Great crises tend to bring profound social change, for good or ill. The consequences of wars and economic depressions have been amply studied; the consequences of pandemics, less so. This spring, in order to understand our possible future, I decided to look at the past through the eyes of Gianna Pomata, a retired professor at the Institute of the History of Medicine, at Johns Hopkins University. When we first talked, on Skype, she immediately compared COVID-19 to the bubonic plague that struck Europe in the fourteenth century—“not in the number of dead but in terms of shaking up the way people think.” She went on, “The Black Death really marks the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of something else.” That something else was the Renaissance.
Since retiring, Pomata has returned to her home town, the old city of Bologna. “You know Bologna, right?” she asked in that first conversation, on March 27th. Decades ago, I was the best man at a wedding there. I recalled the giant churches, the red-tiled roofs, the marble walkways under arched porticoes; a stately city, low-slung, amber-hued, full of students, and indomitable old couples. During the Middle Ages, Bologna was home to more than a hundred towers, the skyscrapers of their era, which served as showplaces of wealth and ambition for powerful oligarchs. Two of the remaining ones have become symbols of Bologna: one slightly out of plumb, the other as cockeyed as its cousin in Pisa. “You remember the Piazza Maggiore, the very heart of the city near the two towers?” Pomata said. “That’s where I live.”
The Black Forest is a mountainous region in southwest Germany, bordering France. Known for its dense, evergreen forests and picturesque villages, it is often associated with the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.It’s renowned for its spas and the cuckoo clocks produced in the region since the 1700s. The region’s largest town, Freiburg, is filled with Gothic buildings and surrounded by vineyards.
Not even the risk of acquiring a possibly fatal disease could deter Sam Reck from seeing his dying wife a final time.
Three weeks after a deathbed reunion with his beloved JoAnn, Sam Reck died. The couple was christened as “Romeo and Juliet” for their distant visits at Florida Presbyterian Homes, where pandemic restrictions prevented closer contact.
Reck, 90, died Aug. 1 after contracting COVID-19, the viral illness that claimed his wife on July 12, family members said. He died at Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center, just as JoAnn had.
Montezuma is a town in the southern part of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. It’s known for its long stretch of white-sand beach, Playa Montezuma. To the northeast, a trail leads through the jungle and around coves to Playa Grande, a popular surf beach. Behind the beach is Romelia Wildlife Reserve, a turtle sanctuary and hatchery. Montezuma Waterfall comprises a series of cascades and natural pools.
When researcher Monica Gandhi began digging deeper into outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, she was struck by the extraordinarily high number of infected people who had no symptoms.
A Boston homeless shelter had 147 infected residents, but 88 percent had no symptoms even though they shared their living space. A Tyson Foods poultry plant in Springdale, Ark., had 481 infections, and 95 percent were asymptomatic. Prisons in Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia counted 3,277 infected people, but 96 percent were asymptomatic.
During its seven-month global rampage, the coronavirus has claimed more than 700,000 lives. But Gandhi began to think the bigger mystery might be why it has left so many more practically unscathed.
What was it about these asymptomatic people, who lived or worked so closely to others who fell severely ill, she wondered, that protected them? Did the “dose” of their viral exposure make a difference? Was it genetics? Or might some people already have partial resistance to the virus, contrary to our initial understanding?
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Muslim pilgrims wearing face masks and keeping social distance last week during the annual Haj pilgrimage in Mecca. (Saudi Press Agency/Via Reuters)
When you’re training from home, you want workouts you can do with one kettlebell. They’re simple but offer more than enough ways to make challenging creative sweat sessions.
Kettlebells offer unique advantages over dumbbells because the unbalanced weight constantly challenges your grip and stability flexors. Additionally, kettlebells allow you to focus on functional movements that will have a carryover to athletic performance. And above all, kettlebells are just plain fun to use.
These workouts were designed by Tyler Manzo, a fitness instructor at Brick New York. All you need is one kettlebell. You’ll notice there are similarities between the workouts—choose one that fits the time you have, and try a different one the next time. Even though there are programming and exercise carryovers throughout these routines, they’re distinct enough so that you’ll keep getting results as long as you don’t stick to any one workout for too many weeks on end. (Note that these workouts are not meant to comprise a complete program.)
So, go ahead and invest in a kettlebell or two to keep in your house—that way, you never have a reason to skip your workout.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Life goes on
Muslim pilgrims wearing face masks and keeping social distance last week during the annual Haj pilgrimage in Mecca. (Saudi Press Agency/Via Reuters)
