Sunday, December 7

Tag: pandemic

Essential Reads On America Goes Back To School – Parenting In The Pandemic
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IN OTHER NEWS

Essential Reads On America Goes Back To School – Parenting In The Pandemic

Beyond safety and survival, a paramount question throughout the pandemic has been: When will things get “back to normal”? But as the nation gradually gets vaccinated against COVID-19 and various facets of society begin to reopen, it becomes evident that a return to normalcy poses a whole new set of questions, challenges and concerns. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to the education and parenting of America’s school-age children, whose childhoods have been uprooted in unparalleled ways since the pandemic struck in early 2020. Here we highlight five articles that help parents and educators better understand and do what it takes to get kids back to their classrooms, friends and regular routines. 1. How can America’s schools safely reopen? That’s a question that Brand...
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9.8 Million Americans Have Been Pushed Further Into Food Insecurity Due To The Pandemic Recession
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IN OTHER NEWS

9.8 Million Americans Have Been Pushed Further Into Food Insecurity Due To The Pandemic Recession

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed hardship on millions of vulnerable Americans through unemployment and reduced work hours. And this has increased food insecurity across the nation. CC BY-ND There is no official figure yet for how many more families are struggling to provide regular meals around the table – the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s next annual report on food insecurity, defined as a lack of access to sufficient food due to limited financial resources, won’t be out until the fall. But for me as an academic who has long tracked food insecurity trends, working out the increase in the number of people affected and projecting what will happen next is important. By understanding this, experts can work out whether what is occurring during the pandemic is likely to follow – or brea...
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To Prepare Now For The Next Pandemic, Here’s 5 Strategies
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IN OTHER NEWS, Journalism

To Prepare Now For The Next Pandemic, Here’s 5 Strategies

While the world is still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, public health and emergency management experts are already preparing for the next one. After all, biologists are certain another dangerous new pathogen will emerge sooner or later. We are public health researchers engaged in both leading public health disaster response and evaluating emergency management. Here are five strategies that will give the world a head start – and maybe even help prevent the next outbreak or epidemic from blowing up into a pandemic. 1. Shore up the systems already in place The identification in February 2021 of a new outbreak of Ebola in Guinea showed how critical surveillance and reporting are for rapidly responding to and containing infectious disease. The process generally works like this: Once an ...
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Maybe The End Of The Pandemic, What’s In A Name For A Vaccine Campaign?
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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Maybe The End Of The Pandemic, What’s In A Name For A Vaccine Campaign?

Nearly 50 million people in the U.S. had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine by March 1, and millions of others have spent hours online trying to get an appointment. But soon, the demand could fall because of vaccine hesitancy. How is the government going to get people on board? From my research, I have found that an important part of a successful vaccine campaign is in the name. As a health communication scholar who studies the history of epidemics, I have been interested in the naming and public delivery of the COVID-19 government response. In many ways, this moment parallels crises of the past, as people in previous epidemics and pandemics also struggled to find ways to protect themselves against deadly disease. Abandoning the ‘Operation Warp Speed’ name In the week ...
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Black And Hispanic Small-Business Owners Have Been So Badly Hit In The Pandemic Recession
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IN OTHER NEWS

Black And Hispanic Small-Business Owners Have Been So Badly Hit In The Pandemic Recession

The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on Main Street, with small businesses across the U.S. closing by the thousands. But as bad as the overall scene is, for minority-owned businesses the picture is even bleaker. A survey released on Jan. 27 by advocacy group Small Business Majority found that almost 1 in 5 Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs expected to permanently close their business over the course of the next three months – a rate higher than for white business owners. It comes on the back of a report by the Federal Reserve of Cleveland that suggested that the impact of the coronavirus could be over two times larger for Black- and Hispanic-owned businesses than for white-owned enterprises. As scholars who research racial inequities and entrepreneurship, we know that even before the pande...
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Filling Research Gaps Created By The Pandemic – Citizen Scientists
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

Filling Research Gaps Created By The Pandemic – Citizen Scientists

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in 2020 disrupted field research and environmental monitoring efforts worldwide. Travel restrictions and social distancing forced scientists to cancel studies or pause their work for months. These limits measurably reduced the accuracy of weather forecasts and created data gaps on issues ranging from bird migration to civil rights in U.S. public schools. A volunteer looks for waterbirds at Point Reyes National Seashore in California during the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count. Kerry W/Flickr, CC BY Our work relies on this kind of information to track seasonal events in nature and understand how climate change is affecting them. We also recruit and train citizens for community science – projects that involve amateur or volunteer scientists...
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Strategies For Parents To Reduce Kids Pandemic Stress
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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Strategies For Parents To Reduce Kids Pandemic Stress

Parents are dealing with huge demands on their time and energy. Children may not be attending school or involved in regular activities. As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on families, routines have collapsed, patience is wearing thin and self-care is a distant memory. Making time to connect one on one is crucial. S&B Vonlanthen/Unsplash, CC BY Decades of research have taught us that adversity during childhood has damaging effects on health and development. Many studies have shown that kids who have faced abuse, neglect and family conflict struggle forming friendships, have academic difficulties and face physical and mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood. Fortunately, developmental scientists have identified ways to help children survive and thrive during times of ...
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Likely Key To Ending Pandemic Will Be Hard, Keeping Coronavirus Vaccines At Subzero Temperatures During Distribution
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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Likely Key To Ending Pandemic Will Be Hard, Keeping Coronavirus Vaccines At Subzero Temperatures During Distribution

Just like a fresh piece of fish, vaccines are highly perishable products and must be kept at very cold, specific temperatures. The majority of COVID-19 vaccines under development – like the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines – are new RNA-based vaccines. If they get too warm or too cold they spoil. And, just like fish, a spoiled vaccine must be thrown away. So how do companies and public health agencies get vaccines to the people who need them? The answer is something called the vaccine cold chain – a supply chain that can keep vaccines in tightly controlled temperatures from the moment they are made to the moment that they are administered to a person. Ultimately, hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. and billions globally are going to need a coronavirus vaccine – and potentially two dos...
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Who Will Pay Them? Delinquent Electric Bills From The Pandemic Are Coming Due
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VIDEO REELS

Who Will Pay Them? Delinquent Electric Bills From The Pandemic Are Coming Due

The shutdowns and restrictions that governments have imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19 have made it hard for many households to afford basic needs. Thousands of Americans are struggling to pay monthly utility bills. Utilities and policymakers recognized that services like water and electricity are essential to people’s health, safety and comfort. Since mid-March they have taken steps to keep those services coming. The most popular approach has been for them to impose moratoria on late fees and disconnections for nonpayment of bills. Every state in the U.S. has enacted some version of this policy, from formal declarations to voluntary programs offered by utilities. Map of disconnection moratoria as of Nov. 3, 2020. NARUC But now these moratoria are starting to expire. Consumers are ...
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Digital Divide Initiatives Must Last Beyond The COVID-19 Pandemic To Work
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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Digital Divide Initiatives Must Last Beyond The COVID-19 Pandemic To Work

As COVID-19 continues to force many schools to operate remotely, cities throughout the nation are stepping up to provide free internet service to public school students from families of lesser means. Washington, D.C., plans to provide free internet access to K-12 students in 25,000 low-income households for the 2020-2021 school year. In Philadelphia, any family with a public school student lacking internet service can get it free through June of 2022. In Chicago, a similar effort will provide free high-speed internet service to 100,000 public school students over the next four years. Since research consistently shows that students with internet access tend to do better academically than those without, the initiatives in Washington, Philadelphia and Chicago represent a welcome step toward...
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