This article discusses the emergence of the phrase “quarantine 15” and the impact of anti-fatness on our society even as it is being ravaged by a global pandemic. Author Virgie Tovar ties the phrase to people's need to connect and the ease of doing so through self-deprecation. Dr. Lindo Bacon attributes the trend to the anxieties of dealing with isolation and other factors directly connected to the coronavirus pandemic and our social stigma against mental health issues. Which reason is more accurate is tough to say and may differ from individual to individual. What is certain is that while people are dealing with changes to their food habits and environmental stressors they are also being pressured to lose weight.

Due to the closer quarters and overcrowding in the nation's prisons they are a breeding ground for easy transmission of the coronavirus. As this article states the "public health catastrophe" inside the country's prisons was "predictable and preventable." California has over 25,000 covid positive inmates as of this article’s writing (05/20/2020), and more in other detention facilities. The outbreak doesn't look like it will slow down anytime soon. This article discusses the conditions inside of California prisons based on inmate communications and talking with family members. HST580, ASU

Since the covid pandemic reached the United States a discussion began relating to the nation's prison inmates. With the inability to protect oneself from the virus in a prison environment the question has become, should nonviolent and other inmates receive an early release to protect them from the possibility of dying from covid. This question has resulted in a deeper discussion regarding the humanity of inmates and if a prison sentence should be allowed to turn into a death sentence. This news story covers the early release of Felix Walls. ASU, HST580

As covid-19 spread across the nation it's inmates began expressing their fear of dying. The living situation inside prisons and other similar facilities, like jails and detention centers, make social distancing impossible and right now frequent hand washing, and wearing a mask are the only tools the world has to combat the virus. Prisoner's and their advocates state that a prison sentence should not be turned into a death sentence. In this phone interview and article published by ACLU Smart Justice Michigan, inmate, Quentin X Betty, shares his fear of dying and the reality that employees and the prison do not see inmates as humans with a right to life. HST580, ASU

The covid pandemic has shown the world, especially the US, how suceptible certain populaations are to any communicable disease. The virus has hit hard in places where social distancing is at best difficult. Places like elder care facilities, meat packing plants, and prisons. In the final installment of her three part series, covering covid inside Arkansas State prisons, NPR reporter Anna Stitt, looks at the history and future of the Arkansas prison system. Much of her focus has been on the Cummins Unit. A prison opened in 1902 and named after one of the plantations who formerly owned the land. Upon opening and through present day the prison operates a farm that is worked by inmates for no pay. They were still farming cotton, with guards on horseback, holding rifles, in the 1990's. An image that looks like it could have been taken one hundred years ago. This prison has been part of numerous scandals and appears to be in the midst of one today. When the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sued to gain early release for the medically vulnerable the judge denied the request saying there wasn't sufficient proof that the Corrections Department was mishandling the pandemic. Inmates report being denied testing even once exposed to the virus. When inmates attourney's requested security footage the Department of Corrections filed a motion to block the request but the judge allowed the attorney's to see the footage. The treatment of inmates has resulted in their families and friends staging a protest outside the Arkansas Governor's Mansion on May 16th and a coalition of organizations delivering demands to the governor on June 1st. HST580, ASU

A nurse practitioner who works with geriatric patients answers some questions about how nursing homes are handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article is the first of a three-part series covering the covid pandemic inside the Arkansas State Corrections facilities. NPR reporter, Anna Stitt, interviewed several prisoners and focused her reporting on the Cummins Unit, the state’s largest and oldest facility. While no cases were reported inside the prison until one month after the state had issued a stay at home order, once the virus entered the facility it spread quickly. Stitt covers the different stories reported by employees and officials as opposed to the inmates at the prison and other facilities in the state. The inmates report lack of access to bathroom facilities, being ignored when sick, and many other problems. The officials on the other hand tell a very different story.

Signed by Governor Baker on March 18, 2020, this executive order sought to mitigate the virus's spread by closing all child care facilities in the state; a necessary step according to health officials, since COVID-19 easily spread from asymptomatic children to adults.

If you believe Stacy Peralta‘s documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, and of course you should — he’s one of the Lords of Dogtown for heaven’s sake, then you’ll know that pool skating originated here in Los Angeles during California’s drought in the late 70s. Some forty-odd years later and we’re in a drought of our own, a drought of socializing, of congregating, as humans across the southland and the world shelter at home to protect ourselves and the weakest among us from the novel coronavirus. But the empty pools and skateparks across Los Angeles, built for beginners, Olympic hopefuls and every skater in between, are being filled with sand and mulch so they don’t become deep, glossy-tiled petri dishes birthing a new surge of Covid-19 cases. There’s one problem. Just as no one could keep skateboarders out of backyard pools in the 70s long enough to keep a new sport from blossoming in a literal desert, a few tons of mulch or sand won’t help to board up skaters. That’s because essential services are still available. Big-box home improvement stores are open for business, stocked with antidotes to debris: shovels and shop vacs, push brooms and blowers. But of course we pool-riders are already equipped with such technology. So go ahead and fill that pool with mulch, dump and spread sand across the street courses. Skaters will eventually show up at odd hours to push and blow it out of the way. We’ll don our personal protective equipment, helmets, wrist guards, knee and elbow pads, and get in a quick session before you ever notice. We don’t even need to clear out the whole pool. A half, or even a quarter pool will do — like the quarter pipes we would hammer and scrap together at the bottom of our driveways in the 70s and 80s. We’d risk life and limb skating to the top of those rickety booby-traps pushing our wheels over the edge like we’d see Stacy and Tony Alva do in magazines (those things we’d use if we ran out of toilet paper). Skateboarders are creative, resilient, unrelenting. Ian McKaye of Minor Threat calls skateboarding “a way of learning how to redefine the world around you.” We see the world differently. Where you see an empty swimming pool, skateboarders see the form and shape and flow of concrete waves to ride. Where you see a curb and sidewalk, skateboarders see an edge to grind, a platform to manual, or wheelie, across. Where you see an empty corporate plaza, skateboarders see a playground of infinite lines to skate, slide and grind across. Where you see pools safely filled with sand, we see an opportunity to perform a ritual baked into our DNA, a ritual of clearing and cleansing. And in the emptiness we’ll skate new lines, try new tricks, push to new heights. As Craig Stecyk understood, according to Skip Englbom in Dogtown and Z-Boys, children took the ruins of the 20th century and made art out of it. And in the ruins of this pandemic there will only be more art. A lot of pool skaters aren’t children anymore. We’re the old guard, Generation X skaters with kids to care for at home, and parents to shop for so they don’t have to risk a Costco run. So we will keep a couple arms’-length apart as we sweep and skate, clear and carve. Because we can’t help ourselves. Our godfathers showed us how. Lance Mountain explains, “skateboarding doesn’t make you a skateboarder. Not being able to stop skateboarding makes you a skateboarder.” A crisis created skateboarding as we know it. No pandemic or sand-filled dump truck is about to stop its progress.

Even though the pandemic still lingers, the world is pressing on to combat other issues. The recent protests have reawoken the subject of racism in America. I believe the pandemic has afforded us with a unique situation where the nation has more time to discuss this issue at large. Plus, a lot more people have participated in those protests because they are either working from home or have lost their jobs, unfortunately. With all this additional time, people have sought to make changes to promote a more welcoming environment for the black community in many towns and cities. Thousands of residents in Wilmington, NC, have already begun a petition to make such a change. One of the city's most popular parks was named after Hugh MacRae. This man co-lead the plan to overthrow Wilmington's local government. While doing this, his group also demolished a black-owned newspaper office and killed/injured many African Americans. This event became notoriously known as the 1898 Wilmington Massacre. Over 8,000 people have already signed a petition to change the park's name. An interview by WECT News I watched today really struck me. The woman, who was a peaceful protester, had been asked why she thought changing the name of the park was necessary. She told the news anchor that "'I grew up there, I had birthday parties there, and it was always a terrible reminder of the history of Wilmington and having that park, a public park be named after somebody of such vile reputation is shocking and it’s a shame that although Wilmington acknowledged its history it does not do more and be more proactive to make a change.'" The legacy that this man and his mob caused has continued to negatively affect the black community in Wilmington. Renaming that park could lead to a reconciliation of the past in the present day. The reintroduction of the issue of racism and Black Lives Matter might not have been as impactful as it was if the pandemic had not occurred in the first place. Having people at home watching TV (especially the news), helped garnered the attention it needed to begin the movement again.

A number of Nebraska National Guard soldiers have tested positive for COVID-19 following missions to assist law enforcement amid protests in Omaha and Lincoln. None of the affected soldiers have been hospitalized and all are isolating in their homes. Protests have flared across the country following the death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, while in custody. Many of the protests have individuals packed tightly in large groups, many not wearing masks or following other recommended guidelines to slow the spread of the virus.

At the start of the Bay Area's shelter-in-place orders, there was a lot of uncertainty about the food supply chain. Given that we live with a couple of high-risk individuals, we wanted to ensure that we had access to fresh food without risking exposure to COVID-19. We quickly got to work and planted squash, tomato, pumpkin, peppers and pea plants. We involved our children from the beginning and have had a lot of fun gardening as a family as it has brought us comfort and has been incredibly therapeutic during these trying and uncertain times. Preparing Garden Soil: March 28, 2020. Plants Begin to Sprout: April 15, 2020. A Garden Grows in Danville: May 30, 2020.

Cousins, Claire Gagnon (1), Taylor Anderson (10), Jessie Anderson (6), Logan Gagnon (5), and Delaney Gagnon (8), have sheltered-in-place together since March 13, 2019. They have had incredible attitudes and have shown true resiliency in their abilities to process this new normal. After over 11 weeks of eating home cooked meals, the adults decided it was time for pizza delivery! The kids were ecstatic and exclaimed over and over, "This is the BEST meal of my life!" It was sweet to see them take such joy in something they likely took for granted before this experience.

This is my daughter who works in a downtown Chicago hospital in the ER. I am her mother submitting this, and I gave her my artist mask to protect herself from Covid. This was at the beginning when there was a lack of PPE.This picture is important to me because she is a second you’re nursing individual and she has worked very hard in the pandemic like all the other nurses and doctors.

The Golden Gate Bridge protest, that occured on June 6, 2020, was entirely organized and lead by two local East Bay youths. Tiana Day and Mimi Zoilia secured the permits that led to the first ever Black Lives Matter protest on the iconic San Francisco landmark. The outpouring of support for the pair has been strong. They have inspired youth across the San Francisco Bay Area to speak out for justice. Tiana's speech reveals the realities of growing up Black in what many consider to be an incredibly liberal region of the United States.

Amidst school closures across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, University of San Francisco doctoral students, Eghosa Obaizamomwan Hamilton and Gertrude Jenkins, founded and launched Making Us Matter Virtual High School in March 2020. While educational equity issues compounded as a result of nation-wide school closures, Hamilton and Jenkins built an educational platform in which a collective of Black educators would create challenging and empowering curriculum focused on social justice and Blackness. Making Us Matter is offered, free of charge, to any student interested in curriculum focused on Black-inclusion. While educational institutions have scrambled in their attempts to serve students during the COVID-19 pandemic, Making Us Matter is a shining example of how educational leaders can disrupt education and build learning experiences that challenge the shortcomings of traditional educational models.

Amidst school closures across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, University of San Francisco doctoral students, Eghosa Obaizamomwan Hamilton and Gertrude Jenkins, founded and launched Making Us Matter Virtual High School in March 2020. While educational equity issues compounded as a result of nation-wide school closures, Hamilton and Jenkins built an educational platform in which a collective of Black educators would create challenging and empowering curriculum focused on social justice and Blackness. Making Us Matter is offered, free of charge, to any student interested in curriculum focused on Black-inclusion. While educational institutions have scrambled in their attempts to serve students during the COVID-19 pandemic, Making Us Matter is a shining example of how educational leaders can disrupt education and build learning experiences that challenge the shortcomings of traditional educational models.

“Indigenous peoples from different corners of Bangladesh are suffering from severe starvation due to the coronavirus pandemic. Engaged in low-income occupations and working at family houses, as house guards or drivers, most have lost their jobs. Moreover, public and non-governmental development programmes have been limited and many villages are no longer receiving any relief.”

“Aboriginal people from remote communities in lockdown are risking prosecution under biosecurity laws to go into regional centres to buy food and essentials, because their community stores can’t source enough supplies. A group of 13 Aboriginal organisations from across the Northern Territory is calling on the national cabinet to do more to guarantee food security for remote communities.”

“If Native American tribes were counted as states, the five most infected states in the country would all be native tribes, with New York dropping to No. 6, according to a compilation by the American Indian Studies Center at U.C.L.A.”

During the quarantine period, schools were closed and parents were thrown into new roles as teachers. Most parents didn’t even understand 4th grade math or how to deal with all of the curriculum thrown at them literally overnight. This meme deals with one aspect of school life—the school picture day which is a special day where photographers come in and everyone in the whole school has individual portraits done along with the group class photos. The humor here is that quarantine and home schooling was hard on everyone and so many of us were stressed and pushed to the max—including the kids. So by dressing up in his finest and announcing it was time to take the school photo, either the kid was very sweet and trying to recreate his past life, or he was cracking under the pressure—like his parents were on the brink of doing.

When the Coronavirus struck and most all of the stores closed, the streets were deserted. It truly did look like the apocalypse had come. The humor here is that the bookstore jokingly said that it was putting all the Sci Fi post-apocalyptic books into the current events section.

An public statement shared on Facebook by Kathleen Wynne and then by various childcare professionals and sympathetic parties. It was retrieved from the Facebook page of a Early Childhood Educator. Kathleen Wynne, a member of Provincial Parliament, former Premier of Ontario, and a former teacher, wrote this in response to action taken by Premier of the province of Ontario, Doug Ford and the Provincial Minister of Education, and Conservative government in the province, that they will reopen all childcare centres in Ontario effective Friday June 11, 2020 as part of their tiered 'reopening' of the province from Covid-19 restrictions. It is Ms. Wynne's opinion that centres are being provided with insufficient time and resources to do so safely for staff and children.

When COVID-19 hit and we were all quarantined with our families, the cracks in our relationships began to fracture in some cases. There were a lot of jokes about marriage and this meme shows that this particular couple had fissures so big and the wife was so desperate, she was digging a grave. Her husband was clueless about her plans, but who knows? Maybe he had similar plans of his own. This is funny because of course no one will actually kill his/her spouse no matter how badly they might want to! Right?

The social distancing rules enforced to slow the spread of the coronavirus has many negative externalities associated with it. For myself and many others alike, sports have and always will be an outlet from the daily stresses of work and life. Fans, players, coaches, and everyone associated with professional and recreational athletics has been heavily effected in these current times. Losing athletics not only hurts in a mental sense but also in a financial way as well. It was said by ESPN that approximations suggest a total 12 billion dollar loss due to the suspension of sports. Professional athletes have been renegotiating contracts now and the structure of the games have been changed greatly. Being stuck inside seemed alright at first but without live entertainment or the ability to go out and exercise, time seems to move slower and slower in a period that everyone is seeking a way out of.

This is an image of the funeral of George Floyd, whose death from police brutality has sparked a wave of protests across the world against police brutality even in the midst of pandemic.

During the CVID-19 pandemic, a sign reading "Listen to Science, Not the President" hangs in the window of a home in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans, LA.

A child's coloring book page depicting an ambulance and other essential workers hangs on a door in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans.

A sign hanging outside a grocery store reads "Bite Back Rent Strike A E May Day." During the pandemic, many people are unable to work or earn income and attempts have been made to organize a rent strike.

The image on the left shows the voting line in predominantly African American and Democratic portion of Fulton County, GA where complications with electronic ballots created a 4 hour line to vote; the left shows the predominantly white and conservative portion of that county. This is an example of the pandemic's impact on the upcoming elections.

St. Paul Lutheran Church, located in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, hangs signs encouraging the public to "Wash Your Hands and Say Your Prayers." During the pandemic churches, including this one, have not been able to hold in-person services as part of the stay home order.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Virginia is one of the most diverse school districts in VA. They are often looking for new ways to reach their diverse student population. They were one of the first districts on the east coast to close when COVID-19 hit. They were able to do this because all of their students already have devices in their hands every day. They repurposed bus drivers to deliver lunches, pick up student devices for tech work, and to redistribute student devices when they were fixed and ready to go. Now, as they look into an uncertain fall semester they have teamed up with a tech organization to drop books to students via drones. While educators understand the important role that technology can play in the learning process it's important to remember that reading books is priceless.

After two consecutive years with record attendance, the momentum of the Iowa State Fair has come to a screeching halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time since WWII there will be no Iowa State Fair, one of the largest in the country and the second largest in the Midwest. The Iowa State Fair has only been cancelled a total of 5 times in its 166-years history and was even held during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. One of the most anticipated and loved events for Iowa residents is no more for 2020

Nuestro compromiso por los océanos es promover el consumo responsable de productos marinos, impulsar las pesquerías sostenibles y trabajar con las instituciones para mantener nuestras playas libres de plásticos de un solo uso.

En el marco de la Nueva Convivencia, hoy participamos de la presentación de espacios públicos para la reubicación temporal de los comerciantes ambulatorios del Cercado de Lima. Esto les permitirá ofrecer sus productos de manera ordenada y respetando medidas de bioseguridad.

Identifico 100% con este meme. Una de las pocas cosas que me consuela es el humor y mi red social. Tantos memes me han hecho reír y sentir no tan horrible. No salva todo, pero puede salvar un momento.

"Indigenous communities are resilient, and, empowered with ancestral knowledge, organized communities, Indigenous languages, and their own forms of communication and media, they are taking action."

"Radio stations can be a voice to call for a calm and unified community prevention strategy. Community radio stations have opportunities to also promote and defend human rights as many governments are abusing their power during the pandemic. Another example included is how radio stations can become educators and serve as a space for community teachers trying to reach children that do not have access to the internet and cannot attend online schooling."

"Cody Two Bears, who is behind North Dakota's first 300-kilowatt solar farm, is bringing power to Standing Rock."

The spread of coronavirus has highlighted people and places who are most at risk for contracting and spreading the virus and the nation's incarcerated people are high risk for both. The people entering the prison system come from already vulnerable populations and half of the incarcerated population already has at least one chronic illness. This puts them at greater odds of contracting and dying from the disease. This article explains what measures the Federal Bureau of Prisons have taken to limit the spread of the disease and the authors, three doctors, suggest a three prong approach but fall back on the real way to slow the spread is to release people who are not likely to be a public threat. HST580, ASU

This is the first episode of the Boston Children's Museum's podcast Big & Little. "Boston Children's Museum CEO and President, Carole Charnow, talks with Dr. Michael Yogman, a practicing pediatrician in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about the many challenges the Coronavirus presents for parents, families, and children."

This is the second episode of the Boston Children's Museum's podcast, Big & Little, podcast for adults about kids and families. In this episode, BCM CEO "Carole [Chernow] chats with psychologist Dr. Nancy Rappaport about the challenges the pandemic presents for parents and children. Dr. Rappaport, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard University Medical School, sheds light on some of the positive effects families can take away from this historic time."

A police station was situated a few years back in my neighborhood, which was a welcome addition as the otherwise quiet neighborhood had been experiencing low level crime and quality of life issues. For the first time in my life, I will be served multiple glimpses into a working police station as I would use the subway stop multiple times, albeit not during the covid lock down as I was staying indoors for an extended period. At one point I decided to 'break quarantine' and head into Manhattan where I came across this memorial to some officers who passed away due to covid-19. I was living in NYC during 9-11 and seen the various impromptu memorials to all those first responders; there had also been a previous memorial to an officer killed in a non-work related incident (I believe but I am not sure and only included to provide context to the memorial). This was a disquieting discovery because these officers were stricken by a virus that they would not have known where, when or how they were infected. While I was indoors all that time; even though I knew there were many essential workers who were being felled but I did not see their faces and names in such an up close yet quiet fashion. It was what their brother & sister officers could do and that is all that matters.

Boston Children's Museum's announcement about closing due to COVID-19.

This meme is a comparison of U.S. Fall holiday jokes. Normally, we joke that in the fall the stores start changing out their holiday items the day after a holiday. For example; the day after thanksgiving stores will be stocked and ready for Christmas. This meme is joking that we have not even recovered from Covid-19 and another disaster has already begun.

For those who protested the worry now is that they may have Covid-19. This screenshot was taken from the BLM facebook page. The poster is urging people to please get tested for Covid if they have been involved in the protests.

Right now there is so much uncertainty with opening schools this Fall. One of the concerns is if teachers and students should be wearing masks or not. My sons school says they will not require masks for students. I am a teacher and the district I work for is saying all students and teachers must wear a mask. Teachers may wear a face-shield so that students can see our face and expressions. I started looking around for places that sell masks. A lot of them are overpriced so my plan is to sew myself a few for next year. I work with low-income students so I highly doubt they will be able to afford some. The California Teachers Association has sent out info-graphics including this one. It describes the distance a droplet can travel. Most classrooms are very small and it would be impossible for a teacher to avoid being within 6 feet of a student. With so much uncertainty right now it is difficult to know where we are all going to be in the Fall and what our education system will look like.

Amazing street art is popping up addressing Covid-19. Some of the work is spectacular and moving. This painting is now on t-shirts and face-masks. It highlights the contribution of Nurses around the world who continue to care for the sick in-spite of tremendous hardships and danger.

I saw this photograph on my Facebook feed and took a screenshot. As protesters take to the streets the choice between protecting oneself from the pandemic falls short of the pressing need to fight for racial equality. I heard an interview with a woman who is immuno-compromised. She said that she understood the danger she was putting herself in but that this was a non-decision. She would rather risk her health than to do nothing. Millions are protesting around the world, all faced with the reality of this movement during a plague year.

I'm a nursing student living at home on the family farm and I'm struggling to get a job. I've been sporadically journalling throughout the pandemic. This entry looks at what my day looked like an some thoughts about the current situation.