EAST LANSING, MI -- Well, at least the weather is getting better.
Michigan State is 2-7 in its last nine games and must win vs. Maryland on Sunday just to tie its worst finish to a season since Tom Izzo’s first year in charge in 1995-96.
It’s the continuation of a dismal stretch that has turned a once promising season into another disappointing one. Can the Spartans pull it together in time to make some patented postseason magic?
On episode 70 of MLive’s Spartan Confidential podcast, reporters Brandon Champion and Kyle Austin discuss Michigan State’s lifeless performances against Michigan and Ohio State before analyzing the Spartans standing for the NCAA tournament.
Also, a look at the state of recruiting and how it could be contributing to the Spartans issues the last two seasons.
You can listen to the episode here or by using the player below. You can also search for it wherever podcasts are found.
DETROIT – Michigan reported 1,842 new cases of COVID-19 and 68 virus-related deaths Friday -- an average of 921 cases over the last two days.
The deaths announced Friday include 54 identified during a Vital Records review.
Friday’s update brings the total number of confirmed COVID cases in Michigan to 2,060,698, including 32,118 deaths. These numbers are up from 2,058,856 cases and 32,050 deaths, as of Wednesday.
Testing has increased to around 50,000 to 60,000 diagnostic tests reported per day on average, with the 7-day positive rateat 6.10% as of March 2. Hospitalizations have decreased over the last few weeks, now down to the lowest total since last summer.
The state’s 7-day moving average for daily cases was 830 on Friday, March 4. The 7-day death average was 47 on March 4. The state’s fatality rate is 1.5%.
Michigan has reported more than 11.3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered as of March 1, with 70.3% of 16+ residents having received at least one dose, while 64.5% of 16+ residents are considered fully vaccinated.
Across Michigan’s entire population, 66.1% have received at least one COVID vaccine dose.
According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 79 million cases have been reported in the U.S., with more than 954,500 deaths reported from the virus. Globally, more than 10.5 billion vaccine doses have been administered, including more than 551 million doses in the U.S. alone.
Worldwide, more than 441 million people have been confirmed infected and more than 5.9 million have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. The true numbers are certainly much higher, because of limited testing, different ways nations count the dead and deliberate under-reporting by some governments.
Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks under new U.S. guidelines released Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is updating its COVID-19 masking guidance as the state enters a “recovery” phase following a surge in virus infections and hospitalizations.
Following weeks of a record-setting surge in COVID-19 spread across Michigan, the state’s numbers have shown a promising decline. Daily new COVID-19 case counts are down significantly from last month, and the state’s 7-day positive testing rate is the lowest it has been since the end of October.
Brides is committed to guiding ALL couples through not only their wedding planning journey, but through relationship milestones and ups and downs. Every love story is beautiful, has its own distinct history, and its own trials—there's no relationship that looks the same. To celebrate that uniqueness, we're asking couples to open up about their love story, for our latest column, "Love Looks Like This." Below, Siffat Haider and Nish Samantray, co-founders of Arrae, share their love story.
Siffat: We met in university through mutual friends at University of Toronto over 10 years ago.
Nish: Siff is from Bangladesh and I moved from the Middle East. All of the international students lived together at university. I used to be a residence advisor and technically we weren’t allowed to date the residents. So, we started dating right after my one-year RA post was over.
For the first five or six years of our relationship, we spent only about six months a year together. I was working in oil in Calgary and India, and we spent a lot of time apart. Siff was doing a diploma program in London. In the beginning, we did quite a bit of long distance. We were both super ambitious and wanted to do different things earlier on, but eventually figured out what we could do together to stay in the same place.
Building a Business Together
Nish: We started our company Arrae together two years ago.
Siffat: We started [it] out of our apartment. As we started to grow, we knew it was time to move out of Toronto. The health and wellness scene is so important in L.A. and we just decided to come here because it’s such a great place to be for what we’re doing.
Nish: The move was fast. As we were packing boxes out of our apartment, we got a cease and desist letter from the building when they found out we were running a business out of the apartment!
Siffat: We got engaged in Tulum in 2019. We’ve been going once a year and it’s a special place for us. Nish planned a proposal with a hotel that I was working with and I had no idea that it was coming. It was really beautifully done. We were going to do a destination wedding in Spain before the pandemic happened. So instead, we decided to put our wedding money into starting Arrae.
Courtesy of Arrae
Tying the Knot
Nish: We got married in Toronto in July of 2020. Siff’s parents are in Bangladesh and mine are in the Middle East, so it was just the two of us for our courthouse wedding. At that time, you could only go into the rooms one by one. I had to go into the room myself and then give them Siff’s name as the person I was marrying. They didn’t even check her ID. They just gave me a piece of paper. They said that when things open up we could do a signing ceremony.
Siffat: We reached out to the courthouse in December 2020, and were finally able to complete the signing ceremony. Then, we were able to fly out to celebrate with our families. First, we went to Abu Dhabi and then to Bangladesh. We spent about three weeks with each set of parents.
Nish: Honestly, I have always been the kind of person who loves the celebration of a wedding. But even pre-pandemic, I couldn’t fathom doing it the traditional way. In both of our Southeast Asian cultures, it’s expected to throw a big party for a wedding with hundreds of people. I love the idea of celebrating our love together, but being with a bunch of people I don’t know doesn’t excite me. Even when we went to visit our families, there were only eight people with us.
Siffat: I always knew I wanted a small wedding even back in 2019. I knew that when we got engaged, it would be the most special and most ‘us’ thing. The engagement itself honestly felt like us getting married to me.
Siffat: We’ve talked about a larger celebration. If we did do something, we would do it in Tulum or Mykonos. But we haven’t even thought of dates yet. For now, it’s just something that we float around. Even a big celebration would be something small with 20 to 30 of our friends.
Courtesy of Arrae
Partners in Love and Business
Nish: Getting married and starting this business together has made me realize that I think you can have everything you want in life. I used to think I had to pick between work and love and that balancing the two would be a life-long challenge. I’ve come to the conclusion that you can have everything and there is no bound to how much happiness you can have. I work with my significant other and we live in the city we want to live in. I’m living by this every single day.
Being cofounders while being in a relationship is really interesting. It works really well for us because we’re such different people. But, we’re also really protective of our relationship. Especially when work is extremely busy, we have a once-a-week date night and work hard to honor this.
Siffat: Working together has really strengthened our relationship, too. If anything, being each other’s cofounder has made us double down on our communication skills. It’s made us realize that Arrae can’t really thrive if Nish and I aren’t happy together. Just being really protective of our relationship and knowing that it comes first is the most important lesson I’ve learned.
I’m also just really grateful that I am with someone who makes me laugh as much as he does and stimulates me intellectually. He’s always ready to challenge me and show me another perspective. I think this has given us a lot of longevity in our relationship and it’s a lot of fun.
LVIV, Ukraine — One week into their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are ramping up assaults on civilian areas, making strategic advances in the coastal south and beginning to lay siege to major cities.
The invasion by President Vladimir V. Putin’s troops, which began on Feb. 24, kicked off Europe’s largest ground war since World War II.
In the days since, parts of towns and cities along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia have been reduced to rubble by Russian forces, according video evidence verified by The New York Times and interviews with residents who fled. Major cities, including the capital, Kyiv, have faced significant onslaughts, with Ukrainian officials saying Russian forces had taken control of the first major city in the war, the strategic southern port of Kherson.
As the war moves to an increasingly brutal phase, Russian artillery and rocket fire have cut off electricity, water and heat to many communities. Reports are also multiplying of Russian strikes against hospitals, schools, apartment complexes and critical civilian infrastructure. And a humanitarian crisis looms: More than a million people have already fled the country, according to the head of the United Nations refugee agency.
Even as Russian forces continue their onslaught, soldiers and civilian warriors from Ukraine, a country of 44 million, are fiercely resisting the attack of its much larger and more heavily armed neighbor.
Russia has been making huge gains across the country, especially in the south, but it has yet to gain air superiority over Ukraine, a strategic setback for Mr. Putin that analysts attribute to Ukraine’s fighter jets and surprisingly resilient air defenses. Officials from Ukraine and the United States also say that a number of Russian units — which reportedly include many young, poorly trained conscripts — have been hampered a bit by delays, poor morale and shortages of food and fuel.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine vowed on Thursday to regain control of parts of the country where Russian forces had made gains.
“I am sure of this: if they entered somewhere, it is only temporarily,” he said in an address to the nation. “We’ll drive them out. With shame.”
Here’s how the war is evolving:
Ukrainians taking shelter in a subway station in Kyiv on Wednesday. Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Bombarding the capital
After facing stiffer than expected resistance, Mr. Putin has escalated the bombardment of Kyiv as his forces seek to topple the government. As many as 15,000 people, mostly women and children, have taken up residence in the subway system, The Times’s Andrew Kramer reported from Kyiv.
This week, a missile hit a television tower in Kyiv, and airstrikes hit a residential area of Zhytomyr, a city less than 100 miles west of Kyiv. A video verified by The New York Times also showed what appeared to be two Russian warplanes flying at low altitude moments before an airstrike hit a residential apartment complex in Irpin, a city on Kyiv’s northwestern limits.
Such attacks, along with a convoy roughly 40 miles long of Russian military vehicles that has been moving toward Kyiv in recent days, have stirred fears that troops may encircle and bombard what just a week ago was a peaceful, modern European capital of about 2.8 million people. But on Thursday, there were indications that the convoy may be struggling with soggy ground and other logistical issues slowing its advance.
A building of the Karazin Kharkiv National University after shelling in Kharkiv. Sergey Bobok/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Laying siege to cities
Mr. Putin’s forces have already surrounded the northeastern city of Kharkiv, 20 miles from the Russian border, and have been pummeling it from the outside with missiles and artillery shells.
Taking Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, would be a major strategic prize and could allow Russia to consolidate its forces in other areas. But holding a city requires significant troop presence, and Russia is already facing a rebellion of the general public. It is unclear what Russian forces plan to do should they gain control of government buildings — or how they would deal with what would probably be an insurgent effort to oust them.
What’s clear for now is that laying siege to Kharkiv will most likely inflict heavy collateral damage on civilians as the war grinds on. There are already reports of men, women and children in Kharkiv going days without food and water, huddled in freezing basement shelters as Russian forces continue to bombard a city that just a week ago had a population of 1.5 million.
Russia is also mounting increasingly brazen attacks on Kharkiv’s downtown infrastructure, a strategy intended to make the civilian population flee as part of a precursor to a ground invasion. Missiles have been hitting administrative buildings, and there have been clashes with Russian forces as they probe and test the city’s defenses.
Volunteers filling sand bags in Kropyvnytskyi, southern Ukraine, on Sunday evening, in effort to fortify the city’s defenses.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Gaining in strategic areas
Russia has made important strategic gains in recent days across southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. Securing the south would cut off the Ukrainian government’s access to vital ports and could allow Russia to bring troops and supplies in by sea.
From the southern coast, Russian troops could move northward toward Kyiv and link up with fellow Russians who have been fighting in eastern Ukraine. That would expand Mr. Putin’s control east of the Dnieper River, which cuts through the center of Ukraine and divides its western and eastern regions.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to Know
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A Ukrainian city falls.Russian troops gained control of Kherson, the first city to be overcome during the war. The overtaking of Kherson is significant as it allows the Russians to control more of Ukraine’s southern coastline and to push west toward the city of Odessa.
A symbolic vote.The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the support of 141 countries out of 193. The vote, which is not legally binding, reflected Russia’s growing isolation on the international stage.
Odessa, Ukraine’s biggest port city, is not as militarily significant as the nearby Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. But seizing it would be essential if Russia wants to control southern Ukraine, The Times’s Michael Schwirtz reported from Odessa on Wednesday.
Now that Russian forces have moved into the southern port of Kherson, they have a path to Odessa. They have also surrounded another key port city, Mariupol. If Mariupol falls, two flanks of Russian and Russian-backed fighters would be able to trap Ukraine’s forces in the southeast.
Russian naval ships have gathered just outside Ukraine’s territorial waters in the Black Sea. Ukraine has accused Russia of firing on civilian ships and using them as cover.
The scene at the train station in Lviv on Wednesday, as thousands continued to flee the fighting in the east and south of Ukraine. Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
Rising anxiety
In western Ukraine, people have sought refuge from the invasion in Lviv, a city of ornate buildings about 45 miles from the Polish border that has so far been spared heavy combat.
But since the first air raid siren wailed a week ago, there has been a growing sense of urgency and anxiety in Lviv.
A vast network of volunteers has emerged to help both those fleeing conflict and others heading off to the front. The roads into the city have also been lined with checkpoints and hastily erected defenses.
Heavily armed soldiers patrol the streets, stopping strangers and apprehending people they contend are Russian agents and saboteurs. In one incident that a New York Times reporter witnessed in Lviv on Tuesday, several men were pulled out of a red sedan in the heart of the old town and bundled away by security.
In restaurants that remain open, bottled water is now served exclusively in plastic bottles. The glass ones are being used to make Molotov cocktails.
Marc Santora reported from Lviv, Ukraine, and Mike Ives from Seoul.
Before Amy Lipnicki tested positive for the coronavirus in January, she spent hours exercising every week, alternating between lifting weights and logging between three and 10 miles with her running group along the Brooklyn waterfront.
“I was in really good shape,” said Lipnicki, 43, a two-time marathoner who works as a veterinarian and lives in New Jersey.
But after she received her positive result, there was only one way to describe her condition, she said: “Extreme lethargy.”
“I was out basically on the couch for the first five days. I could barely get myself up and go to urgent care,” Lipnicki said, adding that her symptoms also included chest pains, muscle aches, difficulty breathing, a cough and sore throat. (Lipnicki was fully vaccinated but not boosted at the time.)
She waited two weeks before trying to run again. When she did, managing two miles was difficult: “I would jog a little bit and then walk most of it,” she said. Her chest felt tight and her legs felt heavy, too.
A little more than a month later, Lipnicki said that she’s “still trying to run, which I’m doing very, very slowly.” Her per-mile pace went from around nine-and-a-half minutes pre-covid to closer to 13 minutes now, she added.
According to experts, Lipnicki’s experience is common. Many people have a tough time resuming exercise or reaching their previous level of fitness after contracting covid-19, said Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine physician at the Sports Medicine Institute at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
“In my office, I’ve seen all kinds of issues — people with delayed recovery [after exercise], their times are slower, they’ve got more muscle injuries or they feel like their body’s out of shape,” Metzl said.
But the best bet for eventually getting back into shape, Metzl added, requires taking the long view — and taking it slow: “The biggest mistake people make is they try to get back out and do too much, too quickly.”
That advice features prominently in the guidelines for recreational athletes returning to exercise after mild-to-moderate cases of covid-19 that Metzl and his colleagues published in August 2020. Since then, researchers in CanadaandEurope have also released return-to-exercise guidance, as have members of the American College of Cardiology’s Sports & Exercise Cardiology Council, which released its most recent guidelines in January.
All the guidance emphasizes the importance of a gradual return to exercise for people with asymptomatic or mild cases of covid-19. For those who had more severe symptoms related to the lungs or heart, experts recommend seeing a cardiologist before resuming exercise.
Here are other key tips from experts for a safe return to fitness after a bout with covid-19.
Ease back in — and listen to your body
Both when to resume exercise and how hard to push once you do depend on the severity of the virus and your pre-covid fitness levels, experts said.
The recently updated American College of Cardiology guidelines recommend people with asymptomatic cases of covid-19 take three days off exercise following a positive test result to ensure they remain symptom-free.
People with mild symptoms not related to the heart or lungs should rest until their symptoms resolve, those guidelines note.
Once you do start exercising again, “you want to be very slow and gradual in your ramp-up to activity,” Metzl said. “The adage of ‘listening to your body’ is really appropriate … if you feel fatigue, don’t push.”
Metzl and his colleagues recommend that people recovering from mild cases of covid-19 follow the 50/30/20/10 rule: Start out by reducing your normal exercise by at least 50 percent for a week — so a typical four-mile run would be reduced to two, at most, or an hour-long yoga class should be cut to 30 minutes max — followed by gradual weekly increases to limiting it by 30 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent of your pre-covid routine, provided you continue to feel comfortable.
Some people may take months to progress to that 10 percent level, while others may be able to do so in weeks, according to Metzl.
“There’s not a one-size-fits-all [solution], and every person that gets exposed to this has a different reaction and their body fights it differently,” he said.
Take care of your mental health, too
Running has long been Lipnicki’s preferred stress reliever — but struggling to log her miles after recovering from covid has brought new challenges, she said, including “frustration.”
Frustration is a common emotion for people to feel when they have to modify or pause their exercise routines, even temporarily, according to Peter Economou, a sports psychologist and associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University.
“Exercise has been proven to be one of, if not the most, effective coping skills to manage stress … so removing it from one’s daily routine can have a pretty tremendous impact,” said Economou, who co-authored a study showing that student-athletes faced increased feelings of depression and anxiety in the fall of 2020, when they were no longer able to compete in their sports due to the pandemic.
To maintain mental and emotional wellness during periods of inactivity or reduced exercise, Economou recommends implementing a “self-care or well-being plan,” he said.
It should include a light exercise regimen when you feel up to it — even if it’s just walking around at home — eating healthy foods and staying hydrated, as well as maintaining a mindfulness routine, which ensures “the brain can respond in a healthier way to adversity,” Economou said.
See a doctor if you have lingering heart or lung issues
Most people don’t need to get cleared by a doctor to resume exercise after covid-19, provided they were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms and are otherwise healthy, according to Jonathan Kim, one of the co-authors of the American College of Cardiology return-to-exercise guidelines.
“If you want to get back to exercise, you don’t need to see your cardiologist, you don’t need to have all these cardiac tests … you just need to be smart and careful,” said Kim, who is also an associate professor of medicine at Emory University.
But people with “chest pains or chest tightness, shortness of breath during exertional activities that’s beyond what we consider normal, getting lightheaded, fainting, clearly feeling irregular heartbeats” during their bouts with covid-19 or during exercise afterward should see a cardiologist to ensure they’re keeping their hearts and lungs safe while exercising, Kim said.
Metzl echoed Kim’s advice, adding that the first step people should take before determining whether to see a doctor is tuning into how they feel: “If they’re really struggling with breathing issues, chest palpitations … you just want to be a good body listener,” Metzl said. That means paying attention when “things just aren’t exactly as they should be in your own body,” he said, adding that this might manifest as huffing and puffing going up and down the stairs, or having trouble breathing during exercise.
Lipnicki is taking her return-to-exercise slowly, opting for yoga and stretching sessions when she doesn’t feel up for running.
“I’m still trying to force myself every day to get up and do something active,” she said. “I don’t want to become sedentary.”
She does have D.C.’s annual Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run on her calendar for next month — but she expects to be more focused on enjoying the flowers and having fun with friends than on running the race.
“I’m realistic: This is not going to be a great year, but at least I can have something to motivate me to get out and try and train,” she said.
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Having trouble handling exercise after covid? Here are expert tips. - The Washington Post
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