When the media loses everyone loses

BY JUDE MATHURINE - 28 September 2020

If you are deeply passionate about news journalism as a social good, there is something you can do, writes Jude Mathurine
Image: www.pexels.com

Did you know news is hard-wired into human behaviour?

Palaeoanthropologists (those who study fossils to learn how early humans originated and developed) have theorised that language evolved to gossip so that large groups could get along.

Social news strengthens and polices the bonds and values that form the basis for a stable society.  

“It is not enough for individual men and women to know the whereabouts of lions and bison,” historian Noah Yuval Harari wrote in his 2015 best-seller, Sapiens.

“It's much more important for them to know who in their band hates whom, who is sleeping with whom, who is honest and who is a cheat.”

The headlines that shout off front pages and news bulletins suggest that the purpose and formula for news has not evolved much over the millennia.

What has changed is the scale and sophistication of society, and the channels and practices for communicating news — from cave walls to the internet.

Like prehistoric humans, modern news journalism, which emerged alongside mass media like the printing press and broadcast signals, forms and informs views of the world and each other.

Journalism practice supported by a free media is the bedrock of modern democracy and vibrant economies.

Performed independently and competently, journalism can enlighten public opinion and inform (hopefully) intelligent action that serves individual or collective interests.

Like the gossip of our forebears, news journalism is also the glue of contemporary societies.

However, unlike gossip that feeds audience curiosity, a public interest philosophy — informs news journalism.

Jude Mathurine
Image: Jude Mathurine

Put another way, knowing that Atul Gupta owns a Ferrari or that Tony Gupta loves vindaloo is less important than knowing which ministers supped with the notorious family at Saxonwold and how they took South Africans for a ride.

Even though the media are imperfect entities, it is the methods that ensure that news is relatively fair, balanced and complete that make journalism such a valued and valuable form of public communication.

Reality is messy and complex.

Truths can only be explored by fact-finding and research.

Find the story, search for the facts, context and evidence, seek valid perspectives and tell a story on whatever platform helps audiences make sense of their world to exercise their agency.

However, there are fewer journalists than ever before who are up to the task and fewer media organisations committed to this kind of journalism. A perfect storm of waning audience attention and appetite to pay for news, as well as advertiser flight to more powerful marketing tools like Google and Facebook have stripped media companies of resources.

In her new book, Power and Loss in South African Journalism, Prof Glenda Daniels writes that the number of journalists in SA has halved over the past 10 years — from 10,000 to 5,000.

Daniels’s research predates the devastation of Covid-19.

Closures, reduced circulations and frequency, layoffs, pay cuts and reduced hours have all been used to keep media groups and titles afloat.

A recent report by the SA National Editor’s Forum suggests up to 80 community newspapers have vanished — leaving many towns and cities without a voice.

A paywalled press, limping community media and a weak public service broadcaster generally results in a news service for elites.

While some rub their hands in glee, claiming this is SA media’s comeuppance, when the media loses everyone loses.

Imagine a world where Muldergate (the Info Scandal that brought down the government of BJ Vorster), Nkandlagate (a Mail & Guardian investigation that led to public protector findings that up to R246m of public money had been spent to upgrade former president Jacob Zuma’s homestead) and GuptaLeaks (a leaked e-mail treasure trove that revealed the extent of the Gupta state capture project) had not come to light.

If the powerful can’t control the media, they attempt to control the audience perceptions which come to serve as some people’s reality.

Methods of networked influence transforms the public sphere into a vehicle for the pursuit of vested interests, often at the expense of the social good.

Look no further than the Guptas’ attempt to weaponise their media empire at ANN7 and the New Age, as well as the services of international PR firm Bell-Pottinger on a £100,000 (R1,7m) a month retainer.

What  the public doesn’t know that it doesn’t know can easily hurt it (or make you a useful idiot to use against others).  

Despite the reach of cellphones and social media, channels like WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter just don’t fill the gap.

They mainly recirculate the same main stories that originate from the sweat of hardworking journalists and invest little to produce original news content.

Eye-witness news and paid-for social media influencers are an essential part of today’s news mix but they cannot replace independent, competent and sustainable journalism.

The job of a journalist is not merely to provide balance.

There are clear rights and wrongs.

Giving credence to all views simply creates the space for audiences to fall for anything.

The views of trolls, sock-puppets, bots, misogynists, racists, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers and climate change objectors would generally not be entertained by serious reporters.

However, these views are frequently amplified on social media timelines.

And there’s even more reason to worry after a 2018 study, published in the journal Science, showed that fake news on Twitter circulated six times faster than the truth.

It is no wonder then that social media was regarded as the least trustworthy form of media in the Edelman 2019 Trust Barometer.

In the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, former employees of trillion-rand tech companies like Facebook show how algorithms fill the news feeds of more than 24 million SA users with hot-button topics that provoke emotions like anger and fear.

While traditional media arguably tries to get sides to understand each other — the goal of social media is keep the hype cycle going to market your attention and specific online profile for purposes of advertising, promotion and influence.

Often in the debate the loudest, most populist, persistent or well-financed voices win, resulting in a zero-sum game.

Yes, social media has diversified news production and even helped to mobilise for the overthrow of authoritarian regimes.

However, its use for polarising purposes result has also resulted in a further fragmented public sphere.

This is anathema to the cohesion for social action to resolve issues like gender-based violence, climate change or Day Zero where conversations become fragmented, leaving the status quo intact.

If you are deeply passionate about news journalism as a social good, there is something you can do:

• Support the ethical news media by paying for news when you can and only sharing information from reliable news outlets;
• Get media literate — learn media and platform bias by watching Influence and The Social Dilemma on Netflix;
• If you have a gripe against the media, complain to the SA Press Council not just on Twitter.
• Join spaces where audiences and the media debate their role and shape a relevant and responsive news agenda
• Support and donate to media engaging in social justice reporting and investigation.

As President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his weekly letter in September: “Whether it is electing to pay for content, supporting crowdfunded journalism, paying our SABC licence fees or simply buying a newspaper, we can all play our part to support this industry in crisis.”

Then, maybe, we wouldn’t have to imagine a world without news.

Jude Mathurine lectures in journalism, new media and communication at the Media and Communication Department of Nelson Mandela University

Google searches for ‘move to Canada’ spike after presidential debate


By Vincent Barone NYPOST

September 30, 2020 

A sign near the border crossing to Canada at Roseau, Minnesota.AP

The presidential debate may send people up north instead of to the ballot box.

Google searches for moving to Canada spiked after the 2020 presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Queries for “how to apply for Canadian citizenship” skyrocketed about an hour into the yelling match between the two men, peaking around 10:30 p.m., according to Google.

The search was most popular in the state of Massachusetts, followed by Ohio and Michigan.

“How to move to Canada” and “move to Canda” also experienced a surge in searches during the debacle of a debate, which was fraught with interruptions, unfinished points and nasty attacks.

“Cheering you all on from this side of the border! You got this!” one Twitter user wrote.

Other Canadians were less supportive.

“Sorry, we’ve built a wall on our southern border,” another joked.

 

Taiwan in Time: Resting in stone

Prehistoric slate coffins found in countless archaeological sites across Taiwan were often tailor-made to fit the size of the deceased, including miniature ones for miscarried fetuses

• By Han Cheung / Staff reporter

Sept. 28 to Oct . 4

A large number of 3000-year-old slate coffins were unearthed on a hill near Nanhe Village (南和村) in Pingtung County on Sept. 30, 1985. Unfortunately, the United Daily News (聯合報) noted that they had been seriously damaged by construction, and no artifacts or human remains were found.

Although the newspaper called the find a “significant discovery,” little information can be gleaned about this specific site because it’s just one of countless locations where stone sarcophagi have been unearthed across southern and eastern Taiwan, and as north as Yilan County.

Nenozo Utsurikawa, front row in kimono, former head of Taihoku Imperial University’s Institute of Ethnology, was the first anthropologist to discover slate coffins in Taiwan in 1930.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

These stone receptacles for the dead were first found in 1930 at a site in Kenting (墾丁) by a Japanese team led by anthropologist Utsurikawa Nenozo, who unearthed 31 coffins after four excavations. They contained abundant artifacts such as jade and pottery shards, and this venture is considered Taiwan’s first academic archeological excavation. According to contemporary research by Kenting National Park Headquarters, human activity in the area can be traced back to over 6,500 years, encompassing over 70 archaeological sites.

The best-known mass stone coffin site is the Beinan site (卑南遺址) in Taitung County, which was revealed in 1980 during a railroad rerouting project. It is Taiwan’s largest known prehistoric settlement with a sophisticated culture that included indoor burials, teeth extraction and a social hierarchy, and boasting about 2,000 coffins with many more either destroyed or still buried. It’s the largest prehistoric stone graveyard ever found around the Pacific Rim.

Throughout the years, coffins continued to be found at various construction projects, the latest coming in 2011 when three, 4,000-year-old sarcophagi were found in Taitung.

Replica stone coffins are on display at Beinan Cultural Park in Taitung County.

Photo: CNA

FIRST FINDS

After receiving his PhD in anthropology from Harvard University, Utsurikawa became the head of the newly established Institute of Ethnology at Taihoku Imperial University (today’s National Taiwan University), where he conducted extensive field research on the island’s various Aboriginal groups.

According to the National Taiwan Museum of History, Utsurikawa’s dig at the Kenting site was by no means up to modern standards and techniques, but it still paved the way for future endeavors. In 1935, the colonial government deemed the site a National Historic Site and put it under protection. But war soon broke out between Japan and China and the findings at the site remained unpublished until the 1990s.

A member of an archeological team dusts off the top of a slate coffin during a dig.

Photo: Tung Chen-kuo, Taipei Times

Later research determined that the site was up to 4,000 years old, and may have belonged to the neolithic Niuchoutzu (牛稠子) culture, of which there are about 15 sites alone within the national park. Rice grain imprints were found in some of the pottery at one of the sites, which is the earliest evidence of cultivation in the Hengchun peninsula. From the human remains, they determined that the inhabitants practiced teeth extraction and chewed betel nuts.

Due to the rapid development of the area, the Kenting site has been seriously damaged over the years, and by 2004, anthropologist Lien Chao-mei (連照美) lamented its condition. Lien collected and edited the Japanese findings into a book that was published in 2007.

EQUALITY IN DEATH

This stone coffin contained multiple corpses.

Photo: Huang Ming-tang, Taipei Times

Long before the stone coffins were unearthed at the Beinan site, the location was already known to Japanese scholars, who had examined two large stone pillars in 1896. Later archaeologists found that there were numerous such pillars in the area. Japanese-era research mostly focused on these monoliths, and only in 1945 did two archaeologists conduct a brief dig despite American airstrikes across the island. They found pottery and the remains of old slate dwellings.

No further excavations were conducted until the site was damaged by the railway project in 1980, which drew public attention, which forced the government to preserve the artifacts. Lien and Sung Wen-hsun (宋文薰) were in charge of the efforts, which took 13 phases over nine years to complete. It was determined that the Beinan culture began about 5,300 years ago and reached its peak between 3,500 and 2,300 years ago.

The stone coffins found at this site were all positioned along a north-south axis, which was also how the inhabitants arranged their dwellings. The dead were placed lying down with their toes pointed northward toward Dulan Mountain (都蘭山), which is believed to be their sacred mountain and the resting place of their souls.

Several miniature slate coffins, the smallest one measuring 40cm long, were found in Taitung in 2007.

Photo: CNA

Although most coffins only held one corpse, there were larger ones that held at least five. These were usually the resting places for powerful families as they contained precious burial objects. One 183-cm long coffin contained a whopping 4,449 artifacts, from jade to weapons and all manner of tool.

Archaeologists also found tiny 18-cm ones that probably held miscarried fetuses. Infants and children were usually buried in their own small sarcophagi, and those under 130cm long made up roughly one-third of the 2,000 odd coffins found on site — indicating a high child mortality rate. The fact that coffins were made for even miscarriages, shows how equally the Beinan people treated all deaths, states a National Museum of Prehistory report, although the underage corpses were seldom buried with any artifacts. Child coffins have also been found at other sites across Taiwan.

Many sarcophagi were buried inside the house, “to accompany those who were still alive,” the report states, showing a close attachment between the dead and the living.

There is still no concrete evidence that these “rock coffins” were used for corpses.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Aside from slate coffins, experts have also discovered “rock coffins,” which are directly carved onto the surface of a large volcanic tuff. These were found mostly on the east coast, and, with only 16 discovered so far, are quite rare.

Although the sizes of the rectangular depressions are almost all large enough to fit a fully-grown human, there’s still no concrete evidence that they were actually used to contain corpses.

Amis Aborigines once chipped pieces off of these ancient “coffins” during droughts to pray for rain, but their original purpose remains a mystery.

Taiwan in Time, a column about Taiwan’s history that is published every Sunday, spotlights important or interesting events around the nation that either have anniversaries this week or are tied to current events.

Thai villagers save ancestral forest with aid from academics and social media
With nearly 300 species of flora and fauna and dozens of edible and medicinal plants, the forest is vital to the food security of the villagers.

TRAVEL Updated: Sep 29, 2020 22:25 IST

Reuters | Posted by Boon Rueang [Thailand]

Thailand aims to increase its forest cover to about 40% of total land area from just over a third now. (Representational Image)(Unsplash)


The villagers of Ban Boon Rueang in northern Thailand had long known that they benefited from the community wetland forest that supplied them with fish and firewood, but it wasn’t until devastating floods in 2010 that they realised just how much.

That year, flooding from the Ing river which often spills its banks in the annual rainy season, was particularly severe, inundating several villages. Ban Boon Rueang escaped the worst of it because the 236-hectare wetland forest served as a buffer.

“If it weren’t for the wetland, our village would have also got flooded severely,” said Srongpol Chantharueang, chairman of the Boon Rueang Wetland Forest Conservation Group (BRWFCG).

“We realised then how important it was for us. That made us more aware of the threats to the wetland, and more determined to protect it,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as he walked around the forest, pointing to edible mushrooms and honeycombs.

Destruction of natural resources, the denial of forest rights and loss of community lands in Thailand for industry and tourism have hurt farmers and villagers, many of whom lack formal tenure.


When the Thai government in 2015 earmarked Chiang Khong district, where Ban Boon Rueang is located, as part of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the villagers decided to oppose the plan to infill the wetland, with a novel approach.

They set up BRWFCG, mobilised support from other conservation groups and academics in the local university, and appealed to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT), saying their lives and livelihoods were at stake.

It worked: in 2018, authorities withdrew the proposal, and on Tuesday, BRWFCG will receive the United Nations’ Equator Prize for “outstanding community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.”

“Convincing the government to conserve the wetland forest was a momentous achievement, made through advocacy and dialogue,” said David Ganz, executive director of RECOFTC, the Center for People and Forests, which backed the community.


“Boon Rueang is a successful model for community forestry and showcases a nature-based solution to environmental injustice. The community’s achievement is an inspiration to others who may be facing similar challenges,” he added.

Right to participate

Wetlands such as floodplains, marshes, mangroves and peatlands help purify water, replenish groundwater, limit flooding and store carbon, researchers say. Along coastlines, they provide a buffer against storms and surges.

Yet across Asia, demand for land for housing and farming has led to wetlands being destroyed, even as more intense rainfall and rising seas cause more frequent river and coastal flooding.

Thailand has 15 sites under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands totalling 405,219 hectares (15,645 square miles).

But authorities often fail to recognise their importance and the community’s role in preserving them, said Niwat Roikaew, head of the Chiang Khong Conservation Group.


“Activism and knowledge are key to conserving natural resources. We have to educate the community that they have a constitutional right to participate in natural resource management,” said Roikaew, who backed the Boon Rueang campaign.

“Government officials in the area are listening to us more because they recognise the role of the community,” said Roikaew, whose two-decade-old community organisation has fought against deforestation, dams and unchecked development in the north.

BRWFCG launched advocacy and social media campaigns to showcase their community forestry management model, and submitted academic research to show how vital the wetland was to the local eco-system and for mitigating disasters.

With nearly 300 species of flora and fauna and dozens of edible and medicinal plants, the forest is vital to the food security of the villagers. It also has the potential to store 26 tonnes of carbon per 0.16 hectare, the research showed.


At a ceremony to celebrate the Equator Prize earlier this month, Chiang Rai province acting governor Kritpetch Petcharaburanin acknowledged the community’s efforts.

“This forest has a history of hundreds of years. I am very pleased that the Boon Rueang community has preserved and taken care of the forest,” he said, adding that he endorsed their proposal to declare the wetland as a Ramsar site.

Community Kitchen

Thailand aims to increase its forest cover to about 40% of total land area from just over a third now.

But land rights activists have voiced concerns that the government’s policies have hurt communities who live in or near forests.

At the same time, forests face constant threats from industrial projects. Before the SEZ, Ban Boon Rueang had defeated proposals for factories and plantations.


“We inherited this forest from our ancestors, and it is our duty to preserve it for future generations,” said Neam Chantharueang, head of the village women’s group.

“The SEZ is cancelled, but there is no guarantee something else won’t come up. That’s why we want it to be declared a Ramsar site,” she said.

Forest authorities will work with local communities to resolve any conflicts, said Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Warawut Silpa-archa.

“We have to find ways to enable people to co-exist with forests,” he said.

The Boon Rueang community of nearly 300 families manages the forest through traditional ways such as tree ordination ceremonies, and also has clear rules.

The rules include not cutting trees beyond a certain size, and a ban on hunting and the commercial sale of bamboo and firewood. Villagers can fish, and collect crickets, mushrooms and firewood.


The Boon Rueang wetland provides direct and indirect ecological services worth about $4 million annually, RECOFTC estimates, which includes food and other products, as well as the value from water retention, the wildlife, and heritage.

“It not only provides food and livelihoods, it enables the community to preserve its identity and culture,” said Tuenjai Deetes, a former NHRCT commissioner who studied the case.

But even the community’s best efforts cannot stop the impact of climate change and upstream dams that are hurting the flow of the river Ing that sustains the wetland, said Srongpol.

“This time of year, we normally have to move around the forest by boat. But for the past couple of years, the river level is low,” he said.

“If there is no flooding, there is fewer fish, and the vegetation will begin to die. The forest is like our kitchen - if it is destroyed, how will we eat?”

Life far from sunny in Southern California where jobless hospitality workers face bleak future
The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Greater Palm Springs was cancelled after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

TRAVEL Updated: Sep 29, 2020 
Reuters | Los Angeles

Unite Here Local 11, a hospitality workers union, saw nearly 90% of its more than 32,000 members laid off(Unsplash)

Autumn is coming to Southern California, where crowds of visitors normally would have been heading to arts festivals and celebrity events, and chef Nigel Henderson would have been making his living as their caterer.

Not this year.

The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Greater Palm Springs, where he works as a private chef, was cancelled after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Coachella events alone would have earned Henderson as much as 40% of his year’s income.

Then Henderson’s monthly series Rhythm and Brunch LA, with DJ Trauma, comedian Dave Chappelle’s DJ, was cancelled. A fundraiser for the Dooky Chase Foundation was cancelled, and Kampalooza, a yearly outdoor cooking and camping experience, was cancelled.

“Initially you figure, yes it’s serious, but we will get a handle on it,” Henderson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

But the coronavirus, the cancellations and the closings have Henderson and others in Los Angeles’ huge hospitality industry lining up at food banks, breaking into their children’s piggy banks and skimping on baby diapers to stretch their dollars.


Tens of thousands laid off

Most just do not know how they will survive the dark months ahead.

Hospitality workers - chefs, hotel staff, theme park workers, golf course attendants - make up nearly 10% of the workforce in Los Angeles.

Before Covid-19, that added up to nearly half a million jobs.

The pandemic has decimated the workforce. Unite Here Local 11, a hospitality workers union, saw nearly 90% of its more than 32,000 members laid off, according to union official Maria Hernandez.

As the cancellations mounted and the future grew more uncertain, Henderson said his optimism vanished.

“I went through a little depression. Running your own business, you don’t have anything to fall back on,” he said. For a while, his cooking classes at The Gourmandise School went online, but then the school furloughed all of its employees.


As a Black man, Henderson said, losing his livelihood comes amid a broader political context of what is going on across the country.

“Who cares about cooking lessons for real, when we’re talking about people getting shot in the street,” he said. “And there’s protest, and riots, and police brutality and a pandemic.”

Seeing video of the death of George Floyd in police custody “just brought out PTSD of growing up black in L.A. and all of the interactions I’ve had with cops,” he said.

The economic devastation reached high into the luxurious heights of Los Angeles’ hospitality sector.

Walter Almendarez can tell stories about a $40,000 wagon full of oysters and parties thrown by pop royalty Beyonce and Jay-Z at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont, where he worked for 23 years, more than half his life.


The opulent property, a celebrity haunt, boasts of panoramic views of Sunset Strip and poolside cottages nestled among banana trees.

It is owned by American luxury hotelier André Balazs, who also owns the Mercer Hotel in New York, Shelter Island’s Sunset Beach and the Chiltern Firehouse in London.

Almendarez never suspected his wealthy employer would stop paying him.

But on March 16, as he was playing with his daughter in the family’s living room, he got an email telling him his last day would be March 20 and to collect his things.

The hotel was laying off its staff, it said.

Almendarez most recently worked as a hotel bellman and has done every job in the place “besides the kitchen,” he said.


The right of recall

He has become a passionate advocate for “right of recall” and “right of retention” laws that would require owners to hire back their former staff and not replace them with less experienced or less costly employees.

One such law was adopted by Los Angeles County in June, and a statewide version, Assembly Bill 3216, passed by the California legislature awaits the governor’s signature to become law.

In September, a caravan of laid-off hospitality workers - including Almendarez - drove to the state capital in Sacramento and delivered a letter to Newsom, asking him to make the provision law as soon as possible.

A spokesman for the governor said he would not comment on the legislation under consideration, which is strongly opposed by business groups such as the California Chamber of Commerce.


California has taken other steps to safeguard workers hit hardest by the economic fallout of Covid-19, including passing a measure making it easier for workers infected on the job to access benefits and forcing businesses to report Covid-19 infections at work sites.

But even working at Chateau Marmont did not pay enough, and Almendarez drove an Uber to supplement his income and support his wife, 7-month-old daughter and his parents on $15.45 per hour plus tips from the hotel.

Room rates at the Chateau Marmont started at $625 a night, with a minimum of two nights.

Almendarez has been cutting costs, withdrawing savings, buying fewer diapers for his baby and going to food banks.

“You don’t think of shame. It’s food. You do what you have to do,” he said.


His major concern has been losing health insurance coverage. To stay on the plan he had while working at the hotel would cost him $500 a month.

California has seen a surge in applications for its health care marketplace, “Covered California,” which provides subsidies for low-income residents to afford private health care plans.

Applications doubled in the early month of the pandemic.

California also expanded unemployment benefits for workers laid off during Covid-19, but the tsunami of more than 10,000 claims a day has created a backlog, according to a government report released in September.

So far the only support Almendarez has gotten from his employer was $5,000 from a fundraiser that Balazs hosted on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.

But he is months behind on the mortgage for his home, which he bought in 2009.


A spokeswoman for the Chateau Marmont said the hotel has “publicly committed to recalling workers based on seniority,” as the pandemic eases, and noted that the hotel has already managed to hire back six employees so far.

Chickens, a garden and a cow

Elizabeth Mejia, an out-of-work waitress, watched her mother lose her house to foreclosure in the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

“It was like a trauma,” she said.

Before the pandemic, Mejia worked at Ford’s Filling Station at the Los Angeles International Airport.

The upscale gastropub is owned by Areas USA, a holding of Paris-based private equity firm PAI Partners, which has $16 billion under management.

The 30-year-old mother of two daughters had worked at the restaurant for eight years, and husband Arturo works as a part-time mechanic for Delta Airlines.


Mejia got a text message from her employer on March 20 telling her not to show up the next day. After three weeks of silence, she was laid off, and her husband had his hours cut.

A spokesperson for Areas said in a written statement that the “onset of the coronavirus pandemic left Areas no choice but to close most of our 24 concession establishments at LAX and layoff more than 550 employee,” adding that, “these were difficult decisions and they were not made lightly.”

Mejia and her husband went into survival mode. They bought chickens as a source of eggs, planted a garden in their backyard and pooled money with friends and family to buy a cow for a source of meat.

“When you grow up poor, you get resourceful,” her husband said.

Mejia vowed that she and her husband would not lose their home they bought in South Central Los Angeles six years ago for $250,000, where they are raising their young daughters.

They have cut costs, cancelled their cable television and were about to pull their daughters out of Catholic school.

This was a particularly painful decision for Mejia, who recalls her own time in public school as “full of bullies, too many kids, and I didn’t learn much at all.”

The Archdiocese offered to reduce the tuition and her girls have stayed.

The family has had a tradition of filling up unicorn piggy banks with coins. When the banks are full, the family breaks them open and puts the money toward a visit to a national park.

They have visited a dozen parks, but after she was laid off, Mejia broke open one of the banks to get the $100 of coins inside.

“We needed the money for food,” she said.

The least well-off workers are shouldering the economic burden of the pandemic throughout Los Angeles, said Kent Wong, director of the University of California Los Angeles Labor Center.

“Here, you see some of the wealthiest people in the world .... and the workers creating that wealth getting squeezed,” he said.

“This is the reality of L.A. today - record homelessness, a huge divide based on race and immigration status. It’s a tale of two cities.”

“No one should be hungry in America”

Some non-profit groups have tried to fill the gap in services.

Los Angeles-based charity “No Us Without You” helps feed 1,000 families a week, focusing on undocumented workers.

“We are out here doing it ourselves,” Damian Diaz, a co-founder. “We are just a bunch of bar people with ingenuity.”

A trendy bar owned by Diaz and his partner Othón Nolasco is now filled with refrigerators and boxes of food.

Twice a week for the last six months, they distribute 100,000 pounds of food to hungry families.

Diaz takes precautions to protect the undocumented families from raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency by arranging times privately and regularly changing drop-offs to isolated locations.

One recent day, Nolasco was unloading and sorting through pastries, water, coloring books for children, eggs, milk, beans, tortillas and beef chorizo.

Diaz speaks with each family, doing wellness checks.

A few months ago, he asked a woman what size diapers she needed for her baby, and she said the baby had died.

“We are just humans feeding humans,” Diaz said. “No one should be hungry in America.”

Looking to survive, Henderson is working on his podcast, The Gumbo Pot, selling a line of food-based apparel and giving online cooking classes with national brands.

“I’ve been in business for a very long time,” he said. “There’s always a point where you are going to hit a roadblock.

“But not pushing forward is not an option.”

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

Disney parks to lay off 28,000 workers in California, Florida

TRUMPVIRUS CREATES UNEMPLOYMENT
Disney World reopens with new safety measures

Josh Rivera, USA TODAY•September 29, 2020


The coronavirus pandemic's economic effects have reached the workers of the most magical place in the world.

Disney's park division is laying off 28,000 employees in California and Florida in the wake of the pandemic.

Two-thirds of the planned layoffs involve part-time workers but they ranged from salaried employees to nonunion hourly workers, Disney officials said.

In a letter to employees, Josh D'Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experience and Product, said his management team had worked hard to try to avoid layoffs. They had cut expenses, suspended projects and modified operations but it wasn’t enough given limits on the number of people allowed into the park because of social distancing restrictions and other pandemic-related measures, he said.
 

Guests wear masks as required to attend the official reopening day of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., Saturday, July 11, 2020. Disney reopened two Florida parks, the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, Saturday, with limited capacity and safety protocols in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

When will Disneyland reopen?: COVID-19 surge keeps California theme parks in limbo

Disney World employees: Workers gain access to COVID-19 testing site actors' union requested

“As heartbreaking as it is to take this action, this is the only feasible option we have in light of the prolonged impact of COVID-19 on our business, including limited capacity due to physical distancing requirements and the continued uncertainty regarding the duration of the pandemic,” he said.

USA TODAY reached out to Disney for comment.

The California Attractions and Parks Association, which represents popular theme parks, including Disneyland and Universal Studios, called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom two weeks ago to implement COVID-19 regulations to allow the parks to get back to business.

Disneyland was supposed to reopen on July 17, but that was postponed as coronavirus cases surged in California during the first half of the summer.

Disney’s other theme parks in Florida, Paris, Shanghai, Japan and Hong Kong have been able to reopen to limited capacity, with Disney World even adding extra open hours recently.

Contributing: Rasha Ali, USA TODAY and The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus effect: Disney to lay off 28,000 in California, Florida

Not even Disney can live on dreams forever
Disney’s California locations remain closed because of state restrictions, while the Florida parks have been operating with limited capacity and weaker attendance than Disney anticipated.

TRAVEL Updated: Sep 30, 2020 
Bloomberg | Posted by Jahnavi Gupta

The post-Covid-19 “return to normal” that Americans long for is far enough away that not even a company built on dreams can see it.(Pixabay)

The post-Covid-19 “return to normal” that Americans long for is far enough away that not even a company built on dreams can see it.

Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday said it will let go of an astonishing 28,000 employees at its U.S. theme parks, which include Walt Disney World and Disneyland, as the coronavirus continues to prevent those businesses from fully reopening. Disney’s California locations remain closed because of state restrictions, while the Florida parks have been operating with limited capacity and weaker attendance than Disney anticipated. It’s clear that for families weighing the risks of travel and crowds over the reward of getting out of the house, the virus won out. 


While Disney has pointed a finger at California Governor Gavin Newsom, upticks in the virus in pockets of the country may keep many consumers fearful of venturing to crowded venues anyway. Of the 500 millennials recently surveyed by Morning Consult, only 26% said they feel comfortable going to an amusement park. The same was true of only 16% of baby boomers. As far as when they would consider a visit, 42% of the U.S. adults polled said it would be more than six months from now. The movie-theater industry has encountered a similar setback: Doors opened, the hit film “Tenet” was showing, and few people showed up. As I wrote then, people won’t necessarily resume their normal activities just because they can. 

In fairness to Disney, visitors and journalists who have gone to the reopened Disney World in Orlando say the safety protocols — and adherence to them — are downright impressive. Still, consumers are understandably apprehensive, even if it’s just about travelling there. That there is a recession and high unemployment also doesn’t help when Disney is counting on people spending more than $100 per person per day just to enter one of its parks. Neither does the lack of federal relief. Last year, Disney’s business unit comprising theme parks, cruises and consumer products accounted for 37% of total company revenue — more than its television networks or film business (though both ultimately fuel the global fascination with the Disney brand). It furloughed 100,000 theme-park and resort workers in April, holding out hope that the recovery would be quick and strong enough to bring them back. 


Disney CEO Bob Chapek ran the theme parks before he took over Disney’s top job in February. That was just before the pandemic took hold. He replaced Bob Iger, who retired after 15 years at the helm. Chapek’s experience is especially fitting for this moment, but it’s also a bit incongruous with the direction the company was heading even before Covid: a future dominated by streaming-video entertainment. It hasn’t changed course because of the virus. In fact, Disney has pushed deeper into streaming in recent weeks, having its highly anticipated live-action remake of “Mulan” skip theatres to premiere directly on the Disney+ app for a $30 viewing fee. 

“Normal” is starting to fade from the vocabulary, and we must let it go. But the question is, if theme parks and movie theatres don’t rebound, or at least not for some time, will Disney even be the same company anymore? 

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)

WATCH: Giant 25-tonne robot moving in Japan harbour entrances millions on Twitter

Videos showing an 18-metre robot in Yokohama have entranced the Twitterverse, pulling in more than 6 million views in the past week. The robot is the centerpiece of the Gundam Factory Yokohama, a tourist attraction that was due to open in October, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

TRAVEL Updated: Sep 30, 2020 19:33 IST

Reuters | Posted by: Alfea Jamal

Tokyo

The robot is the centerpiece of the Gundam Factory Yokohama, a tourist attraction.(Twitter/yoshi115t)

Videos showing an 18-metre (59-foot) robot in the Japanese harbour city of Yokohama have entranced the Twitterverse, pulling in more than 6 million views in the past week. The robot is the centerpiece of the Gundam Factory Yokohama, a tourist attraction that was due to open in October, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The park operator said on Tuesday it will open on Dec. 19. The videos, shot by a telephoto lens from Twitter user @yoshi115t, show what appear to be motion tests of the white robot that dwarfs boats speeding by in the background. The 25-tonne Gundam makes a walking motion as it exits a storage area, before kneeling and then raising its right arm to point toward the sky.




実物大ガンダムを動かすプロジェクト
「ガンダム GLOBAL CHALLENGE」
・2歩踏み出す
・しゃがんで立膝
・立ち上がる
・右手を突き上げ、人差し指
・しゃがんで立膝
・バックステップでドックへ戻る
・手首の回転の指の可動
以前と違い、今回は爪先の動作まで確認できる位置より（速度加工済み）#GFY pic.twitter.com/JgwGILe2d5— よっくん (@yoshi115t) September 21, 2020

The park’s Gundam-Lab will feature an exhibition area and cafe, while the Gundam-Dock Tower will allow visitors to view the robot’s face and body. “Mobile Suit Gundam” debuted in Japan in the late 1970s as a cartoon about enormous battle robots piloted by humans. The series spawned multiple spinoffs and toys while gaining a worldwide following. The Gundam franchise is operated by Bandai Namco Holdings Inc. Engineering company Yaskawa Electric Corp and industrial robot maker Nabtesco Corp are among companies making parts of the giant Gundam in Yokohama, according to the attraction’s website.


(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

The ‘Jaws of Death’ lizard that terrorized oceans 80 million years ago


By Paula Froelich September 26, 2020 

A cast of the mosasaur Gnathomortis Stadtmani's bones at Brigham Young University's Eyring Science Center in Utah.REUTERS


You’re gonna need a much, much bigger boat.

Eighty million years ago, a 33-foot-long apex predator lizard scientists have now dubbed “The Jaws of Death,” with powerful jaws and an extra set of teeth on the roof of its mouth, terrorized the oceans.

While dinosaurs dominated land, the mososaur ruled the seas.

A cast of the mosasaur Gnathomortis Stadtmani's.
REUTERS

The fossils of the creature from the Cretaceous Period were discovered near Cedaredge, Colorado, in 1975 but a new analysis obtained by CNN shows greater insight into the monster.

Joshua Lively, curator of paleontology at the Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum, gave it the new scientific name Gnathomortis stadtmani, meaning “Jaws of Death.”

“In general, mosasaurs actually filled a lot of roles in the oceans over the last 15 million years of the age of dinosaurs,” Lively told CNN. “Some specialized in eating clams, some were fish specialists, and others were clearly macropredators that could devour anything smaller than them. This mosasaur was one of the latter. If you were an animal in the oceans less than 6 meters (20 feet) in length, you are most likely on the menu for Gnathomortis.”

FILED UNDER ARCHAEOLOGY , DINOSAURS , LIZARDS , 9/26/20

Fossil of prehistoric relative of elephants discovered at gold mine in Colombia
The discovery is the first of its kind in the province.

IT-S-VIRAL Updated: Sep 25, 2020 

Reuters |Bogota

Fossil remains of a mastodon found by miners are seen inside a gold mine in Risaralda, Colombia.(CARDER via REUTERS)

Fossils of a mastodon, a giant prehistoric relative of today’s elephants, have been discovered at an artisanal gold mine in central Colombia in a find which researchers say could herald a trove of similar specimens.

Gold miners working a tunnel near the town of Quinchia, in Risaralda province, came across what they soon realized were bones on Tuesday.

The discovery is the first of its kind in the province but mastodon remains have also been found in Cundinamarca and Valle del Cauca provinces, as well as along Colombia’s Atlantic coast, said Carlos Lopez, an anthropologist at a university in Risaralda’s capital Pereira.

“These animals attract attention due to their large size - a giant bone doesn’t go unnoticed,” Lopez said. “It really takes us in a time machine ... to think about what they were like and how they lived, and if humans lived alongside them.”

Experts study the mastodon remains and remove those still inside the mine, where a complete tusk measuring 1 meter 10 centimeters (3.5 feet) long can still be seen.


Fossil remains of a mastodon found by miners are seen inside a gold mine in Risaralda, Colombia. ( CARDER via REUTERS )

“They sent us some photos, which we sent to expert anthropologists in the area and they determined they belonged to megafauna ... that died out between 2 million and 10,000 years ago,” said Julio Gomez, director of the regional environmental authority for Risaralda.

The discovery could herald similar finds in the region.

“More (remains) could be found,” Lopez said. “These animals lived in herds, they didn’t live alone, a little like the herds of elephants we see in Africa today.”

Naked Prehistoric Monsters! Evidence That Prehistoric Flying Reptiles Probably Had

ARCHAEOLOGY
On Sep 28, 2020


The debate about when dinosaurs developed feathers has taken a new turn with a paper refuting earlier claims that feathers were also found on dinosaurs’ relatives, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs



Credit: Megan Jacobs, University of Portsmouth.

The debate about when dinosaurs developed feathers has taken a new turn with a paper refuting earlier claims that feathers were also found on dinosaurs’ relatives, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs.

Pterosaur expert Dr David Unwin from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Palaeobiology Research, and Professor Dave Martill, of the University of Portsmouth have examined the evidence that these creatures had feathers and believe they were in fact bald

They have responded to a suggestion by a group of his colleagues led by Zixiao Yang that some pterosaur fossils show evidence of feather-like branching filaments, ‘protofeathers’, on the animal’s skin.

Dr Yang, from Nanjing University, and colleagues presented their argument in a 2018 paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Now Unwin and Martill, have offered an alternative, non-feather explanation for the fossil evidence in the same journal.

While this may seem like academic minutiae, it actually has huge palaeontological implications. Feathered pterosaurs would mean that the very earliest feathers first appeared on an ancestor shared by both pterosaurs and dinosaurs, since it is unlikely that something so complex developed separately in two different groups of animals.


This would mean that the very first feather-like elements evolved at least 80 million years earlier than currently thought. It would also suggest that all dinosaurs started out with feathers, or protofeathers but some groups, such as sauropods, subsequently lost them again – the complete opposite of currently accepted theory.

The evidence rests on tiny, hair-like filaments, less than one tenth of a millimetre in diameter, which have been identified in about 30 pterosaur fossils. Among these, Yang and colleagues were only able to find just three specimens on which these filaments seem to exhibit a ‘branching structure’ typical of protofeathers.

Unwin and Martill propose that these are not protofeathers at all but tough fibres which form part of the internal structure of the pterosaur’s wing membrane, and that the ‘branching’ effect may simply be the result of these fibres decaying and unravelling.

Dr Unwin said: “The idea of feathered pterosaurs goes back to the nineteenth century but the fossil evidence was then, and still is, very weak. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence – we have the former, but not the latter.”


Professor Martill noted that either way, palaeontologists will have to carefully reappraise ideas about the ecology of these ancient flying reptiles. He said, “If they really did have feathers, how did that make them look, and did they exhibit the same fantastic variety of colours exhibited by birds. And if they didn’t have feathers, then how did they keep warm at night, what limits did this have on their geographic range, did they stay away from colder northern climes as most reptiles do today. And how did they thermoregulate? The clues are so cryptic, that we are still a long way from working out just how these amazing animals worked.


The paper ‘No protofeathers on pterosaurs’ is published this week in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Related Journal Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01308-9

Outdoor Life With Tess: Reeling In Prehistoric Paddlefish

Friday, September 25th 2020, 8:29 am
By: Tess Maune
Oklahoma’s Keystone Lake holds the world record for largest paddlefish ever caught. In today’s Outdoor Life With Tess, sponsored by Academy Sports and Outdoors, she sets out with Reel Good Time Guide Service in to land one of the prehistoric fish.

#QUISLING

Dr. Birx reportedly played a central role in pressuring CDC to advise for school reopening despite surges in coronavirus cases this summer

Sarah Al-Arshani Business Insider•September 28, 2020

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, Saturday, April 4, 2020, in Washington.

Associated Press/Patrick Semansky

Documents obtained by The New York Times show officials in President Donald Trump's administration pressured the Centers for Disease Control to relax guidelines for school reopenings earlier this summer.

Dr. Deborah Birx, a physician on the White House Coronavirus Task Force directly took a role in asking the CDC to include documents that undermined the threat of coronavirus to school-aged children in mid-July.

In early July, Trump criticized the CDC for advising schools to not reopen. The CDC later changed course in new guidelines released on July 24.

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus task coordinator, played a key role in pressuring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release guidance for schools to reopen despite surging coronavirus cases earlier this summer, documents obtained by The New York Times showed.

According to a July 19 email obtained by the Times, Birx asked CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield to incorporate a document from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a small agency in the Department of Health and Human Services which suggested that the coronavirus was not a big issue for kids "as background in the introduction section" of CDC guidance on schools reopening.

The document suggested that there were "very few reports of children being the primary source of Covid-19 transmission among family members have emerged" and claimed that asymptomatic children "are unlikely to spread the virus."

A White House official told Business Insider that Redfield and Birx "have known each other for close to 40 years," and dismissed the Times' reporting she "pressured" the CDC head.


"Dr. Redfield was Dr. Birx's mentor," the White House said. "The notion that Dr. Birx was "pressuring" Dr. Redfield to do something he didn't agree with seems preposterous on its face. A conversation or comments exchanged between friends and colleagues is hardly some sort of politically-charged demand. Asking for more precise information on a chart is not pressure either."

On July 24, the CDC walked back its cautious guidance on reopening schools, after criticism from President Donald Trump.

"Reopening schools creates opportunity to invest in the education, well-being, and future of one of America's greatest assets — our children — while taking every precaution to protect students, teachers, staff and all their families," the new guidance stated. The new recommendations emphasized that the "best available evidence" suggests children are unlikely to be "major drivers of the spread of the virus."

Scientists did raise concerns over how it seems to minimize the risk of coronavirus to children, and most of the language was not used in the guidelines, the Times reported. Despite pushback from CDC, the "gist" of that document position was the introduction text to final CDC guidelines that called for schools to reopen.

Trump had earlier that month slammed CDC recommendations on reopening schools as "very tough" and "expensive."

"President Trump relies on the advice of all of his top health officials who agree that it is in the public health interest to safely reopen schools, and that the relative risks posed by the virus to young people are outweighed by the risks of keeping children out of school indefinitely," Brian Morgenstern, a White House spokesman told Business Insider. "The Administration has provided funding, guidance, masks, tests, and other resources to states and local districts to help them."

"During this unprecedented global pandemic, the Coronavirus Task Force brings together the federal government's leading health scientists, who offer different expertise and views on a variety of issues during the policymaking process," he added.

CDC study on COVID-19 in kids bolsters case for elementary school reopening

Alexander Nazaryan

National Correspondent, Yahoo News•September 28, 2020


WASHINGTON — Children under the age of 12 are much less likely than teenagers to contract the coronavirus, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on Monday. The study adds nuance to prior findings that the risk of contracting and dying of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, increases with age. The reasons for the correlation are not yet entirely understood. 

The new study also found that Hispanic children were hit hardest by the coronavirus, composing 42 percent of all cases for which ethnic data was available. That highlighted another uncomfortable truth about the pandemic: People of color have been disproportionately affected by both its medical and economic ravages.

Masked schoolchildren at Rogers International School in Stamford, Conn., on Sept. 23. (John Moore/Getty Images)

The new study does, however, appear to bolster the arguments of those who say that children should return to school instead of continuing with what has been, according to many accounts, a disastrous national experiment in distance learning. New York City has returned some children to school buildings and is expected to ramp up in-person instruction by the end of the week.

Officials in Washington, D.C. — where the president has been loudly calling for schools to reopen — have also told principals to prepare for reopening school doors in November.

CDC researchers analyzed data from early March, when schools across the country began to shut down, to mid-September, by which time many states had opened schools either partially or fully for in-person instruction. The researchers found that of the roughly 280,000 children who tested positive for COVID-19 during that time, 63 percent were between the ages of 12 and 17. Thirty-seven percent were ages 5 to 11.

“Incidence among adolescents was approximately double that among young children,” the study concludes. That seems to bolster the case for in-person instruction for elementary schoolchildren, who appear to struggle the most with computer-based remote learning. High school students, who are better equipped to utilize online learning platforms and less likely to require adult supervision, could presumably delay returning to classrooms longer because they are at a higher risk of becoming ill.

Kids were most likely to be infected by the coronavirus in the Southeast and the West, regions where some governors were slow to impose lockdown measures and quick to lift them. 

Masked children line up at a safe social distance before heading into a lunchroom at Woodland Elementary School in Milford, Mass., on Sept. 11. (Suzanne Kreiter/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Children for the most part had mild infections, with only 1.2 percent hospitalized and 0.1 percent requiring intensive care. During the six months accounted for by the study, 51 children died of COVID-19, making for a fatality rate of 0.018 percent. About a quarter of both ICU admissions and fatalities were for children who had underlying medical conditions, such as diabetes, obesity and breathing problems.

The report did not speculate on why Hispanic children, who make up 25 percent of the nation’s population of children between the ages of 5 and 17, would suffer at a rate — 42 percent — much higher than their share of the population. Black children represented 17 percent of coronavirus cases and 14 percent of the relevant population. White children, about 50 percent of the population studied, accounted for 32 percent of the cases. 

Public health experts have suggested several reasons for these disparities, including the dearth of green space, adequate preventive health care and unhealthful food options in many communities of color. Hispanic adults, in particular, are likely to hold essential jobs that put them and their families at greater risk. 

The prevalence of multigenerational households, whether for cultural or economic reasons, could also be a factor in facilitating viral spread. 

The study calls for monitoring and mitigation strategies as communities across the country seek safe ways to reopen schools — and keep them open. A CDC guidance initially published in July said that “in-person schooling is in the best interest of students.” The bevy of studies published since then have not fundamentally challenged that assertion.

CDC: Teens are twice as likely as younger kids to be diagnosed with COVID-19

Korin Miller
Tue, September 29, 2020

The CDC found that kids age 12 to 17 had nearly twice the number of infections than kids age 5 to 11. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)

New research has found that teens are infected with COVID-19 at nearly twice the rate as younger children.

The analysis, which was released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reviewed 277,285 coronavirus cases in children between the age of 5 and 17 who were diagnosed with the virus between March and September. The researchers found that young people 12 to 17 years old had nearly twice the number of infections than kids age 5 to 11. Children with underlying health conditions were more likely to have severe outcomes, the CDC report found.

The data also revealed that 58 percent of children with COVID-19 infections had at least one symptom of the virus, but only 5 percent had no symptoms. (There was no information provided on symptoms for 37 percent of children.)


“It is important for schools and communities to monitor multiple indicators of COVID-19 among school-aged children and layer prevention strategies to reduce COVID-19 disease risk for students, teachers, school staff, and families,” the report states. “These results can provide a baseline for monitoring trends and evaluating mitigation strategies.”

The report also says this: “As education resumes and some schools begin in-person learning for the 2020–21 academic year, it is critical to have a baseline for monitoring trends in COVID-19 infection among school-aged children.”

These findings raise a big question: Why does this age difference exist?

There are likely several reasons behind it, Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells Yahoo Life. One is the behavior of older children. “The virus is everywhere,” he says. “It’s just that adolescents have more social contacts and more activities, and are more likely to come into contact with it than maybe a kindergartener would be.”

While it’s possible that teens are getting infected with the virus at higher rates than younger children, it’s also likely that younger children just aren’t being tested as much, Adalja says. Most children who are infected with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, and that changes as kids get older, Adalja says. “As you get older, you are more likely to have symptoms,” he says. That can influence who is tested and ends up with a confirmed case of the virus.

Even if a younger child has a suspected case of the virus, Adalja says they’re often less likely to be tested, simply because it’s difficult to get them to cooperate. “It’s hard enough to look in their ear, let alone put something up their nose,” he says.

What the data doesn’t suggest so far is that there is anything different about the immune system of teens that makes them more likely to contract COVID-19, Dr. John Schreiber, interim chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, tells Yahoo Life. “We don’t have any data showing that the immunology of a 12-year-old is different from an 8-year-old that causes them to be more susceptible,” he says.

“There’s some data to suggest that these younger children may — and that's the operative word here — be somewhat less likely to get infected," Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo, tells Yahoo Life. “But I don't think the final word is out for sure in terms of whether these children are infected differently or not.”

A lot of this is just speculation at this point, Dr. Danelle Fisher, a pediatrician and vice chair of pediatrics at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., tells Yahoo Life. “There are a lot of interesting theories, but I think time will tell,” she says.

This naturally raises a question about in-person classes reopening, and Adalja says it’s unclear at this point how the latest data factors in — but that may change. “We have the opportunity with schools being opened to look at the data and see what’s going on in schools,” he says. “It’s hard to fold all the data together, especially when there’s a new study coming out, seemingly every day.”

A study published in JAMA Pediatrics in August that analyzed nasopharyngeal swabs in COVID-19 patients found that children younger than age 5 hosted up to 100 times as much of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in their upper respiratory tract as adults. There were no differences in the amount of the virus in the nasal passage between children age 5 to 17 and adults. That suggested young children had the potential to spread the virus.

Previous research published in Emerging Infectious Diseases also found that kids between the age of 10 and 19 were just as likely to spread COVID-19 as adults. And if these children are also more likely to be infected, it could increase the risk of spread, Schreiber says.

Fisher says the latest data, combined with previously existing research, implies that school officials “probably need to be a little more cautious with reopening middle and high schools.”

“We want to do it in such a way that we don’t have to open up and shut down — we don’t want that yo-yo,” she says.

Overall, though, Schreiber says the latest findings confirm that children are susceptible to COVID-19 too. “There is this myth that children don’t get infected, but the reality is that 277,285 kids have gotten infected,” he says. “This is also a disease of children, and they can spread it. We can’t use wishful thinking as a way to manage the pandemic.”

“At the end of the day, the data still shows children can be infected,” Russo says. “No one is protected from this virus. Even though they may have a relative degree of protection compared to older children, they still can be infected, they still can transmit the disease, and we need to make every effort to protect them.”