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Why have women been so disproportionately affected by Covid-19? Experts explain

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Why have women been so disproportionately affected by Covid-19? Experts explain

CNN’s findings align with different analysis that has been performed over the previous couple of years that exhibits that girls have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. However why have ladies been so adversely affected? What’s it concerning the societies through which they dwell and their place in these societies that made them significantly weak?

Throughout the 5 areas the place ladies within the G7 mentioned they’d skilled essentially the most disruption through the pandemic — future planning, group (their relationships with shut household and pals), psychological well being, entry to healthcare and their monetary stability — CNN requested consultants to assist clarify the findings within the wealthy nations of the world and past.

That is what they mentioned. Their interviews have been edited for readability and brevity.

‘Girls had been extra prone to lose their jobs or tackle extra uncompensated care work’

Luisa Sorio Flor, a postdoctoral fellow on the College of Washington and lead writer of a latest research into the worldwide influence of the pandemic on ladies
Much like what was discovered within the [CNN] ballot, our research exhibits that the pandemic has exacerbated gender disparities throughout a number of indicators associated to well being and different areas of wellbeing. Girls had been, for instance, extra seemingly than males to report lack of employment, a rise in uncompensated care work, and a rise in perceived gender-based violence through the pandemic, even in high-income nations.

These findings align nicely with the sensation of being essentially the most harm by the pandemic reported by ladies within the ballot and may clarify the sensation of not being satisfactorily supported by their governments.

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The life-threatening and traumatic nature of Covid-19, compounded by the persistent stress of extended social distancing, stay-at-home orders, faculty closures, and dealing from dwelling, additionally had a big and uneven influence on world psychological well being, as reported by colleagues on the Institute of Well being Metrics.

Their outcomes point out that the pandemic contributed to a rise in main depressive dysfunction and anxiousness problems in 2020, with ladies extra affected than males.

Understanding how the pandemic influenced health-care-seeking conduct, significantly for girls and deprived populations, has been restricted by knowledge availability. But, we see in our research that girls had been disproportionately affected by disruptions within the provision of sexual, reproductive, and maternal well being providers. Abortion providers, for instance in some nations, had been thought-about non-essential through the pandemic.

Sadly, knowledge on how age, race, occupational and socio-economic standing, migration standing, sexuality, incapacity, and different situations differentially influence ladies can be nonetheless restricted. Even after we discuss concerning the gendered impacts of the pandemic, we’re principally restricted to ladies and men, excluding gender minorities.

We do know that girls with a number of or compounding vulnerabilities are particularly prone to bear the brunt of this public well being disaster. For example, immigrants, folks from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds, and ladies who’re in poverty, are disproportionately represented in low-wage and casual positions, and continuously lack social assist, making them extra prone to expertise a bigger burden of the financial influence of Covid-19.

These outcomes have vital coverage implications. This differential influence emphasizes the necessity to explicitly contemplate gender in post-pandemic restoration plans to deal with each speedy and long-term impacts of this pandemic by way of analysis, public well being and observe. This may make sure that many many years of earlier progress in direction of attaining gender fairness on the earth isn’t stalled or reversed.

‘Transgender healthcare providers had been thought-about elective and as such had been postponed as a result of pandemic’

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Timo O. Nieder, affiliate professor on the College Medical Heart Hamburg-Eppendorf and writer of a research on the influence of Covid on transgender well being care in upper-middle-income and high-income nations.
Our research, performed in 63 upper-middle-income and high-income nations, confirmed that transgender folks suffered underneath the severity of the pandemic, particularly as a result of intersections between their standing as a weak social group, their excessive variety of medical threat components, and their want for ongoing medical therapy.

For instance, trans folks skilled restrictions in entry to transgender well being care equivalent to hormone prescriptions. Such providers had been thought-about elective and thus had been postponed as a result of pandemic. The difficulties had been larger for individuals who lived in areas with low-level transgender healthcare provision.

Because the starting of the Covid-19 pandemic, 35.1% of the members in our research reported suicidal ideas. And 168 reported having tried suicide throughout this time.

Because the CNN report additionally lists “psychological well being” and “entry to well being care” among the many areas the place ladies expertise extra pandemic-related drawback in comparison with males, an overlap between bias in opposition to ladies and transgender folks stands to cause. The pandemic has exacerbated each the extent of unfair drawback and the difficulties that accompany it.

‘In Uganda, colleges offered a security internet. Their closure noticed teen pregnancies and early marriage rise’

Marie Nanyanzi, senior program officer at Twaweza, a ‘citizen centered’ non-profit group working in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

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Nanyanzi has been concerned in conducting public opinion surveys on Covid in East Africa on a variety of topics. Twaweza’s newest survey, targeted on gender, is revealed at this time. She instructed CNN:

Half of residents of Uganda reported that of their communities, bodily violence (51%), emotional violence (51%) and sexual violence or assault (46%) obtained worse through the Covid-19 outbreak. However the largest impact, as reported by residents, was on teen being pregnant: 8 out of 10 residents (79%) mentioned teenage being pregnant elevated of their group through the outbreak, significantly in poorer households.

The closure of colleges as a pandemic response helps clarify the rise in teen being pregnant. Faculties present a security internet for ladies and this was actually clear as soon as they closed. Teen being pregnant elevated adopted by early marriage. Some ladies will lose years of education; others won’t ever return. Their life course modified and the way that is managed could have lifelong influence.

But, regardless of the numerous social and financial issues dealing with women and girls specifically, ladies are a lot much less seemingly than males to be actively engaged in governance processes. Our survey additionally discovered that, males (48%) are extra seemingly than ladies (35%) to have attended a group assembly within the earlier twelve months. Males (22%) are additionally extra seemingly than ladies (14%) to have spoken throughout such a gathering.

The character of our patriarchal society signifies that the Covid-19 pandemic has made present structural inequalities worse and the voices and experiences of ladies are a lot much less prone to be heard in decision-making areas through the restoration interval.

‘Japanese ladies labored within the industries hardest hit by the pandemic and have extra precarious employment’

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Michiko Ueda, affiliate professor within the College of Political Science and Economics at Waseda College.

A research Ueda co-authored on suicide and psychological well being in Japan analyzed month-to-month suicide statistics between January 2017 and October 2020. It discovered that suicides amongst ladies elevated by 70% in October 2020, with ladies underneath 40 exhibiting the best enhance.

Ueda mentioned:

We’re nonetheless attempting to determine why we now have skilled a rise in suicide solely amongst ladies, however not amongst males, and why the rise was noticed amongst comparatively younger ladies.

One potential issue is the financial influence of the pandemic. We all know that the industries which can be affected most by the pandemic usually tend to be served by ladies (e.g. tourism, meals service) and so they had been hit hardest. Equally, ladies are likely to have precarious employment standing in Japan (equivalent to part-time, contract-based work), and an enormous variety of staff with a non-permanent place misplaced their job in the beginning of the pandemic. Once more, they’re extra prone to be ladies.

The truth that ladies in Japan had been the one ones in CNN’s ballot to say Covid-19 is their prime current concern is fascinating. In comparison with different G7 nations, the influence of Covid-19 has been a lot much less in Japan, when it comes to the variety of circumstances and deaths. Nevertheless, our life continues to be constrained by Covid-19. Lower than 30% of the inhabitants has had three doses of a vaccine, not as a result of they’re reluctant to get a booster shot, however as a result of it is not extensively obtainable but, which could have contributed to their excessive degree of considerations.

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‘Within the UK, nearly all of pregnant ladies working exterior the house weren’t given threat assessments to make sure they had been protected’

Joeli Brearley, founding father of Pregnant Then Screwed a charity which took the UK authorities to courtroom for oblique intercourse discrimination for the best way its self-employed earnings assist scheme — launched in March 2020 in response to the pandemic and supposed to pay grants value 80% of somebody’s common month-to-month revenue for a 3 month interval — was calculated.

The self-employed earnings assist scheme was discovered by the Court docket of Enchantment to have not directly discriminated in opposition to new moms in the best way it was calculated: should you had taken a interval of maternity go away up to now 3 years then you definately would obtain a much-reduced cost in comparison with your childless or male colleagues.

We heard from {couples} who did precisely the identical job, however the mom obtained a cost that was lower than half of her companion as a result of she had taken a while off after the delivery of their child two years prior.

Though you possibly can apply to be furloughed for caring causes, a survey performed by the British Trades Union Congress discovered that 71% of moms who requested to be furloughed had that request rejected.
Our analysis discovered that in July 2020 fewer than half (45%) of pregnant ladies working exterior of the house got threat assessments to make sure they had been protected. This left them terrified.

This each day worry, mixed with hospital restrictions which meant pregnant ladies needed to attend hospital appointments and endure early labor alone, meant pregnant ladies had been remoted and alone when at their most weak.

This gender-blind policymaking resulted within the deterioration of ladies’s psychological well being. Certainly, evaluation of NHS knowledge discovered that the variety of moms requesting psychological well being assist elevated by 40% in 2021, in contrast with 2019.

Tales of the week

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A brand new report finds that pores and skin whitening merchandise containing mercury ranges which can be 1000’s of instances over permitted limits are available on the world’s largest on-line retailers, together with eBay, Amazon and websites owned by Alibaba. 

Pores and skin whitening lotions containing excessive ranges of mercury proceed to be offered on the world’s largest e-commerce websites, new report finds
Refugees arrive from war zones in Lviv. Since the beginning of the Russian military invasion, more than 1.7 million refugees have left Ukraine, according to the UN refugee agency. (Photo by Vincenzo Circosta / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

“We’re painfully seeing that refugees are selectively welcomed, and conflict criminals are selectively punished. It is not simply the western media that’s biased; it is the western world.” CNN’s award-winning worldwide correspondent, Arwa Damon, writes powerfully concerning the gross hypocrisy of the West’s refugee response.

I noticed Ukrainians welcomed with open arms. And Syrians corralled like cattle

Girls Behaving Badly: Mia Mottley

Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Amor Mottley addresses the 73rd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on September 28, 2018. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP)
Mia Amor Mottley turned the eighth Prime Minister of Barbados in Could 2018, and the primary lady to carry the publish.
Mottley has change into identified exterior her nation for her highly effective speeches given at world occasions. At COP26, the local weather summit in Glasgow final November, Mottley mentioned: “Failure to supply the crucial [climate] finance and that of loss and injury is measured in lives and livelihoods in our communities. That is amoral and it’s unjust.”
That speech, posted on the UN Local weather Change Youtube channel has extra views than these delivered by the well-known nature broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough and former US president Barack Obama on the similar occasion.
Below Mottley’s tenure, Barbados turned a republic when it eliminated Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and elected Dame Sandra Mason as its first president in 2021.
Mottley was born in Barbados in 1965 and obtained a Bachelors diploma in Regulation from the London College of Economics in 1986, earlier than becoming a member of politics in 1991. As Minister of Training, Youth Affairs and Tradition at 29 years outdated, she was Barbados’ youngest minister, and later its first feminine Legal professional Basic (2001).
In December 2021 Mottley was awarded the Champions of the Earth Award, “the UN’s highest environmental honour,” for her coverage management.

Different tales value your time

Feb 26, 2022; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; Fans fly the flag of Ukraine and a flag stating "Protect Trans Kids" in the second half between the D.C. United and the Charlotte FC at Audi Field. (Photo by Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports)

“I testify and inform the world: the conflict in Ukraine isn’t a conflict “someplace on the market.” It is a conflict in Europe, near the EU borders. Ukraine is stopping the pressure which will aggressively enter your cities tomorrow underneath the pretext of saving civilians.”

First Woman of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska

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Revolutionary Guard commanders vow response to Israel attack on Iran

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Revolutionary Guard commanders vow response to Israel attack on Iran

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

The top commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards issued a stark warning to Israel on Thursday, vowing that Tehran would deliver a harsh response to last week’s Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic.

Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the guards corps, warned in a speech that Iran’s retaliation would be “unimaginable” as Iranian officials stepped up their rhetoric against Israel.

“Israelis think they can launch a couple of missiles and change history,” he said. “You have not forgotten . . . how Iranian missiles opened up the sky . . . and made you sleepless.”

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Separately his deputy, Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, told Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese television channel close to Iran, that a response would be “inevitable”. In more than 40 years, “we have not left any aggression without a response”, he said.

The belligerent comments came as the Islamic regime weighs its options following Israel’s attack on Saturday, during which Israeli war planes launched three waves of strikes at Iranian military installations. The targets included missile factories and air defence systems in three provinces, including Tehran.

Regime insiders told the Financial Times that the options being considered include a possible strike before next week’s US presidential election, or Iran’s leaders could decide to hold off for now.

“The winner of the US election could take an Iranian attack personally and act against Iran. So, if Iran wants to respond to Israel, the best time is before the US election,” one insider said. “The only thing that could change this would be a fair breakthrough in ceasefire talks between [Hizbollah in] Lebanon and Israel which does not seem very likely.”

The US has this week stepped up efforts to broker a deal to end the conflict that has lasted more than a year between Israel and Hizbollah, Iran’s most important proxy.

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But there was little optimism of a breakthrough as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israel retain the right to unilaterally enforce any agreement that would lead to Hizbollah withdrawing from southern Lebanon.

Another Iranian insider indicated Tehran might opt to maintain psychological pressure on Israel rather than launch a direct assault.

“With Hizbollah launching tens of rockets into Israel daily in a legitimate war, a direct response may not be necessary right now,” the insider said. “What benefits us is not a direct war with Israel. We need to keep the level of people’s stress low so that they can live their lives. This is the top priority.”

But an Iranian analyst said the dilemma for Tehran was “that Israel would take any delay in Iran’s response as a sign of weakness and would feel emboldened”.

Iran’s initial reaction to Israel’s strikes — which were in retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage fired at the Jewish state on October 1 — suggested that Tehran’s response would be measured and not immediate, Iranian analysts said.

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Speaking on Sunday, a day after Israel’s attack, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader and ultimate decision maker, refrained from vowing to retaliate.

Instead, he said the strikes should neither be “overestimated or underestimated”. Iranian state media played down the impact of the attack, which killed four soldiers and a civilian, saying the damage was limited.

But Tehran has shown a willingness to risk an escalation with Israel as regional hostilities triggered by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack have spread across the Middle East, thrusting Iran’s years-long shadow war with its regional enemy into the open.

In April, it fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel in a clearly telegraphed retaliation for an Israeli strike on the republic’s embassy compound in Syria, which killed several senior guards commanders.

It gave little notice before launching 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, a more severe attack that was in response to the Israeli assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s leader and a close confidant of Khamenei.

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“Only a shock can stop Israel from its aggressions and free the region from the current stalemate,” the first regime insider said. “Iran might even go for a big bang and do something totally outside Israelis’ calculations as there is no other way to stop it.”

The US, which has pledged an “ironclad” commitment to the defence of Israel, has warned Iran not to retaliate as western nations have sought to contain the crisis amid heightened fears of all-out war.

“We will not hesitate to act in self defence. Let there be no confusion. The United States does not want to see further escalation,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said this week.

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Harris says Trump 'devalues' women's ability to make their own choices

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Harris says Trump 'devalues' women's ability to make their own choices

PHOENIX — Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that former President Donald Trump’s remarks this week about protecting women whether they “like it or not” is another sign of how he “devalues” women.

“His latest comment is just the most recent in a series of examples that we have seen from him in his words and deeds about how he devalues the ability of women to have the choice and the freedom to make decisions about their own body,” Harris told NBC News in an exclusive interview.

The vice president also argued that most Americans “believe that women are intelligent enough and should have and be respected for their agency to make decisions for themselves about what is in their best interest,” rather than the government or Trump “telling them what to do.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately provide a comment on Harris’ remarks.

Follow live updates on the 2024 election

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Trump on Wednesday said that his “people” had instructed him not to say that he wanted to “protect the women.”

“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not.’ I’m going to protect them,” Trump said during his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press NOW,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt was asked if she can see how Trump’s comments about doing something “whether the women like it or not” might make women uncomfortable.

“No, I can’t. Because if you look at the full context of President Trump’s remarks, he brought this up in the context of illegal immigration and protecting women from the illegal immigrant criminals,” Leavitt said Thursday.

Harris on Thursday also talked about President Joe Biden’s “garbage” remark from earlier this week, in which he appeared to criticize either Trump supporters or a comedian who delivered racist jokes at Trump’s rally in New York, and reiterated her view that “we should never criticize people based on who they vote for.”

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In addressing Biden’s comments, Harris pointed to Trump’s rhetoric about “the enemy from within” and comparing the U.S. to a “garbage can.”

“He does not understand that most people are exhausted with his rhetoric, exhausted with that approach, exhausted with an approach that Donald Trump has that’s trying to divide our country and have Americans point fingers at each other,” she said. “They’re done with it, and they’re ready to turn the page.”

Harris’ comments came before her rally in Phoenix. Her next campaign stops on Thursday are in Nevada, where she will hold rallies in Reno and Las Vegas.

The Sun Belt blitz comes as polling indicates a neck-and-neck presidential race less than a week before Election Day.

When asked by NBC News what Harris thinks her late mother would say to her in the final days before the election, Harris smiled.

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“‘Just go beat him,’” she said, laughing. “That’s probably what she’d say. Yeah, that’s my mother.”

Yamiche Alcindor reported from Phoenix, and Megan Lebowitz from Washington, D.C.

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Election 2024 Polls: Senate Races

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Election 2024 Polls: Senate Races

About our polling averages

Our averages include polls collected by The New York Times and by FiveThirtyEight. The estimates adjust for a variety of factors, including the recency and sample size of a poll, whether a poll represents likely voters, and whether other polls have shifted since a poll was conducted.

We also evaluate whether each pollster: Has a track record of accuracy in recent electionsIs a member of a professional polling organizationConducts probability-based sampling

These elements factor into how much weight each poll gets in the average. And we consider pollsters that meet at least two of the three criteria to be “select pollsters,” so long as they are conducting polls for nonpartisan sponsors. Read more about our methodology.

The Times conducts its own national and state polls in partnership with Siena College. Those polls are included in the averages. Follow Times/Siena polling here.

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Maine and Nebraska award two electoral votes to the statewide winner and a single electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. (Maine has two congressional districts, and Nebraska has three.) Historical election results for these districts are calculated based on votes cast within the current boundaries of the district.

Sources: Polling averages by The New York Times. Individual polls collected by FiveThirtyEight and The Times.

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