In Other News: Gun violence leads community groups to take bolder action; Scars of COVID persist for sickest survivors, their families

Published 12:00 am Friday, July 22, 2022

Q&A: Jordan Peele on the dreams and nightmares of ‘Nope’

There’s little in contemporary movies quite like the arrival of a new Jordan Peele film. They tend to descend ominously and mysteriously, a little like an unknown object from above that casts an expanding, darkening shadow the closer it comes. “Nope,” the writer-director’s third film, is nearly here. And after Peele’s “Get Out” and “Us,” the closely-kept-under-wraps “Nope” brings a new set of horrors and unsettling metaphors. In an interview, Peele says his movie is “an answer to the way Hollywood began.” “Nope” opens in theaters Friday.

Freddy Fernandez almost wasn’t here, on his couch in his Missouri home, his baby on his lap, gnawing on the pulse oximeter that he uses to check his oxygen levels after a months-long bout with COVID-19. Months after being warned that her partner might never hold his daughter, Vanessa smiles as the girl works to cut two teeth on the device that Freddy wears like a necklace, a blue ribbon tied around it. Freddy spent five months hospitalized a four-hour drive away from the couple’s home in the southwest Missouri town of Carthage on the most intense life support available. The 41-year-old father of six nearly died repeatedly and now he — like so many who survived COVID-19 hospitalizations — has returned home changed. While more than 1 million died from COVID in the U.S., many more survived ICU stays that have left them with anxiety, PTSD and a host of health issues. Research has shown that intensive therapy starting in the ICU can help, but it was often hard to provide as hospitals teemed with patients. “There is a human cost for ICU survivorship,” says Dr. Vinaya Sermadevi, who helped care for Freddy throughout his stay at Mercy Hospital St. Louis. “It is almost like going to war and having the aftermath.”

Gun violence leads community groups to take bolder action

Seattle doesn’t often make national news for gun violence, but in 2021, more shots were fired there than in any of the previous five years. Last summer, a local group that intervenes to try to prevent gun violence took the unusual step of paying 16 young men who were likely to be involved in shootings to leave the city for 30 days. The founder of Community Passageways, Dominique Davis, said all but three of those young people have not faced additional charges since. Community violence intervention is not new but interest in the approach is growing. The Biden administration is backing it and urging states and cities to invest in groups doing this work.