It's been rainy here in San Jose and throughout the Bay Area the past few days and nights, which is a welcome end, presumably, to the worst fire season on record.
As the pandemic continues and its longer term impacts are becoming more apparent, researchers are focusing on how isolation affects various segments of the population.
Many adults of all ages are reporting memory problems, says Claudia Hammond, writing in BBC Future.
"(E) ven some of those amazing people who usually remember events like buying a cinema ticket 20 years earlier because they have highly superior autobiographical memory are finding they are forgetting things."
Also, Alzheimer's patients and others with dementia are showing particularly serious mental damage.
But, as KQED's Lesley McClurg reports, not all seniors are suffering. "Recent research reveals older populations are less consumed by pandemic depression than those who are younger. According to a recent study, some seniors have even expanded their social support network during the lockdown.
“They've been finding ways to adapt and cope,” said Ashwin Kotwal, a UCSF geriatrician.
“They're finding creative ways to interact with family members through
Zoom, taking dance classes online or joining virtual book clubs."
This all makes sense to me. Older people don't always live out the stereotype that they can't
adapt to new circumstances. But when they are confined to nursing homes, older people may
decline more rapidly than if they are living out in the general population. The peer pressure in
nursing homes is skewed toward decline.
From what I've been able to observe, children are also adapting rapidly to the new exigencies
necessitating remote learning, social distance and masking. though like all of us they have
good days and bad days, young children don't really have much of a context prior to Covid to
hold them back.
No, the part of the population that worries me most is not seniors or kids but those in their
20s, 30s and 40s. These are usually the highly social years, when you meet lots of new people,
form relationships, start families, change jobs and move around geographically.
I have a lot of friends in these groups from my many jobs over the past 30 years and I worry
about them when they talk to me and sound like they are increasingly feeling trapped.
And especially, I worry about each person looking for love in the time of a pandemic, but that's
a whole other topic.
"Seek and ye shall find?"
Maybe, maybe not.
* The Vaccines Will Probably Work. Making Them Fast Will Be the Hard Part. -- Front-runners in the coronavirus vaccine race won’t make nearly as many doses this year as were predicted, but they may kick into high gear next year. (NYT)
* Congress’s stimulus impasse must end — even if it means Democrats accepting a smaller deal (Editorial/WashPo)
* A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to stop expelling immigrant children who cross the southern border alone, halting a policy that has resulted in thousands of rapid deportations of minors during the coronavirus pandemic. (AP)
* Recession With a Difference: Women Face Special Burden -- Hit hard by job losses and the pandemic’s effect on schooling and child care, American women face short-term difficulties and long-term repercussions. (NYT)
* New York City to close public schools and return to all-remote learning as virus cases rise (WashPo)
* Emily Murphy, the Trump-appointed head of the General Services Administration, has yet to certify Biden as the winner of the U.S. election, freeing money and clearing the way for Biden’s team to begin placing transition personnel at federal agencies. [AP]
* A quarter of a million Americans have died from the coronavirus, passing the number Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted in March. Experts predict that the U.S. will soon be reporting 2,000 deaths a day or more, matching or exceeding the spring peak. (NYT)
* Positive news on the vaccine front provided a much needed shot-in-the-arm early in the week, but as coronavirus cases soar and election uncertainty lingers, the challenges of the immediate, quickly brought the market back to reality. The indicators point to more choppy sideways markets ahead. ( Randy Frederick/ Schwab)
* Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says Trump could have won the state by 10,000 votes ― if he hadn’t discouraged the votes of his own supporters. Instead, Biden won the state by 14,000 votes. Raffensperger told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB that the president hurt his own cause by discouraging mail-in voting, which he portrayed as a “scam.” [HuffPost]
* Rep. Nancy Pelosi was elected by House Democrats to serve again as speaker of the House in the next session of Congress. (NPR)
* New Study Confirms Sharks Just Really Angry Dolphins (The Onion)
***
To my sweet friend; to all my sweet friends:
And the night
The night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough
Of this life
Well hang on
Don't let yourself go
'Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone (hold on)
(Hold on) if you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you've had too much
Of this life
Well, hang on
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts
Don't throw your hand
Oh, no
Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you're not alone
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