Well thank you Ruri and thanks to IEA and all of you for coming out today. I am as Ruri said a virus extraction although I haven't been here since 1970 so I'm thrilled to be back. My son is in his second semester at Trinity and lives just down the road in Kavanaugh court so I had an easy walk over this morning. My father is a daily from West Meath and my mother's a McCarthy from Galway and then it's all O'Connor's and O'Hearn's and everything all the way back. My wife is Chinese however so we've stopped just marrying other Irish Americans. I was recalling this morning in 1991 when I was a diplomat at the Embassy American Embassy in Beijing. I went to a St. Patrick's Day party at the Irish Embassy which was right around the corner and I actually hesitate to tell this story because it involves people who some of you doubtless know but I'll tell it anyway. I was at the St. Patrick's Day party and the at the time Irish Ambassador's daughter was visiting and I thought she was quite lovely and I invited her to go with me the next morning to the Great Wall and she said yes so I set up with my a good friend of mine who was a Chinese driver at the American Embassy to get the van you know to drive us out to the wall to have a day up on the wall to have a hike and I thought to have a date and so the next morning I went to pick her up and she was there waiting to go to the Great Wall with me and her boyfriend who was also in town and so I was sort of I swallowed and was gracious and said nice to meet you and we had a very nice day on the wall and when I got back to work on Monday morning our driver had spread this story among our entire Chinese staff and I was the laughing stock of the Chinese Embassy because he realized precisely what had happened and so that was my first foray into US-Irish Chinese relations this is my second and I enter it just a little bit of trepidation because of that prior experience. The background to this topic is of course China's fantastic rise over the past 40 years and because much of what I'm saying today is going to have a cautionary character I want to begin by stating the obvious that that China's rise is in the main a great and historic human good which has involved the lifting out of poverty of 800 million people and has been conducive to human flourishing within China and around the world that is the background of a number of geostrategic concerns but I think that we have to remind ourselves continually especially in the United States that this comes about because of a primarily positive story within China to which the United States has made a significant contribution of which we should be proud we often lose track of that the relationship has shifted we saw this in 2017 when President Trump's first national security strategy said that China together with Russia but China primarily is now our greatest long-term security challenge so it is a greater threat if that word has to be used than threats from non-state actors and from terrorism that's quite a striking statement we then heard about two months later when then secretary of defense Jim Mattis rolled out the national defense strategy which was there's a national security strategy which is supposed to identify threats the national defense strategy says well here's what we're going to do about it now obviously one of the problems with the dynamic is that it tends to shape our responses to threats primarily in military terms be that as it may the secretary of defense Mattis in outlining his defensive plans made I thought a striking statement especially for a secretary of defense he said there's no ironclad rule that the United States has to prevail in this competition but we must prevail the secretary of defense a marine mad dog Mattis said we must prevail if the values of the enlightenment are to endure it's an interesting phrase from a military man but it does put the a focus on the fact that there is an ideology an ideological values component to this relationship and I gather you'll correct me if I'm wrong that this is these sets of concerns were what lay behind the 2019 European declaration that China was among other things a systemic rival and that I think is a recognition of the same fact that as China has grown more powerful it has done what you would expect the world's most populous richest nation which is also an ancient civilization and really sort of an empire on its own terms has done it's it's sought greater influence and we find as China influences the peoples of the rest of the world that it doesn't always treat them using different values than those which inform its treatment of its own people and that's a problem for us so that's where we find ourselves now in the United States there is a debate about how to frame this competition with China we see and I think that I think that Beijing and Washington agree on this although Beijing's diplomatic discourse is more traditional and sort of less bombastic than that of the United States but we agree that the United States and China are involved in a very long term decades long global competition that includes both polls outer space and cyberspace to have a leading influence on I don't think either believes it can be a sole superpower in the way that the United States was briefly after the cold war but to be the leading shaper of security architectures trade and investment regimes very importantly the development marketization and regulation of new technologies but also norms and practices and value systems worldwide that's the nature of the competition the debate in the United States is between those who think that our policy should aim at managing this competition as well as we possibly can or winning it those are those are broadly speaking the two schools the people who advocate for management and cards on the table I am one such believe in managing this competition as well as possible in what is basically a play for time which recognizes that China is a complex space place which is still evolving still changing Xi Jinping like most political leaders speaks with great certainty about where he's going to take China and why but in fact like Deng Xiaoping he's still crossing the river by feeling for the stones they're they're making this up as they go along but the managers say let's manage the relationship as well as we can in a play for time the growing number of voices who may be a majority now there's certainly the loudest in Washington say no we have to win this competition it cannot be a play for time because we're out of time engagement was a suckers game in which we aided and abetted enabled small tiger which is now a grown tiger a peer competitor an enemy and we have to win this is why you will hear more and more people like Steve Bannon or senators like Ben Sass of Nebraska or Marco Rubio of Florida describing China as an existential threat this term has gained a lot of currency over the past year I'm in a I think now probably minority group that will reject this term in part because the word threat remains perfectly serviceable and completely alarming it means something that we need to attend to study prepare for existential threat means pass the ammunition and reload I don't think we're quite there yet but we hear this senator cotton of Arkansas has called China harkening back to Reagan the evil empire this kind of rhetoric is on the rise so just quickly you know what does if we look at the policy proposals of people who advocate for prevailing for winning in this competition defeating China in this competition you know what what does that mean well it means the decoupling of vital industries there's a question about whether that is possible it is certainly very costly it entails something like industrial policy the embrace of industrial policy for the United States with relation to things like rare earths and other industries it would certainly entail sending the Chinese students home essentially the United States telling the world's largest talent pool that it is a despised class within the United States it is hard to imagine sending the Chinese students home without an attendant racist backlash in the United States frankly against Chinese Americans but I think this would have to be a piece of it if we think back to the cold war and the way that you know the Soviet students at the time weren't welcome there playing to win would involve a diplomacy United States diplomacy based on insisting that all of our partners in other nations choose sides between the United States and China we talked about this a little bit at lunch this is a development that no nation welcomes Europe in Africa in southeast Asia both China and the United States have been doing a good deal of cajoling and pressure sometimes even many nations feel bullied behind screens requesting that that they take sides and they understandably do not wish to do this trying to win would also involve I think a spread of this notion of China as an an evil empire perhaps there are very real values and ideological issues at play here but they need to be contextualized more broadly than the evil empire kind of discourse makes them that is nevertheless on the rise and of course China in part is responsible for making this possible those of us who remain in a more moderate camp of wanting to manage relations when you make these defenses in the United States China does not help you when you advocate for moderation you get Hong Kong you get Xinjiang you get Xi Jinping politicizing the universities which of all was politicized but further politicizing China's universities and media and the creative class and locking up citizen journalists all of the increasingly repressive moves that Xi Jinping has making make it much easier to make the evil empire claim and more difficult to make a more nuanced gradualist long-term claim and then perhaps most worrisomely when we speak of winning rather than managing this competition we're talking about a new arms race which comprises not only nuclear arms but also cyber weapons and outer space weapons neither of which we understand very well and I'm afraid that Washington is very close to a re-embrace of something like a mutual assured destruction doctrine we're not quite there yet but this is where the momentum goes and I know that there are similar concerns we see them in Europe and Europe obviously has a different set of equities for reasons that you're more familiar with than I am but I would suggest if you look back at the past five year or so history of growing concern about China in these in various ways Europe has tended to get in a somewhat more moderate nuanced place it's tended to agree with some of the United States concerns on a lag time of about two or three years I see a broad pattern along those directions I don't know whether you would agree so I think these issues despite being an advocate for managing the relationship the concerns about China are very real but I think that they have been wrongly framed and that's what I'd like to focus on in the remainder of the time they tend to ignore a few extremely important factors which should shape our approach to China's rise even our approach to China's power and which certainly should inform our approach to international relations my first worry is about our assimilating capacity what I mean by that is that the rise of China I think is the single most important geostrategic phenomenon in the world today it's transformative it requires a rethink across the board of all of our assumptions and all of our strategies I believe that that is true but China's of course the rise of China is not the only geostrategic not the only transformative challenge that humankind faces there's the rise of China and other nations as well but of course at the same time we're facing the challenge of global warming and the loss of biodiversity which is perhaps more alarming and is also transformative and we shape transformative shifts of globalization not only the globalization of supply chains but the globalization of pathogens of crime the globalization of information ideas media and entertainment the globalization of rich poor disparities which is attended things like mass migration and add to that another transformative dynamic which is the emergence and confluence of new forms of technology the impact and importance of which I don't think we've even begun to understand yet so if that's right if we're really facing all of these truly transformative challenges at once it's a little bit as though we experienced sort of to pick historical parallels the rise of the united states the little ice age and disappearance of the dinosaurs woodblock printing in the Gutenberg bible the gilded age and the great depression the black death and the industrial revolution and the discovery of the germ theory of disease worldwide within a 50 year period so an exaggeration to make a point that we face a lot of transformative issues at the same time and what i take from this working in us china is we need to constantly remind ourselves in the united states and worldwide that while china may be the greatest geostrategic challenge we face it may well be the case that our greatest geostrategic challenge is not our greatest challenge overall and that it needs to be contextualized in the light of others another issue that we miss in the united states with an over focus on china as for example an existential threat is that china is constrained the rise of china is new sudden especially in the united states you don't have this problem here it threatens our own sense of self and our sense of preeminence and that you know certain kinds of fears about american decline clearly shade in part our response to china beijing's propagandist would say that all of the american response to china is a hegemonic paranoid response fear of american decline that is is untrue but it would be also untrue to claim that it's not a factor china is constrained it's not 10 feet tall it it is not a monolith moving inexorably and unopposed in one direction it's constrained geographically it has 14 land neighbors only russia has as many four of which are nuclear one of which is north korea one of which india it has major land disputes with just its 14 land bordering nations combined have greater military strength economic wealth and population in china a difficult neighborhood especially when you compare it to the united states and that's before you add add in china's maritime neighborhood and the constraints that it sees there not only with the malacca dilemma and the fact that they're sort of bottled in in the western pacific but america's alliance systems and the presence of the united states military still in the western pacific and many of these nations are of course strong these are not these are not weak nations so china is constrained by geography it is constrained on its own periphery china speaks as though it is now able based on the success of its economic development to exercise governance around the world this is part of the shijin ping claim beijing has a model beijing wants to lead on global governance but china is having a real difficulty in governance on its own periphery it has had 25 years to convince the people of hong kong that it is in their interest to be part of the prc no sale it's going the other direction it has had 70 years to convince the people of shinjiang and tibet and taiwan that they should want to be part of this chinese communist party led family 70 years a stunning failure of policy in all three of these areas which are in different ways on the chinese periphery it's going in the other direction so again china is constrained it is constrained to by its unequal economic development this i think not the united states this is what shijin ping worries about first thing in the morning this is what he has identified as the great outstanding contradiction is rising expectations in china in an area in which there's uneven development and i think that from shijin ping's own point of view he's correct about that and this is really what he deals with most of the time and there's a great deal of uncertainty for him here what else could sort of end the party in china and have it stuck in some sort of middle income trap swamp in which it can't move forward easily corruption shijin ping's greatest admission remains an enormous problem within china debt the debt bomb especially among local government could slow things down or bring development gdp growth it to a halt in china demographics the fruits of the one china policy getting old before you get rich with no good social safety net this is an enormous policy problem just on the horizon for china and it knows it that's going to require expenditures and sacrifices which slow down china's growth pollution you all know about this you've read about air pollution in china that one's relatively easily dealt with water less easily dealt with nobody knows how to handle 80 percent of your lakes and rivers being technically dead and even worse than that is soil pollution unprecedented in human history overuse of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers which a toxicity of the soil that can't be undone and that could again end all of this as could china's water shortage in the north and as could china's sclerotic politics the fact that you're still stuck with a revolutionary leninist model that was applied to a desperately poor agricultural state and that's no description of china today which is dynamic and entrepreneurial and innovative and internationalist and forward looking how do you reconcile that um and then lastly i think that uh we have tended to overstate the china threat in a number of ways um we worry a lot uh in the united states as does a good deal of europe as does australia and much of the rest of the world about china's influence its ability to push its illiberalism beyond its own borders um and i tell this story a lot but it it's struck me deeply i think it remains the right question my son who's now a sophomore here at trinity around the corner who i'm here visiting a few years ago we were out back doing yard work and we were talking about us-china relations said dad you know i hear you talk about this stuff all the time it's one of the reasons he's enjoying us here today he's kind of heard enough of his dad um he said can you talk about chinese influence he said what do you mean we're mulching the gardens then we're going to go watch avengers infinity war then we're going to get pizza then we're going to come home and we're going to play cribbage uh and drink jameson's and listen to bob dillon and china interferes in none of this so what is this about i think that you know in america here other countries there's got to be some version of this question you're looming china is going to take over everything you walk outside and you say well what does this mean we we've overstated it um but i think the best way at least for americans to understand the chain that the threat from china is to say okay there is a challenge um that's my preferred term but threat if you like or quibble over that uh but what is the nature of that threat what list in any nation ireland here ireland united states what are the greatest issues that you're facing and then ask yourself how many of them are china's fault the loss of jobs to automation not china's fault in the united states the fact that we have let anger become the very engine of our politics and of and are more deeply divided than we've been since the civil war not china's fault that's on us the fact that ceo's now makes 700 times the wage of a factory floor worker did china do that to us no that's on us the fact that we incarcerate a higher percentage of and more of our people than any other country in the world and most of them are poor people of color not china's fault that's on us you can go right down the list the fact that whatever threat huawei represents i think it does represent a threat the fact that the united states does not have a competitor for huawei is not huawei's fault when we have americans who say all chinese students and we should send them home the fact that there are not americans prepared to take their position in all of these phd programs in stem china didn't do that that's on us so i think that most americans whatever their idiosyncratic list of problems would be if you went down you say how many of these can be laid at china's door how many of these sins uh the answer is not very many so the united states hasn't really framed this issue correctly yet we're still flailing between uh raising the alarm about china sometimes just through a sort of a brutal name calling and responding coherently uh with sustainable policies um that would actually work for the united states now having said that i do think that there are major issues entailed in china's rise uh which are not in the and letting china have its head is not in the interest of the west of the e you of the united states there there are real differences in interests i think we have to face and sort of so too with reference to the united states which i think have echoes for europe first is that we do not want china to have dominance in the western pacific the united states can't seek dominance either we can't exercise that anymore but chinese dominance in the western pacific which china certainly seeks is not in our interest it would entail giving up on our alliance system in the western pacific which would almost certainly result in a new nuclear arms race in northeast asia uh japan have taken out of the american nuclear umbrella would itself have to go nuclear at which point south korea would go nuclear taiwan can go nuclear very quickly and then if we've got a nuclear north korea south korea china russia india pakistan japan taiwan the lesson is that big nations go nuclear so maybe add indonesia to this list as well it doesn't become a pretty picture ceding western pacific to chinese dominance would also entail giving up on the defense of international law for the united states so our policy should aim to allow for china's growing influence because china has legitimate interests in in in the area uh but avoiding through real forms of confrontation if need be china's dominance while not seeking it ourselves and obviously different versions of that formula might apply in different parts of the world and then secondly we have a very strong interest in avoiding the spread of chinese illiberalism beyond china's borders china likes to say that its foreign policy is non ideological it doesn't seek to convert other countries and it doesn't care what kinds of political systems those countries have and in the first instance there's a fair amount of truth in that china is not seeking labors realms is not the third rike this is not the soviet union that wants that kind of domination and i think that china genuinely doesn't care if the united states or ireland democratic again in the first instance however the record that we see from china over the past 20 years strongly suggests that countries which china see as receiving its largesse especially in the form of infrastructure lending not only infrastructure lending but other other areas as well if you receive chinese largesse it turns out although china generally doesn't ask questions about your political system when it issues those loans it also doesn't necessarily ask if you can repay them but that's a different issue you can talk about if you wish it turns out that if you get chinese largesse that you don't get to have an opinion about the Uyghurs or the south china sea or whatever else it may be the communist party doesn't really brook obstacles this is the goal i would say of chinese foreign policy it is not world domination it is not spreading of chinese ideology dependent deference through dependence broadly speaking is the formula again not dominance but deference through dependence leveraging china's wealth to get other nations to be at least complicit silent in not placing any obstacles in the way of china's goals or its self-image and we see this in numerous occasions you know laus and cambodiaris essentially bought such that they prevent any consensus within azean greece whose port of pareas is now being very ably run by the chinese is upsetting eu and other apple carts in opposing any sort of criticism of china italy maybe that's not going so well we'll see how it's embrace of china's uh overseas infrastructure lending goes but certainly through the 17 plus one this is part of the game uh and we need to fight that and the way this works is if you're if you are a nation that that takes certain kinds of chinese low lending or other kinds of largesse and if you have a free press then you have to silence it and if you have a vibrant civil society it too can't criticize china and so what this means is that while china doesn't care about exporting ideology directly indirectly the terms of chinese deep economic involvement have the effect of silencing free press and civil society and therefore over time have the effect of an export of ideology or the spread of illiberalism and i think that we do need to fight against that now last remark as i said america hasn't decided there's a struggle between those who think we can manage the should manage the relationship in what's essentially a play for time time for china to change but time for the united states to change as well then there are those who think that we need to win or predominate i'm worried that that decision will not be made through a normal policy or political process i worry because america is so strongly divided now and because our political discourse is so demeaned and because washington is way out ahead of the american people and it's concern about these issues i worry that our china policy will be set again not by a strategy the kinds of strategic thinking that we'd hope would go into it but by crisis we're very prone to have the the decision made by crisis and there are crises of several sorts any of which could swing this there's a sputnik crisis china's doing something which helps america to realize that it's falling behind and that it needs to improve its own game strengthen america and compete sputnik crisis might not be a bad thing that there's a suez crisis from london's point of view a sudden crisis which forces all americans to confront the fact that we're no longer the indispensable nation and that some of our powers of persuasion or our ability to shape the external environment to our to beat our desires maybe we can't do that anymore maybe something like a suez crisis forces us to confront that then there's the tiananmen crisis something which puts the evil china narrative first and foremost such that that gets broadly socialized until it's over into a cold war and there are number of places where you could have something like a tiananmen crisis there some of them are playing out before us right now especially in shinjiang and then perhaps most likely the 9-11 crisis 9-11 in this case with reference to china meaning a crisis which puts all of our attention and resources and energies into what is in fact a secondary geo strategic concern and has us taking our eye off the ball in china and we almost look with the assassination a few months ago it looked like we might be going down this kind of rabbit hole vis a vis Iran it's certainly not off the table yet then the fifth kind of crisis would be something like a collapse in china i don't foresee this i don't predict this there are those who do i think it's unlikely but all the constraints that i mentioned any of those could precipitate something like a china crisis which takes this issue off the table for a while and then lastly to end on an optimistic note although i'm not predicting this one either there's a crisis of a different sort which something like a pandemic could be which reminds us that in fact we have a great deal of common concerns and we really need to cooperate and therefore contextualize our growing animosity within the context of the joint need to solve common problems not putting my money on that one either anyway i will stop there i very much want to hear your own views and any comments criticisms are most welcome i'm here mostly to sort of hear your views and to challenge the american narratives many of which aren't leading us in a positive direction thank you


Hi guys, my name is Shachi and welcome to another video in the health and fitness series. For the longest time, my workout was just cardio, cardio, cardio. I had no idea about weight training. Not only was I unaware of its benefits, but I also had no clue how to get started. All this changed once I read this amazing book, Don't Lose Out Workout by Rujitha This is my bible when it comes to planning my workouts. One of the reasons I love this book is the way she explains the science or the why behind different types of workouts. So if you are just getting started into fitness and want more information or just want to learn more about any form of exercise, be it cardio, weight training or yoga, then I highly recommend that you give this book a drive. Coming back to weight training, I have been weight training for the last two and a half years now. I try and lift at least twice a week for about an hour each. Guys, weight training is an amazing way to build your muscles, get that lean look, increase metabolism, but most importantly to increase your strength. So if you get tired in day to day activities like lifting groceries, climbing stairs, then weight training will help you build that strength and stamina. In this video, I have put together some of the things which helped me get started in weight training. If you have no clue about weight training and want to start, then this video might help you out. If you are just starting out with weight training, then I strongly recommend that you get somebody to coach you at least for the initial few months. Most of the exercises will have a specific form and technique and it is best that you learn it the correct way. This will help you not only get maximum benefit from your workout, but also prevent any injuries which might derail your fitness process. Once you have a hang of the movements and of the correct technique, then you can continue on your own and build from that. So you could get somebody to coach you by either hiring a personal trainer, but that might be a little expensive and if that is the case, then you can do what I am doing. Join a group weight training or a group strength training class. Most of the gyms in India now offer group classes, not just for yoga, aerobics or zumba, but for weight training as well. So you could find something similar near your place and enrol for that. In the description box below, I will leave links for some of the gyms in India that I know which offer these group weight training classes. If you are interested, you can check that out. There is so much that can be done in weight training. You can shave and tone each and every muscle in your body. But if you are just starting out, then it will be easier to focus on the bigger and the important muscles in your body. To do this, start with the basic movements first. In my opinion, the basic movements are squats, lunges, dead lifts and shoulders. These I believe are the most effective and the easiest weight training exercises. So, spend the initial few weeks in mastering them and getting comfortable with them. Once you've done that, you can add more complicated and more compound movements to your schedule. When you start weight training, it is very tempting to go heavy and pile on the weights. But slow and steady is the way to go here if you want to stay consistent and prevent any injuries. So, find your base weight or your starting weight which you are comfortable and increase the intensity over the weeks. You can increase the intensity by either increasing the number of reps or by increasing the weight. You will also see that you will have a different base weight or different starting weight for different exercises. For example, I can lift much heavier in squats than I can do in dead lifts and that is completely okay as well. The main idea is to find your starting or your base weight for the different exercises and gradually keep increasing that and keep building on that. To benefit from weight training, it will be a good idea to mix weight training with cardio. So, you can alternate between a day of weight training and a day of cardio. What I do currently is that if I am training for about 5 days a week, then I try and do weight training on Thursdays and Saturdays and cardio on Mondays and Fridays. I also try and add a day of active rest or active recovery like yoga in between. Weight training does put a lot of stress and strain on your muscles. So, giving enough rest or enough break in between weight training sessions is extremely important so that your muscles have enough time to rest and to recover. To get maximum benefit from weight training or in fact from any form of exercise, nutrition or what you eat is extremely important. Especially immediately after the workout. So, make sure that you are eating the correct food. If you are having fancy or complicated hair, just your simple home cooked food which will have all the good fats, proteins and carbs will do the trick. So guys, these were some of the tips which helped me get started on weight training and I hope you found them useful. If you haven't given weight training a try, I strongly recommend that you do so. I am sure you will love it and get hooked to it. If you have any other comments or any questions, please leave them below. You can also get in touch with me via Instagram. If you like this video, do give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing so that you don't miss out on any content. I'll see you in the next video. Till then, take care and bye.


How could contracting COVID-19 affect your cycling or other athletic endeavors even after recovery? This is what we're going to be getting into today by taking a look at the science, as well as discussing what returning to cycling should look like after a positive test, and some of the other side effects that athletes may be facing by simply living in the age of COVID, particularly on the mental side. Welcome back to another video. The topic of COVID can really split people at this point. Some are still taking it very seriously, not doing any group rides or races or cycling events, and then I'm sure there's plenty of you that are outright tired of hearing about it. I don't know what you're talking about, man. The COVID lockdowns were the best possible thing that could have happened to cycling. Finally, people stopped caring about actual bike racing and started respecting the only real cycling competitions that matter, chasing Strava KOMs and Zwift racing. Now, obviously for some people, the long-term effects of COVID may be much more dire than having difficulty riding your bike or not hitting the same FTP numbers when you start training again. But since this is a cycling channel, this is what we're going to focus on today. My goal with this video was to simply look at the evidence that we currently have available to us, which admittedly is not a lot because COVID is still so new. As always, I tried to go into the research for this video with as little bias as possible one way or the other and just follow the science. Keep in mind that I'm using the research that we currently have and all of it could change as our understanding of the virus is constantly evolving at a fast rate. When in doubt, follow the guidance of the WHO and the CDC. All right, let's go ahead and get into it. Could getting COVID affect your ability to ride or participate in any other sport for that matter? Let's start with what we know about the potential long-term effects of getting COVID. This review on COVID-19 and cardiac injury found that up to 20 to 30% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have evidence of myocardial involvement manifested by elevated troponin levels. There's likely to be a diverse response, but based on other studies of patients recovering from cardiac injury, it is expected that some patients will have subclinical and possibly overt cardiovascular abnormalities, putting them at a higher risk for further complications. This study from Wuhan confirms these findings stating that of 416 patients, cardiac injury occurred in nearly 20% of them during hospitalization. The potential long-term health implications here are obviously very serious, and given how important the heart and circulatory system are for endurance sports, it's not far fetched to think that COVID may have an adverse effect on one's ability to ride. But these studies were looking at hospitalized individuals, which are the people who are hit the hardest from the virus. For fit and healthy individuals, which cyclists tend to be, is there as much of a risk of long-term complications? This research letter shares findings made by looking at the hearts of college athletes recovering from COVID and found that 15% had signs of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. Myocarditis can cause the heart muscle to weaken, which is not good news if you're an endurance athlete who relies heavily on your heart to pump blood to the working muscles. And that 15% figure is a bit alarming, especially since this was in a population of college athletes, and we know that for older individuals, the virus can be even more vicious. This study again looking at college student athletes recovering from COVID found that of the subjects who all tested positive for COVID, 30% were asymptomatic, 66% had mild symptoms, and only 4% had moderate symptoms. So obviously this is a very young and healthy group of individuals here, as most of them dealt with the virus fairly easily. However, using CMR to look at their hearts, almost 40% saw signs of pericardial inflammation or inflammation around the heart. This being said, no athletes showed significant imaging features to suggest an ongoing myocarditis. That last bit is promising because while a large number of young healthy athletes did show inflammation around the heart, which we could only assume would be a higher proportion in an older population, it didn't seem to be an ongoing problem. That doesn't mean, however, that symptoms can't linger for quite a long time. From this review on cardio respiratory considerations in athletes after COVID-19, there are now consistent reports of athletes reporting persistent and residual symptoms many weeks to months after initial COVID-19 infection. These symptoms include cough, tachycardia, and extreme fatigue. This article gets into what we know about long COVID, which is a term used to describe illness in people who have either recovered from COVID-19, but are still reporting lasting effects of the infection, or have had the usual symptoms for far longer than we would expect. It highlights that a team of researchers from Italy reported that nearly 9 in 10 patients discharged from a Rome hospital after recovering from COVID-19 were still experiencing at least one symptom 60 days after onset. These symptoms included fatigue, dyspnea, joint pain, and chest pain. Two-fifths of the patients reported a worsened quality of life. That last data set was not from athletes, but from people who were hospitalized with COVID, which again are the people most likely to experience lasting symptoms. However, what this data does tell us is that a significant proportion of people are likely to experience symptoms long after being diagnosed with COVID. One of the big symptoms is fatigue, and the reason I point this out is because cycling and other sports for that matter are inherently fatiguing. If you add in the fatigue from lingering COVID symptoms on top of this, then it could take you a couple weeks or potentially months to get back to your normal self on the bike. This proportion is likely small in younger populations, but expect the proportion to rise with age, because all of the other available data that we have on the virus shows that it gets worse the older you are. Exactly how long symptoms are going to last is going to be highly variable, and whether or not there may be permanent damage or effects lasting years is a question that we simply don't have the answer to at this time. Most people will recover from COVID, get back on the bike, and feel fine, but a small proportion of riders will have lasting symptoms that will affect their energy levels and their numbers for weeks to months. Right? Yeah, that sounds pretty serious, man. So, um, does this mean I can add still recovering from COVID to the official list of cycling excuses? With that being said, what should your return to training look like after testing positive for COVID? This is obviously a very important question because we don't know what kind of damage you could cause by training through this thing. Again, research is limited at this point, but there are some preliminary guidelines that you can follow. This article on COVID considerations for competitive athletes goes into what an athlete's return to training should look like. They say that athletes can begin training again once symptoms are gone and energy levels are normal. 72 hours after this low intensity indoor training may resume. After discontinuing training, athletes should gradually return to training. This article gives the same advice that I usually give to my athletes when they get sick, not just with COVID, but with anything. Wait until you're symptom free and then slowly keyword there being slowly get back into training. As hard as this may be for those of us that are serious about training, that article actually seems to give the least aggressive advice when it comes to returning to sport. This article on cardiopulmonary considerations for student athletes stated that regardless of whether you're symptomatic or not, you shouldn't exercise for at least 14 days after diagnosis and seven after symptoms are gone. This may seem like overkill, but there are reasons to believe that an approach like this may be necessary. In this article on respiratory health and athletes, they stated that an apparent height and risk of further deterioration has been suggested to occur between days seven and nine. With individuals developing more fulminant lower respiratory tract manifestations and thus requiring more intense medical care. The neck check in which athletes return to training if symptoms are confined to above the neck has a weak scientific basis and using this method to return too soon may pose a risk of myocardial damage, and this is especially relevant for COVID-19. The article recommends at least 10 days off from the onset of symptoms and seven days off after symptoms subside. Again, this article is taking a fairly aggressive stance, but I think it's important to remember that not everybody is reacting to COVID in the same way and that perhaps an athlete's return to training should reflect how severe their case is. This article on resumption of sport after COVID takes this into account. For asymptomatic individuals, two weeks of rest is recommended with slow resumption of exercise after that. For mild symptoms, two weeks of no exercise after symptoms are resolved and for those with significant symptoms who required hospitalization, a minimum of two weeks is needed before even getting evaluated by a medical professional and cardiac testing should be considered. With these kinds of recommendations, I could see how athletes would be fearful about training hard during this time. After all, they could be positive for COVID and not show any symptoms and train right through it. Unless you are confirmed positive though, laying off the riding during this time may be the wrong approach because exercise is so important for our immune health, which I went over in my first coronavirus video that I did way back in March. The other reason has to do with our own mental health, which is a perfect segue into our last topic of the day, which I don't think is getting enough coverage, and that is how the pandemic is affecting cyclists and other athletes' mental health. Cycling, while it's not a team sport, can be fairly social, often done with a buddy or in big groups, and that camaraderie can be a huge motivator for many riders. Strip that away for a year or more and what might the effects be. This study on psychological distress of athletes during COVID-19 restrictions found that over 50% of athletes were worried about the future of their sport or their own future in sports. Feeling worse during the pandemic was common with 72% of women and 40% of men, with notable amounts of athletes at risk of depression, anxiety, and gambling problems. From this article on perceived stress in athletes, they stated that athletes have reported challenges and issues associated with social isolation, career disruption, qualification process uncertainty, and unconventional, limited, and mostly denied access to effective training environments, partners, and teammates. Additional stressors for athletes include changes to competitive calendars. As a coach, I can say that all of that is true and had a big effect on my athletes this year. Many of us were training for an event that got postponed or cancelled, and given that cycling is a sport where proper planning pays off, this created a lot of uncertainty. Many riders thrive off of group rides or race themselves into shape, and for most of us that simply wasn't an option this year. Add to the fact that gyms were closed and cyclists had to make do with what they had to maintain their strength, and that's a recipe for a loss of motivation at the least and potentially more serious mental health issues. Fortunately, exercise may be one of the best medicines, not only for our immune system, but also for our mental health. And while riding the trainer all year may seem extra safe, remember that vitamin de-exposure may play a significant role in reducing the risk of COVID-19, so I would ride outside if possible. Racing and group rides are starting to come back, which I think is a good thing for more social riders who need that to fuel their motivation. The effects of the pandemic are very real, but the mental health issues caused by isolation could significantly affect a person's well-being. I think when deciding whether or not to ride in a group, you should take into account whether you're in a high-risk category or whether you're in contact with other people in a high-risk category. Hey man, it's been a couple videos since I promoted Hypergain Beast Mode. Is now a good time? No? No? All right, yeah, okay, all right. I'll do it in the next video. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a like, subscribe for weekly science-based cycling videos just like this one, and be sure to share this video with your cycling friends. I'll see you in the next one.


Once upon a Christmas, far away in Bethlehem, being grids with the child, had no place to lie down. So Joseph found this table in which Mary had a child. Once upon a Christmas was the birth of Jesus Christ. On this house was a man who rejoiced because his Savior had been promised. His Savior had been promised the birth of Jesus Christ.


Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm your host, Geraldine B. Set-Joseph. Nominations for the Order of St. Lucia are currently being accepted and with that being the case, I am joined here today by two members of the National Awards Committee to tell us a little bit more about the awards themselves and also the nomination process. So let me introduce Senator Marisha Thomas Francis, who is the chairperson of the committee and also Mrs. Irene St. Croix, who is the secretary of the National Awards Committee. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you very much. Now let's start off by getting a little bit of a brief history about the awards. Can you tell us something about the National Awards? Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today concerning the National Awards Committee. The National Awards Committee was launched on the 13th of November 2017. That's the official launch, you know. But of course, as St. Lucia's might be aware, a Society of Honor was established under the Constitution for the purpose of recognition of persons who have gone over and above the call of duty to, you know, conduct acts of bravery and acts of meritorious service to the community. And that act recognizes persons in a very significant way in that in February of every year, during independence, persons who qualify and who have been nominated successfully for an award gets to visit government house to receive the award under the patronage of the Governor-General. The order consists of the sovereign, the Governor-General as chancellor, and the living holders of awards in the following categories. And of course, my colleague here is going to give you a lot more detail concerning the composition of the awards. But we're talking about Knight or Dame, Grand Cross of the Order of St. Lucia. The second one is the Knight or Dame Commander of the Order of St. Lucia. We have the St. Lucia Cross, the Medal of Honor, Medal of Merit. We have Lipitor Medal, National Service Cross, and National Service Medal. Like I said, Mrs. Senkwa will give a lot more detail about the composition of the awards and how persons can qualify for those various awards. So our role, therefore, as committee members is to ensure that we sensitize the general public as to the need for them to nominate persons who are worthy of those awards. Over the years, we have recognized, the committee has recognized several persons who have gone over and above the call of duty. And we have many of them who are still living in St. Lucia, and some of them have actually passed. But of course, under the award, we are also able to recognize persons posthumously, and there are a number of St. Lucia's who have been recognized posthumously. So this is part of a sensitization program that we are doing. We did the lunch, as I mentioned. We have plans for going around the community, using various channels to ensure that we sensitize and motivate people to nominate worthy St. Lucia's. As we all know, there are a lot of unsung heroes among our maids. So we want people to recognize them. What does recognition do? Recognition of persons who have gone over and above the call of duty to serve our country. It motivates others. It inspires others. It actually encourages those awardees to continue to do good work in the community. So we are hoping that through our PR thrust, which is going to run until about the 11th of December, that thrust we are hoping will encourage persons to nominate a lot more persons than we have done in the past. Now you said that Ms. St. Qua was going to talk about more about the criteria and such that. So can you give us a little bit information about the criteria for people who are nominated? What is it that people have to look for in the person they put it, the name they put in forward? Let me just say good morning again. Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak with you on your program. We are concerned mainly our committee with four areas of the awards, the Censure Cross, the Censure Medal of Honor, the Censure Medal of Merit and the Censure Lipito Medal. With the Censure Cross, you have the gold class and it is a person who has rendered distinguished and outstanding service of national importance to Censure. With the Censure Medal of Honor, we have the gold and the silver categories, a person who has rendered eminent service of national importance to Censure, or persons who have for acts of conspicuous courage in circumstance of extreme pairing. With the Censure Medal of Merit, we have the Golden Silver as well, a person who has performed long and meritorious service in the arts, literature, science, or other such fields in Censure. And for the Lipito Medal, we have three categories in this in this instance, the gold, the silver and the bronze, and it's for persons who have performed long and meritorious services to Censure, tending to promote a loyal public service, national welfare, or to inculcate and strengthen community spirit. So with those various awards, we are hoping to encourage many solutions to nominate as many people as you can, persons who have gone above and beyond. And as our chairperson indicated, we do have persons in the community who have not been recognized. They have gone above and beyond, but for some reason, because they are not aware, or perhaps because they don't know how to go about it. So our role is to sensitize, encourage, mobilize, and have persons coming out and getting, not just for getting awards, but awards of a high standard. With not one person, just two nominated persons who probably think have done maybe something very small and then they want to come out, but basically, significant, you know, contribution to the to Censure. And our deadline for nominations, we are sent out over 500 nomination forms. With the nomination forms, we have sent out letters as well, informing persons of how to go about it, and to indicate the address to which nomination should be submitted. All nominations should be submitted to the Secretary, National Awards Committee, care of Officer the Prime Minister, Graham Museum Administrative Building, Waterfront Castries, telephone numbers 468 to 142, or 468 to 103. Persons can call and for clarification if they need to. We also have the forms on our websites, and we have websites for on governor general.govt.lc, slash honors, and recognition.govt.lc. We have sent out nomination forms to our admissions overseas. We have at the post offices at the various sublets of Accountant Generals Department. We have at the libraries, and we have already begun receiving nominations, which is really good. Okay. So basically, as you were saying that there's so many, there's a lot of different avenues people actually go to to start the nomination process. That's right. And the process itself is not a complicated one, no? It's not complicated. Okay. In fact, once the the nomination form is very clear, and we encourage persons not just to put a CV, curriculum vitae, because that would significantly give you information about someone's life. But we want justification. Why do you think that this person marries consideration for an award and the kind of award that a person marries consideration for? So we do not want just the CV with the form, but to justify the reason you are nominating the person. Okay, cool. Now, one of the things as well that were mentioned, the senator mentioned that there was a press launch a couple of weeks ago. And within that press launch, it was said that you guys really wanted to underline the fact that anybody can be nominated. Okay. So can you just elaborate on that for us, please? When we say anybody can be nominated, I believe there is a perception in St. Lucia and perception based on historical fact that people believe that it's only a certain category of persons that are worthy of nomination. They are people in the various communities. We're talking about farmers, we're talking about fishermen, we're talking about a lot of young people who go about doing extraordinary things that merit recognition. But because of that perception over the years, certain people who should have been nominated have not been. So we are telling St. Lucia that nominations are open to anybody in the communities, whether we're talking about people who cannot even illiterate people who can even read and write. The idea is to recognize them for the good work that they have done. And we know that there are certain people who may want to nominate, but they perhaps cannot write, fill out the nomination form properly. There are persons in the community that they can go to seek help or they can call any of our committee members, especially our secretary, to find out how it is they can go about filling out the nomination form to ensure that they give the right information for giving due recognition to the persons out there. I just want to use that opportunity to say that we all live in St. Lucia and we know that we have a lot of social ills. Economically, things are rough.  And we believe that we need to balance that with some good news, good news that will inspire, like I said before, good news that will encourage, good news that will motivate people into action to do the right thing. I mean, when you wake up in the morning, if you hear some good news around what good work somebody did in a community, to me that is a good way to start to balance off, you know, the bad feelings that we feel. In terms of our young people, you know, our young people are facing a lot of social issues. I mean, every day we hear this one, this crime happening in this community and it involves a lot of our young people. What can we do as a community to ensure that we inspire the young people such that they can think positively and, you know, get motivated to do the right thing? I believe the award gives us an excellent opportunity to reward the young people who do good stuff. We have a number of them who do very, very good work and, you know, we need to encourage them and we need to motivate others to do the same thing. Okay, well thank you. On that note, we're just going to take a quick break and then we'll come back and hear some more about the next award. Thank you. We'll be back right back after this quick break. Thank you. My 13-year-old child, she's driving me crazy. I just don't know what to do. All that I need is some good leaks to wake up. Alice, ignore the counseling pension is given. Government employees have free access to professional counseling services under the Employee Assistance Program, known as EAP. EAP? EAP? What's that? Not me that telling people my business. Listen to me, Alice. I was struggling with my child. I made an appointment to see an EAP counselor and I was very satisfied with the service that I received. And you know what? Up to a day like today, my information remains confidential. Cox, how come nobody in the office knew anything about your counseling? Ah, that's because EAP counselors, they work on the strict clauses of confidentiality. I know you know what confidential means. EAP providing professional counseling services? How much is it? Girl, the counseling is free. Free for you, free for your child. And you know what? Your information remains confidential. Call the EAP unit at the ministry of the public service. Telephone number 468-2269 for more information. EAP Works, let it work for you. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. I am Jolene Beesett-Joseph and I'm joined today by committee members of the National Awards Committee. And they're telling me a little bit about the process of nominating people for the awards and also a little bit about the awards themselves. Now, Senator, you were telling me about the importance of why you believe that the awards are necessary in regards to, you know, getting people motivated and inspiring people to do, you know, especially young people, other things in society to, you know, to most probably be recognized in this way. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that for me? I mean, how do you think things are right now? How necessary do you really think this is? Especially at a time like now in society? Yes. Before I answer specifically, I just want to quote Mother Teresa, there is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. And if we're talking about the private sector, if we're talking about from a human resource perspective, Dane College said, and I quote, people work for money but go the extra mile for praise, recognition, and rewards. So whether we are talking about public sector, we are talking about private sector, we are talking about home management, we are talking about, you know, human resource management in the workplace, people do feel motivated, people do feel motivated, they do feel encouraged, they do feel inspired when someone, whether you're talking about the family, you're talking about your business manager in the workplace, people feel that way when they are rewarded, they are recognized for the good that they do. And we're talking about in St. Lucia, I was speaking about some of the social ills that we have now. Economically, you know, some people are feeling the pressure and I believe that when you reward unrecognized persons who have gone over and above the call of duty to serve, to serve humankind, to serve the country, to serve each other, to make a difference, a discernible difference in the society, I believe it goes a long way in making them feel better, it goes a long way in inspire others to want to do the right thing. And like I said earlier, provides that kind of balance against bad news because a lot of the time we wake up and throughout the day we are hearing all the ills that are in society as opposed to some good news story. So I believe more of that good news story will encourage others to do the right thing and to do work that is worthy of recognition in the society. In terms of promoting the program, we are embarking on a number of PR activities. We are going to be you know presenting on some of the talk shows last week, Thursday, two of our committee members in the presence of our deputy chair and PR head, Mr. King, but King, as well as Madam Secretary, they were on Mr. Chairman and did a fantastic job in actually sensitizing the general public. We're going to take that a step further. This week we are here, we want to go to Roachry Club to sort of sensitize as well. Some of the members are going to the other communities to have town hall meetings, town hall meetings in Viewfort and of course, Madam Secretary will talk a little bit more about that. But the idea is between now and the 11th of December first to go around the island to do our PR activity so that we can sensitize people to send in those nominations. I want to take this opportunity to thank persons who have actually submitted nomination forms. We've received some so far that we are actually reviewing, but we are encouraging persons to send more of them for us by the 11th so that we can have a huge pool to choose from so we could have that good news story happening in February of 2018. Okay, one of the things I wanted to ask, because as you said, you want more people to send in nominations. Suppose I, as an individual, know two people that I think are worthy of being nominated. Is that, can I make more than one nomination, for example? Absolutely, you can nominate as many as possible the modern area. The modern area. I think it's opportune before I hand over to my secretary here to say that I am fortunate in that I am serving alongside some illustrious team members, team members who are committed to the cause and who are working very hard to ensure that we are successful in this particular thrust. A while ago I mentioned Mr Wilbert King, he's the deputy chair and also the PR lead. We have the commissioner of police. We also have Mr Gregory Sanju out of Viewfort. Mrs Orisha Denbo Bullen who is the chair of the Viewfort Council. Yeah, Viewfort Town Council. Mr Leslie Mondezi who has been nominated by the leader of the opposition to serve. And of course we have madam secretary here who's doing a phenomenal job in ensuring that she supports the team and making all this happen. She has to take a lot of credit for organizing all this PR activity for us and not to forget Nicole McDonnell because she's a pillar in ensuring that we are able to do it right and open the doors for the PR to happen in a professional way and in an effective way. So thanks, Nicole. Very good. Now I'm saying, if I can hand over to you because the time is running on us very fast. So is there anything you'd like to add before time runs out on us that we need to know about the national awards? Okay, just to add to what madam chairperson just said we are not looking at any, there's no need for class or credo or race or color. Every and anyone can be nominated. We would not like to know that Paul nominates Peter and Peter nominates Paul. Right. At the same time, persons should not inform persons that they are nominating them. Okay. You know you want the element in a degree of surprise. When we were on the show last week, this day we were very happy when Mr. Dave Summers said that he got an award and he was so surprised and he actually explained how he felt and that is what we want people to feel that elation when you get out of not knowing that somebody coins you know I'm nominating me for an award trying all the information you can give and then they go giving all the information or whatever it is that they want to ensure they give so that they can get the award and at the end of the day they don't get the award and it's going to be disappointing. So you want to maintain the element of surprise. We want the standard to be lifted. We want persons who are recommended are deserving of the recommendation. In addition to that, we want to meet our youth as much as possible and we know the youth they use their social media would be Facebook and what's happened so on. So with the help of Ms. McDonald and I must say she has really been supportive and assisted us tremendously in getting the PR drive together even the launch as well. So we want to thank her for that. She would be assisting us in getting the wider public and the youth involved in the process. We want full participation. In addition to that, I meant to say that we can also persons can also email irin.senkwa.gov.lc email the forms. The forms are online. You can fill computer forms and email them as well with the necessary documentation. We want to with the town hall meetings that we have planned, we wanted to meet the whole community throughout the length from Befoss and Wichita. So we have our our member who is down south, Ms. Bolin, and she would be looking at town town hall meetings down south and we're going to be looking at some town hall meetings in the north. We have the rotary as chairperson indicated and Mr. King and Mr. Mendesi would be going around in the town hall meetings. We really believe that it is it is national pride to receive an award whether you receive the gold, the silver or the bronze because sometimes you find people are saying that you know why the bronze or the silver but it is just a privilege to be honored to receive an award and every single submission receive such an award should be happy and should be proud. And we really want the young people to know it's not just for the older folks, it's also for them. There are young people who have gone above and beyond the call of duty and we want to recognize them and we hope that persons who have recognized them will submit nominations for them. Excellent. Well I'm sorry to say time has actually run out on us. However I want to thank you, thank you for coming in and you know talking to us about the national awards. So again thank you to the senator and also to Mrs. Irene Senkwa and thank you also for joining us however here at GIS we're asking you to stay tuned to the national television network. Bye bye for now. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you.