Around three-quarters of U.S. adults now report being fully vaccinated, a critical safeguard against the worst outcomes of a virus that has claimed the lives of more than 950,000 citizens. Teens and children as young as 5 are now eligible for vaccines. The national unemployment rate has plummeted from nearly 15% in the tumultuous first weeks of the outbreak to around 4% today. A large majority of K-12 parents report that their kids are back to receiving in-person instruction, and other hallmarks of public life, including sporting events and concerts, are again drawing crowds.
Every September, asthma hospital stays rise. Doctors see more people with asthma episodes and attacks. The third week of the month is the worst. It is called the September Asthma Epidemic or Asthma Peak Week.
The worst week America has had in a really long time
The first thing that becomes clear is that successful professionals are working harder than ever. The 40-hour workweek, it seems, is a thing of the past. Even the 60-hour workweek, once the path to the top, is now practically considered part-time, as a recent Fortune magazine article put it. Our data reveal that 62% of high-earning individuals work more than 50 hours a week, 35% work more than 60 hours a week, and 10% work more than 80 hours a week. Add in a typical one-hour commute, and a 60-hour workweek translates into leaving the house at 7 am and getting home at 9 pm five days a week. If we focus on the subset of those workers who hold what we consider extreme jobs (a designation based on responsibilities and other attributes beyond pay), the hours are even more punishing. The majority of them (56%) work 70 hours or more a week, and 9% work 100 hours or more.
How dramatic a jump is this from the past? Without longitudinal data on actual behavior, we must rely on our respondents to gauge the increase. Of the extreme jobholders, 48% say they are working an average of 16.6 more hours per week than they did five years ago. That finding is consistent with other studies of the expanding workweek, including, most recently, one by Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano of the National Bureau of Economic Research. (Among college-educated men working full-time in the United States, Kuhn and Lozano report, those putting in 50-hour weeks rose from 22.2% to 30.5% between 1980 and 2001.)
\"It's definitely not too late,\" Dr. Jessica Justman, an associate professor of medicine in epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, told ABC News. \"Now is a great time. This week is a great time to get your flu shot. I wouldn't put it off, it's still completely worth it.\"
Some degree of depression and anxiety is common in people who are coping with cancer every day. But when a person is emotionally upset for a long time and is having trouble with their day-to-day activities, they may have depression or severe anxiety that needs medical attention. These problems can cause great distress and make it harder for you to enjoy life and follow a treatment schedule.
Support groups. Some support groups are formal and focus on learning about cancer or dealing with feelings. Others are informal and social. Some groups are made up only of people with cancer or only caregivers, while some include spouses, family members, or friends. Other groups focus on certain types of cancer or stages of disease. The length of time groups meet can range from a set number of weeks to an ongoing program. Some programs have closed membership and others are open to new, drop-in members.
Data on homelessness are based on annual point-in-time (PIT) counts conducted by Continuums of Care (CoCs) to estimate the number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night. The latest full counts (sheltered and unsheltered) are from January 2020. National-level sheltered-only data is available for 2021 (along with unsheltered data for about 40 percent of CoCs). Point-in-time data from 2007 to 2021 are available on HUD Exchange.
Data on homeless assistance, or bed capacity of homeless services programs on a given night, are reported annually by CoCs along with point-in-time counts. These data are compiled in the Housing Inventory Count (HIC), which is also available on HUD Exchange for 2007 through 2021.
These impacts stand to worsen over time if the U.S. does not take the necessary policy actions. With that in mind, the final section of this report identifies five critical interventions to mitigate both the economic costs and household financial impact of long Covid.
Third, we need to calculate the reduced hours of the people with long Covid who kept working. The Minneapolis Fed study found that, on average, they reduced their hours by 10 hours a week; using that number and a 40-hour work week, we can assume that these workers reduced their hours by 25%.
Using the average U.S. wage of $1,106 per week, the estimated 3 million people out of work due to long Covid translates to $168 billion a year in lost earnings. This is nearly 1% of the total U.S. gross domestic product. If the true number of people out of work is closer to 4 million, that is a $230 billion cost.
Harvard University economist David Cutler arrived at a nearly identical number using a different methodology. His study cited research that 12% to 17% of COVID-19 patients are still experiencing three or more symptoms 12 weeks after onset, and that the labor force reduction among those with significant impairment is 70%. Using COVID-19 case counts and labor force participation rates, Cutler estimated that 3.5 million people are out of work due to long Covid, for a five-year lost wage cost of $1 trillion, or around $200 billion per year.
To be clear, when I say "third week," I'm referring to the third seven-day period, beginning with the 15th, through the 21st. The period covers just under two percent of the year in sheer time, but after I spent some time looking into it, it became clear that way more than two percent of America's worst catastrophes fall in this little time window.
Nearly 1 in 5 adults (19%) say their mental health is worse than it was at this time last year. By generation, 34% of Gen Z adults report worse mental health, followed by Gen X (21%), millennials (19%), boomers (12%) and older adults (8%). More than half of all adults report they were very restless (53%) or they felt so tired they just sat around and did nothing (52%) in the past two weeks. Further, Gen Z adults are the most likely to report experiencing common symptoms of depression, with more than 7 in 10 noting that in the past two weeks they felt so tired they sat around and did nothing (75%), felt very restless (74%), found it hard to think properly or concentrate (73%), felt lonely (73%) or felt miserable or unhappy (71%).
After 14 weeks of North or South Dakota posting the highest per-capita case numbers in the country, Rhode Island has taken their place with 1,253 cases per million on the seven-day average. (The below chart, along with most of the others we use in our weekly posts, is available as a mobile-friendly interactive tool in the charts section of our site.)
These symptoms arise after long flights to different time zones because the disruption to your circadian rhythm impacts how and when your body produces hormones Trusted Source MSD Manuals First published in 1899 as a small reference book for physicians and pharmacists, the Manual grew in size and scope to become one of the most widely used comprehensive medical resources for professionals and consumers. See Full Reference that affect sleep and other bodily processes.
Jet lag lasts anywhere from a few days to a few weeks Trusted Source American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) AASM sets standards and promotes excellence in sleep medicine health care, education, and research. See Full Reference . In general, symptoms persist for 1-1.5 days per time zone crossed, but the duration of symptoms varies depending on the person and their trip details.
Because there are many factors involved, it is hard to know exactly who will develop jet lag, how severe it will be, and how long it will last. However, it is common for at least mild jet lag to occur when more than three time zones are crossed during flight.
The optimal plan to avoid jet lag depends on many factors including the direction of your flight, the number of time zones crossed, how long you will remain at your destination, and your schedule and obligations during your trip.
Timing is everything, according to Waze, the Google-owned navigation app, which has crunched historical data to predict when traffic will be at its best and worst over the holiday week, so drivers can time their journeys just right.
I watch trends in travel. Prior to working at Forbes, I was a longtime freelancer who contributed hundreds of articles to Conde Nast Traveler, CNN Travel, Travel + Leisure, Afar, Reader's Digest, TripSavvy, Parade, NBCNews.com and scores of other outlets. Follow me on Instagram (@suzannekelleher) and Flipboard (@SRKelleher).
Perhaps worst of all, and most worrisome for the future, young people, who have little memory of the long struggles against fascism and communism, may be losing faith and interest in the democratic project. The very idea of democracy and its promotion has been tarnished among many, contributing to a dangerous apathy. 2ff7e9595c
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