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Reposted from Artnet News
With coronavirus transmission rates bursting across Europe, Germany and France announced sweeping new rules yesterday, closing cultural institutions as they try to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.
In Germany’s so-called “lockdown lite,” restaurants, theaters, and a slew of other services must remain closed for most of November. Museums, which were not specifically mentioned in the new regulations, are awaiting further instruction, sources tell Artnet News.
In France, all museums and theaters will shutter for the month, and people have been told to remain home and to leave only for essential tasks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron pleaded with the public to respect the rules. Germany had 15,000 new cases on Wednesday; on Tuesday, France clocked 33,000.
“The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated,” Macron said in a national address.
As the new rules were being discussed yesterday in Berlin, thousands of culture and entertainment industry workers, including artists, marched on the capital, with signs proclaiming “culture is dying.”
Merkel was frequently interrupted by lawmakers this morning as she defended the government’s new coronavirus measures.
“Freedom isn’t being able to do whatever you want,” she said. “Freedom is taking responsibility.”
Both nations have provided substantial bailouts this year. Germany handed out over €1 billion in cultural aid, in addition to bailouts for individuals issued earlier this spring.
In France, unemployment benefits were extended and museums got a $2.4 billion aid package this fall.
In Germany, each state must implement its own plan while according with national rues, allowing for some measure of interpretation. In Baden-Württemberg, museums will close, but the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, for example, is still waiting for instructions from the North Rhine-Westphalia state. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, headquartered in Berlin, is also awaiting state instructions.
“The situation is different from state to state, so we may not need to take the new regulations 1:1,” a spokesperson for Berlin culture minister Klaus Lederer told Artnet News. The Berlin senate will discuss its new regulations today.
Meanwhile, Germany’s Museums Association released a strongly worded statement this morning pressuring governments to think carefully about forcing cultural institutions to close.
“Museums have prepared themselves intensively for this crisis and they have successfully implemented distance and hygiene rules,” the statement said. “To close museums again now would be a serious injury.”
Galleries in Germany, which are considered retail shops, will likely remains open. But trade fairs will be banned in November, which almost certainly spells the end of the already postponed Art Cologne fair. The event, which was set to open on November 18, declined to comment on the new regulations.
While German cultural venues have until November 2 to make closure plans, French museums are already closing down. The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Petit Palais all confirmed via Twitter that they would close this evening. The French ministry did not immediately respond to Artnet News’s questions about future bailouts.
Belgium already announced the forced closure of most venues, including museums, this week, as it rushed to fight the highest infection rate on the continent. Spain, meanwhile, has yet again declared a state of emergency. And in Italy, theaters and other public venues were closed for another month, leading to protests in several major cities.
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Reposted from AAM
You may be grappling with the stress created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the prospect of prolonged uncertainty about the outcome of next week’s election, and 2020 generally. I certainly am, as are my colleagues at the Alliance. To help manage that stress, today’s post shares some of the resources we’ve collected to help combat fatigue, cultivate resilience, and manage stress in coming months.
It would be great if you add your own suggestions to this list—here in comments on the blog, or on Twitter by tagging @futureofmuseums @aamers.
–Elizabeth Merritt, Vice President, Strategic Foresight and Founding Director, Center for the Future of Museums
In case it helps to know that you are not alone:
This research from Pew Research Center confirms that “news fatigue” is a real thing, and that two-thirds of Americans feel worn out by the amount of news facing us each day. You might want to follow the advice of Kristen Houghton at Thrive Global who writes, “we do need to be informed but we also do not need the mind to be overwhelmed with dire situations all the time. Our always-on heightened level of concern is mentally exhausting and emotionally draining. Turn off the news and definitely turn off social media.”
Research that suggests “Reading Too Much Political News is Bad for Your Well-Being.” Michelle Riba, M.D., M.S., psychiatrist and associate director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Depression Center, recommends that you limit political content to fact-based, reputable or primary sources of information; be careful not to induce second-hand stress when talking about politics at home, work, or with friends; be open to learning about other points of view; and be willing to step away from conversations that make you uncomfortable. Also (and I think this very wise) assess why you consume political content, be aware of how it makes you feel, and prioritize your own mental health. As Gabby Bernstein puts it in her essay “How to Stay Calm When the News Stresses You Out,” “Do your part to stay informed, but be careful not to do it in a way that’s draining you and making you feel like you’re the victim of the world you see.”
Another resource from Gabby is her interview with monk Jay Shetty, who offers six lessons to managing anxiety, including my favorite—a “forward-future” meditation technique to help you avoid regret for what you did or did not do in 2020.
For me, perhaps for you as well, one big stress is talking about anything political (a growing category) with friends or family who may radically disagree with my worldview. For some wisdom on having these difficult conversations, I recommend this article by my colleague Andrew Plumley and his former colleague Kristen Lucas, written when they both worked at ProInspire. In addition to providing advice about when and how navigating these conversations, they also assembled a collection of Resources for Crucial Conversations in Difficult Times.
Another source of tools for conversations about race, equity, and social justice is Rachel Ricketts, a racial justice educator, attorney, healer, speaker, and author. Her website offers a bunch of useful resources, such as a list and links to a variety of racial justice resources, including essays, books, and podcasts, with a subsection devoted to “Healing for PBI&WOC”; and a collection of grief resources addressing racism and gender, stress and burnout, death, and a guided meditation.
Good Inc is “on a mission to help people and organizations be a force for good, together.” Their publication Good Is is pitched at “people who give a damn,” while Upworthy is devoted to “stories worth sharing.” These publications feature their share of pandemic and political stories, but include a hefty dose of positive news about people helping each other, and random good things happening in the world.
Intelligent Changes is a coaching and productivity company devoted to “a more mindful way of living.” Their free weekly email “Intelligent Tuesday” is a “curated newsletter of personal development tips on happiness, productivity, relationships, and more.”
The Gretchen Rubin website and blog include information on topics including timely book lists, voting and voter engagement, maximizing understanding of personality type, and focus, energy and health.
The Marie Forleo blog covers topics of grief, joy, sadness, trauma, productivity and mindset with various guests.
The Skimm offers resources, information and lists ranging from quick coverage of daily news, deeper dives on more complex stories, and breaking down “the complicated and unsexy topics when it comes to your career, your health, and your wallet.” Their site includes a “one-stop shop for non-partisan info on the candidates and the issues so you can vote with confidence.”
The Unlocking Us podcast from Brené Brown, dedicated to “Conversations that unlock the deeply human part of who we are, so that we can live, love, parent, and lead with more courage and heart,” including this recent episode – Brené with Bishop Michael Curry on Love & Hope in Troubling Times.
I hope these resources help you manage your stress in the coming days and weeks. Take care of yourself, people—remember you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can take care of others.
Reposted from USA Today
An organization that fights for racial and social justice published secret audio recordings Thursday that uncover aspects of how one American white supremacist group seeks to recruit from the U.S. military and law enforcement and encourages its members to hatch violent plots and undertake paramilitary training to start a race war.
The Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) recordings, published as part of a podcast series called "Sounds Like Hate," provide insight into the recruiting tactics and terrorism ambitions of a neo-Nazi white supremacist group called The Base, whose American-born-and-raised leader Rinaldo Nazzaro is believed to be living in Russia.
"We want things to accelerate, we want things to get worse in the United States," Nazzaro says in the recordings, as he interviews a potential new recruit.
The law center's three-part podcast – parts two and three publish later this month – takes listeners through 83 hours of secret recordings as 100 men apply for membership. The recordings were made on an encrypted app called "Wire" by a Canadian journalist who infiltrated the group and via a separate confidential source who provided the recordings unsolicited. The authenticity of the recordings was verified by subject matter experts who recognized Nazzaro’s voice from previous audio appearances and were able to verify other corroborating details.
Much of the conversation makes for disturbing listening and includes racial slurs, offensive language and discussions about how to precipitate the collapse of American civilization and engineer their fantasies of a white ethnostate.
USA TODAY could not independently verify the identities of those featured on the podcast.
Nazzaro repeatedly makes clear in the recordings that he favors recruiting members who have either served in the police or the military because of their experience with guns and/or combat expertise. Several of the candidates Nazzaro interviews claim to have such backgrounds, including some who claim to be on active military duty, although the SPLC acknowledges that some of the statements made by candidates to Nazzaro may be exaggerated to win his approval. An estimated 20% of potential recruits claimed to be connected to the military in some capacity.
"Right. But I mean, you know, even when you do deploy, I'm assuming that you'll still be able to maintain contact with us," Nazzaro says to one candidate being interviewed, who claims to be responsible for operating weapons on tanks in the U.S. military.
Also discussed: bombings, arson and economic sabotage.
The U.S. Marine Corps. has confirmed that two of the 13 men charged by federal and state authorities in an alleged domestic terrorism plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were Marine veterans. Some of the men are accused of scheming to storm the State Capitol building, take Whitmer and other government officials hostage and start a civil war over their anti-government views and grievances ranging from poor economic prospects to anger over coronavirus restrictions.
The alleged Michigan plot has renewed attention on warnings from security experts, U.S. lawmakers and extremism researchers about the growing threat of domestic terrorism from far-right groups, many of them with links to white supremacy extremists.
"Today, white supremacist terrorism is responsible for more deaths on U.S. soil than jihadist terrorism since 9/11," the Soufan Center, a New York-based global security think tank, noted in a recent report.
In May last year, Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Michael McGarrity testified before Congress that of the FBI's 850 open domestic terrorism cases a "significant majority" were related to white supremacist extremists.
And according to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, right-wing extremists were responsible for more than 76% of terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. in 2019; 90% in the first half of 2020.
The Soufan Center says many of these extremists maintain strong transnational links to like-minded organizations and individuals all over the world from Australia to South Africa. But Russia and Ukraine, in particular, have emerged as a "hub in the broader network" where the leaders of American white extremist groups have traveled to learn recruitment, financing and propaganda techniques that in many cases imitate the "tactics, techniques and procedures of groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State."
In 2018, several members of the Southern California-based Rise Above Movement (RAM) traveled to Germany, Italy and Ukraine to meet with members of white supremacy groups, according to an affidavit and criminal complaint against Robert Paul Rundo – RAM's founder – and three other members of the group unsealed by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
The complaint charged Rundo and his associates with inciting and conspiring to commit violence in connection with several rallies, including the August 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to the death of protester Heather Heyer. Three RAM members were later given prison sentences for their part in conspiracies to riot at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, and other alleged political rallies in California.
The SPLC and reporting from news outlets such as ProPublica and Britain's The Guardian have established that Nazzaro is 47-years-old, attended Villanova University and owns land in a remote corner of Washington state. He says he served in the U.S. military in Afghanistan and claims to have worked for American intelligence agencies as a contractor. At one point, he owned a security company registered in New York City.
Nazzaro left the U.S. in late 2017 when he moved with his Russian wife and family to St. Petersburg, Russia. The Guardian has reported that the FBI is scrutinizing any links between Russian intelligence or its proxies and Nazzaro. It is believed he is originally from New Jersey.
New Jersey's Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness said in a statement that The Base will in 2020 "likely attempt to recruit new members in the region, rely on members with military expertise and training, and use intimidation tactics to terrorize its victims and spread its white supremacist ideology."
Geraldine Moriba, a producer of law center's podcast, notes in the series that The Base's members and potential recruits who feature in the recordings "claim to live in 26 different states and participate in small, two-or-three person cells in every quadrant of America. An additional eight countries were represented on these calls."
But Cassie Miller, an SPLC analyst on extremism who is featured in the series, said that while Nazzaro appears at pains to make potential recruits believe the group is a "highly sophisticated terror network" with "strict internal discipline" and vetting methods, the opposite may be true. "They accepted almost everyone who applied," she said.
Reposted from Pinnacol Assurance
Flu season brings additional anxiety this year, arriving during a global pandemic that threatens to worsen this fall and winter. Health care professionals predict rates of COVID-19 infection will increase as people spend more time indoors and children return to in-person school.
The climbing case counts will spark a rise in doctor’s appointments, emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
So far this year, more than 7,500 Coloradans have been hospitalized with COVID-19 and just over 2,500 have died. Modeling predicts national COVID deaths will peak at 2,800 per day by early December.
This spike in cases will coincide with the beginning of flu season, and those two things combined could strain the health care system. During the 2019-20 season, Colorado recorded 3,832 hospitalizations due to flu.
All this makes getting a flu shot especially important this year. The more Coloradans can minimize their impact on the health care system, the better.
“In normal years, influenza by itself stresses the health care system. Getting a flu vaccine will help to minimize demands on health care providers and resources when we already know that coronavirus is going to be a major — some public health experts say ‘catastrophic’ — challenge,” says Pinnacol Senior Medical Director Tom Denberg, M.D.
Compounding the issue is that coronavirus and the flu share many of the same symptoms, such as fever, cough, sore throat and fatigue. Denberg warns that people developing these symptoms may become worried they have COVID and could have difficulty getting a test.
“There will be a sharply increased need for COVID testing, but these tests are already in very short supply, and in many places, results are often very delayed,” he notes. “Because flu and COVID symptoms overlap significantly, flu will place even greater demands on already limited COVID testing capacity.”
While getting a flu shot doesn’t guarantee the recipient won’t get the flu, it does significantly reduce the likelihood. Those who do contract flu after getting the vaccine usually have a less-intense, shorter bout, making them less likely to require hospitalization.
Denberg suggests explaining to employees why receiving the flu vaccine is particularly important this year. “Encouraging and facilitating their ability to get a flu vaccine will reduce absenteeism, protect your entire workforce, help the economy more broadly, and demonstrate that you care about your employees on a personal level and about the well-being of the public at large,” he says.
Hire someone to administer shots at your workplace if you are not working remotely.
Ask your health insurance provider for pamphlets or emails you can distribute.
Direct employees to a local pharmacy to redeem the vouchers.
Repay employees who submit a receipt for their shot.
Pinnacol has held an on-site flu shot clinic in the past, but with employees working remotely through at least year’s end, we are encouraging employees to get vaccinated through their medical providers under their employee-based health plans, and we are providing information about making those arrangements.
Of course, during every flu season, businesses should also increase preventive habits such as washing hands and using hand sanitizers to decrease sharing the virus. Employers stepped up these measures to slow the spread of COVID starting last spring, and Denberg says remaining mindful of flu season best practices can help, too.
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Reposted from The Washington Post
The change by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is likely to have its biggest impact in schools, workplaces and other group settings where people are in contact with others for long periods of time. It also underscores the importance of mask-wearing to prevent spread of the virus, even as President Trump and his top coronavirus adviser continue to raise doubts about such guidance.
The CDC had previously defined a “close contact” as someone who spent at least 15 consecutive minutes within six feet of a confirmed coronavirus case. The updated guidance, which health departments rely on to conduct contact tracing, now defines a close contact as someone who was within six feet of an infected individual for a total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period, according to a CDC statement Wednesday.
The update comes as the United States is “unfortunately seeing a distressing trend, with cases increasing in nearly 75 percent of the country,” Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy director for infectious diseases, said Wednesday at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, in the first news conference administration officials permitted in more than eight weeks. People may be tired of the advice, Butler said, but mask-wearing is more important than ever this fall and winter as Americans head indoors, where transmission risks are greater.
The guidance about transmission of the coronavirus, which causes covid-19, had been discussed by CDC scientists for several weeks, according to a CDC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share policy discussions. Then came unsettling new evidence in a report published Wednesday. CDC and Vermont health officials discovered the virus was contracted by a 20-year-old prison employee who in an eight-hour shift had 22 interactions — for a total of over 17 minutes — with individuals who later tested positive for the virus.
“Available data suggests that at least one of the asymptomatic [infectious detainees] transmitted” the virus during these brief encounters, the report said.
“This article adds to the scientific knowledge of the risk to contacts of those with covid-19 and highlights again the importance of wearing face masks to prevent transmission,” the CDC said.
As many as half of all people who have the virus don’t show symptoms, “so it’s critical to wear a mask because you could be carrying the virus and not know it,” the CDC said. “While a mask provides some limited protection to the wearer, each additional person who wears a mask increases the individual protection for everyone. When more people wear masks, more people are protected.”
Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, called the updated guidance an important change.
“It’s easy to accumulate 15 minutes in small increments when you spend all day together — a few minutes at the water cooler, a few minutes in the elevator, and so on,” Rivers said. “I expect this will result in many more people being identified as close contacts.”
She added: “This change underscores the importance of vigilant social distancing — even multiple brief interactions can pose a risk.”
At the same time, Rivers said, it’s not clear whether the multiple brief encounters were the only explanation for how the prison employee became infected. Other potential pathways might have been airborne or surface transmission of the virus. She also noted that the new guidance “will be difficult for contact tracing programs to implement, and schools and businesses will have a difficult time operating under this guidance.”
Tom Frieden, who was CDC director during the Obama administration, called the guidance “a sensible change.” But he also said that “whether someone is a contact depends on the exposure, environment and infectivity of the source patient.”
Both presidential campaigns have relied on the CDC’s previous definitions of “close contact” to determine when candidates and staff members need to be quarantined. A spokesman for Vice President Pence, who was in a room with Trump two days before his positive diagnosis, said the vice president did not meet the new definition of “close contact” either.
In the last week, both Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala D. Harris have been near charter airline workers who have tested positive for the virus. Harris also had a staff member test positive. Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said previously that none of those interactions qualified as “close contacts” under the old guidelines.
At the Vermont prison, the correctional worker had multiple brief encounters on July 28 with six prisoners while their coronavirus test results were pending. The next day, all six individuals tested positive. The Vermont health and correction authorities conducted a contact tracing investigation and determined the officer did not meet the definition of a close contact, and he continued to work.
But a week later, the employee had symptoms of covid-19, including loss of smell and taste, runny nose, cough, shortness of breath, and loss of appetite. He got tested the next day and on Aug. 11 found out he was positive.
Vermont authorities reviewed July 28 video surveillance footage and determined the employee never spent 15 consecutive minutes within six feet of any of the infected individuals. But the employee did have “numerous brief (approximately one-minute) encounters that cumulatively exceeded 15 minutes.” During his eight-hour shift, he was within six feet of an infected person an estimated 22 times, for a total of about 17 minutes of exposure, according to the CDC report.
The officer wore a cloth mask, gown and eye protection during all of the interactions. The infected individuals wore masks during most interactions with him. However, they were not masked during several that took place in a cell doorway and a prison recreation room, the report said.
The officer reported no other known close contact exposures to individuals with the coronavirus outside work, and did not travel outside Vermont during the 14 days before he got sick, the report said. Investigators said “his most likely exposures occurred in the correctional facility” through the multiple brief encounters.
Reposted from WISHTV8
Police are investigating after they say a stray bullet hit The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis Wednesday afternoon.
According to Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department public information officer William Young, police were called to the museum around 4 p.m. when a bullet hit a portion of the building where there are no exhibits and where there were no people.
No one was hurt and no one was evacuated from the property. Police do not believe the museum was targeted.
“Safety and security are of the utmost importance to the museum,” a spokesperson for the museum said in a statement released to News 8 Wednesday. “…We do not believe this was a malicious act directed at the museum.”
The museum will replace the broken window soon and the museum plans to be open as normal on Thursday.
Reposted from The U.S. Department of State
Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce and Italian Ambassador to the United States Armando Varricchio signed today a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding that renews protections for Italian cultural property.
This renewal marks the 20th anniversary of the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the Italian Republic and the Government of the United States of America Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Categories of Archaeological Material of Italy, and is an example of the United States’ enduring relationship with Italy in combating cultural property trafficking and preserving heritage items. The agreement continues U.S. import restrictions on certain archaeological material originating in Italy and representing the pre-Classical, Classical, and Imperial Roman periods of its cultural heritage, ranging from approximately the 9th century B.C. through approximately the 4th century A.D.
The United States has been unwavering in its commitment to protect and preserve cultural heritage around the world and to restrict trafficking in cultural property, which is often used to fund terrorist and criminal networks. The cultural property agreement was negotiated by the State Department under the U.S. law implementing the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The United States has cultural property agreements with countries around the world, as well as emergency import restrictions on cultural property from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Following an unusually hot Colorado summer, many are welcoming the cooler temperatures that come with fall.
This year, the change in weather may be accompanied by increased levels of seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression more prevalent among women and young people.
SAD symptoms, such as fatigue, hopelessness, oversleeping and changes in appetite, develop with the decrease in sunlight as days grow shorter.
In 2020, more workers are witnessing fall’s change of scenery from a new location: their homes.
COVID-19 has forced many people to telecommute, with nearly 9% of all Colorado employees now working remotely, including 14.9% in Boulder.
Essential workers, who have experienced increasing mental and often physical stress amid the pandemic, and remote workers are especially vulnerable to SAD this season as they deal with greater isolation and other changes the past seven months have brought.
You can make this time of year easier for your employees by instituting policies designed to monitor worker wellness and mental health. Use our tips to reach out proactively to your workers, even when you no longer see them in an office every day.
Workers are often reluctant to initiate a mental break without support from management.
They can be as simple as exercising or eating healthy meals, two ways to treat SAD.
Those with SAD benefit from giving and receiving compliments.
Exposure to sunlight reduces SAD symptoms.
If you don’t have an EAP or want to refer your workers to other organizations, too, the Colorado Crisis Services and MentalHealth.gov are excellent resources. Make sure your check-ins include employees working virtually and in the office.
Workers worry about superiors’ perceptions and the impact on their jobs when they ask for help. They may feel more comfortable approaching someone outside your company.
Red is overwhelmed, yellow is managing but stressed, and green is everything is good and the worker has bandwidth to help others. After hearing the results, follow up with a phone call or video meeting with those in yellow and red.
By making check-ins and encouragement part of regular team meetings and one-on-ones, you build trust with employees.
Reposted from CNN
The US reported 99,321 new Covid-19 cases on Friday -- the highest single day number of cases recorded for any country. The United States' top five records in daily cases all occurred within eight days, and an expert says he worries the upward trend will push hospitals past capacity.
Friday's number surpassed the previous daily record held by India, which reported 97,894 coronavirus cases in a single day on September 17, according to India's health ministry.
As of Saturday evening, there have been 71,931 new Covid-19 cases across the US, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. At least 659 deaths were also reported.
The total number of Covid-19 cases in the US reached at least 9.1 million and the nation's death toll from the pandemic topped 230,000 on Saturday.
"The 100,000 cases yesterday two weeks from now will start to translate into massive numbers of deaths," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN Saturday. "So we're going to see not just cases continue to escalate but we're going to see perhaps 2,000 deaths per day two or three weeks from now."
Iowa on Friday reported its highest single day increase of new cases. That means 31 states have had at least one record high day of new cases in October, Johns Hopkins data show.
At least 47,374 Covid-19 patients were in hospitals on Saturday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. That's up 65.6% from a three-month low of 28,608 on September 20, and it's the highest total since mid-August.
This month, hospitalizations decreased in Georgia and Hawaii while California's hospitalizations held steady. Every other state and the District of Columbia saw increases, the Covid Tracking Project showed.
Former Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said Saturday the US has a narrow window of time before more drastic measures like mandatory lockdowns will have to be considered.
"We are seeing Covid-19 hotspots raging all over the country and right now we have an opportunity to implement targeted measures like universal mask wearing, like making sure that high risk businesses like bars in certain areas are shut down, like instructing the public that we should be avoiding social gatherings of extended family and friends," she told CNN.
"But if we don't do these things now, we're going to be overwhelming our health systems and then a lock down may be necessary."
In Florida, health officials reported 2,331 new cases on Saturday -- the 12th consecutive day with over 2,000 cases, according to a CNN tally.
To date, Florida has recorded 802,547 coronavirus cases, 16,761 resident deaths and 208 non-resident deaths, according to state health department data.
Pennsylvania on Saturday reported 2,510 new cases, according to a health department statement. Pennsylvania has 208,207 cases and 8,812 deaths, health officials said.
Daily increases in the state along with Michigan and Wisconsin were at the highest level since the start of the pandemic, health officials in those states said.
In El Paso, Texas, where hospitals are struggling to meet the demand of Covid-19 patients, officials are preparing to add a third mobile morgue unit in anticipation of a spike in deaths.
"If that doesn't put our situation into perspective I don't know what will," County Judge Ricardo Samaniego wrote on Facebook.
As of Saturday morning, El Paso had reported 1,643 new cases and four new deaths, bringing the total death toll to 599, according to the City/County of El Paso Covid-19 website. There were more than 16,837 active cases in the community.
Hospitals could become overwhelmed as the number of coronavirus cases continues to climb, Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), told CNN's Anderson Cooper Friday.
Fourteen states and one US territory reported record high hospitalizations Friday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The project reported 46,688 hospitalizations. On October 1, the nation had 30,077.
Those states and territories are: Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Guam.
Wisconsin health officials on Saturday reported record high 5,278 new case, bringing the state total to 225,370. There were 59 new virus-related deaths.
University of Wisconsin Athletics Director Barry Alvarez told ESPN's College GameDay on Saturday that 22 people in the school's football program -- 12 student-athletes and 10 staff members -- had tested positive for Covid-19.
The school will decide Tuesday whether the Badgers can play their next scheduled game on November 7 at home against Purdue, Alvarez said.
The number of hospitalizations is the best measure of how the nation is faring in the coronavirus pandemic, Murray said. "They are a leading indicator ahead of deaths."
But Murray said the US public is not getting the data it needs to understand which hospitals will be most severely under stress going forward and called on the government to release more information.
Murray and his colleagues at IHME are responsible for an influential coronavirus model, which most recently projected 399,000 coronavirus deaths in the US by February 1.
"The fall/winter surge should lead to a daily death toll that is approximately three times higher than now by mid-January," the IHME said in its latest forecast.
With cases surging throughout the country, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that most travelers must now get Covid-19 tests before and after arrival in the state.
The new policy replaces a previous advisory list of states with rising case counts from which travelers were required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in New York, the governor said during a call with the media.
Most travelers to New York State will be required to obtain a negative Covid-19 test three days prior to setting out on their trip to the state, Cuomo said.
Reiner, a CNN medical analyst, said Friday that the increase in cases was "terrifying" and the worst was yet to come.
"In a day or two, we'll top, six digits for cases in one day. We will see over 100,000 cases in one day. Now, that by itself sounds bad, but two weeks after that, you know, we'll start seeing 2,000 people a day dying in this country," he said.
Reiner said the worst-case scenario could be losing 2,000 to 2,500 patients a day but that Americans had the power to contain the virus.
"We need to mask up and in some places, we need to think about smart closures," he said.
"Europe is closing all over -- it's the smart thing to do when the virus gets out of control. That's how we got control with the first wave. so, here's the choice for the country: If you don't want to close, then mask up. But we can't have it both ways. We can't be no mask and no closing. So -- if closing is offensive -- let's mask up.
Wen said Friday that testing needs to be stepped up.
"Today, we now have one person being diagnosed (with the) coronavirus every second," she said. "We have one American dying of (the) coronavirus every two minutes, and that number is increasing."
Wen, an emergency medicine physician, told CNN she is most concerned about the rate of test positivity. In some states, she said one in two people being tested are positive.
"That means that we're not doing nearly enough testing, and that every person who tests positive is a canary in a coal mine," she said. "There are almost certainly to be many more, dozens of other cases, that we're not detecting, and that escalation is going to increase in the weeks to come."
Reposted from Blooloop
Stephen Watson has worked at the National WWII Museum in a variety of positions since 2002, and in 2017 he took on the role of President and CEO. He spoke to blooloop about his experience at the museum and the importance of being nimble and adaptive in the face of a crisis.
Watson has always had a strong interest in history, he says: “It was always something that I was attracted to in school. Then, as a teenager, I had the opportunity to go to Normandy with my high school. It made a big impression on me, as a 15-year-old, to visit those sites and to go to the cemeteries. The experience was one of those moments that really stuck with me through my adult life.
“Plus, I had a grandfather that served in World War II. I grew up in Scotland and my grandfather served in the Royal Air Force. It was such an important time in his life. So, like many people that are drawn specifically to the National WWII Museum, there’s a personal connection for me.”
As well as this passion for history, Stephen Watson says he has always been drawn to the non-profit sector. So, when the chance to work at the National WWII Museum came about, he jumped at it.
“I started my career as a fundraiser,” he says. “I was working for National Public Radio, here in New Orleans in the late 90s. At that time, the museum was not open, but it was approaching opening day – under its original name of the National D-Day Museum. And it was one of the most exciting and biggest things that had happened in the city in a generation.”
“I said, this is a place that I want to go work. I want to be a part of the mission and a part of the work that they’re doing to bring the story to a broader public. And I was fortunate, 18 years ago, to start here at the museum.”
Talking a little more about what makes the National WWII Museum special, Stephen Watson says that having a clear central vision is key.
“Our mission is to tell the story of WWII through the lens of the American experience. For instance, why did we get into the war in the first place? How did we go about winning it? And what does that mean to us today?
“You could make a really compelling case that WWII is one of, if not the most, important event in human history. Over 65 million people lost their lives. It was a transformative time in the world. It was a fight for freedom and democracy, and it’s a really big and important story.”
“In addition to this, a lot of people have a personal connection to it. So here at the National WWII Museum, we really focus on the significance of our mission and the stories that we’re telling. I think that is what people are drawn to here. For example, how we use personal testimony, how we use oral history to tell the story. We tell it through the lens of the individuals that were there and who fought and their experiences.
“Of course, we have tanks and aeroplanes and artefacts and multiple layers of interpretation. But when you come to the museum you don’t only leave with an understanding of the big picture. You leave with a very detailed and compelling understanding of the personal experiences.”
In order to make this connection with visitors, the National WWII Museum uses a variety of different technologies and design concept to tell an immersive story.
“We’ve tried to build this as a museum that will be here for 1000 years,” says Watson. “So, every decision that we’ve made, we’ve tried to really do it to the very best of our ability. Whether it’s exhibition design, research, media production, scenic design, lighting. And of course, the architecture of the buildings and the concept for the campus.”
“During the visit, we really immerse guests in the types of environments that our troops were experiencing. The museum uses technology to really engage people in a way that is disruptive, unexpected and multi-layered. For instance, we have 4D experiences and we use projection creatively.
“One of the compelling experiences here is that when you come to the museum and you purchase a ticket, you are given what we call a dog tag, which has an RFID chip. As you begin your visit to the museum, you actually get on a train, in the same way as many of these men and women began their journey to war.
“When you scan your dog tag, you are introduced to a real person and you follow them and their journey through the war as you go through our exhibits.
“We use all of the tools that are available to us now in our field to really engage with visitors in a dramatic way.”
Over the years, the National WWII Museum has weathered several crises, most notably Hurricane Katrina which devasted the city of New Orleans in 2005.
“It’s hard to believe that we just passed the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina,” says Stephen Watson. It was very tough. Throughout the city and the region, there was a significant loss of life, as well as massive property destruction on a scale that it’s really hard to describe unless you saw it. It was beyond anything that you can really comprehend unless you see it yourself.”
“Hurricane Katrina impacted our staff, our volunteers, our donors, our stakeholders, in some fairly dramatic ways. The majority of us lost our homes. And, of course, in the middle of all of this, you have to make the tough decisions and cut back on staff. It was a very tough experience.
“We were closed for several months. Then it was five years before we got back to our pre-Katrina visitor numbers. It was a long and tough road back to recovery.
“But a couple of things did come out of it. Of course, you never want to go through something like Katrina to get to this point, but when you’re faced with a real crisis like this you have to focus on your survival and think about what you can do to move forward.”
Two things occurred as a result of the crisis, says Watson.
“One was that we realised, from an economic perspective, we had to diversify our revenue sources. We could not just be solely dependent on people walking through our doors. We had to think differently about an economic model and financial resilience. As a result, we began to think about what can we do beyond visitation revenue, retail and food & beverage.
“For example, we ramped up our efforts to build an overseas travel programme. Today, we operate as many as 50 different programmes a year overseas. Last year was the 75th anniversary of D-Day and we took almost 1000 guests and 30 veterans back to Normandy.”
“Programmes like this fullfil our mission from an education standpoint as well as providing operating revenue to our budget. And it’s also a great way to make connections and find friends that can help the museum in other ways.
“In the wake of Katrina, we were able to economically create some diversity, so that our revenues are not as dependent on people walking through the doors. That helped us with our recovery from that crisis, definitely.”
“The second thing was a focus on distance learning,” says Stephen Watson. “It seems normal now, but 15 years ago distance learning and outreach were in their infancy compared to where they are now.
“When you are impacted by an event like Katrina and you have no visitors, you begin to think about relevance – how do you fullfil your mission and continue to connect with people?
“It led us to a place where we were one of the early adopters in terms of distance learning, particularly in middle and high schools. The crisis helped us think about outreach, digital content and the digitization of our collections. We looked at the curriculum, learning materials, teacher training.”
“As a result, we were able to accelerate the programmes and the initiatives within our education programmes to touch multiple audiences outside of our region. And that’s a huge part of the work that we do right now.
“This is also something that has been relevant as we’ve gone through the pandemic. So, while Katrina was very difficult in terms of the economics and the tough decisions, it has in some ways made us stronger. It helped us to think a little more broadly about how to fullfil our mission.”
The National WWII Museum, like many other cultural organisations across the globe, was forced to close to help stop the spread of COVID-19. It has since reopened to the public with several extra health and safety procedures in place.
In terms of the impact of this closure and the resulting challenges, Watson says that the museum’s experience with overcoming Katrina was useful.
“Looking at outreach and distance learning part, we were really well-positioned due to that earlier work.”
“Over the past few years, we have been in the midst of a long expansion plan, building our campus. And we’re almost finished. One of the new pavilions that we opened last fall is the Hall of Democracy which houses two entities that we created at the museum a couple of years ago. One is the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. The other is the WWII Media and Education Centre.
“These new centres represent two things. One is a commitment to deepening our content expertise. And the other is doubling down on a lot of the work that we had done with media production. We are deepening our bench of folks that can produce content. For instance, instructional designers, distance learning experts, media producers and documentary producers.
“So, we have this beautiful new building, but more importantly, we have the talent and the expertise to become a much more significant content producer.”
“During the pandemic, we quickly, like many museums, shifted our focus to what can we do through digital content production,” says Stephen Watson. “We wanted to support students and teachers who were also going through a massive transition. The museum provides curriculum materials and webinars. We also produce live panel discussions and original articles.”
“The 75th anniversary of the end of the war is approaching so we really made that a big focus of our digital content. We had podcasts that we launched, and then we work with partners.
“This has been something we’re very proud of in the last six months, how we’ve been able to really grow our digital audiences, again, through this very difficult situation.”
“Economically, it’s similar to Katrina,” says Watson on the pandemic. “It’s devastating, in a way. We have built the museum over the last 15 years into a much larger and more significant organisation than we were when Hurricane Katrina struck.
“Between our hotel and conference centre, and our museum staff and our food & beverage partners we had around 600 people working on campus.
“Then we had the closure, like just about every museum in the world, and we had layoffs. We also know that we’re going to have a significant recovery phase. We are predominantly a tourist-driven museum. The majority of our visitors come from outside the state of Louisiana.”
“What has made COVID especially difficult is the fact that some of the things that we did to diversify are really not helpful in this situation. For instance, our overseas travel programmes are just as impacted now as people visiting the museum.
“But we’re all making the best of this tough situation and doing what we need to do, to get through this. And there will be better days ahead. We are all hopeful that in the next few months, there’ll be some good news and we can get on a more solid path to recovery.”
When asked about the wider impact of the pandemic on the museum sector across the US, Stephen Watson says:
“I think it’s hard to know right now. But when you’re in the middle of something, it often feels worse than maybe it will be. That’s my hope.
“There have been and there will continue to be closures. My own belief is that most will emerge. Some of the safety measures and protocols that museums have put in place will likely become permanent. For instance, with relation to cleaning and ticketing, and the ways that we handle our food and beverage operations.”
“Plus, there will be some impacts on exhibition design, as it relates to how people interact with exhibits and especially tactile and high touch.
“Financial resiliency is going to become more important, certainly. We’ve all planned for various forms of crises and emergencies. But this is probably one that none of us ever prepared for. I’m sure there will be things that the sector will think about as a result that will ultimately help us to become stronger.
“Ultimately, I think we will we will get back to something closer to normal than what we’re all dealing with right now. I’m optimistic that the impacts on the sector won’t be as negative as maybe we had feared a month or two ago.”
The National WWII Museum opened its doors once more in May 2020. Stephen Watson explains some of the ways that the museum is ensuring it keeps guests safe in the wake of the pandemic:
“We were one of the first museums to reopen and I had the opportunity to serve on the governor of Louisiana’s recovery Task Force representing museums and cultural attractions.
“Our belief at that time, and this has since played out, was that museums are probably better positioned than most to open safely. Museums have ticketing systems, they have security teams, they have large open spaces. Often they have custodial and cleaning crews.”
“So, we felt like we had all of the tools and facilities to open safely. We put together plans in late March and early April to convince our elected leaders that museums, with restrictions, should be able to open. And we reopened on Memorial Day, 25 May 2020.
“We have enhanced cleaning and extensive signage throughout our campus, from the moment you park your car. This emphasises our hand washing, mask-wearing and social distancing rules.
“The museum also implemented timed ticketing, which is something that we did not have prior to this. We worked with our ticketing vendor to pivot and were ready on opening day to be able to do timed ticketing, which is important for contact tracing. It’s also important for capacity management and spreading out visitors.”
Like many other museums, many of the exhibits at the National WWII Museum are hands-on. Watson talks about one simple change that the museum has made in order that allows visitors to use these safely:
“We’ve modified some of our interactives. So, we now give our visitors a little stylus so that they can actually use the interactive without touching it.”
“There are other health and safety regulations in place for the time being too. For instance, we’re not admitting groups and there are no public programmes. We’ve adapted our food & beverage provision. Plus there are now plexiglass screens in place to provide safety for our guests and our staff. We have also done as much as we can in terms of touchless transactions.
“Something that is equally as important as the front of house operations is making it safe for the staff. We have to take into account how people work and what measures will ensure that staff, these people who deliver a great experience for our guests, feel like they are safe.
“One of the things that we really tried to emphasise at the opening was ‘know before you go’, making sure that our guidelines are really clear and that our visitors understand before they arrive at our front door. For example, there are a few areas of the museum that are not open just because they’re really not conducive to social distancing.”
Now it is able to welcome visitors once again, Stephen Watson is excited about some of the plans and upcoming events that are in the pipeline.
“In the middle of all of this, one of the exciting things that is going on here right now is we have one last major permanent exhibition pavilion to be created as part of our capital expansion.
“We have raised the money to fund that and as I sit here today we are in the process of beginning construction on our final pavilion, the Liberation Pavilion. This really concludes the story of the war, in terms of how we tell it through our permanent galleries.”
“It picks up the story really near the end of the war, telling the story of the Holocaust and where the world was in 1945,” says Stephen Watson. “We will explore things like the cost of the victory and look at the post-war period, through the lens of what happened in the United States domestically as well as how the world changed after the war.”
“That’s everything from the war crimes trials and the Marshall Plan to the G.I. Bill, which transformed education in the United States. We will look at the advances in technology, the International Declaration of Human Rights and the formation of the UN. Plus, the social change that took place in the United States, the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement. WWII had a direct role in those.
“Ultimately, we will be reflecting on what we were fighting for, which is, of course, freedom and democracy. We are beginning construction on the pavilion right now and we’ll open it in 2022.”
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