Tag: Unexpected

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Politics

The Supreme Court docket’s Latest Justices Produce Some Sudden Outcomes

The Supreme Court’s Newest Justices Produce Some Unexpected Results

Justice Alito was aghast. “Today’s decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two,” he wrote, joined by Justice Gorsuch. “In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the court has pulled off an improbable rescue.”

Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard, said the decisions “suggest that several key justices are willing to temper their views to join the chief’s longstanding battle to have the court decide cases more narrowly and with a more unified voice.”

But he added a note of caution. “What remains to be seen,” he said, “is whether, notwithstanding the chief’s best efforts, his battle to promote a nonpartisan image for the court is ultimately a losing one.”

So far this term, the court’s three Democratic appointees have voted with the majority 73 percent of the time in divided cases, slightly ahead of the 72 percent rate of the six Republican appointees. In the term that ended last year, the gap was 14 percentage points in favor of Republican appointees.

The change may be explained by strategic voting. The court’s Democratic appointees have not hesitated to join unanimous decisions with conservative outcomes, as labeled by the Supreme Court Database at Washington University. The percentage of liberal decisions in unanimous cases so far this term is just 30, the lowest since at least 1953.

But the story changes in divided cases, where 64 percent of decisions have been labeled liberal, the highest since 1968.

“Going into this term,” Professor Epstein said, “the expectation was a bunch of divided decisions with the three Democratic appointees getting the short end of the stick. So far that prediction is way off the mark. In divided cases, the Trump appointees have moved the court to the left. If anyone got the short end of the stick, it’s this year’s most conservative justice, Alito.”

Categories
Health

Experiences of Extreme Covid or Demise After Vaccination Are Uncommon, however Not Surprising

Reports of Severe Covid or Death After Vaccination Are Rare, but Not Unexpected

In the past few months, a constant headline hit has highlighted the amazing effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines in the field, particularly mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Studies have shown that the vaccines are more than 90 percent effective in preventing the worst outcomes, including hospitalization and death.

But alongside this good news, there have been rare reports of severe Covid in fully vaccinated people.

For example, on June 3, Napa County announced that a fully vaccinated woman who was more than a month after her second Moderna vaccination had died after being hospitalized with Covid. The over 65-year-old woman with previous illnesses had tested positive for the alpha variant identified for the first time in Great Britain.

While these cases are tragic, they are unusual – and not unexpected.

“I am very sad that she had such a serious illness that she actually died,” said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and vaccines expert at Vanderbilt University. But, he noted, “we expected the occasional breakthrough infection to occur.”

Such cases shouldn’t prevent people from getting vaccinated, scientists said. “There is no vaccine in history that has ever been 100 percent effective,” said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This is your best chance to avoid serious, critical illness. But as with everything in medicine, it is not perfect. “

Severe Covid is rare in fully vaccinated people. In a paper released last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had received reports of 10,262 breakthrough infections as of April 30. That’s only a tiny fraction of the 101 million Americans who have been vaccinated to that date, though the agency noted that these are likely to be a “significant minority” of breakthrough infections.

Of these groundbreaking cases, 10 percent of patients were hospitalized and 2 percent died – and in some of those cases, patients were hospitalized or died of something unrelated to Covid-19. The average age of the deceased was 82 years.

Updated

June 11, 2021, 2:36 p.m. ET

Older adults, who are at higher risk of Covid complications, are also more likely to develop breakthrough infections as they are known to build weaker immune responses to vaccines. People with compromised immune systems or other chronic health conditions may also be at increased risk.

Some of the variants – especially Beta, which was first identified in South Africa – may be more likely to evade vaccine-induced protection. But beta isn’t common in the United States right now, noted Dr. Conductor.

The alpha variant that infected the Napa County woman is highly contagious, but vaccines offer good protection against it – as well as against the original strain of the virus.

“Breakthrough infection stories, while exceptionally rare, can be confusing to the public,” said Dr. Napa County’s health officer Karen Relucio in an email. “We know that with stories like this one could be tempted to question the effectiveness of vaccines.”

But the vaccines are highly effective, she stressed. In Napa County, the breakthrough infection rate in fully vaccinated people is just 0.04 percent, she said.

Nationwide, the rate is even lower. According to the California Department of Health, there were 5,723 breakthrough cases in more than 17.5 million fully vaccinated residents as of June 2, a rate of 0.032 percent. Of these cases, only 7 percent are known to have been hospitalized and 0.8 percent to have died. In these cases, too, it is unclear whether Covid was the main cause of death.

Breakthrough infections are likely to decline as more people are vaccinated and community transmission rates decline. “The virus will find fewer and fewer people to become infected – it will be more difficult for the virus to get through the population,” said Dr. Conductor. “These are great vaccines. So that the vaccines work optimally – individually and collectively – as many people as possible must be vaccinated. “

Categories
Entertainment

4 Specials Take Out of doors Comedy in Surprising Instructions

Four Specials Take Outdoor Comedy in Unexpected Directions

Laughter doesn’t echo from the clouds. That’s the first challenge in outdoor comedy. It is generally believed that the ideal conditions for getting up – small dark room, low ceiling – are pretty much the opposite of an outdoor comedy. There was actually a pre-pandemic history of such performances with their own street comedy legends. But last year a niche went mainstream, and now there’s a new genre that’s been tried by Chelsea Handler, Colin Quinn, and others. Four other hilarious comedians have gotten laughs lately bringing the special outside, and given the relaxation of the rules for indoor gigs, they might as well be the last of their kind.

Stream it on YouTube

No artist has embodied the globalization of stand-up over the past decade like Vir Das, the prolific Indian comic currently filming a new Judd Apatow comedy. That role could be a breakout if that wasn’t already broken. With six specials and almost 8 million Twitter followers, Das is a big star, just not in America yet. But his accomplished, charismatic comedic style seems perfectly suited for cross-cultural purposes. He posted jokes monthly this year in videos filmed in a forest in southwest India (he took a break to film in April). Each takes up a meaty topic big enough to be of worldwide interest (religion, free speech, the relationship between East and West).

He quickly connects different cultures and, for example, establishes connections between supporters of Trump, Brexit and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But this sweeping ambition does not lead him to make the mistake of avoiding specificity. His comedy is full of references to Indian culture that I didn’t understand, but he manages to explain it quickly or provide enough context for me to appreciate the joke.

You don’t have to have seen any talk by Modi to find Das imitation of his speaking style funny. That’s especially keen on accents around the world and what they mean, perhaps second only to Trevor Noah, another digitally savvy comic who knows his way around jokes that span continents. This makes fun of the way Indians adopt American or British accents, pointing out that they never pick up German or Mexican accents, and joking that Indians are “aspiring” in their accents. But its local thrusts lead to greater criticism from the West. After a reference to Harry Potter, he points out that the books are popular in India. “We love British magic here,” he says. “Do you remember that trick where all of our resources went away?”

Stream it on Netflix

At the start of his latest special, the venerable stand-up Brian Regan draws attention to his suddenly gray hair. “Hit Covid,” he said. “I went into hibernation and came out as a senior.” And that is the final current note of this finely crafted hour of minor observation jokes. Regan has always been good at fleeting observation humor, and he doubles up on light fun, exploring standard subjects like animals, food, and language. (“Orchestra pit. These words don’t belong together.”) There is an elaborate, outstanding piece on his OCD, but his work is anything but personal. It’s old-fashioned hoax telling with wide raids and useful transitions (“I like words”). And while he’s outside with a masked crowd, the sound design and camera work emphasize nothing more than a prepandemic show.

Many will find something refreshing in entertainment that feels from another, more carefree time. Regan (who signed Covid-19 in December) is the rare comic that regularly tells jokes that you won’t have any problem eavesdropping on your quarantined children. Its rhythm is most similar to that of Jay Leno’s 1980s, and while both are workaholics, Regan has proven to be more consistent. It is easy for the casual observer to overlook the considerable technical skills that Regan has improved over the decades (his patience with setups, the right choice of words). Even with his clown physicality, popping eyes, jumping eyebrows and raised eyebrows, he makes getting up look effortless.

A car honking is one of the ugliest noises in everyday life. We have been conditioned to associate it with fear, error, and even danger. Expecting laughter on a comedy show is like replacing kissing with coughing and hoping that the romance will go on well. So what a shame, comics like Erica Rhodes who made the most of drive-in theaters. “The good news is that the numbers are finally falling,” she says in her at times amusing hour, keeping the beat before the punchline. “From people who pursue their dreams.”

Rhodes turns discomfort into a comedy, smiling after jokes about depression, terrible dates, and the disappointment of having a towel in your thirties. There is a tension in this incongruence that leads to a promising stand-up person. But too many of their more ambitious things, like those about online dating, seem incomplete, start off strong, gain momentum, and then casually fade away. In some cases it is the other way around. She has a very keen idea of ​​how ending digital conversations these days leads to an arms race of emojis that frustrates everyone. But it starts with a sentence about the end of the period that doesn’t fully land. It’s a good joke to look for a better setup.

Rent or buy it from Amazon

In her always funny new special, Ester Steinberg explains that she found the perfect guy before listing the three things he always wanted: He’s tall, he’s Jewish, and he has a dead mother. It’s one of many new twists to old Jewish jokes in one set that marks a breakthrough for this seasoned comic. It’s less notable for the freshness of the contents (weddings, maternity, strip clubs) than for the dizzying excitement of its delivery.

Steinberg, who gave birth only six weeks before this special started shooting, has been a charismatic spark plug of a comic for years, but there’s an agility here that is the work of someone who has made it their own. She layered jokes with jokes (on the same driveway where Rhodes performed) and laughs without wasting words. It changes from an extravagant whining to vowel roast to dryness. Her physicality somehow manages to evoke Bill Burr and Kate Berlant. She weaves references to the pandemic without derailing her mischievous spirit and defuses the ridiculousness of standing up for cars right away. “I’ve been doing comedy for many years,” she says, “and I finally realized that my fan base is Kias.” Then after some honking and laughing, she turns to the audience and says with a serious face: “This car knows what I’m talking about.”

Categories
Entertainment

Sharing Surprising Acts of Kindness

Sharing Unexpected Acts of Kindness

Did this happen to you You go about your day and take care of your business. Then suddenly you discover a caring interaction that lifts your spirits, like a couple hugging or a stranger lapping someone else’s hand.

Today the world could use a pick-me-up. Before Valentine’s Day, we asked readers to let us know if they unexpectedly witnessed an act of love or kindness. More than 100 readers wrote love stories from years ago or just recently. Here are a few selected ones that have been edited and compressed for the sake of clarity.

I’ve been walking in my local park more often. My heart was moved by two friends who meet every morning. You’re male, and probably in your 80s. You arrive separately, each with coffee and a dunkin ‘donuts bag. They sit on adjacent benches, six feet apart. One person only starts his coffee when the other is there. You’re not particularly chatty with others in the park – I’ve tried. Your focus is on each other.

– Grace E. Curley, Boston

My 90 pound Bernese Mountain dog, Lilly, has a neurological problem that is causing her to fall. This causes their great distress. My golden retriever Katie came to Lilly after her fall this morning and licked her lips. Then she took a nap and snuggled up against her canine sister.

– Penny Nemzer, Greenwich, Conn.

After months at home, my 2 year old son wasn’t excited about being with strangers. That changed when he started daycare. One of the first friends he made was Dennis, a construction worker who works near his school. Dennis often high-five and a punch before my son lists all the new words he’s learned. He looks forward to this interaction every day and Dennis never disappoints: He is always there with a big, welcoming smile.

– Smita Jayaram, Jersey City, NJ

As the morning bell rang, one of my third grade students walked into the school lobby and held his younger brother’s hand. My student would carefully help his brother take off his mittens and open his jacket. Then he kissed the top of his head tenderly before they parted for their own classrooms. Such a loving and responsible gesture.

– Sheila Bean, Calgary, Alberta

When I was riding the bus years ago, I noticed a young man suddenly stiffen and slide sideways from his seat, having a seizure. The passengers fell silent. We were worried, nervous. The driver sparkled for help and stopped. Then a woman sat next to the young man on the floor. She hummed softly and caressed his hands. We all got off the bus, but the woman and the boy stayed together. Their humming turned to a low song as they waited for his convulsions to stop.

– Tracy Huddleson, Garden Valley, California.

I have a balance problem after surgery on a brain aneurysm affected my ability to do certain things, such as bending and looking sideways. One day while walking around town with a stick, I found that my shoelace was open. I just kept walking. Suddenly a young woman stopped. “Hey,” she said, “your shoelace is open. Here, let me do it in case you trip. “She tied the shoelace, smiled, and walked on.

– Carol Lange, Oxford, England

I was 6 years old and spent the night with my grandparents. While I was sitting on the porch, a couple passed by. The man grabbed one of my grandmother’s tulips from the garden and gave it to his lover. I was outraged and ran into the house yelling that someone had “stolen” one of my grandmother’s flowers. She calmed me down, held my hand and said, “This is what flowers are for.”

– Clare Poth, buffalo

I went to the post office. An elderly, masked couple walked slowly across the street. During the pandemic, people are walking fast, avoiding contact and trying to get their things done quickly. The couple stopped for a moment. They kissed through their masks and walked on. It gave me hope that love and human connection will prevail in these times too.

– Susi Reichenbach, Brussels

We were on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard. The sun was bright coral and hung over the horizon. Just as we were about to start there was a commotion a few meters in front of us. A young man had just proposed to his partner, and everyone around her just turned to see how they were taking the first step into their new life.

– Harriet Bernstein, West Tisbury, Fair.

When I was little, my parents and I often flew to Seattle to visit friends. Once at the airport I saw what I suspected as a husband and wife, hugged, kissed and tearfully said goodbye. That surprised me. My parents had just divorced and had never been overly loving. I think about this couple a lot.

– Margaret Anne Doran, Charlottesville, VA.

I stood in a crowded subway and saw a woman sitting across from me. I’ve had a terrible week. I was exhausted and overwhelmed by emotions. All of a sudden I started crying. It almost never occurred to me that anyone could see me. But the seated woman did and she gave me a handkerchief without saying anything other than giving me a comforting and knowing look.

– Nicole Shaub, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

My mom traveled to work a lot when I was in high school. She could be gone for weeks. During one of their trips, I went to my parents’ room. My father smelled one of her scarves. Blushing, he put it down and said, “I just missed your mother.”

– Sarah Hughes, Rockville, Md.

As I was driving, something in front of me stopped everyone. There was restlessness and frustrated honking. But as the cars pulled into the next lane in front of me, I saw that a woman in a car repeatedly stopped, got out, took packed lunches with brown bags and handed them out to the many homeless people on the roadside. She offered them entertainment, care, and warmth, and didn’t seem to care about the stunned drivers behind her.

– Sam Alviani, Denver

A few years ago I was driving in the East Village when a biker was stopped by a car. The biker was injured and bleeding and the car drove away. In a matter of seconds, dozens of New Yorkers jumped into action. Several people ran down the street to take down the license plate number. A ring of people surrounded the biker to provide first aid and ripped off sweatshirts to stop the bleeding. In less than two minutes, ambulances and police cars had arrived at the scene. There wasn’t a second of chaos. It was a wonderful ballet of competence and self-confidence. New Yorkers take care of each other.

– Elizabeth Brus, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

We’re back to school and rehearsing. My students scrupulously follow the guidelines and sing outdoors in masks, 10 feet apart. It’s January in New England, 34 degrees and overcast with an icy breeze.

Two senior high school students, now young men, members of the choir I lead, inseparable for ages and never silent in rehearsal until Zoom muted them, chatting and laughing and unconsciously between the verses of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” danced.

They look like there’s nowhere in the world they’d rather be.

– Scott Halligan, Longmeadow, Mass.

When I went to the drugstore, a high school boy came out with a bouquet of yellow daffodils. Someone shouted from across the street, “Want to be lucky?” He replied: “No, I think I’m in love!” This probably happened 40 years ago and I am still thinking about it.

– Sallie Wolf, Oak Park, Ill.