Humanity must ‘tackle two crises at once,’ says Greta Thunberg of climate and COVID-19 on 50th Earth Day

April 22, 2020 By Common Dreams


4 VIDEOS ARE AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE

U.N. Chief António Guterres declared the pandemic “an unprecedented wake-up call” and urged world leaders to pursue a “green recovery.”

The 50th annual global Earth Day coming amid the coronavirus pandemic sparked fresh demands from Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, and others for the international community to simultaneously tackle the COVID-19 and climate crises.

“Today is Earth Day and that reminds us that the climate and environmental emergency is still ongoing and we need to tackle both the corona pandemic, this crisis, at the same time as we tackle climate and environmental emergency, because we need to be able to tackle two crises at once,” said 17-year-old Thunberg.

She emphasized that while it is always “important” and “essential” to be guided by science, “during crises like this it is even more important that we listen to scientists, science, and to the experts. That goes for all crises, whether it’s the corona crisis or whether it’s the climate crisis.”

Thunberg’s comments came in a livestreamed conversation with Johan Rockström, a Swedish professor who is joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, hosted by the Nobel Prize Museum. The teen activist, also a Swede, has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price.

Thunberg’s youth-led climate action movement Fridays for Future marked Earth Day by releasing a short video entitled “Our House Is On Fire,” evoking a speech the activist delievered at the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in Davos, Switzerland in January 2018.

“We believe it’s time people realize that climate change isn’t going to happen, but that it’s already happening,” Fridays for Future U.S. spokesperson Joe Hobbs said in a statement. “We hope that by watching this video people will realize they need to take action now, instead of putting it off until later.”

During a video address Wednesday, Guterres said: “On this International Mother Earth Day, all eyes are on the COVID-19 pandemic—the biggest test the world has faced since the Second World War. We must work together to save lives, ease suffering, and lessen the shattering economic and social consequences.

“But there is another deep emergency—the planet’s unfolding environmental crisis,” he added. “Biodiversity is in steep decline. Climate disruption is approaching a point of no return. We must act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption.”

Guterres declared that “the current crisis is an unprecedented wake-up call” and outlined six “climate-related actions to shape the recovery and the work ahead,” urging world leaders to pursue a green recovery from the pandemic that ensures “a healthy and resilient future for people and planet alike.”

As the coronavirus has spread across the globe, killing nearly 180,000 people, infecting more than 2.59 million, and devastating the world’s economy, climate and environmental activists have called for a global Green New Deal and just recovery that prioritizes a rapid transition to renewable energy and other efforts to reduce planet-heating emissions and pollution more broadly. Recent studies tying poor air quality to COVID-19 deaths have added weight to those demands.

The U.N. chief’s comments Wednesday were welcome by 350.org, a global environmental advocacy group leading the calls for a just recovery from the public health crisis:

#EarthDay2020 BREAKING: Secretary General of @UN calls on governments to use their economic response to the Coronavirus pandemic to respond to the “even deeper emergency” of #ClimateCrisis with #JustRecovery for all (via @ReutersUK
) https://t.co/COCJ4AqycV #FightEveryCrisis
— 350 dot org (@350) April 22, 2020

Author and activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, discussed Earth Day, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic on Democracy Now! Wednesday morning. McKibben’s interview echoed his piece for The New Yorker last week entitled “How We Can Build a Hardier World After the Coronavirus.”

Among the key messages that the coronavirus pandemic is sending the world, according to McKibben, is the importance of listening to science. As he put it during the show: “If they say stand six feet apart, we stand six feet apart. If they say it’s time to stop burning coal and gas and oil, then that’s what we need to do.”

“Similarly, we’re learning lessons about delay in timing here that are crucial,” McKibben continued. “As you know, the countries that flattened the coronavirus curve early on are doing far better than those like ours, which delayed. That’s a pretty perfect analog to the 30 years that we’ve wasted in the climate crisis.”

“And I think third, maybe most powerfully,” he added, “the lesson that we’re learning is social solidarity is almost everything.”

Addressing how the ongoing coronavirus-related lockdowns have caused a massive decline in emissions and pollution around the world, McKibben said that “there are people on Earth who are getting literally their first lungfuls of clean air this month in their lives… Even as we all live through the horror of this pandemic, there are people who are glimpsing the way that the world could be.”

Facebook ‘complicit’ in Vietnam censorship: Amnesty

April 22, 2020 By Agence France-Presse

Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Facebook of “caving” to Vietnam’s strict censorship regime, after the US tech giant confirmed it was blocking content deemed illegal by the country’s communist government.

Authorities regularly sentence domestic critics to harsh prison terms but have come under fire recently for targeting dissent on the world’s most popular social network.
Facebook is a popular platform for activists in Vietnam, where all independent media is banned, but the company confirmed in a statement to AFP that it had been instructed by Hanoi to restrict access to content “deemed to be illegal”.

“We have taken this action to ensure our services remain available and usable for millions of people in Vietnam, who rely on them every day,” a spokesperson said.

But Amnesty said the decision was “a devastating turning point for freedom of expression” in the country.

“Ruthless suppression of freedom of expression is nothing new, but Facebook’s shift in policy makes them complicit,” said the rights watchdog’s William Nee.

More than 53 million people in Vietnam — over half the population — use Facebook. The platform is also a crucial marketing tool for local business.

Domestic social media networks have so far failed to win a share of that lucrative online market.

Since the beginning of the year, authorities have questioned hundreds of Facebook users over posts connected to the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s handling of the health crisis.

Several were slapped with fines and had their posts removed after admitting they had spread “fake news”.

The government introduced a new regulation this month that makes it easier for authorities to fine and jail online critics.

Around 10 percent of Vietnam’s current crop of political prisoners were jailed because of their activity on Facebook, Amnesty says.

© 2020 AFP

2019 was Europe’s hottest year ever: EU


April 22, 2020 By Agence France-Press


Last year was the hottest in history across Europe as temperature records were shattered by a series of extreme heatwaves, the European Union’s satellite monitoring surface said Wednesday.

In its annual report on the state of the climate, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that 11 of the continent’s 12 warmest years on record have been since 2000 as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

Warm conditions and summer heatwaves contributed to widespread drought across southern Europe, while areas of the Arctic were close to one degree Celsius hotter than a typical year, it said.

Overall, temperatures across Europe have been 2C hotter during the last five years than they were in the latter half of the 19th century, C3S’s data showed.

2019 globally was second-hottest only to 2016, a year that experienced an exceptionally strong El Nino warming event.

C3S director Carlo Buontempo said that while 2019 was Europe’s hottest year on record, it was important to focus on the continent’s long-term heating.

“One exceptional warm year does not constitute a warming trend, but to have detailed information from our operational service, that covers many different aspects of our climate, we are able to connect the dots to learn more about how it is changing,” he said.

Some parts of Europe experienced periods up to 4C hotter than the historic baseline last year, and heatwaves — notably in June and July — saw temperature records shattered in France, Germany and Britain.

The Paris climate deal commits nations to limit global temperature rises to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels.

To do so, and to stand any hope of meeting the accord’s more ambitious cap of 1.5C of warming, the UN says emissions from fossil fuel use must fall 7.6 percent annually by 2030.

– ‘Massive emissions reductions’ –
While carbon pollution levels are expected to drop significantly in 2020 due to the economic slowdown from the pandemic, there are fears that emissions will surge back once a vaccine is found.

“The response to the COVID-19 crisis could exacerbate the climate crisis if bailouts of the fossil fuel industry and fossil-intensive sectors are not conditional on a transition to clean technologies,” said Cameron Hepburn, director of the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

Andrew Shepherd, director of the University of Leeds’ Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, said C3S’s data was all the more worrying as it foreshadowed accelerated melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

“We can’t avoid the rapid changes in climate that are happening around our planet, even if they occur miles away in the polar regions, because they affect our weather today and will affect our coastlines in the future,” he said.

Anna Jones, a climate scientist at British Antarctic Survey, said she wasn’t surprised by the C3S findings.

“Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are obstinately increasing as a result of human activity,” she said.

“With this rise come changes in our climate – warming trends and events of extreme weather.”

“For things to improve, we need massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – there is no other way,” Jones added.

© 2020 AFP

Senators want to ban U.S. from purchasing animals from China's 'wet markets'


Dareh Gregorian,
NBC News•April 22, 2020


A bipartisan group of senators is proposing a bill to ban the U.S. from buying animals from the Chinese "wet markets" that have been blamed for outbreaks including the current coronavirus crisis.

The government has previously used animals — including cats and dogs — purchased at those markets in gruesome experiments at a federal lab in Maryland.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said the purchases effectively subsidized the markets, which are believed to be the source of the current crisis as well as the 2002 SARS outbreak.

“As Iowans, and all Americans, continue to battle COVID-19, we need to do all we can to ensure something like this never happens again. That includes preventing any more American tax dollars from going to unregulated ‘wet markets’ in China,” Ernst said.

The bill proposed by Ernst and Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., would ban agencies and government grantees and contractors from spending money at the markets.
 

Image: Feline (WCW)

NBC News reported last year that U.S. government scientists had bought hundreds of dogs and cats from "meat markets" in China and Vietnam that were then euthanized and fed to cats at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service's Animal Parasitic Disease Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland.

The experiments — some of which the agency said in scientific reports were aimed at studying a parasite that causes the food-borne illness toxoplasmosis — are believed to have been conducted between 2003 and 2015.

Jim Keen, a former USDA scientist, told NBC News the experiments sounded "crazy." "Cannibal cats, cats eating dogs — I don't see the logic," Keen said.

The A.R.S. announced it was permanently halting the experiments after the NBC News report.

The White Coat Waste Project, a non-profit that combats wasteful government spending on animal testing and waged a year-long campaign against the cat experiments, applauded the senators for their bill, which it said would "ensure government employees don’t ever go on another taxpayer-funded shopping spree for cats, dogs or any other animals" at the markets.

"The government never should have spent taxpayer dollars at China's wet markets, and this bill will make sure it never does again,” said Justin Goodman, the groups vice president of advocacy and public policy.

'The call has been answered': Animal shelters across the U.S. are emptying amid coronavirus pandemic

Cameron Oakes, NBC News•April 19, 2020

Megan Lemaire always wanted a dog growing up, but was never allowed to have one.

So when Lemaire, a 22-year-old student at Washington University in St. Louis, heard that area shelters needed foster families to care for animals during the coronavirus outbreak, she and her roommate applied to provide a home to a pet in need.

They drove to the shelter, where they were paired with the second dog they met — Vorhees, a pitbull mix. "We just really loved her," Lemaire said.

As coronavirus spreads across the U.S., Americans in some of the country's hardest-hit regions have stepped up to foster and adopt animals, keeping them out of shelters. NBC News contacted shelters and animal advocacy organizations with facilities in California, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Texas, Washington, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and North Carolina. Every single organization said it was overwhelmed by the outpouring of community support that got animals out of shelters and into loving foster and adoptive homes.

Megan Lemaire takes her foster dog, Vorhees, on a walk in St. Louis.

 Vorhees has lived with Megan and her roommate for three weeks. (Arno Goetz)

Humane Society of the United States President and CEO Kitty Block said that the organization has worked with its 400 shelter partners to spread the word about the need to clear shelters by placing pets with foster and adoptive homes. "The call has been answered," Block said.

Matt Bershadker, president and CEO of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), said that the organization has seen a 70 percent increase in animals entering foster care in their New York City and Los Angeles programs compared to this time last year.

In Los Angeles, Bershadker said the organization is delivering kittens to foster and adoptive families using ride-sharing apps. A spokesperson for Los Angeles County Animal Services told NBC News in an email that the county placed 307 animals in foster care and found homes for 919 pets in March.

Health & Wellness
Victoria Gingrey, a spokesperson for The Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County in hard-hit Washington state, told NBC News that the shelter has placed 475 animals in adoptive homes since March 1. The shelter had only 25 animals available for adoption as of Wednesday, which Gingrey said is "pretty low" for this time of year.

The Liberty Humane Society shelter in Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from the pandemic's epicenter in New York City, put out a plea to the public to foster pets, but Executive Director Irene Borngraeber said she did not know whether people would step up to care for the animals.

Borngraeber said the shelter was "overwhelmed" by the level of response they received from the public. "We were actually able to place every single one of our animals into foster care, the day before [New Jersey's] shelter-in-place order formally went into place," she said.

Baytown Texas Adoption Center was able to clear out its shelter by March 28. The shelter, just 30 minutes outside of Houston, had no foster program in place when the state announced its first coronavirus case on March 4. But April Moore, the animal services manager for the city, said that the shelter began building a foster program on March 16. Just eight days later, the shelter placed its first dog in a foster home. The shelter had just one dog left in its care when NBC News spoke to Moore on Wednesday.


In Georgia, shelters have also found success placing animals in adoptive and foster homes. "We've seen an incredible outpouring of support," Atlanta Humane Society Spokesperson Christina Hill, said. "It's been really heartwarming to see that."

Hill told NBC News that the shelter has placed 217 animals in foster homes since March 11, and found 151 animals permanent homes between March 11 and 15. As of Tuesday, Atlanta Humane Society had only 15 animals in the shelter.

And between April 5 and April 12, Chicago Animal Care and Control had no adoptable animals, according to an emailed statement from spokesperson Jennifer Schlueter.

Now for the bad news

The shelters are empty now, but experts worry about the future.
Shelter directors told NBC News they worry that the economic impact of the pandemic, which hit the U.S. at the start of peak breeding season, may cause an influx of homeless pets in the coming months.

Early spring marks the beginning of "kitten season," when animals tend to reproduce in large numbers. Usually, shelters work with animal control officers to trap and sterilize homeless animals to combat overpopulation. And new adoptions are spayed or neutered before the adoption process is completed.

But most of the shelters NBC News contacted have halted spay and neutering procedures, saving surgical veterinary care and essential supplies for the sickest animals. The Humane Society of Greater Miami is spaying and neutering shelter animals once per week, but the clinic is closed to the general public.

Susie, a dog fostered and adopted during the coronavirus pandemic, plays with her new owner. (Courtesy Atlanta Humane Society)

With an estimated 22 million Americans now unemployed, the shelter directors said that they worry it will be difficult to find homes for the surge in newborn animals they expect to see, and that already-adopted pets may be surrendered by families that can no longer afford to care for them.

The majority of shelters NBC News spoke to have programs to get pet food to families in need. Other shelters, like the Humane Society of Greater Miami, do not have a pet food bank but provide the food and supplies foster families need to care for their pets.

Bershadker said that the ASPCA has provided 9,000 pets with food at its distribution centers in New York City, Miami, Fla., Asheville, N.C., and Los Angeles. He said the organization expects to serve 100,000 pets by mid June.

"The idea behind this is to provide the critical resources to pet owners so that they can responsibly keep and care for the pets that they love and they're bonded to — keep them out of the shelter in the first place," Bershadker said.

And with at least 720,000 coronavirus cases in the U.S. as of Saturday, shelters are concerned they may see an influx of animals surrendered or abandoned by sick owners.

Scott Giacoppo, president of the National Animal Care and Control Association, told NBC News that the best way to prevent that type of overcrowding is to make a plan for what will happen to a pet if the owner becomes sick with COVID-19. He said that owners should put a list of multiple people who would take their pet in on their front door, along with contact information and care instructions, in case animal control is called for an unresponsive pet owner.

Ziggy plays with his new owner and two of his foster kitten housemates. He was fostered and adopted during the coronavirus pandemic. (Courtesy Atlanta Humane Society)

If foster families are no longer able to care for their animals, the shelters NBC News spoke to said they either recruit a new family to take the animal or take the animal in while they try to find the animal a new home. "While we always want to empower our foster care providers to take an active role in helping the pet in their care find their new home," said Moore. "We are also prepared to take a pet back into care at the shelter when or if the need arises."

Hill said that more than 70 percent of the animals in Atlanta Humane Society's foster care program have already been adopted. But she emphasized that it is important for foster families to try to let the shelter know as soon as possible if they can no longer care for the pet, so that the shelter can find another home.

Shelters are also in need of more financial and material donations to help provide essential care for their animals. But James Bias, executive director of the Connecticut Humane Society, said that it is important to find out what a local shelter needs before trying to donate. "Reach out. Check their website, check their social media," Bias said. "Don't assume that they're going to need certain things and just show up with those items."

In St. Louis, Lemaire has now had Vorhees at home for three weeks. In addition to the comfort of daily dog snuggles, Lemaire said having a dog has provided a lot of structure to a schedule that would have otherwise revolved around remote classes. Lemaire said she does not plan to adopt Vorhees because of the uncertainty of post-graduate life, and has worked with the organization she fosters for, the Center for Animal Rescue and Enrichment STL, to place the dog in a permanent home. Lemaire said that the experience has been "a true dream come true."

New analysis recommends less reliance on ventilators to treat coronavirus patients

By SHARON BEGLEY APRIL 21, 2020

ADOBE

By using ventilators more sparingly on Covid-19 patients, physicians could reduce the more-than-50% death rate for those put on the machines, according to an analysis published Tuesday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

The authors argue that physicians need a new playbook for when to use ventilators for Covid-19 patients — a message consistent with new treatment guidelines issued Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health, which advocates a phased approach to breathing support that would defer the use of ventilators if possible.

As the pandemic has flooded hospitals with a disease that physicians had never before seen, health care workers have had to figure out treatment protocols on the fly. Starting this month, a few physicians have voiced concern that some hospitals have been too quick to put Covid-19 patients on mechanical ventilators, that elderly patients in particular may have been harmed more than helped, and that less invasive breathing support, including simple oxygen-delivering nose prongs, might be safer and more effective.

The new analysis, from an international team of physician-researchers, supports what had until now been mainly two hunches: that some of the Covid-19 patients put on ventilators didn’t need to be, and that unusual features of the disease can make mechanical ventilation harmful to the lungs.

“This is one of the first coherent, comprehensive, and reasonably clear discussions of the pathophysiology of Covid-19 in the lungs that I’ve seen,” said palliative care physician Muriel Gillick of Harvard Medical School, who was one of the first to ask if ventilators were harming some Covid-19 patients, especially elderly ones. “There is mounting evidence that lots of patients are tolerating fairly extreme” low levels of oxygen in the blood, suggesting that such hypoxemia should not be equated with the need for a ventilator.

If a Covid-19 patient is clearly struggling to breathe, then invasive ventilation makes sense, wrote Marcus Schultz of Amsterdam University Medical Centers and his colleagues.

But using low levels of blood oxygen (hypoxemia) as a sign that a patient needs mechanical ventilation can lead physicians astray, they argue, because low blood oxygen in a Covid-19 patient is not like low blood oxygen in other patients with, for instance, other forms of pneumonia or sepsis.

The latter typically gasp for breath and can barely speak, but many Covid-19 patients with oxygen levels in the 80s (the high 90s are normal) and even lower are able to speak full sentences without getting winded and in general show no other signs of respiratory distress, as their hypoxemia would predict.

Related:
With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19

“In our personal experience, hypoxemia … is often remarkably well tolerated by Covid-19 patients,” the researchers wrote, in particular by those under 60. “The trigger for intubation should, within certain limits, probably not be based on hypoxemia but more on respiratory distress and fatigue.”

Absent clear distress, they say, blood oxygen levels of coronavirus patients don’t need to be raised above 88%, a much lower goal than in other causes of pneumonia.

Without effective drugs, surviving severe Covid-19 depends on supportive care, including breathing support where necessary. But recommendations for that care are largely based on guidelines for other viral pneumonias and sepsis. That explains the second reason ventilators aren’t helping more patients: Covid-19 affects the lungs differently than other causes of severe pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome, the researchers point out, confirming what physicians around the world are starting to realize.

In this video, we look at how ventilators work, and how they are used to treat patients with Covid-19.

For one thing, the thick mucus-like coating on the lungs developed by many Covid-19 patients impedes the lungs from taking up the delivered oxygen.

For another, unlike in other pneumonias the areas of lung damage in Covid-19 can sit right next to healthy tissue, which is elastic. Forcing oxygen-enriched air (in some cases, 100% oxygen) into elastic tissue at high pressure and in large volumes can cause leaks, pulmonary edema (swelling), and inflammation, among other damage, contributing to “ventilator-induced injury and increased mortality” in Covid-19, the researchers wrote.

“Invasive ventilation can be lifesaving, but can also damage the lung,” Schultz told STAT.

It’s important to highlight “aspects of Covid-19 that differ from other diseases that require respiratory support,” said Phil Rosenthal of the University of California, San Francisco, editor of the journal. Patients with Covid-19 pneumonia are often less breathless “compared to other patients with similar [blood oxygen] levels,” he said, adding that this difference “may allow physicians to avoid intubation/ventilator support in some patients.”

There is a growing recognition that some Covid-19 patients, even those with severe disease as shown by the extent of lung infection, can be safely treated with simple nose prongs or face masks that deliver oxygen.The latter include CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) masks used for sleep apnea, or BiPAP (bi-phasic positive airway pressure) masks used for congestive heart failure and other serious conditions. CPAP can also be delivered via hoods or helmets, reducing the risk that patients will expel large quantities of virus into the air and endanger health care workers.

Earlier this month, the Mount Sinai Health System in New York developed a protocol to repurpose sleep apnea machines for Covid-19 patients, while in Rhode Island, the Department of Public Health, University of Rhode Island, and others are collecting the devices for hospitals to use instead of ventilators where possible.

“We use CPAP a lot, and it works well, especially in combination with having patients lie prone,” Schultz said.

The Covid-19 treatment guidelines released by the NIH do not specifically address what criteria physicians should use for putting patients on a ventilator. But in a recognition of the damage that the ventilators can do, they recommend a phased approach to breathing support: oxygen delivered by simple nose prongs, escalating if necessary to one of the positive-pressure devices, and intubation only if the patient’s respiratory status deteriorates. If mechanical ventilation becomes necessary, the NIH said, it should be used to deliver only low volumes of oxygen, reflecting the risk of damaging healthy lung tissue.

“Patients can tolerate low oxygen levels in the blood often remarkably well,” Schultz said. “They do not need to be intubated [unless levels are] getting too extremely low for too long.” Some patients “were asked to get off their cell phone because they had to be intubated,” he added. “That is not necessary, and we frequently decided not to intubate."

This story has been updated with additional comments from outside experts.

About the Author
Sharon Begley
Senior Writer, Science and Discovery

Thousands turn to backyard 'victory gardens' during pandemic

Nate and Josie Harlow, ages 7 and 4, respectively, plant tomatoes in their family victory garden near Lake City, Fla. Photo courtesy of Erin Harlow/University of Florida
ORLANDO, Fla., April 21 (UPI) -- Large numbers of Americans have started vegetable gardens while staying home as the coronavirus pandemic complicates grocery shopping and interrupts food supply chains.

University extension offices in Oregon, Florida and other states reported a surge in the volume of questions and signups for gardening programs, and seed companies reported booming sales.

The attraction of gardening is a combination of a distraction at home with the ability to eat fresh food without going out, experts said.

"We have over 29,000 registered for the free, online vegetable gardening course. Normally we might get 20 or 30 registered all year," said Gail Langellotto, professor of horticulture at Oregon State University and statewide coordinator of the master gardener program.

RELATED Farmers fear coronavirus will curb migrant workforce, lead to produce shortages

Gardening grants us solace - research bears that out.
Digging in the soil is good for our mental health and we need that more than ever as we follow Gov. Kate Brown's order to "stay home, save lives." https://t.co/dE123wxHrI pic.twitter.com/bcTCEaNNJy— OregonStateUnivExt (@OregonStateExt) April 3, 2020

Novice issues, such as where to find the best place in a yard to plant, what grows on a shady balcony and why do plants look wilted or unhealthy dominate what is being asked of program volunteers, Langellotto said.

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"Our volunteers are usually at county fairs, farmers markets or stores to answer questions," she said. "Now, we are totally online, offering [virtual] consults to home-gardening clients in some counties."

Parents with children stuck at home use gardening as a distraction for the whole family, Langellotto said.

That's one motive behind vegetable gardening for Katinka Merritt of Ocala, Fla., about 75 miles northwest of Orlando.

"I started gardening with my kids. Mostly it was to keep them busy since they are home from school," Merritt said.

Facebook groups

She also joined a Facebook group called Victory 2020 Garden, established by the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension. She was one of many writing on the page about switching from flowers to vegetables.

"I just joined, and I'm already learning more about gardening and hearing about what other people are planting," Merritt said. "I have seven kids, so it has helped them learn about food and where it comes from. The kids get super excited."

Erin Harlow, commercial horticulture agent with the University of Florida, named the Victory 2020 Garden program as a reference to victory gardens planted by Americans during World War I and World War II. Members can sign up for an online class on how to grow vegetables.

"I expected to get maybe 40 people, but it's over 1,000 now and growing," Harlow said. "My intent was to also encourage social distancing connections."

The program received a $4,500 grant from the University of Florida to send free seed packets of corn, beans and squash to new members.

Seed companies like Gurney's, based in Indiana, and Botanical Interests in Colorado posted messages on their websites to ask customers for patience as they dealt with tremendous demand.

"We've seen a 600 percent increase in sales over last year," said Judy Seaborn, co-owner at Botanical Interests. "It's all for vegetables, or leafy greens, which makes sense."

Her company announced a pause for a week in taking new orders online due to a two-week backlog.

She split her workforce into two shifts to keep them more distant from each other, and narrowed the selection of each type of vegetable to focus on volume.

"I'm really proud of gardeners for getting out there and planting. I think we'll need it, and the mental break it provides," Seaborn said.

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/victory-gardens-editorial

Home gardening blooms around the world during coronavirus lockdowns

By Christopher Walljasper and Tom Polansek, Reuters•April 19, 2020

Jaime Calder tends to her vegetable garden in Round Rock

By Christopher Walljasper and Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Jaime Calder all but gave up on gardening after moving from the fertile soils of Illinois to dusty Texas, but the coronavirus changed her mind.

The magazine editor and her family of five planted collard greens, chard, onions, blackberries, watermelons and peppers this year, expanding their garden while buckling down at home during the pandemic.

People around the world are turning to gardening as a soothing, family friendly hobby that also eases concerns over food security as lockdowns slow the harvesting and distribution of some crops. Fruit and vegetable seed sales are jumping worldwide.

“It’s supplementary gardening,” said Calder. “There’s no way this would sustain a family of five. But we’re amping it up, so we can try and avoid the store a little more in the coming months.”

Russians are isolating in out-of-town cottages with plots of land, a traditional source of vegetables during tough times since the Soviet era, and rooftop farms are planned in Singapore, which relies heavily on food imports.

Furloughed workers and people working from home are also looking for activities to occupy their free time, after the cancellations of major sporting events and the closure of restaurants, bars and theaters. Parents too are turning to gardening as an outdoor activity to do with children stuck at home after schools shut.

"Planting a few potatoes can be quite a revelation to a child," said Guy Barter, chief horticulturist at Britain's Royal Horticultural Society, which has seen a five-fold rise in queries for advice on its website during the lockdown. Gardeners without yards are even planting potatoes in trash bags, he said.

Gardening could trim retail demand for produce but trips to the grocery store will still be necessary. Bert Hambleton, retail consultant for Hambleton Resources, said supermarkets will continue to see an overall increase in produce demand as would-be restaurant-goers eat at home instead of dining out.

SEED BOOMU.S. seed company W. Atlee Burpee & Co sold more seed than any time in its 144-year history in March as the contagious respiratory virus spread, Chairman George Ball said.

When they cannot find seeds in stores, would-be gardeners in Britain are seeking advice on how to extract them from tomatoes and squash purchased in supermarkets, Barter said.

In Russia, demand for seeds rose by 20%-30% year-on-year in March, according to online retailer Ozon.

Seed demand typically goes up in tough economic times, said Tom Johns, owner of Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, Oregon. The company temporarily stopped taking orders over the phone due to a surge in demand and reassigned some phone workers to physically fill online orders, he said.

"It doesn't take long for people to become very concerned about the food supply - either the cost of food or getting food," Johns said.

Johnny's Selected Seeds in Fairfield, Maine, saw a 270% jump in orders the week of March 16, after U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus.

Canada-based Stokes Seeds, which ships to the United States and Canada, received 1,000 online orders during the weekend of March 21, four times more than normal, President Wayne Gayle said.

"We didn't have the staff even just to enter them into the system, let alone fulfill them," he said.

The company temporarily halted all online orders and is prioritizing orders from commercial vegetable growers "to ensure our food security this summer," according to its website.

'I GROW TOMATOES, YOU GROW CARROTS'

With so many digging into gardening for the first time, there has also been a push to pool resources and collective knowledge on home food production.

Nathan Kleinman, co-director of Philadelphia-based Experimental Farm Network, said more than 2,000 people signed up and attended weekly calls to discuss gardening best practices as they begin putting seeds in the ground.

"The reaction was overwhelming," Kleinman said. "It struck a nerve with a lot of people."

Melanie Pittman, an teacher who lives on 5 acres near Crete, Illinois, said while everyone was stocking up on toilet paper, her partner ran over to the local home improvement store to stock up on seeds and gardening tools.

Pittman is more than doubling her garden, planting corn, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, onions and growing mushrooms. She is also working with other growers in her community to expand her reliance on local food.

“I try to reach out to other individuals who are growing food in the area, to avoid the overlap - ‘I grow tomatoes, you grow carrots,'” she said.

Gardening may be a rare positive trend to emerge from the crippling pandemic, said Diane Blazek, executive director of the U.S. industry group National Garden Bureau.

"We'll come out in the end and hopefully everyone will be eating better and gardening more and more self-reliant," she said.


(Reporting by Christopher Walljasper and Tom Polansek; Additional reporting by Nigel Hunt in London and Polina Devitt in Moscow; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Lisa Shumaker)

How NOT to Wear a Mask

Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times•April 19, 2020

Lakewood Chapel Pastor John Elleson, left, and his wife, Sue Elleson, wait to hand out free face masks at the chapel in Arlington Heights, Ill., Saturday, April 18, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Almost overnight, masks in a variety of colors, styles and materials have appeared on the faces of people around us. While it’s good news that many people are doing their part to slow the spread of coronavirus, the bad news is that many people are wearing their masks wrong.

“Wearing a mask takes some getting used to, for sure,” said Dr. Scott Segal, chairman of anesthesiology at Wake Forest Baptist Health. “You are probably wearing it exactly right if it’s a little stuffy.”

One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they fidget with their masks, and pull them under their noses or completely off their faces to rest under their chins.

“You should absolutely not be pulling up and putting down your mask while you’re out,” said Shan Soe-Lin, a lecturer at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. “If you’re going to go to the trouble of using a mask, leave it on.”

Here are the dos and don’ts of wearing a mask.

DON’T: Wear the mask below your nose.

DON’T: Leave your chin exposed.

DON’T: Wear your mask loosely with gaps on the sides.

DON’T: Wear your mask so it covers just the tip of your nose.

DON’T: Push your mask under your chin to rest on your neck.

DO: Wear your mask so it comes all the way up, close to the bridge of your nose, and all the way down under your chin. Do your best to tighten the loops or ties so it’s snug around your face, without gaps.

And once you’ve figured out the correct position for wearing your mask, follow these tips to stay safe:

— Always wash your hands before and after wearing a mask.

— Use the ties or loops to put your mask on and pull it off.

— Don’t touch the front of the mask when you take it off.

— For apartment dwellers, put the mask on and remove it while inside your home. Elevators and stairwells can be high-contamination areas.

— Wash and dry your cloth mask daily and keep it in a clean, dry place.

— Don’t have a false sense of security.

Masks offer limited protection, and work better when combined with hand washing and social distancing. “It’s not that one excludes the other,” said Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University. “They compound the effects of the other.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

'That makes no sense': Anderson Cooper stunned by Las Vegas mayor during wild CNN interview
Jake Lahut

Las Vegas Mayor Goodman brought Anderson Cooper to the end of his patience in a meandering CNN interview. CNN


Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman pushed Anderson Cooper to the edge of sanity during a meandering and confusing interview on CNN on Wednesday afternoon.
Goodman, an independent, has called for casinos along the Vegas strip to reopen, with only the ones seeing the most infections being forced to close down instead of all of them.
The more Cooper tried to press Goodman for facts and evidence, the more the interview unraveled.

"You're talking about the disease — I'm talking about life and living," Goodman told Cooper.
"OK, that makes no sense," Cooper replied.

What was ostensibly an interview checking in on the mayor of a major American city dealing with the coronavirus went off the rails on CNN on Wednesday afternoon.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman tested CNN host Anderson Cooper's patience after offering a series of befuddling counterfactuals to his questions.

At one point Cooper removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and took a breath before continuing.
—Jason (@JasonBSTL) April 22, 2020
—Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 22, 2020

Goodman's profile has risen amid the coronavirus because of her calls for what's been described as a "Hunger Games" or survival-of-the-fittest approach to reopening the strip.

"Assume everybody is a carrier," the mayor told MSNBC's Katy Tur on Tuesday. "And then you start from an even slate. And tell the people what to do. And let the businesses open and competition will destroy that business if, in fact, they become evident that they have disease, they're closed down. It's that simple."


Cooper didn't have much more luck getting to the bottom of Goodman's rationale, much less what she's actively doing to keep her constituents safe beyond the governor's stay-at-home order — which she called "insanity" in a local TV news interview on Tuesday.

The crux of the confusion came down to Cooper asking Goodman about what responsibility she has to keep casino patrons and employees safe. She insisted that competition, not government oversight, was the answer.

The more Cooper pushed for factual information, the more the interview came undone.
—Michael Tushaus (@MichaelTushaus) April 22, 2020

At one point Goodman seemed to indicate she would like to see the city be a "control group" for the coronavirus without social distancing measures, which left Cooper even more confused.
—Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 22, 2020

Cooper also tried to show Goodman a graphic demonstrating how the virus spread person to person in China early on, with a diagram of tables popping up on the screen before Goodman cut him off.

—Lis Power (@LisPower1) April 22, 2020

"Oh, you are good, Anderson — you are tough," Goodman said. "This isn't China. This is Las Vegas, Nevada."

"Wow, OK, that's really ignorant," Cooper shot back.

At another point, Cooper's patience waned as he offered a curt assessment of Goodman's performance given her role as a public servant.

"You're offering nothing other than being a cheerleader," Cooper said. "I don't understand. Do you not have any sense of responsibility?"

'WHAT THE ACTUAL F***?????': Heiress Abigail Disney slams company for furloughing workers but protecting shareholder payouts and executive bonuses
Taylor Nicole Rogers

Abigail Disney. John Lamparski/Getty Images


Abigail Disney criticized the company founded by her great-uncle, Walt Disney, for furloughing 43,000 employees while the coronavirus pandemic keeps its theme parks closed.

Disney slammed the company's decision to furlough employees without first canceling plans to pay shareholder bonuses and executive bonuses in a 25-tweet thread Tuesday night

Top executives have taken pay cuts to conserve the company's cash during the crisis, but their potential to still earn bonuses is "the REAL outrage," Disney tweeted.

Disney has been outspoken about her concern over the US' growing income inequality, repeatedly criticizing Disney Executive Chairman Bob Iger's pay package.

Disney executives may have taken pay cuts last month as the coronavirus crisis forced the company to close its theme parks, but they're still getting paid too much, according to one member of the Disney family.

In a 25-tweet thread Tuesday night, Abigail Disney slammed the company's decision to furlough 43,000 employees from its theme parks without first canceling plans to pay dividends and executive bonuses.

"This is why I was quiet in March when executives at the company made a big pr push to Call attention to the fact that they were giving up a portion of their salaries for the year," Disney tweeted. "I told people to wait until we heard about the rest of the compensation package, since salary is a drop in the bucket to these guys. The real payday is in the rest of the package."

—Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020


Company executives aren't guaranteed the full bonuses Disney cited, however. The Financial Times article she quoted says that CEO Bob Chapek has the potential to receive a bonus equal to 300% of his salary, but isn't guaranteed it. Bonuses are largely performance-based and unlikely to be paid out in full as the company's share price has fallen 28% since the start of the year. All of Disney's theme parks in the U.S. have been closed since March, costing it $1.5 billion in revenue per month, Business Insider's Ashley Rodriguez reported.

Top Disney executives have taken some pay cuts to help the company conserve cash amid the crisis. Still, Chapek is earning far more than most furloughed park employees, according to The Financial Times. Florida's unemployment benefits are some of the country's lowest, The Times reported.

Disney, who is also an award-winning filmmaker, has long been an outspoken critic of the eponymous company founded by her grandfather Roy Disney and great-uncle Walt Disney. In 2019, the heiress made headlines by attacking the salary of then-CEO and current Executive Chairman Bob Iger and co-signing a letter with 18 other ultra-wealthy Americans that advocated for a moderate wealth tax. Disney said in July that she has a $120 million fortune, inherited from her father.

The Walt Disney Company is one of countless organizations furloughing workers amid the coronavirus pandemic. Disney World furloughed 43,000 employees whose "whose jobs aren't necessary at this time," starting April 19. Across the nation, an unprecedented 22 million workers have filed for unemployment benefits in the past four weeks alone amid the pandemic that has killed more than 44,000 Americans.