pandemic
pandemic
While the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic recession it spawned have taken a huge toll on low and middle-income people across the globe, most members of the very exclusive club frequently referred to as the “super-rich” have been doing just fine, thank you. In fact, a recent report prepared by veteran policy analyst Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies for the website Inequality.org, put it this way...
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It’s been almost 90 years since humorist Will Rogers uttered his famous lament: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” Sadly, for that party and, no doubt, quite amusingly for those otherwise affiliated, the observation would still hold were Rogers alive today.
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After schools closed to in-person instruction in March 2020, PBS North Carolina (then known as UNC-TV) provided students learning from home with broadcast and online educational content aligned as closely as possible to the NC Standard Course of Study. Curated materials – content created by others – were used during what the NC Department of Public Instructions and PBS North Carolina officials called Phase 1 of the ambitious At Home Learning Initiative.
The second phase began in August 2020 with North Carolina teacher-generated content supporte ...
Vaccine refusal is a major reason COVID-19 infections continue to surge in the U.S. Safe and effective vaccines have been available for months, but as of mid-September 2021, only 65% of eligible American adults are fully vaccinated. In many areas, a majority of eligible adults haven’t taken advantage of the opportunity to get vaccinated. In the U.S., polling on intent to get vaccinated shows a massive political divide.
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Veteran epidemiologist and ethicist is fearful university leaders have not learned vital lessons from last year As students return for the fall semester at UNC-Chapel Hill Wednesday, Dr. Jim Thomas is having an uneasy sense of déjà vu. “I’m very uneasy about what I’m seeing,” said Thomas, a professor emeritus in the Epidemiology department at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. “Or what I’m seeing again.”
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The Delta variant of COVID-19 is “several-fold” more transmissible than the Alpha variant, making mask mandates in schools more important than ever, a Duke University professor of pediatrics said Wednesday. Dr. Danny Benjamin’s advice comes as most of North Carolina’s 1.5 million school children prepare to return to classrooms and school boards wrestle with whether to adopt mask mandates amid surging COVID infections.
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I am angry. You are angry. Hell, the entire nation is angry. But what makes this such a challenging time is that we are not all angry about the same things. I am angry that we have developed vaccines that dramatically prevent the spread of COVID, but that in much of the country, the vaccine itself is treated as if it were the plague.
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Americans have always been, in many respects, an optimistic and forward-looking people. Ours, happily, is not a nation overly obsessed with settling old international scores and grudges or constantly addressing perceived slights from past adversaries. One flip side to this admirable tendency, however, is what frequently amounts to a short collective memory.
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It’s a new year, but the pandemic and its many harms to the people and communities across our state continue to deepen. As families are struggling to put food on the table and stay up-to-date on bills and rent, landlords and neighborhood businesses are struggling as well, and the ability of neighborhoods, communities, and the economy to start a recovery will stall.
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There are a lot of reasons that all Americans – at least those willing to think and pay attention– should feel a profound sense of hope and optimism as a new presidential administration takes the helm of the ship of state this week. Perhaps most obvious is the simple fact that we’re not where we were four years ago at this moment: watching the assumption of power by an administration for which chaos, corruption and credible questions regarding its loyalty to the nation would quickly become hallmarks.
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Looking back on the pandemic, some of its many disturbing impacts, and one community's controversial plan to revive its economy In a year upended and dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Policy Watch covered the crisis with daily stories and investigative pieces from the institutional to the personal.
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As 2020 draws to a close, the COVID-19 pandemic continues have a devastating economic impact on North Carolinians. Many businesses remain closed or are operating at limited capacity; some have closed permanently. More than 1.3 million North Carolinians applied for benefits between March 15 and Dec. 16, according to data released last week by the N.C. Department of Commerce’s Division of Employment Security. More than 40,000 people filed claims last week alone.
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In a time of multiple and unprecedented challenges to individuals and societal well-being, our nation badly needs to pull back from the growing acrimony that plagues us and revisit our many shared values. It won’t be easy to gradually return to patient talking – and listening – to each other. However, lessons from the ongoing global pandemic provide a critically important opportunity to spring forward to “a better normal” in dealing with the even larger crisis of climate change.
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Front-line medical workers in North Carolina need more personal protective equipment, work flexibility and reinforcements from new and returning nurses and doctors as COVID-19 numbers climb. "[Nurses and hospital workers] certainly consider themselves to be your front-line soldiers in this effort," Tina Gordon, CEO of the North Carolina Nurses Association, told the legislative Health Care work group, a subcommittee of the House Select Committee on COVID-19.
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