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Caring for elderly gets more stressful

We who oversee the care of elderly friends or family know what stress is all about — in normal times. It’s a hard job, physically and mentally. Even for those who can hire others to help out, there remains worry about paying good wages to keep good people, and coordinating doctor visits and prescriptions. Intensive caregiving is known to unleash an anxiety and social isolation that can compromise one’s own immune system and its ability to fight off diseases. Now everyone faces the coronavirus threat. But keeping it away from our old people creates new complexities on multiple ...

The virus, media and economy

A friend tweeted from Ireland (in time for St. Patrick’s Day), blaming President Trump for the major decline in the value of stocks. This same friend credited Barack Obama’s economic policies when the Dow Jones Industrial Averages approached 30,000. This — and more — is part of our political, economic and medical divide with mixed messages coming from supposed professionals, amateurs and people who don’t know what they are talking about. According to Dictionary.com, “panic” is “a sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or ...

The ‘Managing Anxiety’ defense

Let’s see a show of hands. Who, among readers of this column, has experienced some anxiety in their lives? Ahhh, as I suspected, there are lots of hands in the air. Everyone has had moments of stress, strain and fear to deal with. The trick is how you handle it. Our 42nd president recently reappeared to tell us that, because he felt such enormous pressure during his tenure as commander in chief, he turned to extramarital sex with a woman half his age as a way of “managing my anxieties.” Speaking to producers of a newly released Hulu documentary about his wife, former ...

We should fear the ‘Coronavirus Effect’

You may have heard of “the butterfly effect.” The late Edward Lorenz, an American mathematician and meteorologist, suggested it some years ago. His illustration focused on how a tiny atmospheric change caused by a butterfly flapping its wings could alter the timing an course of a tornado weeks later. Bottom line: Our world is so interconnected in many complex ways that one small action can have dramatic effects. Well, get ready for the coronavirus effect. A germ so tiny it can’t be viewed with most microscopes is about to wreak major, lasting damage ­– beyond the tragedy of ...

After this, voters will take responsibility seriously

“Let’s blow it all up.” That was the sentiment that animated any number of Republican primary voters in 2016. The “it” was (take your pick) the Republican Party, the “establishment,” the country. There were many good reasons for voters to be dissatisfied with the state of things in 2016. There were also any number of able candidates who could have instituted reforms. But that wasn’t the mood, at least not for the nihilistic 30%. It’s hard to think of a less conservative impulse than “Burn it down!” But that’s what this minority did, voting for the malignant ...

Will the coronavirus kill the New World Order?

Dr. Brian Monahan, attending physician of Congress, told a closed meeting of Senate staffers last week that 70 million to 150 million Americans — a third of the nation — could contract the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that the mortality rate for COVID-19 will likely run near 1%. Translation: Between 750,000 and 1.1 million Americans may die of this disease before it runs its course. The latter figure is equal to all the U.S. dead in World War II and on both sides in the Civil War. Chancellor Angela Merkel warns that 70% of Germany’s population — 58 million people ...