Tag: Pandemic

Categories
Health

How a Colorado Campus Grew to become a Pandemic Laboratory

How a Colorado Campus Became a Pandemic Laboratory

The CMU is also looking ahead, considering how they can customize Scout for the fall when many students get vaccinated and whether their new tools can slow the spread of other infectious diseases like the flu. “We spoke to Fathom on the phone a few days ago and had a dream about what the long game would be like,” said Dr. Bronson.

With the end of this weekend, Mr. Marshall, the soon-to-be President of the CMU, is pleased with the way the past year went. “I see it as a success, not a small one,” he said. “I think we will look back on this year as one of the defining moments for our university.” Yes, they had Covid-19 cases, he said, but they also had 881 freshmen who were the first in their family to go to college – who actually got to go to college.

“It was never about how to stop a virus?” Mr. Marshall said. Instead, the challenge is: “How do you deal with life while dealing with a pandemic? And in that regard, I’d say we did as good a job as anyone else. “

Lucas Torres, a biology student who graduated on Saturday, had initially been nervous about returning to CMU during a deadly pandemic. And it had become an extremely difficult year for him: During the winter break, he and some of his family members got Covid-19. His mother developed pneumonia and his grandmother died of the disease.

The school had turned out to be a bright spot. Mr. Torres was “inspired” by the CMU’s response and said, “It enabled the students to have a purpose. There was a responsibility, a shared responsibility, that returned to campus. “

Shortly after recovering from Covid-19, he proposed to his girlfriend. (She said yes.) He is about to take his EMT certification exam and hopes to go to medical school.

“I’ve made the most of my time at CMU and I’m glad they allowed it,” said Torres. “Even if it wasn’t the same as without Covid, it was better than sitting in front of a screen at home.”

Categories
Business

Workers quitting the 9-to-5 to be their very own boss throughout the pandemic

Employees quitting the 9-to-5 to be their own boss during the pandemic

SINGAPORE – For Fiona Loh, juggling marketing, accounts, customer service and product development is part of day-to-day business.

The 28-year-old swapped computers for cookies last year when she quit her permanent job as a technology product manager for a bank to run her own whiskdom bakery business.

“Every day I felt something nudge inside me: what if, what if, what if?” Loh told CNBC.

And she is not alone. Loh is among a growing number of people leaving their 9 to 5 jobs to pursue their passion after the pandemic disrupted traditional industries and careers.

Rise of the pandemic entrepreneur

Last year, although job security was hard to achieve for many, more than two in five (41%) employees considered leaving their jobs to start their own business, according to a Singapore survey by the recruitment company Randstad.

For the self-taught baker Loh, the choice was clear.

I worked back to back between my day job and my nighttime rush – a good 20 hours a day.

Fiona Loh |

Founder, Whiskdom

When Singapore’s lockdown fueled the appetite for homemade baked goods last year, she saw an opportunity to end the grind and improve her Instagram page even further.

In July 2020, with the pandemic, Loh left her clerk job to take on Whiskdom full time.

“I worked back to back between my day job and my nightly hustle and bustle – a good 20 hours a day,” she said. “There came that day when I sat there and couldn’t think. My mind was so tired … I just felt like I couldn’t go on.”

28-year-old Singaporean Fiona Loh quit her banking job to run her own bakery business during the pandemic.

CNBC

The young founder moved operations from her parents’ home to a commercial kitchen in central Singapore by October as demand for her melted Levain-style brownies and biscuits and an 18-month waiting list increased.

Stimulus opens the door to new businesses

Loh’s is a success story in a year in which many industries, particularly food and beverage and retail, have been hit by the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns.

However, according to Xiu Ru Lim, lecturer in economics at the Singapore Polytechnic, the economic landscape was suitable for first-time business owners through 2020 and 2021.

The government grants … gave small business owners a chance to look into getting started.

Xiu Ru Lim

Lecturer, Singapore Polytechnic

“This could actually be an opportunity for many companies,” said Lim. “Around the globe we can see many new companies starting up. Quite a number of companies, although the statistics are incomplete, are actually individual companies. “

In fact, business closings actually fell in 2020 while the number of startups remained stable as the Singapore government – like many other developed nations – granted loans, grants and rent waivers to keep small businesses alive.

Digital payments and other technologies have lowered the barriers to entry for many new business owners.

CNBC

Meanwhile, the rapid adoption of technology during the reporting period opened the market for new businesses, Lim said.

“The competition has calmed down a bit,” she said. “With government grants and incentives actually encouraging businesses to go digital, small business owners have been given the opportunity to look into getting started.”

New generation of managers

Business ownership can take a tremendous personal and financial toll – and this remains a significant obstacle preventing many other potential business owners from achieving their goals.

In turn, Loh received a government Grant for her stoves, but she had to spend $ 50,000 Singapore dollars (around $ 37,500) in personal savings to fund the project. That put her dreams of weddings and home buying on hold, she said, adding that she has not yet reached her previous salary.

When you get into business, you have to be everything in the end … But as for myself, I really enjoy doing that.

Fiona Loh |

Founder, Whiskdom

“If I had really wanted the money, I would have stayed in the banking business,” Loh said, noting that she is now drawing “a minimum amount” – enough to pay her daily living expenses and insurance bills. The remainder of the income was reinvested in the company and three full-time employees were hired, including her 62-year-old father.

As a new employer with a growing business, Loh now has to plan its business even more carefully for the future.

It is estimated that 20% of new businesses fail within the first two years and 45% within five years – often due to a lack of market knowledge, rapid expansion and lack of finances.

Even so, the young entrepreneur insisted that she wouldn’t be returning to the office anytime soon.

“When you go into business, you have to be everything in the end and do everything yourself in the end,” said Loh. “It’s very different from being employed. But it’s really fun for me.”

Categories
Entertainment

Overview: A Choreographer Seems to be Again on His Pandemic 12 months

Review: A Choreographer Looks Back on His Pandemic Year

Choreographer Stephen Petronio became veteran after founding his company in 1984 and since then creating a steady stream of dances. But when he first found out, Trisha Brown – he was the first male dancer in their company – gave him what every young dance artist needs. She rented him a place in the basement of her loft. “I had 5,000 square feet for $ 100 a month for many years,” he said during a virtual discussion at the Joyce Theater in April, “and that started my career.”

Now he’s dedicated to giving back: one way is to pay tribute to postmodern dance mentors like Brown by showcasing their early work on his company’s Bloodlines project. He also founded the Petronio Residency Center in Round Top, NY, which this year hosted bubble residencies for his company and other artists. All of this plays a prominent role in its new digital season, presented by the Joyce Theater, which runs through May 26th.

For “Pandemic Portraits”, a film, Petronio’s dancers talk about their experiences in bubbles; it’s not particularly revealing, you are grateful. A drone filmed performance of Brown’s “Group Primary Accumulation” (1973) shows four dancers on their backs moving together on a small bridge over a stream. The theme is clear in each one: the past year pushed Petronio and his dancers out of their element.

But didn’t we all feel that way? This program is less introspective than repetitive as it deals with now worn out ideas: isolation, longing for touch, longing for big movements. Sometimes it turns into sentimentality. Another challenge: in order to get the most out of the first three works, it helps to have a penchant for Elvis Presley.

Two versions of the duet “Are You Lonesome Tonight” are included, one in the film and the other for the stage; and Nicholas Sciscione, articulate and buttery, plays “Love Me Tender,” a solo created in 1993. The duets show Ryan Pliss and Mac Twining in the stage version, which was shot in the Hudson House, and Lloyd Knight with Sciscione in the film, which was also shot there as in nature.

To the “Lonesome” lyrics “Now the stage is bare and I stand there / With emptiness all around”, Knight and Sciscione, with bare chests, bend their heads back while water (from a waterfall?) Drips onto their faces. There’s a point where the capricious combination – the dancing and Presley’s voice – feels like lead. For me, it helped track down and watch the “Elvis Drunk” version of the song. It lightened the mood.

This program seems to come from a filmmaker’s point of view rather than a choreographer’s. The simple power of Brown’s “Accumulation,” a great piece of work in which dancers perform gestural movements on their backs and eventually rotate 360 ​​degrees, is diminished by the overhead shot. I got dizzy; The cast – including a male dancer for the first time – looks like ants.

Part of Petronio’s goal is to put postmodern dances alongside his own works. How was he influenced and shaped as an artist? In the premiere of “New Prayer for Now (Part 1)”, three men with bare chests and black panties repeat the tethered dancers from “Accumulation”. Although they are standing, their movement is contained; Her arms contract and straighten as her torso flexes and rotates, even as the choreographic flow pulls her to the ground.

While “New Prayer” develops, which is set to music by Monstah Black and the New York Youth Choir, other dancers join in, whose bodies grow together into physical sculptures. There are close-ups of hands on legs, back and shoulders. In other moments, dancers unravel like silk spools across the room.

In “Absentia,” a limited collaboration book about the company’s past year, Petronio writes, “I’ve taken steps all my adult life, but this simple act of getting together in the same room and doing what we do is just as joyful and enjoyable full of strength as I can remember. “

Petronio’s new work is, as the title suggests, the first step for a choreographer to find his way back to his craft. What will his next steps be? It’s hard to know about this program; it already feels like a time capsule.

Stephen Petronio Company

Until May 26th on joyce.org.

Categories
Politics

What Would George Washington Look Like In the present day? A Pandemic Creation Attracts Consideration.

What Would George Washington Look Like Today? A Pandemic Creation Draws Attention.

What would George Washington look like if he were a modern politician? This question came to George Aquilla Hardy, a musician, 14 months after the pandemic. There he was stuck in his nursery in Dorset, England at the age of 23 instead of playing music festivals.

With nowhere to be and tired of “looking at the same four walls,” said Mr. Hardy, he decided to use Photoshop to answer his question. This is the result he posted on Reddit on May 2nd:

Since then, he – and others – have posted and republished it thousands of times on virtually every social media platform. A lot of the comments are silly. But Mr. Hardy’s creation – which he mocked in about three hours – also piqued real interest in the question he started with: What would the first President of the United States look like if he lived in the era of online suit ordering would? and Instagram campaign ads?

It’s unlikely that a man so proud of what he wore would have chosen to be seen in such an inconspicuous suit, said Alexis Coe, a political historian and author of “You Never Forget Your First: A biography of George of Washington. ”

“He was pretty fancy,” she said. “I don’t think it would look as chic as Mitt Romney, but you could tell it was well tailored. If he couldn’t wear Prada, he’d probably have it made to measure. “

Dean Malissa, described as the “greatest George Washington impersonator in the world,” agreed that the first president was “a bit of a fashion sign.” He also tended to dress more formally than his colleagues. “When men of his day took off their coats when it was scorching hot, he kept his on,” said Mr. Malissa, a longtime Washington performer at Mount Vernon.

Mr. Hardy doesn’t know who designed the coat his George Washington wears, only that it was worn by Representative Roger Williams of Texas. He chose Mr. Williams as the base image for his Photoshop creation after searching for “US Politicians” online and scrolling a bit, he said. He then combined that image with photos of Glenn Close and Michael Douglas because an article about celebrities who look like historical figures convincingly convinced him they had a bit of Washington in them.

Ms. Coe, the political historian, said she hadn’t seen any of the 6-foot-2-inch Washington’s that are known to wear like an athlete on those narrow shoulders. Nor can she imagine a man who put so much effort into photographing Mr. Hardy’s creation. (No, George Washington did not wear a wig, contrary to what many believe.)

What exactly, she said, assuming time travel hasn’t somehow fixed this for him, is the tight-lipped smile. The founding father had terrible teeth. He wore walrus and hippopotamus ivory dentures, as well as slave teeth obtained from dentists who specialize in such things, she said. But even with the dentures he was conscious of opening his mouth.

As it turns out, Mr. Hardy wasn’t the only person who caused pandemic malaise to create a modern portrayal of the man who presided over the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Magdalene Visaggio, a comic book writer, posted this in January:

“I always had a hard time imagining George Washington as a person walking around saying things,” she explained, explaining why she’d done it using a cell phone face-swapping tool and a photo of President Biden.

Her primary objection to Mr. Hardy’s image was that Washington was only 67 when he died, but “he looks super old” in the Reddit portrait.

She also noted that while it is difficult to take photos of people who died before photography, it is difficult to find what is right. She recently began using the teachings of her own modern Washington to create a photograph of Julius Caesar.

Categories
Health

Sophomore 12 months 2020: College students Wrestle With the Coronavirus Pandemic

Sophomore Year 2020: Students Struggle With the Coronavirus Pandemic

Before the pandemic, he would have said he was a kid on his way to a scholarship, maybe even to a college like Northwestern, where his father briefly studied before dropping out. When obsessed with the musical Hamilton in seventh grade, he read the Federalist Papers to see what they had to say. He played as Macbeth in a school production and liked it so much that he read other Shakespeare plays for fun. He never wanted to sound conceited, but in the past he would have said school came easily. At the same time, he found it all overwhelming at times. As a black teenager now approaching six feet, he was very much aware of what his mother’s – a PhD school administrator – expected were. – went against the expectations of the rest of the world. “To keep proving these stereotypes wrong,” he said, “it costs me a lot.”

And then, last spring, when the school closed its doors, he was left alone with thoughts that had been waiting for that very opportunity – for an enormous amount of time and space. These new thoughts flooded in, leaving little room for concern about Othello’s motivation or the subjunctive in French. More and more, when he was alone in his room there was only one voice, and that voice told Charles that no matter how promising his start was, that he would surely follow what he saw as his father’s downward slide felt. His fate was failure.

During the first few days of the school year, Charles’ laptop kept crashing during Zooms, which felt like a metaphor for what the year would bring: a big mess, a break, a technological headache he was left to solve. In the following weeks the days were empty and long; The more time that voice had, the louder it got and the harder it was to get out of it. Since he did all of his chores in his bedroom, it was easy to go back to sleep after his first grade if he made it to his first grade. “When I woke up, I could either a) get up and do what I had to do,” he said, trying to grasp his typical schedule, “or b) look at the time, be disappointed in myself, and go back to bed . “During distance learning, attendance was not included in a student’s final grade. However, Charles not only skipped class – he hardly gave any assignments. And suddenly there he was, no longer a kid getting A, but a kid who it had blown so early in the semester.

The voice in his head exhausted him so that Charles began to sleep more during the day. Sometimes the voice frightened him. His heart would start pounding and he would feel overwhelmed by a sense of an impending crisis: it was all over and there was nothing he could do about it. It was too late.

How could EK possibly get him out of the hole he was in? She had no idea how big it was already. At the beginning of October he decided to stay with Zoom after class when she offered to help all the students who were left behind. At least he could tell his mother that he had tried. He stayed and Sarah, a classmate everyone liked. She cheered and he played JV football, but they didn’t move in the same circles. She really was a smiley face – he considered her one of those people who were always happy.

When Sarah stayed After class to attend this additional help session with Ms. EK in early October, she was surprised to see Charles was there too. Charles, she had already learned, was smart. He often had an answer to everything Mrs. EK asked; In fact, the students had quickly come to rely on him to save them all from the silence that often hung in the air in their online classes. While talking to each other and Ms. EK that day, Charles and Sarah quickly found common ground and diagnosed their common problems: lack of motivation, loneliness, a feeling of hopelessness. Charles suggested that Sarah might need help, to which Sarah said, What about you?

During that conversation, Sarah told the first of many lies she would tell her teachers, mother, and herself over the coming months. OK, she would say, I’m ready to turn a new leaf. Now I’m really going to apply. But she still rarely made it to class. When her laptop died in the middle of a zoom, she decided that this was God’s way of telling her that she had done enough for the day. About six weeks into school, her mother, whose health was still shaky, whose mind was still foggy, looked at a mid-term academic assessment that landed in her email inbox and said, “What do all these NHIs mean?” Sarah said : “Huh, I don’t know”, as if she wanted to decipher one of the great bureaucratic secrets of her time, although she knew exactly what they stood for: not given up. She got used to piling up emails from teachers. “Just make sure you saw. … “” A reminder that your essay. … ”Everyone wanted something from her. Whoa, whoa, whoa. She would come back to them – someday.

Categories
Business

Consultants Name for Sweeping Reforms to Forestall the Subsequent Pandemic

Experts Call for Sweeping Reforms to Prevent the Next Pandemic

Some countries didn’t even know the regulations existed, his group reported. Others lacked laws critical to responding to outbreaks, such as those that allow quarantines.

Changing these regulations would require “years of negotiation,” said Dr. Wieler, noting that the latest set took a decade to complete. Instead, one of the main recommendations of his committee was to increase the accountability of countries for their commitments, including a pandemic treaty and regular readiness review that would involve other countries.

The independent panel also proposed the establishment of an international council, led by heads of state, to raise awareness of health threats and oversee a multi-billion dollar funding program to which governments would contribute based on their capabilities. It would promise quick payouts to countries struggling with a new outbreak and give them an incentive to report.

“There will only be the political will to create these things if something disastrous happens,” said Dr. Mark Dybul, one of the panel members. These recommendations came in part from his experience as director of the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, known as Pepfar, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Dr. However, Wieler, who led the other international review, said that creating new institutions in general, rather than focusing on improving existing ones, could increase costs, make coordination difficult and harm WHO

The panels’ recommendations after global emergencies were sometimes followed up. The 2014 and 2015 Ebola outbreak led to the creation of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, which aims to strengthen the Agency’s role in managing health crises and to provide technical guidance. A report released earlier this month found that the new program had received “increasingly positive feedback” from countries, donors and partner agencies as it tackled dozens of health and humanitarian emergencies.

The WHO before and after the Ebola outbreak are “basically two different agencies,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, a former MSF international president and a member of the independent panel. Dr. Liu was one of the WHO’s most astute critics during the Ebola response, and she noted a “significant improvement” in how quickly the agency had declared an international emergency this time.

Categories
Health

Want a Pandemic Reset? Strive This 10-Day Problem

Need a Pandemic Reset? Try This 10-Day Challenge

While some people developed healthy new habits during the pandemic lockdown, if you’ve spent your pandemic days just getting through it, it’s not too late. The good news is that the end of the pandemic is likely a more propitious time for significant change than if you had the heightened fear of lockdowns.

“Covid-19 has been a terrible time for many of us,” said Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale who teaches a popular online course called The Science of Well-Being. “There is a lot of evidence of what is known as post-traumatic growth – that we can come out stronger and with a little more meaning in our lives after negative events. I think we can all use this terrible time of the pandemic to achieve post-traumatic growth in our own lives. “

One of the biggest barriers to change has always been the fact that we tend to establish routines that are difficult to break. But the pandemic has destroyed many people’s routines and prepared us for a reset, said Dr. Santos.

“We’ve all changed our routines so much,” she said. “I think many of us realized during the pandemic that some of the things we did before Covid-19 weren’t the kind of things that made our lives flourish. I think many of us have realized that if we are to be happier, aspects of our work and family life, and even our relationships, may have to change. “

One reason new beginnings can be so effective is because people think about the passage of time in chapters or episodes rather than a continuum, said Dr. Milkman. As a result, we tend to look at the past in terms of unique periods, such as: For example, our high school years, college years, years we lived in a particular city or worked in a particular job. In the future, we will likely look back on the pandemic year as a similarly unique chapter in our lives.

“We have chapter breaks like life is a novel – that’s how we mark the time,” said Dr. Milkman. “This has an impact on the psychology of the new beginning, because these moments, which open a new chapter, give us the feeling of a new beginning. It is easier to attribute mistakes to the “old me”. You feel like you can do more now because we are in a new chapter. “

While the beginning of a new chapter is a good time to change, the pages will turn quickly. Now that we are getting out of the confines of pandemic life, social scientists say it is an ideal time to reflect on what you have learned over the past year. What new habits would you like to keep and what parts of your prepandemic life would you like to change?

Categories
Politics

White Home to Permit Undocumented College students Entry to Pandemic Support

White House to Allow Undocumented Students Access to Pandemic Aid

The Biden Administration Early Tuesday it announced an ordinance would be enacted to allow undocumented students access to some of the $ 36 billion in emergency aid that goes to colleges. This is a disconnect from the Trump-era decision to ban these students – even among the nationwide protected known as dreamers. from access to previous funding rounds.

“The pandemic has not discriminated against the students,” Miguel Cardona, the education minister, told reporters during a phone call on Monday that previewed the government’s plans. “We know the final rule will include all students, and we want to make sure that all students have access to funds to get them back on track.”

The decision is a 180-degree lynchpin in attempts by Trump administration officials to prevent most immigrant students from accessing relief supplies. Last June, Betsy DeVos, Donald J. Trump’s Education Secretary, issued an emergency rule banning international undocumented students – including tens of thousands of so-called dreamers protected under the Deferred Action on Child Arrivals program – Access to an earlier round of over $ 6 billion in emergency funds. This decision was quickly made by legal challenges.

Biden administrative officer for months considered whether the emergency benefits should be extended to undocumented students who are not entitled to other forms of study allowance. Under current welfare laws, undocumented immigrants are still largely ineligible to receive money from federal programs. including funds from the $ 1.9 trillion pandemic relief package signed by President Biden on March 11.

On Monday evening, an education spokeswoman who was not empowered to explain the planning publicly stated that the administration had the authority to allocate funds to undocumented students through the $ 2.2 trillion Emergency Fund for Higher Education under the CARES Act distribute Former President Trump signed in March last year, and Congress “did not draw sharp lines on who is a student” when determining who could get money from this fund.

Existing admission requirements for the fund “make it clear that the emergency financial aid can support all students who are or were enrolled at a university during the national COVID-19 emergency, and it is up to the institution to distribute the funds to the students on most in need, “said the spokeswoman in a statement. (Last year, Ms. DeVos relied on a similarly vague definition to create the Trump-era rule.)

Mr. Cardona previewed the decision to reporters and phrased it for convenience: “What she’s doing is really simplifying the definition of a student. This makes it easier for colleges to manage the program and get money into students’ hands sooner. ”

About half of the $ 36 billion allocated for colleges will go directly to students, Cardona said, and about $ 10 billion will be given to community colleges.

Aside from direct grants to individual students, the funds will be used to strengthen academic support services, purchase laptops, and expand mental health programs. All students, including those who have not previously applied for formal federal grants, are now eligible for grants, according to the Department of Education.

Categories
Health

The Pandemic Has Modified Their Bathe Habits. How About Yours?

The Pandemic Has Changed Their Shower Habits. How About Yours?

Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a Martha’s Vineyard preschool, grew up taking a shower every day.

“It’s what you did,” she said. But when the coronavirus pandemic kept her indoors and out of the public eye, she started showering once a week.

The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical, and liberating. And it stayed.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Ms. Harper, 43, who has returned to work. “I like showers. But it’s an off my plate thing. I am a mother. I work full time and there is one less thing to do. “

Parents have complained that their teenage children don’t take daily showers. After the UK media reported a YouGov poll found that 17 percent of Brits had given up daily showers during the pandemic, many Twitter users said they did the same.

Heather Whaley, a writer in Redding, Connecticut, said her shower use fell 20 percent over the past year.

After the pandemic forced her to lock her up, Ms. Whaley, 49, said she started thinking about why she showered every day.

“Do I? I want you to say.” Taking a shower was less a question of function than a question of doing something for myself that I enjoyed. “

Ms. Harper, who still uses deodorant and washes “the parts that need to be done” at the sink daily, said she was confident she was not offending anyone. Her 22-year-old daughter, who takes a demanding bath and shower twice a day, did not comment on her new hygiene habit. Still have the children in their school.

“The kids will tell you if you don’t smell good,” said Ms. Harper, “3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds will tell you the truth.”

Daily showers are a fairly new phenomenon, said Donnachadh McCarthy, a London environmentalist and writer who grew up taking weekly baths.

“We had a bath once a week and washed at the sink the rest of the week – under our armpits and our private lives – and that was it,” said 61-year-old McCarthy.

As he got older, he showered every day. But after a visit to the Amazon jungle in 1992 exposed the ravages of overdevelopment, McCarthy said he pondered how his daily habits affect the environment and his own body.

“It’s not really good to wash with soap every day,” said Mr. McCarthy, who showered once a week.

Doctors and health experts have said that daily showers are unnecessary and even counterproductive. Washing with soap daily can rid the skin of its natural oils and make it feel dry, although doctors still recommend frequent hand washing.

The American obsession with cleaning began around the turn of the 20th century when people moved to cities after the Industrial Revolution, said Dr. James Hamblin, professor at Yale University and author of Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less. “

Cities were dirtier, making residents feel like they had to wash more often, said Dr. Hamblin, and soap making became more common. Indoor plumbing also improved, giving the middle class better access to running water.

To stand out from the crowd, wealthy people started investing in fancier soaps and shampoos and bathing more often, he said.

“It became a kind of arms race,” said Dr. Hamblin. “It was a token of wealth to look like you could bathe every day.”

Kelly Mieloch, 42, said she’d only showered “every few days” since the pandemic began.

What’s the point of showering every day if she rarely leaves home to run errands like taking her 6-year-old daughter to school?

“You don’t smell me – you don’t know what’s happening,” said Ms. Mieloch. “Most of the time, I don’t even wear a bra.”

In addition, she said her decision to quit daily showers helped her appearance.

“I just feel like my hair is better, my skin is better, and my face isn’t as dry,” said Ms. Mieloch, an Asheville, NC mortgage lender

Andrea Armstrong, an assistant professor of environmental science and studies at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., Said she was encouraged as more people rethink their daily shower.

An eight-minute shower uses up to 17 gallons of water, according to the Water Research Fund. Running water uses as much energy as running a 60-watt light bulb for 14 hours for five minutes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And frequent washing means going through more plastic bottles and using more soap, which is often made from petroleum.

The individual decision to stop showering or bathing every day is an important decision at a time when environmentalists are urging countries to take more action against climate change, said environmentalist McCarthy.

“There’s nothing like bathing in a deep, warm bath,” he said. “It’s a joy that I absolutely accept and understand. But I keep these joys as rewards. “

However, Professor Armstrong said large numbers of people would need to change their bathing habits to improve carbon emissions. To make a real impact, local and federal governments need to invest in infrastructure that makes showering and water use generally less polluting.

“It pains me to think about fracking every time I shower and use my water heater at home,” said Professor Armstrong. “I’m in Pennsylvania. There is not much choice. “

Despite the compelling science, it’s hard to imagine that Americans as a whole rarely shower and bathe, said Lori Brown, a professor of sociology at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC

“We’ve been told so much about it that we can’t smell and buy products,” she said. “You are dealing with culture. You’re not into biology. You can tell people all day that this is of no use to them, and there will still be people who say, “I don’t care. I will take a shower.'”

Nina Arthur, who owns Ninas Hair Care in Flint, Michigan, said she had many clients who were menopausal and felt so uncomfortable they felt like they had to shower twice a day.

“I’ve had women who have hot flashes in my stool,” she said.

One client was sweating so badly that she asked Ms. Arthur to come up with a hairstyle that could withstand constant sweat.

The pandemic has not affected the bathing habits of such clients, Ms Arthur said.

“When you have menopause, the smells are really different,” she said. “They are not your normal smells. I don’t think there is a woman who would want that smell on her. “

Ms. Arthur, 52, said she understood the environmental argument for fewer showers, but it wouldn’t encourage her to change her bathing habits.

“No,” she said. “I’m not that woman.”

Susan Beachy contributed to the research.

Categories
Health

Fauci says face masks may turn out to be seasonal after Covid pandemic

U.S. will likely resume use of J&J Covid vaccine with a warning

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, testifies on April 15, 2021 at the House Select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Susan Walsh | Pool | Reuters

WASHINGTON – The White House Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that people might wear masks during certain times of the year when respiratory illnesses are more common.

“I think people got used to that, if you look at the data that reduces respiratory disease, if you look at the data, just because people were doing the kind of public health thing they had practically no flu season this year were mainly directed against Covid-19, “said Fauci during an interview on NBC’s Sunday program” Meet the Press “.

“So it is conceivable that in a year or two or more, if you suffer from respiratory viruses like the flu during certain seasonal periods, we will actually wear masks to reduce the chances of you spreading them through the airways transmitted diseases, “he added.

Fauci’s comments come less than a month after the Biden government announced a relaxation of federal health guidelines for wearing masks outdoors.

Visitors walk past a sign requiring face masks to stop the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Memorial Day weekend in Bethany Beach, Delaware, May 24, 2020.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that fully vaccinated people can exercise outside and attend small gatherings without a face mask. The agency also recommends that fully vaccinated individuals wear a mask in crowded outdoor areas.

“We are just at the point where we can repeal these ordinances and allow people to resume their normal activities. Of course, we shouldn’t put any limits on gatherings in the open air and encourage people to go outside,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb told the CBS Sunday program “Face the Nation”.

Gottlieb added that indoor public health measures should also be relaxed in states where coronavirus infections are low and vaccination rates are high.

“Covid will not go away, we will have to learn to live with it, but the risks have been reduced significantly thanks to vaccinations and immunity that people have acquired through previous infection,” said Gottlieb.

As of Saturday, more than 45% of the US population had received at least one dose of vaccine, including 33.9% who were fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, the genetic testing startup Tempus, and the biotech company Illumina. Pfizer has signed a manufacturing agreement with Gilead for Remdesivir. Gottlieb is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean’s Healthy Sail Panel.