June 7, 2022 • 19 mins
Schools have been struggling to meet the mental health needs of students and new data is showing just how much the pandemic has impacted them. 7 in 10 public schools are seeing a rise in children seeking services and 76% of faculty and staff have expressed concerns about depression and anxiety in students since the start of the pandemic. Laura Meckler, national education reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for how only about half of schools surveyed say they can effectively provide needed services.
Next, at the beginning of the year there was a lot of talk in California about vaccine mandates and requirements for employees and students. Now, as politics and Covid fatigue have set in, those plans are all doomed. Low vaccination rates in children and pushback from unions representing police and firefighters have also played big role in doing away with the plans. Rachel Bluth, correspondent for Kaiser Health News, joins us for how the most popular vaccine legislation has been those to ban them.
Finally, after two years of the pandemic, many are reviving their efforts to connect with more people in their networks and it could be overwhelming. But how many friends do you actually need? Research says that the magic number of close friends is about 3-5. Fostering these relationships take time and energy with research saying it takes 200 hours to become close with someone. Allie Volpe, senior reporter at Vox, joins us for more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Tuesday, June seven. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles
and this is the daily dive. Schools have been struggling
to meet the mental health needs of students, and New
Dad is showing just how much the pandemic has impacted them.
Seven and ten public schools are seeing a rise in
children seeking services, and seventy percent of faculty and staff
(00:23):
have expressed concerns about depression and anxiety in students since
the start of the pandemic. Laura Meckler, national education reporter
at The Washington Post, joins US for how only about
half of schools surveyed say they can effectively provide needed services. Next,
at the beginning of the year, there was a lot
of talking California about vaccine mandates and requirements for employees
(00:44):
and students. Now, as politics and COVID fatigue have set in,
those plans are all doomed. Rachel Blue, correspondent for Kaiser
Health News, joins US for how the most popular vaccine
legislation has been those to ban them. Finally, after two
years of the pandemic, many are reviving their efforts to
connect with more people in their networks, and it could
be overwhelming but how many friends do you actually need?
(01:07):
Research says that the magic number of close friends is
about three to five. Fostering these relationships take time and energy,
with research saying it takes about two hours to become
close with someone. Ali Volpi, senior reporter at Vox, joins
us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's dive
in Across the country. People are stressed and this pandemic
(01:33):
has been especially traumatic for children. Our schools, teachers and
education leaders are seeing this every day. Joining us now
is Laura Meckler, National education writer at The Washington Post.
Thanks for joining us, Laura, Nice to be here. Well,
there's been a lot of conversation recently about mental health
after we saw a shooting in Uvaldi, Texas. Conversations about
(01:55):
mental health, and then obviously conversations about what's going on
in schools, safety at schools, all this stuff. But what
we're looking at, you know, and coming off of the
pandemic to we're hearing a lot of stories from teachers
and school administrators about the mental health of their students
and how they've had a hard time adjusting. You know,
We've seen a lot of fights and you're seeing kids
unable to focus. Depression and sadness has been at an
(02:17):
all time high, and now we have some data to
kind of back this stuff up and back up how
schools are struggling to meet these needs in a lot
of ways. So Laura tell us a little bit about
this new survey and some of the results that we got.
Schools say they're doing okay, but they need more staffing,
more funding to to meet all of these increased needs. Yeah,
I mean we've been hearing this all year long from
(02:39):
teachers and also from students that it's just like people
are a mass this year, right, I mean, kids are
just having a really hard time. Teachers report that kids
are acting like what you would expect somebody two years
younger to act like that they just don't know how
to do school, or how to relate to their peers,
or how to not look at their phones. And the
pandemic has seem to really take a toll. And this
survey we have from the Federal Education Department, the National
(03:03):
Center for Health Education Statistics, that they did a survey
every month recently, they've been surveying schools around the country
to look at sort of what the impacts have been
of the pandemic, and this particular month, which was done
in April, so this is before the terrible school shooting
in Texas, they found that of schools had seen an
(03:24):
increase in student seeking mental health services, and about two
thirds of schools had increased the mental health services that
they offer. So essentially, you're just seeing this, you know,
huge spike in demand for these services. And yet, as
you said, at the same time, when asked do you
think you're able to effectively provide the services for all
(03:45):
students who are in need, only a political over half
said that they thought they could do that, and so
that leaves quite a few districts that are, you know,
really not providing what's needed. The faculty and staff are
also experiencing these things as well and need help, and
they're also seeking support from the school systems and the
services that they offer to So that's the other part
(04:06):
of the equation is the adults in the room, right,
they need help to This has been a terrible year
for teachers. I think that any teacher will tell you that,
and coming off of a what came before that, which
was also a terrible year. What the survey found was
that nine percent of schools reported increases in the portion
of staff who were seeking mental health services at school.
(04:28):
Now this doesn't account, of course, those who taake them elsewhere,
and that of school reported increases in staff concerns about
either their own mental health or their colleagues. So you're
picking that up, as you say, from the teachers and
the staff in school as well. And so what we're
seeing is a lot of schools obviously trying to accommodate
these things, and they're increasing the program and the groups
(04:52):
available to these students and teachers also. But they're increasing
the programs to help with all this stuff. A lot
of times they're done by either school counselors or outside
experts that that the school employees, but a lot of
it is being done with some of these outside groups
as well. Yeah, I mean it's sort of a mix.
It seems like typically, um, the most likely person to
(05:13):
provide the services a school counselor, I think said that
that's what that they were doing that seventy one percent.
So they also had or perhaps only had a licensed
mental health professional, so someone who works for the district
but is an actual mental health service person as opposed
to a counselor, which is a little bit of a different,
normally different kind of job. And then about half of
(05:35):
schools are getting people from outside who provide services at
the school, and about one in four we're relying on
the school nurse. So it's sort of a range of
different people who are are helping with this issue. You
talk about Indio High School in southern California, they have
fourteen sport groups to address a range of issues and
the needs of students. So they have about two thousand
(05:55):
kids in the school. About four hundred students have participated
in at least one of these groups, So I mean
there's a lot of kids that are actually using the services.
These groups really range. You know, in some cases it's
just individual issues like social skills or something like that.
But some of us grief groups people who have lost
loved ones in the pandemic. In some cases you have
kids who feel guilty that they think they might have
(06:16):
brought COVID home to their household. There's just like a
whole range of stuff that kids are dealing with right
now on top of you know, let's be honest. I mean,
it's not like any of this is super easy. Before
the pandemic, you know, kids have lots of issues then,
but we've just added so much. We've seen a lot
in the news about parental rights and opposition to teaching
certain things at school, talking about certain things at school.
(06:38):
Have there been pushbacks on any of these mental health
programs and you know, we know that this is important,
we know that the students need, but have there been
any pushback on it? So social emotional learning programs, which
is something that's really been rising in schools for a
while now, and and this survey found that about seven
ten schools have some sort of a specific program for
social emotional learning, sometimes called s e L. You know,
(06:59):
it's a lot of consensus around it. There's the ideas
that you're helping kids not just as learners, but as
full human beings. But social morcial learning has been tagged
as dealing with issues of identity and in some cases
issues of race, which is of course part of identity
for many people. And there have been some conservatives who
have been pushing back on these programs and saying that
they're just another version of critical race theory. So there
(07:22):
has been some controversy around that around that kind of
supports their being offered to kids, So not necessarily specifically
COVID related, but it all sometimes gets worked into the
same sort of programming. Laura Meckler, National education writer at
The Washington Post, thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks for having me. You will be passing a statewide
(07:49):
law to Keep Schools Open and Safe Act to require
COVID nineteen vaccines for in person school attendance. Joining us
now is Rachel Bluth, correspondent for Kaiser Health News. Thanks
for joining us. Rachel, Thanks, Oscar, happy to be here. Well,
let's talk about some of these COVID vaccine mandates, specifically
in California. So California was setting themselves up to have,
(08:12):
you know, some of the toughest COVID vaccine requirements in
the country. I think at one time they had at
least eight different bills that we're going to require vaccinations
in some form or another for employees, for children, for
students going to school. Well, all of that has kind
of changed now. You know, we're in this different phase
of the pandemic now and there just isn't as much
of a willingness from people. The political will seems to
(08:35):
have been gone as well. So Rachel, help us walk
through some of this, because I think there might be
just one thing left, and even that doesn't have much hope. Yeah, well,
it's really interesting. One thing I'll sort of correct you
on is that there were eight bills at the beginning
of this year in January. You know, lawmakers they kind
of got themselves together in this COVID Vaccine Working Group
(08:57):
and they were going to come up with a package
of else to really beat the pandemics through vaccination. Not
all of them were mandates. Two of them were. There
was one to add COVID nineteen to the list of
vaccines that kids at school had to get, and the
other would have been a man date on employers to
make sure that their employees of certain businesses, you know,
mostly indoors, would have to be vaccinated. And you know,
(09:20):
there are some other bills in this package, you know,
talking about enforcing health orders or changing the way that
we track vaccine data. And some of some of them
are still alive, some of them aren't. But the two
big vaccine mandate bills that was going to be the strongest,
toughest in the nation, they died pretty quickly. They didn't
get to their first committee hearings, didn't get to their
(09:41):
first votes, and despite the pandemic not looking great right now,
case rates are going back up, the hospitalizations going back up,
new vaccinations installed a little. It doesn't seem like there's
really a whole lot of political or public will to
bring any of this back, specifically in the area of schools,
wh is pretty interesting because obviously, you know, they were
(10:02):
trying to get these bills going and all that and say,
you know, well, for this is going to happen for
the next school year and whatnot, but the vaccination rates
for kids really wasn't taking up at all, and they
started saying, well, this is going to shut a lot
of kids out of school if we kind of go
through with these things. So again some more of why
these things went by the wayside. Boosters for kids aged
(10:22):
five to eleven were only recently approved, so I think
only like seven percent or something even slightly lower of
that population has their boosters. But even if you just
looked at their first series, you know, their their first
initial one or two shots, it's only thirty five percent
of kids aged five to eleven. So lawmakers were saying,
you know, we can't have these mandates because kids will
(10:44):
be able to go to school and it'll keep them
out of classrooms for too long. The timeline for the
FDI improving these vacts, fully approving vaccines for this age group,
went a little slower than I think either the governor
or the legislature expected, which is part of the reason
that Governor Knewsom vaccine mandate for schools has also been
pushed back. But at the end of the day, earlier
(11:07):
this year, mandates were the way that they were going
to get all these kids vaccinated, and the reality of
the situation now is so a few of them have
been that they no longer think mandates are a good idea.
Part of the problem is there are COVID nineteen vaccines
and most pediatricians offices, you know, you open up the
vial and you have to use the whole thing, and
(11:27):
if you're not getting a bunch of kids coming in
every day, there's not a good reason for pediatricians to
keep these stocked. So most kids have to go to CBS, Walgreens,
you know, retail pharmacies, and that's not where kids are
used to getting vaccinated. So there's been kind of a
slow uptick there, and there's been recent stories that just
came out not too long ago. Saying, you know that
there's been a ton of vaccines that were thrown away
(11:48):
at some of these cbs is and walmarts because of
the same thing. They're just they're not being used, they're
going to waste. You know. In californiaviously a huge state,
they wanted to be aggressive with this, as you mentioned,
to kind of set the standard. I guess for other
state too, but I like the way you put it
in the article. The most popular vaccine legislation has been
to ban COVID vaccine man dates of any kind. There's
like nineteen states that have done that exactly. And this
(12:10):
whole thing of vaccines getting thrown away, parents being vaccinated
but not getting their kids vaccinated. It gets back to
a fundamental problem since the beginning of the pandemic, which
is that there hasn't been really great outreach and great
messaging to parents about why this is important, why they
should get their kids vaccinated, outreach to vulnerable populations. Advocates
(12:32):
and pro vaccine organizers have told me that that was
a huge failure and part of the reason that a
vaccine rates aren't higher and so we can't mandate them
in lawmaker's eyes and be why it feels like the
public has moved on too, and there's just no political
will in an election year to start voting for mandates again.
(12:53):
You know, So what's next time if we're not going
to go with these bills mandates or requirements? I guess.
In Governor Newsom's latest state budget, there's a lot of
money for vaccine outreach and for vaccine distribution and administration.
But that's pretty much where we're at. You just got
to keep pushing the needle the best you can on
that that way, you know, when it comes to the
employer mandate part, you know, not not the school vaccines.
(13:16):
There's a ton of pushback from Yeah, just like you
mentioned police unions, firefighter unions, these kind of public safety unions,
not necessarily the kind of labor unions that you you
think about when we talk about unions, sort of another
arenas we had. It was huge pushback saying that it
would interfere with their collective bargaining, and there was some
(13:37):
pushbacks from the business community too, and kind of taken together,
really think the political chances of this setting done. So Yeah,
going forward, there's going to be an increased emphasis on
trying to do some of that outreach that I mentioned,
although you can't really turn back the clock if people
don't trust you anymore. But there's money in the budget
(13:58):
for it, but there's this really overwhelming feeling that a
lot of people have moved on. Rachel Bluth, correspondent for
Kaiser Health News, thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks so much. The next circle out is you know
(14:20):
your partner, who's almost an extension of yourself, and then
there's a circle of your coolest friends, which are anywhere
from three to five people, and those are the ones
that we've really invested the most time. We feel like
we know the best and who knows us be joining
us now is Ali Volpi, senior reporter at Vox. Thanks
for joining us, Ali, thanks so much for having me. Well,
let's talk about friends and friendships and how many friends
(14:43):
you should have to make your life better. You know,
there's been a lot of research on you know, the
quality of life improvements that come with having a meaningful
relationships and you know, even closer relationships. Those ones you
know you're best friends, the ones that you can be
who you truly are around them and everything. You know,
they're very important to a lot of people and coming
off of the pandemic. You know, a lot of people
(15:04):
were battling with loneliness. A lot of people are getting
back into action now saying you don't want to connect
with as many people as possible. But as I mentioned,
there's a lot of research on this, so let's narrow
it down and see you where we're at. There a
lot of research says you kind of need anywhere from
three to five relationship. I mean, even one close friendship
is good, but the optimal number could be around three
(15:26):
to five. So Ali, tell us a little bit more
about this. So I don't know about you, but coming
out of the pandemic, I sort of felt overwhelmed, like
I need to touch base with all these people I've
lost touched with over the last two years, and that
cause kind of leads a little bit of burnout. So
instead of like dushing ourselves super thin, we should really
focus on a couple of these really core close friendships.
(15:46):
In the nineties and evolutionary psychologist named Robin Dunbar positive
that we can handle a hundred and fifty meaningful social
relationships at any time, which is a lot, but cute.
It's almost unimaginable, like I would know a hundred and
fifty people, but it's possible, I guess, but that number
is actually peered. And so in the smallest circle, almost
(16:07):
thinking of it like a target, is yourself. And then
the next circle out is you know your partner, who's
almost an extension of yourself. And then there is a
circle of your coolest friends, which are anywhere from three
to five people, and those are the ones that we've
really invested the most time. We feel like we know
the best and who know us the best. Reaching a
level of intimacy with a close close friend is about
(16:29):
two hours. That's a long time, yeah, And you think
about like how we spread that time out over the
course of a friendship, even just thinking about like college friends,
someone you meet in your dorm room and how that
grows into a really deep friendship. And so it is
helpful when we are constantly like seeing that person every day,
like at work or at school. And then when you
(16:50):
think about adulthood, and I think part of the reason
why people say it's meeting new friends and adulthood is
so hard is because like we don't have those sort
of places where we kind run into a person and
developed those hours as long um over a period of time,
which is why friendship is work and it does require
mutual effort on both parties. But yeah, it is a
lot of hours. One of the people you spoke to
(17:12):
had a quote in here in your story, and it
makes perfect sense. Knowing another person's schedule is an act
of intimacy, you know, like if you know someone enough
to know where they're going to be at it a
certain moment or so and so has got work today,
you know we'll connect on another day. That is a
real big sign of how close you can be. Yes, Um,
Jeffrey Hall, who is actually the researcher who came up
with the two hours number on to quantify a close friendship. Um,
(17:36):
he was the one who said that wonderful, wonderful quote.
But you know, yeah, knowing where someone's going to be
or what's going on in their lives because you're regularly
keeping in touched with them, it's such a surefire sign that, like,
you guys are close. Like think about some of your
really great friends, Like I know what my best friend
is doing today, that her dog went to training, and
so we just talk that much that we know what's
(17:58):
going on in each other's lives and so is really
a huge signifier of closeness. And so if you're feeling
like you want to get closer to some people, it's
just maintaining that conversation with someone. Having a routine. Research
also from Jeffrey Hall, has shown that you know, having
an ongoing routine with your friends, whether that's like a
book club or like a weekly fitness class you guys
(18:19):
do together, just knowing that you will see that person
again in an extended period of time is makes it
so much easier to keep in touch with someone. A
lot of those research shows a lot of the experts
you spoke to even say even just talking with acquaintances,
connecting with people on smaller levels really helps you. On
the other side of things, yes, I love interacting with
(18:40):
acquaintances anyone from like the barrista at the coffee shop
to like the person who cuts your hair. These aren't
people that we would consider close friends, but they do
have an amazing effect on our lives that can make
us more empathetic because we're, you know, taking a peek
into someone else's life. They can help us be more
social even when we haven't had practice this, and it
(19:01):
is important to have this sort of healthy quote unquote
social diet of you know, having these really close friends,
but also having you know, the dessert of having acquaintances
or weaker ties. All of these things are equally as
beneficial to us. Ali Volpi, senior reporter at Vox, Thank
you very much for joining us. Thanks so much for
(19:21):
having me. That's it for today. Join us on social
media at Daily Dive pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Leave us a comment, give us a rating, and tell
us the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on
our heart radio, or subscribe whatever you get your podcasts.
(19:43):
This episode of The Daily Divers produced by Victor Wright
and engineered by Tony Sarrantino. Hi'm Oscar Ramirez and this
was her Daily Dive
It's Tuesday, June seven. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles
and this is the daily dive. Schools have been struggling
to meet the mental health needs of students, and New
Dad is showing just how much the pandemic has impacted them.
Seven and ten public schools are seeing a rise in
children seeking services, and seventy percent of faculty and staff
(00:23):
have expressed concerns about depression and anxiety in students since
the start of the pandemic. Laura Meckler, national education reporter
at The Washington Post, joins US for how only about
half of schools surveyed say they can effectively provide needed services. Next,
at the beginning of the year, there was a lot
of talking California about vaccine mandates and requirements for employees
(00:44):
and students. Now, as politics and COVID fatigue have set in,
those plans are all doomed. Rachel Blue, correspondent for Kaiser
Health News, joins US for how the most popular vaccine
legislation has been those to ban them. Finally, after two
years of the pandemic, many are reviving their efforts to
connect with more people in their networks, and it could
be overwhelming but how many friends do you actually need?
(01:07):
Research says that the magic number of close friends is
about three to five. Fostering these relationships take time and energy,
with research saying it takes about two hours to become
close with someone. Ali Volpi, senior reporter at Vox, joins
us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's dive
in Across the country. People are stressed and this pandemic
(01:33):
has been especially traumatic for children. Our schools, teachers and
education leaders are seeing this every day. Joining us now
is Laura Meckler, National education writer at The Washington Post.
Thanks for joining us, Laura, Nice to be here. Well,
there's been a lot of conversation recently about mental health
after we saw a shooting in Uvaldi, Texas. Conversations about
(01:55):
mental health, and then obviously conversations about what's going on
in schools, safety at schools, all this stuff. But what
we're looking at, you know, and coming off of the
pandemic to we're hearing a lot of stories from teachers
and school administrators about the mental health of their students
and how they've had a hard time adjusting. You know,
We've seen a lot of fights and you're seeing kids
unable to focus. Depression and sadness has been at an
(02:17):
all time high, and now we have some data to
kind of back this stuff up and back up how
schools are struggling to meet these needs in a lot
of ways. So Laura tell us a little bit about
this new survey and some of the results that we got.
Schools say they're doing okay, but they need more staffing,
more funding to to meet all of these increased needs. Yeah,
I mean we've been hearing this all year long from
(02:39):
teachers and also from students that it's just like people
are a mass this year, right, I mean, kids are
just having a really hard time. Teachers report that kids
are acting like what you would expect somebody two years
younger to act like that they just don't know how
to do school, or how to relate to their peers,
or how to not look at their phones. And the
pandemic has seem to really take a toll. And this
survey we have from the Federal Education Department, the National
(03:03):
Center for Health Education Statistics, that they did a survey
every month recently, they've been surveying schools around the country
to look at sort of what the impacts have been
of the pandemic, and this particular month, which was done
in April, so this is before the terrible school shooting
in Texas, they found that of schools had seen an
(03:24):
increase in student seeking mental health services, and about two
thirds of schools had increased the mental health services that
they offer. So essentially, you're just seeing this, you know,
huge spike in demand for these services. And yet, as
you said, at the same time, when asked do you
think you're able to effectively provide the services for all
(03:45):
students who are in need, only a political over half
said that they thought they could do that, and so
that leaves quite a few districts that are, you know,
really not providing what's needed. The faculty and staff are
also experiencing these things as well and need help, and
they're also seeking support from the school systems and the
services that they offer to So that's the other part
(04:06):
of the equation is the adults in the room, right,
they need help to This has been a terrible year
for teachers. I think that any teacher will tell you that,
and coming off of a what came before that, which
was also a terrible year. What the survey found was
that nine percent of schools reported increases in the portion
of staff who were seeking mental health services at school.
(04:28):
Now this doesn't account, of course, those who taake them elsewhere,
and that of school reported increases in staff concerns about
either their own mental health or their colleagues. So you're
picking that up, as you say, from the teachers and
the staff in school as well. And so what we're
seeing is a lot of schools obviously trying to accommodate
these things, and they're increasing the program and the groups
(04:52):
available to these students and teachers also. But they're increasing
the programs to help with all this stuff. A lot
of times they're done by either school counselors or outside
experts that that the school employees, but a lot of
it is being done with some of these outside groups
as well. Yeah, I mean it's sort of a mix.
It seems like typically, um, the most likely person to
(05:13):
provide the services a school counselor, I think said that
that's what that they were doing that seventy one percent.
So they also had or perhaps only had a licensed
mental health professional, so someone who works for the district
but is an actual mental health service person as opposed
to a counselor, which is a little bit of a different,
normally different kind of job. And then about half of
(05:35):
schools are getting people from outside who provide services at
the school, and about one in four we're relying on
the school nurse. So it's sort of a range of
different people who are are helping with this issue. You
talk about Indio High School in southern California, they have
fourteen sport groups to address a range of issues and
the needs of students. So they have about two thousand
(05:55):
kids in the school. About four hundred students have participated
in at least one of these groups, So I mean
there's a lot of kids that are actually using the services.
These groups really range. You know, in some cases it's
just individual issues like social skills or something like that.
But some of us grief groups people who have lost
loved ones in the pandemic. In some cases you have
kids who feel guilty that they think they might have
(06:16):
brought COVID home to their household. There's just like a
whole range of stuff that kids are dealing with right
now on top of you know, let's be honest. I mean,
it's not like any of this is super easy. Before
the pandemic, you know, kids have lots of issues then,
but we've just added so much. We've seen a lot
in the news about parental rights and opposition to teaching
certain things at school, talking about certain things at school.
(06:38):
Have there been pushbacks on any of these mental health
programs and you know, we know that this is important,
we know that the students need, but have there been
any pushback on it? So social emotional learning programs, which
is something that's really been rising in schools for a
while now, and and this survey found that about seven
ten schools have some sort of a specific program for
social emotional learning, sometimes called s e L. You know,
(06:59):
it's a lot of consensus around it. There's the ideas
that you're helping kids not just as learners, but as
full human beings. But social morcial learning has been tagged
as dealing with issues of identity and in some cases
issues of race, which is of course part of identity
for many people. And there have been some conservatives who
have been pushing back on these programs and saying that
they're just another version of critical race theory. So there
(07:22):
has been some controversy around that around that kind of
supports their being offered to kids, So not necessarily specifically
COVID related, but it all sometimes gets worked into the
same sort of programming. Laura Meckler, National education writer at
The Washington Post, thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks for having me. You will be passing a statewide
(07:49):
law to Keep Schools Open and Safe Act to require
COVID nineteen vaccines for in person school attendance. Joining us
now is Rachel Bluth, correspondent for Kaiser Health News. Thanks
for joining us. Rachel, Thanks, Oscar, happy to be here. Well,
let's talk about some of these COVID vaccine mandates, specifically
in California. So California was setting themselves up to have,
(08:12):
you know, some of the toughest COVID vaccine requirements in
the country. I think at one time they had at
least eight different bills that we're going to require vaccinations
in some form or another for employees, for children, for
students going to school. Well, all of that has kind
of changed now. You know, we're in this different phase
of the pandemic now and there just isn't as much
of a willingness from people. The political will seems to
(08:35):
have been gone as well. So Rachel, help us walk
through some of this, because I think there might be
just one thing left, and even that doesn't have much hope. Yeah, well,
it's really interesting. One thing I'll sort of correct you
on is that there were eight bills at the beginning
of this year in January. You know, lawmakers they kind
of got themselves together in this COVID Vaccine Working Group
(08:57):
and they were going to come up with a package
of else to really beat the pandemics through vaccination. Not
all of them were mandates. Two of them were. There
was one to add COVID nineteen to the list of
vaccines that kids at school had to get, and the
other would have been a man date on employers to
make sure that their employees of certain businesses, you know,
mostly indoors, would have to be vaccinated. And you know,
(09:20):
there are some other bills in this package, you know,
talking about enforcing health orders or changing the way that
we track vaccine data. And some of some of them
are still alive, some of them aren't. But the two
big vaccine mandate bills that was going to be the strongest,
toughest in the nation, they died pretty quickly. They didn't
get to their first committee hearings, didn't get to their
(09:41):
first votes, and despite the pandemic not looking great right now,
case rates are going back up, the hospitalizations going back up,
new vaccinations installed a little. It doesn't seem like there's
really a whole lot of political or public will to
bring any of this back, specifically in the area of schools,
wh is pretty interesting because obviously, you know, they were
(10:02):
trying to get these bills going and all that and say,
you know, well, for this is going to happen for
the next school year and whatnot, but the vaccination rates
for kids really wasn't taking up at all, and they
started saying, well, this is going to shut a lot
of kids out of school if we kind of go
through with these things. So again some more of why
these things went by the wayside. Boosters for kids aged
(10:22):
five to eleven were only recently approved, so I think
only like seven percent or something even slightly lower of
that population has their boosters. But even if you just
looked at their first series, you know, their their first
initial one or two shots, it's only thirty five percent
of kids aged five to eleven. So lawmakers were saying,
you know, we can't have these mandates because kids will
(10:44):
be able to go to school and it'll keep them
out of classrooms for too long. The timeline for the
FDI improving these vacts, fully approving vaccines for this age group,
went a little slower than I think either the governor
or the legislature expected, which is part of the reason
that Governor Knewsom vaccine mandate for schools has also been
pushed back. But at the end of the day, earlier
(11:07):
this year, mandates were the way that they were going
to get all these kids vaccinated, and the reality of
the situation now is so a few of them have
been that they no longer think mandates are a good idea.
Part of the problem is there are COVID nineteen vaccines
and most pediatricians offices, you know, you open up the
vial and you have to use the whole thing, and
(11:27):
if you're not getting a bunch of kids coming in
every day, there's not a good reason for pediatricians to
keep these stocked. So most kids have to go to CBS, Walgreens,
you know, retail pharmacies, and that's not where kids are
used to getting vaccinated. So there's been kind of a
slow uptick there, and there's been recent stories that just
came out not too long ago. Saying, you know that
there's been a ton of vaccines that were thrown away
(11:48):
at some of these cbs is and walmarts because of
the same thing. They're just they're not being used, they're
going to waste. You know. In californiaviously a huge state,
they wanted to be aggressive with this, as you mentioned,
to kind of set the standard. I guess for other
state too, but I like the way you put it
in the article. The most popular vaccine legislation has been
to ban COVID vaccine man dates of any kind. There's
like nineteen states that have done that exactly. And this
(12:10):
whole thing of vaccines getting thrown away, parents being vaccinated
but not getting their kids vaccinated. It gets back to
a fundamental problem since the beginning of the pandemic, which
is that there hasn't been really great outreach and great
messaging to parents about why this is important, why they
should get their kids vaccinated, outreach to vulnerable populations. Advocates
(12:32):
and pro vaccine organizers have told me that that was
a huge failure and part of the reason that a
vaccine rates aren't higher and so we can't mandate them
in lawmaker's eyes and be why it feels like the
public has moved on too, and there's just no political
will in an election year to start voting for mandates again.
(12:53):
You know, So what's next time if we're not going
to go with these bills mandates or requirements? I guess.
In Governor Newsom's latest state budget, there's a lot of
money for vaccine outreach and for vaccine distribution and administration.
But that's pretty much where we're at. You just got
to keep pushing the needle the best you can on
that that way, you know, when it comes to the
employer mandate part, you know, not not the school vaccines.
(13:16):
There's a ton of pushback from Yeah, just like you
mentioned police unions, firefighter unions, these kind of public safety unions,
not necessarily the kind of labor unions that you you
think about when we talk about unions, sort of another
arenas we had. It was huge pushback saying that it
would interfere with their collective bargaining, and there was some
(13:37):
pushbacks from the business community too, and kind of taken together,
really think the political chances of this setting done. So Yeah,
going forward, there's going to be an increased emphasis on
trying to do some of that outreach that I mentioned,
although you can't really turn back the clock if people
don't trust you anymore. But there's money in the budget
(13:58):
for it, but there's this really overwhelming feeling that a
lot of people have moved on. Rachel Bluth, correspondent for
Kaiser Health News, thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks so much. The next circle out is you know
(14:20):
your partner, who's almost an extension of yourself, and then
there's a circle of your coolest friends, which are anywhere
from three to five people, and those are the ones
that we've really invested the most time. We feel like
we know the best and who knows us be joining
us now is Ali Volpi, senior reporter at Vox. Thanks
for joining us, Ali, thanks so much for having me. Well,
let's talk about friends and friendships and how many friends
(14:43):
you should have to make your life better. You know,
there's been a lot of research on you know, the
quality of life improvements that come with having a meaningful
relationships and you know, even closer relationships. Those ones you
know you're best friends, the ones that you can be
who you truly are around them and everything. You know,
they're very important to a lot of people and coming
off of the pandemic. You know, a lot of people
(15:04):
were battling with loneliness. A lot of people are getting
back into action now saying you don't want to connect
with as many people as possible. But as I mentioned,
there's a lot of research on this, so let's narrow
it down and see you where we're at. There a
lot of research says you kind of need anywhere from
three to five relationship. I mean, even one close friendship
is good, but the optimal number could be around three
(15:26):
to five. So Ali, tell us a little bit more
about this. So I don't know about you, but coming
out of the pandemic, I sort of felt overwhelmed, like
I need to touch base with all these people I've
lost touched with over the last two years, and that
cause kind of leads a little bit of burnout. So
instead of like dushing ourselves super thin, we should really
focus on a couple of these really core close friendships.
(15:46):
In the nineties and evolutionary psychologist named Robin Dunbar positive
that we can handle a hundred and fifty meaningful social
relationships at any time, which is a lot, but cute.
It's almost unimaginable, like I would know a hundred and
fifty people, but it's possible, I guess, but that number
is actually peered. And so in the smallest circle, almost
(16:07):
thinking of it like a target, is yourself. And then
the next circle out is you know your partner, who's
almost an extension of yourself. And then there is a
circle of your coolest friends, which are anywhere from three
to five people, and those are the ones that we've
really invested the most time. We feel like we know
the best and who know us the best. Reaching a
level of intimacy with a close close friend is about
(16:29):
two hours. That's a long time, yeah, And you think
about like how we spread that time out over the
course of a friendship, even just thinking about like college friends,
someone you meet in your dorm room and how that
grows into a really deep friendship. And so it is
helpful when we are constantly like seeing that person every day,
like at work or at school. And then when you
(16:50):
think about adulthood, and I think part of the reason
why people say it's meeting new friends and adulthood is
so hard is because like we don't have those sort
of places where we kind run into a person and
developed those hours as long um over a period of time,
which is why friendship is work and it does require
mutual effort on both parties. But yeah, it is a
lot of hours. One of the people you spoke to
(17:12):
had a quote in here in your story, and it
makes perfect sense. Knowing another person's schedule is an act
of intimacy, you know, like if you know someone enough
to know where they're going to be at it a
certain moment or so and so has got work today,
you know we'll connect on another day. That is a
real big sign of how close you can be. Yes, Um,
Jeffrey Hall, who is actually the researcher who came up
with the two hours number on to quantify a close friendship. Um,
(17:36):
he was the one who said that wonderful, wonderful quote.
But you know, yeah, knowing where someone's going to be
or what's going on in their lives because you're regularly
keeping in touched with them, it's such a surefire sign that, like,
you guys are close. Like think about some of your
really great friends, Like I know what my best friend
is doing today, that her dog went to training, and
so we just talk that much that we know what's
(17:58):
going on in each other's lives and so is really
a huge signifier of closeness. And so if you're feeling
like you want to get closer to some people, it's
just maintaining that conversation with someone. Having a routine. Research
also from Jeffrey Hall, has shown that you know, having
an ongoing routine with your friends, whether that's like a
book club or like a weekly fitness class you guys
(18:19):
do together, just knowing that you will see that person
again in an extended period of time is makes it
so much easier to keep in touch with someone. A
lot of those research shows a lot of the experts
you spoke to even say even just talking with acquaintances,
connecting with people on smaller levels really helps you. On
the other side of things, yes, I love interacting with
(18:40):
acquaintances anyone from like the barrista at the coffee shop
to like the person who cuts your hair. These aren't
people that we would consider close friends, but they do
have an amazing effect on our lives that can make
us more empathetic because we're, you know, taking a peek
into someone else's life. They can help us be more
social even when we haven't had practice this, and it
(19:01):
is important to have this sort of healthy quote unquote
social diet of you know, having these really close friends,
but also having you know, the dessert of having acquaintances
or weaker ties. All of these things are equally as
beneficial to us. Ali Volpi, senior reporter at Vox, Thank
you very much for joining us. Thanks so much for
(19:21):
having me. That's it for today. Join us on social
media at Daily Dive pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Leave us a comment, give us a rating, and tell
us the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on
our heart radio, or subscribe whatever you get your podcasts.
(19:43):
This episode of The Daily Divers produced by Victor Wright
and engineered by Tony Sarrantino. Hi'm Oscar Ramirez and this
was her Daily Dive
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