"The researchers looked at a large sample size of more than 230,000 “mostly American” patients and examined them for 14 disorders including anxiety, depression, stroke, and dementia. Anxiety was most common, reported in 17 percent of patients, but other disorders were at an elevated risk compared with pre-COVID numbers. Fourteen percent of patients reported mood disorders, seven percent had a stroke, and two percent developed dementia."
This is probably one of those cases where you want to read the paper yourself, instead of relying on the media's take on it. Increased anxiety disorders doesn't surprise me in the least - someone just lived through the worst part of a pandemic after all - but it would be interesting to see how those increased anxiety disorders compare to other sources of trauma. The COVID virus may not be the cause of the disorder, but another element of an overall context that induces anxiety. You'd also want to get a sense of the number of folks who be predicted to suffer from these mood disorders, independent of COVID. (Disclosure: I'm involved as research staff on a couple of projects investigating anxiety and depression generally, but certainly in an unavoidable pandemic context now.)
"There are other disadvantages to long-haul passenger trains as well. For example, if the tracks run from New York to LA, then the train is going from New York to LA, even if most of the passengers ultimately want to go to Seattle. In the case of air travel, more airliners can be added to specific routes to meet demand. Further, airports are huge, sprawling complexes, but the environmental impact of an airport and airliners is almost certainly less than building a rail line across the country."
As an Amtrak fan, the current NY to LA train goes through Chicago (Lake Shore Limited), where the LA branch continues on as the Southwest Chief (a line I take often to NM), and branch goes on to Seattle (Empire Builder), so the routes are already there.
The bigger issue is that Amtrak runs on freight lines across long parts of the country, and freight trains have precedence over passenger trains on their own lines, leading to delays in the middle of nowhere as the freight train uses the same track as the Amtrak train. So, to do high-speed passenger rail lines, you'd also need to update the freight lines to accommodate faster trains, or start to build our parallel infrastructure explicitly dedicated to the high-speed passenger lines.
On the speed side of things, I rather enjoy the time that I spend on a train (as opposed to being cramped up in a plane), so the time spent on the train is more an issue for my schedule as opposed to my enjoyment and comfort. Some more thoughts on the subject here:
"The researchers looked at a large sample size of more than 230,000 “mostly American” patients and examined them for 14 disorders including anxiety, depression, stroke, and dementia. Anxiety was most common, reported in 17 percent of patients, but other disorders were at an elevated risk compared with pre-COVID numbers. Fourteen percent of patients reported mood disorders, seven percent had a stroke, and two percent developed dementia."
This is probably one of those cases where you want to read the paper yourself, instead of relying on the media's take on it. Increased anxiety disorders doesn't surprise me in the least - someone just lived through the worst part of a pandemic after all - but it would be interesting to see how those increased anxiety disorders compare to other sources of trauma. The COVID virus may not be the cause of the disorder, but another element of an overall context that induces anxiety. You'd also want to get a sense of the number of folks who be predicted to suffer from these mood disorders, independent of COVID. (Disclosure: I'm involved as research staff on a couple of projects investigating anxiety and depression generally, but certainly in an unavoidable pandemic context now.)
For readers wanting to dive in, the paper's here:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00084-5/fulltext
"There are other disadvantages to long-haul passenger trains as well. For example, if the tracks run from New York to LA, then the train is going from New York to LA, even if most of the passengers ultimately want to go to Seattle. In the case of air travel, more airliners can be added to specific routes to meet demand. Further, airports are huge, sprawling complexes, but the environmental impact of an airport and airliners is almost certainly less than building a rail line across the country."
As an Amtrak fan, the current NY to LA train goes through Chicago (Lake Shore Limited), where the LA branch continues on as the Southwest Chief (a line I take often to NM), and branch goes on to Seattle (Empire Builder), so the routes are already there.
The bigger issue is that Amtrak runs on freight lines across long parts of the country, and freight trains have precedence over passenger trains on their own lines, leading to delays in the middle of nowhere as the freight train uses the same track as the Amtrak train. So, to do high-speed passenger rail lines, you'd also need to update the freight lines to accommodate faster trains, or start to build our parallel infrastructure explicitly dedicated to the high-speed passenger lines.
On the speed side of things, I rather enjoy the time that I spend on a train (as opposed to being cramped up in a plane), so the time spent on the train is more an issue for my schedule as opposed to my enjoyment and comfort. Some more thoughts on the subject here:
https://www.notesfromthevoid.cc/p/note-32-infrastructure-week