An injured seal pup was rescued after being spotted in a resort town in England heading towards a road filled with cars.
A member of the public came across the grey seal pup, thought to be between 4 and 5 weeks old, in Great Yarmouth on the country's east coast on Wednesday.
After finding the seal, the individual notified local nonprofit Marine and Wildlife Rescue, which specializes in helping seals, birds of prey, garden birds, waterfowl, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals that need assistance.
"This evening we were called to [Great Yarmouth] by a concerned member of the public, they'd seen this grey seal pup making off along the path towards the road," the charity said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
"They sensibly stopped it from doing so and waited with it until we arrived."
The charity said the grey seal pup is weaned, underweight and had fresh bite wounds on its abdomen.
"There had been a commotion on the beach prior to the seal pup appearing up on the promenade," the charity said.
According to the charity, there was no space at the nearest wildlife hospital, so officials simply relocated the pup to a safer area.
"With no hospital space, and a chance the pup can hopefully carry on undisturbed with life, we relocated it to a quiet area to rest and hopefully be on its way soon."
Dan Goldsmith from the charity told the BBC that the seal pup had probably been spooked after being attacked by a dog.
"We think there was an incident with a dog on the beach, which spooked the seal up the walkway."
He said the pup should "be OK" despite its wounds. Goldsmith praised the actions of the member of the public, saying they had done well to keep the pup away from the road by shooing it into a washing-up bowl.
"It had been much closer to the road than it is in the photo," he said.
Goldsmith said his charity had received an "unprecedented" number of call-outs this pupping season.
"More and more seals are coming to Great Yarmouth—there's a habitat near the harbour where they are undisturbed. There are more seals being born each year, but also because of the storms and tides there has been a lot of displacement of them."
"We had nowhere near as many call-outs this time last year, and the season's far from over."
Stock image showing a young grey seal pup. An injured grey seal pup was rescued after being spotted in a resort town in England heading towards a road filled with cars.
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Seal Rescued After Being Found Heading Towards Cars, Likely Spooked by Dog - Newsweek
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Brian Bourgeois was dedicated to his family, community and country while serving as a Navy SEAL.
By Lily Belcher
Following the tragic death of Navy SEAL and former FishHawk father of five Brian Bourgeois, FishHawk families and Navy Football Brotherhood are raising money to support Bourgeois’ family. Bourgeois was an active member of the FishHawk community, involved with his kids’ sports teams and supported his wife, Megan, in her involvement with Seeds of Hope.
“He touched everyone that he could touch and everyone that came to the memorial service had a story about Brian,” said Brian McMillin, who was a friend of Bourgeois. “He was so close to so many people.”
While his dedication to his family and community was seen through his involvement in FishHawk sports, Bourgeois’ dedication to his country was evident in his work with the Navy in his 20 years of service. Bourgeois applied to the Naval Academy and played for its football team for four years. He then commissioned as an officer in the Navy before applying to Navy SEAL school in Virginia. Bourgeois was named Commanding Officer of SEAL Team Eight, responsible for leading around 250 SEALs.
“This guy had the busiest job out of [the United States Special Operations Command] and yet he still made time for his wife and his kids and made time for his community,” said McMillin.
McMillin shared that when one of Bourgeois’ neighbors was ill, he visited the family and helped them with some home repairs, something McMillin said was not surprising coming from Bourgeois, who often helped his neighbors and the FishHawk community.
“This guy was just a different guy … there’s only a few SEAL teams in the world and he went to Virginia Beach not knowing if they would name him a team commander, and they did. Up there, he commanded almost 250 people [in] the last year that he took command.”
Navy Football Brotherhood reached out to McMillin to organize a donation for Bourgeois’ family following his death. Bourgeois had recently attended its alumni game in the fall and maintained a close relationship with his former teammates.
“Ultimately,” said McMillin, “all these people, and all these donations, just want to make it to where Megan … is just able to continue what they knew as normal.”
To donate to help Bourgeois’ family, visit Navy Football Brotherhood’s Facebook page @NavyFootballBrotherhood.
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Broadband rules are in place to ensure users are aware when this happens, yet you’re likely to notice a lag in your connection well before getting any courtesy call from your provider. Not to mention, with Net Neutrality tied up in the courts, some worry that ISPs will start picking and choosing what content gets throttled (if they aren’t already).
Recently, OCBC Bank issued an urgent warning about phishing scams attempting to impersonate the bank. These phishing scams impersonate the OCBC SMS service, making it convincing that the sender (scammer) appears to be the same as the actual OCBC SMS notifications.
Personally, I have received such a phishing message and it took me another second to scruntinise and to realise that it was a scam SMS that I was receiving.
Take a look at the messages below and ask yourself if you would have spotted the scam immediately? Do note, the scam SMS may appear to be sent under “OCBC”. It was in my case.
The sender claimed to be “OCBC” but what gave it away was the fact that I did not add any payees, and that the link directed me to a suspicious link: payee-ocbc.com. The official OCBC website is ocbc.com.
This phishing scam has been so convincing that according to an OCBC news alert sent out yesterday, 450 customers have lost more than $8.5 million to such scams from between 8 and 29 December.
If you or your loved ones receive any suspicious SMS, here’s what to look out for:
Personally, we think the best advice here is never to click on any links that you get in SMS. Instead, go 1) directly to the bank’s website by typing the URL on your browers or 2) through the official OCBC app.
Stay safe, and share this information with all your loved ones so that they too won’t fall prey to these scams.
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An injured seal pup that was heading towards seafront traffic has been rescued and placed back in its habitat.
The four to five-week-old grey seal pup was found on a path close to the pier off North Drive in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on Wednesday night.
Dan Goldsmith of Marine and Wildlife Rescue said it had probably been spooked after a dog attack.
"We relocated it much further along [the beach] to rest and recover, and it should be okay," he said.
In a post on Facebook, the charity said there was no space at the nearest wildlife hospital and a good chance the pup could "carry on" and be on its way soon.
A member of public had called the charity after spotting the seal near the bowling green beside the pier, and just across the road from the bright lights of a cinema.
Puncture wounds
Mr Goldsmith said they had done a good job of keeping it away from the road, by shooing it with a washing-up bowl.
"It had been much closer to the road than it is in the photo," said Mr Goldsmith.
"We think there was an incident with a dog on the beach, which spooked the seal up the walkway.
"We gave it a quick look over and we could see fresh puncture wounds on its abdomen. It was weaned and it was a bit on the light side, but it seemed ok."
He added Marine and Wildlife Rescue, whose volunteers hoped to check in at the seal's location, had experienced an "unprecedented" number of call-outs this pupping season.
"More and more seals are coming to Great Yarmouth - there's a habitat near the harbour where they are undisturbed, although the pupping happens between Waxham and Winterton-on-Sea.
"Even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants," the CDC said in a midday bulletin.
The CDC said the coronavirus "spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high."
It said the travel health notice upgrade from level 3 to level 4 "reflects increases in cases onboard cruise ships since identification of the Omicron variant."
Dec. 28, 202102:37
The CDC said more cruise ships are at "level yellow" on a color-coded CDC chart, at which point the public health agency investigates the Covid outbreak on the ship.
"It is especially important that travelers who are at an increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19 avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide, regardless of vaccination status," it added.
If you do chose to cruise, the CDC said be sure to receive a vaccine booster if eligible and to wear a mask in shared spaces onboard. Those who are "not fully vaccinated" should also quarantine for five days after cruise travel, they said.
The airline industry has already suffered setbacks from the omicron variant, with JetBlue saying Wednesday it would "proactively" cancel flights through Jan. 13 to get ahead of expected staffing shortages because of spiking Covid rates in the New York City area.
The CDC's cruise ship warning comes after the global cruise industry experienced Covid outbreaks in early 2020, only to rebound after the availability of vaccines.
After ships and tourists returned to the seas in late 2021, many new policies were introduced in an effort to tamp down the spread of Covid onboard: mandatory vaccinations, negative Covid tests and even daily PCR tests for all passengers.
This is a breaking news story, please check back again for updates.
While whale watchers typically hope to spot whales, one group off the coast of California saw something just as exciting – an elephant seal. A boat from Capt. Dave’s Dana Point Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari came across the animal that’s known to be shy and therefore, not often seen by humans.
This one, however, appeared to be taking a nap, which allowed tourists to get a good look at it.
Footage of the animal was uploaded to YouTube, where the whale watching company wrote, “While in the open-ocean, northern elephant seals spend about 90% of their time under the water, mostly diving for food. So they’re rarely glimpsed at the surface, and when they are, the seals are usually boat-shy.”
The post continued, “This male elephant seal seemed to be having a nap and didn’t mind our presence too much. Male northern elephant seals are the largest marine mammal we see other than whales and can weigh upwards of 4,400 pounds!”
The encounter happened in August, but the footage surfaced just recently.
This is the latest example of a “rare” animal being spotted in the wild.
Fox News previously reported that a Steller’s sea eagle was spotted perched in a tree branch along the Taunton River. The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife posted about the sighting on Facebook, writing that the bird is thought to be from Asia.
It’s believed that this same bird has been spotted in Canada, Alaska and Texas.
While whale watchers typically hope to spot whales, one group off the coast of California saw something just as exciting – an elephant seal. A boat from Capt. Dave’s Dana Point Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari came across the animal that's known to be shy and therefore, not often seen by humans.
A group from Capt. Dave’s Dana Point Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari spotted an elephant seal relaxing in the water. (Capt. Dave's Whale Watching via Storyful)
This one, however, appeared to be taking a nap, which allowed tourists to get a good look at it.
Footage of the animal was uploaded to Youtube, where the whale watching company wrote, "While in the open-ocean, northern elephant seals spend about 90% of their time under the water, mostly diving for food. So they're rarely glimpsed at the surface, and when they are, the seals are usually boat-shy."
The post continued, "This male elephant seal seemed to be having a nap and didn't mind our presence too much. Male northern elephant seals are the largest marine mammal we see other than whales and can weigh upwards of 4,400 pounds!"
The encounter happened in August, but the footage surfaced just recently.
This is the latest example of a "rare" animal being spotted in the wild.
Fox News previously reported that a Steller’s sea eagle was spotted perched in a tree branch along the Taunton River. The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife posted about the sighting on Facebook, writing that the bird is thought to be from Asia.
Certain words in other languages are more powerful than their equivalents in English. One such word in Hawaiian language is “hewa.” In English the equivalent is “incorrect” or “to do wrong.”
But in Hawaiian the word hewa encompasses so much more. Hewa, pronounced “heh-va” means wicked, guilty, sinful. Hewa is used to describe intentional transgressions rather than careless, accidental acts.
Hawaiian language professor Puakea Nogelmeier says hewa is the opposite of pono.
“Pono is the Hawaiian word for everything right and virtuous. Hewa is everything wrong and dishonorable. Hewa is like an umbrella encompassing all that is bad,” says Nogelmeier, a professor emeritus of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii Manoa.
At the end of every year, it is customary to honor people and institutions for remarkable feats they have accomplished during the year.
I would like to turn that custom around, and instead offer Hewa Awards for deliberate or arrogant misbehavior in 2021 that has harmed others.
The Hewa Award this year goes to the U.S. Navy for continuing to downplay the serious danger that its aging fuel storage tanks at Red Hill pose to the drinking water of Oahu and the dismissive way it initially treated military families affected by the petroleum leaks at the facility.
I was impressed by the power of the word hewa when I heard U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele voice it in a Dec. 16 interview with Hawaii News Now’s Mahealani Richardson. Hewa is a word rarely heard in a TV news reports.
Kahele said, “Water is very precious in Hawaii. It is a kinolau (the embodiment of a god). Water is life. The most hewa thing you could do in Hawaii is contaminate and poison the water source.”
Kahele was talking about what could happen if the U.S. Navy failed to protect the people of Oahu from future petroleum leaks from its Red Hill facility, in light of the recent November leak that spewed petroleum products into a drinking water well serving 93,000 people in nearby military housing.
Board of Water Supply Manager and Chief Engineer Ernie Lau deserves credit for his pono actions during the drinking water crisis. Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2021
Ernie Lau, chief engineer for the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, says water for the rest of Oahu is at risk from future leaks from the Navy’s 80-year-old fuel storage system at Red Hill sitting 100 feet above an aquifer.
To poison Oahu’s water, as Kahale contends, would be hewa, beyond redemption.
“No matter how strategically important that fuel is, it can never be at the expense of our people and our environment. That is not negotiable,” he said in the TV interview.
Beyond its tendency to dismiss the danger of future spills, the Navy gets the Hewa Award for its continuing arrogance.
On Dec. 20, Deputy Ass. Navy Secretary James Balocki said at a hearing that the tainted water from the leak that forced 3,400 to move out of their homes at Christmas time was not a crisis.
Balocki, who claimed to be unaware of the people who got sick after the leak, called it “an urgent, compelling situation, not a crisis. I have been in combat so I know what a crisis looks like.”
That was a silly and insulting comparison that completely disregarded the seriousness of the issue. In any war you expect crisis. I know. I was once a combat reporter. Soldiers expect to get shot at in firefights, maybe killed. A crisis is Navy families anticipating clean water when they turn on their kitchen taps to make coffee or an infant’s formula only to find the water laced with jet fuel. That’s hewa.
Service members join the military to fight for the safety of their country. In return, they expect their families to be protected from health hazards like dangerously contaminated drinking water.
Navy Ass. Secretary Balocki made his remarks at a hearing on the state Department of Health’s order to the Navy to suspend it operations at Red Hill, treat the contaminated water and defuel all of the aging tanks there.
After Kahele demanded an apology from the Navy for what he called Balocki’s insulting and offensive remarks, Balocki sent a letter to the Hawaii congressman this past weekend to say he was sorry and that he regretted his choice of words.
The Navy has stopped operations at the Red Hill facility and is in the process of flushing clean the tainted water but it continues to resist the order to drain the tanks and relocate its fuel storage away from the aquifer.
In the early days of the crisis, the health department said the Navy illegally flushed the petroleum contaminated drinking water onto the sidewalks and streets in residential housing areas.
And another black mark is that the Navy waited before telling military families not to drink the befouled water, even after the health department said to avoid it.
When families began to complain about getting sick from the water, the commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Capt. Erik Spitzer, in late November publicly stated the water was safe and said members of his staff were drinking it. He later apologized. This seems to be a pattern. Dismiss the seriousness of the situation first. Apologize later.
Hawaiian language expert Nogelmeier says the Navy deserves to be called hewa for its continuing lack of transparency about what it plans to do to prevent leaks.
Nogelmeier said, “The Navy is out to harm us by deciding we don’t need to know what it is doing. I am offended by the harm. It is hewa Ê»iÊ»o no. Truly hewa indeed!”
Nogelmeier says when calling out hewa behavior it is also good to emphasize what has been righteous or pono.
The pono person in this issue is Ernie Lau, the BWS’ chief engineer who has persisted in demanding that the Navy get its act together and respond to the people of Hawaii’s insistence on pure, safe water. The health department and the Sierra Club of Hawaii have also been pono in calling the Navy to task.
The runner up for this year’s Hewa Award is the person or people responsible for the deliberate shooting death of a young female monk seal known as L11 on Molokai.
State authorities say the 1-year-old seal shot in the head was at least the third intentional killing of a monk seal on Molokai this year.
Department of Land and Natural Resources enforcement officer Jason Redulla said in a virtual news conference on Dec. 21: “Make no mistake, folks. These intentional killings are evil, despicable acts perpetrated against an endangered animal in its own habitat.”
Hawaiian monk seals are the most endangered seal or sea lion species in the United States.
There are only about 1,400 surviving in the wild.
They are called monk seals because the folds of their skin resemble a Catholic monk’s robe, as well as for their solitary nature.
What makes these monk seal killings so hewa is that the seals move by galumphing across the sand. On land, the creatures are lethargic, lolling on the sand primarily to rest. They lack the ability to evade a gunshot. To shoot a defenseless seal in the head is a cowardly act.
The monk seal L11, an approximately year-old female, was killed in September on Molokai when someone shot her in the head. Authorities are seeking help from the public to find who killed her. Courtesy: NOAA/2021
Molokai dentist Boki Chung found the dead seal in September on her morning walk along Molokai’s south shore. “Why would somebody do that?” she asked.
Scientists working to protect monk seals speculate that some fishermen on Molokai might be killing the seals because they mistakenly think the mammals are eating the species they are trying to catch to feed their families.
But scientists say that’s false information: the seals are not interested in the fish humans enjoy such as ulua, papio and oio.
Seal protector Todd Yamashita told Civil Beat’s Brittany Lyte that he cried off and on for a day after the death of the curious and playful seal L11.
Yamashita decried the ignorance he feels is prompting the seal deaths: “‘It is your God-given right to annihilate anything that comes in the way between you and your fish that feeds your family’ — that is a sentiment that runs deep, especially when you cross it with misinformation,” he said.
Yamashita is the operations manager for Hawaii Marine Animal Response on Molokai.
What has been righteous in this issue are the people of Molokai like Yamashita and dentist Boki Chung who want monk seals to thrive. Also, longtime Molokai community advocate Walter Ritte who told Hawaii News Now: “This is happening way too often.”
And the monk seal killers? They can call me anytime to pick up their Hewa Awards.
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So, you've decided to quit coffee. Whether you want to cut it out completely or peel back your consumption from three mugs a day to one, I commend your bravery.
Because caffeine is a drug (specifically, the most popular psychoactive substance in the world), you might experience some side effects or withdrawal symptoms if you're a regular tea, coffee, soda or energy drink consumer. Unlike withdrawal from other drugs such as alcohol or opioids, caffeine withdrawal is not typically considered dangerous, according to the US Food and Drug Administration.
But the side effects of quitting caffeine can be quite unpleasant.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, avoiding withdrawal symptoms is one of the most common reasons people continue their caffeine habit -- kickstarting the dependency cycle all over again after you'd intended to break it. But with a few tweaks and tricks, you might just be able to alleviate or avoid the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.
Here are some tips on how to cope.
Don't quit cold turkey
The consensus among health experts and scientists seems to be that it's best to wean yourself off caffeine by gradually reducing the amount you consume daily -- if you're able to, don't go from 100 to zero.
Stopping caffeine completely one day is the surest way to trigger withdrawal symptoms that include (according to the Cleveland Clinic):
Headaches
Tiredness
Difficulty concentrating
Nausea
Muscle pain
Irritability
In order to stave off those symptoms and change your habit, it's best to decrease your soda, coffee, tea or other caffeinated drink consumption through a period of two or three weeks, according to the Clinic. To do this, you may alternate between drinking regular coffee and decaf (do half regular and half decaf, for example), or cut back from three cups a day to two cups, then one.
If you're a soda drinker, start swapping in water or other cold beverages instead of your usual caffeinated pop, the Clinic suggests. If you're a tea drinker, experiment with less-caffeinated tea (which contains less caffeine than coffee in general).
Whether your go-to is a refreshing soda or a warm cup of coffee, caffeine can be a tough habit to quit.
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Stay hydrated
This is a simple one, but important nonetheless. If you're on the brink of a bad headache you think might be due to your caffeine cut-back, try drinking a glass of water, then reprioritize your hydrating habits in general, because dehydration can also cause headaches, fatigue or symptoms similar to caffeine withdrawal. Drinking water with each meal and snack or taking sips while working from your desk, for example, are simple ways you can turn a coffee-drinking habit into a water-drinking habit.
Drinking water may be especially important in the mornings when you're used to reaching for a mug of coffee, but your body is dehydrated from last night's rest. Even if you're not cutting back on coffee, making sure water is the first thing you drink each day is an easy way to start your day off on the right track.
Caffeine seduces by keeping us alert and awake, but there are other factors that influence how bright-eyed and ready to take on the day we feel. In addition to drinking more water, choosing more nutrient-dense foods and sleeping more (the average adult needs 7 to 9 hours a night) will make you feel more alert, according to a Healthline report.
All food has calories, which give us the energy we need to live, but some foods leave us feeling more energized than others. According to a report by CNET and Chowhound, some foods that leave you feeling energized sans-caffeine in the morning include chia seeds and raw cacao.
Eating more complex carbohydrates (whole grains, oats and starchy vegetables, for example) instead of simple carbs will also give you a more steady feeling of energy throughout the day, according to Healthline.
Know how much caffeine you're consuming
In addition to drinks like coffee, tea or soda, other foods, such as chocolate, preworkout formula or other supplements can contain caffeine, too. Before you decide to cut back or quit caffeine, it's good to take an inventory of your weekly diet and see how much you've been consuming, exactly, and approach from there with what works best for you.
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
MIAMI -- Now that the Georgia Bulldogs have arrived for the College Football Playoff Semifinal for the Capital One Orange Bowl, players said during their first availability Monday they are fully aware of taking the necessary precautions to avoid a COVID-19 outbreak on the team.
With three bowl games canceled and another in jeopardy, increasing attention has gone to how teams are trying to keep players safe as the omicron variant has seen increasing cases not only across the country but across sports leagues as well.
Georgia defensive back Lewis Cine estimates "98 or 99 percent" of the team is vaccinated, but the Bulldogs are wearing masks indoors and making an effort to avoid contact with anyone not on the team as they prepare to play Michigan on Friday.
"Definitely excited to be in Miami, but as we all know, it's a hot spot for COVID," defensive tackle Jordan Davis said. "We just have to make sure that we protect ourselves and wear our masks, and just enjoy the moment. Obviously, bowl week is a great time for team chemistry and getting to know each other a little bit better than we already do. We're just excited to be here and have fun in Miami."
Linebacker Nakobe Dean said the team was able to enjoy a bowl event -- dinner on a boat -- Sunday night after its arrival. Then players had time to themselves, and most stayed in a players' lounge set up in the team hotel.
"We're trying to stay safe from this new variant," Dean said. "So for the most part, we're just staying around each other in the player lounge and just chilling on our free time."
Cornerback Chris Smith said coaches are reiterating what they have told players all year, emphasizing mask wearing and washing hands.
"They're just stressing us to be safe and make good decisions," Smith said. "COVID is pretty much everywhere right now, so you can't really dodge it, but the things we can do as players, coaches, as a whole team is just try to be safe because it's getting really crazy out here. So they're just reiterating the fact that we need to be safe, wear masks, wash your hands, stuff like that, to make sure that we don't have a breakout."
Before the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world, a burnout was considered an exception, however, now, in the era of the deadly virus it almost feels like the norm.
According to Jennifer Moss, organizations should take a hard look in the mirror for fostering cultures of overwork that make things worse. The author, speaker and workplace wellness expert has penned "The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It" to help slam the brakes on this crisis before we all hit the wall.
Moss spoke with Reuters about making it through the pandemic in one piece. Edited excerpts are below.
Q: You did some research about how people feel now. What did you find?
But we also found that cynicism was really high: People are starting to feel like they don't have any control over outcomes. That's really dangerous.
Q: How do you define burnout specifically?
A: It's chronic workplace stress left unmanaged. There are six root causes: An unsustainable workload, perceived lack of control, insufficient rewards for effort, a lack of a supportive community, a lack of fairness and mismatched values and skills.
Q: Companies know something serious is going on, so are they doing enough?
A: Leaders are worried about people leaving, so they have been adding some well-being strategies to their portfolio. This has put employees more in the driver's seat; for instance, we have been seeing many companies delaying a return to the workplace. Self-care strategies can be a good thing, but sometimes they are a Band-Aid solution to a much bigger problem that needs to be managed upstream.
Q: What should companies be doing to prevent burnout?
A: They need to be looking at the root causes of workload. Giving people a day off is okay, but you also need to reduce your expectations of productivity.
If you have a culture of overwork, that is not making people more effective – it's making them sick. Companies need to give people more agency about how and when they come back to work, pay people what they're worth, compensate them if they're working extra hours and make sure they're promoting people for the right reasons.
A lack of fairness is a big issue here, because young people feel like there is no path for them.
Q: What can individuals do to make sure they're not running on empty?
A:Organizations need to have a huge amount of accountability for burnout, but employees can be part of the solution, too. We can do a lot of work to identify whether we're burning out, like how often we feel exhausted and disengaged and cynical. Then we need to start thinking about pulling back, like taking breaks every couple of hours, digitally detoxing, going outside, putting on music.
Set boundaries about answering e-mails and manage your clients' expectations, so everything doesn't always seem so urgent.
Q: Leaders get burned out too. How can they manage those feelings?
A: We have never had a collective trauma like this where every single person is going through it. We are all feeling fear and social anxiety, and the same is true for leaders.
Have some self-compassion, show transparency with your team and don't worry about appearing vulnerable. You've got things going on too and employees can't be what they can't see, so model the behavior. If you're not taking care of yourself, you can't help the team.
Q: Have you dealt with burnout personally?
A: It's been really hard. We have to give ourselves the space to not be as effective as we used to be. We're tired and nothing about this is normal.
I really did try to follow my own rules and take moments for myself – sitting outside, reading some fiction, walking my dog in nature.
I knew the only way I was going to get through this in a healthy way for my kids, was to do this work. And it helped.
Every day, every single one of us should look back at the past year and pat ourselves on the back, and say, "I made it."
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Only four players have won the AP NFL Most Valuable Player award in back-to-back years.
In this most unpredictable of seasons, few players seen as frontrunners to win MVP have enjoyed the kind of sustained dominance to solidify their case.
The apparent lack of an obvious standout at the quarterback position has led to talk a running back or wide receiver could take home the honor, ending the monopoly enjoyed by signal-callers over the last eight seasons.
Yet it is the reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers who has over the last few weeks emerged as the favorite to make history by joining Jim Brown, Joe Montana, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning on a select list.
Rodgers being in such a position looked unlikely for much of an inconsistent season, however, since returning in Week 10 after his coronavirus enforced absence, he has regularly produced vintage performances to propel the Packers to an 11-3 record that would right now net them the top seed in the NFC.
He led the NFL with a passer rating of 117.1 between Weeks 10 and 15. During that span he threw 13 touchdowns and just one interception, with Jimmy Garoppolo of the San Francisco 49ers the only quarterback to average more yards per attempt (8.81) than Rodgers (8.70) in that time.
And his surge during the second half of the season has seen Rodgers establish himself as the most efficient quarterback in the NFL by several measures.
Rodgers leads the NFL in Ben Baldwin's Expected Points Added & Completion Percentage Over Expectation composite metric, per rbsdm.com. He is first in both EPA per play and CPOE, completing 71.2 per cent of passes with an expected completion percentage of 65.4.
He also leads the way in Football Outsiders' Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA), which measures per play value, and ESPN's QBR. Rodgers is second only to Tom Brady in Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR), a gauge of total value.
In other words, the advanced numbers indicate Rodgers is both the most efficient and the most valuable quarterback in the league and he can cement that status in front of a primetime audience against a playoff calibre opponent when the Packers face the Cleveland Browns on Christmas Day.
Often uneven play from the Browns' offense along with injuries and a recent COVID-19 outbreak have prevented Cleveland from taking command of an extremely winnable AFC North.
At 7-7 following a home defeat to the Las Vegas Raiders, the Browns find themselves at the bottom of the division and have just a 15 percent chance to make the playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Yet in Defensive Player of the Year contender Myles Garrett, who—per Pro Football Reference—entered Week 16 tied with the Niners' Nick Bosa for the league lead in quarterback pressures with 45, the Browns have a blue-chip pass rusher who can decimate the Packers' offensive gameplan.
Rodgers and the Packers also figure to be tested by a talented young Browns secondary. However, if he can come through that challenge by producing another stellar performance in primetime to push Green Bay closer to the one seed, then he should be a near-lock to end a controversial season with a slice of history.
That includes allowing people who have tested positive but show no symptoms to gather with others, so long as they wear a mask and social distance. A top health official explained that since the variant spreads so quickly, there are likely many infected people socializing with others and it no longer made sense to quarantine only those who have tested themselves.
The move was yet another step toward a slow acceptance that many countries around the world will likely need to find a way to live with Covid, rather than avoid it. The new measures follow recommendations from a committee of experts who called for focusing on vaccinations rather than contact tracing and quarantining.
“There is greater recognition that, in the face of a hyper-contagious variant like this, quarantining and isolation are no longer effective as public health containment measures to contain the virus,” said Professor Francois Venter, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and a former member of the committee.
The new protocols go into effect immediately, the health ministry said in a notice to local health department heads. The revisions were based on data showing that immunity resulting from previous infections was as high as 80 percent. That, coupled with a vaccination rate of nearly 45 percent among adults in the country, has kept hospitalizations lower, the South African government said.
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.
A high proportion of cases in South Africa have been asymptomatic, so quarantine measures have been skewed toward those with symptoms. That has been particularly true in the recent wave of infections driven by the Omicron variant, during which cases increased steeply, but just over 5 percent led to hospital admissions.
“Containment strategies are no longer appropriate — mitigation is the only viable strategy,” the notice said.
The new regulations are intended to benefit essential services, the ministry said. Since the pandemic began, nearly one in five public health sector workers have contracted the coronavirus, the health ministry said this month.
Under the new guidance, people who test positive but are asymptomatic will no longer need to quarantine. People showing mild symptoms like fever, cough and loss of taste or smell are still required to isolate for eight days. It is also no longer necessary to show a negative Covid-19 test before returning to work after isolation.
Ramphelane Morewane, the acting deputy director-general of the health department, said that “most people who are walking around may be asymptomatic” and people who test positive but don’t have symptoms should wear masks and take other precautions to avoid transmitting the virus.
New treatments.The Food and Drug Administration authorized in short succession the first two pill treatments for Covid-19 from Pfizer and Merck. The new drugs, which can be taken at home with a doctor’s prescription, will be available to some Covid patients who are at higher risk of becoming severely ill.
Covid-19 testing will be required if a person has symptoms. Anyone who came in contact with someone who tested positive would not need to quarantine, and must instead do “self-observation” for five to seven days and avoid crowded gatherings, the ministry said.
A booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be available starting on Tuesday for people who received their first dose at least six months ago or who are at higher risk for becoming severely ill. The South African authorities also authorized a booster shot for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The rollout of the Johnson & Johnson shot follows a local study of its efficacy against breakthrough infections, including after the detection of the Omicron variant. The study administered more than 230,000 booster shots, largely to health workers, and found that its protection against hospital admission was “at least equivalent to other vaccines,” the health ministry said.
The South African health authorities said they would not follow a recommendation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Covid vaccines other than Johnson & Johnson’s should be preferred amid increasing evidence that the shot can trigger a rare blood clotting disorder.
South African health authorities issued a circumspect response, saying the C.D.C. warning was in the context of the United States’ having “an abundance of vaccines.”
Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, one of the study’s lead researchers, said the data from South Africa showed that “in low- and middle-income countries, this single-dose vaccine has great utility.”
