Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

The Internet of Things: Difficult to Define, Quick to Grow – ETF Trends

As difficult as it may be, when you look for positive things in 2020, you may cite the internet of things (IoT). Among many other things, the internet has helped to facilitate communication amidst a pandemic stressing the need for social distancing. It is certainly benefitting the Global X Internet of Things ETF (SNSR).

Per Morningstar performance numbers, the fund has been able to generate a return of 29% year-to-date amid the pandemic. It boasted a stellar 48% gain in 2019. As more societal demands on social distancing increase as the number of coronavirus cases rise, the internet will continue to play a vital role through the end of 2020 and beyond.

SNSR seeks to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the Indxx Global Internet of Things Thematic Index. The fund invests at least 80% of its total assets in the securities of the underlying index.

The underlying index is designed to provide exposure to exchange-listed companies in developed markets that facilitate the Internet of Things industry, including companies involved in wearable technology, home automation, connected automotive technology, sensors, networking infrastructure/software, smart metering, and energy control devices.

Per a CRN article, the pandemic took a hit on worldwide IoT spending this year, according to research firm IDC, but double-digit growth is expected to return in the next few years. Among the drivers for this increased spending which will reach an annual growth rate of 11.3 percent over IDCs 2020-2024 forecast period will be a greater need for connected devices to enable remote operations and artificial intelligence to monitor human behavior.

That said, SNSR should continue to experience exponential growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic drove businesses and employees to become more reliant on technology for both professional and personal purposes, Forrester wrote in October for its Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth.

For more news and information, visit the Thematic Investing Channel.

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The Internet of Things: Difficult to Define, Quick to Grow - ETF Trends

Human Behavior

Local Hospitals See Rush Of Severe COVID-19 Cases As Second Surge Intensifies – 27east.com

A second wave of the coronavirus pandemic continued to explode across Long Island this past week, much like it did last spring, as government and health officials scrambled to find ways to tamp down the wildfire as well as prepare to defend against its onslaught.

Local hospitals have seen new patients streaming in with severe symptoms of COVID-19 infections, some requiring intensive care and the support of ventilators to help them survive the respiratory distress.

Health officials said that contact tracing has continued to show that the spread of infections is mostly tied to small social gatherings of people from different households at which attendees do not wear face coverings or adhere to social distancing recommendations. The recent Thanksgiving holiday, officials say, seems certain to exacerbate that trend in the mushrooming spread.

East Hampton Town this week continued to see the steepest rise in new cases it has seen since the start of the pandemic. Between November 25 and December 2 there were 58 new cases confirmed in the town, an increase of 13 percent. There have now been 489 total infections confirmed among town residents since March.

Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said that the town is teetering on the edge of being classified as a microcluster under the state Department of Healths zone classification system. If the town were to reach the threshold for the first tier of microcluster designation, known as the Yellow Zone, there would have to be new testing protocols for schools, further restrictions on the size of public gatherings and how restaurants can operate.

Despite our constant urgings, the disease seems to be spreading within the community, he said, nodding to the pleadings in recent weeks of elected officials and public health experts for people to avoid social gatherings at which social distancing precautions are not being followed. This is concerning.

In Southampton Town, there were 131 new infections confirmed since November 25, a 7-percent increase in the total number, which now stands at 1,853.

There were 609 new cases confirmed on Tuesday, a 5.2 percent positivity rate among all those tested in the previous 24 hour period. The countys seven-day positivity rate is 4.2 percent.

As health officials said they have been expecting, the rising number of cases earlier this month is now staring to reflect in rising numbers of hospitalizations.

Both Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead reported steep increases to the number of COVID-19 cases they are treating in the past week.

As of Wednesday morning, PBMC had 31 admitted patients, even after two patients were discharged on Tuesday. There were just seven COVID-19 admissions on November 17.

Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has seen the number of patients it is treating nearly double in the past seven days, from eight on November 24 to 14 as of Wednesday morning. Four of those patients are in the hospitals intensive care unit, and two of those have had to be put on ventilators to help them breathe because of severe respiratory distress.

The hospital last week again halted all visitation by friends and family of admitted patients because of concern about spreading infection.

At the height of the first surge in the spring, the hospital had as many as 51 patients admitted for treatment of COVID-19 symptoms, and 20 in its intensive care units.

There are now more than 260 people hospitalized across Suffolk County, 48 of them in intensive care. Three people died on Tuesday from complications due to COVID-19 infections.

On Monday, Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered that all hospital networks begin planning for load balancing distributing patients among their various hospitals so that certain hospitals are not overwhelmed while others are mostly empty.

We are not going to live through the nightmare of overwhelmed hospitals again, he said.

He also ordered hospitals to begin organizing retired doctors and nurses as reserves to their current staffing to be prepared for a sustained surge in the number of COVID-19 patients being treated.

The governor said that the patterns of the new spread means there will not be an opportunity for one region of the state where infections are low to lend assistance to another region where they are higher, like in the spring, when the vast majority of infections and hospitalizations were in downstate regions.

Mr. Cuomo also hinted that if the state again approaches a hospitalization crisis, it could be forced to return to the NY Pause restrictions on non-essential businesses that were imposed, and largely paid dividends, in the spring.

Perhaps the lone bright spot in the renewed surge has been that it has not manifested itself in schools. On Tuesday, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said that the lack of spread in schools has been remarkable and is a testament to how well the infections spread can be controlled when the recommended protocols are adhered to. He said it also should mean that the region will not be closing schools a key fear of parents and childhoold education experts alike.

As long as students and faculty are kept safe, schools should be kept open, Mr. Bellone said.

Where the sort of protocols that are protecting students from spreading the virus have not been followed namely small gatherings infections have exploded, the governor said.

This is all a function of human behavior, he said. If you wanted to get the rate to near zero, you could do it if you agree to certain behavior patterns.

Because that has not proven to be the case of late, the state expects the growth in cases to continue through the middle of January, Mr. Cuomo said, before plateauing, at a much higher level of infections than has been seen since the first surge waned in May.

So we have to settle in, he said on Monday. The good news is, New York is doing better than almost any other state. New York is better prepared than any other state. We did this before and well do it again.

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Local Hospitals See Rush Of Severe COVID-19 Cases As Second Surge Intensifies - 27east.com

Human Behavior

Block by block: Northampton resident walking all of the city’s streets – GazetteNET

NORTHAMPTON You may run into Francine M. Deutsch while taking a walk in Northampton if youre walking on a street that starts with a letter midway through the alphabet.

Shes on a mission to walk the entirety of every street in the city and has been walking them in alphabetical order. On a recent Saturday, she was walking on Kingsley Avenue and on a later weekday she strolled down Lake Street.

Im sort of compulsive person, she said. I like these projects where you do all of something. She added, When I was a kid I wanted to read all the books in the library until I realized it was impossible.

Deutsch retired in 2017 from her job as a professor of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College, and started walking all the streets as a hobby.

I was just doing it very haphazardly, she said. But when COVID-19 hit in the spring, she started doing it religiously. Since March 15, Ive been doing it pretty much every day.

A 2014 list of city streets, the most recent one she could find, serves as her guide.

She has lived in Northampton for more than 30 years, but says shes now seeing a lot shes never seen before.

The most amazing thing is I didnt realize how big, physically big, Northampton is, she said. And also there are just so many little neighborhoods that even though Ive live here for over 30 years, theres so many places Ive never been to.

She was also struck by how many really rural or wild paces there are in Northampton horses, farms, woods, beautiful views of the mountains.

There are about 160 miles of paved and unpaved roads in Northampton, according to Donna LaScaleia director of the Department of Public Works. Some streets are too long for Deutsch to walk in one day, like Burts Pit Road, which she did over two days.

Deutsch is also documenting her walks with photos. I have thousands of pictures of Northampton, she said.

Those snapshots include houses, political signs and people. When she runs into someone on a walk, she asks to take their photo for record. About half of people she asks say yes, she estimated.

Im always curious about why people dont want their picture taken, she said. Im a social psychologist, so Im interested in human behavior. Its funny, people will sometimes say things like, not today, as if I am coming back next week. There are also many who are happy to be photographed. Thats just an interesting aspect of human behavior that I get to observe.

Deutsch saw William Helmreich walk all of New York Citys streets more than 6,000 miles. He was sort of my inspiration, she said. Helmreich died of COVID-19 in March. I always imagined I would meet him sometime and tell him how he inspired me, she said.

Though winter is around the corner, Deutsch plans to continue the project. I have cleats on my shoes which I recommend to everyone, she said. As long as were not in a blizzard I plan to keep going as long as its not zero degrees or inclement weather.

Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.

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Block by block: Northampton resident walking all of the city's streets - GazetteNET

Human Behavior

Letters: Student loans, OSU’s name and restoring unity in the USA – The Columbus Dispatch

Letters to the Editor| The Columbus DispatchCollege students should be responsible, pay off loans

There is talk circulating that some in the new administration want to forgive student loan debt. Really!

My family was not "dirt poor," but we were poor. When I started college in 1958 they did not have student loan programs and tuition assistance programs like today. I had to work while attending college, 32 hours weekly during the school year and 40 hoursIn the summer.

On Mondays and Thursdays, I went in at 3 p.m.and got off the next morning at 2 a.m.,followed by 8 a.m.classes. I survived and carried a 3.22 GPA (out of 4.0). By working, I missed the card parties, the drinking at local pubs, the tennis and golf matches, etc. Instead, I learned valuable life lessons regarding financial management and how to take care of myself.

Many kids today have an entitlement mentality and think the world owes them everything. Put everything on the "tab" and pay later. To those I say: "you reap what you sow." You run up the tab, you pay for it. It is called being responsible.

James A. Gambert, Pickerington

Here is the answer for Buckeyes who don't know why theTheis capitalized.

When I enrolled atOhio State Universityin 1954 (tuition was $75/quarter, season football tickets $18),we had a fraternityalumni adviser named Tom Johnson.Johnsonalsowas stadium announcer for OSU football games.

EverySaturday when the band came down thenorth ramp and into formation at thenorth goal post,Johnsonwould announce "Ladies and gentlemen,TheOhio State University marching band!!"

Thus, TheOhio State University.

Robert Leftwich, West Chester

Seventy million people voted for Donald Trump.This country is not just divided, but dangerously divided. The Democrats need to stop celebrating the win and start thinking about what they need todoto change some minds.

Susan Miller, Columbus

Public policy change requires more than three-word catch phrases. Calling for public policy change invites clever phrases suitable for media moments. However, these phrases often mask the complexity of real change and undermine real change.

Nancy Reagans Just say no! campaign sounded like a good idea but failed because public policy related to drug abuse is more complicated than three words. Trickle-downeconomics sounds good in theory but has never worked because the economy and human behavior are more complicated than three words. In this context, I am concerned about defund thepolice.

I am horrified by the racist abuse and killings by police and policing culture locally and nationwide. I strongly agree we need to include social workers, crisis intervention specialists, educatorsand other nonpolice resources in our public safety strategies. However, if someone steals my car, I dont want a crisis intervention specialist trying to find it.

If I see a car speeding the wrong way on a busy street, Im not going to call a social worker to stop it. Defunding police sounds like an easy solution to a complicated problem. It also has the effect of polarizing the community. We need to increase funding for prevention activities, crisis intervention, treatment, civilian review of police,police culture changeand more.

We also need public participation in creating and monitoringthoughtful policies that reflect best practices of public health, safety andinclusion.

Chris Kloth, Columbus

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Letters: Student loans, OSU's name and restoring unity in the USA - The Columbus Dispatch

Human Behavior

‘Grey’s Anatomy’s’ Medical Expert: "COVID Is No. 1 on the Call Sheet" in Season 17 – Hollywood Reporter

Grey's Anatomy, television's longest-running primetime medical drama, has dedicated its 17th season to front-line workers battling the novel coronavirus pandemic. It is also not shying away from accurately depicting every facet of how COVID-19 is impacting medical professionals, patients and their families.

Since Grey's returned for its current season in mid-November, many of the headlines have focused on the surprising return of former leading man Patrick Dempsey, whose Derek Shepherd was shockingly killed off in season 11. But for Zoanne Clack, a doctor, writer and exec producer who has been with Grey's since the pilot, COVID-19 is the season's real headliner.

Clack, who spent a year working with the CDC after her residency in emergency medicine at Emory University before following her dreams of writing creatively, is among those charged with overseeing medical storylines on Grey's. After Meredith Grey (series star Ellen Pompeo) was hospitalized with COVID-19 during the Nov. 19 episode and became the second doctor on Grey's to have the virus, Clack revealed that the show's fictional infection rate was similar to the world's and that the show is "going all in" on its portrayal of the pandemic.

Below, Clack interviewed via email talks with The Hollywood Reporter about the lengths to which Grey's Anatomy is going to accurately portray all the ways the pandemic is impacting medical professionals, why the show won't politicize the pandemic (or mask wearing) and her hopes for what the audience takes away from seeing an accurate portrayal of history onscreen.

Krista Vernoff has said she previously didn't think Grey's should tackle COVID-19. As a doctor and a writer on the series, why did you feel it was important for Grey's to not only portray the pandemic but to do so as accurately as possible?

We were definitely concerned about COVID fatigue from the audience: living with COVID news day-to-day and watching it on a fictional show was a hard barrier to cross. But talking to front-linehealth care workers pushed us forward onto our current path. On our show, I've started a program called the Medical Communications Fellowship that allows active surgical residents to spend three to six months with the writers during the research years of their residencies. This has led to a few of them staying on as consultants, and we also always have working residents in our midst. Those doctors, in addition to some of our tried-and-true consultants that we go to for advice and expert opinions on everyepisode, pressed upon us the overall life-changing effects COVID is having and will continue to have on our medical system. We also spoke to a number of otherphysicians once we decided to go in that direction and we felt their stories had to be told.

This pandemic is the single-biggest medical story of our time and likely a permanent game-changer as to how we practice medicine and how we look at the world. Being a medical show that focuses on our doctors' professional and private lives and one that takes great pride in being a voice for the voiceless and understanding that responsibility, we felt compelled to tell the stories of loneliness, fear and bravery that our health care workers and the patients are going through. Of course, we were scared that people would not want to go through the misery of COVID once more, but I think we've found a nice balance of keeping a Grey's vibe on the episodes. It's not all COVID, all the time, but COVID is always the backdrop. As I've heard people say, COVID is No. 1 on the call sheet. I also believe that going through the pandemic with these characters, whom people love dearly or love to hate makes the audience feel like they're going through it with friends, which makes me think it is felt more deeply, and not just a rehash of the constant roll of statistics and mortality rates. The audience is seeing real stories by characters played by real people that they can relate to, and bringing these stories into their homes and feeling like we're all in this together can actually be comforting.

Through two episodes, the series has not politicized the pandemic or wearing masks. As the medical community continues to post videos encouraging things like social distancing and mask wearing, is that territory Grey's will explore?

We will never politicize COVID because COVID should never have been politicized in the first place. We are dealing only with science and facts, not conjecture. We take our information from first-hand experience, medical journals and experts. We will always model mask wearing and social distancing even when we are not directly saying the words. There's a theory in public health that I feel validates my existence being a writer instead of a doctor on the front lines, and that is Bandura's Social Learning Theory. It basically says that a lot of human behavior is learned observationally through modeling, especially when the modeling is done by beloved people or characters to which the learner or in our case, audience has a particular attachment. In the case of Grey's Anatomy, people have grown with these characters some have literally grown up with them over 17 seasons! and the actions that these characters take can be very impactful. We never question the validity of COVID. Every character, like the medical profession, takes it as fact, and it is our hope that the audience does too and goes along this ride with us. And yes, there will be times when it is said outright that people need to wear their mask or stay 6 feet away it was done in the first episodes but we try to make it flow as easily into the stories as the medicine always has; it should never take you out of the story being told. Washing and sterilizing hands is also a big backdrop of the season. There should be a bingo game where you can mark off every time a character uses sanitizer or washes their hands while they're doing their regular dialogue or moving in and out of scenes.

You tweeted that the COVID infection rate on Grey's is similar to where things were at the time in the real world. What have you specifically pushed for in depicting how the pandemic impacts first responders at a hospital?

We have been trying to strike a balance between our characters contracting COVID and the rate at which health care workers are contracting it. I wrote that tweet actually coming off of finding out that Koracick (played by Greg Germann) had tested positive for COVID. That story served a double punch: first, that people can walk around asymptomatic and spread the disease unknowingly; and second, that health care workers are out there every day working hard and being exposed especially since this was our second character to contract COVID. It shows that anyone can get it and that it spreads easily. Our decision to start just a bit after the pandemic began in America was a wise one, because we never have to worry about being ahead of the reality. We are basing our characters' actions on what was known early on, and we get more information and integrate it into the show as the world got more information and integrated it into their practice. Fortunately, we have many more therapies now and a decreased mortality rate, but sadly the positivity rates are still increasing exponentially. Historically, people will be able to watch this season of Grey's and see the medical story of our lifetime unfold.

The docs are all in these big almost helmet-like masks with tubes down their backs. Are those an invention of the show designed to see the actors' faces or are they working masks being used in hospitals to battle the pandemic?

Those helmet-like masks are real and are calledPAPR but of course we wanted to see their faces as much as possible! "PAPR" stands for Powered Air Purifying Respirator. In the real world, they are used when individuals have the potential to be exposed to airborne pathogens and are convenient because they don't have to be "fit-tested" like an N95 mask does. I thought they did get fogged up sometimes early on but I asked someone in production and he said it was never a problem probably because they do allow airflow in and out of them. But we had to do a lot of figuring out about how to light them properly to prevent glare and we ended up with some kind of anti-glare material that was fitted into them.

In two episodes, we're seeing the pain of the pandemic told from two COVID-positive doctors in Meredith and Tom, one of whom is on death's door and seeing visions, and the other is asymptomatic. Why is it important to portray both ends of the spectrum?

This goes back to how our knowledge of COVID is increasing daily. New symptoms, no symptoms, asymptomatic spread, less spread from surfaces these are all things we learned as we went and our doctors on the show are just learning. Since testing was and still is in some areas so unavailable at the start, we didn't realize that people could basically be asymptomatic but positive and spreading the disease. Tom Koracickeven says, "I'm not symptomatic," when he's told to go home and quarantine. As the episodes unfold, our doctors will see all or at least very many of the complications of COVID as we learn like science learned that it is very much a vascular disease thatattacks blood vessels and the consequences from that.We'll see people who recover, people who die, people who have mild symptoms, people who have post-COVID syndrome in one way or another the full spectrum. On the one hand, it's a very complicated disease, mostly because it's new and unheard of and we're still trying to figure it out. On the other hand, it's a virus. It spreads like a virus. Once we learn more, we integrate more, we learn how to live with it and how to treat it better, and that journey will be reflected on the show.

Many of the headlines are focusing on the return of Patrick Dempsey. How much of Meredith's visions of Derek are inspired by what COVID-19 patients are experiencing i.e. seeing visions, having visceral dreams?

From the small amount of research that I've done on visceral "COVID dreams," they seem to be the stuff of non-COVID victims, just people going through this pandemic, whether they have COVID or not. We actually started early in the season talking about different characters having very vivid, very surreal COVID dreams in each episode, but it evolved to what you see on your screen. Mer's COVID dreams are more like her experience in season three, where she's kind of in limbo between life and death, holding on to one and reaching out to the other. And it's a chance to bring some joy into the abyss that is COVID and that is 2020. I loved how people on Twitter were saying that Grey's saved 2020 for them. One of our writers said we were making America Grey's again.

This season started by portraying events in April and continues to reflect the early days of the pandemic. Will the number of docs who test positive for COVID continue to be portrayed by the rates hospitals are experiencing?

Yes, we will try to reflect the reality of what's happening out there in the real world. Grey's Anatomy is letting people know that we're all living through this together, and no one is alone, no matter how isolating it might feel.

Creatively speaking, will the season always be a few months behind where we are in the pandemic? How are you talking about ending a season given the uncertainty around rising COVID cases and hospitalization rates and the evolving news around vaccines?

Honestly, the season is ever-evolving, day to day. Some days we think the season will span two weeks, other days we say we're going to catch up to present time. We really just let the stories be our guide. The vaccine looks so promising that maybe there will be a way to integrate it in the future, though we haven't discussed that possibility yet or how we would tackle that subject, if at all.

As you were researching the impact of the pandemic on hospitals, what was the most striking thing you discovered?

Oh, so many things! In speaking with front-line providers, we learned how this pandemic is fundamentally and perhaps permanently changing medicine. The use of masks in hospitals may become permanent because they've noticed other infection rates ones that historically spread within hospitals have gone down. The advancement of telemedicine has led to the ability to perhaps expand access to care in the long run. The creative ways that people were working together to expand their hospitals has led to using cafeterias and ORs for COVID patient care even after we were initially so unprepared for such devastation. And seeing, reading about, and conversing with people has shown us the utter strength and resilience of mankind, especially our health care workers who have been working tirelessly during this pandemic and suffering unfathomable mental and physical strain because of it.

The series is also portraying the emotional impact on doctors who are losing an ungodly number of patients with Maggie's (Kelly McCreary) character. How closely is Maggie's journey adhering to other doctors you've spoken with?

One-hundred percent accurate. We're portraying the emotional impact with most of the characters in one way or another. During our pre-writing research time, we watched a lot of video diaries of doctors and read innumerablearticles about what they are going through. We talked to a lot of doctors ourselves also, and made a point to speak with a lot of doctors of color since, as you know, COVID is disproportionately hitting marginalized communities. We took a deep dive into that aspect of it and all the rage and sadness that surrounds that fact, and that's a lot of what Maggie is portraying. But I would say that Meredith also had her moment of throwing things around before she got sick, and the audience can see the strain of the shortage of PPE with Koracick beating up boxes with a golf club they're definitely all feeling it.

There's also the grief of having to see patients dying alone as their family members are not permitted in to visit them. What have you heard from other fellow medical professionals about how this especially devastating part of the pandemic is impacting patients and their families?

This was one of the biggest points echoed throughout most of our consultations. The fact that so many people were dying alone. Many doctors were and are trying to make concessions and have family come and see their loved one if they are near death. I had that kindness afforded to me when my own mom was sick in the hospital with COVID. They arranged it so that I could see her and be with her for a short period of time when they thought it was potentially her last day. My mom ended up becoming a COVID survivor but that was after spending many, many weeks in the hospital. But even with that visit, I wouldn't have been able to be there at the moment she took her last breath if that had been the case. I got my hour visit, and then waited for the call that fortunately did not come. The loneliness is on all sides patients dying alone, health care workers not seeing their families for days or sometimes weeks at a time, those that have to quarantine if they're positive. People maintaining 6 feet and avoiding hugging, friendly cheek kisses or even handshakes. This whole disease is isolating and scary.

Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays on ABC. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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'Grey's Anatomy's' Medical Expert: "COVID Is No. 1 on the Call Sheet" in Season 17 - Hollywood Reporter

Human Behavior

TEXAS VIEW: Why are we bringing thousands of rodeo fans to Fort Worth area? – Odessa American

The advice comes over and over again, often with urgent, dire tones: avoid large gatherings with other people. Its crucial to curtailing the rapidly growing pandemic.

Why, then, are Fort Worth and Arlington eagerly welcoming thousands of rodeo fans to town in early December? After all, theyre not coming here to enjoy our hotels, lovely though they may be. Theyre coming, by the thousands, for public events.

Its confusing at best to say in one moment that a family holiday dinner will spread disease while thousands of people in an arena or other venue Globe Life Field for the 2020 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo or, say, AT&T Stadium for Dallas Cowboys games is fine.

Though the main events for the rodeo are at the Rangers ballpark, Fort Worth will see a host of related activities, especially in the Stockyards. Both cities and event organizers have taken steps to make the events safe, and they vow mask requirements will be enforced.

This Editorial Board has urged adaptation to the virus, following science about how its spread and figuring out how activities can be altered to be safe. But part of adaptation is acknowledging reality about the current moment of the pandemic and whether a gathering that might have been safer before is too dangerous now. With Tarrant County and Texas setting COVID-19 case records, the timing is terrible.

Plans are in place for limited capacity, giving out masks and stringent cleaning, but organizers cant control human behavior. Visitors will cluster in hotels and restaurants. Masks will slip. The virus will spread.

In this phase of the pandemic, the bar for events such as these should be high. When the deal to move the event from Las Vegas to Arlington was announced in September, perhaps it seemed the virus would remain under better control. And the area certainly needs the economic boost, particularly in the hospitality industry. But future requests for crowd permits must be closely scrutinized.

After all, if illness threatens to overwhelm our hospitals, any financial gain will be lost if businesses have to reduce their operating capacity under Gov. Greg Abbotts standing emergency order.

Its a high threshold: If 15% of hospital beds in a region of the state defined as a trauma service area are filled with COVID-19 patients for more than a week, businesses must ratchet back from 75% to 50%. Tarrant County and its urban/suburban neighbors are grouped with more rural counties near the Red River, so itll take more than just the local case surge. But the area has been close to the limit in recent days.

And make no mistake, our hospitals are in danger. A University of North Texas Health Science Center epidemiologist warned that we could quickly run out of beds, based on the explosive growth in coronavirus cases. Overwhelmed health care facilities would be a problem for anyone needing care, not just COVID-19 patients.

Throughout the pandemic, the most difficult question for leaders and policymakers is how to enforce restrictions. County leaders grappled with the question last Tuesday as commissioners voted to extend the local emergency declaration and the mandate that businesses require customers to wear masks.

Theres been confusion over how far the governors order goes. County Judge Glen Whitley, acting on the advice of District Attorney Sharen Wilsons office, says Abbotts order doesnt allow enforcement of social-distancing requirements in businesses, a key question for restaurants especially.

City leaders are adamant that the order does impose such rules. Theyre the ones doing the bulk of enforcing, through code-compliance departments. And the need for distancing should be obvious.

Its a shame if local businesses, the backbone of our economy, face tougher scrutiny than big, tourist-drawing events. Fort Worth and Arlington leaders need to tread carefully in allowing such gatherings.

This area excels at attracting events and their cash-generating crowds. But right now, we dont need to draw more coronavirus cases, too.

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TEXAS VIEW: Why are we bringing thousands of rodeo fans to Fort Worth area? - Odessa American

Human Behavior

Trump Stole the Election from Himself, Here’s How – City Watch

But when viewed through the lens of philosophy and psychology (which happens to be my particular academic training), his actions are not all that confusing. Irrational and stupid, yes. But not confusing. In other words, when we look at his mistakes leading up to the election, it becomes clear that the laws of human behavior all but determined that he would engage in self-sabotage. These five laws are well known to anyone who has studied personality traits in-depth or have observed how easy it is for human beings to become their own worst enemy. That is what happened to Mr. Trump by the time Americans finally went to the polls on November 3rd.

Number one. Trump succumbed to a series ofSelf-Fulfilling Prophecies. A self-fulfilling prophecy is when you have such a strong-felt belief that something will happen that you can influence making it happen. In Georgia and other battleground states, for example, Trump told his supporters not to use mail-in ballots. For months, he could not stop predicting massive fraud and voter suppression, and guess what, he wound up suppressing his base. Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, a Republican, told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB that the president hurt his cause by discouraging mail-in voting, which he portrayed as a scam. Raffensperger told the station that 24,000 Republican voters who voted absentee in the primary did not vote in the general election. Those 24,000 people did not vote in the fall, Raffensperger said. They did not vote absentee because they were told by the president, Dont vote absentee. Its not secure. But then they did not come out and vote in person.

The second law of human behavior that proved to be an obstacle to Trump is known as theHalo Effect, which suggests we use first impressions to make a total judgment about people and events. There are many examples of the Halo Effect corrupting his ability to discern friends from enemies. But the most obvious example is how he based his assessment of foreign rulers on first impressions and gut feelings. How many conservatives and moderate Republicans could not stomach the way he threw our allies under the bus and praised rogue actors such as Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin?

For instance, after his first meeting with the North Korean dictator-a man who supposedly fed his relatives to wild dogs- Trump said that he and Kim understand each other, and sometimes that can lead to very good things. About Erdogan, he once said, "He's tough, but I get along with him. And maybe that's a bad thing, but I think it's a really good thing." And about Putin, Trump never tired of lavishing praise. "The man (Putin) has very strong control over a country," he said. "Now, it's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system, he's been a leader. Far more than our president has been a leader."

It is a low bar indeed to refrain from congratulating and embracing thugs and mass murderers. Yet Mr. Trump could not get over that bar. No democrat told him to speak that way. It was no "Fake News" report that captured these statements. Trump said them on the air in front of millions of viewers. To this day, he has never really had a bad thing to say about these anti-democratic rulers. Who knows for sure how many swing voters he lost as a result, but it was his poor judgment that forced them away.

Trump also succumbed toThe Ignorance Law. The Ignorance Law posits that when people do not know the facts (about another person, situation, event), they assume the worst and act as if it is true. The killing of George Floyd and the moral outrage it unleashed in our nation is a prime example of this law taking effect in the mind of a profoundly prejudicial man. Rather than denouncing white supremacy, police brutality, and structural racism, Mr. Trump double-downed on his law and order rhetoric. He tried to paint a vision of America that looked more like 1960 than 2020, labeled Antifa a terrorist organization, sanctioned the deployment of chemical weapons to disperse citizens using their first amendment rights, and threw gasoline on the fire whenever he could. In a time when America was in desperate need of a unifying message and messenger, Trump attempted to spark a racial war. It was a terrible miscalculation of the national mood and one that cost him dearly on election day, especially with moderates, young voters, persons of color, and suburban women.

Related to the Law of Ignorance is the influence ofThe Assumption Theory, which suggests that whenever we encounter a situation (people, event, idea), we assume we know what situation we are in and respond with a pre-programmed behavior already established to manage it. His total failure to understand the suburbs cost him dearly in states such as Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Contrary to his characterizations, suburbs no longer look like the ones he remembers. Whites comprised less than ten percent of the growth of the suburban population in the 100 largest metros between the years 2000 and 2010.

What is more, a recent Monmouth poll showed that, overall, about '3 in 4 Americans believe that having more racially integrated neighborhoods in their local communities is either very (41%) or somewhat (33%) important.' His assumption that everyone who lives in a suburb is doing so because they want to live apart from people of color is a gross distortion of reality, one that was ultimately self-defeating.

And that brings us to the fourth law of human behavior simply calledMindset. A mindset can get in the way of us seeing new options or ways of handling new situations. Whenever we approach a new problem with the same skills, expectations, and past experiences to guide us, our critical thinking diminishes and solutions become less clear. In the case of the COVID pandemic, his inability to think differently about problems ended up costing him the election and contributed to the death of thousands. All he had to do was assertively endorse masks and social distancing, utilize the full potential of the Defense Authorization Act, and galvanize the American people around a shared goal. But he could not do it. His mindset got in the way.

Because of the way he views the world, and American politics, in particular, it was impossible for him to think outside of the us vs. them paradigm. And because he is a devout follower of positive thinking as taught by the late Norman Vincent Peale, Trump could not bring himself to listen to anyone who had a dire message about the pandemic. He truly believed that he could make it go away with happy thoughts. Moreover, Trump could not bring himself to order a national mask mandate because he was unwilling to wear one. Why? Because of his vanity.

He said more than once that wearing masks is not presidential, and it makes him uncomfortable. That is what is meant by a self-destructive mindset. No one in his inner circle could convince him that telling people to wear masks would save lives and that many of those lives would be people who supported him. As a result, it was not COVID that ruined his reelection prospects. It was his dismal response to the crisis that ensured he would leave office a loser.

The bottom line is that Mr. Trump stole the election from himself. No widespread fraud. No massive conspiracy. No one else to blame but himself.

(George Cassidy Payne is a social worker, adjunct instructor of philosophy and a CityWatch contributor. He lives and works in Rochester, NY.)

-cw

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Trump Stole the Election from Himself, Here's How - City Watch

Human Behavior

Silent Spillover: Ebolavirus antibodies detected in people in DR Congo before the 2018 outbreak – On Health – BMC Blogs Network

Our new study published in One Health Outlook detected antibodies to ebolaviruses in people prior to the outbreak, suggesting exposure may be more common than previously thought, earlier cases may have been missed, and infection may not always lead to disease.

Tracey Goldstein 1 Dec 2020

Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro / AP Photo / picture alliance

Since Ebola virus first emerged in 1976 (Zaire ebolavirus = EBOV) there have been eight outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, of which the second largest in history was declared in August 2018. By the time the outbreak was declared over in June 2020, the region had experienced 3,481 cases and 2,299 deaths.

Goma, DR Congo; Credit: One Health Institute (PREDICT)

Our new study published in One Health Outlook detected antibodies to ebolaviruses in people prior to the outbreak, suggesting exposure may be more common than previously thought, earlier cases may have been missed, and infection may not always lead to disease. Sampling also detected the first antibodies to Bombali ebolavirus in one child, first discovered in bats in West Africa in 2018, providing critical evidence that spillover of this virus from bats to humans has likely occurred. Sampling also revealed that women were significantly more likely to be positive for antibodies than men, a finding consistent with other studies where the activities of women increase their risk of exposure.

So, how can we use this information to increase our understanding of viruses and advance our ability to reduce future outbreaks?

People sampled were patients seeking care for a range of clinical symptoms between May 2017 and April 2018, in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo near Virunga National Park. Samples were collected and tested from 272 people (identified as male or female) ranging in age from 2 to 68 years. None were diagnosed with hemorrhagic fever at the time of treatment or had been previously diagnosed with ebolavirus infection or disease.

Of the 272 patients sampled, 30 were seropositive (antibodies present) for ebolaviruses (EBOV = 29; BOMV = 1).

Location of villages and the Rubare Health Center in Rutshuru Health Zone, North Kivu Province where febrile study participants traveled from and were treated prior to Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Eastern DRC that began in 2018. The outbreak was first observed in the Mabalako Health Zone (yellow) in North Kivu before spreading to other areas (brown). Inset map of the DRC: Location of the 20182020 outbreak (yellow), study location (purple) and other EBOV outbreaks in the DRC to date (orange)

Demographic and behavioral information was also collected to identify risk factors for exposure. Livelihoods mainly consisted of crop production. Limited contact with wild animals (e.g. non-human primates, bats) was reported but contact with rodents and domestic animals (e.g. goats, sheep, dogs) was common.

Although both sexes tested positive for antibodies, as mentioned above, women were significantly more likely to be positive, and children (2-17 yrs) comprised 45% of the positives. This finding is consistent with other infectious disease studies demonstrating women have been shown to have an increased risk for exposure, likely due to their gender roles caring for children, the sick, and for animals. Children are also likely coming into contact with wild animals more frequently through hunting and play behaviors, increasing their risk of exposure.

Can antibody detection help prevent future outbreaks?

Detecting antibodies before or between outbreaks can help understand the geographic exposure to viruses. Spillover is likely more frequent than we realize and recognizing that spillover doesnt always lead to outbreaks is important, reinforcing the need to study and understand viral infection and exposure between outbreak events.

The fact that women and children were more likely to have antibodies suggests that awareness of the human behaviors that increase the risk of exposure is critically important to understanding how and when exposure may occur. When we understand the connections between human behavior and viral exposure we can begin to break those connections and reduce outbreaks.

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Silent Spillover: Ebolavirus antibodies detected in people in DR Congo before the 2018 outbreak - On Health - BMC Blogs Network

Human Behavior

Too early to tell if Utahns followed Thanksgiving health recommendations – fox13now.com

SALT LAKE CITY After weeks of pleading from health leaders across not only the state but the country for people to avoid traveling for Thanksgiving and to only see people they live with, the holiday is over and it becomes a wait and see game.

Unless people really took the public health warnings and stayed home and didnt congregate as multiple household units coming together, this has the potential of being a big spreading event, this entire holiday season, Erin Clouse, Strategic Engagement Manager for Health Sciences at the University of Utah Health said.

READ: Utahs high schools are seeing more and bigger COVID-19 outbreaks

In March, Clouse, like many Utahns, began working from home. She began to develop a curiosity of COVID-19 trends, so she started plotting and making graphs.

I wanted to see for myself, I thought maybe there were some interesting stories that werent being described very well, she said.

Months later, what started as a hobby has turned into something people are using to look at COVID-19 Trends and providing an easy to understand look at the pandemic. The most surprising thing has been to see how much you can predict human behavior, Clouse said.

It was just really interesting to see human behavior really leading to spreading of this disease, over and over again, she said.

After every major holiday since the pandemic, Utah has seen a spike in cases, Clouse said. This will be the first holiday that was mostly celebrated inside which adds another level of concern. It usually takes 10-14 days to see the impact from an event, Clouse said.

It is going to be a wait and see how vigilant was the population over Thanksgiving to stop and slow the spread, she said.

READ: Man arrested after refusing to wear face mask on airplane departing from Utah

People who did travel or meet with people outside of their immediate household should monitor for symptoms and take extra precautions including possibly getting tested or even quarantining if someone believed they were exposed, Dr. Todd Vento, infectious disease physician for Intermountain Healthcare, said.

Youre hearing out of the White House task force from Dr. Burks and others is that they are essentially saying, make an assumption that you were exposed at Thanksgiving if you traveled and you met with individuals outside your home, he said.

Right now, Utah is seeing a slight decrease in the rolling COVID-19 seven-day positivity rate and while hospitals are spread thin, they are managing, Vento said. There is true concern what the Thanksgiving holiday, and the remainder of the holiday season will bring, Vento said.

The next step is are we going to have a surge within a surge because of something like a super spreader event like traveling associated with Thanksgiving. If that were to happen, thats when I think you would see what people are considering a tipping point of having to transition more into crisis standards of care potentially, he said.

It will all depend on how many people contract COVID-19 and how many of them end up in the hospital.

READ: Contracting COVID-19 can lead to PTSD, anxiety, depression

The latest available data shows most people are contracting COVID-19 from informal, casual gatherings, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Health said. The current surge in cases already is impacting COVID-19 contract tracing, Jenny Johnson said.

In some areas we are not able to do full contract tracing, which means you could be exposed to COVID-19 and youre never going to get a call from the Health Dept. simply because our staff cannot keep up with the people who test positive, she said.

It could be three weeks before Utahns see the full impact of the Thanksgiving holiday including hospitalizations.

For the latest information on COVID-19 in Utah, CLICK HERE.

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Too early to tell if Utahns followed Thanksgiving health recommendations - fox13now.com

Human Behavior

5 Hot IoT Trends To Watch In 2021 And Beyond – CRN

The coronavirus pandemic took a hit on worldwide IoT spending this year, according to research firm IDC, but double-digit growth is expected to return in the next few years.

Among the drivers for this increased spending which will reach an annual growth rate of 11.3 percent over IDCs 2020-2024 forecast period will be a greater need for connected devices to enable remote operations and artificial intelligence to monitor human behavior.

[Related: The 10 Coolest Industrial IoT Startups Of 2020]

Many of these things have come to the forefront this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but their collective importance is expected to increase in the near future.

The COVID-19 pandemic drove businesses and employees to become more reliant on technology for both professional and personal purposes, Forrester wrote in October for its Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth.

What follows are five hot IoT trends to watch in 2021 and beyond.

With a significant number of employees expected to continue working from home next year, some employers are expected to consolidate their real estate holdings and find ways to save money on space and energy. One way they will do this, according to Forrester, is through IoT applications for smart office initiatives. These initiatives will include smart lighting, energy and environmental monitoring as well as sensor-enabled space utilization and activity monitoring, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way many organizations think about virus spread, so expect to see more IoT technologies in the field that monitors behavior in various ways to enforce health and safety guidelines, according to Gartners Top Strategic Technology Trends For 2021 report. This will include using sensors or RFID tags to ensure employees are washing hands and using computer vision to determine if employees are wearing masks. Gartner refers to this collection and analysis of behavioral data to influence how people behave the Internet of Behavior. But this concept will expand beyond public health concerns to other areas, like commercial vehicles, which organizations are starting to monitor using various sensors. However, Gartner noted, privacy laws will impact the extent to which these new ways of tracking and influencing behavior will be adopted.

Location data became more relevant than ever this year due to the coronavirus pandemic prompting many retailers and other kinds of organizations shifting to things like curbside pickup and remote check-in. Forrester expects this to become the norm next year as location data becomes core in delivering convenient customer and employee experiences. This means there will be greater need for technology vendors and partners who can help these businesses use location data in addition to a third-party source for collecting location data that consumers can trust, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

Manufacturers, distributors, utilities and pharmaceutical companies have had to connect industrial assets this year to enable remote operations and that will lead to even greater investments in IoT in 2021 to meet growing demand from customers, according to Forrester. This approach is allowing companies to increasingly rely on remote experts to repair systems so that downtime is minimal and expensive travel is avoided. More companies, particularly field service firms and industrial OEMs, will increasingly use this approach, making connected machines more ubiquitous than ever before, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping many people at home in 2020, there will be a greater need moving forward to use connected health care solutions to manage illnesses and monitor health. Forrester expects this will drive a surge in adoption of wearables and sensors to help patients keep track of things like chronic conditions and cancer. There will also be greater interest in digital health devices among consumers due to convivence and more affordable prices, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

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5 Hot IoT Trends To Watch In 2021 And Beyond - CRN