The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t the first to sweep the globe, nor is it likely to be the last one. Throughout history, pandemics have shaped our world, as this historic lookback in the Washington Post explains. One such plague likely contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire, when disease –likely measles and smallpox – swept through the ancient world and killed 5 million people over 15 years. The Black Death… Read more
Keeping people safe in the pandemic requires a comprehensive approach, as explained by Aaron E. Carroll, a pediatrics professor at Indiana University. By taking the pandemic seriously, “far from posing a risk to its host city or town, a university could become—by supplementing behavioral measures such as masking and social distancing with widespread surveillance testing—a model for detecting and suppressing the virus.” By the time IU’s 87,000 students return to… Read more
Although most of us have not been able to travel for much of the last year, that didn’t stop The Guardian from hosting a travel photography competition. Stunning landscapes, colorful marketplaces, and chance photos that capture an unforgettable moment are all among the winners in the many categories. We may not be able to travel safely yet, but we can at least travel in our imaginations. I am glad to… Read more
Keeping people safe in the pandemic requires a comprehensive approach, as explained by Aaron E. Carroll, a pediatrics professor at Indiana University. By taking the pandemic seriously, “far from posing a risk to its host city or town, a university could become—by supplementing behavioral measures such as masking and social distancing with widespread surveillance testing—a model for detecting and suppressing the virus.” By the time IU’s 87,000 students return to… Read more
For many of us, it was our networks that helped us get through the last year. That was one of the lessons that Ivan Meisner, founder of BNI, an international business networking group learned from 2020. He also learned the value of limiting exposure to bad news by picking up what he needed to know from news apps. One business owner struggled with the stress of working from home while overseeing remote… Read more
Vaccines for the coronavirus are now being administered around the country, but that may not mean an end to wearing a mask. This article from Kaiser Health News lists five reasons to keep wearing a mask, even after receiving the vaccine. The top two reasons are that no vaccine is 100% effective and that vaccines don’t provide immediate protection. According to one of the experts cited the best way to end the… Read more
The COVID-19 pandemic may have an economic impact far beyond last year and the next two or three. A recent report by the World Bank projects global economic growth to slow to 1.9% per year from 2020-2029. Prior to the pandemic, growth was projected to be 2.1%, down from 2.5% over the previous decade. Investments in infrastructure, diversifying economies and supporting the employment of women may help to mitigate or reverse that… Read more
Happy New Year! Without computer, telecommunication, and cloud technologies, working from home during the pandemic would not have been possible. Looking back at 2020, Gene Marks a contributor at Forbes, put together a list of the 13 tech stories from 2020 that stand out for small business. For example, a Microsoft engineer who exploited a loophole to steal more than $10 million from the company’s online store underlines the need… Read more
With votes counted and the Covid-19 Relief bill now signed into law the fun begins. I am hoping you have something safe, but special planned for this evening and the rest of this three day weekend, and will not have time to re-read our post from last week detailing all of the provisions but please feel free to click through here for our December 23rd post which has been updated.… Read more
To say that 2020 has been a wild ride is an understatement. This article in the Wall Street Journal takes a look at surveys, economic data, and research papers to get an idea of what’s changed and what might be coming our way. The pandemic forced many of us to work from home, and that trend may be here to stay. But the increase in productivity came at a cost:… Read more
States that depend heavily on tourism have suffered greatly during the pandemic, and a few are taking creative steps to diversify their economies by attracting new remote workers. For example, Hawaii’s new “Movers and Shakas” program offers free roundtrip airfare to remote workers willing to spend at least 30 days working in that state and to contribute in some way to the local community. Tulsa is offering grants of $10,000… Read more
After months of only bad news about the spread of COVID-19, recent announcements of successful trials of three different vaccines bring a sense of optimism that the return to “normal” is on the way. Pfizer was first, and chartered flights bringing the vaccine to the U.S. from Belgium began on November 27. By mid-December, people may begin receiving that vaccine. A vaccine by Moderna has also completed trials and that… Read more
One of the positive side effects of the pandemic has been reduced traffic on interstate highways. A group of amateur race car drivers decided to take advantage of the empty roads to revive the “Cannonball Run,” a highly illegal endurance race from Manhattan to Los Angeles. The object of this race is to make the run faster than anyone else. Teams plan for months, fine-tuning routes to consider traffic light… Read more
All around the world, pandemic fatigue is setting in, as the need for social contact outweighs the commitment to following restrictive rules. Unfortunately, this is coinciding with a surge in infection rates in the U.S. and Europe. Asian countries, on the other hand, are managing to return to mostly normal. New infections in China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, combined, have been around 1,000 per day, while here… Read more
Prior to COVID-19, models of what could happen during a pandemic overstated the possible global death toll, but understated the potential hit to GDP. But as a series in The Economist explains, our current pandemic may have lasting impact. The impacts of shutting down schools for months at a time may persist for decades. Governments around the world are issuing debt at levels never before seen to finance support for… Read more
Fall is here, and with it, the beautiful colors of the season. Hikes and drives to see the colors are still something we can do, despite COVID-19, as this guide in the New York Times reminds us, with pictures and suggestions across the country. The Berkshires in Massachusetts, Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park, West Virginia’s Spruce Knob, Maine’s Grafton Notch, Percy Warner Park and Radnor Lake near Nashville, and Guanella… Read more
With our normal routines turned upside down, people have found as many ways to cope with the pandemic as there are neighborhoods. I love the section of the New York Times showing a series of postcard vignettes of neighbors coming together to connect and help each other, check it out. In Los Angeles, a family picks citrus fruit from trees in their neighborhood, sharing the bounty with the owners of the trees… Read more
Sleep is as close to a panacea as we are likely to get in our lifetimes: it helps us recover from injuries and illness, plays a vital role in memory formation, and helps keep us healthy. Disrupting our sleep has an adverse impact on nearly every system in our bodies. So it’s perhaps not surprising that a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that unemployment disrupts… Read more
After a solid week of number-crunching, a supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee analyzed the genetics of the COVID-19 virus to understand why it impacts so many different systems of the body. Analysis of the data resulted in a new theory about how the virus operates and why it causes so much havoc. Unlike many viruses that target just one or two systems in the body, the researchers… Read more
Shutting down economies around the world to fight the coronavirus has been a blunt and costly instrument, as this piece in the Wall Street Journal describes. Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong demonstrated that it was possible to reduce infection rates by widespread testing, contact tracing, cutting off travel with China and adopting masks. Such stringent controls were not possible in most states in the U.S., so instead we resorted… Read more