#pandemic is spreading faster
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nyxfaei · 1 year ago
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We should have never stopped fucking masking. We should have never fucking started pretending that the pandemic was over.
Not even my dad will mask around and for me ugh
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minniesfiles · 10 days ago
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AS LONG AS YOU’RE WITH ME
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You never got to live in the utopia you dreamed of, but as long as you were in the arms of the man you loved more than anything else in the world, nothing else mattered to you.
❧ PAIRING; wonwoo x reader
❧ GENRE; angst
❧ TAGS/WARNINGS; dystopian, end of the world, established relationship, character deaths, a lot of crying, HEAVY angst, lowkey very cliché
❧ WORDCOUNT; 7.4k
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𐚁₊⊹
You lived in a world that was on the brink of collapse, with overpopulation turning into a full-fledged global crisis. The sheer number of people exceeded the ability of the planet to sustain them. Food shortages plagued every corner of the world that left millions to suffer the slow and agonising pain of hunger.
Livestock declined, crops fell short of demand, and the previously plentiful resources that people took for granted were withering at an alarming pace. The constant battle for survival turned everyday life into a nightmare for which no one was prepared for.
People lined up for hours in hopes of receiving scraps of food that could barely last them a day. Entire families would go to bed with empty stomachs, not being sure if they would wake up the next morning.
As resources depleted, humanity's social structure broke along with it. Governments collapsed under the weight of the crisis because they were unable to manage the chaos. Law and order breached across numerous regions, and acts of desperation became prevalent. Looting, violence, and corruption spread like wildfire as people fought for any chance of survival.
Communities that once thrived with hope were now riddled with fear and distrust. Meanwhile, the environment suffered the consequences of humans’ boundless consumption. Forests disappeared, rivers dried up, and pollution poisoned the air and water. The planet, that was pushed to its limits, began to turn against the people within it.
Then came the diseases — a wave of new, deadly pandemics unlike anything humanity ever faced. These mysterious illnesses spread faster than anyone could comprehend. The diseases spared no one, targeting the vulnerable and the strong alike. Babies succumbed to these illnesses at birth, while the elderly populations were wiped out in months.
There were heated debates over whether the rapid decline in population was an irreversible tragedy or a grim mercy. Some saw the decline as a ray of hope that the planet may recover and its destroyed resources could be restored. Others saw the declining numbers as a sign of the final collapse and the beginning of the extinction of the human race.
People lived in continual fear — not just of death, but of losing those they held dear. There was nothing left to do but wait in as the inevitable approached. The end was near — whether in years, months, or days, no one could say. And when it came, humanity would vanish, leaving only echoes of what once was.
Having been abandoned at birth and without knowing who your parents were or why they abandoned you, you were alone in a world that provided no comfort. You grew up without a family's warmth, without anybody to guide or support you.
Having no one to lose might’ve seemed like an advantage in a dying world, but it left you rather hollow and aching for connection even as you fought every day to survive.
Then, a few years ago, everything changed. You met him — the one person who brought light into your dark existence. He wasn’t just someone you loved; he became your entire world.
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▍10 OCTOBER 2047
Hoisting the last bag into the back of the pickup car, Wonwoo paused and brushed a hand over his forehead to wipe away the sweat from the afternoon sun.
“Are you ready?” he turned to you, sounding exhausted.
“Yes,” you replied, but your tone was flat and lacked any trace of energy.
Leaving the house where you lived for so many years, you felt a wave of sadness as the memories came flooding in. Even though you made an effort to hide what you were feeling, Wonwoo could see how your shoulders slumped under the weight of everything you were about to leave behind.
His eyes followed your every move. For as long as he could remember, he was always attentive to your moods, and today was no different. Noticing your dull tone and the way you avoided his gaze, his worry deepened.
“Hey,” he murmured gently, walking over to you and placed his hands on your shoulders. His fingers tilted your chin upward so your eyes met his.
“What’s wrong baby?” he asked softly, his voice deep yet tender, as though he feared pushing too hard.
You shook your head, your eyes darting away. “Nothing. Let’s just go already,” you muttered, shrugging off his touch and stepping past him, eager to escape the conversation. But Wonwoo wasn’t one to give up easily.
In one quick motion, he reached for your wrist. His grip was firm but not it wasn’t forceful. He pulled you back towards him, and you found yourself standing close, almost pressed against his chest.
“I can tell something is bothering you,” he said. He was insistent but kept his voice calm. “And you know you can talk to me about it, babe.”
Your lips quivered a little as you looked for words that failed to come out, and your eyes fell to the ground. Wonwoo’s thumb traced light circles on the back of your hand as he waited patiently.
“Come on,” he said after a moment, his tone tinged with vulnerability. “Do you not trust me?”
The question broke something inside you. Without a word, you closed the gap between you and wrapped your arms tightly around his torso. He froze for a moment before pulling you in even closer, resting his chin on the top of your head.
You hid your face into your husband’s chest as you slowly broke down into tears. His shirt began to soak with your tears as you cried, and Wonwoo felt every shudder, every sob that escaped you.
It was as if his heart was tearing apart. In all the years he had known you, there was nothing — absolutely nothing — that pained him more than seeing you cry.
“Tell me what’s bothering you princess,” he murmured tenderly. His muscular arms tightened around your trembling frame as he held you like you might break into pieces if he let go.
“I’m just tired,” you choked out, your voice muffled against his chest. “Tired of everything that’s going on. Why can’t we just live in peace?”
Each syllable that came out in between your sobs were harsh and loaded with frustration. You pulled back just enough to look at him while tears rolled down your cheeks.
Your red-rimmed eyes pleaded with him, though you weren’t sure for what exactly — answers? Reassurance? A magic fix to the chaos that your lives had become?
Wonwoo’s eyes grew softer, with both strength and sorrow. He cradled your face lovingly, wiping away your tears with his thumbs as they continued to fall.
“I know it’s hard, baby” he said, trying to sound steady. “I know you’re exhausted, and I hate that we’re going through this. I hate seeing you like this.”
You nodded, feeling another fresh wave of tears coming as you hugged him tighter. “I just want things to be normal again,” you said through a broken whisper. “I want to live the life we dreamed of Woo. I want to stop running.”
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he said and leaned down to press a kiss to the crown of your head.
“But I promise, everything will be okay soon. Let’s just hold on to that little hope we have left, okay? Just for a little while longer” it hurt his chest to say that because he himself wasn’t sure, but it was all he could offer right now.
You nodded against him, and his steady heartbeat soothed your own as you closed your eyes.
And after comforting you, Wonwoo gently guided you into the passenger seat of the pickup car. He gave your hand a reassuring squeeze before circling around to the driver’s side.
With the bags loaded in the back and a map marked with destinations long abandoned by hope, the two of you began yet another long drive. This time to the other side of the country.
The miles blurred together as the car drove along the deserted roads. You lost count of how many times you and Wonwoo packed up your belongings and moved, hopping from one unfamiliar place to another.
You made an effort to keep track at first, with each stop feeling like a checkpoint on an unending journey. But after a while, days blended together and it seemed pointless to keep count. You had no choice but to keep going.
Resources had become limited, and what little money you and Wonwoo had saved were used up buying necessities.
Hotels, motels, and even cheap temporary rentals were now out of reach. Nowadays, you would both spend your nights in the cramped cab of the car or under the open sky, where you’d cling to each other for warmth.
The dreadful state of the country wasn’t always this dire. Wonwoo used to work at a warehouse, and while it wasn’t much, it was enough to get by.
But then everything fell apart. The warehouse shut down without warning, leaving him and dozens of others jobless. No severance, no notice — just a locked gate and a sign that read, “Closed Until Further Notice.”
You never managed to secure a stable job yourself. Odd tasks and temporary opportunities provided you with a few extra cash, but even those dried up as the economy crumbled.
Poverty swept through the country like an unstoppable tide. Families were displaced, children went hungry, and hospitals overflowed with the sick. Every town you passed through had the same haunting marks: abandoned homes, skeletal figures searching for food, and graves dug too shallow.
“We’ll figure something out” you heard your husband say as his free hand gripped yours.
The government did nothing. In the end, they only acted in their own interest, saving themselves while abandoning everyone else. Resources were hoarded, secret bunkers were stocked, and those in power simply disappeared, leaving the rest to fend for themselves.
They didn’t care whether their citizens survived or died, as long as they had everything they needed to sustain their privileged lives. For everyone else, survival became a matter of sheer will and ingenuity. Compassion became a luxury which no one could afford.
With exhaustion bearing down on you, you sank back against the seat, “I’m hungry” you muttered almost in a whisper.
“There’s something in the grey bag. Eat it,” Wonwoo calmly replied while keeping his eyes fixed on the darkened road ahead. The strain he was under was evident from the tight hold his hands had on the wheel and the tension in his knuckles.
Reluctantly, you reached into the back seat, fumbling around until your hand found the grey bag. Pulling it into your lap, you opened it, only to be greeted by the sight of a single plastic bag containing a butter and ham sandwich and a slightly bruised banana.
It wasn’t much, but it was all there was. The hunger was making your stomach ache, and you couldn’t hide the disappointment in your tone as you looked at the bag on your lap.
“Is this all?” you asked.
Wonwoo glanced at you briefly, and his expression softened into a look of quiet apology. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m sure we’ll be able to buy something when we get to the shelter.”
His attempt at reassurance didn’t help much, but you nodded anyway, knowing there was no point in complaining. Food was scarce, and you were lucky to have anything at all.
The silence stretched between you as you unwrapped the sandwich, and the crinkle of the plastic sounded unnaturally loud in the confined space of the car.
Outside, the sun had already dipped below the horizon, leaving the world covered in shadows. The road ahead appeared to go on forever into the darkness, and the dim glow of dusk was rapidly fading.
You could clearly notice that Wonwoo was exhausted with the way his shoulders slightly sagged. Despite the monotony of the trip, he had been driving for hours on end with no breaks.
“We should stop soon,” you said softly, not wanting to startle him. “You need to rest.”
Wonwoo nodded, but his gaze remained fixed on the road. “We will. Just a little farther. The petrol’s running low anyway.”
You hadn’t even realised how close to empty the tank was until he mentioned it. Petrol became almost as valuable as food, stolen more often than purchased. Stealing wasn’t even shocking anymore — it was just another part of survival in a world where morality took a backseat to necessity.
“I was lucky to find a couple of cans of petrol earlier,” he then said. “People are willing to kill for it these days.”
You shivered at the thought as you clutched the grey bag tighter. As miserable as things were, you held onto that small fragile hope that the shelter would bring some semblance of safety.
But deep down, you couldn’t help but wonder: how long could anyone survive in a world that had lost all sense of humanity?
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Wonwoo pulled the car into the parking lot of a surprisingly quiet petrol station. The lights were dim and flickering faintly against the encroaching darkness, giving the surrounding area an eerie vibe. The engine gave a low grumble before falling silent, and for a moment, the only sound was the distant rustling of the wind.
He let out a long sigh, leaning his head back against the seat as his body drooped with exhaustion. His muscles ached from the hours of driving.
He stretched his arms, hearing the faint pop of his joints, then rubbed his eyes, desperate to shake off the sleep that was almost taking over him.
The silence was broken by a faint rumbling, and his attention was drawn to the passenger seat. He looked over and saw you curled up against the window, your head resting against the cool glass.
Your breathing was regular, your face peaceful in sleep, yet the small groans from your lips showed how uncomfortable you were. When your stomach growled again, louder this time, you shifted in your seat as you instinctively held onto it with one hand.
Wonwoo’s features softened. Watching you twitch uneasily, obviously in a web of hunger even while you slept, deepened his worry.
His chest tightened at the sight. He hated seeing you like this — helpless, vulnerable, suffering. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. None of it was supposed to be this way.
“I’m so sorry my love” he murmured with guilt.
He reached into his pocket and felt his fingers brush against the few coins and a cash note he had left. He fished them out and held them in his palm. It wasn’t much — just loose change he’d picked up along the way — but it might be enough to buy something small. A piece of bread, maybe, or a single can of food.
His jaw clenched as he eyed the coins and weighed his options. These days, every decision felt like a gamble, a compromise between desperation and survival.
In the end, he bit his lip as he made up his mind. Quietly, he opened the door and stepped out into the cool night air. As he closed the door behind him, he glanced back at you, who was asleep and unaware.
“I’ll make it better. Somehow.” he whispered once more.
The door to the small shop of the petrol station creaked slightly as it swung open. The store was eerily quiet when Wonwoo entered. Rows of shelves stood mostly empty, and it gave him a sour reminder of how quickly resources were running out.
What little remained was marked at absurdly high prices — instant noodles for ₩12,000, a single loaf of bread for ₩17,000. Wonwoo’s heart sank as he scanned the shelves, hoping to find something, anything, that he could afford.e
He grabbed a small packet of crackers and a can of soup, knowing it wasn’t much but hoping it would be enough to keep you going until you reached the shelter.
Approaching the counter, he placed the items down carefully, as if handling something precious. Behind the counter stood an old man. He looked at the items, then at Wonwoo, before punching numbers into the register.
“That will be ₩17,500” the old man said flatly, his voice devoid of sympathy.
Wonwoo hesitated, swallowing hard as he reached into his pockets and pulled out the note and coins he had left. He counted them slowly with his shaky hands before placing them on the counter.
“I’m sorry, this is all I have,” Wonwoo said as he looked up at the old man, hoping for a shred of understanding.
The man’s gaze hardened as he counted the money. “You’re ₩10,100 short, kid. Either pay the full price or leave the food.”
Wonwoo’s chest tightened, his heart sinking at the words. His mind was racing, and he opened his mouth to argue but hesitated.
“Please, sir,” he began, sounding desperate. “Me and my wife are really hungry, and this is all I have right now. Please, understand. It’ll mean a lot. We’re just trying to survive.”
The old man’s expression remained unchanged as he shook his head slowly. “We’re all trying to survive, son,” he replied. His tone was gruff but not unkind. “I have a family of my own to take care of. This job is all I have to feed them.”
Wonwoo’s shoulders slumped as he took in the man’s words. He understood — of course he did. Everyone was struggling, clawing their way through a world that had lost all semblance of order. But understanding didn’t make it any easier to accept.
“I know,” he said softly, almost pleading. “But please. You know the situation we’re all in. Nothing is in our control anymore. But if we help each other, even just a little…”
He trailed off, the weight of his words hanging in the air. The old man’s expression didn’t waver, though a small glint of something — regret, perhaps — passed through his eyes.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. In the end, Wonwoo let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping once again in defeat.
“Forget it,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I’ll get going.”
He left the food on the counter and grabbed his money. He turned away before the man could say anything else. As he stepped out into the night, the cold air hit him like a slap. His chest ached even more as he made his way back to the car.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, he glanced at you, still asleep in the passenger seat. Your face was peaceful, almost angelic, but the faint furrow in your brow hinted at the hunger and discomfort you felt even in sleep.
Wonwoo’s eyes welled with tears as he stared at you, his guilt threatening to overwhelm him. He had promised to take care of you, to protect you, but in moments like this, he felt utterly powerless.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking as he rested his forehead against the steering wheel. The tears came then, silent but unstoppable. The world around you was as unforgiving as ever as he sat there in the dark.
He leaned closer and gently cupped your face in his hands. His lips grazed your skin like a silent apology before he placed soft lingering kisses on your cheek.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he whispered with his voice heavy with regret. The tenderness of his actions stirred you awake, and when your eyelids fluttered open, you were met by his tired eyes.
“Woo? Did we arrive yet?” you murmured groggily while rubbing your eyes, still tired.
He smiled at you faintly, brushing back a strand of your hair. “Not yet, bun. We’re resting here for the night, okay?” he reassured you soothingly.
Your stomach betrayed you with a loud growl for what felt like the hundredth time. “I’m sorry” you mumbled in embarrassment.
Wonwoo chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Hold on,” he said, reaching into the back seat. His hand emerged with a black bag, which he unzipped to reveal a container of tomato pasta.
“I completely forgot about this. Here, eat this,” he said, handing you the food and a fork. “And this too,” he added, passing you a bottle of water.
You smiled brightly at the sight of the food, feeling a small burst of excitement lifting the heaviness in your heart. However, your joy faded almost as quickly as it came.
“But what about you?” you asked as you tilted your head to look at him.
Wonwoo met your gaze, his lips curling into a gentle smile. “Don’t worry about me, just eat,” he said softly.
“Are you sure?” doubt still lingering in your mind.
He giggled lightly as he placed a comforting hand over yours. “I’m a hundred percent sure, hun,” he assured you.
Reluctantly, you nodded, “okay then” you muttered before picking up the fork.
The cold, plain pasta wasn’t particularly appetising, but given the circumstances, it felt like a feast. Bite after bite, you worked your way through the meal, but your thoughts kept returning to your husband. The idea of him going without food didn’t feel right.
Unable to bear it, you paused, setting the fork down and saving half of the meal. Turning to him, you held up the fork with the remaining pasta, motioning for him to eat.
Wonwoo shook his head and tried to push your arm away. “I’m fine, really. Just finish it,” he said, his voice soft yet insistent.
Tears welled up in your eyes as you pleaded, “please? I won’t be able to rest if you don’t eat anything.”
Wonwoo didn’t think your words would affect him this badly, but they did, and his eyes glistened with unshed tears.
Finally, he gave in and opened his mouth as you fed him. Once the food was finished, he pulled you into a tight embrace. “When we get there, I promise to find a job and buy us good food,” he sniffled.
“I love you, Woo. Thank you for everything you’re doing for me, for us. I feel so useless because I’m not able to help you with anything. I’m sorry,” you cried.
Wonwoo, ever gentle, cupped your face with his warm hands, his eyes still glistening. “Don’t say that. As long as you’re safe with me, I will take care of you until my last breath,” he reassured you.
He gently wiped away your tears with his thumb and leaned in, “shh, it’s okay. I love you too, hmm?” before pressing a soft kiss on your lips.
You hummed quietly as a faint smile broke through the tears as you leaned into him. The two of you stayed like that for a while, cherishing the rare moment of peace.
But the moment was interrupted by a sudden knock on the car window, startling you both.
Wonwoo pulled away and turned toward the sound. He rolled down the window to reveal the familiar face of the old man from the shop. The man stood there, holding two bags filled to the brim, presumably with food and other necessities. His eyes held a look of compassion as he offered the bags.
“Yes?” Wonwoo asked, his voice slightly hoarse as he wiped his tears, trying to compose himself.
“Here, have this,” the old man said. “I know you’re tired and hungry. Seeing you leave like that made me feel so bad. Please, have these,” he added, handing the bags to Wonwoo.
Wonwoo’s hands shook slightly as he accepted the bags, overwhelmed by the unexpected kindness. “Thank you so much. You don’t know how much this means to us,” he said, his voice filled with genuine gratitude. “Please, take care of yourself and your wife” he added, his lips curling into a faint.
The old man nodded with a warm smile. “Oh! If you need more petrol to refuel your car, then please, go ahead. I’m not going to charge you,” he said with a gentle laugh, turning to leave before Wonwoo could thank him again.
As the old man limped back to the shop, you turned to your husband. “Such a sweet old man. If it was anyone else, they would’ve kicked us out of here.”
Wonwoo nodded while his gaze followed the man. “I know,” he murmured, the words felt heavy as he watched the man disappear into the distance.
You and Wonwoo decided to save the food, even though your stomachs were still growling with hunger. The plan was to eat once you reached your next shelter. It was a small act of caution and preparation for the unknown days ahead. Despite having eaten earlier, the pangs of hunger constantly reminded you of how fragile your situation had become.
With a sigh, the two of you moved to the back passenger seats, where you would spend yet another night. The space was cramped and uncomfortable, the seats barely allowing enough room to stretch, but it was still better than nothing. At least it provided a form of security, however fragile.
“It’s getting colder,” you murmured frustratingly as you rubbed your arms for warmth. The autumn chill arrived too quickly, tearing through the thin layers of clothes you wore.
“Ugh, why did it have to be autumn so soon?” you groaned, shivering slightly. Wonwoo watched you quietly, his heart aching at your struggle.
Without a word, he reached for a blanket from the back and unfolded it quickly before wrapping it around your shoulders. The sudden warmth was comforting, and you looked at him with a small, grateful smile.
“Are you warm now?” he asked softly with affection. You nodded, snuggling deeper into the blanket. “Yes, much better,” you replied, before laying your head gently on his lap.
His hand instinctively found its way to your hair, his fingers brushing through it in soothing strokes. “Goodnight, my love,” he whispered, pressing a tender kiss to the crown of your head. You responded with a soft hum, already drifting off to sleep under the soothing weight of the blanket and his gentle touch.
However, Wonwoo was unable to fall asleep. It had been more than an hour since you fell asleep, but his mind was racing with thoughts. Worries about the days ahead pressed heavily on his heart as he stared into the darkness.
His head began to throb with a dull ache, a pain he tried to ignore, but it only grew sharper.
He reached up to rub the itchy spot on his neck, only to be met with a warm, rigid sensation. A sudden trickle from his nose proved his suspicions accurate. Bringing his hand up, he saw the crimson streak of blood against his skin.
Wonwoo closed his eyes and sighed deeply, knowing exactly what it meant but keeping it to himself for the time being.
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You both woke up to a gloomy dawn the following day. The rain outside was heavy and persistent, and the air felt cold and moist. The tranquil quiet of yesterday's sunny but chilly weather was replaced by the continuous sound of rain on the car’s roof.
You and Wonwoo used the last of the water supply to brush your teeth before packing up and getting ready for yet another long drive.
In contrast to yesterday, the weather today was bleak and unwelcoming. Seeing how miserable the weather was, it made your insides feel uneasy. It felt as though something was bound to happen — something ominous. The feeling stuck to you stubbornly, no matter how much you tried to shake it off.
You shifted uncomfortably in your seat as you looked out of the window, watching as the rain blurred your view of the surroundings. Inside, a quiet fear began to build. You couldn’t place its source, but it was there, lingering and constant.
Beside you, Wonwoo’s silence only amplified the discomfort. His usual light-hearted comments or casual chatter were absent. Instead, there was heavy quietness that filled the car. It was almost unnatural for him to be so distant, and that too all of a sudden.
You made a few attempts to spark conversation, but each was met with a quiet nod or a non-committal hum. It was almost as if he were intentionally avoiding you.
You were confused.
He was fine last night, but now, he seemed to be closed off. His thoughts were miles away that you couldn’t read. Not wanting to pry, you decided to give him space, even as the silence between you felt heavier with each passing mile.
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After what felt like an endless journey through the rain, you finally arrived at the shelter you and Wonwoo would be staying — a small, weathered cottage near the seaside. The sound of crashing waves greeted you, blending with the faint drizzle that had begun to lighten.
This cottage held a deep connection to Wonwoo’s past. It belonged to his grandparents, who raised him after his parents passed away. Now that they too had left this world, the cottage was left unused, standing as a quiet memory of his childhood.
The cottage, though old, was still serviceable. It wasn’t luxurious by any means, but it would provide shelter and a place to rest. You could already tell that adjustments would need to be made to make it feel more comfortable.
As the car came to a stop, Wonwoo unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the car without a word. His expression wasn’t cold or annoyed, but there was something — a look of someone lost in their thoughts. Someone who was being weighed down by something he couldn’t yet voice.
You followed his lead, stepping into the damp air as he began unloading your belongings. “Honey-” you called softly, hoping to reach him, but he brushed past you without so much as a glance, heading straight into the house.
The silence between you continued, and it worried you. Something was clearly troubling him, but he wasn’t ready to share it with you yet.
You stood by the doorway, arms crossed and sulky, watching as your husband silently moved the last few bags into the tiny cottage. You were beginning to grow irritated as his silence went on.
As he brushed past you, carrying another box, you trailed after him like a lost puppy. You hated the feeling of being ignored, and it was twisting uncomfortably in your chest.
“May I please know why you’re so quiet and why you’re ignoring me?” you finally blurted, reaching out to grab his wrist. Your voice was soft, and your eyes searched his face, hoping for an answer.
Wonwoo paused, his expression unreadable, but he said nothing.
“Baby,” you pouted, stepping closer. Lifting your hands to cup his face, you tilted it toward you. “What’s wrong with you?” you asked again, placing soft kisses on his neck, trying to coax a response from him.
He let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders dropping. Finally, he met your gaze with a tired smile. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I just…I guess I was too lost in my thoughts” he made an excuse.
“What are you thinking about?” you pressed, tilting your head curiously.
“Oh, nothing important,” he replied, leaning down to peck your lips. You knew it was a clear attempt to distract you, but you couldn’t let it go.
You opened your mouth to speak, but before a single word could escape, the ground beneath you suddenly began to tremble violently. The whole cottage quaked, sending the old, dusty objects on the shelves crashing to the floor. The intensity of the shaking grew rapidly with every second, throwing you off balance and sending you sprawling onto the cold, hard floor.
“Y/n!” Wonwoo’s deep loud voice rang out above the chaos, filled with worry and urgency. You turned your head to see him gripping the nearest wall for support, his wide eyes darting around in alarm.
“W-Wonwoo, what’s happening?” you stammered as you desperately held to the edge of the sofa for stability. Your heart pounding against your ribs in fear.
“Honey, are you okay? Stay calm over there, okay? I’m coming to you!” Wonwoo shouted, firmly but reassuringly as he tried to keep you grounded. He started moving towards you, but the violent shaking intensified, making it nearly impossible for him to stay steady.
A loud cry of fear tore from your throat as a particularly forceful jolt rocked the entire cottage. In an instant, Wonwoo threw caution to the wind, sprinting towards you as fast as his unsteady footing allowed. Reaching you, he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms tightly around your trembling frame.
“I got you baby. I got you,” he whispered in your ear with his soothing voice as he pulled you closer to his chest.
“What’s going on?” you whimpered as you clung onto him.
“It seems like an earthquake — a really strong one,” he replied worriedly. The two of you held on to each other while hoping the nightmare would soon end.
Suddenly, the ground stopped trembling, but the silence that followed wasn’t comforting. Instead, it was heavy with dread. You both knew that this wasn’t the end but the calm before an even greater disaster. The tension was thick, and your grip on his arm tightened as he shifted.
“Wait here, okay? I’m just going-”
“No! Don’t leave me! Please” you pleaded, your voice breaking. Panic surged as your fingers dug into his arm.
“I’m not leaving you, baby. I promise,” he said firmly as his hands cupped your face with an assurance that contradicted the terror in his eyes. “I just need to grab my mini radio. We have to figure out what’s happening. I’ll be right here.”
Reluctantly, you let him go, watching as he rummaged through the mess. When he finally found the radio, he turned it on. Static crackled, followed by the frantic voice of a news broadcaster.
“An earthquake of magnitude 9.1 has struck the east coast! All residents must evacuate immediately. There is a tsunami heading that way. I repeat — a tsunami is heading that way!”
The broadcast was cut short as the radio emitted only static, leaving you both in chilling silence. You exchanged a look, both too paralysed to speak. Internally, fear gnawed at you. The weight of what was coming made your breaths quicken, but there was no time to waste. The clock was ticking, and survival was now a race against nature.
Shakily, you pushed yourself off the ground with your unstable legs as you staggered toward the doorway. Outside, the world was spookily quiet. You pondered for a moment before stepping out of the house. The sky was painted in deep shades of grey, signalling a storm that was brewing on the horizon, but what caught your attention wasn’t the weather.
It was the beach.
Your breath hitched as you caught sight of it. An enormous wave, far out in the ocean but undeniably charging toward the shore. The size of it made your stomach drop.
For a moment, you froze as your mind struggled to process the gravity of what you were seeing. Then panic set in. Your chest tightened, and you began hyperventilating, your vision blurring slightly from the overwhelming fear.
“W-WONWOO!” you screamed desperately. Within seconds, your husband was at your side, running towards you with alarm.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, but you could only point toward the horizon. The moment his eyes followed your finger and landed on the monstrous wave, his body stiffened. His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
“We need to get out of here, now!” he said, grabbing your hand.
His tone left no room for argument, and together, you sprinted toward the car, leaving everything behind. You didn’t look back — not at the house, not at the approaching wave. Because all that mattered was escape.
Once you both got inside, Wonwoo slammed the door and turned the ignition. The engine roared to life as he crushed the accelerator pedal, and the tires screeched as you raced away from the coastline. The vehicle jostled and bounced over the uneven road, but neither of you complained.
Reaching out and entwining your fingers with his, you grasped onto him as though he were your lifeline. Wonwoo stole a brief glance, and his panic wavered a little. Lifting your hand to his lips, he pressed a quick kiss to your knuckles.
“Don’t worry baby, I’m here” he said.
The minutes dragged on as Wonwoo drove. The road seemed like it was never going to end, and everything around you felt unreal. Everything seemed disturbingly sombre as a result of the dark grey, menacing hue of the sky.
Your heart plummeted again when you saw it — an enormous sinkhole directly in your path.
“Wonwoo, look out!” you screamed.
Wonwoo’s eyes darted forward, widening as he saw the massive sinkhole ahead. Gasping, he slammed on the brakes and the tires screeched loudly against the pavement. The car jerked to a halt just in time, mere feet away from the edge.
“What the-” he muttered under his breath as he threw open the car door, his jaw tight with frustration and fear.
You trailed closely behind, holding his arm as you both ventured outside to assess the situation. The ground was scattered in sinkholes, each of which appeared to be bigger than the one before. The severity of the situation became apparent as you stared at the maze of devastation.
“How are we going to make it to the other side?” you asked.
Wonwoo ran a hand through his hair as his mind raced for a solution. He stared at the sinkholes as if he was asking the earth to respond.
Before he could respond, the ground beneath your feet began to tremor once again. This time, the shaking was violent, far more intense than before. You stumbled and tightened your hold on his arm as panic struck again.
The second earthquake hit with such force that it knocked both of you off your feet. The violent tremors rippled through the earth, creating a large, jagged crack that spread across the road. You clung to Wonwoo instinctively as the ground began to split further, separating into an immense gap.
The road ahead was completely inaccessible as pieces of dirt and asphalt disintegrated and fell into the growing pit. The sound of destruction filled the air, like the grumbles of the earth, the crash of debris, and your own frightful sobbing.
You shuddered violently, tears streaming down your face. Wonwoo pulled you in close and encircled his arms around you as if they could protect you from the mayhem.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said.
Summoning his strength, he rose to his feet and scooped you up in one swift motion before carrying you back to the car. He hurriedly got behind the wheel and put you in the passenger seat. Slamming the gear into reverse, he turned the vehicle around and sped off in the opposite direction.
But luck was not on your side. Wonwoo’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as his eyes budged in horror.
Before you, a huge tsunami wave raced ahead, engulfing everything in its path. He slammed on the brakes and the car jerked to a sudden stop.
“Fuck!” he swore under his breath. The wave was unstoppable, and escape seemed impossible.
“Wonwoo,” your voice quivered as you tried to meet his gaze. Wonwoo turned to you immediately, his heart sinking at the sight of your tear-streaked, reddened face.
“I’m s-scared,” you stammered, your words breaking between sobs. “I don’t want to d-die.” Your hand reached out for his and clutched it tightly as if it could tether you to safety.
Wonwoo’s chest ached as though it might shatter. The truth, one he could never bring himself to say, was that there was no escaping this. You both knew it. Here, in this wretched place where hope had no footing, getting out alive was an impossibility.
Wonwoo felt his throat tighten, and his own tears welled up as he watched you crumble before him. His mind thought of words that could comfort you, but nothing felt like enough.
“Come here” he managed to utter.
Without hesitation, he tugged you gently toward him, pulling you onto his lap. You sank into his embrace and buried your face in his chest as his arms wrapped securely around you.
He rested his cheek against your hair and began to press soft kisses across your forehead.
Between each kiss, he murmured softly,
“I love you so much,” he promised softly between each kiss. It was all he could offer — a reminder that, no matter what, you weren’t alone.
“Maybe this life isn’t for us,” his voice cracked, barely audible over your muffled cries. Each word felt like a dagger, cutting deeper into your fragile heart.
You couldn’t stop the sobs that wracked your chest as you buried your face against him, clutching his shirt like it was the only thing wiring you to reality.
The car rocked beneath you both, moving backward inch by inch, with screeching metal filling the air. Wonwoo clenched his jaw and closed his eyes as tears trickled down his cheeks. He'd been trying so hard to be strong for you, but the burden of the situation eventually broke him.
“I don’t want to die—I don’t want to die,” you mumbled repeatedly, the words spilling out like a mantra.
Wonwoo’s heart clenched painfully, and his hands moved to cup your tear-soaked face. Gently, he lifted your head, forcing you to meet his gaze.
“Look at me, Y/n,” he urged, his voice soft but insistent. But you tried to avoid his eyes, still shaking.
“Look at me baby, please” he repeated. Slowly and hesitantly, your tearful eyes locked with his.
“Just think of this as a bad dream,” he whispered as his thumb brushed softly against your cheek to wipe away the tears.
“When we wake up, we’re going to be in paradise. Together. I promise” his voice cracked, but he kept going.
“I’m never going to leave your side. We’re in this together — we’ll always be together” he spoke, offering you the only comfort he could.
Leaning forward, Wonwoo’s lips captured yours in a desperate, passionate kiss. Your hands instinctively grabbed his arms in response, but your body still rattled, terror still burning like wildfire through your veins. He felt it, the way your hands shook, the way you struggled to match his composure.
Breaking the kiss, Wonwoo grabbed your wrists gently and pulled you closer. “My love, relax” he murmured as his lips brushed against your forehead.
“We’re going to paradise together. Death can’t separate us. This place isn’t for us — we’re meant for something better.”
The car shifted again, tilting downward as gravity began to win, but Wonwoo refused to let you look away.
“Stay with me, baby,” he whispered. “Just stay with me.”
“You’ve been the best thing that’s ever happened in my life,” Wonwoo whispered.
He rested his forehead against yours, feeling his breath mingling with yours as he spoke. “The love of my life. The one who lit up my world.” His words poured out like a raw and unfiltered confession.
���We were both lonely in this messed-up world, but fate brought us together when we needed each other the most.” A faint, bittersweet smile tugged at his lips as he added, “I’m so glad I found you.”
He leaned in and pecked your lips softly. “I can’t even put into words how much I love you,” his voice broke.
“You’ll always be my first and my last. This isn’t the end, princess. Never.” His hands cradled your face as his eyes bore into yours. They were filled with a conviction that made you believe his every word.
“This is just the beginning of our beautiful life in paradise. Our journey in this cruel place is over.”
Something about his voice, his touch, finally allowed you to exhale the fear that had gripped you. Your body began to relax, the terror of death slowly melting away. As long as he was with you, there was nothing left to fear.
The car lurched again, the edge of the crater drawing nearer, but you no longer panicked. Wonwoo’s words anchored you.
As the car tipped forward, Wonwoo wrapped you tightly in his arms, whispering over and over, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“I love you too, Woo,” you mumbled against his neck.
It was the last words you said, and the last Wonwoo heard as the car plunged into the pit of the earth. Together, into the unknown.
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a/n; lowkey cried, so tragic :(
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covid-safer-hotties · 4 months ago
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The next pandemic is inevitable. Australia isn’t ready - Published Sept 23, 2024
(Before you Americans yell at me, It's already the 23rd in Australia. This is very late-breaking)
I thought this was a really good breakdown of the current situation given the government-approved covid denial we live in. Long, but worth a read.
By Kate Aubusson and Mary Ward
Top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against COVID-19 are sounding the alarm.
NSW is less prepared today to fend off a deadly pandemic despite the lessons of COVID-19, say top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against the virus.
And we won’t have another hundred years to wait.
NSW’s gold standard Test-Trace-Isolate-Quarantine and vaccination strategies will be useless if a distrusting population rejects directives, refuses to give up its freedoms again, and the goodwill of shell-shocked public health workers dries up.
A panel of experts convened by The Sydney Morning Herald called for a pandemic combat agency akin to the armed forces or fire brigades to commit to greater transparency or risk being caught off guard by the next virulent pathogen and misinformation with the potential to spread faster than any virus.
“It’s inevitable,” says Professor Eddie Holmes of the next pandemic. A world-leading authority on the emergence of infectious diseases at the University of Sydney, Holmes predicts: “We’ll have less than 100 years [before the next pandemic].
“We’re seeing a lot of new coronaviruses that are spilling over into animals that humans are interacting with,” said Holmes, the first person to publish the coronavirus genome sequence for the world to see.
“People are exposed all the time, and each time we are rolling the dice.”
The independent review of NSW Health’s response to COVID-19 opened with the same warning: “No health system or community will have the luxury of 100 years of downtime.”
Pandemic preparedness needs to be a “permanent priority”, wrote the report’s author, Robyn Kruk, a former NSW Health secretary, “rather than following the path of those that have adopted a ‘panic and forget strategy,’ allowing system preparedness to wane”.
Why we don’t have 100 years to wait for the next pandemic The World Health Organisation has declared seven public health emergencies of international concern since 2014, including the current mpox outbreak.
Climate change is turbocharging the factors that coalesce to create the perfect breeding ground for a pandemic-causing virus, including population increases, bigger cities, and better-connected global markets and migration.
“Animals will be forced into more constrained environments, and humans that rely on those environments will be again constrained in the same environments. There will be more wet markets, more live animal trade that will just increase exposure,” Holmes said.
“It was clear that we weren’t ready [for COVID],” said Jennie Musto, who, after seven years working for the World Health Organisation overseas, became NSW Health’s operations manager for the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, the team responsible for NSW’s COVID-19 contact tracing and containment.
“Everyone had preparedness plans gathering dust on a shelf, but no one was actually ready to respond, and so everyone was on the back foot,” Musto said. “Perhaps none of us really thought this was going to happen. We were waiting 500 years.”
Who would willingly become the next doomed whistleblower? Eddie Holmes, known for his repeated assertion that SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a lab, is deeply concerned that when the next pandemic-causing virus emerges, chances are it will be covered up.
“My worry is that if the virus appeared in a small population, say, somewhere in Southeast Asia, the people involved wouldn’t blow the whistle now, given the fact that you would get blamed,” he said.
Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who tried to raise the alarm about a virulent new virus, was reportedly reprimanded by police for spreading rumours and later died of COVID-19.
The global blame game, culminating in a deep distrust of China and accusations that the virus was grown in a Wuhan lab, is why Holmes believes “we’re in no better place than we were before COVID started, if not worse”.
“I work with a lot of people in China trying to keep the lines of communication open, and they’re scared, I think, or nervous about saying things that are perceived to counter national interest.”
From a vaccine perspective, our defences look strong. There have been monumental advancements in vaccine development globally, driven by mRNA technology. In Sydney this month, construction began on an RNA vaccine research and manufacturing facility.
“But the way I see it is that nothing has been done in terms of animal surveillance of outbreaks or data sharing. The [global] politics has got much, much worse,” Holmes said.
Combat force Conjoint Associate Professor Craig Dalton, a leading public health physician and clinical epidemiologist, called for a dramatic expansion of the public health workforce and the establishment of a pandemic combat force that would routinely run real-time pandemic simulations during “peacetime”.
“No one is upset with fire brigades spending most of the time not fighting fires. They train. A lot. And that’s probably how we need to move,” he said.
“We need exercise training units so that every major player in pandemic response is involved in a real-time, three to four-day pandemic response every three to five years at national, state and local [levels].”
The federal Department of Health and Aged Care recently ran a health emergency exercise focused on governance arrangements involving chief health officers and senior health emergency management officials, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Mark Butler said. The outcomes of this exercise will be tested later this year.
Dalton said desktop simulations and high-level exercises involving a handful of chiefs didn’t cut it, considering the thousands of people working across regions and states. He instead suggested an intensive training program run in the Hunter New England region before the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provided a good model.
“We were ringing people, actors were getting injections, just like a real pandemic,” said Dalton, who once ordered a burrito in a last-ditch effort to contact a restaurant exposed to COVID-19.
Our heroes have had it The expert panel was emphatic that our pandemic response cannot once again rely on the goodwill of the public health and healthcare workforce.
According to the Kruk review, what began as an emergency response ultimately morphed from a sprint into an ultra marathon and “an admirable (yet unsustainable) ‘whatever it takes’ mindset”.
They were hailed as heroes, but the toll of COVID-19 on healthcare workers was brutal. Workloads were untenable, the risk of transmission was constant, and the risk of violence and aggression (for simply wearing their scrubs on public transport in some cases) was terrifying.
“We got through this pandemic through a lot of people working ridiculous hours,” Dalton said.
“You talk to a lot of people who did that and say they could not do it again.”
Tellingly, several expert personnel who worked at the front lines or in the control centre of NSW’s pandemic defences were invited to join the Herald’s forum but declined. Revisiting this period of intense public scrutiny, culminating in online attacks and physical threats, was just too painful.
So long, solidarity Arguably, the biggest threat to our pandemic defences will be the absence of our greatest strength during COVID: the population’s solidarity and willingness to follow public health orders even when it meant forfeiting fundamental freedoms.
The public largely complied with statewide public health orders, including the stay-at-home directive that became the 107-day Delta lockdown, and other severe restrictions prevented many from being at the bedside of their dying loved ones, visiting relatives in aged care homes and attending funerals.
“My worry is that next time around when those sorts of rules come out, people may say, ‘Well, don’t worry about it.’ They relax it in the future. Why don’t we just not stick to the rules?” said Professor Nicholas Wood, associate director of clinical research and services at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.
“I’m not sure we quite understand whether people [will be] happy with those rules again,” he said.
Dalton was more strident.
“I tend to agree with Michael Osterholm … an eminent US epidemiologist [who] recently said the US is probably less prepared for a pandemic now than it was in 2019, mostly because the learnings by health departments in the COVID pandemic may not make a material difference if faced with a community that distrusts its public health agencies,” he said.
“If H1N1 or something else were to spill over in the next couple of years, things like masks, social distancing and lockdowns would not be acceptable. Vaccination would be rejected by a huge part of the population, and politicians might be shy about putting mandates in.”
As for the total shutdown of major industries, people will struggle to accept it unless the next pandemic poses a greater threat than COVID, said UNSW applied mathematician Professor James Wood.
The risk of the virus to individuals and their families will be weighed against the negative effects of restrictions, which are much better understood today, said Wood, whose modelling of the impact of cases and vaccination rates was used by NSW Health.
“Something like school closure would be a much tougher argument with a similar pathogen,” he said.
A previous panel of education experts convened by the Herald to interrogate pandemic decision-making in that sector was highly critical of the decision to close schools for months during NSW’s Delta lockdown.
Greg Dore, professor of infectious diseases and epidemiology at the Kirby Institute, said the public’s reluctance to adhere to restrictions again may, in part, be appropriate.
“Some of the restrictions on people leaving the country were a bit feudal and too punitive,” he said. “Other restrictions were plain stupid, [for instance] limitations on time exercising outside.”
Meanwhile, the delays to publicly recognise the benefits of face masks and the threat of airborne transmission “ate away at trust”, Dalton said.
“We shouldn’t make those mistakes again,” he said.
Transparent transgressions Uncertainty is not something politicians are adept at communicating, but uncertainty is the only constant during a pandemic of a novel virus.
Vaccines that offered potent protection against early iterations of the COVID virus were less effective against Omicron variants.
“[The public], unfortunately, got hit by a rapid sequence of changes of what was ‘true’ in the pandemic,” James Wood said.
Political distrust can be deadly if governments give the public reason to suspect they are obfuscating.
The expert panel urged NSW’s political leaders to be far more transparent about the public health advice they were given before unilaterally enforcing restrictions.
There was a clear line between public health advice and political decision-making in Victoria. The Victorian chief health officer’s written advice was routinely published online.
In NSW, that line was blurred as Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant stood beside political leaders, most notably former premier Gladys Berejiklian, at the daily press conferences.
Public health experts said that they looked for subtle cues to determine the distinction between the expert advice and the political messaging during press conferences, paying attention to body language, who spoke when and who stayed silent.
“It is fine for public health personnel to have a different view to politicians. They have different jobs. What is not OK is to have politicians saying they are acting on public health advice [when they are not],” he said.
The ‘whys’ behind the decisions being made were missing from the daily press conferences, which created “a vacuum for misinformation”, said social scientist and public health expert Professor Julie Leask at the University of Sydney.
“The communication about what you need to do came out, and it was pretty good … but the ‘why we’re doing this’ and ‘what trade-offs we’ve considered’ and ‘what dilemmas we’ve faced in making this decision’; that was not shared,” Leask said.
The infodemic In the absence of transparency, misinformation and disinformation fill the vacuum.
“We had an ‘infodemic’ during the pandemic,” said Dr Jocelyne Basseal, who worked on the COVID-19 response for WHO in the Western Pacific and leads strategic development at the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute, University of Sydney.
“The public has been so confused. Where do we go for trusted information [when] everyone can now write absolutely anything, whether on Twitter [now called X] or [elsewhere] on the web?” Basseal said.
A systematic review conducted by WHO found misinformation on social media accounted for up to 51 per cent of posts about vaccines, 29 per cent of posts about COVID-19 and 60 per cent of posts about pandemics.
Basseal’s teenage children recently asked whether they were going into lockdown after TikTok videos about the mpox outbreak.
“There is a lot of work to be done now, in ‘peacetime’ … to get ahead of misinformation,” Basseal said, including fortifying relationships with community groups and teaching scientists – trusted and credible sources of information – how to work with media.
In addition to the Kruk review’s six recommendations to improve its pandemic preparedness, NSW Health undertook a second inquiry into its public health response to COVID-19, which made 104 recommendations.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said: “We are working hard to ensure the findings and recommendations from those reports are being implemented as quickly as possible.”
The expert panellists spoke in their capacity as academics and not on behalf of NSW Health or WHO.
The ‘As One System’ review into NSW Health’s COVID-19 response made six recommendations 1. Make governance and decision-making structures clearer, inclusive, and more widely understood 2. Strengthen co-ordination, communication, engagement, and collaboration 3. Enhance the speed, transparency, accuracy, and practicality of data and information sharing 4. Prioritise the needs of vulnerable people and communities most at risk, impacted and in need from day one 5. Put communities at the centre of emergency governance, planning, preparedness, and response 6. Recognise, develop and sustain workforce health, wellbeing, capability and agility.
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malecardiolove · 1 month ago
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The Test, chapter 4
Jack opened his eyes slowly, feeling a familiar weight on his chest. He was lying on a metal stretcher, his hands and feet firmly strapped with leather restraints, immobilizing him. The air in the room was heavy, oppressive, and the darkness was only interrupted by the glow of the machines around him. Beside him, a monitor displayed a real-time electrocardiogram and echocardiogram. The image of his heart, enlarged from prior testing, beat with a steady, powerful rhythm on the screen. The beats felt deeper, stronger, as if his heart had evolved after the tortures it had endured.
For a moment, Jack found himself fascinated. Despite the fear, pain, and suffering, he couldn’t stop staring at the screen that projected his own heart. The organ looked strong, robust, even after everything it had been through. But that fascination was soon replaced by a disturbing question: What would Dr. Ruiz do next?
Suddenly, Ruiz's voice echoed through the room via a microphone, clinical and calculating in tone. "Jack, I see you’re awake. I assume you remember that your heart started beating again after ten minutes of resuscitation. It was a challenge, but your heart is... fascinating. Resilient. However, this is far from over. The real test begins now."
Before Jack could process the doctor’s words, the atmosphere in the room began to change. The temperature rose rapidly, turning the room into a stifling oven. The air, already heavy, became almost impossible to breathe. Jack tried to gasp for air, but there wasn’t enough oxygen. Instead, a pink gas began to seep into the room.
"That gas you’re breathing, Jack," Ruiz continued, his voice terrifyingly cold, "is a bacteria designed to attack the heart at a structural level. Its goal is to degrade it, break the fibers, and weaken the muscle from within. If your heart doesn’t deteriorate during absorption, it will mean it’s immune... that your heart is, essentially, perfect. But if it’s not… this is the beginning of the end for you."
Jack felt his mind clouding as a memory surfaced. There had been a pandemic, many years ago, that ravaged the world—a disease that specifically targeted people’s hearts. Now he understood: that disease hadn’t been an accident. Was this part of some larger plan? Had they created the bacteria now infiltrating his body?
As his thoughts spiraled, he felt the gas brush against his feet. The cold touch of the gas, in contrast to the stifling heat, sent a shiver through him. Jack tried to resist, but it was impossible. The gas seeped into his nose, slowly invading his body. He could feel it filling his lungs and spreading through his system. A deep fear consumed him as he imagined what the bacteria would do inside him.
With his heart pounding faster, he turned his head toward the monitor. The echocardiogram showed an acceleration in his heartbeat. Faster and faster. Fear consumed him, yet strangely, his body showed no other symptoms. His heart, though agitated, kept pumping strongly, resisting the attack.
Thirty minutes passed. Jack continued watching the screen, expecting something catastrophic to happen. Each beat echoed in his ears, the only sound in the silent, oppressive room. But, surprisingly, his heart showed no signs of weakening. The pain he had feared never came. There was only the quickened pulse and the growing fear, but physically, he was fine.
Sweat dripped down his forehead, and his breathing, though rapid, remained regular. The pink gas kept filling the room, but his body resisted. Could it be true? Could his heart be immune, as Ruiz had hinted? Was it… perfect?
Note: after publishing this story, I'm planning to write another dark cardiophile novel here, but I would like to make a casting for the characters hearts. So, if you are a male cardiophile, you can send me by dm your EKG, Echo, Heartscans, your heartbeats, etc. And also, like a plus, photos of your male soles 😁 I'll give You credits.
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tomorrowusa · 10 months ago
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Four years ago today (March 13th), then President Donald Trump got around to declaring a national state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration had been downplaying the danger to the United States for 51 days since the first US infection was confirmed on January 22nd.
From an ABC News article dated 25 February 2020...
CDC warns Americans of 'significant disruption' from coronavirus
Until now, health officials said they'd hoped to prevent community spread in the United States. But following community transmissions in Italy, Iran and South Korea, health officials believe the virus may not be able to be contained at the border and that Americans should prepare for a "significant disruption." This comes in contrast to statements from the Trump administration. Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Tuesday the threat to the United States from coronavirus "remains low," despite the White House seeking $1.25 billion in emergency funding to combat the virus. Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange” Tuesday evening, "We have contained the virus very well here in the U.S." [ ... ] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the request "long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency." She also accused President Trump of leaving "critical positions in charge of managing pandemics at the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security vacant." "The president's most recent budget called for slashing funding for the Centers for Disease Control, which is on the front lines of this emergency. And now, he is compounding our vulnerabilities by seeking to ransack funds still needed to keep Ebola in check," Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday morning. "Our state and local governments need serious funding to be ready to respond effectively to any outbreak in the United States. The president should not be raiding money that Congress has appropriated for other life-or-death public health priorities." She added that lawmakers in the House of Representatives "will swiftly advance a strong, strategic funding package that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called the Trump administration's request "too little too late." "That President Trump is trying to steal funds dedicated to fight Ebola -- which is still considered an epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- is indicative of his towering incompetence and further proof that he and his administration aren't taking the coronavirus crisis as seriously as they need to be," Schumer said in a statement.
A reminder that Trump had been leaving many positions vacant – part of a Republican strategy to undermine the federal government.
Here's a picture from that ABC piece from a nearly empty restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown. The screen displays a Trump tweet still downplaying COVID-19 with him seeming more concerned about the effect of the Dow Jones on his re-election bid.
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People were not buying Trump's claims but they were buying PPE.
I took this picture at CVS on February 26th that year.
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The stock market which Trump in his February tweet claimed looked "very good" was tanking on March 12th – the day before his state of emergency declaration.
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Trump succeeded in sending the US economy into recession much faster than George W. Bush did at the end of his term – quite a feat!. (As an aside, every recession in the US since 1981 has been triggered by Republican presidents.)
Of course Trump never stopped trying to downplay the pandemic nor did he ever take responsibility for it. The US ended up with the highest per capita death rate of any technologically advanced country.
Precious time was lost while Trump dawdled. Orange on this map indicates COVID infections while red indicates COVID deaths. At the time Trump declared a state of emergency, the virus had already spread to 49 states.
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The United States could have done far better and it certainly had the tools to do so.
The Obama administration had limited the number of US cases of Ebola to under one dozen during that pandemic in the 2010s. Based on their success, they compiled a guide on how the federal government could limit future pandemics.
Obama team left pandemic playbook for Trump administration, officials confirm
Of course Trump ignored it.
Unlike those boxes of nuclear secrets in Trump's bathroom, the Obama pandemic limitation document is not classified. Anybody can read it – even if Trump didn't. This copy comes from the Stanford University Libraries.
TOWARDS EPIDEMIC PREDICTION: FEDERAL EFFORTS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN OUTBREAK MODELING
Feel free to share this post with anybody who still feels nostalgic about the Trump White House years!
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l-in-the-light · 4 months ago
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Hey 😊 I read your answer about Law wanting to help people because of his trauma. I know about his fear of touch but wouldn't it help him to overcome this when he realizes that his touch can bring other people immense pleasure (when he's giving oral or bringing his partner to orgasm while sex)? 🤔 Besides sex is very good for the health 😎.
Okay, I admit I didn't really know what to do with your ask at first. Are you serious when you're suggesting he can just overcome his PTSD because he wants to make someone happy or because sex should help him feel better and recover faster? Because if you do, we need to talk. Like, seriously talk about this.
First of all, yeah, sex can be good for you. Physical affection in many ways is neccessary for good well-being (that's why touch starvation and stuff like that became a popular discussed topic after pandemic's outbreak). But you know what else is healthy besides sex and physical affection? Good food. Taking a walk. Enjoying the sea breeze. And do you know what those things have all in common? They can't heal or cure anyone out of literally anything. The only thing they can do is to boost your mood and give you physical exercise, which is good for the body, but it's not a therapy and it's not a medicine. In other words, it will not cure you from PTSD, depression, anxiety or anything else besides a foul mood, perhaps. PTSD is not a matter of having a foul mood. Even if your mood is great, you will still have PTSD and you can still experience triggers no matter how happy you might have felt a moment ago. And also sometimes not every food you eat is gonna be good for you. Bread is tasty, right? But it's bad for celiacs. Sex is good, right? Unless it triggers you or you're sex-repulsed. Not everything is good for everyone, period. And you can live without bread and you can live without sex.
Secondly, Law has two triggers we know of: feeling helpless (for example: when he's pinned down or when people are dying and he can't do anything about it) and touch. He overcomes first one by saving lives, not by "helping people" in general. If you're referencing some post I wrote, I'm pretty certain by him swearing to help people I meant "saving their lives", not doing sexual favours for them ;) also saving lives has nothing to do with Law's fear of touch.
Third of all, please don't say stuff like this about PTSD. It's spreading misinformation. You can't recover from it just by wishing for it or pushing forcefully through. If you put Law in the scenario you just described, he would be terrified and then try to force the closeness (because if he truly wants someone to be happy he needs to ignore his own discomfort, right?) and in the end he will just escape, feeling pathetic and blaming himself. He would end up thinking that his love for people isn't strong enough to overcome his own trauma (and the sad part is: it will never be, that's why it's a trauma after all). In other words, putting a person with PTSD in this scenario you described, would do them more harm than good.
And yeah, Law is just a fictional character, you can imagine him in any scenario you want and write fics in which he never develops PTSD and is touchy-feely, and that's fine. But PTSD happens to be a very real condition, so please never say things like that to real people. It's giving a very harmful message - they can end up believing they are broken, because they can't spontanously or by sheer will overcome their own triggers to make someone else happy. Always be respectful towards people suffering from past traumas. No matter how well you mean it, don't tell them to just "get over it", saying it will be helpful for them if they just change their way of thinking about it and do it for someone else's sake. The best result you will achieve is them selfblaming themselves when they inevitably fail.
What you can do for them instead, to show your support, is to assure them they're fine no matter what, that they're good people even if there are things they can't handle, that every step in their healing process is important even if "the final goal" (never getting triggered again) will never get achieved. And always, always remember about their triggers and by all means avoid forcing a person with PTSD to face them head on. What you can do for someone who suffers from a trigger, is to make sure not to make it worse. Is the trigger a loud noise? Take them immediately to a quiet place instead. Is the trigger a touch? Definitely don't try to hug them to make it better, give them some space instead. After they manage to calm down, you can give them something they like that they find soothing and comforting (listen to a favourite song, offer a drink they like etc.) and ask if both of you should just go back home or do something else. This is something you can do for someone suffering from a PTSD. But it's only one possible, hypothetical example, there are other ways to show support and not leave the suffering person on their own.
There is a study proving that adults who were traumatized as children may be more likely to keep a greater physical distance between themselves and strangers, and may also find touch stimuli less comforting than people without a history of trauma. Apparently trauma alters the brain so it's possible the body also gives a traumatized person less gratification from physical affection. If you want to read more about how trauma alters the brain, I reccommend checking out this article: Traumatized Adults Might Find Touch Less Appealing. I didn't know about that before, but it makes sense, because trauma is just a natural response on it's most extreme. That's why I think Law's touch starvation is probably not such a big deal that people want it to be, in comparison to his PTSD. His brain would adapt, and he has Bepo for comfort, which is a safe, not triggering closeness and touch for him. Traumatized people might have bigger issues on their plate than your typical post-pandemic touch starvation, just saying.
Now let's talk more about triggers, because I feel like this needs to be elaborated on. A trigger is involuntary reaction (can be body reaction, can be emotional) you definitely can't control, that is caused by some outside source of stimuli. Those reactions alert us to perceived threats in our environment. Triggers can be anything that reminds someone of the traumatic event, it can be more obvious like revisiting the location where the trauma occurred, being alone, seeing the same breed of dog that bit you, or hearing loud voices, small touch, a grab, even a certain smell. For example, if the trauma is related to being stuck in a locked place, it doesn't matter what place it is or that it's different from the very first place you got accidentally locked in. Any place in which you're locked up will trigger you, like bathroom stalls in which the latch doesn't budge, broken elevators stuck between floors etc. Triggers are also often associated with (but not limited to) the time of day, season, holiday, or anniversary of the event.
When touch has been associated with fear, pain, or violation in the past, it can naturally become a trigger. Childhood trauma, especially sexual, physical or emotional abuse, can imprint deep-seated associations between touch and danger. The fear of being touched is so strong that it is often paralyzing. It can cause physical symptoms like hives, hyperventilation or even fainting. The fear of being touched becomes a phobia when symptoms develop nearly every time you are touched. It becomes a disorder when it lasts six months or longer.
To reduce the emotions caused by a trigger people can become avoidant (of anything even remotely reminding them of the trauma, for example: any touch in general), self-medication (like alcohol abuse, to numb yourself and not feel anything anymore), compulsive eating, self-injury. Sometimes people can even become aggressive or repeat the events of the trauma (for example, hypersexuality as the result of sexual assault, or becoming the violent oppressor themselves; they just repeat the traumatic event over and over again, it's not a healthy way of dealing with trauma).
Most important in recovery is learning to manage triggers, memories, and emotions without avoidance (avoidance is the initial response in PTSD). You can think of it as becoming desensitized to traumatic memories. There isn't really a “cure” for triggers. All we can do is identify when we're upset, try to understand why, and manage our emotional reactions. With practice and proper treatment, the reaction to your emotional triggers could dimnish and become manageable, but the triggers themselves might never go away. Thankfully, even the most intense trauma triggers can be managed.
At first a traumatic response can be hyperventilation to the point you almost suffocate, shivering that don't want to stop for hours and very high level emotional distress that makes you detached from the present and trapped in the past in your head. After therapy and learning how to manage your responses, you can instead apply breathing techniques to reduce hyperventilation, know what to do so that shivering doesn't go for hours but instead fades in the span of half an hour, and you ground yourself in the present (there are many methods for it, for example doing a soothing motion). So, after "getting healed" it doesn't mean the triggers magically don't happen anymore, you just manage them more effectively. And perhaps some of them can be reduced so much that instead of triggering one of the physical symptoms it only makes you very distressed. Who knows, it's a very individual thing, after all.
How to know if someone is suffering from PTSD? The DSM-5 (the official criteria for PTSD classification) identifies four symptom clusters for PTSD: presence of intrusion symptoms (like frequent, vivid flashbacks: sudden intrusive thoughts about the past events), persistent avoidance of stimuli (like avoiding closeness and touch), negative alterations in cognitions and mood (low self-esteem, self-blame etc.), and marked alterations in arousal and reactivity (like lashing out). Which is exactly what I wrote about in detail when answering to this ask.
Let's take a look at Law's trauma symptoms again: we see Law having tremors and quickened breath (sometimes to the point of wheezing), and freezing up when he's triggered (at least in the manga). Whenever someone is trying to touch him or comes really close, his response is to move away. He's also emotionally distant and avoidant. What are his triggers? We saw Doflamingo grabbing his wrist forcefully which caused a freezing reaction (Law couldn't even move to free himself). We saw him also freeze up when Mingo set up his birdcage. When Law was trapped with Luffy and Mingo's clone in the well, he was wheezing and shivering. There are few situations in which Luffy touches Law or Law touches Luffy, but even if those situations don't seem to overwhelm him, he still struggles in each and every single one of them. Which means they're kinda managable for Law, as long as he puts some time and effort into it (that's a sign that he is working through his trauma and knows quite a lot about managing his triggers already).
But how would he react if Luffy forcefully grabbed Law's wrist, for example, which is his confirmed trigger? Probably not too well. I can't imagine sex being comfortable in such conditions. Can you? Sex would feel very unnatural if Law had to brace himself to that extent every time he tries to touch someone and there's no guarantee that none of the touch he receives doesn't trigger him. And no, cuddling him won't help him get over it. If touch is triggering to you, more touch is not gonna solve the problem. Also hugging or other forms of physical affection aren't a magical solution to every emotional problem in the world.
There's also something called resilient responses to trauma, which are basically healthy ways of coping that some people naturally adapt. And I think Law slightly shows signs of it too. It can be things like:
increased time and bonding with family and friends (Law's commitment to his Hearts Pirates and also bonding with Penguin, Shachi and Bepo right after losing Cora-san; he spends time with them almost exclusively)
strong or increased sense of purpose and meaning (Law is always very goal-oriented)
commitment to a personal mission, revised priorities (Law trying to save people's lives no matter what)
charity work and volunteering to help other people (Law taking care of the Strawhats lol)
If anyone wants to know even more about PTSD, I reccommend this link, it really gives a good and detailed guide to all the basics and even includes notes about treatment.
Now I feel inclined to say this to everyone: sex is fine and can be good, but not having sex is also fine! Sex isn't the best thing in the world and no one is missing out if they're not having any, there are so many other nice things. And just because someone is attractive or handsome doesn't mean they absolutely have to have sex, like to prove that they're not wasting their body (whatever that would even mean) and not sharing with the world. It's your body and your choice, no one has any obligation to give sex to others, never ever, for any possible reason you can name. You don't have to have sex just to prove something to others, no matter what it would be (to be cool, to be accepted, to prove others you're a good person and a good lover or not a loser etc.). You're a worthy human being even if you don't have sex, no matter what's the reason for not having it. You're a good person even if you don't want to give someone else a sexual service, give them a blowjob or bring them to orgasm, or even touch them at all. You can show your love in different ways than by having sex. Not having sex with someone also doesn't mean you don't love them. Sex is just one part of life and it's optional. People can have good lives, have fun and be healthy without it. You can even have PTSD but choose not to have sex just because you don't like it.
Now, do I think Law will never have sex? I don't know, that depends on his healing process. For now, I'm not seeing it and he's also perfectly fine even if he will never have sex in his entire life. If one day he manages his triggers so well that he can even have sex, great for him! I still think he will be taking a risk at being triggered every single time he makes his decision to pursue partnered sexual adventures. Simply because touch can't be completely avoided when having sex. It can be worked around in quite a number of ways, but sex basically is about touching various body parts together, prove me wrong if that's not the case* ;) also we don't have to fear or try to erase the PTSD from the characters who can't deal well with touch as the result. That's kinda not exactly considerate or nice to them, won't you agree?
*disclaimer: yeah, I am aware there are other sexual actitivities that don't involve touch. Two people can just voyeuristically look at each other when they masturbate, for example :P why is this word so ugly btw. The stigma around sex-related words needs to finally die and we need more judgement-free words for sexual activities.
I hope this post helped you understand PTSD and triggers a bit better, anon!
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angsttronaut · 11 months ago
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A story about a prion disease apocalypse could be so fucked up fun.
Perhaps the disease has been spreading for a while, but appeared to not harm humans like CWD, or it's an entirely new one that a cow just developed one day. It can spread through their waste, their spit, their blood. Quite a few animals have already been infected by the time the first few enter the human food chain.
It's another while before the new prion disease is noticed; people aren't getting sick, and it takes a while before infected animals show symptoms. Eventually the weird symptoms are noticed, and the new disease is found, but it's already too late. It's spread so far that it proves very difficult to stamp out no matter how many infected animals get destroyed, and every day it isn't wiped out means more humans coming into contact with the prions. Although right now, no-one knows for sure if it can even jump the species barrier.
A few years later, it starts. A few people with mysterious and deadly neurological issues here and there, who's autospies reveal their brains have been turned to sponge. The numbers slowly climb upwards with each year. It's still spreading in farm animals.
Efforts to resist the disease increase; there isn't any treatment, but there are better tests. Through these it's discovered that not only are carrier animals that can spread the disease everywhere, but an eyewatering percentage of the population harbour the abnormal prions too- spreading not just through tainted food at this point, but also blood transfusions and surgical instruments. Even the water in the worst affected places isn't safe any more. Reassurances that not everyone will develop the prion disease are no comfort for many.
Every year the numbers climb. It goes from a very rare illness, to an unusual one, to one that's so common that you probably know someone who got killed by it. Attempts at a cure all fail, no matter how promising they seem. A suffocating cloak of dread falls over the world, even as many people try to ignore it and go about their daily lives. It isn't uncommon now to see someone with obvious symptoms who is in denial. Not that confronting their death head on would help; healthcare is underfunded and overwhelmed, they would be waiting months for anything that might alleviate their suffering.
The collapse begins a decade into the pandemic. People are dying left, right and centre, even children who weren't born when it first began to spread; it might have spread to them in the womb, but there are so few scientists left and they're so focused on finding a cure that not much research is done. Take a walk in a city and you'll see dozens of empty buildings and massive queues by the hospitals. Walk in the countryside and you'll probably see a half dead animal wracked with spasms. Mammals have become rarer; even dogs and cats are a bit unusual to see. Anything that hasn't reduced in numbers is studied intently to discover its secrets, all to no avail.
Infrastructure begins break down; there aren't many people left to maintain it, and a lot of them aren't well. Medical care is borderline impossible to get because there's so many people and so few living doctors and nurses; more and more people are dying of curable afflictions without ever being seen. Food is scarce because animal products are off the menu and it's nigh impossible to transport and grow food when so many people have died. Costs shoot up, and people protest because no-one can afford the prices- especially when not that many people work any more, being too ill to work or having to care for their ill loved ones. The only thing that gets cheaper is housing.
Protesting does help, and resources are more evenly distributed in the last few years. But there's still nothing that can be done for the illness, and the sick are actually dying faster because some places now have no medical staff. Medicines get scarce as manufacturing plants shut down for want of staff. Whole regions lose their electricity as the final workers are forced to turn off the grid lest the power plant cause a disaster once the prion disease has killed them. Governments can't fill the empty seats in their parliaments, and high voter turnout amounts to thousands of people casting their ballots. Quite a few governments just throw in the towel at that point. In places with newspapers, it isn't uncommon for them to run emotional stories about people from areas so badly hit that they thought they could be the last living people.
Eventually things begin to level out. A couple of people were lucky enough to never be exposed, or to have some resistance. It's the same for other mammals, although they're scarce and many are extinct. Most areas are forced into subsistence farming on poisoned land, without the help of domesticated animals. Most strive to rebuild, but to some it seems like the final, tortured days before the end.
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quixoticanarchy · 4 days ago
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“We plan for every agricultural health emergency, but all of our red teaming missed this” scenario: an agricultural outbreak that potentially imperils public health and leaves cows sick but mostly still standing, says David Stiefel, a former national security policy analyst for the USDA. With continued spread amongst cows, or to another “mixing-vessel” species like pigs, the virus “could mix and match, then you get a whole new genetic constellation,” says Jürgen Richt, regents and university distinguished professor at Kansas State University. Experts are hesitant to speculate about what could happen if the virus were to begin more widely infecting humans, for fear of spreading panic, but the toll could, in the worst case, dwarf that of COVID-19. If the virus “infects a person infected with a human flu strain, and something comes out that is reassorted and adapted to humans? I don’t even want to imagine,” Richt says. “Not good.” The Institute for Disease Modeling, a research institute within the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has estimated that a global flu pandemic could kill close to 33 million people within six months.
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This should be a story of heroism, cooperation, and an all-hands effort to defeat a wily virus that many scientists warn could mutate into a pandemic threat. Instead, it is a story of intimidation and obfuscation. The vets who sounded the alarm have been silenced, some even fired, and won’t discuss their experiences on the record for fear of reprisals. And the federal agency that was supposed to help thwart the virus instead has allowed for an unspoken “don’t test, don’t tell” policy among dairy farmers. The USDA’s inaction, critics say, is attributable to its dual—and sometimes conflicting—mandates. It is responsible for the health and safety of the nation’s food animals, but it’s also in charge of promoting and protecting America’s $174.2 billion agriculture trade. And sick cows, with documented cases of a virus never before seen in cattle herds, could be very bad for business.
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And H5N1 was not in the corporate playbook. Dairy farmers, afraid their cows would be quarantined or that they would not be able to sell their milk, simply opted not to test. Some forced veterinarians off their property. “Everyone is so scared shitless. That is what is going on in the background,” says the Western-state veterinarian. Meanwhile, the USDA was sitting on details about infected farms. Researchers rely on the international data-sharing platform GISAID to track the spread of worrisome viruses, and the USDA’s H5N1 submissions have been both late and frustratingly light on detail. The CDC submits H5N1 sequences and metadata within eight days. Countries like Vietnam and Cambodia move even faster. But the USDA has been sharing the genetic sequences of H5N1 samples an average of 24 days after collection, and those submissions don’t say on what date, or even in which state, each sample was collected. Only later, usually after three to six weeks, does the agency provide that additional information. As a result, the USDA’s data is effectively useless for monitoring in real time how the virus is mutating. “Why can the US CDC provide actionable information while the USDA cannot?” asks a GISAID staffer. “The withholding of such data by other nations would most certainly have triggered political outrage at the highest level in the US.”
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reasoningdaily · 8 months ago
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Pioneered by digital literacy experts, the "Sift" strategy is a technique for spotting fake news and misleading social media posts, says Amanda Ruggeri.
It's no secret that misinformation is rampant on social media. And it's even more so in some subjects than others. Research has found, for example, that around two-thirds of the most popular YouTube videos on vaccines contain misinformation. The fall-out can be dire: an uptick in inaccurate anti-vaccination content online correlates with a decline in vaccination coverage, especially among children. That has led to larger outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases, like measles, than have been seen in recent years.
"Misinformation is worse than an epidemic," Marcia McNutt, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, put it in 2021, implicitly referring to the Covid-19 pandemic. "It spreads at the speed of light throughout the globe and can prove deadly when it reinforces misplaced personal bias against all trustworthy evidence."
HOW NOT TO BE MANIPULATED
In today's onslaught of overwhelming information (and misinformation), it can be difficult to know who to trust. In this column, Amanda Ruggeri explores smart, thoughtful ways to navigate the noise. Drawing on insights from psychology, social science and media literacy, it offers practical advice, new ideas and evidence-based solutions for how to be a wiser, more discerning critical thinker.
There are many reasons why misinformation travels so quickly – according to some research, even faster than accurate information. One reason is that people are far more likely to share a claim when it confirms their pre-existing beliefs, regardless of its accuracy. This cognitive bias may help explain why even more misinformation seems to be shared by individuals than by bots. One study, for example, found that just 15% of news sharers spread up to 40% of fake news.
That's a sobering statistic, but there's an upside. As long as individuals are the ones responsible for sharing so much misinformation, we're also the ones who – by being more mindful of what we "like", share, and amplify – can help make the greatest change.
When it comes to not falling for misinformation, being aware of our human fallibilities, such as our quickness to believe what we want to believe, is a good first step. Research shows that even being more reflective in general can "inoculate" us against believing fake news.
But it's not the only thing that we can do. In particular, researchers have found there are several simple, concrete strategies that we all can (and should) use, especially before we're tempted to share or repeat a claim, to verify its accuracy first.
One of my favourites comes with a nifty acronym: the Sift method. Pioneered by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, it breaks down into four easy-to-remember steps.
1. S is for… Stop
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Perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern era is its urgency. Thanks to everything from our continual phone use to nonstop work demands, far too many of us seem to be navigating the world at a dizzying speed.
Being online, where both news cycles and content are especially fast-paced and often emotive, can put us in a particularly "urgent" mindset. But when it comes to identifying misinformation, immediacy is not our friend. Research has found that relying on our immediate "gut" reactions is more likely to lead us astray than if we take a moment to stop and reflect. 
The first step of the Sift method interrupts this tendency. Stop. Don't share the post. Don't comment on it. And move on to the next step.
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2. I is for… Investigate the source
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Posts show up in our social media feeds all the time without us having a clear sense of who created them. Maybe they were shared by a friend. Maybe they were pushed to us by the algorithm. Maybe we followed the creator intentionally, but never looked into their background.
Now's the time to find this out. Who created this post? Get off-platform and do a web search. And because search results can be misleading, make sure you're looking at a reputable website. One that fact-checkers often use as a first port of call might surprise you: Wikipedia. While it's not perfect, it has the benefit of being crowd-sourced, which means that its articles about specific well-known people or organisations often cover aspects like controversies and political biases.
While you're investigating, ask:
If the creator is a media outlet, are they reputable and respected, with a recognised commitment to verified, independent journalism?
If it's an individual, what expertise do they have in the subject at hand (if any)? What financial ties, political leanings or personal biases may be at play?
If it's an organisation or a business, what is their purpose? What do they advocate for, or sell? Where does their funding come from? What political leanings have they shown?
And finally, once you've run your analysis (which can take just a couple of minutes), the most telling question of all: Would you still trust this creator's expertise in this subject if they were saying something you disagreed with?
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3. F is for… Find better coverage
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If, from the previous step, you find that you still have questions about the source's credibility, now's the time to dig a little further. What you're looking for is whether a more trustworthy source, like a reputable news outlet or fact-checking service, has reported and verified the same claim.
No surprise, but I find Google has some of the best tools for doing this. Obviously, there's Google itself, and if you're specifically looking to see if news outlets have covered something, Google News.
But I sometimes prefer to use the Google Fact Check search engine, which searches just fact-checking sites, specifically. Just keep in mind that Google says it doesn't vet the fact-checking sites it includes, so to make sure your results are reputable, you'll need to do a little further sleuthing – I like to see if an outlet has signed up to Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network, which you can check here.
If it's a photo you're investigating, use a reverse image search tool to see where else the image comes up online. Google has one, but I also like TinEye and Yandex. (You can also use these for video: take a screenshot from the video and put that in for your image search).
Your goal? To see whether there are any credible sources reporting the same information as what you're seeing, and saying that it's verified.
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4. T is for… Trace the claim to its original context
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Often, you'll wind up doing this at the same time that you're trying to find better coverage, at least if you're using the tools mentioned above. But the idea here is a little different. You're trying to find out where the claim came from originally.
Even if you see that a claim has been reported on by a credible media outlet, for example, it may not be original reporting; they may have gotten that claim from another outlet. Ideally, the original story should be linked – so always go there – but if it's not, you may need to search for it separately.
Crucially, you want to figure out not just whether something like this really is true, but whether anything was taken out of context. If you're looking at an image, does how it was described in the social media post you saw line up with what its original caption, context, and location? If it's a quotation from a speaker, was anything edited out or taken out of context or, when you see their full interview or speech, does it seem like perhaps they misspoke in that moment?
Taking these steps before deciding whether to simply share a claim might feel onerous. But the time investment of just a few minutes may save you not only embarrassment – but help ensure you're not spreading misinformation that, at its most dramatic, can even lead to illness and death.
Today, anyone can make a claim on social media. And anyone can be the person whose re-sharing of that claim is the one who makes it go viral. That means it's the responsibility of each one of us to make sure that what we are posting, liking, and sharing is, first and foremost, actually true.
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mariacallous · 4 months ago
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What would you want to tell the next U.S. president? FP asked nine thinkers from around the world to write a letter with their advice for him or her.
Dear Americans,
You will soon go to the polls to elect your next president. And once again, the rest of the world will be holding its breath. I will be following the vote count with a mix of admiration, expectation, and concern: admiration for your democracy and its ability to reinvent itself even when faced with serious challenges; expectation because the United States is a model that we all want to follow; concern about your temptation to isolationism. In a nutshell, your choice matters to you and your future but also to millions of people around the world, including in Europe. I hope, therefore, you will not mind me humbly providing unsolicited advice.
Your biggest asset is trust: the faith you have in yourselves and your ability to overcome and the confidence that your friends and allies around the world place in you—the dynamism of your economy, your capacity to innovate and develop cutting-edge technologies, the strength of your defense sector, the checks and balances of your democracy, and your support for international cooperation to address collective challenges, from nuclear proliferation to climate change and from poverty eradication to pandemics.
But that trust has been severely dented in recent years. At home, some of you depict a nation in decline, portraying a scared mouse where we see a roaring lion. And these last years have seen a serious erosion in the trust that many around the world have in the United States, too. We have seen unilateralism and economic protectionism and have been confronted with a purely transactional approach from some of you, including in the sacrosanct sector of defense in NATO. We have seen the United States undermining the same multilateral system that it helped build.
It is time you double down on regaining the trust of your friends and allies. They will make you stronger and safer. Investing in developing the European pillar within NATO and cooperating on the defense industry with European nations will not only ensure that Europe takes responsibility for its defense, but it will also strengthen the United States to project its power globally, particularly in the Asia-Pacific. Joining hands in the decarbonization of the trans-Atlantic economy, as opposed to deploying unfair schemes against European companies, will help us all reduce our carbon emissions faster and provide greater benefits to our companies. Helping to craft global rules on digital trade at the World Trade Organization stands to benefit, first and foremost, U.S. tech giants operating worldwide. Taxing and regulating the tech sector as well as building guardrails for artificial intelligence will be more effective if done in concert and will also be fairer. Leading in the United Nations or in international institutions on issues such as financing the green transition in developing countries will help stabilize the economies of many of your friends and neighbors. When they do better, the United States benefits, too. In a world more intertwined than ever before, isolationism doesn’t protect. Disengaging from Ukraine sends a message not just to Russia; China reads it, too. Disengaging from NATO is heard not just in Brussels; it is felt in the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan as well as the Middle East.
And the denting of U.S. democracy is not just an issue in Washington; it resonates across Europe, too. Your biggest weakness is your democracy and open society. I say weakness not because I would wish for an authoritarian America but because openness makes you—as well as us—more susceptible to disinformation and manipulation. As in much of Europe, democracy in the United States faces challenges of election interference, growing polarization, threats against journalists, and the spread of manipulative information. AI has helped magnify this challenge with the exponential capacity to develop lifelike fakes aimed at misleading citizens. The enemy is within, and it is very good at finding like-minded allies across Europe. But foreign interference abounds as well.
It is worth investing in a shield that would protect and preserve democracy for future generations. This will require a combination of measures including bolstering cybersecurity; regulating social media platforms and introducing transparency in algorithms; providing warnings and counterarguments for misinformation before citizens face it; and strengthening U.S. election systems, including election certification processes and protecting the right to vote. Ultimately, it is about empowering each and every citizen to serve as a custodian of democracy. Democratic forces in Europe and in the United States could benefit from joining hands and sharing experiences.
You have in your hands the decision about who will be the next president of the United States. As you prepare to vote, Europeans will start a new political cycle, too, with a recently elected European Parliament voting on the program of work to be led by the European Commission. The uncertainty around us has made us realize that our destiny will be shaped by what we do next. We are determined to protect our democracy, step up our defense, and bolster our prosperity for the benefit of all citizens. We know the task is daunting, and we will have to show strong determination and unity to meet it. I am confident we will. But I also know that we will both be stronger if we trust and respect each other, if we work hand in hand to protect our democracies, and if we can still count on the United States as our ally.
Arancha González is the dean of Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs and a former Spanish foreign minister.
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bopinion · 5 months ago
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Aperçu of the week
“All we have to do is call our opponent a communist or a socialist or someone who will destroy our country.”
(Donald Trump. We'll see about that...)
Bad News of the Week
Since the end of the coronavirus pandemic - although there hasn't actually been one - I've been waiting for its successor in a slightly anxious mood. Another rapidly infecting virus that spreads worldwide, is potentially deadly and, above all, restricts all our lives again. Now it's here: Mpox. For the first time since Corona, the WHO (World Health Organization of the United Nations) has declared the highest alert level, a “public health emergency of international concern”. Because of the virus that was previously called “Monkey Pox”. Discovered in Congo at the end of 2023, it has now also broken out in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya.
The initial figures spoke of 14,000 suspected cases. Based on the usual 50% rate and the reported 500 deaths, this means that one in twelve people who become infected will die. That's a lot. So it's certainly a virus that should be taken seriously. One day later, it was reported that the first case in Europe had emerged in Sweden. Then the first three in Asia in Pakistan. It's the usual pattern: on the one hand, every infectious disease spreads faster and more uncontrollably in times of international travel. On the other hand, specific cases are only discovered when they are specifically sought or tested for. So the numbers will now quickly go through the roof. Because the spread is already more advanced than we know.
What will happen now? What will the states do? How will society react this time? And above all: what have we learned? There is a lot of talk in Germany about the need to come to terms with everything that has happened around COVID. Also to learn from the mistakes. There is a lot of need for clarification - for example with regard to the procurement of masks, the closure of schools, compulsory vaccination, curfews and unequal treatment in the retail sector. And what has happened since (drum roll please!): Nothing. What applies to politics also applies in private life. Some friends turned out to be conspiracy theorists, others were law and order hardliners, most were simply irritated and unsettled. There were even rifts right through families. Rifts that still exist.
And now we could all be facing the same situation, just as ill-prepared. And if Mpox doesn't develop into a pandemic, perhaps swine fever will spread to humans. Or bird flu. Or something else entirely, be it from the South American jungle or from the secret laboratory of some deep state. Or a revenant from the past spreads again - cholera still exists after all and first cases of polio are reported from Gaza. No, I'm not panicking. But I do have one or two worries. After all, humanity has shown itself more than once to be incapable of learning from the past. I would love to be wrong about that.
Good News of the Week
Venezuela is not giving up. It is wonderful to see how the people are fighting for democracy, no longer wanting to put up with the corruption of their “elites” and finally wanting to have a perspective worth living in. Just under a month ago, elections were held in the Latin American country, which could actually live in prosperity and peace but is suffering from dramatic economic decline, inflation and poverty since years. Or as investigative journalist Sebastiana Barráez says in the news magazine Der Spiegel: “Maduro has couped!”
Initially, the state electoral authority declared President Nicolás Maduro Moro, who has been clinging to power since 2013, the winner without providing any evidence - as is actually required by the constitution. The opposition has now had access to more than 80 percent of the printed protocols of the individual polling stations and has made them public. According to these, their candidate Edmundo González won with around 67 percent of the vote - compared to 30 percent for the incumbent head of government. So did Maduro commit electoral fraud? It looks like it.
The United Nations and the Carter Center had sent election observers to Venezuela. They have now criticized the election authority's actions and declared that the official result was not achieved democratically. The panel of experts speaks of an “unprecedented process in recent electoral history”. No wonder that most Latin American countries as well as the USA and Europe did not recognize the “official result”. And Maduro? He doesn't give a damn. The despot has further intensified the repression against the population with the help of the military, the National Guard and other state organs loyal to him. According to the independent rights organization Foro Penal, over 2,000 people have been arrested since the election. These include opposition politicians. And journalists. That speaks a clear language.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the US government has now offered Maduro and close associates of the regime an amnesty if they relinquish power. I wish the Venezuelans would keep up the pressure. And the international stage too. Until Madura and his clan really abdicate. Because then the country, which has already been abandoned by 20% of its population in recent years, could return to better times. In a survey conducted by the Gallup polling institute in December 2012, the country's inhabitants were among the happiest people on earth. It would be nice if this vague memory could become reality again.
Personal happy moment of the week
“Your application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) has been approved. You are now authorized to travel to Canada by air.” Nothing more to add here. Taking off this sunday. Boy am I excited...
I couldn't care less...
...about the discussion that Germany “only” came 10th in the medal table at the Summer Olympics in Paris - behind hosts France and Great Britain, even though their populations are smaller. “What does it take for more medals?” asks the Tagesschau news channel. That is of little interest to me. Much more important is the charisma of athletes as figures of identification for a nation, the role model function for children, the motivation to surpass oneself. After all, it's not for nothing that the Olympic motto is “Taking part is everything”. In that sense, Eddie the Eagle really did fly.
It's fine with me...
...that the Democrats' party conference is now turning into a coronation mass. Because the most important decisions have been made: Presidential candidate and his (better in this case “her”) running mate. Normally, I would now say that political program content should not be completely secondary. But I don't care about that at the moment. The main thing is momentum. The main thing is optimism. The main thing is not to go back. The main thing is that Donald Jessica Trump doesn't triumph in November. Harris Walz!
As I write this...
...we're trying to catch a mouse. Apparently it was raining too hard outside and it wanted to get out into the dry. Now she's hiding behind a bookshelf and is afraid of us - even though we want to rescue her and set her free. Update: we've got her and she's fine. Second update: there seems to be another one...
Post Scriptum
It's good when someone doesn't look away but points. Even if it's about Israel committing an injustice. After all, you are then almost reflexively vilified as an Anti-Semite. In this respect, I am pleased that the European Union is showing more and more backbone in this regard. In this case, I am not referring to the maltreated Gaza Strip, but to the West Bank, where the Palestinian population is suffering more and more from brutal attacks by militant Israeli settlers - who can be sure of the backing of Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly right-wing extremist government.
Once again, there have been attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on the population of the West Bank. And now EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has had enough. He will “present a proposal for EU sanctions against the supporters of the violent settlers, including some members of the Israeli government”. Including the government! That's a bombshell. I very much hope that he finds the necessary support for this. Because this massive problem is currently all too easily overlooked in the great shadow of Gaza.
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macrolit · 1 year ago
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Forbes article: "How Struggling College Bookstores Found A Way To Beat Amazon"
Oct 20, 2023,06:30am EDT
A new sales model adopted by hundreds of universities limits students’ ability to shop around for textbooks.
By Lauren Debter, Forbes Staff
As fall semester dawned at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, senior Olivia McFall turned to Amazon to shop for books — not only because its prices were better for certain titles, but so she could get her course materials quickly. The campus bookstore could sometimes take a week or two. Unacceptable.
“Teachers will start assigning reading on the first day,” McFall, a 22-year-old fashion-merchandising major, told Forbes. “You get behind if you don’t have that textbook. If I buy it on [Amazon], it’s usually because I can get it faster than the bookstore.”
For decades, Amazon’s lower prices and speedier delivery have blown a crater in the college bookstore business. Given the option to shop around, students only buy about one-third of their course materials at the campus store.
Now the bookstores are fighting back. They say they’ve hit on a plan that would, almost magically, quash competition from online rivals like Amazon. T.C.U. is among the colleges considering a model that would automatically charge students for textbooks on their tuition bills, which can be covered by financial aid, and get them to students by the time classes begin. Books are typically discounted 30% or more, said the bookstores, who negotiate volume discounts. Students must return materials at the end of the semester.
Despite reservations from education advocates who worry it limits purchasing options for students, the plan, dubbed Inclusive Access, is spreading like kudzu. It rose out of a 2015 rule from the U.S. Department of Education that permitted universities to include the cost of textbooks with tuition, as long as prices were under competitive market rates and students could opt out.
Bookstores latched onto the idea during the pandemic. They were looking to boost sales at a time when they were hamstrung by closures, declining enrollment numbers and the seismic shift to digital textbooks — and still are.
In the 2022-23 academic year, Inclusive Access already captured the business of 44% of students, worth an estimated $1.4 billion annually, according to the National Association of College Stores.
Illinois-based Follett Corp., a privately held company (annual sales: $1.6 billion) that operates roughly one-third of college bookstores, said the number of its campuses that have adopted the Inclusive Access model has tripled to 450 since 2019. New Jersey-based Barnes & Noble Education (annual sales: $1.5 billion), which spun out of the bookseller chain in 2015 and also runs a third of campus bookstores, said it has over 150 schools signed up for Inclusive Access, up from just four in 2019. (The colleges themselves operate the other one-third of campus bookstores.)
Overnight, schools that switched to Inclusive Access brought guaranteed revenue to booksellers. Sell-through rates, which measure the percentage of course materials students purchase at the campus bookstore, skyrocketed from about 30% before Inclusive Access to north of 80 or 90%, according to Follett and Barnes & Noble Education. Few students opt out, the companies said, because they like the prices and convenience.
It’s a clever way to beat Amazon. Unable to compete, Follett and Barnes & Noble Education separated their customers from the open marketplace and bundled their products with something Amazon couldn’t sell — college tuition. The bookstore gets the customer without ever having to go up against the online behemoth, which is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for its own alleged anti-competitive practices. (Amazon has said it disagrees with the allegations, and will contest the lawsuit.)
“It’s a significant volume increase because you’re capturing all of the course material market share in an institution,” Jonathan Shar, who oversees campus stores operated by Barnes & Noble Education, told Forbes. “Plus, it’s much more predictable.”
Amazon Prices
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the impact Inclusive Access is having on its textbook sales. Amazon said it may offer discounts to schools that buy books in bulk, but it’s been winding down certain aspects of its textbook business. In April, it stopped renting physical textbooks to students and in 2020 it stopped buying textbooks back from students.
Last year, 37% of students purchased books from Amazon. That’s down from 46% in 2019, according to the National Association of College Stores.
Selling textbooks isn’t the business it used to be. A decade ago, students spent $4.8 billion a year on textbooks, according to research firm Words Rated. Today, it’s about $3.2 billion. During the 2022-23 school year, students spent an average of $285 on course materials, the lowest figure since the National Association of College Stores began tracking spending 16 years ago.
That’s partly the result of a rapid shift to lower-cost digital textbooks, with 55% of course materials now digital, up sharply from 15% prior to the pandemic, according to Emmanuel Kolady, Follett’s CEO. More textbooks are being made available online for free from sites like OpenStax, too. Nearly three-quarters of students say they were assigned at least one free course material in the latest academic year, according to the National Association of College Stores.
Company’s ‘Cornerstone’
Barnes & Noble Education, a publicly traded company that runs 800 campus bookstores, has described Inclusive Access to investors as a “cornerstone” of its plan to return to profitable growth, noting that course-material revenue rises more than 80% and gross profit nearly doubles after schools switch to the new model.
The company has lost a cumulative $600 million since 2018. Last year’s sales were 23% below pre-pandemic levels. This summer, it had to negotiate an extension on its loan payments because it couldn’t come up with enough cash. As part of the deal, it gave up two board seats and said it would explore selling the company. Its stock price has lost 90% of its value in the last two years, tumbling to less than $1 a share.
“It feels like this is their first, second and third priority,” said Ryan MacDonald, an analyst at Needham who covers Barnes & Noble Education, referring to Inclusive Access, which the company calls “First Day Complete.”
Benefits For Students
The booksellers claim the program saves students money. Follett said that students spend an average of 30% less than if they were to buy new books and are better equipped for classes as Inclusive Access gets them their materials before the semester begins.
At New York University, for instance, where Follett runs bookselling, students are automatically billed for books unless they opt out. Most are digital rentals. A textbook for an introductory biology class is priced at $36.75, which gives students access to a digital copy for the semester. That’s 20% less than if they went directly to the publisher’s website and rented it for the term. It’s 40% less than on Amazon, which only offers the option to buy the digital version, not rent it.
The math, however, is not always transparent. According to a report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, which analyzed 52 book-buying contracts, it’s “hard, if not impossible” to figure out how deep the discounts are because schools don’t make it clear what the discount is based on.
Savings can be less meaningful for students who would have otherwise bought used books or borrowed books, said Nicole Allen, director of open education at SPARC, a nonprofit that advocates for more course materials to be free. The one-quarter of students who intentionally skip buying certain books each semester, usually because they don’t think they need it, are also charged, she said. As more schools migrate to Inclusive Access, Allen questions whether discounts will disappear since publishers have a long history of raising prices.
“This is already a captive market because students are told what to buy,” Allen told Forbes. “Inclusive Access makes it an even more captive market by telling students how they’re going to buy it.”
Even without Inclusive Access, students can be limited in their comparison shopping. More and more professors are assigning books with single-use access codes, available for an additional fee, which students use to access quizzes, homework and other materials online. Promoted by publishers who benefit from the new revenue stream, they’re often sold exclusively by the campus bookstore and cannot be resold.
Follett’s president Ryan Petersen predicts that a newer variant of the model called Equitable Access, where students pay a flat fee for their materials regardless of the courses they’re taking, will be adopted by most schools in the next five years.
“We’re having this conversation with every campus we can,” Petersen told Forbes, “potentially even to campuses who are sick of hearing about it.”
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covid-safer-hotties · 5 months ago
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Deaths Are Up Post-Covid, and So Are Funeral Stocks: Prognosis - Published Aug 19, 2024
The Business of Death Aussies, Americans, and Brits — and no doubt people in many other nations — are dying faster than before the pandemic.
Even though Covid waves are becoming less deadly, thanks mostly to increased immune protection from vaccinations and prior infections, the coronavirus remains a significant killer. And stubbornly high all-cause mortality rates indicate that its direct and indirect effects are helping drive a sustained increase in death and disease around the globe.
It’s depressing news, I know.
With death comes bereavement, and there’s been a lot of that since SARS-CoV-2 began spreading widely in late 2019. The number of officially reported Covid fatalities (7.1 million worldwide) doesn’t fully explain the trend in excess deaths. (Neither do Covid vaccines, since body bags were piling up months before the shots were released, and multiple studies show the immunizations protect against severe illness and death).
There’s no silver lining to the tragic loss of life. But if one group sees an upside, it’s those providing funerals, cremations, and burials. Publicly traded companies handling funerals and related services have handed investors an average 79% return since Jan. 1, 2020 — outpacing the 60% gain in the MSCI All Country World Index, one of the broadest measures of the global equity market.
The US highlights the morbid picture. In the two decades before the pandemic, the number of deaths had been climbing at an average clip of almost 1% a year — reflecting population growth and aging, and the devastating opioid epidemic — for a crude rate in 2019 of 869.7 deaths for every 100,000 Americans.
Covid catapulted the rate well beyond 1,000 in 2020 and 2021 before the rate dropped back to just over 984 in 2022. Last year, there were 927.4 deaths per 100,000 people in the US — almost 12% above the 20-year average — for nearly 3.1 million deaths all up.
The coronavirus directly and indirectly contributed to many of them. For instance, a jump in drug overdoses and alcohol use–related diseases during the pandemic likely added to fatalities from unintentional injuries and chronic liver disease in 2023, according to a study this month. Covid also led to more cardiometabolic disease, and age-adjusted mortality rates for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke were above pre-pandemic levels.
Last month, researchers reported similar findings in Australia, where emergency departments have taken longer to hospitalize patients arriving in ambulances — a sign of health-system stress associated with a greater risk of patients dying up to 30 days after their initial medical encounter.
Mortality rates in England have also stayed persistently high since Covid hit, likely reflecting the direct effects of the illness, pressures on the National Health Service, and disruptions to chronic disease detection and management, researchers said in a study in January.
“The greatest numbers of excess deaths in the acute phase of the pandemic were in older adults,” Jonny Pearson-Stuttard and colleagues wrote. “The pattern now is one of persisting excess deaths, which are most prominent in relative terms in middle-aged and younger adults.”
Almost five years into the pandemic, dodging SARS-CoV-2 still remains one of the best ways to avoid adding to the toll — and the frequency of funerals. —Jason Gale
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ladymdc · 6 months ago
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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤️ (hi I hope you are doing well!)
Ah! Thanks for thinking of me! I'm not good at self-promoting or self-love when it comes to my writing, but how can I say no when it comes from someone I always enjoy seeing around ♥️
**A few of my fav finished works in no particular order:
The Choices We Made -- (Borderlands 3/Rhack fix it) This work got me through the pandemic & set me on the path to make a few of my best friends.
A Memory I Keep Having -- (Borderlands/Rhack whumptober collab with one of those best friends) I put my whole heart & soul into this thing. It didn't do very well compared to some of my other works in that fandom, but the fact that didn't bother me only makes me love it more.
(ngl, I love so many of my rhack works because I worked on so many with friends or for friends, it's hard to narrow that one down, but I did it lol)
Wandering in the Dark -- (DA, f!mage Trevelyan/Cullen,1930s noir/dystopia twist on the events of DAI) I left DA on a sour note, but still made some great friends there & this work was a nice ending note. That said, I fully expect Veilguard to suck me back in.
And then I'm going to add on a couple of my unfinished favs/current main wip to the list:
Hell & You (Tavstarion/BG3 Hades/Persephone AU) This is my self-indulgent passion project. Something I don't expect people to love, but something *I* love dearly. Any given moment I'm currently thinking about this one & wishing I could write faster.
Then another fav/unifinished work is The Empire & the Sun (Borderlands/Rhack Kingpin AU). I'm hoping to go back to this one someday & finish it because it was also a self indulgent passion project. I just got burned out & needed something new
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allthebrazilianpolitics · 4 months ago
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“Bets pandemic” spreads faster than COVID-19 outbreak in Brazil
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Approximately 25 million people began placing sports bets on electronic platforms in the first seven months of 2024. This averages to about 3.5 million new users per month. For perspective, this growth rate surpasses the time it took for the coronavirus to infect the same number of people in Brazil, which occurred over 11 months, from February 26, 2020, to January 28, 2021.
Over the past five years, the number of Brazilians who have placed bets on various platforms has reached 52 million. Of this total, 48 percent are considered new players, having started betting in the first seven months of this year. This data comes from an opinion poll conducted by the Locomotiva Institute between August 3 and 7.
The habit of placing bets on electronic platforms in Brazil now encompasses a population comparable to the entire population of Colombia and exceeds that of countries such as South Korea, Spain, and Argentina.
Continue reading.
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quotesfrommyreading · 2 months ago
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According to the popular theory of “epidemiological transitions,” first articulated by the Egyptian scholar Abdel Omran, the demise of infectious diseases in wealthy societies was an inevitable result of economic development. As societies prospered, their disease profile shifted. Instead of being plagued by contagion, they suffered primarily from slow-moving, chronic, noncommunicable conditions, like heart disease and cancer.
I confess to once being a true believer in this theory. I knew from visiting places like the south Mumbai ghetto where my father had grown up that societies that suffered significant burdens of infectious diseases were indeed crowded, unsanitary, and impoverished. We stayed in south Mumbai every summer, crammed with relatives into two-room flats in a dilapidated tenement building. Like the hundreds of other residents, we flung our waste into the courtyard, carried our own water in aging plastic buckets to shared latrines, and fitted two-foot boards over the thresholds to keep out the rats. There – as in other crowded, waste-ridde, poorly plumbed societies – infection was a constant reality.
But then, thanks to the same conditions that brought cholera to the shores of New York City, Paris, and London in the nineteenth century, writ large, the microbes staged their comeback. Development in once remote habitats introduced new pathogens into human populations. A rapidly changing global economy resulted in faster modes of international travel, offering these pathogens new opportunities to spread. Urbanization and the growth of slums and factory farms sparked epidemics. Like cholera, which benefited from the Industrial Revolution, cholera's children started to benefit from its hangover: a changing climate, thanks to the excess carbon in the atmosphere unleashed by centuries of burning fossil fuels.
The first new infectious disease that struck the prosperous West and disrupted the notion of a “postinfection” era, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), appeared in the early 1980s. Although no one knew where it came from or how to treat it, many commentators exuded certainty that it was only a matter of time before medicine would vanquish the upstart virus. Drugs would cure it, vaccines would banish it. Public debate revolved around how to get the medical establishment to move quickly, not about the dire biological threat that HIV posed. In fact, early nomenclature seemed to negate the idea that HIV was an infectious disease at all. Some commentators, unwilling to accept the contagious nature of the virus (and willing to indulge in homophobic scapegoating) declared it a “gay cancer” instead.
And then other infectious pathogens arrived, similarly impervious to the prevention strategies and containment measures we'd long taken for granted. Besides HIV, there was West Nile virus, SARS, Ebola, and new kinds of avian influenzas that could infect humans. Newly rejuvenated microbes learned to circumvent the medications we'd used to hold them in check: drug-resistant tuberculosis, resurgent malaria, and cholera itself. All told, between 1940 and 2004, more than three hundred infectious diseases either newly emerged or reemerged in places and in populations that had never seen them before. The barrage was such that the Columbia University virologist Stephen Morse admits to having considered the possibility that these strange new creatures hailed from outer space: veritable Andromeda strains, raining down upon us from the heavens.
By 2008, a leading medical journal acknowledged what had become obvious to many: the demise of infectious diseases in developed socieites had been “greatly exaggerated”. Infectious pathogens had returned, and not only in the neglected, impoverished corners of the world but also in the most advanced cities and their prosperous suburbs. In 2008, disease experts marked the spot where each new pathogen emerged on a world map, using red points. Crimson splashed across a band from 30-60° north of the equator to 30-40° south. The entire heart of the global economy was swathed in red: northeastern United States, western Europe, Japan, and southeastern Australia. Economic development provided no panacea against contagion: Omran was wrong.
  —  Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (Sonia Shah)
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