646 lines
66 KiB
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646 lines
66 KiB
HTML
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<meta content="pandoc" name="generator"/>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<body>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Real Republican Radicals</strong> - The Trump movement was long understood as a populist one. But, since the election, the people at the barricades have been politicians and their lawyers. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-real-republican-radicals">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Deconstructing the 2020 Latino Vote</strong> - The political preferences of white working-class voters and soccer moms have been dissected in detail—and now strategists are applying the same level of focus to Latino voters. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/deconstructing-the-2020-latino-vote">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Trümperdämmerung Is a Fitting End to 2020</strong> - The President is careening through his final days in office with reckless disdain—for everything. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/the-trumperdammerung-is-a-fitting-end-to-2020">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Next Big Challenge: Trump-Proofing the Presidency</strong> - Trump’s departure will prompt cries of relief in many parts of the country, but there is now vital work to be done. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-next-big-challenge-trump-proofing-the-presidency">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Deep Origins of Latino Support for Trump</strong> - The leaders of the Hispanic Republican movement today haven’t felt such momentum for twenty years. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-deep-origins-of-latino-support-for-trump">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Stories from a Lost Year</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/14dldhtrTe6r-drxx40sPt6a8Mg=/500x0:4500x3000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68528741/lostyear_all.15.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Amanda Northrop/Vox
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</figcaption>
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</figure></li>
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</ul>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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2020 was a hard, hard year. Here are the stories of people who lived through it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W7N9vr">
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Life in 2020 has been dominated by big stories. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">Covid-19 pandemic</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/6/4/21276674/protests-george-floyd-arbery-nationwide-trump">Protests</a> against multiple centuries of systemic racism and injustice. An <a href="https://www.vox.com/trump-impeachment-inquiry">impeachment</a>. A <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">presidential election</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/3/21245612/murder-hornets-asian-giant-hornet-bees">Murder hornets</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2wvlaf">
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But beneath every one of these big stories is a long list of smaller personal ones. Everyone’s experience of 2020 has been different, and everyone’s story has something worth hearing. I went looking for those stories, in hopes of understanding the events of this year from the ground level.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7yOABk">
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What I found was remarkable. I talked to a woman who nursed an injured baby pig back to health. I talked to a sex worker who very quickly had to figure out how to make his business Covid-19-safe. I discussed opening up a marriage — at a time when nobody can see anybody in person — with someone who did just that. I talked to a woman who fell in love with her mailman, and a postal carrier who grew distressed at how little her rural community seemed to be taking Covid-19 seriously.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UJRNxq">
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I’ll be sharing 14 of those stories over the next few weeks. I think they all underline the fact that no matter how dramatic or mundane your year was, it was that much more fascinating or difficult or compelling because of the times in which it took place.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H5Fihe">
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This year is almost over, and another will follow. I’m so glad we all got through it together.
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</p>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="GJptXf"/>
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<h3 id="BIYSMp">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22160175/2020-tarot-covid">The Lost Year</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FXHhJk">
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We’ve lost so much in 2020. But we’ve found some things, too.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-tIfsrHO2-BW7csyZlulgu3BnoE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22173468/emily_wed.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="UqYQMb"/>
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<h3 id="QwmpcQ">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/e/21929902">A woman, an injured baby pig, and a series of revelations</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P6L3N6">
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“It’s easier to believe everything is holy lying under the stars with friends and a pig sleeping in the crook of your arm.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt="An illustration of a white baby pig inside a yellow circle, against a black background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0UOy7Jz0OgxnbmRcvrwaaANNZkU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22176320/piglet_.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="IidaWt"/>
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<h3 id="rCPyh2">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/22167012/non-monogamy-jo-lost-year-zoom-sex">Non-monogamy, Zoom sex, and the agonizing wait to kiss your partner</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BiqGDQ">
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“As soon as I started taking non-monogamy seriously, it was like any other coming out.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt="An illustration of a hand holding a smartphone against a background filled with hearts." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cH_lkKmxXZ9RbKbOsz6AjQqAiI0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22180911/hearts.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="nfKP3P"/>
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<h3 id="lvRqOl">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22169244/lost-year-dad-son-robert-reconnection">A dad, his son, and the bittersweet realization of life’s true priorities</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6Snqtp">
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“In America, we say everything we do is for our child, but we spend a lot of time working and accumulating money and stuff that we don’t need.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VXg_QLt8-hdRsFK8HJdfotZIx9M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22183648/reading.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="KNR4n5"/>
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<h3 id="8VjI38">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22170101/comedy-coming-out-lost-year-nina">Coming out — over the phone, to your mom, and across a language barrier</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JtFCyx">
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“I can’t do any of my old standup comedy. And I don’t want to do it. I literally am starting over from scratch.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HgLHWKB_9XZ1Y7utJhrr4-s1x24=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22185209/comingout.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="g6C2QH"/>
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<h3 id="hl3eWq">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22175217/front-desk-job-maskless-lost-year-anna">Marriage, kids, two jobs, maskless customers, and #BlackLivesMatter in the rural South</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cx2R31">
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“The first couple weeks, I sucked at life. I sucked at everything.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tzbQMfbFRIYYU9qrc7e_RQPX3vg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22185806/blm.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="5FcRR8"/>
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<h3 id="4rPkam">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22170316/sex-work-online-camming-rebecca-lost-year-counselor">A sudden crisis, online sex work, and a better understanding of privilege</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GDFiaT">
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“Online sex work has amplified the loneliness for some customers. I’m talking to them because they’re paying.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Pcf5uy9xaO2fAeQq12VZ5iFi_28=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22188712/sexwork01.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="iNUIbj"/>
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<h3 id="VgnOYV">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/12/23/22175866/transgender-quarantine-trans-woman-lost-year-sophie-coming-out">A new dress, a new self-acceptance, and a sudden onset of the soul</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B3UQBS">
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“That day, for the first time, I saw myself. And I knew I was trans. Holy shit.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_yzVanAJ2dsEUkvMjOZknLNrDZw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22189167/dress.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="yLxQMS"/>
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<h3 id="b5QH4m">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22165884/mailman-love-story-christmas-alayna-lost-year">Falling for your mailman in lockdown (but not getting the happy ending you wanted)</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8n7wXw">
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“I asked him, ‘How’s everything going? How can we help?’ And I accidentally told him that I loved him.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt="A drawing of a delivery person carrying a clipboard and a box." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Yn60-2kgAjJTdE_d1DPMxL0J4v4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22190970/mailman.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="Ec5bwZ"/>
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<h3 id="uMTrVW">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/12/27/22177906/quarantine-marriage-world-larger-honey-lost-year">Chronic pain, an unusual love story, and reassurance via pickle</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n5aoMV">
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“There are certain ways — and maybe it’s not cool to say this — in which quarantine has been helpful.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m_2tJGGrdmw1Px6pNh9XeWum-Dk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22189317/hearts02.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="AsGvi4"/>
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<h3 id="0w5M3R">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22169166/baby-covid-jacinta-quarantine-australia-lost-year">A new baby who didn’t know your face for days because you were always wearing a mask</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7Zrmyn">
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“I love just looking at his face when he sees there are other people in the world!”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt="A drawing of a woman cradling a baby in her arms." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mxt5hDBosuXUWZ7JruMR7Lnx5WQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22184870/aus.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="8AnFJm"/>
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<h3 id="nWpc4I">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/12/29/22188051/escort-covid-19-quarantine-sex-worker-tareq-lost-year">Making your workplace Covid-safe — when you’re an escort</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8xSJ0k">
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“I haven’t contracted Covid yet. I’ve been lucky, because my bubble is probably huge.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YY5zIMSVvVIX0vqx8Qua8HSe3dw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22191479/lips.jpg" />
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<cite>Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="q4WZb6"/>
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<h3 id="dD3AeK">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22188383/mail-carrier-natalie-covid-19-lost-year">A year in the life of a mail carrier. (The year is 2020.)</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Oh443B">
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“It feels like I’ve never stopped playing Russian roulette because I never stopped working.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7V9lJVhUvmeWG6eosKtiIF9LFYo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22191804/mail03.jpg" />
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<cite>Illustration by Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="IZOCa4"/>
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<h3 id="7us5fY">
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/22187523/zoom-exercise-small-business-quarantine-melanie-lost-year">Exercise in quarantine, keeping a small business alive, and the unusual intimacy of Zoom</a>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="800s5d">
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“It’s been a lifeline. I don’t have very big classes but when we meet up [over Zoom], we check in with each other. We see how we’re doing.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b94xHdGRuJPCbtPQEXHBXdZF3WY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22193236/exercisezoom.jpg" />
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<cite>Illustration by Amanda Northrop/Vox</cite></code></pre>
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</figure>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="PDPbD5"/>
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<h3 id="xi5GKm">
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A quiet year, alone in one’s head
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eofPLF">
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<em>Coming Friday, January 1</em>
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Flattening the curve worked — until it didn’t</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Zw-xMzdr20_X-2gFtAbCKXJC7gI=/288x0:3100x2109/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68602563/GettyImages_1228896181t.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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The White House is seen through pictures of people that died due to Covid-19 at a National Covid-19 Remembrance event in Washington, DC, on October 4. | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure></li>
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</ul>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The US started 2020 by “flattening the curve” — and never came up with a plan for what comes next.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wKOxak">
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In the spring of 2020, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">Covid-19</a> was beginning to take its awful toll in the United States, three words offered a glimmer of hope: <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171481/coronavirus-us-cases-quarantine-cancellation">flatten the curve</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="97EEcE">
|
||
That phrase and charts illustrating the concept were everywhere in mid-March, shortly before the New York City outbreak exploded. The city would see 10,000 cases and nearly 1,000 deaths every day by early April.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MH5uus">
|
||
Covid-19 cases <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/3/27/21195162/new-york-coronavirus-news-andrew-cuomo-hospitals-population-ventilators">were spiking</a>, and hospital systems <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/17/21183263/coronavirus-us-hospitals-elective-surgeries-icu-masks">risked</a> being overwhelmed by patients with life-threatening symptoms. If hospitals ran out of beds or ICU units, nurses or doctors, people would die unnecessarily — from Covid-19 and other causes. The way to prevent such a tragedy was to lock down. Flattening the epidemiological curve would keep the caseload manageable for our health system.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9l4OxU">
|
||
“If you look at the curves of outbreaks, they go big peaks, and then come down,” Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/flattening-curve-coronavirus/">said</a> on March 10. “What we need to do is flatten that down.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="csHJTN">
|
||
Vox wrote <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171481/coronavirus-us-cases-quarantine-cancellation">an explainer</a> on the idea. Barack Obama <a href="https://twitter.com/barackobama/status/1238238576141352966?lang=en">shared it</a> with his tens of millions of Twitter followers. “Flatten the curve” became a public health meme — there was even <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/entertainment/2020/04/04/dr-anthony-fauci-bobblehead">a Fauci bobblehead</a> that incorporated it — but it was also an urgent call to action.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Kmvo3NNUh1EKI6fRJh68mughOAk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22177620/flattening_the_curve_final.jpg" />
|
||
<cite>Christina Animashaun/Vox</cite></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DZXLzj">
|
||
The US did succeed at flattening the curve — at least at first. Businesses closed and most states issued stay-at-home orders, and later research <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/18/21262528/coronavirus-us-state-lockdown-stay-at-home-orders-study">concluded</a> those lockdown measures helped prevent tens of millions of Covid-19 cases.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qB183d">
|
||
But America <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/coronavirus-covid-19-testing-usa">failed</a> to take advantage of that window to ramp up its testing-and-tracing capabilities, and states quickly faced intense pressure to relax their policies to alleviate the economic costs of the shutdowns. Reopening began earlier than public health experts <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21270515/coronavirus-covid-reopen-economy-social-distancing-states-map-data">believed it should</a>. The political will to impose new lockdowns had evaporated by the time cases spiked again.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZgvAG8">
|
||
At the end of 2020, with nearly 20 million Covid-19 cases and more than 340,000 deaths in the US, it is evident that trying to flatten the curve was not sufficient to end the pandemic. That doesn’t mean it failed entirely. Slowing the spread of Covid-19 was meant to buy time to figure out what came next. But the US never did.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cPeCkZ-gDL7i-roSt_0NLbbZNd4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22203457/GettyImages_1210650493t.jpg" />
|
||
<cite>Misha Friedman/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>A medical worker puts on PPE at the beginning of their shift an the emergency field hospital in Central Park on April 16 in New York City.</figcaption></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OnTYln">
|
||
America’s political leaders did not establish clear, shared goals for managing the outbreak. And eventually the Covid-19 response became <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21548770/exit-polls-election-trump-voters-economy-pandemic">politicized</a>, driving Americans apart on the value of wearing masks or social distancing rather than maintaining the solidarity necessary to stamp out a highly infectious virus.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7M2Dsp">
|
||
Flattening the curve became an abstraction with no real meaning.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0dau8Y">
|
||
“The value of ‘flatten that curve’ was in the context of that first surge,” Albert Ko, who leads the epidemiology department at the Yale School of Public Health, told me, “and then it lost its value.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="4gfySI">
|
||
Flattening the curve worked — at first
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QoXgUY">
|
||
Flattening the curve was already a well-understood concept in public health circles. But the Covid-19 pandemic presented the first real opportunity to put it to the test.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yNEcLN">
|
||
“Initially, it really hit home for people when they saw the images of overcrowded hospitals,” Leana Wen, the former Baltimore city health commissioner, told me. “The ‘flattening the curve’ concept made sense when people realized it was about making sure hospitals didn’t get too crowded.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PBITjS">
|
||
“There are many millions of Americans who made profound sacrifices, and continue to do it to this day,” she continued. “But it was inconsistently applied.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b4GZzr">
|
||
It may be difficult to remember now, but back in March, Americans were <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/24/21192713/coronavirus-social-distancing-gallup-poll">mostly unified</a> in embracing the strategies necessary to flatten the curve. The vast majority of states closed businesses and schools. Polling <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/4/16/21224074/coronavirus-us-polls-lockdown-social-distancing-end">showed</a> that people were willing to take social distancing measures.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5nxqU2">
|
||
New York faced plenty of challenges (the virus was likely spreading for weeks in the NYC area before it was detected) and made its share of mistakes (sending infected patients back to nursing homes). But the proof of the strategy’s success was in the curves. Until the recent winter surge, they were flat.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9cvex_vpTlPopyVJsSDloq1gl0s=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22204574/Screen_Shot_2020_12_30_at_11.16.45_AM.png" />
|
||
<cite>Covid Tracking Project</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>Daily cases and hospitalizations in New York state.</figcaption></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5b9PFo">
|
||
Multiple studies have found that mitigation measures suppressed the virus’s spread and likely prevented millions of cases and with them many deaths. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/18/21262528/coronavirus-us-state-lockdown-stay-at-home-orders-study">A study</a> published in Health Affairs in May found that social distancing policies, particularly stay-at-home orders as well as closing bars and restaurants, had staved off as many as 35 million cases in the US by the end of April. More recent research <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/15/science.abd9338">published in Science</a> concluded that closing schools and businesses, as well as limiting the size of private gatherings, reduced spread considerably.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iydzpB">
|
||
“NYC flattened the curve. Other places delayed it,” William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, told me. “But that ought to provide an opportunity to ramp up testing and health care and prepare people for the long haul. You know that did not happen.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UZCS7e">
|
||
Experts came up with roadmaps for how to proceed once the initial curve was flattened. <a href="https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/national-coronavirus-response-a-road-map-to-reopening/">A proposal</a> from the American Enterprise Institute set specific thresholds for case numbers, hospital capacity, and testing that were designed to allow states to safely begin relaxing their lockdown measures once the virus had been sufficiently suppressed and the health system’s capacity had been expanded.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1ROkZR">
|
||
But the Trump administration never embraced those plans. Instead, the president often said that the cure (lockdowns) could not be worse than the disease (Covid-19). The White House eventually <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/we-need-live-it-white-house-readies-new-message-nation-n1232884">settled on a message</a> that the US would need to learn to live with the virus.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Zhj_4JlbuY4Dojq7MZNs9_hM2zM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22203446/GettyImages_1212801527t.jpg" />
|
||
<cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>A reporter wearing a latex glove raises his hand to ask President Donald Trump a question during a coronavirus briefing at the White House on March 16.</figcaption></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="30VJTu">
|
||
America’s failures to establish an effective test-trace-isolate program <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21345590/covid-19-coronavirus-us-testing-contact-tracing-jobs">are well documented</a>. Some experts question whether contact tracing could have been as effective in a country like the US as it has been in somewhere like South Korea, which is much smaller and has laws that allow government authorities to intrude on personal privacy in the name of public health. But everybody I spoke to agreed the United States had not made the best use of the time afforded by flattening the initial Covid-19 curve.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CQrXnF">
|
||
Instead, many US states that had avoided the worst of Covid-19 in the spring saw the lack of an outbreak as a sign that they could push ahead with reopening. Once the curve was flat, the political will to keep it that way began to crumble.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7yW1G6">
|
||
America wasn’t the only place to struggle to figure out how to move out of its spring lockdown; many European countries saw their own second waves over the summer. But the missed opportunity still set the course for the rest of the pandemic.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jFRL8h">
|
||
“We never really came up with a plan to transition,” Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who <a href="https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/national-coronavirus-response-a-road-map-to-reopening/">co-authored the AEI roadmap</a> back in March, told me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="2vxk73">
|
||
The Covid-19 pandemic revealed the limits of “flatten the curve”
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tpJC2G">
|
||
In some ways, flattening the curve did work as intended.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="teuNXD">
|
||
Hospitals have not — yet — been overwhelmed, as they were in the dire <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/34f25036-62f4-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68">situation in Lombardo, Italy</a>, in the spring. But today, with cases and hospitalizations still rising, US hospitals warn they are again nearing a breaking point.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NcDnJq">
|
||
Slowing the spread of the disease in the spring also gave scientists a chance to learn more and more about the virus.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="StgiA9">
|
||
Among other things, they learned that people were the most infectious before they showed symptoms. They figured out the virus primarily spread through respiratory droplets, not through touch or surfaces. The elevated fatality risk to the elderly became more apparent. Researchers quickly began to figure out <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/17/21371827/covid-19-coronavirus-update-prone-position-dexamethasone-remdesivir-ventilators">which treatments worked</a> (putting patients in a prone position, administering remdesivir and dexamethasone) and which ones didn’t (the Trump-favored hydroxychloroquine).
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XpqOPT">
|
||
With this information, the US could have used the time it bought by flattening the curve to figure out whether more targeted interventions would work better than lockdowns, as the Science study suggested, and whether individual cities or counties could best manage their own outbreaks.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n4VYfM">
|
||
“Do we need strong interventions rather than calibrated? Do you have to have regional interventions in order to really make a dent?” Ko said. “I think we’ve been in that kind of limbo. Europe couldn’t calibrate that. They had to go into lockdown.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mfO1NJ">
|
||
The cost of that failure has not been paid equally. The pandemic underscored the many inequities in American life, starting with who contracts the virus and who dies from it. Black and Hispanic Americans have been <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/10/2/21496884/us-covid-19-deaths-by-race-black-white-americans">disproportionately affected</a> by Covid-19, both in terms of health and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/6/21248330/coronavirus-black-americans-depression">the toll of the year’s economic downturn</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JWJTK4">
|
||
When the curve didn’t stay flattened, the people who had to go into work, who live in intergenerational households, and who have higher rates of chronic disease were the most at risk.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a8Fh3t">
|
||
“I don’t think we ever fully appreciated how the messaging around flattening the curve, how the challenges we as a nation face, would affect the most vulnerable,” Utibe Essien, a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said. “The people who didn’t have the same access to staying at home, masking up, who didn’t have the same opportunities to do jobs that didn’t increase their exposure.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xd8m3wInmafVwk53PnINHshElWw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22203504/GettyImages_1208283536t.jpg" />
|
||
<cite>Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>A taxi driver wears a face mask and gloves as they drive through Times Square in New York City on March 26.</figcaption></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BEyItx">
|
||
And in other ways, flattening the curve still failed to accomplish its goal of preserving health care access. While hospitals have not yet been completely overwhelmed, some people aren’t getting the care they need. ProPublica <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/a-spike-in-people-dying-at-home-suggests-coronavirus-deaths-in-houston-may-be-higher-than-reported">reported</a> that over the summer in Houston, medical examiners saw a spike in the number of people found dead in their homes. Some of those deaths were from Covid-19; some were from heart attacks, strokes and other conditions. Either way, the news of the virus’s rapid spread in the area may have kept people from seeking medical assistance, with deadly consequences.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MUd3XD">
|
||
Throughout the year, with cases staying stubbornly high, doctors warned about the consequences of non-Covid-19 patients were postponing care for chronic or emergent conditions. Research <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/27/21231528/coronavirus-covid-19-primary-care-doctors-crisis">showed</a> that visits to primary care doctors and specialists dropped precipitously in the spring and summer.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UB1bu7">
|
||
Health care experts fear that patients who may have been experiencing an onset of diabetes or heart disease will face setbacks if they delayed seeing a doctor to get an initial diagnosis. It will take years to fully understand those long-term effects.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dYhQb8">
|
||
“It’s like a lost year of care,” Essien, a practicing physician, told me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="c1T4SG">
|
||
The US never pivoted from flattening the curve
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lkNZPU">
|
||
Now, with 2020 coming to an end and the US reporting 180,000 new cases and more than 2,000 new deaths on average every day, there is no more hope for flattening the curve.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lzC91P">
|
||
Luckily, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/12/13/22172626/the-us-will-start-covid-19-vaccinations-this-week-fda-says">vaccine development has been speedy</a> and people are already being vaccinated against the coronavirus. But public health leaders still expect tens of thousands more deaths in the months between now and widespread protection among the population.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3CUgTU">
|
||
As a public health message, despite the initial success, “flatten the curve” has lost its force and America’s public health leadership failed to adapt and find a new message that would resonate with people.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CmB2FU">
|
||
David Rehkopf, a social epidemiologist at Stanford University, drew a comparison to the anti-smoking campaign. Putting a surgeon general warning on cigarette boxes did have a quick and dramatic effect on smoking rates, but not everybody stopped smoking. Public health leaders had to pivot to new strategies to keep making progress.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lDXDzL">
|
||
“With Covid-19, all of this was compacted into less than a year, not decades,” he said. “Adapting that quickly is tough, but from past public health campaigns, we should have anticipated the need to do this.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aHbG9J">
|
||
When I reported on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/12/4/22151242/melbourne-victoria-australia-covid-19-cases-lockdown">Melbourne, Australia’s success in eradicating Covid-19</a>, I learned that the policy experts there worried that slogans like “flatten the curve” or “slow the spread” were too vague. The public health authorities there instead came up with a detailed step-by-step guide for how they would, eventually, get Covid-19 cases down to zero.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IrPEyc">
|
||
Specific thresholds were set: Once we reach X number of cases per day, then we can reopen Y. That strategy, despite some controversy, has been a success.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IFNjQu">
|
||
But in the US, many states, under pressure from businesses losing weeks of revenue and from anxious constituents who saw no immediate emergency in their daily lives, began to quickly lift their social distancing policies in the spring, once the curve seemed to flatten. Texas, which put a fairly toothless stay-at-home order into place at the start of April, lifted it a month later. By the end of June, its number of daily cases had increased 600 percent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="88zBIa">
|
||
There was not one voice communicating to the public what mitigation measures were necessary, why, and what outcome we were working toward. (New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who held daily briefings in the spring with handy slide presentations to convey the current state of the outbreak and what would be coming next, was largely an exception among his peers.) The CDC was sidelined by the Trump administration throughout the year.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="24Uucs">
|
||
Instead, 330 million Americans were left to make their own risk assessments — or not.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4yc6xW">
|
||
Given the research that shows a small percentage of infected people account for a very large share of the transmission, that was a recipe for disaster. And rather than take proactive measures as infection rates first ticked up, which public health experts say are most important given the pre-symptomatic spread of Covid-19 and its slow gestation, governors seemed to be paralyzed and waited to act until the crisis was already upon them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IRck2i">
|
||
“Every American’s personal definition of Covid-caution is completely unique, with some holed up at home for weeks at a time and others traveling the country to visit friends,” Kumi Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told me over email. “While the institutional level measures may seem extreme, if they had been more uniformly implemented around the country for longer, we might have been able to achieve low enough community transmission to the point that a careful reopening coupled with other measures like contact tracing and widespread testing and isolation would have been possible.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YIx19DfMIzOTBhJsWLzNqxk8H_U=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22203509/GettyImages_1219613666t.jpg" />
|
||
<cite>Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>A waiter at Raku, an Asian restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, wears a protective face mask as they serve customers outdoors amid the coronavirus pandemic on June 12.</figcaption></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iuIgas">
|
||
The paradoxical lesson of flattening the Covid-19 curve is that the concept proved its worth but it may be more difficult in the future to sell the public on such a strategy.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zKax4p">
|
||
Nobody disputes the value of slowing transmission in order to relieve pressure on the health system. But it had an expiration date as a motivational tool.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d52rN3">
|
||
“We know it works. We’ve seen that again and again in this pandemic,” Jen Kates, director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told me. “This will be a standard part of pandemic preparedness and response going forward.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FB2DVb">
|
||
“An open question, though, will be to what extent has the concept been poisoned by the political discourse?” she added. “How successfully can it be used in the future?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>One Good Thing: Housebound is the perfect horror comedy for the perpetually quarantined</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="A woman looks out through a window in her house." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CWogB2no4wctRhIEp3OwN-v9fVg=/282x0:998x537/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68602423/MV5BMjI0MTkzMTc2MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjU1OTIzMjE_._V1_FMjpg_UX1280_.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Morgana O’Reilly delivers a permanent 2020 mood in <em>Housebound</em> (2014). | Alameda Entertainment
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Housebound’s surly protagonist is fed up with her house arrest from day one. It’s the perfect 2020 mood.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DrN1Ft">
|
||
<a href="https://www.vox.com/one-good-thing"><em><strong>One Good Thing</strong></em></a> <em>is Vox’s recommendations feature. In each edition, find one more thing from the world of culture that we highly recommend.</em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZyswYk">
|
||
Recently, someone reminded me of the 2014 New Zealand horror comedy <em>Housebound</em>. It’s a shoestring budget indie about a bratty young woman whose house arrest leads to some very unexpected scares. The film has long flown under the mainstream radar, despite winning a cult following from horror fans.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CjASJz">
|
||
When I first saw it about five years ago, I loved it — but I haven’t thought about it much since except as a little-known backburner title whenever anyone asks me for horror movie recs. But now, remembering it in 2020, I immediately wanted to see how it held up in a post-pandemic atmosphere.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6ZKipd">
|
||
My hunch was that <em>Housebound</em>, with its fixation on forced intimacy and confinement in too-familiar spaces, would be the perfect aperitif after eight-plus months in quarantine. And I was right: <em>Housebound</em> still slaps — and today, it plays like a wry grace note to a year of living safely.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="xqozT3">
|
||
<em>Housebound</em>’s chief delight is a main character who’s completely over everything
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<div id="CEE2ua">
|
||
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UVbF3P">
|
||
<em>Housebound</em> is writer-director Gerard Johnstone’s only feature film, but its unique tone has the confidence of an established, more experienced screenwriter. It’s one of those films that takes a while to figure out; it’s not immediately clear what the stakes are, how one should watch the movie, or even who to root for. But once you settle into it, like the spooky house at its center, <em>Housebound</em> is full of surprises.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z0vMG0">
|
||
The action kicks off when our impudent main character, a former addict named Kylie, gets sentenced to eight months of house arrest after a failed attempt to rob an ATM. Sent back to live with her mother and stepdad in their creepy rural manse, Kylie is fed up with her forced confinement from day one. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2837410/">Morgana O’Reilly</a> is unforgettably and delightfully unlikeable as Kylie: She’s rebellious and sullen, rude, occasionally violent, and perpetually exasperated.<strong> </strong>She’s totally over everything and everyone around her. In other words, she’s a walking 2020 mood.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1Rr8CD">
|
||
And so is the house around her. An oppressively dark, cluttered, unnavigable wood-paneled disaster, Kylie’s childhood home feels labyrinthine and suffocating, even though it’s hardly the Overlook Hotel. It’s just a dilapidated former bed and breakfast, or so her mom tells her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qsVs74">
|
||
It doesn’t help that Kylie’s mother, played by Rima Te Wiata with pitch-perfect comedic timing and well-meaning befuddlement, has always believed the house is haunted. Years ago, she swears that she saw a figure in a sheet. It moved. What’s more, she’s certain that Kylie saw it too. But Kylie no longer remembers what she saw; all Kylie, who’s been living apart from her family for some time, can say for certain is that the moment she moves back home, strange things start happening. Since she’s come home, things go bump in the night, food goes missing, and a <a href="https://www.cnet.com/features/teddy-ruxpin-history-disney-atari-2017-return/">demonic Teddy Ruxpin bear</a> keeps activating itself.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1zYazElB4OCgCOOxJQq7-XDOMXM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22204908/MV5BNGNlMGZlZjAtMDllZS00MDAzLWE2MWUtNGNlZWZjM2IzMjQ3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODEwMTc2ODQ_._V1_FMjpg_UX1280_.jpg" />
|
||
<cite>Alameda Entertainment</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>Relatable.</figcaption></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="90OmzV">
|
||
While the house may or may not be teeming with ghosts, it is teeming with secrets — secrets that Kylie is only just now starting to learn. With the help of her house arrest officer, Amos, she begins to explore her family secrets, and it doesn’t take long for her to stumble across a big one: the alleged bed and breakfast is actually a former residential asylum, once home to a wayward girl much like herself, whose brutal murder has never been solved.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="laiJsn">
|
||
Is Kylie’s house actually haunted by the murder victim’s spirit? Is the horror all in her head? Or is she experiencing terror from a much more corporeal source?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DBlham">
|
||
It’s tempting to spoil more details — particularly to tell you about all the real-life horror stories upon which <em>Housebound</em> draws its wildest twist — but you should experience the story as it unfolds for yourself.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JQfjVH">
|
||
<em>Housebound</em> begins like a fairly straightforward ghost story, but then takes a few turns that keep it tonally interesting. It’s usually billed as a horror comedy or a comedy thriller, but those labels undersell how tense and dark the film gets. <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/11/4/16570486/taika-waititi-eagle-shark-boy-shadows-wilderpeople-ragnarok-jojo-rabbit"><em>What We Do in the Shadows</em></a> also debuted in 2014, and its ascendence as the reigning New Zealand horror comedy might have both overshadowed <em>Housebound</em> and dictated how audiences approached it. But for me, the movie is<strong> </strong>a bit too tense, and a bit too serious, to approach as a parody. It’s frequently tongue in cheek, yes, but it takes its terror seriously.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VQUvji">
|
||
Furthermore, <em>Housebound </em>is serious about the ways in which its surly anti-heroine is subtly undermined by most of the people around her and even her situation itself. If an entire house could gaslight you, Kylie’s house would be doing exactly that, and that makes the movie a perversely relatable treat for anyone feeling like their prolonged confinement is driving them a bit mad.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="yxUSdU">
|
||
Housebound is a permanent 2020 mood
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VCGoJCgdlQZL0bye5C880IoYlbw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22204914/MV5BZTRiNGY0YWMtNGFlMC00NDFmLTk0MmItYzM2N2M2N2I2MWI4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzc5NjM0NA__._V1_FMjpg_UX1280_.jpg" />
|
||
<cite>Alameda Entertainment</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>Accurate representation of me after a year of self-quarantining.</figcaption></code></pre>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="780V2a">
|
||
Kylie’s time under house arrest soon grows quite eventful, but it starts out with the palpable slow slog of eternity. Kylie seethes under her punishment the way all of us, at some point during a year of retreat from Covid-19, probably have.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wdpSdv">
|
||
Although we don’t get much backstory on Kylie’s relationship with her mom and stepdad, the tension they greet each other with upon her return home lingers for most of the movie. What’s sweet about this, if a movie whose main character once punched her mother in the face can be called sweet, is that <em>Housebound</em> always frames both Kylie and her mother as vulnerable to one another’s unwitting slights and microaggressions. A flatter script could have easily made Kylie the hard-edged instigator of most of the conflict between her and her mother, but O’Reilly always lets us see how much Kylie cares about her family beneath her ongoing frustration with her confinement.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AQALTU">
|
||
The movie also never lets us forget that Kylie is a recovering addict, and that this one fact frequently defines her to most of society. I rewatched <em>Housebound</em> directly after refreshing myself on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/25/police-missed-chances-stop-paedophile-ian-watkins-ipcc">a true-crime case</a> in which police repeatedly refused to take a sex worker’s claims seriously because her profession diminished her credibility. So I was particularly attuned to the amount of time that Kylie spends in <em>Housebound</em> fighting to be heard and taken seriously, only to receive the repeated message that her word matters less because of her status as an addict and as a repeat offender.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DmFlNZ">
|
||
But if Kylie starts out thoroughly unlikeable, <em>Housebound</em> makes the argument that a rough, rude, defiant, violent 20-something is a good person to have around in a crisis. And sometimes, the film suggests, having to ride out a period of sequestering with your relatives is just the kind of thing that builds character. Well, that and getting the ultimate validation of finding out that everyone who undermined you was wrong all along.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OLTw53">
|
||
There’s a certain narrative about the pandemic that’s become dominant. It’s one centered on all the plucky bread-makers and Zoom-partiers and amateur interior designers and newfound plant lovers who made the most of a shitty time spent social distancing from most of their communities. But for the rest of us, we who’ve been stuck in a stuffy, claustrophobic environment with people we frequently can’t stand, <em>Housebound</em> is a permanent mood. Kylie wanders through most of the film the way I wandered through most of 2020 — glassy-eyed, openly horrified at everyone else’s bullshit, and desperate to go outside.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zEYaDI">
|
||
At one point her mom scolds Kylie for still being in bed well into the afternoon. “Oh, no, I’m late!” Kylie gasps.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iv9cTZ">
|
||
“For what?” the mom asks.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7lLZ1A">
|
||
“For <em>nothing</em>,” Kylie retorts, rolling over and going back to sleep.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qCeBgI">
|
||
Yep. That’s 2020 in a nutshell.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V4wsMj">
|
||
<em>Housebound</em> is available to stream on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Housebound-Morgana-OReilly/dp/B00OLI7LEK" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Amazon Prime</a> and <a href="https://tubitv.com/movies/499465/housebound">Tubi</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>England squad clears COVID-19 test, set to travel to Sri Lanka for Test series</strong> - On arrival, the contingent will spend 10 days in a bio-secure bubble in Hambantota</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bumrah has mastered the art we Pakistanis used to have once, says Akhtar</strong> - The Pakistani fast bowler calls Bumrah India’s first fast bowler who checks the wind speed and wind direction rather than how much grass has been left on the track.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Aus vs Ind Test series | Rohit Sharma replaces Pujara as vice-captain</strong> - Rohit has started training from Thursday and the full fledged session of the Indian contingent after new year break will start from Saturday.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Aus vs Ind Test series | Natarajan replaces Umesh in squad, Shardul in place of Shami</strong> - Both Shami and Umesh Yadav will head to the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru for further rehabilitation of their injuries.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Labuschagne doffs hat to Ashwin</strong> - Says the off-spinner has come prepared and with a definite game-plan</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Maharashtra mulls setting up modern jails</strong> - Plan for housing for police personnel is also on, says Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Assam Cong. plans ‘one family, one job’ scheme</strong> - Party also announces roll out of NYAY payouts for BPL families ahead of Assembly polls</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Naveen Patnaik pitches for international airport at Puri</strong> - Odisha CM cites annual Rath Yatra, pristine beaches as hub for tourism</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rashtrapati Bhavan museum to reopen from January 5</strong> - Visitors will not be able to make bookings on the spot. They will have to book their slots in advance</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tahawwur Rana’s extradition hearing delayed again</strong> - The next hearing has been set for April 22, 2021</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Brexit: New era for UK as it completes separation from European Union</strong> - Boris Johnson celebrates the "freedom in our hands" as the long Brexit process comes to a conclusion.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Norway landslide: Swedes join search for 10 missing in Ask ravine</strong> - A risky ground search is starting for 10 missing after a landslide swept homes into a chasm.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Covid pandemic dampens New Year celebrations around the world</strong> - As the virus continues to spread in many countries, governments crack down on revellers.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Brexit: 'We welcomed the trade deal like a Christmas present'</strong> - Europeans in the UK, and British people around Europe, explain what Brexit will mean for them.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Brexit: New Irish Sea trade border begins operating</strong> - The trade border means most commercial goods entering NI from GB now require a customs declaration.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>30 years since the Human Genome Project began, what’s next?</strong> - Genomics institute head looks back on how far the field has come, ahead to future. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1732424">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How the humble slime mold helped physicists map the cosmic web</strong> - Despite similarities, "We don't think the universe was created by a giant slime mold." - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1732471">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>New battery chemistry results in first rechargeable zinc-air battery</strong> - Zinc is very cheap and abundant; battery tech could be great for power grids. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1732468">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Activist hedge fund advises Intel to outsource CPU manufacturing</strong> - Third Point fund, led by Daniel Loeb, demands strategy shake up - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1732420">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Basking shark families go on road trips in search of fine dining</strong> - Genetic tagging offers insight into the secret lives of basking sharks. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1732410">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>One day, aliens make contact to Earth with a message proclaiming they not only come in peace, but confirm they also worshipped Jesus, confirming once and for all that He and religion were real.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
In preparation for their arrival, a huge celebration and welcoming ceremony is planned, and all the Christian sects of the world miraculously come together to receive them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The first of the aliens' ships touches down, and one alien walks down to greet everyone. The Pope comes out first to shake one of their hands to greet them. The Pope says, "We are forever grateful to learn we are not alone in being Children of God, but that we may also join together as one in order to praise our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
And the alien replies, "Yep. The first time he stopped by we threw him a big party and we gave him a fruit basket before he left. What'd you guys do?"
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
EDIT: turns out I might've taken a bit of inspiration (i.e. lifted) from this comic I think I saw a few years back, credit where credit is due
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
<a href="https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-11-24">https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-11-24</a>
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DUDEVSTHEWORLD"> /u/DUDEVSTHEWORLD </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko5wyc/one_day_aliens_make_contact_to_earth_with_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko5wyc/one_day_aliens_make_contact_to_earth_with_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>What’s Mitch McConnell’s favorite movie?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Kill Bill.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/cursedaf69"> /u/cursedaf69 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/knszsj/whats_mitch_mcconnells_favorite_movie/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/knszsj/whats_mitch_mcconnells_favorite_movie/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>My GF said that if this post gets 1000 up votes we can do anal to celebrate my cake day.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Please, for the love of God don't up vote, I've seen the size of her strap on!
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/thingie2"> /u/thingie2 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko8c7n/my_gf_said_that_if_this_post_gets_1000_up_votes/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko8c7n/my_gf_said_that_if_this_post_gets_1000_up_votes/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>PSA do not wear a washington wizards face mask.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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CDC studies have shown they provide no defense
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/LUAM47"> /u/LUAM47 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko2h6i/psa_do_not_wear_a_washington_wizards_face_mask/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko2h6i/psa_do_not_wear_a_washington_wizards_face_mask/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>The Americans and The Japanese</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced rowing hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day the Japanese won by a mile.
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The American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.
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The consultant's finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering.
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After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the American team's management structure was completely reorganized.
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The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.
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The next year, the Japanese won by two miles!
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Heterophylla"> /u/Heterophylla </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko6i4o/the_americans_and_the_japanese/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ko6i4o/the_americans_and_the_japanese/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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</ul>
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