Biden told “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” that he believed it was “time for schools to reopen safely,” ahead of the expected release this week of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guide to reopening schools.
“I think they’re going through a lot, these kids,” Biden said.
The President’s comments come amid a national debate about when and how to get students back in classrooms safely, as the pandemic continues to devastate the nation and has forced many classes completely online. They also come as women, particularly Black and Latina women, suffer steep job losses as they disproportionately work in some of the hardest-hit sectors in the pandemic, including education.
Biden, who has said he wants most K-12 schools to reopen before his first 100 days in office, emphasized in the interview the need for schools to implement stringent safety requirements to keep those in the classroom safe.
“About 20 million American children have not been in the classroom for nearly a year. There’s a mental health crisis happening,” O’Donnell said.
“There really is,” Biden said, nodding.
“Women are dropping out of the workforce,” O’Donnell continued. “Is this a national emergency?”
“It is a national emergency,” Biden responded. “It genuinely is a national emergency.”
“I think it’s time for schools to reopen safely. Safely,” the President said. He pointed to lowering the number of people allowed in each classroom and proper ventilation systems as examples of necessary protocols.
Biden said US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky would be coming out with the guidance, which he described as “science-based judgment,” as early as Wednesday.
“I think about the price, so many of my grandkids and your kids are going to pay for not having had the chance to finish whatever it was. That graduation where you didn’t get to walk across the stage,” Biden said.
Walensky said Monday that the best way to get schools to reopen safely “is to decrease the community spread,” and to keep up mitigation measures such as masking and social distancing.
“The data from schools suggest that there is very little transmission that is happening within the schools, especially when there’s masking and distancing occurring. And that when there are transmissions in the schools, it is because they’ve been brought in from the community and because there are breaches in masking and distancing,” Walensky said during a White House briefing.
Last week, Walensky suggested that schools could reopen without teachers getting Covid-19 vaccines. White House press secretary Jen Psaki initially said Walensky was speaking “in her personal capacity” and said that though Walensky was the head of the CDC, her comments were not the same as official CDC guidance. But Psaki later appeared to agree with Walensky, saying vaccinations were only part of several mitigating factors that will help schools reopen safely, including wearing masks and social distancing.
Part of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package Biden has proposed to Congress includes additional funding for schools to operate safely in person. Biden has also signed several executive actions to help support reopening schools and establish a national strategy to get the pandemic under control.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, recently cautioned that reopening most schools within 100 days “may not happen,” as the US continues to grapple with high Covid-19 transmission. The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 463,500 Americans as of Monday morning.
New York — As widespread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and infertility took hold on social media, the rumors spread as rapidly as the virus itself and scared some women from getting a shot.
Jay Huber, a fertility doctor in New Orleans, is asked daily by his patients if the vaccine causes infertility. He said there’s no evidence of that happening.
“I think it’s important to debunk the myths because patients should have access to accurate information,” Huber told CBS News.
So then, what is the biggest misconception?
“This concept that the vaccination will actually train the human immune system to create an antibody that would cross-react with the vital placenta protein, which would ultimately cause infertility,” he said.
The unfounded fear, Huber said, is that an antibody would not only attack the virus but the placenta as well.
Stacey Clarke, a 36-year-old nurse, is receiving fertility treatments from Huber. She fears the vaccine could somehow affect her ability to get pregnant.
“It’s just too soon to put something foreign in my body going through what I’m going through,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotion. Because I’ve done this twice before and it was not successful.”
Clarke said the thought of becoming infertile has crossed her mind, but Huber reassured her.
“He, of course, very much feels that there’s enough evidence for me to get the vaccine,” she said of their discussions. “So we’ve come to an agreement for the time being.”
Clarke said many of her female colleagues share those fears.
“We very much have the same feeling on the vaccine … We just don’t know the long-term effects on ourselves or on the fetus,” she said.
Huber addressed that issue: “I don’t think reproductive women should be concerned about their future fertility if they get this COVID-19 vaccine. The data we have thus far is that the vaccine is very safe.”
Clarke said she doesn’t think there is anything that would change her mind about the vaccine. Not even this cautionary tale from 35-year-old Anna Almendrala. She became ill with COVID after her fertility treatment.
In a video she can be seen lying prone, gasping for air.
“The scary thing is that things can change on a dime with this virus,” she said.
Days later, she was in the hospital, writing a goodbye letter to her daughter.
When asked what she would say to women who do not want the vaccine at all, Almendrala referenced how prevalent COVID is across the U.S.
“I’d say at this point … with the virus so widespread, you’re either choosing between getting the vaccine or getting COVID,” she said.
Almadrala said that she’s relieved there’s a vaccine and she will gladly take it — when it’s her turn.
“I think what this experience has really shown us is that we already have so much to be grateful for,” she said. “I almost felt like I was a couple of days away from losing everything.”
Read more from our CBS News series “Women and the Pandemic” below:
TOKYO — Yoshiro Mori, the president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee and a former prime minister, could be forced to resign after making derogatory comments about women earlier this week.
It is an additional problem as organizers and the International Olympic Committee try to pull off the postponed Games in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. They are set to open July 23.
The organizing committee said Thursday it did not have a statement but expected to have one later in the day.
Mori was reported by the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun as saying women talk too much in meetings during an online meeting of the Japanese Olympic Committee board of directors earlier in the week. His comments have created a storm in Japan, where women are grossly underrepresented in politics and in board rooms.
In an interview with the Japanese newspaper Mainichi published Thursday, Mori, 83, apologized and suggested he could resign.
“I had no intention to disrespect women,” Mainichi reported him saying. “I believe I must carry out my responsibility, but if calls for my resignation grow, I may have to resign.”
He added: “It was careless of me, and I would like to apologize.”
Asahi reported him saying Tuesday in an online meeting: “Women are very competitive. When one of them raises her hand, they probably think they have to say something, too. And then everyone says something.”
His comment came when he was asked about the presence of few women on the board of the Japanese Olympic Committee.
“If we are going to have more women directors, someone has remarked, then meetings go on for a long time unless we restrict the comments. I’m not saying who that is,” he said.
The Tokyo Olympics he leads are already swamped with problems.
About 80% of Japanese in polls say the Games should be postponed or canceled in the midst of the pandemic. They also have spoken out on rising costs that might total more than $25 billion to put on these Olympics.
February 4 is World Cancer Day, and in recognition of this, 24/7 Tempo decided to highlight several well-known women who have defeated the disease. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About one in eight women in the United States will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. After lung cancer, it is the second leading cause of death from cancer among women. These are the most common types of cancer in men and women.
24/7 Tempo compiled a list of 29 famous women who survived their battle with breast cancer. We reviewed sources such as the National Breast Cancer Foundation to create our list, which features women who were diagnosed at a range of ages and from a variety of professions. We only included women who have completed treatment and are now cancer-free.
Some of the women on this list have died, although not from their bout with breast cancer. Shirley Temple Black, Happy Rockefeller, and Betty Ford all go down in history as women who raised awareness of the disease during the 1970s, a time when such ailments were not publicly discussed. All three women defeated breast cancer and lived long lives.
Women who have an immediate family member, such as a mother, sister, or even a daughter, with a history of breast cancer are at a much greater risk of developing cancer themselves — about twice as likely — as women without such history. It is important for women to check for hereditary breast cancer and other cancers. Here are some other health tips every woman should know.
During a press conference Monday, the sheriff said Beaux Cormier hired Andrew Eskine and Dalvin Wilson to kill a rape victim who was set to testify against him.
In a press release, the sheriff’s office said that Cormier, 35, of Kaplan, Lousiana, Eskine, 25, of Carencro, Louisiana, and Wilson, 22, of Rayne, Louisiana traveled to Montegut, Louisiana to do surveillance on the residence and had, on a prior occasion, attempted to carry out the murder but were unsuccessful.
Montegut is about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans.
On January 13, Wilson went to the home in Montegut and asked for the rape victim by name. Brittany Cormier, Beaux’s sister, told the shooter that it was her, in an attempt to protect the victim, the sheriff said, noting that she was “accepting her fate to save the life of the actual victim.”
Brittany Cormier was shot along with her neighbor, Hope Nettleton, who was at the home visiting and had tried to fight off the shooter, according to Soignet. Both women died at the scene. Neither woman was the person the suspects were hired to kill, according to the sheriff.
“We don’t get these types of things happen, double homicides, in Terrabonne Parish,” the sheriff said. “Especially, Montegut, [it’s] is a small town.”
He added: “There were good people that ended up dying.”
Beaux Cormier, Wilson and Eskine are each charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
Although Eskine was not at the scene of the crime, he is also being charged in the murders because he facilitated the vehicle and helped make the plan, the release said.
“This really hit that community hard so we worked real hard to bring peace to the families and the community,” the sheriff said of the arrests.
It is unknown if any of the suspects have attorneys. The criminal complaint in the case is not yet available, the sheriff’s office told CNN.
The DA wants to keep suspects off the streets
Terrebonne Parish District Attorney Joseph Waitz told reporters that he was in the process of scheduling a meeting with the victims before deciding on whether to seek the death penalty in these cases, though, he said, the death penalty is “absolutely on the table.”
According to jail records, all three suspects remain in custody of the Terrebonne Sheriff’s office. They are being held on a $2 million bond each, Waitz said, adding that he is considering filing a motion to increase the bond amounts in order to keep them behind bars.
“These are very very dangerous people, I do not want them on the streets,” the DA said.
Big tech is in the hot seat like never before — and one company that deserves a chair in the front row is Instagram … so says Lindsey Pelas, who accuses them of discriminating against women.
We talked to the mega social media influencer, model and actress — who makes much of her living online these days — and she tells us IG appears to have it out for females … but goes easier on men, especially as it pertains to their bodies, and what they’re allowed to post.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
Check it out … Lindsey explains this is all about censorship — another hot button issue lately — and claims IG’s policies are unfair toward women in how much skin they can show on the platform, whereas Insta is allegedly way more lenient on guys baring it all. Lindsey likens it to digital cherry-picking … which she says often ends with fellas being able to run wild.
There’s another level here too … erections and vaginas. Listen to Lindsey — she says there’s a disparity on what products are allowed and aren’t on IG.
Anyway, back to her main point, which is this — the power these big tech companies have at their fingertips got put on full display this week with the drama from Robinhood. Funny enough, LP says that saga ain’t too different from what’s going on in the camera app.
Basically, she thinks someone’s gotta rein ’em in for good — including perhaps Congress … because these companies can literally make or break someone’s bank as they see fit.
Dawn Bancroft and Diana Santos-Smith were arrested and charged in connection to the Capitol riot.
The FBI received a tip of a “selfie” video taken at the siege, according to an affidavit.
Charges include entering a restricted building, disrupting government business, and disorderly conduct.
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Two women charged in connection to the Capitol siege said they were in the building “looking” for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “shoot her in the friggin’ brain,” according to an affidavit.
Dawn Bancroft and Diana Santos-Smith were arrested earlier this week in Pennsylvania in relation to the deadly insurrection on January 6, according to a criminal complaint.
Rioters stormed the Capitol building earlier this month as Congress was in session to certify the win of then-President-elect Joe Biden. The breach of the building prompted lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to shelter in place.
Five people died in the insurrection.
On January 12, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received a tip of a “selfie” video purportedly taken by Bancroft during the riot at the US Capitol building. In the video, Bancroft and another woman whom the FBI later identified as Santos-Smith were shown “in the process of attempting to exit the US Capitol building in Washington, DC,” according to the affidavit.
Read more: Marjorie Taylor Greene warned before the election that Americans would have to shed blood to ‘get your freedoms back’ if Trump lost
“We broke into the Capitol…we got inside, we did our part,” Bancroft said in the video, according to the criminal complaint. “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain but we didn’t find her.”
About a week after the FBI received the tip, for which they did not identify a source, investigators interviewed Santos-Smith and Bancroft. Santos-Smith initially told investigators that she did not physically enter the Capitol building but admitted that she lied after agents presented the aforementioned video to her. Bancroft said she did enter the building.
Santos-Smith said she and Bancroft attended the protest outside the Capitol with no intention of entering the building until she heard people yelling “they’re letting us in,” and told investigators that she thought protesters were being allowed to enter the Capitol.
Read more: Law enforcement veterans say the Capitol siege was just the tip of the iceberg of the ‘cult-like’ threat far-right extremists pose to the US
Santos-Smith said she and Bancroft entered the building through a broken window after an entrance door was too crowded, according to the affidavit. As soon as she entered the Capitol, she told investigators that she knew she should not be going inside.
A screenshot of CCTV footage showed one of the women climbing in through the broken window.
After approximately 30 seconds to one minute inside, Santos-Smith claimed that she and Bancroft exited the building from the same window through which they entered. Bancroft relayed a similar story to investigators, according to the criminal complaint.
Bancroft and Santos-Smith were charged for entering and remaining in a restricted building, disrupting government business, and disorderly conduct.
Pregnant women looking for guidance on Covid-19 vaccines are facing the kind of confusion that has dogged the pandemic from the start: The world’s leading public health organizations — the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization — are offering contradictory advice.
Neither organization explicitly forbids or encourages immunizing pregnant women. But weighing the same limited studies, they provide different recommendations.
The C.D.C.’s advisory committee urged pregnant women to consult with their doctors before rolling up their sleeves — a decision applauded by several women’s health organizations because it kept decision making in the hands of the expectant mothers.
The W.H.O. recommended that pregnant women not receive the vaccine, unless they were at high risk for Covid because of work exposures or chronic conditions. It issued guidance on the Moderna vaccine on Tuesday, stirring uncertainty among women and doctors on social media. (Earlier this month, it published similar guidance on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.)
Several experts expressed dismay at the W.H.O.’s stance, saying the risks to pregnant women from Covid were far greater than any theoretical harm from the vaccines.
“There are no documented risks to the fetus, there’s no theoretical risks, there’s no risk in animal studies,” from the vaccines, said Dr. Anne Lyerly, a bioethicist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “The more that I think about it, the more disappointed and sad I feel about it.”
The difference of opinion between the C.D.C. and the W.H.O. is not rooted in scientific evidence, but the lack of it: Pregnant women have been barred from participating in clinical trials of the vaccines, a decision in line with a long tradition of excluding pregnant women from biomedical research, but one that is now being challenged.
While the rationale is ostensibly to protect women and their unborn children, barring pregnant women from studies pushes the risk out of the carefully controlled environment of a clinical trial and into the real world. The practice has forced patients and providers to weigh sensitive, worrisome issues with little hard data about safety or effectiveness.
Vaccines are generally considered to be safe, and pregnant women have been urged to be immunized for influenza and other diseases since the 1960s, even in the absence of rigorous clinical trials to test them.
“As obstetricians we are often faced with difficult decisions about using interventions in pregnancy that have not been properly tested in pregnancy,” said Dr. Denise Jamieson, an obstetrician at Emory University in Atlanta and a member of the Covid expert group at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists. The college strongly advocated including pregnant and breastfeeding women in the vaccine trials.
“What many people miss is that there are risks to doing nothing,” Dr. Jamieson said. “Not offering pregnant women the opportunity to be vaccinated and protect themselves, where there are known and severe risks of Covid amplified by pregnancy, is not a wise strategy.”
The uncertainty isn’t limited to Covid vaccines: Many if not most medications, including widely used drugs, have never been tested in pregnant women. It can take years or decades for adverse side effects to come to light in the absence of a study with a control group for comparison.
“This isn’t a story about the W.H.O. or other people advising against vaccination in pregnancy,” said Carleigh Krubiner, a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development and a principal investigator for the Pregnancy Research Ethics for Vaccines, Epidemics and New Technologies project (PREVENT). “It’s a story about the failure to timely and appropriately include pregnant women in vaccination studies.”
Saying she understood the commitment of the W.H.O. and other advisory bodies to rely on scientific studies, Dr. Krubiner added: “The reality is that we don’t yet have the data on these vaccinations in pregnancy, and it’s very difficult without that data to come out and give a full-throated recommendation in support.”
The C.D.C. and the W.H.O. have offered dissonant advice many times over the course of the pandemic — most notably on the usefulness of masks and the possibility of the virus traveling by air indoors.
In a statement, the C.D.C. said on Thursday that based on how the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines work, “they are unlikely to pose a specific risk for pregnant women.”
The C.D.C.’s recommendation may make sense for the United States, where women may easily be able to consult with their health care providers, said Joachim Hombach, a health adviser to the W.H.O. on immunizations. But the W.H.O. provides guidance to many low- and middle-income countries where women do not have access to doctors or nurses, he said.
The W.H.O.’s recommendation was also made “in the context of limited supply” of the vaccines, Dr. Hombach said. “I don’t think the language is discouraging, but the language is stating the facts.”
Pfizer did not include pregnant women in its initial clinical trials because it followed the policies outlined by the Food and Drug Administration to first conduct developmental and reproductive toxicity studies, said Jerica Pitts, a spokeswoman for the company. Pfizer and Moderna both provided results from toxicity studies in pregnant rats to the F.D.A. in December.
Pfizer plans to begin a clinical study in pregnant women in the first half of 2021, Ms. Pitts said. Moderna is establishing a registry to record outcomes in pregnant women who receive its vaccine, according to Colleen Hussey, a spokeswoman for the company.
Critics of the companies’ decisions to exclude pregnant women from trials say the reproductive toxicity studies could have been carried out much earlier — as soon as promising vaccine candidates were identified. The companies should have added a protocol to enroll pregnant women once it was clear the vaccines’ benefits outweighed potential harm, Dr. Krubiner said.
“It’s hard to understand why that delay is happening and why it wasn’t initiated sooner,” she said. “The bigger issue is, we’re going to have lost months by the time they start them.”
Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who has advocated immunizations for pregnant women, questioned the underlying issue that prompted the W.H.O.’s decision.
“Whatever it is, I wish the W.H.O. would be more transparent in their reasons behind this recommendation,” she said. “Women’s lives depend on it.”
Covid-19 Vaccines ›
Answers to Your Vaccine Questions
Currently more than 150 million people — almost half the population — are eligible to be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision about who goes first. The nation’s 21 million health care workers and three million residents of long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials urged all states to open up eligibility to everyone 65 and older and to adults of any age with medical conditions that put them at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from Covid-19. Adults in the general population are at the back of the line. If federal and state health officials can clear up bottlenecks in vaccine distribution, everyone 16 and older will become eligible as early as this spring or early summer. The vaccine hasn’t been approved in children, although studies are underway. It may be months before a vaccine is available for anyone under the age of 16. Go to your state health website for up-to-date information on vaccination policies in your area
You should not have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, although you will be asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still be given the vaccine at no charge. Congress passed legislation this spring that bars insurers from applying any cost sharing, such as a co-payment or deductible. It layered on additional protections barring pharmacies, doctors and hospitals from billing patients, including those who are uninsured. Even so, health experts do worry that patients might stumble into loopholes that leave them vulnerable to surprise bills. This could happen to those who are charged a doctor visit fee along with their vaccine, or Americans who have certain types of health coverage that do not fall under the new rules. If you get your vaccine from a doctor’s office or urgent care clinic, talk to them about potential hidden charges. To be sure you won’t get a surprise bill, the best bet is to get your vaccine at a health department vaccination site or a local pharmacy once the shots become more widely available.
That is to be determined. It’s possible that Covid-19 vaccinations will become an annual event, just like the flu shot. Or it may be that the benefits of the vaccine last longer than a year. We have to wait to see how durable the protection from the vaccines is. To determine this, researchers are going to be tracking vaccinated people to look for “breakthrough cases” — those people who get sick with Covid-19 despite vaccination. That is a sign of weakening protection and will give researchers clues about how long the vaccine lasts. They will also be monitoring levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of vaccinated people to determine whether and when a booster shot might be needed. It’s conceivable that people may need boosters every few months, once a year or only every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data.
The toxicity data released by Pfizer and Moderna in December found no harmful effects from the vaccines to pregnant rats — evidence cited by the W.H.O. in its guidance.
One extreme consequence of a conservative approach to vaccines played out during the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, when health workers offered a vaccine for the disease to all frontline workers and contacts of people confirmed to have it — except if they were pregnant or breastfeeding. Without the vaccine, 98 percent of pregnant women who were infected with the Ebola virus died.
The rules were changed following a public outcry but, by then, many pregnant women had died, Dr. Lyerly said.
Covid-19 has also proved to be dangerous to pregnant women. A large C.D.C. study published in November found that pregnant women with Covid who were symptomatic were significantly more likely to be hospitalized or to die when compared with nonpregnant women who also had Covid symptoms.
The evidence prompted agency officials to add pregnancy to the list of conditions that heighten the risk of severe disease and death from Covid.
The C.D.C. has set up a smartphone application called v-safe to solicit reports of side effects from immunized people. About 15,000 pregnant women have enrolled in the registry so far, the agency’s immunization committee reported on Wednesday.
“I think that’s our best chance of getting safety data rapidly,” Dr. Jamieson said.
Britain initially starkly recommended against Covid vaccines for pregnant women, but has since revised its guidance to authorize inoculating pregnant women who are frontline workers or otherwise at high risk. “I’m hoping the W.H.O. will reconsider as well,” Dr. Jamieson said.
Some experts said the recommendations are not as divergent as they may appear at first glance. “The C.D.C. is more inclined to say that pregnant women should have access to the vaccine, but should discuss their circumstances with their providers,” said Dr. Ana Langer, a reproductive health expert who leads the Women and Health Initiative at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The W.H.O.’s interim recommendation says that women who are at particularly high risk of exposure or getting Covid should get the vaccine. So where’s the big difference here?”
The first COVID case in the U.S. was found in January, 2020. One year later, the numbers surrounding the pandemic are alarming.
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Patricia Rust is doing everything she can to stay safe during the pandemic. Her husband, however, is not.
Rust, 68, a retired attorney in Clarksville, Tennessee, is militant about mask-wearing and social distancing. But she says her 71-year-old husband believes COVID is no worse than the flu, often refuses to wear a mask and frequently socializes in large groups.
“We just had a fight the other night where I said, ‘That’s it, we’re going to get divorced. I need to stay safe and you refuse to allow me to be safe or feel safe in my own home,'” Rust said. “I have pleaded. I have cried. I have begged. I have yelled. And he refuses to listen to anything I say.”
Rust’s husband declined to be interviewed for this story.
The coronavirus has taken a devastating toll, with more than 425,000 Americans dead and infections continuing to mount despite the introduction of vaccines late in 2020. Men do not take COVID as seriously as women and are less likely to follow safety measures, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For older couples with underlying conditions, like the Rusts, these marital conflicts are fraught with life or death consequences. For younger couples with children, these clashes pose health risks as well as create additional work for mothers who feel they must take on the burden of keeping their families safe.
Tired of COVID-19?: Here’s how experts say to fight off pandemic fatigue and stay safe
Jessica Calarco, a professor of sociology at Indiana University, surveyed Indiana mothers as part of a Pandemic Parenting Study and found nearly 40% of respondents report increases in pandemic-related frustrations with their partners. Those frustrations were twice as common among mothers with partners who were less supportive of steps they took to reduce COVID-19 risks.
“Women are being gaslit in some cases by their partners, with women being the ones who are reading the science and listening to the experts, taking in this information, making informed decisions for their family’s health, and then having those decisions undermined by partners who refuse to wear masks or who tell women that they are crazy, or that they are being driven by emotion and overly fearful about the pandemic,” she said.
Experts say while COVID’s political divisions have dominated headlines, the pandemic’s gender divide is just as significant, with consequences for public health – CDC data shows more men have died from COVID than women as the virus continues to spread – as well as for relationships.
As the nation wages war against the deadly virus, many women are fighting their own private battles at home.
COVID conflicts exacerbated by politics, gender
Republicans and Democrats often disagree over the steps necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This has created tensions in many heterosexual relationships, since women, on average, tend to lean liberal, and more men identify as Republican.
Experts say these tensions are exacerbated by the pressures some men feel to demonstrate their masculinity, which can include showing strength, downplaying fear and taking risks. CDC data shows men are less likely than women to wear seatbelts or get flu shots.
Rust identifies as a Democrat and her husband as a Republican. She says her husband, who rides motorcycles, has always been a risk-taker. But now she fears when it comes to COVID, he thinks he’s “invincible.”
Many Republican leaders have also explicitly characterized behaviors such as mask-wearing as unmanly, leading some men to eschew the behavior, which is proven to limit transmission, for fear of appearing feminine or weak.
A study from New York University in October found women wore masks about 15% more often than men.
Socially, men are also often pressured to be their family’s primary providers. Psychiatrist Lea Lis noted some men who continue to go into work, for example, may feel, “COVID risk is acceptable as I must provide financially for the family at all costs.”
When anxiety is gender coded
In this era of unprecedented uncertainty, anxiety is common. But Juliet Williams, a gender studies professor at UCLA, says the way we view anxiety often depends on who is expressing it. When men are anxious about something, they’re called “protective.” When women are anxious about something, they’re called “fearful.”
Women dismissed by their partners on COVID are finding they aren’t safe to express justifiable anxieties at home.
Rust, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said she’s been most hurt by what she views as her husband’s indifference.
De-radicalization: If someone you care about has been radicalized, here’s what to know
“If I tell him to pull up his mask I get the death stare and he will throw a tantrum by being rude the remainder of the day,” she said. “We have been together since 1986. The part that hurts me the most is the lack of respect or concern he has for me.”
Older men have made the fewest behavior changes in response to COVID-19, according to the CDC.
Rachel Sussman, a licensed psychotherapist, said she’s counseled many couples who’ve experienced relationship stress during COVID, including those who don’t see eye-to-eye on the threat.
“In this iteration, someone in the family, usually the woman, is very concerned about COVID, very concerned about catching it, very concerned about the children catching it, and the man has been less so, and that caused terrible rifts between the couples where one person is called controlling, and the other person’s called irresponsible and even dangerous,” she said.
Sussman said she’s seen these conflicts even in relationships where partners share political beliefs, because the mothers’ concern for the health of the children eventually outweighs fealty to political party.
“When it comes to caring for her children, she becomes a mama bear,” she said.
Women take on additional work
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, women are often the primary health care decision makers for their families, and Calarco’s study found mothers are typically the ones shouldering the additional health burdens associated with COVID.
Calarco said women either had to do a tremendous amount of work to persuade their partners to take COVID seriously, or they had to take on the additional work of keeping their families safe, including teaching children to properly wash their hands and wear masks.
Sometimes, however, Calarco said a partner’s repeated dismissals would cause women to reconsider their views.
[Some] moms ended up doubting themselves and really questioning their own beliefs about the seriousness of the virus as a way to avoid conflicts,” Calarco said. “For some of these moms, it was just easier to say, ‘Well, maybe it’s not as serious as I thought it was.'”
Even in a health crisis, compromise is more productive than conflict
Psychologists say if you and your partner don’t see eye-to-eye on COVID, compromise is key.
“You might say, ‘How could there be a compromise or how could we meet in the middle with a disease that can kill people?’ But yet, there has to be,” Sussman said.
Lis says it’s important to avoid “you” statements, such as “You are not taking COVID seriously” or “You want to put our health in jeopardy.” “You” statements almost always result in conflict, she said. Instead, try to create a list of things important to both of you as a starting point for discussion.
“Where you can bend, then bend. Where you can’t, create hard boundaries, and then say no firmly,” she said.
Some couples will never agree on COVID, which is why Sussman says rather than trying to get your partner to believe what you believe, it may be more productive to hone in on behavior changes.
“Focus on one change, one change at a time,” she said. “Even a small change could ease some of the tension and create a bit more safety for the family.”
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Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/01/28/women-take-covid-19-more-seriously-and-relationships-suffering/4288514001/
An Idaho woman went on a bizarre rant at a local city council meeting saying she had to wear a “freaking burka” so she could avoid wearing face masks while attending college classes on campus.
A woman who identified herself as Katie Dugger voiced her frustration about the mask mandate and shared why masks had been a burden in her life during a city council meeting in Lewiston, Idaho on Monday.
Dugger, wearing a colorful outfit with a headscarf over her head complained that she took off a semester from school because she didn’t want to wear a mask.
“I took last semester off at LCSC (Lewis-Clark State College) because of all this nonsense because I can not wear a mask,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter why but it is very traumatizing for me to put on a mask, because of something that happened to me when I was a kid.”
Dugger went on to explain why she was chose to wear her eccentric outfit instead of wearing a mask.
“I’m wearing this because the only way I could go to school today was because I had to act like I had on a freaking burka and go like this so I could go to school and cover my face like I am a Muslim because I can breathe through this at least,” she said.
“This is thin enough that I can breathe through it. The way for me to go to school and get my education is I have to dress like a freaking Muslim,” the woman added.
Dugger also downplayed the vaccine during the rant.
“If they want to get a vaccine, let them get a vaccine and get Bell’s palsy and fall over dead two weeks later,” she claimed.
Idaho has reported over 161,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,714 deaths as of Wednesday, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
