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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

It seemed like a good idea in the moment. The clock on the oven read 7:00 p.m., and I wanted to watch the PBS News Hour on Channel 13. But I was also hungry. So I reached into the fridge and took out one of the smoothies I make in advance to last me the week. 

This one was in an open top container that I had covered with plastic wrap. I threw the cover in the trash, plunked a straw into the purple drink, picked up a coaster to rest the drink on and headed up the stairs to the television in the bedroom.

After switching on the overhead light, I picked up the remote, put the coaster on the bedside table, settled myself into the adjacent overstuffed chair and reaching over, put the container of smoothie on the coaster. To my horror, the coaster skittered out from under the container, which tipped over and splattered its contents across the carpet, spotting the nearby bedspread, the wall behind me, even the lower slats of the blinds across the room. In an instant, 32 ounces of smoothie lay spread out before me.

“Holy cow!” I yelled. (That’s not what I really yelled, but this is a family newspaper.) The speed with which I had just ruined the bedroom stunned me. I jumped up, grabbed some towels from the nearby bathroom, and on my hands and knees, breathlessly tried to sop up what had not already soaked into the blue carpet.

Finally, I sat back to stop my panting and to survey the damage. It was awesome what some liquid in a cup could do to an otherwise orderly room. It occurred to me then that this wasn’t just ordinary liquid. This was probably the most nutritious contents this carpet could have sucked up. Let me tell you what I put into my smoothie. 

First I pour into the Vitamix a cup of soy milk, then one cup of pomegranate juice. Next I add one banana, then 2 tablespoons of unsweetened chocolate and 2 tablespoons of flax seed meal (not the seeds.) Then comes the good part: 8 ounces of baby bok choy, 8 ounces of baby kale, 2 cups of frozen cherries and 2 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries. The mixer makes all of this into a drink, and I will have one healthy carpet, albeit devilishly stained.

I am able to joke about this because, incredibly, the story has a happy ending. Just as I was sitting in the middle of the floor, about to cry, the phone rang. It was a dear friend, and when I told him what had just happened, he offered to come right over with his shop vacuum and some kind of magic reagent that he loaded into it. He was truly an angel, passing the suction wand over the spill again and again until the original color of the carpet reappeared. He then put some kind of absorbent powder over the main body of the spill, to be left there for a couple of days and then vacuumed up. When I did so, the damaged area was restored to its former pristine condition.

When I look at the carpet now, I think how wonderful it would be if we could just vacuum up whatever unfortunate circumstances had ever befallen us. Imagine having a giant vacuum that could suck away the misery of COVID-19, returning our lives to what we had always thought of as being normal. It could also remove any hurts or regrets, any shadows of past events or unhappy relationships that we might be carrying throughout our lives. 

Yes, it is true that we learn from our mistakes and our experiences. But we don’t need all of them to become better people. We certainly didn’t need a novel coronavirus, even if it did teach us that we could order groceries delivered and work from home. We could borrow from Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, and using our magic vacuum say, “Out, damned spot!” 

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Photo from Pixabay

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

A year ago, most of us were going about our usual lives, shopping for food, carpooling our children, occasionally eating out, going to a movie or a play, traveling with our families during Presidents’ Week, entertaining friends in our houses, and working at our job sites.

Today the only pursuit still left on that list is shopping at the supermarket. We didn’t know that within two weeks, our lives would start to change, and that a month later the entire world would be altered.

The change agent? The novel coronavirus was the villain, otherwise known as COVID-19. Seemingly out of nowhere, the virus launched itself onto the human population. Where did it come from? How did it start? Was China somehow at fault?

A World Health Organization team of scientists returned last week from Wuhan, China, considered to be the first place with a coronavirus outbreak. Dr. Peter Daszak, who has worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and is president of EcoHealth Alliance in New York, was a member of the team, and was interviewed about their findings by The New York Times.

They walked around the Huanan Seafood Market, which is regarded as the source and is still blocked off to all but disease investigators. According to Daszak, the Chinese are “absolutely petrified of this virus catching hold again.” They were following severe protocols of testing, isolating and quarantining even as they were working closely with the W.H.O group.

The market was closed on December 31 or January 1, and a team of Chinese scientists then went in and swabbed every surface, collecting over 900 samples. Many were positive, including some animal carcasses. “A farm with rabbits [that was at the market] could have been really critical,” Daszak said. Or bats, stray cats, rats, live snakes, turtles and frogs, all of which were there. There were 10 stalls that sold wildlife, some peopled by vendors from South China provinces where the virus is found in bats. Some of the earliest patients with the disease had links to other markets as well, and some had no links to the Huanan market at all.

The final hypothesis of the W.H.O. team, and the Chinese scientists who worked with them throughout their visit, was that the viral pathway was wildlife, through a domesticated wildlife link, into Wuhan. In particular, Daszak suspects bats, from Southeast Asia or southern China, of getting into a domesticated wildlife farm. The viruses then jump from infected animals on the food supply chain or from their handlers to the dense population of humans that buy the animals at the markets.

There are actually many strains of this abundant family of coronaviruses, and bats and other mammals carry them. The SARS and MERS versions are just a couple that spilled over the species barrier and infected humans. So inevitably there will be more after COVID-19, and they could even cause future pandemics. Aware of that reality, some infectious disease scientists are working to produce a vaccine that will nullify all coronaviruses. Researchers are calling for a global effort to develop such a one-shot vaccine or a super vaccine. There have even been some promising early results.

Coronaviruses were first identified in the 1960s, but were initially thought only to cause mild colds. Then in 2002, a new coronavirus appeared. That was SARS-CoV, named for severe acute respiratory syndrome, and it was deadly.

In 2012, a second species of the coronavirus spilled over from bats, causing MERS, which stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, first reported in Saudi Arabia, and today we have SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19.

As we now know from the graphic of the virus shown by the media, the virus has spikes, which are proteins on its surface. If an antibody can be formed that sticks to the spike, it can prevent the pathogen from entering human cells. A genetic molecule, created by BioNTech called messenger RNA, works that way in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against COVID-19.

Now we need a pan-coronavirus vaccine. It’s on the way.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Last Saturday I received my first of the required two vaccines against COVID-19. The inoculation itself was painless. The person who administered the shot was a broad-shouldered young man with curly black hair, deep brown eyes and prominent cheekbones that led to a white-tooth smile. He pinched the skin of my arm just below my left shoulder, and I knew the deed was done only when he discarded the needle into the red can. I think you can see why the entire experience was painless.

As you, who have tried undoubtedly know, it was not easy to get an appointment for the vaccine. My family and friends and the children of my friends were all on the phone or on their computer keyboards for hours trying over and over again to make contact with the right person in a reasonably close location to schedule the vaccination. Finally, the daughter of a close friend secured a time slot for me at the Javitz Center in New York City, and then my son found one sooner at Jones Beach.

I know that some people are passing up the opportunity to get vaccinated. They are concerned, among other reasons, that it has not been tested sufficiently since it was developed with unprecedented speed. What will the long term effects of the vaccine be? No one knows because there has not been a long term so far; we do know that the immediate effects have been studied for the short term in thousands of patients in clinical trials. The results and the efficacy have been excellent. So I decided that I would risk any unknown long term negative effects from the vaccine against the already known long-haul negative consequences from the disease and go for it.

I had heard that after-effects were not uncommon during the 24 hours following the vaccination, and indeed I did experience a couple. Two or three hours after I returned home, and after my dinner, I suddenly was enormously fatigued. I managed to climb the stairs to the bedroom, despite feeling light-head, and I slid into bed, where I then spent the night and enjoyed a sound sleep. I awoke to an aching arm, but that wasn’t the main problem. When I tried to walk, my right leg was, I thought, in spasm. I assumed I had slept in an awkward position and that I could walk it off, but the pain intensified. As the day went by, I endured only with the help of repeated Tylenol capsules, vitamins, a banana and ultimately the distraction of the big football game.

The next day, little more than 24 hours later, I felt perfectly fine. I was timid about walking, but there was no problem. Do I know that the leg pain was the after effect of the shot? I don’t, of course. 

I do have a date for the second shot, which is scheduled for early next month, and apparently there is a dose reserved for me to receive at that time. Will the vaccine protect me? From what I have read and been told, it takes about two weeks before the body develops any immunity, and with the one shot, that is perhaps only 50 or 60 percent. The second vaccination brings the immune system to about 94 percent — or so the evidence has shown. Now, with the new mutations that are freely developed by the viruses with each reproduction in new victims, the scientists are not sure. Vaccinations are racing against viral reproduction.

There can be many minute mutations of the viruses’ genetic sequences. More worrisome is recombination. That means the coronavirus mixes large chunks of its genome upon reproduction, and that is common and surely happening. Recombination might enable different tiny variants to combine and make the virus more potent inside a victim’s body.

The question is, will the vaccine hold these newly minted intruders off? Scientists are studying variants and recombination, but they don’t yet know. So far, so good.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

When General Motors announced last week that the company would aim to sell only electric cars and trucks by 2035, it shook up the industry. There are already electric cars on the road, although they number fewer than one percent.

Tesla, the electric car maker, has been much in the news lately since Wall Street values the company at more than ten times that of General Motors, and indeed, more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors combined. 

Nonetheless, this was a sharp turn for G.M. And as the largest automaker in the United States and the fourth largest in the world, what G.M. does affects everyone else down the automotive line.

It is no coincidence that the announcement came only a day after President Biden signed an executive order directing his administration to fight the problem of climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency is developing tough new tailpipe pollution regulations to control the largest source of planet-warming emissions in the short term. G.M. is aligning itself with the new administration’s goal in its drive to electric power. Furthermore, just three months ago, China ordered that most vehicles sold there must be electric by 2035. China is G.M.’s and the world’s largest market.

So all roads would seem to be pointing to a preponderance of electric cars by 2035, at least as of the present. But there remains a significant hurdle in the production of electric cars. While countries can certainly create charging stations along the roads in the same fashion as we now have gas stations, and President Biden has asked for 500,000 public charger stations to be built by 2030, the challenge is the batteries required by the cars. 

The battery packs have to be big, and right now to be big means to be expensive. Gasoline engines for equivalent cars cost less than half as much. China is the leading producer of these batteries, and of electric motors, which is not surprising since Chinese leadership has long viewed its dependence on oil imports as a considerable vulnerability. 

Therefore, major auto companies, like Daimler and Toyota, are already manufacturing their electric cars in China. So will many of the Ford Mustang Mach-E models be made there. Tesla started making cars in Shanghai over a year ago to sell in China.

So, folks, it would seem that in our not-too-distant future, we are destined to own electric cars. G.M. is planning to spend $27 billion to introduce 30 electric models by 2025, just a short generation away for those buying new cars this year. They are building a plant in Ohio to make batteries for those vehicles and to develop better batteries. G.M. now feels it could make electric vehicles that would cost no more than gasoline ones. And when G.M. in October offered its Hummer electric pick-up truck, enough orders had come in within a day to fill the entire year’s planned production. 

The Chinese have cleverly offered their huge consumer market in exchange for technical information. Through joint ventures with companies of other nations, along with their own considerable research, they have become the leader in battery development. Further rounding out the picture for the urgency of electric vehicles is the ban by Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands on new gasoline and diesel cars as of 2030.

Utility companies will have to improve their output by as much as 25 percent, which they can do at considerable expense. Guess who will be paying the tab! But the increased rates should be offset by the savings in gasoline, at least that would be the plan.

Power plants would also have to engage in some sort of rotation so that not everyone can charge their vehicles at the same time. They would also help the global climate change situation by using more solar and wind instead of coal and natural gas, in short by cleaning up the power grid.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

As they say in literature, it is the best of times and the worst of times. You could almost say it is also a tale of two cities. Yes, the vaccine has now been developed and produced to counter the novel coronavirus. We will require two shots, whether we get the Moderna or the Pfizer-BioNTech brand, and there may even be a third possibility, one from Johnson & Johnson, that will only be a one shot deal. That’s the wonderful news.

Less than wonderful is the distribution thus far. Despite best intentions, it has been spotty and disorganized. Locations that are supposed to be vaccination sites have had to turn people away because they have run out of the vaccine or never received the shipment to begin with. Getting an appointment, as opposed to standing optimistically for hours in a line, has become an exercise of pounding the keyboard of the computer or dialing on the phone for hours on end, looking for a slot with availability. 

Just about everyone I know is being helped by their children and grandchildren in this frustrating pursuit of inoculation. Those who have received the shot are living in a different city from those who have not.

To complicate the already complicated situation, the wily virus is doing what viruses do: mutating ahead of the vaccines. So far, the pharmaceutical companies are saying that their products are effective against the new strains, perhaps a little less so against the variant from South Africa than the one from the United Kingdom. 

Brazil has a variant as well. And while non-American citizens originating in those countries are, for the moment, banned from entering the United States, scientists know those mutations are already here, having arrived before the ban, from Britain and Brazil so far and most probably South Africa as well. 

Worse than potentially evading the vaccines is the increased degree of contagion those viruses already possess. The knowledge that scientists are already hard at work catching up to the newer strains is comforting. Such an adjustment could take six weeks, however, according to Moderna. Or perhaps a third shot of the existing vaccine might work against the variant.

So while the vaccine may be the best of times, we still have to get there, and the worst is now upon us. Sooner or later, we hope sooner, we will get the logistics of distribution worked out, but most of us will not reach that point of inoculation until mid-summer or fall at the earliest. Meanwhile more people will become ill, especially in the poorer nations unable to buy vaccines in large quantities. And with our global interactions, what pathogens exist elsewhere in the world will also come here with their new mutations.

So what can we do to help ourselves through these next few months?

Let’s remember that a simple handful of actions we already have taken can keep the viruses at bay. Washing our hands thoroughly, multiple times a day ( I practically bathe in hand lotion after all those washings); maintaining social distancing of at least 6 feet, preferably 15 feet, inside as well as outside; and wearing masks are effective defenses, if only we follow them. Working remotely and limiting travel have further contributed to containment.

On the subject of wearing masks, and at the risk of boring you with repetition because I wrote about this last week, I want to urge you to consider wearing two masks. Since the new strains are more contagious, meaning they can spread more readily, having a double barrier for them to pass through doubles our chances of escaping the disease. 

The growing recommendation is to wear a surgical mask underneath and a cloth mask on top. I have tried it and find this no more uncomfortable than a single mask, and I am happier with the thought of being better protected. I throw away the surgical mask and wash the cloth one often to preserve its effectiveness, making for myself a sort of double-bagged wall.

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Leah Dunaief

By Leah S. Dunaief

It may have been the start of a new year last week, but life certainly hasn’t calmed down much. We are witnessing history in the making. Demonstrators who had traveled from all over the United States to Washington, D.C. last Wednesday turned from listening to President Trump rage to marching on the Capitol. Once there, many broke into the building and caused vandalism, chaos and death. Thanks to instantaneous news flashes, we heard it and saw it happen, and now we are living through the consequences.

One of the consequences is bans of certain accounts by social media, led by Twitter and Facebook. Is that censorship? Is that an assault on our Freedom of Speech enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution?

A simple way to offer an answer is to take you into the world in which community newspapers and media operate. As you know, we are the ones who report on the news closest to our daily lives, the events and issues that concern us here in the villages and towns where we live, send our children to school and most of us work. We report comprehensively on local people, local politicians and local businesses that would otherwise be overlooked by the bigger dailies and networks. We are the watchdogs on behalf of the local citizenry.

Here are the rules by which we must publish:

While we print opinions as well as facts, opinions must be clearly labelled as such and are usually confined to two or three pages specifically designated for Letters to the Editor and Editorials. We also publish pieces called “Your Turn,” or “Our Turn,” again as opinion or analysis. Everyone has a right to their opinion, and the publisher has a right to its policies about those articles and letters. Our policy is to publish opinions in as balanced a way as we are sent submissions, subject to libel and good taste.

Libel rules are more straightforward than good taste, which is, of course, subjective. But here is the bottom line: publishers have the final say in what they publish because they are private, not governmental enterprises. Freedom of Speech, which specifically prohibits censorship by the government, does not apply to us. Decisions made by private businesses on what to publish are not First Amendment issues. And those decisions may reflect any number of concerns that may affect the company: financial considerations, the environment in which the publisher operates and whether the publication is an avowed partisan or an independent one.

We, for example, are an independent news media company, supporting neither major party unilaterally but rather our own sense of merit.

We are responsible for the accuracy of the facts in our stories. Do we sometimes err? Of course. When we make a mistake, our policy is to print a correction in the same place that we ran the error, even if that’s on the front page. When we run ads, by the way, we are also responsible for the facts in them — although not the advertiser’s opinions, which still are subject to considerations of libel and good taste. And when we run political ads, we must print who paid for the ad in the ad itself. When it is a group under a generic name rather than an individual, we must have on file the names of the executive officers of that group and those must be subject to review by any member of the public.

Do we have the legal right to refuse an ad or an opinion or a misstatement of facts? As a private company, we do. Further, just as it is against the law to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is none because that is not protected free speech, we have the civic responsibility to vet misstatements and untruths. And while we consider our papers safety valves for community members to let off steam with their strongly held opinions, we do not publish just to add fuel to a fire.

Twitter and Facebook and the rest who consider themselves publishers of news and not just telephone companies also have a responsibility to the public.

That, of course, raises another issue. Do we want so much power in the hands of a few high tech moguls, whose messages instantly circle the world? Or should they, like us, be subject to regulatory control?

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

One of my favorite days occurred this week. It is the winter solstice, usually considered to be Dec. 21 or 22. Why do I like that day, you might wonder? Some people think of it negatively as the shortest day of the year. In New York, the night was 14 hours and 45 minutes, shorter than in Minnesota at 15 hours and 50 minutes but longer than Miami at 13 hours and 28 minutes. For me it marks the turning point of the seasons, when each subsequent day then begins to have more light. Darkness will be lifting over the next six months, gradually but definitively. And for COVID-19, the pandemic of the century, it is a perfect metaphor. The vaccine is arriving at winter solstice with the promise that the disease, like the days, will lighten.

The vaccine is the match that will eventually banish the darkness. People all over the world, since the beginning of recorded history, have lit fires to ward off the night. It is not a coincidence that the birth of Jesus is celebrated at this time. Houses and trees are brightly decorated with all manner of lights. Hanukkah candles burn brightly at this same time, and in an 8-day sequence, as if prophesying the gradual lighting up of the days. Diwali is a five-day festival of Hindus, Sikhs and others, pushing back the night and celebrating the coming of more light. 

So will the vaccine, perfectly timed, gradually vanquish the pandemic over the same next few months.

Just as a point of information, I looked up the meaning of winter solstice and found the definition as the time during the earth’s orbit around the sun at which the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator. So the other part of the shortest day is the winter season that we have to get through with its long days before we can enjoy more brightness and warmth. And we will also have to endure more illness and death from the novel coronavirus before we can recapture the world as we have known it. We will have to hold on, using our various strategies for survival, until what has been described as the unending “snow days” of lockdown yield to recovery.

Winter can be thought of as a time of intense cold, of scarcity, of starkness and even of death of the earth. But the earth has not died. It is merely resting, and all who live on it are forced to slow down until light and warmth bring growth. For us humans, it can be when we nest with our families, play games, watch movies, tell stories about our ancestors and fill the house with the smells of stick-to-the-rib cooking. Unfortunately, we have been doing just that, unwillingly, for the past 10 months. But the warmth and the light inside the home are especially welcome now that the wind is howling and the snow is sticking. 

When we were in Alaska some years ago, many of the residents we met said that winter was their favorite season, when members of the community come together indoors to socialize and look after each other as the elements rage in the darkness outdoors.

This winter, we will be coming together via zoom and the other miracles of modern technology. As the earth lies fallow, we can just rest. Or we can evaluate our lives and priorities, learn things that, like planted seeds, will flower in the warmth and light of the spring. We can certainly straighten out our closets and desk drawers, if we haven’t already. All the while, we can follow the guidelines of the scientists and physicians and keep ourselves safe for the spring.

This is my last column of the year. The next issue, of 12/31, will be entirely filled with stories about those heroic and tireless residents who kept life going in 2020 and richly deserve to be honored as People of the Year.

We here at TBR News Media wish you and your loved ones holidays that are happy and safe.

We look forward to rejoining you next year.

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

The days of 2020 are running down now, with only half of December still remaining, but the BIG news stories certainly aren’t letting up. Just this past Monday, two historic events were reported. One was the first vaccinations in the United States against the novel coronavirus. The other was the ratification by the Electoral College of the vote for our next president. Both were climaxes to enormous efforts,  but they were not ends in themselves.

Many people will continue to be angry with the election result and keep protesting. And many will still become ill and some will even die before universal vaccination, victims of the worst pandemic since the flu of 1918.

We watched both memorable occurrences happening in real time on television this week, and we know they are turning points for us in the new year. Probably like you, I have had enough of the political scene, but I would like to dwell on getting tested for the virus until we are able to be vaccinated, perhaps a matter of some months. There is a lot of fresh and interesting information to share. The following comes from The New York Times:

There are four reasons to get tested. The most obvious one is if you feel sick. Symptoms of the virus include fever, dry cough, fatigue, headache or loss of smell and taste. Many tests are most reliable during the first week of symptoms.

METRO photo

Another reason is if you think you may have been exposed to an infected person or if you were in a risky situation like an indoor gathering or on an airplane. If so, quarantine and get tested five or six days after the possible exposure to give the virus a chance to be detectable. Quarantining should be for at least seven days.

Some people are tested simply as a precaution, especially if you are going for dental work or another medical procedure. Colleges and boarding schools test students before they leave campus and again when they return. They have largely had good outcomes following this procedure. And finally, some people will choose to be tested if there is a high level of infection in the community.

There are different types of tests, but they all use a sample from the nose, throat or mouth. Most widely used is the PCR test that looks for pieces of the virus’ genetic material. This is the most accurate but takes the longest — three to ten days — for the results to come back from the lab.

The antigen test detects coronavirus proteins and is among the cheapest and speediest with results in about 15-30 minutes. This is recommended as often as several times a week, since the results, both negative and positive, are less accurate. In one study, this rapid test missed 20 percent of the infections.

Then there is the rapid molecular test, which combines the reliability of molecular testing with the speedy results of an antigen test. Abbott’s ID Now and Cepheid Xpert Xpress use portable devices that process the sample right in front of you. This test is highly sensitive and can detect the virus a day sooner than the antigen, but it is not quite as reliable as the lab test, and while rapid, may take a little longer. Again a negative result is not foolproof, and you should continue to wear a mask and practice social distancing.

If you test positive, you should stay home and isolate. Tell others you have been with so that they may get tested. You should wait 10 days after symptoms started and 24 hours after a fever ends before going out. If results are negative, you might still be infected. Test again. False negatives happen.

Home testing kits are starting to be available, and Dr. Anthony Fauci likes the idea. New Jersey is one state that is offering them. Results are delivered in a day or two after being sent in, and one company that has received the FDA green light for at-home testing is Lucira.

There are walk-in testing sites in the area, although they usually have long lines. Appointments can be made on Stony Brook University campus by calling 888-364-3065.

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Photo from Pixabay

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

First is the problem, then comes a solution.

When I was in the supermarket this past weekend, in addition to the bok choy and grapefruit in my basket, I threw in a bag of pretzels and one of sour-cream-and-chives potato chips.

At the checkout aisle, I was surprised to find them there since I don’t tend to buy such snack foods, although I will eat them if offered a handful by a generous soul. I hesitated but I did not put them back.

Somehow, after all the lockdown and stress caused by COVID-19, I felt entitled to them. Besides, they were small bags. I took them home and scarfed them down over the next couple of days with only the tiniest twinge of guilt.

Sound familiar?

An article in Tuesday’s The New York Times spoke directly to me. “Pandemic Begets Weight Gain and Stress,” by Anahad O’Connor, informed me that I was not alone in my aberrant behavior. “The coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdowns led to big changes in health behaviors, prompting people to cut back on physical activity and eat more junk foods,” the article said, confirming that I was just one of the crowd.

A global study, published in the scientific journal Obesity and carried out by members of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, surveyed some 8,000 adults from 50 countries and every state in the U.S. The researchers found that, “the decline in healthy behaviors during the pandemic and widespread lockdowns was fairly common regardless of geography.”

Even if everyone is well in our family, our eating habits have worsened, our exercise routines have largely declined, our social contacts have diminished as we have become cut off from friends and family, and for some, there has been a frightening economic crisis as jobs have been lost or diminished. All of that has been as a result of the huge disruption in our daily lives by the virus. About 27% of those surveyed said they had gained weight.

And there is more. Anxiety levels have risen dramatically, logically out of fear of contagion or job loss. Even TUMS, and other common remedies for heartburn, are scarce in drugstores. Because people are anxious, they may have trouble sleeping, which in turn can result is less energy to exercise and more urge to eat junk food and then gain weight in an ongoing downward cycle. About 44% or almost half of the people in the survey said they had trouble sleeping.

There is a thin silver lining, it should be said. Probably those who managed to increase their activity level, 17% of those surveyed reported weight loss. With home cooking and focus on healthier foods, like fruits and less fried dishes, many did show an increase in their “healthy eating scores,” according to the article. Others are discovering new ingredients and are looking for ways to make healthier food, according to The Times. So what to do?

Recognizing the problem is always the first step toward correction. Dr. Emily Flanagan, the author of the study, “hoped the findings might inspire people to take steps to be more proactive about their health, such as seeking out mental health specialists, prioritizing sleep and finding ways to exercise at home and cook more, in the event of future lockdowns.”

Conveniently, at the top of the same page of the newspaper, there was an article headed, “Exercise 11 Minutes a Day for a Longer Life.” Again based on a study, its data offered the conclusion that such a daily regimen may ease the effects of sitting for prolonged periods of time, something we are forced by colder weather, and especially the virus, into doing. “Multiple past epidemiological studies show links between sitting and mortality. In general, in these studies, couch bound people are far more likely to die prematurely than active people are.”

So there you are. Whenever the urge to eat some junk food presents itself, instead let’s get up and move it, move it.

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Thanksgiving Day would have been my sister’s 78th birthday. But my parents were told at her birth that she would not live long because she had Down syndrome, a genetic disorder. In fact, one of the physicians at the hospital commented, “Best to just throw her in the garbage.” My mother, who was deeply religious, advised the doctor that he was not God, told him in no uncertain terms where he could go, and together with my father, brought my sister Maxine to our loving and supportive home.

That was 1942, when no one ever saw a Down syndrome child, with the characteristic physical markings of a round face, almond-shaped and up-slanting eyes and short stature, on the streets of New York. As a result, she was the object of stares when we were in public. Fortunately, she was a happy and social child, and when she saw people staring, she would wave at them, smile and say, “Hello.” If they stopped, she would continue with, “How are you?” and even, “How old are you?” She would then advise them that they looked much older and thus make them laugh.

Even as late as 1960, the life expectancy of people with Down syndrome was considered to be 10. But by 2007, on average and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, persons born with Down would live to be about 47 years old. My sister made it to 65.

Why the dramatic difference within one lifetime? The easiest answer is the change in attitudes about children with Down syndrome. When Maxine was born, such children were routinely institutionalized, where they received notoriously poor treatment and lived in horrible conditions. Journalist and lawyer Geraldo Rivera, in 1972, exposed the neglect and abuse in Staten Island’s Willowbrook State School. It broke people’s hearts and was a change agent, and such facilities began to disappear.

Since the 1970s, a Down syndrome child is to be given a free and appropriate education like any other child in the United States by law. When my sister was six, my mother brought her to the neighborhood elementary school to register her for first grade. That was the first of many times she and Maxine were turned away. With great patience, my mother taught Maxine how to read “Dick, Jane and Baby,” to write her name and address between the lines, and to do arithmetic on a second-grade level. Ultimately Maxine attended a Catholic school in Brooklyn for children with special needs. My sister also had a natural gift for music, often spending many minutes playing familiar melodies by ear on the household piano.

I was reminded of all this by December’s Atlantic monthly magazine’s cover story, “The Last Children of Down Syndrome.” The article, by Sarah Zhang, focuses on prenatal genetic testing, the impact it’s having on the number of children born with special needs, and its effects on world-wide population as it becomes easier and more widespread. Her report is centered in Denmark, which in 2004 became one of the first countries to offer free genetic Down syndrome screening to every pregnant woman. She writes that since universal screening was offered, the number of parents who chose to continue a pregnancy after a Down diagnosis, in 2019 for example, was seven. What does the universal introduction of choice indicate about the future of humanity as genetic testing gets more sophisticated? she asks.

What is the value of a human life? The article poses the question, as well as dealing with the terrible pressures of choice. My mother was 36 when she gave birth to my sister. Age 35 and older is considered higher risk for the birthing of a Down syndrome child. There wasn’t the choice of amniocentesis then, certainly not other genetic testing, but had there been, I know how my parents would have reacted. They would have carried on in the same way.

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