There was no Lincoln photo. Instead, there was a very damp issue of Harper’s Weekly, dated April 29, 1865, showing a printed picture of what appeared to be an individual next to Lincoln’s body. “It was not an original,” said Sue Donovan, a conservator at the University of Virginia. “There was no photograph, per se.”
“It’s not too bad,” said Sue Donovan, a conservator for special collections at the University of Virginia. “Its not soup, so we’re OK with that.”
The unboxing on Tuesday came after workers found the time capsule that had eluded them for months – until Monday, when Virginia’s governor announced that crews had found “the time capsule everyone was looking for.” Historians had long hoped to find it, with a newspaper account at the time detailing dozens of objects placed inside, much of it Confederate memorabilia. “We found quite a few of them” from the list, said Sue Donovan, conservator for special collections at the University of Virginia Library.
Two UVA doctors have some masking advice. “A cloth mask is supposed to have at least two layers of cloth to be more effective in filtering out the virus particles. But if you have a cloth mask that has at least a couple of layers, it’s as effective as these disposable masks that most of us are wearing,” Dr. Bill Petri with UVA Health said.
Dr. Bill Petri at UVA Health says people may want to skip out on that highly anticipated New Year’s Eve party.
(Commentary) Dr. Michael Nelson, chief of UVA’s Division of Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, was one panelist who expressed concern: “Almost every vote cast today is going to be caveated based on the discussion we’ve had today. Personally, I see this as an access [to vaccination] question . . . not a mandate for all of this age group.” And: “To me, we should certainly not underestimate the knowledge and decision-making power of the public.”
There are now two new pills to help fight COVID-19. The FDA approved Merck’s anti-viral pill on Dec. 23. It also recently approved Pfizer’s Paxlovid under an emergency use authorization. Dr. Costi Sifri, an epidemiologist with the University of Virginia, says Paxlovid was created in part to help overworked hospital systems. Now more people can recover from COVID-19 without filling a bed.
“I think it’s with the anticipation that we are going to have a terrible time with Omicron, so many people are going to be infected,” said Dr. Bill Petri, an infectious disease doctor at UVA Health. “Trying to figure out balanced risks versus benefits so as to not shut down the economy with not as many people being quarantined or isolated as long as necessary.”
Letting up on the moral judgments, perfectionist tendencies, and insistent stiff upper lip of the last two years could prove crucial in other ways, too, says psychologist Nicole Ruzek, director of Counseling and Psychological Services at the University of Virginia. “I hope people are talking about it with each other,” she says of the pandemic’s many annoyances, big and small. “My worry has been that we’re displacing our feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and anger.”
“They’re not seeing any cases of vaccinated children in the hospital. That just shows how powerful vaccination is,” Dr. Taison Bell, assistant professor of medicine in the divisions of infectious diseases and international health and pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Virginia, said.
“There are a lot of messages about the dangers of vaccines, studies that aren’t true,” said David Nemer, an expert on Brazil’s far-right groups on messaging apps and an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. “They’re bringing a lot of disinformation about vaccinating kids to motivate the base.”
Where did omicron come from? It might have originated in South Africa, where it was first detected in Pretoria, one of the country’s three capital cities. Dr. Peter Kasson, a virologist and biophysicist at the University of Virginia, entertains the possibility due to South Africa’s low vaccination rate (26%). The more a virus spreads and infects, the more opportunities it has to replicate, resulting in more mutations. “The best way to prevent variants is to give the virus fewer people it can infect,” Kasson said.
A new national Covid-19 commission aims to answer how best to find new viral threats and study them, said Philip Zelikow, professor of history at the University of Virginia who was executive director of the 9/11 commission. He is leading a planning group for the new commission, which is seeking support from the Biden administration or Congress to conduct a broad inquiry into the pandemic’s lessons.
(Commentary by Edgar O. Olsen, adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor emeritus of economics) Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) effectively killed the Build Back Better Act and, fortunately for American taxpayers, its numerous misguided housing proposals likely are gone along with it.
(By Bart Epstein, research associate professor at the School of Education and Human Development and president and CEO of the EdTech Evidence Exchange) Ironically, the sector of our economy in which our federal government arguably does the least to facilitate information-sharing is education.
(Commentary by Neeti Nair, associate professor of history) The recent assembly of so-called sadhus at Haridwar in Uttarakhand has called for the mass murder of Muslims. The videos of the vitriolic, hate speeches have now been in circulation for a few days, and have been analysed by the media in some measure. Yet, with Covid surging and election news dominating headlines, this latest avalanche of hate speech has already begun to drop off the front pages of newspapers. We neglect this new low at our peril.
(Commentary by Mehr Afshan Farooqi, associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures) I’ve been cleaning out closets; dusting bookshelves packed with love. Every book in this big room, every artifact, photograph, calligraphic art, assortment of pens and writing tools, pen drives and the computer, bears my father’s touch.
UVA immunologist and COVID-19 researcher Dr. William Petri continues to answer reader questions about COVID-19, vaccines and, now, the omicron variant.
(Book review by Jack Hamilton, associate professor of American studies and media studies) The latest entry in the literature of Cash is Michael Stewart Foley’s “Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash,” which argues for considering Cash as a political artist, a performer deeply engaged with the issues of his time who deployed his magnificent instrument in quietly radical ways.
Mincer’s has been established on the Corner since 1954, selling all kinds of University of Virginia apparel. As owner Mark Mincer battles brain cancer, his son Cal Mincer has taken over to continue the shop’s legacy and tradition for a fourth generation. “UVA is our life and our family’s history. All we’ve ever known or cared about is UVA,” said Cal.