OCT ISSUE In this issue:

Herd Immunity Hello Royals!

Welcome back to The Current Uproar! This is our November issue! Check out our previous issues from both this year and last year on the student newspaper webpage: http://www.whsactivities.org/page/ show/2139802-school-newspaper-the-current-uproar- (QR code be- low)! As always our newspaper is open to all students and open to https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F% wide variety of content, so if you have any suggestions or would like 2Fcdn.technologynetworks.com%2Ftn%2Fimages%2Fthumbs% 2Fjpeg%2F640_360%2Fherd-immunity-is-a-dangerous-strategy-for to become a correspondent, send us an email at currentu- -tackling-covid-19-339142.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F% [email protected]! Hope you enjoy this issue! 2Fwww.technologynetworks.com%2Fimmunology%2Fnews% 2Fherd-immunity-is-a-dangerous-strategy-for-tackling-covid-19- Sincerely, 339142&tbnid=ChSkRcjJYyYEvM&vet=12ahUKEwjziJ6LuYjtAhUO0K wKHbRWCKsQMygAegQIARB9..i&docid=_GG8GGYOk4e08M&w=6 Nikhil Jain 40&h=360&q=herd% 20immuni- Editor ty&safe=active&ved=2ahUKEwjziJ6LuYjtAhUO0KwKHbRWCKsQMy

Global News

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/ files/1/1061/1924/products/ Earth_Globe_Americas_Emoji_lar ge.png?v=1571606063 Musical Notes Monthly edition by Carson Macynski

9th grade VLA

First, let me just say that I don’t listen to mainstream music. Like, I couldn’t name the artists or lyrics to a popular song but I could identify the song’s key/time signature, tempo, primary chords, subtonic keys, and bassline rhythm. That’s because I’ve studied Music Theory and play the viola for the school orchestra and the MN Youth Symphonies making classical music my preference. My parents are a product of the 80’s and have always wanted me to appreciate that era of music more. With the death of Eddie Van Halen, lead guitarist of the 70/80’s rock band Van Halen, now seemed like a good time to start.

Eddie Van Halen is expected to go down in history as the “best guitarist of all time.” He was born in 1955 in the Netherlands and moved to the Western US during the early 1960’s. He teamed up with his brother

Alex on drums, David Lee Roth on lead vocals, and Michael Anthony on bass to form the band, Van

Halen, in 1974. The band skyrocketed to the top of the charts in 1978 with the hit song “You Really Got

Me” from their album Van Halen I. In 1985, David Lee Roth left Van Halen and was replaced by Sammy

Hagar with Hagar as lead singer, Van Halen released several more albums and hit songs. Sammy Hagar left the band in 1996. The band found another front man for a while until Sammy came back for a reunion tour. Eventually, David Lee Roth reunited with Eddie Van Halen and they continued to play together until

2015.

Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, joined the band in 2007 as the bass guitar player. He was only 16 when he started touring with his dad’s band. Can you imagine being in high school and touring all over the country? In 2015, they stopped touring after Eddie's health declined including being diag- nosed years earlier with tongue cancer. Sadly, Eddie Van Halen died in October 2020 after battling throat cancer.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope to see you in next month's edition. Movie:

It’s a good day; however, you’re bored and need something to do. Look no further than the movie theater! A movie theater is a great place. It’s that, and it has concessions, comfortable chairs, and good movies

(sometimes). Movie theaters have long relied on this model to attract customers, make a profit, and stay open. Nonetheless, like many other brick-and-mortar businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic had a destructive effect on the movie theatre industry. The Los Angeles Times reports that ‘93% of exhibitors saw their reve- nue plummet 75% or more in the second quarter, compared with the same period of time last year... the thea- ter industry employs 150,000 people, many of whom are part-time and hourly. If the status quo continues, two-thirds of those jobs could vanish.’ Furthermore, famous filmmakers and industry executives, fearing the loss of movie theaters, are lobbying the government to give these cornerstones of entertainment access to essential pandemic relief funds. (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-09-30/ hollywood-fears-for-movies-theaters-survival-amid-covid-19-pandemic). When the pandemic is over, go watch a movie. Make sure the place that we know and love survives and doesn’t die out.

World News Highlight:

With economies reopening, the upcoming US election, and the democracy protests in Thailand, the fourth quarter is going to be a hectic time: all the more reasons to read this short news brief. In Europe, the European

Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) are reaching the trade-deal negotiation deadline. The two sides are hard at work negotiating; however, many key areas still remain unresolved: notably, fisheries and the Internal

Market Bill. Although fishing only constitutes a small part of the European economy, its plight has become largely symbolic. France, the Netherlands, and Denmark (all EU constituents) rely heavily on British territorial waters for fishing. The UK wants to restrict those countries’ access to its fish. In a tit for tat move, France is vowing to launch an energy embargo and to prevent the trade of British fish. The internal market bill has en- tered the house of lords, despite criticism from many. What is this bill? It aims to promote trade across all re- gions of the UK by requiring all nations (Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Wales) to accept cross-border goods, without regards to the different standards set in each nation: for example, if a company based in Eng- land is allowed to produce cheap burgers at the expense of quality, it would still be able to sell it on the other three markets. The Welsh government puts it as a ‘race to the bottom’. Without a trade deal, the two superpow- ers will have to fall back on standard World Trade Organization tariffs, costing billions in losses. Even though the economic problems are taking center stage in Brexit, let’s not forget that travel, health, security, and the environment in Europe will be impacted negatively, so they need a deal. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/ world/europe/brexit-no-deal-fisheries/2020/10/16/2ec812c0-0f21-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-54065391) https://www.politico.eu/article/what-happens-no-brexit-trade-deal-eu-uk/ #EndSARS a Battle Cry for Nigeria’s Youth

By Abigail Goitom

In the 1990s, the Nigerian government created the Special Anti-Robbery Squad also known as (SARS). The primary purpose of this notorious task force was to stop robbery and prevent crime. In October, a video of an

officer shooting a civilian, in Delta state, and speeding off with his car was circulating fast. It was only a mat-

ter of time before young ones took to the streets to protest police brutality and violence-sounds familiar,

doesn’t it. Video reports have also shown Nigerian military opening fire and actually shooting into a crowd of

peaceful protestors and this event has been labeled as the Lekki Massacre. It is estimated that the protest

death toll has risen to 100. Humans rights organizations report that SARS has used a variety of methods to torture people in custody: hanging, mock execution, beating,burning with ciga- rettes, waterboarding,punching and kicking, near-asphyxiation with plastic bags, and sexual violence. In a measly effort to appease protestors, the government decided to disband SARS, yet it was replaced with the Special Weapons and Tactics team (SWAT) which did noth- ing to resolve the issue and highlights the ineffectiveness of not just Nigerian governments but govern- ments everywhere as they continue to use police violence as a means to oppress people.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/25/africa/nigeria-end-sars-protests-analysis-intl/index.html Herd Immunity: why our reliance on this idea may prove to be fatal during a global pandemic By: Anika Tripathi The term “Herd Immunity” has been thrown around by many health officials as a means of treatment for the global pandemic that is currently affecting communities all around the world. COVID-19. Many countries have opened up their economies in hope that naturally occuring Herd Immunity will take its course and defeat COVID but this utter disregard for safety precautions and this blind reliance on naturally occuring Herd Immunity can prove deadly and have dire consequences. But, before we explore how natural- ly occurring Herd Immunity can harm us we must first address what is Herd Immunity? Herd Immunity is the idea that if many people get exposed to a particular disease and become im- mune, an entire community is protected including even those who may not have been exposed previously to the virus. Herd Immunity can be achieved either by vaccination, which is what most countries are trying to develop, or through natural infection. Herd immunity has helped us recover from a number of diseases from influenza, commonly known as the flu, to Polio. But in most cases this type of immunity has been achieved via the invention of vaccines. Because there is yet to be a safe vaccine made for distribution to the public, the type of Herd Immunity that health officials are discussing more recently in light of COVID-19 is known as naturally occurring Herd Immunity and this type of Herd Immunity can cause unimaginable loss to our human population as a whole. I have to admit, naturally occurring Herd Immunity sounds good on paper. The idea that we can protect communities from a virus by people being exposed to the pathogens of the said virus seems good, but what it fails to take into account is the number of lives that will have to be lost in order for this protec- tion to occur. Naturally occurring Herd Immunity can only be achieved by mass infection of populations and even then it’s not 100 percent certain whether this natural immunity will work with the specific strains of the COVID-19 virus. While massive infection can prove to be good as it increases chances of immunity, massive infection comes with the cost of many more lives and it fails to take into account the unintended consequences. If many people were to be infected with COVID-19 in hopes that Herd Immunity will cause COVID-19 to dissipate, not only would it put people’s lives at risk but the economy would inevitably need to shut down as a majority of people are sick and unable to work. Also, it is not yet known what the long term effects of COVID-19 are, so if massive populations of people were to contract this virus, we would not be able to tell what problems these people would run into in the future due to contracting this virus as there are still too many unknowns of COVID-19. Recently, the country of Sweden has attempted to use naturally occurring Herd Immunity to their advantage and have resisted strict lockdown measures in hopes that Herd Immunity would solve the COVID-19 crisis plaguing their country. Data from John Hopkins University, shows that Sweden has 39.95 deaths from COVID per 100,000 people while Norway and Finland, Sweden’s neighbors who put stricter COVID measures in place, each have significantly less deaths with 4.42 deaths per 100,000 people and 5.2 deaths per 100,000 people respectively. One can see that Sweden’s reliance on Herd Immunity without a vaccine has yielded greater infection rates as well as higher rates of death from COVID. Herd Immunity can be beneficial to the human population as a whole, but only when it is imple- mented with a vaccine and not done by mass infections. The globe has already lost 1.19 million lives. Im- plementing Herd Immunity without a vaccine can raise that number to be even higher. Instead, we must rely on safety precautions like: wearing a mask, staying 6ft apart and avoiding social gatherings to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus and to protect ourselves and others because Herd Immunity without a vac- cine is most definitely not an answer to the global pandemic we are currency facing. Herd Immunity without a vaccine, may sound promising, but in reality it equates to more lives lost and more funerals to be planned and that is simply not an option. Season For The Ages By Nikhil Jain

Coming into the year, high school sports were in doubt. Soccer players were going to captains prac- tice throughout the summer without knowing whether or not there would even be a season. So much had changed due to the pandemic. The state basketball tournament had been cancelled. Spring sports had been cancelled. Even sports outside of school were forced to cancel most of their activities. The decision for whether or not we would have fall sports came down to one vote. Fortunately, the vote passed for soc- cer and a season was planned. This was not the case for football, who had to delay their season a few months. With the soccer season now in place, the Royals soccer players were eager to get on the field. In a year with so many uncertainties, soccer was certain to bring everyone joy. The season started off well with the Royals winning their first game. From there, things went south. They went 0-1-1 in their next two games and things were looking bad. Next up was a battle against our rials, East Ridge. East Ridge had gone 3-0 coming into the game and were looking really good. They had not given up a goal yet. That would change. In an extremely hard fought game, the Royals came out on top behind a last second penalty kick by En- rique Rios. This was the first win that the Royals had against East Ridge in years and it meant a lot to the team. After this, the Royals rattled off a few wins and took 1st place in the conference. Everything was look- ing good hedging into a battle with CDH. Normally, CDH was not a very good team but they were decent this year. The Royals went to CDH and lost 2-1. This dropped them out of 1st place. After this game, the Royals went on to win their next few games and seemed to be playing well again. Unfortunately, the lead- ing goal scorer received a red card in the last game before the conference tournament and sections. This led to the Royals falling out of sync as they would finish off the season by losing the last three games. While it was not the finish that the Royals wanted to the season, it was a blessing to even have a season. All of the players cannot be disappointed with the result when they consider the alternative, having to sit at home and play video games instead of the sport they love.

Give Golf A Chance By Nikhil Jain

Recently, my friends and I started to play golf. It all started when we were hanging out in someone’s pool and my friend’s older brother offered to take us to the range. None of us had golfed much before that so we decided to go and have a little fun. At first I could barely hit the ball. I would whiff at least two or three times before I even made contact with the ball. If I wasn’t just there to have fun, it would have been embar- rassing. After a bit of practice, I began to whiff less. Soon, I was making contact with the ball most of the time. Then, it happened. I hit my 6-iron extremely clean and it went crazy far. The feelings that rushed through my body after that hit are indescribable. That single shot made me come back to the range within the next two days. Eventually, my friends and I were going almost everyday either to the range or to the ac- tual course. Everytime we go, my score improves and I hit the ball better. It is extremely motivating when you can see your own progress in something. Now, golf has become a stress reliever for me and a way to hang out with my friends. To anyone who is looking for a hobby, I would definitely recommend golf. It can be played by those who are competitive, relaxed, or just looking for a good time. Try it and you might just hit that one shot that keeps you coming back for more.