LOWER LAKE, Calif. — One of Lake County’s historic buildings is about to get some much-needed repairs thanks to state funding.
The Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association, or AMIA, has announced that an $800,000 fund has been created by the California Department of Parks & Recreation to be used to perform critical repairs to the historic Anderson Ranch House at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.
The Anderson Ranch House is one of the oldest remaining buildings in Lake County, with construction beginning in the mid-19th century.
It has been furnished by State Parks to provide an opportunity for the public to experience what life was like on a working cattle ranch in Lake County between 1850 and 1920.
State Parks said the funding will be used to stabilize the ranch house by performing structural foundation repairs, along with repairs to other critical parts of the ranch house structure.
The project is in the beginning planning phase, with preliminary reports and inspections being conducted.
Out of these inspections, a final scope and project schedule will be created. After a project plan is developed, a construction start date will be determined.
“AMIA is grateful to State Parks for creating this significant project to protect the structural integrity of the Anderson Ranch House,” said AMIA President Roberta Lyons. “We are looking forward to the time when the COVID-19 pandemic allows us to resume public tours of the ranch house.”
AMIA is a nonprofit association cooperating with the Department of Parks and Recreation to promote educational and interpretive activities at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.
For information about Anderson Marsh State Historic Park and AMIA, go to www.andersonmarsh.org or contact AMIA at either This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-995-2658.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County’s sheriff said he plans to run for reelection this year.
Brian Martin is seeking a third term as sheriff-coroner.
He said it’s been an honor and a privilege to serve the people of Lake County as sheriff-coroner for the past seven years.
“It has been much more challenging, and much more rewarding than I could have ever imagined,” said Martin, who took office just months ahead of a series of devastating fires in 2015 — the Rocky, Jerusalem and Valley fires.
“Through numerous emergencies, including fires that have touched every family and community in our county, to floods, to atmospheric river events, to public safety power shut-offs, a jail evacuation, an endless quest to adequately staff positions, and the loss of several close friends, we’ve been through a lot together. We even got to slip in a global pandemic along the way, too, which has no signs of letting up anytime soon,” Martin said.
He said he has many thanks to give for the successes we’ve had. “I have to thank my dedicated, committed, and capable staff. Whether it’s the deputy on the street, or the dispatcher answering 911 calls, or the correctional deputy ensuring inmates are safe and secure, or the investigators and evidence technicians who comb scenes looking for the evidence needed to ensure justice is served, or the support staff that keeps the bills paid, the records correct, and the right doors locked at the jail, the dedicated men and women of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office have answered the call to duty with selfless, tireless commitment. Our community owes them thanks. I want to thank them and tell you what an honor it is to work with all of them.”
Martin also thanked Lake County’s residents for being supportive, kind and helpful during some truly challenging times. “Even when other communities joined calls to ‘defund the police and in some cases staged violent protests with targeted violence against peace officers, the people of Lake County remained supportive of our law enforcement officers. On behalf of a grateful group of peace officers, thank you for allowing us to serve you.”
He saved the most important thank you for his family, including his wife Crystal, their three grown children and his parents, all of whom have all been extremely supportive.
“This position requires a great deal of time, and they have been more than understanding of the demands of the job. I couldn’t be successful without their support,” he said.
As for what he’s planning in the coming years, Martin said, “Our focus on the next four years will be to fine tune the systems we’ve put in place and develop the next group of leaders within our organization to carry us on as we adapt to ever-changing circumstances, whether it’s changing requirements in the law, changes in our environment, or societal shifts that require evolution in our profession, I want to make sure the Lake County Sheriff’s Office meets or exceeds your expectations.”
He said he hopes he’s served the people of Lake County well enough for them to reelect him for another term.
“I expect that we will continue to deal with emergencies. Some, like fires and floods, will be familiar. It seems that there is always a curve ball thrown our way, but our staff has proved to be adaptable and our community resilient. I feel confident that we can handle anything that comes our way,” Martin said.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. — One of Lake County’s standout educators has received a national award.
Erica Boomer, the agriculture teacher and FFA adviser at Upper Lake High School in Upper Lake was recently selected to receive one of the five 2021 Carlston Family Foundation “Outstanding Teachers of America” awards.
She started the agriculture program at Upper Lake High in 2005.
Four other teachers representing high schools located in Garden Grove, Anaheim, Los Angeles, and Palm Springs will join Boomer and each will receive a $15,000 cash award.
Additionally, each of their high schools will receive a grant in the honored teacher’s name in the amount of $5,000.
This award will be formally announced at the Feb. 8 Upper Lake Unified School District Board meeting.
The Carlston Family Foundation awards are given only to California public high school teachers who primarily teach in the most challenging school environments.
A teacher must be nominated by former students who are either currently enrolled in a four-year college or university or who already have earned a college degree.
In 2020-21, the Foundation received over 100 nominations from students attending or have graduated from colleges throughout the United States.
The evaluation and selection process is extensive and involves interviews with as many as seven or more former students, the school principal, two teaching colleagues, and the teacher being nominated.
Ten teachers are selected as finalists and each finalist is observed in their classroom by the foundation’s executive director.
“These are the real-life stories of how students have overcome incredible personal and academic obstacles with the guidance and the extraordinary efforts of dedicated teachers who believed in them, inspired and motivated them, and supported them with the academic skills to be successful in higher education,” said Tim Allen, recently retired executive director of the Carlston Family Foundation. “These are the stories I share with the Carlston Board of Directors and what is considered most when selecting the 2021 honorees.”
Students who nominate their former teachers describe the reasons for their nomination, identify the specific characteristics of their former teachers that influenced their learning, and focus on specific teaching strategies that increased both their interest in the subject and the motivation to rise to the high expectations of their teachers.
Each former student shares in detail the life changing impact their former teacher had on his/her life. More than 80% of the nominating students are first generation college students, many of whom have overcome significant obstacles to become academically and personally successful, and they give credit to their former teacher for their success.
“My main goal is to help foster diligent, respectful, contributing members of society,” said Boomer. “Providing students with the skills to recognize a problem, come up with a solution and work until the job is completed, are the main things I try to teach in all of my classes. When I run into a student after they have graduated and they thank me for helping them realize the importance of respecting others and the value of hard work, that is when I know that my students are achieving.”
Boomer and the other four honorees will join 81 previous honorees as members of the Carlston Family Foundation Board of Advisors and will participate in the Annual Educational Symposium that focuses on addressing major issues facing education in California.
This exceptional group of educators also provide professional development to early career teachers throughout California and support their novice colleagues in one-to-one mentoring relationships.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Upper Lake High School’s Academic Decathlon team participated in the Bay Regional Academic Decathlon over the weekend and will advance to the state competition to represent Lake County.
The Solano County Office of Education hosts and coordinates the annual Bay Region Academic Decathlon event for students.
“Water, A Most Essential Resource” is the theme of this year’s decathlon in which 250 students from 17 high schools across nine counties — Contra Costa, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo — were challenged to bring their “A” game.
The decathletes completed testing, speeches and interviews last week, with the competition culminating on Saturday with a live virtual Super Quiz followed by the awards ceremony.
In addition to Upper Lake, the schools taking part in this year’s competition were American Canyon High School, Napa Valley Unified School District; BASIS Independent Silicon Valley Charter, Santa Clara; Buckingham Collegiate Charter Academy, Vacaville Unified; Campolindo High School, Acalanes Unified; Casa Grande High School, Petaluma City School District; Davis Senior High School, Davis Joint Unified; Dixon High School, Dixon Unified; Evergreen Valley High School, East Side Unified; Freedom High School, Liberty Unified; Jesse Bethel High School and Vallejo High School, Vallejo City Unified; Menlo-Atherton High School, Sequoia Unified; River City High School, Washington Unified; Rodriguez High School, Fairfield-Suisun Unified; Vanden High School, Travis Unified; and Willits High School, Willits Unified.
Willits placed fourth overall and Upper Lake placed sixth overall, and the two schools will now go on to represent Mendocino and Lake counties, respectively, at the state competition, said Upper Lake High Head Coach Anna Sabalone.
Guiding the team along with Sabatone is Assistant Coach Angel Hayenga.
Sabalone said the state competition will take place virtually starting on March 1 with the essay. Objective testing will take place on March 5, on March 12 the speech and interview round will be held and the awards are planned for March 19.
Upper Lake High’s team members competing at the regional competition were Upper Lake Joslyn Huntley, Ahmana Jones, Atlantis Jones, Paris Klier, Monserrat Luna, Zackery Marrufo, Isaiah Marschall, Cassidy McAuley, Desiree McCarty, Diana Mendoza-Razo, Natalia Rosin, Isabel Sanchez, Georgia Schmit, Cierra Wenning, Emily Williams and Kadenz Rickert.
Team members won the following awards in the weekend regional competition:
Georgia Schmit, a junior who competes in the varsity level, won the bronze for individual high score.
The team high score gold went to Paris Klier, with Schmit receiving the silver and Atlantis Jones the bronze.
The team that will represent Upper Lake at the state competition are Atlantis Jones, Paris Klier, Kadenz Rickert, Desiree McCarty, Ahmana Jones, Natalia Rosin, Isabel Sanchez, Georgia Schmit and Joslyn Huntley.
The team members thanked everyone in the region and the county who have supported them this year and especially those who volunteered to be speech and interview judges.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Budget adjustments and discussion of an agreement regarding an affordable housing project will be considered by the Board of Supervisors this week.
The board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
The meeting ID is 968 9808 8699, pass code 822047. The meeting also can be accessed via one tap mobile at +16699006833,,96898088699#,,,,*822047#.
All interested members of the public that do not have internet access or a Mediacom cable subscription are encouraged to call 669-900-6833, and enter the Zoom meeting ID and pass code information above.
On Tuesday, Supervisor Bruno Sabatier is asking the board to consider possible renegotiations of certain provisions of an agreement the supervisors approved on Sept. 28, 2021 with RCHDC, regarding the development of an affordable housing project on Collier Avenue in Nice.
Sabatier also is asking for discussion and direction on an audit for financial activity regarding the loan and loan forgiveness regarding that project.
Also on the agenda, in an untimed item, the board will consider midyear budget adjustments proposed by the County Administrative Office.
In other business, the board is expected to approve a resolution of the Lake County Board of Education ordering a special election to fill a vacancy on the Middletown Unified School District Board of Education and requesting consolidation with the Statewide Primary Election occurring on June 7, 2022. That item is part of the consent agenda.
The full agenda follows.
CONSENT AGENDA
5.1: Affirm the addition of Scotts Valley Tribe of Pomo Indians to the third amendment to the joint powers agreement creating the Lake County Community RIsk Reduction Authority.
5.2: Approve letter of support for APC to submit a business plan to CPUC for RuralREN energy efficiency programs.
5.3: Adopt resolution approving the application of the Lake County Arts Council for the California Arts Council Grant for FY 2022-23 and Authorizing the Lake County Arts Council to execute the grant contract.
5.4: Adopt resolution authorizing the Behavioral Health director to execute and sign any subsequent amendments or modifications to the original standard agreement between the county of Lake and the Department of Housing and Community Development for the California Emergency Solutions and Housing Program grant funds.
5.5: Adopt resolution authorizing an amendment to the standard agreement between the county of Lake and the Department of Health Care Services for the period of July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2024, and authorizing the Behavioral Health director to sign the standard agreement and the contractor certification clause (CCC 04/2017).
5.6: Approve agreement between county of Lake and Kings View Professional Services for MIS support services for fiscal years 2020-21 and 2021-22 for a contract maximum of $244,781.00 and authorize the board chair to sign the agreement.
5.7: Approve Board of Supervisors meeting minutes for Jan. 11 and Feb. 1, 2022.
5.8: Approve agreement for special services with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore.
5.9: Approve resolution of the Lake County Board of Education ordering a special election to fill a vacancy on the Middletown Unified School District Board of Education and requesting consolidation with the Statewide Primary Election occurring on June 7, 2022.
5.10: Approve plans and specifications for the Middletown Multiuse Path Project; Bid No. 22-05, State Project No: ATPL-5914(102).
5.11: a) Approve letter of agreement between the Lake County Sheriff's Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice in the amount of $195,000 for the period Oct. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2022; and b) authorize sheriff to sign the agreement; and c) authorize the chairman to sign workplace certifications and grant assurances.
5.12: Approve Everbridge Mass Notification User Agreement in the amount of $20,767.23 from March 20, 2022, to March 19, 2023, and authorize the chair to sign.
TIMED ITEMS
6.2, 10:30 a.m.: Consideration of acceptance of the Dec. 31, 2021, Report of Lake County Pooled Investments.
UNTIMED ITEMS
7.2: a) Discussion and possible renegotiations of certain provisions of agreement approved on Sept. 28, 2021 with RCHDC; b) discussion and direction on audit for financial activity regarding loan and loan forgiveness regarding Collier Avenue project.
7.3: Midyear budget — a) Consideration of resolution amending Resolution No. 2021-115 to Amend the FY 2021-22 Adopted Budget by adjusting reserves, fund balance carry over, revenues, and appropriations; and b) consideration of resolution amending Resolution 2021-116 to amend the position allocations for FY 2021-22 to conform to the midyear budget adjustments.
7.4: Continued from Dec. 14, 2021, discussion and consideration of board action in response to a gate on a public roadway — review.
CLOSED SESSION
8.1: Conference with legal counsel: Decision whether to initiate litigation pursuant to Government Code section 54956.9(d)(4) — One potential case.
8.2: Conference with legal counsel: Existing litigation pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54956.9 (d)(1) — FERC Project No. 77, Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has more new dogs it’s making available for adoption this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of American Staffordshire terrier, Anatolian shepherd, Australian cattle dog, Great Pyrenees, husky, Labrador retriever, mastiff, Rhodesian ridgeback, Shar-Pei, shepherd and pit bull.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control website not listed are still “on hold”).
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
Labrador-pit bull mix puppy
This male Labrador retriever-pit bull mix puppy has a short tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 2a, ID No. LCAC-A-2523.
Labrador-pit bull mix puppy
This male Labrador retriever-pit bull mix puppy has a short brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 2b, ID No. LCAC-A-2521.
‘Colt’
“Colt’ is a 3-year-old male pit bull with a short tan and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 5, ID No. LCAC-A-2429.
Female Shar-Pei-Rhodesian ridgeback mix
This 2-year-old female Shar-Pei-Rhodesian ridgeback mix has a short tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-2560.
Male pit bull
This 2-year-old male pit bull has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-2473.
Male pit bull
This 2-year-old male pit bull has a short brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-2462.
Male husky mix
This 2-year-old male husky mix has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-2512.
‘Nova’
“Nova” is an 8-year-old female yellow Labrador retriever with a short coat.
She is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-2509.
‘Akeyla’
“Akeyla” is a 1-year-old Labrador retriever mix with a short black coat and white markings.
She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-2614.
‘Nioki’
“Nioki” is a 1-year-old female shepherd with a black coat.
She is in kennel No. 21, ID No. LCAC-A-2442.
Anatolian shepherd mix
This 2-year-old female Anatolian shepherd mix has a short tan coat with black markings.
She is in kennel No. 23, ID No. LCAC-A-2535.
Labrador retriever mix puppy
This female Labrador Retriever mix puppy has an all black coat.
She is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-2533.
Female Australian cattle dog
This female Australian cattle dog puppy has a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-2506.
Male pit bull-chocolate Labrador
This 5-year-old male pit bull terrier-chocolate Labrador retriever mix has a short coat.
He is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-2537.
‘Iris’
“Iris” is a 3-year-old American Staffordshire terrier with a short black coat with white markings.
She is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-1727.
Anatolian shepherd-Great Pyrenees mix
This 2-year-old male Anatolian shepherd-Great Pyrenees mix has a short white coat.
He is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-2536.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — The Middletown Area Town Hall will discuss crime issues and hold nominations for a special election this week.
MATH will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, via Zoom. The meeting is open to the public.
To join the Zoom meeting click on this link; the meeting ID is 832 1989 2440. Call in at 669-900-6833 or 253-215-8782.
One of the evening’s main topics will be local crime.
At 7:05 p.m., they will discuss local crime statistics, legislative challenges and response time.
Guest speakers will be Sheriff Brian Martin, District Attorney Susan Krones and Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff.
There also will be a question and answer period.
In other business, MATH will hold nominations for a special election for an at-large seat at 7:50 p.m., and will follow up by discussing an alternate seat nomination and election.
At 8:15 p.m., the chair will give a report and will discuss the formation of a committee to review an election-related grievance.
At 8:30 p.m., Supervisor Moke Simon will give his monthly update.
Other items on Thursday’s agenda include public comment, committee updates and a municipal advisory council review.
The MATH Board includes Chair Monica Rosenthal, Vice Chair Rosemary Córdova, Secretary Todd Fiora, Ken Gonzales and Lisa Kaplan.
MATH — established by resolution of the Lake County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 12, 2006 — is a municipal advisory council serving the residents of Anderson Springs, Cobb, Coyote Valley (including Hidden Valley Lake), Long Valley and Middletown.
For more information email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The U.S. economy surprised analysts by adding 467,000 jobs in January, overcoming omicron concerns and continuing a long streak of gains, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Feb. 4, 2022.
Yet at the same time, the unemployment rate ticked up a notch, from 3.9% to 4%.
Confused? Shouldn’t a large increase in jobs drive joblessness lower?
I believe the main culprit behind these conflicting results is a jump in the number of people rejoining the job market – in fact, the biggest increase in 19 months.
The share of working-age Americans either in work of looking for work – known as the labor participation rate – dropped steeply at the beginning of the pandemic.
But there are signs that labor participation may finally be turning around. From a low of 60.2% in April 2020, it has slowly risen since. And the latest report showed it climbed a further 0.3 percentage point to 62.2% in January, the highest since the depths of the pandemic in mid-2020. The 2.2 percentage point gain since April 2020 may not seem huge, but it equates to about 5.8 million people rejoining the workforce.
For one thing, wages continue to increase – they grew rapidly in January 2022, with average hourly wages up 5.6% from a year earlier.
At the same time, it appears that many businesses are responding to workers’ desires for some flexibility in scheduling and a better work/life balance.
Greater job flexibility can be seen in the jump in the number of Americans working remotely. The number of employees working from home because of the pandemic increased to 15.4% of the workforce in January, as the omicron variant spread and staffers were given the option to work from home.
But it isn’t just employer-driven factors behind the increase in labor participation.
For those without a job and stable income, personal resources can get depleted over time. Some people who left the workforce early on in the pandemic may have been able to get by and cover essential spending such as housing and groceries by relying on personal savings, support from family members or generous pandemic-related government benefits.
Those resources are not infinite, however. The number of long-term unemployed Americans declined in January, following a trend observed throughout 2021, suggesting that a growing number are returning to the workforce.
Moreover, the cost of living is soaring at the fastest pace in 40 years. And for households that had been relying on a single income during the pandemic, the problem is made worse by the fact that wages are lagging behind, putting pressure on families.
In other words, job holdouts might not be able out hold out much longer if inflation continues to outpace wage increases.
But even with the uptick in the labor participation rate, the U.S. economy still has a long way to go before the ongoing labor shortages hammering companies end and the job markets return to pre-pandemic levels.
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More than two years after the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed, people are exhausted by the coronavirus pandemic, ready for all this to end. When – if ever – is it realistic to expect SARS-CoV-2 will recede from the headlines and daily life?
That’s the unspoken question beneath the surface of many of The Conversation’s articles about COVID-19. None of our authors can see the future, but many do have expertise that offers insights about what’s reasonable to expect. Here are four such stories from our archive. Written by historians and scientists, they each suggest a way to think about what’s at the end of the pandemic tunnel – and paths to get there.
1. Past pandemics are not a perfect prediction
Almost as soon as it hit, people were trying to figure out how the COVID-19 pandemic would proceed. It was tempting to look for clues in the course of the 1918 flu pandemic that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide. Could the waves of disease seen in the 1900s provide a road map for what could be expected a century later?
Daily deaths from COVID-19 were declining in the U.S. when historian Mari Webel and virologist Megan Culler Freeman from University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences cautioned against reading too much into how things had gone for people generations ago.
It was so tempting to superimpose a timeline of flu surges on the modern calendar to get even a blurry forecast of what the coronavirus might have in store for us. “Scanning the historical record is one way to draw our own lives into focus and perspective,” wrote Webel and Culler Freeman. “Unfortunately, the end of influenza in summer 1919 does not portend the end of COVID-19 in the summer of 2020.”
And for reasons ranging from biology to demographics to politics, that is one prediction that most certainly came true.
2. Calling it over before it’s really over
While the 1918 flu pandemic wasn’t an exact template for how the coronavirus would sweep the world, the earlier pandemic provided plenty of parallels when it came to human behavior.
As case numbers declined, “People clamored to return to their normal lives. Businesses pressed officials to be allowed to reopen,” Navarro wrote. “Believing the pandemic was over, state and local authorities began rescinding public health edicts.”
With the burden of public health resting on individual choices, additional waves of flu crashed over the population. Some amount of wishful thinking, along with a premature return to “normal,” was likely to blame. People’s choices can affect whether an infectious disease outbreak ends or drags on.
3. Once a virus comes, it never really leaves
Infectious diseases are as old as humanity. Pointing to examples such as malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy and measles, Rutgers University – Newark historian Nükhet Varlik wrote, “Once added to the repertoire of pathogens that affect human societies, most infectious diseases are here to stay.” Only smallpox has been completely eradicated, thanks to an intense global vaccination campaign.
Varlik’s own research has focused on plague, a bacterial disease that’s caused at least three pandemics in the past 5,000 years – including the 14th century’s Black Death – along with many more localized outbreaks over the years. Outbreaks wound down based on factors like “changes in temperature, humidity and the availability of hosts, vectors and a sufficient number of susceptible individuals,” Varlik wrote. “Some societies recovered relatively quickly from their losses caused by the Black Death. Others never did.”
The responsible bacterium, Yersinia pestis, is still with us today.
4. The endemic endgame
A post-pandemic world may still have COVID-19 in it. Many researchers suspect that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus will become endemic, meaning it’s always around, with some level of constant ongoing transmission. The viruses that cause the flu and the common cold, for instance, are endemic.
Sara Sawyer, Arturo Barbachano-Guerrero and Cody Warren, a team of virologists and immunologists from the University of Colorado Boulder, wrote that SARS-CoV-2 might hit the sweet spot for a virus to become endemic by being just the right degree of transmissible: “Generally speaking, viruses that are highly contagious, meaning that they spread really well from one person to the next, may never die out on their own because they are so good at finding new people to infect.”
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SARS-CoV-2 spreads easily through the air. Even people who aren’t experiencing any symptoms can pass the coronavirus to others. These factors, along with today’s heavily interconnected global society, make it unlikely COVID-19 is going away completely anytime soon.
For now, these scholars write, the best we can likely hope for is stabilized rates of SARS-CoV-2 that settle down into predictable patterns, like flu season. If you want to help hurry things along toward this end stage, do what you can to make yourself an inhospitable host for the coronavirus – most notably, keep up to date with recommended COVID-19 vaccinations.
Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.
More Americans are using flexible workplace practices – including telecommuting, co-working and off-peak start times – to add flexibility to their lives and eliminate or improve their commute.
For example, the average American today spends close to an hour getting to and from work. It’s worse in big cities. In the greater New York area, commutes average 1 hour 14 minutes round-trip.
Telecommuting – or working at home – has many benefits. Workers have been modifying commutes ever since the phone and portable computers made it possible.
Advances in technology within the last decade have greatly expanded our ability to work from anywhere at any time. Many of us are taking advantage of this flexibility.
They can also use time previously spent commuting in more productive ways.
Companies that offer flexible workplace practices have a competitive edge because they are more attractive to workers. Many high-tech businesses and startups cater to their employees’ needs in order to attract and retain talent because talent is critical to innovation.
Flexible workplace practices can also increase an organization’s productivity. Studies have shown that workers who have control over their schedules and places of work are more satisfied and productive. They don’t quit as often or take as many sick days.
But even with these benefits, most organizations are still not comfortable granting flexibility to their workers.
Obstacles to flexibility
Our recent report showed that many workers we surveyed viewed managerial and executive resistance to telework as a major obstacle.
Through interviews, we learned that executives saw the benefits of using flexible work to their advantage as a negotiating tool for recruitment, promotion, retention and motivation, but they often worried about the costs of training and potential culture change.
They expressed concern that allowing telecommuting could create inequitable outcomes in the workplace, and possibly negatively impact morale.
Because flexible workplace practices provide so many benefits, we believe policymakers should encourage its implementation. In Atlanta, which has seen one of the fastest-growing commute times of any city, policymakers have implemented telework programs.
It has paid off. From 2008 to 2017, the number of commuters working from home increased from 5.7% to 7.3%.
There are no easy fixes here. Even if organizations become more willing to allow flexible workplace practices, we will likely never see a future in which the roads are free of congestion.
That’s because any traffic decreases will result in people that were previously using alternatives joining the roads. This is called “triple convergence” in the field of transportation research, and it is the principle that congestion self-adjusts.
In other words, you can add more lanes to a highway, but after a while people will catch on, begin using the route and congestion will stay the same or increase.
Children who lived with at least one foreign-born parent in 2019 had different characteristics than children who lived with native-born parents. Those with at least one foreign-born parent were more likely to live with two parents but didn’t fare as well economically.
While the majority of children under 18 in the United States lived with native-born parents in 2019 (69.7%), over a quarter (26.3%) lived with at least one foreign-born parent, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report.
The remaining 4% of children had no parents present. Among those with at least one foreign-born parent, the majority (87.7%) were native-born.
Presence of parents
The living arrangements of children are diverse and vary across many characteristics, including parental nativity.
Regardless of nativity status, most children live with two parents, but children with at least one foreign-born parent (82.6%) were more likely to live with two parents in 2019 than children with native-born parents (69.5%).
Consequently, children with at least one foreign-born parent were less likely than children with native-born parents to live with either their mother only or their father only.
Parental marital status
Children with at least one foreign-born parent were also more likely than children with native-born parents to live with two married parents — 77.9% and 65.0%, respectively.
However, the percentage of children in these two groups who lived with two unmarried parents did not differ statistically.
Children with native-born parents were more likely than children with at least one foreign-born parent to live with one parent, regardless of whether the parent had ever married.
Among children with native-born parents, the percentage with only one parent who ever married did not significantly differ from the percentage with only one parent who never married.
Household economic characteristics
Children with native-born parents fared better on certain household economic characteristics than children with at least one foreign-born parent.
Those with at least one foreign-born parent, for example, were more likely than children with native-born parents to live below the poverty line (19.9% compared to 14.1%) and have no health insurance coverage (8.9% compared to 5.0%).
They were also more likely to live in a rented home: just under half (48.6%) compared to a third (33.1%) of children with native-born parents.
Although some household-level characteristics show that children living with at least one foreign-born parent were less economically secure, they also show that they were less likely to live in a household that received public assistance.
The recently released report is an update of a longstanding series on the living arrangements of children, first published in 1994.
The report uses data from the 2007 and 2019 Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements, 2008 and 2018 1-Year American Community Surveys and 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation Wave 1.
Household-level economic characteristics for children under 18 by parental nativity status: 2019
Lydia Anderson and Paul Hemez are survey statisticians in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch.
The NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS — a state-of-the-art asteroid detection system operated by the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy for the agency’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office — has reached a new milestone by becoming the first survey capable of searching the entire dark sky every 24 hours for near-Earth objects, r NEOs, that could pose a future impact hazard to Earth.
Now comprised of four telescopes, ATLAS has expanded its reach to the southern hemisphere from the two existing northern-hemisphere telescopes on Haleakalā and Maunaloa in Hawai’i to include two additional observatories in South Africa and Chile.
“An important part of planetary defense is finding asteroids before they find us, so if necessary, we can get them before they get us” said Kelly Fast, Near-Earth Object Observations Program Manager for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. “With the addition of these two telescopes, ATLAS is now capable of searching the entire dark sky every 24 hours, making it an important asset for NASA’s continuous effort to find, track, and monitor NEOs.”
University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy, or UH IfA, developed the first two ATLAS telescopes in Hawaiʻi under a 2013 grant from NASA’s Near-Earth Objects Observations Program, now part of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, or PDCO, and the two facilities on Haleakalā and Maunaloa, respectively, became fully operational in 2017.
After several years of successful operation in Hawaiʻi, IfA competed for additional NASA funds to build two more telescopes in the southern hemisphere.
IfA sought partners to host these telescopes, and selected the South African Astronomical Observatory, or SAAO, in South Africa and a multi-institutional collaboration in Chile. The ATLAS presence augments already substantial astronomical capability in both countries.
Each of the four ATLAS telescopes can image a swath of sky 100 times larger than the full moon in a single exposure. The completion of the two final telescopes, which are located at Sutherland Observing Station in South Africa and El Sauce Observatory in Chile, enable ATLAS to observe the night sky when it is daytime in Hawai‘i.
To date, the ATLAS system has discovered more than 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets, along with detection of 2019 MO and 2018 LA, two very small asteroids that actually impacted Earth.
The system is specially designed to detect objects that approach very close to Earth — closer than the distance to the Moon, about 240,000 miles or 384,000 kilometers away.
On Jan. 22, ATLAS-Sutherland in South Africa discovered its first NEO, 2022 BK, a 100-meter asteroid that poses no threat to Earth.
The addition of the new observatories to the ATLAS system comes at a time when the agency’s Planetary Defense efforts are on the rise.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART —the world’s first full-scale mission to test a technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid impacts — launched Nov. 24, 2021, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
DART will deflect a known asteroid, which is not a threat to Earth, to slightly change the asteroid’s motion in a way that can be accurately measured using ground-based telescopes.
Additionally, work on the agency’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope, or NEO Surveyor, is underway after receiving authorization to move forward into Preliminary Design, known as Key Decision Point-B.
Once complete, the infrared space telescope will expedite the agency’s ability to discover and characterize most of the potentially hazardous NEOs, including those that may approach Earth from the daytime sky.
“We have not yet found any significant asteroid impact threat to Earth, but we continue to search for that sizable population we know is still to be found. Our goal is to find any possible impact years to decades in advance so it can be deflected with a capability using technology we already have, like DART,” said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters. “DART, NEO Surveyor, and ATLAS are all important components of NASA’s work to prepare Earth should we ever be faced with an asteroid impact threat.”
The University of Hawai’i ATLAS is funded through a grant from the Near-Earth Object Observations Program administered by NASA’s PDCO. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab manages the DART mission for NASA's PDCO as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office, or PMPO.
NEO Surveyor is being developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the University of Arizona and managed by NASA’s PMPO with program oversight by the PDCO. NASA established the PDCO in 2016 to manage the agency‘s ongoing efforts in Planetary Defense.