual abuse. They are also more likely to enter povertyfor many, a parents death means a loss of income.

The passing of a sole caregiver whos a grandparent can be especially hard, because it represents a double loss, after the earlier death of or separation from a parent. (Approximately 10 percent of American children live with a grandparent in their household; that rate is higher for Black, Hispanic, and Asian children.)

A caregivers death during a pandemic presents unique challenges for grieving kids. Job instability and general stress may have depleted the abilities of other adults in their lives to support them. And they have to live with constant reminders, in the media and daily life, of why their parent is gone. [The] replaying of an event can retraumatize children, Bordere said. The masks, the numbers that were updated onanything related to COVID will be a trigger for a child who has dealt with a loss.

Not every child even gets room to process their emotions. Bordere told me that Black children are frequently penalized in school for perfectly normal reactions to a death, such as crying, distractedness, and fatigue. This punishment can impede their grieving process. In a study from before the pandemic, Black Americans were found to be more likely than white Americans to have experienced a death in their family during childhood.

And children in general may struggle more than adults with how inexplicably the virus arose and with not getting to be present for the end of their parents life. Children are imaginative, particularly younger children, Bordere said. Theyre left with [mental] images that may be far worse than what actually happened in their parents final days.

What would help these children? Weve learned that programs that target one type of vulnerable child (e.g., an AIDS orphan or COVID orphan) can be highly stigmatizing and inefficient, Rachel Kidman, a social epidemiologist at Stony Brook University, wrote to me in an email. Instead, she suggested anti-poverty initiatives and additional resources for counseling in schoolsprogramming that is more universal, but still sensitive to the needs of these children.

These children dont match the oversimplified portrait of a typical COVID-19 victim: an old person near the end of their life. But the coronavirus can also have awful effects on people at the very start of their lives, even when they themselves dont get sick. For every surge in COVID cases, until we have widespread, adequate vaccination, there will be a surge in COVID deaths, Hillis told me. And for every surge in COVID deaths, there will be a surge in COVID orphanhood.

More here:

The Children Who Lost a Parent to COVID-19 - The Atlantic

RAY: Well, Id suggest you turn off recirculate, Jim.

There are two buttons on the left side of your air conditioning control panel. One has a diagram of air (represented by an arrow) coming into the car from outside the front windshield. Thats the fresh air setting.

The other button shows the air in a circle, recirculating inside the car. Dont press that one.

The recirculate button reuses all but 5% to 10% of the air inside your car. Its useful when you want to cool the car quickly, because youre not continually introducing new, hot, humid air from outside.

The fresh air setting will introduce much more new air, and thats what you want. Im guessing you want to minimize the amount of passenger air youre breathing. And to be fair, your passengers probably want to do the same since for all they know, you just got back from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Group Hug.

So even better -- regardless of the AC settings -- open at least two windows. Open your drivers window and the window diagonally opposite that, on the passenger side in back. You dont have to open them all the way, but even by opening them a quarter of the way, youll usually create a cross current and move air through the car. Even better, crack all of the windows a quarter of the way, if your passengers are amenable.

That doesnt mean you have to forgo the air conditioning (or heat). You can run those anyway, even with the windows open, and make the in-car temperature more comfortable.

And if I were you, Id explain to your passengers exactly what youre doing and why. Id say: For your safety and for mine, too, Im following safety recommendations and keeping several windows ajar. Is that OK with you?

Most people will say of course and be grateful for your consideration. Unless youre picking them up from the hair salon, Jim.

Cash in on trade-in value and enjoy the newest safety features

Dear Car Talk:

I own a 2011 Lexus ES350 with 150,000 miles. The car has been dealer maintained from day one and has never given me a problem. Its the best car (reliability) I have ever owned.

The missus thinks I should trade it in for a 2021 model because of the enhanced safety features. I feel the 2011 is safe enough and paid for! What say you? -- Jesse

RAY: Is this dealer open today, Jesse?

Your wife is right. The deployment of new safety equipment over the past decade has been revolutionary.

Cars today have what are essentially self-driving technologies. Through increased processing power and miniaturization, we now have computers and sensors in cars that really can prevent or minimize accidents.

Theyll stop the car when youre not paying attention. Theyll nudge you back into your lane when you drift out of it. Theyll keep you from changing lanes when theres a UPS truck in your blind spot. Maybe your wife has noticed that you can use a little help in some of those areas, Jesse?

The truth is we all can. Computers are just better at some of this stuff than we humans are. And a computer never gets distracted by a text message or a spouse making the case that you need some help with your driving. For older drivers, these things are even more helpful, as our reflexes inevitably slow down.

You got 150,000 trouble-free miles out your Lexus ES350. Go get a new one. Get a hybrid and, in addition to the safety enhancements, youll get 44 miles to the gallon.

Youll also be pleasantly surprised at how much you can get for your 2011. With the computer chip shortages caused by the pandemic, used car prices have gone way up. So cash in, use that as a down payment, keep your wife happy and make both of you safer. Enjoy the new car, Jesse.

P.S. Youre miffed that you wrote to me now, arent you?

Got a question about cars? Write to Ray in care of King Features, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803, or email by visiting the Car Talk website at http://www.cartalk.com.

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Adapting your cars air circulation in the age of COVID-19 - Hamilton Journal News