Tokoyo: A Story of Cultural Movement

Tokoyo: A Story of Cultural Movement is an exploration of Japanese culture through performance. The piece incorporates stylized, ritualistic, and contemporary movement. The device used to portray our research was a folk tale told solely through physical expression. Music by Japanese composers and projections of the country supported the movement and helped to tell the story of the culture. We were deep into our research when we embarked on our trip to Japan to observe the specificity of the culture in everyday life and performance. Everything that we read, watched, and took part in manifested itself in the final presentation. The stylistic form of the piece was influenced by our studies and experiences within the Syracuse University Drama Department. We used a Japanese traditional folk tale about a young girl named Tokoyo to demonstrate both the physical culture and the societal priorities of the Japanese people. The process began with rigorous research of everything from the mie poses of Kabuki theatre to the way in which Japanese people board a subway car. Once we learned all that we could from books and videos we were fortunate enough to travel to Tokyo to immerse ourselves in the culture. In Tokyo we furthered our understanding of the Japanese lifestyle through observation, conversation, and participation. The process of developing an entertaining and educational piece of theatre began with story boarding, developing characters, and devising a way to include traditional and contemporary movement in one unified performance piece. We started our choreography of the story with a prologue to establish the relationship between the two central characters: Tokoyo and her father. Each movement was specific to what we had learned in our research and placed in the piece to demonstrate an aspect of gestural language. This made the work of creating the performance twice as difficult, not only focusing on storytelling but on the research that we had accumulated. The piece was well received by audiences that left the theatre with opened eyes to a culture so far from their own as well as an avant-garde theatre style. Though the audience didn’t understand or acknowledge the significance of every single nuance of the culture, they understood the themes of the story and the underlying emotions of the characters. Our performance educated our audience on a culture of which they may have had no prior knowledge. To do so through movement is extremely powerful. Movement has no language barrier and though the gestures may seem foreign the feelings emoted are clear. Body language is the ultimate communicator; watching an American member of our audience moved to tears by an unknown Japanese phrase of movement proves that this is true. This universal connection of humanity is just what we sought to demonstrate when we decided to explore cultural movement

Enhanced contact investigations for nine early travel-related cases of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was first identified in Wuhan, China and has since become pandemic. In response to the first cases identified in the United States, close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases were investigated to enable early identification and isolation of additional cases and to learn more about risk factors for transmission. Close contacts of nine early travel-related cases in the United States were identified and monitored daily for development of symptoms (active monitoring). Selected close contacts (including those with exposures categorized as higher risk) were targeted for collection of additional exposure information and respiratory samples. Respiratory samples were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Four hundred four close contacts were actively monitored in the jurisdictions that managed the travel-related cases. Three hundred thirty-eight of the 404 close contacts provided at least basic exposure information, of whom 159 close contacts had ≥1 set of respiratory samples collected and tested. Across all actively monitored close contacts, two additional symptomatic COVID-19 cases (i.e., secondary cases) were identified; both secondary cases were in spouses of travel-associated case patients. When considering only household members, all of whom had ≥1 respiratory sample tested for SARS-CoV-2, the secondary attack rate (i.e., the number of secondary cases as a proportion of total close contacts) was 13% (95% CI: 4–38%). The results from these contact tracing investigations suggest that household members, especially significant others, of COVID-19 cases are at highest risk of becoming infected. The importance of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers is also underlined. Isolation of persons with COVID-19, in combination with quarantine of exposed close contacts and practice of everyday preventive behaviors, is important to mitigate spread of COVID-19

Clinical and virologic characteristics of the first 12 patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United States.

Data on the detailed clinical progression of COVID-19 in conjunction with epidemiological and virological characteristics are limited. In this case series, we describe the first 12 US patients confirmed to have COVID-19 from 20 January to 5 February 2020, including 4 patients described previously1,2,3. Respiratory, stool, serum and urine specimens were submitted for SARS-CoV-2 real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) testing, viral culture and whole genome sequencing. Median age was 53 years (range: 21–68); 8 patients were male. Common symptoms at illness onset were cough (n = 8) and fever (n = 7). Patients had mild to moderately severe illness; seven were hospitalized and demonstrated clinical or laboratory signs of worsening during the second week of illness. No patients required mechanical ventilation and all recovered. All had SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in respiratory specimens, typically for 2–3 weeks after illness onset. Lowest real-time PCR with reverse transcription cycle threshold values in the upper respiratory tract were often detected in the first week and SARS-CoV-2 was cultured from early respiratory specimens. These data provide insight into the natural history of SARS-CoV-2. Although infectiousness is unclear, highest viral RNA levels were identified in the first week of illness. Clinicians should anticipate that some patients may worsen in the second week of illness