Christan

  We recently marked a new grim milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic: at least a  quarter of a million  Americans are dead, and the virus is raging. News of two vaccines offer hope, but even on an accelerated schedule, life as we knew it, according to the experts, is still a year away. These are dark times and we’re headed straight into a  COVID winter . Clearly, the 2021 holiday season will be unlike any other in modern history. The  Centers for Disease Control  is strongly recommending that people not travel for Thanksgiving. Public health experts say that the safest, most prudent approach to the holidays this year is to stay home. To be “all in this thing together” means we must stay apart.  But this much separation from one another is hard. After nearly nine months, pandemic fatigue is real. We wanted to know how people are coping, so we asked our readers and contributors to tell us how they’re planning to navigate the holiday season this ...

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is of a scale most people alive today have never seen. Worldwide, the outbreak is claiming lives and livelihoods as health systems buckle, education is disrupted and families struggle to stay afloat.  Communities across the globe are rising to the challenge – from health and social workers risking their lives to protect the most vulnerable, to young people deploying innovative ways to share public health messages.  Yet, even as the spread of the virus slows in some countries, its social toll has come fast and hard. And in many places, it comes at the expense of the most marginalized children. An entire generation of children has now seen its education interrupted. At their peak, nationwide closures disrupted the learning of 1.57 billion students – or 91 per cent of schoolchildren worldwide – with devastating consequences. Marginalized children pay the heaviest price as inequalities in learning widen. Some 346 million young...