Winter and the holidays can be hard even in typical years: short days, cold winds, and family stress, to name a few. But the ongoing US Covid-19 surge, with
more than 200,000 new virus cases reported every day since December 7 (about double what they were a month before), is putting the hallmark activities that help sustain us holiday gatherings, meals with friends, volunteering, or a visit to see Santa in more dire limbo.
Despite being more than nine months into the pandemic, figuring out whether and how to approach a previously routine event is still complicated. And the calculus seems to change with new case rates and evolving guidelines and with our own fluctuating pandemic burnout.
Print article In Philadelphia, public health officials think block captains may be more effective than football stars in persuading people to get coronavirus vaccines. Researchers in the Navajo Nation anticipate that directives about the shots will have to be reworded to resonate with Native people. And in Atlanta, where a federally funded project has been working with community leaders to increase minority participation in clinical trials, physicians have a lesson to learn in how to talk to patients about vaccines. Memo to docs? More empathy. Less authority. These messaging strategies are aimed at winning over vaccine fence-sitters in much the way political campaigns target would-be voters. But in the life-or-death battle against the coronavirus, as much as 70% of the population must roll up their sleeves in the next few months to achieve herd immunity and stop the virus’s spread. And, unlike well-oiled political machines, public health officials say they are having to q
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