#adults should have been protecting these kids by wearing masks! now what? in 20 years their lives might be ruined by repeat infections

[asofterepilogue]

contrary to popular belief, wearing a mask indoors is NOT too big a sacrifice when the goal is to avoid spreading and getting a virus that can and does ruin lives. "it's just the flu" 1) it's not 2) I don't want the flu either. the fact that we didn't use to wear masks doesn't mean we shouldn't now. I promise we will all survive putting a piece of cloth over our mouth and nose a few hours a day, even if it's for the rest of our lives. it definitely beats dealing with chronic health issues.

[sa7abnews]

What to Know About Parvovirus B19, a Respiratory Virus on the Rise

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/16/what-to-know-about-parvovirus-b19-a-respiratory-virus-on-the-rise/

What to Know About Parvovirus B19, a Respiratory Virus on the Rise

Parvovirus B19, a respiratory virus that causes a telltale “slapped-cheek” rash, is on the rise in the U.S., according to an Aug. 13 alert from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

There’s no routine surveillance for parvovirus in the U.S., but several indicators suggest the virus is spreading widely right now, the CDC says. Doctors have reported unusual numbers of parvovirus-related complications among two high-risk populations: pregnant people and patients with blood diseases. And as of June, laboratory data hinted that about 10% of the U.S. population—and 40% of kids ages 5 to 9—had antibodies in their blood suggesting they were recently infected, the CDC’s alert says.

Here’s what to know about parvovirus B19 as the virus circulates.

What is parvovirus B19?

Parvovirus is a common respiratory illness, with “mini-outbreaks” occurring roughly every three to four years, according to the National Library of Medicine (NLM). In developed countries like the U.S., the vast majority of people get it at some point during their lives, often during childhood. Up to 10% of kids get parvovirus by the time they’re 5, the NLM says, and about half of people have had it by age 20.

Parvovirus B19 is a virus that solely affects humans; it’s different from the parvovirus that affects pets. Like other respiratory diseases, it spreads person-to-person, commonly through the respiratory droplets expelled when a sick person sneezes or coughs, the CDC says.

Read More: I Was Exposed to COVID-19. How Long Will It Take for Symptoms to Start?

Most of the time, the CDC says, cases are mild or even asymptomatic. When people do develop symptoms, they commonly start with fever, headache, cough, and a sore throat. As the illness progresses, people may develop additional symptoms. The most distinctive later-phase symptom is a red facial rash—also known as a “slapped-cheek” rash—that more commonly affects children than adults. Some may also develop a rash covering the torso, limbs, and buttocks.

Patients with parvovirus may also develop joint pain as their illness progress. Sometimes, according to the CDC, joint pain is the only symptom adults experience, and it may last for weeks or even months following infection.

Is parvovirus B19 serious?

People who are otherwise healthy usually recover from parvovirus on their own and require no treatment. But complications are possible for certain groups.

Read More: The 1 Heart-Health Habit You Should Start When You’re Young

People with blood disorders or compromised immune systems may experience potentially serious anemia—a drop in red blood cells—if they catch parvovirus, according to the Mayo Clinic. And pregnant people who catch the virus may pass it to their fetus, potentially causing anemia in the fetus and raising the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth. People who fit into these categories should see a doctor if they think they have parvovirus.

What should I do during the parvovirus B19 outbreak?

There is no vaccine that can prevent parvovirus’ spread, so the best way to avoid infection is to wash your hands frequently, clean communal surfaces like doorknobs regularly, and avoid direct contact with someone who is sick with the virus. People are most contagious during the early phases of the illness, the CDC says. Someone is unlikely to be contagious by the time they develop a rash or joint pain.

During the current outbreak, the CDC says, people who work in high-risk settings—such as schools and daycares—or who are at high risk of complications may consider wearing a mask for additional protection.

[eretzyisrael]

Lama Al-Manar, 36, doesn't remember what she put into the small bag she was carrying when she stepped into a Red Crescent ambulance, other than medical documents. She doesn't remember the last words her husband, who was riding with her, said to her before they separated at the Erez crossing. She doesn't know whether he followed them with his gaze when she walked toward the crossing and passed from the Gaza Strip to Israel, where a Magen David Adom ambulance was waiting for her.

From the moment she left Shifa Hospital that afternoon, until she arrived at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer some five hours later, Lima's eyes never left the incubator that was holding her son, Abdullah, 2.5 months old, whose tiny body was receiving oxygen.

She also wouldn't have remembered what day it was if they hadn't explained how lucky she had been. It was Monday, May 10, 2021, the day on which Operation Guardian of the Walls against Hamas infrastructure in Gaza began. The ambulance that brought her and her son to Israel was the last allowed through Erez crossing before it was closed for 13 days.

Three children are waiting for her at home. Two years ago, she gave birth to a stillborn child, and when she became pregnant for the fifth time, she was eager for the new baby to bring joy back to the home. But Abdullah was born two months prematurely with a complicated heart defect and Lamaand her husband realized they would need to fight for his life.

"I was afraid. His condition wasn't good," Lama says. "He lost weight, and his breathing and other parameters slowed. I prayed to God to heal him. To fight for his little life. A doctor at Shifa Hospital recommended that we send him to Israel for treatment. My husband reached out to the Shevet Achim organization to help us get him there."

Thursday afternoon, the 11th day of the Gaza campaign. The radio reports a rocket alert in Ashkelon, and then a direct hit on a residential building. We arrive at the parking structure attached to the labor ward at Sheba Medical Center, which is next to the Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital. The children's ICU was transferred here on the fifth day of the fighting for fear of rocket hits.

We go down one floor. After walking through the gray halls lined with oxygen tanks at the ready, we encounter a colorful sign decorated with a drawing of a sun and a kite: "Protected Children's ICU." Reality stays outside. In the parking structure, which was filled with cars the previous week, there are 40 small beds. Each one takes up two parking places, and holds a small baby who is hooked up to medical equipment. Nearby is a treatment station, a computer, and a lounge chair for adults.

The beds are separated by flowered curtains that were hung on the metal pipes that line the parking garage's ceiling. No one closes the curtains. There are also hanging screens that are attached to monitors that fill the space with dim beeping.

In the center of the improvised unit are a dialysis cart and another cart that holds equipment for chest drainage. Sometimes, a baby's cry can be heard. It is weak, and starts and stops quickly.

Over bed No. 26 a sign reads: "Abdullah Al-Manar. Date of birth: Feb. 26, 2021. Weight: 1.6 kg (3.52 pounds)." Lamasits on the chair and watches Shani, the nurse, take off Abdullah's cloth diaper, exposing a large incision that runs from his chest to his belly. Shani changes the dressing, rubs cream on it, puts his medicine into the IV bag attached to his small arm, and covers him gently.

In the next bed lies three-month-old Rana, who is recovering from her third open heart surgery, which she underwent two days earlier. On the left is Yazen, a month old, who had a catheterization.

Dr. Evyatar Hubara, 43, a senior doctor on the unit, moves from bed to bed. He slept three hours the night before due to the number of cases.

"The three children from Gaza suffer from complicated heart defects," Hubara explains. "They came to us in serious condition, among other reasons because it took time from when the problem was diagnosed in Gaza until their transfer to us could be coordinated, all the permits received, and that's without changing ambulances at Erez and the bumpy journey. Right now, all three are in an acute stage. We still haven't gotten to the rehabilitation state, which will begin here and continue in Gaza," he says.

Hubara stops by Abdullah's bed and looks at him warmly. "Abdullah was born prematurely and was incorrectly diagnosed in Gaza. The doctors … performed the wrong operation on him when he was two months old. A week after the operation, he began to decline, and a week after that he reached us. In the first few hours we needed to stabilize him and keep his blood pressure steady with medication.

"We started to look into the problem. We did an MRI and other tests. Before every stage, we explained to his mother what we were going to do. She trusted us from the beginning. After we stabilized him, we found that the true defect he was suffering from was an aortic valve stenosis. It turned out that in Gaza they had tried to close the ductus, but closed one of the main arteries by mistake.

"In the insane Israeli reality, we had to protect ourselves against rockets from Gaza along with the babies who come from here," he says.

"I remember one siren that caught me on the unit, before we moved to the parking structure. All the mothers, Jewish and Arab, just grabbed their babies – the ones that weren't hooked up to machines – and ran to a safe space. I shouted, 'We have time, 90 seconds, go slowly so you won't fall with the kids.' Everyone gathered around in the safe space. Staff members and patients, Jews and Arabs together. The shocking sight of the mothers who ran there with their babies doesn't leave me," Hubara recalls. Not all the mothers were able to take their babies to a safe space. Abdullah, Rana, and Yazen, as well as another 12 Israeli babies, are on respiratory equipment, and they were unprotected during the first rocket alerts. This is why the hospital administration decided to move the entire department from the sixth floor to the underground parking garage. Here, the sirens can't even be heard.

We go with Lama, Raida, and Samira into the staff room, located at the exit. The room has a big refrigerator full of popsicles donated to the children and the staff who care for them. Every few minutes, a parent or a staff member comes in and takes one.

About a year ago, when the COVID pandemic was still raging in Israel, a COVID unit opened in this same parking structure to ease the mass of patients that was overwhelming the hospitals. That event seems like ancient history, and the only thing that remains of it are the letters of thanks stuck to the door. It seems as if this is the last place in the country where people are careful to wear masks, and wear them properly.

The three Gaza women are embarrassed. They aren't used to being interviewed. All three are wearing abayas, long dresses that include head coverings, as well as hijabs and surgical masks. Since they arrived in Israel, they have been sleeping here, on the unit, in the recliner chairs next to their children's beds. They are also given meals. Once every few days, they allow themselves to go upstairs and shower. None of them speaks any language other than Arabic, with the exception of a few words of Hebrew or English. Moshe Ravid, 26, a nursing student from Jaffa and a volunteer with the Shevet Achim organization, translates.

Raida (Umm Ahmad), 48, is from Khan Younis. She is Rana's grandmother, a housewife and mother of six.

"My daughter-in-law, Rana's mother, came to Israel with her in February, two weeks after she was born," she says. "After two weeks, she was tired and not feeling well. Because she has a four-year-old at home, she called me and asked me to switch with her. She went back to Gaza, and since then, I've been here. Three months already. This is my first time in Israel."

Q: Were you afraid?

"No, why should I be afraid? My husband worked in Bat Yam for 20 years. Every day, he went from Gaza to Bat Yam, until the disengagement in 2005. After that, he found work in Gaza. He told me that there are good people in Israel, that everyone here is all right."

Abdullah's mother Lama, 36, is wearing a brown abaya accessorized with a shining silver star. Her smartphone has a pink cover. She works in a laboratory, and her husband is a producer for Palestinian television in Gaza. She has two other sons, 11 and six, at home, as well as a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

"My mother had cancer. She went to Israel to be treated, and recovered," Lama says. "She told me that everything is good here. When Abdullah's condition got worse, the doctor recommended that we come to Israel. My husband reached out to Shevet Achim. Now he and my mother are watching the three other kids at home."

Q: What do you tell your families about what is happening here?

Lama: "They're afraid for us, and we're afraid for them. When they call to hear how we are, I answer, 'Al Hamdullah,' so they won't be scared and worry, and when I call to ask how they are, they say the same thing. We talk about the boy, how he ate, how much he ate, how much he slept. "I tell them that the doctors here are good, that they treat us well, answer all our questions. I tell them that the food is excellent, that the women have nice clothes, about their hairstyles. I like the fashion in Israel, and the grilled chicken breast and salad they serve at the hospital."

Raida: "The medical staff thinks only about the children – whether their condition has improved, what they ate, how they slept. We sit next to their beds, don't know how they'll be from one moment to the next, whether they'll get better at all."

Q: Do they send you pictures of the strikes on Gaza?

"They send me pictures of the special Ramadan sweets," Raida answers, with a smile.

Samira, 62, is the grandmother of Yazen, who is only a month old. "I have nine grown children, and my son has four children other than Yazen. Their mother needs to take care of them, so they asked me to accompany the child. At home, when we talk about Israel, we only talk about the medical treatment we want to get here."

Moshe, the translator, tells them in Arabic not to be frightened, that they can speak freely. They all answer at once: "We aren't afraid, we're speaking honestly. Everyone wants peace. We want it to be all right."

Samira: "Inshallah, things will calm down. We aren't dealing with politics."

Q: What did you do when people in Gaza fired rockets toward this area?

Raida: "What everyone else did. The nurses took us to a safe place. The babies stayed on the unit, hooked up to respirators. I was worried about them, that they were alone, but everyone calmed us down, said that it would all be fine."

Lama: "We tried to talk to the other people in the safe area, without understanding one another. Everyone wants to know how the other's child is doing. He's sorry about my son, and I'm sorry about his."

Q: Did your families leave their homes because of the airstrikes?

Raida: "No. Everyone is in his own home."

Q: Are any of your family members involved in the fighting?

All three shake their heads, no. "Not everyone in Gaza enlists in the army," Raida says. "My husband worked in Israel. Half of Gaza used to work in Israel. You must have seen the workers who would come from Gaza."

Samira: "My father and my husband used to work in Israel."

Q: When are you going home?

Raida's eyes fill with tears. "Rana's chest is still open from the last surgery. I'm sitting with you and laughing, but my heart is crying. So I'm telling you that my every thought is for the baby. That's our situation."

Lama: "Today, Dr. Evytar said that Abdullah has an infection in his right lung, which was good. Until now he had one in his left lung. I hope it works out. I'll go back to Gaza when he gets better, but I don't know when."

Hospital Director Dr. Itai Pessach says that every year, the center treats about 500 children from Gaza and another 2,700 children from the Palestinian Authority. "They range in age from a week to 18. Some of the children arrive through the Shevet Achim organization, and others through our own coordinator."

"During the last military operation, our doctor colleagues in Gaza reached out to us about children in serious condition, and we fought to bring them to Israel during the operation. Unfortunately, we didn't succeed, and that's very sad. I'm happy we're getting back to normal," Pessach says.

According to Pessach, "we don't see any difference between a child who comes from Gaza, Nablus, or Tiberias. Our treatment looks at all the child's needs, including emotional needs and school work at the school that operates on the hospital grounds. A year ago, a nine-year-old boy with cancer arrived from Gaza who didn't know how to read and write. He returned to Gaza last month, after a year-long hospitalization, healthy and knowing how to read and write in Hebrew, Arabic, and even English."

Q: How did the patients respond to this during the Gaza fighting?

"A family from Gaza arrived two days before the operation started, and we diagnosed their son with a rare disease, one that only seven children in Israel have. By chance, two rooms away there was a Haredi family with a child who had been diagnosed with the same disease two months ago. While the rockets were falling, the Haredi mother insisted on meeting the mother from Gaza and teaching her everything she knew about the disease and how to treat it."

"There is a truly shared fate here. They feel that they're fighting against something bigger than rockets. To get better, a patient needs to feel secure, and that's what we're doing. A hospital is a home for all the patients.

"I'm happy to say that the external tensions didn't creep into the work. There was no tension between the staff and the patients. The good of the patient always comes before everything else. Even at administration meetings – everyone put aside their own political views and we managed to provide a quality medical response and protect the safety of the staff and patients," Pessach says.

The funding for the Gaza children's treatment comes mainly from donors – mostly American Christians, and some Israelis.

"Saving the life of the child is an entire world," says Jonathan Miles, founder of Shevet Achim. Miles arrive in Israel from the US in the 1990s, as a journalist, and started to volunteer with the group Christian Friends of Israel.

"We welcomed Russian immigrants to Israel. We wanted them to understand that the Jewish people have friends in the world. One day a mother from Ukraine whose child's life was in danger came to me. She had no money for medical treatment, and she begged me to help. I started raising money to help him. Wizo helped a lot, as did other people, both Jews and Christians.

"After that, I heard about sick babies in Gaza, and in 1994 I founded the organization. We bring children from Muslim states to Israel for treatment."

Amar Shami, 32, who coordinates the transfer of children from Gaza to Israel for Shevet Achim, lives in Jerusalem.

"The families who go back to Gaza tell each other about the treatment in Israel," he says. "One mother tells another. When the child has a problem, they reach out to me. Sometimes the doctors reach out directly." Q: What goes through your mind while you're busy providing treatment and rockets are flying outside?

"Inside the hospital, we detach. We only want to help them. When you go out you realize that reality is different. We hope that when the families from Gaza go home, they will sort of be our emissaries, say good things about Israel."

The night that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, Rana's heart stopped beating, despite the doctors' best efforts. Her grandmother, Raida, left the hospital weeping. She was driven to a Shevet Achim apartment in Jaffa. When Erez crossing opened, she returned to Gaza with Rana's coffin.

[littlelightingstriker]

Disclaimer: this post is not made to cause anger or to insult the Serbian government, it is simply made to report on the news what has been going this past days. Some of the information might be to strong, so please read on your own risk. People who are mention in this story will remain anonymous for their own safety.

#Serbia now:

On the 7th of July,2020, president Vučić announced that Belgrade will be closed and have a curfew between Friday and Monday and that more than five people should not be in the same space together. He talked about a lot of things like how many people are being tested, the possible 'lies' the government has been saying, Novi Pazar, a city located in south-west Serbia, who is in a critical situation because of COVID-19, respirators and many more. He talked about how people need to understand that this virus in not a joke in any possible way and people need to take more action and protect themselves and their family. The problem is half of the population does not believe the virus is either real or that it does not have the affect to enter the human body that fast. People are confused and keep asking the same question that nobody can answer. When he announced the possibility that people will have to stay the whole weekend in their homes, many people were frustrated with the decision and did not want to take his words for real. At the evening, massive numbers of people gathered at the National Assembly and started protesting. The protesting was not in anyway ' peaceful ' but ended being a disappointing vandalism.

Three cars and a police van were on fire. The damage was immediately posted. Hundreds of thousands of dinars are worth of damage.

Torches, tear gas, oysters and glass bottles were being thrown between the protesters and police.

Many people were injured and many police man were hurt. "It was a disaster. We tried stopping them but there were to many." said one policeman.

One of the protesters wanted to break in the National Assembly but were thrown out by the police.

Two men stopped an ambulance that was driving to the hospital with rotations. The two men were punished for their actions and many were disappointed with them.

Protesters DID NOT WANT any politician to join them and act like they care for citizens' rights.

Ana Brnabić was disappointed to see citizens' of Belgrade acting like 'h**li**ns'.

Kosovo was/is also another reason why people turned against Vučić.

Vučić was in the National Assembly but quickly evacuated with the situation going around.

A video of three men being hit and be*ten by the police after rejecting to leave the park was filmed and posted on different sites. The three men were laying on the ground in pain as the police left them.

A man, lost his father due to COVID 19 and blamed the government for lying about having enough respirators. He claimed his father was not given the treatment that was promised and was one of the most critical patient (and many other) in Belgrade. "This is for you, dad. I know you are watching and you are proud. I love you,dad. This is for you!" Said the man. After this video resurfaced the internet, everyone was angry that president Vučić lied about 'having enough respirators' and many left comments that they were not surprised and what a disappointment this country is for believing the words that come from the television.

Protesters are being accused of spreading COVID 19.

97% had masks but still did not distance.

Lockdown will be decided by the crisis staff.

The 8th and 9th of July,2020:

President Vučić has decided he will NOT make the decision about Belgrade. He admitted he has no right to make a decision he isn't to sure how to control.

Many faces were supporting the protest and they were not citizens' of Serbia. -Vučić.

Criminals were mention that they were the ones who were 'trashing' Belgrade.

COVID 19 has no connection with voting, football games etc.

Vučić kept bringing people down while making his people 'world leaders' and 'only hopes for Serbia'.

05.10.2000. is a wish protesters want to come true. ( The fall of Milošević)

Vučić is in shock why people keep bringing his country down while he is doing everything to make it 'grow'.

There will be rules for Belgrade no matter what.

Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac also started protesting.

Tonight (9th July.) protesters are peacefuly protesting and tend to keep it that way.

Politicians are calling out h**li*ga*ns and cri**na** after 'destroying Belgrade' and doing vandalism 'on purpose'.

Many people are angry that Belgrade is being in the situation where it's not safe anymore and being trashed by some idiots who don't even live there or came from a different city. They are accused of 'pretending to be Belgraders'. It is proven that they are more than 80% Belgraders in the world then in the own city. Belgrade is composed from all citizens' across Serbia.

Students are protesting after being told they have to leave their dorms for the third time because they need to be prepared for COVID 19 patients. "We don't feel safe. We want our rights!".

Protesters are being called out for fighting for their rights.

Politicians are calling protesters 'criminal slaves' for wanting to remove Vučić.

"We aren't allowed to stand for our rights. They tend to keep us locked when we thought everything is going undercontrol. They are playing for our rights. I lost my friend because she was told to stay home even though she had other medical problems. Instead of celebrating her birthday, I was mourning her name and crying. He (Vučić) doesn't care about us, he just wants the money. He has it. He is building Belgrade on Dunabe and he still thinks we care about some stupid project. How are we not going to protest? I do not like and I am against harmful and disgusting behaviour some people showed the first day and even now, but we can't just stand here and pretend everything is okay. He stole votes and as soon as he secured his seat, this country got even worse. How are we suppose to live here? How can we try and stay positive after everything he has done. My family lives in Kosovo. He gave it. He just sold that land like nothing. He doesn't care about people. He acts like a human but even the facade can't cover his personality. No one can look up to us and that's okay. We don't want '99 again. We want peace. We all want, all of us, we want to breath not to feel pressured. We tell our kids to get the hell away from this country and to never look back. There is no future here. We all know that. He always breaks his promises. Kids grow up and become adults, what children is he talking about?! Where is their future if he is only building Belgrade? What about the South? East? West? Where are their rights?! We are all equal and we all deserve so much more. We have to pray and hope for the best, but in this life we are always going to be left down. " a woman gave her thoughts about protesting.

Other reason's why people want to dismiss Vučić:

He promised everyone 100 Euros when COVID 19 became serious in Serbia. He realised his mistake and ended up giving the money to retired people and people with special needs. Other had to register. He went from helping to you have to do this so I don't embarrass myself.

People were paid to come and cheer for Vučić when he would give speeches.

He lied about the respirators.

People believe that the number of positive patients fell just so that elections could happen.

After elections, Serbia became the worst in numbers of positive cases.

Before elections 50-94 cases, 10-20 respirator patients, almost everyone is cured, Serbia is almost done with COVID 19.

After elections 300+ cases, 120-130 respirator patients, 1000+ in hospitals, 1000+ in isolation, Serbia the most critical on Balkan.

He knew Novi Pazar was going to blow up. He did not do anything.

Belgrade hospitals do not have respirators.

Belgrade has a population of 1 million residents and yet doesn't have the medical needs.

He doesn't have a full government. What kind of country is Serbia then?!

Something that cannot be answered:

Why do people who die from other reasons are COVID 19 victims?

How come the number of cases grew?

Did the government lied all this time?

Was professor Kon right all this time?

Why are people not in hospitals if positive?

How to isolate if you do not have your own bathroom and kitchen?

Why are there no punishments for not wearing a mask?

Is there really a vaccine?

Is the virus real? Is it possible to make it disappear?

Opinion:

Vandalism is not the answer. People have every right to judge Vučić. He is not that bad, but he is not a sweetheart either. Luckily people are peacefully protesting and want to learn to have manners. The police is trying everything to not fight the protesters. Punishing other people for the damage is not right. Being called disgusting names from politicians needs to STOP! We are all people with a heart, we say and do things we should not but that is not the point. Being called a cri**na* is disgusting. Everyone is frustrated with the virus going on but we have to be reasonable. If you are someone who lost a loved one due to COVID 19, my heart goes for you and everyone you love and care about. This is a scary year. It's breaking my heart so many people died not only because of COVID 19. The virus is not the main problem here. People are. This going on in Belgrade is eye opening. It shows people want a break. They want freedom. They want, like every other country, to feel safe. I totally understand the point of view from some people. I ,too, also know there is no future in Serbia until someone really comes and actually cares for people. If territory and fake promises are more relevant then a person breathing, my God save us.

Comment's about Vučić

We are a small country and we never were known for good things, but honestly, how can we have that if we don't have a leader?

Lies and lies. Breaking promises. Being disgusted with people that don't like your way of ''handling" a country. Manipulate people and bringing them down. Having politicians spit on your people?

Is that a joke or is Vučić going to take this seriously.

Kosovo is more important than people?

How cruel do you have to be?

How disgusting that sounds.

We are told people are dying for God's sake and yet you talk for 2 hours and that is it.

Tito is rolling in his grave.

Liar!

Why does anyone expect something good from Vučić?

Oh Serbia, poor little Serbia.

- comments from different sources.

For more information of these protests, feel free to look them up. I gave my personal opinion and I missed a lot of information about this protests but I shared the ones that needed to be put here.

If you are someone from Serbia, feel free to speak and to be free. If you wanted a change and did not get it, either run or keep blessing this country. You deserve much more. You'll get past everything. Keep running. Fight peacefully. Be normal and be mature. I wish everyone so much and pray everyday we get some peace and actually feel like people.

Don't look up to politicians. Nušić told us everything we need to know.

Be safe while protesting! Keep yourself safe and don't let a politician ruin your life. Bring back the rights and the light we all need.

Bring Serbia where she should be.

Not underneath.

[covid19updater]

COVID19 Updates: 08/14/2021

Sweden:  A new study from Sweden found that people infected with Covid were over SIX times more likely to have a stroke or heart attack within two weeks of their diagnosis or symptom onset. Vaccination decreases your risk of serious problems from the virus.

RUMINT (Florida):  I’m too familiar with #Covid19 as an ICU physician taking care of patients with covid every shift since the pandemic started. This week I had the misfortune of being on the other side, and my eyes have opened to what awaits us in Broward County and beyond with #DeltaVariant

Iran:  there has been a sword fight over a hospital bed in Iran because of the desperation to get care for a family member dying from #Covid_19

UAE:  The #UAE logs 1,206 new #COVID19 infections,  and three deaths in 24 hours. LINK

Philippines:  LOOK: The Philippine General Hospital says it will temporarily stop accepting non-COVID-19 patients in order to address the daily rise of new coronavirus infections @cnnphilippines

North Carolina:  There are 2,557 schools in #NC. If each student interacts with 10 people out of school per day in a 30 student a class. If that school teaches a minimum of 20 different classes per day. That means there will be 15.3 million interactions a week in #NC. #covid19 #ncpol

Vietnam:  From 8 a.m. on August 16, Da Nang suspends all activities for 7 days. #Vietnam #COVID19

Canada:  Canada to require all air travelers to be vaccinated

Florida:  BREAKING: Florida reports 25,812 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record, and 209 new deaths

Texas:  The lambda variant, a new, little-understood version of #COVID19, has arrived in #Dallas LINK

Arkansas:  CNN: In Arkansas, the Covid-19 hospitalization rate is more than double the national rate and the fifth highest in the country. Hospitalization rates among children are higher than they've ever been in the state. But so, too, are hospitalization rates among young adults under 30

Georgia:  Georgia Dept of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Toomey is urging everyone to go back to wearing masks indoors, for now, including in schools - Source - @11alivenews .

RUMINT (Arkansas):  Today someone I know who was fully vaccinated & wore a mask died of #COVID19.  He got it in Sheridan, #AR which doesn’t have a mask mandate for their schools. I am sad & furious. #MaskUp #GetVaccinatedNow

Florida:  It just keeps getting worse. 16,100 Floridians — the most ever— are being treated for COVID-19 in Florida hospitals right now. Only 8.4% of ICU beds are left. 49.2% of those ICU beds are filled with COVID-19 patients. Vaccinate & mask to end this, please.

US:  CNN: “These children are coming in fighting for breath, fighting for the ability to basically get through this devastating illness, many of them are on ventilators, maybe a quarter or so on ventilators or heart-lung bypass machines,"

Arkansas:  A closer look at the COVID-19 death rate in Arkansas “When asked whether fully vaccinated people should still be attending concerts and other big events – even if the venue requires proof of vaccines or negative tests – and Dr. Dillaha said no, people should still be avoiding crowds.” LINK

World:  Moderna mRNA C19 vax data from 12-17yo randomized placebo-controlled trial just published in NEJM reveals vax is only 39% effective in preventing SARSCoV2 positivity,  i.e., "breakthrough", after full vaccination

China:  East #China’s Yangzhou hit hard by fresh #COVID19 outbreak, penalized 12 officials on Sat for dereliction of duty in epidemic response. Yangzhou has reported over 500 confirmed cases in latest flare-up. LINK

Texas:  A Texas hospital is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases that a man shot six times has waited a week for surgery LINK

UK:  United Kingdom Daily Coronavirus (COVID-19) Report · Saturday 14th August. 29,520 new cases (people positive) reported, giving a total of 6,241,011. 93 new deaths reported, giving a total of 130,894.

Lebanon:  American University Beirut Medical Center says it will run out of electricity on Monday morning, causing 40 adults and 15 children on respirators to die immediately unless authorities enable it to acquire diesel for its generators

RUMINT (Arizona):  A concerned parent from Phoenix contacted me about Herrera Junior High. I just called and confirmed that indeed, the entire 7th and 8th grade classes are now in quarantine. MASK. MANDATES. NOW.

Israel:  Israel - Allergic reaction following third COVID jab sends 52-year-old to hospital She is hospitalized in the intensive care unit in serious but stable condition. LINK

World:  “As Covid-19 surged last year, governments worldwide touted the hope of ‘herd immunity’ a promised land where the virus stopped spreading exponentially because enough people were protected against it. That’s now looking like a fantasy.” LINK

Italy:  Italy's largest kids hospital. 400% INCREASE IN HOSPITALISATION OF CHILDREN with Delta compared to previous variants. "The age of the sick varies from the very youngest of 10 months up to adolescents of 15 years. Villani: "Now children must be vaccinated."

RUMINT (US): ER Nurse:  83 patients in out waiting room tonight. Personal and hospital record. Everyone is burned out. I’ve worked ER for close to 13 years through multiple hospitals — never seen morale be this low. I worry for lots of reasons.

US: OB Nurse:  The amount of pregnant women we have right now on ECMO because of covid is astronomical. Please people. Get vaccinated.

Florida:  Mayor says accurate COVID numbers for Broward County not being released Right now there are no pediatric intensive care unit beds available.

Texas:  At Texas Children's Hospital in Houston on Thursday, 25 of 45 hospitalized pediatric patients were diagnosed with RSV as well as COVID-19. LINK

Indonesia:  "If we don’t help, who will do it?" Volunteers collect the dead as Covid-19 devastates Indonesia. LINK

Florida:  Ft. Lauderdale police officer Jennifer Sepot was 27. She is survived by her husband, an officer with the Margate police department, and their 2-year-old daughter. LINK

World:  Why COVID-19 Might Be Here to Stay—And How We'll Learn to Live With It LINK

California:  Fake vaccine cards? Bay Area colleges grapple with verifying shots in age of easy forgeries LINK

RUMINT (US):  My colleague admitted a patient to the hospital recently and asked them if they had a COVID vaccine. “Yeah a lot of them.” “Like how many?” “Probably 20.” Turns out he had been finding gift card and other incentive programs and getting shots to get the cash and prizes.

[orbemnews]

The 190 million missing vaccine doses Now that data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that nearly half of the US population has received at least one dose and more than a third of the country is fully vaccinated, Biden said he wants the US to “lead the world with our values.” The World Health Organization (WHO) has long campaigned for rich countries such as America to share its vaccines. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus went as far as saying it was a “grotesque” moral failure that some countries were vaccinating younger, healthy people at low risk of the disease while health workers in other countries still hadn’t been vaccinated. The US doses will help plug some supply holes in COVAX, the worldwide vaccine sharing initiative, but they won’t be enough to make up for the serious shortages the scheme is facing. The program had hoped to deliver 170 million doses to low-income countries by this week, but it is expected to reach 65 million doses instead, according to UNICEF, a partner with COVAX. UNICEF said yesterday that the soaring demand for vaccines in India, a global powerhouse for vaccine production, is having a huge impact on availability. It said that at least 140 million doses intended for distribution through the end of May will not be available to COVAX. Another 50 million shots are likely to be missed in June. But India, facing the worst impact of its catastrophic second wave, is itself running short on doses. The Delhi government said yesterday it has just four days’ worth of Covid-19 vaccines left. Two Indian states have already suspended vaccinations for people aged between 18-44 due to shortages. YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED. Q: Are more Covid-19 vaccines being developed? A: At least 14 different Covid-19 vaccines have been used around the world so far, according to Gavi, the vaccine alliance. But many more are being developed and tested in trials. Gavi said 25 shots are currently in Phase 3 trials, while a further 35 are in Phase 2 trials. There has already been promising news this week about two vaccine candidates. Medicago and GlaxoSmithKline announced today that their vaccine candidate, made in Canada and derived from plants, has triggered a strong response in adults after two doses in a Phase 2/3 trial. Yesterday, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline also said their vaccine candidate showed a strong immune response in adults. https://cnn.com/2021/05/15/health/race-for-the-vaccine-coronavirus-gupta/index.html Send your questions here. Are you a health care worker fighting Covid-19? Message us on WhatsApp about the challenges you’re facing: +1 347-322-0415. WHAT’S IMPORTANT TODAY What we know about the Covid-19 variant first found in India A coronavirus variant first detected in India in February has now gone global, spreading to dozens of countries and raising fears that the strain will overwhelm health care systems, reverse reopening plans and even potentially undermine the rollout of vaccines. Experts believe the B.1.617 variant is driving the huge wave in infections seen across India in recent weeks. Here’s what you need to know about the new variant. European leaders seized more power during the pandemic. Few have ‘exit plans’ to hand it back Democratic norms have been seriously dented by a year of restrictions. Experts now fear power-hungry politicians could be reluctant to give up their near-total authority once the crisis is over, Luke McGee and Saskya Vandoorne report. France is a good example. Last week, its parliament extended the state of emergency until late September and approved the introduction of a health pass, showing vaccination status, as well as curfews across the nation. This was seen as controversial by some of President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal allies: after all, instructing your citizens to be home by a certain time and tracking their medical information is hardly consistent with France’s liberal traditions. Stranded Australians claim faulty Covid tests made them miss a repatriation flight Australians who waited months to escape India as the coronavirus spread through the country say they lost a place on a repatriation flight provided by their government due to faulty Covid-19 testing. As many as 10 passengers who were blocked from the repatriation flight after testing positive have since tested negative for Covid-19, according to Sunny Joura, who was barred from the flight after testing positive. His elderly mother, Darshan, tested negative but could not board the flight as she was a close contact. “My mother and I did not venture out of the house at all for 14 days prior to the pre-flight quarantine. We were double-masking all that time,” Joura said. Joura took another test soon after with a different provider — it was also negative. ON OUR RADAR The president of America’s largest nurses’ union said the new mask guidance from the CDC creates confusion among the public and endangers nurses and health-care workers. At least 269 doctors have died from Covid-19 during India’s second wave — an average of 20-25 deaths per day, the Indian Medical Association has estimated. World Athletics President Seb Coe says he is confident the Tokyo Olympics can be held in a safe way, despite growing calls for the Games to be canceled. Summer camps across the US are looking forward to welcoming back children — with new protections in place. Taiwan is closing schools and temporarily banning foreign arrivals following a record day of Covid-19 cases. Nepal doesn’t have enough Covid-19 test kits for people returning from India, district officials told CNN. New York won’t require masks or social distancing for fully vaccinated people starting tomorrow. TODAY’S TOP TIP People who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 no longer have to wear masks inside or outside, nor do they have to stay 6 feet away from others, according to new CDC guidance. That doesn’t mean you should ditch your mask. You still have to mask up on public transportation or if required by laws or regulations — that would apply to hospitals, nursing homes and other health-care settings, and even some local businesses and workplaces. Kids still have to mask up to go to school. If you are immunocompromised, the CDC also recommends keeping your mask on, even if you are fully vaccinated. “If you have a condition or are taking medications that weaken your immune system, you may NOT be fully protected even if you are fully vaccinated. Talk to your healthcare provider,” the CDC said in the new guidance. Source link Orbem News #Doses #million #Missing #Vaccine

[socialjusticeartshare]

Three-level bunks and mats on floors as migrant kids wait in Border Patrol facilities amid surge

(CNN) Children are alternating schedules to make space for one another in confined facilities, some kids haven't seen sunlight in days, and others are taking turns showering, often going days without one.

That's the reality for the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children held up in US Border Patrol custody for days on end, according to case managers, attorneys and Border Patrol agents.

Bunk beds have been brought in to one of the processing facilities to help accommodate the influx of children. "Some of those are up to three bunks high," an agent told CNN, adding that children are also sleeping on plastic cots and mats on the floor and benches.

Customs and Border Protection is on pace to encounter more individuals on the border than in the last 20 years, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday, adding that the agency is coming across children as young as six and seven years old. 

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More than 300 unaccompanied migrant children have been in Border Patrol custody for more than 10 days, CNN has learned. More than 4,200 minors are currently in custody, with an average time of 120 hours.

Asked about in-custody numbers, a Homeland Security official told CNN: "It's terrible, it's going up, it's bad ... we're bludgeoned, totally over capacity."

President Joe Biden discouraged would-be migrants from coming to the United States as the administration scrambles to respond to the surge of migrant children.

"I can say quite clearly: Don't come," Biden told ABC in an interview that aired on Tuesday.

"We're in the process of getting set up. Don't leave your town or city or community," he added.

The experiences of migrant children arriving to the US underscore the steep challenge facing the Biden administration. That is accommodating the growing number of kids crossing the US-Mexico border alone against the backdrop of a pandemic that's strained resources, particularly shelter space. 

There are a myriad reasons why children are journeying to the US-Mexico border. Many are fleeing poverty and violence in Central America. 

"There's such a misunderstanding that they're taking advantage or coming here for economic opportunity. But these are kids fleeing for basic needs to be met, for safety, for shelter, for food," said a source who oversees case managers working with children. "Imagine what it's like to be a refugee child coming to the United States during the pandemic." 

Marisa Limón Garza, deputy director at the Hope Border Institute, which works directly with migrants, said some families at the border have made the choice to send their children across alone.

"This comes with great sacrifice. I don't think it's lost on any of these parents. This is a grim choice," Limón Garza said. 

Why kids are stuck in jail-like facilities for more than the law allows

With an increasing number of children crossing the US-Mexico border alone, Border Patrol facilities are where kids have to stay until officials can transfer them to shelters that are appropriate for them. These facilities are designed to care for adults, not kids, and are akin to jail-like facilities with concrete walls and benches. 

Children at stations in the Tucson, Arizona, region, for instance, have to be transported from Border Patrol stations to a central coordination center to get showers, the Border Patrol agent told CNN.

"There are kids that have been there days and days," the agent said, pointing out that the agency is abiding by the law to care for children, except it is unable to meet the 72-hour legal requirement. "You just can't right now."

Federal law requires unaccompanied children to be turned over within 72 hours to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees a shelter network designed to house minors.

The senior official heading Customs and Border Protection, Troy Miller, told reporters that minors receive three meals daily, have 24/7 access to snacks and drinks and that showers are provided at least every 48 hours. They also have access to a recreation area, Miller said.

Mayorkas, who is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Homeland Security Committee, acknowledged the scope of the problem.

"The Border Patrol facilities have become crowded with children and the 72-hour timeframe for the transfer of children from the Border Patrol to [HHS] is not always met," the Homeland Security secretary said in a statement Tuesday.

"HHS has not had the capacity to intake the number of unaccompanied children we have been encountering," Mayorkas said. 

In February, more than 9,400 children -- ranging in ages -- crossed the US-Mexico border, according to the latest available data from Customs and Border Protection. That's up from January and is expected to continue trending upward.

On Monday, CBP encountered around 570 unaccompanied children, CNN has learned. Seventy-six were 12 years old and under.

"March will be bigger than February," in terms of apprehensions based on current data, "and quite ugly" the Homeland Security official said. 

Actions on the ground

Over the weekend, Mayorkas tapped the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help transfer kids out of Border Patrol custody and into shelters better suited for them.

"It's busy and hard, but manageable," a Homeland Security official said of how the department is handling the evolving situation on the ground.

DHS started two groups to coordinate and respond to the situation unfolding on the US-Mexico border, one led by the secretary and another led by the deputy secretary, the official said. Both groups have been meeting multiple times each week, the official told CNN, in addition to frequent calls and updates. 

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, who visited a border facility last week, called the situation "unacceptable" in an interview with the El Paso Times. "The center is at capacity -- pre-COVID capacity. COVID capacity should be significantly lower. I did see everybody, including small children, wearing masks. It's an unacceptable situation," she said.

At the White House, Biden has quizzed aides on what more can be done through the executive branch to expedite processing of migrant children and expand the capacity for housing them. He's raised the issue in informal meetings and during otherwise-unrelated discussions with senior advisers.

"When he's asking questions and he's asking for details, it's not just a report back on numbers -- what are the things we already have in our toolbox that we can be deploying?" the official added, saying that he's encouraged staff to think outside the box. "Every single little space of White House operations, and of different agencies, are devoting time and resources to doing this and that's what it's going to take."

In recent days, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it was opening two emergency intake centers in Texas to process unaccompanied children and alleviate overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities -- one in a convention center in Dallas and another in Midland, Texas. Last month, HHS also opened up an influx facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas.

HHS also put a call out for volunteers within the department to deploy to border stations to help process children and expedite their release to a sponsor, like parent or relative, in the United States, according to a memo obtained by CNN. 

Last Friday, the administration announced it would terminate a Trump-era agreement that officials said discouraged sponsors, like parents or relatives, from coming forward to collect their children.

There are more than 9,300 in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency under HHS, according to Kenneth Wolfe, a department spokesperson.

"The first time these children are feeling safe, potentially in years, is when they enter an [Office of Refugee Resettlement] shelter," said Nathan Bult, senior vice president of public and government affairs for Bethany Christian Services, which works directly with unaccompanied children. 

"That's why it's so important to provide high quality care for these children," Bult said. 

CNN's Rosa Flores contributed to this report.

Article Source

[dipulb3]

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The slow road back to normal starts with a first step

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/dr-sanjay-gupta-the-slow-road-back-to-normal-starts-with-a-first-step/

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The slow road back to normal starts with a first step

One of the biggest sources of stress — other than the very real fear of having someone we love get sick with Covid-19, or coming down with it ourselves — is keeping our distance from friends and loved ones. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the isolation we have all endured has taken a remarkable toll.

It’s a theme I hear from Appradab readers, viewers and listeners all the time: When am I going to be able to see my grandchildren, my elderly father, my sister and her family? Most everybody has somebody they long to hug, to hold close and see in person.

My family, too, counts itself in that category: We haven’t seen my parents — my children’s grandparents — for more than a year. And, like so many other families around the country, we can’t wait to have a family reunion. So, as I have done so many times this past year, I pulled out pencil and paper and started to map out the possibilities.

I had first begun to think about when it would be safe to see my parents a short while ago, after my parents and I, separately, got vaccinated. One of the sticking points was that my wife and daughters weren’t vaccinated. Even after talking to the brightest epidemiologists, virologists, infectious disease experts all over the world, I wasn’t 100% sure on where the line in the sand for acceptable level of risk was drawn. And so we held off — but still, I daydreamed of the day.

I wasn’t alone in wondering when that time would come. With an increasing number of Americans getting vaccinated, the question of “When can I visit with fill-in-the-blank?” was growing louder and more insistent.

And on Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brought that moment into clearer focus. The agency came out with its first set of guidance about what fully vaccinated people can now do.

My parents had a significant emotional burden lifted after they were vaccinated, because they are now approximately 95% protected against getting severely ill from Covid-19. But like the rest of the country, they are restless and want to do something with their newly vaccinated status. That is why they called me right after they saw the news report about new recommendations from the CDC to ask me what it all meant. I laid out the good news for them, and the caveats as well.

In a major step, the CDC said people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 can safely visit with other fully vaccinated people in private settings without masks, without social distancing and without having to be outdoors. The CDC defines people who are “fully vaccinated” as those who are two weeks past their second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine or two weeks past the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I think this recommendation was an obvious one, and probably should’ve happened when the vaccines first started rolling out.

Additionally, however, the CDC guidance now allows for fully vaccinated people to visit indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without masks or physical distancing, if the unvaccinated people are at low risk for severe disease. That last part is important.

“This means that none of the unvaccinated people or any unvaccinated members of their households, for example, are an adult over age 65 or have an underlying condition such as cancer, heart disease or diabetes that could increase their risk of Covid-19 related hospitalization or death,” explained Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, at a virtual White House briefing, Monday, announcing the new guidance.

Bingo.

This was starting to sound like it was going to work, and that my parents should be able to safely visit, even though my kids or wife haven’t been vaccinated. They meet the age requirements and would be considered low risk, both in terms of health and their very limited exposures.

It’s important to remember that the risk to my parents isn’t the primary issue. They are well protected by the vaccine. The concern is for anyone else my parents might encounter after visiting with us. Remember, there is a risk, albeit a small one, that vaccinated people could become infected with mild or asymptomatic disease and potentially transmit the virus to others who are not vaccinated.

No free pass

As I kept digging into the guidelines and speaking with members of the Biden administration’s Covid-19 task force, it became increasingly clear that a visit was looking possible, but with a few strings attached. For starters people like my parents, who are fully vaccinated, still need to take precautions in other situations, including wearing masks and physically distancing when visiting with unvaccinated people who are from multiple households. That means, for example, my parents should not have a reunion with my family and my brother’s family (who are unvaccinated) at the same time.

And, perhaps most notably, fully vaccinated people are also still being discouraged from traveling, something that throws a monkey wrench into my fantasy of an imminent family reunion. Non-essential travel is still not recommended for anyone, vaccinated or not. The concern is that you are likely to encounter someone in the airport who may be vulnerable and at risk of being infected. Remember, while it is remarkable that nearly 10% of the country is now fully vaccinated, that also means about 90% is not.

As Walensky explained, “Importantly, our guidance… must balance the risk to people who have been fully vaccinated, the risks to those who have not yet received the vaccine and the impact on the larger community transmission of Covid-19 with … what we all recognize to be the overall benefits of resuming everyday activities and getting back to something to some of the things we love in life.”

It’s a fine line, and an extremely cautious one, between encouraging vaccination and over-relaxing restrictions.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert and a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, thinks the new guidance is a “great” first step.

“These are excellent, thoughtful guidelines. And people are going to try to apply them to their specific circumstances,” he said. “They have been eagerly awaited by many people who, having been vaccinated, would like to expand what it is that they’ve been doing.”

Schaffner however adds that he would encourage people “to think about who the unvaccinated people are and what’s been their behavior, day in and day out, before they visit the grandparents.” He is concerned that even though the vaccines are very effective, older people who often have comorbidities may still be vulnerable to infection by a particularly social relative.

Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said the guidance strikes the right note.

“I think the guidelines are in a good middle ground,” she said. “We’re starting to go back to normal now, but it’s not going to be flipping a switch… We will make that journey towards normalcy, or at least a new normal, as more people get vaccinated.”

Expect changes

Walensky said this guidance isn’t set in stone. “It’s important to note that this is initial guidance. The science of Covid-19 is complex and our understanding of the virus continues to rapidly evolve. The recommendations issued today are just a first step as more people get vaccinated and the science and evidence expands. And as the disease dynamics of this country change, we will continue to update this guidance,” she said.

Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser on the Biden administration’s Covid-19 team, told me that the guidance on what vaccinated people can and cannot do is tied directly to vaccination rates. “The rate at which new guidance will develop is directly related to how quickly we vaccinate the country. This is the key point. At 10% vaccinations we have this guidance. At 20-30%, we will have new guidance,” he said, noting that there’s going to be a distinct shift in the messaging of what people can and cannot do — moving away from more binary messaging to one that describes activities as a range of low, medium and high risk.

Dark clouds on the horizon?

Even as Walensky delivered the hopeful new guidance, she also noted the country still stands at a seven-day average of about 59,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day — a rate that has leveled off somewhat, instead of continuing to steadily decline. And there are close to 2,000 deaths per day. So, she and other experts warn, any easing of restrictions is going to have to be gradual.

During a virtual speech at the National League of Cities Conference — an event that immediately followed the White House briefing to announce the new CDC guidance — Walensky warned, “There is so much that’s critical riding on the next two months; how quickly we will vaccinate, versus whether we will have another surge, really relies on what happens in March and April.”

She said she hopes local leaders will do what they can to encourage people to wear masks and keep good physical distance from each other, as well as encourage people to get vaccinated.

But Walensky’s remarks came at a time when several states are expanding business capacity and lifting or preparing to lift mandates for people to wear masks, including Texas and Mississippi this week.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, added that the country urgently needs to get ahead of the variants, some of which are more easily transmissible and encouraged people “not to pull back on public health measures prematurely.”

“In other words, listen to the recommendations of the CDC regarding mitigation methods, wearing of masks, physical distancing,” Fauci said, during the same National League of Cities event Walensky spoke at. “Listen to what their recommendations are.”

Schaffner also thinks the country is at a “dicey point” now. “While we’re vaccinating … there is a desire to immediately throw off [restrictions], but we are not at ‘mission accomplished’ yet. So we have to hang in there a little longer,” he said.

Despite the potential of dark clouds gathering on the horizon, I can’t help but feel hopeful about the new CDC guidance and the direction our country is moving in with our vaccination efforts. I believe we can get to a place of “back to normal” sooner rather than later, especially if we can stay the course and make sure we’re all as safe as can be — not just those who’ve gotten their shots.

So where does that leave my family reunion plan? Unless my parents make the long drive to see us, we are going to hold off on a visit for now. With more than 2 million people getting vaccinated a day, however, another 20% of the country could be vaccinated by the end of the month. And, that will probably lead to a further relaxing of CDC guidelines and maybe allow my parents a plane ride instead, which means a possible visit to celebrate their wedding anniversary this spring!

Appradab Health’s Andrea Kane contributed to this report.

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Face coverings are required to be worn whenever a person is in an enclosed space other than a private residence DNR spokeswoman Megan Sheridan spoke with McClatchy news and said that employees wearing masks about videoconferencing what with external partners sets a good example during the pandemic there is no fucking pandemic asked the problem by wearing a mask while videoconferencing with the general public we visually remind folks that masking is an important part of navigating the business of natural resources during this tumultuous time Sheridan said but maybe when a mask is just a way of tricking people into believing that were still under band was still in a pandemic where we never were to begin with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not advise wearing a face mask while social distancing in your home except under certain conditions Sheridan also said there was another reason employees were asked to Don masks while on remote videoconferences we ask staff to wear masks went on external. Net At the top of a small log is on the back in the shuffle for the active people so they Apple and if I did feel in the elemental effects at K Natalie is the make no I know this Garner made not just cactus anything flashing only in Connecticut are poorand nearly empty that me to the book me that if I can laugh at half ice over fast onionand fit in the most I can add that was in a boozeand lets them all down right to circulate barsand the don’t evolve our vessel before going to cut out at the kiosk at Adonijah the at the Kennedys increased please we we know provinces are going to be in territoriesand the important part just as different provinces choose different regimes around telling alcohol different places my choose different approachesand outward to work withand that’s why we’ve been talking about it taxand since the election are we giving people a yearand had heads up with this task force that went around the country that we are giving for the legislation at this time provinces have well over a year now close to 15 months to put in place their system that seems that the province chooses not to there will still be a way through the the federally regulated system for people in every corner this country to to that purchase marijuana get is one of the things that time that I’ve heard a lot from from leveling it now I think you’re right you with teenagers know how to get their hands on joints now that the teachers don’t don’t think he plans thereof as often as they shut there’s a lot of places people people the highest per capita users in the world in Canada legal marijuanaand getting someone in the dispensary the issue with with getting it from a friend about from a friend organized crime is as we thought we follow the interaction most law abiding Canadians have with criminalsand many law abiding Canadians have criminals isand purchasing three 3380 incorporate long termand medical marijuana the vision possible when you’re candlesticks seem to be right to the company acted two things in the great question first when you mention medical marijuana right now the medical marijuana system which I we’ve heard you all sorts of people how certain certain aspects of marijuana is really good for certain conditions on the medical marijuana system that exists in Canada will stay in for the coming years right now however the medical marijuana is the only system is the only illegal system also for recreational useand a lot of people are getting recreational marijuana through medical marijuana system so once we’ve created opportunities for adults to purchase marijuana recreational use legally on that take a lot of pressure off of the medical marijuana systemand will be able to make better determination to to support medical marijuana usersand producersand the research that needs to continue going onand so Ray had those two things is going to radically transform your the the environment in which medical marijuana currently works only in regards to license producers in itand it’s really good that you’re highlighting what were looking at is licensing the production of marijuana provinces will determine whether there so it sold to dispensaries or whether it sold to you liquor board serve the full board like have Ontario that the various approaches will be done by the promises but were going to regulate producers I’m sure there will be in there already have indications that there are going to be big corporate style players but at the same time we are very very much focused on taking shut there’s a market is going to need needsand interests of Canadians that I know I Canadians like you regardless of the big corporate beers people like the microbrews we we know that people that I want to choose organic or low pesticides or a particular this particular that Amir is going to be an opportunity for small producers to get regulatedand to to act itself as a part time meetingand the line are disproportionately peaceful nonviolent keeper Jody I think people should understand that you are coming at this from a different perspective on you’re coming at it from lifestyle in a business choice I’m coming at it from a public policyand safetyand health choice health approach we have a system working on it hurting Canadians it’s hurting minoritiesand turning young people the current system doesn’t work to protect our communities to protect our kids will need to change that we will change that we will change the law or taking the time necessary to get it right as we seen in places where it hasn’t exactly gone right on the we can learn fromand out we will move forward in a thoughtful way on on fixing past wrongs that happen because of this is that this erroneous law that I didn’t put in placeand I’m working hard to fix the site review legal justice away from the little dog away from his whole life to helping people is at least in you ever wanted to pay I would be so sure if healthcare reached out to the company that already exists like this you want to do is to write what is highly love to discern the same work for to us where the future now or will already a problem for one of the things in in the title Candyland you’re highlighting it there’s a lot of concerns about access by kids to ediblesand there’s a lot of concerns about about learning from Coloradoand elsewhere on the challengesand that so we haven’t had any she said the future that I agree but we don’t yet have full confidence that we know what regulated framework around edibles will look like on what it look like five years know what to look for like 10 years from now we have to get it right is a huge amount of pressure on this out were taking a big step towards actual legalization of cannabisand it’s in sat oil formsand dried forms were to be working on it within new at the new frameworkand it’s in the future but again were focusing on getting it right so people concerned about the marijuana harm reduction risk of the best known as a member of rat that is a personal connection marijuana is a my wife had breast cancerand sheand she had a vasectomyand then okay chemo than vasectomyand thenand then radiationand I in night in a community that cc using cannabis for further pain inand actually off of all opiatesand only using cannabis for nerve is brilliant but she so in the community going to chemo a lot of a lot of people use use this this cannabis for for a lot of different medical reasons to help them with with all kinds of things now with LPs the these license producers getting caught with with different pesticides different mill duesand things like that are extremely harmful for these people that have other at their their most vulnerable communityand I’m just wondering how can the government be be back make sure that they are to take care of the health of of people I absolutely appreciate what you’re saying I’ve heard stories like that all across the country that have built that’s why the current medical marijuana regime will stay in place exactly so how your wife is accessing her medical marijuana right now will continue beyond the legalization framework that were beingand for recreational we are not going to be moving reducing or limiting in any way the medical marijuana field we just know that right now medical marijuana on top of being used by people for radical prescription purposes are on is also test for someone who would just as happily by legally for recreational uses or or minor uses were legal so we know that were accidentally removing a lot of pressure from the medical marijuana system which will allow it to better serve a more look like the did the responsibility of the LPsand that the guidelines for them to make sure that it’s safe for for for people is her leg is there any way to ensure that these people were to be using cannabis that could potentially at their most vulnerable right like there there there at their most vulnerable in their community night is what makes you that’s can be safe again at the medical use of marijuana is going to continue in the way around license producers health Canada is going to regulate all license producers the way we regulate at any any broad range of consumer product I were going to make sure that they’re being properly madeand their concerns are of mold or mildewand I got there will be immediate consequencesand people will as an indigenous person going on knowing about a grassy Narrows knowing about you suicide knowing about like water problems I just I want to know how I can make trust these promises of of health for these people I understand the concernsand that’s one of the reasons why working to make sure that were listening to indigenous peoplesand giving opportunities for indigenous communities to access the license producer regime we know that we have to make sure their license producers right across the country at different communities have access to itand I noticed in definite workaround ensuring that indigenous producers are going to have an opportunity to be part of the at the legal that legalize fishing that’s that’s one of the things that were definitely looking within a legalized framework were going to be able to do the kind of research that hasn’t been properly undertook to to determine exactly what what can we anecdotally an awful lot of people in the medical marijuana community I believe very strongly I think it’s a great opportunity to actually advance medical science by understanding the medical system community has a very powerful drugs up for acute short term pain don’t have a lot of great drugs for chronic low grade but very young laying out long term pain marijuana is often prescribed exactly for that having better knowledge better understanding of that is entirely what were going to be able to do on the flipside it would we talked briefly about revenueand revenue is not part of it continues at a similar example there is no wait time for anyone searching for gambling addiction treatment on anyone who has a gambling addiction can get treatment very reasonably straightforward way because part of the profits from legal gambling is put into addiction addiction treatment programs similarly some of the revenue from from legalizingand taxing marijuana I will certainly go into research go into treatment go into support for a for people struggling with challenges welland this latest user guide is a trial based harm reduction worker that I have a question can’t turn again to action supporting people the past we crisis last time frame around 30 people working ranch can’t hear you are 14 peopleand four people every day to be but every day hereand tear a lot country keeper Jack dressed people’s belief in a contributing to your current plans are to we Christians units to Prime Minister you are to first of all thank you for the amazing work youand sat across the country doing youand I sat down on couple times now with front line workersand experts in in the lower East side Vancouver to talk directly about thisand the number the recommendation they asked for we brought in we made a number of changes easier to bring in prescription heroin into this country so that it can access that the people people who need it will have access to the that responsible at presenters like Eric you are definitely things that we can do is more that we can do however we made a commitmentand we got a mandate to legalize marijuana kept our kids to protect Canadians to make sure that were removing the criminal elements from from that were moving ahead on that I will moving in different ways on on on other grounds whether it’s for safe consumption sites letters better access to prescription opioidsand an even heroin there are things we can do that are helping but I agree it’s a crisisand we need to do bulk transfer flash resource is the only box the country prescriptions are not that resources the best preventionand people you are doingand her job people keep completely traumatized resources do I wear to you Mr Prime Minister you selected a minor in parts of the drive we pray you can’t get people did you hear about the product or delivering on healthcare we spending millions of dollars we we are spending tens of millions of dollars but I know there is more to do we will be doing more to support including supporting the front line workers who left spoke into whether it’s paramedics or or I or at front line support workersand reduction site who are going to PTSD because there are so many people dying on the we absolutely need to do more to support you more to support respond to this crisisand we are doing well your way to war were continuing to make sure that the safety of Canadians paramountand that we make decisions like unlike previous government were moving far out why we had reversed at previous decisions to to ban prescription heroin from coming to the country that we are listed we took took on locks they off the prescription sweep done significant things to move in the right direction will continue to work with front line front line activistsand advocates who are seeing this terrible crisis are things we can do internationally as well work with China to help stem the tide of fentanyl a car for an hour coordinating with youand I were doing a number of things but I agree it’s not getting that’s why working so closely with the provincesand municipalities of which there are moreand more to make sure that we get tag at this this public health emergency control well I’m not there yet or exhale the we all respect was respectedand people are working on the frontline I also worked on the front a different capacity but the evidence is is not strong that that simply making these drugs legally available is the answerand interspersed there’s a one simple solutionand that’s why our government does is looking at the best advice of experts in the evidence looking at certainly supply addictions important were doing work with our international partners demand reduction treatment research prevention rehabilitation contact is my calling my former colleagues in cities across the country they tell me that there’s virtually no rehabilitation bets no detox beds available to them as one of the reasonsand I’m so proud that our government made a commitment we recognize that there’s revenue opportunities in the our plan to legalizeand regulate cannabisand we made commitments to make investments in in Internet research which is so important in treatment in rehabilitationand treatmentand endand services on the front line that will save lots this are our intent is to do this by July 1 unnecessarily on July 1 there were a number of people nicely concerned about the impact of of doing this on the day in which we celebrate the birth of the country but didn’t change your intent of the government’s intent was always to get this work done I July 1 that’s our target without a great deal of work to do but it is a reasonable targetand we we can afford to drag our feet there is too much risk to our kids too much risk to our communities we made a commitmentand an tell you there’s a consensus across the country that we must do better we can do betterand that’s our commitmentand when we believe that if we all work hard together we get it done by July 1 how here in Birminghamand I were on the Jack Daniels that Michael than I am marijuana legal or as you said earlier he’s the most boring guy in the country on this I got beatand Iand I know that inand friendly I have no intention of using this drug personally but I will celebrate if were successful in doing a better job protecting her kids in her community that we were suffering I was arguing with the present of Uruguay at his farm as elementary to US legalize marijuana interior lighting getting ready for legalizeand regulate weed across the country from seed to smoke so we can figure out how to pull this off igneous lover’s paradise for only regulated cash crop the government in December 2013 Uruguay’s Congress passed a law that regulated the cultivation saleand consumption of marijuana was a watershed moment in history more potential new legitimate economy is an entirely legal from December until April of this year the government meetingand writing the specifics of the regulation which will likely be sentenced down in late Apriland take affect small turns out the devil is in the detailsand a lot of it is more questions than answers about individual liberty the prospect of a commercial we boomand more of the great Uruguayan experiment brought forward by the country’s progressive president has stirred up a heated debate from both sides of the anti prohibition I’ll at least make Hestiaand Danielle the dart are long time we advocatesand academics lease it was just released from prison where she spent three months locked up on marijuana charges she was one of the last people to be put away for pot we visit them in their home just outside the country’s capital is so awesome regarding the above looking for is from a is an online so you think the government will be terribleand growing weed is going to the is surveyand how many you don’t want to register because you want the government to know what you’re doing okay okay fascinating Fridayand so the get a clinician who said that the Chinook attendedand will change your little letter that I will you just being paranoid years of forced criminality soured her on the very first law or is your latest need to give it a tryand go from there the big question is how does the concept of individual liberty against the government’s desire to regulate the rollout of full legalization we went to the office of Julio comes outand he’s the Secretary General of the national commission of drugs a guy who’s actually writing the regulations away goes alongand glad itand pay claims on your victory month there were now in a manner condo your socialite is a mighty wind they cannot donated by Katie as a secondary frame looking at Emily dataand Is inadequate formation is anyway SMEand Susan secretary Calvin’s office has crafted the rules if you’re over 18 only three ways you really want to grow yourselfand if you do you’ll be with six plans to buy pharmacy can only die 40 g a monthand the price will be fixed in a dollar a gramand three you a couple friends can form a club developed a 99 plans for your own personal use medical researchand development will be spearheaded by the government but the question remains will actually grow all the weeds sold in pharmaciesand most importantly how will the black market we’d actually be stamped out whatever you choose you will have to write your name down in a central registry that will forever mark you as a good for nothing next ownerand the law only applies to citizens of Uruguay tourists cannot buy weed weed smoking is nothing new in Uruguay where was all that we coming fromand how did Uruguay function in the broader South American illicit drug economy Seattle garage as a journalist has written a book about drugsand Uruguay we paid a visit to talk about what kind of lead Uruguayans are actually smoking I shadow eye candy Odyssey I see a lawyer life is how as we I got this by by Dawn Soto to wipe out a little okay Iand a Uruguay has been tacitly supporting the black markets into legalize using the 70s but in raw numbers a black market is not a problem Uruguay is a tiny country the population of about 34 million people in only 8 of Uruguayand admit to smoking weed for legalization activistsand growers like one vase bringing black market growing out into the open holds great promise that wanted to take us to the underground indoor grow out here in Montevideo which is still tightly legal by represent a growing culture of been here in the city so this right here is Paraguayand should bring weed like really only 70 can find on the street so one of the reasons why legalization is so hot right now is people want to get better weand what better way of doing thatand growing your own well very dailyand in all the way toand you is inand what is the freedom of legalizationand the restrictions of regulation are some ways you sides of the same coin we Montevideoand headed out to Carnaval beach town to see what young people think about registering with the governmentand in the legal were going ape shit See Other related products: My Skin Color Is Not A Crime Mugshot Unisex Sweatshirt from AmazinkShirt.com

[medicalnewsupdates]

NY COVID latest: Tuesday, August 24, 2021

NEW YORK — Find the latest information on the COVID-19 pandemic in New York state and New York City, including data on positive cases and other indicators, and information from local officials.

NYC public school teachers, staff will be required to get vaccinated

All NYC public school teachers and staff (about 148,000 school employees — and contractors who work in schools) will be required to get vaccinated and have to get at least a first dose by Sept. 27. There will be no testing option.

Will COVID booster shot have the same side effects as the first two shots?

The Biden administration said Wednesday that COVID booster shots will soon be available, but how will the Sept. 20 rollout work, and what side effects should Americans expect?

Mayoral candidates, union leaders urge NYPD officers to get vaccinated, improve numbers

Less than half of uniformed and civilian personnel in the NYPD are vaccinated, according to new data, a sign of vaccine hesitancy within the department.

Lambda and B.1.621: New COVID variants could be the worst yet, doctor warns

At least two new COVID-19 variants have hit the United States and they could be worse than the delta variant in their infectiousness and ability to stand up to vaccines, according to a top medical authority.

COVID variants a worry even with 75% of adults in NYC receiving at least 1 dose of vaccine

New York State and New York City officials say about 75% of adults have received at least one vaccine shot. But, according to immunologist Dr. Purvi Parikh of NYU Langone Heath, the arrival of the delta variant means the 70% vaccination rare won’t bring about the end of COVID any time soon.

US health officials call for booster shots for all to battle COVID-19

U.S. health officials recommended all Americans get COVID-19 booster shots to shore up their protection amid the surging delta variant and evidence that the vaccines’ effectiveness is falling. The announcement was made on Aug. 18.

What is the lambda variant and how contagious is the strain of COVID-19?

Although delta remains the most prevalent variant, the lambda strain of COVID-19 is starting to emerge and there’s little known about it. According to the World Health Organization, lambda was first discovered in Peru last year. Since April, it’s been responsible for more than 80% of cases reported there.

BK business defies Key to NYC vaccine mandate

New York City’s vaccine mandate for restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues began on Aug. 17, but a business owner in Brooklyn says she won’t turn away unvaccinated customers.

NYC indoor vaccine mandate begins

New York City’s vaccine mandate, called the Key to NYC Pass, went into effect on Aug. 17. However, it will not be fully enforced until Sept. 13.

While not actually a vaccine passport as the name might imply, the plan is the first of its kind in the United States, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The plan requires vaccinations for all workers and customers at indoor dining, indoor fitness and indoor entertainment venues.

NYC COVID vaccine mandate: Who is responsible for enforcement?

Details about the implementation and enforcement of the city’s new vaccination requirement at restaurants, gyms, and theaters are still being worked out. However, one thing is certain: it will not be enforced by the NYPD.

August child tax credit payments issued: Here’s why yours might be delayed

The second installment of expanded child tax credits was issued Friday, Aug. 13, to millions of eligible families, but some payments will likely be delayed due to a technical glitch, the U.S. Department of Treasury said.

Schumer calls for federal crackdown on fake vaccine cards

The Senate’s top Democrat says federal law enforcement officials need to crack down on fake COVID-19 vaccination cards being sold online.

COVID claims more young victims as deaths climb yet again

The COVID-19 death toll has started soaring again as the delta variant tears through the nation’s unvaccinated population and fills up hospitals with patients, many of whom are younger than during earlier phases of the pandemic.

Concerts, outdoor events still risky as delta variant surges, experts say

Concerts and outdoor events are returning, and many are requiring proof of vaccination as part of new safety protocols designed to help prevent the transmission of COVID-19. But while experts say being outdoors is less risky in general, they continue to recommend additional precautions for those visiting crowded outdoor venues.

Biden weighs stiffer vaccine rules as delta variant spreads rapidly across US

When the pace of vaccinations in the U.S. first began to slow, President Joe Biden backed incentives like million-dollar cash lotteries if that’s what it took to get shots in arms. But as new COVID infections soar, he’s testing a tougher approach.

Who doesn’t need the COVID-19 vaccine?

It has been eight months since the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered to health care workers nationwide. Since then, the vaccine has become available to anyone over the age of 12. Experts explain the few instances in which a person would not qualify for, or should delay getting vaccinated.

Extra COVID shot OK’d for those with weak immune systems

The FDA has approved an extra, third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for transplant recipients and others with severely weakened immune systems.

Diocese of Brooklyn announces mask mandate for schools

All students, staff and faculty at Brooklyn and Queens Catholic academies and Parish Schools will be required to wear masks beginning on the first day of class.

COVID vaccines would be required for military under new plan

Members of the U.S. military would be required to have the COVID-19 vaccine beginning Sept. 15, under a plan announced by the Pentagon and endorsed by President Joe Biden.

What to do if you lose your COVID-19 vaccine card

Don’t worry if you’ve lost your COVID-19 vaccine card, there are several ways you can get it replaced. No matter where you got your shots, getting a replacement card is possible.

NYC vaccine push for students

Aug. 9 was the last day NYC public school students can get their first COVID-19 vaccine dose in order to be fully vaccinated by first day of school on Sept. 13.

US teachers union president supports COVID vaccine mandate

The head of the American Federation of Teachers union said on Aug. 8 that she supports a vaccine mandate for educators.

“As a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers — not opposing them on vaccine mandates,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said during an appearance on “Meet the Press” on Aug. 8. “The circumstances have changed. … It weighs really heavily on me that kids under 12 can’t get vaccinated.”

How do you know if you have the delta variant of COVID-19?

So you’ve tested positive for COVID – but which COVID exactly? Is there a way to tell if you have the highly transmissible delta variant? There is a way to tell, but there’s not really a way for you to tell.

COVID breakthrough cases: Is one vaccine better than others?

COVID-19 breakthrough cases are rising, and now people want to know which vaccine offers the best protection from the coronavirus.

COVID survivors, victims’ families march across Brooklyn Bridge in call for more resources

Survivors of COVID-19, family members of victims, health care workers and others marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Aug. 7. The event was held in honor of the more than 616,000 lives lost to the virus in the United States and to bring more awareness to the issues a growing number of COVID survivors are dealing with.

Are kids more vulnerable to the delta variant of COVID-19?

Hospitals around the United States, especially in the South, are starting to fill back up again as the delta variant tears though the country. With previous waves of infection, we’ve been most worried about the elderly being vulnerable. Now, it’s younger people – even children – starting to show up in hospital beds.

US averaging 100,000 new COVID-19 infections a day as delta surges

The United States is now averaging 100,000 new COVID-19 infections a day, returning to a milestone last seen during the winter surge in yet another bleak reminder of how quickly the delta variant has spread through the country. The U.S. was averaging about 11,000 cases a day in late June. Now the number is 107,143.

50% of U.S. population is fully vaccinated, White House says

The United States reached a vaccination milestone on Aug. 6: 50% of the population, all ages, were fully vaccinated, the White House COVID-19 data director confirmed.

CDC says people who’ve had COVID should get shot or risk reinfection

Even people who have recovered from COVID-19 are urged to get vaccinated, especially as the extra-contagious delta variant surges — and a new study shows survivors who ignored that advice were more than twice as likely to get reinfected.

Vaccination will be required for air travel if new legislation passes; lawsuit against vax passes is filed

Federal and local officials are pushing congressional legislation that would require air travelers to show proof of vaccination to board a plane. Meanwhile, those opposed to New York City’s proof of vaccine requirement for indoor restaurants and venues filed their first lawsuit.

New Yorkers warned of dangers of fake COVID vaccination cards

New York Attorney General Letitia James released a consumer alert on Aug. 6 regarding fake COVID-19 vaccination cards. There have been many reports of these cards in the state, which can lead to a list of dangers, according to they attorney general.

Warning of more delta mutations, Fauci urges vaccinations

The White House COVID-19 response team said the delta variant continues to surge across the country. During a briefing on Aug. 5, Dr. Anthony Fauci called on Americans to take precautions to stop the virus from mutating. “The ultimate end game of all this is vaccination,” he said.

Moderna says vaccine 93% effective after 6 months

Moderna said its COVID vaccine has 93% efficacy six months after the second shot, according to a report released on Aug. 5.

Moderna says COVID-19 vaccine booster will likely be needed before winter

Drugmaker Moderna says it has seen its COVID-19 vaccine’s antibody levels decline over time and believes people who received two doses of it will need a booster shot before winter to protect against virus variants.

Can I get ‘long COVID’ if I’m infected after getting vaccinated?

It’s unclear, but researchers are studying the chances of long-term symptoms developing in anyone who might get infected after vaccination.

Brooklyn nurse honored for COVID fight gets her own Barbie doll

A New York City nurse who fought COVID, contracted the virus herself and then went right back to battling the pandemic now has a Barbie doll designed to look like her.

What is the delta plus variant of COVID?

The latest surge in COVID-19 infections is fueled by the highly contagious delta variant first identified in India late last year. Now, a variation of that variant is beginning to generate headlines. Here’s what we know about the COVID sub-strain being called delta plus.

2021 NY International Auto Show canceled due to rise in delta variant

The New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) became a casualty of the fast-spreading coronavirus delta variant. Show organizers said on Aug. 4 that they’ve decided to cancel it this year, a little over two weeks before the scheduled start. 

Who are the unvaccinated and how are they being reached?

PIX11 News’ Henry Rosoff spent an eye-opening few hours with vaccination outreach workers to learn more about the unvaccinated population.

More ‘pain and suffering’ ahead as COVID cases rise, Fauci says

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Aug. 1 that more “pain and suffering” is on the horizon as COVID-19 cases climb again and officials plead with unvaccinated Americans to get their shots.

Walmart requiring COVID vaccination, masks for many employees

In a memo, Walmart announced that associates who work in multiple facilities, and associates of its campus office, will need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 4. Walmart also required associates, including those fully vaccinated, to wear masks in its stores.

COVID cases rising across NY faster than fall 2020 despite vaccinations

The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 in New York is rising at a faster and steadier pace now than it did last fall, before anyone was vaccinated.

New delta variant research makes strong case for vaccination

A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized the delta variant is more dangerous and fast-spreading than first thought. The findings also made clear why efforts to get more people vaccinated are vital.

Bronx teacher goes door-to-door to encourage vaccination

A Bronx teacher is trying to convince people to get vaccinated and send their kids back to school. High school social worker Justin Spiro says he’s on a mission, alongside the teachers’ union, to speak to parents with concerns.

Broadway will require audiences be vaccinated, wear masks

When curtains rise again on Broadway in September, theatergoers will need to mask up and show proof of vaccination.

CDC data shows delta variant spreads as easily as chickenpox

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new information on July 30, saying the coronavirus delta variant can spread as easily as chickenpox.

NYC will pay $100 to newly vaccinated

New York City officials announced the city will give $100 debit cards to New Yorkers who get their first COVID shot at a city-run vaccination site.

Bronx 16-year-old gets vaccine to help convince hesitant family

A 16-year-old high schooler in the Bronx said she was vaccinated at school in part to convince her doubtful parents and family that the vaccine is safe.

Cuomo warns of schools becoming superspreaders amid COVID spike

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on July 28 advised school districts to take action and ensure schools won’t become COVID-19 superspreaders. 

Pfizer: COVID vaccine protective for at least 6 months

The effectiveness of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine wanes slightly over time but it remains strongly protective for at least six months after the second dose, according to company data released on July 28.

Disney World requires masks indoors regardless of vaccination status

Beginning July 30, Disney World required all visitors ages 2 and older to wear a face covering while indoors as well as in Disney buses, the monorail and the Disney Skyliner, regardless of vaccination status.

NY plans COVID vaccine mandate for state employees, health care workers

New York will require all state employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus by Labor Day or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing.

Additionally, all patient-facing health care workers at state hospitals will be required to get the vaccine. There will be no alternative testing option for these employees.

NY workers should be back in offices by Labor Day

Employers should bring workers back to offices by Labor Day, the governor said on July 29 amid an increase in COVID cases.

CDC mask guidance: Vaccinated people should wear face coverings in public indoor settings

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed course on some masking guidelines on July 27, recommending that even vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the U.S. where the coronavirus is surging.

Streamlined NY rent relief application unveiled amid delayed payments

Facing backlash over delayed pandemic rental assistance payments, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a more streamlined online application process for tenants and landlords. The new online application, which will be implemented on July 27, loosens the standards for documentation, including for multi-tenant landlords who need to submit arrears documents. 

Vaccines offered at Summer Rising schools

Starting July 26, select schools in New York City’s Summer Rising summer school program began offering vaccine shots to eligible students, parents and community members.

The free Pfizer shots will be available at 25 Summer Rising sites through Aug. 13 across all five boroughs. Find out when and where here.

US headed in ‘wrong direction’ on COVID-19, Fauci says

The United States is in an “unnecessary predicament” of soaring COVID-19 cases fueled by unvaccinated Americans and the virulent delta variant, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert said on July 25.

Sen. Schumer demands New York release billions in rental assistance

Roughly $2 billion in federal rental assistance remained in the hands of New York State on July 25, as thousands of tenants continued to struggle to make ends meet amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Chuck Schumer released a letter he sent to the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, demanding the agency “move heaven and earth” to quickly release the Emergency Rental Assistance Program funding.

NYC mask mandate debate heats up as delta variant spurs new COVID cases

Some New York City officials called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to retighten COVID-19 restrictions as the delta variant spurs an uptick in cases in the five boroughs. De Blasio, however, said he would hold off on reinstating an indoor mask mandate as COVID-19 hospitalizations in the city remain relatively low.

Doctors warn about slightly different symptoms with delta variant of COVID

As concern grows regarding the COVID-19 delta variant, health leaders are warning about somewhat different symptoms that come with it.

Most unvaccinated Americans unlikely to get COVID-19 shots, new AP poll finds

A new poll shows that most Americans who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 say they are unlikely to get the shots. About 16% say they probably will get the vaccine.

Is asking about someone’s COVID vaccine status a HIPAA violation?

HIPAA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 during a time when medical records were being computerized. It was created to simplify the administration of health insurance and to prevent unauthorized access to peoples’ medical histories.

In fact, HIPAA doesn’t block anyone from asking another person about their health status, according to Alan Meisel, law professor and bioethics expert at the University of Pittsburgh.

DOJ says no probe into state-run nursing homes in NY

The Justice Department says it has decided not to open a civil rights investigation into government-run nursing homes in New York over their COVID-19 response.

NYC public hospitals still awaiting FEMA reimbursement for COVID-19 expenses

The New York City public hospital system said it’s still waiting on a big reimbursement from FEMA for expenses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vaccine or weekly testing mandated for NYC health care workers

New York City will require workers in city-run hospitals and health clinics to either get vaccinated or get tested weekly, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. The COVID-19 safety requirement for health workers goes into effect beginning Aug. 2. 

NYC COVID-19 uptick: Nearly 70% of new cases are delta variant

As COVID-19 cases slowly rise in the area, the City Council’s health committee chairman said the delta variant has become the dominant strain of the virus. City Councilmember Mark Levine said the delta variant makes up 69% of new cases in the city — up from 44% the week before.

Child tax credit checks: Will they become permanent?

The parents of an estimated 60 million American children began receiving child tax credit payments from the IRS in mid-July in a move expected to lift millions of families above the poverty baseline for the remainder of 2021. Should they become permanent?

Biden grapples with ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’

President Joe Biden is confronting the worrying reality of rising cases and deaths — and the limitations of his ability to combat the persistent vaccine hesitance responsible for the summer backslide.

Common cholesterol drugs may significantly reduce risk of death from COVID-19: study

Statins, a common medication for lowering cholesterol, may be saving lives among patients with COVID-19. A new study reveals hospitalized coronavirus patients who take statins are much less likely to die from the illness.

De Blasio: No plan to bring back mask mandate if hospitalizations remain low

On the heels of the announcement that Los Angeles County will reinstitute its indoor mask mandate, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was asked on the “Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC radio if he has plans to make a similar move and bring back mask rules for the city.

NYC not dropping mask mandate for students

New York City students will still have to wear masks in schools next fall, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in July.

Child tax credit: When to expect payments, how it may impact tax returns

Payments for the highly anticipated expanded child tax credits were being sent to families in the tri-state area, and the rest of the nation, for the first time in mid-July. While the additional money may be very helpful for some families across the economic spectrum, the overall tax credit situation is complicated.

WHO chief says it was ‘premature’ to rule out COVID lab leak

The head of the World Health Organization acknowledged it was premature to rule out a potential link between the COVID-19 pandemic and a laboratory leak, and he said he is asking China to be more transparent as scientists search for the origins of the coronavirus.

Wildfire smoke linked to increased COVID-19 risk, study says

A new study suggests that exposure to wildfire smoke is linked to an increased risk of contracting COVID-19.

What can I do if I didn’t get my child tax credit payment?

The official disbursement date for the first child tax credit payments from the Internal Revenue Service was July 15, but parents may not see the cash right away.

New York takes conservative approach to counting COVID deaths

The federal government’s count of those who died of COVID-19 in New York has 11,000 more victims than the tally publicized by the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, which has stuck with a far more conservative approach to counting virus-related deaths.

NYC COVID hospitalizations likely to grow as delta variant rapidly spreads

The delta variant is fueling new COVID-19 cases in New York City, and health officials are urging New Yorkers to get vaccinated if they haven’t already. NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi told PIX11 Morning News’ Betty Nguyen that he’s very concerned about the delta variant.

Will a COVID vaccine booster shot be needed? Fauci says it’s too soon to tell

The government’s top infectious disease expert said “it is entirely conceivable, maybe likely” that Americans will need a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in the coming months, but it is too soon for the government to recommend another shot.

Global COVID-19 deaths hit 4 million amid rush to vaccinate

The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.

99 percent of US COVID deaths are unvaccinated people: Fauci

America’s top infectious disease expert says about 99.2% of recent COVID-19 deaths in the United States involved unvaccinated people. And Dr. Anthony Fauci says “it’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable.”

NY chief judge, family got preferential COVID-19 testing at home, official says

New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and some relatives received COVID-19 testing from the state at her private Long Island residence last summer after a member of the family tested positive, a state court official said. 

Why unvaccinated people still have to wear a mask in New York

The State of Emergency in New York may have ended but the state Department of Health remains cautious about the spread of COVID-19.

The same day the State of Emergency expired, DOH readopted some emergency regulations that would allow the agency and local health departments to react quickly should another spike in COVID cases happen, such as its “Surge and Flex” strategy and requiring masks in public for unvaccinated people.

There’s more to the worker shortage than pandemic unemployment, experts say

The workforce shortage is a combination of several factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a shift in the economy, and changes in the workforce demographics, experts say.

Free health insurance included in stimulus benefits for unemployment recipients

Along with $1,400 stimulus checks and monthly child tax credit payments, the American Rescue Plan has another important benefit available to people who qualified for unemployment assistance this year: free health care.

Essential workers monument to change location, remain in Battery Park City

A monument honoring essential workers’ efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic will change locations after residents in Battery Park City were unhappy with where it was originally going to be built.

Workers enjoy the upper hand as companies scramble to hire

With the economy growing rapidly as it reopens from the pandemic, many employers are increasingly desperate to hire. Yet evidence suggests that as a group, the unemployed aren’t feeling the same urgency to take jobs.

Vaccine freebies

New York, New Jersey and several companies nationwide are offering incentives for those who get vaccinated, including free food, drinks and discounts.

Latest official numbers

As of Monday, there have been 2,223,756 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since March 2020 and 43,404 fatalities, according to data from the state.

COVID-19 timeline: How novel coronavirus spread

Tips to protect yourself and others amid coronavirus outbreaks

The New York state coronavirus hotline is 1-888-364-3065; information is also being posted here

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The post NY COVID latest: Tuesday, August 24, 2021 appeared first on Medical News And Updates.

[dinafbrownil]

Dying Young: The Health Care Workers in Their 20s Killed by COVID-19

Jasmine Obra believed that if it wasn’t for her brother Joshua, she wouldn’t exist. When 7-year-old Josh realized that his parents weren’t going to live forever, he asked for a sibling so he would never be alone.

By spring 2020, at ages 29 and 21, Josh and Jasmine shared a condo in Anaheim, California, not far from Disneyland, which they both loved.

Both worked at a 147-bed locked nursing facility that specialized in caring for elderly people with cognitive issues such as Alzheimer’s, where Jasmine, a nursing student, was mentored by Josh, a registered nurse.

Both got tested for COVID-19 on the same day in June.

Both tests came back positive.

Yet only one of them survived.

While COVID-19 takes a far deadlier toll on elderly people than on young adults, an investigation of front-line health care worker deaths by the Guardian and KHN has uncovered numerous instances when staff members under age 30 were exposed on the job and also succumbed.

In our database of 167 confirmed front-line worker deaths, 21 medical staffers, or 13% of the total, were under 40, and eight (5%) fatalities were under 30. The median age of a COVID-19 death in the general population is 78, while the median age of health care worker deaths in the database is 57. This is in part because we are, by definition, including only people of working age who were treating patients during the pandemic — but it is also because, as health workers, they are far more exposed to the virus.

Young health care workers are at a “stage in their career and a stage of life at which they have so much more to offer,” said Andrew Chan, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School. “Lives lost among any young people related to COVID really should be considered something that’s unacceptable to us as a society.”

As coronavirus cases surge — and dire shortages of lifesaving protective gear like N95 masks, gowns and gloves persist — the nation’s health care workers face disproportionate risk. Chan’s research has found that health care workers of any age are at least three times more likely to become infected than the general population, and the risk is greater if they are people of color or have to work without adequate personal protective equipment. People of color are also likelier to have inadequate access to PPE.

In interviews, relatives and friends of these younger victims described a particular and wrenching sorrow. Everything lay ahead for these front-line workers. They were just embarking on their careers. Some still lived in the family home; others were looking forward to getting married or had young children. Several parents of victims contacted by the Guardian and KHN said they were simply unable to talk about what had happened, so immense was their grief.

Valeria Viveros, a 20-year-old nursing assistant, was “barely blooming,” said her uncle, Gustavo Urrea. She made ceviche for her patients at a nursing home in Riverside, California, and Urrea could see her visibly growing in self-confidence. When she first fell sick from the virus, she went to the hospital but was sent home with Tylenol. She returned several days later in an ambulance — her final journey.

“We’re all destroyed,” Urrea said. “I can’t even believe it.”

Dulce Garcia, 29, an interpreter at a medical facility in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, died in May. “It just doesn’t feel real,” said friend Brittany Mathis. Garcia was the one who wouldn’t let friends drive if they’d had too many drinks, and she loved going out to dance to bachata, merengue and reggaeton. “There were so many things she had unfinished,” Mathis said.

While people of any age with underlying conditions such as diabetes and obesity are at higher risk of a severe COVID-19 infection, the particular impacts of the virus on young adults are only now becoming clear.

Doctors in New York noticed that more younger patients than usual were presenting with strokes, to the point that “the average age of our stroke patients with large-vessel strokes” — the most devastating kind — “has come down,” said Thomas Oxley, a Mount Sinai medical system neurosurgeon. COVID-19 infections cause inflammation, and often blood clots, in blood vessels as well as the lungs.

Angela Padula and Dennis Bradt became engaged in early February. On May 13, Bradt died of a heart attack as doctors tried to coax him off a ventilator.(Angela Padula)

Angela Padula thought that she and Dennis Bradt had done everything right.

Padula, 27, and Bradt, 29, became engaged on Feb. 8. She was a special-education teacher, and he was an addiction technician at Conifer Park, a private addiction treatment facility in Glenville, New York.

The couple wanted to save up for a few years for their wedding, but by early April, they had already purchased her engagement and wedding rings. Bradt, who had the sweeter tooth, had chosen a raspberry-swirl wedding cake.

After the pandemic hit, Bradt started showering when he got home from work. He and Padula wore masks when they went out, which was usually only for groceries or gas. They stopped visiting their immunocompromised parents.

On April 5, Bradt came down with a fever, stomach-bug symptoms and achiness, and went to the hospital. His COVID-19 test came back negative. Soon he couldn’t breathe. Another test proved positive. On April 16 he was put on a ventilator. In the process, he choked on his own vomit, which caused his lung to collapse.

Padula assumes Bradt was infected at work, and is unsure whether he had sufficient PPE. Conifer Park did not respond to queries, but according to local health authorities, 12 employees and six patients at the facility tested positive for COVID-19. Padula herself had symptoms so severe that she was taken to the emergency room in an ambulance.

She was not allowed to visit Bradt, and was quarantined alone at home, where she spent her 28th birthday, taking anxiety medication prescribed by her doctor.

On May 13, as doctors tried to coax Bradt off the ventilator, he suffered a heart attack, Padula said. She and Bradt’s mother were permitted to say goodbye to him. But “he was gone by the time we got there,” Padula said in an interview. “He didn’t look like himself,” swollen and festooned with tubes.

Today Padula is still sick. Pain in her arms, legs and back wakes her at night. She feels as though the virus has taken over her life.

“I have my days where it’s just too much to think about,” she said. “I’ll see people getting engaged on Facebook — it makes me mad. I want to be happy for them, but it’s very difficult for me to be happy. We were planning on having kids in a couple years.”

“It’s been a tough month for all of us,” Josh Obra wrote in an Instagram caption less than two months before he fell ill. “It’s just mentally exhausting thinking each night when I come home that I may be having symptoms the next day.”(The Obra family)

Less than two months before Josh and Jasmine Obra fell ill, Josh posted two pictures to Instagram: One was a photo of a fireworks display at Disneyland; the other was a picture of himself in medical scrubs, wearing a face mask, giving the peace sign.

“Heeeeeyo! It’s been a minute,” he wrote in the caption. “It’s been a tough month for all of us.” He worked with a vulnerable population, he said, and “it’s just mentally exhausting thinking each night when I come home that I may be having symptoms the next day.”

Even so, Josh was the kind of helpful, empathetic nurse who “makes things easier for everybody,” said colleague Sarah Depayso. He knew how to talk to patients and was attuned to others’ stress levels. “We were so busy, and it was ‘I’ll buy you lunch, I’ll buy you dinner, I’ll buy you boba.’”

It had been about 35 days since Disneyland closed its gates, Josh noted in his post. Josh’s photos — of the Sleeping Beauty castle framed by tabebuia blossoms, or of himself in an attention-grabbing Little Mermaid sweater — and corny jokes endeared him to thousands of followers on Instagram. “He had a way of capturing magic,” said his friend Brandon Joseph. The pictures were joyful, like memories of childhood.

Josh’s last post was on June 10, announcing that Disneyland planned to reopen in July. At some point the virus had reached his nursing home, infecting 49 staff members and 120 residents and ultimately killing 14 people. Approximately 41% of all U.S. coronavirus deaths are linked to nursing homes, where frail people live in close quarters, according to The New York Times.

After taking the virus test on June 12, his health deteriorated. On June 15, he messaged Joseph that he couldn’t take a full breath of air without feeling like he was being knifed in the chest. On June 20, he texted that he was at the hospital and that he had a particularly bad case.

The final time Josh spoke with his family, before he was put on a ventilator, was on June 21. “On our last video call together, I was isolated in Anaheim, quarantined, and our parents were at home,” Jasmine said. It was Father’s Day, “and I remembered crying and crying because this was the reality of what our family was.”

Josh’s family was not permitted to visit him in the hospital, and he died on July 6.

By coincidence, Josh, like his grandparents, was buried in the same cemetery as Walt Disney — Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Before the funeral, Jasmine walked over to Disney’s grave, she said. “I was like, ‘Hi, Walt. I hope you and my brother found each other.’”

Every night since he died, Jasmine has watched Southern California’s spectacular sunsets, the pinks and yellows that Josh kept returning to in his pictures. “And every time I feel like he’s with me. I look at the sky and sometimes I start talking to it, and I feel like I’m talking to my brother, and that he’s painting beautiful skies.”

Melissa Bailey, Eli Cahan, Shoshana Dubnow and Anna Sirianni contributed to this report.

This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” an ongoing project by The Guardian and KHN (Kaiser Health News) that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to investigate why so many are victims of the disease. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/dying-young-the-health-care-workers-in-their-20s-killed-by-covid-19/

[d-wntherabbithole]

For the past 6 months I have done what most would call shadow work. I was put in a situation where I had two chooses. One I can allow the circumstances I am currently in to solidify the unworthiness I feel internally or I can do some deep cleaning. It has been one hell of a ride. I have dug so deep within myself. So many intense experiences but I stuck it out. Why? For myself. For my future self. For the people I love and want to love. Let me make something clear this enlightenment came with so much pain. Pain I was scared to face. I had been running so long when I finally stopped it felt like I was hit my a train.

But now I find myself catching things (even if it takes a while) and truly reflecting. Things I never thought I can do. I am very proud of myself. I am no longer ashamed of my past nor do I cling on to it to victimize myself. Simply now I reflect and have gained so much insight from it all regardless of how painful the lessons were. I AM a better person for it.

Let me start off with how for so long I have always tormented myself with the things others have held over my head, whether it be some mistakes I have made, or things others have done. I have always lived my life with this idea that I always needed to compromise myself and what I want to please other people. Since I could recall I always found myself in situations whether it be family like (my siblings or my parents) or friends even boyfriends where I was always over compensating, always needing to do the most to prove I am worthy of thier love, affection, time, consideration.

Constantly going against the grain of my own heart because I believed if I didn’t I would end up with nothing. I mean I learned this idea from my father, not directly but with his action or should I say lack there of. He abandon my mother and her children not just me. But nonetheless his absence left me in ruins. I was left trying to teach myself what a mans love should look like and I never had good examples. So of course you could imagine how my adolescent and teenage years looked like. After my father and all that truama the second most traumatic experience I had with a “man” was in 4th grade where I had a math teacher that was my tutor after school and on two occasions he molested me. I’ll never forget the words he whispered to me as he did it “ no one will believe you if you tell” he was right. I remember finally confessing to my mom what happen she was anger so we went in for a school meeting. I remember sitting in the room with the principle and expressing what happen and she actually had the nerve to tell me “no honey. I’m sure there is a miss understanding I know him he would never do that” I remember vividly feeling so confused. Thinking to myself maybe she is right it must be me once again I found myself doubting myself. On one hand losing all faith in myself and on the other losing all trust in others. I was this sweet, kind hearted baby girl that felt like she had the world on her shoulders.

The gap between this experience and the next big one was long but definitely not uneventful. Full of hatred from my sibling ( which we’re going through their own suffering but nonetheless this is my truth) one sided friendships, misguiding teachers.

Side note: Isn’t it unfortunate we all have a habit of taking the most from the worst of things. At least I can say for myself I find it much easier to think of the negative experiences then the uplifting ones. Now as an adult is when I am much more mindful of focusing on the positive.

So the next banger was my shit choices for boyfriends. Haven’t had many to begin with but there’s one that left a really painful scar. I dated him through highschool and a bit of my first years of college. As I am sure you can tell from above I had a fucked up image of myself and what honest pure love was so supposed to be (honestly still trying to learn what love is). So imagine my dismise when I ended up with a kid that was an extreme darker version of me. Double the insecure, constantly needing validation from everyone, misguided anger for his father and the world. Ashamed of who he was. I can go on but I think it’s obvious where this is going. He was just like me but intensified. I was just the weaker version of him because as a girl I felt like I was stripped of any form of confidence I had. So I thought oh yeah this seems right this is love. I mean if I am going based off experience where love is something I have to fight out of the people I love or just simply dealing with passive aggressive people & being “understanding” then yeah that seems about right. So I fought on like I always do. Over extending myself always giving giving giving. Slowly stripping away at the baby girl inside that was already so hurt. This guy mentally and physically abused me. Cheated on me left and right. Me being weak I always took him back. It was literally like I had blinders on. Till finally the anger set in. There was a shift. Once I finally said enough the first chance he got he left. There was still something inside me that wanted my justification so I tried to get it out of him. So much resistance. For months it was this ugly back and fourth. Till finally the radio went dead.

At that point I was a 20 year old kid that truly had no idea what the fuck was going on. But I will tell you I was full of pain, rage and fear. I was angry at so many things I didn’t even know where to start. I mean imagine just based on my short story above I had a lot of things pent up. I since a little girl taught myself how to suppress everything. I mean I had no other choose. My family didn’t listen, my friends didn’t understand. I felt alone in this world.

What came after this was what I would like to call the beginning to my end. I was slowly approaching the end of my rope. I was reckless. Imagine a little girl full of sadness, pain and anger stirring me. I was a tornado like someone once called me. But you know those are short lived. Then you’re left with all the damage and destruction you caused. That’s when the unraveling began. All the demons I tucked away so deeply started spewing out of the seems of my soul. There was no hiding it anymore. I had so much hurt inside me there was no explaining it.

You know when you are angry with someone but you keep pushing it aside but then they do one little insignificant thing and it blows the cap off. Then everyone looks at you like tf this bitch is crazy lol.

Well that’s what happen. My soul said to me. You have ran enough. Down the line I was even hospitalized for a failing kidney. It was one of the wildest experiences ever. Felt like my body gave up on me. It was receptive to nothing. Spiritually it felt like I was being reborn after it all pasted. If I can find the words one day to explain the experience I will. But I still can’t.

I met someone in the mist of all this ugly, unfortunately. A guy that could see through all the masks I was wearing. A guy that I can remember vividly telling me regularly “I can see you’re acting so hard but I can tell you are very soft on the side” I didn’t like it. I thought the “hardness” he was referring too was my protection. I had been hurt so many times I knew nothing else. I said unfortunately because sadly he met me at my absolute worst.

But I now know God put a person like that in my life for a purpose. I know the experiences him and I went through in the beginning are things I am not proud of. But it exposed me. I used to think it exposed me to the world so I felt judged but I know now what it truly did was expose that version of me to myself. Kinda like a look what you have become type of thing. See what your sadness has caused. Sadly at the expense of people that I love. But nonetheless it was the beginning of my awakening. God put all these people I spoke of above and many more I didn’t mention good and bad for a reason.

Point of sharing all this is because through my shadow work I have taught myself to look at what I have been through as my journey. It is what made me the woman I am today. Regardless of how painful. So sharing it here even if I know no one is gonna see it. It is subconsciously a way of facing my shame, or fear of judgement. My experience/past is what molded me. Don’t like it? It makes you uncomfortable? You wouldn’t have done it? well then you’re not for me. Whether you’re family, friends I have had for years or a partner. We are all on our own path. What is meant for you won’t pass you by.

For SO LONG I felt so ashamed, unworthy, always in lack. Like everything I have done, my parents, the way people have treated me defined me as a person you know?

But it feels so good to finally over come that frame of mind. I can see I have changed when I see things, read things, remember things now that would usually trigger the fuck out of me.

It is liberating to release myself from this grip. Even when I feel some type of way now the way I take it in is different.

From all this I have learned that those things from my past that I was so fucking ashamed of does NOT define me.

I hope through my own lessons I can teach or help those I love or anyone for that matter. Just simply help people understand that no matter how ugly the past is you have the power to change your future. I would love to assist and motivate people to love & believe in themselves. I wanna see people growing, happy and truly at peace with themselves. I know now if I want something I must become it.

The love & validation you seek from others is all within. Once I realized that is when I noticed I need no one. I am not afraid to stand alone. That is when I truly began to live freely. I will admit it is so hard because living in uncertainty is scary but it’s knowing that you’re all you need is a beautiful feeling.

If anything when you learn to let go of the pain and love yourself like you wish all those people around you would you learn how to truly value the people around you.

All in all I am grateful for my life and who I am. I am grateful for those who were kind to me. I am grateful for those who mistreated and misunderstand me. I am grateful for it all now.

I know now truly that I deserve love, respect , compassion & understanding. I feel fullness in my heart because I choose to give all those things to myself. I have faith that good, whole hearted people will find me. Those who have the same drive as me and are willing to give me everything I am willing to give.

What you give you get. That goes for the good and bad you put out. You will rep what you sow.

God has done so many beautiful things for me even in the mist of my worst moments and for that I forever grateful.

I am a good woman. I gotta remind myself to be proud of that more often. I am growing into the woman that I can say I am proud of and I did it all on my own.

Woke up feeling all this. Something in my heart told me to release it.

Here is to endless growth, healing and self love.



[arplis]

Arplis - News: The coronavirus is here and parents have questions about the threat COVID-19 poses to the health of their children

As of now, answers have not been satisfactory, consistent, or satisfactorily consistent. Early studies out of China suggest that though mortality rates are low — though still highly worrisome at a population level — novel coronavirus does pose a serious risk to children as well as the elderly, specifically some children with pre-existing conditions. That said, all children can be vectors for the disease and scientist have not yet uncovered any patterns in infection that might justify complacency. Outcomes among infants, in particular, have been varied and have many front-line medical workers we’ve spoken to are worried. This story, which will be updated frequently until scientific consensus is reached on the questions posed, is intended to be an up-to-date accounting of what epidemiologists, doctors, and public health workers know so far. All quotes are timestamped because available information is becoming outdated rapidly. Answers should be understood in light of that fact. Just because we believe we know something now does not mean that thing is true. A lot of hypotheses have yet to be tested. In the meantime, the best approach is to maintain social distance and to stay informed. Will coronavirus kill or hurt my kids? Dr. John Williams, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. April 7, 2020 (12:30PM): Currently, there is not much data on kids and coronavirus. Some respiratory illnesses, such as the seasonal flu (influenza), put children at risk of serious health complications. Each year, the flu causes millions of illnesses, thousands of hospitalizations, and some deaths in children. COVID-19, however, appears to be affecting children at a much lower rate. Less than 1% of all COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US are of children. The biggest concern for kids in our country are those with underlying conditions. All of our children’s hospitals, including mine, are doing what we can to protect these vulnerable kids while we learn whether they truly have increased risk. Dr. Logan Spector, Division Director and Professor, Pediatric Epidemiology and Clinical Research at University of Minnesota, March 24, 2020 (5PM): When it comes to young children, my biggest takeaway is that most severe cases [of COVID-19 in young children] were suffered by children with very serious conditions. In the New England Journal study, three severe cases had leukemia, hydronephrosis, and intussusception. So my takeaway from that is that even among children, the worst cases require comorbidities to have the worse outcome. My day job is studying pediatric cancer and I can tell you it’s not especially common.  Dr. Neel Shah, Director of the Delivery Decisions Initiative at Ariadne Labs and assistant professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School March 20 (1:30PM): There are some neonatal transmissions, but it doesn’t seem like infants and neonates are severely affected. We think of people who are pregnant and infants as vulnerable. But we mean that in a lot of different ways. Simply because they’re not likely to be severely infected does not mean they aren’t affected. Strains on the healthcare system mean ambulatory services are shutting down, prenatal and postpartum support is being shut down. Social distancing impacts pregnancies too. It’s simply harder to get labor support — from doulas or even family members. And there’s always been concern about social isolation after having a baby. Even more so now. Barun Mathema, Assistant Professor Epidemiology Columbia University; March 22 (11AM): The most recent evidence from China that shows that children are vulnerable, or at least more so than previously thought. Younger children being a higher risk for more serious clinical symptoms than older children. It appears that mortality is still somewhat rare among children. Barun Mathema,  March 18 (11AM): I’ll preface this by saying we’re all confused. Initially, it was confusing that kids weren’t hit because we were wondering if the disease would follow the patterning of pandemic influenza where the curve is a beautiful bell with age on the bottom. Seasonal flu is the opposite, a u-shape. And initially, this didn’t fit either scenario. COVID-19 seemed like a geometric curve from low to high in terms of severity, but now that picture is getting muddled. We’re seeing folks under 50 with morbidity. We’re seeing teenagers and younger kids with fairly severe symptoms. There was a sliver of pediatric cases and a sliver of pediatric deaths in China. Kids get colds a lot so there was a theory that some are caused by coronaviruses and so there’s partial immunity. There was also the thought that the ACE2 receptor might not be well expressed in children so there could be inefficient entry. Arguably we should be seeing a huge surge in cases, but questions remain unresolved. One can simply say that given a large sample size and a small morbidity, we’re still talking about a big number.  Dr. Jan Dumois, Pediatric Infectious Diseases physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. March 16, 2020 (4:30PM): “There’s a new article where they review 2100 kids who were suspected to have COVID-19. There was one child who died — teen. Only one.  Otherwise, all the other kids survived, but they did have different degrees of severity of illness. Sicker kids tended to be younger and needed more aggressive medical care before they were sent home. … not just showing up to the emergency room and being sent home. Patients who ended up in hospital because they needed oxygen. Or they were found to have pneumonia. Then there were some uncommon cases that needed to be on a respirator. Younger children are more likely to be sicker and require hospitalization. Or to be on a ventilator. Sometimes heart. Or the dysfunction of the kidney. It was more common in children less than one. “ Ryan Demmer, PhD, University of Minnesota Division of Epidemiology and Community Health. March 16, 2020 (11AM): Kids who had preexisting conditions, particularly chronic or complex medical conditions, were more likely to have adverse medical outcomes and more likely to have severe ones at that. The co-morbidities that seemed to be the most troubling are with asthma and cystic fibrosis. Children with upper respiratory disease seem to be at risk. While the absolute numbers are low in terms of mortality among young people, there’s a .01 percent mortality rate for flu in youth and early numbers in kids with COVID-19 put the figure around .2. That’s not high, but it’s a 20 fold-increase. If I told you a plane was twenty times more likely that other planes to crash, you would not get on that plane. How can I avoid getting the virus? Dyan Hes, MD, Medical Director of Gramercy Pediatrics in New York City and Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. April 9, 2020 (12:00PM): Stay at home. If you have to go to work, you should wear a mask or bandana. You have to wash your hands when you come in from outside. Wash your hands repeatedly throughout the day as you have contact with other people. Some people say that washing your hands every 20 minutes is the best way to decrease the spread of the virus. Don’t touch your face. A lot of people choose to wear gloves whenever they’re out in public, but then they don’t take the gloves off immediately. If you use your gloves outside, when you’re commuting to work let’s say, then touch your phone, your phone is now contaminated. But people don’t think about that. Wearing gloves might be useless because you have this false sense of protection. You really have to understand the use of protective wear. John Williams, April 7, 2020 (12:30PM): Preventing the spread of COVID-19 from one person in the family to others can be challenging but can be accomplished. For families with older adults or people in their households with chronic illnesses, consideration should be given to see if there is a way to have that person stay with another relative while your child with COVID-19 recovers. If that is not possible, you should work to separate your child from as many of the other household members as possible. This could be accomplished by having the child with COVID-19 stay in one part of the home while those with chronic conditions could stay in another part. In addition, keeping your child with COVID-19 more than 6 feet away from the other people in your home combined with frequent handwashing and cleaning of places like door handles and hard surfaces with bleach containing products can be successful. You should also teach your child with COVID-19 to cover their cough with their elbow and to wash their hands frequently, especially if they are going to be in common areas used by others in the home. People who are sick can wear a cloth mask to reduce transmission to others. Ashlesha Kaushik, MD, FAAP, Pediatric Infectious Disease Physician and Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at UnityPoint Health St. Luke’s. April 6, 2020 (3:00PM): The CDC has advised people all across the country that everybody out in public places like a mall or a clinic needs to cover their faces now. They don’t need to use medical or surgical masks for that. Those will be reserved for patients that are sick with symptoms or are being seen actively in a healthcare facility. But for the general public, they’re saying that keeping the nose and mouth area covered will halt the spread of the virus from asymptomatic people. Barun Mathema; March 22 (11AM) I think the basic rule of thumb is keeping the kids in situations where there is very little density — and certainly keeping the hands clean. So this may be easier in peri-urban or rural locales. Personally, having kids run around outside is really important for general physical and mental health (also for the parents) but not having much or any physical contact would be the goal – this includes surfaces that may be contaminated. It’s hard not to be preachy about things but I will try to politely keep my distance and also explain that even if we do not personally feel at risk, our behavior can (without malintent) put members of our community at risk….we may not even know who is at risk. Barun Mathema; March 18 (11AM): Just because the elderly and folks with preexisting conditions are vulnerable doesn’t leave everyone else off the hook. This is a serious infection. We read about asymptomatic carriers and minor disease and, yes, many people have had it and will without even noticing. That’s true. It’s also true that three to five percent of otherwise healthy individuals will end up with a serious disease that could require ventilation. Many will recover but it will be an uphill battle. Social distancing and flattening the curve are the answer to this, especially given that a middle-age group will wind up responsible for taking care of most people.  Juan Dumois, March 16, 2020 (4:30PM): The biggest study was able to detect some patients that had no symptoms but were infected. Found quite a few of those. Almost 100. The study wasn’t really designed to look for asymptomatic kids. That study hasn’t yet been published. When should I get my kid tested? Dyan Hes, April 9, 2020 (12:00PM): Right now, we’re not testing children in New York City. Your child will only be tested at this point, at least in New York City where we’re having more cases than any country around the world, if they’re in severe respiratory distress and need to be hospitalized. We have to assume that 80% of the colds that are going around now are COVID. We’re not testing because the kids’ cases have been very mild. The only children in my practice that have been tested have been newborns whose parents have been positive. So you don’t have to run to get your child tested if you are sick. Lindsay Thompson, April 7, 2020 (3:00PM):  We unfortunately across the country do not yet have enough screening tests to be able to test children who are fairly well-appearing. It’s not usually until they’re so sick that they might have to go to the emergency room that we do the testing. So I think parents sometimes get frustrated that they can’t know for sure but are told they could have COVID-19. If they’re doing okay, you just need to go home and stay there for two weeks in quarantine. That doesn’t feel as rewarding as getting a test, but in some situations, we’re not able to test everybody. The parents may have to trust their pediatrician to assess that their child at that moment is doing okay. John Williams, April 7, 2020 (12:30PM): The major concern and the reason for a child to be tested, is only if the child had severe symptoms, which would primarily be difficulty breathing. Children may have fever, which makes them feel bad, but fever isn’t dangerous. If a child has a runny nose or cough, but isn’t having trouble breathing and is drinking ok, they don’t need to be tested and are probably best kept at home. Barun Mathema; March 18 (11AM): Public health is a very socialist approach. It means health for all trumps health for the individual. This is the antithesis of precision medicine. At this point, as a parent and a public health person, I feel that if a kid is exhibiting alarming symptoms — not a runny nose, but maybe a fever or something that looks unlike a regular cold — parents should consider taking the kid in. But, on some level, it’s important to recognize there’s nothing you’d do differently if your kid tested positive. If children are heavily symptomatic, take them in and get them admitted. Otherwise, you’re going home and observing. Still, there’s some virtue in knowing that you likely have it and that other people in your network likely have it as well. Georges Benjamin, March 18, 2020: That’s up to every doctor right now. They’re not testing very many kids. I think most kids are only being tested when there’s an emergency. Call the number in the community you’re given, usually the local health department, because these guidelines are changing literally every day. Sophia Thomas, March 18, 2020: If they have a fever, if they have a cough, they should contact their medical provider to see how they want to handle this. A requirement for testing is patients have to have a negative flu test. With children, oftentimes you would want to do a Strep test as well. If those tests are negative, then they may be eligible to have a COVID-19 test. However, because of the relative shortage of tests right now, different medical practices are doing different things. Some are having to prioritize using the test for the most vulnerable or the ones that have most potential for complications. Dr. Juan Dumois, Pediatric Infectious Diseases physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, March 16, 2020 (4:30PM): One of the main things that’s going to be changing the way we deal with the pandemic is the availability of testing. It will become more available as the weeks go on. We have more availability this week than last. And tons more this week… some are doing it in their hospitals. We hope to be able to do that test sometime in the next month. As the ability to rapidly and readily do a test where you get results in a few hours and a few days will change the dynamic of people we aren’t currently testing.  Something that might happen int he next six months would be a doctor in the clinic to swab a patient’s nose and get results the next day. Right now we can’t offer the test to everybody and it’s taking 5 days to get results back. My child has the virus. Now what?  Lindsay Thompson, April 7, 2020 (3:00PM): Hopefully most parents have identified a primary care provider that they can call. I do recommend calling first. Almost all practices have instituted their own version of social distancing, and a lot of practices now offer telemedicine visits. As a pediatrician, you can learn a lot from what’s going on with the child by talking to the parents and seeing the child through telemedicine, so that can be very helpful. I do not recommend going straight to an emergency room unless you can tell that your child is having severe breathing problems or anything like that because we worry that places like emergency rooms inadvertently are spreading the virus or other illnesses that we wouldn’t want your child to get. There’s some really good resources on the CDC website about taking care of anybody who lives in your house with COVID-19. But children need their parents. If there are other children, I would recommend that if you live in a two-parent household only one parent takes care of that child and the other parent takes care of the other children to try to minimize exposure. If you have the luxury of being able to put that child in their own room with their own bathroom, that would be what I recommend. Really try to isolate them even within the home. Don’t share any plates, cups, knives and forks. Make sure everything is separate. I might even recommend a different meal time for that child compared to the other children. I know it sounds pretty grim. But you really need to separate these children from the rest of the family if possible. Ashlesha Kaushik, April 6, 2020 (3:00PM): At this point, when we are in the mode of social distancing, pediatricians don’t want to leave the families alone, so parents should call the pediatrician if they are worried about anything — be it symptoms that they might think are related to COVID-19 or to any other stress they’re feeling. The pediatrician can offer emotional support as well as offer valuable medical advice. If the symptoms are really mild, they can advise parents how to keep the children hydrated by making them drink enough water or using Tylenol for fever control. Georges Benjamin, MD, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association. March 18, 2020 (2PM): When kids get really sick, they often don’t eat enough and they often don’t drink enough. Usually, you can coax them to take small sips of water throughout the day. The most important thing is making sure the kid isn’t very, very sick and doesn’t need medical care right now. Most kids do just fine with this. Sophia Thomas, March 18, 2020 (11AM): Certainly children right now are catching COVID-19, but they are less likely to have complications. Those are children who just need to be isolated for 14 days. If you suspect your child has the virus, you can simply just keep them at home and care for them unless they start having serious problems such as breathing difficulties. Barun Mathema; March 18 (11AM):  I have kids. If they got it, as a public health person, I would be more concerned about them giving it to someone else. Let your healthcare provider know and then basically take care of your child and enhance social distancing. If you have a nanny, give them a call. The health department doesn’t have the capacity to do that.  I have coronavirus, now what? Juan Dumois, March 23, 2020 (3:30PM): I think a lot of physicians in infectious diseases are hopeful about some of the treatments being investigated for the sickest patients with COVID-19. And while the official stance is there are no proven drugs (and this is correct) there are promising drugs that are being tested on patients with COVID-19. Unfortunately, we’ll start seeing shortages of all these drugs if we do find drugs that kill the virus. Elisa Choi, MD, Internal Medicine & Infectious Disease Specialist at Atrius Health. March 23, 2020 (8:30AM):`If someone is having significant difficulty breathing, they may need to get further assessed, and home treatment may not be appropriate. Likewise, if someone is having very high fevers, it may be important to get them evaluated. But if someone can be safely managed at home, at this point in time the management strategy for someone who is either suspected of COVID-19 or has confirmed COVID-19 is supportive care and symptom management. So, for example, if someone has a mild cough, you can try over-the-counter remedies to manage that cough. If someone is having muscle aches, again it would be over-the-counter remedies to manage all of those symptoms. Barun Mathema; March 18 (11AM): This is a tough question. If you have coronavirus and kids you get tested and you find out that you’re positive. At that point, you can assume that a fraction if not all household members are positive. It’s different if you’ve flown in or been screened prior to symptoms. So you may want to self-isolate. But those lines are blurring. All the quarantining will be a moot point because we’ll all be there. The question is just how extreme or expansive. It’s a guessing game, but you want to isolate you and probably your family. How scared should I be for my parents? Elisa Choi, March 23, 2020 (8:30 AM):  COVID-19 might have increased the risk of significant complications in older individuals, including the worst complication, which is death related to COVID-19. It is understandable that many adults may worry about their elderly parents with COVID-19, particularly since we don’t have a vaccine for this illness, and there is, as of today, nothing that has been concretely proven as a successful therapeutic. It’s very reasonable to be worried. That being said, the majority of people who contract COVID-19 do tend to have relatively milder symptoms. However, if an adult has specific concerns about their parent because they may have multiple other chronic illnesses or might be immunocompromised, which are some other risk factors for more severe COVID-19 disease, it’s certainly worth being particularly mindful of the current recommendations for minimizing spread of COVID-19. If an adult has concerns about themselves having COVID-19, they should reach out and seek clinical evaluation sooner rather than later, particularly if they are a caretaker of their older parent or are living in the same household as their older parent. Dr. Alicia Ines Arbaje M.P.H., Ph.D. Director of Transitional Care Research, Johns Hopkins Medicine, March 19 (5 PM): Generally we should be concerned about how health systems can respond to the surge of people coming in. People who are coming to the hospital should be the sickest. If it so happens that they should be older, that is what it is. People who are having milder symptoms should be managed at home. It’s more level of need and not so much level of aid. ERs are set up to triage people appropriately. My biggest concern is that we don’t have the supplies or staffing to help care for people when they come. We haven’t gotten to that point yet, but it’s a real concern. How are we going to mobilize our resources? Dr. Mary Tinetti, Professor of Medicine and Public Health and is Chief of Geriatrics at Yale School of Medicine March 19, 2020 (11AM): We should be very worried. Most of the data we are able to look at are coming out of Italy and some modeling epidemiologists are doing in the rest of the world is showing positive testing in all age groups. But who is getting seriously ill? The vast majority are people 60 and older.  The key in focusing on 60 and older is for their own good and the good of everyone else. They’re more likely to use healthcare resources. More likely to die. All the care consumed by them may limit care for younger people.  For this population especially, the more social isolation the better. This means if you’re over 60 especially don’t go out in public, don’t be within 6 feet of anyone, get deliveries or get someone else to drop off your groceries and medications, and get tested if you can. If we start looking at the asymptomatic 60 year old we’ll see how serious it is. Once it’s available. All localities are prioritizing. The more we know the better. So get tested. Sophia Thomas, March 18, 2020 (2PM: This is a virus that knows no social barriers, and we do know that older people and people with comorbid conditions including hypertension, heart disease, COPD and asthma tend to have worse outcomes. So all grandparents — anybody over the age of 60 — should take this very seriously and practice social isolation. My mother was going to come and visit me and I just told her stay where you are. We’ll FaceTime and I’ll see you next month. Dr. Logan Spector, March 18, 2020 (11AM): Look to Italy. One of the reasons it is hit so hard is that it had one of the oldest populations in Europe. I really doubt that’s going to change at all. There have been nearly 200,000 reports and we can say with pretty good statistical certainty who are impacted and it’s very clear the elderly are hardest hit. It’s still not clear to me how much of that is just reduced immune function versus co-morbidities. The older you are, the more likely you are to have a pulmonary disease that compounds the effect of a respiratory virus. But there is still a risk in older people who don’t have co-morbidities. That points to lower immune function as we age.  Ryan Demmer, March 16, 2020: I think we should move forward with caution because mortality rates aren’t just linked to the properties of the disease. They are often a product of the environment or context of the disease. China is not America. In America, we have varied healthcare access and high rates of asthma. That could portend worse outcomes in this country. I should state clearly that there’s no evidence of that yet, but we should be cautious. When will things go back to normal? Dyan Hes, April 9, 2020 (12:00PM): I’m not that optimistic right now because we do not have a federal law in place to stay at home. Big cities that have been hit like Detroit, New York City, Chicago, Miami, those cities have good stay-at-home rules in place, and I think they’re working. Staying at home works. But what’s going to happen is once we conquer this epidemic in New York, it’s going to spread to other states and cities that have not been implementing stay-at-home. I fear that it’s going to spread across the country and it will get to places like Arizona where up until a week ago you could go get a mani-pedi. Those states will have outbreaks, and I fear it’s going to come back because you can travel from state to state. Not all people are that ethical. Not all people are keeping quarantine. I almost had to report a family yesterday to Child Services because they’re not keeping their quarantine. We hope people stay at home, but not everybody is that altruistic. I feel like what’s going to happen is they’re going to find a treatment before we’re able to stop it based on human behavior.  Lindsay Thompson, April 7, 2020 (3:00PM): I wish I knew. There’s no magic formula, and certainly, I think we’ll never be the same. So I’m not quite sure what normal will be. But most importantly, it’s not going to be a one-day event where everything turns back to normal. It’s going to be a little bit of loosening different recommendations in different places. If we suddenly all went back to what we were doing before, there would be another round of severe illness for lots of people. Just take a deep breath. Get ready because this may take a while. But the longer we take, the less people will be hurt. So patience is really really important. And selfless.  Ashlesha Kaushik, April 6, 2020 (3:00PM): What the CDC has been projecting is that it will take at least a few weeks to a few months, but nobody is exactly sure about the timeline. They are waiting for the curve to flatten out. The curve is yet to peak, which is the scary part. We haven’t yet reached the peak in the United States. They were projecting the peak to be sometime this week or the next coming week. The few upcoming weeks will be really tough. The more we practice the social distancing measures, the more we can expect to flatten out the curve. That is still a long way to go. Dr. Logan Spector March 24, 2020 (5PM):“Once you let your foot off the brake of social distancing, will you have resurgent cases? Almost certainly. If we all stayed in our houses we would squelch this thing. The virus would die with that. If there are still people out and about who are infected, it will be reintroduced. That’s always been acknowledged. The idea is to spread it out enough to make sure we have healthcare capacity and give the medical community some time to manufacture PPE and develop a vaccine. Let’s just say that any politician — really anyone — who thinks he knows better than virologists and epidemiologists at this point doesn’t have his head on straight.” Juan Dumois, March 23, 2020 (3:30 PM): Over the last several day I’ve been looking at some of our local COVID-19 patients (in the Tampa Bay Area) who tested positive The numbers are still relatively small, and I suspect that may be a benefit of the social distancing we’re doing. That makes me optimistic. We may already be having a positive effect. However, i don’t think anyone should be lulled into complacency or thinking that this will be over soon. We need to bear it out for several more months. Elisa Choi, March 23, 2020 (8:30 AM): Where we are now is the infection and the illness is spreading. I’ll speak to Massachusetts because that’s the state I’m in. The number of cases is increasing daily. So we’re in the phase of the illness where there’s still exponential rise in new cases. Now definitely is not a time where we can scale back on measures to mitigate the spread of infection. It’s really hard to give a firm number or a firm timeline of when all of these kinds of measures can be retracted. My sense of how this would play out, though, is once there’s a plateau reached in terms of how many new infections are being detected every day, there may need to be some gradual reduction in some of the current mitigation measures. And it may not be able to be done all at once. It will need to be determined as we get to that plateau point. How long that will be is uncertain. If we reflect on what’s happening in some of the countries in Asia where they have reached that point — China would probably be the best example — it was about two or so months before they got to that point. Things may be different in the U.S. and things may be different moving from state to state in the U.S. Georges Benjamin, March 18, 2020 (2PM): We don’t know. There are estimates out there that this could go anywhere through a month or two. Those are probably reasonable assumptions. A month or two does not necessarily mean that all of us will be sequestered for a month or two. We just don’t know. We’ve never done this before. Sophia Thomas, DNP, President of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. March 18, 2020 (2:30PM): I think this is our new normal for a while. I heard something yesterday that the CDC anticipates that the peak of this might be in May. I think for the next six to eight weeks we’re going to be dealing with this. I don’t anticipate a resolution anytime soon. If people really stick to the social distancing and listen to the advice of the CDC, we could actually see this resolved much sooner by limiting people’s exposure. Logan Spector, March 18, 2020 (11:10AM EST): Obviously this is unprecedented in modern memory. Everyone is talking about the 1918 flu pandemic and there a lot of the same characteristics as most flu, but the problem with COVID-19 is that there seems to be asymptomatic transmission. Isolating people with symptoms is a first response — and it’s a logical one. When SARS and MERS came out, this was done as well. But those did not seem to have asymptomatic transmission. I think everyone is trying to do their part including those working from home, but it will take time. Ryan Demmer, March 16, 2020:From a population health perspective the main issue remains not infecting others. There’s no evidence kids don’t get infected or transmit, just that they’re less effected by the disease. Our key goal has to be social distancing. The growth curve is still coming. The question is where the peak will be. Probably May-ish. And I’m not saying it’s going to go away…. After the peak, we’ll start coming down. What I’m interested in from an ecological point of view is what’s happening in South Korea and Wuhan. They’re saying there’s one case in the province which I find dumbfounding. And there was an impressive decline in South Korea. So if that’s true —and there’s no second peak — that would be fantastic news…. If there’s a second peak that could be as bad if not worse. COVID-19 could come back in the Fall only to finish off in the spring of 2021 when we have a vaccine. That’s a harsh but not unrealistic scenario. Parenting during a pandemic is hard. Sign up for our daily newsletter full of tricks, tips, and relevant medical information. ↓ Get the best of Fatherly in your inbox Oops! Please try again. Thanks for subscribing! Related Articles: Your State Is Probably Under a Stay at Home Order. Here's What It Means for Families. How America's Smartest Parents Cope With Coronavirus Lockdown AMC Movie Theaters Might Go Bankrupt Because of Coronavirus How To Make Coronavirus Lockdown Puzzles for Kids (And Kill Time) The post Coronavirus and Kids: Doctors Answer Parents’ COVID-19 Questions appeared first on Fatherly. #Health&Science

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/the-coronavirus-is-here-and-parents-have-questions-about-the-threat-covid-19-poses-to-the-health-of-their-children

[heartysmarty]

Potential Post-Pandemic Changes – My 50 Pointer

1.       Most of us might grow our own fruits, vegetables and herbs in our backyards or even as a container garden in the kitchen. Few might go vegan or adopt vegetarianism for good.

2.       After months of lockdown, we now know what other living beings have been going through for ages, inside the cages in zoo and at home. Maybe, it’s time to set them all free.

3.       Greeting which involve physical contacts like hugs, kisses or handshakes might not be a sustainable option now.

4.       Tele-visits to consult your GP, doctors or therapists might continue since few might find it as a safe option.

5.       An increase in online learning, home schooling and Work-from-home are a sure thing! Companies that sell gym equipment, gadgets and Internet providers will continue to do very well along with online learning websites, online payment system and remote conferencing services companies.

6.       Pollution control is the silver lining during the pandemic. Going forward, we might even have a lock-down dedicated for controlling pollution levels. We might bring down the use of air purifiers, with such lock down in the future.

7.       With so much news doing the rounds that air travel and hotels are big breeding grounds for virus, few companies might choose to have business meetings online and call off the practice of dinner with clients at expensive restaurants for good.

8.       DIY videos for masks, hand wash and hand sanitizers will urge us to make our own products at home. Most countries might start manufacturing everything they need locally. In-sourcing of essential goods could be a good start point.

9.       With a tiger contracting COVID-19 in a New York zoo, few reports have come out that the cat family is vulnerable to the pandemic. There are chances people might stop having cats as pets for a while.

10.   The lockdown has forced most of the restaurants to be closed, since the take-away weren’t helping either. This has forced us all to realize how homemade food is super healthy.

11.   Since people with persistent ailments are more susceptible to COVID-19, this pandemic will increase our awareness and mindfulness when it comes to staying healthy, exercising and regular health checks.

12.   Smokers and alcoholics will think twice before going for it.          

13.   Being indoors, family time fun will increase in few households. Most of us will utilize this housebound time and get back to reading, pick up new hobbies and hone our skills.

14.   As an aftermath, even the slightest symptom like a cough will freak out everyone. The term ‘Virus’ is scarier than ‘Cancer’ nowadays.

15.   After-parties, audio and trailer release functions, bachelor parties and other gatherings will drastically see a downward trend. All essential meetings with delegates will look like exam halls, where people distance each other.

16.   Imagine your favorite actor with a mask in his next movie! Film making will call for a lot of creativity to make a movie or a web series with all the actors socially distancing from each other.

17.   Visiting theaters, supermarket, airports or any public gathering for that matter, will give you so much anxiety as if you are at a war zone. Watching movies in theaters might stop soon. Movies, just like web series, will target Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Quibi and the likes.

18.   Social distancing is directly proportional to social networking. The more we are housebound, the more we will utilize social networking sites.

19.   Brick-and-mortar supermarkets might end up closing their stores and instead sell everything online.

20.   We might end up shopping and spending more on masks rather on other clothing. On the lighter side, it might not be surprising if we might have to wear spacesuits in public places as a protective measure.

21.   While this pandemic has forced divorce rate to go up in some countries, gang life and prostitution has come down drastically in few others.

22.   Though COVID-19 has forced China to ban dog meat, people in some parts of the world continue to eat bizarre food like kangaroo meat and crocodile meat. Poaching and trafficking rhinos and pangolins in the name of making medicines continue though.

23.   While few of us will try to stick to our current jobs whatsoever, the ones who lost their job due to the pandemic, might be forced to re-skill in coming days. Multifaceted skills might be the new norm.

24.   Even though someone knocking your door during the lockdown is unwelcome and creates some anxiety, delivery guys are our new heroes.

25.   We might end up giving up on our servants, household help, nannies, caretakers etc for good, since this lock down period is long enough to train us to be self-sufficient.

26.   In few countries, violence against women might come down, while domestic violence faced by women indoors might continue with no voice.

27.   Shortage of basic needs, money and food might lead to violence in few parts of the world. Job loss, recession, stock market crash, food shortage, bankruptcy, looting etc might resonate with the aftermath.

28.   With the COVID-19 vaccine predicted to be taking a year to come into action, the test kits could be manufactured and sold in large numbers like pregnancy test kits.

29.   Not guns, but cough could be the next self-defense mechanism.

30.   The pandemic has forced interest rates to be slashed and this might happen for a year or so.

31.   Rents remain unpayable by many all over the world. But during this crisis, some good Samaritans, celebrities and the rich have voluntarily come forward to help and empathize with people in need.

32.   We might end up becoming self-dependent with our daily necessities like cooking, washing, laundry, cleaning, mowing and domestic repairs. Women will continue to have more workloads with kids learning online.

33.   We might clearly understand and implement ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ concept, which was long pending.

34.   With wild animals and birds venturing into the cities and other rural areas around the world, we might end up accepting other creatures, at last and begin to live and let live. This way we will know to survive peacefully and give them their space too.

35.   With restrictions on visiting places of religion, we will learn to see God in each other. This will teach us to respect all religions and races.

36.   Since it is believed that currencies are carrier of the virus, currencies are soon going to be a thing of the past. Digital payment methods are inevitable. This might pave way for accelerated Cryptocurrency adoption.

37.   Digital reading, audio books, e-magazines and newspapers are the new norms. Going forward, the best option to gift others could be gift cards, online subscription coupons or anything delivered home.

38.   We know that Italy lost many seniors to the pandemic due to the joint family culture it follows. But in few places, job loss might force few youngsters to come back and stay with their families. This will create a lot of contemplation whether youngsters should stay with seniors are not.

39.   Visitors to the senior living or old age homes might need a lot of tests and checks to be permitted.

40.   With WFH adults and online learning kids, electricity and internet are dire essentials these days. It wouldn’t be surprising if the world moves towards more solar panel installations.

41.   We might learn never to waste our food and other resources, the hard way. With food shortage, decrease in food export, import or shipping, population control might soon be the need of the hour.

42.   Respect for stay-at-home moms, delivery guys, front liners, health care workers, police officers, handyman and all daily wagers who still show up during the pandemic, will increase drastically.

43.   Few opportunists might misuse this period and come up with tricks to rip the peace in us.

44.   Soon, with everyone going around with masks on, the sales of lipstick will come down.

45.   For those who habitually spit in public places, this might be a chance to change.

46.   Automobile sales in near term might come down, with the comfort of WFH and avoiding the unpeaceful, crowded and long travel time to work-place.

47.   The current security checks at airport is already exorbitant, but with the pandemic, we might have to spend more time for a mandatory temperature screening and maybe a COVID-19 test too.

48.   More people might move to countryside and villages soon, thereby creating another set of problems in the rural areas.

49.   With many front liners affected by COVID-19, we might soon see robots in places of doctors, lab technicians, nurses and in other healthcare services. More drones might be used in assisting Police. The adoption of AI will increase multi fold and investments in healthcare might increase.

50.   With an increase in masks, gloves and other PPE, developed nations might dump more trash in poor and developing countries.

[elizabethrobertajones]

12x16 watching notes

confession: I really like Mick

Also if he makes it out the season alive and comes back to England I’m finding him myself to kill him.

Maybe the show is running behind time and that’s why Cas’s car was parked in my town

----

I'm barely taking off my shoes and sitting down with some tea and I'm getting a faceful of the werewolf lore

(Claire continues to be linked to Dean and hunting, not Cas and angels)

they're stressing the detail about the werewolves not being like the ones in Heart, still, with Robbie's helpful change in 8x04 to make werewolves easier to write. That's interesting to me just because we've spent so much time remixing everything lately that stressing that something isn't how it was in season 2 is more of a meta point than normal. There's also, I think, an assumption people know the show very very well by now, and it's written like you'd know all the random tiny plot details, or at least, the remixes and re-dos are all easter eggs for if you are well-versed enough in the show to spot them. Telling us it's not like it was in the old days has got more important than season 8 - which attempted to soft reboot the show TWICE. (in 8x01 and 8x12) ... Season 12 is the hard reboot where you hold down the power key for 10 seconds and then let it shut off before you try again :P

season 12 recap stuff, condenses down Dean vs Ketch interestingly with several more reaction shots than I'd have expected, including one from I think 12x08 while Ketch was showing off his toys - a real focus on Dean's conflict with them but NOT reminding us as a recent previous episode about stuff like Toni and Ms Watt or Sam getting tortured. Short term memory, or there's always the queer-coded stuff between Dean and Ketch and I do think it's going to be between them at the end whatever happens to Ketch just because they've been shoved together so many times now so it makes sense to make Dean's emotional focus here suddenly switch to hating Ketch, and Ketch making a play for him etc and Dean saying about that they've worked with people they don't trust, overlaid with a little clip of him and Crowley hanging out in glasses, which, of course, again parallels that his lack of TRUST in Crowley is oooh so layered with maybe not trust but reliance, familiarity, and a weird sense of even friendship or family if he'd dare admit it... to DEAN Crowley is much more than he might be to Sam or Cas - THEY would easily be like "uh we don't trust Crowley and hate working with him" while Dean's probably like "Okay so he turned me into a demon that one time and we're not making any excuses but - "

there's also speculation some people have about the fight coming down to the line about Crowley and Dean having to face if he really would save Crowley or not (even if he can pretend it's just repaying the favour for Cas or whatever)

also blah blah interpersonal drama with Sam and Dean, we know how that goes

-

The sign we start on says "cold beer and wine to go" - what kind of a bar is this :P

I hope it doesn't have wine out of a vending machine but this is the sort of establishment my brain has decided to expect. (It's called the Lucky Badger so who knows)

-

Oh dear the cold open girl is lying blatantly to whoever Ben is, saying she's studying (with her friend Angela, so... I have no idea yet but using a name with "angel" in it probably is an easy way to get in character mirrors >.>) - he's right behind her and turns out to have been watching her as she texted, so probably spotted her in the Lucky Badger or had been creepy stalking her

He seems to think it's a joke though so I guess he's either a werewolf so no wonder he's not taking it personally outwardly - if he's pissed off with her he's way more dangerous in other ways than just having a fight, or they're friends, and this actually is a joke to him. Either way, she didn't seem to like him texting her like that and wanted to lie in the first place.

-

Nice shot of the moon.

-

Oh, they're siblings. That explains the entire dynamic as a normal human interaction :P He's 100% allowed to teasingly be concerned about her getting into trouble, and the "busted" comment is because they both answer to the same higher power aka their parents. And if you saw your sibling at a bar they weren't supposed to be at, that's immediately within your right to jokingly freak them out via text message, because the whole level of interpersonal drama changes... if it was some bloke she knows being over-protective or over-interested in her life, then yeah. brrr. Of course the show has all the stuff about Sam and Dean policing each other and taking it too far with that and their overprotectiveness, but for now this all seems normal enough for writing siblings, as long as we stick a pin in that thought in case that's a meta thing later >.>

They also have mom drama. She won't let them get a car, aka a sign of being grown up and personal freedom - the girl teases her brother for not having a car but he speaks about it as "us". The mom is deciding when they get to grow up and on what terms. (In 12x01 it seemed like Mary might get possessive over the Impala and we were speculating/wondering if that would happen. So far she hasn't driven it or been given a reason to. Wherever they stashed the Impala between 12x08 and 12x10, Mary never got hold of it in the weeks they were gone. I'm now reminded I'm waiting for Mary to drive Baby for some reason.)

I'm tentatively labelling yellow plaid guy as Sam because tall, and girl in short shorts Dean because... she's shorter.

Kudos to the actress for doing all this in the snow

Anyway the brother tells the girl to act her age (they're now pinging my Twin radar which would be fascinating to have MORE fraternal twins in one season especially in the aftermath of God and Amara - Alicia and Max are interesting but I guess they aren't reliable data until there's more sets to measure them against), and doesn't want/need the car/personal freedom, or to be sneaked into a bar to get a Moscow Mule, while the sister is acting out and trying to get that freedom/do things beyond her expected age.

The brother says the mom is doing the best she can, which of course has been Sam's role mediating between Dean and Mary and wouldn't be weird for him to say

Also more teenagers/young adults thinking about leaving home/growing up - Gwen last episode leaving to go to vet school, these guys 2 years from whenever Actual Personal Freedom hits them (what age does that happen for Americans? I'd just assume 18 if they were British meaning they could be 16, which looks way too young for these guys, but American drinking laws are weird so they could be 19 and still 2 years off bar hopping as a way of life :P - anyway Claire should be coming up to 20, if she hit 18 in season 10, so I'll have to assume these guys are 19 and therefore a year older than when I'd assume teenagers get personal freedom >.>)

(they’re TV teenagers and therefore the actors are probably 25 with youthful faces)

Sam and Dean have regressed or never managed to "leave home" in the sense they never had a home to leave from and fell out of the nest aged Way Too Young, and there's been meta I'd seen about at least Dean and Cas (separately) having adolescence or childhood arcs, and of course in season 12 with Mary back, Sam and Dean are metaphorically zapped right back down to aged six months and four, respectively, with a need to reconcile Mary back into their adult lives, and for her to reconcile adult Dean and Sam back into hers. It's nice if the subtext is moving them up to adolescence in this respect because it means they're nearly adult and ready to fly the next properly and to be their own people. If they don't get mauled by hellhounds or werewolves first, like the poor sucker from last episode who never made it out of his hometown or married the girl... Bit worried one or both of these kids are about to die, because, well, cold open.

They are the right sort of age that the boy could get eaten, the girl turned, and then she's a new BFF for Claire as werewolf friends :3

-

Yay she's genre savvy - she knows not to go into the woods when it's dark and full moon :P Come on you have to survive this...

Dean was being genre savvy last episode. Also Ben is not listening to his sister's concerns (and it seems fairly obvious speculation that Sam might not listen at first to Dean's concerns about the BMoL)

Oh AND he calls her a drama queen, after Sam said Dean was "dramatic"

I feel almost bad for making the call about this parallel entirely from the short shorts.

"It's fine I'll prove it"

You are so going to get eaten by werewolves.

-

LOL she has a "Bae" in her phone that she's coming right back to

I hope it's Angela

-

Nooooo she got attacked

she still looks, like, not devoured. She is presumably just turned. (Is she called Eden or Eve? I can't make out the dialogue at all here)

Heh called it, Ben gets his heart ripped out by the corny mask-wearing monster (a monster playing up being a monster - I'm on Monster Movie red alert because that's like a fave episode ever and we never refer back to it when we really should because it was Edlund at his best :P) - I mean obviously updated from the Nosferatu generation to the Scream generation.

I'm also gonna assume this lame teenage werewolf in a mask (come on, he's wearing a mask and a hoodie) is a peer they know, and like the shapeshifter had a thing for Jamie, kinda wants the girl for himself here.

I'm gonna assume Claire is our "Mr Harker" because she is, after all, a Dean parallel.

-

Anyway that's a grim sibling parallel - the one who didn't believe/listen to the concerns gets his heart ripped out just for playing around not treating it as seriously as he should, and the genre savvy short-shorts wearing sibling who just wanted to drink in peace with the bae has presumably had as far as we know for now irrevocable damage done to her life...

-

I hope someone's written a lot about Sam being trapped in this triangle:

because that's fascinating. He's definitely separated from Dean and encased/caged in it; whether it's technically a halo because it's glowing or not is a thought for later. But that's not an accidental shot and it's definitely singling Sam out

-

Oh good, Dean's temper is doing well.

I thought he'd taken his jacket off for the first shot and was about to comment on that because Sam's in a bulky jacket, but it turns out they're just trying to kill me with the wardrobe because that IS Dean's jacket painted onto his back and shoulders there.

-

Dean's chafing at having to "report for duty" with them - the getting cases was fun (especially when he didn't know where they were coming from, or at least, may have suspected but didn't ask questions)... but now he's being treated like a soldier, and he has issues with the big picture - it's staring at the map looking at the scope of their organisation that's got his mind on this, and that comes with the fact they're being used for the big picture stuff. Last time he felt like this, I think, was in season 6 between 6x07>6x10 where he's resenting working for Crowley doing pretty much this exact same thing with taking out monsters - of course 12x14 had aaaall the parallels and callbacks to season 6 and the Campbells.

-

Mick's actually still upset about the poor dead people from last time we saw him - nice to see emotional continuity and that this really is part of his arc.

"Wow that is some world class repression, you really are British" - You know if there was an olympics for it, Dean would have taken home the gold medal pretty much every year until now. Shh Dean. Just because you're the Honesty Hour character NOW

-

I love Dean's look at Mick after "stiff upper lip" - not sure if it's understanding, or intimidation, or a bit of both. Or the old "he said a weird phrase in a British accent, is that meant to be an innuendo" double check.

(Everything said in a British accent is an innuendo)

-

Oh the girl's called Hayden, I think. Thank you, Mick, for speaking in an accent I actually understand :D

-

Ahaha Mick did EXTENSIVE research. He's an EXPERT you guys. I really headcanoned hard he's always been a hit the library hard kind of guy, which is probably how he got as far as he did in the ranks of a top secret HEREDITARY order while having a coded in media as lower class accent. Kinda nice to find out he was top of his class in "hunter hogwarts" to quote whoever said that... For some reason I'm convinced it's Bobby but I think that was because he made a joke about phoning Hogwarts when they were hunting dragons.. hang on, I need to look this up.

OH Crowley in 9x11. Of course.

I wonder if he knows there's actual schools for this. We don't actually have much Crowley and BMoL interaction to go off.

I'd assume it's higher education style, sort of like going to law school or whatever, but instead you go to some country house with a big lore library... I can't imagine there are many students.

Dean has come to learn that people around him will incessantly reference whatever a Hogwarts is, while Sam, a Nerd, references it and Mick, a British Person Alive Since 1997, is just like yeah that place. This is almost no indication of nerd cred whatsoever.

-

Sam's like "COOL" and Dean's like "Oh god shut up" with his glare. Like, he KNOWS he's watching Sam get suckered in with everything Sam would love (lore, Harry Potter references being acknowledged) so it's like, OBVIOUSLY you are not being critical and careful here, you just said "COOL" and looked at me with that enthusiastic smirk just like that guy who got eaten by a werewolf in a silly mask in the cold open.

-

Also Sam WAS critical in 12x14 and ready to leave, but changed his mind after events; of course Dean didn't see that and doesn't know that Sam gave Mick the exact same wariness that Dean is giving him now.

However Dean always tends to be right (and it's blatantly obvious the BMoL are a bad idea to US) so clearly Sam didn't vet them hard enough...

-

I love that Mick wants to come along for said personal development reasons and NOT because he's Umbridge-ing them like I had been speculating. (that's a verb, I'm British, let it happen :P)

He and Sam seem pretty good at talking each other up about 12x14 - Sam credits them wholly with killing the alpha vamp, like he might have just been the trigger finger but they did everything (and he and Mick did pretty much tag team it all, from making the bullets to getting one TO Sam to shoot the Alpha so I can see how circumstantially, ignoring the bigger picture of why the Alpha was even there, Sam can see that it was all their work and he just happened to be the one who picked up the gun - of course symbolic for how hunters work with the BMoL anyway, like Ketch seeing himself as their razor blade for slitting throats and nothing more) but of course Mick now credits Sam and "his mum" with saving HIM and sorting out the mess by being competent, and he has learned from them far more than we've seen Sam develop as a result of working with them.

He's got the dangled bait of the world without monsters to look forward to, and knows he just has to be the trigger finger however many more times, and it'll be done. MICK has to think about it in many more directions, and has come to realise he's on the front line, and it's DANGEROUS, so he needs to be more adaptable and trained in ways other than extensive research. Sam and Dean are the best hunters in the world because they combine research and fighting, and have access to MoL research and a smaller library of their own to help them, which means they'd probably have held their own at Hunter Hogwarts as Mick's classmates, and yet because of the specialisation, Mick comes out miles behind them.

(Actual Hogwarts taught practical skills right alongside the theoretical and academic, meaning the BMoL have a long way to go :P)

I don't think this is going to go spectacularly well for Mick, BUT whether he survives the season or not, or ends up helping them or not, it's interesting that he is developing and learning and wants to be more like them. They have a sort of siren call to other creatures/people - I mean just look at Cas and Crowley transforming after being in their presence. Mick being the character who is now obviously changing while Ketch is as bloodthirsty and awful as ever at this point says a lot more than anything else that Mick is being earmarked for positive development/change and realising the error of his ways because he wants to be more like a Winchester. (It could also be sort of sad/pathetic for him if he becomes a groupie but for now it looks like positive, because he still is very self-assured and in a position of power and not yet changing his overall goals for them, and also sees them as a resource)

(also if you were ever going to go on a hunt, you'd want Sam and Dean, top shelf hunters, to come with you and protect you :P)

Anyway Mick does sound a shade scared/frantic as he makes his request so we'll see how that goes for him

-

Dean immediately like "He's dead weight"

ominious :P

-

"These people have some serious knowledge" shown over Mick attempting to fit a very large box into a very small bag

I'm cackling

"You can't learn this in a book: you put on a flannel, you pick up a gun..."

I'M CACKLING HARDER. Dean is made even more clearly the genre savvy character, aka parallel to Hayden in her short shorts.

-

Dean's got a brightly lit door behind him, Sam a dark staircase heading up. The bright yellow railings remind me of 9x23

ominous pt 3 (pt 1 was the parallel in the opening)

-

"The better they are the better we are" - yeah, that's definitely that speculation Sam was won over because he thought he could improve and change them for the better and make use of their resources and plans and not just surface level what he SAW but what he thought he could DO with what he saw. It's earnest but it is also somewhat assuming he's going to be a positive force of change and mould them, which when they're so untrustworthy and all, makes me really nervous about hubris coming for Sam. Especially when he's the last character to need an arc with hubris, except perhaps below Cas. :P

-

Again - "Mick held his own against the Alpha" - Sam crediting him with staying alive and maybe out-sneaking the Alpha but not exactly out-fighting him. Mick got thrown around and ended up not dying because the Alpha was more distracted with Sam as a known and more dangerous enemy in the room... Overselling Mick to make it sound like if he survived that... but he has no practical fighting skills and the whole point is cleverness won't get you so far, and you need to learn to fight, which is what MICK is saying, so Sam's misunderstanding there on a matter relating to Mick's safety and skill level...

Mick heard Dean saying he could be killed and Dean saying "Good" about him complaining about hearing that - because no sugar coating and if you're terrified for your life maybe you won't be an idiot, and listen to them :P

He then tells Sam he's babysitting Mick, which immediately makes me very worried for Mick because it puts Sam in a position of responsibility and of course narratively Mick is a very acceptable loss to demonstrate Sam's playing with fire with this decision.

Of course Claire is around so she's also going to be an innocent in the line of fire, again, for a decision that Sam and the BMoL will entirely get them involved in.

-

PFFT Mick is listening to that podcast that Sam mentioned in 12x07... Did Sam share it with him or do they have the same tastes? Obviously back in 12x07 Sam was lying and using the snobby intellectual content as a way to deflect Dean's interest, not expecting in a million years Dean would want to listen, even just to have some noise in the car - obviously there's always the chance Dean knew Sam was lying from the start (like when he knew Sam was working with the BMoL probably and was challenging him in the start of 12x15 about where his cases came from, again for content on Sam's phone he was lying about) - anyway this time they apparently are listening to the very thing Sam used as his deflection and cover, which is pretty bloody ominous

So Dean complaining about the podcast has all its own connotations about lying and Dean complaining about it because it was something used to hold up a cover once - at HIS expense of being the dumb hunter who doesn't care about history. So I'm guessing if he bitches about the history lesson Mick starts giving here about hunting monks (awesome) it's not because he's being portrayed as stupid by the writing, but he's portraying HIMSELF as stupid in rebellion and anger at all this.

"In Europe everything's old" pfft

-

Ohh dear, Sam's been working with them how long and NOW he finally has to ask, wait, even the monsters who aren't hurting anyone?

As it suddenly occurs to him, maybe they don't have any harmless vampire buddies (since Benny is dead) but wait, the BMoL are turning their attention to werewolves, and there's no werewolves in Britain because they killed them all, but GARTH.

Mick just raises his eyebrows like, okay, I'll believe that when I see it. He's been taught too much to give a monster the benefit of the doubt just because Sam and Dean said so.

-

So we had the Badger pub earlier, now the Wild Elk lodge - of course it's a werewolf episode, so there's a theme of the wildlife in the woods... *pauses to google the distrubution of badgers and laughs at how the American badger is all thin and fluffy instead of built like a terrifying tank on little tiny skittering legs like the badgers that make living here a bit interesting, if by interesting you mean terrifying* (Yes I know they're not even knee high, have you ever been charged by one on a dark night?) Anyway, whatever badger they were thinking of, not as bad as a werewolf - the badger is lucky, and the elk is wild, with a pretty majestic picture, and of course it's a super fancy hotel

-

Dean tosses the keys to Sam, and Sam fumbles them while trying to hold onto all the books from Mick. Probably not symbolic (filed under: "ominous" (pt.5))

-

Last night me and Mittens were laughing about how Mick wows them with the fanciest hotel in the area and was in a crappy motel when he was on his own.

-

This episode is now going down in infamy as the one where Dean was skinny dipping and we'd never see it in a million years

-

I like how he says they've "ruined" him - it's not like they've never stayed in (suspiciously) fancy places before, but Dean's in a sort of culture war here with their lifestyle vs being pampered by a rich sponsor. Of course he steals everything, and doesn't play by the rules when taking a swim, and obviously is being unnecessary gross, still (I mean who knows, he probably DID pack more than enough boxers this time and went swimming in a spare pair, but when it's time to tell Sam, he has to gross him out...)

Also 2 Glynn episodes in a row where Sam is openly revolted at the idea of Dean's naked body.

better informed meta than I could ever write has already been written about how that frames Sam in relation to Dean as a sort of parental figure rather than peers (e.g. I'm pretty sure it's a trope that groups of boys who are peers, either brothers & cousins etc, and/or friends, would skinny dip together in a totally non-sexual way in the sort of hazy summy nostalgia stories I generally associate skinny dipping with rather than "fancy hotel pool" where obviously it's rude and transgressive no matter who you do it with or even if you're alone, as Dean clearly was, to not get them kicked out :P)

-

Ooh werewolf cure. Plasma therapy - changing the bit that carries the blood, not the blood itself. I have no idea why I associate the lymphatic system with werewolves - if it was some pseudo science article speculating how it might work I read many moons ago, or if it's just because it's an "ly" word like "lycanthrope" :P

-

"Not going to give him the satisfaction" - Sam caught between both sides, knowing Dean's secrets, but having clearly had a more Mick-aligned experience yet again, staying up reading, and of course Mick finishing Sam's sentence about what the potential werewolf cure would have been.

-

LOL Mick uses "Buckingham" as an alias. Wow. Are you worried people won't notice you're British?

-

His methods get them access, which I think is really just an early victory for him - he IS very smart and quick thinking and obviously 12x14 showed he could keep up with Sam in that way... Beginner's luck worries me :P Obviously whenever Cas starts hunting he has a ton of bad luck starting out - this is probably an 8x08 parallel in that way, with the "You were being bad everything" parallel right now of gaining information in an interview and dealing with grieving family.

-

LOL the mom apologises to them and Sam's like "You have no reason to apologise after what you've been through" parallels to Mary and Sam much? I mean she was a parallel in regards to to Hayden and Ben anyway but now Sam's borrowing her too

-

Oh no the mom thinks it's a nightmare about what happened to her kids and she might just wake up and it'll all be better... I'm sure Mary's handling being dumped in a dystopian post-apocalyptic nightmare world just fine :P

-

*Sam and Dean recognise that Claire is Claire-ing via "smol, bad attitude"* - nice.

Wondering what the "big foot truthers" are and if they have a real part in this - obviously a guy in the mask parallels Thinman, too, as  well as of course the original internet episode, Hell House, with the ghostfacers and Tulpa instead of ghostfacers and ANOTHER monster of their own creation that got out of control on the internet :P I also immediately remembered 11x16 for some reason and how the mom felt like her story was being discredited that it got picked up and reported by hokey paranormal websites - which was how Sam and Dean found the case, but was seriously upsetting her.

-

"Oh, NO" Mick realising he's going to have to set Sam and Dean on the girl to kill her, or at least, if this was the Great Mick n Ketch Roadtrip episode with no Sam n Dean it would be open and closed "welp she's bitten, now you go kill her" - Sam, Mick's way IN to this, has been like "the ones who don't hurt anyone!!" already so Mick knows he's reluctant. His own faith has been challenged by WAY more experienced hunters pointing out that not all werewolves are monsters in the metaphorical sense, and she's also like, 18 and a girl with a grieving mother hovering around her, so this is going to be MESSY.

-

Oh he hated telling the mother that. Compassion despite... all this. A CHANCE.

-

And yeah, he lies about her being bitten - most likely he decides Sam and Dean will be too sensitive to deal with her because they are terrible at finishing the job (see also: Magda, and does THAT come out this episode, because it's pretty likely Ketch was on the phone with Mick when describing how they couldn't finish the job)... He can't really DOUBT his "programming" so much he'd give her a chance, and anyway he knows Sam and Dean would approve of that method so it would be fine to bring it up.

-

Sam then failed to pick up the cue that it was Claire, that Dean immediately knew. Not sure if Sam's just not got his head in the game, or if it's obviously a point about Dean's greater closeness to Claire and probably a deep dread of her hunting and getting hurt even though it's what she wants to do and they've had to deal with that already before. If you're always running worst case scenarios for her, then eventually you'll be right :P

-

Heeey it's a Gas n Sip! I hurt inside!!

(Have... Have Biggersons been gone since Edlund left? I can't recall seeing more than a sign for one once... I can't believe he took Biggersons with him in the divorce)

-

Claaaaire

She has the red Gas n Sip logo (there's variations) and Cas is more likely to be associated with the blue... But it IS a Cas thing in GENERAL after his huge associations to it, so it's nice he's... sort of... watching over her, I guess.

She's got a beat up car with fast food rubbish in it, and a shoebox full of cheap phones. Oh, you are well settled in.

Like Hayden, she's lying to family about where she is and what she's doing.

-

Okay Dean making fun of Claire with a fake call to wildlife services is the best thing since his impression of Rowena :P

-

He should do more weird voices. I love when he has fun.

-

I'm laughing so hard because I forgot in the last hour that I already reminded myself of the alcohol thing and then not only did I forget but MICK forgot and bought Claire a drink, and then Dean's like DUDE THIS IS AMERICA WE DON'T LET GROWN ADULTS DRINK UNTIL THEY'RE LIKE NEARLY 30 and I was like what the hell she was EIGHTEEN TWO YEARS AGO

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I'm with Mick here, let Claire have a beer. She's surrounded by responsible adults who'd never let her hurt herself >.> Bah, I suppose they'd never let it happen on American TV... We already had Hayden underage drinking...

-

Can't believe Dean watches Downton Abbey and loves it

-

Claire dealing with the downsides of being a smol blonde hunter on her own - grabby bartenders. Dean looks ready to kill a guy.

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"Foreign exchange student" I do love outside beloved characters trying to figure out the plot from being back in the Winchesters' orbit for the first time that year. For example Jody trying to deal with all the times Dean and now Mary come back from the dead.

(Jody, off-screen, still not over it since 12x06: "WOW")

-

"Sam's best friend. They're like nerd soulmates" - just read Harry Potter already, you'll love it. Even BOBBY read Harry Potter, sheesh.

I don't think he's jealous of the BFF angle - at least not in the way Sam gets jealous, mostly because Dean has been able to make actual BFFs all over the place, and there's Cas and all... He's way more balanced about this particular thing, and would probably love Sam to have actual BFFs of his own if they were GOOD BFFs and not really sketchy operatives from some weird secret organisation that once tortured Sam :P Which is the angle he's playing up with his snarky criticism

-

Claire lying to THEM about Jody knowing and then deflecting about calling her, especially now she's with professionals who will keep her safe so OBVIOUSLY Jody wouldn't worry and be fine with it because c'mon, WINCHESTERS

yes I am aware this is the same reason Mick is happy going with them as I said earlier :p

-

Anyway Sam complains about road food, Dean defends it; again, mentions the Gas n Sip directly despite them not strictly knowing they "found" Claire at the Gas n Sip this time.

Claire and Cas parallels but also Dean defending living out of a Gas n Sip - metaphorically, but Cas LITERALLY did it.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that"

Pfft also Dean defending lifestyle choices connected to him and Cas... metaphoooor

-

"Go nuts, it's on Harry Potter"

-

Oh dear, Harry Potter is going to go kill Hayden. Surpriiise.

Except I assume this goes terribly wrong.

the lethal injection imagery is particularly unsettling - she's in hospital with a "condition" that's changed her life dramatically and this ~doctor~ is coming in and deciding for her to kill her with an injection because he decides her quality of life is not worth living/that she's a burden on society (because she will eat people's hearts but shh metaphor) and so he's just gonna kill her without even informing her about her ~condition~ or giving her any choices about it.

So yeah, he's only resembling some of the worst and most prolific serial killers ever - those "angel of death" doctors, who can often get away with it for a LONG TIME because people don't notice or don't value the people they kill.

-

"I'm sorry" well he feels a little bad about it at least.

-

Oooh moon activating a werewolf. I FORGOT HOW FUN THAT IS. This show seriously hates the moon :P it's such a classic image but it's so hard to structure a procedural monster hunt around it apparently. It's the sort of horror that's intensely personal to the one transforming or else the people in close proximity to them, depending on the metaphor. I suppose Bitten is the only other werewolf episode that could have realistically played with that because of the unusual framing, but it was expressly about CHANGING the werewolf lore to make it EASIER to write, so had to ditch this imagery anyway.

Also - new wolf eyes instead of the old contacts, these are more obviously CG and glowing and yellow, which is brilliant, and I approve.

I guess the moon touching her and her transforming is also the age old coming of age/puberty image for a female character (and female werewolves and the moon should be such a bigger thing but I suppose that would freak men out so no wonder I can't think of mainstream female werewolves :P)

-

Buuut then Mick immediately injects her and oh no, life cut short just as it began :<

At least she scratched him up a bit in the process.. never managed to bite him. Boo. Give him a REAL reason to re-think all this

-

Nooo she died.

-

Pfft I guess Mick's redemption will be via death then because that's put narrative karma firmly against him, no matter how much he may change his mind as he's being hinted to do.

-

THIS is great framing to make him look tiny, by putting Claire in the foreground:

"Hobbits" pfft

-

So now all the PROFESSIONAL HUNTERS know she was a werewolf because the doctor points out she's completely healed, so Mick just... missed her bite? BAD INTEL

"... Right Mick?"

Dean doing exactly what he threatened to do and actually being directly and instantly skeptical of their benefactor.

-

And Mick puts it down to a mistake, just like all the other bad intel they had... Awfully blurry what WAS a mistake and what wasn't

Like, they almost certainly knew about Ramiel, with this much hindsight of ~mistakes~ and bad intel.

-

Dean says he'll take Mick and Sam will take Claire, but he and Claire storm out together because they're, well, peas in a pod. It's adorable. I love them. Also it leaves Sam and Mick to stare ruefully at dead Hayden.

-

But then Claire is in Sam's trust now.

-

I think the bar is going to be a dead end and it will be someone Hayden knew, because of the silly teenage werewolf in a mask from the cold open :P Also Claire needs to be in peril, but Dean going fruitlessly to bars with someone he needs to talk to/suss out is a Thing

-

Claire is Dean - she said "awesome" and "dude" in the same breath, while telling Sam how she is. She also drove Sam there, and has her own plan and is telling him to stay behind.

He is firmly NOT in the fatherhood bracket to her.

-

Anyway Claire plays to her age, with her hair like that, and her headphones she puts on just as an accessory. Sam gets told he's old to his face, which is something Dean passed through in the last couple of years, but now Sam's there :P I already reblogged the gifset of this paralleled to the similar moment of Dean dealing with hunting with Charlie in 8x20 and her music and getting told he was old, and basically doing this 4 years ago, which, conveniently, is his and Sam's age gap.

-

Mick struggling to open the door with the American flag in the corner, mostly because he fucked up. LOL. He's been struggling to get through that door all season.

-

Oh great, the grabby tribal tat guy is the "Bae" that Hayden was seeing - obviously older than her, was gross to Claire, the same age as her, and this reminds me of 10x20 and how Dean smacked that guy's head into the table for calling Claire a bitch and TO BE HONEST I get the feeling we're about to find out that was not exactly Mark of Cain behaviour but protective Dad Dean behaviour :P

-

Dean is being super rude to Connor and defensive of Hayden aka the parallel to his daughter, Claire... heh

-

Dean accidentally-deliberately interrogates Mick at the exact same time as Connor and I am overwhelmed with love for him because he is brilliant okay

-

*Dean smiles until Mick admits to watching The Great British Bake Off*

Mary Berry would be ASHAMED of you, sir. Using her to lie like that! TUT TUT

*Sue and Mel closing in with various baking implements to enact their revenge on Mick's treachery*

-

... see now I just want this to end with Sue Perkins showing up in a swish suit and kicking the snot out of Mick and I know there's some wish fulfilment you just have to let go but it's still going to hurt not to get

-

Oh my god Dean now following up the Claire thing

"what are you, her dad?"

Uh, well.

-

Basically yeah, I would assume, after that threat :P

-

God I love how Dean and Cas are just her dads and that's a thing.

-

Mick wandering around in his beige coat just lampshades how WRONG this all is

-

I can not BELIEVE right after typing that Dean clamped his hand down on Mick's shoulder and gripped it tight

(to make him say "ow ow ow ow ow ow ow" and reveal his lies and falseness)

-

I can't WAIT to reblog a gifset of that and just tag it with "Dean's elbow fetish for ts" with no explanation on the reblog.

I mean DAMN that's a dark and horrible mirror... I suppose also Cas has a mercy-related story this season with Kelly and the nephilim, and he already learned his first lesson about mercy in 12x10, and took it with better grace (snerk) than Mick has here. I mean Mick has narratively fucked up into not coming back from this land, but Cas obviously has a longer game and has already softened and changed his position WITHOUT fucking up to learn it, or at least, only being tangentially connected to a historical fuck up, where it was very very easy to blame Ishim for everything :P

-

But yeah, Dean and Cas keep each other in check and the shoulder grab is their thing - now Dean uses it to expose lies and treachery on a dark Cas mirror, with that ~sacred~ touch of theirs being used to reveal the truth. Dean is like, on the side of Truth and Justice this season...

I don't think this necessarily means anything bad for Cas because he and Dean are in such a good place - rather it's using the example of Cas as a perfect GOOD person to show how terrible Mick is... Like I said about the Gas n Sip sign looking down on Claire, Cas is sort of all over the place here, and right now it's in Dean's use of that goodness in his life to expose the badness.

-

"I did what needed to be done" Oh hello thing people say when they done fucked up and know it. Last said by the guy in Red Meat who thought he'd killed Sam for the greater good of saving his own ass and his girlfriend's ass.

I think werewolf episodes are still connected to that same thread of thematic stuff that turned up the Mark of Cain arc, because 8x04 set up so much thematic imagery for it, it's ridiculous, and of course that "did what had to be done" was a key phrase of season 9 - said so often in some episodes you'd die on the drinking game of it :P

-

"she attacked me" PFFT BECAUSE YOU WERE A STRANGE MAN IN HER ROOM WHO WANTED TO KILL HER

"I had orders!" "You had a choice!"

Hello there Cas mirror from season 4 just like we all predicted back at the start of the season (okay, in some cases, about Toni, before she was shipped off and Mick replaced her - but SOMEONE in this organisation was gonna get to this point at some point this season :P)

But he made a bad choice and chose to lie and go behind their backs instead of questioning, thinking and talking. Obviously Mick has a ton of missing footage compared to Cas in season 4 - 4x16 is where HE began SERIOUSLY questioning and following his doubts through and Mick’s just not put in the same effort, and already fucked up where Cas had not.

-

Ooooh low blow then Mick brings up how Dean pals around with witches and demons - a witch who has saved their butts several times now, WILLINGLY, most recently in Glynn's last episode... And a demon who, well.

-

Mick tells Dean to do his job, Dean explains how it's not black and white - and how Magda is an example, and Mick is like... yeah we have a code... and doesn't tell Dean what Ketch did.

I hurt inside :P

-

VENGEANCE FOR MAGDA

-

Also this has abruptly made me wonder if Mick is even part-way redeemable despite his interest in learning just because of his stance in the argument and not telling Dean about Magda... There COULD be a more nuanced sort of thing where he's judged for being the passive evil that authorises such killings as Magda's, like the people in government positions who do the evil of the government in a way where the blood is never on their hands literally, only figuratively... it really depends on if Mick REALISES what this ideology will do in the end, but he's keeping this secret for now and it's been made clear where he is in relation not just to killing Hayden, but all the awful the BMoL do

like if he killed Hayden but then immediately regretted it instead of sticking his ground, then he could have had a teachable moment (pfft) and because of regretting the blood spilled of his OWN people he was at least somewhat potentially sympathetic at the start of this >.>

-

Claire goes and gets basically the same info as Dean did so I'm assuming creepy Connor is the werewolf just because he's the only character left with any connection to the MotW stuff :P

-

The parallel from the cold open switches around though - now Hayden is in too deep getting let into the bar on the down low by a guy who likes her and I guess wants to add her to his collection in the same creepy way the BMoL want to collect top shelf hunters... Got Sam on the hook, but the older brother is concerned and goes along to check on her and save her, and she's only doing this because she's bored and stifled and wants another life from the one she has... Her brother gets his heart ripped out for the trouble of protecting her >.>

(I think both the readings work it's just the episode does swap it around with this reveal that Ben went to protect her specifically, but he had no idea it was a werewolf, he just wanted to take her home away from the creepy older guy)

-

Oops, now Claire's lying is caught out. By Sam! Who is NOT ratting her out to Jody but letting her maintain that lie I guess while he feels Claire is under his protection so he doesn't need to worry Jody about it.

... Although makes you wonder from Jody's POV what exactly is going on when Sam phones her out of the blue to ask about Claire.

"... just wondering ... for no reason..."

-

Oh no Claire :< She just wants to be alone because no one gets hurt and everyone's happy if she's not a burden on the-e-emmmmm *beats fists on the floor*

Do you think that you can catch the morbs from having been possessed by someone with them :P She sounds like Cas, at least, last year, although who knows, maybe this is a parallel to how he feels about why he popped back to Heaven, because he's depressed and it doesn't always make sense why he would feel like a burden or that people want him to be something he's not (Dean just wants him to be THERE) but Cas probably still feels bad he fucked up that vampire hunt, and now Claire is alone and hunting and miserable, and... She's probably paralleling Mary and Cas tbh.

Owie ow ow.

Because Mary also feels like her family wants her to be something she doesn't feel like she can be. And also they were very precious with her to start with (12x03 she had a lot of better reasons to leave but I think she felt enormously stifled on the hunt)... Argh.

-

Sam sucks at talking to The Youth btw.

I find it quite ironic I watched 8x18 at some point in the middle of this and Victor makes a point of asking if Sam had kids or wanted them, and Sam's a bit like, no and eeeh in response, because, well, it's post-Amelia break up for him and it hurts and normal life is for people who shut the gates of hell and survive to tell the tale, really. But anyway. Yeah. Dean is effortlessly fatherly to Krissy or Claire; Sam struggles, and is surprised to be considered old, I think because he's still somehow got the backpack he had in season 1 that makes him look like a 10 year old schoolboy when he shoulders it, and in some ways he's never managed to get to the mature adult stage. Like, he needs to have genuinely lived it to absorb it into his personality, and he got as far as wanting to propose to a college girlfriend, or wanting to move in with Amelia and have a dog... He's never had a kid forced on him or someone he adopted... Magda was the first kid he'd potentially adopt HIMSELF for the entire show I think, and he still related to her directly; some part of him still resonates with the lost hurt child phase of life... I mean, watching season 8 and 12 concurrent, as I'm accidentally doing, we've got Sam wanting to shut the gates of hell and go live a normal life, and Sam wanting to rid the world of monsters and live a normal life. In both cases he's got this big hurdle before he grows up and completes any life stages I suppose.

Dean's sort of unintentionally matured on the fly, so he's still got an adorable childlike layer of his personality, but he also falls into being a father more naturally, and at the very least, something awoken by thinking Ben might be his back in season 3 for an episode, and having to think of him that way may have... idk flipped some levers or something. Sam's busy having it all ripped away and putting up big walls that need to be overcome before he can rebuild. Dean lost everything so young he's re-made his life within the framework of being who he is, and endgoals that fix everything don't mean as much to him - which goes right back to that conversation in 1x16 where Dean thought killing Azazel would bring the family back together to hunt, and Sam thought it meant he could go back to college and be a person again.

-

*Claire stomping off listening to music and shutting out the world* I bet she's not going to get grabbed when she walks through this patch of trees or anything

-

Wow she got attacked while walking through the patch of trees wow

(this is a totally muted reaction because I screamed "CLAAAAAAAAAAIRE" into Mittens' chat box with barely any context :P)

-

She did seem like she has learned to fight a little, but the werewolf just totally overpowered her :<

-

TBH I think she's probably close to normal hunter level - I mean Garth got bitten, and most hunters aren't crazily OP and used to fighting demons with nothing but a tea towel like Dean

-

I hope no one's complaining about her being useless or deserving that... I think we're spoiled by Sam and Dean

-

SAM HUGGING CLAAAAAAAAAIRE

-

SAM BEING DONE WITH MIIIICK

I'm glad it was that easy after all and they didn't keep a load of secrets or make it hard. Killing kids is the line and Mick crossed it, and Dean told Sam, and Sam is like, yep, okay, bye bye Mick.

-

Google: How to extract mom from BMoL now

-

Google: How to un-werewolf my ward before my angel finds out

-

I am not handling Dean's face in this scene

-

Dean's trying so hard. He looks.. argh

"Maybe some people can control this. But I can barely keep it together on a good day." Aka she already is angry and lashes out and runs off etc and that's not exactly got better from having a sort of stable life with Jody... So now she's a werewolf she's terrified of what she'd do to them with extra violence in her, and she loves Alex and Jody so much she doesn't WANT to be near them...

So yep, now we have the Madison dilemma back >.> "I'd rather die."

-

But this time Mick mentioned an old cure that doesn't work

-

Google: how has werewolf medical knowledge improved since the 1920s?

-

Ouch, 1/9 test subjects was cured. That's considerably worse odds than Dean had with the vampire cure - the Campbell recipe clearly described of the test subjects, one died and one lived.

It seems to work every time now so I assume they've refined the recipe a bit. Like, longer fever, but less chance of puking your guts up to death, because in 6x05 it happened quick and horrible but by 9x19 Alex is moaning and feverish and says she's been throwing up but is obviously having a slower recovery than Dean, but in a sense a long fever is much less violent and therefore easier to bear.

-

Oh, nope, that was mice (WEREWOLF MICE AAW) - we have one dead human, and Claire saying "second time's the charm" - same odds, with ominous test data behind it.

-

"It's my life. I get all the votes."

"It's her life"

Sam might not be great at the truth but he's always there for bodily autonomy.

-

Dean puts the fear of God into Mick and by that I mean fear of himself :P

-

Pfft the Lucky Badger has a huge "No under 21s" sign on the door which I don't think has been clear until now.

I find it somewhat surreal that a 20 year old is being treated as a minor and child but I suppose it's the law over there >.>

-

I suppose Mick buying her a beer was a real sign of the culture clash which also is symbolic of him just not getting how it works.

-

I LOVE they use a shot of the lurking Impala before they stalk Connor

-

OH NO He was just a jerk... who totally deserved that.

Now what???

There's like no leads to follow??? Maybe lurk in the woods and see if a weird man in a mask is around??

-

Meanwhile: high drama with Claire transforming and challenging Mick to kill her

AAAAAAH

-

Oh good he didn't kill her. >.> well if he learned his lesson it's too late for both him and the Winchesters and the whole mission.

And they'd better phone Mary as soon as this is over, like, get the hell over here and never answer your phone to them again

-

Pfft sedating and restraining her for his protection. Mick's really not very brave, and his methods are repeatedly showing his weaknesses, mostly because of his priorities.

Like, he thinks, I'm not as bad as Ketch but I'm still a coward and you're a scary monster

-

Oh no Claire being sad about not telling Jodyyyy and she's going to be so maaad

She loves Jody and Alex so much... this is killing me :(

-

AAAH MASK GUY

AAAH is that the OTHER douchey bartender? :P

-

"You can kill me later, after we find Claire" in a way, knowing you've fucked up THIS badly is somehow liberating :P

-

Ahaha, "Eat me, Teen Wolf" has that show ever been referenced here before?

-

LOL it's the "the apocalypse made me do it" excuse for an episode - same as the ghoulpires in 11x04 being like "welp the Darkness is coming we're all doomed" draws attention. Now this dick is like "Mary and Ketch murdered everyone I love and so I'm hurting people" which means the BMoL are the bad guys on BOTH sides of the equation.

-

"We weren't meant to live like this. A werewolf needs its pack" family stronger together message again, if very dark here

Sometimes monsters have a weird line on the truth - the vamps in 1x20 who talked about how revenge wasn’t worth it

-

Hahaha Claire calling out "nice guys"

-

Nooo, don't eat, Claire

-

"I have a family and they love me" AAH CLAIRE

It's like Cas's declaration in 12x12!! except no one hears it but here come Sam and Dean to save her!

(And Mick)

-

Uhoh Dean's got to fight Claire... this is not going to look good on his fight resume

-

oh nope, he did just knock her out via throwing her into the fridge

sometimes you have just got to deal with a problem, apologise, and move on :P

-

Yay Mick killed himself a monster

-

Now fix Claire pls.

-

She's very snarly still *looks dubious*

-

Oh noooo

-

OH YAY

-

I hope Dean went out to pray to Cas btw

-

She would make waking up with a face covered in blood look like a disney princess awakening

-

Why are they giving Mick a second chaaaance? Is this because he helped Claire? This is because they don't know about Magda because that was the second chance and this episode has made it suuuuper clear >.>

-

I mean THEY give him a second chance but to us and the story I think it's pretty clear Mick might help them at some point but he's on borrowed time and about the only way he could survive this now is if he, like, personally murders Ketch for them, although I'm not sure that will happen because Ketch and Dean seem destined for a reckoning, which to me means that Mick will probably get killed by Ketch and then Dean will kill Ketch and *invokes the entire Hmmmm whatcha say meme*

-

ANYWAY EVERYONE LOVES CLAIRE AND CLAIRE LOVES EVERYONE AND SHE CALLED JODY HER MOTHER AND THAT'S IT I'M DONE

*lies on the floor and weeps*

[stephenmccull]

Dying Young: The Health Care Workers in Their 20s Killed by COVID-19

Jasmine Obra believed that if it wasn’t for her brother Joshua, she wouldn’t exist. When 7-year-old Josh realized that his parents weren’t going to live forever, he asked for a sibling so he would never be alone.

By spring 2020, at ages 29 and 21, Josh and Jasmine shared a condo in Anaheim, California, not far from Disneyland, which they both loved.

Both worked at a 147-bed locked nursing facility that specialized in caring for elderly people with cognitive issues such as Alzheimer’s, where Jasmine, a nursing student, was mentored by Josh, a registered nurse.

Both got tested for COVID-19 on the same day in June.

Both tests came back positive.

Yet only one of them survived.

While COVID-19 takes a far deadlier toll on elderly people than on young adults, an investigation of front-line health care worker deaths by the Guardian and KHN has uncovered numerous instances when staff members under age 30 were exposed on the job and also succumbed.

In our database of 167 confirmed front-line worker deaths, 21 medical staffers, or 13% of the total, were under 40, and eight (5%) fatalities were under 30. The median age of a COVID-19 death in the general population is 78, while the median age of health care worker deaths in the database is 57. This is in part because we are, by definition, including only people of working age who were treating patients during the pandemic — but it is also because, as health workers, they are far more exposed to the virus.

Young health care workers are at a “stage in their career and a stage of life at which they have so much more to offer,” said Andrew Chan, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School. “Lives lost among any young people related to COVID really should be considered something that’s unacceptable to us as a society.”

As coronavirus cases surge — and dire shortages of lifesaving protective gear like N95 masks, gowns and gloves persist — the nation’s health care workers face disproportionate risk. Chan’s research has found that health care workers of any age are at least three times more likely to become infected than the general population, and the risk is greater if they are people of color or have to work without adequate personal protective equipment. People of color are also likelier to have inadequate access to PPE.

In interviews, relatives and friends of these younger victims described a particular and wrenching sorrow. Everything lay ahead for these front-line workers. They were just embarking on their careers. Some still lived in the family home; others were looking forward to getting married or had young children. Several parents of victims contacted by the Guardian and KHN said they were simply unable to talk about what had happened, so immense was their grief.

Valeria Viveros, a 20-year-old nursing assistant, was “barely blooming,” said her uncle, Gustavo Urrea. She made ceviche for her patients at a nursing home in Riverside, California, and Urrea could see her visibly growing in self-confidence. When she first fell sick from the virus, she went to the hospital but was sent home with Tylenol. She returned several days later in an ambulance — her final journey.

“We’re all destroyed,” Urrea said. “I can’t even believe it.”

Dulce Garcia, 29, an interpreter at a medical facility in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, died in May. “It just doesn’t feel real,” said friend Brittany Mathis. Garcia was the one who wouldn’t let friends drive if they’d had too many drinks, and she loved going out to dance to bachata, merengue and reggaeton. “There were so many things she had unfinished,” Mathis said.

While people of any age with underlying conditions such as diabetes and obesity are at higher risk of a severe COVID-19 infection, the particular impacts of the virus on young adults are only now becoming clear.

Doctors in New York noticed that more younger patients than usual were presenting with strokes, to the point that “the average age of our stroke patients with large-vessel strokes” — the most devastating kind — “has come down,” said Thomas Oxley, a Mount Sinai medical system neurosurgeon. COVID-19 infections cause inflammation, and often blood clots, in blood vessels as well as the lungs.

Angela Padula and Dennis Bradt became engaged in early February. On May 13, Bradt died of a heart attack as doctors tried to coax him off a ventilator.(Angela Padula)

Angela Padula thought that she and Dennis Bradt had done everything right.

Padula, 27, and Bradt, 29, became engaged on Feb. 8. She was a special-education teacher, and he was an addiction technician at Conifer Park, a private addiction treatment facility in Glenville, New York.

The couple wanted to save up for a few years for their wedding, but by early April, they had already purchased her engagement and wedding rings. Bradt, who had the sweeter tooth, had chosen a raspberry-swirl wedding cake.

After the pandemic hit, Bradt started showering when he got home from work. He and Padula wore masks when they went out, which was usually only for groceries or gas. They stopped visiting their immunocompromised parents.

On April 5, Bradt came down with a fever, stomach-bug symptoms and achiness, and went to the hospital. His COVID-19 test came back negative. Soon he couldn’t breathe. Another test proved positive. On April 16 he was put on a ventilator. In the process, he choked on his own vomit, which caused his lung to collapse.

Padula assumes Bradt was infected at work, and is unsure whether he had sufficient PPE. Conifer Park did not respond to queries, but according to local health authorities, 12 employees and six patients at the facility tested positive for COVID-19. Padula herself had symptoms so severe that she was taken to the emergency room in an ambulance.

She was not allowed to visit Bradt, and was quarantined alone at home, where she spent her 28th birthday, taking anxiety medication prescribed by her doctor.

On May 13, as doctors tried to coax Bradt off the ventilator, he suffered a heart attack, Padula said. She and Bradt’s mother were permitted to say goodbye to him. But “he was gone by the time we got there,” Padula said in an interview. “He didn’t look like himself,” swollen and festooned with tubes.

Today Padula is still sick. Pain in her arms, legs and back wakes her at night. She feels as though the virus has taken over her life.

“I have my days where it’s just too much to think about,” she said. “I’ll see people getting engaged on Facebook — it makes me mad. I want to be happy for them, but it’s very difficult for me to be happy. We were planning on having kids in a couple years.”

“It’s been a tough month for all of us,” Josh Obra wrote in an Instagram caption less than two months before he fell ill. “It’s just mentally exhausting thinking each night when I come home that I may be having symptoms the next day.”(The Obra family)

Less than two months before Josh and Jasmine Obra fell ill, Josh posted two pictures to Instagram: One was a photo of a fireworks display at Disneyland; the other was a picture of himself in medical scrubs, wearing a face mask, giving the peace sign.

“Heeeeeyo! It’s been a minute,” he wrote in the caption. “It’s been a tough month for all of us.” He worked with a vulnerable population, he said, and “it’s just mentally exhausting thinking each night when I come home that I may be having symptoms the next day.”

Even so, Josh was the kind of helpful, empathetic nurse who “makes things easier for everybody,” said colleague Sarah Depayso. He knew how to talk to patients and was attuned to others’ stress levels. “We were so busy, and it was ‘I’ll buy you lunch, I’ll buy you dinner, I’ll buy you boba.’”

It had been about 35 days since Disneyland closed its gates, Josh noted in his post. Josh’s photos — of the Sleeping Beauty castle framed by tabebuia blossoms, or of himself in an attention-grabbing Little Mermaid sweater — and corny jokes endeared him to thousands of followers on Instagram. “He had a way of capturing magic,” said his friend Brandon Joseph. The pictures were joyful, like memories of childhood.

Josh’s last post was on June 10, announcing that Disneyland planned to reopen in July. At some point the virus had reached his nursing home, infecting 49 staff members and 120 residents and ultimately killing 14 people. Approximately 41% of all U.S. coronavirus deaths are linked to nursing homes, where frail people live in close quarters, according to The New York Times.

After taking the virus test on June 12, his health deteriorated. On June 15, he messaged Joseph that he couldn’t take a full breath of air without feeling like he was being knifed in the chest. On June 20, he texted that he was at the hospital and that he had a particularly bad case.

The final time Josh spoke with his family, before he was put on a ventilator, was on June 21. “On our last video call together, I was isolated in Anaheim, quarantined, and our parents were at home,” Jasmine said. It was Father’s Day, “and I remembered crying and crying because this was the reality of what our family was.”

Josh’s family was not permitted to visit him in the hospital, and he died on July 6.

By coincidence, Josh, like his grandparents, was buried in the same cemetery as Walt Disney — Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Before the funeral, Jasmine walked over to Disney’s grave, she said. “I was like, ‘Hi, Walt. I hope you and my brother found each other.’”

Every night since he died, Jasmine has watched Southern California’s spectacular sunsets, the pinks and yellows that Josh kept returning to in his pictures. “And every time I feel like he’s with me. I look at the sky and sometimes I start talking to it, and I feel like I’m talking to my brother, and that he’s painting beautiful skies.”

Melissa Bailey, Eli Cahan, Shoshana Dubnow and Anna Sirianni contributed to this report.

This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” an ongoing project by The Guardian and KHN (Kaiser Health News) that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to investigate why so many are victims of the disease. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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