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DOHA TODAYPAGE | 04 PAGE | 07

In the psychological thriller 'Swallow,' Haley Bennett finds her breakout role

MONDAY 16 MARCH 2020 Email: dohatoday@pen.com.qa

Coping with COVID-19 2-3We should neither exaggerate nor minimise the importance of the situation and its impact, but instead keep a balanced view and follow guidelines, because otherwise we may experience negative psychological impacts on individuals and the community.

SPONSORS

QSCOY 2020, by Doha College,

breaks all records

COVER STORY02 DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

A sense of community and a good sense of humour can help in coping with COVID-19

Humour can help people take precautions against coronavirus disease and adapt to its impact on daily life — if it is used in the right way. That is the view of Dr. Mahnaz Nowrozi Mousavi,

Director of Student Wellness & Counseling at Georgetown University in Qatar — a QF partner university — who says that while the public should follow official health guidance amid the COVID-19 outbreak, this doesn’t necessarily have to prevent them from having fun.

“Dealing with COVID-19 should be done with ration-ality,” she said. “We should neither exaggerate nor min-imiae the importance of the situation and its impact, but instead keep a balanced view and follow guidelines, because otherwise we may experience negative psycho-logical impacts on individuals and the community.

“From a psychological view, humour – if used appro-priately – is good and healthy, especially in difficult times. A good sense of humour helps individuals and brings the community together, because we can communicate effectively through humour.

“There is a fine line between using appropriate humour and meanness and stereotyping. Good humour lightens the mood and raises people’s spirits. Obviously, if jokes are taken out of proportion, exaggerate or minimise the gravity of an issue, and if they are at the expense of certain groups of people, then it is not humour, it is hostility.

“I have seen some humorous videos about avoiding shaking hands, how to greet other people while respecting them, and how to follow proper hygiene guidelines. These are all good ways to communicate through humour.”

One of the best ways of controlling direct contact with others in order to avoid the spread of coronavirus is to use appropriate humour and lighthearted and caring comments.

Dr. Mousavi said that people use humour as a form of coping, communicating, and expressing emotions. “We in the Middle East tend to be caring, collective, and con-nective.” she said. “One of the best ways of controlling direct contact with others in order to avoid the spread of coronavirus is to use appropriate humour and light-hearted and caring comments like ‘Not hugging is caring’ or ‘Not shaking hands to be cool’.”

She also emphasised that people should not be lim-iting activities they enjoy unless there are specific guide-lines for them to avoid these. “If people are practicing good hygiene and following the guidelines, they still can go out for a picnic or go shopping, and have fun activ-ities,” she said.

As for the workplace impact of COVID-19, Dr. Mousavi said: “If there are ways that people can do their jobs remotely by email or phone and video calls for some time, without being in direct communication with other people particularly in small physical spaces, this can be a good practice.

Working remotely can actually decrease the stigma and the risk of someone feeling insulted if we don’t meet them.

“Working remotely can actually decrease the stigma and the risk of someone feeling insulted if we don’t meet them. It can bring about a change of mindset, because at the moment we can explain to people that a meeting is not necessary because our health and the health of others

is the priority, and this helps them to realize that not meeting directly is not a reason for taking any offense.”

Regarding the psychological impact of self-isolating due to COVID-19, Dr Mousavi said that as humans we like to move freely, rather than be isolated, but health precau-tions take priority.

“Quarantining yourself does not mean a complete iso-lation, as people can come together using social media and through other forms of communication,” she said.

According to Dr. Mousavi, humour can be an effective tactic in helping people cope with the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on daily life.

“It can actually be very beneficial, presenting a great opportunity for us to read a book we always wanted to read, or to complete a project. It is also important to create some sort of structure for ourselves. And, most importantly, it is important to know that it is best practice that is needed to protect ourselves and protect others.

“We must all be responsible for protecting ourselves, our families, and other members of society.”

Dr. Mousavi re-emphasised the importance of fol-lowing the preventative measures that Qatar has put in place to protect the community from the spread of coro-navirus, and the need for everyone to maintain good hygiene, such as by regularly washing hands and using hand sanitisers.

—The Peninsula

Dr. Mahnaz Nowrozi Mousavi

Dr. Mahnaz Nowrozi Mousavi of Georgetown University in Qatar says a sense of humour and taking care of ourselves and others can have a positive psychological impact on people amid the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak.

03DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

CORONAVIRUS: THE FACTS

Virus enters through the nose

and mouth

It finds a host cell in the

respiratory system

The host cell then bursts and

infects other cells nearby

Cough Runny nose

Sore throat High temperature

SYMPTOMS

HOW IS THE CORONAVIRUS SPREADING?The coronavirus spreads from person to person in close proximity, similar to other respiratory illnesses, such as the flu. Droplets of bodily fluids - such as saliva or mucus - from an infected person are dispersed in the air or on surfaces by coughing or sneezing. These droplets can come into direct contact with other people or can infect those who pick them up by touching infected surfaces and then their face.

MOST VICTIMS OF THE VIRUS DIE FROM COMPLICATIONS INCLUDING PNEUMONIA AND SWELLING IN THE LUNGS. THE VIRUS ALSO CAUSES SWELLING IN THE RESPIRATORY SYSTEM, WHICH CAN MAKE IT HARD FOR THE LUNGS TO PASS OXYGEN INTO THE BLOODSTREAM - LEADING TO ORGAN FAILURE.

CAMPUS04 DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

QSCOY 2020, presented by Doha College, breaks all records

The fourth edition of ‘Qatar School Choir of the Year (QSCOY 2020)’, an annual competition organised by Doha College, has clocked multiple

records in terms of participating choirs, venue, number of students and indeed singing standards.

Originally called Qatar Primary School Choir of the Year, the competition was brought to life in 2017 by a team of music teachers, parent volunteers and choir enthusiasts from Doha College, to add new breadth to the music in the country.

Such was the success of the competition, that the participation has more than doubled since inception, increasing from 12 choirs in the inaugural edition to 28 this year, a total of 1,343 children from across the country.

To match its new size, the competition moved to the world-class venue Qatar National Convention Centre, which provided an outstanding space and facilities for the audiences and the young singers.

The three-day event consisted of ‘big-sing’ work-shops with all the participating children, held at the elegant JW Marriott Hotel, a full day of heats at QNCC,

and the grand final attended by many VIPs. A good part of the phenomenal rise of the compe-

tition can be attributed to Greg Beardsell, a renowned international choral expert, who headed the adjudi-cation panel and delivered inspiring workshops to hun-dreds of children each year.

Greg has conducted the BBC Symphony Chorus, London Bach Choir and the London Symphony Chorus, the National Youth Orchestras of Ireland and Ulster, the City of London Sinfonia, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra in a range of per-formance and education projects.

The love of singing that he sparked in Qatar’s young children spread like a ripple, seeing the emergence of new choirs and renewed enthusiasm about this cen-turies-long tradition in schools.

The adjudicating panel included Alena Pyne, founder and director of Qatar Youth and Qatar Junior Choirs and a founding member of Sing Qatar and first appointed chairperson of the Association for Choirs in Qatar; Kees Wieringa, a Dutch musician of Interna-tional reputation who currently holds the post of

Director of the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum; and Olga Proropopova, Principal for the International Centre for Music in Doha since 2006.

This year’s laurels went to Doha British School KS1 Choir (ages 5-8 category), Mesaieed International School Primary Choir (ages 8-11 category) and Oryx Secondary Choir (ages 11-14 category).

The latter also walked away with the ‘Overall Winner’ title, having delivered an exquisite per-formance far beyond their years, as Greg Beardsell put it.

Alec Jackson from Mesaieed International School won the Conductor Award, and the DBS KS1 Choir won the Stagecraft Award.

Dr Steffen Sommer, Principal of Doha College, said about QSCOY: “The motto of the competition is ‘Uniting children through singing’, and this is exactly what it does. Children in the 21st century understand better and better that their own learning will only be enhanced by being with other students and doing things together, and music is just a fantastic band to unite.” —The Peninsula

05DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

SIS students excel in Asia School FiestaStudents from Shantiniketan

Indian School (SIS) showed excellent creative skills in the

Asia School Fiesta organised by Friends Cultural Centre, under the auspices of Qatar Charity Centre for Community Development. Around 200 students from SIS took part in different categories and exhibited remarkable talent and performances.

Nemsit Nimpura from class II F won the first prize in drawing and colouring (Junior Category). Aish-warya Rajesh from class XII B clinched first position in pencil drawing (Senior Category), while Partiv Das from class XI B got second position in pencil drawing (Senior Category). Mehreen Fathima Saleem from KG II F was awarded second prize in 'join the dots and colour' competition in kids category. The SIS students showed exemplary skills to emerge as winners. SIS family con-gratulates all the winners for bringing laurels to the school. —The Peninsula

ATS Group Qatar marks Qatar National Environment Day

To mark ‘Qatar National Environment Day’, ATS Group Qatar organised planting of saplings at Ideal Indian School premises on February 26, 2020. ICBF President Baburajan and

many Karnataka-based ICC Associate organisations' leaders and representatives joined hands in this noble endeavour. ATS Group Managing Director Ravi Shetty thanked all the

participants.

DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

FOOD06

ELLIE KRIEGER

THE WASHINGTON POST

March has me craving green. I’m impatiently waiting for blades of grass to disrupt all the brown, cheering on the early tree buds, and

hankering for all the edible spring shoots and leaves to hit the market.

This soup is just the thing to satisfy the need for green this time of year, and it does so in a way that offers comfort on still-cool nights. It’s a stunning, emerald bowl of goodness, made with fresh spinach leaves simmered in broth until they are wilted but still bright, and then pureed until smooth.

Sauteed onion and potato, cooked in the broth, add flavour and extra body, respectively. And a cup of milk stirred into the puree rounds out the taste with extra creaminess and nutrition, but if you prefer, additional broth works, too.

For a funky twist, some soft, fresh goat cheese is melted in - just enough to add a gentle grassy depth and delightful richness without overpowering the del-icate soup.

Garnished with a contrasting white drizzle of yogurt, this soup definitely gets the green light as a warming way to get your vegetables and transition into the coming season.

CREAMY SPINACH SOUP WITH GOAT CHEESE

Active: 25 minutes | Total: 35 minutes 4 to 6 servings This soup is a stunning, eye-catching emerald bowl of goodness. It’s made with fresh spinach that gets sim-mered in broth until wilted but still retains its vibrant hue, and then pureed until smooth. For a funky twist, some soft, fresh goat cheese is melted in — just enough to add a measure of creaminess and a gentle grassy depth without overpowering the delicate flavours of the soup.

Storage Notes: The soup can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

INGREDIENTS 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 medium yellow onion, chopped (about 1 cup) 1 small russet potato (6 ounces), peeled and diced 3 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth 1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 16 cups (8 ounces) fresh baby spinach 1 cup low-fat milk (1%), or more as needed; can sub-

stitute 1 cup additional broth 3 ounces soft goat cheese (chevre) 2 tablespoons plain yogurt (low-fat or full fat)

STEPS In a medium pot over medium heat, heat the oil

until shimmering. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the potato, broth, salt and pepper and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until the potato is tender, about 10 minutes. Add the spinach, return the soup to a boil and cook until the spinach is completely wilted but still a vibrant green, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Using an immersion blender, blend the soup until smooth. (Alternatively, let the soup cool for 15 minutes, then puree in batches in a stand blender.) Return the pureed soup to medium heat; add the milk and cook until warm but not boiling. Add the goat cheese to the pot and whisk until melted.

In a small bowl, stir the yogurt with just enough water or milk, a teaspoon at a time, until it is the consistency of pancake batter.

Ladle the soup into serving bowls and, using a fork, drizzle the yogurt on top as a garnish and serve.

Nutrition | Calories: 180; Total Fat: 9g; Saturated Fat: 3g; Cholesterol: 15mg; Sodium: 280mg; Carbohydrates: 18g; Dietary Fiber: 4g; Sugars: 4g; Protein: 9g.

This nourishing emerald green spinach soup is here to usher in Spring

DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

ENTERTAINMENT 07

In the psychological thriller ‘Swallow’, Haley Bennett finds her breakout role

Ellie Goulding performs better when she’s nervousSinger Ellie Goulding says she performs

better when she's nervous.Mentoring one of the contestants on

‘The Voice UK’, Goulding said: “Every time I’ve gone out on stage without nerves, I haven’t done a good performance. So embrace the nerves.” Meanwhile, Goulding previously shared that her pop career can feel “frivolous” compared to her climate change activism but her influence is tied to the success of her music, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

“One of my motivations to have a bigger platform as a singer is so that I have more people to reach. Climate change has got to a critical point where we all need to be very active; we need to compensate for what’s going on in certain political situations. I know that ‘celebrities shouldn’t get involved in

politics’, but it’s something we have to act on now. I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated that I’m the only one speaking out about some-thing so important - no one else in my peer group is,” she said.

Goulding feels “really guilty” when she doesn’t champion social issues in her music.

She said: “I am acutely aware of the power of songs to communicate messages. And it is important to remember when we communicate our message about the Earth that it is just as important to connect with people on a human level as it is to commu-nicate the facts... They give us an emotional workout. This type of connection is the point, the power of music. When I am not doing something which directly addresses the climate emergency or homelessness I feel really guilty.” —IANS

ANN HORNADAY

THE WASHINGTON POST

Beginning with her hilarious, glori-ously self-assured debut in the crim-inally under-seen rom-com “Music

and Lyrics,” Haley Bennett has enjoyed a career that, while steady, has been devoid of the breakout role she’s long deserved.

Until now.In “Swallow”, Bennett finally comes

into her own as the kind of leading lady who is more than just a pretty face, and can occupy the screen and hold it, with commanding authority. In a supremely canny move, Bennett produced this unnerving, creepily atmospheric thriller, in which she plays a wealthy, somewhat abstracted housewife making a perverse bid for self-determination. Bennett claims her own form of autonomy with the movie itself, which could be read as an actress’ decision to stop hoping for good scripts to arrive over the transom and make her own luck.

Bennett plays Hunter, a meek, care-fully coifed newlywed who has just moved into a posh Hudson Valley aerie with her husband, Richie (Austin Stowell). Drifting and dreaming in mid-century luxury, Hunter is a cipher: Her past as a designer is hinted at (she tries to draw at one point, to no avail), and it becomes clear that the privilege that surrounds her is a function of her in-laws’ largesse. For her part, she wears wealth uneasily, if gratefully, not

least because her chief duty in the division of labour is... labor, ie getting pregnant as soon as possible.

Perhaps it’s because Hunter feels lost or undervalued, or perhaps it’s because she’s just bored, but she discovers a way to create feelings of self-worth and privacy by engaging in a secret act that becomes more perilous as she pushes her body beyond its healthy limits. In the tra-dition of Todd Haynes’s “Safe,” with a dash of horror films like “The Stepford Wives” and “The Perfection” thrown in for chilly measure, “Swallow” is the hushed, methodical chronicle of a woman’s descent into ever more self-harming extremes, a journey that, in this case, has its roots in patriarchy at its most con-trolling and violent.

Written and directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis, who makes an assured fiction feature debut here, “Swallow” isn’t entirely convincing when it comes to the most troubling psychological roots of Hunter’s affliction. But the filmmaker’s tonal control, and Bennett’s confident grasp of the material, make for a com-pelling portrait of emerging consciousness and, ultimately, liberation. (Her finest scene comes late in the film, opposite the always terrific Denis O’Hare.)

Equal parts quiet and disquieting, Ben-nett’s performance in “Swallow” should put Hollywood on notice that she’s a force to be reckoned with, on her own unapolo-getic terms.

TRAVEL08 DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

DEBRA BRUNOTHE WASHINGTON POST

I decided for my birthday I would like to hike a volcano. In Bali. In the dark, so I could see the sunrise from the mountaintop. As one does. The volcano, Mount Batur, is technically considered

active, but it’s not currently spewing ash and lava, which makes it safe to hike. At the same time, it’s not com-pletely dormant either.

Batur is not the highest volcano in Bali. That one, Mount Agung, at 9,940 feet above sea level, has been closed to trekkers because it has been quite a bit more restless than sleepy Batur. In fact, Agung last erupted in June. As of early March, Agung was at warning level 3 with a 2.5-mile exclusion zone around the crater, reports the Mount Agung Daily Report, including a “near-con-tinuous venting of steam and gases” and some mild tremors. Or I totally would have trekked that one to mark turning an otherwise unsexy and unexciting 63.

I should admit here that I’m not actually cool enough to make a special trip to Bali just to hike a volcano for my birthday. My husband, Bob, and I were visiting our son who is based in Jakarta for a few months. We decided that even though Mount Batur is 730 miles southeast of Jakarta, we were generally in the neigh-bourhood, by Asian standards anyway, and we were eager to see parts of Indonesia beyond the traffic-clogged capital.

My Australian friend Bryony, who owns a villa in the bustling seaside town of Seminyak, lined up a hiking guide company called Bali Trekking Tour to lead us up the volcano. Mount Batur is 5,633 feet above sea level - significantly smaller than Agung. We had been told the hike would be relatively easy if one was fit.

“Why do we need a guide?” Bob asked. “Can’t we just follow the path?”

One answer, we learned, is that for starters, this trek called for us to be picked up at our Seminyak villa at 1:40 in the morning. Another answer is that this hike was taking place during Indonesia’s rainy season, a period when brilliant sunshine could give way to downpours that looked as though the heavens had turned on a faucet. A third answer is that having a guide discourages, to some extent, on-the-spot guides plus touts selling trinkets like bracelets made from volcanic rock.

Knowing the alarm was going to ring at 1:20am meant that I went to bed at 9. I checked the clock at 9:30pm, was awakened by a short but powerful rainstorm at 10, and then checked the clock again at 11:30, 12:30 and 1. In other words, I got almost no sleep. On top of that, my stomach had

been a little off since we arrived in Indonesia. I’m sure the spicy red snapper we devoured at the beachfront restaurant didn’t help either, so my stomach gurgled and flipped all night in a mild case of “Bali belly.”

The trekker van was right on time. Our cheerful Bal-inese driver drove us (okay, careened us) through the darkened streets of Seminyak, narrowly avoiding people making their way home from the beachfront pounding with techno music. As we drove north to the interior of the island, the van’s swerves and curves got tighter. Bryony wondered if she might need to ask the driver to make a vomit stop.

The year before, when Bryony and another friend had tried to hike Mount Batur in March (also during the rainy season), the rain had been so strong that they

In Bali, hiking a volcano to greet the sun

After the evening storm, the skies were

clear, the stars were beautiful and we

drove for more than an hour to reach

the mountain, closer to the northern tip

of the island. The goal was to hike in the

pitch dark (with flashlights) so that we

could reach the summit for sunrise.

09DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

gave up halfway up the mountain.“Pray that the rain doesn’t hit this year,” Bryony said.The hiking fee was nonrefundable at the last minute,

rain or no rain. (A nervous hiker can cancel up to three days before the trek, but the weather in Indonesia - and even from village to village in Bali - is so changeable that panicking about rain is fruitless.) Plus, I’ll admit I’m a cheapskate. If I pay for something, I’m almost certainly going to do it, if I can. Added to that, I was playing the “birthday” card big time, so Bob agreed, with a certain amount of whining over the early hour and the good chance of rain, to join me. Our son Daniel was a hard no, and I knew better than to push my luck with him on that front.

So our group included me and Bob, Bryony and Bry-ony’s 22-year-old daughter, Thalia.

After the evening storm, the skies were clear, the stars were beautiful and we drove for more than an hour to reach the mountain, closer to the northern tip of the island. The goal was to hike in the pitch dark (with flash-lights) so that we could reach the summit for sunrise. We were advised to bring a jacket for the breezy top, good hiking shoes and water. The guide provided a flashlight and extra water. Some hikers who don’t feel comfortable scrambling up a fairly steep ascent use headlamps to keep their hands free, either to use hiking poles or to grab rocks or trees going up.

We met our guide, Gunawan, in a parking lot. It was there that we realised we weren’t the only hikers making the trek in the dark. In fact, during the busy season, hun-dreds make the same dark ascent, Gunawan told us.

We started along a rocky path strewn with porous lava rocks, past small farms where roosters crowed their annoyance that humans had disturbed their rest.

As we reached the beginning of the ascent at the foot of the volcano, Gunawan asked Bryony, “Do you want the easy way or hard way?”

“Easy,” she immediately answered. That was odd, I thought. But I kept my mouth shut and let her make that

executive decision.Before long we were going up. I was almost immedi-

ately grateful for the “easy” option. The daytime weather had been in the 80s, with at least 80 percent humidity. I don’t think the night cooled off one bit.

In addition, this was no gradual ascent but a rigorous uphill slog over volcanic rocks, tree roots and mud. Thalia and Bryony sauntered ahead like they were going for a stroll while Bob and I gasped and sweated. At this point, sunrise was still hours away, so all we could do was shine our flashlight down at the path before us, trying not to stumble over a rock or root. If this was the easy hike, I was having a tough time picturing what hard would feel like.

Many mountain hikes use switchbacks, those gradual back-and-forth paths that allow hikers to catch their breath and move at a more civilized climb until the next push up. But this was not that hike. I started wondering whose idea of birthday fun this was. What, exactly, was I trying to prove? And does my struggle mean that I’m offi-cially old?

An Indonesian man whose name translates to “Last Born” kept holding out his hand to help me up the steep parts, but I refused. To be more precise, I slapped his hand away. “I can do it!” I said, over and over. My snippiness

was not in keeping with traditional Balinese hospitality, but I was in survival mode.

Even more enterprising Balinese took “hikers” almost all the way up the muddy paths on their motorbikes, for a fee, of course, forcing us to step aside each time we heard an engine revving up the slightly muddy path behind us. And no, that option never occurred to me for a second.

Gunawan kept calling out words of encouragement. “If you go for 10 more minutes, you can have a rest!” he would say. Toward the top, he kept up the cheerleading. “Just 20 more minutes now!” Then, 20 minutes later, “Only 10 more minutes!”

We started hearing the whoops of joy as other groups, faster and younger than we were, reached the summit.

We finally made it, a good while before sunrise. Gunawan sat us on a bench and brought us coffee and tea. The coffee, made with instant granules, was crunchy and overly sweet, but I drank it. I figured it was the least I could do to apologise for my rudeness.

Finally, the sky started to lighten. We stood up and looked around to find ourselves at the top of a mountain

as tropical and verdant as a scene from the movie “Avatar.” The mists slowly blew away, and the sunrise opened up the sky. We could see over to Mount Agung, towering over the landscape to the southeast. We looked down at Lake Batur, along with rolling hills, rice paddies and misty clouds that floated beneath us.

Hikers cheered, posed for silly photos where it looked as if they were holding the sun in their hands and wandered around for the best views. I may have announced to eve-ryone that it was my birthday.

Gunawan brought us a breakfast of eggs, steamed by the volcano, and sliced

bananas nestled in soft white bread, plus an assortment of litchis still in their shells. One banana sandwich and an egg was about all my stomach could handle. He then led us to a spot overlooking the crater at the centre of the volcano, where long ago lava had burst up from the Earth’s core and covered the land.

“Put your hand next to that crack in the rock,” Gunawan said. It was as hot as the burning steam from a teakettle. He handed me an incense burner. “Blow on that,” he said. As I blew and leaned forward, the steam wafted over my face. This was a nice treat: a volcanic facial for my birthday.

Nearby, a colony of monkeys who thrived in the steamy warmth and free food from hikers jumped around. One landed on Bob’s head, taking in the view from the top of his Washington Nationals cap for a brief moment before vaulting over to my shoulders and then off to see who else might have food or a good perch.

The hike back down in the early morning was steep enough that Bob ended up using a stick. As we reached the bottom, we saw hikers preparing to do the ascent in full daylight. I’m sure that was fun, too, but I was glad we did it the sunrise way.

In all, it was a magical day. It was certainly a memo-rable birthday.

HEALTH10 DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

SARAH VANDER SCHAAFF

THE WASHINGTON POST

People who are wrestling with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders are feeling an even heavier burden in these stress-producing times. Much of the news about coronavirus feeds their already heightened concerns about contamination,

being sick or general discomfort when the future is uncertain.Washing hands, avoiding crowds, and for some with possible exposure - twice daily

temperature taking - have become urgent public health recommendations instead of excessive behaviour requiring treatment.

Those whose therapy involves touching objects without washing their hands or

REBECCA GALE

THE WASHINGTON POST

The oft-repeated mantra to wash your hands doesn’t often emphasise the importance of

how to dry them. But whenever possible, and especially in a public restroom setting, think twice before using the hand dryers, which can suck bacteria from the air right onto those newly cleaned hands.

For the novel coronavirus, data doesn’t yet exist indicating that bath-rooms, specifically, are a place where the virus spreads. “What we do know is that air blowers in the bathroom circulate all the germs and air par-ticles around, and we know that is not a good thing,” said Christina Johns, senior medical adviser and spokes-woman for PM Pediatrics. “Certainly, any type of microbe that has increased longevity on surfaces is always concerning when you have big motors on, especially particles that have settled and are not yet wiped down with a bleach wipe.” When a motor blows particles in the air, they become aerosolised particles. “Then you inhale or touch your face with your hand, and there’s now an entry into your body,” Johns said.

Bathrooms are full of frequently touched surfaces, “so there is a high burden of contamination from germs,” said Craig Shapiro, attending physician in pediatric infectious dis-eases at Nemours/Alfred I duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware. Shapiro said no one yet knows for sure how long the coronavirus can live on surfaces. “It could be two hours or 24 hours,” but similar respi-ratory viruses are spread through contact on surfaces.

“Public restrooms are probably one of the riskiest environments for transmission for germs,” Shapiro said. An uncovered flushing toilet emits a mist of microbes as high as 15 feet in the air (you may want to think twice before leaving a toothbrush on the counter). And with public restrooms, you don’t know how often they are being cleaned and what disinfectants are used.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s hand-washing

recommendations specify air drying or paper towels. Drying hands is crucial for good hygiene: Wet hands transfer germs more easily than dry ones. Medical research backs up that recommendation. And although the CDC doesn’t explicitly recommend avoiding hand dryers, studies have shown that such dryers, especially the ultrahigh speed jet dryers, disperse far more bacteria than single-use paper towels.

In a study comparing three hand-drying methods (paper towels, warm air dryers and jet air dryers at ult-rahigh speeds), scientists found jet dryers dispersed 20 times more virus than the warm air dryer and over 190 times more than paper towels, and that the impact of the virus was greatest at 21/2 feet to 4.1 feet, which is about where a small child would be standing. In a separate study, scien-tists found petri dishes exposed to bathroom air hand dryers grew sig-nificantly more colonies of bacteria. Without hand dryers on, the petri dishes had less than one colony of bacteria; with 30 seconds of hand dryers on, the petri dishes had an average of 18 to 60 colonies, one even as high as 254.

Jet dryers can come with HEPA filters, which are designed to prevent bacteria from being pushed out of the dryer, but in the research studies, sci-entists concluded most of the bacteria from the hand dryers was coming from the bathroom air, as opposed to inside the dryer itself.

Before swearing off public restrooms forever, there are a few steps one can take to improve the sanitary situation: Closing the toilet lid can prevent the aerosol mist. Low-pressure toilets are increasingly more common and emit less aerosol mist than high-power flush ones. Many health-care and restaurant settings are moving away from hand dryers and offering paper towels instead. Air dryers that dry hands through evapo-ration circulate less bacteria than the high-speed jet dryers.

If you must use a dryer, Johns said, rub your hands vigorously to min-imise the time it has to stay on. The ideal option is the single-use paper towels dispensers.

OCD and anxiety disorder treatment can be complicated by pandemic fears

Wash and dry hands to prevent spread of coronavirus, but avoid hot-air dryers

11DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

overcoming an urge to avoid contact with potential germs now are seeing everyone around them washing their hands, stocking up on hand sanitizers and avoiding large gatherings.

Now all Americans are being told to view their sur-roundings in a way that seems to mimic OCD, said Shala Nicely, who has had the disorder since she was a young child and is now a cognitive behavioral therapist special-ising in exposure and response therapy.

Efforts to tame catastrophic thinking may be over-whelmed by a flood of news and warnings that suggest their worst fears are true and that the world is as dan-gerous as they thought.

An estimated 31.1 prcent of US adults experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Contamination fears - thinking that you are picking up diseases from your surroundings - are the most common form of OCD, a chronic condition in which people have uncontrollable recurring thoughts and behaviors that affects about 1.2 percent of US adults.

Patients with contamination fears worry they will come into contact with something that will harm them or their loved ones, so they either avoid contact or develop compulsions or rules to control their obsession, such as frequent hand washing.

Advising people to wash their hands as frequently as

possible is “the last thing you want someone with OCD contamination issues to do,” said Reid Wilson, director of the Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center in Chapel Hill, NC.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends washing hands not constantly but at specific times, such as after sneezing or coughing and before eating, and the agency offers advice on social distancing and other safety measures.

Wilson and Nicely recently wrote a blog post with Kimberely Quinlan, a therapist in Calabasas, California, to help people with anxiety respond to the epidemic and keep their disorders in check. (The International OCD Foundation also offers information on OCD and sources to treat it.) Much of their advice focuses on reducing anxiety and bal-ancing accurate recommended health guidelines with treatment goals. They suggest cutting back on checking the news for updates about the virus or travel alerts; giving oneself permission to follow the World Health Organisation and CDC guidelines for hand washing; and being kind to oneself without expectations of perfection.

Checking the news constantly tells the brain: “This is something to worry about,” Nicely said. It’s better to establish a limit - once or twice a day for five minutes, for example - and stick to that, she said. The quick-changing nature of the situation may also make a person want to check the news or seek reassurance from others if they have travel plans. Nicely and her co-authors suggest turning to a trusted person who does not have OCD and fol-lowing that person’s lead.

Quinlan said one of the most common struggles she hears from her patients and her online fol-lowers is how to align the CDC and WHO guidelines with reducing their own hypervigilance. Some, for example, might be working on not immediately washing their hands after touching a doorknob or an ATM. Learning to sit with discomfort stirred by that exposure is part of their therapy. The current

emphasis on hand washing and social distancing can feel like moving backward in their progress, she said.

The authors suggest using the CDC and WHO guide-lines for making decisions. Rules, they say, are “your friends.” “OCD does not get to make the decision about how long you get to wash your hands. So the exposure really becomes following the CDC and WHO guidelines and not overwashing or listening to the OCD when it says ‘But do you really do it for 20 seconds?’ “ and then living with the uncertainly, Nicely said.

While the CDC and WHO tell people to follow the advice of doctors, people with health anxiety may over-monitor for physical symptoms, search online to try to self-diagnose or doubt the advice given by a doctor and seek out multiple opinions.

Again, asking a trusted friend about how they would handle the situation can help.

“The person with health anxiety could try to emulate the decision-making process being used by the trusted family member to come to a decision about whether another doctor visit is warranted,” Nicely said.

It may be hard for those who do not have anxiety or OCD to understand how the disorders affect people, Nicely said. Often the person looks fine on the outside, and in casual conversation “OCD” is used as a joke or to mean someone is just neat. But the disorder can be debil-itating and warrants treatment.

“I felt like I was a hostage with a gun to my temple day and night and a person was whispering in my ear, and I was constantly in a state of fight or flight. That’s what my OCD was telling me,” she said.

She also felt she had a target on her back, feeling that, “If something bad was going to happen, it would happen to me.” Generalised anxiety disorder, or GAD, involves worry about a variety of activities or events and is char-acterized by difficulty controlling worry on more days than not for at least six months.

Worry is supposed to be “step one of problem solving,” Wilson said. The problem is when people stay in that step and just “worry, worry, worry.” The goal is to learn to deal with uncertainly and distress, and instead of pushing away thoughts, the person needs to take control of how to respond to them, he said.

If a person lets their anxiety or OCD get the better of them, it’s helpful to keep a positive mind-set, like a bas-ketball player who misses a point, who looks at the opponent and says, “The next one’s mine,” he said. Having a goal, or reason you want your mind available and not locked in worry, is helpful, he said.

Seven miles south of the Life Care Center of Kirkland, the epicenter of the covid-19 outbreak in Washington state, Gary VanDalfsen treats patients with anxiety and OCD. He has been in private practice as a psychologist for 24 years, but March 5 was the first time he worked from home using a telehealth system to consult with patients remotely because so many had canceled office visits.

“They were concerned about coming into a public place, particularly the folks with contamination con-cerns,” he said VanDalfsen evaluated whether the desire to stay home was driven by compulsion or avoidance - coping mechanisms for the disorder patients usually work to overcome - or the latest health advisories that high risk patients should avoid large groups.

“What’s hard right now is that this is an unfolding story so it’s difficult to determine what’s excessive and what’s not,” he said.

Wilson, who has treated anxiety disorders for 35 years, said the AIDS crisis, plane crashes and SARS also have captured the nation’s attention, but the corona-virus is unprecedented in how it stirs anxiety.

“This is the first time in a long time where [an event] has affected the majority of the people I see,” he said. “This is different.” One patient recently expressed fear that he would bring the virus to his therapy session. He had touched something in the library and then his face and worried he could infect Wilson and kill him. A patient with GAD worried about her daughter and grandchild visiting from overseas. Her concerned was not specific but simmered all day, “cooking in the middle burner of her mind,” Wilson said.

Even without the threat of coronavirus, Wendy Schotland, 47, said flu season is always a hard time for her. She wears gloves when she goes out, signs for a credit card or pushes a grocery cart. Her GAD and fear of germs is exacerbated because she takes immunosup-pression medication for an autoimmune disorder.

As a veterinarian who makes house calls, she recently posted a note to clients about postponing visits if anyone is the household - besides the furry friend - is sick. In most ways, however, she is living her life as she always does, with her usual boundaries for exposure.

At this time of year, epidemic or not, she won’t fly.“Some of us have a lower breaking point than

others,” she said.

PARENTING12 DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

SOPHIE ALEXANDER

THE WASHINGTON POST

Last weekend, Jannell Nolan woke up to dozens of texts: Elk Grove Unified School District had announced its decision to close all of its 67 Sacra-

mento County schools in California for the next week after a student tested positive for coronavirus.

That sent all four of her kids — two elementary schoolers, a middle schooler and a high schooler — home for the foreseeable future and left her doing full-time childcare. Nolan works for the district, so she’s staying home while her husband is working at a nearby Costco.

“My kids have playdates planned for the rest of the week,” she said. “I’m not going to keep them locked up all week, I’ll lose my mind.” It’s not ideal, but at least the family has one parent who won’t have to negotiate work and childcare schedules.

In the US, having a stay-at-home parent is a luxury that’s proving even more beneficial as schools shutdown and offices send employees home. A majority of American mothers with children younger than 18 are employed and in more than 60 percent of married couples, both parents work, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. With relatively little parental leave, fewer sick days and rigid schedules, working parents in the US have a lot to juggle even when school is in session and everyone is healthy.

Coronavirus is adding new complications for that already stretched-thin demographic. Parents are scram-bling to find childcare or figuring out how to be pro-ductive at home with kids around. Others are making tough choices between a paycheck and their families’ needs. Anxieties are even creeping up in places where the virus has not yet disrupted daily life.

“People are more stressed around the logistics than the actual disease,” said Elizabeth Gulliver, a mother of one and co-founder of Kunik, a membership-based community for working parents.

Alexa Mareschal, a Salt Lake City-based attorney, said she has “no idea” what she and her husband, who also has a full time job renovating homes, would do if her kids’ daycare is closed because of the virus. She finds it nearly impossible to be productive when working at home with her toddlers. “It’s kind of like trying to wrangle cats,” she said.

If widespread childcare and school closures come to Utah, Mareschal said she and her colleagues have dis-cussed setting up a makeshift daycare for everyone’s kids, where the oldest ones would watch the younger ones. Other than that, she has no plan. “I’ll fly in my mom, I guess?” she said.

Like Mareschal, many working parents not yet affected by school or office closures are worrying about the feasibility of family quarantines. “The idea of being cooped up in my house trying to work with my kids running around for two weeks is not making me happy,” said Rachel Cherkis, a marketing manager for EY and mother of two, who already works remotely in the

Miami area full-time. “There’s definitely not enough sound-proofing in my house.”

Brooklyn-based lawyer Colleen Carey Gulliver and her banker husband have started having conversations about what they’ll do if their three-year-old’s school closes. They may have to alternate days off work to watch their toddler. In the case that they both end up quarantined at home, she “might have to rely on TV more than you would like to get some actual time alone.”

In a way, these anxieties are for the privileged: Only 29% of the American workforce can do their jobs from home. To quarantine, most workers would have to take time off and many would forgo pay. Mendy Hughes, a single mother of four, has been working at a Walmart Inc in Malvern, Arkansas, for the past decade and now makes a little more than $11 an hour. Not only is the 45-year-old cashier concerned about getting sick with the virus herself, she’s worried about what she’ll have to do if her kids, the youngest of whom is 10, had to stay home from school.

“I don’t know what I would do if they had to be on extended leave,” said Hughes, who is also a member of the Walmart watchdog organisation United for Respect. “I’m a single parent so I really can’t afford to miss work.”

The US is one of the only industrialized countries without federal paid sick leave. In light of the pandemic, President Donald Trump is expected to sign an order that would give some to hourly workers. Walmart this week also tweaked its own policy and now offers up to two weeks pay to employees who contract the virus or those who have to quarantine. These programs don’t necessarily cover the illness of a child or school closures.

No matter the situation, much of the care-taking and

household burdens would likely fall to women, further exacerbating gender inequality. A 2017 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that working mothers are more likely to take care of sick kids than working fathers. Among mothers surveyed, about 40 percent said they’re the ones who take care of a sick child, com-pared to 10 percent of fathers surveyed. Women with young children also do twice as much childcare as men, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. They also do more cooking, cleaning, and laundry. This all con-tributes to the so-called “motherhood penalty,” which accounts for the bulk of the gender pay gap.

There may, however, be long-term benefits to this experiment, Gulliver, the Kunik co-founder said. She’s hopeful that this experience will change some of the harmful stereotypes around working parents that tend to hurt women.

“If you were not visibly pregnant at the office for all nine months of your pregnancy, a lot of people don’t even know that you’re a parent,” Gulliver said, explaining that’s the case for fathers, adoptive parents and step parents, among others. “Being forced to work from home and having kids pop up in the back of screens is going to show that you don’t necessarily need to hide that you have a kid.” This visibility could push employers to support the needs of employees with children.

Still employers can’t fix everything. Marketing manager Cherkis, who already telecommutes full time, said that despite the fact that her husband is the stay-at-home parent to their two kids, some things still fall to her.

“At the end of the day I’m mom, and sick kids want to be with mom,” Cherkis said. “That’s the truth of it.”

School, office closures are logistical nightmare for working parents

BOOK 13DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

WENDY SMITH THE WASHINGTON POST

The past catches up with Thomas Cromwell in the searing finale of Hilary Mantel’s magnif-icent trilogy. The dead have been slowly gath-ering around him since his mentor, Cardinal

Wolsey, died in 2009’s “Wolf Hall”. Their voices grew insistent in “Bring up the Bodies,” when the moral consequences of Cromwell’s allegiance to King Henry VIII became apparent as he railroaded Anne Boleyn and five personal enemies to execution so that Henry could marry Jane Seymour. In “The Mirror and the Light,” as Cromwell grapples with aristocratic foes who want to send him to the same fate, his own inner voices clamour for attention. His thoughts turn increasingly to the miserable childhood he has sought to leave behind and to his happy years in Antwerp and Florence, where he discovered a new world that offered a blacksmith’s son from Putney the chance to get ahead on the basis of brains and ferocious ambition. In May 1536, as Cromwell walks away from Anne Boleyn’s headless body, Mantel sets him on a collision course with the limits to those ambitions.

Back home after the execution, Cromwell scorn-fully dismisses the aristocrats who helped him get rid of Anne and who now expect his help in restoring Henry’s castoff daughter Mary to favour and the royal succession. “Papists every one,” Cromwell sneers, “who live on fantasies of the past.” Now that he has done Henry’s dirty work, he expects to sweep these old families from power and make rapid progress toward his primary goals: a reformed, Protestant church with an English-language Bible and a more egalitarian society that affords the common people better lives.

Not so fast, warns Thomas Wriothesley, one of the upwardly striving young men Cromwell nurtures as a protege. “People have been talking,” Wriothesley reports. “They say, look at what Cromwell has wreaked, in two years, on Wolsey’s enemies. ... They ask, who was the greatest of the cardinal’s enemies? They answer, the king. So, they ask - when chance serves, what revenge will Thomas Cromwell seek on his sovereign?”

Cromwell, a master of intrigue, must surely know such murmurings are likely to have reached the king. Granted, Henry quickly makes him Keeper of the Privy Seal and continues to elevate his status, all the way to Lord Chamberlain. But there are ominous signs that the king’s support is shakier than it seems, and Cromwell does not always read Henry as well as

he thinks. In “Wolf Hall,” Mantel invited her readers to enjoy watching Cromwell outsmart eve-ryone else; in “Bring up the Bodies” she made us wince as he applied his intelligence to murderous ends. In “The Mirror and the Light,” she builds suspense by turning us into alarmed onlookers who want des-perately to seize him by the shoulders and cry, “Don’t you see what’s happening?”

Cromwell is still a nimble operator, and Mantel provides many scenes - a few too many, in the novel’s overstuffed middle section - of the elaborate maneuvering that also enlivened her first two Booker Prize-winning volumes. (Eustace Chapuys, suave ambassador of Emperor Charles V, is Cromwell’s favourite sparring partner, the prole-hating Duke of Norfolk the most odious.) He remains shrewd about laying economic foundations for the lasting change he seeks. Dis-solving the monasteries and leasing their land to wealthy laypeople, he knows, will cement the Refor-mation: “Prayers may be rewritten, but not leases.” But the dissolution of the monasteries sparks a popular rebellion that further shakes Henry’s faith in Cromwell and shows that the common people he wants to help do not nec-essarily share his religious views. They also reject Cromwell’s proposed registry of births, marriages and deaths: He believes it will dignify ordinary folk by enabling them to trace their lineage as the nobility does; they regard it as a ploy to collect taxes.

“Can you make a new England?” Cromwell asks himself. “You can write new texts and destroy the old ones ... but what was written before keeps showing through, inscribed on the rocks and carried on flood-water, surfacing from deep cold wells.” He ponders the intransigence of the past in December 1539, when it appears he has consolidated his hold on power with the arrival of a Protestant bride for Henry in the wake of Jane Seymour’s death in childbirth. Instead, Anne of Cleves’ instinctive recoil at the sight of the over-weight, ageing king (a nice feminist twist on the tradi-tional story that Henry found her unattractive) ini-tiates the final stages of Cromwell’s downfall.

Arrested in June 1540, Cromwell stoically accepts he has been defeated by the shady tactics he employed to remove obstacles from Henry’s path: “It seems there is no mercy in this world, but a kind of haphazard justice: men pay for crimes, but not neces-sarily their own.” Cromwell has always known that “the wolf that lives in man” lives in him too. He is not surprised Wriothesley betrays him, and he instructs his son Gregory and nephew Richard to save them-selves by disowning him. Mantel closes with a beau-tiful, chilling stream-of-consciousness monologue that shows Cromwell liberated at last from his lifelong striving.

As always, Mantel is clear-eyed yet compas-sionate in depicting her coldly calculating, covertly idealistic protagonist and the equally complex people he encounters in his rise and fall from power. Dense with resonant metaphors and alive with discomfiting ideas, “The Mirror and the Light” provides a fittingly Shakespearean resolution to Mantel’s magisterial work.

'The Mirror and the Light' is a masterful finale to Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy

LIFESTYLE14 DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

14

MAURA JUDKIS

THE WASHINGTON POST

Once Grace Queen sat down at her dining room table last week to begin a long period of working from home, part of an effort by her employer to

slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, she realised that she’d be spending a long time looking at it. Her home, that is.

When a global pandemic shrinks your world, you can’t help but notice its imperfections. The uneven lighting. The ho-hum paint.

“You start to think about the ways your home could be better,” says Queen, who has taken to sending her husband, Kevin Wood - also working from home - “a lot of West Elm links” on breaks: “Maybe we need to paint the guest bedroom. Can we install sconces on this wall?” They decided to get new lamps for the bedroom.

“We might redo one of our guest bathrooms,” says Queen, pausing as something dawns on her: “Now that I’m saying all of this out loud, I’m realizing that in the last four days, we’ve decided to redecorate our entire house.” The threat posed by the coronavirus has prompted some companies to send employees home to work, plunging them into a disorienting realm. A realm where the divide between workspace and non-workspace never seemed so fragile. Where putting on real pants might be nec-essary to maintain this divide, and yet seems so totally unnecessary, because no one but the cat will see them. Where the cat appears confused about why you’re still around during her workday. Where the fridge is right there, better check to see what’s inside (again).

Working from home, all of a sudden: It’s convenient, yet disruptive. Comfortable, yet unsettling. Certainly, it’s a privilege - one not available to service-industry workers and medical professionals and others whose work cannot be done from the safety of home.

“A lot of us understand how lucky we are,” says Stacey, a senior program manager at Amazon in Seattle, who spoke on the condition that her last name be withheld because she isn’t authorised to talk to the news media. Nevertheless, she’s “counting down the days until I go back to the office.” Her schedule has become bogged down with calls and meetings that ordinarily would be a quick chat at someone’s desk.

“There’s no start or finish to your work day,” she says.

“I probably worked until 11 last night, went straight to bed, woke up at 8, and just wandered over to my com-puter and fired it up and started working.” Across the country, a new corps of workers is settling into familiar couches and unfamiliar routines. It’s forcing them to feel the dread creeping in at the corners of American life. It’s also making them hungry.

“I just went to the store and spent $100 on crap, just nothing,” says Sandi Lurie, the vice-president of global recruiting at Optimizely. “I bought Parmesan crisps, blue cheese, fruit, chicken breasts — nothing that makes sense for one meal — and M&Ms. Amazon is delivering tomorrow: ketchup, Spaghetti-Os, mac and cheese. I’m 53 years old, and I’m eating like a fourth-grader.” Tech employees who are used to having lunch in lavish company cafeterias are barely getting by. Like scrappy survivors of a shipwreck, they’re being forced to forage for their own lunches.

“I always look forward to getting lunch at work. It’s some of the best food you can get,” says Brian Terlson, 35, who works for a large tech company in Seattle. He began to reminisce about the good old days of one week ago, when the lunch options were bountiful and convenient.

“Monday is usually a pizza day, unless the chef’s table has something special they’re cooking up,” he says. “Pasta day is Wednesday; it’s a very important day for me.” But at home, food is an “obstacle,” he says. “It’s 1:30 and I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll probably just skip lunch.” For people who aren’t used to working from home, the first few days feel like a snow day where you don’t even have to shovel. That’s a feeling that some East Coasters have started to enjoy this week as their workplaces go remote-only to encourage “social distancing,” a measure to curb the virus’ spread that means exactly what it sounds like it means. But on the West Coast, where companies sent their workers home a week or two earlier, things were getting as stale as the chips they were compulsively munching (on mute) during the conference call.

You have to have boundaries. That’s what all the tele-working guides say. Get up on time. Take a shower. Put on real clothes. Don’t bring your laptop into your bed. Get a little fresh air. Trick your brain into thinking you’re commuting by going for a walk and, if you have two entrances, coming in through your back door. Don’t watch TV during work hours.

“I had a few boring tasks and thought, ‘I can mul-titask,’” says one 22-year-old Seattle woman who works for a big tech company and spoke on the condition of anonymity so she wouldn’t get in trouble for telling The Post what she did next: She opened Netflix and began to watch “Gilmore Girls”. It was not a great idea, she quickly realised. But it’s hard to resist the lure of streaming tele-vision, especially when you live in a one-bedroom apartment.

“You just have to ignore the break, or you get pres-sured into the break,” she says.

There are things the teleworking guides don’t tell you. Like how confused your pets will be. Joanne Teasdale Harvey, a content experience manager for Tableau, isn’t the only one getting cabin fever in her Seattle home, which she shares with her husband, two teenage sons, a dog, two cats and a lizard.

“It turns out they’re very needy if you’re home all day. They’re very talkative,” she says, and she’s not referring to the humans. The cats “sit outside the door and meow.... I have to shove them out of the office.” The dog “thinks it’s the weekend. When are we going to the dog park?” It’s made conference calls challenging.

The guides don’t tell you how you’ll miss the plush amenities of office life, like your K-Cup coffee and fancy Aeron office chair.

“We’re working on dining room chairs,” says Philip de Cortez, founder of Novi Money, who is practicing social distancing in his San Francisco home to keep his elderly parents, visiting from Spain, safe from the virus. Hard chairs “are great for a couple hours but they’re tough for a full work day.” His kitchen counter is too low to be an adequate standing desk.

Then there’s the placement of that desk, which wasn’t important until people started doing video conference calls. Each one grants us a tiny glimpse of our colleagues’ homes - an opportunity to judge their taste (hypotheti-cally: side-eyeing that framed “Live Laugh Love” poster) or feel insecure about your own (hypothetically: hiding that framed “Live Laugh Love” poster).

Among the Silicon Valley set, it’s become a meme to post screenshots of all the faces logging in for a video conference, like a dystopian version of “The Brady Bunch.” If you didn’t wash your face that day, it’s OK: Margaret Rathgeber, 29, has taken to using a feature of the videoconferencing software that improves people’s looks, similar to “the way that an Instagram filter smooths out your face,” she says. When her San Fran-cisco-based tech company asked workers to tele-commute, she rearranged the furniture in her studio apartment.

But just like homesickness, worksickness can set in as soon as 48 hours. Maybe it starts with a twinge of reali-sation about the welfare of the baby succulent plant withering on your desk. Or the weird sounds you didn’t realise you loved: “I think I miss most the cries of agony you hear when somebody hits a stumbling block, or the quiet yays and hurrays when somebody does something great,” Wood says. “I miss the social aspect.” Couples have each other. But they have nothing new to tell each other about their workdays now — they can hear every call the other one does. Queen and Wood have taken to closing out their workdays with a karaoke session. Wood has been trying to perfect his Frank Sinatra.

Queen has been trying to perfect her home, making plans for how she wants to fix all the things she didn’t know were wrong. In the meantime, she’s been working on a Cher song: “If I Could Turn Back Time.

Fighting cabin fever while telecommuting

15DOHA TODAYMONDAY 16 MARCH 2020

On a crag of rock called Brother’s Point on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, scientists have iden-tified two bustling footprint sites that reveal

an abundance of dinosaurs that thrived 170 million years ago including an early member of a celebrated group.

Researchers on Wednesday said about 50 fos-silised footprints making up several different trackways were found at the two sites located a few hundred yards apart on the scenic prom-ontory that juts into the chilly North Atlantic.

At least three types of dinosaurs left the foot-prints that amount to a dinosaur parade ground - remnants of a muddy surface on the edge of a brackish lagoon. The tracks date from a time in the middle of the Jurassic Period represented by very few dinosaur fossil discoveries worldwide.

“The tracks are located on flat rocky surfaces near the beach, so they are only exposed at low tide. The tide laps across them, back and forth, every day,” University of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte said.

Three-toed footprints with sharp claws appear to have been made by a jeep-sized two-legged carnivorous dinosaur from a group called theropods. Bigger three-toed footprints with blunter toes may have been left by large-bodied two-legged plant-eaters called ornithopods or perhaps by a large theropod.

The most intriguing tracks appear to have been made by an early member of a group of heavily built, four-legged plant-eaters called ste-gosaurs that boasted large bony plates along the neck and back, and wielded a menacing spiked tail. The most famous member of this group was Stegosaurus, which inhabited western North America about 150 million years ago and reached

about 30 feet long.The tracks represent some of the oldest evi-

dence anywhere of a stegosaur, according to Uni-versity of Edinburgh doctoral student Paige dePolo, lead author of the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

“I suspect this stegosaur was about the size of a cow, which is fairly small for a stegosaur. Whether that’s because it’s a primitive, smaller species or a juvenile of a bigger species, we’re not sure,” added Brusatte, who led the research field team.

Previously discovered Isle of Skye footprints were made by large four-legged plant-eaters with long necks, long tails and pillar-like legs called sauropods.

“Skye has emerged as one of the most important windows into Jurassic dinosaur evo-lution. We know that dinosaurs were diversifying with a frenzy in the Middle Jurassic, but there are few fossil sites of this age anywhere in the world,” Brusatte added. “This is a snapshot at the beginning of the era of dinosaur dominance, the dinosaur empire.” —Reuters

Dinosaurs living on what is now Scotland’s Isle of Skye 170 million years ago during

the Jurassic Period are seen in an artist’s rendering released on March 11, 2020.

Fossil footprints on Scottish island reveal dinosaur parade ground

University of

Edinburgh scientists

Steve Brusatte

and Paige dePolo

pose at a dinosaur

footprint site on

the Isle of Skye in

Scotland, Britain.

SCIENCE

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