To many owners and patrons of bars and nightclubs, pandemic restrictions on the industry have felt punitive. But there are important differences between a bar and a restaurant that serves alcohol, say virus hunters.
"If you were to create a petri dish and say, how can we spread this the most? It would be cruise ships, jails and prisons, factories, and it would be bars," says Dr. Ogechika Alozie, an infectious disease specialist in El Paso, Texas.
For starters, it’s generally easier for restaurants to keep patrons 6-feet distant from each other, Alozie says. And the more people drink, the likelier they are to crowd the bar and raise their voices.
“There are lots of people, tight spaces and alcohol is a dis-inhibitor — people change their behaviors," Alozie notes.
We’re all tempted to shut down emotionally when under continued stress -- to spend whatever free time we have binging on TV, food, drink or sleep, or scrolling through social media feeds.
That’s the “passive coping style,” says psychiatrist Dr. Maryland Pao of the National Institutes of Mental Health. But there is another path.
Keeping your mind and heart engaged -- by reaching outside yourself to volunteer, garden or learn a new language, for example -- can help you cope with hard times now and in the future, Pao says.
At least two-thirds of U.S. families are struggling to find safe and affordable child care as the pandemic rages on. Preschools and day care programs are still closed in many places, leaving working families scrambling.
Older relatives sometimes step in to help -- despite risks to their own health. Other families are trading child care with neighbors who have kids, or hiring a nanny. But how do you make any of those “pods” or “social bubbles” safe for all in the time of COVID-19?
"Everything is about risk mitigation right now," says Anne Rimoin, a UCLA epidemiologist.
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