Essentials in the Time of COVID-19

"This is Prohibition 2.0."
"It's a time of uncertainty and  high stress on the consumer side, and on the government side, there are economic issues."
Ben Kovler, Green Thumb Industries Inc.

"When you're quarantining along with your children you need a break."
"We have a whole persona of micro-dosing mamas. They need cannabis to get through it."
"You would think in the midst of a global respiratory pandemic, inhalables would decline, but it's only a small percent of customers shifting their behaviour."
Bethany Gomez, managing director, Brightfield Group

"A lot of the users coming into the sector now are people who never used before."
"[Many of them are over 60] and asking for pain relief, sleep aids, anxiety relief -- and it's mostly not smoking."
Boris Jordan, chairman, Curaleaf Holdings Inc.

Sales are continuing at California cannabis stores such as Harborside’s Oakland dispensary, photographed on March 23.   Bloomberg News/Landov

In 2019, according to Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics, Americans spent $12.4 billion on legal recreational and medical cannabis. This year that number is expected to grow to $16.3 billion, representing an increase of 31 percent. According to the Tax Policy Center, revenue for various states from marijuana sales varied, with governments wary of taxing too heavily and consequentially driving consumers to the black market.

Pot taxes in Nevada, Colorado and Washington earned them about one percent each of own-source general revenue, to less than one percent for Alaska and Oregon, while California has profited by roughly $1 billion in its first two years of legalization. Curaleaf Holdings expects federal legalization to increase employment in the industry from about 250,000 at the present time to a million in an overnight response.

Scientific advisers and advice from the health community warns the public that smoking can have the effect of greater susceptibility to COVID-19 infection appearing in a more severe form. That may or may not have persuaded Americans to switch over to baked goods, leading them to bake marijuana relief-treats in greater numbers, more frequently.

Getty

Millennials appear to lead the greater-user demographic. Data from the Brightfield Group which tracks social-media posts analyzing trends in cannabis use, shows that regular users are primarily responsible for  much of the increase in use. In late March, 34 percent of those who used cannabis in the last year agreed they have become more frequent users, while 15 percent state they use higher doses or are doing longer sessions, with 41 percent of millennials using more frequently, and 20 percent using higher doses.

Seven percent, according to Brightfield's survey were using fewer inhalables, while 11 percent wee using greater numbers of edibles. Next-generation products are already being ramped up by the industry. Some companies announced at May's virtual Canaccord Genuity Group conference that they anticipate greater numbers of edible products to be market-available.                                          

Curaleaf, operating 53 dispensaries in 17 states, has seen greater interest in lozenges, tinctures and gummies. Moncton, New Brunswick-based Organigram Holdings Inc., a producer of products including pods for vaping, announced a line of chocolates, a new investment in recognition of edibles being viewed as "highly desirable" at the present time.

The Apothecarium, San Francisco. Credit...Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

The trend in higher cannabis use has been spurred by the lockdown on people's lives under the grim shadow of SARS-CoV-2 threatening COVID-19. That dark threat has made people feel vulnerable and uncertain, with something needed to lift their state of ongoing depression. The upturning of people's lives, unemployment and financial distress has its consequences.

Nine in ten Americans now approve of either medicinal or recreational use of marijuana and reflecting that popular opinion, over twenty states formally deem medical or recreational sales to represent "essential" businesses during the pandemic shutdown. Leaving Americans to begin the trend of using more weed than usual in quarantine. The crisis that caused that attitudinal change according to cannabis advocates will influence the federal government to follow the 33 states' lead and legalize cannabis in an accelerated move.

Revenue-poor governments are anxious after months of lockdown to tap available resources for tax revenues. The growing popularity of cannabis presents as an answer to a fiscal dilemma.One that will open the market to increased employment opportunities and allow governments to tax a profitable and popular self-medication for anxiety and stress.

COVID-Bored and Restless?

"The pandemic has made people see how connected we are as a planet. We all play a part in it [contributing to the well-being of communities and the planet]."

"We can still travel and we can still see beautiful places and iconic places, but make it more connected to the destination."

"This is a rare chance to get to certain destinations when they're not crowded."

"I want to go to Italy this summer. It's been knocked back quite a bit and I want to show my support for the country. It's a beautiful place."

Bruce Poon Tip, founder, G Adventures, small-group travels, Toronto

Niagara Falls, Canada/United States

"Travel is an important tool for economic development as well as for conservation and sharing knowledge."

"I think that companies that can show they are doing something good for the community, or the planet, as well as for their customers will ultimately benefit."

"Many countries and destinations already have different visa restrictions and the like, but with the health regulations for post-COVID, there will be additional health checks and social distancing requirements."

"No one has a crystal ball, so no one really knows for sure to what extent travel will change. But international travel will have to adjust as countries and companies accommodate new regulations and restrictions."

Rachel Dodds, professor of of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Ryerson University

The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt

Over 90 percent of the world's population -- representing 7.1 billion in total -- live in countries that now have travel restrictions, thanks to the global pandemic and the need to shut down business as usual and borders to international traffic, to protect their populations from exposure to that highly infectious pathogen that has succeeded as a global threat, to make millions sick, overwhelm national health-care systems, cause death to hundreds of thousands of health-compromised and elderly and collapse the global economy. 

Post-lock-down, while the pandemic, though still ravaging communities, appears to be slowly ebbing, even as a second and perhaps more successive waves (of possibly more severe mutated strains of the virus) are anticipated by the scientific community -- issuing cautions to governments not to re-open their economies too precipitously and warning people not to abandon caution on social distancing -- various countries have scheduled their re-openings at different times and to various extents.

In the process, an estimated 100.8 million jobs have been shed to the present, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council, based in London. And while it took an indecently short period of time for the alarm to spread over the role of international travel in spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, with the horror stories of how those giant floating towns that great ocean liners had become as living laboratories of infection, the new version of international travel will take quite a bit longer to establish its credentials.

Stonehenge, England

People may begin to book their travel itineraries with an eye on visiting places that were relatively unscathed by the novel coronavirus, like the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Vietnam. The travel sector was valued at $13 trillion globally, employing over 330 million people in the year before COVID-19 entered the scene. And having people from wealthy nations travel to other countries whose heritage, culture and geography was found to be fascinatingly different, was also a mechanism for redistribution of wealth around the world.

Mr. Poon Tip, musing on the ways and means and obvious frailties to infection of the past, states his expectation that large, crowded resorts and cruise ships will become infinitely less attractive to travellers in the future who will look toward visiting different places at a different scale of travel. Above all, there will be a greater need to assure people when they travel, that doing so is safe under new guidelines and restrictions.  Where post-COVID additional health checks and social distancing requirements will demonstrate in part the changes to security and safety.

Acropolis, Athens, Greece

A greater demand for boutique hotels, charter yachts and off-the-beaten-path experiences will arise, guesses Mr. Morgan from the perspective of agencies whose specialty is luxury and experiential travel. For the time being, Canada and the United States have agreed to maintain a closed border for the present, while the European Union and Europe's passport-free travel Schengen zone, have closed borders to non-essential travel even as Austria, Germany and France gradually re-open their borders. 

Italy, Belgium, Iceland and Turkey all are considering re-opening to international travel in June, while Spain and Greece are aiming at international opening in July. An agreement between Australia and New Zealand for a trans-Tasman travel bubble is being formalized, as it seems the idea of creating travel bubbles between countries has found wide favour. 

Ambitious travellers aged between 30 and 50 are considered to be likeliest to plan for international travel, an age group and numbers that will expand as time goes on. Fears that hamper people planning for post-pandemic travel, will abate considerably once a vaccine has been found for the virus. And the countries hit hard by the relentless virus, with its death toll and economic fallout, countries always highly dependent on tourism, will work harder than ever to convince the world community that tourism is a reciprocal gift that enriches all who engage in it.

"The motivation behind how and why people travel will also look different."

"The importance of human connection will be at the forefront after so many weeks and months in isolation."

Tim Morgan, general manager, Virtuoso, Canada

The Great Wall of China

Abandoning Liturgical Music

"Some parishes may not have music at all, some parishes may just have a single singer."

"It would be rare to see large choirs singing because the challenges to ensure the physical distancing amongst the instrumentalists and the choir members is very difficult and not practical in most parishes."

"It's going to be strange. Music is part of it [church attendance] for many people."

"Parishes will be encouraging people to come in, participate in mass and then head out because we're going to have to clean and sanitize the churches between masses."

"It's going to be very different from what people are accustomed to."

Neil MacCarthy, director, public relations and communications, Archdiocese of Toronto

Vicar's Choral, Wells Cathedral Choir

People's accustomed habits, the way business is conducted, school and work attendance, urban transit, entertainment, sport events, all that the modern world has known and taken for granted, in one fell swoop, with the introduction to an unready world of a viral and deadly infectious pathogen, has suddenly become unfeasible. Civil life, humanity itself has had to undergo a massive transition from trust to distrust. We can no longer safely be spontaneous in our reactions, we can no longer assume ourselves to be safe from a destructive virus.

It stands to reason that the globe's most fundamentally important ritual to an immense segment of any population; gathering in a house of worship to give praise to an Almighty Spirit of Creation, and in the process plead with that omnipotent being to remove the most recent destabilizing curse that an evil force has wrought, must now, given the circumstances of lockdown and social distancing government orders worldwide cautioning care against infection, think of church attendance in a different way.

Hans Memling  Christ with Singing and Music-Making Angels

Churches, like business enterprises and manufacturing and social service groups must now re-imagine its openness and presentation to worshippers. No longer can it be feasible, in the absence of a safe and viable antidote to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, for people to innocently gather in large groups to share their faith. No longer will the celebration of faith include the sublime music that has traditionally lifted hearts and souls.

In Canada, churches are struggling to inform their parishioners how they may continue to worship that Supreme Being somewhat traditionally, but with quite profound differences to minimize physical contact with a view of protecting people from bodily contamination by the novel coronavirus. In Ontario, according to Mr. MacCarthy, the distribution of a limited number of seats in a fair manner now challenges the coordinators of church activities.

Being considered are various scenarios, including online reservation systems. Yet worryingly, if some churchgoers are not comfortable with modern technology they will be excluded. Tellingly, that would be the older church-going demographic, unfamiliar with computers and the Internet, while at the same time representing the most infection-susceptible group in the public to the novel coronavirus, and suffering the absolute worse consequences in greater numbers.

There have been incidents to forewarn of what can occur with the gathering of worshippers in the first wave of COVID with outbreaks in church choirs and in the church congregations themselves. In early March in Washington State, dozens of choir members contracted the virus and two among them died. In another instance, 59 people in a 78-member choir in a Berlin cathedral contracted COVID-19. 

Monteverdi Choir, Beethoven

The National Association of Teachers of Singing in the U.S. gave a webinar on "the near-term future of singing", outlining just how bleak that future appears. The reasons are obvious enough; as when singing droplets are emitted from the mouth and nose. Large groups of people practise in a choir in limited spaces, while sheet music and file folders are passed from person-to-person. Singing in a group when members of that group are likely to touch their faces, hits all the wrong notes.

Hereafter, church-goers will have to accustom themselves to wearing face masks at church, where after a mass is celebrated and the church emptied of worshippers, the entire interior of the church must be cleansed and sanitized before another service is held. California urges churches to no longer feature choirs and to hold shorter services where places of worship will limit themselves to 25 percent capacity or 100 people attending, whichever is the lesser number.

Catholic churches represent a full range of capacities, from intimate with no more than a hundred seats, to massive cathedrals such as St.Michael's in Toronto, where 1,200 can be seated. Weddings in Ontario are now restricted to five attendees, inclusive of the officiant, while funerals are permitted no more than ten people in attendance. And nor may church-goers gather in parking lots or church lobbies, for the safe distance from one another must be upheld.

As for the collection plate; no longer will they be distributed at the finalization of a sermon before people leave the pews. Other means of supporting the church financially are to be explored, and all roads appear to converge on the Internet.

Communication That Resonates and Informs on COVID

"We need to be wearing masks in public when we cannot social distance. It's really critically important."
"We have the scientific evidence of how important mask-wearing is to prevent those droplets from reaching others."
Dr.Deborah Birx, response co-ordinator, White House Coronavirus Task Force

"You have to convey that this is a serious issue and that people should take precautions. However, you don't want to make people feel fatalistic or hopeless."
"You want to make people feel like they have self-efficacy and you want to make them feel like what they do matters."
"If  you think the virus is very, very infectious, you're basically just saying to yourself, we're all going to get it anyway, why bother taking these annoying precautions?"
"People are already very misinformed about how infectious COVID-19 is. they already think it is far more infectious than it actually is."
"Just kind of going out in the media and saying, for example, that COVID is extremely infectious might upwardly bias people's estimates even more and induce more fatalism."
Jesper Akesson, managing director, The Behaviouralist Research Consultancy, U.K.

The findings of a new study emphasize that acutely warning people of the danger inherent in a virus that has proven to be extremely infectious with sometimes extremely serious outcomes, dulls their sense of self-responsibility to act rationally. When they are confronted with a dire warning emphasizing the danger of a widespread public menace like the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many people tend to believe there is nothing they can do to avoid it, they might just as well do nothing.

Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., on May 23, 2020.Twitter/Lawler50 / Reuters

"This result [that people massively overestimate how infectious the disease is, believing the average person spread the disease to 28 other people] is consistent with previous studies that suggest individuals are likely to overestimate risks that are unfamiliar, outside of their control, inspire feelings of dread, and receive extensive media coverage."
Report on Study, British and American economists

One of the difficulties in communicating effectively to a concerned public details of a widespread public health issue is that people who tend to be readily alarmed will simply adopt a fatalistic attitude toward the situation. Steven Taylor, as a professor at the University of British Columbia has written of the psychology of pandemics and argues that governments, attempting to strike a balance between communicating to low anxiety and high anxiety sectors of their population face a difficult proposition.

On the one hand, low anxiety people respond to stark messaging while high anxiety people require a more gentle introduction to the seriousness of a disease that has laid waste to many countries' health systems and economies, and the need for their populations to react sensibly in self-protection for the greater good of the entire population. Strike the wrong communication note with the wrong audience and an effect completely at odds with the communication's intention is certain to emerge.

Case in point: in the United States where the death toll has surpassed 100,000 from COVID-19, the Memorial Day weekend signalling the start of summer in the United States, saw hordes of people  out sunbathing on beaches, fishing from boats, strolling on boardwalks and generally comporting themselves with scant attention to the warnings to continue social isolation. Coronavirus restrictions have been relaxed in all 50 states.

Beachgoers swarmed Indiana Dunes National Park in Porter Sunday

In Illinois and New York, restaurants remain closed for in-person dining and hair salons remain closed, but in many southern states most businesses have opened, albeit with restrictions on capacity. A week earlier, a record number of new COVID-10 cases were reported in Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Maryland, Maine, Nevada, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to Reuters. There is uncertainty whether this has resulted from a second wave.

The United States has seen the highest number of cases reported in the world, at over 1.6 million. Forecasting models for potential deaths by June 1, reached the figure of the projected 100,000 mark well before the turn of the month. Many state governors and health officials have issued pleas to the public to wear masks in stores and in public, messages that have been received with resistance from some of the population, evidenced by social media full of videos of businesses turning angry customers refusing to wear face masks away from entry.

Packed beaches in Florida and other gulf states on the Memorial Day weekend, left authorities with little option but to break up the large gatherings. Parties elsewhere with people crowded into pools and clubs elbow-to-elbow, have been prominently viewed in videos posted on social media. A party at a club in Houston saw the city's mayor order firefighters across the metropolitan area to enforce social distancing rules.

During the study on communicating with the public over the presence of an infectious disease like COVID, the lead author, Jesper Akesson, acknowledged a feeling of encouragement that most participants were positively impacted by hearing expert information about the virus with some participants having chosen not to believe the information and half retaining their original beliefs at first. But as the study ended, most had revised their opinion in favour of the information given by health experts.

A large crowd enjoys the boardwalk in Ocean City on May 24.

COVID Children Puzzlers

"There is a lot we don't know yet, but what we do know is that there are fewer children infected compared to adults and the children are less severely affected if they are infected."
"It has surprised everybody. The good thing is at least there is one group that isn't getting hit as much."
"Why children aren't infected as often is a really good question. Hopefully, there will be lots of research and we will figure it out."
Dr.Nicole LeSaux, infectious disease physician, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

"Over the last two to three weeks, we have seen about 20 children presenting with a combination of high fever and signs of inflammation, affecting one or more organs, quite similar to what has been reported internationally."
"I have to say that the 20 children that we have seen have not been as sick or as severe as some of the reports that we've heard about."
“I think that's the million-dollar question [that the children often test negative for COVID-19, but later show antibodies to the virus]. I would have to say that all 20 cases we've seen have all tested negative for COVID-19 on the nasal swab."
"What has been found internationally -- certainly in Europe and now in the United States -- is that many of these children who are tested for antibodies will test positive, which suggests that they were infected, maybe weeks before they presented at SickKids." 
Dr. Jeremy Friedman, associate paediatrician-in-chief, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto

Child with multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in this image.

There has latterly been news in the media of rare and serious complications where COVID-19 may be implicated, an uncertainty yet to be clarified, of small and alarming clusters of children being admitted to hospital with symptoms more commonly seen in Kawasaki disease, of inflammatory symptoms which if not successfully treated can lead to heart damage and even death. That's the unfolding news that COVID-19 has serious effects on some children. The more palatable news is that most children suffer few effects when infected by the disease.

According to Dr. LeSaux of CHEO, while reported cases of severe illness around the world among young children is alarming -- causing doctors everywhere to be on alert for such cases of a rare hyper-inflammatory syndrome, even in children who have tested negative for the disease, and these  unusual symptoms have been causing severe illness and occasionally death, in the worst-impacted parts of the world -- initial fears that children would become social vectors of the disease, transmitting it to others while themselves experiencing few symptoms, have not been borne out.

Doctors are puzzled by the demonstrated fact that for the most part, against all expectations,  children have been less seriously impacted by COVID symptoms than the general population as a whole. Children under age 19 represented merely 5.69 percent of all COVID cases confirmed to the present time. Across Canada a total of 34 children have been hospitalized for COVID-19 for treatment, only two of whom have required intensive care.

Children appear less likely to die from COVID  Science Photo Library

No children or teens under 19 have died from the novel infectious disease up to the present, while over 6,500 people in Canada have died from COVID to date. The conventional pattern of seasonal influenza was used initially as a guide by the medical community in their expectations of how this new virus would impact on children and by extension the entire community. With seasonal flu, children are frequently affected severely, and have been recognized as 'super-spreaders', where schools become epicentres of infection as children bring flu home and infect their parents and grandparents.

"It does not appear that way so far with COVID. The epidemiology appears different", pointed out Dr.LeSaux. According to evidence gathered globally, family clusters tend not to be launched with an infected child; furthermore only a small minority of children become infected, even when a household is infected with COVID-19, according to research out of Wuhan, China, where the SARS-CoV-2 virus initially emerged.

Fewer asymptomatic children are seen to test positive for COVID-19 in comparison to adults, and regions that have tested their entire populations have discovered that up to 2.6 percent of asymptomatic adults were seen as COVID-infected, yet no asymptomatic children were infected; whether attributable to children having a low viral load, is as yet unknown to health officials. Children's lungs have attracted some research, with their fewer receptors for the virus to attach to as compared to an adult.

The CPSP has launched a study that will collect data from 2,800 paediatricians across the country every week

Exercising to Keep Fit During COVID

"Keeping active indoors or outdoors through brisk walking, stair climbing, yard/housework and/or playing active games with the family can be just as effective [as formal training schedules]."
"What is important is that we avoid prolonged periods [over 60 minutes] of time sitting and try to implement even a few minutes of activity at regular intervals throughout the day."
Richard J.Simpson, Emmanuel Katsanis, immunology experts, University of Arizona

It just makes good common sense to understand that when someone with a lifetime habit of being active -- physically using their musculature rather than succumbing to a sedentary lifestyle -- practises the habit of healthy living. Not only does the muscular skeleton and the internal organs receive the kind of physical workout they were designed for, making for a healthier individual intent on seeing that body structure and internal organs don't languish and prematurely age, the process aids in boosting the body's immune system, making one less susceptible to infectious maladies.

Think of a virus such as SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses that deleteriously affect the upper-respiratory system. Well-exercised lungs that are challenged through physical exercise are better able to stave off serious infection. And a healthy heart is part of that raised immunity to forestalling the impact of a disease whose presence as a predator can result in heart failure linked to an impaired respiratory tract. Even the common cold is less likely to afflict people who exercise regularly and are more fit than their sedentary counterparts.

"The available scientific evidence from other viral infections would indicate that physically active people will have less severe symptoms, shorter recovery times, and may be less likely to infect others they come into contact with", the two authors, both immunobiologists from the University of Arizona, Tucson, write in an opinion piece published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity. As they emphasize remaining energetic throughout the COVID lockdown.


Any kind of workout, however modest, will have an improving effect on the capacity of the body to fight a virus; good results can be had from moderate to vigorous aerobic workouts of fewer than an hour's duration. Walking at any pace, strengthens the immune system. Exercise has a stress-reducing quality that is invaluable to the mental and physical state of anyone facing insecurity and concerns. Developing a habit of regular exercise boosts both mental and physical health.

Older people, thought of as being at the highest risk of COVID contagion, see exercise boosting immunity among the aged as well; committing to regular physical activity should be a general goal for anyone in any population. And it's good to know that dedicated exercisers need not increase their volume of exercise to realize the benefits of immunity against illness. Moderation, as in all things, appears to be key here.

Healthy food, exercise, sleep: likely provide some protection from COVID-19.

Bru-No via NeedPix.com

Combining a regular exercise routine with a healthy, nutritious diet is the optimum formula alongside a restful night's sleep of at least eight hours for most people. Plan on continuing daily brisk walks, even as the country relaxes the imposition of strict self-isolation guidelines. It will be months yet before experts feel confident the coronavirus threat can be reduced, for the most part if and when a vaccine against COVID-19 has been made widely available worldwide.

 

COVID Symptoms -- Amityville Horror

"They all did the right  thing. They wee all concerned about their friend. It  was horrible that they had to witness this."

"We don't know what they witnessed. There were a number of people on this conference call."

Suffolk County Police Detective Lt.Kevin Beyrer, homicide unit commanding officer

"This is a shocking and disturbing case."

 "By the defendant’s own admission, he brutally stabbed his father repeatedly until he was certain [the victim] was dead."

Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini.

Thomas Scully-Powers is pictured in police custody Friday, May 22, after being charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of his 72-year-old dad, Dwight Powers, in their Amityville, L.I., apartment yesterday. (News 12 Long Island)

Zoom has had a lot of bad press lately. The fairly new-on-the-scene video chat platform has been vulnerable to malicious intrusions with hackers displaying Nazi imagery, racist messages and child pornography during conference calls on Zoom. The platform has pledged to patch these vulnerabilities with security updates against the 'zoom bombers'. What they surely never might have anticipated was that their platform would be home to a sinister and deadly drama that suddenly ended someone's life while horrified conference-call 'attendees' watched.

Police have taken a man by the name of Thomas Scully-Powers, 32, to hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Injuries the man sustained from leaping out of a second-floor window from the home of his father. The same Scully-Powers has been charged with second-degree murder. He was last seen by 20 virtual attendees of a Zoom conference call with his father, 72-year-old Dwight Powers, naked and behaving quite erratically.

Since those same viewers had just seconds earlier seen their fellow conference-call attendee suddenly slump from his chair, disappearing from the screen, while heavy breathing was heard, it was relatively simple to imagine something quite, quite wrong had occurred in the home in Amityville, New York. Strange and frightening enough to those witnessing the event that several people on the video chat dialled 911.

In short order responding police officers knocked at the door of the house where they determined Dwight Powers lived, in fact within the hour they arrived at the address where the door was opened by the younger Scully-Powers who immediately on viewing the visitors slammed it shut and swiftly disappeared upstairs. Then leaped from a second-floor window, and fled.

He made his escape roughly a kilometre distance before he was arrested. Conference call witnesses informed police that they had watched aghast as a nude Scully-Powers stripped sheets from a bed to lay them on the floor, seemingly over something. And presumably that 'something' was the dead body of his father whom he had repeatedly stabbed until he was dead.

"Bedsheets were being ripped off the bed by a gentleman who appeared to be naked as well as bald and he had a tattoo on his left arm, and then he placed the bedsheets on the floor as if he was covering something up."

Unnamed witness

"By the defendant’s own admissions, he brutally stabbed his own father repeatedly until he was certain he was dead."  

"[Scully-Powers admitted he stabbed his father approximately 15 times and used] several different knives because the blades kept bending."

Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini

Amityville and Suffolk County police investigate a fatal stabbing at a Dixon Avenue residence in Amityville on Thursday. Credit: Paul Mazza

A Biblical Plague

"[Locusts] don't fly 24 hours a day like a particle. They take off in the morning after a certain time and land just before sunset at a certain time."

"And then they rest and they go again."

"So often we will get out-of-the-blue reports of swarms landing on the coast of the Red Sea."

"The concern of the recipient country is how many more swarms are we going to get and where are they coming from?"

Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer, UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Men try to repel locusts flying over grazing land in Lemasulani village, Samburu county, Kenya   Reuters

News bounced around the world lately of an historic surge of desert locusts whose wholesale numbers threaten agricultural crops that countries depend on to feed their populations. East Africa has seen a recent upsurge of arrivals of a plague of vegetation-devouring locusts darkening the skies as they fly over unfortunate countries, then settle in countless numbers to ravage the landscape below. Scientists eager to find ways to alert nations to defensive action have developed a sophisticated air pollution model in anticipation of where and when the pests are blown by prevailing winds.

Extreme rainfall creates breeding conditions that favour the destructive pests, and over the last year-and-a-half those conditions have created the perfect scenario to encourage a vast infestation of locusts threatening food availability from Africa to the Middle East where great swarms of desert locusts from the Arabian Peninsula began their rampage across East Africa, devouring vegetation anywhere they landed, in 2020. And wherever they landed a double plague of the novel coronavirus and the locusts have bedevilled those unfortunate geographies.

A desert locust is held in Katakw, Kenya    Getty Images

Ten countries in the Greater Horn of Africa along with Yemen experienced infestations of historic proportions, leading to a situation where over 42 million people could face "severe acute food insecurity", according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). March and April's heavy rainfall brought ideal conditions for waves of breeding locusts, leaving authorities desperate to find any protocol to help prepare for oncoming onslaughts.

Keith Cressman of the FAO has teamed up with scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. to develop a web app to be used in forecasting where wind will blow locusts once they've taken flight. An atmospheric model called HYSPLIT, powers the app, typically used by scientists to monitor the spread of pollution particles -- soot from power plants, ash from a volcanic eruption -- and their subsequent dispersal in the atmosphere. The app has been modified to track whatever is transported through the atmosphere, including locusts, as "passive flyers".

Desert locusts swarm in  Kenya on 31 March. Photograph: Sven Torfinn/FAO via AP

Dr. Cressman several years ago began the use of HYSPLIT in predicting where locust swarms were moving based on field observations. Now that the locust crisis intensified in East Asia, he realized the model could be used effectively should it be tweaked to account for some idiosyncratic aspects of locust behaviour which led him in Feburary to reach out to NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory in College Park, Maryland, to assess whether the daily cycle could be integrated into his model runs.

Following a few weeks of "very intensive, long discussions", the lab produced an initial version of a web app in March to model dozens of swarms at a time, predicting their location at five-minute intervals, seven days in advance, allowing Dr.Cressman to predict where swarms will land should they be flying at different altitudes, subject to various wind speeds and even different wind directions.Even where a recently spotted swarm originated can be worked out with the use of the model.

By June's end, a new generation of locusts will have hatched and matured to become "hungry teenagers" in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, stated Dr.Cressman, of a generation of locusts set to take flight in search of food around the time many East African farmers begin harvesting their spring crops. Anticipating where a swarm will strike next is viewed as integral to aiding local authorities conduct pesticide treatments to prevent crop losses.

A boy helps collect the remains of a sesame crop that was devastated by locusts in Somalia.

(Will Swanson / For The Times)

COVID-Confused? Here, Let Me Help!

What is obvious is what is known. The world is in a global pandemic. Of such a virulent nature that it has closed down society as it has developed over the years, presenting us with a faint resemblance of the familiar, where people are ordered to remain separate from others lest the opportunistic virus be given a clearer mandate through oblivious carelessness to infect ever greater numbers of the people than the five million already infected worldwide by its insidious, insistent, triumphant presence.

What is known is that this is a zoonotic, a virus that leaped the species chasm from wild animals to human animals, and that it first emerged in a city of northern China, Wuhan, in a province that became the first to be inundated with the virus, and consequently locked down, where so many presentations at hospitals swamped their capacity to react, and health workers began to succumb to its evil influence.

Known? That China sought at first when the virus initially presented and its own physicians began warning of an unusually dangerous presence of viral pneumonia and puzzling deaths, to deny that any unusual public health threat had arisen. It failed to give vital information to the World Health Organization to prepare to recognize a looming global threat, influencing a too-late declaration issued to the world at large of a global pandemic.

It is also known that in Europe, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom suffered vast numbers of infections; that Russia has been smothered with cases, that in North America the United States has succumbed to the virus with a fury, hospitalizing and killing thousands of health-vulnerable people. In the Middle East, Iran, though claiming otherwise, has seen COVID-19 strangle its population, while India and Africa are striving to control a pestilent disease that thrives within poverty-stricken crowded conditions.

It is well and truly known that the world economy is in tatters, that countries that took steps to attempt to protect their populations from the worst deadly effects of the SARS=CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 by shutting borders, businesses, social spaces, warning people to remain secluded indoors, venturing out only for emergencies, infrastructure and finances -- are in free-fall.

A Mexican flag stands on display next to a closed beach in the town of Bucerias, Nayarit state, Mexico, on Thursday, April 23, 2020. Cesar Rodriguez/Bloomberg

And there's more, much more:

• The elderly; those over 65 and well beyond are at higher risk of infection and ultimately losing their lives to COVID since risks tend to rise in lock-step with advanced age. But this is a very strange disease; some individuals aged 100 and even beyond who were infected, have recovered and somehow escaped the Grim Reaper. 
• Irrespective of age, those with such chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart disease and other serious health conditions are also at grave risk. The combination of age and any of these conditions accelerates the risk of lost mortality.
• Self-isolation; quarantining oneself is immensely useful, given that density is dangerous, representing a situation beloved of the virus which loves to send out emissaries from a host to those located conveniently nearby to represent yet another depository of viral danger. 
• Observe the differences in countries, where heavily-populated Germany went into lockdown and Sweden, heavily populated as well, deliberately failed to; so a low death rate occurred in Germany and a high rate in Sweden. This.is.not.rocket.science.
• In Florida notorious as a haven for the elderly, a low death-rate has been seen which studies explain is due to the majority of its vulnerably elderly chose to voluntarily remain within their homes, even in the absence of government-mandated lockdown.
• No evidence, only rumours, that heat or warmer weather may slow the disease spread or possibly deters its spread. Just as there is no evidence that when cold weather returns in the fall, a "second wave" of new outbreaks will occur.
• The world awaits a life-saving vaccine against COVID, though no one has any idea what it might be, how it could work, and when it will be discovered. On the other hand some scientist believe COVID will of its own volition fade away after 70 days of terror.

There, wasn't that useful? Don't you feel better already? Prepared to launch yourself off on a vacation to some exotic spot. If they aren't under quarantine. If they will permit entry. If you aren't too fearful to venture out. If there are flights to that destination. If you're prepared to distance yourself and to wear a mask to soothe the resentment of the locals that  you've come from abroad to threaten them with the possibility you might be carrying the virus while unsymptomatic....

How about Italy, China or Mongolia. Even Egypt or Portugal? All have high hopes to rescue their tourism season...

A visitor wearing a face mask following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak poses for pictures at the Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing, China, April 24, 2020.Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters

Security, Comfort, Safety - Forts for Children

"I feel like  you're in a safe place  your own bubble of cosiness."
"There are no other things affecting you -- you're blocked out from the world. Everything is wrong right now, but it's a safe space where no one worries about you."
"If you lock yourself in your room, people would worry, but if you hide in your fort all day, no worries."
Grayson Drewry, 22, Port Townsend, Washington

"Kids make sense of the world through play. In quarantine, all our needs are amplified."
"Everything is different. They're facing uncertainty -- not knowing how long we're going to be doing this."
"They're feeling what we're all feeling -- great loss."
"Whatever kids create in their imaginative world feels safe and predictable to them. It's like 'Every time I go into this fort, it will be just like I left it'."
"Don't mess with their fort. Let them go to town on making it feel safe and comfortable. It's theirs."
Emily King, child psychologist, Raleigh, North Carolina

"It's primal. [Our brains react with] self therapy."
"It's all aout safety and control. We seek out comfort. We need to restore order. And in COVID, we're doing more of these things."
Carol Stock Kranowitz, educator, author

In Forest Hill, Maryland, six-year-old Nacelle Bumford has several forts, including a tent near her mother's work spot she has named her "office". "We use them as her safe place", her mother explains. Inside the forts Nacelle gets two minutes of "cuddle time", an aid to normalcy and comfort for both mother and child. "She calls me into her 'office' for meetings that we both schedule on her calendar. It makes her feel in control of her day", said Linette Bumford.

David Sobel, professor emeritus at Antioch University's department of education, author of Children's Special Places: Exploring the Role of Forts, Dens and Bush Houses in Middle Childhood, explains that forts have always been important in childhood. He has done research across cultures on the developmental function that forts assume in children's lives, and he concluded they are universal, driven by "biological genetic disposition" as children develop a "sense of self", separate from parents.

According to Dr.Sobel, children initiate fort-building indoors about at age four, and then begin venturing to the outside two to three years on, to construct dens, treehouses and fort-like structures independently. Building forts reflect children's emotional growth as individuals as they create a "home away from home", away from parental control. "A lot of magic happens inside [a fort, fostering creativity", he explains.

For Grayson Drewry, a school assignment to take part in a fort-building competition, gave meaning to her life during a time of confusion. Her mother describes Grayson's seeking comfort in "nests" and forts when stressed. She transformed her bedroom in pastel-pink, building a tent made with sheets and pillows centrally propped by a mop, then decorated it with photographs, and spent most of her day inside. "I needed that!", she said to her mother.

Dr. Sobel pointed out that children now have more time to be creative as their developing brains need a break from computer time, so forts encourage play, beneficial for children, more acutely at the present time. Familiar routines suddenly disrupted, children have a need to feel in control of something, said Emily King. Therapeutic in nature for children, being in an enclosed dark space, sound buffered, the space creating separation from everything surrounding it, children on the autistic spectrum or with attention-deficit disorder can find it soothing.