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Education & Information

Ken Jeong gave a great analogy for the Delta variant and vaccines on The Late Late Show

Ken Jeong gave a great analogy for the Delta variant and vaccines on The Late Late Show

If you spend any amount of time on social media at all, you know there's a whirlpool of information and misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines that help prevent severe illness and death from it.

Getting vaccine information from a random individual doctor isn't generally advisable, since there are plenty of misinformation mongers with impressive degrees out there. (They are one reason we have medical associations and public health institutions to maintain standards of research and information.) However, sometimes an individual doctors have a knack for taking scientific information and translating it into layman's terms.

Comedian and actor Ken Jeong did just that with the Delta variant and vaccine efficacy on The Late Late Show with James Corden. Jeong is best known for his TV and film roles, but prior to his success in Hollywood, he had a whole career as an internal medicine physician. Watch:


Jeong explained why the Delta variant is so much more contagious than the original coronavirus strain, then compared the vaccine to an umbrella. With the original strain, the vaccine was highly effective at protecting us from the virus, just like an umbrella during a normal rainstorm. Delta is more like a monsoon in which an umbrella still protects you from being soaked to the bone, but doesn't fully protect you from getting wet at all.

Yes, vaccinated people can still get and spread the virus, but they are much less likely to than unvaccinated people. For the record, if you were unvaccinated from May to July of this year (when Delta became the dominant strain), you were five times more likely to get infected with COVID and 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID than a vaccinated person, according to a CDC analysis. Hospitals around the country have begun posting statistics of unvaccinated vs. vaccinated patients in their ICUs, which show the vast majority are unvaccinated.

The numbers are clear. The best thing we all can do to protect ourselves and others is to get vaccinated.

A Korean mother and her son

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.

Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:

“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches."

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@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

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@thehalfdeaddad/TikTok

Dad on TikTok shared how he addressed his son's bullying.

What do you do when you find out your kid bullied someone? For many parents, the first step is forcing an apology. While this response is of course warranted, is it really effective? Some might argue that there are more constructive ways of handling the situation that teach a kid not only what they did wrong, but how to make things right again.

Single dadPatrick Forseth recently shared how he made a truly teachable moment out of his son, Lincoln, getting into trouble for bullying. Rather than forcing an apology, Forseth made sure his son was actively part of a solution.


The thought process behind his decision, which he explained in a now-viral TikTok video, is both simple and somewhat racial compared to how many parents have been encouraged to handle similar situations.
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Family

Badass bikers show up for abused children, offering advocacy and protection

They become an abused child's "biker family," and they let the child—and everyone else—know that NO ONE messes with their family.

When you are a child who has been abused by people who are supposed to protect you, how do you feel safe?

That question is the heart of Bikers Against Child Abuse International (B.A.C.A.), an organization dedicated to creating "a safer environment for abused children." With specific training and extensive security checks, the frequently big and burly members of B.A.C.A. serve as protectors of chid abuse survivors, giving vulnerable children people to call on when they feel scared, and even showing up in court when a child asks them to.

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When Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi both landed their high jumps at 2.37 meters, they were in the battle for Olympic gold. But when both jumpers missed the next mark—the Olympic record of 2.39 meters—three times each, they were officially tied for first place.

In such a tie, the athletes would usually do a "jump-off" to determine who wins gold and who wins silver. But as the official began to explain the options to Barshim and Tamberi, Barshim asked, "Can we have two golds?"

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via YouTube

These days, we could all use something to smile about, and few things do a better job at it than watching actor Christopher Walken dance.

A few years back, some genius at HuffPo Entertainment put together a clip featuring Walken dancing in 50 of his films, and it was taken down. But it re-emerged in 2014 and the world has been a better place for it.

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