MARCH/APRIL 2021 THE DOWNINGTOWN REPORT AROUND THE WORLD BRITAIN’S NEW METHOD TO COMBAT COVID-19 Boris Johnson has recently announced that the British government will offer every household two Covid tests. They hope that repeated testing on everyone, regardless of their symptoms, will help the country return to normalcy. However, there are still doubts on the effectiveness of self- testing as there is no way to mandate accurate self reporting. In fact, a recent study found that only 42% of symptomatic Britons were following the isolation regulations. There have also been trends of decreasing in testing due to heavy reliance on vaccines. However, most of the population have not been fully vaccinated and it is unknown whether vaccinated citizens can transmit the virus. Though the government is on the right track, there are many unknown variables that could prevent the tests’ effectiveness. SUEZ CANAL This past week, the Suez Canal, one of the most important canals in global trading, was blocked. The Suez Canal, owned by Egypt, is a man-made waterway around Cape of Good Hope in Africa and plays a crucial role in international trade, especially in transporting oil. On March 23rd, a cargo ship, named Ever Green was stuck in the canal, blocking the entire transportation route. Some experts believe that the ship might have been swayed off its course due to the heavy winds and blocked the canal, but others suggest that it could have been a technical or human error. Fortunately, Ever Green was finally freed on March 30th, but this blockage still has detrimental effects on the international supply chain which could take weeks to repair.
EVER GREEN STUCK IN SUEZ CANAL BUSINESS SUEZ CANAL BUSINESS IMPACT This canal is responsible for about 13% of global trade and has now left supply chains struggling to get back on track on their shipping schedule. Oil prices have skyrocketed and came back down and approximately 9 billion dollars worth of goods have been severely impacted. This has been a huge learning curve for businesses to create a flexible supply chain that can work around unexpected conflicts. It also highlights the importance of having a globally diverse supply chain and the risk of depending on only one region of suppliers. STARBUCKS NEW REUSABLE CUP Starbucks, like many other companies, is making sustainability a priority. The company has pledged to reduce half its waste by 2030. To accomplish this goal, Starbucks has introduced a new “borrow a cup” program and is currently testing the new method in a few locations in Seattle, its hometown. Customers now have an option to receive a drink in a reusable cup and pay $1 which will be refunded once they return the cup. In addition, customers will also receive 10 bonus points on their Starbucks reward accounts. You want to take your cup home to enjoy your coffee? No problem! Starbucks has a partnership with Ridwell who will pick up the cups from your home. Cups will then be cleaned, sanitized, and distributed to other customers. Each reusable cup replaces 30 disposable cups! U.S. NEWS ASIAN-AMERICAN HATE CRIMES #STOPASIANHATE The group Stop AAPI (Asian-American and Pacific Islander) Hate has recorded 3,795 hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, with more women victimised than men. This most recent attack in Atlanta against Asians has heightened stereotypes around the pandemic against Asians. WAYS TO HELP THE ASIAN COMMUNITY Learn about some of the injustices Asians face currently and in the past. Donate to victim's families if possible Support groups that are fighting for change in the Asian American community The Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund works to secure the civil rights of Asian Americans. They are looking for donations and volunteer lawyers/law students to help WOMEN KEY FIGURES PATSY MINK Patsy Mink is the first woman from any ethnic minority to be elected into Congress. A third generation Japanese-American, Mink dedicated her 40 years in Congress to amplify and advocate for the rights of immigrants, women, and children. Mink additionally wrote and advocated for Title IX legislation, which prohibited any sort of gender discrimination in American educational instituitions, in athletics, and for federal financial assistance. Next, she aided in passing the Women’s Educational Equity Act in 1974. This act would provide funding to prohibit discrimination in educational programs and resources. So, schools could use the money to replace textbooks filled with gender stereotypes that encouraged women to stay at home and encouraged men to pursue medicinal or engineering careers. It wasn’t easy for Mink in her Congressional position as an Asian-American woman. She was labelled by the press as “exotic” and she and her female colleagues were banned from House facilities, like the gym. Title IX was renamed to the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. In 2014, then President Obama awarded Patsy the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian recognition in the US. “It is easy enough to vote right and be consistently with the majority. But it is more often more important to be ahead of the majority, and this means being willing to cut the first furrow in the ground and stand alone for a while if necessary" - Mink. ANDY, AGE 5
JAMEELA JAMIL PATSY MINK JAMEELA JAMIL Actress Jameela Jamil best known for her role in NBC’s The Good Place, uses her platform to advocate for body positivity and inclusivity among other social issues. In 2019, she started her I Weigh movement that’s aim is to have women and girls to focus on internal beauty rather than external beauty and the beauty representations in today’s society. Jamil told NBC News, “I created this campaign so that if women are having a bad day or are down on themselves, they can just come to this account and be inspired. And so they know that there’s so much more that defines them than just their looks.” Jameela speaks out against the constant perfecting of women in the media such as airbrushing and photoshopping pictures on social media. Jamil leaves her posts on social media untouched as a way to normalise imperfections that everyone has. Besides her huge presence in the body inclusivity movement, Jamil advocates for LGBT and women’s reproductive rights. Jameela has created a petition on Change.org to Stop celebrities from promoting toxic diet products on social media. SCIENCE A YEAR OF COVID-19 WHAT IS DIGITAL CLOTHING? On March 11, 2020, World Health In 2018, landfills received 11.3 million tons Organisation (WHO) director-general Dr. of textiles, most of which consisted of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus clothing that can not be easily recycled announced that COVID-19 that once because it uses large amounts of non- declared an epidemic (a widespread renewable resources like petroleum. occurrence of an infectious disease in a Additionally, the fashion industry is community) has been so “widespread” notorious for their environmental impact; that it could officially be called a not only are discarded clothing burned pandemic (prevalent over a whole and used to pollute the environment (10% country or the world). It started a string of all greenhouse gas emissions), but it of lockdowns, travel bans and virtual also depletes valuable resources like work and school, all of which changed the water (almost 20% of waste water). But way we live. Luckily, an year later, there how can this be fixed? Digital Clothing. have been improvements such as the Many designers like Carlings and The widespread delivery of 12 vaccines across Fabricant have engineered fashion that the world with 33.9 million Americans doesn’t actually exist. Instead, users vaccinated, which lead many people upload a picture of themselves, a “tailor” hoping for a glimpse of normalcy. will adjust the picture to feature the However, Dr. Tedros mentioned how we virtual clothes, and thAe NpDicYtu, re can be should “learn from this pandemic” and shared on social mediAaG. FEa 5shion how there is a “growing global interest in Magazine Vogue believes this will be the the idea of a Pandemic Treaty” that “future of fashion” in an era of climate would allow world leaders to be more change as digital clothes are a more prepared for future outbreaks. As of “environmentally responsible March 13, there have been 118,529,397 alternative.” confirmed cases and 2,630,678 deaths worldwide. GOLD TO DETECT LIVER INJURIES Liver injuries are usually only detected with an invasive and painful biopsy (where tissue is removed and examined). However, Dr. Jie Zheng, a chemist at the University of Texas at Dallas, has just published research on how gold nanoparticles can be used to detect and treat liver injuries earlier. The nanoparticles, which are coated in a fluorescent dye, allow doctors to detect and monitor the decrease in glutathione, a substance produced by the liver, that occurs when a liver is damaged. The process works as the glutathione replaces the dye and the nanoparticles reenter the bloodstream, allowing researchers to use a simple noninvasive blood test to see if levels have decreased and liver injury is present. Although the study mainly focused on drug induced toxicity like an overdose of Tylenol, Dr. Zheng hopes to further the test’s accuracy and sensitivity for other types of liver injury in order to give “the patient has a better chance of faster recovery.”
DIGITAL CLOTHING
POSITIVE CORNER We as humans use highways, railroads, and roads to make our life easier to get around. However, have we thought of the consequences that this might have on the other living things who we share the land with. With more and more construction, insects are suffering - specifically the pollinators who are trapped in small places with the biodiversity they need. The B-Lines Initiative hopes to address this issue by making a web of wildflower superhighways across the UK. With the large amounts of natural land that have been lost to construction, these insect highways will connect fragmented insect habitats to reverse the decline of wildflower meadows. One section of highways has been completed and the results have been awesome. There have been a record number of shrill carder bees (a rare type of bee species). Several other similar highway designs are underway to create a widespread network that will allow pollinators to connect with each other. WEEK IN HISTORY In 1783, the Treaty of Paris, an agreement between Britain and the United States, was signed. This treaty stated that the U.S. would become independent from Britain, but the freedom of their navy would not be achieved. For this reason, the U.S.’s congress decided to give away their navy at the end of the Revolutionary War. As a result, the U.S. had to function without a navy until 1794 when Congress decided to reestablish the US navy. They were forced to do this because without their navy and the protection of Britain, the Americans’ fishing boats were often disrupted and destroyed by Africans’ pirates. The Congress wanted to ensure that the Americans did not face problems and could safely do their jobs for which they needed the protection of a navy. The act that Congress passed on March 27, 1794 authorized six new ships to be built. They named three of the ships that launched in 1797: The USS United States, the USS Constellation, and the USS Constitution. By the end of 1798, the navy consisted of 14 ships and they still had more under construction. SCIENCE ● A Year Of COVID-19 ○ https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019 ○ https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/global-impact-of-the-covid-19-pande mic-1-year-on#Looking-forward ○ https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations ○ https://www.cnet.com/how-to/the-coronavirus-pandemic-explained-one-year-later/ ● What Is Digital Clothing? ○ https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/textile s-material-specific-data ○ https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200710-why-clothes-are-so-hard-to-recycle ○ https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/digital-fashion-virtual-clothing-3d-des ign ○ https://www.thefabricant.com/ ● Gold To Detect Liver Injuries ○ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210310204238.htm ○ https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/8/eabd9847 ○ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2773872/
HISTORY ● https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/maritime/navy.htm
POSITIVITY ● https://www.positive.news/environment/conservationists-are-creating-superhighways-for- insects-in-the-uk/ BUSINESS/WORLD ● Starbucks Reusable Cup ○ https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/business/starbucks-borrow-cup-program/index. html ○ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2021/04/06/starbucks-reusable-cup- trial-program-seattle-covid/7094778002/ ● Suez Canal ○ https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2021/03/31/impact-of-suez-canal-crisi s-on-companies-around-the-world-could-last-weeks/?sh=5aa84e6742d8 ○ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/25/faq-suez-canal-ever-given/ US NEWS ● Asian Hate Crimes ○ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/us/atlanta-spa-shootings.html?name=styln- atlanta-massage-parlor-shootings®ion=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_men u_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&impression_id=&variant=show
WOMEN KEY FIGURES ● Patsy Mink ○ https://www.the74million.org/article/no-one-would-hire-her-so-she-wrote-title-ix-an d-changed-history-for-millions-of-women-meet-education-trailblazer-patsy-mink/ ● Jameela Jamil ○ https://www.paulette-magazine.com/en/jameela-jamil-the-body-positive-activist-a nd-actress-you-should-follow/