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What's particularly troubling about the return of COVID in Italy is that the country has done everything experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have been advising. Face masks in public places have been compulsory for months, social distancing is strongly enforced, nightclubs have never reopened, and sporting arenas are at less than a third of capacity. Children who are back at school are regularly tested and strictly social-distanced, and yet, the second wave seems completely unstoppable.So, wait. Italy is following, more strictly, the many recommendations being made by Governors and public health officials here in the U.S., and yet the problem is getting worse? The article continues:
While ruling out another full lockdown, Italian health officials are instead urging people to limit their own movements, even as concern grows that by keeping them at their homes, they are inadvertently encouraging private parties where the spread seems to be the worst at the moment. Italy's health ministry released data this week showing that 80.3 percent of the new infections "occur at home" while only 4.2 percent come from recreational activities and schools.I found this article to be shockingly honest for a somewhat mainstream publication, and the conclusion for anyone with the capacity to think independently is fairly obvious: you can't stop a virus. And, for reasons that I'm sure psychologists will be analyzing for decades to come, both your fellow citizens and many politicians seem to be suffering from a deeply destructive condition: the illusion of control. The Daily Beast's article concludes with a dreary statement that I think every American will soon realize is true for all of us, too:
But for many, the sacrifices that helped during the first round seem lost now, as though they had been made in vain.
The lockdown to "flatten the curve" of COVID-19 has caused harm to many people globally. Over the past 6 months it has been nearly impossible to discern what the UK government strategy is in relation to the virus: suppression, or following of the model used in Sweden to foster community immunity? In mid-September, things became clearer: the UK is on a course for suppression until a vaccine or effective mass testing is in place. For good measure, UK residents have all been punished by new limits to the number of people socialising together, and have been warned that further restrictions could be imposed unless their supposedly reckless social behaviour improves. Frightening graphs depicting scenarios rather than predictions have been used to terrify people about the resurgence of the virus. However, it might be years before a safe vaccine is available, and the mass testing proposal dubbed moonshot is scientifically unsound and could do more harm than good.
There is another way. One which takes account of the fact that COVID-19 does not have equal effects across age groups: for young people the risk of COVID-19 seems to be very low but the mental health of young people has been disproportionately affected during this crisis. We should allow young people to go about their lives normally and protect those who are older and more susceptible in a humane and compassionate manner; infectious diseases specialists have good ideas about implementing this suggestion. However, in late September, hundreds of healthy, young students in Scotland and Manchester, UK, have been locked down, banned from visiting home and family, and threatened that they might not be able to go home for Christmas. It is hard to see how this policy is within the bounds of human rights and I am deeply concerned about the impact of such measures on mental health and wellbeing.
Many people have highlighted the need not to medicalise natural reactions to the global crisis that the global community is facing as a mental illness. However, the global community cannot, and should not, ignore the evidence amassing to suggest that people of all ages are struggling. Increases in suicidal ideation and self-harm have been observed among young people in China before and after lockdown according to prospective studies that were able to collect cohort data. It is clear that young children have been badly affected by lockdown.
Moving forward, nations should prioritise young people. They have suffered immensely in this crisis and sacrificed a lot. Moreover, the economic devastation will have an enormous impact on young people who will bear this burden for years to come. The association between economic downturn and suicide has been shown repeatedly across the globe.Services and support for those in distress should now be prioritised and made easily accessible, in the virtual and real world. Mental health should not be left behind in this crisis. For young people, whole-school approaches involving mental health awareness have been shown to reduce suicidal ideation and behaviour. Such evidence-based mental-health interventions should be implemented, urgently, at scale in the community.
The suspect was being monitored by Germany's domestic intelligence agency on the very day of the attack, following his release from prison just days before, the state of Saxony's head of police, Petric Kleine, confirmed on Thursday.A violent stabbing occurred in Paris just yesterday, and this comes on the heels of numerous other violent incidents in France in just the last month: Two women arrested for racially aggravated knife attack near Paris' Eiffel Tower
This begs the question as to where German intelligence, that were monitoring him on that very day, were at the time of the attack. This is a reccurring situation with terrorists committing atrocities whilst at the same time being under surveillance:
He added that the man was on security officials' radar as early as 2017. Police said that some 600 suspected Islamists in Germany are classed as posing a threat to the public.
The man was released from prison in late September, after serving a two-year sentence for promoting the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist group, according to local reports.
Kleine said the authorities had flagged up that the man was likely to commit further offences on his release. The head of the Saxony branch of the domestic intelligence agency, Dirk-Martin Christian, stated that round-the-clock surveillance had not been in place, but did not comment further.
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