If you are attending the lecture series arranged by our Chaplain Helen McPeak about Living Well with Loss, I’d suggest you visit this NPR web site to get a head start for the June 14th workshop (not a lecture!) . It fits in well with her discussion about a variety of plans and actions we need to consider.
Also FYI, in October, we are planning an update focused on the medical aspects of choices, trying to define our goals of care and what medical interventions we might (or might not) want. Then if there’s interest, we can have individual or small group follow-up sessions for further discussion.
Posted inAdvance Directives|Comments Off on Life Kit – upcoming workshop on June 14th
Ed note: This essay by David Brooks raises all kinds of questions that also apply to us as “elite seniors.” He argues that college admissions should help right historical elitism by having economic class based preference for college admissions. Well, should we? Yes, there are economic advantages passed down to our children and grandchildren. Is this wrong? How can we level the playing field? How can more people have the advantages we have had and still do have? The problem of inequity is imbedded in our history, our culture, our economics and educational system. Improvements are needed, but we still need to reward hard work, planning, and scholastic achievement. What do you think of this essay?
Within days or weeks, the Supreme Court is going to render a decision on the future of affirmative action in higher ed. If things go as expected, conservatives will be cheering as these policies are struck down — and progressives will be wailing.
But maybe we can all take this moment to reimagine the college admissions process itself, which has morphed into one of the truly destructive institutions in American society.
The modern college admissions era was launched over half a century ago with the best of intentions — to turn finishing schools for the Protestant establishment into talent factories for all comers. But, in the end, the elite universities merely exchanged one privileged elite for another. Today, you don’t need bloodlines stretching back to the Mayflower to have a decent shot at getting into an elite school, but you do need to be born into a family with the resources to make lavish investments in your early education.Listen to “Matter of Opinion”Four Opinion writers discuss what’s going on with men in America.Opinion | Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia PolgreenWhat Does Healthy Masculinity Look Like?May 25, 2023
In 2017 research led by Raj Chetty found that students from families in the top 1 percent of earners were 77 times as likely to get admitted into the Ivy League as students from families making less than $30,000 a year. In that year, students from the top income quintile were 16 times as numerous at the University of North Carolina, a state school, as students from the bottom quintile.
We now have whole industries that take attendance at an elite school as a marker of whether they should hire you or not. So the hierarchies built by the admissions committees get replicated across society. America has become a nation in which the elite educated few marry each other, send their kids to the same exclusive schools, move to the same wealthy neighborhoods and pass down disproportionate economic and cultural power from generation to generation — the meritocratic Brahmin class.
And, as Michael Sandel of Harvard has argued, the meritocratic culture gives the “winners” the illusion that this sorting mechanism is righteous and inevitable and that they’ve earned everything they’ve got.
And then we sit around wondering why Trumpian populists revolt.
Worse, this system is built on a definition of “merit” that is utterly bonkers. In what sane world do we sort people — often for life — based on their ability to be teacher-pleasers from age 15 to 18?
In 2018, the organizational psychologist Adam Grant wrote a powerful essay for The Times making the point that “academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Across industries, research shows that the correlation between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and trivial within a handful of years.”
We could have chosen to sort people on the basis of creativity, generosity or resilience. We could have chosen to promote students who are passionate about one subject but lag in the other subjects (which is how real-life success works). But instead we created this academic pressure cooker that further disadvantages people from the wrong kind of families and leaves even the straight-A winners stressed, depressed and burned out.
For the past few decades, Richard D. Kahlenberg, the author of “The Remedy: Class, Race and Affirmative Action,” has been arguing that we should replace the race-based system of affirmative action with a class-based system.
His proposal, to give preference to applicants from economically disadvantaged families, would address a core inequality in society. As Kahlenberg wrote in The Economist in 2018, social science research “finds that today, being economically disadvantaged in America poses seven times as large an obstacle to high student achievement as does race.”
Furthermore, he continues, if you structure the programs well, you can lift up the poor and middle class while simultaneously redressing the iniquities that have historically been visited upon African Americans. Writing in Dissent this year, Kahlenberg, an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the case seeking to overturn affirmative action, describes an exercise he did with the Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono. Based on data from Harvard and the University of North Carolina, they built an admissions model that would end racial preferences and preferences for the children of faculty members and alumni, but boost applicants from poor families and disadvantaged neighborhoods.
At Harvard, under this model, the share of African American, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority students would rise, and the share of first-generation students would more than triple.
The case for Kahlenberg’s proposal gets stronger every year. If the Supreme Court ditches racial preferences it becomes overwhelming.
Maybe this could be a moment when we finally step back and acknowledge that the elite meritocracy has spiraled out of control. It’s ridiculous that we have built a culture in which people make fine status distinctions among Princeton, Northwestern and Penn State as if they were 18th-century courtiers arguing over which aristocratic family had the grandest name.
It’s ridiculous that we’ve built a system that overvalues the sort of technocratic skills these universities cultivate and undervalues the social and moral skills that any healthy society should value more.
It’s sad that we’ve spent decades trying to build a more representative leadership class, but we’ve ended up with an educated elite that doesn’t know much about the rest of America and doesn’t seem notably more competent than the elites that preceded it.
If SCOTUS rips off the affirmative-action Band-Aid, maybe we can address the underlying wounds.
Posted inEconomics, Education|Comments Off on Let’s Smash the College Admissions Process
With the creation of a new affordable housing arm and a handful of other notable developments in 2022, it has been a big year for Transforming Age. But the senior living nonprofit is not done evolving.
Earlier this month, the organization added 10 new locations formerly managed by Essex Corp. and announced it’s opening a new second headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska.
The nonprofit in the process hired four senior living leaders from Essex: President and COO Frankie Pane, CFO and Partner Julie Bennett, Vice President and Chief Development Officer Camille Burke and Legal Counsel Scott Braasch.
The move was not only meant to help support Transforming Age’s growth beyond its nearly 70-community affordable housing and senior living portfolio, it also fits in with a desire to “do things a little differently” than the rest of the industry as it diversifies its services and looks to the future, according to CEO Torsten Hirche.
“It’s maybe not the most usual thing for a nonprofit to do, but we’re super excited about the capabilities they bring to us to supercharge growth,” Hirche said.
New HQ, new capabilities
The new second headquarters in Omaha will have a primary goal of serving Transforming Age’s five main “spheres”: housing, services, technology, partnerships, and philanthropy.
One immediate benefit is that the organization will gain a stronger presence and more oversight in the U.S. Midwest. The headquarters also will give the organization more ability to take on new management contracts and development projects.
Posted inAging Sites, Economics, Health, Philanthropy, Retirement|Comments Off on Transforming Age currently has around 2 million square feet of development underway across the organization, with a footprint in 22 states.
Ed note: One Medical Clinics have popped up all around Seattle, some catering to seniors. In July 2022, it was announced that Amazon, Inc. agreed to acquire One Medical for about $3.9 billion in an all-cash deal. Prior to the announcement, pharmacy chain CVS Health had also bid for the company. Amazon formally acquired One Medical on February 22, 2023. This continues a trend in corporate for-profit entities owning health care delivery systems. The company, of course, has a highly compensated executive team and is beholden to its stockholders as well as to the customers (patients) they serve. Two promotional posters have appeared in our mail room bulletin board. Time will tell as to whether Amazon can deliver health care. Caveat emptor!
Amazon’s relentless push to become a primary care provider reached a milestone recently when the e-commerce giant completed its acquisition of One Medical for $3.9 billion.
But as is the case with most activities involving retailers trying to transform health care, the story is just beginning. Now comes the more difficult work of assimilating the concierge medicine provider’s services into Amazon’s operations and building out plans to meet consumers’ needs across the care continuum.
How successful Amazon is at integrating One Medical — with its prior acquisitions in pharmacy, consumer and employee health, diagnostics and therapeutics, care coordination and remote monitoring, and enterprise health IT — will go a long way in determining how great an impact the company can have in care delivery.
5 Takeaways from the One Medical Purchase (from the American Hospital Association)
1 | Amazon is still playing catch-up.
The transition to becoming a provider will broaden Amazon’s considerable health care portfolio, but the company has a long way to go if it plans to catch retail primary care providers like CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance.
Takeaway
One Medical gives Amazon access to more than 200 brick-and-mortar physicians’ offices with about 815,000 members, according to its latest financial statement. That’s a far cry from the more than 1,100 Minute Clinics and 900-plus HealthHUBs CVS Health now operates and the 680 VillageMD clinics co-located near Walgreens stores. Walmart, meanwhile, now operates 32 health centers in five states with 16 more locations expected to open this year and 28 more locations in 2024. Many analysts believe the retailer will rapidly scale its health clinics nationally as it gains more operational experience.
2 | The real deal: Building trust with consumers.
The game changer may be Amazon’s ability to attain and keep consumer trust and permission because it offers products and services that are relevant, valued and hyperconvenient, notes Jim Fields, a partner at Oliver Wyman, in a recent report.
Takeaway
Amazon is looking to redefine consumer expectations of care. If Amazon’s bet pays off, it could require providers to invest significantly and redesign their delivery models to keep up with higher consumer expectations created by the One Medical-Amazon model. For consumers, this allows Amazon to blend its primary care doctor relationship with health care information and apps that offer suggestions and recommendations for health activities, prescription delivery (through PillPack), healthy food (through Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh) and have it all connected to a patient’s primary care physician.
3 | Expanding a model for more convenient, affordable care.
One Medical already has thousands of employer relationships for its tech-enabled primary care platform.
Takeaway
This deal gives Amazon the ability to present a relevant story to employers who are looking to shape a different, more efficient and affordable health care journey for their employees.
4 | A springboard to tackle price transparency.
Some believe the One Medical acquisition will be a key piece of the holy grail Amazon has been after for years now — unraveling price transparency.
Takeaway
One Medical has a strong relationship with health systems, which could give Amazon a path to see the true costs of referrals, Christina Farr, an investor at the venture capital firm OMERS Ventures, said in a recent Modern Healthcare report. Amazon could combine One Medical data with data it has from prescriptions and expenditures to develop a fuller picture of patient care costs.
5 | The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) isn’t done investigating Amazon.
Despite not pursuing a court case to block the One Medical purchase, the FTC still could challenge the deal.
Takeaway
The FTC continues to investigate the deal over concerns about possible harm to competitors as well as to consumers that may result from Amazon’s control and use of sensitive consumer health information held by One Medical, FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar recently told CNN. FTC concerns include the potential for Amazon to assert its economic dominance and misuse patient information for other purposes such as targeted advertising or e-commerce.
Posted inBusiness, Health, Uncategorized|Comments Off on 5 Things to Know about Amazon’s Recent One Medical Acquisition
There was the time last winter when President Biden was awakened at 3 a.m. while on a trip to Asia and told that a missile had struck Poland, touching off a panic that Russia might have expanded the war in Ukraine to a NATO ally. Within hours in the middle of the night, Mr. Biden consulted his top advisers, called the president of Poland and the NATO secretary general, and gathered fellow world leaders to deal with the crisis.
And then there was the time a few weeks ago when the president was hosting children for Take Your Child to Work Day and became mixed up as he tried to list his grandchildren. “So, let me see. I got one in New York, two in Philadelphia — or is it three? No, three, because I got one granddaughter who is — I don’t know. You’re confusing me.” He also drew a blank when asked the last country he had visited and the name of a favorite movie.
The two Joe Bidens coexist in the same octogenarian president: Sharp and wise at critical moments, the product of decades of seasoning, able to rise to the occasion even in the dead of night to confront a dangerous world. Yet a little slower, a little softer, a little harder of hearing, a little more tentative in his walk, a little more prone to occasional lapses of memory in ways that feel familiar to anyone who has reached their ninth decade or has a parent who has.
The complicated reality of America’s oldest president was encapsulated on Thursday as Congress approved a bipartisan deal he brokered to avoid a national default. Even Speaker Kevin McCarthy testified that Mr. Biden had been “very professional, very smart, very tough” during their talks. Yet just before the voting got underway, Mr. Biden tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy commencement, plunging to the ground. The video went viral, his supporters cringed and his critics pounced.
Anyone can trip at any age, but for an 80-year-old president, it inevitably raises unwelcome questions. If it were anyone else, the signs of age might not be notable. But Mr. Biden is the chief executive of the world’s most powerful nation and has just embarked on a campaign asking voters to keep him in the White House until age 86, drawing more attention to an issue that polls show troubles most Americans and is the source of enormous anxiety among party leaders.
When Dr. Frank Clark was in medical school studying to be a psychiatrist, he decided to write his first poem.
“All that chatter that is in my head, everything that I’ve been feeling, I can now just put it on paper and my pen can do the talking,” he said, recalling his thoughts at the time.
Back then, he was struggling with depression and had been relying on a number of things to keep it at bay, including running, therapy, medication and his faith.
“I had to find something else to fill the void,” he said.It turned out that poetry was the missing piece in his “wellness puzzle.”
“I saw an improvement in my mood,” said Dr. Clark, who now sees patients in Greer, S.C. “It gave me another outlet.”
The notion that art can improve mental well-being is something many people intuitively understand but can lose sight of — especially if we have become disconnected from the dancing, creative writing, drawing and singing we used to enjoy as children.
But there’s a “really robust body of evidence” that suggests that creating art, as well as activities like attending a concert or visiting a museum, can benefit mental health, said Jill Sonke, research director of the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine.
Here are a few simple ways to elevate your mood with the arts.
Between the fields where the flag is planted, there are 9+ miles of flower fields that go all the way to the ocean. The flowers are grown by seed companies. It’s a beautiful place, close to Vandenberg AFB.
Check out the dimensions of the flag. The Floral Flag is 740 feet long and 390 feet wide and maintains the proper Flag dimensions, as described in Executive Order #10834.
This Flag is 6.65 acres and is the first Floral Flag to be planted with 5 pointed Stars, comprised of White Larkspur. Each Star is 24 feet in diameter, each Stripe is 30 feet wide.
This Flag is estimated to contain more than 400,000 Larkspur plants with 4-5 flower stems each, for a total of more than 2 million flowers.
For our soldiers…. When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our servicemen.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on THE ONLY FLAG THAT DOESN’T FLY
The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.
By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
It is unclear where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. And some records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865. Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day.
Waterloo—which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.
Did you know? Each year on Memorial Day a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time.
Decoration Day (Memorial Day)
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.
The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there.
Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor the dead on separate days until after World War I.
Posted inHistory, War|Comments Off on Memorial Day – a bit of history
Health authorities and vaccine makers are moving toward targeting the next shot on one of the newest forms of the virus now dominant in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.
Under consideration for the next booster, the people said, are Omicron offshoots known as XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16, which is nicknamed Arcturus. Also under consideration is XBB.2.3, though it isn’t as prevalent as the other two strains and is similar to XBB.1.16, one of the people said.
Vaccine experts advising the Food and Drug Administration are scheduled to meet next month to make a recommendation on the strain to target. Pharmaceutical companies would then make the shots in time for a fall vaccination campaign.
The health authorities and vaccine makers are completing the form of the next Covid-19 shot after the U.S. and the World Health Organization ended their states of emergency for the pandemic.
The plans for the booster, which Americans would take annually like a flu shot, are a sign that health authorities consider the coronavirus a threat though they have dropped many of the precautions recommended during the pandemic crisis.
Hospitalizations and deaths from the virus have fallen, but it is still killing hundreds of people a week in the U.S., and remains especially risky for the elderly and frail.
A new Covid-19 shot targeting a single strain would represent a shift from the latest version of the vaccine, called a bivalent vaccine because it aimed at both the original virus strain and an Omicron subvariant that was dominant in the U.S. at the time.
A WHO advisory panel last week recommended that updated booster shots target one of the dominant XBB variants circulating.
BioNTech plans to develop a vaccine targeting the XBB virus line, Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said this week at a company shareholder meeting. A Moderna spokesman said its fall boosters would target the latest variants of concern, as regulators advise.
Pfizer said it is looking forward to the FDA’s advisory meeting in June to share the company’s efforts and understand proposed next steps for the fall.
Novavax, which produces a vaccine that is authorized for use in the U.S. with a more traditional technology, is also working on a shot for the fall campaign. Novavax is focusing its development on the XBB.1.5 strain for the fall, a spokeswoman said.
The country’s booster campaign has been sluggish. Roughly 17% of the U.S. population has received the updated bivalent booster, with about 43% of people over age 65 getting a bivalent shot.
Surveys have cited pandemic fatigue and hesitancy as contributing to the vaccination pace that has lagged behind the initial campaign that began in late 2020.
The original Covid-19 shots that rolled out in 2020 targeted the ancestral strain of the virus.
The U.S. recently decided that people getting their first doses of mRNA vaccines would only need a single dose instead of two.
XBB.1.16 is the name of an Omicron subvariant. An earlier version of this article misspelled the name as XBB.1.6 in one sentence. (Corrected on May 26)
Posted inHealth|Comments Off on The outlines of the next Covid-19 booster are taking shape
A disturbing, Seattle-relevant story in the New York Times traces the exodus of highly educated employees from “superstar cities.” Seattle and other expensive coastal cities are definitely on the list, and the story notes the loss of magnetism for the highly educated by Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Seattle is dismissed with this sentence: “Seattle’s edge vanished during the pandemic.”
On the other hand, Seattle is the fastest-growing big city in the nation, according to new Census figures for the year ending July 2022. King County is losing population, and last year Seattle shed 4,300 people. So maybe that “edge” has not vanished, at least yet. (Other fast-growing cities are almost all in the sunbelt.)
There are many causes for urban flight: high costs of housing, the lure of remote work (particularly in tech), crime, stymied politics, poor schools, declining downtowns, traffic congestion. Related causes are the increasing urban attractions in smaller cities such as Charlotte, Denver, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Nashville, and once-lowly Louisville. The story notes, “The whole state of California has now become a net domestic loser of college graduates.”
The big question for Seattle is whether it is too late to reverse this tidal outflow, and whether Seattle’s diverse economy, gentle climate, unified-liberal politics, and outdoorsy attractions will create a northland exception to the sunbelt. Our region has historically benefitted by good luck, as when railroads, Asian trade, Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon decided almost by random to settle here. Sitting back and waiting for the next gold-laden ship to steam into the harbor has worked in the past, but luck is hardly a policy.
As a warning of how steep a recovery hill we have to climb, and how long has been the erosion of Seattle magnetism, here is a list of other factors, only a few of which might be correctable.
Kshama Sawant. She and her socialist activists intimidated the Seattle City Council into a series of foolish, extreme votes, including writing off downtown safety. That pulled the council away from the progressive business establishment and the mayor, resulting in political impasse.
Republicans Abandon Seattle. First GOP step to get elected was a suburban strategy, which failed as the Far Right alienated King County. Next came a statewide tactic of running against Seattle (strange people, extreme politics, high taxes, “socialism”) that also failed. One result is a non-urban GOP in Olympia, set on punishing Seattle, the University of Washington, and Seattle politicians who seek statewide office.
Defeat of the Commons. The plans for a 60-acre park in South Lake Union were narrowly defeated in two mid-1990s votes. It turned out to be a last hurrah for the Seattle Establishment (architects, parks advocates, housing activists, urbanists, developers), and it greatly discouraged the progressive forces and money. In retrospect, the proposed park was too large, and Paul Allen’s donation of land turned him into the Amazon of the campaign. The Central Waterfront Park is something of a consolation, but not with voter approval.
Defeat of Rob McKenna, 2012.Attorney General McKenna seemed the one hope of creating a modern, moderate Republican Party, recalling the Dan Evans era (governor, 1965-77). McKenna, who tried to get to the Democrats’ left on higher education and to wedge off some Democratic votes, instead lost to Jay Insleein 2012, and an entrenched special-interest lock on state government (since 1974) marginalized the GOP and drove it to rural extremes. As with Seattle, there is no effective statewide competition to hold one-party politics accountable. Seattle’s progressive business establishment was left with no place to go, so most gave up or became “Obama independents.”
Too Much Money Chasing Too Little Land. The combination of high-tech salaries and the restraint on land (Urban Growth Boundary and well-lawyered NIMBYs) drove up the price of housing, first in Seattle and then in the near-suburbs. We started late with transit, so it couldn’t keep up with suburban cities or with high costs of transit construction. Developers with their lock on local politics coped with high land costs by building to the affluent market. We created a city where young people cannot afford to dwell.
The Stranger. As the Post-Intelligencer shrank, the counterpoint to the Seattle Times became The Stranger. Its snark and alienation severed the generational continuity of Seattle politics. That divorce was amplified when Mayor Mike McGinn (Mayor, 2010-13) stiffed consensus liberalism and drove the city council into permanent opposition.
Depleted Farm Teams. Seattle used to be rich in training organizations where young people learned the ropes, met mentors, and got into effective civic life. Among those who did this well: the PTA, community councils (done in by Mayor Ed Murray), the League of Women Voters, Allied Arts, the Municipal League. Just look at the relatively unknown candidates for office, almost all self-starters, and few with broad appeal or pragmatic chops.
Lost Local Focus. The venture capital side of Seattle, dominant since the 1990s, is addicted to scaling up companies to national and international size, and those who work for such companies lose economic ties to the region. Many local companies (law firms, media, insurance, banks, downtown office towers) now have non-local owners, who do not feel a stake in the city and make harsh, bottom-line decisions. Local philanthropy is sometimes (as with Boeing) decided in other cities. The tech wealth, preferring to have “a large canvas,” thinks more about Africa problems than Renton problems and has brushed aside the civic agenda.
Complacency. We recovered before, as a new Amazon suddenly takes root. The mayor and the city council and the city attorney have awakened from the woke agenda. Times are good and jobs are plentiful. We still have no state income tax, a strong pull. Relax! Go Kraken!
In short, Seattle faces a long climb back. Seattle grabbed for some gold rings and having surprisingly caught many of them now must deal with the unforeseen consequences of what Danny Westneat of The Seattle Times calls “the prosperity bomb.”
By Emily Sohn on May 12, 2023 in The Scientific American. Thanks to Ed M.
The newest SARS-CoV-2 strain may cause red, watery eyes. But the symptom can have other causes, too
A new variant of the virus that causes COVID is drawing international attention, not just for its rapid spread but for its tendency to cause one unexpected symptom: conjunctivitis, or “pink eye.”
The strain, known officially as XBB.1.16 and colloquially as Arcturus, is a subvariant of Omicron. It was first detected in India, where it has been spreading quickly, but it has been identified in dozens of countries and now makes up more than 12.5 percent of cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization has categorized Arcturus as a “variant of interest,” which means it has genetic changes that could affect its behavior, along with an advantage over other variants in circulation.
Everywhere it goes, Arcturus has generated reports of red, irritated eyes, especially in children. While bloodshot eyes can look alarming, experts say, viral pink eye isn’t usually anything to worry about on its own, and Arcturus is not showing signs of being more dangerous than previous variants. Still, knowing that pink eye might result from a COVID infection can help people detect it sooner and prevent further transmission.
Scientific American asked experts about why Arcturus appears to be targeting the eyes and when you should consult a medical provider.
WHAT IS PINK EYE, AND WHAT CAUSES IT?
Pink eye, known to doctors as conjunctivitis, describes inflammation of the conjunctiva—a thin, transparent mucous membrane that covers the white part of the eyeball. This inflammation causes blood vessels to become engorged, which is what makes eyes looks red or pink, says Thomas Steinemann, a clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Other symptoms of conjunctivitis can include watery eyes and a sensitivity to brightness as a result of an inflamed cornea, which splits light like frosted glass, says Bhupendra Patel, a plastic surgeon and specialist in eye disorders at the University of Utah’s John A. Moran Eye Center.
An estimated six million people in the U.S. see a health care provider each year for conjunctivitis, often because of viral infections, Patel and a colleague wrote in a review paper. Adenovirus is by far the most common cause of viral conjunctivitis and is responsible for 90 percent of such infections. Influenza, herpesviruses and other viruses can also cause pink eye. In addition to viruses, bacterial infections, chemical exposures, allergies, compromised contact lenses and physical trauma can trigger the condition.
WHY DOES COVID SOMETIMES CAUSE PINK EYE?
Experts have known since the pandemic’s beginning that COVID can cause eye symptoms such as pain, itching, burning and the telltale pink hue of conjunctivitis. Like other coronaviruses, including the SARS virus that caused an outbreak in 2002–2003, the COVID-causing virus SARS-CoV-2 has been isolated in tears. And higher concentrations of the virus in tears are linked to more severe eye symptoms, says Rohan Singh, an ocular immunology fellow at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a Harvard Medical School–affiliated teaching hospital.
In fact, one of the first people to flag the existence of SARS-CoV-2 was Li Wenliang, a Chinese ophthalmologist who experts suspect caught the virus from an asymptomatic glaucoma patient. He eventually died from the illness.
Riders waiting to take the bus in Boston may notice something new at their bus stop: a sticker on the ground with a QR code they can scan to enjoy free reading material from the public library.
Twenty bus stops across the city will double as “digital libraries” where riders can borrow audiobooks, eBooks, e-newspapers, and e-magazines. The selection of free resources are meant to be read on-the-go, like poems and short stories, and include options for all ages. It doesn’t require a library card, and there’s no need to download a separate app.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the initiative, which tentatively ends in August, “builds on our efforts to make public transportation more enjoyable, while also connecting our residents to the resources the Boston Public Library already offers.”
Posted inBooks, Transportation|Comments Off on Under a new pilot program, Boston is rolling out free digital libraries at 20 bus stops across the city
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