Life Style – The Daily Economist

Coronavirus: How to exercise while staying at home

Staff Reporter — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 15:32:59 +0000

The Green Goddess – the original keep-fit queen of the 80s – is making a comeback on BBC Breakfast. Eighty-year-old Diana Moran will be doing exercises three times a week from self-isolation so viewers can follow along at home.
So what else can you do to keep fit and healthy whilst heeding the new advice about staying at home?
“There are tonnes of things you can do from your chair or sofa – squats, tricep dips, crunches, body work exercises and so on,” says Cardiff-based personal trainer Keris Hopkins.
“If you have kids at home, you can get them involved. Make activities fun, like running around or playing hide and seek. Just keep moving,” says the 37-year-old, who has started filming workout videos at home for people to follow along.
“It’s important to plan your day – for example 7am to 8am work out online. It will help people find a focus if they plan. And if you can get outside, try to get your 10,000 steps done.”
Becky Hill and Kate Williams run Raise the Bar boot camps in Oxfordshire. For now, they continue to take place for whoever is able to attend – with people keeping at least 10 feet apart and equipment being cleaned between each use. But they are also launching an online version for people self-isolating, a move which many gyms and personal trainers are making.
Exercise “decreases stress and anxiety,” says Becky Hill, who is also a fitness trainer and therapist. Everyone is stressed at the moment and people aren’t sleeping she says. “But if you’re moving, you’re likely to sleep better.”
But how much you can do, depends on which type of household you fall into says, Dr Charlie Foster, Head of the Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences at Bristol University, who also advises the UK chief medical officers on physical activity.
If you are under 70 with no underlying conditions you can still be active outside as long as you stay at least two metres (three paces) away from other people. So walking the dog (or even your neighbour’s dog), going for a run or going for a bike ride are all fine – provided you keep your distance.
Public spaces such as swimming pools and gyms are not banned – but if you use them, be sure their equipment and surfaces have been thoroughly cleaned. And of course you can do your bit cleaning any equipment you use. Dr Foster says it’s preferable to exercise outside.
Team sports are not advised for now – but tennis is ok for the moment as long as you wash your hands first, don’t shake hands afterwards and keep your distance.
If you are over 70 and self-isolating, pregnant or have an underlying health condition, but feel well, you can also go outside with the same caveat of keeping your distance from others.
For older people, strength and balance exercises are particularly important, says Jess Kuehne, senior program manager from the Centre for Ageing Better, as muscle strength starts to decline rapidly after our 30s. She recommends yoga, tai chi, resistance training and seated exercises.
If you are self-isolating with symptoms, or someone in your household has them, you shouldn’t leave home but that doesn’t mean you should stop moving. It’s really important to use movement and activity as a way of breaking up your routine, if you feel well enough. Cook, play active games, dance, go into the garden if you’ve got one.
If you are unwell – use your energy to get better and don’t try to be active. If you can get out of bed, then do so but don’t try to do too much.
Finally, if you are feeling better after having had the virus, return to your normal routine very gradually. We don’t know what the long term effects are but as far as we know, there is no reason why you can’t gently return to normal activity.
Of course there are many fitness websites and online apps people can use to help find a routine with Daily Yoga workout and fitness and Calm, a meditation and sleep app currently among the most popular downloads in the UK.
And while you’re at home, tempting as it is, try not to eat everything in sight, Ms Hopkins reminds us.
“Aim to minimise stress. And try to use the time wisely – read that book, do an online course, learn a new language, clear out the cupboards. It will all help,” she says.
” Chair tricep dips – Sit on the edge of a chair holding onto the front with your hands. Place your feet out in front of you (bent legs for easier option or straight legs to make it harder) and lower your elbows to a 90-degree angle before pushing back up.
” Table top press ups – Incline press ups can be done anywhere around the home – on a table, a bed, a chair or even a wall. To use a table, place your hands on the table with your legs stretched out behind you, body nice and straight. Lower your weight down keeping your elbows tight to your body, and press back up.
” Living room wall sits – find a wall with a big enough space for you to lean on. Sit against the wall like you would in a chair with your legs at 90 degrees, and hold. Give it time and you’ll soon feel the burn!

Are ‘kidfluencers’ making our kids fat?

Staff Reporter — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 05:49:12 +0000

Parents beware: Many YouTube channels that are wildly popular with young children are targeting them with thinly veiled ads for sugary beverages and junk food.

That is the conclusion of a new study published on Monday in the journal Paediatrics. The authors of the study analysed over 400 YouTube videos featuring so-called kid influencers — children with large social media followings who star in videos that show them excitedly reviewing toys, unwrapping presents and playing games. The study found that videos in this genre, which attract millions of young followers and rack up billions of views, were awash in endorsements and product placements for brands like McDonald’s, Carl’s Jr, Hershey’s, Chuck E Cheese and Taco Bell.

About 90% of the foods featured in the YouTube videos were unhealthy items like milkshakes, french fries, soft drinks and cheeseburgers emblazoned with fast food logos. The researchers said their findings were concerning because YouTube is a popular destination for toddlers and adolescents. Roughly 80% of parents with children 11 years old or younger say they let their children watch YouTube, and 35% say their children watch it regularly.

A spokeswoman for YouTube, citing the age requirement on its terms of service, said the company has “invested significantly in the creation of the YouTube Kids app, a destination made specifically for kids to explore their imagination and curiosity on a range of topics, such as healthy habits.” She added, “We don’t allow paid promotional content on YouTube Kids and have clear guidelines which restrict categories like food and beverage from advertising on the app.”

Young children are particularly susceptible to marketing. Studies show that children are unable to distinguish between commercials and cartoons until they are 8 or 9 years old, and they are more likely to prefer unhealthy foods and beverages after seeing advertisements for them.

Experts say it is not just an advertising issue but a public health concern. Childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed in recent years: Nearly 20% of American children between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese, up from 5.5% in the mid 1970s. Studies have found strong links between junk food marketing and childhood obesity, and experts say that children are now at even greater risk during a pandemic that has led to school closures, lockdowns and increased screen time and sedentary behaviour. The new findings suggest that parents should be especially wary of how children are being targeted by food companies on social media.

“The way these branded products are integrated in everyday life in these videos is pretty creative and unbelievable,” said Marie Bragg, an author of the study and an assistant professor of public health and nutrition at the New York University School of Global Public Health. “It’s a stealthy and powerful way of getting these unhealthy products in front of kids’ eyeballs.”

Bragg was prompted to study the phenomenon after one of her co-authors, Amaal Alruwaily, noticed her young nieces and nephews obsessively watching YouTube videos of “kidfluencers” like Ryan Kaji, the 9-year-old star of Ryan’s World, a YouTube channel with 27 million subscribers, formerly named Ryan ToysReview. The channel, run by Ryan’s parents, features thousands of videos of him excitedly reviewing new toys and games, doing science experiments and going on fun trips to stores and arcades.

Children’s channels like Ryan’s World — which are frequently paid to promote a wide range of products, including toys, video games and food — are among the highest grossing channels on YouTube, raking in millions of dollars from ads, sponsored content, endorsements and more. According to Forbes, Ryan earned $26 million last year, making him the top YouTube earner of 2019. Among the brands he has been paid to promote are Chuck E Cheese, Walmart, Hasbro, Lunchables and Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., the fast food chains. One of his most popular videos shows him pretending to be a cashier at McDonald’s. In it, he wears a hat with the McDonald’s logo, serves plastic Chicken McNuggets, cheeseburgers and french fries to one of his toys, and then eats a McDonald’s Happy Meal. The video has been viewed about 95 million times.

“It looks like a normal child playing with their normal games, but as a researcher who studies childhood obesity, the branded products really stood out to me,” Bragg said. “When you watch these videos and the kids are pretending to bake things in the kitchen or unwrapping presents, it looks relatable. But really it’s just an incredibly diverse landscape of promotion for these unhealthy products.”

In a statement, Sunlight Entertainment, the production company for Ryan’s World, said the channel “cares deeply about the well-being of our viewers and their health and safety is a top priority for us. As such, we strictly follow all platforms terms of service, as well as any guidelines set forth by the FTC and laws and regulations at the federal, state, and local levels.”

The statement said that Ryan’s World welcomed the findings of the new study, adding: “As we continue to evolve our content we look forward to ways we might work together in the future to benefit the health and safety of our audience.”

Other popular children’s channels on YouTube show child influencers doing taste tests with Oreo cookies, Pop Tarts and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream or sitting in toy cars and ordering fast food at drive-thrus for Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and other chains. “This is basically a dream for advertisers,” said Bragg. “These kids are celebrities, and we know from other rigorous studies that younger kids prefer products that are endorsed by celebrities.”

To document the extent of the phenomenon, Bragg and her colleagues identified five of the top kid influencers on YouTube, including Ryan, and analyzed 418 of their most popular videos. They found that food or beverages were featured in those videos 271 times, and 90% of them were “unhealthy branded items.” Some of the brands featured most frequently were McDonald’s, Hershey’s, Skittles, Oreo, Coca-Cola, Kinder and Dairy Queen. The videos featuring junk food have collectively been viewed more than a billion times.

The researchers could not always tell which products the influencers were paid to promote, in part because sponsorships are not always clearly disclosed. The Federal Trade Commission has said that influencers should “clearly and conspicuously” disclose their financial relationships with brands whose products they endorse on social media. But critics say the policy is rarely enforced, and that influencers often ignore it.

Last year, several senators called on the FTC to investigate Ryan’s World and accused the channel of running commercials for Carl’s Jr without disclosing that they were ads. The Council of Better Business Bureaus, an industry regulatory group, also found that Ryan’s World featured sponsored content from advertisers without proper disclosures. And a year ago the watchdog group Truth in Advertising filed a complaint with the FTC accusing the channel of deceiving children through “sponsored videos that often have the look and feel of organic content.”

In March, Senators Edward J Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut introduced legislation to protect children from potentially harmful content online. Among other things, the bill would limit what they called “manipulative” advertising, such as influencer marketing aimed at children, and prohibit websites from recommending content that involves nicotine, tobacco or alcohol to children and teenagers.

The FTC has long forbidden certain advertising tactics on children’s television, such as “host selling,” in which characters or hosts sell products in commercials that air during their programs. Critics say the agency could apply the same rules to children’s programs on the internet but so far has chosen not to.

“It’s beyond absurd that you couldn’t do this on Nickelodeon or ABC but you can do this on YouTube just because the laws were written before we had an internet,” said Josh Golin, the executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, an advocacy group.

“These videos are incredibly powerful,” he said. “Very busy parents may take a look at them and think that it’s just a cute kid talking enthusiastically about some product and not realize that it’s often part of a deliberate strategy to get their children excited about toys, or in the case of this study, unhealthy food.”

Amazon extends work from home option till June

Staff Reporter — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 13:11:23 +0000

Amazon.com Inc on Tuesday told employees whose work can be done from home that they can do so until June, extending the timeline on a return to office due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reports Reuters.

“Employees who work in a role that can effectively be done from home are welcome to do so until June 30, 2021”, an Amazon spokeswoman said in an emailed statement on Tuesday, adding the guidance is applicable globally.

Amazon had earlier allowed that option until January.

The development comes less than three weeks after the world’s largest online retailer said more than 19,000 of its U.S. frontline workers contracted the coronavirus this year.

Some staff, elected officials and unions in recent months have said that Amazon put employees’ health at risk by keeping warehouses open during the pandemic.

“We have invested significant funds and resources to keep those who choose to come to the office safe through physical distancing, deep cleaning, temperature checks, and by providing face coverings and hand sanitizer,” the Amazon spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

In May, Twitter Inc became the first major tech company to allow employees who can work remotely to do so indefinitely.

Other tech giants have extended the work from home option for their employees with Microsoft Corp saying earlier this month it will let most employees work remotely for up to half their weekly working hours.

Facebook Inc had said it would allow its employees to work from home till July next year, while Google had extended the remote working period for employees who do not need to be in the office till June.

Netflix falls short on new subscribers as pandemic boost fizzles

Staff Reporter — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 13:03:45 +0000

Netflix Inc on Tuesday posted its weakest subscriber gains in four years as streaming competition increased, pandemic restrictions eased and live sports returned to television, reports Reuters.

The company added 2.2 million paid subscribers globally during the quarter that ended Sept. 30, missing Wall Street’s target of 3.4 million and its own forecast.

Earnings per share also landed below analyst expectations at $1.74. The consensus forecast was $2.14, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Shares of Netflix, one of the biggest gainers this year as people stayed home amid the pandemic, dropped nearly 6% to $494 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

“Domestic subscribers were nearly flat, which highlights Netflix’s saturation in the U.S.,” said Ross Benes, analyst with eMarketer. With domestic additions slowing, revenue growth will likely come from price increases, he said.

The company reported a blockbuster quarter at the start of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, adding 15.8 million paying customers from January through March.

Netflix had warned investors that a sudden surge in new sign-ups would fade in the latter half of the year as COVID-19 restrictions eased. Netflix forecast in the fourth quarter it would bring in 6 million new subscribers around the globe, short of the 6.51 million that analysts expected.

The streaming video pioneer is trying to win new customers and fend off competition as viewers embrace online entertainment. During the third quarter, Netflix released “Emily in Paris”, “Enola Holmes” and “The Devil All the Time.”

Netflix acknowledged that competition was increasing as studios across Hollywood from Walt Disney Co to AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia have restructured to compete more directly for video subscribers.

“Competition for consumers’ time and engagement remains vibrant,” Netflix said in a letter to shareholders.

In recent months, major sports resumed play and nascent streaming services, including AT&T’s HBO Max and Comcast Corp’s Peacock, offered audiences new options.

Netflix said its results reflected the fact that it saw such a big surge in customers early in the year.

“We continue to view quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in paid net adds as not that meaningful in the context of the long run adoption of internet entertainment, which we believe is still early and should provide us with many years of strong future growth as we continue to improve our service,” the company said.

Netflix officials noted the company had pulled in more subscribers in the first nine months of 2020 than in all of 2019. It ended the third quarter with 195.2 million global streaming customers.

“Next time we get together, we should be over 200 million members, completing a year of 34 million (additions),” an annual record, Co-Chief Executive Reed Hastings said in an analyst interview.

The company also said it expected to complete shooting over 150 productions by the end of the year and that it would release more original programming in each quarter of 2021 compared with 2020.

Revenue rose 22.7% to $6.44 billion in the third quarter, edging past estimates of $6.38 billion.

Net income rose to $790 million, or $1.74 per share, in the quarter from $665.2 million, or $1.47 per share, a year earlier.

New Zealand votes to legalise euthanasia

Staff Reporter — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 12:16:57 +0000

New Zealand has voted to legalise euthanasia in what campaigners call “a victory for compassion and kindness”.

Preliminary referendum results showed 65.2% of voters supported the End of Life Choice Act 2019 coming into force as a new law.

It will allow terminally ill people, with less than six months to live, the opportunity to choose assisted dying if approved by two doctors.

For its opponents the law lacks adequate safeguards.

The results announced on Friday do not include an estimated 480,000 special votes, including overseas ballots, so the final outcome will not be confirmed until 6 November. But with such strong support, the decision is not expected to change.

The referendum is binding and the new law is expected to come into effect in November 2021.

It will see New Zealand join a small group of countries, including the Netherlands and Canada, which allow euthanasia.

The referendum on assisted dying was held alongside the general election earlier this month. In a separate non-binding referendum held at the same time, New Zealanders narrowly rejected a proposal to legalise recreational cannabis.

The preliminary results on the cannabis vote was 53.1% no and 46.1% yes – though this result may be subject to change when the special votes are counted.

What has the reaction been?

The “yes” verdict had been anticipated after polls suggested strong public support for the law, which was also backed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the opposition leader, Judith Collins.

But it was the result of an emotional, years-long campaign with strong views on both sides of the debate.

For Matt Vickers, who took on his late wife Lecretia Seales’ fight to legalise assisted dying, the result is “a victory for compassion and kindness”.

“I am grateful that terminally ill New Zealanders will have a say about the ends of their lives,” he told the BBC after the announcement.

Ms Seales was a lawyer who launched a legal challenge for the right to end her life with medical assistance after she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. But her case was unsuccessful and she died of her illness five years ago, aged 42.

Mr Vickers pressed on with her campaign and in 2016 his book, “Lecretia’s Choice: A Story of Love, Death and the Law”, was published.

The day before the result Mr Vickers told the BBC that ultimately his late wife’s goal was for terminally ill people “to have a choice”.

“She didn’t want to die. No one does. That’s a popular misconception. The problem was the choice to live had been taken away,” he said. “She wanted a choice on how death happens so if things got bad she could end the suffering at the time she wanted.”

What is the new law?

The End of Life Choice Act was passed by parliament in 2019 after years of heated parliamentary debate and a record number of public submissions.

But there was a proviso that it would first be put to a referendum, only coming into force if more than 50% of voters ticked “yes”.

There are a number of criteria a person must meet to ask for assisted dying. These include:

suffering from a terminal illness that’s likely to end their life within six months
showing a significant decline in physical capability
being able to make an informed decision about assisted dying
The legislation authorises a doctor or nurse to administer or prescribe a lethal dose of medication to be taken under their supervision if all the conditions are met.

The law also says a person cannot be eligible for assisted dying on the basis of advanced age, mental illness, or disability alone.

Which countries allow euthanasia?

The referendum result in New Zealand will be closely watched by advocates for and against assisted dying throughout the world.

By voting “yes” the country is joining a small group of nations and territories that have passed similar legislation.

Euthanasia is legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, while assisted suicide is permitted in Switzerland.

A number of states in the United States and the Australian state of Victoria have also made assisted dying legal.

Euthanasia is the act of deliberately ending a person’s life to relieve suffering, while assisted suicide is the act of deliberately assisting another person to kill themselves. In contrast to euthanasia and assisted suicide, assisted dying would apply to terminally ill people only.

Source: BBC

Bangladesh reports 1681 coronavirus cases in 24hrs

Staff Reporter — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 14:58:32 +0000

Bangladesh on Thursday recorded 1,681 more cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total to 4,04,760.

Of the total patients, 3,21,281 recovered, with 1,548 made recovery in the last 24 hours.

The daily count came from test of 14,268 samples in the past day. As of today, the number of total sample test stood at 23,10,589.

However, the country today reported 25 more deaths from the deadly virus, taking the tally to 5,886.

Bangladesh first reported its COVID-19 cases on March 8. Since then the country has been struggling to limit spread of the highly contagious virus.

Coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year, and then spread to newer countries and territories.

As of Thursday, the epidemic infected 44,843,380 people and killed 1,180,352 across the globe, according to Worldometer, a website which compiles number of new coronavirus cases and deaths from it.

However, total number of people who recovered from the coronavirus pandemic reached 32,772,479 across the world.

Turkey condemns French caricature featuring Erdogan

Staff Reporter — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 14:50:05 +0000

Top Turkish officials condemned a caricature scorning President Tayyip Erdogan in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, calling it a “disgusting effort” to “spread its cultural racism and hatred”.

Turkish anger at the caricature added fuel to a row between Turkey and France about cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, which flared after a teacher who had shown pupils the cartoons in a lesson on freedom of speech was beheaded in France this month.

“We strongly condemn the publication concerning our President in the French magazine which has no respect for any belief, sacredness and values,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote on Twitter, reports Reuters.

“They are just showing their own vulgarity and immorality. An attack on personal rights is not humour and freedom expression,” he said.

The cartoon on the cover of Charlie Hebdo, showed Erdogan sitting in a white T-shirt and underpants, holding a canned drink along with a woman wearing an Islamic hijab.

Turkish presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun said “Macron’s anti-Muslim agenda is bearing fruit!”.

“We condemn this most disgusting effort by this publication to spread its cultural racism and hatred,” Altun wrote on Twitter.

Erdogan sharply criticised Macron at the weekend, saying the French leader needed a mental health check, prompting France to recall its ambassador from Ankara. On Monday, Erdogan urged a boycott of French products. [nL8N2HH3MN]

The Prophet Mohammad cartoons, considered blasphemous by Muslims, have been displayed in France in solidarity and Macron has said he would redouble efforts to stop conservative Islamic beliefs subverting French values, angering many Muslims.

Three dead as woman beheaded in France

Staff Reporter — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 14:49:09 +0000

A knife-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist act at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, while a gunman was shot dead by police in a separate incident, reports Reuters.

Within hours of the Nice attack, police killed a man who had threatened passersby with a handgun in Montfavet, near the southern French city of Avignon. He was also shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest), according to radio station Europe 1.

In Saudi Arabia on Thursday, state television reported that a Saudi man had been arrested in the city of Jeddah after attacking and injuring a guard at the French consulate.

The French Embassy said the consulate was subject to an “attack by knife which targeted a guard”, adding the guard was taken to hospital and his life was not in danger.

Nice’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, who described the attack in his city as terrorism, said on Twitter it had happened in or near Notre Dame church.

Estrosi said the attacker had repeatedly shouted the phrase “Allahu Akbar”, even after he had been detained by police.

One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said, adding that a woman had tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the 19th century neo-Gothic building.

“The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive,” Estrosi told reporters.

“Enough is enough,” Estrosi said. “It’s time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory.”

Reuters journalists at the scene said police armed with automatic weapons had put up a security cordon around the church, which is on Nice’s Jean Medecin avenue, the city’s main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at the scene.

US Election: Biden holds nationwide advantage

Staff Reporter — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 14:43:15 +0000

With the race for the presidency approaching its end amid a raging pandemic, Democratic nominee Joe Biden maintains a substantial lead over President Donald Trump nationwide, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

Among likely voters, 54% back Biden and 42% Trump. Biden has held a lead in every CNN poll on the matchup since 2019, and he has held a statistically significant advantage in every high-quality national poll since the spring.

Although the election will ultimately be decided by the statewide results, which drive the Electoral College, Biden’s lead nationally is wider than any presidential candidate has held in more than two decades in the final days of the campaign.

The poll offers no indication that Trump’s four-year-long campaign for reelection has managed to garner him substantial new supporters since his narrow win in the 2016 election.

Barring major changes in the landscape in the final days of the race, Trump’s chances for closing the gap are deeply dependent on Election Day turnout. The poll finds that among those who have already voted (64% Biden to 34% Trump) or who plan to vote early but had not yet done so at the time they were interviewed (63% Biden to 33% Trump), Biden holds nearly two-thirds support. Trump leads 59% to 36%, though, among those who say they plan to vote on Election Day.

The demographic chasms that have defined the nation’s politics in the last four years remain in place. Women break sharply for Biden, 61% to 37%. Among men, it’s a near-even split, 48% for Trump and 47% for Biden. Voters of color support the Democrat by a nearly 50-point margin, 71% to 24%, while White voters split 50% for Trump to 48% for Biden.

Those near-even numbers among men and among White voters mask significant divides by education among Whites and by race across genders. Women of color (77% Biden to 21% Trump) and White women (54% Biden to 45% Trump) both break for Biden, as do men of color (64% Biden to 28% Trump). White men, however, favor Trump by 56% to 41%.

Those with college degrees favor Biden by 30 points, while those without degrees split evenly. Among White voters, the difference is larger. White voters with college degrees favor Biden 58% to 40%. Those White voters who do not hold a four-year degree are a mirror image, breaking 58% for Trump to 40% for Biden. Among those White voters with degrees, the gender gap is relatively small, but it is a yawning 38 points between White women without degrees (49% Biden to 49% Trump) and White men without degrees (68% Trump to 30% for Biden).

And seniors, who shifted in the Democrats’ direction in the 2018 election, are solidly in Biden’s corner in this poll. Overall, 55% of likely voters age 65 or older back the Democrat, 44% Trump. Biden also leads by a broad margin among voters under age 35 (68% Biden to 30% Trump), while voters between the ages of 35 and 64 are split about evenly between the two candidates (48% back each candidate).

The President’s approval rating in the poll stands at 42% approve to 55% disapprove among all adults. Among likely voters, it is a similar 42% approve to 56% disapprove. The numbers have scarcely budged in the last year, with the approval number ranging between 40% and 45% in all but one of the 12 polls CNN has conducted since October 2019. The numbers now are also hardly different from Trump’s first approval rating in CNN polling in 2017, when 44% approved and 53% disapproved.

Only about 4 in 10 Americans say things are going well in the country right now (39%). That figure has only dipped lower twice in reelection years since 1980: In 1992 (35% going well) and in 1980 (32% going well).

All of the data point to an election that is a referendum on an unpopular President, and a sizable share of both candidates’ supporters are making their decisions based on their feelings about Trump. Among Biden’s supporters, 48% say their vote is more against Trump than for Biden, while 48% say it is for Biden rather than against the President. Though that is still a large anti-Trump vote, that’s a shift in favor of a pro-Biden vote compared with polling earlier in the cycle. On the other side, almost 8 in 10 Trump supporters (79%) say that their votes are in support of the President rather than against Biden (17%).

Yet, the Trump campaign’s messaging in the final weeks of the campaign has been relentlessly negative about Biden. The poll suggests it is making little difference in perceptions of the former vice president. The Democratic nominee’s favorability rating in the poll remains largely positive: 55% of likely voters have a favorable view and 42% an unfavorable one, about the same as in early October. Trump’s numbers are as negative as they were earlier this month: 57% hold an unfavorable opinion of him while 41% have a favorable view.

In 2016, voters who held unfavorable views of both Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton broke sharply in Trump’s favor, according to exit polls. But that pool of voters is smaller with this year’s candidates, from 18% in the CNN exit poll in 2016 to 4% now. A majority have a favorable view of Biden, but not of Trump (51%), while only 37% have a favorable view of Trump but not of Biden.

Biden maintains advantages over Trump as the candidate more likely to unite the country (60% Biden to 34% Trump), who is more honest and trustworthy (54% to 37%), who cares about people like you (54% to 40%) and who will keep Americans safe from harm (52% to 45%). Likely voters are divided, though, over which candidate has the stamina and sharpness to be president (47% say Trump does, 46% Biden), a point of focus for Trump, who has hit Biden over his age throughout the campaign.

Likely voters are more likely to consider a candidate’s positions on the issues important to their vote than they are the candidate’s leadership and personal qualities. But the subset that is focused on personal qualities breaks sharply to Biden (71% support Biden, 27% Trump), while those who say issues are more critical favor Trump (54% Trump to 43% Biden).

Overall, though, Biden is more often seen as the candidate with a clear plan to solve the country’s problems, 54% say Biden, 41% Trump. And the former vice president holds an advantage over Trump as more trusted to handle racial inequality (60% Biden to 36% Trump), the coronavirus outbreak (57% to 39%), health care (57% to 41%), crime and safety (52% to 46%) and Supreme Court nominations (51% to 44%). Still, Trump has regained an edge on handling the economy (51% Trump to 46% Biden).

More generally, a majority of likely voters see Biden’s policy proposals as likely to move the country in the right direction (53%), while most say Trump’s proposals point in the wrong direction (53%).

And all of this plays out against the backdrop of a spiking coronavirus pandemic. Eight months after much of the country shut down to slow the spread of the virus, 50% of Americans say the worst of that outbreak is still yet to come. Only half say they are comfortable returning to their regular routines. Additionally, 40% say the economy is still in a downturn due to the virus, while just 29% say the economy is starting to recover.

On all of these measures of where the country stands in the fight against coronavirus, Biden voters and Trump voters hold completely opposite views. Among Biden backers, 77% say the worst of the pandemic is ahead, while 78% of Trump voters feel it is behind us. More than 8 in 10 Trump supporters (84%) say they are comfortable returning to their regular routines today, while 76% of Biden voters are not. And 64% of Biden supporters say the economy is still worsening, while 62% of Trump voters feel it is on the upswing.

The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS October 23 through 26 among a random national sample of 1,005 adults reached on landlines or cellphones by a live interviewer, including 886 likely voters. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points; it is plus or minus 3.8 points for results among likely voters.