McKeen: Currently, the Indiana State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention all recommend wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where social distancing is harder to maintain, like at the grocery store. Because this virus can be spread asymptomatically (you don't have symptoms) and pre-symptomatically (a couple of days before your symptoms start), wearing a mask can prevent invisible transmission and be seen as a sign of respect to others, especially those that may be more vulnerable to COVID-19.
I think we should all get used to wearing them now and for the foreseeable future, as it will be an important tool for control until we can get a widespread treatment, a vaccine or robust disease containment measures.
全く同じことを新型コロナウイルス対策調整官のデボラ・バークスさんも言っていました。
1分45秒あたりから
BIRX: I think it's our job as public health officials every day to be informing the public of what puts them at risk. And we have made it clear that there's asymptomatic spread. And that means that people are spreading the virus unknowingly. And this is unusual in the case of respiratory diseases in many cases. So, you don't know who's infected.
And so we really want to be clear all the time that social distancing is absolutely critical. And if you can't social distance and you're outside, you must wear a mask. These are items that really critical to protect individuals.
We've learned a lot about this virus. But we now need to translate that learning into real changed behavior that stays with us so that we can continue to drive down the number of cases.
Abe Shinzo said on Monday, "Today the government will lift the state of emergency across the nation. We've set some of the most strict criteria in the world to lift the declaration, and we concluded that prefectures across the country have met that standard."
そもそも「日本モデル」がどのようなものか知られているわけではないので、what he called "the Japan model"とかwhat he touted as the "Japanese model"と紹介しています。基本的な説明は、罰則や強制力のない自粛要請のようです。
(NHK)
The prime minister said it showed the strength of what he called "the Japan model," a reference to the public's adherence to stay-at-home policies without the threat of penalties.
(NPR)
Abe attributed the positive developments to what he touted as the "Japanese model," which included the nationwide state of emergency declaration and rigorous standards for social distancing.
Japan did not impose the kind of lockdown seen in Britain and other parts of Europe, but encouraged companies to allow employees to work remotely and bars, restaurants and other small business to close or restrict opening hours. People were asked to avoid unnecessary outings, but there were no fines or other penalties for non-compliance.
“We did not enforce restrictions with punitive measures, but we have been able to bring the outbreak under control in just a month and a half,” Abe said. “I would like to say that we were able to show the strength of the Japanese model.”
‘Japan model’ has beaten coronavirus, Shinzo Abe declares
Prime minister lifts state of emergency nationwide after seven weeks of shutdown
Prime minister Shinzo Abe has declared victory for the “Japan model” of fighting coronavirus as he lifted a nationwide state of emergency after seven weeks.
（中略）
“In a characteristically Japanese way, we have all but brought this epidemic under control in the last month and a half,” said Mr Abe. “Surely, it shows the power of the Japan model.”
Japan’s constitution prohibits a compulsory lockdown but, under the state of emergency that began on April 7, the government requested voluntary social distancing and business closures.
As well as being an appeal to national pride, the prime minister’s remarks are likely to fuel debate about how Japan managed coronavirus and whether its approach could be replicated elsewhere.
Japan not only avoided a compulsory lockdown, with some restaurants continuing to serve meals throughout the past seven weeks, but it did not carry out mass testing for Covid-19.
Local explanations for Japan’s success include a culture of wearing face masks and obedience to government requests, and the effectiveness of the country’s contact-tracing system. However, the decisive factor or combination of factors is not clear.
Japan Declares Coronavirus Under Control, Lifts State of Emergency
‘We have showed the power of the Japanese model’ in slowing infections, Prime Minister Abe says
By Alastair Gale May 25, 2020 9:36 am ET
TOKYO—Japan on Monday fully lifted a state of emergency and declared success in checking the new coronavirus, despite bucking much of the consensus about best practices for governments in the pandemic fight.
As the initial wave ebbs in many developed countries, many experts have said the keys include quick action, lockdowns and widespread testing. Japan took a different course, suggesting there is more than one formula.
こちらも「日本モデル」を政府の功績にできるか疑問視しています。
The degree to which the government should get credit for Japan’s low infection and death rate is a matter of debate. Government officials said that the high prevalence of mask wearing and good personal hygiene, such as regular hand washing, may have played a central role. A group of medical researchers at eight Japanese universities is looking into whether genetic differences in Japanese and other Asians compared with Westerners may help explain discrepancies between East Asia and Europe.
The final five are Tokyo and three surrounding prefectures, as well as the northernmost island of Hokkaido.
(NPR)
Tokyo and its surrounding regions, as well as the northern island of Hokkaido.
(Guardian)
The state of emergency was lifted in most of the country earlier this month as new infections fell, but kept in place in Tokyo – where more than 5,000 people have been infected and 247 died – and four other prefectures: nearby Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama, and the northernmost main island of Hokkaido.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
「抵抗権」に注目してみるとロックの辞書解説でもpeople should be able to change their government if they were not satisfied with itと書いています。教科書的におなじみの記述です。
（ロングマン）
Locke, John
(1632–1704) an English philosopher who developed the idea of empiricism in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In his Two Treatises on Civil Government he wrote that a king or government received the right to rule from the people and not from God, and that the people should be able to change their government if they were not satisfied with it. These ideas influenced the Declaration of Independence in the US.
（オックスフォード）
John Locke
(1632-1704) an English philosopher. In his Two Treatises of Government (1690) he opposed the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, arguing that governments should rule only if they are supported by the people. This was an important influence on the later revolutions in America and France, and on the development of Western democracy. Locke also wrote books on religion, education and economics. His most famous work of philosophy is An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), an attempt to show what can and cannot be known.
独立宣言ってタイトル通り、本来の目的はこの抵抗権の正当化なわけですよね。一番言いたいことはThat whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Governmentの方に違いないです。現にこれらの文章のあとは、いかに英国王が酷いかをツラツラと書いています。
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
先程のアティカス・フィンチのクライマックスの言葉に登場した。the great levelers。独立宣言のall men are created equalと並列的に使われています。
Now, gentlemen, in this country our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal.
4月9日のBBCで話題になったニュースでもgreat levelerでしたね。
They tell us coronavirus is a great leveller. It’s not. It’s much, much harder if you’re poor. How do we stop it making social inequality even greater?
Hello, good evening. The language around Covid-19 has sometimes felt trite and misleading.
You do not survive the illness through fortitude and strength of character, whatever the Prime Minister’s colleagues will tell us.
And the disease is not a great leveller, the consequences of which everyone - rich or poor - suffers the same, this is a myth which needs debunking.
Those on the frontline right now - bus drivers, shelf-stackers, nurses, care home workers, hospital staff and shopkeepers - are disproportionately the lower paid members of our workforce.
They are more likely to catch the disease because they are more exposed. Those in tower blocks and small flats will find the lockdown tougher. Those in manual jobs won't be able to work from home.
This is a health issue with huge ramifications for social welfare and it's a welfare issue with huge ramifications for public health.
great leverって言葉は日本語にしにくいですね。
（ウィズダム）
leveler
(身分･年齢に関係なく)平等に与えられる[やってくる]物 (!特に死や病気など) .
（オックスフォード）
leveller
an event or a situation that makes everyone equal whatever their age, importance, etc.
Walter Scheidel explains how the fallout from coronavirus could be the catalyst for a more equal world
Thu 30 Apr 2020 11.56 BST Last modified on Mon 4 May 2020 10.14 BST
If the affliction of coronavirus has shamed us into anything, it is a vivid appreciation of just how cruelly topsy-turvy our world is. Low-paid healthcare workers, bin collectors, bus drivers and supermarket shelf stackers, not hedge fund managers or venture capitalists, have kept us from falling apart. It has taken actual disaster to expose the deep-seated social injustices and inequalities that we knew, but seemed to have forgotten, are hardwired into our economy. So could the global convulsion caused by the pandemic put us on the path to greater equality?
The Austrian economic historian Walter Scheidel argues that throughout history, from the stone age onwards, pandemic is one of the only four events capable of bringing about greater equality. War, state collapse and revolution are the other three.
In his book The Great Leveler he showed how the Black Death in the 1300s led to the wipeout of a third of Europe’s population and massively reduced inequality by raising the price of labour. More recently, in the 20th century, two catastrophic world wars and the Communist revolution led to a long era of reduced inequality lasting until the early 1980s and giving rise to the modern welfare state, labour unions and progressive taxation.
Will all this awareness spill over into demands for political transformation? “It doesn’t take all that much,” says Scheidel. “All we really need is a certain increase in the percentage of people who support certain policies for those policies to become mainstream. There is now a greater potential for a sufficiently large number of people to say, ‘maybe we should be doing something about this’.”
But there’s an important caveat; much of the coronavirus’s levelling potential will depend on our willingness to suffer significant economic losses in the short and medium term.
そのためには経済不況が長引かせないといけないようです。
Meanwhile, mass unemployment and the loss of income or healthcare will hit the poor hardest, pushing many people into debt, further widening the gap between rich and poor.
But could the coronavirus crash do what the 2008 crash didn’t? Not if there’s a swift recovery but, says Scheidel: “If we’re entering a more long-term depression as a result of Covid-19, I think all kinds of more radical policies will be on the table for the first time in a very long time.”
It will also be difficult to resist the temptation to go back to business as usual. “There will be a strong push to go back to growth to finance the huge deficits that governments have been racking up, so, if anything, growth will be more important than before,” says Scheidel. “At the same time, if the effects of the pandemic polarise societies even more, there will also be stronger agitation for more progressive or distributive policies. It will be very difficult to reconcile those two motivations.”
The real clash of interests, he predicts, will be between those determined to go back to the status quo even at the price of making existing inequality worse and those who want a reset.
“I don’t see enough engagement with the fact that this is going to be a real struggle between countervailing forces that push in different directions. The big question is which one will have the upper hand, in which place, and for how long.”
And if he is right that the recipe for equality is prolonged suffering, things may have to get a lot worse before they can get better. For many, it won’t be worth the wait.
Atticus Finch delivers his Closing Argument at the Trial of Tom Robinson
Finch: To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The State has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. Now there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led, almost exclusively, with his left [hand]. And Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken "The Oath" with the only good hand he possesses -- his right.
I have nothing but pity in my heart for the Chief Witness for the State. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But, my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man's life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say "guilt," gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She's committed no crime. She has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But, what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder of what she did.
Now what did she do? She tempted a negro. She was white and she tempted a negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.
The witnesses for the State, with the exception of the sheriff of Lincoln County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen -- to this Court -- in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted; confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption, the evil assumption, that all negroes lie; all negroes are basically immoral beings; all negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which is in itself, gentlemen, a lie -- which I do not need to point out to you.
And so, a quiet, humble, respectable negro, who has had the unmitigated TEMERITY to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word against two white peoples. The defendant is not guilty. But somebody in this courtroom is.
Now, gentlemen, in this country our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality!
Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man to his family.
In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson.
Seventy-five years ago, on May 9, the population of the Channel Islands came to the end of a five-year lockdown when the British Navy arrived to free them from the Nazi occupying forces a day after Germany’s formal surrender at the end of the Second World War. A major party had been planned for this year, but it will of course have to happen online, as the islanders face a lockdown of a different kind.
Nobody saw the occupation coming. In early 1940, these sunny British Isles were promoting themselves as a wartime tourism destination, the perfect bucket-and-spade beach holiday for those having to abandon annual holidays further afield. With attractive pink granite cliffs strewn with wildflowers, golden sand beaches and renowned local produce, the Channel Islands were a favoured destination for UK holidaymakers in the 1930s. I have photographs of my paternal grandmother with her stylish bob, leaning on the sea wall in front of Elizabeth Castle with my grandfather (they enjoyed their holidays to Jersey so much that they encouraged my father to move there with them in the 1960s, and it is where he met my mother, a Jersey girl).
“It meant five years of being cooped up with no freedom to express yourself,” Bob continues. “You couldn’t trust your closest friend because, if that person was arrested and interrogated, they might give you away. It was a false kind of life that everyone here had to live.”
If life was hard for residents, spare a thought for the thousands of Russian slaves used as forced labour during the occupation. They were among the 12,000 or so prisoners-of-war sent to Jersey to build the fortifications that litter the island, though other nationalities were granted more privileges than the Russians. Bob played a major part in assisting any Russians who escaped, and in 2013 was appointed MBE by the Queen.
“Now, 75 years later,” he observes wryly, “we are prisoners again.”
Jersey is currently completely locked down, with no passenger services in and out of the island by boat or plane and just one daily lifeline flight to Southampton. Anyone who does arrive there is subject to 14 days of quarantine, while locals are allowed out for a two-hour window each day to shop or exercise. “The difference is that we have enough food,” says Bob. “During the occupation we were desperately hungry. All the time, we thought of food. Children leaving school were two inches shorter than normal at the end of the war.”
The same will be true in Guernsey, where residents hope to join in a virtual sing-song. Among them is Myrtle Whitfield, 83, who was three years old at the start of the occupation. She remembers the difficult months at the end of the war, after D-Day, when the island’s food supplies from France were cut off. “This current lockdown is tough, but at least we have food,” she says, echoing Bob’s sentiment. “On the other hand, during the occupation we could at least socialise and go to church. The Germans took over all the school buildings, so we used to have little schools set up in people’s houses. We were taught by people who weren’t qualified teachers, but we survived.” It is another scenario that has echoes of today.
Myrtle usually spends Liberation Day at a big celebratory tea with Forties music, followed by dinner with friends at a local restaurant overlooking the fireworks. “This day has always been a huge celebration for us,” she says. “People dress up, there are parades. It’s a big party.”
Even though he had lived in Monroe County his whole life, Walter McMillian had never heard of Harper Lee or To Kill a Mockingbird. Monroeville, Alabama, celebrated its native daughter Lee shamelessly after her award-winning book became a national bestseller in the 1960s. She returned to Monroe County but secluded herself and was rarely seen in public. Her reclusiveness proved no barrier to the county's continued efforts to market her literary classic-or to market itself by using the book's celebrity. Production of the film adaptation brought Gregory Peck to town for the infamous courtroom scenes; his performance won him an Academy Award. Local leaders later turned the old courthouse into a "Mockingbird" museum. A group of locals formed "The Mockingbird Players of Monroeville" to present a stage version of the story. The production was so popular that national and international tours were organized to provide an authentic presentation of the fictional story to audiences everywhere.
Sentimentality about Lee's story grew even as the harder truths of the book took no root. The story of an innocent black man bravely defended by a white lawyer in the 1930s fascinated millions of readers, despite its uncomfortable exploration of false accusations of rape involving a white woman. Lee's endearing characters, Atticus Finch and his precocious daughter, Scout, captivated readers while confronting them with some of the realities of race and justice in the South. A generation of future lawyers grew up hoping to become the courageous Atticus, who at one point arms himself to protect the defenseless black suspect from an angry mob of white men looking to lynch him.
Today, dozens of legal organizations hand out awards in the fictional lawyer's name to celebrate the model of advocacy described in Lee's novel. What is often overlooked is that the black man falsely accused in the story was not successfully defended by Atticus. Tom Robinson, the wrongly accused black defendant, is found guilty. Later he dies when, full of despair, he makes a desperate attempt to escape from prison. He is shot seventeen times in the back by his captors, dying ingloriously but not unlawfully.
Prince Mohammed bin Zayed expanded the U.A.E.’s power by following America’s lead. He now has an increasingly bellicose agenda of his own. And President Trump seems to be following him.
“[S]ome Obama officials came to see him as a dangerous rogue actor. By the time Donald Trump was elected — offering him a more pliant partner — M.B.Z. was drawing criticism from human rights groups and diplomats for his military’s role in Yemen and Libya. Even some of M.B.Z.’s admirers in diplomatic circles say that he can be too absolutist and that he has waded too deep into conflicts whose outcomes he cannot control.
Yet M.B.Z. remains a rare figure in the Middle East: a shrewd, secular-leaning leader with a blueprint of sorts for the region’s future and the resources to implement it. For all his flaws, the alternatives look increasingly grim.”
The first thing to be noted is that to the extent that the future of the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East look grim, M.B.Z. has so far been part of the problem, not part of the solution. He is a dictator, after all, and he has used his country’s military and financial resources to thwart the emergence of democratic tendencies in the region, all under the guise of fighting Islamic extremism.
英語圏でいつも感心させられるのはリファレンスの充実。今回もTwo Treatises of Civil Governmentの原著を簡単に読めるサイトがありました。愚痴ですが、今回の日本の記事では「意見書」を取り上げてても「意見書」全文を読めるリンクを貼ってあるところはほとんどなかったんですよね。情報をうやむやにするという姿勢は政府だけでなくメディアにもかけていると思います。
Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.
（中略）
for the exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great, than in a petty officer; no more justifiable in a king than a constable; but is so much the worse in him, in that he has more trust put in him, has already a much greater share than the rest of his brethren, and is supposed, from the advantages of his education, employment, and counsellors, to be more knowing in the measures of right and wrong.
“Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins”. The equality of all citizens under the law is a lynch-pin of the modern notion of the rule of law in a democratic state. A revolutionary implication of this idea, well appreciated by Locke in the tumultuous 1680s, is that even rulers and their magistrates were also under the “sovereignty of the law”. Locke concludes that when any member of the state exceeds his legal authority or in any way violates the law, he ceases “to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.”
この章はいわゆる「抵抗権」を語っている部分でもあるのですね。A revolutionary implication of this ideaと指摘しているように「革命権」とした方がこの主張の急進性を感じ取れそうです。
(Wikipedia)
抵抗権（ていこうけん、英: Right of Resistance）とは、人民により信託された政府による権力の不当な行使に対して人民が抵抗する権利。革命権（英: Right of Revolution）、反抗権（英: Right of Rebellion）とも言われる。
そういう意味でもロックの引用は反対派の政治的立場として的を得ているのかもしれません。
209
But if either these illegal acts have extended to the majority of the people; or if the mischief and oppression has lighted only on some few, but in such cases, as the precedent, and consequences seem to threaten all; and they are persuaded in their consciences, that their laws, and with them their estates, liberties, and lives are in danger, and perhaps their religion too; how they will be hindered from resisting illegal force, used against them, I cannot tell. This is an inconvenience, I confess, that attends all governments whatsoever, when the governors have brought it to this pass, to be generally suspected of their people; the most dangerous state which they can possibly put themselves in; wherein they are the less to be pitied, because it is so easy to be avoided; it being as impossible for a governor, if he really means the good of his people, and the preservation of them, and their laws together, not to make them see and feel it, as it is for the father of a family, not to let his children see he loves, and takes care of them.
インドネシアでは「心の友」は知らない人がいないくらい有名な曲である。インドネシアのラジオ関係者が日本で五輪のコンサートへ行き、その際買ったアルバムの中にこの曲が入っており、インドネシアのラジオで流したことで人気となった。五輪としては、地味な曲だけになぜインドネシアで「第二の国歌」とまで言われるまで大ヒットしたのかが不思議だったという。インドネシアでは日本人が来ると歓迎の意味で、この曲を日本語で歌うことが多い。また、スマトラ島沖地震での復興の際にも被災者の支えになったといわれている。2005年には、インドネシアの歌手・DELON（インドネシア語版）と共に、スマトラ沖地震チャリティー・シングルとして「KOKORO NO TOMO」をデュエット・レコーディングしリリースしている。
A video showcasing baseless arguments by Dr. Judy Mikovits, including attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci, has been viewed more than eight million times in the past week.
Whatever camp someone falls in, though, the general principles are the same. “It’s always important to respond in a way that doesn’t suggest that the other [person] is foolish, naive, or gullible, as much as you think they may be,” said Joshua Coleman, a psychologist with an expertise in family relationships. “So rather than saying, ‘I can’t believe that you fall for this crap!,’ better to say, ‘I have heard others talk about that as well. And I agree, these days there’s so much information out there, it can be hard to know what to believe.’”
After setting an empathetic tone, Coleman suggested continuing with something like this:
That video might be right, but I've been reading a lot these days that goes counter to that. Do you mind if I send you an article or video about that? It would be good for us to look at both and see what we think.
別の研究者にも聞いていますが、同じようなことを推奨しています。“I’m glad you brought this up. Those are some scary claims in that documentary. I am skeptical, though, because a lot of the things mentioned don't jibe with what I have been reading."のようにI’m glad you brought this up.と言える心の余裕が欲しいです。
“First validate” the fears people might have about the pandemic “and then pivot,” Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a fellow at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, recommended. Along those lines, she suggested something like “I’m glad you brought this up. Those are some scary claims in that documentary. I am skeptical, though, because a lot of the things mentioned don't jibe with what I have been reading. Here’s an article that I found to be more helpful at explaining these issues, and I feel more comfortable with the science behind it.” If you send along more information, Piltch-Loeb suggested trying to find reliable sources that might still be familiar to whomever you’re talking with.
It’s also important to know when to give up. “If they don’t engage openly and in a way that suggests a willingness to compromise, then I would walk away and wish them well,” Uscinski said of people with a strong belief in a conspiracy. “I would like all of the people I care about to believe the most authoritative information, but I don’t control other people’s minds, and attempting to do so might not work out in my favor.”
If that feels like a defeat, Uscinski suggested some other places to channel your energy: “Support science and universities,” “don’t support politicians who lie all the time,” and “push back hard” if a media outlet spreads a conspiracy theory.
今週のTIMEのインタビューでリバタリアン党から第三の大統領候補として出馬を検討すると発表したJustin Amashが出ていました。どういう党から出るにしろWashington is a very broken system.やGetting rid of Donald Trump does not fix the problems because Donald Trump is just a symptom of the problems. という認識は共感してしまいます。
As a presidential candidate, what would the core idea of your campaign be?
The core idea is liberty and representative government. And what we have right now in Washington is a very broken system. What happens right now too often is a few leaders in Congress negotiate with the White House, and they decide everything for everyone. And this leads to a lot of frustration and a lot of partisanship because when Congress can’t deliberate actual policies, when you have most members of Congress left out of the process, then they start to debate personalities.
*****
Have you thought about whether you’d vote for Biden or Trump?
I would not vote for Biden or Trump. Getting rid of Donald Trump does not fix the problems because Donald Trump is just a symptom of the problems. The problems will still exist with Joe Biden in the White House.
Having more than two choices is nearly always a good thing. It is certainly a good thing in politics.
By Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist,Updated May 6, 2020, 3:00 a.m.
Certainly, it is plausible that if Amash wins the Libertarian nomination, he could draw anti-Trump votes that might otherwise go to the Democratic nominee — presumably former vice president Joe Biden. In a battleground state like Michigan, Amash’s home turf, a non-Trump alternative could conceivably divert enough support to keep Biden from winning the state. Something like that may have happened in 2016. Trump edged Hillary Clinton by just 10,704 votes in Michigan — a small fraction of the 172,000 votes that went to that year’s Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. Supporters of Biden fear the same thing could happen again this year.
But it’s equally plausible that an Amash candidacy could inflict a fatal wound on Trump’s bid for reelection. Many right-leaning voters are weary of Trump, yet will never cast a ballot for Biden. A Libertarian alternative gives them — or rather, us, since I’m in that category — a more appealing option than voting Republican or sitting out the election.
delivered 17 September 2007, The College of William & Mary, VA
１分35秒あたりから
This setting is fitting for my topic today: a “realist’s” view of promoting democracy abroad.
I had quite a reputation as a pessimist when I was in the intelligence business. A journalist once described me as the Eeyore of national security -- able to find the darkest cloud in any silver lining. I used to joke that when an intelligence officer smelled the flowers, he’d look around for the coffin. Today, as one looks around the world -- wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ambitious and fanatical theocracy in Iran, a nuclear North Korea, terrorism, and more -- there would seem to be ample grounds to be gloomy.
the donkey in the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A A Milne. He is always complaining about things in a very sad way. His name comes from the sound a donkey makes.
By Jennifer Senior Opinion columnist April 26, 2020
Confession: I have a secret talent for making lemons out of lemonade. It may not be readily apparent. I smile a lot and make cheerful conversation; my end of the dinner table is not some horrible event horizon beyond which all sunlight disappears. But tucked inside me, almost always, is a grumbling Eeyore.
That Eeyore is having her moment. The coronavirus is springtime for pessimists. Every gloomy thought I’ve had about this pandemic has more or less come to pass. So when I read of a possibly more devastating wave of Covid-19 this coming winter, or that recovered patients in South Korea are suddenly becoming reinfected, or that a vaccine might take north of 18 months to develop and mass produce, I merely think Welcome to my brain. Those are the lyrics of my personal death-metal soundtrack. They’ve been playing in my head all along.
'Look at that flower; look how beautiful it is,' said an artist to his friend.
'Art appreciates and celebrates that beauty, whereas science just takes it all apart. Science makes the flower dull.’
The friend being addressed was Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Richard Feynman, and he thought that the artist's view was 'a bit nutty'. Feynman countered that he too could appreciate the flower's beauty, but as a scientist he knew that the inner structure of the flower is wondrous as well – with its cells, its chemical and biological processes, all of its many intricate systems. In addition, Feynman explained, knowing that the flower attracts insects we might deduce that insects find the flower aesthetically pleasing, which in turn raises all sorts of questions about evolution, cognition and light. 'Science,' Feynman said, 'only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds.'
Scientists are piecing together how SARS-CoV-2 operates, where it came from and what it might do next — but pressing questions remain about the source of COVID-19.
Laurie Garrett, the prophet of this pandemic, expects years of death and “collective rage.”
By Frank Bruni Opinion Columnist May 2, 2020
I told Laurie Garrett that she might as well change her name to Cassandra. Everyone is calling her that anyway.
She and I were Zooming — that’s a verb now, right? — and she pulled out a 2017 book, “Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes.” It notes that Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was prescient not only about the impact of H.I.V. but also about the emergence and global spread of more contagious pathogens.
“I’m a double Cassandra,” Garrett said.
She’s also prominently mentioned in a recent Vanity Fair article by David Ewing Duncan about “the Coronavirus Cassandras.”
Cassandra, of course, was the prophetess of Greek mythology who was doomed to issue unheeded warnings. What Garrett has been warning most direly about — in her 1994 best seller, “The Coming Plague,” and in subsequent books and speeches, including TED Talks — is a pandemic like the current one.
（ウィズダム）
Cassandra
1 〘ギ神〙 カサンドラ〘トロイの凶事の女預言者〙.
2 (世に認められない)凶事の預言者.
（オックスフォード ）
Cassandra
a person who predicts that something bad will happen, especially a person who is not believed
Word Origin
From the name of a princess in ancient Greek stories to whom Apollo gave the ability to predict the future. After she tricked him, he stopped people believing her.
（ロングマン）
Cassandra
people are sometimes called a ‘Cassandra’ if they warn that something bad will happen, but nobody believes them. In ancient Greek stories, Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, King of Troy. She had the power to see the future, and warned that the Greeks could use the Trojan Horse to take control of Troy, but no one believed her.
感染症だけでなく、医療崩壊の危険性も訴えていたので自ら“I’m a double Cassandra,”と語っているのでしょうか。今アメリカに必要なのは検査よりもしっかりとした情報だとのことです。
The problem, Garrett added, is bigger than Trump and older than his presidency. America has never been sufficiently invested in public health. The riches and renown go mostly to physicians who find new and better ways to treat heart disease, cancer and the like. The big political conversation is about individuals’ access to health care.
But what about the work to keep our air and water safe for everyone, to design policies and systems for quickly detecting outbreaks, containing them and protecting entire populations? Where are the rewards for the architects of that?
Garrett recounted her time at Harvard. “The medical school is all marble, with these grand columns,” she said. “The school of public health is this funky building, the ugliest possible architecture, with the ceilings falling in.”
“That’s America?” I asked.
“That’s America,” she said.
And what America needs most right now, she said, isn’t this drumbeat of testing, testing, testing, because there will never be enough superfast, super-reliable tests to determine on the spot who can safely enter a crowded workplace or venue, which is the scenario that some people seem to have in mind. America needs good information, from many rigorously designed studies, about the prevalence and deadliness of coronavirus infections in given subsets of people, so that governors and mayors can develop rules for social distancing and reopening that are sensible, sustainable and tailored to the situation at hand.
People (Larry Brilliant, Bill and Melinda Gates, the World Health Organization) have been shouting about the current pandemic—“Disease X”—near constantly for a couple of decades. But talk and action are different planets.
Quarantines, flu vaccines and other steps to take before the Wuhan virus becomes widespread.
By Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb
Jan. 28, 2020 6:48 pm ET
このWSJのOpEdでは４点挙げていますが、今我々が身にしみて重要性を感じていることですね。
Four important steps now could help.
First, the most important public-health tool for containment is the identification and isolation of cases to break the chain of spread.
Second, focus on the flu. The incidence of flu and other respiratory viral infection cases is high right now in the U.S.
Third, hospitals need to prepare for an influx of patients who will need to be isolated.
Finally, government agencies, medical product developers, and public-private partnerships such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations have started to develop vaccines and therapies.
WASHINGTON – T.S. Eliot famously called April “the cruelest month.” If U.S. President Donald Trump, not known as a fan of poetry, were honest with himself (another unknown), he would likely agree the month turned his tenure into a wasteland.
By April 28, the U.S. was leading the world with nearly 57,000 COVID-19 deaths and over 1 million confirmed coronavirus infections. A recent analysis by the Yale School of Public Health indicates that the number of pandemic-related deaths in the early months of 2020 far exceeded the official public estimates.
Today’s Coronavirus Briefing is 1,101 words and will take you five minutes to read.
“April is the cruelest month,” wrote the poet T.S. Eliot, who knew nothing of coronavirus but did know the 1918 influenza pandemic all too well. This current pandemic whipsaws us daily with the grimmest imaginable news interspersed with glimmers of hope. We’ll vote for hope any day (sending ballots by mail, of course).
MS. GEORGIEVA: Thank you. I send my very best wishes to everyone for health and strength, and a big shout out for the health workers out there to protect us against COVID-19.
It is the words of T.S. Eliot, "April is the cruelest month," I want to start from. Yes, nature is reawakening, but streets and schools, and shops, and offices are empty. And the pandemic continues its deadly march around the world.
As I said during my curtain raiser speech, it is a crisis like no other. In scope, we are now in the worst recession since the Great Depression, we are experiencing a 3 percent contraction of global GDP, and 170 countries are going to see income per capita falling versus what we expected three months ago for 160—for them to go up.
It is also very unusual as a combination of a health crisis and an economic crisis that is simultaneously a supply and a demand shock, and while we are accustomed in crisis to live with uncertainty, this time is the novel coronavirus new unknown we're wrestling with.
For the first time in the history of the IMF epidemiologists are providing inputs for our macroeconomic projections, and they're telling us it may get even worse if the virus continues its round for longer, or if vaccines and treatment are slow to come around.
ついでにちょっと前に触れたA Tale Of Two Citiesの書き出しも有名なので見ておきます。It was the best of times, it was the worst of timesの部分がよく登場します。
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
As 1918 dawned, a young Assistant Secretary of the Navy, just 36 at the time, was headed overseas, tasked with making sure America’s green and untested troops were ready for action in Europe’s great war.
An iconoclastic poet and academic, barely 30, balanced odd jobs as a high school teacher and banker after the outbreak of war had dashed his hopes of defending his dissertation.
And a young nurse, only 20, began caring for wounded soldiers at a military hospital in Toronto. She worked ever-longer hours as a strange sickness began to appear beside the wounds of war.
By the time the Spanish Flu swept through their countries, their communities and their bodies, these three would be forever changed.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was carried off a military ship on a stretcher. Once he’d recovered back home in New York, he was the nominee for Vice President, beginning a career in national politics that would change the course of history.
While lying in his sick bed, T.S. Eliot began writing what would become "The Waste Land," his poetic masterpiece. It begins, “April is the cruelest month” and it began a movement of literary modernism that would win him the Nobel Prize for Literature.
And when Amelia Earhart finally caught the flu from one of her patients, her recovery was more complicated and painful than most. To pass the long and boring hours of quarantine and social distance, she would watch the airplanes coming and going, and she started to wonder whether she might like a change of career.
In every age, life has a frustrating way of reminding us that we are not the sole authors of our story. We must share credit, whether we’d like to or not, with a difficult and selfish collaborator called our circumstances.
And when our glittering plans are scrambled, as they often will be, and our dearest hopes are dashed, as will sometimes happen, we’re left with a choice. We can curse the loss of something that was never going to be…Or we can see reasons to be grateful for the yank on the scruff of the neck, in having our eyes lifted up from the story we were writing for ourselves and turned instead to a remade world.
When I joined Apple in 1998, I couldn’t believe my luck. I was going to get to spend the rest of my professional life working for Steve Jobs. But fate comes like a thief in the night. The loneliness I felt when we lost Steve was proof that there is nothing more eternal, or more powerful, than the impact we have on others.
Not being able to leave the house leaves you with a lot of odd gaps of time to fill. I’ve been trying to use them to read, and I keep coming back to Abraham Lincoln.
I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to put these times into perspective. You’ll be shocked at how clever and funny and alive his thinking still is, how this reserved and humble man managed, in noisy times, to call others to hope.
And, as we celebrate OSU’s 150th anniversary, it’s worth remembering that the school wouldn’t exist without the land-grant university system that Lincoln signed into law.
It’s also hard to imagine someone more defined by their circumstances. Lincoln found his country on fire and chose to run into the flames. And he gave everything he had to bring his people — chaotic and squabbling, fundamentally flawed yet fundamentally good — along with him.
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present,” he said. “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
スピーチの締めでもこのリンカーンの言葉think anew, and act anewを改めて引用して終わりにしていました。こういうのが準備したスピーチだと思うんですよね。
unprecedentedという言葉の使用が急増しているそうですが、コロナ禍の下でよく使われるようになった表現をまとめてくれるところがあると助かりますね。そんなよく使われる表現の一つが「ウィルスには国境がない」。WHO事務総長はThis virus does not respect borders.と語っています。
Every country must be ready for its first case, its first cluster, the first evidence of community transmission and for dealing with sustained community transmission. And it must be preparing for all of those scenarios at the same time.
No country should assume it won’t get cases. That could be a fatal mistake, quite literally.
This virus does not respect borders. It does not distinguish between races or ethnicities. It has no regard for a country’s GDP or level of development.
The point is not only to prevent cases arriving on your shores. The point is what you do when you have cases.
But we are not hopeless. We are not defenseless. There are things every country and every person can do.
この表現で使われる動詞はrespect以外にrecognizeとかheedとかがありました。
COVID-19 pandemic does not respect borders
COVID-19 does not recognize borders
COVID-19 does not heed borders
Covid-19 does not discriminate against borders
As an enemy, COVID-19 does not care about political borders
It is important to remember that COVID-19 does not differentiate between borders , ethnicities, disability status, age or gender.
no bordersを使うのも英語的表現ですよね。この場合は動詞knowが使われることが多かったです。We all know that disease knows no borders.と語っている動画。
We all know that disease knows no borders. From Ebola in West Africa, to Zika in the Americas, MERS-CoV in the Middle East, South Korea, and the Philippines; and polio in Pakistan and Nigeria; outbreaks can – and do – spread rapidly, often with devastating consequences. Public health emergencies affect more than people’s health – they impact economies, create instability, and threaten a country’s national security. FETP-trained disease detectives are our frontline defenders and serve as an essential part of any nation’s early warning system, stopping the next epidemic from taking root.
Actor, WSU friend and coronavirus survivor Tom Hanks recently delivered a graduation message to Wright State University’s Class of 2020 on Saturday, May 2 – the original date of Wright State’s commencement.
Hanks’ inspirational message ran for about five minutes. In the video, Hanks says the students have been “chosen” in many ways, including their ability to overcome the challenges of the times.
確かにメディアの書き出しを見ても褒めていますねえ。
(USA Today)
Of course it was Tom Hanks who delivered the virtual commencement speech to make everyone cry.
(CNN)
With the coronavirus pandemic canceling in-person graduation ceremonies across the US, students are feeling robbed of one of life's biggest moments. But leave it to America's dad, Tom Hanks, to uplift spirits.
The Oscar-winning actor delivered an inspiring message to the graduating class of Ohio's Wright State University during a virtual ceremony on Saturday. During the five-minute video, Hanks congratulated the graduates and called them the "chosen ones."
(Esquire)
It’s May, and in a normal year that would mean the beginning of celebrity commencement speech season, all featuring that perfectly calibrated mix of humor, self deprecation, and stirring optimism. This graduation season, that kind of optimism is harder to come by, as are crowds of cap-and-gown-clad seniors. But there’s if there's one celebrity capable of selling a bit of that classic commencement spirit, even during a pandemic, it's Tom Hanks.
He’s in front of a green screen. This is the most bizarre congrats speech ever. Almost as if he’s trying to get a message out.....
******
Sounds like someone just gave him a script and forced him to read it right before his execution. Looks more like a message to all future actors and humanity overall rather than just Wright State’s class of 2020. A message to actually do their job instead of all what actors are doing right now...
******
He speaks in codes! He does't speak to the people, but a completely different group! Just listen very carefully. Seems like he's addressing new members of the Cabal! WWG1WGA The Netherlands
******
Sounds like you're trying to play a character and looking down at the script. Doesnt seem like you're connecting and mean it. Worried more about the oratory delivery. The delivery is like a white southern Baptist preacher.
******
He's supposed to be dead right?
This looks like a deep fake. Notice the wrinkles on the forehead is just constant. Absolutely no change throughout the video.
E.I.S. personnel in the field have carried boxes of masks and gloves to distribute to pilots, flight attendants, journalists, and health workers—supplies that may not be needed by the recipients but emphasize how important universal compliance is. When Besser gave briefings during the H1N1 pandemic, he sometimes started by describing how he had recently soaped up his fingers, or pointedly waited until everyone was away from the microphone before taking the stage. At the time, there was almost no chance that Besser and his colleagues were at immediate risk of contracting H1N1. “To maintain trust, you have to be as honest as possible, and make damn sure that everyone walks the walk,” Besser told me. “If we order people to wear masks, then every C.D.C. official must wear a mask in public. If we order hand washing, then we let the cameras see us washing our hands. We’re trying to do something nearly impossible, which is get people to take an outbreak seriously when, for most Americans, they don’t know anyone who’s sick and, if the plan works, they’ll never meet anyone who’s sick.”
The lead spokesperson should be a scientist. Dr. Richard Besser, a former acting C.D.C. director and an E.I.S. alumnus, explained to me, “If you have a politician on the stage, there’s a very real risk that half the nation is going to do the opposite of what they say.” During the H1N1 outbreak of 2009—which caused some twelve thousand American deaths, infections in every state, and seven hundred school closings—Besser and his successor at the C.D.C., Dr. Tom Frieden, gave more than a hundred press briefings. President Barack Obama spoke publicly about the outbreak only a few times, and generally limited himself to telling people to heed scientific experts and promising not to let politics distort the government’s response. “The Bush Administration did a good job of creating the infrastructure so that we can respond,” Obama said at the start of the pandemic, and then echoed the sohco by urging families, “Wash your hands when you shake hands. Cover your mouth when you cough. I know it sounds trivial, but it makes a huge difference.”At no time did Obama recommend particular medical treatments, nor did he forecast specifics about when the pandemic would end.
While the logistics of classroom closures were being worked out, Constantine contacted Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft—which is headquartered in Redmond, east of Seattle—and asked him to consider ordering employees to work from home. “Microsoft is a big deal here,” Constantine told me. “I thought if they told everyone to stay home it could shift how the state was thinking—make the pandemic real.” Microsoft, as a tech company, was poised to switch quickly to remote work, and could demonstrate to other businesses that the transition could occur smoothly. On March 4th, with only twelve known covid-19 fatalities across the nation and no diagnoses among Microsoft workers, the company told employees to stay home if they could. Smith told me, “King County has a strong reputation for excellent public-health experts, and the worst thing we could have done is substitute our judgment for the expertise of people who have devoted their lives to serving the public.” Amazon, which is also headquartered in the area, told many of its local employees to work from home as well. “That’s a hundred thousand people suddenly staying home,” one Seattle resident told me. “From commute traffic alone, you knew something big had happened.”
In early March, as Dow Constantine was asking Microsoft to close its offices and putting scientists in front of news cameras, de Blasio and New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, were giving speeches that deëmphasized the risks of the pandemic, even as the city was announcing its first official cases. De Blasio initially voiced caution, saying that “no one should take the coronavirus situation lightly,” but soon told residents to keep helping the city’s economy. “Go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus,” he tweeted on March 2nd—one day after the first covid-19 diagnosis in New York. He urged people to see a movie at Lincoln Center. On the day that Seattle schools closed, de Blasio said at a press conference that “if you are not sick, if you are not in the vulnerable category, you should be going about your life.” Cuomo, meanwhile, had told reporters that “we should relax.” He said that most infected people would recover with few problems, adding, “We don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”
Nevertheless, de Blasio finally acceded to the health officials’ demands. On March 16th, after a compromise was reached with the health-care unions, city schools were closed, and Cuomo ordered all gyms and similar facilities to shut down. The messaging remained jumbled, however. Right before the gym closure was set to take effect, de Blasio asked his driver to take him to the Y.M.C.A. in Park Slope, near his old home, for a final workout. Even de Blasio’s allies were outraged. A former adviser tweeted, “The mayor’s actions today are inexcusable and reckless.” Another former consultant tweeted that the gym visit was “Pathetic. Self-involved. Inexcusable.”
Southwest is the latest airline to make masks mandatory. Policy kick in May 11th and applies to passengers and crew. Travelers can wear their own or will be provided one.
The airline is also limiting the number of passengers on each flight and suggesting all travelers add hand sanitizers to the list of carry-on items.
It is highly encouraged to bring your own hand sanitizer and mask, and to wear your mask while traveling. Face coverings or masks will be required for Customers starting May 11. If you forget your mask at home, one will be available for you.
Some partner airlines mandatorily require you to wear a mask. Please check the website of each airline when you travel.
Please refrain from boarding if you are not feeling well or have symptoms such as fever, heavy fatigue (malaise) or difficulty breathing (dyspnoea).
If any symptoms appear, consult your physician prior to taking the flight.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we ask for your understanding and cooperation in order to ensure safe and secure environment for our customers.
The scientific community must take up cudgels in the battle against bunk.
ここでエセ科学の一つとして霊気がreiki — a science-free practice that involves using your hands, without even touching the patientと紹介されていました。
Here are two places to start.
First, we must stop tolerating and legitimizing health pseudoscience, especially at universities and health-care institutions. Many bogus COVID-19 therapies have been embraced by integrative health centres at leading universities and hospitals. If a respected institution, such as the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, offers reiki — a science-free practice that involves using your hands, without even touching the patient, to balance the “vital life force energy that flows through all living things” — is it any surprise that some people will think that the technique could boost their immune systems and make them less susceptible to the virus? A similar argument can be made about public-health providers in Canada and the United Kingdom: by offering homeopathy, they de facto encourage the idea that this scientifically implausible remedy can work against COVID-19. These are just a few of myriad examples.
うん何十年の英語学習の中で、初めて知りました（苦笑）しっかりとジーニアスにも、ウィズダムにも載っていますが、WikipediaのようにReiki is a pseudoscienceと書いて欲しいです。
（ウィズダム）
reiki
U〘医〙 レイキ, 霊気〘体の一部に手を当てたりかざしたりして癒やしたり安心させたりする治療法〙.
（OALD）
reiki
a method of making sick people well again based on the idea that energy can be directed into a person’s body by touch
Japanese, literally ‘universal life energy’.
(Wikipedia)
Reiki (霊気, /ˈreɪkiː/) is a form of alternative medicine called energy healing. Reiki practitioners use a technique called palm healing or hands-on healing through which a "universal energy" is said to be transferred through the palms of the practitioner to the patient in order to encourage emotional or physical healing.
Reiki is a pseudoscience,[1] and is used as an illustrative example of pseudoscience in scholarly texts and academic journal articles. It is based on qi ("chi"), which practitioners say is a universal life force, although there is no empirical evidence that such a life force exists.[2][3]
OALDの語源説明がJapanese, literally ‘universal life energy’.となっていますが、ウエブスターはしっかりと語源説明できています。
(Merriam-Webster)
Reiki
: a system of touching with the hands based on the belief that such touching by an experienced practitioner produces beneficial effects by strengthening and normalizing certain vital energy fields held to exist within the body
First Known Use of Reiki
1975, in the meaning defined above
History and Etymology for Reiki
Japanese, literally, spirit, from rei spirit, soul + ki vital force, mind
As Covid-19 reminds us of life’s fragility, an increasing number of people are turning to faith and spirituality.
The world’s major religions are not the only ones witnessing increased engagement. Reiki, an alternative medicine involving energy healing, has become more sought after than ever since the lockdown. The UK’s largest reiki group on Facebook – home to thousands of members – has seen rising demand for online healing and reiki-teaching since lockdown began, as well as a spike in fraudsters offering scam services and “spells”, according to the group’s admin.
Reiki practitioner Hilary Kingston says that people are looking to a “higher source” for comfort and explanation during the crisis – much in the same way as an ill person prays for their return to health. For others, reiki carries political significance. Katrina Kiritharan is an energy healer and intuitive life coach and says that it symbolises an “inclusive and [alternative] beacon of hope” for marginalised people who feel that their governments have failed to support them during the crisis.
LA PAZ (Reuters) - On Bolivia's frontline against the coronavirus, Marcia Calderon is helping medical workers unwind with energy healing technique Reiki, but without the usual laying on of hands to guard against infection.
Calderon, who began studying the practice two decades ago to work with patients, now does in-person and distance sessions for health workers at a hospital clinic in La Paz.
Reiki, which originated in Japan, is aimed at stimulating a person's natural healing abilities by channeling "life force energy" through the body. Practitioners place their hands directly on or just above a person to relieve stress and support recovery from illness.
In the clinic where she works, two COVID-19 patients died, leaving doctors and nurses depressed and fearful of contracting the infection themselves, she said.
Patricia Callispieris, a director at the clinic, said Reiki has helped to relieve the tensions.
"I feel better. Stronger, with greater understanding," she said. "It's as if some weight has been lifted a little and I can walk a little lighter and understand that this is something that we have to get used to."
By Meredith Wadman, Jon CohenApr. 30, 2020 , 7:20 PM
The research community is reacting with alarm and anger to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) abrupt and unusual termination of a grant supporting research in China on how coronaviruses—such as the one causing the current pandemic—move from bats to humans.
The agency axed the grant last week, after conservative U.S. politicians and media repeatedly suggested—without evidence—that the pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, that employs a Chinese virologist who had been receiving funding from the grant. The termination, which some analysts believe might violate regulations governing NIH, also came 7 days after President Donald Trump, asked about the project at a press conference, said: “We will end that grant very quickly.”
China deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak in an “assault on international transparency’’ that cost tens of thousands of lives, according to a dossier prepared by concerned Western governments on the COVID-19 contagion.
The 15-page research document, obtained by The Saturday Telegraph, lays the foundation for the case of negligence being mounted against China.
It states that to the “endangerment of other countries” the Chinese government covered-up news of the virus by silencing or “disappearing” doctors who spoke out, destroying evidence of it in laboratories and refusing to provide live samples to international scientists who were working on a vaccine.
Scientists co-operate on search for Covid-19 origins despite charges Beijing is withholding data
US scientists are working with China to investigate the origin of coronavirus, despite criticism from the Trump administration that Beijing is failing to co-operate with outsiders to stem the disease.
Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said he was working with a team of Chinese researchers to determine whether coronavirus emerged in other parts of China before it was first discovered in Wuhan in December. The effort relies on help from the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
What about an accidental escape of a wild sample because of poor lab safety practices?
まあ、この問題が地政学的な駆け引きに利用されていることを真っ当に指摘しています。
If there is no evidence of engineering and the origin is still so disputed, why are we still talking about the Wuhan labs theory?
The pandemic has exacerbated existing geopolitical struggles, prompting a disinformation war that has drawn in the US, China, Russia and others.
Journalists and scientists have been targeted by people with an apparent interest in pushing circumstantial evidence related to the virus’s origins, perhaps as part of this campaign and to distract from the fact that few governments have had a fault-free response.
Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes & Robert F. Garry
Nature Medicine volume 26, pages450–452(2020)Cite this article
The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.
WASHINGTON – Three of the largest four U.S. airlines said Thursday they will require passengers to wear facial coverings on U.S. flights, joining JetBlue Airways Corp. in taking the step to address the spread of coronavirus and convince reluctant passengers to resume flying.
United Airlines, Delta Air Lines Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc., along with the smaller Frontier Airlines, which is owned by private equity firm Indigo Partners LLC, announced they will require facial coverings next month.
この施策の導入の背景には組合と議員からの働きかけがあったからだとか。
Some airline unions and U.S. lawmakers have urged the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to require facial coverings for all passengers and crew.
In coordination with the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) — we are the first major U.S. carrier to require that all flight attendants wear a face covering or mask to help protect themselves and customers on board our aircraft. Beginning in early May, we will make face masks available to our customers as well. This new initiative is in line with the most recent CDC recommendation that says wearing a cloth face covering is advisable when in public and when social distancing is difficult to maintain.
UnitedのAfter
１文目は同じですが、2文目はマスクをする職員の種類が増やすことを通知しています。搭乗客についてはWe will also make face coverings mandatory for all travelersとして、マスクがなくてもand will be providing them for free to our customers starting May 4とマスクを無料で提供することも伝えています。
In coordination with the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) — we were the first major U.S. carrier to require that all flight attendants wear a facial covering to help protect themselves and customers on board our aircraft. Effective May 4 we will expand that mandate to include all of our employees on board — including front-line workers like pilots, customer service agents and ramp workers when on board an aircraft, along with any other United employees traveling. We will also make face coverings mandatory for all travelers and will be providing them for free to our customers starting May 4.
American航空が搭乗客への義務付けを始めるのは5月11日からみたいですが、それまでもWe strongly encourage you to wear a face coveringとマスク着用を強く推奨しています。
AmericanのBefore
American doesn’t require you to wear a face covering, but we encourage it. Visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website for recommendations on face coverings to bring with you and use during your trip.
AmericanのAfter
We strongly encourage you to wear a face covering while flying on American, and starting May 11, it will be required. You also may be required by local law to wear one in the airport where your trip begins, where it ends or where you connect.
American航空もUnitedと同じく搭乗客に対してマスクなどを配布するとしていますが、as supplies and conditions allow,と在庫がある限りとの条件をつけています。
Also, starting in early May 2020, and as supplies and conditions allow, we'll begin to offer sanitizing wipes and face masks to our customers.
Deltaもall Delta customers and employees will be required to wear a face maskと義務であることを伝えていますが、同時にこれまで通りwe continue to ask customers to bring their own face coveringとマスク持参を呼びかけています。もちろんマスクがない客向けにsupplies will be available for customersとも述べています。
DeltaのBefore
We ask you to help us support healthy flying for everyone by bringing your own mask from home and to review your local orders for any additional travel guidelines.
DeltaのAfter
Face Masks Required for Everyone's Safety
Beginning May 4th, all Delta customers and employees will be required to wear a face mask, or appropriate face covering over their nose and mouth throughout their travel, aligning with best practice guidelines from the CDC. And while we continue to ask customers to bring their own face covering for travel with Delta, supplies will be available for customers who need them.
Reuterの記事では以下のように無料でマスクを配布するのはUnited航空しか言及していません。
United said it will provide complimentary masks to passengers. Southwest Airlines Co., one of the largest U.S. airlines, has not required facial coverings.
