Tag: Late

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Health

It’s By no means Too Late to Be taught to Journey Horseback

It’s Never Too Late to Learn to Ride Horseback

“It’s Never Too Late” is a new series that tells the stories of people who decide to make their dreams come true on their own.

Rose Young has an uncanny ability to adapt to demanding jobs and intense situations. She was an FBI agent focused on white-collar crime; an attorney practicing insurance disputes; and, after returning to North Carolina from Lafayette, LA, with her husband and daughter in 2003, a healthcare compliance officer.

But the only job she dreaded, despite desperately longing for it as a child, was horseback riding. “I grew up in Hamlet, a small North Carolina railroad town,” said Ms. Young, 65. “I was five when I saw my first horse and I wanted a lesson. I was shown around once or twice by a neighbor who had a horse in his yard, but that was a rare treat. I never got on a horse again. “

A few months before the pandemic, Ms. Young, then 63, took her first English riding lesson. (She happened to meet a woman at work who she connected to a teacher who was willing to take in an older student.) One class turned into two that quickly became monthly. Then it became a one-year project. Then a life changing experience. (The following interview has been edited and shortened.)

Why didn’t you take classes as a child?

I grew up in a humble home. My parents were blue-collar workers and worked very hard. There was nothing for extras. So I convinced myself that riding is not something that is sad for me. As I got older, I could have taken one lesson a month, but I was intimidated and uncomfortable. And there was fear.

What were you afraid of?

Falling down or hurting me. But in 2003 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy. That changed things. That’s motivation. You have to follow your dreams when you have a chance because you don’t know how long you will have the chance.

How did you find the courage to take the first step?

I didn’t let breast cancer scare me and I didn’t let the joy out of my life. That would have been a disaster. I decided to have a different life. Learning to ride meant finding new joy. It was also a reward for surviving something very dark and getting out on the other side.

How did you start

Although I live in an area where many people own horses, I had to find someone who would be willing to give themselves and their horse to an older student. Many places train children. It’s harder to find someone to take a risk with an older student who is at risk of injury or may not be ready to learn. It was a month before I found my first teacher. I’ve also read books and watched countless videos.

What were some of your biggest challenges?

Find the right instructor and then find the right horse. At the moment I’m on my fifth instructor and sixth horse. I think I’ve finally found the right thing. Also, overcoming the fear of falling or hurting me. I fell four times and got a concussion. I was concerned about going on. I thought I might be crazy to do that. I took a couple of weeks off. Then I tried another horse and another until I found one I wasn’t afraid of.

When was your lightbulb moment?

I had a couple of friends who got riding later in life; that was inspiring. Then an older friend who had a knee replacement and thought she would never go back there decided to compete again. That was inspiring too. I thought, ‘If she can do it, so can I.’

How did it feel to finally sit on a horse?

In the beginning it was more scary than awe inspiring. I forced myself to breathe and dispel the fear. Horses are beautiful, intelligent and sensitive. Your eyes are soulful. There is nothing like being up there and feeling real synchronicity and connection with another being. We both move with the same goal. It’s a fleeting, effortless, fluid connection. You feel outside of yourself. And there is something very seductive and empowering about controlling and influencing the behavior of something bigger than you are.

What did you learn about yourself during this time?

That I’m not afraid to fail. That in the interest of learning something new that is valuable to me, I am willing to look stupid. That you can’t rush this process. It took me a while to understand. I wanted to learn everything in a month. That didn’t happen. I’m still learning. I still have a long way to go. I have suppressed my desire to ride for so long because it was inconvenient, expensive, took too long, or was out of reach. These were excuses to justify my inaction. I realized that was stupid. I wanted to do that as a kid, I’ve learned that I have to give it to myself now.

How has your life changed since you started riding?

It was enriched through this process. Small wins add up to a bigger goal. I’ve learned to slow down and enjoy every moment with the horse. I try to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

What are your future plans?

My next big step is to lease a horse in October, which means I can ride outside of class. I would be alone on the horse. To do this, you have to achieve a certain level of competence.

What did riding give you that you didn’t expect?

It intensified all aspects of my life. It made everything more interesting, brighter, more lively. It rejuvenated my curiosity and interest in everything around me.

What would you say to people who feel stuck and want to change something?

Think back to what made you happy when you were young and see if that can be used as inspiration or joy. Then you will find the time and ability to do it.

What lessons can people learn from your experience?

Don’t be afraid to be ashamed or open to criticism. You have to agree not to be in control of something. And don’t let fear get in your way. It gets less scary every time you try.

We are looking for people who decide that it is never too late to switch, change their life and make dreams come true. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here.

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Health

Dr. Scott Gottlieb says the Covid delta spike could peak in late August

Vaccine ramp up probably not enough to manage UK virus variant

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday the current spike in Covid infections due to the highly contagious delta variant may be over sooner than many experts believe.

However, the former FDA chief urged Americans to take precautions in the meantime as delta, first found in India, takes hold as the dominant variant in the U.S.

“I think the bottom line is we’re going to see continued growth, at least in the next three to four weeks. There’s going to be a peak sometime probably around late August, early September,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.” “I happen to believe that we’re further into this delta wave than we’re measuring so this may be over sooner than we think. But we don’t really know because we’re not doing a lot of testing now either.”

There may be another small bump in infection rates as schools reopen in the fall and become “vectors of transmission” as they did with the B.1.1.7 variant, first discovered in Britain, and now called alpha, said Gottlieb, who led the Food and Drug Administration from 2017 to 2019 during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Gottlieb also warned that just wearing masks, particularly cloth masks, may not enough to prevent Covid infections from the delta variant in classrooms. He advised schools to create pods, space out children in the classroom, avoid group meals and suspend certain large activities, as well as improve air filtration and quality levels. 

“There might be other things you do that actually achieve more risk reduction than the masks in the setting of a much more contagious variant where we know there’s going to be spread even with masks,” Gottlieb said. “If we’re going to tell people to wear masks, I do think we need to start educating people better about quality of masks and the differences in terms of the reduction and risk you’re achieving with different kinds of masks.”

For businesses wanting to bring people back into offices, Gottlieb said that October may be a more “prudent” time than September.

Gottlieb, who serves on the board of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer, said the critical question right now is how likely vaccinated people are to transmit the virus if they become infected. He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be collecting that data because it’s likely the current delta variant may be the newer, more permanent form of coronavirus going forward.

“When you’re dealing with a new variant where the virus levels that you achieve early in the course of your infection are thousandfold the original strain, it’s possible that you’re shedding more virus and you could be more contagious,” he said.

Local officials across the country are advising and reimposing indoor mask mandates as the highly transmissible delta variant causes Covid cases and deaths to increase again in the U.S., particularly in largely unvaccinated communities.

Nearly 162 million people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated — almost 49% of the nation’s population — even as the rate of daily administered shots has seen a sharp dip in recent months, according to a CDC tracker.

The CDC eased its Covid guidelines on masks for fully vaccinated people on May 13.

Since delta has taken a stronger hold, however, health experts are cautioning people to again use masks and follow public health measures. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNBC on Wednesday that even fully vaccinated people may want to consider wearing masks indoors as a protective measure against the delta variant.

Last week, Gottlieb told CNBC that he believes the U.S. is “vastly underestimating” the number of Covid delta infections, particularly among vaccinated people with mild symptoms, making it harder to understand if the variant is causing higher-than-expected hospitalization and death rates. 

“The endgame here was always going to be a final wave of infection,” Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday. “We had anticipated that this summer would be relatively quiet and we’d have a surge of infections in the fall with B.1.1.7, and that would be sort of the final wave of the pandemic phase of this virus and we would enter a more endemic phase where this virus just becomes a fact of life and it circulates at a certain level.”

But unlike the early last year, he added, “We have therapeutics and vaccines to deal with it, we’re better at treating it and it becomes sort of like a second flu.”

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

Categories
Health

It’s By no means Too Late to Be taught Find out how to Swim

It’s Never Too Late to Learn How to Swim

“It’s Never Too Late” is a new series that tells the stories of people who decide to make their dreams come true on their own.

Vijaya Srivastava’s first 68 years were decidedly on land. She walked the Berkeley Hills in the San Francisco Bay Area, spent time with her young grandchildren, and volunteered in the library. None of this required immersion in water, which suited her well, which was terrifying with water. The fear of drowning was a big issue.

Growing up in India, she never had access to swimming pools. When she moved to the United States, the idea of ​​swiping back and forth just didn’t occur to her. Then one day her doctor mentioned that regular rounds would improve her health.

“I can’t swim,” admitted Ms. Srivastava, now 72. She had never put her face under water.

“Have you heard of lessons?” Asked the doctor.

“In my age?”

“Why not?”

What followed may have been a long time pondering this question. That didn’t happen. (The following interview has been edited and shortened.)

Q: What were your first steps?

A: The first thing I did was ask a neighbor if she’d like to take classes together. We hired a high school kid from Albany High. She had trained as a lifeguard – I liked that.

“Have you ever trained a senior?” We asked. She said no. OK.

We started classes three days a week.

After I made up my mind to study, that was it. I went to the swimming pool on the days between classes. I started dreaming about swimming. I would wake up excited. When I couldn’t fall asleep, I would swim in bed. My husband would say, “What’s wrong? This is not a pool … “

I also bought a lot of swimsuits – I thought one of them might be lucky. I later realized that you don’t need a 10. I donated some.

Have you studied swimming?

After my first lesson, I started googling. At first I just watched everything that had to do with swimming on YouTube. That got confusing. My daughter later told me about Total Immersion Swimming videos. There’s a guy who’s into the physics of swimming who has helped me a lot.

My grandchildren also went underwater and watched my breaststroke or sat in the hot tub and gave me thumbs up or thumbs down.

What were the greatest challenges?

To be petrified. Nothing had ever happened to me that scared me. I just knew that I could drown. For the longest time I stayed at the shallow end, four feet. I prayed before each lesson.

And not enough perseverance. My arms and legs weren’t ready. After half an hour I was so tired.

Was there a moment when everything clicked?

After a few months the instructor said to me, “It’s time to go to the other end.” I kept saying, “I’m not ready.” She said, “That’s you.”

Finally, I decided that if I don’t try, it will never happen. The teacher said she would be next to me all the time.

“But you are so small!” I told her. She promised me not to let myself drown.

So I started swimming. By the time I reached the 6 foot mark – I’m 1.70 m tall – I knew there was no turning around. Besides, I didn’t know how to turn around.

I finally made it to the other side. My condo neighbors were over in the hot tub. They had watched me fight for the past few months and now they all stood up and clapped for me.

I didn’t wave back until I caught my breath and swam back to the shallow end. There was no way I could remove my hand from the wall at the eight-foot end.

What would you have done differently at the beginning?

There isn’t much I would do differently. Maybe start earlier.

How has your new job changed your life?

When we talk about it – my nephews, my children – they sound so proud of me. Not many people my age or in my family swim. It feels good that I did that. I speak to my family at home in India. My brother can’t believe it.

What’s next?

I was talking to a friend about how to learn to dance – maybe we could take dance lessons?

What would you say to people who feel stuck and want to change something?

I liked that my neighbor swam with me. We’d motivate each other. If I was tired that day, she said, let’s just go for 20 minutes. Twenty minutes turns into half an hour.

Did your experience make you a different person?

Swimming a pool length for the first time when I was 68 – I will always remember that. Last Friday I swam 20 laps! It took me 52 minutes. I still take a break after laps. My next goal is to do this continuously without taking a break. I come there.

What do you wish you knew earlier about fulfillment?

I have a very good friend who told me to know your body, know yourself – which makes you happy, healthy, and angry. That’s always stayed with me. That helped me alot.

But there isn’t much in my life that I would change. If you are relaxed and happy in spirit, it will bring you health. You don’t need too many things in life.

What lessons can people learn from your experience?

Don’t give yourself an option to give up. I never thought of quitting. When I invest mentally, I don’t give up.

We are looking for people who decide that it is never too late to switch, change their life and make dreams come true. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here.

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Politics

Black Democrats, Conflicted on a Voting Rights Push, Concern It’s Too Late

Black Democrats, Conflicted on a Voting Rights Push, Fear It’s Too Late

To Jackson’s close-knit constituency, whose members consider themselves torchbearers in the form of Mr. Figgers and Mr. Evers, all of this is evidence of the continued absence of urgency.

“If the people who were most affected were whites, the Democrats would have done something about it a long time ago,” said Rukia Lumumba, executive director of the People’s Advocacy Institute in Jackson. Her brother is the Mayor of Jackson and her late father also played that role. “They thought, ‘Oh, this is just the South,’ and not that what we saw here was going to the rest of the country.”

Mr Holder, who now leads a group focused on redistribution and access to ballot papers, said he would encourage senators to eliminate the filibuster in order to pass the For the People Act if necessary. His group and partners plan to spend $ 30 million to introduce the legislation to voters in states with key senators, including Arizona, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

“The missions are the condition of our democracy,” said Holder. “This is more than a partisan who wins and who loses?” Game. If we are unsuccessful in HR 1 or HR 4, I am really concerned that our democracy will be fundamentally and irreparably damaged. “

He added: “We will still hold elections every two or four years, but they could become almost meaningless.”

Mr. Holder was also something of a suffrage ambassador among the Democrats: last month, he was brought in on a virtual call to the Black Caucus of Congress because some of the older members of the caucus had deep reservations about the For the People, according to those involved with the Planning the call, there is a rare gap between the democratic leadership and the group that is often referred to as “the conscience of Congress”.

In fact, Rep. Thompson was the only Democrat who voted against the bill in the House of Representatives and reversed his stance as a former co-sponsor. In the weeks since then, Mr Thompson has turned down several requests from the New York Times to explain his vote or respond to voters who say it goes against the Southern Democrats’ rich history of defending black voting rights.

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Health

Financial system may open up by late spring if sufficient individuals get vaccinated, says Dr. Ashish Jha

Economy could open up by late spring if enough people get vaccinated, says Dr. Ashish Jha

Dr. Ashish Jha told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” on Tuesday that US states could make decisions about opening up businesses and economies earlier than predicted if enough people are vaccinated.

“My relatively optimistic view is that we don’t have to wait until the end of summer or even the beginning of summer. If enough people have been vaccinated in late spring, you will really see case numbers come down a lot,” said Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University. “That will allow us to open up the economy a lot more so that we don’t have to wait and just make sure the infections – the high infection rates we have right now – get better . “

President Joe Biden set a benchmark in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. He promised to get enough vaccine doses to the states for almost every American by the end of summer. Biden said he would give the government another 200 million doses of the vaccine – half from Pfizer and the other half from Moderna. The deal would increase the country’s vaccine supply to 600 million shots.

“This is enough vaccine to fully vaccinate 300 [million] Americans by the end of summer, the beginning of autumn, “Biden said at the White House on Tuesday.

To vaccinate 300 million people by September 22, the last day of summer, the nation will need 600 million doses at the rate of about 2.4 million shots a day. That assumes it goes beyond the 23 million that have already been bumped. Biden said the government would be sending 10 million shots a week for the next three weeks. That is an increase of almost 20% over what is currently being delivered.

Johnson & Johnson expects results for its Covid vaccine early next week. CNBC’s Meg Tirrell said the company conducted its test on three continents, including South Africa and Brazil, where the highly communicable new variants were identified. This means that Johnson & Johnson’s results could provide vital information on how vaccines developed around the original strain of Covid work against the emerging ones.

Dr. Bruce Becker, associate professor of behavioral medicine and social sciences at Brown University’s School of Public Health, told The News with Shepard Smith that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one shot and therefore achieves immunity in 14 to 21 years will days.

“The J&J vaccine can vaccinate twice the number of patients for any given vaccine supply – twice the coverage and immunity in less than half the time,” Becker said. “That is a much greater efficiency in blocking the spread of Covid.”

Jha told host Shepard Smith that a single dose would “greatly” aid in vaccination effort, but questioned the company’s manufacturing capacity.

“I think one of the less clear questions is how much stock of J&J vaccines we have.” asked Jha. “There have been some reports that it didn’t go that well, production didn’t go that well, but either way, a dose is so much easier to give as a vaccine.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study Tuesday that found that Covids spread in schools is very low with the right precautions. Jha stated that the US can open schools across the country, but “we have to do it” with preventive measures that include masks and effective ventilation.

Becker underlined the importance of preventive measures and even said that non-compliant students should be excluded from school.

“Masking work, social distancing work, and the deadly misinformation circulated by the previous government and their voices created our current dilemma,” Becker said. “Schools can be opened if the rules are followed exactly.”

Biden said Tuesday “it will be months before we can vaccinate the majority of Americans” and that “masks not vaccines” are the best defense against Covid as Americans wait for their vaccine.

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Business

On Brexit and Coronavirus, Boris Johnson Leaves It Late

On Brexit and Coronavirus, Boris Johnson Leaves It Late

This undermined the government’s goal of curbing social contacts in the face of a new variant of the coronavirus that British officials said is spreading far faster than the original strain. In fact, the refugees from London are likely to spread the virus across the country, where 35,928 new cases were reported on Sunday.

It is more tactical when the Prime Minister pulls out a post-Brexit deal. With only 10 days to go before December 31st, there would be very little time for a review of an agreement in parliament, where pro-Brexit hardliners would keep a close eye on it. But with no margin for error, analysts say Mr Johnson may have to compromise to prevent an economically ruinous breakdown in talks.

“The outlines of a possible deal have been known at least since last March,” said Sam Lowe, trade expert at the Center for European Reforms. “But the prime minister’s approach is to take difficult decisions until the last minute in the hope that something better will happen – as his approach to Covid-19 shows.”

Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University in London, said: “The price for this psychological flaw and its political consequences is paid in lost lives in the case of Covid. In Brexit, livelihoods could be lost if some companies go under due to the uncertainty caused by the delay in decision-making. “

With the UK less than two weeks away from leaving the single market and customs union, UK businesses still have no idea whether their goods will be subject to tariffs when they are exported to continental Europe or Ireland. That could make car factories unprofitable or put some farmers out of business.

Trade talks continued in Brussels on Sunday with no sign of a breakthrough. The two sides are mostly haggling over fishing rights, but there are signs that Mr Johnson is already bowing to the European Union’s broader demand for Britain to accept long-term restrictions on its competition policy and state aid to industry.

Regarding the pandemic, critics say Mr. Johnson’s scattershot policies have undermined public confidence in the government. He has ruled out bans repeatedly, only to reverse course on the claim that the scientific evidence has changed. The mixed messages have left many confused and cynical about the rules.

In the recent U-turn, Mr Johnson cited new evidence that the variant was up to 70 percent more transmissible than the original virus – data he said was presented to his cabinet on Friday. Independent scholars generally have concerns about the variant. But UK health officials said Sunday that they first identified the variant in October from a sample taken in September.

Updated

Apr. 20, 2020 at 2:37 am ET

The government first announced the variant last Monday – and feared it could spread faster – when it placed London and other parts of southern and eastern Britain in the then highest levels of restrictions. Two days later, Mr. Johnson reiterated his promise to relax the December 23-27 restrictions so families can get together for Christmas.

When the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Keir Starmer, proposed in Parliament that Mr Johnson reconsider this plan, the Prime Minister ridiculed him. “I wish he had the courage just to say what he really wanted to do,” said Mr Johnson, “which means canceling the plans people have made and canceling Christmas.”

Now, of course, the prime minister has done just that – only he waited three more days with more people making travel plans. On Sunday, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany and Austria began banning flights from the UK while the European Union weighed a coordinated response.

Mr Starmer predictably faded into criticism, saying that Mr Johnson was “so afraid of being unpopular that he won’t be able to make difficult decisions until it’s too late”.

The Prime Minister had given a glimpse into his fears earlier this week when he alluded to Oliver Cromwell holding Christmas celebrations during the ascetic days of the Puritan movement in England in the mid-17th century. The British newspapers, which had set Cromwell’s precedent in recent weeks, wasted no time in tagging Mr. Johnson with it after announcing the Christmas ban.

Surprisingly, the tough measures themselves may not be unpopular. A poll by research firm YouGov following Mr Johnson’s announcement on Saturday found that 67 percent of those polled were in favor of additional restrictions. But 61 percent of people said the government handled the rollout poorly.

According to analysts, Mr Johnson has been pressured by the same lawmakers in his Conservative Party that are likely to oppose a trade deal with the European Union. In this respect, the pandemic and the Brexit talks have a connection.

Because his mismanagement of the lockdown rules has angered some conservative lawmakers, they could now calculate that he can’t afford any further backlash in parliament by concluding a trade deal with the European Union that would be unpopular with die-hard Brexiters.

Mr Johnson has navigated swarms like this during his political career. His deadline mentality, developed during his time as a newspaper reporter and columnist, has sometimes led to smart decisions.

For example, he wavered for weeks before endorsing Britain’s exit from the European Union and even writing essays discussing both sides of the subject. It was a roll of the dice that pays off if it gives him a path to Downing Street.

Overall, analysts continue to assume that Mr Johnson will come to terms with the European Union in the next few days. By leaving the final decision so late, the Prime Minister has increased the likelihood that, as with the Christmas lockdown, he will have no choice but to accept the offer on the table.

“Johnson’s technique for dealing with problems is to get them out of control and build them to a point of sufficient crisis where delay is no longer sustainable,” wrote Rafael Behr in a column for The Guardian. “That way, it becomes perversely easier to choose because there are fewer options.”