Items

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  2021-03-10

  Pandemic downturn leads to animal abuse crisis in Kazakhstan

  Kazakhstan is facing a multitude of problems, including a weak currency, dependence on fluctuating oil prices, a closed political system and dire human rights. Amid all of this, the fate of its abused pets may seem trivial. However, passionate activists are rising up to take a stand for animal rights. As the Central Asian state’s socio-economic conditions have worsened over the past year due to the pandemic, more pet owners have been abandoning their animals or committing violence against them. And just as animal shelters are more needed than ever, they’re grappling with an influx of animals, a lack of funding and a legislative vacuum on animal rights.
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  2020-04-19

  The call has been answered

  The article discusses the surge of pet adoptions from shelters during the pandemic.
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  2020-04-10

  Thanks to Sheltering in Place, Animal Shelters Are Empty

  This article discusses the animal adoption trend in the United States during the pandemic. Some shelters find themselves completely empty, which is a dream come true for animal lovers. On the flip side, there are families in crisis, particularly in large cities, that have been forced to give up their pets. Fortunately, with so many foster and adoptive families on waiting lists, these pets won't be going to shelters for any length of time.
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  2021-05-31

  No, People Are Not Returning Pandemic Dogs in Droves

  This article explains that we should not be alarmed by the headlines that state that pandemic pets are returning to shelters as their owners return to work. The numbers just don't support that supposition. While abandonment rates are on the rise, they appear to simply be returning to pre-covid rates.
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  2021-05-08

  US dog shelters struggle with returns after pandemic adoption boom - BBC News

  This story from the BBC talks about how many dogs adopted during the pandemic are being returned to shelters once life returns to normal. Some adopters did not think ahead or understand all the implications of pet ownership. This is a traumatic experience for these poor animals. Also fewer dogs were neutered/spayed during the pandemic, so there is an uptick in the number of puppies needing homes.
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  2021-01-26

  Running Out of Adoptable Pets

  During the pandemic, shelters are having the best problem possible- there aren't enough homeless animals to meet the demand. It is a dream come true scenario for animal lovers everywhere. With more people working from home than ever before, families have more time to devote to a pet. Hopefully the trend will continue, and owners will not surrender their animals after life returns to normal.
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  2021-05-03

  Jeff Foster Oral History, 2021/05/03

  [Curator's Note] Elizabeth Hathorn interviews Jeff Foster, a college student and member of the U.S. Army. He discusses the effects of COVDI-19 on college classes and on military training. He also touches on a few other aspects of life during the COVID-19 quarantine.
• 
  2020-08-17

  Community Paramedics Help Protect Homeless Populations from Covid

  This article discusses the use of community paramedics in the Covid-19 prevention efforts for San Diego's homeless population. Community paramedics are specifically trained paramedics that shift their focus from the treatment/transport to the hospital model, to a home-care model where the patient receives treatment and stays at home. In this case, they are being used to staff clinics at homeless shelters to provide care and Covid testing to their homeless population. The article references a 2017 hepatitis A outbreak in their homeless population and how that event has influenced the efforts during Covid to prevent a major homeless population Covid-19 outbreak. The article also explains the complexities of running these clinics but that it is worthwhile to aid a community that is among the most vulnerable to Covid.
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  2021-03-01

  Homeless Vaccines

  This is a blog post about the current struggles states are having with getting homeless populations vaccinated. The article focuses on how shelters are the most common points of contacts for homeless populations to be reached.
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  2021-02-07

  Homelessness During a Pandemic

  A population that gets put last for many things is not going to be completely last for the COVID vaccine. Each individual US state is in charge of the vaccine distribution, but some states, like Connecticut for example, have homeless shelters and similar places under the “congregate settings” part of the vaccine rollout, typically in the first few phases. The homeless population is far too high in the US, and during the COVID pandemic, not much more than the bare minimum has been done. The CDC and many other health organizations have the homeless and other vulnerable populations written into the big picture, with guides and recourses for cities and governments. However, these vulnerable populations are high risk during this pandemic. Food banks have seen a major rise in 2020 as more people are facing economic hardships. Attached are a few related articles. While there are some people working tirelessly to improve the homeless situation in the US, more needs to be done. The articles give a glimpse into the various aspects of the homeless crisis in America, and how we are trying to help during the pandemic, but simultaneously not doing enough.
• 
  2020-11-15

  COVID 19 - PETS

  Pictured in the photo is my 2 year-old mut, Nala. Like many dogs during the pandemic of COVID-19, she was happy. The governor of Massachusetts issued a stay-at-home order that forced many businesses to begin operating online, employees to work remotely, and students to be taught through a screen. This left residents with not much to do as facilities closed to stop the spread of the virus, and so, people turned to the shelters and pet adoption. It seemed like the perfect time to welcome a new family member into the household-- people were able to spend more time taking care of puppies who might have needed extra training or surveillance at home. Shelters all across America were being flooded with adoption applications during the pandemic, and other shelters even ran out of dogs to adopt. Nala’s smiling face in the photo represents the simplicity of the happiness one can get from spending more time with family. It was a silver lining during these uncertain times.
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  2020-12-03

  Interview with COVID-19 Respite Shelter EMT

  Interviewee: Aidan McNaughton Interviewer: Kelly Lindemann Date of Interview: 12/03/2020 List of acronyms: AM = Aidan McNaughton, IN = interviewer Background: Washington county in Oregon has established several COVID-19 quarantine centers in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus among the community. A number of local motels have been converted to such facilities. Aidan is an EMT at one such motel, and agreed to be interviewed about his experience. IN: For how long have you worked at the shelter? AM: I have worked at the shelter since about July, so for about 6 months. IN: What is your position there? AM: I am an EMT that is here on staff. There are two of us at all times, and I am medical personnel on site for supervision, intervention, and monitoring. We’re here to do medical intervention if necessary, and also to keep tabs on vitals and making sure that everyone is doing okay, as well as deciding when we need to call medical transport to a hospital or not. IN: That makes sense. So as far as your actual job, what does a normal day at the quarantine shelter look like? Does it vary, or is it fairly constant? AM: It varies, and there’s busier days and quieter days. My shift starts at 5 AM, and I relieve the prior EMT when my partner and I get there. There’s about an hour of overlap between our shifts to make sure that, in case someone is late, we don’t have to adjust the scheduling. We have to make sure that there are always two EMTs here. An then we don up in PPE. We have a very well-stocked PPE room with lots of gowns and gloves, masks, glasses and face shields, also boot and hair covers. Then, we’ll get caught up with the other EMTs on whether or not there’s anyone [patients] new, what medical problems anyone who’s here is having, what social problems they’re having, etc. The non-medical shelter staff who actually run the shelter bring breakfast [to patients] at around 7 AM, and around that time we go to do our first morning checks. We knock on the doors, in full PPE, of all the patients, ask them a few basic questions, you know, take their temperatures, ask if they have any symptoms, pain, trouble sleeping or things like that, and if we have suspicion that there’s something serious going on we can take a more complete vital set and work from there. IN: As far as your patients go, does their condition usually vary? Have you seen a spectrum of people’s symptoms? AM: There’s a huge spectrum. We have people anywhere form completely healthy with no symptoms, pain or anything and feel completely normal, and we have people who are [O2] satting in the high 80’s, high fevers, too weak to get out of bed, and we will often end up sending those people to the hospital depending… and there’s everything in between as well, people with coughs, sore throats,loss of taste and smell of course, difficulty breathing etc., but there’s a vary steep gradient. IN: And I imagine that your patient’s conditions change, so it’s important to be continually monitoring. AM: Yes, so if we see someone who’s more sick then we’ll probably increase monitoring. So rather than just checking twice a day, which is what’s normally done with breakfast and dinner, if someone actually seems quite sick then we check on them as often as we feel is needed. IN: So overall it seems like a pretty effective system for providing care to people who don’t necessarily need to be in the hospital, but wouldn’t be safe at home with the potential for transmission or their need for medical care. Do you think that as a facility, you are effective at helping to stop the spread of the virus? What things work well, and what could be improved? AM: As a concept, and even the way our facility runs, it is quite helpful. It seems like a very reasonable way to do it. You have a designated quarantine site for people - not even all of them are homeless- even, like, roommates or people who don’t have somewhere else to quarantine without infecting people, they can come here. A lot of them are homeless, but not all of them. It seems obvious - you need somewhere for people who have a contagious disease to go that isn’t public. They get hot meals and medical supervision, but rather than, say, a hospital bed and all the costs that are associated with that, here it just costs a few EMTs and shelter staff. IN: And as far as the cost to patients, I know you mentioned that you have houseless people staying in the facility, is it free to them or is there a cost involved? AM: I am almost certain that there is no cost for anyone here, I’m not actually positive on that -I could ask- but I’m pretty sure that we don’t charge anything. I think- I know we’re funded by the county. IN: That makes sense, its sort of a self-serving altruism that the county can provide this service to prevent the spread of COVID to the community. AM: We’re designated as a public respite shelter, we essentially keep people with COVID off the streets. IN: I’d like to go back to the topic of housing insecurity and your experience with houseless people during the pandemic. I don’t know how much direct contact you have with your patients as far as getting to know them on a personal level, but in what ways have you noticed the houseless community coping with the pandemic? Where do they go once they’re discharged? AM: Yeah, we are encouraged to limit contact, so I don’t have that much contact with them, but I do chat with them when we’re taking them out on breaks for fresh air, or if I’ll chat with them in the morning or evening or when I’m discharging them. I don’t know, it’s extremely rough to be homeless, and sometimes because we are a COVID respite shelter, we’ve had patients that we’ve had to kick out, basically, because turns out they only have pneumonia, not COVID. I’ve been yelled at by a homeless person -justifiably so, I feel - for kicking him out because he has pneumonia- is that not good enough? I think that should probably be good enough, we should probably be able to take care of everybody who is ill, but the state has certain priorities. I think it should take a much broader view of people’s medical needs. We have a whole wing [of the facility] that opened up during the fires when other shelters had to be evacuated. I know that as of COVID in general there’s been both more homeless people and reduced shelter capacity due to social distancing requirements, so there’s been a need for more shelter space. We devoted half of our shelter building, which is separated off, but there’s no transmission, it even has separate staff and we don’t go over there, and it’s now a non-COVID homeless shelter -I think specifically for women and children and families- and I think that’s great because for a long time we had this hundred room motel and we were only filling about 25%, but now we can fill half of it with houseless people. Some of the shelter staff here did a good job of noticing that, and we talked for awhile about what we should do with all the empty rooms, and they coordinated with a different shelter in the area that didn’t have enough space and accepted a bunch of people. We also even now have some RVs that we allow in the parking lot - not with me, but with the other shelter building, I’m not entirely sure how it works- but people can live in the parking lot under supervision. IN: So the shelter is providing a safe space for people to either isolate or just live without the potential to be harassed by law enforcement or forced to constantly relocate. Overall it sounds like the county is doing a decent job responding to COVID, but as is true across most of the country there’s a huge shortcoming in providing medical care to houseless people, but that’s a whole other issue entirely. As far as your personal experience working so closely with a virus that’s caused so much turmoil in the world, is the risk of transmission something that causes you stress on the job, or is it something that you’ve become used to? AM: I’m definitely become more used to it than I was when I started, but still, like, if I’m trying to take a blood pressure reading - we use manual blood pressure cuffs- of someone who is confirmed positive with COVID, and is coughing and coughing, I get a little nervous. Actually, some of the shelter staff did get COVID and we had a bit of a problem where the shelter staff were severely understaffed for awhile. They handled it and made sure they had enough staff, but one of the people I work with ended up working two 80 hour weeks in a row because everyone else was quarantining. It is serious, and it definitely does happen here, but I feel like we’re probably all gonna get it eventually anyway and I have all this PPE on - I’m feel like I’m as safe as I’ll ever be, so … c’est la vie. I would rather not get it, but all I can do is take precautions against it. IN: I also hope you don’t get it! Thank you so much for your time and willingness to share your experience and contribute to this ongoing archival process. Stay safe out there!
• 
  2020-10-23

  Voluntary Isolation Motel EMT

  Several counties across Oregon have coordinated with local motels to establish voluntary isolation shelters in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19. Each location is staffed with city personnel to manage admittance and discharge, while EMTs on staff conduct routine medical monitoring to patients. My boyfriend works in one of these shelters, and sent me this picture of him in his full PPE getup before making morning rounds. The shelter's capacity varies a lot week by week, and anywhere from 1-20 COVID positive patients may be staying there at any given point. This particular motel intakes prisoners who need to do a 2 week quarantine before being released, but also serves non-incarcerated people who have tested positive.
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  2020-10

  Jewish Melbourne: Jewish Museum of Australia's 'Sukkah'

  "While we won’t open our doors until January – and set hearts aflame with MIRKA from Valentine’s Day – we’re delighted to reunite with you at Sukkah. A collaboration with Zahava Elenberg, Creator of Clikclax, Director of Move-in and Co-Founder of Elenberg Fraser Architecture, Sukkah invites you to reflect on humanity and what it means to be in a community. Crafted from Polycarbonate in translucent earth, sky and desert colours, it provides shelter and encourages us to look out towards the never-ending sky and beyond adversity. So until we can meet again at our Museum, we hope you enjoy Sukkah – and think, dream and feel together."
• 
  2020-10-15

  Light at the End of the Tunnel

  Just a couple weeks ago I adopted a nine week old mini australian shepherd puppy, named Ozzy, who is in the photograph. There were many factors that went into adopting my first ever puppy, and a lot of it had to do with the world pandemic: coronavirus. All summer while everyone was staying inside their houses quarantined, I was out working at a breakfast restaurant. Of course, all employees wore masks, but not every customer that walked into the restaurant was aware of the severity of the pandemic. Some would refuse to wear masks, even though it was a state law, cough or sneeze in your face, while being ruthless and careless. Although the government is showing action by recommending everyone to wear masks, it is not necessarily helping the current state of our country. I believe that more action needs to be taken for the pandemic to be resolved or improved. This led me to leave my job, and spend more time at home to protect the safety of me and my family. Scrolling on the internet with all my free time I saw that a lot of dogs were in need of a home due to shelters and pet stores overflowing. This led me to find the most perfect puppy, and now he is a part of my family. Contrary to my beliefs there is always a bright side in unfortunate situations. Ozzy turned out to be the light at the end of the tunnel, providing me with the happiness I was missing in the past few months due to the declining state of the world.
• 
  2020-04-13

  Cultural Insights: Interviews in the Creative Sector #19 … Noah Stubbs, City of Evansville

  In response to COVID-19, the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science launched the mini-series, "Cultural Insights: Interviews in the Creative Sector," to highlight colleagues and professionals working in the same or similar field of museum professionals.
• 
  2020-07-06

  Homeless advocates relaunch lawsuit over COVID-19 safety at Toronto shelters, say city hasn’t complied with settlement

  "Toronto’s homeless advocates have relaunched a lawsuit against the city over unsafe shelter conditions. "In a notice of motion filed Friday, a coalition of public-interest groups alleges that the city has failed to follow a settlement agreement meant to ensure physical distancing standards within the shelter system. "The lawsuit, first launched earlier this year, alleges the city put people’s lives at risk amid the pandemic by not following public health distancing recommendations."
• 
  2020-06-01

  El Salvador: COVID-19 & Tropical Storm Amanda

  The photograph is one of many of the aftermath of Tropical Storm Amanda in Central America, specifically El Salvador. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the country's president has enforced strict quarantine measures. The smallest country in Central America has recently been hit with a tropical storm resulting in many landslides and destruction of homes. Many have been displaced and are having a hard time finding food.
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  2020-05-24

  Indigenous families given new lease on life as pandemic opens up housing options

  This article relays an unexpected benefit to the pandemic. Because more people are staying put, putting off moving for work and school, among other reasons, there has been a downturn in the rental market. This has opened up better and more plentiful housing options for those struggling to find accommodations for large families when builders and landlords prefer smaller single or two bedroom units. Centres which aid women leaving abusive relationships and indigenous people (or both), such as the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, are finding this a particular boon, allowing them to clear their waiting lists/backlogs and find housing for clients previously in limbo.
• 
  2020-05-21

  The San Francisco Bay Area is putting homeless people with COVID-19 in hotel rooms. Some are given alcohol to prevent withdrawal.

  This is a news article that details how San Francisco is managing their homeless population during the COVID-19 outbreak. Based on CDC recommendations, San Francisco secured hotel rooms to provide shelter to their homeless population. The project is called "Project Roomkey." Additionally, under a "harm reduction" strategy, the city is providing alcohol and access to purchase medical cannabis to prevent withdrawals for addicts who may otherwise leave the provide shelters to retrieve said substances. The article highlights similar measures across the Bay Area.
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  2020-03-18

  Shelter in place county warning

  The county texted an announcement on 03/18/2020: Solano: Effective immediately: Solano County Public Health has issued a shelter at home order for all residents.
• 
  04/05/2020

  Life at home during the Coronavirus isolation. People are finding that they have a lot of time on their hands--especially at first. Then a "new normal" set in and people became busier.

  During the beginning of the shelter at home order, people were trying to figure out what to do with their time. #homelife, #isolation, #shelterathome, #naps, #eating #ASU #HST580
• 
  2020-05-20

  Sanford Lake Flooded amidst COVID-19 Pandemic, 10,000 people evacuated.

  I’m having a hard time putting into words what I feel. My mom lives on Sanford lake in the house that belonged to my grandparents. After excessive rain, the three dams that regulate the Tittabawassee River broke one by one. The lake level rose, and flooded homes and roads. The city of Midland also flooded. My mom, brother, and uncle evacuated. Initially, my mom went to the designated shelter- Meridian Highschool. But my brother called her and said it was a bad idea because it was upriver from her home, probably would flood too, and there’s COVID-19, so being packed in a highs school with a bunch of people isn’t the safest place to be. She ended up going to my brother’s in Midland, which was not part of the flood zone. This morning her house is completely flooded.
• 
  2018-04

  “Covid-19 really hasn't shaped my faith or my beliefs."

  “Covid-19 really hasn't shaped my faith or my beliefs. You know I continue to believe in God and I have faith in God that continues. I personally don't believe God has anything to do with covid-19. God didn't create it. God didn’t spread it. God isn’t going to determine who gets it, who dies or who recovers. I believe that faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. For instance, I hope that there is an afterlife beyond this world and that my soul will live on.”
• 
  2020-04-01

  Landlord left a list of homeless shelters

  The tweet shows a picture of a list of homeless shelters the twitter users landlord displayed on their doors. This is due to financial issues for many. Many people were unable to pay rent due to being laid off for jobs. The person replying to the tweet expresses outrage that the landlord is not willing to make an exception since this is in the middle of the pandemic.
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  2020-03-30

  Tweet re: treatment of Las Vegas Homeless During Pandemic

  Tweet reacting to the news that with the closure of a major homeless shelter in the city, the Las Vegas, NV and Clark County governments had agreed to set up a makeshift shelter by drawing separate squares on an open-air parking lot. #HIST5241