CHMP adopts positive opinion for Kaftrio and Kalydeco combination

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CHMP adopts positive opinion for Kaftrio and Kalydeco combination

If approved, up to 10,000 people in Europe, would be newly eligible for the medicine

Carmen Bozic, Vertex

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has announced that the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has adopted a positive opinion for Kaftrio (ivacaftor/tezacaftor/elexacaftor) in combination with Kalydeco (ivacaftor), in people aged 12 and older with the most common genotypes of cystic fibrosis (CF).

The positive opinion adopted for Kaftrio (ivacaftor/tezacaftor/elexacaftor) in a combination regimen with Kalydeco (ivacaftor) is to treat people with CF, aged 12 and older with one F508del mutation and one minimal function mutation (F/MF) or two F508del mutations (F/F) in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene.

If approved, up to 10,000 people in Europe with CF, ages 12 and older who have one F508del mutation and one minimal function mutation, would be newly eligible for a medicine that targets the disease-causing protein defect.

Additionally, people 12 years of age and older who have two F508del mutations and who are currently eligible for one of Vertex’s other EMA-approved cystic fibrosis medicines would be eligible for the new triple combination regime.

Since 2017, eligible patients with CF in Ireland have had access to Vertex medicines via the long-term reimbursement agreement that was developed with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Irish Government.

As a result, if approved, people living with CF in Ireland ages 12 and older with one F508del mutation and one minimal function mutation (F/MF) or two F508del mutations (F/F) in the CFTR gene, would be among the first in Europe to receive reimbursed access to the medicine.

“If approved, this would be the first CFTR modulator for people with one F508del mutation and one minimal function mutation and would bring additional benefit to people with two F508del mutations,” said Carmen Bozic, MD, Executive Vice President, Global Medicines Development and Medical Affairs, and Chief Medical Officer at Vertex.

“This milestone brings us one step closer to delivering this innovative CF medicine to those who are waiting, and toward our ultimate goal of providing a therapeutic option for every person with this rare and devastating disease.”

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Florida man arrested for spray painting anti-racism messages on 100 stop signs

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Florida man arrested for spray painting anti-racism messages on 100 stop signs

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A man was recorded throwing red paint onto the Black Lives Matter mural that was painted on the street in front Trump Tower in New York City.

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A Florida man is facing felony charges after allegedly spray painting anti-racism phrases on 100 stop signs, according to the Port Orange Police Department.

The word “racism” or the phrase “I can’t breathe” were found spray-painted beneath the word “Stop” on stop signs around Port Orange causing an estimated $12,500 in damage last month, according to police records. ‘I can’t breathe’ has been uttered by dozens of people who died after being restrained by police, and became a rallying cry against police brutality after the high-profile deaths of Eric Garner in 2014 and George Floyd in May.

Police obtained surveillance video from the areas where the vandalism occurred which allowed them to identify vehicles connected to the incidents and a suspect: 32-year-old Zachary Kato.

Officers began conducting surveillance on Kato and executed a search warrant at his home on Friday. A search warrant was executed at his home on Friday where police found appliance epoxy spray paint, stencils and a receipt for the purchase of spray paint and stencils.

Police said the lettering on the signs matched the size and style of the stencils found in Kato’s home.

George Floyd is not alone: ‘I can’t breathe’ uttered by dozens in fatal police holds across U.S.

“You can lock me up and throw away the key,” Kato said while police searched his home, according to the affidavit. “I want to see a judge and jury tell me that speaking out against (expletive) racism is wrong.”

Police also seized Kato’s cellphone and found pictures of stencils stapled together, the vandalized signs and screenshots of online posts about the graffiti. Kato said in an Instagram message that the graffiti was written with appliance epoxy paint that would be too difficult to scrub off and would force the city to paint over the signs.

After Kato was arrested, he said he didn’t realize he could be facing a felony and “100 was too much but if I could do it all over, I would do it again,” according to police.

Contributing: Katie Wedell, Cara Kelly, Camille McManus and Christine Fernando, USA TODAY

Follow N’dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg

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Turn Your Relationship Into a Work of Art

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Turn Your Relationship Into a Work of Art

As the coronavirus pandemic upended wedding plans and industry jobs, many couples rescheduled their engagement photo shoots in order to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Others hired illustrators to commemorate their upcoming nuptials, ceremonies and other relationship milestones. Here are a few creative examples from artists.

For couples yearning to announce their engagements without getting dressed up (or wearing a mask), all it takes is an online order.

MariaAlejandra Ramirez, the owner of Moda Illustrated in Miami, works on 25 to 40 matrimony-focused projects each year, including engagement illustrations and save-the-date announcements.

In lieu of live sketching, Ms. Ramirez asks clients to send her as many photos of themselves as they’d like. She also encourages images of inspirational outfits, bouquets and pets. “The more pictures they send me the better,” she said. “That way, I can get a better feeling of what their style is.”

Next, Ms. Ramirez draws subjects with an Apple Pencil on her iPad Pro and utilizes Procreate, an illustration application equipped with a digital collection of brushes, inks and other media. Photoshop is used to add text. Prices range from $150 to $400 for custom designs, and the final work is delivered in two to four weeks.

During the pandemic lockdown, Khyati Patel, an illustrator in Vadodara, India, received a variety of made-to-order requests, including congratulatory cards for brides and grooms and proposal cards for bridesmaids through her Instagram account.

Using a photo provided by the couple for reference, Ms. Patel draws a rough pencil sketch and then a fine outline. She uses watercolor paint and watercolor pencils to depict subjects’ skin, hair and clothing. Details are added with metallic acrylic paint and a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen. Garments are shaded using colored pencils and watercolor paint. Ms. Patel digitally scans the entire piece to enhance its background using the Autodesk SketchBook application.

In mid-March, before the stay-at-home order went into effect in Washington on April 1, Grace Wahlbrink and Zachary Hill, both 31, mailed 60 illustrated wedding invitations to family and friends for their May 10 nuptials at Iron Gate restaurant. (They have tentatively rescheduled the wedding for Sept. 13.)

Even before the coronavirus outbreak, Ms. Wahlbrink, who works in digital marketing, and Mr. Hill, a supply planning specialist for Northrop Grumman, decided to forgo an engagement shoot that would cost $1,000. “It was one last thing we needed to do within the craziness of the wedding-planning process,” Ms. Wahlbrink said. “Neither of us cared much about it. We didn’t want to prioritize it.”

Instead, Ms. Wahlbrink’s personal friend, Riley Sheehey, a watercolor illustrator in Falls Church, Va., created a portrait for the couple’s invitations.

Ms. Sheehey uses one or two photos as reference, combining detail requests and inserting pets, to develop a sketch subject to two rounds of edits. Once her clients approve, Ms. Sheehey applies watercolor paint.

Between 2016 and 2019, Ms. Sheehey designed 60 original wedding-related works, starting at $600. Each requires five to six hours from start to finish with a two to three month turn around. Upon completion she sends the original painting and a digital scan to the couple, which can be taken to a printer for duplication.

Allison Lewis, the owner of Bright Eye Designs in Owensboro, Ky., has crafted artwork for couples who have postponed their weddings.

Alternatively, some partners are still getting married in private — often without professional photographers on-site. As a result, Ms. Lewis is also remotely illustrating newlyweds saying “I do” at home.

“Most of the Covid couples I have worked with recently send me a photo from their wedding day to recreate,” she said. “These photos are typically the bride and groom in their wedding attire but in their living room or backyard. I really enjoy doing these illustrations because I know how intimate the moment was for them.”

Ms. Lewis, who designs her sketches using Procreate, asks her customers to submit their favorite photos before they collectively agree on one to recreate. Her sketches take between two and six hours to complete, with a one-week turn around. Each piece sells for $50 or more, depending on the amount of detail.

Similarly, Ashby Florence, a digital illustrator in Washington, has been recreating images of recent weddings. Her company That’s More Like It, which charges $15 to $40 per piece, has experienced a 15 percent increase in business since March. “Almost all of my wedding-related commissions have been due to coronavirus,” she said.

Each year, Nicole Updegraff of Oahu, Hawaii, completes 10 to 15 wedding commissions, including illustrations for websites and thank you notes. The quantity of wedding requests has remained consistent, but many of her clients have had to shift their plans because of the coronavirus. A bride and groom originally expecting 250 guests at their wedding got married on May 30 with six people in attendance (including an officiant and a photographer). Ms. Updegraff’s work is featured on the couple’s recently sent out thank you cards.

Ms. Updegraff starts her 1.5- to 12-hour process by requesting separate, clear, close-up photographs of the individuals’ faces and full-length pictures for height and size references. She speaks directly with clients about their visions and the elements they wish to include before opening her sketchbook and working with watercolor markers. Next, she transfers the art to her iPad Pro, and uses her Apple Pencil and Procreate to add fine details and clean up the graphic.

Ms. Updegraff charges $150 to $300 for single figure illustrations, and $300 to $500 for couples illustrations, which are delivered within three to five business days.

For Alicia Ann Wilke, a family illustrator in Rockford, Mich., nearly all wedding commissions within the last six months have served as anniversary gifts. Often personalized with wedding dates and names, featuring groups of people, Ms. Wilke’s designs are drawn on Procreate, and then painted and printed on 8-by-10 inch card stock. Each composition costs $80 to $300.

In March, during the onset of shelter-in-place orders in several states, Brittany Register of Auburn, Ala., began creating digital portraits. By June, Ms. Register had completed 15 wedding-specific commissions, including a bride and groom whose ceremony was canceled one hour before walking down the aisle. Using photos of subjects, Ms. Register utilizes the Procreate app on her iPad Pro and spends one to three hours on each piece. She completes orders within two weeks. Her custom creations start at $17.

Cassie Barraud, 29, of Queensland, Australia, found Ms. Register’s Etsy page while browsing engagement presents. Ms. Barraud’s sister Chantelle Rowntree became engaged to Josh Pratt, both 23, of Queensland, on April 3. “Given it was Covid lockdown time, this gift was something special, as we couldn’t have a celebration,” Ms. Barraud said. “It’s something different and a nice memory of this special moment in their life.”



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Ethiopia begins filling Grand Renaissance dam on Blue Nile

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Ethiopia begins filling Grand Renaissance dam on Blue Nile

Ethiopia started filling Grand Renaissance, a giant hydroelectric dam it is building on the Blue Nile, its water minister said on Wednesday after talks with Sudan and Egypt over the structure became deadlocked.

The dam is the centrepiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter. 

“The construction of the dam and the filling of the water go hand in hand,” Water Minister Seleshi Bekele said in comments broadcast on a television.

Egypt told the United Nations last month it faces an “existential threat” from the hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile River.

Relying on the Nile for more than 90 percent of its water supply and already facing high water stress, Egypt fears a devastating impact on its population of 100 million.

In June, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry warned conflict could erupt if the United Nations fails to intervene, as the dam endangers the lives of 150 million Egyptians and Sudanese.

Egypt, Ethiopia discuss Nile dam dispute at UN Security Council

Africa’s largest dam

Cairo was anxious to secure a legally binding deal that would guarantee minimum flows and a mechanism for resolving disputes before the dam started operating.

Sudan stands to benefit from the project through access to cheap electricity and reduced flooding, but it has also raised fears over the dam’s operation.

The latest round of negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the contentious dam ended with no agreement on Tuesday, according to Egyptian and Sudanese officials.

The failure sank modest hopes the three countries could resolve their differences and sign an agreement on the dam’s operation before Ethiopia began to fill the $4.6bn Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), set to be Africa’s largest.

Ethiopia says more than 60 percent of the country is dry land with no sustaining water resources, while Egypt is endowed with groundwater and has access to seawater that could be desalinated.

Addis Ababa had previously pledged to start storing water in the dam’s vast reservoir at the start of the wet season in July, when rains flood the Blue Nile.

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#Belarussia – Protests continue against 26 year reign of Lukashenko

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#Belarussia – Protests continue against 26 year reign of Lukashenko

Arrests in Hantsavichy. Photo by Siarhei Bahrou

Belarussians are demonstrating against the decision of their electoral commission to reject the candidacy of two possible rivals (Viktar Babaryka and Valery Tsapkala) of the incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko who has been in office 26 years. The European Commission has called for transparency and respect for the OSCE’s recommendations for ensuring that elections are fair and transparent.

Spokesperson for the European External Action Service Nabila Massrali tweeted: “Failure of #Belarus authorities to invite @osce_odihr to observe elections will have severely negative consequences for transparency & integrity of election process. @osce_odihr recommendations form an integral part of strengthening legislation, legal safeguards & democracy.”

Statement by Commission Vice President Josep Borrell.



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Statue of protester appears on Colston plinth

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Statue of protester appears on Colston plinth

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EPA

Image caption

Jen Reid posed with her statue, which appeared on the empty plinth on Wednesday

A figure of a Black Lives Matter protester has appeared on the plinth previously occupied by the statue of slave trader Edward Colston.

A sculpture of protester Jen Reid was erected early on Wednesday in Bristol city centre where the Colston statue was pulled down last month.

Ms Reid had been photographed standing on the empty plinth after the Colston statue was toppled during the march.

Mayor Marvin Rees said the statue did not have permission to be installed.

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Getty Images

Image caption

Jen Reid visited Marc Quinn’s studio during the week after the protests to be photographed in preparation for the sculpture

Artist Marc Quinn said the black resin statue, called A Surge of Power, was meant to be a temporary installation to continue the conversation about racism.

He said he was inspired to create it after seeing an image of Ms Reid standing on the plinth with her fist raised during the Black Lives Matter protest on 7 June.

Mr Quinn then contacted Ms Reid through social media and they worked together on the statue, which was erected shortly before 04:30 BST.

Image caption

This image of Jen Reid standing on top of the plinth after the Colston statue was pulled down inspired the sculpture

“I think it’s something the people of Bristol really appreciate seeing,” said Ms Reid.

“My husband took the photo on the day of the protests and put it on his social media. He was contacted by Marc Quinn who then contacted myself.

“I was in his studio by the Friday after the protest with 201 cameras surrounding me, taking pictures of me from every conceivable angle. That went into a 3D print and a mould was made.”

Ms Reid said the sculpture was important because it helped “keep the journey towards racial justice and equality moving”.

Image copyright
Hassan Akkad

Image caption

The new statue was unveiled and put on the plinth early on Wednesday

She said she had felt an “overwhelming impulse” to climb on to the plinth during last month’s protest.

“When I was stood there on the plinth, and raised my arm in a Black Power salute, it was totally spontaneous,” she said.

“I didn’t even think about it. It was like an electrical charge of power was running through me.

“This sculpture is about making a stand for my mother, for my daughter, for black people like me.”

Image copyright
PA Media

Image caption

People in Bristol stop to take photos of the new statue

Mr Quinn said: “I saw pictures of Jen on the plinth and she spontaneously made this gesture and I thought this is amazing. She’s made an extraordinary artwork just by doing that and it needs to be crystalised into an object and put back on to the plinth.

“It had to be in that public realm and I wanted to put it in that charged spot where Edward Colston had been before.”

Image copyright
Reuters

Image caption

The statue of Edward Colston was pulled from its plinth last month and dragged into the harbourside

Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees, who had previously called the statue of Colston “an affront”, said the new sculpture “was not requested and permission was not given for it to be installed”.

“The future of the plinth and what is installed on it must be decided by the people of Bristol,” he said.

“This will be critical to building a city that is home to those who are elated at the statue being pulled down, those who sympathise with its removal but are dismayed at how it happened and those who feel that in its removal, they’ve lost a piece of the Bristol they know and therefore themselves.

“We need change. In leading that change we have to find a pace that brings people with us. There is an African proverb that says if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”

The council has established a commission of historians and other experts to research the city’s “true history”.

Image caption

Artist Marc Quinn’s previous works include a sculpture entitled Alison Lapper Pregnant, which was put on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square

On 7 June, protesters used ropes to pull the Colston statue, which had been at the Bristol city centre site since 1895, from its plinth.

It was then dragged to the harbourside, where it was thrown into the water at Pero’s Bridge – named in honour of enslaved man Pero Jones who lived and died in the city.

Bristol City Council later retrieved the statue, which will be displayed in a museum along with placards from the Black Lives Matter protest.

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Five Art Accounts to Follow on Instagram Now

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Five Art Accounts to Follow on Instagram Now

When things are tough at home, I sometimes search Instagram for street photographers abroad. It’s not that I’m looking for happy scenes, necessarily. It’s just reassuring to be reminded that the world is so much larger than our national news cycle. (Scrolling through digital feeds is also the safest way to travel these days, not to mention the most eco-friendly.) These are the five accounts that I’ve been turning to lately for quick little doses of our common humanity; other New York Times critics will be posting their own favorites regularly.

The engineer Ali Shokouhandeh started Streetphoto Iran four years ago as an independent forum for views of the country’s daily life. Surprised by the interest it generated, both at home and abroad, he recruited Hamed Mousavi and David Shokouhbeen, both fine street photographers in their own right, to help him edit the feed and find new work. Now it offers an extraordinary curated trip through Iran both historical and contemporary, from a handball game in the ancient city of Yazd to a sea of intricately patterned hijabs, from a fashion shoot beside the pink waters of Lake Maharloo to the very contemporary problem of adjusting Islamic burial practices to Covid-19 deaths.

The photojournalist Ley Uwera’s portrait subjects often have quizzical expressions, as if she’s catching them in the act of sizing her up. It’s a refreshingly forthright approach, one that takes into account both the disrupting fact of her own presence and the difficulty of capturing the complexity of any given locale, whether it’s a displaced persons’ camp or just backstage at a fashion show. That’s not to suggest that she’ll turn down a smile. She’s captured more than a few dazzling grins. But even then, a discreetly foreboding background — like the low, cloudy sky and glittering green heath of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo — keeps the fundamental mystery of the human condition close at hand.

One thing I like about the Hong Kong photographer Jimi Tsang, whose bio line describes him as “obsessed with 35 mm film,” is that he doesn’t abide by Instagram’s format. Full of tilted lines, receding streets, and men turning their backs, his photographs are defiantly rectangular. Apart from the occasional gaggle of orange traffic barriers, they also tend to be black and white. (My favorite shows a solitary man crossing an empty soccer pitch surrounded by soulless office buildings.) To display his rectangles within Instagram’s unbending square, he mounts the images on solid color backgrounds of black or gray or hot pink. It’s an apt aesthetic detail for an artist mourning his uncommon city as it is rocked by turbulent political change.

I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly is so beguiling about Seunggu Kim’s 2017 photo of a swimming pool. There’s the pool itself, of course, with its whimsical mix of premodern Korean architecture and bright blue water, and there’s the photo’s elevated vantage point, which turns pink and yellow flotation devices into so many rainbow sprinkles on a neon ice cream cake. But I think what really does it is the way the building’s design and the photograph’s framing combine to flatten and enclose the whole enormous, crowded rectangle: Like the map in a fantasy novel or a Richard Scarry picture book, the resulting image offers freedom and containment at the same time, a sensation of activity anchored by a feeling of perfect safety.

Shooting mostly in and around Addis Ababa, the photographer and fashion designer Eyerusalem Jiregna bundles simple details like a bright orange hard hat, a patterned skirt, or daisy-shaped barrettes into bouquets of irresistible color. Coca-Cola red, Heineken green, face-paint white, a coral blue wall, or Ethiopia’s own national colors can all be equally alluring if you know how to capture them. Sometimes she lets her colors melt a little, too, as in a striking pair of views of candlelit parishioners celebrating Orthodox Epiphany in Lalibela. Reflecting the flickering yellow light, their white robes glow like molten wax. Either way, though, what she arrives at is an apparently endless series of exceptional moments.



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Despite a new measurement, the debate over the universe’s expansion rages on

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Despite a new measurement, the debate over the universe’s expansion rages on

When it comes to the expansion rate of the universe, physicists have apparently agreed to disagree.

Two types of measurements clash over how fast the cosmos is expanding (SN: 7/30/19). Now, a new estimate from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, or ACT, further entrenches this disagreement.

To tease out the properties of the universe, ACT observes light emitted shortly after the Big Bang, known as the cosmic microwave background. Those observations reveal that the universe is expanding a rate of about 67.9 kilometers per second for each megaparsec (about 3 million light-years), physicists report in two papers posted online and submitted to arXiv.org. The number aligns with that of an earlier cosmic microwave background experiment called Planck (SN: 7/24/18).

“As an independent experiment, we see the same thing,” says cosmologist Simone Aiola of the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, ACT observes the cosmic microwave background with a higher resolution than Planck did.

To measure the expansion of the universe, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope mapped out the cosmic microwave background (one portion shown). Colors represent differences in the polarization, the orientation of the light’s electromagnetic waves.ACT Collaboration

Both ACT and Planck disagree with most estimates from objects that emitted their light more recently, such as exploding stars called supernovas and bright hearts of galaxies known as quasars. Those studies tend to indicate a faster expansion rate of around 74 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

If no simple explanation can be found for the discrepancy, it could dramatically alter physicists’ understanding of the contents of the universe and how the cosmos changes over time. For example, dark energy, the shadowy stuff that causes the universe to expand at an accelerating rate, might behave differently than scientists thought.

Some researchers had speculated that an unidentified source of experimental error in the Planck data could have accounted for the mismatch. But with the independent measurement from ACT, that explanation has gone out the window. That frees physicists to focus on other explanations, like potential issues with the supernova or quasar measurements, or the possibility of unexplained new physics phenomena.

Now, says cosmologist Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, “we can proceed without the niggling worries.”

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US launches 4 secret spy satellites to orbit

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US launches 4 secret spy satellites to orbit

Four more U.S. spy satellites just took flight.

A Northrop Grumman Minotaur IV rocket launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia today (July 15) at 9:46 a.m. EDT (1346 GMT), carrying the NROL-129 mission to orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and Space Force.

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Why You’re Having Such Vivid Dreams During the Pandemic

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Why You’re Having Such Vivid Dreams During the Pandemic

In March, as COVID-19 started quickly spreading in the United States, we began noticing something strange: our dreams were getting weird. Odd visual stimuli are like catnip to visual journalists like ourselves, so we polled our friends on Instagram to see if it was just us.

“Who’s having weird dreams?? Tell us about them!” we implored.

We weren’t alone. Many of our followers were having dreams with unsettling guest stars and bizarre settings: a spider in someone’s bed, an abusive ex-boyfriend, empty highways, roving militias, even a dog that could sniff out coronavirus in people. Someone in Seattle dreamed they were wearing normal clothes—not the official quarantine uniform of sweatpants and pajamas—and went out for brunch with friends.

Everyone is trying to make sense of this unprecedented time, and as visual storytellers, we wondered what it would look like to recreate a vivid dream through animation. We chose to illustrate a dream that Andy Sarjahani, a documentary filmmaker living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, told us about. He dreamed of visiting a bar in Austin where things are not quite right; you can watch how it plays out in the video above.

Deirdre Leigh Barrett, an author, artist and assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University, is no stranger to dreams during strange times. Around the time we started collecting dreams, so did she; now, with more than 9,000 pandemic-era dreams from 3,800 people around the world, Barrett has published a book called Pandemic Dreams.

Barrett posted her survey on March 24th, when Italy was at the height of crisis and the U.S was just beginning to realize what was coming, and she began to hear similar dreams from people fearful of getting sick and a lot of dreams about bug attacks.

“Across cultures we often have similar metaphors for similar events. This [pandemic] is very unique in that even though the timeframe’s off by a few weeks, basically the whole world was experiencing some version of this at pretty much the same time. I’ve never seen that sort of shared dream life. It’s rare even to see it within a country—so many people are dreaming about bug attacks. But this was around the world.”

Barrett interviewed Andy about the dream he’d described to us for this story and helped him analyze his dream. “Responsible dreamwork is helping the dreamer get at their own individual symbols. So what I was doing with Andy was asking him for associations to different elements in the dream.” In his dream, Andy had seen people in a busy bar turn into cardboard cutouts and fall over. When she asked him where else he had seen cardboard cutouts like those, he recalled the movie Home Alone, where the young boy uses them to scare away intruders. Even though it’s a comedy, the film has a powerful emotional feel, which makes it good fodder for a pandemic dream, Barrett said. “The idea of a child being by himself, imperiled—this is kind of primal,” she said.

“I think it’s how some of us are feeling about the lockdown,” she said. “Not just literally people who are alone, but even if you are with one or two or three other people, you are so isolated from most of the world.”

In general, people’s sleep patterns have shifted over the past few months, and the changes are only boosting the wild nature of pandemic dreams. With millions of Americans working from home, people are sleeping in more and using alarms less; since we generally experience our most vivid dreams in the early morning hours just before waking naturally, dreams can go on for longer and become easier to recall. Graphic dreams may be with us for as long as the virus is.

Contact us at editors@time.com.

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