Cai Kuivila
Hello, my name is Cai Kuivila and I am a first-year from East Hampton, Connecticut. I am currently pursuing a major in Physics with a concentration in Community and Global Health and I am tentatively on the pre-med track. I am also on the Women's Swim Team at Mac, and when I'm not at the pool (or studying for Chemistry), I can likely be found playing music, nerding out about coffee, or watching football!
Post-Thanksgiving Musings (11/27/2020)
"Today is the day after Thanksgiving (and marks the annual rise of the American obsession, and what could be called “cult phenomenon”, that is Christmas.) Sadly, with the holiday season will also come an inevitable rise in cases, as a result of super-spreader events, high travel rates, and the sense of security people find in family. While Thanksgiving assuredly means travel to families, Christmas means shopping, an indoors, high-risk activity...America’s neverending consumerism culture will be yet another detriment to ending the pandemic; if stores remain open for holiday shopping, people will shop. Yesterday the single-day Coronavirus death toll was at an all time high since MAY. We are now on a sixteen day streak of record breaking numbers of hospitalizations every. single. day. It is vital that we not become complacent...with Christmas only two weeks away, there will be a “surge upon a surge” (Cnn.com). From a geographical perspective, I wonder how the national population may be aggregated over “non-maskers”, or if there is a way to realistically measure that. That is to say, are cases more connected with the non-masker community or areas with heavy, condensed populations? Perhaps the resulting map may not be an accurate representation of cause and effect, but it could provide insight into where the highly problematic areas are and why."