Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Coloradans are nearly moving around at pre-pandemic levels. Will a second coronavirus wave follow? – The Colorado Sun

In Larimer County, as June barrels into July and Colorado nears the end of its fourth month mired in the coronavirus pandemic, Colorado State University professor Jude Bayham has noticed a trend: There are a lot more people visiting restaurants than there were in April and May.

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This observation comes not so much from his personal life as from his professional one. Bayham is an economist who studies avoidance behavior how people respond to known risks. During the pandemic, he has become one of the experts looking at mobility data for the states epidemiological modeling team, the group that is creating predictions about how the virus will spread so that policymakers like Gov. Jared Polis can decide how to respond. Bayham charts these mobility numbers on graphs comparing them to mobility patterns from 2019.

And what he has seen in the last couple of weeks is clear. Coloradans across much of the state are almost back to moving around at pre-pandemic levels. At restaurants, salons and clothing stores, Coloradans in many counties are approaching near-normal levels of activity.

There is clearly an increase in these mobility measures, however you want to cut it, Bayham said. People are spending more time out in public.

The trend comes as Colorado increasingly allows the reopening of businesses seen as among the riskiest for spread of the coronavirus places like casinos and bars, both of which are now able to operate at limited capacity.

And it also comes as states that began reopening their economies around the same time as Colorado are seeing worrying spikes in COVID-19 cases. In a recent Twitter thread, Andy Slavitt, the former Obama administration health official who has become a wonky celebrity for his nightly pandemic summaries, lumped Colorado with 13 other states in a group he called the rabbits the states that reopened first. Through mid-June, the rabbits had seen a 26% increase in case growth, he wrote. Only two states in the group Colorado and Indiana had defied the trend and seen their daily case numbers decline.

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On Friday, Dr. Rachel Herlihy, Colorados state epidemiologist, said health officials here are watching case spikes in neighboring states like Arizona and Utah warily.

The modeling data has been quite favorable in Colorado recently, she said. But we certainly are being cautious. We know from the experience of those states that were really dependent on human behavior.

An outbreak last week of more than 100 new cases in Boulder tied to University Hill parties and anti-racism protests has pushed Colorados numbers slightly higher in recent days and shows how quickly the virus could surge anew.

But, when the state released its daily case counts Friday, the numbers continued to show good news overall. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have dropped to their lowest number since March. The rate of people testing positive for the virus remained below public health benchmarks.

So, as Colorado continues to reopen while avoiding a second wave of the virus, it raises a question: Are we actually good at coronavirus life or are we just lucky?

I think were both, said Dr. Mark Johnson, the executive director of Jefferson County Public Health. And I think we dont know the answer to that question.

Experts say that people moving around more is not necessarily a bad thing. Its all about how people move around.

It doesnt matter so much what the government does in terms of relaxing stay-at-home measures if people are still adhering to the guidelines, said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore. If people are wearing masks and maintaining social distance, then you wouldnt expect to see a huge increase in cases as things reopen.

So it may be, Toner added, that Coloradans are just really good people and are following advice.

Bayham, the CSU prof, agreed that could be the case. The mobility figures he looks at only capture where people go and for how long. They dont show what people do when they get where they are going.

The data are collected from a sample of mobile devices smartphones, mostly, but also smart watches and similar gear. The figures are anonymized, meaning they are stripped of identification information, and then they are also aggregated at the census block level. Bayham said he cant track any individual persons movements nor does he want to. The value is in the big picture.

Early on in the pandemic, Bayham said the connection between mobility and viral transmission was really clear. The more people moved around, the more the virus spread.

But, after a big crash in mobility around the time Polis issued the statewide stay-at-home order, the state has actually been seeing increasing mobility since late-April, Bayham said. And, this time, increased movement didnt closely correspond with increased viral transmission.

Bayham said this is likely because people in Colorado are venturing forth into a changed world. They are more cautious. The places they are visiting are cleaner. Everything is better geared toward stopping the virus.

For instance, while visits to restaurants have almost returned to normal in many places, Bayham said its possible that the visits now are mostly quick stops to pick up takeout as opposed to longer visits for eat-in dining, pre-pandemic. (He hopes to dig deeper into this question soon.)

You can think about these mobility patterns as a pre-condition for transmission, Bayham said. Its necessary for transmission to occur. But just because people are in a place where the virus is present is not sufficient for transmission.

Toner said the states that havent kept control of the virus after reopening have a few things in common. They tend to have weaker health systems where many people struggle to access care. While Colorado has specifically tried to get coronavirus testing sites into underprivileged communities, other states have not.

And Colorados weather also may play a factor, Toner said. We are a state that generally goes outdoors in the summer instead of huddling inside in the air-conditioning to avoid oppressive heat and humidity. The risk of transmission is dramatically lower outdoors, Toner said.

But one trait stands above the rest.

I think the states that are doing poorly now are the states where their governors have been more relaxed about public health messaging, more eager to open things up, and not strictly adhering to the guidance about the pace at which things should open up, Toner said.

And a big part of that public health messaging the elasticized flashpoint in the latest public health culture war is encouraging people to wear masks. Ever since he donned one at a news conference in the first week of April, Polis has been a frequent and fervent champion of the face mask.

The science on homemade masks and coronavirus is still a work in progress, said May Chu, an internationally renowned disease researcher who teaches at the Colorado School of Public Health. But she said the overwhelming consensus is that wearing masks in public is safer than not.

She put the benefit at a few percentage points of difference. If a person in a given situation has a 25% chance of being infected by the coronavirus, Chu said wearing a mask might knock the risk down closer to 20%. But thats only if people are also washing their hands and following distancing guidelines.

If you dont do all the other practices, its probably not statistically significant, she said.

And homemade masks can actually be quite good. Think of the now-familiar N95 masks as being 95% efficient, she said. The throw-away surgical masks that doctors often wear are about 30% efficient. But a homemade mask with enough layers of the right material could get to 50% efficiency.

Its why shes a big believer that diligent mask-wearing can make a meaningful impact as life returns to normal-ish. And, though she said there is no detailed data on Coloradans mask-wearing behavior, she said shes been encouraged seeing widespread adoption when she goes out in public.

Within the community, wearing a mask should be a sign of respectfulness, Chu said. You are respecting the dangers (the virus) might cause to others.

Johnson, with Jefferson County Public Health, praised Polis for making decisions based on data and science including promoting mask-wearing. That doesnt mean hes not a little nervous about Colorados reopening economy. Johnson said he wished the state had moved more incrementally instead of reopening large chunks at once which will make it more difficult to know what is to blame if cases spike.

It appears that some of the things that opened up quicker were because people screamed the loudest, he said.

But Johnson also said everybody is learning as they go. And, as the states reopening goes right now, its so far, so good.

People are going to be studying this for at least the next 100 years, he said, trying to figure out what did we do right and what did we do wrong.

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Coloradans are nearly moving around at pre-pandemic levels. Will a second coronavirus wave follow? - The Colorado Sun

Human Behavior

Letter to the Editor: The human nature dilemma – Northern Virginia Daily

Editor:

There seems to be no one, regardless of political stripe or racial creed, who is OK with the actions of police officer Derek Chauvin as they relate to the death of George Floyd on May 25. We all see it as a human behavior that was despicably cruel and unjust under the moral standards that we expect from a police officer. We see it as a behavioral dilemma that should never be accepted.

And we wonder what could have been going on in Mr. Chauvin's mind as the event transitioned from arrest and submission to tragic death. What could have justified such behavior? Was it racial hatred, mental imbalance or simply some very poor judgment regarding human frailty?

As always, there will be questions about why it happened and what should be done to prevent a recurrence. Further investigation and police reform currently lead the list of efforts needed to prevent such tragedies but bad apples are a part of human nature as were the ethos and mindset of Derek Chauvin and others like him.

Of the 800,000 police officers in the United States, the overwhelming majority are considerate, well trained and professional. There's another one tenth of one percent that are sometimes inconsiderate and unprofessional but unfortunately that may never change because human nature is not a constant. Human nature is different for each individual and it changes constantly. There are and always will be a few bad apples among us even as they seem to be like everyone else.

I sincerely hope that laws are passed by Congress and that changes are made within police training facilities to weed out the bad apples and further enhance the services provided by police departments across America. With police reform and continued oversight, policing services, which are vital to the security of all Americans, should improve, but I doubt that we will ever see the perfection we expect simply because of the dilemma we call human nature.

Leroy Donald, Stephens City

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Letter to the Editor: The human nature dilemma - Northern Virginia Daily

Human Behavior

Human Behavior And How It Impacts Your Finances – Forbes

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Decisions regarding finances are often most consequential when we are busy, troubled, and flat out overwhelmed.In the past few months, many investors have made tough choices on the things most important to their financial goals, and this will likely remain in the months ahead. A large portion of the population is struggling to feed their family, let alone contemplating large life expenses such as buying homes, cars, saving for college or retirement and so forth.So the question ishow does decision making change during these times?Or, how often do investors choose to do nothing and ride out the storm?And, is that the right decision?This is where diagnosing your own decision making can help improve the chances of creating better outcomes in the midst of the chaos that is life.

We want to make easy decisions, which is how habits are formed.Think about where you would sit for dinner at home, order from a restaurant, or buy coffee.The booth by the window, the #9 at the lunch place, and a breakfast blend with 2 sugars and no cream.Habits are easy to keep and even more difficult to change.Are habits always what we really want to be doing?The benefit of these routines is that they dramatically decrease the amount of decisions that are necessary to make in a day.Habits fortunately are maintained with little mental effort involved, which is why they are so easy to repeat.

These easy decisions fit within our behavior and intuition when we are confronted with multiple, new choices.

If a coffee and donut cost $1.10 together and the donut costs $1.00 more than the coffee.How much does the coffee cost?

Many immediately answer with 10 cents, its intuition and automatic thinking. When you take a moment to think through the problem and do the math, you see the coffee is 5 cents.Our habits, gut instinct, and quick thinking can lead us to decisions that feel right initially but when you look back on the choices and slow down you see you could have done things differently.

Investors find themselves in these situations frequently these days.Is it time to sell?Is it time to take risk?Is it time to stay the course?The common response to the questions are usually a part of quick thinking and habits that have been learned along the way.

If an investor is holding on to a position thats down 20 percent from its original value.How willing are they to hang on to that investment to see it back to a profit?Generally, investors are risk takers when they see losses recover to break even.Is that the investment thats most likely to return the best going forward?Or, should they look for alternatives?

If an investor is at all-time highs in their accounts.How quickly will losses affect how they feel about their portfolio?Does that cause and investor to sell to keep what they had gained?Investors are generally risk averse with gains theyve created to protect them.

As the markets, policies, and needs for the investor change does it make sense to just do nothing?Is what they have the right thing for the current markets?Are they taking too much risk?Are they on track for what they need?The inefficiencies with quick decision making have measurable impact on performance over time.

From 1990-2016, an individual investor on average lost 1.6% on returns against equity benchmarks and 1.3% against bonds each year.A person who owned a mix of stocks and bonds typically underperforms by 1.8% in that same time frame, according to a 2017 report from Advisor Perspectives.

Investing is a coordination between your financial goals, the amount youve saved, and the time to grow those assets to reach said goals. This means they must slow down and consider all the parts of an investment decision to give yourself the best chance to reach the ultimate vision of success.

Continue to ask yourself the tough questions, like how much risk is needed to realize my goals. How do investors adapt to changes in markets and policies to keep their money moving in the right direction?Has a plan been created and written down to help an investor stay disciplined to their goals?

The more we can slow down our thinking and consider our financial choices, the more we can objectively make decisions and hopefully lead to a better outcome.

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Human Behavior And How It Impacts Your Finances - Forbes

Human Behavior

Secret Philly: When Rittenhouse Square was the city’s Gayborhood – Billy Penn

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Phillys Gayborhood as we now know it lives in Center City just east of Broad. From roughly Chestnut to Pine streets, crosswalks are painted with rainbows and street corners are dotted with gay bars and nonprofits.

While theres ongoing debate about the authenticity of the LGBTQ district plus constant concerns about racism and gentrification its indisputable that the Wash West enclave is known as Phillys queer mecca. But that wasnt always the case.

In the 1950s and 60s, LGBTQ Philadelphians concentrated somewhere else. A half mile west, on the other side of Broad Street, Rittenhouse Square was once the citys gay moment.

Back then, the citys gay nightlife revolved around the park. Men strolled the streets late at night looking for dates. The first Pride march in 1972 started there.

So prominent were gay people in Rittenhouse that when nightlife spots opened up, straight people lamented there was just as good a chance itd be a gay bar as a straight one. I wonder if well be able to go there, a resident mused about a new taproom in a May 1974 Inquirer article.

This is a story about Phillys Gayborhood of yesteryear the nightlife scene, the creativity of romantic pursuit, the way it made straight people shudder and the dramatic lengths local officials went to eradicate queer Philadelphia. (Spoiler: They even used traffic signage.)

That early 1970s Inquirer article described heterosexual people as a minority in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. It was a few years after Stonewall in New York City, and the continuous presence of LGBTQ people was becoming obvious to straight people especially in one of Center Citys wealthier sectors.

The nightlife scene around the Square became notorious. News organizations called it twilight life when the sun went down and queer men and women would hit the bars in search acceptance, a good time, and maybe some action.

Saturday night is the gayest night of the week, read a 1962 story on the Rittenhouse queer scene in Greater Philadelphia Magazine. They come from all parts of the city, from the suburbs, from as far away as Reading and Atlantic City.

So many gay men started setting up camp in the area south of the park that straight people referred to them as the Spruce Street boys.

In some ways, this was a Gayborhood much like the one that exists today: white gay men were the most accepted, and everyone else experienced additional levels of prejudice. Many lesbians and Black queer people purposely lived in neighborhoods like Germantown or North Philly instead.

For what it was, Rittenhouse Squares gay scene was popular. And naturally, along with a convergence of queer people came homophobia and discrimination.

At best, their straight neighbors gawked. As seen in newspaper archives, one remarked to a reporter how silly gay men looked while rollerskating; another said they overheard some queer people discussing gender confirmation surgery. At worst, they wanted those people gone.

These f-s are taking over Philadelphia, one Spruce Street pharmacist told the Inquirer.

At the time, homophobia was deeply ingrained in local government.

Under Mayor Frank Rizzo, the city put up signage around Rittenhouse Square to discourage gay people from cruising aka driving around the park to find dates.

The signs prohibited left turns from 21st onto Delancey Street between midnight and 5 a.m. Even then-Deputy Streets Commissioner John Scruggs told the Inquirer he thought it was an overreach: Its kind of stretching it to think you can regulate human behavior with a traffic sign.

But the sign never came down yes, its literally still up today and Phillys queer community slowly but surely migrated eastward.

In 1976, Philly opened its first gay community center near 3rd and South Street. The building, which would later be called the William Way Community Center and move to 13th and Spruce, pulled Philadelphias queer community across Broad Street.

Owners of gay bars with mob ties paid off police to leave them alone, and the nightlife scene survived, dubbed Lurid Locust by local news organizations.

Federal funding dried up in the 1960s for planned redevelopment in the Washington Square West area. Construction stalled on the Vine Street Expressway. Both abandoned projects left plenty of vacant lots where gambling, prostitution and drug dealing flourished.

The downturn didnt last. In the 80s, queer people pumped their own efforts into the area. A gay business owners association formed. In 1995, the Gayborhood got its official name during an Outfest celebration under then-Mayor Ed Rendell. In the years to come, rainbow crosswalks and flags were proudly put on display. Wealthier residents moved in, contributing to gentrification.

These days, parts of the neighborhood, which is filled to the brim with buzzy restaurants, go by Midtown Village instead. Several flourishing gay bars, bookstores, gyms and community centers remain.

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Secret Philly: When Rittenhouse Square was the city's Gayborhood - Billy Penn

Human Behavior

‘Bound’ Is Still The Wachowskis’ Best Movie – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Thats not to knock The Matrix, Speed Racer or Cloud Atlas. Its just Bound is that good. Perhaps today, the idea of a crime thriller with two lesbian leads would not be a high concept. It would just be a movie, hopefully. In 1996 the relationship of the main characters did distinguish Bound from other noirish crime films. The quality of the execution by Lilly and Lana Wachowski put it up there with Double Indemnity and the other greats.

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From 30s and 40s black and white film noirs to modern day crime stories, the archetypes of the femme fatale roping (pun intended) a man into her scheme were common. Violet (Jennifer Tilly) is the femme fatale who ropes Corky (Gina Gershon) into her plan. Violet is the moll of mafioso Ceasar (Joe Pantoliano).

Violet has a plan to steal money from Ceasars bosses and set him up for the fall. Shell need a partner though. Normally femme fatales use sex to manipulate men. Violet and Corkys love is sincere, not a manipulation. They really are Bound together.

The 90s were also the era where erotic thrillers thrived. It was a good genre, but Bound stands out for its relative restraint. The classic film noirs couldnt show graphic sex so they created heat with innuendo and subtlety. Bound has a perfect combination of both.

Violets seduction of Corky is intense. The Wachowskis frame Tillys legs behind Gershon as she works on the drain. Violet has called her over under the pretense of dropping an earring down the drain (Corky works maintenance in their building).

Their innuendo with words like thirsty and curious remain timeless. Thirsty has been appropriated for social media with new relevance, and curious could still be used with double meaning, or to test the waters with a potential lover as Violet uses it.

The passion is palpable, the heavy breathing and whispering in closeups of their shadowed faces. Corky moves her hand to feel Violets arousal without using explicit language. The shot looking up at them from under the steering column is something, and cinematography will reveal more of the crime plot too.

Violet had to hide her sexuality and live in domesticity as a gangster moll, ogled by all of his henchmen too. This may be the relatable story of people living in the closet whether theyre in a crime family or not. In Bound, Violet uses it against her patriarchal persecutors.

Ceasar remains clueless until the very end. It never occurs to him Corky could be a threat to him criminally or romantically. In fact, he gets mad when he first walks in and thinks Corky is a man. His relief when he sees shes only a woman is so heternormative.

RELATED: The Matrix 4: Actor Joe Pantoliano Wants to Return as Cypher; Heres How It Could Happen

Most importantly, Corky says she hates when women apologize for wanting sex. This is also a timeless double standard. Violet clarifies shes not. In fact shes apologizing for not completing their encounter. Their love scene is R-rated because you see Gershons breast, but its the details that make it sensuous, particularly the fitted sheet coming off the mattress.

In concert with Bounds respect for womens sexuality, The Wachowskis aslo craft a lean, direct plot. The way Corky and Violet explain their plan while theyre already enacting it is brilliant and economical. Later Wachowski movies would suffer from exposition dumps as their concepts grew more complicated.

RELATED: Keanu Reeves Revealed the Only Reason Why He Returned for The Matrix 4

They use Ceasars prejudices to play him like a piano. The plan is all based on human behavior. They just wind the male gangsters up and watch their plan play out. A few points could go either way, but they have a plan for either outcome.

When Ceasar gets unpredictable, its suspenseful because hes operating under wildly false assumptions. He thinks Violet is conspiring with mafiosos, not her lover. Someone who thinks they know things is more dangerous than an idiot.

Bound should be an all time classic, but perhaps its floating under the radar is appropriate. The world underestimated Violet and Corky, so if the world underestimates the Wachowskis first movie, they can discover how great it is too. Bound is streaming on HBO Max, Crackle with ads, Popcornflix and Pluto TV.

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'Bound' Is Still The Wachowskis' Best Movie - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Human Behavior

Steve Bucknor accepts his incorrect decisions against Sachin Tendulkar, says those were mistakes – The Financial Express

Steve Bucknor accepts mistakes: Umpire Steve Bucknor, of the infamous Bucknor-Benson umpiring duo that was in the eye of the storm during the controversial 2008 Sydney Test between India and Australia, has been accused by many cricket fans in his umpiring career, but it was a couple of his decisions against Sachin Tendulkar that still haunt him. Recalling those two occasions when he had judged the batting legend out, Bucknor said that such judgments live with the umpires and their careers could be massively hit due to such instances. However, Bucknor, who was considered among the top umpires in the 2000s, said that in his view no umpire would want to do a wrong thing and that error in judgment is a psrt of the human behavior.

Tendulkar was given out on two different occasions when those were mistakes. I do not think any umpire would want to do a wrong thing. It lives with him and his future could be jeopardised, Bucknor said on Mason and Guests radio programme.

One of the two mistakes that Bucknor has pointed out as his mistakes were the decisions to give Sachin out LBW against Australia at the Gabba in 2003 while the other error being the caught-behind decision against Pakistan.

At the Gabba in 2003, Tendulkar had left a Jason Gillespies delivery that had pitched outside the off stump. Tendulkar may have misjudged the movement of the ball, but given Gabbas reputation of being a bouncy pitch, it was not criminal of Sachin to have left the delivery. The ball jagged back and hit Tendulkars pad and after an appeal, Bucknor nodded in his typical manner and raised his finger to send Tendulkar back to the pavilion.

In 2005, Tendulkar was given out caught behind off the bowling of Abdul Razzaq. He was well settled at the crease when Bucknor adjudged him out while the replay clearly indicated that there was a gap between his bat and the ball. Bucknor, however, has blamed his inability to hear the sound properly and said that at the Eden Gardens, if India is batting, you hear nothing.

Like Bucknor says, to err is human, but when that error in judgment leaves an enormous impact on the outcome of the game you are adjudicating, it can tarnish your reputation permanently.

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Steve Bucknor accepts his incorrect decisions against Sachin Tendulkar, says those were mistakes - The Financial Express

Human Behavior

VCRs, iPhones and face masks – The News International

Growing up, I spent the early and mid-90s in Beijing. The Beijing of that time was a lot grimier, a lot less shiny and just very different overall from the metropolis I found when I visited again almost two decades later.

One of the many memories that I still have from those days is that of the ubiquitous citizen monitors, chosen from local neighborhoods and communities, who were identifiable by the red armbands with text on them. Ensuring compliance with every law in a city as populous as Beijing is not a job for the police force alone. Dealing with criminals has to be prioritized above fining litterers and jaywalkers.

This job fell to citizen monitors, who did not have the authority to arrest anyone, but were able to fine people for misdemeanors. Nowadays, the citizen monitors have likely been replaced by Chinas mass surveillance system that feeds into its Social Credit System that went operational in 2014. Little surprise then that as medical professionals gradually began recognizing the efficacy of face masks in stemming the spread of the disease, human and automated surveillance was brought into the service of ensuring compliance with new guidelines.

To be fair though, people in most far East countries (China, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc) trusted the advice from their experts and did not need to be told twice and quickly and voluntarily adopted the recommended guidelines. Moreover, wearing masks was an ordinary sight in these countries even pre-Covid.

In her June 6 article (Is the Secret to Japans Virus Success Right in Front of Its Face?), Motoko Rich of the New York Times described her experience of moving to Tokyo. She recounts an experience from 10 years ago, how she had picked up a cough on the flight there. Not used to wearing masks, a family friend politely nudged her and introduced her to the cultural expectation of wearing one, particularly when showing signs of illness.

Japan presents an important case study for the effectiveness of wearing masks in public to control Covid. Japan dragged its feet on lockdowns and shutdowns, making many social distancing measures voluntary. Yet, despite a slow response and voluntary measures and an old population, Japan saw fewer deaths per million than many countries that took drastic measures to contain the pandemic, likely attributable to the one thing it did do right - the widespread use of face masks.

Meanwhile, at the culturally opposite pole of the globe, in the United States and its West European allies, people were getting largely the same news coverage and advice. But over there people are still stuck in a debate about whether mandating the wearing of masks infringes on freedoms. We have seen videos circulating showing customers getting abusive or violent when told by retailers to mask up.

Then there is us: an over-populated, under-resourced, under-educated, and under-informed developing nation, but with the same will to buck authority as the free world, even if it costs us and our families our lives. Now that even our prime minister seems to have come around to the need of wearing face masks, the question is, how can we ensure people take this guideline seriously?

Our police forces are too small and not up to the job of running after people for misdemeanors and enforcing wearing of masks and distancing measures. A few days ago, an argument between a policeman and a man not wearing a face mask escalated to a point where the policeman ended up tasing him.

In our countrys context, a job like this is tailor made for local government, where community representatives with credible ties to the communities they represent can identify and rope in influential locals to get the word out. Instead we got the Tiger Force, a group that is bound to polarize and stir up controversy and opposition for its political association.

Back in March, awareness of the pandemic had just begun to take hold in Pakistan. A colleague at my workplace, let me call him Asim*, had adopted wearing a face mask and following precautionary measures yet. One day Asim was sitting in a filled room where he was the only one wearing his mask. Another colleague, let me call him Baber, entered the room, went around and shook hands with everyone but him. Feeling peer-pressure, even Asim reluctantly extended his hand for a shake. But at that point Baber said: No, Asim. You are wearing a mask which means you are taking precautions, so I will not shake your hand.

Baber respected Asims decision, and you may think this was an outlier response because many others may insist on shaking hands. However, consider this: On June 5, Craig Timberg of the Washington Post wrote an article (How do masks change human behavior?) describing the findings of Massimo Marchiori, an Italian computer scientist, who specializes in the use of mobility data. When the pandemic struck, he directed his efforts at related problems he had expertise in.

The most interesting of his several findings is the reaction face masks elicit from passersby. He collected empirical data of distances by which pedestrians passed by each other. Even during the pandemic, people would draw closer to oncoming pedestrians when they were not wearing a mask. However, when an oncoming pedestrian was wearing a mask, they would pass her at a greater distance.

This goes to show that face masks are effective on multiple levels, not just to filter out contaminants from the inhaled air and contain their spread from exhaled air. Visible face masks, even makeshift ones, signal others to keep a bigger-than-usual distance. In the absence of the states capacity to enforce necessary measures by traditional law enforcement or anything else (yes, I am discounting the Tiger Force), that leaves us only with the kind of soft measures like the implicit signaling conveyed by a worn face mask.

Unlike other nations, we are not familiar with the concept of personal space. Stand in a queue some place, and the person standing behind you will be breathing down your neck, literally. Introducing people to the idea of personal space will be a slow process.

In time, when we reach a critical mass of mask wearers, perhaps can we count on the kind of social pressure we see in Japan, that makes it socially unacceptable to not wear one. Social pressure to keep up with the Chaudhrys/any other elite has made us buy VCRs in the 1980s, satellite TV receivers in the 1990s, cars we could not afford in the 2000s and expensive iPhones in the 2010s.

Maybe this time around we can channel it to make people want to wear a mask and not look ill-mannered, uncouth, and inconsiderate. Maybe this time around we can leverage it to achieve something useful for a change.

Email: [emailprotected]

The writer is an independent education researcher and consultant. She has a PhD in Education from Michigan State University.

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VCRs, iPhones and face masks - The News International

Human Behavior

Three Weeks After George Floyd Protests, No Spike In COVID-19 In Chicago, But It’s Still Too Soon To Celebrate – msnNOW

Provided by CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) Its been three weeks since the first major protests in Chicago in reaction to the death of George Floyd.

During those demonstrations, many wore masks, but others did not. And social distancing was top of mind, but sometimes difficult. For these reasons, health officials were concerned about a potential spike in COVID-19 cases.

However, at least so far, that hasnt happened. Being outside, wearing masks and trying to remain as far apart as possible seemed to help. Over 21 days, which included dozens of protests with thousands people, there has been a deep drop in Chicago COVID-19 cases.

Weve started to see a decline in the number of cases, which is great, said Jennifer Layden, chief medical officer of the Chicago Department of Public Health. But we are still in a relatively high-incident state.

Walk as we did through the Juneteenth crowd today and you saw Chicagoans on defense: masks, signs, and awareness. But the virus never stops playing offense.

It takes several days to almost weeks before someone exposed and is identified as a new infection, said Layden

Three weeks of good data since the protests, isnt the whole Chicago COVID picture.

At the same time we saw protests, we were coming out of shelter in place, Layden said.

That makes two big swings in human behavior. Experts say dont think of this report card as A+ work but more of an incomplete.

I would say its too early to say for sure, said Layden.

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Three Weeks After George Floyd Protests, No Spike In COVID-19 In Chicago, But It's Still Too Soon To Celebrate - msnNOW

Human Behavior

Pastor Rick Sams: Before it’s too late – News – The Review – The-review

The classic Rozin Dixie Cup Experiment is a study of human behavior. It starts with having a volunteer simply swallow their own saliva. As we said as kids, "easy peasy." Then have this same person spit into a sterile Dixie cup. Next ... you tell them to ... wait for it DRINK IT.

It doesnt matter that only seconds prior, when the saliva was in her mouth, swallowing it was no problem. But now it becomes a gross loogie when you ask her to drink it from the Dixie cup.

Heres another childish phrase from our playground. If someone said something mean, we would demand: "You take that back!" But just like saliva, once out of your mouth, its hard to take back. We cant just reel in spoken words like some big fish.

Any words youve said to your father (or any male role model) over the years you wish you could take back? How about words you wish youd said, but now its too late. Hes gone you cant express or take back anything.

"The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life ... how good is a timely word ... good news gives health to the bones." (Proverbs 15:4,23, 30)

Let this little poem guide you this Fathers Day ... and every day.

Before its too late

If you have a tender message, Or a loving word to say,

Do not wait till you forget it, But whisper it today.

The tender word unspoken, The letter never sent,

The long forgotten messages, The wealth of love unspent,

For these some hearts are breaking, For these some loved ones wait;

So show them that you care for them, Before its too late.

Frank Herbert Sweet

Rick Sams is pastor emeritus of Alliance Friends Church.

Originally posted here:
Pastor Rick Sams: Before it's too late - News - The Review - The-review

Human Behavior

Three Weeks After George Floyd Protests, No Spike In COVID-19 In Chicago, But Its Still Too Soon To Celebrate – CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) Its been three weeks since the first major protests in Chicago in reaction to the death of George Floyd.

During those demonstrations, many wore masks, but others did not. And social distancing was top of mind, but sometimes difficult. For these reasons, health officials were concerned about a potential spike in COVID-19 cases.

However, at least so far, that hasnt happened. Being outside, wearing masks and trying to remain as far apart as possible seemed to help. Over 21 days, which included dozens of protests with thousands people, there has been a deep drop in Chicago COVID-19 cases.

Weve started to see a decline in the number of cases, which is great, said Jennifer Layden, chief medical officer of the Chicago Department of Public Health. But we are still in a relatively high-incident state.

Walk as we did through the Juneteenth crowd today and you saw Chicagoans on defense: masks, signs, and awareness. But the virus never stops playing offense.

It takes several days to almost weeks before someone exposed and is identified as a new infection, said Layden

Three weeks of good data since the protests, isnt the whole Chicago COVID picture.

At the same time we saw protests, we were coming out of shelter in place, Layden said.

That makes two big swings in human behavior. Experts say dont think of this report card as A+ work but more of an incomplete.

I would say its too early to say for sure, said Layden.

See the article here:
Three Weeks After George Floyd Protests, No Spike In COVID-19 In Chicago, But Its Still Too Soon To Celebrate - CBS Chicago