Caribbean American Weekly - Issue 98

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ISSUE 98 VOLUME 18

May 15, 2020

SERVING THE CARIBBEAN AND HISPANIC COMMUNITIES!

Coronavirus May Never Go Away, World Health Organization Warns

BY BBC WORLD NEWS

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he coronavirus "may never go away", the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Speaking at a briefing on Wednesday, May 13, WHO Emergencies Director, Dr Mike Ryan warned against trying to predict when the virus would disappear.

He added that even if a vaccine is found, controlling the virus will require a "massive effort".

Almost 300,000 people worldwide are reported to have died with coronavirus, and more than 4.3m cases recorded.

"It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away," Dr Ryan told the virtual press conference from Geneva.

Barbados CG Holder & Associations Treat Nurses ....18

"HIV has not gone away — but we have come to terms with the virus."

Dr Ryan then said he doesn't believe "anyone can predict when this disease will disappear".

There are currently more than 100

Nurses on the Front Lines: A History of Heroism from Florence Nightingale to Coronavirus

potential vaccines in development — but Dr Ryan noted there are other illnesses, such as measles, that still haven't been eliminated despite there being vaccines for them. continued on page 14

Ahmaud Arbery: The Danger of Jogging While Black ....4

Knowledge is Power when you use it!

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BY LESLIE NEAL-BOYLAN THE CONVERSATION

The Facebook Relationship Status Dilemma ....23

...page 24

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urses are heroes of the COVID-19 crisis. May 12 is International Nurses Day, which commemorates the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the first “professional nurse.” The World Health Organization also named this year the “Year of the Nurse” in honor of Nightingale’s 200th birthday.

To nurses everywhere, this day and this year have great significance. Nurses, who are being reccontinued on page 15

Nurses’ Special ... see pages 15-19

Brian Figeroux, Esq., Member, American Immigration Lawyers Association

AG James Provides Direction for Law Enforcement on Unlawful Evictions ... 6

Money Girl, Jamaican Supermodel Alicia Burke ....21

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CARIBBEAN SPECIAL REPORT

Caribbean Consulates Anguilla 845 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-745-0200 Antigua & Barbuda 305 East 47th Street, Suite 6A New York, N.Y. 10020 Tel: 212-541-4117 The Bahamas 231 East 46th Street New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-421-6420 Barbados 820 Second Avenue, 5th Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-551-4325 Belize 675 Third Avenue, Suite 1911 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-593-0999 Dominica 800 Second Avenue, Suite 400H New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-949-0853 Dominican Republic 1500 Broadway, Suite 410 New York, N.Y. 10036 Tel: 212-599-8478 Grenada 685 Third Avenue, Suite 1101 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-599-0301 Guyana 308 West 38th Street New York, N.Y. 10018 Tel: 212-947-5119 Haiti 815 Second Avenue,6th Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-697-9767 Jamaica 767 Third Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-935-9000 Martinique 444 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-838-6887 Montserrat 845 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-745-0200 Panama 1212 Avenue of the Americas, 20th Floor New York, N.Y. 10036 Tel: 212-840-2450 St. Kitts & Nevis 414 East 75th Street, 5th Floor New York, N.Y. 10021 Tel: 212-535-5521 St. Lucia 800 Second Avenue, 9th Floor New York, N.Y. 10007 Tel: 212-697-9360 St. Maarten 675 Third Avenue, Suite 1807 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 800-786-2278 St. Vincent & The Grenadines 801 Second Avenue, 21st Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-687-4981 Trinidad & Tobago 125 Maiden Lane, 4th Floor New York, N.Y. 10038 Tel: 212-682-7272 For more Consulate information go to www.cawnyc.com/directory

Urgent Work Needed to Restore Caribbean Tourism in COVID-19 Era

BY SIR RONALD SANDERS

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o be among the first beneficiaries of a restarted global tourism industry, the present enforced downtime should be used by all actors to position Caribbean countries to compete immediately.

Hoteliers, restaurant owners, shops catering for tourists, should now be considering the protocols they need to institute to make themselves ready for the opening of borders. For instance, will face masks and gloves be part of the uniforms of everyone who interacts with visitors from the time they land and until they depart? In the absence of a vaccine for COVID-19, and for some time after one is developed, visitors and locals will want to be confident that contact will not lead to infection.

Airports and airlines in the region should now be considering how they will cope with even longer check-in times, physical distancing and the necessary health checks that will have to be conducted before passengers are allowed on airplanes. At least basic protocols should be formulated, and training for airport and airline personnel should be undertaken now. The countries that are ahead of this curve will give the greatest incentives to airlines to favour transporting passengers into and out of their airports.

Eventually, no doubt, international agencies will establish rules and procedures for air travel as they did in 2001 after 9/11 and during the SARS outbreak in 2003. But, Caribbean countries need not await international rules before building confidence in their own airports by putting sensible preparatory measures in place, rehearsing their execution and training staff.

Many questions arise from what will be an entirely new situation, and Caribbean governments should be considering them now. Among them are: will governments be willing to accept visitors cleared of COVID-19 by sending countries or will they want to conduct checks themselves?

Should it be the latter, clearing passengers for entry after landing, particularly if two or more large aircraft arrive in a cluster, would be a very long and tiresome process unless airports are reconfigured to deal with hundreds of passengers at the same time. Staff for clearing passengers will also have to be significantly increased and trained.

If Caribbean countries will have to ensure that passengers have been tested and cleared for COVID-19 on departure and arrival, work on addressing the enormous challenges should be addressed now. One consideration should be to redeploy existing public servants from less urgent jobs to these necessary tasks.

Hotels should also be working to make themselves ready for visitors by preparing an environment that would give them comfort that they will not be threatened

by COVID-19. This would include mandatory use of masks and gloves by

all staff at all times. Physical distancing will also have to be implemented in hotel restaurants and bars; crowded spaces will only return when an effective COVID-19 vaccine has been found and distributed in enough quantities world-wide to restore health security.

The treatment of cruise ship passengers will also pose new and huge demands.

Since a significant part of their experience is to wander through capital cities, shopping from vendors, big and small, going to beaches and using local transport, how are they to be checked and cleared for COVID-19? In the season, cruise ship passengers number thousands. If Caribbean health authorities want to ensure that these passengers pose no threat to the local population, measures must be put in place to cope with the issue.

Further, the cruise passengers and the cruise companies will want to be assured that the countries at which they are calling have significantly reduced COVID19 infections and that they have in operation continuous safeguards against the spread of the disease. Undoubtedly, they will also want to be confident that the health facilities in the country are adequate for treating tourists who may contract the disease.

Therefore, this downtime should not be treated as a period of paralysis. It should be an interval to galvanize action by all in the industry, in each country, to institute measures that will give cruise ship companies, tour operators and airlines comfort that they are ready to protect the health of their visitors. They also need to communicate such actions to the global tourism community.

When tourism authorities and hotels claim they are open for business, that claim should be supported by evidence of their readiness to provide an environment of health safety.

Cruise ship companies want to get their ships cruising. They have lost more than US$750 million in the first quarter of this year. Shares in Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian have dropped by 60 to 70%. They, too, have to restore passenger confidence that their ships will be safe. But, however safe they may make their ships, they will want to be

assured that the ports at which they call are also safe.

Airlines have also taken a huge beating.

Virgin Airlines is seeking a bailout, or it might never fly again; Airlines for America report that American, Jet Blue and others are already on track to lose US$87 billion in revenue this year; British Airways has had to lay-off 12,000 staff, and is faced with closing down its operations at London Gatwick Airport from which Caribbean flights are served.

Global air travel could lose more than US$252 billion this year.

Airlines, too, need to get their planes in the air. They will fly to the countries best prepared to deal with COVID-19.

So, the players in the Caribbean tourism industry at local and regional levels should be taking action now.

They will be doing so in an atmosphere of concern about flying and cruising.

Any pent-up demand for tourism will be tempered by fear and by cost.

Configuring airplanes for safe physical distancing will reduce the number of passengers and consequently increase the cost of travel.

Both North America and Europe are now facing huge job losses and millions of people are forced to spend their savings. Only the well-off will easily be able to afford leisure travel in the immediate future. COVID-19 is forecast to cause a fall in tourism receipts globally of 2030% (or US$450 billion) this year. By comparison, during the global recession of 2008 international tourist arrivals declined by only 4%, while the 2003 SARS outbreak resulted in a decline of a mere 0.4%.

The problem is real and alarming.

Building confidence in tourism capacity must start now, if the Caribbean will be ready to take advantage of borders opening. l Sir Ronald Michael Sanders is an Antiguan Barbudan academic, diplomat and former broadcast-journalist who is the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States and to the Organization of American States; he is also non-resident High Commissioner to Canada.

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THOUGHTS

America’s Voice Praises HEROES Act

TEAM My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. —Hosea 4:6 Publisher I.Q. INC.

“At a time when immigrants across America are pulling their weight on behalf of all of us, it’s imperative that we as a nation treat them as essential members of the American family. All of us should mean all of us.” he HEROES Act, introduced by Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats, is important legislation that recognizes that the best way to promote the health and safety of all Americans is to include all essential workers and all American families in our response to the virus. This includes treating immigrant workers and their families with dignity and as part of our national recovery effort.

Among its important provisions, the HEROES Act includes measures that ensure that DACA, TPS, and essential workers can continue working in vital roles on the frontlines of COVID-19 response; ensures broader access to COVID-19 testing, treatment, and health care, regardless of immigration status; and recognizes that taxpaying families that include both U.S. citizens and noncitizens should be eligible for inclusion in direct relief and recovery efforts.

The HEROES Act also recognizes that more than 100,000 of our family members, neighbors, and co-workers have been approved for naturalization cere-

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monies, which are currently halted by the Trump administration. The legislation would ensure that these Americans-inwaiting can pledge allegiance to the American flag and take the oath of citizenship at new remote naturalization ceremonies.

Together, these measures strengthen the stability and safety of American communities and neighborhoods and recognize the reality that essential workers of all kinds – immigrants, mixed status families, refugees and DACA and TPS holders – bolster the safety and economic well-being of all Americans.

According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice: The HEROES Act is urgently-needed legislation for a nation in crisis. The way forward for our country is to rise as one America, and to include one and all, regardless of birthplace and background, in our response. In a public health crisis, we are only as strong as our weakest link.

The quest for unity and inclusion isn’t a soft, gauzy aspiration, it’s a hard, pragmatic necessity.

Managing Editor & Editor-in-Chief

Pearl Phillip Legal Advisor Brian Figeroux, Esq. Assistant Editor Marilyn Silverman Graphic & Website Designers Praim Samsoondar Anvaar Sabirov Thanks to Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats, the HEROES Act gets it right. In addition to its many excellent features, the legislation recognizes that it is essential we treat immigrants as essential.

Immigrant workers and families throughout America are on the frontlines, doing their part and risking their lives. They make up a disproportionate share of the officially-designated essential workers. They plant, pick and pack our food. They clean, care, serve and deliver. They serve as doctors, nurses and first responders.

At a time when immigrants across America are pulling their weight on behalf of all of us, it’s imperative that we as a nation treat them as essential members of the American family. All of us should mean all of us. l

Including Mixed-Status NY Families in HEROES Act Relief EW YORK, NY: FWD.us New York State Immigration Director Eddie A. Taveras released the following statement today on new data showing that millions of people in New York could stand to benefit from inclusion in federal relief efforts in the latest proposed coronavirus aid legislation, the HEROES Act: “It’s encouraging to see that the HEROES Act includes necessary relief for mixed-status New York families previously excluded from pandemic relief stimulus payments. In our state, there are an estimated 1,159,000 people living in

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mixed-status families, including 359,000 children and spouses who are U.S. citizens or green card holders, that have not been provided these crucial payments. Both sides of the aisle need to come together to support these individuals who are suffering because of their family members’ immigration status. To help fix this, I encourage both the U.S. House and Senate to swiftly pass the HEROES Act in order to provide support to those strug-

gling due to this pandemic, including additional actions to safely reduce the number of people who are at dangerous risk of infection while incarcerated. New York families are depending on it.”l

Interns Sharif Tyler Casey Tong Contributors Jennine Estes Erin Telesford Janet Howard Mary Campbell Tarsha Gibbons Travis Morales Email info@myiqinc.com Telephone 718-771-0988 Website www.cawnyc.com

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CIVIL RIGHTS

The Killing of Ahmaud Arbery Highlights the Danger of Jogging While Black activity: White men, white women and black women living in predominately white areas were significantly more likely to engage in physical activity in their neighborhoods. Black men living in predominately white neighborhoods, however, were far less likely to engage in physical activity in the areas surrounding their own homes.

BY RAYSHAWN RAY, THE CONVERSATION

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nsteady cellphone footage follows a jogger – an apparently young, black man – as he approaches and attempts to run around a white pickup truck parked in the middle of a suburban road. Moments later he lies dead on the ground.

The killing of Ahmaud Arbery took place on Feb. 23, after the 25-year-old was confronted by Gregory McMichael, a 64-year-old former police officer and investigator for the Brunswick, Georgia district attorney’s office, and his 34-yearold son, Travis. It took 10 weeks to gain widespread attention with the circulation of video footage on social media, prompting revulsion and calls for justice.

Gregory and Travis McMichael were both taken into custody on May 7 on charges of murder and aggravated assault.

Death in suburbia But the killing of Arbery by people with links to law enforcement raises important questions over why it took so long to make arrests in the case and the so-called blue wall of silence that extends from law enforcement agencies to prosecutor’s offices and courtrooms.

Brunswick, GA USA May 8, 2020 Protestors gather at the demonstration for Ahmaud Arbery organized by the NAACP of Georgia at the Glynn County Cort House. Editorial credit: AustenRisolvato / Shutterstock.com

But there is a separate question that needs to be asked: Why do these incidents seem to occur in certain types of neighborhoods? Satilla Shores, where Arbery was killed by the McMichaels, is predominately white and suburban. It evokes memories of the killings of Trayvon Martin, Jonathan Ferrell, Renisha McBride and Tamir Rice.

As a sociologist and public health scholar, I have studied physical activity and how it varies by race and social class. I know that the exact behaviors that are encouraged to extend life for all are the exact ones that can end the life of men like Ahmaud – in short, jogging

while black can be deadly.

In 2017, I published a study on physical activity – focusing on where and how people exercise, and breaking this down by race and gender. I surveyed nearly 500 middle-class black and white professionals around the United States. The research also included in-depth interviews, focus groups and observations of public spaces in cities with varying racial and class compositions including Oakland and Rancho Cucamonga, California; Brentwood, Tennessee; Bowie, Maryland; and Forest Park, Ohio.

I found that race and place significantly inform where people engage in physical

Good neighbors?

Black men I interviewed who had jogged in white neighborhoods where they lived reported incidents of the police being called on them, neighbors scurrying to the other side of the street as they approached, receiving disgruntled looks and seeing the shutting of screen doors as they passed. Similar experiences have been documented in public places like stores, restaurants and coffee shop.

Black men are often criminalized in public spaces – that means they are perceived as potential threats and predators.

Consequently, their blackness is weaponized. Moreover, black men’s physical bodies are viewed as potential weapons that could invoke bodily harm, even when they are not holding anything in their hands or attacking. In fact, black people are 3.5 times more likely than continued on page 5

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CIVIL RIGHTS Danger of Jogging While Black/ continued from page 4 white people to be killed by police in situations where they are not attacking nor have a weapon.

My research highlights that the social psychology of criminalization – the inability to separate concepts of criminality from a person’s identity or role in society – is important here. Often, physical features such as skin tone are used to guide attitudes, emotions and behaviors that can influence interactions between people of different races and lead to oversimplified generalizations about a person’s character. For black men, this means that negative perceptions about their propensity to commit crime, emotional stability, aggressiveness and strength can be used as justification for others to enact physical force upon them.

Signaling or survival?

Some black men attempt to make themselves less threatening. When it comes to jogging in white neighborhoods, some of the black men I spoke to wore alumnus T-shirts, carried I.D., waved and smiled at neighbors, and ran in well-lit, populated areas.

This is hardly surprising. Black men do this at work by thinking consciously about their attire, tone and pitch of voice, and behavioral mannerisms. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, many black men are going to great lengths to reduce criminalization by staying in the house, wearing colorful masks and even forgoing masks altogether.

Sociologists call it a signaling process.

Black men call it survival.

An irony in the case of Ahmaud Arbery is that it has set in motion a campaign that could see more black men putting on their running shoes.

The #IRunWithMaud social media campaign is encouraging people to jog 2.23 miles – a reference to the date on which Arbery was killed.l

Georgia AG Requests DOJ to Conduct Investigation into Handling of Ahmaud Arbery Case

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TLANTA, GA: Attorney General Chris Carr in a press release on Sunday, May 10, formally requested the U.S. Department of Justice, led by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia Bobby Christine, to conduct an investigation into the handling of the Ahmaud Arbery case. This case involves the deadly shooting Mr. Arbery in Glynn County, Georgia on February 23, 2020 within the Brunswick Judicial Circuit. At the time of Mr. Arbery’s death and up until May 7, 2020, no arrests were made in the case.

“We are committed to a complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset,” said Attorney General Chris Carr.

“The family, the community and the state of Georgia deserve answers, and we will work with others in law enforcement at the state and federal level to find those answers.”

The request to the U.S. Department of Justice includes, but is not limited to, investigation of the communications and discussions by and between the Office of the District Attorney of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit and the Office of the District Attorney of the Waycross Judicial Circuit related to this case.

On February 27, 2020, the Office of the Attorney General received a request from the Office of the District Attorney of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit to appoint another prosecutor for this case. Pursuant

to O.C.G.A. § 15-18-5, this Office appointed the District Attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit to prosecute the case on that same date. At the time of the request by the Brunswick Circuit District Attorney and acceptance by the Waycross Circuit District Attorney, neither revealed to the Office of the Attorney General that the Waycross Circuit District Attorney had already taken a role in the case in reviewing evidence and advising the Glynn County Police Department regarding whether to make arrests in the case.

On April 7, 2020, the Office of the Attorney General received a request from the Office of the District Attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit to appoint another prosecutor for this case. In that request, the Waycross Circuit District Attorney again did not inform the Office of the Attorney General of his prior involvement in the case before his appointment and specifically described to the Office of the Attorney General the actions that he took “upon taking the case.” In the request of April 7, 2020, the Waycross Circuit District Attorney indicated that he and the Brunswick Circuit District Attorney learned as of “about 3-4 weeks ago,” that his son who is employed as a prosecutor in the Office of the Brunswick Circuit District Attorney had handled a prior prosecution of Mr. Arbery and that one of the defendants in this case had also served as an investigator on the

same prosecution. The request of April 7, 2020 did not provide any reason for the delay in contacting the Office of the Attorney General to request appointment of a new prosecutor since the discovery of those facts. Nor did the request of April 7, 2020, reveal that, on April 2, 2020, the Waycross Circuit District Attorney had provided the Glynn County Police Department with a written opinion that no arrests should be made in the case.

In that letter, the Waycross District Attorney also confirmed “an initial opinion the day after the shooting” which would have been February 24, 2020. At that time, he had not requested, nor was he appointed by the Office of the Attorney General to this case.

On April 13, 2020, the Office of the Attorney General appointed the District Attorney for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit to this case. On May 5, 2020, the Atlantic Circuit District Attorney requested that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) conduct an investigation into the death of Ahmaud Arbery. The GBI commenced its investigation on May 6, 2020 and made two arrests on May 7, 2020.

The Office of the Attorney General will provide its entire file regarding the appointment process for the prosecutors in this case and provide any assistance requested by the U.S. Department of Justice. l

Rashawn Ray is an Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on May 7 following the arrests of Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael.

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DIASPORA CONCERNS

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AG James Provides Direction for Law Enforcement on Unlawful Evictions During COVID-19 Pandemic

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ew York Attorney General Letitia James provided direction to law enforcement departments throughout New York state so they have clear guidance on how to protect the public from unlawful evictions both during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19) public health crisis and into the future.

There is a rising concern that some landlords might begin to take matters into their own hands and attempt to evict tenants themselves in the absence of a court order. New York’s Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 created new protections for tenants, including a new provision that makes it a crime (a Class A misdemeanor) for a person to either evict an occupant from their home without a court order, or to fail to restore an occupant who was evicted without court order. This new law empowers law enforcement to intervene when encountering unlawful evictions, which provides a welcomed and timely additional layer of protection for tenants as they grapple with the economic challenges presented by the COVID-19 public health crisis.

Attorney General James

“As the coronavirus rages on, many individuals are experiencing unprecedented financial instability, and it is important for everyone to understand the protections in place to guard against unlawful evictions at such a vulnerable time,” said Attorney General James. “I will continue to work with law enforcement to ensure that no New Yorker is illegally removed from their home during this pandemic.”

Attorney General James highlights the

following directions for law enforcement responding to unlawful evictions across New York state: •It is an unlawful eviction if a person evicts or attempts to evict a person by: •Using or threatening the use of force; •Interrupting or discontinuing essential services (i.e. heat, water, electricity); •Removing the occupant’s possessions from the dwelling unit; •Removing the door at the entrance to the dwelling unit; •Removing, plugging, or otherwise rendering the lock on the entrance door inoperable; •Changing the lock on an entrance door without supplying the occupant with a key; and •Any other action which prevents or is intended to prevent the occupant from the lawful occupancy of the dwelling unit, which interferes or intends to interfere with the occupant’s use and occupancy of the dwelling unit, or induces the occupant to vacate. The law protects any person who occupies a dwelling unit (which can be an apartment, a room, or a bed) through a written or oral lease, or who has

occupied the unit for at least 30 days from the unlawful eviction, including tenants whose leases have expired, family members who have been in the dwelling unit for at least 30 days, and roommates or other licensees of tenants and occupants who have been in the dwelling unit for at least 30 days.

•Furthermore, the law also requires an owner of the dwelling unit to take all reasonable and necessary actions to restore an occupant who has been unlawfully evicted to their unit. Alternatively, the owner can provide the occupant another habitable unit within the dwelling.

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) continues to actively monitor housing practices throughout the state to ensure that unlawful evictions do not occur. OAG has sent cease and desist letters to landlords throughout the state who unlawfully threaten tenants with eviction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

New York courts are not accepting any new eviction or foreclosure cases.

Threats of eviction are not only illegal, but also damaging to the well-being of New Yorkers. l

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• Senior Centers • Jobs

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THERE ARE NO QUESTIONS ABOUT IMMIGRATION OR CITIZENSHIP THE CENSUS IS EASY AND SAFE

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JOBS & RECESSION

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COVID-19 Will Change Job Recruiting; Here’s How Companies Need to Adapt ing them back needs to make them feel valued so the company doesn’t lose that relationship.”

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he COVID-19 pandemic has upended the business world and put tens of millions out of work in the U.S. At the same time, it’s caused a seismic shift in the way many companies operate, the biggest change being that more business functions are done while working remotely.

But along with the work-from-home aspect, the fallout from the coronavirus will fundamentally change recruiting and hiring practices long after the pandemic has passed, says Jack Whatley, a recruiting strategist who specializes in creating employer branding campaigns.

“Social distancing, shelter-in-place orders and the forced closing of businesses will change the way we look at employment,” Whatley says. “No longer will the promises of changing the world attract the modern workforce. Safety and job stability are at the top of the mind for the modern job seeker – and that changed what they want in a job.

“Businesses will have to become employee-centric as well as customercentric. The companies that have the ability to capture that part of the employee message, put it into their employer

branding, and reinforce it throughout recruitment marketing campaigns are going to be the companies moving ahead in a much different world.”

As states begin different stages of reopening for business, Whatley breaks down what companies should do when recruiting, hiring, and re-hiring: Create a communication campaign.

“If you’re a company that laid off

employees with the hope of bringing them back, you have to reach out with genuine communication that goes the extra mile,” Whatley says. “It should let them know in detail what steps the company is taking. Those people who were let go unexpectedly and lived paycheck to paycheck, they’ll be emotionally drained and stressed. A company bring-

Looking to make extra cash? A side hustle?

We are looking for persons to sell advertisements.

Experience in advertsing sales is needed and preferably experience or sincere interest in marketing.

Be careful in rehiring. Rehires won’t be a straightforward process for some companies. Circumstances won’t allow them to rehire or bring back from furlough all of their former employees. “Employers must be cautious in determining who to bring back to the workplace; they need to mitigate the risk of potential discrimination claims, which could be based on the decision not to bring back certain employees,” Whatley says. “Employers will need to have a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for choosing which employees to rehire. Those reasons include seniority, operational needs or documented past performance issues.

Employers should document their decision-making process now, before deciding who will be invited back.”

Focus on expanded employee rights.

Whatley thinks a new appreciation for workers may be emerging as state and local governments mandate paid sick leave and family leave during the outbreak. Some companies are shifting their focus to hourly workers as well for those perks. “This change could become permanent,” Whatley says, “as organizations work hard to hire new staff and increase retention rates.”

Streamline the process. “If the recruiting process gets backlogged,” Whatley says, “it causes problems for your current employees and an under-staffed company. It becomes frustrating for them, because they’re forced to work overtime, and the big workload kills morale and increases turnover.”

“Most companies look at hiring people as a transaction – they need to fill a seat,” Whatley says. “They place a job posting and fill the job. In the new world, that will no longer be the case. To get the best talent, companies will have to engage people sooner, more thoughtfully, and put a higher priority on what employees value most in a job.”l

Jack Whatley (www.humancodeofhiring.com) is a recruiting strategist who specializes in creating employer branding campaigns that position companies as the employer of choice in their market.

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9

FAMILY MATTERS

Can I Get a Piece of My Husband’s Military Pension After Divorce?

BY GINITA WALL, CPA, CFP®

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he U.S. military offers one of the best retirement systems in the world. After 20 years of service, a service member can retire and receive 50% of their base pay for the rest of their lives, with cost-of-living increases thrown in just for fun. If you are (or were) married to one of the estimated 1.43 million men or women in uniform, then you have a claim on your spouse’s pension. However, this is a tricky subject, and you have some important decisions to make.

How Much Do You Get? How much of that juicy military pension are you entitled to? That answer to that question will depend on a variety of factors. First, it will depend on where your divorce is filed. Different states have different laws regarding how assets are divided in a divorce. Since military families tend to move often, determining the correct jurisdiction might not be easy.

You’ll need to divorce in a state where your spouse is a resident or “domiciled.”

Another option is for you both to agree

together on a state.

Next, the amount you receive will also depend on the length of your marriage and how many years your spouse was in the military during that marriage. The longer you were married while your spouse was in the military (and the farther along in his career he was), the greater your entitlement.

It’s a good idea to hire a divorce attorney with expertise in military divorces.

Your lawyer can make the correct calculations or hire a professional actuary to make the calculations to help settle on a number. Once you have a martial share

outlined, you’ll need to make an important decision.

Lump Sum or Wait and See? If your spouse still has many years left before he plans to retire, it could be a long wait until you access your share of his military pension. For many reasons it might be a good idea to trade your share of the future pension for more assets now (like full equity in your home).

This is a calculated risk, but by taking a lump sum, you get a sure thing rather than possibly getting nothing. For instance, what happens if your ex-hus-

band simply decides to leave the military before retirement and never qualifies for a pension? What if he is dishonorably discharged? What if he dies before he has a chance to retire?

The wait-and-see approach also means it could take a decade or more before you see the first penny of your ex-spouse’s pension benefit. Many women can’t afford to wait, especially military wives who often drop out of the workforce, because keeping a job is highly difficult when a family must pick up and move every few years.

It is always best to speak with an experienced divorce attorney before making big divorce decisions, such as whether to take a lump sum payment or wait ‘til your ex-husband retires. (You may also want to consider taking a lump sum payment instead of monthly alimony. l Ginita Wall, CPA, CFP®, CDFA is a Cofounder of WIFE.org and nationally recognized expert on the subject of women and money. She is a frequent speaker for conventions, professional groups, and philanthropic organizations. Article reprinted with permission.

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CORONAVIRUS

10

5 Wise Things Retirees Can Do With Their Stimulus Checks

S

timulus checks being sent to millions of Americans are seen as a lifeline for many. The economic calamity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in massive unemployment, shrinking bank accounts, and tightened family budgets, and the $1200 check can provide a little breathing room while paying for some essentials.

But for retirees who aren’t counting on the check to pay bills because they draw Social Security and can tap retirement savings, there are numerous options to put that stimulus check to good use, says Chris Orestis, the president of LifeCare Xchange.”

“The stimulus money provides an opportunity to help a family member, add savings, pay down debt, or take care of some things you’ve been putting off,” Orestis says. “Retirees should look at their current situation and determine if the money is best used short-term or for future considerations.”

Orestis suggests five ways for retirees to use their stimulus check: Bulk up your emergency savings. “The rule of thumb regarding an emergency fund is having enough money in quickly

accessible cash to pay for at least three months’ worth of living expenses,” Orestis says. “If your fund is short, add your stimulus check.”

class, appointments with a social worker for counseling, or perhaps some added technology to help stay connected to loved ones and others.”

Invest it in stable places. If a retiree doesn’t absolutely need their stimulus check, it could turn out to be a nice bonus by growing it through investment.

“People are understandably hesitant about the volatile stock market now,” Orestis says. “It has bounced back a few times recently and no one should panic sell or buy. Another stable investment is in maintaining a life insurance policy instead of allowing it to lapse. Life insurance policies are a stable asset that guarantee the face value and also have secondary market value if the owner decides to sell it off with a life settlement.”

Help a family member. “With so many people hurting financially from this crisis,” Orestis says, “retirees in a good position currently have a wonderful opportunity with these checks to provide added support for loved ones, especially those among the millions now out of work.”

Invest in your health. Seniors are among the most vulnerable groups to suffer extreme symptoms from the coronavirus. “Add that to feelings of isolation and not seeing family,” Orestis says, “and it would be productive to spend the stimulus on an activity that would boost their wellness, both physically and mentally. Fitness equipment, an online fitness

Spend it on overdue repairs. This is an investment in a way, because spending on a car or home issue that’s relatively inexpensive now could save you from much bigger costs later if those issues are left unattended. “A lot of people put off home projects, car repairs or maintenance because they want to conserve funds and limit retirement withdrawals,” Orestis says. “Your stimulus check could be money well spent to prevent big expenditures.”

“Americans are suffering financially, and seniors aren't necessarily the exception,” Orestis says. “It’s a welcome bonus for many, so they should be sure to

use it, or save it, wisely. Those that have the wiggle room to spend it can make their lives easier through this difficult time.” l Chris Orestis has been a featured guest on over 50 radio programs, and has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, NBC News, Fox News, USA Today, Kiplinger’s, Investor’s Business Daily, PBS, and numerous other media outlets.

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continued on page 11

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STOP THE SPREAD OF COVID-19!

LEARN HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND OTHERS AT HOME. WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF COVID-19?

• The most common symptoms are fever, cough, sore throat and shortness of breath. Other symptoms include feeling achy, loss of taste or smell, headache, and diarrhea.

• Most people with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) will have mild or moderate symptoms and can get better on their own.

WHO IS MOST AT RISK FOR SERIOUS ILLNESS? • People age 50 or older (people age 65 or older are at the highest risk) • People who have other health conditions, such as: Lung disease Kidney disease Asthma Liver disease Heart disease Cancer Obesity A weakened immune system Diabetes

WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I GET SICK WITH COVID-19 SYMPTOMS? If you are sick with COVID-19 symptoms, assume you have it. When you are sick: • If you have trouble breathing, pain or pressure in your chest, are confused or cannot stay awake, or have bluish lips or face, call 911 immediately.

• Call your doctor if you are age 50 or older or have a health condition that puts you at increased risk, or if you do not feel better after three days.

• Always contact a doctor or go to the hospital if you have severe symptoms of COVID-19 or another serious health issue.

• Do not leave your home except to get necessary medical care or essential food or supplies (if someone cannot get them for you).

• If you must leave your home: Avoid crowded places.

Stay at least 6 feet from others.

Cover your nose and mouth with a bandana, scarf or other face covering.

Wash your hands before you go out, and use alcohol-based hand sanitizer while outside.

• Household members can go out for essential work and needs but should monitor their health closely.

If you or someone in your home is sick: • Create physical distance: Do not have visitors.

Stay at least 6 feet from others.

Sleep head-to-toe if you share a bed with someone who is sick, or sleep on the couch.

Keep people who are sick separate from those at risk for serious illness.

• Cover up: Cover your nose and mouth with a bandana, scarf or other face covering when you are within 6 feet of others.

Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue or your inner elbow.

• Keep it clean: Throw tissues into the garbage immediately after use.

Wash your hands often with soap for 20 seconds, especially after you cough or sneeze.

Use alcohol-based hand sanitizer if you are unable to wash your hands.

Frequently clean surfaces you touch, such as doorknobs, light switches, faucets, phones, keys and remote controls.

Wash towels, sheets and clothes at the warmest possible setting with your usual detergent, and dry completely.

Do not share eating utensils with others, and wash them after every use.

WHEN CAN I LEAVE MY HOME AFTER BEING SICK? • If you have been sick, stay home until: You are fever-free for three days without Tylenol or other medication and It has been at least seven days since your symptoms started and Your symptoms have improved • Reminder: New York is on PAUSE. This means that even if you have been sick, you should only leave your home for essential work or errands, or to exercise, while staying at least 6 feet from others.

NEED HELP? • If you are having a medical emergency, call 911.

• If you do not have a doctor but need one, call 844-NYC-4NYC (844-692-4692). New York City provides care, regardless of immigration status, insurance status or ability to pay.

• For more information, call 311 or visit nyc.gov/coronavirus.

The NYC Health Department may change recommendations as the situation evolves.

4.20

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EDUCATION

12

Cuomo’s Gates-Led ‘Reimagine’ Schools Bid Snubs Current NYC Teachers, Parents

BY REEMA AMIN, CHALKBEAT VIA THECITY

G

ov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday released the names of educators and others who would advise the state on its new effort with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” in New York.

But the exclusion of any current New York City schools’ officials drew ire from city teachers and the mayor’s office.

The 19 names include former New York City schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who served under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Interim State Education Commissioner Shannon Tahoe, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, some district superintendents, the executive director of New York State’s PTA, the president of SUNY’s Student Assembly, and university leaders.

Additionally, the council will be chaired by SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras, who has previously worked for the governor.

The list quelled concerns that educators would not be included after the state said it would partner with the Gates Foundation to rethink what virtual education should look like after students, now learning from home during the coronavirus pandemic, go back to school buildings.

It doesn’t, however, include any K-12 students or any current teachers, principals, parents, district leaders, or administrators from the New York City Department of Education, the state and nation’s largest school system, serving more than 1 million students.

“One in every three students in the state attends a New York City public school,” said Freddi Goldstein, press secretary for Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a statement.

“There is no ‘reimagined education’ without the interests of our kids and families represented.”

Details Unclear Goldstein said the governor’s office did not reach out to City Hall about partici-

Governor Cuomo. Editorial credit: Hans Pennink / Shutterstock.com

pation on the council. The governor’s office did not immediately say why no one from the city was included on the list or when this advisory council is expected to start its work. The Gates Foundation declined to comment. (The Gates Foundation is a funder of Chalkbeat.)

The timeline and details of this initiative are still murky, except that Cuomo wants to explore several questions around access and use of technology in education, such as how using the “cloud” can help teachers instruct “lecture hall environments” or how technology can help students with disabilities.

Gates’ role will be to offer its own expertise and convene national and international experts, though it’s still unknown who they will be.

The governor’s announcement of a partnership with the Gates Foundation was immediately met with forceful opposition from New York educators and parents who are critical of the foundation’s role in developing the Common Core academic standards and linking student test scores to teacher evaluations.

Teachers were also concerned that the governor was looking for ways to supplant some in-person teaching, with the state teachers union president, Andy Pallotta, saying that “remote learning will never replace the important personal connection between teachers and their students.”

The news made national headlines.

Weingarten, the leader of the country’s

Bill Gates at an event in NYC. Editorial credit: JStone / Shutterstock.com

second-largest teachers union, initially worried that educators would not be included in the conversation. After talking to Cuomo’s office that day, she later said the partnership was a “first step.” On Friday her name appeared on the list of advisory council members.

Expertise and Experience’ In a news release Friday, Cuomo said this advisory council’s “collective expertise and experience” will “help answer key questions about how we can strengthen New York’s entire education system for decades to come.” The council will work with other experts, Gates, and state officials.

The list drew criticism from New York City educators, including MORE-UFT, the social justice caucus of the city teachers union.

“NYC has over 1 million students and will face unique challenges in reopening,” the caucus wrote in a tweet. “We demand to be represented.”

Below is the list of people on the advisory council: • Kaweeda Adams, Superintendent, Albany City School District • Jaime Alicea, Superintendent, Syracuse City School District • Jody Arnhold, Founder, Dance Educator Laboratory • Melodie Baker, Director of Education, United Way of Buffalo & Erie County • Kyle Belokopitsky, Executive Director, New York State PTA

• Meg Benke, Provost, SUNY Empire State College • Jackie Burbridge, Parent, Suffolk County Katie Campos, Partner, Strategic Collective • Anthony Collins, President, Clarkson University • Stephanie Conklin, Master Teacher, South Colonie Central School District • George Dermody, CEO, The Children Home of Wyoming Conference • Karol Mason, President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice • Austin Ostro, President, SUNY Student Assembly • Martin Palermo, Master Teacher, William Floyd School District • Roger Ramsammy, President, Hudson Valley Community College • Seema Rivera, President, Guilderland Central School District School Board • Shannon Tahoe, Interim Commissioner, New York State Education Department • Dennis Walcott, Former Chancellor, New York City Department of Education • Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachersl

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

This story was published on May 10, 2020 by THE CITY.

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13

TAX MATTERS

Why the Economic Impact Payment Amount Could be Different Than Anticipated

W

ASHINGTON — The IRS and Treasury have successfully delivered nearly 130 million Economic Impact Payments to Americans in less than a month, and more are on the way. Some Americans may have received a payment amount different than what they expected. Payment amounts vary based on income, filing status and family size.

Below are some common scenarios that may explain why you received a different payment amount than expected: You have not filed a 2019 tax return, or the IRS has not finished processing your 2019 return Payments are automatic for eligible people who filed a tax return for 2018 or 2019. Typically, the IRS uses information from the 2019 tax return to calculate the Economic Impact Payment. Instead, the IRS will use the 2018 return if the taxpayer has not yet filed for 2019. If a taxpayer has already filed for 2019, the agency will still use the 2018 return if the IRS has not finished processing the 2019 return.

Remember, the IRS accepting a tax return electronically is different than completing processing; any issues with the 2019

return mean the IRS would've used the 2018 filing.

If the IRS used the 2018 return, various life changes in 2019 would not be reflected in the payment. These may include higher or lower income or birth or adoption of a child.

In many cases, however, these taxpayers may be able to claim an additional amount on the 2020 tax return they file next year. This could include up to an additional $500 for each qualifying child not reflected in their Economic Impact Payment.

Claimed dependents are not eligible for an additional $500 payment Only children eligible for the Child Tax Credit qualify for the additional payment

of up to $500 per child. To claim the Child Tax Credit, the taxpayer generally must be related to the child, live with them more than half the year and provide at least half of their support. Besides their own children, adopted children and foster children, eligible children can include the taxpayer's younger siblings, grandchildren, nieces and nephews if they can be claimed as dependents. In addition, any qualifying child must be a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or other qualifying resident alien. The child must also be under the age of 17 at the end of the year for the tax return on which the IRS bases the payment determination.

A qualifying child must have a valid Social Security number (SSN) or an Adoption Taxpayer Identification

Number (ATIN). A child with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is not eligible for an additional payment.

Parents who are not married to each other and do not file a joint return cannot both claim their qualifying child as a dependent. The parent who claimed their child on their 2019 return may have received an additional Economic Impact Payment for their qualifying child. When the parent who did not receive an additional payment files their 2020 tax return next year, they may be able to claim up to an additional $500 per-child amount on that return if they qualify to claim the child as their qualifying child for 2020.

Dependents are college students Pursuant to the CARES Act, dependent college students do not qualify for an EIP, and even though their parents may claim them as dependents, they normally do not qualify for the additional $500 payment. For example, under the law, a 20-year-old full-time college student claimed as a dependent on their mother's 2019 federal income tax return is not eligible for a $1,200 Economic Impact continued on page 14

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TAX MATTERS Economic Impact Payment/ continued from page 13 Payment. In addition, the student's mother will not receive an additional $500 Economic Impact Payment for the student because they do not qualify as a child younger than 17. This scenario could also apply if a parent's 2019 tax return hasn't been processed yet by the IRS before the payments were calculated, and a college student was claimed on a 2018 tax return.

However, if the student cannot be claimed as a dependent by their mother or anyone else for 2020, that student may be eligible to claim a $1,200 credit on their 2020 tax return next year.

Claimed dependents are parents or relatives, age 17 or older If a dependent is 17 or older, they do not qualify the additional $500. If a taxpayer claimed a parent or any other relative age 17 or older on their tax return, that dependent will not receive a $1,200 payment. In addition, the taxpayer will not receive an additional $500 payment because the parent or other relative is not a qualifying child under age 17.

However, if the parent or other relative cannot be claimed as a dependent on the taxpayer's or anyone else's return for 2020, the parent or relative may be eligible to individually claim a $1,200 credit on their 2020 tax return filed next year.

14

Past-due child support was deducted from the payment The Economic Impact Payment is offset only by past-due child support. The Bureau of the Fiscal Service will send the taxpayer a notice if an offset occurs.

For taxpayers who are married filing jointly and filed an injured spouse claim with their 2019 tax return (or 2018 tax return if they haven't filed the 2019 tax return), half of the total payment will be sent to each spouse. Only the payment of the spouse who owes past-due child support should be offset.

The IRS is aware that a portion of the payment sent to a spouse who filed an injured spouse claim with his or her 2019 tax return (or 2018 tax return if no 2019 tax return has been filed) may have been offset by the injured spouse's past-due child support. The IRS is working with the Bureau of Fiscal Service and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Support Enforcement, to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. If you filed an injured spouse claim with your return and are impacted by this issue, you do not need to take any action. The injured spouse will receive their unpaid half of the total payment when the issue is resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.

tected from garnishment by creditors by federal law once the proceeds are deposited into a taxpayer's bank account .

What if the amount of my Economic Impact Payment is incorrect?

Everyone should review the eligibility requirements for their family to make sure they meet the criteria.

In many instances, eligible taxpayers who received a smaller-than-expected Economic Impact Payment (EIP) may qualify to receive an additional amount early next year when they file their 2020 federal income tax return. EIPs are technically an advance payment of a new temporary tax credit that eligible taxpayers can claim on their 2020 return.

Everyone should keep for their records the letter they receive by mail within a few weeks after their payment is issued.

When taxpayers file their return next year, they can claim additional credits on their 2020 tax return if they are eligible for them. The IRS will provide further details on IRS.gov on the action they may need to take.

The EIP will not reduce a taxpayer's refund or increase the amount they owe when they file a tax return early next year. It is also not taxable and is therefore should not be included in income on a 2020 return.l

Garnishments by creditors reduced the payment amount Federal tax refunds, including the Economic Impact Payment, are not pro-

Source: irs.gov

Coronavirus May Never Go Away/continued from page 1 WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed it was still possible to control the virus, with effort.

"The trajectory is in our hands, and it's everybody's business, and we should all contribute to stop this pandemic," he said.

WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove also told the briefing: "We need to get into the mindset that it is going to take some time to come out of this pandemic."

Their stark remarks come as several countries began to gradually ease lockdown measures, and leaders consider the issue of how and when to reopen their economies.

Dr Tedros warned that there was no guaranteed way of easing restrictions without triggering a second wave of infections.

"Many countries would like to get out of the different measures," the WHO boss said. "But our recommendation is still the alert at any country should be at the highest level possible."

Dr Ryan added: "There is some magical thinking going on that lockdowns work perfectly and that unlocking lockdowns will go great. Both are fraught with dangers." l

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15

NURSES’ SPECIAL Nursing History/ continued from page 1 ognized as heroes, have long awaited recognition as health care professionals in their own right and not ancillary to physicians. It’s wonderful to be recognized now in the context of coronavirus, but nurses have always been at the forefront – during war, epidemics and other times of disaster.

I have been a nurse for 40 years and a nurse practitioner for 17 of those years.

An active clinician, researcher, scholar and educator, I currently serve as dean of the Solomont School of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Throughout my career, nurses have typically been relegated to a secondary role, and if mentioned at all, we are described as assisting doctors. Nurses today are still asked why they didn’t become doctors instead. Aren’t we smart enough?

Many people don’t realize that nursing and doctoring are entirely different professions with different purposes. We are proud to work alongside doctors and other health professionals, but we have never worked behind them. Not all nurses work at the bedside, but we all touch the lives of patients.

Many nurses have doctoral degrees.

They conduct research that advances the quality of patient care. Nurses change health care policy. For example, nurses play a significant role in health care reform and advise Congress on proposed health care rules and regulations. They

also guide organizations regarding health care technology and care coordination and sit on executive boards of health care organizations. Nursing is both an art and a science.

The role of the nurse has evolved, but some things haven’t changed. Nurses have always cared for the sick, the well and the dying. We promote health and prevent illness. We interpret what is happening so that patients understand it. We are there for the entire patient experience from birth to old age, from wellness to illness, and throughout age and illness toward a peaceful and dignified death.

Our history provides many examples.

In 1854, Florence Nightingale brought 38 volunteer nurses to care for soldiers during the Crimean War. The cause of the conflict focused on the rights of

Christians in the Holy Land and involved Russia, the Ottoman Empire, France, Sardinia and the United Kingdom. Male nurses provided care as far back as the Knights Hospitaller in the 11th century.

But prior to Nightingale’s involvement, male and female nurses consisted of untrained family members or soldiers who cared for the ill and infirm.

Nightingale was the first to organize nurses and provide standardized roles and responsibilities for the profession. As such, she is credited with founding modern professional nursing. She was also an expert statistician, collecting data on patients and what did and didn’t work to make them better. Nightingale and her nurses improved sanitation, hygiene and nutrition. They provided care and comfort. Their work had a major impact on

the survival of soldiers.

The American Civil War in the 1860s brought thousands of trained nurses to the battlefront, risking their lives to care for soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

The most famous were Dorothea Dix, an advocate for indigenous populations and the mentally ill; Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross; and Louisa May Alcott, the author of “Little Women.”

Nurses again answered the call with the yellow fever epidemic of 1878, rushing from all over the country to Tennessee.

The epidemic ultimately killed 18,000 people, and many nurses died while caring for the sick.

The U.S. recruited more than 22,000 trained nurses to treat Americans overseas and back at home from 1917 to 1919 during World War I. The war brought death from combat to about 53,000 Americans, while about 40 million civilians and military died worldwide. Time after time, nurses have left the warmth, comfort and safety of their homes to care for others.

Nurses were also among the millions who died from the 1918 influenza pandemic. Fifty million people died worldwide. This pandemic is probably most comparable to what we are experiencing today with COVID-19. But epidemics, such as polio, off and on from 1916 to 1954; the global pandemic of influenza A, 1957-1958; swine flu, 2009-2010; continued on page 16

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NURSES’ SPECIAL

16

Brooklyn Nurse Who Was Pregnant With COVID-19 Remains on Life Support

Nursing History/ continued from page 15

B

rooklyn, NY: Sylvia LeRoy, a 35year old nurse who was working on the front lines at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, New York while pregnant, is reportedly in a coma due to complications from COVID-19. She was forced to give birth to her baby prematurely, and now her family is asking for help.

LeRoy, who is a wife and a mother of two kids, was 6 months pregnant when she started feeling sick in mid-March.

She eventually tested positive for coronavirus and her symptoms began to worsen.

LeRoy’s condition seemed to improve when she was put into a trial for the experimental drug remdesivir. But a few days later, she suffered cardiac arrest and she had to give birth to her baby at just 30 weeks.

Though the baby is doing quite well

Info and photo: BlackNews

now, LeRoy remains on life support. Her sister, Shirley Licin, was afraid that their insurance can only cover 60 days of the many months she would actually need to get better.

A GoFundMe was set up to help provide financial support for the baby and LeRoy, who is said to most likely con-

tract the deadly virus while helping other sick patients. More than 15,500 people have donated and so far raised over $820,000 of the $1-million goal.

“She deserves a chance. She deserves whatever her best actual can be,” Licin told CNN.l

ANA Extends Nurses Week to a Month of Recognition to Honor Our Heroes

S

ILVER SPRING, MD: Honoring our nation’s nurse heroes is more profoundly significant than the American Nurses Association (ANA) anticipated when we extended the traditional National Nurses Week to a month of recognition in May. The COVID-19 pandemic quickly shifted the focus from the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, but now more than ever we must support and recognize nurses who work with courage and compassion and under extremely challenging circumstances.

Whether it is a national health emergency or routine daily care, nurses’ vital contributions impact the health and wellbeing of our communities, which is why ANA selected the theme for May as Nurses Make a Difference. To honor nurses and support the nursing profession, ANA will promote weekly themes and activities.

The month will be divided into four weekly focuses:

WEEK 1 SELF-CARE (May 1–9): Use this week to focus on yours’ and your colleagues’ mental health and physical well-being.

WEEK 2 RECOGNITION (MAY 10– 16): Now more than ever, it is important to raise the visibility of the critical work nurses do by honoring nurse heroes, innovators and leaders.

WEEK 3 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (MAY 17–23): Nurses’ stories are educational, inspirational and healing. Effective storytelling is a vital skill. Learn how to find your storytelling voice. Sign up for the free webinar “Magnifying Your Voice – Use Storytelling to Advance Nursing.”

WEEK 4 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (MAY 24–31): Help promote nurses’ invaluable contributions by

engaging virtually with your community, educating them on what nurses do, and encouraging support current and future nurses.

While continued physical distancing may limit our face-to-face activities, we encourage everyone to think of creative ways to virtually engage and celebrate nurses for their invaluable contributions to our nation and the world. l

Ebola, 2014-2016; and Zika, 2015-2020, have also required constant nursing care.

I remember the AIDS pandemic, which began in 1981. I was a visiting nurse and saw many patients in their homes, from homeless shelters to penthouse apartments. Everyone suffered not only because of the physical and mental effects of the disease but also because of the stigma. People, even their families, were afraid to touch patients, kiss them or be near them. It was a lonely time for these patients. I watched them deteriorate and die. Nurses were often the only ones to hold the hands of these patients, so they wouldn’t die alone.

Nurses were also there during 9/11.

They were among the courageous first responders who risked their lives to save others. Many have chronic diseases because of their exposure to Ground Zero.

Every year, nurses are voted first among the professions the public trusts the most, according to Gallup. We work hard to earn and maintain that trust. You will find us caring for people in their homes, in public health departments, in nursing homes and skilled care facilities, in rehabilitation hospitals, in prisons and correctional institutions, caring for the mentally ill and providing health care advice over phones and computers. Nurses work wherever there are people.

What do we ask in return? It’s simple.

We don’t consider ourselves heroes, but we do deserve respect. Public images of the nurse in a sexy uniform or as a handmaiden to a doctor are wrong and insulting. We are professionals. Once the COVID-19 crisis is over, please don’t forget that we are always here for you.

Always have been. Always will be.l Leslie Neal-Boylan is the Dean of the Solomont School of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Lowell.

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17

NURSES’ SPECIAL

Why This ICU Nurse Treating COVID Patients Could Be Deported

BY STEPHANIE HEGARTY, BBC NEWS POPULATION CORRESPONDENT

T

he US Supreme Court is considering a case that could put hundreds and thousands of people who were brought into the country illegally as children at risk of deportation. Some of those are healthcare workers dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

At the beginning of April, a long line of police cars snaked slowly around a hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with their blue lights flashing in the bright sun. It was a tribute, they said, to the healthcare workers risking their lives to treat patients with Covid-19.

But for Jonathan Vargas Andres, an ICU nurse treating COVID patients in that hospital, these grand gestures feel somewhat empty.

He has worked in intensive care for four years in the same unit as his wife and brother — who are nurses too — and the past week has seen a spike in cases on the ward.

Jonathan is also undocumented and in the next few weeks he will find out whether the country that he is risking his life to protect will decide to deport him.

"I try not to think about it because if I

Guillermo and Jonathan Vargas Andres have been in the US for 18 years. Photo: Jonathan Vargas.

think about it for too long, I get tired," Jonathan says. "I've basically had to zone it out for my own health."

He speaks deliberately in a soft, southern drawl. "It's fear more than anything."

Jonathan is a recipient of DACA — or the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals. It is an Obama-era ruling from 2012 that shielded young people who were brought to the US illegally as children from deportation.

It provided them with work and study permits. Jonathan came from Mexico

when he was 12.

In 2017, President Trump decided to end the DACA program.

The Supreme Court is now considering a series of cases that challenge Trump's decision and is expected to release its rulings before the end of June on whether stopping the program was unlawful.

While these cases are pending, DACA recipients are still able to live, work and study in the US. Any day now Jonathan could be told he no longer has to right to work or live in

the United States.

There are approximately 700,000 DACA recipients in the US. The Center for American Progress, a left-wing think tank, estimates that 29,000 of them are frontline healthcare workers — doctors, nurses, paramedics — and a further 12,900 work in other aspects of the healthcare industry.

Jonathan describes his job as a calling.

He loves being a nurse despite facing a pandemic just four years into his career.

"It's obviously scary when you're in there," he says. "You get very, very, very paranoid about what you touch."

"But you kind of have to put that in the back of your mind because you're in there to try to help these people. It's not about you."

His hospital has just enough personal protective equipment (PPE). They are using it sparingly, which does make him nervous.

But what is even harder, he says, is having to watch people die alone.

"It's very sad, very depressing to see families having to say their last goodbyes through an iPad," he says. "It's not just stressful but emotionally draining."

At least on the ward there is solidarity continued on page 18

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NURSES’ SPECIAL Why This ICU Nurse Treating COVID Patients Could Be Deported / continued from page 17

18

Barbados Consulate and Associations Treat Nurses at Downstate, NY

Activists signs express support for immigrant community at a rally to protest president Donald Trump's decision to end DACA Downtown Portland, OR, on September 5th, 2017.

Editorial credit: Diego G Diaz / Shutterstock.com

though he sometimes feels like he is living a double life.

"When I go to work and I talk to my coworkers, they don't know about my status," he says. "But then I go back home and realize that, you know, I'm living under the radar."

"You don't even know if anything that you're doing to help your country is going to be appreciated. And in a couple months, you might be deported."

'Life-changing' Jonathan was born in Mexico, in a small town near Puebla in 1990. His father drove a bus for a living, but the family struggled to get by. He remembers the house they lived in, it had no windows, a dirt floor, no running water.

His father left for the US first in 2000 and sent for his family two years later.

Together with his brother and his mother, he crossed the river separating Mexico and the US and walked across the desert, entering the US without permission.

Until 2012, the whole family lived under the radar. As undocumented children they could attend public school but not public university, and private colleges were far too expensive.

When he finished high school, he worked odd jobs. He was fixing tires in a tire shop when the DACA program was announced.

"It was life changing," he says. "I don't know how else to describe it. Knowing that I was going to be able to have a chance to work legally and have the possibility to go to school [university]."

He had been in the US for ten years by that point and, though he says he felt American, he didn't have the paperwork to prove it. When DACA happened he and his brother immediately tried to sign up for the military, but they were rejected because of their citizenship status.

They took their desire to serve and went into nursing instead.

'Go back across the river' Though he loves the work, the past four years have been an anxious time.

Jonathan has started clenching his jaw in his sleep. Sometimes he does it so much that the joint swells and it hurts to eat or talk. It is a condition usually linked to stress.

"I've been dealing with this stress since 2015 when Donald Trump announced that he was running for president and the first thing he did was attack Mexicans."

"It became a very, very real when he took office."

Since then he says he is felt more animosity directed towards him and has experienced overt racism. He believes some people now feel an entitlement to display bigotry.

He describes an incident outside his gym before the lockdown, in which a man shouted racist expletives and told him to "go back across the river" because he parked incorrectly.

'Scrubs are my camouflage' Jonathan got married two years ago and his wife is an American citizen. He is applying for a green card, but it is not a given. His illegal entry as a child could count against him.

If an undocumented child does not leave the US within a year of turning 18, they take legal responsibility for their entry.

And if the Supreme Court decision halts the DACA program he could lose his right to work.

Jonathan is trying not to think about what will happen if the decision goes against him. He says he won't go to Mexico he doesn't believe the nursing profession is valued there — but he and his brother have been researching moving to Canada.

He would have to leave his parents and his life of the past 18 years behind. He is currently studying part-time for a further qualification in nursing, he may have to quit that too.

Though the fear of COVID-19 and the Supreme Court decision hang over him every day, he feels a sense of security in his dark blue hospital clothes.

"Sometimes I feel as if my scrubs or uniform that I wear for work is some type of camouflage," he says. "People see me wearing scrubs and they assume I'm one of the 'good ones' or that I am here legally."

"But as soon as I change into regular [clothes] there's no way for them to know I'm a nurse so I happen to become a wetback like they assume about everyone else who looks Hispanic." l

Nurses at Downstate with CG Mackie Holder, (third from left) and Association members.

Nurses, association members and CG Mackie Holder with the donation of masks, face shields and lunch

N

urses at SUNY Downstate Medical Center University Hospital received a special tribute on Nurses Day. In a joint effort of the Barbados Consulate at New York and three Barbadian associations, they were treated to lunch and received donations of masks and face shields.

The participating associations were St. George Secondary Old Scholars Association International, (SGSI); Daryll Jordan Secondary School New York Chapter Alumni, (DJSSANYC) and Combermere Alumni Association, Inc., NY, (CAA).

The presentation was a salute to the work of nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic and particularly the effort in saving the life of Barbadian, Jasper “Bop” Hewitt, who was at Downstate for more than a month before emerging to a fanfare two weeks ago.

In one of the many twists of these times, Hewitt is now in his 32nd year of employment at the same hospital that saved him.

Downstate was also a designated COVID-19 center when the onslaught of

the virus was overwhelming all institutions.

Consul General of Barbados at NY, Mackie Holder lauded the nurses for their superlative work during the pandemic.

On behalf of Mr. Hewitt, he singled out for special mention Nurse Marlene Cooper, a Jamaican, who went way beyond the call of duty in looking after Hewitt.

Holder also noted that one of the best of the few good things to come out of the present coronavirus situation was that the everyday heroes, notably nurses, were finally being acclaimed for the work they do daily, pandemic or not, and he hoped that the focus on them would continue and they be accorded the conditions they deserve.

Presidents of SGSI, Earl Phillips and DJSSANYC also spoke at the presentation.

Letters were also delivered to the Interim CEO of Downstate, Mrs. Patricia Winston acknowledging the contributions of all health care workers at the hospital. l

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19

NURSES’ SPECIAL

How to Incorporate Meaningful Nurse Recognition

BY AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION

A Message from the AONL

N

urses are the heart of healthcare.

While National Nurses Week runs from May 6–12 every year, it’s always a great time to recognize nurse contributions.

Studies show that meaningful recognition can renew a nurse’s commitment to their profession. It inspires and motivates nurses to keep giving back to patients and colleagues. It deepens a nurse’s loyalty to their workplace. And it makes them proud of their hard work.

In short, nurse recognition keeps them going. That’s why it’s so crucial.

Different organizations recognize nurses in a variety of ways. For example, Cleveland Clinic offers nurses the opportunity to throw the first pitch at a Cleveland Indians baseball game. They also host “Nurses Night Out” events and nursing award recognition ceremonies.

Northwell Health in New York is also taking nurse recognition seriously. It recently offered the COVID-19 frontline staff $2,500 bonuses and an extra week of paid time off.

What can your organization do to honor nurses? Here are a few ideas: Promotions: Most nurses want to excel in their careers. They don’t want to stay stagnant. Most strive for the ultimate form of recognition: a promotion.

Offering regular promotions gives nurses the chance to set goals and work toward something bigger. It positively impacts their wallets as well as their sense of pride.

Raises and bonuses: No matter how much nurses love their jobs, remember that the paycheck matters. Raises and bonuses are two financial recognitions that keep nurses motivated and inspired, especially in times of high stress. Just like a promotion, a raise or bonus shows nurses the value of their hard work.

Awards: Take a cue from the Cleveland Clinic and how it hosts award ceremonies recognizing nurses; other organizations can do the same. You can also offer awards without hosting a ceremony.

Leading Through Crisis: A Resource Compendium for Nurse Leaders

Encourage your internal staff to nominate remarkable work or submit inspirational stories. Recognize the nurses going above and beyond with a small gift, like a plaque, gift card, or company apparel.

Days off: Who doesn’t love an extra day off work? Offering nursing staff a reward like a day off is a great way to boost energy and morale. The hardest working employees will work even harder, and those less motivated may feel inspired to contribute more, too.

Tuition reimbursement/school loan assistance: As part of their benefits packages, many healthcare organizations offer a form of tuition reimbursement, school loan assistance, or continuing education scholarships to nurses. Check with your human resources department to see what your place of employment offers.

Shout-outs during meetings: Sometimes verbal recognition is all it takes to light a fire in someone. At staff meetings, open the agenda with nurse recognition. Ask volunteers to share a quick story or kudos to someone who has recently made a huge impact. Congratulate the recipient in front of the group to help them feel proud of their accomplishment.

Simple thank-yous: How often do you tell your coworkers or caregivers “thank you” or “job well done”? These simple proclamations can do wonders for a person’s self-esteem. Not only are they impactful during a hard day, they can mean so much during an average day. People remember

your kind words — make an extra effort to share more of them this year.

Send flowers, balloons, or e-cards: Cleveland Clinic has a “Thank a Nurse” program where patients, caregivers, friends, community members, and family members can send flowers, balloons, ecards, and other gifts to nurses. This is a great idea for any hospital or health system. It’s an easy way for anyone who interacts with nurses to show their appreciation.

COVID-19 Nurse Recognition Feel-good stories of the public recognizing and thanking our nation’s healthcare workers are flooding the Internet. Here are a few examples: Italians are singing from balconies to show unity and appreciation during the pandemic New York City residents are cheering from balconies during healthcare workers’ shift change every night Car convoys drove past Kaiser Permanente and honked their horns to celebrate and thank the healthcare workers Restaurants are donating meals to hospital staff during work hours Recognize the Nurses in Your Life No matter who you are — a fellow nurse, a hospital staff member, or a patient yourself — you can contribute to meaningful nurse recognition. Help us show some love for the heart of health care. Nurses certainly deserve it, now more than ever.l

N

ow more than ever, your leadership is invaluable to your team, organization, patients and community. Your steadiness and calm help those around you keep perspective. Your vision and guidance help lead the way.

To help you lead confidently during times of crisis, American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) has developed a growing compendium of leadership resources to support you in caring for yourself and your team.

Read, listen and engage in brief exercises for practical tips and effective strategies for coping, staying centered, building resilience and leading with integrity amidst challenging circumstances.

Complimentary coaching support is available to help nurse leaders and their teams navigate the COVID-19 crisis.

More than 100 certified coaches from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) have volunteered their time to the nursing community to provide confidential coaching services when and how it’s most convenient for participating nurses.

Nurses at all levels are welcome to participate, and sessions will be guided by the nurses’ unique emotional needs and goals. Limited coaching spots are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Contact the CCL Program Organizer to learn more and sign up. Send an email to NurseCoachingRequest@gmail.com For more information, please visit: www.aonl.org l

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This FREE Citizenship Program does not apply to anyone who has ever been arrested since getting their Green Card.

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nHEALTH

nENTERTAINMENT

nRELATIONSHIPS

nRECIPES

nSPORTS

nHOROSCOPE

Jamaican Supermodel, Alicia Burke, Featured on the Cover of Elle Magazine

Rihanna Rockets on to Sunday Times Rich List

BY DENISE LEE, JAMAICANS.COM

BY MARK SAVAGE, BBC MUSIC REPORTER

K

nown worldwide for her beauty, grace, and poise, Jamaican supermodel, Alicia Burke, is featured on the May 2020 cover of the German edition of Elle Magazine. Burke has achieved star status and is ranked among the world’s Top 50 models, no easy feat in the highly competitive world of modeling.

Born in St Catherine, Jamaica, her meteoric rise to the top began with the Pulse Caribbean Model Search. Burke was selected as the winner of the reality TV series during its 2015-2016 season.

Pulse immediately saw her potential, took her to London the following year, and the model hasn’t had an idle day since then.

The supermodel has been featured on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in the UK and she’s the only model from the Caribbean to appear on the cover of the Italian edition of Vogue. Burke has also been featured on the cover of the French, Japanese, Mexican and Spanish versions of Vogue.

She’s has also been the subject of beauty campaign advertisements in The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Gucci, and Laura Mercier throughout the U.S. and Europe. In the world of high fashion, she’s officially ranked as a “Money Girl,” one of the highest-paid in the

Kitchen Corner "This is a modified version of one of the expensive all natural drinks sold commercially! Enjoy!"

—aq, Allrecipes.com Ingredients 1 banana, peeled 1/2 lemon, peeled 1 mango — peeled, seeded, and cut into wedges 1/2 orange, peeled 2 apples, cut into chunks 2 slices fresh ginger root Directions Process banana, lemon, mango, orange, apples, and ginger through juicer.l

R Photo: Alicia Burke Facebook industry.

Burke has walked the catwalk and has worked for illustrious designers that include Stella McCartney, Dolce & Gabbana, and Ralph Lauren. She’s also had the privilege of being the first to try out the capsule collections of Tommy Hilfiger and Gigi Hadid.

As a child, Burke often dreamed of being a model and taking her place on the catwalk, but her practical upbringing taught her to be realistic. She had origi-

nally planned to enter the medical profession as a midwife. She was as surprised as anyone when she was crowned the winner of the Pulse competition.

Burke takes every opportunity to return to Jamaica and spend time with her family – something that’s difficult to accomplish as a highly in-demand supermodel.

No matter where she travels or how famous she becomes, Burke is adamant that Jamaica will always be her home.l

Yummy Mango Citrus Drink

ihanna has made her debut appearance on The Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated fortune of £468 million.

The Bajan pop star, who now resides in London, overtakes Sirs Elton John and Mick Jagger to claim third place on the list of Britain's richest musicians.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Paul McCartney are joint first on the list, with fortunes of £800m apiece.

Rihanna's earnings are largely due to the Fenty Beauty cosmetics brand, where her reported 15% stake is worth £351m.

"She somewhat caught us by surprise," says Robert Watts, who compiles The Sunday Times' annual list.

"Very few people knew she was living in the UK until last summer. Now she's well placed to be the first musician to reach billionaire status in the UK," he tells the BBC. Amongst the top 40 highest-earners, only Ed Sheeran and Adele are younger, with fortunes of £200m and £150m respectively.

Further down the list, there are new entries for the next generation of pop stars, with Dua Lipa, 24, and George Ezra, 26, each said to be worth £16m.

Watts says that Rihanna's presence is indicative of a "seismic change" in the make-up of the main Rich List which, since 1989, had been identifying the 1,000 wealthiest individuals or families living in the UK. "The days when it was dominated by inherited wealth, the landed gentry and mass of largely white, middle-aged and elderly men, are changing," says Watts.

"Rihanna is, I think, a very good example of someone who's come from a pretty tough upbringing in Barbados and who has a hunger and a determination to work, work work... which, I think, is one of her songs, isn't it?" It is.l

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SPORTS & BOOKS

22

West Indies Players 'Very Nervous' about England Tour

Reading for Spring

VIA BBC SPORTS

C

ricket West Indies chief executive Johnny Grave thinks this summer's tour of England will go ahead, but says his players will be "very nervous" about travelling.

The three-Test series, due to start on 4 June, has been postponed until at least July because of coronavirus.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is exploring the use of bio-secure venues and quarantining players.

"There will be no coercing players into this tour," Grave said.

"If you grow up in a country where the population might only be 60,000 or 70,000 people, to be thinking the UK has had over 30,000 deaths is a massive figure."

Asked if he can see the Tests taking place, he told BBC Radio 5 Live's Tuffers and Vaughan show: "I think I can. We're right to be optimistic."

But he added: "We have to be absolutely clear that it's safe first and foremost.

"The ECB have got a long way to go to get UK government approval to be absolutely certain that bio-secure cricket will work."

Grave said the Cricket West Indies board had contacted a "wide pool of

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. 22 JUNE 2019: The West Indies v New Zealand, ICC Cricket World Cup match, at Old Trafford, Manchester, England.

Editorial credit: Mitch Gunn / Shutterstock.com players" about the prospect of travelling to England.

Games would likely be played without fans and could be staged at one venue where players can stay on site — such as Old Trafford and Southampton — and be tested regularly for coronavirus.

"The players would be very much in a bubble," said Graves.

"We said to the ECB we'd want four weeks of preparation before the first Test. We're probably looking at three

back-to-back Test matches.

"It would be seven weeks of very much training at the ground, staying at the ground and very much being isolated within that hotel environment."

The West Indies is made up of 15 countries and territories which are under various levels of restrictions because of the pandemic, and Grave said getting the players on one plane would be "a logistical challenge but certainly not insurmountable".

'I really worry for the players' England are also scheduled to play Pakistan, Australia and Ireland this summer, fixtures which the ECB hopes to condense into the latter stages of the season.

That could mean players spending several weeks together without being able to leave the ground.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan said it will be a "huge mental challenge".

"If you've got 30 players that are potentially going to have to be locked in their country, at cricketing venues, I really do worry," he said.

"When you're in the UK you're so used to playing the game and then getting in your car and going back to your family straight after the match.

"It is unprecedented times. It has to be done because we need the TV money for

Download Your Coronavirus Kit at www.cawnyc.com

T

he idea for Palette came to Vogue Contributing Beauty Editor Funmi Fetto after years of being asked by friends, family and strangers on the street for advice on products suitable for women of color, who often find themselves excluded from mainstream beauty coverage.

Following on from her career in journalism where she has extended the beauty conversation in publications such as the Observer — for whom she writes a weekly column — and written in an honest, elegant and engaging style, Fetto covers all the hair, skincare, makeup and body products available today which really work for women of color.

Rave Review "This ground-breaking, first-of-its-kind book is not only destined to become the beauty bible for women of color everywhere, it is also a significant, relevant and influential voice in the conversation around inclusivity. Essential reading" -Edward Enninful, Editor-in-Chief, Vogue UK l

About the author Funmi Fetto is Executive Editor and Beauty Director at Glamour, a columnist for the Observer newspaper and a former beauty editor at British Vogue where she also wrote a beauty column aimed at women of colour. In her 20 years' experience as a fashion and beauty journalist, she has also written and worked for numerous publications including The Sunday Times, Harper's Bazaar, Guardian, Elle, Marie Claire and Tatler.

Funmi also consults for and has worked with a wide variety of global beauty brands and has spoken on numerous panels covering topics relating to beauty, identity, race and journalism.

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23

LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS

The Facebook Relationship Status Dilemma

BY JENNINE ESTES

I

t takes just a few seconds but changing your relationship status on Facebook says a lot and can have damaging effects. Sure, when a break up happens you’ll want to alter your profile to reflect your true status – but if you change your status without first informing your significant other, or out of spite, it can create real problems. Before you change your Facebook relationship status, ask yourself a few questions. Have you officially ended the relationship in private? What are your motives? Do you already plan on changing it back within a few days?

Talk About It First A Facebook status change goes public instantaneously; even if you delete the status change story, there is always a chance that someone saw it before you removed it. Plus, visitors to your profile are apt to notice the difference. Bottom line – if you alter your Facebook status to say “Single,” people might start talking about it. For this reason, it’s important to have a private conversation with your significant other to end things before you make it public on Facebook. No one

wants to find out that a relationship is over because a boyfriend or girlfriend has suddenly become “Facebook Single.”

Even if the relationship stays over, you may thwart any chance of a platonic friendship if they feel disrespected.

Think About Your Motives Changing your Facebook status in the middle of an argument is never a good idea. If you are only changing the status to hurt someone’s feelings, you are almost certain to regret it later. Don’t go from “In a Relationship” to “Single”

I’m done!

until you know that you are doing it for the right reasons – because the relationship is truly over and you want your Facebook profile to be accurate. Be conscious of your feelings; if you are angry at your partner, log off Facebook altogether so you are not tempted to change your status or post something public about wanting to break up. Chances are, you will thank yourself later.

Will It Stick?

If you are aware even as you navigate to the “Settings” screen to change your rela-

tionship status that you’ll probably be back to “In a Relationship” within a matter of hours or days – hold off on the change. When you are conscious of the fact that you are not really serious about the status change, it’s probably a sign that you are only changing it out of hurt feelings or to make your significant other feel bad.

Like it or not, Facebook relationship status changes can have big implications.

If you want to salvage any sort of relationship with your former flame – romantic or otherwise – really think about how you handle this simple task.

Having a short conversation about how you are going to change your status, and that you are not doing it to hurt his or her feelings, might make a world of difference.l

About Jennine Estes, MFT is a Marriage and Family Therapist in San Diego, CA. Estes is certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples and writes relationship and self-growth advice for her column, Relationships in the Raw. She is the creator of #BeingLOVEDIs campaign.

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HEALTH

24

Mental Health an Emerging Crisis of COVID Pandemic News that his company has seen increased demand for behavioral health services from patients who are stressed out about health or work issues. Cigna, one of the largest providers of mental health services, launched a toll-free, 24hour help line for the public to speak to behavioral health specialists.

BY KATHERINE KIM, WEBMD

A

mericans are reporting high levels of emotional distress from the coronavirus pandemic — levels that some experts warn may lead to a national mental health crisis.

“Our society is definitely in a collective state of trauma,” said Jonathan Porteus, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist who oversees the crisis and suicide hotline in Sacramento, CA. Unlike posttraumatic stress disorder, which surfaces after a trauma has ended, the country is only starting to grapple with the pandemic’s psychological fallout, he said.

“We do see an emerging potential crisis,” said Karestan Koenen, PhD, a professor of psychiatric epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, during an online forum.

According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, more than half of Americans — 56% —reported that worry or stress related to the outbreak has led to at least one negative mental health effect.

Those include trouble with eating or sleeping, drinking alcohol more, frequent headaches or stomachaches, shorter tempers, and other health problems. Among

The pandemic also comes at a time when people already struggled to get mental health care, often due to cost, lack of access, and a shortage of providers. frontline health care workers and their families, 64% reported worsened mental health, as did 65% of those who had lost income.

Another recent report, released from the Well Being Trust, said the pandemic could lead to 75,000 additional “deaths of despair” from drug and alcohol misuse and suicide due to unemployment, social isolation, and fears about the virus.

A recent poll of more than 3,100 WebMD readers found that 26% said they felt a sense of trauma from COVID19.

Koenen, who has studied other major disasters, sees problematic differences this time, including how long-lasting the pandemic may become and how it has affected the whole world.

“We know that social support is so important to buffer the effects of disasters, to help pull people out of disasters, and here, we see that because of physical distancing … we’re sort of robbed of some of that social support, so that’s extra-challenging.

“In terms of this specific situation, we’re really treading new ground.”

Mental Health’s First Responders At the nation’s crisis and suicide hotlines, counselors are seeing the first waves of emotional distress. Callers have flooded the phone lines to talk about health fears, job losses, relationship strains, and lonely days spent in isolation.

Calls to the Sacramento crisis line increased 40% from February to March, according to Porteus, the CEO of WellSpace Health, which operates the hotline. In a year-to-year comparison, April’s call volume was 58% greater than in April 2019, he said.

Lauren Ochs, MA, a counselor who takes crisis calls in St. Louis, MO, has also talked to many more people since the pandemic started, averaging 25-35 calls during her 8-hour shifts, she said.

“About 80% to 85% at least mention COVID. That might not be their primary problem, but some way, somehow, they’re affected by it.”

Calls also have risen significantly at the San Diego Access and Crisis Line in California, said Program Manager Heather Aston.

“We’ve seen an increase in more anxiety-driven calls,” Aston said. Some people are worried about COVID-like symp-

toms. “They want to know where can they go to get safely tested.” Others are concerned about family members. One woman called for advice on how to help a sister who had stopped eating and drinking and was having paranoid thoughts about COVID-19, Aston said.

Long-Term Effects In a recent opinion piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Sandro Galea, MD, MPH, DrPH, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, warned of an upcoming wave of mental disorders because of coronavirus.

He noted that “large-scale disasters, whether traumatic (the World Trade Center attacks or mass shootings), natural (hurricanes), or environmental (Deepwater Horizon oil spill), are almost always accompanied by increases in depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder, a broad range of other mental and behavioral disorders, domestic violence, and child abuse."

The COVID-19 pandemic would likely produce a similar “overflow of mental illness,” he said.

He cited examples: •5% of people affected by Hurricane Ike in 2008 met the criteria for major depressive disorder in the month after the hurricane.

•1 in 10 adults in New York City showed signs of major depressive disorder in the month following the 9/11 attacks.

•Nearly 25% of New Yorkers reported using more alcohol after the attacks.

•Communities affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill showed signs of depression and anxiety.

•The earlier SARS epidemic was linked with increases in PTSD, stress, and psychological distress in patients and health care workers.

The mental health effects can happen immediately and last over time, he wrote.

The pandemic also comes at a time when people already struggled to get mental health care, often due to cost, lack of access, and a shortage of providers. As people who had been getting help before stay-at-home orders found their care interrupted, some providers have begun to offer telehealth services.

Charles Jones, the CEO of MDLive, a large telehealth provider, told MedCity

Profound Effects From isolation to anxiety to excess drinking, coronavirus has touched almost every area of life, said Lan Nguyen, a suicide and crisis services program manager for the hotline in Santa Clara County in Northern California.

For many callers, community shutdowns have bred a deep sense of isolation, he said. “People complain that they are stuck in the house all day. They don’t know what to do.”

On the home front, relationships can be strained, Porteus said. “Families are kind of a tinderbox, especially in confined areas.” Children may now face a greater risk of abuse, especially since they can no longer find respite at school. “There are a lot of family dynamics that are not healthy, and now kids have to be in them full-time,” he said.

The same goes for victims of domestic violence, according to Porteus. “People can’t get out of their homes, so they’re more enmeshed with the perpetrators than ever before.”

The St. Louis hotline has heard from many struggling health care workers and others, Ochs said. “I recently talked with an eighth-grade teacher who was in a lot of emotional distress about the school year ending early,” Ochs said. “I don’t think any teacher was really prepared for the school year to just stop.” Not only was he grieving the abrupt loss of his students, but he had little chance to say good-bye. “He was a teacher in a highpoverty area, so it’s hard to reach out to [his students]. It’s hard to Zoom with them, it’s hard to make contact with them.”

Those who have lost jobs or been furloughed have called about financial worries, according to Nguyen.

Besides the financial impact, losing a job can be emotionally devastating, Porteus said. “Our identity is really hit and sometimes, it feels catastrophic.

Many of the people who are calling don’t know who they’ve become. They’ve lost what they feel is everything, and they’ve also lost their social context.”

Recently, the San Diego hotline helped one older man who had called in about losing his job as a chef, Aston said. “He had roughly $20 in his checking account and he was suicidal.”

Intense stressors like job loss and fears for one’s life and health can contribute to substance abuse. The Sacramento hotline also has gotten more calls from people struggling with alcohol or substance problems, Porteus said. Overall, alcohol continued on page 25

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25

HEALTH

Heading to the Hospital?

Get Better. Don’t Get a Blood Clot

Are you looking to get into the health & wellness business?

S

pending time in the hospital can be a challenge, and the last thing you need is another setback on your road to recovery. This is why it is so important to know that being in the hospital — particularly if you are dealing with surgery, a physical trauma, or a serious illness like cancer — places you at increased risk for the development of a deadly blood clot.

Each year, blood clots affect about 900,000 people in the U.S., and about half of all blood clots occur during a hospital stay or within three months of a hospital stay or surgery. Many blood clots occurring during or after hospitalization can be prevented, but fewer than half of hospital patients receive proper prevention measures. This is why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Blood Clot Alliance advise that you have a blood clot prevention plan when headed to and home from the hospital.

Your Blood Clot Prevention Plan Follow these steps to help prevent blood clots: • Before entering the hospital, discuss all of your risk factors with your doctor, including your personal and family history of blood clots.

• Ask if you will need prevention measures for blood clots while in the hospital.

• Before leaving the hospital, ask your doctor what to do at home to prevent blood clots.

An Emerging Crisis/ continued from page 24 sales have gone up nationwide, and now, some restaurants will deliver alcohol with takeout food orders.

“One thing [counselors] are noticing, especially with older adults, is ‘Yeah, I’m drinking. Why not? I’m not going anywhere. I don’t have to drive. I don’t have all the normal constraints while I’m around people,’” Porteus said.

Future Efforts At a time when coronavirus efforts have battered many state budgets, it could be difficult to fund future mental health services. But some experts are looking ahead.

In his JAMA article, Galea wrote: “Scaling up treatment in the midst of crisis will take creative thinking.” He suggested training lay people to provide psychological first aid, as well as “helping teach the lay public to check in with one another and provide support. Even small signs that someone cares could make a difference in the early stages of social isolation.”

He also advocated for more telemedicine mental health visits.

In its report, the Well Being Trust urged

Contact:

• Ask about the signs or symptoms of a blood clot and what to do if you experience them.

Signs and Symptoms of a Blood Clot Blood clots occur most often in the legs or arms, and symptoms include: • Swelling • Pain or tenderness • Skin that may be warm to the touch, red, or discolored Blood clots in your legs or arms can travel to your lungs, which can be deadly.

Symptoms of blood clots in your lungs include: • Difficulty breathing • Chest pain that worsens with a deep breath policy makers to consider three areas to combat mental health issues: •Addressing unemployment •Making it easier to get mental health care •Integrating mental health care with primary care “If the country continues to ignore the collateral damage — specifically our nation’s mental health — we will not come out of this stronger,” said Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD, chief strategy officer at Well Being Trust.

Finding Resilience Even if an epidemic of mental illness is looming, counselors say that people are resilient and can strive to protect their emotional well-being.

Experts offered these tips: •Try to eat and sleep well.

•Try to stay socially connected, even if you can’t see others in person.

•Limit news and social media.

Developing one’s own psychological tools helps, too. Given “the state of ambiguity and helplessness and fear,” Porteus said, “the best thing we can do is figure out how to tolerate the distress.”

• Coughing up blood • Faster than normal or irregular heartbeat When released from the hospital and you return home, follow all instructions and take medications as prescribed. Get up and move around as often as possible. If confined to bed or unable to move, ask a family member or friend to help you move. Seek immediate medical attention if you experience signs or symptoms.

For more information, visit www.stoptheclot.org/spreadtheword/hos pitalization.

After a hospital stay, protect yourself.

Understand your risk for blood clots and pay attention to signs and symptoms.

(Statepoint)l

When people are in crisis, he said, it’s helpful to go online to learn about “distress tolerance” skills, which involve accepting that some problems are beyond one’s control. Instead of becoming mired in feelings of unfairness and anger, people can learn healthier ways of thinking and coping when they can’t escape painful situations.

For those who have lost jobs, he suggests looking up interest inventories — questionnaires that ask you to rate your enjoyment and interest in a wide variety of activities — to explore career options.

“You can figure out the kinds of things that you’re good at and start getting a sense of what your next steps might be."

Taking constructive steps can help to counteract a downward spiral, he said.

“People look at the pandemic and they tend to be drawn to the negative. If we can help shift people to look at the positive, it really helps because we know that neurons that fire together wire together,” Aston said. “We’re going to be able to see the positive more quickly.” l Katherine Kam wrote this story while participating in the USC Center for Health Journalism‘s 2020 California Fellowship.

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MOVING FORWARD

26

How To Take Fear Out Of The Workplace about the situation. If you do find yourself in trouble, ask your associates for ideas about how they can contribute to cutting costs — and increasing cash flow to the point where you can actually cover your debt obligations. You’ll be amazed at what can happen when you teach your people the rules of the game.

BY RICH ARMSTRONG & STEVE BAKER

F

ear. Uncertainty. A growing sense of panic every time the president delivers a national address about the far-reaching effects of the coronavirus.

Chatter around the workplace these days is filled with questions like: Will I get sick? Will I have a job tomorrow? Can I afford to pay my rent?

What can you do when you’re facing fear in the workplace? The good news is that you can turn to four key principles: transparency, financial discipline, trust and respect for people, and a forwardfocused approach. If you want to take fear out of the workplace, consider the following steps: Embrace transparency. “Open-book management” is the idea that everyone inside your organization will be taught to understand the numbers that drive its success. Many growing business owners can be reluctant to share the truth about the financials inside their business. But they don’t realize the kind of risks they take on by doing so. They take on the burden of keeping the business alive — solo. In many cases, CEOs and owners are forced to shut the doors of the business to the shock of their associates, who are then

left to wonder if they could have done something to contribute to a different outcome.

Discuss your cash position. It’s been frustrating over the past few years as we’ve watched startup companies under the guidance of universities, incubators, and even investors embrace the idea that the only way they could grow was to take on debt. Some of you may find yourselves in an over-leveraged position, but that can also be an opportunity to engage your workforce and tell them the truth

to fix things inside your business that you can’t afford to invest the time and resources in when the economy is booming. While it might seem counter-intuitive, the current down market comes as a kind of short-term relief.

Protect jobs. Attracting talent and retaining it can be tough. We don’t have a future without people. In the not-too-distant past, executives sometimes became idols when downsizing jobs became the new mantra, laying off people at a time they needed those jobs the most.

Something similar could happen today.

Difficult times can convince companies to resort to layoffs to survive. But it is wise to think differently. Whoever has the most talented workforce will dominate their markets as soon as 2021. The time to get your organization ready for the next upturn is today — not when it’s already arrived. By then, it may be too late.

It’s giving us a chance to catch up — to make investments in our people and facilities — and to prepare ourselves to capitalize on the economic uptick that we expect to hit in late-2020, early-2021. By then, our workforce should be more stable and productive — and ready to take full advantage of the available opportunities. They have every incentive to do so, because, as owners of the business, they have a true stake in the outcome.

We know how painful things are today.

But there’s no reason you can’t also dare to be successful. And learning how to build a culture based on transparency, financial discipline, trust and respect for people, and a forward-focused outlook, is a great place to start removing the fear that’s pervading your workplace.l

Get ready for the upturn. As bad and as uncertain as things look today, here’s a secret: it’s actually harder to get a company ready to take advantage of an upturn than it is to prepare for a downturn.

Downturns can actually be opportunities

Rich Armstrong is the president of The Great Game of Business Inc., and coauthor, with Steve Baker, of GET IN THE GAME: How To Create Rapid Financial Results And Lasting Cultural Change.

Available at Amazon.com

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CONVERSATIONS

28

Out of Jail and Homeless: City Struggles to Stop Covid-19’s Spread

BY ABIGAIL KRAMER

S

tefan Outlaw had just recovered from the worst of his Covid-19 symptoms when he learned that a charitable fund had paid to bail him out of the Rikers Island jail. It was midMarch, and much of the jail population was quarantined in cells for 24 hours a day. Outlaw, age 29, was more than happy to get out.

But now he found himself in a situation that's far from uncommon for people leaving jails and prisons in New York: On the street at 2:00 a.m. with no money, no phone, and nowhere to go.

By luck, a Rikers case manager had given Outlaw a phone number for Cayenne Doroshow, the executive director of a small community organization called Gays and Lesbians Living In a Transgender Society (G.L.I.T.S.). Still exhausted by the dragging symptoms of the virus, Outlaw borrowed a cell phone from a stranger and called Doroshow, who sent him a Lyft and the address of an Airbnb apartment near Central Park, in which G.L.I.T.S. will pay for him to stay—with the help of private donors and a GoFundMe campaign—until the coronavirus crisis abates.

The apartment is part of an effort— since taken on by the New York City government—to send people coming out of jail directly to hotel rooms or temporary apartments, rather than seeing them end up in homeless shelters or on the streets. The goal is not just to protect vulnerable individuals, but to avoid compounding a public health disaster by sending potentially infectious people from one coronavirus hotspot to another.

"This is life or death,” Doroshow says.

“We're giving people a chance to plan for a sustainable future." G.L.I.T.S is currently hosting nine people, all of whom identify as transgender, in individual hotel rooms and the Airbnb apartment.

Since Mayor Bill de Blasio issued his stay-at-home order on March 16th, more than 2,000 people have been released from City jails—many of them through mass writ filings, individual motions, and lawsuits on behalf of people who are locked up on low-level charges or who have underlying medical conditions that make Covid-19 especially dangerous.

Even under the best of circumstances, many of those people would have ended up in shelters or on the street, says Victor Dempsey, a community organizer at the Legal Aid Society who often works with newly released inmates. Because of the pandemic, many more are unable to return to homes with elderly or medically vulnerable family members.

"We had families reaching out to us directly saying, 'We're happy and proud but he can't come here," Dempsey says.

Over the past month, the City has expanded its use of hotel rooms to slow the virus’s spread. The Department of

Homeless Services (DHS) is currently sheltering 6,000 people in hotels, including 2,500 who were there before the pandemic hit because shelters were full.

Mayor de Blasio promised an additional 11,000 rooms for discharged hospital patients, medical workers, and those who need to isolate but can’t at home. That program stopped accepting hospital patients, however, after four people died in the hotels.

In late March, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) joined community organizations like G.L.I.T.S. in offering hotel rooms to jail inmates immediately upon release.

Approximately 140 people have taken advantage of the City-funded rooms, which cost about $200 per person per night, including laundry and food, according to the Office of Emergency Management.

While the rooms were originally available only to inmates who were medically vulnerable, the program is now open to anyone leaving jail with nowhere else to go. Former inmates can stay "through the duration of the COVID-19 crisis," says Maggie Halley, MOCJ’s director of communications.

Advocates for people in the criminal justice system say the hotel rooms represent a positive step. But many also contend that, on the whole, the City is doing a dangerously inadequate job of protecting thousands of people in two settings that often feed into one another: jails, and the crowded, dormitory-style shelters that are frequently the only option for homeless adults.

"As long as people are living in congregate settings, we're not going to eliminate this virus," says Joshua Goldfein, a staff attorney for Legal Aid’s Homeless Rights Project.

On April 22nd, Goldfein testified in support of a City Council bill that would require the de Blasio administration to offer hotel rooms to all of the approximately 17,000 single adults sheltered by DHS, as well as the estimated 4,000 people who are unsheltered on New York City streets. At the hearing, a City representative said that the measure would be too expensive, costing nearly $500 million over six months. It is unclear how

much of the cost would be reimbursed by the federal government.

Meanwhile, Goldfein says, far too many people continue to cycle in and out of City jails. And those who are homeless face an especially high risk of being incarcerated on low-level charges or technical parole violations.

The City is "still arresting people for nonsense," Goldfein says. "There are still 4,000 people on Rikers who are being left at risk of death."

As of May 3rd, there were 370 City jail inmates with confirmed Covid-19 cases, while 1,310 had likely been exposed but were asymptomatic, according to a daily report from the Board of Corrections.

Nearly 210 of the City’s approximately 3,900 inmates were being held on technical parole violations with no open case.

(Despite pressure from advocates, the City has not released the cumulative number of people who have been infected with the coronavirus in the jail system.)

The infection rate at the Rikers Island jail is now nearly 10 percent, compared to less than two percent in the City as a whole, according to an analysis updated daily by the Legal Aid Society. That analysis includes this statement from Tina Luongo, attorney-in-charge of the agency’s criminal defense practice: "Stop sending people to Rikers and let these New Yorkers out immediately. Anything else is too little, too late.”

Public and correctional health officials have for weeks made the case that the only way to save lives in jails and prisons is to reduce the number of inmates as much and as quickly as possible. But public defenders continue to say that they have to fight far too hard for each release.

Other inmates, like Stefan Outlaw, have been bailed out by charitable funds that pool donations.

Outlaw had been on Rikers for less than a month, awaiting trial on robbery charges stemming from 2018, when he got sick with the virus. He spent a week sweating through fevers and body aches in a place where, he says, no one seemed to care whether he lived or died. "They don't do anything for you," Outlaw says.

When he first became ill, Outlaw says he was placed in a cell packed with inmates

who had a variety of symptoms. Once his Covid-19 test came back positive, he was moved to a dorm reserved for people infected with the coronavirus. Medical care was minimal, Outlaw says, and correction officers, who did not have personal protective equipment, avoided coming into the room. The result was violence and intimidation among overcrowded and angry inmates, Outlaw says.

After seven days, Outlaw was moved back to the general population, where he and other inmates still were not provided with masks or other protective gear, he says. His release—and his rescue by G.L.I.T.S.—came soon after. "If not for this, I would have been in the streets," he said.

While advocates say the City's efforts to get people out of Rikers is far too small and much too slow, by one measure, hotel placements put some former inmates in a better position now than under normal circumstances, when they are released into a city with notoriously impenetrable housing market and few places to turn for help.

"I think what the City is doing is a huge improvement from before Covid-19," says JoAnne Page, the president of The Fortune Society, which provides re-entry services to people leaving jails and prisons.

While New York City does not track the number of people who enter homeless shelters directly from City jails, a recent analysis found that more than half of people released from State prisons to New York City went directly to the shelter system, making up one in five shelter entrants overall. Nationally, formerly incarcerated people are almost 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general public.

It's a fact that creates a vicious cycle, Page says, since former inmates who do not have stable housing are twice as likely to end up back in jail or prison as those who do.

Page's fear, as the pandemic grinds on, is that when the City's emergency measures fade away, the outcomes for people coming out of jails and prisons will be all the more dire.

"I give credit to the City and to MOCJ for using hotels," she says. "But it brings into sharp relief the pre-existing crisis that is going to be worse. We already have a ballooning homelessness problem; now there will be a lot of people who haven't paid rent for three months who have no income."

"If you want to predict the future, you don't need a crystal ball," Page says. "We are cruising from a disaster into an exponentially greater one."l Abigail Kramer is a Senior Editor at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School.

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29

CONVERSATIONS

Emotional Brain Training – A New Antidote To Pandemic Stress

S

an Francisco, CA: Stress is overwhelming our nation. We are all in the same situation and need to unlock our brain's natural powers to process stress back to health, happiness and purpose. New York Times bestselling author and health psychologist Laurel Mellin delivers a unique, proven way to switch off that stress with "What's my number?" One Simple Question that Unlocks Your Brain's Power for Health, Happiness & Purpose.

"We are entering the Age of the Emotional Brain, a time when the overwhelming chaos, shrinking resources, gaslighting and gridlock cause so much brain stress, that we have outstripped the thinking brain's capacity to cope,” Dr. Mellin writes. "We need to reset our approach to play by the rules of the emotional brain. By doing that one thing solutions to life's challenges appear. We unlock the amazing power of the brain.”

"What's my number?” offers a profoundly effective way to alter how we process daily life to meet the high-stress demands of our times. Through emotional brain training (EBT), we can use the power of our own emotions to crush cravings and regain control; clear away

ineffective beliefs; deal with workplace stress; relieve anxiety, depression and hostility; resolve conflicts in relationships; boost our sense of purpose; and

create joy in our lives.

Consider the following: • Traditional methods for stress reduction were developed 50 to 100 years ago and are no longer relevant to today's overwhelming stress levels.

• Before 1990, stress was low enough that we could think and do our way out of problems. With far more stress, the emotional brain takes charge. This brain does not change by thoughts or actions, but by emotions, so we need a new system for processing daily life.

• This system is easy, fast and can switch off stress and activate positive emotions in about four minutes.

• Stress is the number one epidemic worldwide and the physiological root cause of common diseases (diabetes, cancer and heart disease) and causes or exacerbates all emotional, behavioral and relationship problems.

• We have cracked the code on emotions and developed a simple system for processing emotional stress and switching off stress overload that anyone can use.

"What's my number?” offers the keys to unlocking the brain's power to turn off stress so that we can stem the negative cascade of emotions, resolve conflicts, boost our sense of purpose and create more joy in our lives.

Dr. Laurel Mellin is the founder of Emotional Brain Training (EBT), a neuroscience-based solution to stress. She is a health psychologist and Associate Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Mellin is a New York Times bestselling author and researcher, speaker and clinical trainer.

EBT is the only method that maps the emotional brain; the seat of health, happiness, spirituality, relationships and productivity in a structured way that empowers people to self-direct their own emotional health and well-being.

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ELECTIONS 2020

30

Voting During the Pandemic

BY WALTER SHAPIRO here are sounds that help define the 20th century for me: the resounding thud as you close the heavy front door of a 1950s car with tail fins. The rat-a-tat of a touch typist racing along the keyboard of a manual machine.

And the satisfying thwack of the lever on a voting machine after you have cast a ballot.

My fling with lever voting machines lasted longer than most unrequited passions, since New York City used these 50-year-old relics until 2010. The romance of voting machines was actually part of my unstinting enthusiasm for Election Day — no matter the year or the quality of the candidates on the ballot.

Since I cast my first ballot as a University of Michigan college student in 1968, I have been smitten with the humble rituals of voting. The friendly lines of neighbors realizing that they are doing something of importance. The mostly elderly poll workers searching in books (and now on computer screens) for my name and my signature from 1983, when I first registered in New York. And

T

The essence of democracy is the ability of every citizen to cast a valid vote, whether it’s in person or by mail... the “I Voted” stickers that I find myself sometimes still wearing two days later.

So much of the civic religion that I associated with Election Day involves people coming together in the same place at the same time to affirm democracy. That same mood, I want to stress, can also be achieved with early voting.

The happiest election crowd I have ever witnessed was in Columbus, Ohio, the

Thursday before the 2008 election. Even though it was a two-hour wait to cast early ballots at the downtown Veterans Memorial Building, everyone seemed thrilled to vote after problems at Ohio polling places on Election Day 2004.

Conducting informal interviews as the line snaked through the building, I encountered almost universal support for Barack Obama, who went on to carry Ohio by 200,000 votes.

This ingrained belief in the uplifting value of in-person voting (except, of course, for the sick and the homebound) explains my antipathy to the idea of everyone casting ballots by mail.

Phil Keisling, who championed Oregon’s pioneering conversion to voteby-mail in the late 1990s as secretary of state, is a long-time friend. And I will admit that I was impressed by the turnout rate in Oregon, which hit 79 percent in 2000 in the first presidential race conducted through universal vote-by-mail.

But despite hearing Keisling’s arguments in person many times, I adamantly stuck to my belief that vote-by-mail was an inferior Election Day product, the equivalent of replacing a gourmet meal with a TV dinner.

As universal vote-by-mail spread to other western states (Washington, Colorado, Utah, and Hawaii), I would make jokes about being forced as a reporter to do an exit poll standing next to a mailbox. In reality, I actually tried with mixed success in the run-up to the 2012 election to interview Colorado voters in the Denver suburbs dropping off their ballots at the Arapahoe County administration building. Four years later, it was so much more emotionally satisfying to conduct my own exit poll standing outside an actual polling place in Nottingham, New Hampshire, on Election Day 2016.

Like so many other certainties, my reflexive opposition to vote-by-mail has been upended by Covid-19.

The partisan chaos surrounding Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary and judicial election serves as a powerful reminder that — in a devastating crisis — there will be moments when in-person voting is impractical and potentially dangerous.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers

tried to postpone the April 7 in-person balloting on health grounds but was promptly overruled by the Republican state supreme court. Many polling places closed because of a shortage of election workers, guaranteeing long lines. And Wisconsin residents wanting to vote absentee only learned Monday night — after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled — that their ballots had to be postmarked by April 7 to be valid.

In a front-page Sunday editorial, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel declared, “It is not safe for voters to go to the polls next week. … If the election is held, turnout is likely to be abysmal, which may disenfranchise large blocs of voters and call the results into question.”

Wisconsin voters have been confronted with a set of choices that are incompatible with democracy. Do they risk their health voting in person at a crowded polling place in the midst of a pandemic?

Or, with the Postal Service upended by the virus, do they gamble that their mailed-in absentee ballots will arrive on time?

Universal voting by mail may not be a panacea in normal times. But every state should have a system in place for fair and orderly absentee balloting in emergencies like this one. No voter in America should ever again have to endure the breakdown of democracy that we are witnessing in Wisconsin.

Covid-19 has also taught me a lasting lesson about my personal romance with in-person voting. Yes, coming together at a polling place on Election Day is a heartwarming tradition worthy of a Norman Rockwell cover.

But the essence of democracy isn’t this act of physical assembly. What counts is the ability of every citizen to cast a valid vote, whether it is in person, by mail, or delivered by a carrier pigeon. The setting is a quaint detail. What I should have been personally celebrating all along instead of the rituals of Election Day is the right to vote itself. l Walter Shapiro is a Fellow at the Brennan Center. The Brennan Center for Justice is a nonpartisan law and policy institute which strives to uphold the values of democracy.

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