The New Yorker: A Year In America's First COVID Epicenter

By James Ross Gardner

    On February 29th, 2020, what was believed to be the first COVID-19 death in America was confirmed. From that, the first mass outbreak began as well. Seattle became a ghost town and a test case overnight. Local and state leaders rushed to find mitigation measures for a virus no one really knew much about. On top of that, they were operating on the false information that the virus was not easily transmitted. However, one year later, the county has one of the lowest infection and death rates of the nation's most populous 50 counties. So how did they do it?

CNN 10 3/1/2021 ~ 3/5/2021

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Monday, March 1, 2021

Over the weekend, the House of Representatives passed a $1.9 trillion dollar economic stimulus package in a 219-212 vote. As it currently stands, many American citizens would receive $1,400 checks, and funding would go to people in need, schools and states, and the distribution of COVID tests and vaccines. It still has to pass through the Senate before it can land on President Biden's desk, but it is likely to change before that occurs. The controversial part of the plan is raising the federal minimum wage, which would be more than doubled to $15. The Congressional Budget Office believes that while this would help almost 1 million Americans rise above the poverty line, but it would remove nearly 1.5 million jobs. This is why minimum wage proposals are rarely passed. The pandemic has killed millions of people, and it has also had a psychological impact, especially on university students. They believed that college would be the land of opportunity, but to be stuck indoors all day with no way to make money and barely able to pay the bills, depression and anxiety are increasing. Other, more privileged students are trying to help, but the mental toll of the pandemic is plainly visible in France's 1.5 million university students. Hector's dolphins are the smallest dolphins in the world, and a subgroup called Maui dolphins are among the rarest in the world. Only 63 are left in the wild, and a new drone has been built to keep track of them. Common dolphins as their name suggests, are much more common, sometimes grouping into thousands to "stampede". One lucky tourist group caught sight of this off the California coast.