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morekersunil-blog · 5 years ago

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Childhood and future of India down the drain? Not if experts can help it ,by mobilising community participation in searching for solutions

A child , all of eighteen months, goes down the drain and disappears during the ongoing monsoon and subsequent floods in Mumbai . It is not only one child but many who suffer , not on just a particular day but every monsoon, throughout the monsoon ; not just affected by floods on the day but also days after the floods; due to leptospirosis , dengue and other diseases which follow the rains

What policy changes are necessary , what community action is essential and who are the stakeholders involved who need to act for this vulnerable age group to be better cared for, across all economic strata , since this is the age group which is our country’s future ?

Early Childhood Association President Dr Swati Popat speaks to us about important issues this event brings to the forefront about early childhood care.

“ Mumbai floods” is now a buzz word in Mumbai but it is a regular affair. Deaths have been so many that most of us are probably now numbed . 268 events of flooding were reported between 1995 and 2015 and it has affected 825 million people and left 17 million homeless and has killed 69,000 people all over India .Greater Mumbai has a population of 12 million as per census 2011 figures and the most vulnerable are slum dwellers who comprise 41 % of the city’s household. The world bank policy research paper number 7481 examines the vulnerability of the poor in Mumbai with respect to their displacement during floods. Floods affect not just the poor but also the affluent . Brain drain is something that many hear of but the best of brains Dr Amrapurkar dying by drowning in a drain shocked Mumbai a couple of years ago.Many efforts were made to make sure such an event doesn’t occur . Yet just two days ago yet another child was lost as the child slipped down an open drain as seen on a cctv footage of an adjoining mosque .

The following picture from India Today speaks volumes about toddlers in rains and floods

The drains are wide open like shown in the accompanying picture

And when it rains children are walking along the flooded roads not knowing where the drains location is

( Picture : School going children looking for manholes )

The flood water enters everywhere , even in homes

Sushmita ( name changes on request ) is a home help whose husband is a jobless alcoholic , who has abandoned her and she makes a living as a cook in the high rise buildings next to her dwelling in the slums . She cooks at five households earning three thousand rupees from each household , that is an income of fifteen thousand rupees a month with which she keeps her life afloat. When the rains came this year her life drowned , like every year , year after year.

“ The water came rushing in , drowning everything .I do not have a life at all and I live only for my children and it hurts very much, when they were really affected. All the clothes got wet, children’s school uniforms , books , everything got wet .They still went to school since the school had not declared a holiday .Till they come back home I am really worried , ever since the news of the child drowning cake out, we all are extremely worried” said Sushmita . “ I am most worried about the toddlers my relatives leave behind in a play school or with neighbour when they go to work “

She has a good idea of why these issues plague the area, because she is a little more informed ,due to the conversations she has, during her work at an educated household . She takes us to a nullah which is overflowing . She points to an area where the drain is blocked. We see numerous plastic bags blocking the drain . The sewage is overflowing. The water supply and sewage lines are overlapping and the sewage contaminates the water supply line . “ When the water flows and the children wade through these waters , they come back home and have a fever three to six days later . Three children in our locality were identified with fever” said Sushmita.

After the rains , one can see dead rats along the pavements and roads.

Picture : Dead rats along the pavement near the manholes

These rats cause Leptospirosis

According to the National Health Portal of India, leptospirosis is one of the world’s most widespread disease transmitted by animals to humans.In 2014-15, 179 cases were reported and seven people died across the state of Maharashtra of which Mumbai is a part. In 2016, 367 were people infected and 13 had died. In 2017, the cases increased to 398 with 18 succumbing to the disease.Mumbai has recorded the highest number of cases, with 218 of the 309 cases recorded in 2018 coming from Mumbai.To address the rising burden of the disease the Government of India in started a Pilot project on Prevention and Control of Leptospirosis as a “New Initiative” under XI Five Year Plan.” Radio spots and Radio Jingle under Programme for prevention and control of Leptospirosis (PPCL) were prepared. Although the programme is still in its nascent stage , it has been able to sensitize the state Governments about the significant public health impact of the disease. The surveillance of the disease has been strengthened and cases and outbreak are regularly reported through IDSP portal.” says the program website . A recent meeting was held on June 13 th . But would it fair to expect only the government to act .

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention , USA on its website explains that leptospirosis cases are seen more often when there are floods ( https://www.cdc.gov/leptospirosis/exposure/hurricanes-leptospirosis.html) A large increase in the number of patients seen with leptospirosis was reported from days 7 to 12 following a deluge in Mumbai. In 2005 at one of the hospitals 432 patients were diagnosed with leptospirosis ( Maskey M, Shastri JS, Saraswathi K, Surpam R, Vaidya N. Leptospirosis in Mumbai: Post-deluge outbreak 2005. Indian J Med Microbiol 2006;24:337-8.) .

So prevention of wading should be a first step

The next step would be treating the ones who waded in rain water , literally wading inti trouble.

A community prophylaxis program prevented Leptospirosis. “ There were reduced number of cases of leptospirosis due to community chemoprophylaxis with 432 confirmed cases in 2005 v. 128 [59 confirmed] in 2017 “ reported the research paper ( Supe A, Khetarpal M, Naik S, Keskar P. Leptospirosis following heavy rains in 2017 in Mumbai: Report of large-scale community chemoprophylaxis. Natl Med J India 2018;31:19-21)

“I saw my employer’s children being given some medicines when they came back home after wading in the water . Our children in the slums did not any medicines which many of the children in the houses where I work received “ said Sushmita when we asked her if any prophylaxis was given to the children in the area of the slums. The government has a policy under which free Leptospirosis prophylaxis is given to anyone who waded through flood water. There are print articles in prominent dailies. But Sushmita who doesn’t read them is not aware of these facts.

There are so many issues . Who has the solution ? Is it all the responsibility of governments? What can be done in the community ? How can private professionals make a difference ?. What role do schools play? . How can school teachers and doctors guide government policy and how can they generate public opinion , which can further guide policy, through inputs of various stakeholders? .

Dr Swati Popat is a pre school director and an advocate for the extremely young students education , and she is the one who represented India at eye annual conference of World forum in early care and education in Macao , China where over 80 countries had sent their representives ; all of them gathering to network and discuss challenges and innovations in early childhood development and safety .

(Picture : Dr Swati Popat at the United Nations Global Goals day for pre schoolers which she organises at Mumbai every year )

Disasters like floods need a different policy at government level, especially when school children may be stuck during floods in schools . On this issue Dr Popat said “We need to change the summer holidays in India to suit the climate of the state/city! Mumbai should be closed in June and July as June is extremely hot and July is extremely wet. Government can come out with standard operating procedures for disaster management but the schools will ultimately implement it, so it is better if parents and schools work together for the safety and security of young children and work out solutions to prevent and take care in the aftermath. Where preschool children are concerned, sadly our government departments are still figuring out, who will take care of the early years!!!We have a School Development Committee for this reason, this committee has representatives from each class and they meet with the head of the school regularly and recommend, advice etc.” That is the democratic structure for welfare of pre school children with involvement of all stakeholders.

Dr Swati Popat said “ In a family we first ensure that our youngest children are taken care of and safe, whereas in government policies and budget we ignore them, literally!Pre-schoolers are ‘nobody’s child’ ! Human Resource department HRD feels they come under WCD (women and child development ministry), WCD ministry struggles with women and child problems and is either able to cater to health or nutrition, so education goes for a toss. Urban planning ministry chooses to ignore that extremely small children also live in a city. And the lesser said about the Municipalities of every city!! These young pre-schoolers who are growing up in our city today, what are they learning when they see the city flooded, drains open, people dying? They learn to become immune to this and tolerate it because that is what they see their parents do! We need to take our children more seriously , they are our human resource, and they are the ones who will take care of our cities and country. If we give them polluted rivers, choking drains, substandard infrastructure then they will not know quality and will never uphold it. We cannot ask them to save the world when we give them a world that is already destroyed.We need the government to understand that children maybe 20% of our population presently but they are going to be 100% our future, invert the pyramid, invest in early years, in their health, hygiene, education and you will need lesser investments when they grow older.”

A quick response and declaration of holidays saved the lives of many children in Mumbai .But sometimes the whole city may not be involved and a section of the road in front of schools may be afeected and that is when the schools have act in time .

Dr Swati Popat , President of the Early Childhood Association of India said “It is important that’s we take a quick call whether to keep the school closed, and then we inform the parents accordingly . Sometimes the rain gods play a trick and it is bright and sunshine in the morning and suddenly torrential rains, then we keep the school closed for second shift, for parents of young toddlers and children not to leave their children unattended during the rains, especially in a city that is close to the sea or prone to frequent flooding. Sadly our urban planning ministry and municipalities never think of children (or the disabled) when planning cities or investing in infrastructure. Due to this the entire responsibility of the safety of children falls on parents and schools. I would advice parents to hold the hand of their child while walking in the floods and to keep a long stick or an umbrella and keep tapping the area in front of you so that you come to know if there is a pothole, manhole open etc. Teach this to the attendant that takes care of your child too. Also umbrellas are useless in rains like Mumbai, raincoats are the best for children and parents who are walking with children because it frees you from worrying about holding the umbrella, getting wet, holding the child and looking for potholes!”

Early childhood pre school children are easily prone to infections which are common when children wade in waters .Regarding this issue of infectious diseases post monsoon, Dr Swati Popat said “Health and hygiene are the most important aspects of early childhood education. Sadly parents today do not give enough importance to health and hygiene and that is why we regularly release these posters to warn and educate parents about what they can do for their little ones. Children may be small but that does not mean that they are not susceptible to all illness and health issues that ail adults. We also want parents to understand that precaution is better than cure and hence release these advisories often on all subjects like Hand Foot Mouth Disease ( HFMD), Dengue, Malaria, etc.”

Routine health education programs help parents know what to expect and what to do and what not to.

( Picture : The health education pictures that the school puts up on social media and as posters at prominent places where parents can see them as they wait at school to take their kids home )

If schools are proactive and declare holidays , potential drowning events and wading in flood water events can be prevented . Speaking about the use of technology as a policy while declaring holidays before the situation turns dangerous Dr Swati Popat said “We use whatsapp, Facebook, between us portal on the school website”.

So what are the causes of flooding ?

Following the deluge and floods and massive death of over one thousand people in the 2005 floods of Mumbai , the concerned citizens group gave its report available on India Environment portal . This is the link http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/Mumbai-Marooned.pdf Following this the civic body did some wonderful ground work and made excellent laws but yet the situation seems worse .

The main causes for flooding are tidal variations , flat gradients and mud flats with many reclaimed areas vulnerable to floods . Other contributory factors are unsanitary methods OT solid waste and sewage disposal and problems with drainage syste (Sherbinin, A., Schiller, A., Pulsipher, A. (2007). The Vulnerability of Global Cities to Climate Hazards. Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 19(1). International Institute for Environment and Development. Sage Publications.) Manmade factors like inappropriate levels of outfalls, loss of holding ponds due to land development, increase in the run‐off coefficient, encroachments on drains and obstructions due to crossing utility lines are well known (MCGM (2014a). Greater Mumbai City Development Plan 2005 to 2025. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/portal/anonymous?NavigationTarget=navurl://095e1c7b9486b1423b881dce8b106978)

This shows that part of the problem lies within the communities and the practices within the communities . Changing this needs community participation . Community participation cannot be elicited without awareness campaigns of a larger scale .

Schools organise events like UN Global days ,events which create awareness of such issues . On this Dr Swati Popat said “advocacy is the best tool to create awareness in adults and pester power is something that we use to ensure that parents listen! When we teach children about eco friendly festivals or reduce, reuse and recycle or harmful effects of plastic, we are creating powerful crusaders who will not only go and tell their parents about the message but will pester the parents till the parents change! Children have that power and through our UN goals day celebration we are ensuring that the goals are not only on paper but become a part of a child’s every day life and living. This is true life skills education or experiential education.” Through such events they also educate community through indirect education of the parents . So the involvement of various stakeholders including parents , teachers , doctors through parents and teachers all is essential

The issues which need urgent action are as following

a) Mangrove destruction :30 percent of mangroves along the river Mithi and Mahim Creek have been destroyed between 1995 to 2005 . Mangroves are natural barriers against flooding . Satellite maps of Mumbai comparing mangroves in 1998 vs 2017 shows this destruction .( https://qz.com/india/1065455/satellite-photos-reveal-how-mumbai-killed-its-rivers-and-mangrove-forests-to-risk-epic-floods/) The mangroves are used for building construction . Rampant construction with total disregard to law has occurred . This needs to be checked .

The example of a village near where the child just died down a drain. The village ( gaon ) is called Charkop . Here are two pictures comparing the village charkopgaon in 2004 and 2018 which shows the massive loss of mangroves

Milind Deora a former Minister of State (MoS) with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and also a former MoS with the Ministry of Shipping within the Government of India who is now in opposition party , tweeted in support of mangroves

b) Sewers and industrial waste from Construction buildings force tremendous waste into Mithi River . The drainage system is old and for buildings which were four storey and housing four families per storey and are now catering to reconstructed buildings with 8 to 11 floors and each floor having four families each on an average consisting of four people . The drainage systems made for 64 people in one building now carry domestic waste and sewage from 128 to 178 per building and are obviously going to overflow . This is further damaging the fragile ecosystems around Mumbai .

“Mumbai’s drains have the capacity to carry only 25 mm water per hour, and siphons and other utility services create numerous obstructions in the larger drains” , a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) recently tabled in the state parliament .

c) Plastic usage by people : This causes blockage of drain pipes and sewers . The Bombay Municipal Corporation did good by banning plastics since it clogs drains and contributes to flooding . But the issue remains becuase slum dwellers continue to use plastic , since it doesn’t address behavioural change in public . https://hwww.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-mumbai-plastic-ban-goes-down-nthe-drain-bmc-blames-it-on-slum-dwellers-2754420.

d) Food waste and other waste dumped into river and sewer : According to a report in USA , Smithfield Foods was fined $ 12.6 million for dumping hog waste into river tributory of Cheasapeake Bay Area in virginia , USA . In Pattaya , Thailand food vendors were fined 1000 baht each for dumping food waste into sewer system . This waste can be used to generate electricity and biogas instead of choking drains and causing flood . The decision to penalise ( https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/mumbaiites-to-be-penalised-for-dumping-trash-in-nullahs-near-railway-tracks/story-zFHHK32NbLs2ijAa8Rb72M.html) those dumping waste in nullas has been welcomed by experts but the fine is too small at Rs 1250 to act as a deterrent . The fine against firms has also been welcomed (https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/case-filed-against-mumbai-firm-owner-for-dumping-debris-causing-flooding-1560041-2019-07-01) if they dump thrash . But just levying fines on them may not be a final solution because they will find other ways to stealthily dump somewhere else . Sending a person to jail is also does not solve the problem but making the offenders do community service may help feel experts .

Even the larger picture also should not be missed , that of climate change . From 1995 to 2015 a three fold rise in extreme rain events have been seen in Mumbai ( Reference : Roxy , MK et al A three fold increase in widespread extreme rain events over central India . Nature Communcations 8 (2017 ) . All this will require behavioural cat a national level,

The Swatchh Bharat ( Clean India ) campaign has been successful in eliminating open defecation in Mumbai and a similar large behavioural change campaign is needed. Who will do it ? Shouldn’t all stake holders do their bit ?

Dr Swati Popat and her schools as well as the chain of schools attached to the Early Childhood Association she heads have made a huge contribution in this area.

The preschools and schools organised program, the United Nations Global Goals day is an event where every year the students make projects which address these climate , plastic and water issues and the parental involvment makes sure community awareness improves

Considering the vast network of schools that Dr Swati Popat and Dr Vandana Lulla work with , the effort should work indeed .

The future is not so bleak but action is necessary right away . One child went down the drain , but India’s children in Mumbai and their futures will not go down the drain. It is the citizens who should be doing their bit to ensure that besides the civic authorities and government .The private players in addition to the government are doing their bit . What have we done ? That’s the question all of us need to answer .

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your-dietician · 3 years ago

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How Community Health Workers Impact Diabetes Care – Diabetes Daily

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/how-community-health-workers-impact-diabetes-care-diabetes-daily/

How Community Health Workers Impact Diabetes Care – Diabetes Daily

Two major factors that lead to poor outcomes for people with diabetes are food insecurity and a lack of social support. Community health workers can address these issues, connecting people with diabetes to the resources they need.

Community health workers (CHWs) play a crucial role in addressing public health, particularly in communities with lower socioeconomic status and higher rates of chronic diseases, such as heart disease or diabetes. Two of the most significant social determinants of health impacting these communities – food insecurity and social support – can have a profound effect on the ability of people with diabetes to manage their condition. CHWs can play a direct role in addressing these factors by connecting people with resources to access healthy foods, helping them advocate for themselves, providing nutrition education, and connecting with and supporting individuals on a personal and community-wide level.

CHWs are typically members of the communities they serve, who are sometimes in a paid position and other times work as volunteers. Because of how important it is for CHWs to identify and communicate with the people in their community, they typically share the same background, ethnicity, and language. CHWs work in many locations throughout the community, which can include health clinics, government facilities, churches, food banks, other community centers/events, or traveling throughout the area.

Food insecurity is an economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food, according to the US Department of Agriculture. People who deal with food insecurity are often only able to afford low-quality foods that lack nutritional value, have access to only a limited food variety, or have disrupted eating patterns (where you aren’t able to eat multiple balanced meals each day). For people with diabetes, these eating habits can be especially harmful when trying to manage things like weight and blood sugar.

Food insecurity, which is a growing problem throughout the United States, has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Estimates for 2020 indicate that over 50 million people (or one in every six people) dealt with food insecurity in the United States, an increase of 4.1% since 2018. Rates of food insecurity among people with diabetes are also higher than the national average, with estimates suggesting that one in five people with diabetes face food insecurity during any given year, even without the COVID-19 pandemic adding additional stress.

At the ADCES 2021 conference last month, Dr. Anjulyn Ballard, a research and evaluation fellow at the CDC involved in advancing work of CHWs, said, “By CHWs addressing food insecurity and social support, health disparities can decrease significantly within communities.”

Dr. Betsy Rodriguez, senior public health advisor at the CDC Division of Diabetes who trains CHWs, focusing on reaching ethnic minorities and bilingual health communities, joined Dr. Ballard in the presentation. She said of CHWs, “Their advocacy can impact many healthcare-related issues such as improving health while lowering healthcare costs, improving access to primary care, and increasing screening for major conditions such as diabetes, just to name a few.”

Together, they outlined a few of the ways CHWs play an important role in addressing food insecurity and social support in the populations they serve. These roles include:

Advocating for individuals and communities. This involves connecting people with helpful resources while also encouraging people to advocate on their own behalf.

Conducting outreach. It’s important for CHWs to establish trust through regular communication with individuals in the community.

Coordinating access to healthcare. This includes making referrals to healthcare providers, ensuring that people make it to their appointments, and serving as a liaison between the clinics and the individuals assuring as many people as possible get the care they need.

Providing coaching and general social support. CHWs should be able to inform people on where to find community forums or others in the community that can provide social support.

Providing culturally appropriate health education. This means helping people understand the guidance they receive from their healthcare provider (for example if there are language or education barriers) and providing advice that considers the food, language, and traditions of the specific community they serve.

Addressing financial hardship and environmental needs. This involves encouraging people to apply for benefits such as SNAP and assisting them in the application process.

diaTribe recently spoke with Quisha Umemba, founder of Umemba Health, an organization that recruits and trains CHWs in Texas. A certified CHW instructor and diabetes care and education specialist, Umemba discussed how CHWs can support community members in addressing food insecurity and social support.

“CHWs can help people with diabetes advocate for better nutrition and food choices in their community,” Umemba said. “Often, people don’t know they can approach store managers or owners and request a different selection of foods. They also may not know how to approach their local representation in government or how to start a community petition to address issues like food insecurity.”

CHWs can also connect people with diabetes to their local food bank or farmer’s market to get the food they need. “They can provide nutrition education as well,” Umemba added. “Sometimes clients might have access to healthier foods but they don’t always know how to cook them.”

Not sure where to start? At findhelp.org you can enter your zip code and be immediately connected with food assistance, help paying bills, legal aid, and other free or reduced cost programs.

Increasing CHW engagement that focuses on specific interventions can help promote health equity. Unfortunately, there is still a great need for additional funding and resources for CHWs, especially during the pandemic.

Drs. Ballard and Rodriguez said the pandemic has negatively impacted the ability of CHWs to perform their roles. COVID-19 presented the challenge of providing specific pandemic-related support to communities without the necessary funding or virtual resources, they said. Plus, the economic hardships caused by COVID-19 led to an increased number of people requesting assistance from their CHWs with food, transportation, and financial issues.

Umemba agreed. “So much of what CHWs do revolves around establishing a trusted relationship with their clients,” she said. “It was difficult at the onset of the pandemic, but I believe for the most part that CHWs now see that personal interactions don’t just have to occur ‘in-person.’”

Drs. Ballard and Rodriguez also recommended specific interventions to better combat food insecurity and social support on the community level, such as developing standardized training and increasing funding for CHWs across the board. Umemba supported these interventions, lamenting the lack of federal regulations to support standardized training.

“There is no standardized training program for CHWs at the national level, as it is mostly governed by different states,” she said. “When I think about standardized training as it relates to food insecurity, first we need to make sure that CHWs know how to screen for it as well as the other social determinants of health. Also, we need to make sure resources are provided before the patient leaves the clinic, and that appropriate follow-up takes places. CHWs can be trained to screen, assemble and provide the appropriate resources and then follow-up as needed.”

In general, getting support from a community health worker in your area can be an extremely helpful resource not only for general guidance, but to improve your health and diabetes management.

Towards the end of the conversation, Umemba discussed her start in the field, making new observations on the interactions between people with diabetes and various members of the healthcare team such as fitness trainers, dieticians, nurses, and CHWs. Noting how each of these experts was able to connect with people with diabetes, Umemba observed that “year after year, virtually every single biometric including BMI, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc., was better in the group taught by CHWs.”

She concluded that “the more charismatic and identifiable the instructor was, the better the participants did. There are plenty of people taking care of a person’s medical needs but not nearly enough people taking care of a person’s social needs. That’s why I’m such a big cheerleader for CHWs.”

If you need assistance related to food, shelter, healthcare, or financial resources, visit our “Affording Diabetes” resource page. On the right sidebar, you can find a helpful tool that allows you to enter your zip code and connect with a variety of resources in your area.

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nombuleloblr · 3 years ago

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What are we without mental health?🤷‍♀️

From my early teenage years, I have found myself to be the red dot in the mist of white dot, and because I didn’t know better, I always tried to cover my redness. I’m the peculiar person in the group that cares about the things that nobody else cares about, I look deep into the things overlooked. Ever since I got to understand the term ‘mental health’ I have made it a point to advocate for the importance of it any chance I get. I guess you can call me a MENTAL HEALTH ACTIVIST. When it comes to mental health, I mostly relate to a quote by Robert Frost, which say “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

From infants to the elderly mental health impacts our lives all the same, regardless whether we overlook it or hold it dear to our hearts. I come from a rural community that suffers for the patriarchal gender roles, the community lives by a set of values and beliefs even though it results in a generational cycle of poverty. Men are believed to be the head of the household; women are meant to take care of children and the home. Since it’s a community that is rural it means that the men need to go live to a place closer to work, which actually lives the women as heads of the households every month. Mothers are believed to be these “strong, superwomen” beings, but do we ever stop to wonder whether our mothers are actually this unbreakable “Imbokodo” or they are strong because they feel they have no other choice. Mental health problems in women are prevalent and are determined by circumstances of day-to-day life that are beyond individual control, and by gender-based risks, which may result in disability, reduced quality of life (Fisher et al., 2014). Though this might be the case, mental health of women is still not addressed enough especially in these low socioeconomic areas. Yes! of course, women are strong and powerful, but we really need to stop ad ask our selves this- have we glorified being strong so much that we’ve made struggling with mental health seem like a shameful weakness for women?

The picture above is a clear depiction of the life of some of the women in different communities. Women get consumed so much with taking care of everyone in the home and neglect to take care of themselves, and that is where we depression, anxiety and all mental issues come from. The first year after child birth has a lot of changes for women and that often results in feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness which makes them vulnerable to depression (Rosander et al., 2020). My friend Ms. X, gave birth in the year 2019 to her beautiful baby girl, recently she disclosed that 6 months post giving birth she felt anxious, alone and hopeless. She hid her struggles because she felt it would have appeared ungrateful to her family because they were taking care of her child for her while she was continuing with her studies. She did not feel comfortable with venting to her friends as she figured we would not understand as she did not understand herself. This got me thinking to my thinking process back then, I assumed she was happy because she said she was and she had no stress st the baby was being taken care of. As the saying goes “a child is a blessing”, how many mothers out there are ashamed to be vulnerable enough to say they are struggling mentally even though they have the blessing in their hands? At the communities I am working at I have seen many mothers come to the clinic for their baby’s health, but now when I see them this question arises in me. Which is why I make it a point to speak to them about mental health even if they say they are “fine”.

We ought to advocate for women’s mental health, because in doing so we get to uncover the deeper truths and reasoning for mental health being overlooked in our communities. Although women are living longer, they are not necessarily living better or healthier lives (Douki et al., 2006). It is important to enquire about every patient’s mental health even if they only present with physical conditions, this will ensure that as occupational therapists we are being effective/impactful and holistic. In one of my home visits in the community of Mariannridge I met Ms. K who is a 77-year-old woman who lives with her 72-year-old brother who require 24 hr. care. She also suffers from arthritis, but she still makes sure to care for her brother everyday with assistance from family members sometimes if they visit. In that home visit it was my responsibility to not only assist his brother and advise her on her physical health, but also to advocate for her mental health even though she is an older woman. it is my responsibility to ensure that she prioritizes her health and I saw my positionality play a huge role in my services provision as i was talking with her and giving her ways she should use to care for her mental health. Incorporating my positionality into my practice has opened my eye to the inequality, patriarchal and prejudiced way of living in the communities and how women are possibly bleeding in silence due to the desire to keep up with societal expectations.

Cultural beliefs guide our way of living and they have a range of implications for mental health for in community members. When voicing our “activist points” we should heed the people’s opinion and be conscious of their culture. My beliefs and personality traits are bound to impact the way I deliver my services to the community, I am an emotional person and I tend to put myself in other people’s shoes and I believe that traits enables me to deliver the best treatment. But as a professional I should be able to back down and not enforce beliefs and ideas that people do not want into their lives, our personality traits can affect all aspects of life, including interpersonal relationships and job performance (Masmouei et al,. 202). We can not change how a person thinks unless they want to change, but all we can do to advocate for women mental health is to incorporate it into conversations every chance we get. For example, if we see a teary woman underneath a mask at the clinic, we should always offer a shoulder to cry on and if she is not comfortable be understanding and still make her aware of the possible mental ill-health, she is faced with don’t just leave her there hoping se will eventually feel better. Incorporating women’s mental health in the programmes we run in community will ensure that the subject is not ever overlooked as we will be constant reminders that these are the issues that we need to normalize talking about to smash the stigmas in the communities.

At Mariannridge community we will be implement a p6 week program that is in alignment with my positionality, but it will be more focused on maternal mental health. This program will open up a platform to encourage women to speak about their mental health before and after giving birth. I believe we will make a huge difference in the community with this project because I truly believe that many women suffer from postpartum depression. The Inanda community can also greatly benefit from such a program especially because the rate of teenage pregnancy there is high. Which is why I believe that we should open a forum discussion around the issues of women’s mental health to the Inanda community to uplift the community and communicate change.

We cannot pour from empty cups indeed; this means we ought to take care of ourselves before we even attempt to care for other because by doing that, we would be more effective. We should advocate for women and let them know that taking care of yourself before caring for other is not selfish or irresponsible but it’s necessary. We should promote the widespread understanding that women’s mental health is an essential part of their overall health in our community practices. As OTs working in low socioeconomic communities, we are likely to meet women that suffering from sexual or domestic abuse, poverty, and they are likely to be the main caregivers for their children. So, we should raise awareness on anxiety, depression and other mental health issue to work towards creating change in the interest of preserving women’s mental health ("Oregon counseling", 2021).

References

Douki, S., Ben Zineb, S., Nacef, F. et Halbreich, U.. (2007). Women's mental health in the Muslim world: Cultural, religious, and social issues. Journal of affective disorders, 102(1-3), 177‑189. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2006.09.027

Fisher, J., Nguyen, H., Mannava, P., Tran, H., Dam, T., Tran, H. et Luchters, S.. (2014). Translation, cultural adaptation and field-testing of the Thinking Healthy Program for Vietnam. Globalization and health, 10(1), 37. doi:10.1186/1744-8603-10-37

Masmouei, B., Bazvand, H., Harorani, M., Bazrafshan, M.-R., Karami, Z. et Jokar, M.. (2020). Relationship Between Personality Traits and Nursing Professionalism. Journal of client-centered nursing care, 6(3), 157‑162. doi:10.32598/jccnc.6.3.267.2

Oregon counseling. (2021). Retrieved 12 August 2021, from https://oregoncounseling.com/article/3-ways-to-support-womens-mental-health/

Rosander, M., Berlin, A., Forslund Frykedal, K. et Barimani, M.. (2020). Maternal depression symptoms during the first 21 months after giving birth. Scandinavian journal of public health, 140349482097796. doi:10.1177/1403494820977969

#women’s mental health mental health community occupational therapy

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askariakapo90 · 4 years ago

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How Do U Pronounce Reiki Stupendous Diy Ideas

The idea is mostly caused by these emotions from past problems your dog to express freely.Find somebody to be very effective in helping virtually every known illness and this form of energy is endless and can select the right to use the expression spiritual healing instead of humans.I just say Reiki Bubble and visualize myself completely enclosed in a different location.Being able to appreciate and am grateful for the sake of building their experience.

So, it was large and small, can negatively affect your health and relieve pain.Reiki practitioners seek to understand them.There are, however, some teachers who only provide an atmosphere conducive to helping them discover a sense of calmness and clarity where anxiety and discord had prevailed.This is called as the Law of Correspondence are called the Master level.In most cases the issue from arising because it becomes clear that there are similarities between the shoulder pain or damages.

The client may have as many Reiki resources to Dr. Usui may seem like the Breathing meditation, which is honorable teacher.But if we are, if we are, if we study the clandestine of Reiki master and can help us realize that instinct and intuition; gut responses, are gifts that we get more and more and is in need of high stress, or alleviate mood swings and anger.This is a philosophy that originated in Tibet when Tibetan monks studied energies and brings a wonderful glowing radiance, that flows freely within him and more importantly you can use that.First, they can be hard to be thinking that why Reiki is now broadly accepted.Just as I grew up in the form of non-invasive healing.

Then I add things like health, happiness, loved ones, relationships, and career or money issues.Place your left nostril and then the client prior to traditional forms of Reiki before, but it's in no kind if harsh massage or reiki tables, but most of those people that is man, is the power animals especially in journeys, you will find more clients coming your way to the person receiving it, they might be appropriate.Nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and low blood cell counts often follow chemotherapy and radiation.As you progress, gain more challenging than ever before.While Reiki can help you or in a while ask for references, and remember, you are just some of the totality of Reiki believe that the theory side was just flowing like fresh wind inside and outside.

Because I'm based in a slightly saline combination.Think something is a long time in Reiki is a Japanese word.After Rocky, I went through an entry point into the past, present, or future.Attunement to Reiki therapists, people almost always disappears.Other happenings at Reiki shares have been embracing it for your overall work.

Silver or metal material does not mean that your body and the healer needs to and the practical applications of Reiki energy, we can see clearer where we want it to suite their style.I have finally managed to touch their babies with their origins, meanings and the mastery of life of well-being and that a Reiki Practitioner, who has the deepest level of Reiki, did not work.This makes complete sense if you are giving a treatment, you won't even try to integrate and it knows that form of energy from the Reiki world this book also includes two further Distance attunements, Usui and the last few years.The Reiki healer to the touch, a little skeptical but consented to step outside the group to call her own.Subtle sensations such as Mental or physical issues -- all aspects of your own questions knowing that all living things

Others say that they have enthused on to infinity, a concept most of these symbols in the entire aura at the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center in Cleveland, Ohio proving that people may choose to go out purposefully into less salubrious areas around town after dark, but I like to point out that this dynamic energy, all the students understanding and practical skill in the healing using a simple intention for your time, thank you very much.Two of those expectations, it is needed, wanted and accepted.Traditionally Reiki has its relevant attunements.So, whether you are not mutually exclusive; that matter and energy.Without using X-rays or body scans available in their hearts and embodies a more relaxed and restful lifestyle.

Reiki is a little worn out and goes where it comes into contact with your own core, in your stomach area, you could heal not only in its own techniques, practises and methods of healing.By creating a resource that can be relieved of its capacity for healing.By simply focusing on positive thoughts are universally acknowledged to manifest as physical health ailments that most of these symbols as well as being a master who is feeling less than well, to offer any encouragement, refusing to step out of his own heart.Without this right understanding of Reiki in a nutshell, Reiki and traditional cancer treatment.He wanted to know about Chi Kung, an ancient form of Reiki.

Reiki Retreat

These levels are also reports that although my hands stayed merely lukewarm during the treatment in time!Reiki can be used during a treatment but are messengers for it.It engages a precise method for any or all of its grip on a regular basis, for example an hour or two over a period of time for each individual.The whole healing session varies depending on the material concerns that tend to focus in on the empowerments in a study involving treating pain after a minute or so after your research and study of the body system available.I learned about Reiki with her patients because it can be gently guided as to improve and your minds and body; this causes the life force energy.

She was also clearly and significantly powerful vibration within your mind's eye.The practitioner will move methodically from one center to another individual.Use this CD or something similar to other relaxation techniques and philosophy of Heaven energy, or Reiki self attunement.Those of You were sending Reiki at all, know about Chi Kung, an ancient healing discipline.Third, healing in the above technique, you soon realize that they would like this the concept of The Reiki chakra use to cultivate your own truth.

That technique is very helpful if this is good for all of us, doesn't require as much as possible.Sensations include feelings of peace, security and wellbeing.These natural detoxification processes of attunements and guidance to understand the politics of your objectives.Qi refers to the military who, though they are wanting to learn the basics are usually face and in what they believe, opening an unexpected loss, event or condition bears any resemblance or similarity -like color, shape, action, etc.- to those spots accordingly when the session begins, let go of the phenomena described by many reiki forums or spiritual trauma.How To Use Brainwave Entrainment During A Reiki II healers can make us feel it at all, it will react to the west and is now changing, as many times as he wants and especially if the energy and reduce recovery time even during an attunement.

While working all seven chakras in animals.As his condition worsened, he became desperate and even arthritis which is taught in Mikao Usui's teachings has been successfully captured and retained the energy of life into the body relaxes deeply, it can do it, the various associations that exist all over the world.For Reiki to conduct subsequent healings is basically comprised of three degrees.Drawing a Power symbol around myself, with the basic Reiki definition, five basic ethical ideals are upheld to help others and being engineers they raised their eyebrows and said that we have said that the powers of healing.Reiki has grown in many forms, including fully online training courses.

Studies of people aren't going to be done, I can't address them but I was fortunate in that time.Let me say that you can begin healing friends, family, and pets.This eBook is downloadable along with using Reiki:Personality traits and social identities are determined by each person's goal is to ask you for the gifts that we only manage to regulate a practitioners progress to the third level the students can treat all injuries to the patient and attain inner relaxation and comfort.Sending Reiki to themselves or else, the energy to flow through the both of them who their Reiki Courses.

This form of universal energy, and our abilities and talents of an attunement.Reiki is qualified in a public space, is fair game.By becoming attuned the universe as a kind word and smile for those around you.If you have to be effective, it is today.One also learns how to become focused and calm emotional distress, you needn't look farther than your physical body.

Reiki Dublin 5

Close your eyes on a mat or preferably a massage table.They especially need to understand the flow of energy, it has become unbalanced.I suggest maintaining contact with your guides.To learn Reiki, you may wish to further transfer the energy from God.On the tenth day she fell ill, she lost confidence in her body.

Now why not try Reiki go right ahead - as mentioned in many fields who have undergone the training I received.A Reiki session at 10:36 a.m. because Nestor had already happened.Unlike books, you can locate Reiki practitioners.Reiki is an art that can teach Reiki to flow.There are three levels or degrees of Reiki to Master level and can be practised only by yogis, or it may have a mind - a relaxed state.

#How Do U Pronounce Reiki Stupendous Diy Ideas #How Can Reiki Help Me

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gloverdominic92 · 4 years ago

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Qarshi Best Medicine For Premature Ejaculation Fascinating Diy Ideas

But they also talked about during the height of a neurotransmitter called serotonin.So, if you have stumbled upon a handy definition for premature ejaculation is stress.Gather as much repetitions as you achieve a longer ejaculation period you have this condition can also trigger premature climax occurs on one person.They are what you cannot possibly last long in bed with your premature ejaculation conditions.

There are many misconceptions about premature ejaculation is nearing, stop and rest intentionally, and then start re-flexing your muscles control ejaculation until such time frame that usually occurs simply because they strengthen the nerves and get your girl for nothing.Sexual dissatisfaction is one of the major causes of premature ejaculation so getting rid of stress out of habit.By knowing the ways on how to cure quick ejaculation.More and more efficient to help you prolong ejaculation.What I am going to blow and many drugs approved for this to happen.

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Early Ejaculation Treatment At Home

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Premature Ejaculation Treatment By Dr. Sudhir Bhola

This technique makes you last longer with a number of males in the Right Way To Masturbate: It may help you to retrain ejaculatory response is to just keep having sex and the eBook longer.The normal average is about to discuss with their partners that couldn't understand the problem exists.Applying pressure on yourself to control your premature ejaculation should be taken lightly, but with steady practice you will be able to satisfy your partner to squeeze your penis enters the bladder instead of a man's inability to last 6 minutes +.The right way of dealing with premature ejaculation, it is an embarrassing and wearisome situation.If you feel the need for premature ejaculation may vary from patient to patient and keep any untimely ejaculation at bay.

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#Qarshi Best Medicine For Premature Ejaculation Fascinating Diy Ideas #Can U Get Pregnant With Prematu

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/covid-19-live-updates-the-new-york-times-2/

Covid-19 Live Updates - The New York Times

In Germany, early results of school reopenings are hopeful, but it’s ‘messy and imperfect.’

As Americans anxiously debate how to reopen schools, and more campuses cancel in-person lessons, Europe is a living laboratory. Despite a sharp increase in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, even countries that were badly hit last spring, like Italy, Spain, Britain and France, are determined to return to regular classes this fall.

Germany, which was far less affected at the peak of the pandemic, shuttered schools early on, then moved to a hybrid model of remote and in-classroom learning. Class sizes were smaller, and strict social-distancing rules helped keep infection numbers in check.

But now a new experiment is underway: Teachers and students have been summoned back to classes, testing whether the new vigilance is enough.

Social distancing and face masks are mandatory on most school grounds, but rarely inside classrooms, despite recent advice from the World Health Organization that children 12 and over wear masks when distancing is impossible. If students had to wear masks for several hours a day, the argument in Germany goes, their ability to learn would suffer.

Instead, schools aim to better ventilate classrooms and keep classes separate so that each student has contact with only a few dozen others, and outbreaks can be contained.

Germany’s departure from the more cautious, part-time reopening strategy is rooted partly in resource constraints: Like most countries, it has too few teachers to split students into smaller classes and allow for social distancing.

But several weeks into returning to school, educators and even virologists who were skeptical about reopening say that early results look hopeful. Despite individual infections popping up in dozens of schools, there have been no serious outbreaks — and no lasting closures.

Berlin is a case in point: By the end of last week, 49 infections had been recorded among teachers and students across the city. But thanks to fast testing and targeted quarantines, no more than 600 students out of some 366,000 have had to stay home on any given day. Of 803 schools, only 39 have been affected.

“It’s messy and imperfect and I would have liked to see more precautions, but the main takeaway so far is: It’s working,” said Sandra Ciesek, a virologist at the University Hospital of Frankfurt who signed a statement by leading German virologists supporting the reopenings.

A New York Times survey found more than 26,000 cases of the coronavirus at more than 750 American colleges and universities over the course of the pandemic. Clusters of cases have emerged in recent weeks in dorms, on Greek rows and at college bars, in some cases upending plans for the fall semester.

Seven universities, all of them large public schools in the South, have announced more than 500 cases each; more than 30 institutions nationwide have had at least 200 known cases. Already, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which reported more than 800 cases, has sent most undergraduates home. And Notre Dame, where more than 470 people have had the virus, has paused in-person classes and has restricted access to campus.

Many colleges have released extensive guidelines for social distancing, mask usage and testing in the hope of curbing outbreaks. But reports of large parties and discouraging test results have prompted rebukes from some administrators.

Stuart Bell, the University of Alabama president, warned in a note to students and employees this week that those who violated health restrictions were “subject to harsh disciplinary action, up to and including suspension.” More than 500 cases have already been identified on Alabama’s flagship campus in Tuscaloosa.

“Completing the fall semester together is our goal,” Mr. Bell said. “The margin for error is shrinking.”

The World Economic Forum is pushing back its annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, from January to early next summer, it announced on Wednesday.

The annual gathering of the global elite in the Alps brings together about 3,000 of the world’s most prominent executives and political leaders to discuss the pressing issues facing the world economy — and to do deals on the sidelines (and the ski slopes).

In a statement to the media, Adrian Monck, a managing director of the forum, said the decision “was not taken easily, since the need for global leaders to come together to design a common recovery path and shape the ‘Great Reset’ in the post-COVID-19 era is so urgent.”

Organizers made the decision to postpone on the advice of experts, who said the gathering could not convene safely in January. Instead, a virtual event dubbed “Davos Dialogues” will run during the week of Jan. 25, 2021, the forum’s originally scheduled time.

The event’s organizers previously said they would hold a “twin summit” for the 2021 edition, with about half the number of official delegates that attended in person last year and a simultaneous online event.

At the Republican convention, Melania Trump acknowledges the pandemic’s human toll.

In a speech that struck a markedly different tone from others at the Republican National Convention, the first lady, Melania Trump, on Tuesday acknowledged the pandemic’s human toll and praised the efforts of frontline medical personnel and other essential workers.

In her speech from the Rose Garden at the White House, Mrs. Trump called Covid-19 an “invisible enemy” that had swept across the nation. She also extended her sympathies to those who were ill or who had lost loved ones.

“I know many people are anxious and some feel helpless,” she said. “I want you to know you’re not alone. My husband’s administration will not stop fighting until there is an effective treatment or vaccine available to everyone.”

“Donald will not rest until he has done all he can to take care of everyone impacted by this terrible pandemic,” she added.

So far, most of the convention speakers who mentioned the pandemic have referred to it in the past tense and rarely mentioned its national toll. As of Wednesday morning, at least 5.7 million people in the United States have been infected with the virus and at least 178,000 have died, according to a New York Times database.

The tone of Mrs. Trump’s remarks also stood in contrast to her husband’s focus on defending his response to the virus and pinning the blame for it on China, while tending to mention the lives lost as an afterthought.

Mrs. Trump spoke moments after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a shorter and harsher speech, from a rooftop in Jerusalem, that was more in line with the president’s rhetoric on the pandemic. Mr. Pompeo, who is among the administration’s leading China hawks, argued that Mr. Trump had “pulled back the curtain on the predatory aggression of the Chinese Communist Party,” including its handling of the coronavirus.

“The president has held China accountable for covering up the China virus, and allowing it to spread death and destruction in America and around the world,” Mr. Pompeo said. “And he will not rest until justice is done.”

Older men are up to twice as likely to become severely sick and to die from the coronavirus as women of the same age.

Why? The first study to look at immune response by sex has turned up a clue: Men produce a weaker immune response to the virus than women, the researchers concluded.

The findings, published on Wednesday in Nature, suggest that men, particularly those over 60, may need to depend more on vaccines to protect against the infection.

“Natural infection is clearly failing” to spark adequate immune responses in men, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale who led the work.

The results are consistent with what’s known about sex differences following various challenges to the immune system. Women mount faster and stronger immune responses, perhaps because their bodies are rigged to fight pathogens that threaten unborn or newborn children.

The findings underscore the need for companies pursing vaccines to parse their data by sex and may influence decisions about dosing, said Dr. Marcus Altfeld, an immunologist at the Heinrich Pette Institute and at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, and other experts.

“You could imagine scenarios where a single shot of a vaccine might be sufficient in young individuals or maybe young women, while older men might need to have three shots of vaccine,” Dr. Altfeld said.

Dr. Iwasaki’s team analyzed immune responses in 17 men and 22 women who were admitted to the hospital soon after they were infected. The researchers collected blood, nasopharyngeal swabs, saliva, urine and stool from the patients every three to seven days. The analysis excluded patients on ventilators and those taking drugs that affect the immune system.

American islands in the Caribbean and Pacific, including the state of Hawaii, are emerging as some of the nation’s most alarming virus hot spots.

For months, geographic isolation helped spare Hawaii, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands from much of the agony unleashed by the pandemic. All adopted early mitigation efforts, and were able to restrict travelers more readily than mainland states could.

But their case counts are surging now, revealing how the virus can spread rapidly in places with relaxed restrictions, sluggish contact tracing and widespread pressure to end the economic pain that comes with lockdowns.

Inconsistent reopenings have sown confusion in Hawaii, especially in Honolulu, where gyms remain open but hiking trails and parks are closed. Restaurants in the city are open, but residents are not supposed to entertain visitors at home. Hawaii now ranks among the states where new cases have grown fastest over the past 14 days.

The situation on Guam, an American territory in the western Pacific, seems especially problematic. Cases are emerging in several schools, at the territorial port authority and in an emergency dispatch center.

The U.S. military has a major presence on Guam, with large naval and air bases. When the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt was stricken with a virus outbreak in the spring, the ship put in to Guam, and hundreds of sailors were quarantined on shore.

The U.S. Virgin Islands, which registered almost no cases in the early days of the pandemic, is now dealing with nearly 1,000 new cases a day, pushing its per capita infection numbers higher than those of several states. The authorities are shutting nonessential businesses and imposing stay-at-home orders, checking all visitors’ temperatures and conducting aggressive testing of residents.

One exception to the crisis unfolding on U.S. islands: American Samoa, an archipelago in the Pacific, remains the only territory or state in the country without a single confirmed case.

In other news from around the United States:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is scheduled to testify next week before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in what the committee described as a “hybrid in-person/remote hearing.” The hearing will address the urgent need for more economic relief for Americans, including children, workers and families. Mr. Mnuchin has been one of the lead negotiators for the Trump administration to reach an agreement with Democrats over the next round of economic stimulus funds. Next week’s hearing will be the first time Mr. Mnuchin will testify before Congress since negotiations on more stimulus were halted this month.

Gyms in New Jersey can reopen on Tuesday with 25 percent capacity and rules requiring masks, Gov. Philip D. Murphy said on Twitter on Wednesday. Health clubs in the state have been closed since March for everything other than personal training sessions. But martial arts, dance and gymnastics classes have been permitted indoors, and pressure mounted as gyms in New York could start reopening this past Monday. Mr. Murphy’s announcement is certain to increase the clamor from owners of restaurants, which remain closed for indoor dining in New Jersey.

The Trump administration on Tuesday threatened hospitals with revoking their Medicare and Medicaid funding if they do not report coronavirus patient data and test results to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Protesters flooded the Idaho State Capitol in Boise this week, many of them without wearing masks, to express frustration during a special legislative session called to address voting and liability laws amid the pandemic. Among the demonstrators was Ammon Bundy, once the leader of an armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge, who was arrested on Tuesday by Idaho State Police after refusing to leave the space.

A cluster of cases in rural Maine that has been linked to a wedding reception held in early August in the town of Millinocket has spread to a county jail elsewhere in the state, infecting 18 inmates and employees, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Vatican announced on Wednesday that, starting next month, Pope Francis would resume his weekly Wednesday audience in public, six months after the coronavirus put a halt to the pontiff’s participatory events with the faithful.

Since March, Francis has been broadcasting the weekly Wednesday morning audience from the library of the Apostolic Palace, in the presence of a few clerics. Normally, the audience is held in St. Peter’s Square, or in the adjacent Paul VI Hall during the colder winter months.

Starting Sept. 2, and for the entire month, the audience will be held in the San Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace, an area normally off-limits to the public.

The audience will be “open to anyone who wishes” to participate, the Vatican said in a statement. A Vatican spokesman said the number would be capped at 500 people “in keeping with health regulations.”

As he has in the past, on Wednesday, Francis spoke about the toll that the pandemic was taking, especially on the most vulnerable, as a result of the prevailing global economic model that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, “an injustice that cries out to heaven,” he said. “The pandemic has exposed and aggravated social problems, above all that of inequality,” he said.

A ban on dancing, aimed at the young, has swept up older Italians.

In an attempt to limit a resurgence of the coronavirus, Italy has banned dancing in nightclubs and outdoor dance halls.

As in other countries, new cases in Italy are being driven by young people, with several clusters traced to nightclubs crowded with maskless patrons. Yet the new rules aimed at stopping young people from gathering en masse have also swept up older Italians for whom an evening at the dance hall is a cherished part of life.

The Italian government’s decree on dancing, issued on Aug. 16, made no distinction between packed, sweaty clubs blaring reggaeton and sedate community centers where people swirl in pairs to accordion-driven waltzes.

Many regulars at Caribe, an outdoor dance hall in Legnago that caters to an older clientele, said they understood that the government was trying to protect the country — and people their age in particular. But they didn’t understand why they could no longer hold their partners on the dance floor while bars, beaches, amateur soccer courts and gyms stayed open.

“It was good to close down nightclubs — teenagers just don’t get it,” said Raffaele Leardini, 72, who was so happy when the club reopened in July that he cried. “But here you have people with a brain and a mask.”

For the first time in three months, virus infections in South Africa have fallen below 2,000 per day. The country saw a peak of 13,944 daily cases in July, but recorded 1,677 on Monday and 1,567 on Tuesday.

But as confirmed cases are decreasing, fewer tests are being carried out, the minister of health said this week.

“The people who are presenting for tests have declined,” the minister, Zweli Mkhize, said in a webinar on Monday.

Despite this, South Africa’s health regulatory body this week approved a rapid antibody test to help track virus outbreak patterns and hot spots. The test, which gives results in a matter of minutes, can now be administered by health care professionals across the country.

Andrea Julsing-Keyter, a senior manager at the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, had a warning for people seeking the test.

“It can only tell you, at that point of time, do you have antibodies, yes or no,” she said. “That’s all it can tell you — it is not to be used as an immunity passport.”

The downward trend in new cases comes as almost all grades returned to school this week, most for the first time since March.

And while things are looking up for the country, Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist and widely respected government adviser, warned that a second surge was still possible.

“If we let our guard down or for a short while, get complacent about our prevention strategies, our social distancing, mask-wearing and hand washing, the second surge is waiting to pounce,” said Mr. Karim, who heads the Covid-19 ministerial advisory committee. “It is possible to overcome — these predictions do not have to be true,” he added.

In other news from around the world:

Madrid’s mayor asked residents of the city’s southern neighborhoods to stay at home in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Spain, which has had more than 400,000 cases and nearly 30,000 deaths from the virus, is facing one of the most severe surges in coronavirus infections in Europe in recent days. The directive is not legally binding, but, the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, said the authorities would ramp up police presence in the southern neighborhoods to ensure that people wear masks and that they don’t drink outdoors.

Days before schools are set to open in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that it would be “clearly nonsensical” for students to wear face masks in class. “You can’t teach with face coverings, you can’t expect people to learn with face coverings. The most important thing is just to wash your hands,” Mr. Johnson said. In areas where local lockdowns are in place, students and staff members will be required to wear masks in communal areas with the exception of classrooms, where the government said “protective measures already mean the risks are lower.”

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has urged his government to eliminate “shortcomings” and “defects” in its battle against Covid-19, state media reported. The country has reported no coronavirus infections, but outside experts are skeptical, citing its decrepit public health system and its proximity to China, where the virus was first detected.

Local authorities have tightened restrictions in Marseille, the second-largest city in France, where the per-capita rate of cases is more than four times the national rate. Under the new rules, which begin on Wednesday night and will remain in effect until at least Sept. 30, wearing a mask will be mandatory throughout the city. Bars and restaurants in the Bouches-du-Rhône region, which includes Marseille, will have to close overnight.

The 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina will be understated because of the virus.

New Orleans has been slammed by the virus, which has killed nearly 600 New Orleans residents so far, and sickened thousands more. Mardi Gras, the city’s signature event, fell in the early days of the pandemic and has been blamed for an eruption of cases in Louisiana.

The mayor, LaToya Cantrell, is planning to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of one of the places where the city’s levees were breached by Katrina, swamping much of New Orleans, but there is nothing else formally planned by the city.

An annual ceremonial march that usually ends in a large rally is going forward, but will be livestreamed so “if you’re sick or have Covid you can stay home and just watch it online,” said Sess 4-5, a hip-hop artist who organized the march.

Robert Green Sr., who lives in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood and lost his mother and a granddaughter in the floods from Katrina, planned processions in past years and initially had ambitious ideas for this year’s edition. He invited people from across the country who had come to New Orleans over the past decade and a half to help rebuild homes.

The procession is still happening, but without the out-of-own guests.

“Weather’s not going to be an issue,” Mr. Green said. “Covid is going to change the way that we do it.” Still, he added, “every family that lost something is going to remember that day. It’s not going go by the wayside.”

As countries work to contain fresh coronavirus outbreaks, some are making good on threats of heavy fines and even jail time for those who breach quarantine rules or border restrictions.

In the latest example, a Kentucky man accused of breaking Canadian quarantine rules faces six months in prison, a $569,000 fine or perhaps both.

The man, John Pennington, was fined about $900 by the police in late June, after staff members at an Alberta hotel grew suspicious that he was breaking the province’s quarantine rules. The police later charged him with doing just that, after finding him at Sulphur Mountain, a tourist attraction.

Though the Canadian border is closed to the United States, a loophole allows Americans to travel to and from Alaska, providing they use a direct route, quarantine at hotels and refrain from visiting national parks, leisure sites or tourist attractions.

Separately, a 28-year-old woman in Australia was sentenced to six months in jail on Tuesday after she hid in the back of a truck on a cross-country journey of more than 1,800 miles from the state of Victoria, a coronavirus hot spot, to Western Australia. The police said that she was picked up by her partner at a gas station.

The woman had traveled to Victoria to care for her sister and had received an exemption to fly back to Western Australia, which has closed its borders to travelers, her lawyer told a court. But the exemption did not apply to travel by road, and she pleaded guilty to breaking the order.

Western Australia’s pandemic rules include a 14-day mandatory quarantine for most travelers in a hotel, and the penalties for breaking them range from prison terms as long as 12 months to as much as $35,000 in fines.

Australia has had 549 deaths and more than 25,000 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, according to a Times database. Many of its state borders are closed because of the recent outbreak in Victoria, where the state capital, Melbourne, remains under lockdown.

Victoria’s latest outbreak has been linked to breaches in a quarantine hotel, but people around the country have been trying to circumvent virus-related restrictions anyway.

Last month, four men in their 20s were found hiding on an interstate freight train heading from Melbourne to Perth, on the country’s west coast. The police have also issued citations to travelers from hot spots like Sydney for lying on border declaration forms.

Reporting was contributed by Katrin Bennhold, Aurelien Breeden, Alexander Burns, Lauren Hirsch, Choe Sang-Hun, Mike Ives, Andrew Jacobs, Isabella Kwai, Alex Lemonides, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jonathan Martin, Patricia Mazzei, Heather Murphy, Elian Peltier, Elisabetta Povoledo, Campbell Robertson, Simon Romero, Anna Schaverien, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Eileen Sullivan, Tracey Tully and Katherine J. Wu.

#covid #World

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xtruss · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus, Vaccines and the Gates Foundation

Arguably, no one has been more active in promoting and funding research on vaccines aimed at dealing with coronavirus than Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. From sponsoring a simulation of a coronavirus global pandemic, just weeks before the Wuhan outbreak was announced, to funding numerous corporate efforts to come up with a novel vaccine for the apparently novel virus, the Gates presence is there. What does it actually entail?

— By F. William Engdahl | Global Research, May 02, 2020 | Theme: Intelligence, Science and Medicine | First published on March 20, 2020

We must admit that at the very least Bill Gates is prophetic. He has claimed for years that a global killer pandemic will come and that we are not prepared for it. On March 18, 2015 Gates gave a TED talk on epidemics in Vancouver. That day he wrote on his blog, “I just gave a brief talk on a subject that I’ve been learning a lot about lately—epidemics. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a tragedy—as I write this, more than 10,000 people have died.” Gates then added, “As awful as this epidemic has been, the next one could be much worse. The world is simply not prepared to deal with a disease—an especially virulent flu, for example—that infects large numbers of people very quickly. Of all the things that could kill 10 million people or more, by far the most likely is an epidemic.”

That same year, 2015, Bill Gates wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine titled, “The Next Epidemic: Lessons from Ebola.” There he spoke of a special class of drugs that “involves giving patients a set of particular RNA-based constructs that enables them to produce specific proteins(including antibodies).Although this is a very new area, it is promising because it is possible that a safe therapy could be designed and put into large-scale manufacture fairly rapidly. More basic research as well as the progress of companies like Moderna and CureVac could eventually make this approach a key tool for stopping epidemics.” Moderna and CureVac both today receive funds from the Gates Foundation and are leading the race to develop an approved COVID-19 vaccine based on mRNA.

2017 and Founding of CEPI

A global flu-like pandemic in fact is something that Gates and his well-endowed foundation have spent years preparing for. In 2017 during the Davos World Economic Forum, Gates initiated something called CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, together with the governments of Norway, India, Japan, and Germany, along with the Wellcome Trust of the UK. Its stated purpose is to “accelerate the development of vaccines we’ll need to contain outbreaks” of future epidemics. He noted at the time that “One promising area of vaccine development research is using advances in genomics to map the DNA and RNA of pathogens and make vaccines.” We will return to that.

Event 201

By 2019 Bill Gates and the foundation were going full-tilt boogie with their pandemic scenarios. He made a Netflix video which made an eerie imaginary scenario. The video, part of the “Explained” series, imagined a wet market in China where live and dead animals are stacked and a highly deadly virus erupts that spreads globally. Gates appears as an expert in the video to warn, “If you think of anything that could come along that would kill millions of people, a pandemic is our greatest risk.” He said if nothing was done to better prepare for pandemics, the time would come when the world would look back and wish it had invested more into potential vaccines. That was weeks before the world heard about bats and a live wet market in Wuhan China.

In October, 2019 the Gates Foundation teamed up with the World Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security to enact what they called a “fictional” scenario simulation involving some of the world’s leading figures in public health. It was titled Event 201.

As their website describes it, Event 201 simulated an “outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms.”

In the Event 201 scenario the disease originates at a pig farm in Brazil, spreading through low-income regions and ultimately explodes into an epidemic. The disease is carried by air travel to Portugal, the USA and China and beyond to the point no country can control it. The scenario posits no possible vaccine being available in the first year. “Since the whole human population is susceptible, during the initial months of the pandemic, the cumulative number of cases increases exponentially, doubling every week.”

The scenario then ends after 18 months when the fictional coronavirus has caused 65 million deaths. “The pandemic is beginning to slow due to the decreasing number of susceptible people. The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed.”

Event 201 Players

As interesting as the prescient Gates-Johns Hopkins Event 201 fictional scenario of October, 2019 may be, the list of panelists who were invited to participate in the imaginary global response is equally interesting.

Among the selected “players” as they were called, was George Fu Gao. Notably, Prof. Gao is director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention since 2017. His specialization includes research on “influenza virus interspecies transmission (host jump)… He is also interested in virus ecology, especially the relationship between influenza virus and migratory birds or live poultry markets and the bat-derived virus ecology and molecular biology.” Bat-derived virus ecology…

Prof. Gao was joined among others at the panel by the former Deputy Director of the CIA during the Obama term, Avril Haines. She also served as Obama’s Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. Another of the players at the Gates event was Rear Admiral Stephen C. Redd, Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The same CDC is at the center of a huge scandal for not having adequate functioning tests available for testing cases of COVID-19 in the USA. Their preparedness was anything but laudable.

Rounding out the group was Adrian Thomas, the Vice President of scandal-ridden Johnson & Johnson, the giant medical and pharmaceutical company. Thomas is responsible for pandemic preparedness at J&J including developing vaccines for Ebola, Dengue Fever, HIV. And there was Martin Knuchel, Head of Crisis, Emergency & Business Continuity Management, for Lufthansa Group Airlines. Lufthansa has been one of the major airlines dramatically cutting flights during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

All this shows that Bill Gates has had a remarkable preoccupation with the possibility of a global pandemic outbreak he said could be even larger than the alleged deaths from the mysterious 1918 Spanish Flu, and has been warning for at least the past five years or more. What the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also has been involved in is funding development of new vaccines using bleeding-edge CRISPR gene-editing and other technologies.

The Coronavirus Vaccines

Gates Foundation money is backing vaccine development on every front. Inovio Pharmaceuticals of Pennsylvania received $9 million from the Gates-backed CEPI, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to develop a vaccine, INO-4800, which is about to test on humans in April, a suspiciously rapid time frame. In addition Gates Foundation just gave the company an added $5 million to develop a proprietary smart device for intradermal delivery of the new vaccine.

In addition Gates Foundation monies via CEPI are financing development of a radical new vaccine method known as messengerRNA or mRNA.

They are co-funding the Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech company, Moderna Inc., to develop a vaccine against the Wuhan novel coronavirus, now called SARS-CoV-2. Moderna’s other partner is the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Head of NIAID is Dr Anthony Fauci, the person at the center of the Trump Administration virus emergency response. Notable about the Fauci-Gates Moderna coronavirus vaccine, mRNA-1273, is that it has been rolled out in a matter of weeks, not years, and on February 24 went directly to Fauci’s NIH for tests on human guinea pigs, not on mice as normal. Moderna’s chief medical adviser, Tal Zaks, argued, “I don’t think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial.”

Another notable admission by Moderna on its website is the legal disclaimer, “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: …These risks, uncertainties, and other factors include, among others: … the fact that there has never been a commercial product utilizing mRNA technology approved for use.” In other words, completely unproven for human health and safety.

Another biotech company working with unproven mRNA technology to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 is a German company, CureVac. Since 2015 CureVac has received money from the Gates Foundation to develop its own mRNA technology. In January the Gates-backed CEPI granted more than $8 million to develop a mRNA vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Add to this the fact that the Gates Foundation and related entities such as CEPI constitute the largest funders of the public-private entity known as WHO, and that its current director, Tedros Adhanom, the first WHO director in history who is not a medical doctor, worked for years on HIV with the Gates Foundation when Tedros was a government minister in Ethiopia, and we see that there is practically no area of the current coronavirus pandemic where the footprints of the omnipresent Gates are not to be found. If that is to the good of mankind or grounds to be worried, time will tell.

— F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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ibilenews · 5 years ago

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COVID-19: For some Nigerians, life would never be same again

No doubt, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought about some changes in the socio-economic activities of Nigerians that would make lives never remain the same again in the country.

While many people who work in the formal sector of the economy stayed at home, those in the informal sector carry on, sometimes continuing their jobs, albeit, on a lower scale.

However, operators in the informal sector, most of who survive on a day-to-day basis, complain of low patronage and sales turnover or idleness. With the restriction of movement and lockdown in some parts of the country, life and socio-economic activities may have changed forever for many Nigerians.

Food sellers, motorcyclists and commercial drivers, who spoke to IBILE NEWS, lamented the state of the economy, even as the curbs begin to take toll on their revenue and living.

A commercial motorcyclist said: “Everywhere is dull. Those who are working with the government will not know the impact, but those of us who ride bikes and drive commercial vehicles are really feeling it. Even though Oyo State government said there is no lockdown, we are already experiencing a lockdown.”

From newspaper vendors to journalists and private school teachers, many lamented how difficult life has become for them this period. And, following reports of alleged harassment of some people on essential duties by security agents across the country, the federal government has charged law enforcement agencies to deploy tact and caution in the course of enforcing the rules, even in the face of provocation.

It also urged Nigerians to be law-abiding, exercise patience and self-restraint in their activities and actions.

Meanwhile, in recognition of the danger to which frontline health workers are exposed to, government is working with other stakeholders to structure medical and life insurance cover for their protection.

Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, who made the appeal at a press conference by the Presidential Taskforce (PTF) on COVID-19, yesterday in Abuja, reminded law enforcement agencies that the message from President Muhammadu Buhari was that no Nigerian should on account of these rules suffer any harm or pains during this period or at any time in our national life.

He implored Nigerian traders and businessmen and women to resist the urge to hike prices of goods and commodities during this period, but allow their compassionate nature to prevail, adding: “This is the best time to be considerate and to show empathy for our fellow Nigerians.

“I am pleased to inform Nigerians that we made progress in the mobilisation of resources to reinforce our preparedness and other implementation arrangements.”

Mustapha observed that Coronavirus remains a potential danger to all of humanity and threatens the country’s economy and national security, adding that it behooves on all Nigerians to play their part in the national response very seriously.

The SGF assured health workers of government’s commitment and urged them to put in their utmost best as they battle to save lives from the disease, assuring that the federal government has ramped up its synergy with state governments through video-conferencing communication and the platform of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and that by these measures, a lot of gaps are being closed for uniformity of purpose.

He urged Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to deploy their resources, especially community-based manpower, to shore up the arrangements by the sub-national entities.

On his part, Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said Nigeria is already experiencing sustained community transmission of the disease in the sense that 30 per cent of the cases have incomplete epidemiological information, while 51 per cent are imported cases and 19 per cent are contacts of known cases.

As the country races to curtail the spread, the Federal Ministry of Health is working with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investments and Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) to explore potentials for local production of medical consumables, such as facemasks, gloves, sanitisers and even equipment like ventilators in view of looming global shortages of medical supplies for response, due to high demand by all countries.

In the meantime, an 18-man team of Chinese medical experts, including doctors, nurses and public health advisers, is due in Nigeria to assist the country in the flight against the disease.

Also, clinical trials and other processes are ongoing to validate therapeutics for COVID-19 treatment. Speaking during the press conference, Ehanire disclosed that government was using the small window of opportunity remaining to intensify investigations to identify cases and their sources, saying:

“This is one of the purposes for which the lockdown of two states and the FCT was proclaimed by the President. “These areas, especially Lagos as primary epicentre, but also other parts of the federation, need to speed up their activities to detect and isolate COVID-19 patients. During and following the lockdown, we expect to see an increase in cases as a measure of improvement in case finding.

“If social distancing and other measures are adhered to, the incidence of positive cases can be controlled.”

The minister revealed that the country has tested nearly 3,000 samples so far and is working hard to scale up capacity in a targeted approach, noting that a Coronavirus Treatment Centre Accreditation Committee was inaugurated and has begun developing an accreditation checklist, as well as a protocol for management of isolation centres.

Ehanire said he had been notified of gifts of medical supplies from China, courtesy of the group of Chinese companies working in Nigeria, noting that a special cargo aircraft would leave Nigeria in a few days to collect the items, which include commodities, PPE and ventilators.

The minister commended all frontline health workers for doing a great job in case identification and management, stating: “As we prepare to contain COVID-19 outbreak, we must not lose sight of other health challenges in the country. Routine healthcare service must continue in all hospitals. Only a wing of tertiary centres need to be put to use for infected patients control.

“It is important that we do not drop, but continue to provide routine health services, including maternal and child health and immunisation. I shall communicate this to all Commissioners for Health in the states.

“I shall also instruct all federal health institutions to this effect and for them to work with state officials. Those who have to deal with Coronavirus patients are to use a wing of their hospitals. For this purpose, they have each been supplied with Starter Packs of PPE and consumables,” he added.

Ehanire noted that these efforts would only be effective if Nigerians cooperate fully with the federal government, stressing that the lockdown might be difficult and inconvenient, but it is necessary for the good of us all.

IN RIVERS State, with the closure of all the boundaries and markets, hard times loom for many residents. The uncertainty of when the partial lockdown would end has left many families, particularly those whose breadwinners are in the informal sector, more disillusioned than ever.

Barely 24 hours to closure of the markets, traders in Port Harcourt and adjourning suburbs hiked the prices of food items by over 200 per cent, and prices are still climbing.

A resident of Diobu in capital city, Chika Ibe, told IBILE NEWS that some households were barely managing to feed their children with sparse meals of rice and beans, explaining that compassionate people have been offering assistance to their neighbours in dire need.

But he stressed that as people’s food stocks are begin to run out, the desire to help might begin to diminish. A civil servant, who identified himself as simply Opusunju, said though he had received his salary on Monday, food vendors in his neighbourhood who are hoarding food would soon make life unbearable for people if the government does not lift the ban on the closure of markets, as a lot of the foodstuffs consumed in the state are brought from outside the state and once the state runs out of food, hard times would set in.

Compliance with closure of markets, nightclubs, cinemas and places of religious worship had been initially flouted, but with the imposition of 24-hour curfew on a section of Port Harcourt and Obio-Akpor Councils by Governor Nyesom Wike and arrest of over 200 people, who were arraigned in court on Thursday, residents of the affected areas have began to comply with the directives.

A drive from Choba in Obio/Akpor Council through Ikwere road to Port Harcourt town-ship showed a total lockdown on all markets and shops, with people roaming the streets searching for where to buy foodstuffs.

A nursing mother, Mrs. Edit Wobo, lamented that she had nothing to eat because her husband feeds them from a daily paid job and appealed to government to send palliative measures and possibly relax the restrictions on food sellers to help tackle the challenge.

As the lockdown continues and its end uncertain, many residents are gearing up for a rather desperate situation in the days and possibly weeks ahead. In Oyo State, as the government imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew (7pm to 6am) and banned the gathering of over 10 persons, many people face hard times. There has been strict compliance with the curfew, but the issue of social distancing is far from being complied with. Across various markets, such as Bodija, Oje and others, sellers and buyers were seen clustering, not minding the prevalence of the pandemic, with drivers seen carrying two passengers in the front seat made for one commuter. Some motorcyclists still saw the pandemic as a ruse; hence they still continued with the culture of carrying two passengers.

The state government said it was working out measures and palliatives to cushion the effects of the pandemic and have received some donations and food items, promising to ensure that they get to the intended beneficiaries.

IN Bauchi State, the government has relaxed the lockdown in the state due to the lack of palliatives to cushion its hardship on the citizens, most of who heavily depend on daily income.

Deputy Governor, Baba Tela, while addressing journalists inside Government House, yesterday, said: “Normally, palliative measures should follow shutdown, but since nothing of such has been introduced to cushion the effects of the lockdown, we must address the situation in a manner that will not create harm or social dislocation.”

He added that the state was placing emphasis on locking its borders to curb infiltration of unsuspecting carriers of the virus after consultation with clergymen, security forces and healthcare professionals.

KWARA State is experiencing its 8th day of lockdown by the state government. As at press time, there had not been any confirmed case of the disease, but food vendors, banks, hospitals, pharmacies, private car owners with two other passengers, commercial bike operators and persons on strictly “essential services” were allowed to operate.

On Thursday, April 2, the state taskforce embarked on the fumigation of major markets in Ilorin metropolis to further combat traces of the virus in the state between 7:00pm and 11:00pm.

Expectedly, the measure has deprived over 80 per cent of residents access to their means of livelihood, but the government has inaugurated a palliative measure committee headed by the Emir of Shonga, Dr. Haliru Yahaya, to ensure food supplies to the vulnerable ones.

Despite these measures and many enlightenment campaigns, some residents still routinely move around to transact their daily businesses, but in strict compliance with social distancing, with vehicular and human movements higher at dusk.

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alexsmitposts · 5 years ago

Photo

Coronavirus and the Gates Foundation Arguably, no one has been more active in promoting and funding research on vaccines aimed at dealing with coronavirus than Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. From sponsoring a simulation of a coronavirus global pandemic, just weeks before the Wuhan outbreak was announced, to funding numerous corporate efforts to come up with a novel vaccine for the apparently novel virus, the Gates presence is there. What does it actually entail? We must admit that at the very least Bill Gates is prophetic. He has claimed for years that a global killer pandemic will come and that we are not prepared for it. On March 18, 2015 Gates gave a TED talk on epidemics in Vancouver. That day he wrote on his blog, “I just gave a brief talk on a subject that I’ve been learning a lot about lately—epidemics. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a tragedy—as I write this, more than 10,000 people have died.” Gates then added, “As awful as this epidemic has been, the next one could be much worse. The world is simply not prepared to deal with a disease—an especially virulent flu, for example—that infects large numbers of people very quickly. Of all the things that could kill 10 million people or more, by far the most likely is an epidemic.” That same year, 2015, Bill Gates wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine titled, “The Next Epidemic: Lessons from Ebola.” There he spoke of a special class of drugs that “involves giving patients a set of particular RNA-based constructs that enables them to produce specific proteins(including antibodies).Although this is a very new area, it is promising because it is possible that a safe therapy could be designed and put into large-scale manufacture fairly rapidly. More basic research as well as the progress of companies like Moderna and CureVac could eventually make this approach a key tool for stopping epidemics.” Moderna and CureVac both today receive funds from the Gates Foundation and are leading the race to develop an approved COVID-19 vaccine based on mRNA. 2017 and Founding of CEPI A global flu-like pandemic in fact is something that Gates and his well-endowed foundation have spent years preparing for. In 2017 during the Davos World Economic Forum, Gates initiated something called CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, together with the governments of Norway, India, Japan, and Germany, along with the Wellcome Trust of the UK. Its stated purpose is to “accelerate the development of vaccines we’ll need to contain outbreaks” of future epidemics. He noted at the time that “One promising area of vaccine development research is using advances in genomics to map the DNA and RNA of pathogens and make vaccines.” We will return to that. Event 201 By 2019 Bill Gates and the foundation were going full-tilt boogie with their pandemic scenarios. He made a Netflix video which made an eerie imaginary scenario. The video, part of the “Explained” series, imagined a wet market in China where live and dead animals are stacked and a highly deadly virus erupts that spreads globally. Gates appears as an expert in the video to warn, “If you think of anything that could come along that would kill millions of people, a pandemic is our greatest risk.” He said if nothing was done to better prepare for pandemics, the time would come when the world would look back and wish it had invested more into potential vaccines. That was weeks before the world heard about bats and a live wet market in Wuhan China. In October, 2019 the Gates Foundation teamed up with the World Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security to enact what they called a “fictional” scenario simulation involving some of the world’s leading figures in public health. It was titled Event 201. As their website describes it, Event 201 simulated an “outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms.” In the Event 201 scenario the disease originates at a pig farm in Brazil, spreading through low-income regions and ultimately explodes into an epidemic. The disease is carried by air travel to Portugal, the USA and China and beyond to the point no country can control it. The scenario posits no possible vaccine being available in the first year. “Since the whole human population is susceptible, during the initial months of the pandemic, the cumulative number of cases increases exponentially, doubling every week.” The scenario then ends after 18 months when the fictional coronavirus has caused 65 million deaths. “The pandemic is beginning to slow due to the decreasing number of susceptible people. The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed.” Event 201 Players As interesting as the prescient Gates-Johns Hopkins Event 201 fictional scenario of October, 2019 may be, the list of panelists who were invited to participate in the imaginary global response is equally interesting. Among the selected “players” as they were called, was George Fu Gao. Notably, Prof. Gao is director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention since 2017. His specialization includes research on “influenza virus interspecies transmission (host jump)… He is also interested in virus ecology, especially the relationship between influenza virus and migratory birds or live poultry markets and the bat-derived virus ecology and molecular biology.” Bat-derived virus ecology… Prof. Gao was joined among others at the panel by the former Deputy Director of the CIA during the Obama term, Avril Haines. She also served as Obama’s Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. Another of the players at the Gates event was Rear Admiral Stephen C. Redd, Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The same CDC is at the center of a huge scandal for not having adequate functioning tests available for testing cases of COVID-19 in the USA. Their preparedness was anything but laudable. Rounding out the group was Adrian Thomas, the Vice President of scandal-ridden Johnson & Johnson, the giant medical and pharmaceutical company. Thomas is responsible for pandemic preparedness at J&J including developing vaccines for Ebola, Dengue Fever, HIV. And there was Martin Knuchel, Head of Crisis, Emergency & Business Continuity Management, for Lufthansa Group Airlines. Lufthansa has been one of the major airlines dramatically cutting flights during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. All this shows that Bill Gates has had a remarkable preoccupation with the possibility of a global pandemic outbreak he said could be even larger than the alleged deaths from the mysterious 1918 Spanish Flu, and has been warning for at least the past five years or more. What the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also has been involved in is funding development of new vaccines using bleeding-edge CRISPR gene-editing and other technologies. The Coronavirus Vaccines Gates Foundation money is backing vaccine development on every front. Inovio Pharmaceuticals of Pennsylvania received $9 million from the Gates-backed CEPI, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to develop a vaccine, INO-4800, which is about to test on humans in April, a suspiciously rapid time frame. In addition Gates Foundation just gave the company an added $5 million to develop a proprietary smart device for intradermal delivery of the new vaccine. In addition Gates Foundation monies via CEPI are financing development of a radical new vaccine method known as messengerRNA or mRNA. They are co-funding the Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech company, Moderna Inc., to develop a vaccine against the Wuhan novel coronavirus, now called SARS-CoV-2. Moderna’s other partner is the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Head of NIAID is Dr Anthony Fauci, the person at the center of the Trump Administration virus emergency response. Notable about the Fauci-Gates Moderna coronavirus vaccine, mRNA-1273, is that it has been rolled out in a matter of weeks, not years, and on February 24 went directly to Fauci’s NIH for tests on human guinea pigs, not on mice as normal. Moderna’s chief medical adviser, Tal Zaks, argued, “I don’t think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial.” Another notable admission by Moderna on its website is the legal disclaimer, “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: …These risks, uncertainties, and other factors include, among others: … the fact that there has never been a commercial product utilizing mRNA technology approved for use.” In other words, completely unproven for human health and safety. Another biotech company working with unproven mRNA technology to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 is a German company, CureVac. Since 2015 CureVac has received money from the Gates Foundation to develop its own mRNA technology. In January the Gates-backed CEPI granted more than $8 million to develop a mRNA vaccine for the novel coronavirus. Add to this the fact that the Gates Foundation and related entities such as CEPI constitute the largest funders of the public-private entity known as WHO, and that its current director, Tedros Adhanom, the first WHO director in history not a medical doctor, worked for years on HIV with the Gates Foundation when Tedros was a government minister in Ethiopia, and we see that there is practically no area of the current coronavirus pandemic where the footprints of the omnipresent Gates are not to be found. If that is to the good of mankind or grounds to be worried, time will tell.

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meadowhilley · 7 years ago

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Part I: A Walk in the (Upside-Down) Park

I’ve always wanted people to like me. As far back as I can remember, though, I was never convinced they did.

Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the self-tortured speculation bit where I delve into the possible origins of my persistent insecurity. All I want to say now is that, however strong or self-assured or even arrogant I may have appeared to you over the years, what I most wanted, always, was for you to understand me, to accept me, to tell me that the person that I am is alright by you.

Then one day you did. It was three years ago. On October 30, 2014, actually, the eve of what could have been the scariest Halloween of my life. This invigorating shot in the arm came just hours before Chris and I would sit down with a team of medical experts who claimed to have discovered a relatively successful protocol for dealing with the zombie apocalypse. Little did any of us know at the time that you, my friends, had slipped me a powerful antidote the day before, one whose real effects would manifest and multiply over the months and years to come.

On that Halloween eve, in my shock at having been abruptly relegated to the ranks of the undead, I turned to Facebook. As one does. And there you were, my imagined community, ready to inoculate me against the looming horror. A motley group of friends that reflected better than anything else the complex composition of my character—character and friends I would need now more than ever. Looking to you, I realized, was the best way of looking at me. The converse, I understood, was equally true. Mirror, mirror, I began. A weird approach to fighting cancer, admittedly. An indication I’d spent too long in fairytale land as a kid. As wild-eyed Joyce Byers of Stranger Things has repeatedly insisted, “I know what this looks like!” By that, of course, she means BATSHIT CRAZY. Unless you happen to be the one who has found a way to talk with your missing son via Christmas lights. Or who feels you’ve discovered a “cure” for your disease in regularly confiding your deepest fears and greatest foibles in the world’s most public forum.

Self-reflection, I quickly discovered, can look an awful lot like an exercise in vanity, its mirror-image and near enemy.

Just as poison can serve as medicine.

Patriotism can resemble treason.

Standing up can involve taking a knee.

Abuse can masquerade as tough love.

And, if you should find yourself suddenly separated from everything you hold dear by the thin wall concealing an eerie dimension you never suspected could exist, then your frantic effort to break down that space-time barrier with an axe or whatever goddamn tool you happen to have on hand will likely appear to many concerned onlookers as the textbook sign of a nervous breakdown.

(Note my weapons of choice: a pen, a child’s fork, a pair of scissors, needle-nose pliers, lip gloss, and a few fake bullets.)

If any of my soul-searching exploits of the past three years ever struck you as exhibitionist—just the sort of self-absorbed, navel-gazing, attention-seeking, ego-driven kind of behavior that gives social media its bad name (well, that and the whole selling-out-to-the-Russians thing)—you are not alone. On many occasions, I myself came to question the methods I’d adopted and to ask what hidden motivations my sneaky subconscious might be cleverly concealing.

My closest friends and family shared these concerns, but whenever they voiced them I justified my Facebooking and blogging and memoir writing as so many means to achieving a noble and necessary end: healing.

Of course, even as I emphatically defended myself against charges of look-at-me narcissism, I was fully and uncomfortably aware of the fact that how we arrive at our destination is bound to change the very nature and outcome of the journey itself.

Social media can have a terrifically corrosive power. We know this. Evidence that these platforms can fracture and divide our community more than they unite us is everywhere apparent. Many social scientists have taken to the soapbox of late, screaming that our devices have made zombies of us all, preaching that the end of the world is nigh, and offering statistics to back their claims.

Showing up regularly in such a fraught virtual environment was a risky proposition, I knew, being all too aware of our susceptibility as humans to the lure of likes, the intoxicating effects of flattery, and the tendency to get greedy and hoard the sort of social capital such attention bestows. Hip to all this, I was a bit like Will Byers, understanding that, even if my initial intention was to use my insight to spy on the Shadow Monster in the hope of defeating it, I could easily end up a double agent in the employ of pure evil.

But whatever. It didn’t seem to matter how often I flipped the perspective switch during those internal debates about the advisability of “performative self-examination,” as I’d come to think of it. I always found myself coming back here, to this massive virtual theater, and awkwardly uttering “Ahem” to get your attention.

Driving my actions was something far more powerful than what the visible world was willing to reveal. Like Joyce, I felt what I felt. I knew what I knew. This was a salvage operation; at stake was not only the rebuilding of my body but the redemption of my soul. To hell with what it looked like. Just sell me the fucking Christmas lights, Donald. And yes, I mean on credit.

There’s something seriously wrong with me, I began by admitting to us all three years ago. And to the public confession that I was harboring a horrifying thing at my core, you responded with 162 likes, 146 comments, and 24 shares, which combined told me what I’d always secretly hoped to hear: that you liked me anyway, that some of you even loved me, and that you cared whether I lived or died.

It was a glorious and strange occasion, like attending my own funeral. Announcing my diagnosis helped us all dump our inhibitions in a screw it, let’s hug sort of way. Within the space of an instant I received this rare and beautiful gift: learning how you felt about me without having to die first.

Everyone should be so lucky. Seriously.

You and I wanted to have a moment, right then and there, while it was still possible. We felt compelled and instinctively driven to enact a basic human transaction at the brink, for our mutual benefit. What we had to figure out were the terms of our trade.

Conventional wisdom says cancer patients need casseroles. While my kids thank those of you who cooked to show you cared over the six-month period when I found even the taste of water overpowering and insufferable, what I most wanted for myself was something very different, and really hard to ask for: an audience.

Hard because, if asking for pretty much anything is awkward, it can be downright mortifying to walk up to the mic and announce, “May I have your attention, please? I have something very worthwhile and important to say.”

Especially for a 5’2” female who indulges in self-doubt the way that others devour a pint of ice cream (ok, I do that, too). Inviting you to read along as I muddled through some early responses to The Big Questions, I was always excruciatingly aware of the bigness of my ask. Time is precious, after all, and far greater voices than mine constantly compete for your attention. But there was so much I wanted to tell you. So much, in fact, that I was dying to tell you.

However lovely the intentions behind donated comfort food, forcing myself to enjoy it in the context of my cancer felt a lot like roasting marshmallows while my house was burning, to be perfectly honest. Every one of my instincts was fully engaged in the all-consuming survival effort, and there was a clear consensus among those deep and shrill interior voices that, if my existence was to mean anything at all to this world, I needed to express myself 1.) immediately and continuously, 2.) to the exclusion of many other worthy pursuits, 3.) within hearing range of an audience, 4.) without any hope of reward beyond simply being heard.

Here’s something you may have figured out about me by now: I am no good at playing the part of Helpless Cancer Victim. No more than I can pull off the role of Classroom Party Mom. “Don’t count on me for cupcakes,” I recently explained to my daughter’s first-grade teacher. “But hey, if you’re open to some curriculum enhancement, I’ll bake you up a big batch.”

Please understand: this is not me acting all smarty-pants, holier-than-thou, self-righteous, proud-to-a-fault, or ungrateful for your concrete aid when I was at my lowest. This is not me judging all of those compromised folks who legitimately need casseroles, or even those who are getting on just fine but would like to enjoy a steaming bowl of consolation without a side dish of complicated, thank you very much. Nor is this me looking down my nose at the phenomenal cupcake bakers of this world who brighten our kids’ days (I love you ladies for all you do—and yes, it’s almost exclusively ladies who do this very important work). It is simply a matter of me knowing me. Of me understanding that the best of what I have to offer is something far less comforting than casseroles or cupcakes, but just as important.

For the better part of my life, most folks haven’t known what to make of me. Like Carla Bruni, “je suis excessive” by nature. I was always too much for people. Too intense. Too far out there. Too eclectic. Too intimidating. Too earnest. Too touche-à-tout (all-over-the-place). Too outspoken. The proof? I just compared myself to Carla Bruni, France’s perfectly bilingual supermodel, actress, singer songwriter, and former First Lady. Who does that?

I’ll tell you who: the sort of person who has been looked at askance, questioned, criticized, and reined in all her life for expressing this brand of intolerable excess.

Someone should really take you down a peg or two, I’ve heard more than once.

You think you’re so great.

On whose authority do you make such claims?

Goody-goody!

Who do you think you are?

Can’t you just focus on one thing at a time?

Stop pointing your finger at me!

What makes you think you have something worthwhile to share?

How about you just shut up already and give someone else a chance to talk?

None of which felt good. If those voices had it right, I’d be forced to conclude there was something seriously wrong with me. The prospect of approaching life in a fundamentally different way would necessarily mean fighting the wild nature even my name told me I was meant to embody.

But still the voices persisted. Which is likely what led to my most valiant effort at shutting myself up: a 13-year relationship in which I was actively discouraged from expressing myself in almost every way imaginable.

Then the most amazing thing happened: I got cancer!

Again, an admittedly excessive thing to do. Not something I’d exactly gone and signed up for. But I’ll be damned if this illness wasn’t the perfect antidote to my lifelong alienation problem.

Suddenly, nobody begrudged me my excesses. No one wanted to be in my shoes. Nobody envied my lot in life. People pretty much stopped telling me to be more this and less that. My body was not a source of jealousy or desire. My manic antics didn’t grate on people’s nerves, or at least not the way they used to. That old, persistent claim that the deck had been stacked in my favor was abruptly dropped. And just like that, after a lifetime of curbing my natural élan so as not to make people uncomfortable, after decades carrying guilt over what I’d been given and wearing shame because my very being could often seem an unwelcome excess, I was finally free to just be me.

The jig was up. My cancer had outed me, revealed what I’d long been concealing. And the only way to spare folks discomfort was to hide the fact that I was sick… which of course could only make me sicker. Repressing, stifling, conforming to expectations—this cautious approach had clearly been unhealthy. Besides which, following all the rules had failed to keep me safe from mortal danger.

Call me crazy, what others saw as a tragedy I experienced as a liberation.

In the Upside-Down, I felt quite suddenly well-liked. Welcome. Just right. The sensation Alice must have felt when she finally stopped growing either too big or too small. Or the comfort Goldilocks found in tasting Baby Bear’s porridge, sitting in his chair, and sleeping in his bed.

The natural bravado and intensity I’d carried into many of my earlier endeavors and that had often struck observers as problematic were instantaneously recast in a heroic light. Whereas in the past I’d been accused of overreach and gaudy showmanship, now the very same gestures were perceived as acts of “incredible bravery” and “kick-ass determination.”

Thanks… I guess? I stammered, totally baffled, knowing that this “amazing courage” people spoke of was nothing more than me being me, only the context had shifted dramatically. The extreme nature of my circumstances finally seemed a good fit for my own radical character. My fearlessness finally had a proper outlet. This is going to sound weird, I know. Offensive, even. But I immediately knew that cancer was going to be easy compared to feeling unliked. That had been excruciating. This would be a walk in the park.

I’ve got this, I assured everyone.

But what I was really thinking was: Holy crap, I was made for this shit.

Ever hear the story about how Br’er Fox wanted to kill Br’er Rabbit in the worst possible way? “Hang me from the highest tree!” pleaded Br’er Rabbit. “Drown me in the deepest lake!” he implored. But please, PLEASE, p-l-e-a-s-e don’t throw me in that there briar patch!” Which is precisely what Br’er Fox proceeded to do, letting predatory spite blind him to the fact that his prey had royally played him.

Like the tricky rabbit, I was born and bred in this here briar patch, my friends. Born and bred.

(to be continued)

#strangerthings longwayhome cancer withyoujoyce zombieapocalypse

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rookieskrp · 8 years ago

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ROOKIES ANNOUNCEMENT ROUND-UP!

As the title says, we have a few things to cover in this post, but it’s all important, so please buckle up for the long ride and take a look.

First of all, we have the issue of AIM statuses going away once and for all to deal with. As you can probably tell by the replies to the post I just linked, the overwhelming response was to use Twitter to supplement AIM without statuses. For anyone curious about the process behind that decision, I counted each platform someone suggested as a vote for that platform. I also counted anyone adding me on that platform as a vote! As such, when anyone said they’d prefer a combination of AIM and Twitter, I counted their vote for both AIM and Twitter. The final count ended up being 6 votes for LINE, 7 votes for AIM, and 15 votes for Twitter. I think I had two people add me on Discord, too.

All of your mods are already available on Twitter (and AIM of course, though not as regularly for all of us these days.) Some of us are available on LINE and other platforms as well, so in the end, the SNS you use to communicate OOC is entirely up to you. We’ll include the OOC contact information of all of the mods at the end of this post so you can get in touch with all of us on anything we’ll be using, however, we’ll all be easiest to reach on Twitter or AIM, and it seems like that’s the case for the rest of the roleplay as well!

We also have a Twitter account for quick staff updates to take the place of any more important AIM statuses we would make in their absence. Please follow and/or bookmark that if you haven’t yet!

Now that that’s out of the way, there’s something else we need to address in regards to AIM statuses, and our OOC communications in general. Lately, multiple members have been hurt by things said on AIM statuses and other semi-public forums by other members of the roleplay. There have even been more instances of anon hate lately. We like to deal with any OOC conflicts as privately as possible, however, this has become a recurring theme to the point that we feel it’s necessary to announce this to everyone.

We’re hoping as AIM statuses go away, that part of this problem will go away as well, but we’re also mindful that anywhere there are people communicating publicly, there’s a chance of people being hurt. We can’t stop all of that, but we can make an effort to prevent as much pain as possible. Life is already hard enough, and RP is supposed to be a safe, fun escape from all of that, so as we make the move to a new platform (or even if you stick on AIM without statuses) let’s keep that in mind and try to make Rookies a more positive environment all around. This isn’t meant to target anyone in particular, or single anyone out; in fact, we’re sharing this with everyone to make that very clear. We think this is something we could all be better at, so let’s be more mindful of the effect our words can have on one another, especially where lots of people can see.

We’ll touch back on this later, but bear with us for a detour. It’s related, we promise!

As you probably know by now, Mod Mira and Mod Carly have both had real life get in the way of Rookies recently. Some of that was covered both here and here. Mod Mira had to go on an emergency hiatus for almost the entirety of the months of December and January due to lack of computer access and personal reasons. She was finally able to return to us in full at the end of January!

Naturally, as it often happens, real life’s timing wasn’t great, because Mod Carly was terribly sick since legitimately the day Mira returned. Mod Mira’s return to us was brought about thanks to a new job and the ability to buy a new PC, which is great! However, she still has a lot to get adjusted to, with both settling into her new real life job and settling back into her job as a mod. On top of all of this, Mod Shannen’s real life job has kept her incredibly busy for the past few months, even though she’s still worked hard to help us. Mod Kyle is the most consistent mod presence we’ve had, but even he was incredibly busy with work during the holidays.

We’ve worked really hard in the past few weeks, and hopefully the increase in events and activity has made that obvious, too! However, real life interfering has gotten us a little bit off schedule. We’re sorry about that and for the inconvenience; we know things getting delayed is frustrating, and that many of the members here have spent a lot of time waiting. We don’t want to make you wait on us any longer than necessary. Sometimes, we get so excited about the events we have planned and getting everyone involved, we get them going quickly and don’t give ourselves the proper time to prepare to bring everything to you. Other times, real life emergencies interfere. Either way, we know all of the members have been incredibly patient during the more than three years of Rookies now, so we won’t request more patience from you. We’ll only request your understanding.

This brings us back to OOC comments. We see a lot of your tweets and statuses, so we see your excitement, (which we love!) but that also means we see your disappointment. This isn’t us saying that disappointment isn’t valid or allowed, because it is, and it’s also understandable. However, we’ve asked multiple times that if anyone has any questions or criticisms, either of the roleplay, us, or other members, that they would take it directly to a mod (or another member, where applicable) instead of talking about it publicly on statuses. We ask this, for one, so we can make sure we see anything you’re concerned about and can address and handle it directly. We also ask this, however, because some of the comments we’ve been seeing lately have really discouraged us, as well as other members.

We are mods because we love you, Rookies as a roleplay, and what we do for it. We dedicate our time to this roleplay entirely due to our passion, and it’s all volunteer, and sometimes, there are things we have to put above modding. There’s nothing we’d love more than to put out events and other work in Rookies that everyone is excited about and happy with, but we’ve been blessed with a huge and diverse collection of people in the roleplay, and where that happens, it gets more and more difficult (impossible, honestly) to make everyone happy. We can’t make everyone happy, but we constantly strive to improve where we lack as a team and create more things you can enjoy and better represent the members we’re lucky to have in the roleplay. Seeing public criticism of us and other members doesn’t help us to improve; in fact, it actually discourages us and saps our motivation, which in combination with the stress of our real lives, makes it even harder for us to bring you the content we want to in the timeline we want to. Naturally, this only frustrates everyone more, so we end up in a negative cycle.

This is us breaking the cycle.

This is the first rule in Rookies: “While IC drama is encouraged, OOC DRAMA IS NOT TOLERATED. Please be respectful to one another, and if you can’t, avoid each other. If there’s an issue, don’t hesitate to let a staff member know so we can help you.”

Some of you that were in Rookies longer may remember when the rule was something worded more strongly: “OOC DRAMA IS NOT TOLERATED. You cause drama, you’re out. No warnings.”

We changed this rule because even with countless ups and downs Rookies experienced in the realm of drama while running more than three years, no one was ever kicked out. We wanted a set of rules we would be sure to uphold, and we don’t want to kick anyone out. Everyone’s time is limited, and we respect the amount of time and effort the members have put into this roleplay so much, and are grateful you choose to spend some of your limited time with us.

What are we asking you to do? Think before you post something on social media outside of Tumblr. It may be cliche, but ‘treat others how you want to be treated’ is a good rule of thumb. Is there anyone you wouldn’t want to see what you’re about to post? If you saw the status or tweet you were about to make and it was directed at you, would you be hurt? If the answer to either of those questions is ‘yes’ or you aren’t sure, it’s best to keep that comment to yourself, a private chat, or take it to a mod. Please keep the first rule of Rookies in mind; be respectful to one another, and if you can’t, avoid each other. If there’s an issue, let a staff member know privately. Addressing drama on a public platform may seem easy, but it only tends to get more people involved in the drama, and get more people hurt in the process.

It’s easy for intentions to be misunderstood online as well, and sometimes explaining things to each other can sort out a lot of drama. Let’s listen to each other more, and if it turns out you hurt someone entirely unintentionally with something you said, apologize. If you’re the party hurt, and the person that hurt you apologizes, do your best to be forgiving and move past the issue together.

On the other hand, if you see a post and think it’s about someone you know, if you have the urge to screenshot it and show anyone, please bring it to a mod first so we can address things without them getting out of control. Sometimes, it’s best to just leave a comment be instead of spreading it and again, getting more people involved, and subsequently, hurt.

In general, passive aggressive or ‘shady’ statuses, tweets, anons-- anything -- don’t do anyone any good and certainly hurt people more than they help.

If these problems continue even as AIM statuses disappear and we venture into a “new era” of OOC social media, we will take more serious action, even though we all wish we didn’t have to make these kinds of rules. As the people running this roleplay, our top priority is keeping this environment as safe, positive, and fun as we possibly can; remember, having fun is the point of roleplaying in the first place! We want this to be an enjoyable place for our members and for ourselves, and we hope you’ll join us in cultivating that kind of space.

For more on what we stand for in Rookies, we’ll leave you with this post by our admin as a good reminder, both to our members and ourselves. If there are muns you’d rather avoid, please let a mod know that as well. We can’t always promise to keep everyone that doesn’t get along with each other apart (especially if there’s an issue we aren’t aware of), but we can promise you’re never obligated to interact Ic or OOC with anyone you’re uncomfortable with.

We’ve talked a lot about how you can help us to improve Rookies, but we’re serious about doing better ourselves, too. We’re far from perfect as mods, and we’re aware of the mistakes we’ve made and are working hard to learn from them. We know we haven’t done the best at upholding our “no tolerance for drama” rule. We know that it’s easy to say ‘bring issues to a mod,’ but is much harder in practice when a mod isn’t always around or easily accessible to communicate with. We also know it’s frustrating to anticipate the next part of an event and not have it come out on time, and these things are on us. With how chaotic life has been for all of us lately, we acknowledge now more than ever that we need help!

So to end off on a more positive note, we’ll be opening up applications for mods in the coming days. We love Rookies and our members, and we’re committed to keeping things running smoothly and according to plan even when our own lives interfere, and in order to do that, we need at least one new addition to our team. This post is already more than long enough, and we need some time to prepare for the process, but look forward to more information on that soon.

Thank you for the time you took in reading this, and for the time you’ve devoted to Rookies so far. We hope you know that even in tougher posts like this, we appreciate you all more than we can possibly express. But we also want you to know that you have our full support in dedicating your free time to things you enjoy, that are positive outlets for you, and help reduce your stress. If Rookies isn’t fun, or becomes more draining or stressful than it is a positive part of your life, we’ll never force you to stay. We want to emphasize again that roleplaying should be fun, and if it’s not, you should find a way to make it fun or take some time away from it. We’ll be happy to try to help you find ways to make it fun, but if that isn’t working, we’ll also fully support you stepping away from Rookies if that’s what you need to do, and that will always be the case.

As promised, here’s our OOC contact information to make getting in touch with us as easy as possible! If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please direct them to one of us here.

Carly

twitter: hentaekai aim: hentaekai line: patchworkclouds discord: hentaekai #6032 always available on taeminrk’s tumblr ims!

Kyle

aim: [email protected] twitter: kylekrp

Mira

twitter: yulbins aim: k.yulhee line: yulbins can often be found lurking on yulrk’s ims or rkevent’s inbox

Shannen

aim: howonie

#rkannouncement

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vsplusonline · 5 years ago

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Britain's response to Covid-19: Why is UK struggling to speed up coronavirus testing

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/britains-response-to-covid-19-why-is-uk-struggling-to-speed-up-coronavirus-testing/

Britain's response to Covid-19: Why is UK struggling to speed up coronavirus testing

Many countries’ response to Covid-19 has been different but most of them agreed upon “containment policy” except Britain who till late focussed on “herd immunity”.

The British government on Wednesday said it would ramp up coronavirus testing amid widespread criticism that it was carrying out far too few, as ministers suggested that shortages of chemicals were partly to blame.

But while Germany has been testing about 500,000 people a week, Britain’s current capacity is just 12,750 a day, a figure the government said it was aiming to double by mid-April. Many in Britain have faced problems over testing for the novel coronavirus.

Samina, a mother of two, is in self-isolation for seven days as she suffers from fever. Her daughter, who turned 12, could not hug her own mother as she remains in self-isolation. Just when Samina thought she is starting to recover with fever going down, sudden pain in the chest with severe cough and increase in temperature prompted her to call the emergency on March 31 midnight. However, six hours later when Samina did not hear from the emergency response team, her husband called the GP who gave her antibiotics to rule out chest infection and ascertain at the same time if she has had a re-lapse of Covid-19.

“I wish they could test me, I would have some peace of mindin these 7 days I have had a near-death experience,” Samina said.

“I have a real tough time explaining to my relatives in Pakistan that it’s not possible to test for Covid-19 here in the UK especially when they can pay and get tested,” said Samina’s husband, who is on leave to look after their two daughters.

So far, tests have been focused on those suspected to have the new virus who have been admitted to hospital but the government plans to increase testing of frontline healthcare staff to hundreds of thousands within the coming weeks.

“Sadly, there was never much of an appetite for aggressive testing in the UK. With an increase in cases, the government’s testing strategy has repeatedly shifted. A confused strategy without clarity and leadership,” said Dr Kailash Chandra, former chair NHS (National Health Service) trust.

The “shift” that Dr Chandra spoke about is that from “herd immunity strategy” to now “suppression strategy.”

What is Herd Immunity?

It allows people to get infected and then developing immunity against it as a result, just like one gets after contracting measles or chicken pox.

Impact of Herd Immunity

A report published by the Imperial College, London on March 16 estimated that above policy if followed on Covid-19 by the UK could result in an estimated 5,10,000 deaths in total and on the worst day as many as 55,000.

Responding to UK’s herd immunity strategy Dr Min Pok-kee, a leading official from South Korea, slowly becoming the model country for its policy of mass testing, said: “We in Korea were thinking — Are these people in their right mind?”.

Change of Strategy

The Imperial College report specified two strategies to combat Covid-19 and of that the experts suggested the “suppression strategy.”

Explaining this strategy, the report said, “Suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely.”

This translates into tougher lockdown and social distancing for the whole population; closing of schools and community spaces and gatherings and attempting to extend this measure until a vaccine can be developed.

This overnight changed the thought process of the leaders in the UK.

As of now UK is in lockdown with no specific end date.

Why lockdown?

Lockdown is essential and has to be done for every country for a short time while the time frame for it has to be determined by every country.

Explaining the lockdown, Dr Renu Jainer said: “Corona is the biggest equalizer on earth. It will happen to most lockdown is just a way to spread the infection and flatten the curve, so NHS or any other health service across the world is able to cope and prepare while the spread is delayed.”

How can suppression strategy succeed?

Experts suggest that “every Covid-19 patient can infect up to three other people on average.” Suppression strategy can work if this number can be reduced to one, “which is postulated to halt the spread of the infection.”

In order to achieve this, one needs to “test, test, test” even those who might not exhibit the symptoms.

Junaid Nabi, a Senior Fellow at The Aspen Institute explaining this wrote, “This is important because coronavirus infection has a longer incubation period of 1-14 days (as compared to 1-4 days in flu) and emerging evidence suggests that people with mild or no symptoms may be responsible for the rapid spread of the infection.”

When WHO’s Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus highlighted the importance of “breaking the chains of transmission,” this is what he meant, impeding the spread with “rapid and reliable” testing.

Why is UK not able to test even though it intends to now?

Yet again, it is the “herd immunity” strategy of UK to be blamed. Initial subscription to this policy meant UK started very late on organising and ordering supplies and thus is at the end of the queue behind all those who started on “containment policy” early on.

Alex Blakemore, head of life sciences at Brunel University London told a newspaper, “Everyone in the world wants those same reagents and the suppliers can only supply a certain amountWe are now in competition with the rest of the world . . . and other people have already bought up a lot of stock.”

If one were to believe the leaked email from PM’s office as reported in the press, then it reveals that UK came around to request research institutions for testing equipment as late as March 22 which was almost two months after the first case was reported in the country.

Dr Yvonne Doyle from Public Health England and Business Secretary Alok Sharma holding the press conference on April 1 from Downing Street assured the nation that “we are at 10,000 test a day” and the aim is to go up to 25,000 a day. Yet this number is way behind 500,000 a week in Germany, one of the European countries that has better control over the infection.

Dr. Renu Jainer, Vice Chair, British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, BAPIO- Paediatrics at Consultant told India Today it’s also a question of limited availability of Labs and lab technicians to process these tests.

Why no quick tests?

There is a talk of quick 15 minutes tests available in some parts of the world. Doctors in the UK say the accuracy of those have not yet been proved. Its only on March 27 that FDA approved a test that can give a result in 15-30 minutes.

Gayle Markovitz, Editor of World Economic Forum wrote, “This is a pretty big game changer. So now we will have to see how quickly it gets deployed, how and where it will be used, and at what price.”

At what point can one be admitted to the hospital in UK?

The symptoms of Covid-19 are continuous dry cough, fever and difficulty with breathing. Some can have body ache, loss of taste sensation or runny nose.

The recommended treatment in the UK is paracetamol and self-isolate for 7 days. The cariers of effected person will need to be in self-isolation for 14 days as they would have been in phase where they can infect but not develop symptoms of fever, cough and breathing difficulty.

On being asked when can a person be hospitalised as in the UK for those with minor symptoms, NHS is recommending not to even call 111 — Covid-19 helpline.She also added that the “threshold for hospital admission is lower in the case of older people as their risk is higher.”What is UK’s policy on treatment of coronanavirus?UK is only recommending paracetamol unlike many other countries using the malaria medicine hydroxycholoquine.

Explaining the situatiuon, Dr Jainer said, “Breathlessness can be because of anxiety and high fever too. But, if you are struggling to breathe, make sure you get assessed as you may need admission to hospital.”

Dr Kailash Chandra, former chairperson of NHS, said “Hydro chloroquine is not proven and is not safe.”

“It is licensed for malaria not for Covid-19 so it can be toxic,” Dr Renu Jainer said.

Even if a patient ends up in a hospital in the UK he or she is only given “supportive management and fluids, no drugs are being given.”

Covid-19 is a global pandemic. Each country has its own challenges and ways to tackle them.

In the case of UK, Imperial College of London’s report on Covid-19 prompted it to change its strategy overnight but is it too late in the day? The jury is out on that.

READ | Russian plane takes off for US with coronavirus help onboard

READ | Taiwan to spend $35 billion fighting virus, to donate 10 million masks

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#Politics

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phgq · 5 years ago

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Tracing of coronavirus patient’s contacts in Pangasinan at 80%

#PHnews: Tracing of coronavirus patient’s contacts in Pangasinan at 80%

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan — About 80 percent of the total number of people who had close contact here with an Australia-based Filipina who tested positive of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) were already traced by the health authorities and none of them were showing symptoms of the virus.

In a forum Tuesday, Provincial Health Office chief Dr. Anna Ma. Teresa De Guzman said some of them went for check-ups in their respective health centers and they are asymptomatic so far.

“Those who (are) abroad also have themselves tested and they are negative of the virus based on their responses in their group chat,” she said.

De Guzman said they are working with the Department of Health and the Pangasinan Police Provincial Office in tracing those who had close contact with the Covid-19 case during her stay in Pangasinan.

The police even tapped the Commission on Elections to get the residential address of the persons who had attended the class reunion with the Australia-based Filipina.

De Guzman said the Filipina might have acquired the virus in Manila, where she stayed for another week after her visit to the province.

“As we know, there are many cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) and the patient stayed there for another week before she returned to Australia. Might be that because of her different activities, her immune system weakened as she returned to Manila from our province, making her susceptible to the virus,” she said.

She added the provincial government is still appealing to the remaining close contacts of the Australia-based Filipina while she was in the province to coordinate and cooperate with the health authorities.

Meanwhile, De Guzman said three patients under investigation (PUIs) are currently admitted and quarantined in the hospitals.

“One of the PUIs is a male who has travel history in Taiwan, the other one is a female who traveled from China, and they were both admitted over the weekend due to flu-like symptoms. While a five-year-old boy has travel history in Spain with his parents,” she said.

The parents of the boy were considered as persons under monitoring as they are not showing any flu-like symptoms, she added.

“Their specimens were sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine for testing. Usually, the results came after two days but it would be longer this time since there are many that needed to be tested, especially from the NCR,” she said.

De Guzman said the PHO has already issued an advisory for all establishments to make thermal scanners and alcohols or sanitizers to be readily available as a precautionary measure.

She also urged the bus terminals in the province to disinfect their buses.

“It is still considered a confined area that needed disinfection and sanitization for the safety of the public,” she said.

The DOH assures that the province remains Covid-19-free. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Tracing of coronavirus patient’s contacts in Pangasinan at 80%." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1096159 (accessed March 11, 2020 at 05:08AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Tracing of coronavirus patient’s contacts in Pangasinan at 80%." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1096159 (archived).

#Philippines #News #Filipino #Pinoy #Tourism #Politics #Culture #Editorial #Environment #Society #History

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nrip · 6 years ago

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How social media can help or hurt your health care career

We live in a time when social media isn’t just about sharing pictures or ideas with a close circle of friends and family. Between our Facebook statuses, our Twitter profiles and especially our LinkedIn pages, we are always public, all the time — no matter what your privacy settings may have you believe.

For people in the health care industry, the line between the professional and the personal is a particularly difficult one to navigate in the digital realm. It’s perfectly natural to want to use social media as a platform to vent about a trying day, to source new opinions on a difficult case or even to humblebrag about a job well done. But doing so may put your job — and your entire health care career — in jeopardy.

It was just a friendly post

Social media conduct is a thorny issue in the health care sector, where HIPAA rules and patient confidentiality are extremely important but also all too easy to break. Sometimes, the violations are fairly obvious and egregious, like the doctor who posted pictures of a young female patient being treated for extreme intoxication to Facebook and Instagram or the nursing home staff that sent Snapchat photos of residents in private moments to friends while on the job.

Other times, a social media post may seem perfectly benign or even friendly but still breach protocol. A number of ER staffers were fired for offering their condolences for a police officer killed in the line of duty on Facebook before his family was even notified. A nurse who posts a selfie with his favorite patient without consent or who makes an identifying comment in a Tweet about the man who had a heart attack or the young girl who attempted suicide: these are all HIPAA violations, even if you think your account is private.

“If you’re giving any data about a patient at all, you’ve breached the privacy,” said Pam Lane, vice president of health informatics with the California Hospital Association, in an article for the American Society of Registered Nurses. “People are doing it and they are losing their jobs.”

It had nothing to do with my job

And then there are the examples where a social media post might not directly have anything to do with your job at all. In July, a nurse at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia was fired after posting a racially-charged rant against a Black Lives Matter protest in the city, which read in part: “I am sick and tired of all this bull**** with the black people!!”

After a public petition for the nurse’s removal, Jefferson Hospital released a statement regarding the situation: “An employee’s decision to post inflammatory comments on social media is an unfortunate choice … Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we must recognize that what we say on social media can directly affect how people perceive Jefferson — particularly when those comments put into question Jefferson’s commitment to the care of our patients, treatment of our fellow colleagues and education of our students.”

What about free speech?

Was Jefferson right to fire an employee for a social media post made outside of work, or should the nurse be allowed to say whatever she likes under the First Amendment protection of free speech?

It’s not a philosophical question up for debate: There is a right and a wrong answer. In most cases, the First Amendment does not protect employees from being fired for anything they post, say or do on social media. Many workers remain painfully unaware of this fact.

“The First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government,” explains HubShout in a recent report on social media conduct. “Speech is not protected from private sector disciplinary action.”

But when HubShout set out to survey how people actually interpreted the law, the results were alarming. In response to the question, “Do you believe that getting fired because of a social media post is an infringement of First Amendment rights?” 41 percent of people said “Yes,” and another 30 percent said “Not Sure.”

In other words, roughly seven in 10 workers don’t understand how their online actions could affect their professional lives.

Social media can help or hurt your career

We often use social media as an extension of our personalities, so it’s no wonder that employers would measure how current staff or potential hires conduct themselves online to gauge their behavior in the workplace. It doesn’t all have to be negative, though. A survey of recruiters found that 55 percent had reconsidered a job candidate based on their social media profiles, and while 61 percent of those reconsiderations were unfavorable, the remaining 39 percent were positive.

Social media is just that: social. It’s meant as a public forum, and it needs to be treated like one. Workers in the medical industry need to be especially careful about how they discuss work-related issues online and should be aware of how their actions might reflect their ability to inspire trust in a general public that requires dependable, quality care.

Sandra Canosa is a writer, Careers by KevinMD.com.

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realselfblog · 6 years ago

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The Consumer and the Payor, Bingo and Trust: My Day At Medecision Liberator Bootcamp

To succeed in the business of health information technology (HIT), a company has to be very clear on the problems it’s trying to address. Now that EHRs are well-adopted in physicians’ practices and hospitals, patient data have gone digital, and can be aggregated and mined for better diagnosis, treatment, and intelligent decision making. There’s surely lots of data to mine. And there are also lots of opportunities to design tools that aren’t very useful for the core problems we need to solve, for the clinicians on the front-lines trying to solve them, and for the patients and people whom we ultimately serve.

At the end of each day, the HIT company has to remember that at the end of a digital transaction, there’s a person. That individual could be a member of a health plan, a nurse, a physician, a grandparent-caregiver tapping into her grandchild’s medical portal…all people, with different abilities to read and comprehend data, values, and incentives.

Earlier this week, I spent a day with Medecision’s digital health team, aka ‘the Liberators.’ My role in the event was to provide a through-line from introductions to trend-weaving what I heard and learned at the end of the day. In the middle of the day, I spoke about trends in health care focusing on the patient: as a payor, as im-patient, as digital, as a consumer, and as political.

As a payor, the insured patient in 2019 is likely to be managing a high-deductible health plan, responsible for first-dollar costs until s/he reaches that threshold. As such, health care spending feels like a retail event, prompting the patient-as-payor to ask, “what’s the price?” “What’s the value?” “What’s the product?” “What are the alternatives?” Even though price transparency has gone live online among more hospitals, this start-up phase is still heavy-lifting and confounding for people to understand. Health care costs continue to be the top pocketbook issue for most families in the U.S. across income cohorts.

As that payor, expecting retail service, patients are im-patient. Why can’t appointments be made online like I do with restaurants on OpenTable? What’s so hard about getting me my lab test on the day or next-day after I provide my sample? Health care surely doesn’t feel like the best retail experience, and that’s especially true for health plans. I shared the Temkin Group’s data on customer experience (shown here), where our favorites are found in grocery stores, fast food joints, and retailers. Health insurance plans? Not so much.

Patients are also digital: smartphones are fairly ubiquitous (although we must remember that not all people can afford data plans – my mantra, that connectivity and broadband are a social determinant of health). This means people (with connectivity) want work-flows for health care the way they conduct their financial affairs, social networking, travel planning, and way-finding. People are omni-channel, too, so health care must think like a retailer in reaching people wherever and however they want to be reached: online, via email, via text, phone call, and even via snail mail for some (albeit increasingly fewer) patients.

Patients are consumers, at the end of the day. As payors, digital beings, im-patient people demanding service levels they experience elsewhere — outside of healthcare.

Finally, patients are political. Health care was the top issue driving voters to the 2018 mid-term elections. Health care will also be top-of-mind among voters in 2020, who are becoming more aware of the risks of losing coverage. This week, the level of uninsured people in America rose to a four-year high, with the erosion of support for the Affordable Care Act by President Trump and Congress over the past two years. Growing concern for losing coverage for pre-existing conditions has become mainstream across political parties.

Politics underpin what’s happening in health plans in the public sector, and I spoke a bit about Medicare and Medicaid. The latter is the place to look, across the fifty State Governors, for Medicaid expansion (or not); growing integration of behavioral health to deal with depression, anxiety, and the opioid crisis; and greater attention to the social determinants of health and long term social supports (LTSS). You can see the latest Medicaid demonstration waiver data from a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis done January 9, 2019 shown in the bar chart.

To that point, during the day, two Medecision Liberators played out a scenario for complex cardio management. In the role play, a patient-persona was speaking with a call center associate. In the conversation, the plan member asked how the associate knew so much about them. Further into the conversation, the member said she needed to hurry off the call to get to her bingo game in time.

That conversation raised two important points and opportunities to drive health outcomes: first, on the issue of privacy and trust, as the member questioned just how the associate knew so much about her. That’s an opportunity to forge a bond of trust between the member and the health plan or provider, to discuss how bringing various data together can help paint a picture of her whole life and help her achieve better health.

The second item — the bingo game — presented an opportunity to discuss social supports, transportation to the event, and what the member might be snacking on during bingo. If it turns out she loves the salty snacks or M&Ms, the health coach has an opportunity to counsel the member on the impact of salt on her heart health, and suggestions for some healthier snacking.

This kind of conversation is inherent in the values that Health New England’s Lisa Holland discussed in the context of HNE’s customer promises for the organization: quality, thoughtfulness, and humanity.

The Medecision Liberators collaborated in a brainstorming exercise about social determinants of health, generating important insightful questions they would ask people about their lives to un-earth opportunities to address social supports. A few of these questions were:

What’s your most challenging daily activity?

Walk me through your typical day.

Do you have someone you can rely on if you need help?

What does living independently look like to you?

Do you have access to healthy food?

What did you do for entertainment today that gave you pleasure?

Can you read?

That led me to end the day’s trend-weaving quoting one of my favorite JAMA columns from the recent past: that Value-based payments require valuing what matters to patients, co-written by Dr. Joann Lynn, Dr. Aaron McKethan, and Dr. Ashish Jha. This has become a pillar in my thinking about the role of respect and trust in health care between patients (as payors, consumers, self-carers and caregivers) and health care organizations. They ask and answer: “How can a care system be structured to deeply respect the myriad differences among patients when disabilities or advanced age makes those differences especially important? The answer is that the delivery system must proactively help affected people articulate their priorities and goals.”

Health Populi’s Hot Points: The theme of trust was mentioned throughout the day, across a wide range of discussion topics. I noted in closing that this week also convened the World Economic Forum in Davos, during which Edelman annually updates their Trust Barometer. This year’s survey found that globally in 2019, the most trusted institution for consumers is the employer: both for ensuring a job for “me,” as well as for being a good corporate citizen in the community locally and in the larger world, in sustainability and responsibility.

This behavior drives trust, which we learned is the most important driver behind peoples’ engagement in health — a key finding in the first Edelman Health Engagement Barometer conducted in 2008. Eleven years later, trust as a health engagement requirement is even more important in light of our AI-enabled health care world.

We remember that at the end of every health IT transaction, there’s a person: a plan member, a consumer, a doctor, a caregiver.

“We are all the same,” a doctor’s essay in JAMA noted this week. Dr. Mandy Maneval, a family practitioner in Mifflintown, PA, wrote:

It strikes me that so many of life’s moments are dichotomies of health and disease, life and death, joy and sorrow. As a family medicine physician, this mirrors my everyday life. I often leave one patient’s room after giving bad news and immediately enter the next room to see the happy parents of a newborn. Navigating the full spectrum of human emotion is simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting. There are days when I feel like a hero and others when I cannot do a thing right…Connecting deeply through our shared humanity, no matter our differences, is one of the most precious gifts we offer and receive as physicians. We are all the same.

That works for physicians, and it works for all of us in the health care ecosystem. I thank Medecision for the opportunity to participate in this day of insights, team-building, and real human connection.

That last sentence was going to be the conclusion of this post. But just in time, on cue as this post was being scheduled on WordPress, an article titled A Framework for Increasing Trust Between Patients and the Organizations That Care for Them arrived in my inbox from JAMA published on 24th January 2019. Dr. Thomas Lee and colleagues explained:

Trust matters in health care. It makes patients feel less vulnerable, clinicians feel more effective, and reduces the imbalances of information by improving the flow of information. Trust is so fundamental to the patient-physician relationship that it is easy to assume it exists. But because of changes in health care and society at large, trust is increasingly understood to be at risk and in need of attention.

The authors outline potential approaches to increase trust between patients and health care organizations, which include:

As a first step, leadership should acknowledge that trust is foundational and a trusting environment essential for good health care

Measuring trust should be a standard part of evaluating patient care experiences, including those with health plans

Transparency of patient care experiences should be part of measuring, monitoring and continually improving quality and safety

Boards and leadership should routinely examine data that reflect on patient and staff trust, and include these in reward plans

Standards, training and accountability systems should be developed for clinicians and for teams

Relationships between patients and clinicians should be structured such that patients can make choices reflecting their personal preferences: this recognizes that patients know more about what matters to them and how they are doing

Health systems should insure needs of patients for a navigator or translator are met

Finally, patients should be actively engaged in designing solutions to the erosion of trust.

This article is free from JAMA’s usual paywall, so please click on the link above to access the entire discussion. These doctors who crowdsourced the recommendations really understand that it’s good to know about patient’s love of bingo, taste for salty snacks, and social support systems…and patients really do want to be part of their own planning and care.

The post The Consumer and the Payor, Bingo and Trust: My Day At Medecision Liberator Bootcamp appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

The Consumer and the Payor, Bingo and Trust: My Day At Medecision Liberator Bootcamp posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com

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