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NEWSWEEK.COM BY FRED GUTERL BY PHILLIP MOELLER
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DECEMBER 25, 2020 _ VOL.175 _ NO.18
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Robert Herjavec
WRITERS
14 Debate
Health &orrespondent _ Kashmira Gander
Has Trump DaYidbBrennan, Danb&ancian, Brendanb&ole,
Changed the Future BenMaminbFearnow, -ennibFink, DaYidbH.bFreedman,
SteYe Friess, Aristosb*eorgiou, Ale[andrabHut]ler,
of Conservatism? Matthew Impelli, -acobb-arYis, SoobKim,
-asonbLemon, PhilbMartine], NoahbMiller,
18 Talking Points SerenbMorris, -asonbMurdock, TombO’&onnor,
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KhaledabRahman, Kerri Anne Ren]ulli,
Musk and More Meghan Roos, :instonbRoss, -ackbRoyston,
RobertobSaYiano SamuelbSpencer,
RamseybTouchberry, -amesb:alker,
Culture Sophiab:aterɿeld, Marina :atts,
-aniceb:illiams, Kellyb:ynne
40 Books
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WARSAW, POLAND BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA PORTLAND, OREGON
Mono-Mania Fighting for Rights Couch Protesters

2n December on the riYer- On December 10, demonstrators Two protesters, in black, sit within
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a string of objects/art installations legislators debate a bill to legali]e The protesters established a
that haYe popped-up throughout abortion. Argentine lawmakers began barricade around the 5ed +ouse.
(urope and the 8nited StatesŜ discussions on a new bill to legali]e According to the Associated
including a golden one in Colum- abortion, reopening a debate that Press, the ţgentriɿcation protest...
bia and a hollow one in (l Paso, has bitterly diYided the traditionally blockaded seYeral city blocksŤ
Texas. Do they come in peace? Catholic South American nation. and continued into Thursday.
Ơ WOJTEK RADWANSKI Ơ EMILIANO LASALVIA Ơ NATHAN HOWARD
NEWSWEEK.COM 9
THE LONG HAUL
Herjavec: “Have a long-
term vision, but expect
short-term performance.
There is no excuse,
especially during COVID
or even post-COVID, for
lack of performance.”

Has Trump altered the course
of U.S. conservatism? » P.14
B US IN E S S
Advice
from a Shark
Shark Tank star Robert Herjavec on running—and
building—a business in the age of COVID
the covid-19 pandemic has obviously hit a I know even for us, we didn’t know what was
lot of businesses hard. But arguably no one going to happen. We didn’t know if our custom-
more so than the owners of small businesses. To get ers were going to go away, how things were going
some thoughts—and some help—I turned to Robert to be affected. So I actually had my CFO make a
Herjavec, author, entrepreneur and one of the stars black swan forecast, which was no new customers,
of ABC’s Shark Tank, which is now in its 12th season. none of our existing customers paying us, how long
The recent interview with Herjavec is part of could we survive? And once I had that, I was able to
Better, Newsweek’s series on LinkedIn Live (Thurs- come back from the edge.
days, 9 a.m. ET/noon PT), where I talk with authors, But I think there’s no time to have a false sense
business leaders and other thinkers to help us learn of optimism. I mean, it also doesn’t mean be super
WALT D I SN E < T E L E9 I SI O N 9 I A G E T T < TOP R I GH T: K L AUS 9 E D FE LTʔG E T T <
how to become a little bit better at what we do. And negative, just be realistic.”
there’s no one better than Herjavec, founder and
CEO of Herjavec Group, a global cybersecurity firm, Talk Your Employees Off the Ledge
and writer of You Don’t Have to Be a Shark, to help “my employees were all scared, like everybody else.
us get through these troubled times—and beyond. And they all called. We had a big hands-on call with
Here are some insights and advice from Herjavec everybody and they said, ‘What should we do first?’
about how small business owners can survive the The first piece of advice I gave our whole company
pandemic (excerpts have been edited for clarity): was, I want you to get off this call, I want you to pick
up the phone and call a customer, because those peo-
Have a Clear Sense of Reality ple are scared. I know you’re scared, but those people
“when covid first hit, there was a are scared. Just reach out.
lot of, ‘Oh, we’re going to get through Even though we’re all virtual these
this. Don’t lay anybody off. Don’t cut BY
days, I think that human contact is
costs,’ blah, blah, blah. I think that’s actually at a premium. I think if we’ve
dangerous. You’ve got to assess your DORIE CLARK learned anything during COVID, it
personal situation in your business. @dorieclark is that we are highly interconnected
Photog raph b y P A T R I C K E C C L E S I N E NEWSWEEK.COM 11

Periscope BUSINESS
social creatures, and you’ve got to restaurant in California and you’ve at, like, 5:00, I’m like, ‘Were you not
continue to do that.” been in business for five years and you home? Where were you? You have
have no sales, hallelujah, keep going if nowhere to go. Answer my email.’ I
Keep Your Eye on the you’re passionate about it. But I think think that changes.
Short and Long Term you’ve got to measure it against reality. But the big change is the digital
“you’ve got to have a long-term For me, every business I started, I acceleration. In the past, it was like,
vision and you have to try to build always kind of had this timeframe: ‘We have a retail strategy and we have
something sustainable for the long- How long can I go until it really begins a digital strategy.’ There is no retail
term. Most people though, when I tell to impact my family and becomes dan- strategy. The retail strategy is simply
them that, don’t understand. gerous? Because I love my business, there to support your digital strategy,
What they think that means is use but I love my family more.” as opposed to vice versa. So the accel-
the long-term as an excuse for short- eration of digital, and then obviously
term failure. And I’m like, no, no, no, Understand the New Normal everything that goes around that,
no, no, no, no, no, no. Just because some things will go back to as remote access, cybersecurity, all those
you have a long-term vision doesn’t they’ve always been, but some things, kind of things.”
excuse you from having a monthly have changed forever.
target and a quarterly target and an The first thing that changed forever Always Invest in
annual target. So have a long-term is business travel. The idea of going the Entrepreneur
vision, but expect short-term perfor- to see a customer I’ve never met to on shark tank, “the average pitch
mance. There is no excuse, especially pitch them on me or my product for is over an hour and it gets edited
during COVID or even post-COVID, the first time is gone. This concept of, into seven minutes that people see at
for lack of performance. well, hey, I happen to be in Chicago. home. Here’s the funny thing: 50 per-
When I’m buying a business and I Let me pop in and tell you about our cent of the time we’ve made up our
sit down with the owner, one of the company. That’s gone. Think about the mind in the first couple of minutes.
questions I ask is, ‘Tell me about your time waste for me to go and pitch you This is the thing that people who
goals.’ And they usually go into these my business when I could have done haven’t started a business don’t real-
really long-term goals. And then I it over Zoom. So that’s gone. ize. They spend years trying to find
pivot and I say, ‘Well, tell me your The idea of going out to take an and perfect the perfect product, but
target for next year.’ What I want to existing customer for dinner or in business it’s about execution. What
hear is a very specific number with lunch to build those relationships, I you start doing often in business isn’t
very specific tangible targets. What I think that continues because we’re what you end up doing. Your busi-
don’t want to hear is, ‘Well, we’ll just social beings and we want to con- ness changes. There’s ebb, there’s flow,
do the best we can. You know what, tinue to do that. and you want an entrepreneur that
we’ll do the best we can.’ And in my The speed of business has acceler- can adapt and pivot and bring on a
mind, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, ix-nay. That ated forever. Things move fast. People great team to support them.
person is not a realist.’ are not patient. You know why we’re After we learn about the business,
not patient? Because we’re all in front it’s knowing your numbers. Numbers
Know When to Give Up of a computer all day. If I email some- are the language of business. If you
“when you run out of money, [it may body at four o’clock, I expect them to can’t speak business, you’re going to
be time to close the business.] It really answer me by 4:01. If they answer me really struggle. [On Shark Tank, we’ll
depends on your personal situation. ask], ‘What are your cost of goods?
The reality of life is you don’t have What’s your margin on that product?’
unlimited time. Performance is not
measured over unlimited amounts “I always kind of had And people are like, ‘Oh, I don’t know
that, but I’m going to hire somebody
of time. A football game has quarters. this timeframe: to help me with that.’ And we’re like,
If you have unlimited funds and How long can I go ‘Yeah, stay away from that person
your parents are super wealthy and
they’re going to keep writing checks until it really begins with a 10-foot pole.’
You can’t outsource responsibility
and you want to be the best sushi to impact my family?” when you’re starting out. Yes, you can

GIVING UP “For me, says Herjavec,
“I always kind of had this timeframe. How
long can I go until it really begins to impact
my family and becomes dangerous?”
woke up every day, I’m like, “If I don’t

sell something today, I can’t pay my
mortgage.” So that was a very clear
cause and effect. But having said that,
that only takes you so far. If you start
a business to make a buck, you’ll only
make a few bucks. If you start a busi-
ness to make a buck, but you find your
greatness and your purpose, you’ll
make far more bucks along the way.
BETTER The funny thing is when COVID
A Li nkedIn Live se started, I was so afraid. All that uncer-
ries
with Dorie Clar
k
tainty. I went right back to, if I don’t
Thursdays at 12 wake up today, people are going to
p.m. ET
at newsweek.c know I’m scared. They’re going to get
om/
linkedinlive scared and our business could fail. And
I think failure is a really big motivator.”
Make Time for Reʀection

hire a CFO when you get really big, but highly motivated, highly driven cul- “one of the great things about
when you’re starting out, man, you’ve ture. So if you don’t want to wake up being an entrepreneur is not that you
got to know that, to the last dollar.” every day and do a little bit better work less. That’s another thing all my
than the day before, and if our growth friends who’ve never started a busi-
You Don’t Have to doesn’t motivate you, you’re probably ness always say, ‘Oh, I wish I could
Like Who You Hire not going to fit with us because our start my own business so I could
“one of my old bosses gave me this 350 people are deeply passionate work on my own schedule.” And I’m
horrible piece of advice. He said, about cybersecurity. We look for the like, ‘That’s such crap.’ You work at
‘Never hire somebody you wouldn’t cultural fit above everything.” your customer’s schedule.
want to sit next to on an interconti- But one of the things that people
nental flight.’ For some reason, that Desperation Is a Powerful don’t do enough is spend the time to
was in my head. So I’d be interviewing Motivator—At First think. Business is a contact sport, and
somebody and I’d say, ‘Do I like that “you know what drove me when i when the game starts, it’s on. So what
person? Can I hang out with them?’ started my business? Paying my I’ve had to do is find those moments
Now, I’ve realized it doesn’t matter. mortgage, that’s what drove me. And of stillness in my day in order to be
A team is not a group of people that sometimes these entrepreneurs come able to do that. And for me, it’s waking
necessarily like each other. A high in and they say, ‘I started my business. up early. So I wake up every day at 4:30
performing team is a group of people I had this real vision and we were a.m. The first half hour is a cup of cof-
that respect each other. I don’t need going to do this and I was deeply pas- fee and just thinking. I have a pad of
to like you. We don’t need to go out sionate about it,’ and I’m sure there paper in front of me and for that first
for dinner. I don’t need to meet your are people like that, but I’ve got to tell half hour, I just write down the things
NOA M G A L A I ʔG ET T <
family. I don’t need to meet your dog. you, most people that start a business, I need to accomplish today. Because
I have to respect you. it’s fear and need. I’ve learned that once the day begins
So the first thing I look for is, do My need was somebody fired me. I and the fight starts, I’m not thinking
you fit in our culture? In our com- couldn’t get a job in time to make my about what I’m going to accomplish.
pany, we’re a highly competitive, next mortgage payment. So when I I’m just reacting.”
NEWSWEEK.COM 13
Periscope
NATIONALISM AND
P OPULISM ARE THE
G OP’S FUTURE
by R.R. Reno
it’s long past time for american super-wealthy cities on the coasts.
conservatism to change course. We Supply chains and key industries
face a crisis of solidarity. Our politi- need to be brought back to America,
cal programs need to re-tie strands of not merely to ensure our security, but
society that have come undone. also to provide productive work for a
For conservatives, that means wide range of Americans.
adopting a nationalist-populist Super-sized firms must be pre-
platform. Nationalism does not vented from swallowing up Main
mean nationalization. It is not an Street retail and service firms.
assault on our free market tradi- Capital needs to be invested in
tion. Instead, nationalism requires manufacturing and other indus-
rebalancing policy priorities away tries in order to increase worker
from greater globalization and productivity, which is necessary for
toward the restoration of an inte- increased wages.
gral domestic economy. Government funding needs to
Economic growth should be be directed away from higher edu-
more widely spread around the cation, which subsidizes the top
GETTY
country, rather than clustered in third of society, and moved toward
14 NEWSWEEK.COM Photog raph by J O H N L U N D

vocational education, which helps
ordinary Americans get good jobs.
Trade and tax policy need to be
recalibrated to align with these goals.
It is dishonest to say that doing so
violates “free market principles.” Our
current globalized economy depends
upon key policy decisions, including
the establishment of transnational
institutions such as the World Trade
Organization. Those decisions were
political, and rightly so.
But times have changed. When
Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980,
the American people had suffered a
decade of economic stagnation. Tax
cuts and de-regulation unleashed
the creative energies of the Baby
Boomer generation. Unlike earlier
post-war booms, the rising tide
of GDP since the 1990s has lifted
fewer and fewer boats. Wages have
stagnated for the working class,

while those at the top have seen
extraordinary gains in wealth.
Our economy is great for those in
the upper 20 percent and increas-
ingly lousy for the rest. After the
2008 financial crisis, investors ended
up even richer. The same trend is
unfolding during the COVID-19 crisis.
I don’t care whether one explains
the stagnation of working class wages
and accelerating wealth of the top
end as an “inevitable” consequence
of “capitalism,” or ascribes it to
misguided “government meddling”
in “free markets.” The growing gap
between winners and losers has
become the preeminent problem
NEWSWEEK.COM 15
Periscope THE DEBATE
afflicting our country. An American

conservative with nationalist prior-
ities is a populist because he insists A DEFENSE OF
on standing up for the losers, not
kowtowing to the winners.
ZOMBIE CONSERVATISM
No political party deserves to gov-
by Charles C.W. Cooke
ern in the 2020s unless it has a plan
for restoring middle class prosperity
to the median-skilled, median-edu-
cated American. insofar as it represents anything presidency and recast the movement
The Left favors redistribution. more than a post hoc rationaliza- in his image. These changes are likely
The Republican Party needs to take a tion for President Donald Trump’s to be permanent.
more appealing tack—that of provid- caprice, the postmortem for the It is certainly true that the Repub-
ing productive work and high wages. pre-2015 Republican Party reads as lican Party sometimes falls back on
Americans wish to provide for them- follows. By the 1980s, a set of serious gauzy nostalgia. It is true, too, that
selves. But they will vote for the gov- problems had arrived in the United there seems to be no problem with
ernment dole if the Republican Party States. Thankfully, President Ronald which the United States can be con-
gives them no alternative. Reagan and his fellow travelers had fronted that does not lead to promi-
Nationalism also requires restor- good answers to these problems and, nent figures within the GOP calling
ing clarity to foreign policy: It needs by and large, they managed to solve for a tax cut. But I see no evidence
to serve American interests. The them. But, having done so, the Repub- that these habits are on their way out,
United States led the way in con- lican Party and its friends within the or that Donald Trump’s election did
structing the global system after the institutionalized conservative move- anything much to limit them.
end of the Cold War. For too long, ment failed to move on. Instead, It would be bizarre to point to Don-
our global strategy has been justified they decided that the platform of ald Trump as evidence that the GOP
as necessary in order to defend the 1980 was applicable to all places and has changed meaningfully on policy,
“rules-based international order.” all times. And so, in 2015, the party given that the standout achievements
Yes, America has an interest in rebelled and nominated a politician of his presidency—the ones to which
that order. But the “rules-based who saw things differently. That pol- Trump and his defenders themselves
international order” is not the same itician, Donald Trump, managed to point with pride—are a massive tax
as America’s interests. A conserva- win the nomination, ascend to the cut inspired by former House Speaker
tive with nationalist inclinations
is a populist because he resists the
efforts of the richest Americans
to define the nation’s interests in
terms of their own interests.
Nationalism does not mean xeno-
phobia. It is neither insular nor
aggressive. Instead, nationalism
aims to unify the country around
a shared American identity. If the
Republican Party wishes to have any
right to govern our country, it must
ally itself with patriotic ardor and
cultural renewal.
Ơ R.R. Reno is editor of First Things.

The views expressed in this article are
the writer’s own.
16 NEWSWEEK.COM
Paul Ryan (R-WI); the stocking of have controlled it for all but six years.
the federal judiciary with originalist Since they took the Senate in the same
judges, selected with the counsel of the year, they have controlled it for all
Federalist Society; an attempt to repeal but nine. And, since 2006, 45 states
Obamacare that was ultimately killed have elected a Republican governor
not by the president, but by the late to at least one term. Not bad for an
Senator John McCain (R-AZ); an all-of- out-of-touch party that nobody likes!
the-above pro-life agenda; widespread, Look at the two most impressive and
executive-led regulatory relief; the sustained models of “red state” gover-
moving of the Israeli embassy from nance in the nation—Texas and Flor-
WHAT WOULD THE GIPPER SAY?
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; the tearing up Trump had none of Ronald Reagan’s ida—and you will see that they are
of the Iran nuclear deal; and a crimi- personal charm, not to mention his the result of the same policy priori-
conservative or anti-communist
nal justice reform bill that, while laud- ties that have animated Republicans
bona ɿdes. But it’s not clear how
able, flew directly in the face of almost muchŜif at allŜTrump has rewritten for decades: low taxes; responsible
everything Trump has ever said on the the Republican political playbook. spending; suspicion of entitlements
matter and was opposed by almost and unfunded liabilities; a healthy
everybody who is currently touting a Republican Party has won the “pop- business environment; opposition
new approach to conservatism. ular vote” in a presidential election to gun control; support for charter
Certainly, the Republicans under only once—and that, even when it schools; a preference for original-
Trump failed to take federal spend- did win, in 2004, it did so narrowly. ist and textualist judges; disdain for
ing seriously, or to do anything of But it is not at all clear that this is the socialism; and the assimilation rather
consequence to deal with our out- only, or even the best, way of judging than rejection of legal immigrants.
of-control entitlement spending. But the popularity of the fusionist cause. Even the “Tea Party” movement, a
how, exactly, did that differ from The most obvious problem, of course, populist uprising of 2009 and 2010,
last time they controlled Washing- is that this argument focuses on the was traditional in nature. In tone, the
ton? And how did it differ from the presidency at the expense of every- Tea Party movement was anti-elite,
Reagan administration? This is what thing else, and, in so doing, misses the yes. But what did its adherents want?
Republicans do: They talk a great deal remarkable success that traditional And how did it differ from what, say,
about the debt when a Democrat is in Republicans have had at literally every the Chamber of Commerce wanted?
the White House, and they ignore it other level—success, it must be said, The truth is that the fusionist proj-
when their own guy is president. The that has been spearheaded by a cast of ect is alive and well, and it will likely
one area in which President Trump “generic Republican” candidates who remain so for the foreseeable future.
F RO M L E FT: I SA A& BR E K K EN ʔG E T T Y U NI 9ERSAL HISTORY AR& H I 9 E ʔG E T T Y
differed from most other Republicans have talked incessantly about exactly The center of gravity within the
was in the area of trade. But, even the sort of things that are supposedly Republican coalition will shift around,
there, Trump’s actions were haphaz- no longer of interest to the masses. as different issues drive attention and
ard, half-hearted and, because they Since they took the House of Rep- different political figures come and go.
were not put before Congress, unable resentatives in 1994, Republicans But, as a general matter, there has
to survive contact with the next presi- been no great overhaul of American
dent who happens to disagree. conservatism with which we must
What is worth engaging with is contend. That a figure as mercurial
the attendant charge that, irrespec- “There seems to be no as Donald Trump was pushed so
tive of its merits, the traditional problem with which the quickly into the longstanding policy
conservative offering has ceased to
reflect the concerns of a majority— United States can be mold should provide as good a piece
of evidence for this as we are likely
and, in a democracy, that itself mat- confronted that does to come by in this life or the next.
ters. Here, the reformers do have a not lead to prominent
point, although it is not an especially
strong one, all things considered. It ˽gures within the GOP Ơ Charles C.W. Cooke is editor of Na-
tional Review Online. The views expressed
is true, of course, that since 1988 the calling for a tax cut.” in this article are the writer’s own.
NEWSWEEK.COM 17
Periscope
N EW SM A KE RS
Talking Points
“Hopefully it’ll “I SUSPECT, AT SOME
help other people POINT IN TIME, HE WILL
STEP DOWN AND ALLOW
come along and THE VICE PRESIDENT
do as I did.” TO PARDON HIM.”
—New York Attorney
General Letitia -ames
“If we have too
—MARGARET KEENAN, THE FIRST
PERSON TO GET THE PFIZER-
BIONTECH VACCINE OUTSIDE
many contacts
OF A CLINICAL TRIAL
now before
Christmas, and
that ends up
“I THINK WE’LL SEE
making it the
FROM LEFT: BRIT TA PEDERSENʔA FPʔG E T T Y M A -A H I TI -ʔG E T T Y M I& HAEL BRO &H ST E I Nʔ SO PA I M AG ES ʔ LIGHTRO & K ETʔG E T T Y
LETITIA JAMES
S OM E R E D U C T I O N I N
T H E I N F LU E N C E O F
last Christmas
with the
S I L I C O N VA L L EY.”
—elon musk on his
grandparents,
move to texa s
“The Thanksgiving
then we will surge has arrived.”
have failed.” —mississippi state he alth
officer dr . thoma s d obbs
—ǤǢǮǪǞǫ ǠǥǞǫǠǢǩǩǬǮ
ǞǫǤǢǩ Ǟ ǪǢǮǨǢǩ
ELON MUSK
“We have kids all over the country “EVEN TRUMP APPOINTEES
that need to save themselves & REPUBLICANS SAW
and don’t know how. If I speak THIS FOR WHAT IT
out, then maybe someone else WAS: A CHARADE.”
with something wrong will have
the courage to speak out, too.” —Democratic Representative
Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania
—haley hodson, retired volleyball on the effort to block
star, on her concussion lawsuit
against stanford and the ncaa the certification
of election results

ANGELA MERKEL
NEVER PEDESTRIAN
harrysoflondon.com
A
QUA N T U M
LEAP

THE U.S. AND CHINA
ARE SPENDING BILLIONS TO
DEVELOP POWERFUL
NEW TECHNOLOGY THAT COULD
TRANSFORM COMPUTING—
AND THE WORLD.
THE BIG QUESTION:
WHO WILL GET THERE FIRST?
by
FR ED GU TER L
BE RYA 1 1 3 ʔG E T T Y
NEWSWEEK.COM 21
T E CH NO L OG Y
ack in 1994, when quantum computers perform calculations that are not useful in any prac-
B
existed only as so much chalk on a tical sense. Nobody is ready to put Shor’s algorithm
blackboard, mathematician Peter Shor into practice. But tens of billions of dollars are be-
invented what may soon prove to be ing invested in a broad-scale effort to make it pos-
their killer app. sible. Dozens of engineering teams, from big com-
Shor trained his efforts on a calculation called panies like Google, IBM and Amazon to universities
“factoring,” which ordinarily nobody but a mathe- and startups, are racing to build a full-scale working
matician would care about, except it just happens quantum computer. China is reportedly spending
to be an Achilles heel of the internet. If someone $10 billion on the effort, building a center devoted
were to invent a computer that could perform this to quantum computing and artificial intelligence;
operation quickly, messages now hidden from the U.S. government has committed $1 billion; and
hackers, terrorists, military adversaries, govern- corporate and military budgets likely hold many
ments and competitors would be as easy to read as millions more—for instance, Google and IBM are
a Stephen King novel. each thought to have spent in excess of $100 million.
Shor, of course, didn’t have such a computer. These groups are in pursuit not merely of faster
He was writing an algorithm, or program, for a computers but a fundamentally different approach
hypothetical machine that might one day exploit to computing, which would open up new vistas in
the weird properties of atoms and subatomic technology and society. Quantum computers could
& LO & K W I S E F R O M B OT TO M L E F T: D I & KS O N L E E ʔ S O U T H & H I N A M O R N I N G P O STʔG E T T Y R O S A L E E = A M M U TOʔ M I T H A N N A H B E N E TʔG O O G L E

particles, as described by the theory of quantum be as transformational as the microchip, which
mechanics, to perform calculations that conven- ushered in the internet age and all the attendant
tional computers could only solve in years—may- effects on the economy and politics. For instance,
be hundreds of years, or millions, or more time
than the universe is expected to last. Too long, at
any rate, to be useful in cracking open an email.
Shor’s algorithm was a theoretical exercise. “The
question of whether using quantum mechanics
in a computer allows one to obtain more compu-
tational power,” he wrote in his 1994 paper, “has
not yet been satisfactorily answered.”
The answers are now coming in.
Last year a team from Google achieved what it
called “quantum supremacy” when its quantum
computer performed a calculation faster than a
conventional computer could. “Our machine per-
formed the target computation in 200 seconds, and
from measurements in our experiment we deter-
mined that it would take the world’s fastest super-
computer 10,000 years to produce a similar output,”
wrote Google’s John Martinis and Sergio Boixo in a
blog post. And earlier this month, a team under the
direction of Pan Jianwei at the University of Science
and Technology in China (USTC), in the journal Sci-
ence, said its quantum computer succeeded in per-
forming a calculation 100 trillion times faster than
a conventional computer could—surpassing Goo-
gle’s achievement by a factor of 10 billion, according
to the Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.
These two announcements were mere demon-
strations, using prototype machines in the lab to
22 NEWSWEEK.COM
“THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS TAKEN ITS FOOT OFF OF
THE GAS PEDAL IN TERMS OF INNOVATION. WHILE WE’RE DOING SO,
OTHER NATIONS LIKE CHINA CAUGHT UP.”
the vast computational possibilities of quantum The long-term worry is that the U.S. loses its tech-
technology would turbo-charge artificial intelli- nological edge to China. While China embraces am-
gence in ways that are difficult to fathom. It’s no bitious technology programs, the U.S. has in recent
accident that China’s new technology center will years retreated into a reactive mode, with diminish-
QUANTUM THEORY combine the two fields. ing budgets for science. Back in the 1960s, the federal
Mathematician Peter Shor China’s ambition in quantum technology has government accounted for about two-thirds of R&D
wrote an algorithm that a
quantum computer could caused something of a Sputnik moment in the U.S., spending in the U.S., the rest coming mainly from
use to break the encryption nearly as ominous as the Russian satellite in 1957 the private sector. But its role has diminished, says
codes now widely found on that kicked off the race to the moon. It wasn’t long Paul Scharre, director of technology and national
the internet. Organizations
in the U.S., China and ago that Chinese engineers were perceived as copy- security at the Center for a New American Security
elsewhere are now testing cats. That is no longer the case. China launched a (CNAS) and author of Army of None: Autonomous
the machines. Top to bottom: satellite in 2016 that demonstrated the use of quan- Weapons and the Future of War. “Basically the feder-
A quantum computer in
Google’s Santa Barbara tum cryptography—not computing per se, but in- al government has taken its foot off of the gas pedal
lab; Shor; Pan Jianwei. volving the same kinds of advanced technology. in terms of innovation in the U.S.,” he says. “While
DECE M BER 25, 2020 NEWSWEEK.COM 23

we’re doing so, other nations like China caught up.”
What tends to focus the mind are the security
implications in the near term. When quantum
computers go live, what will happen to all our se-
FROM TOP: LU&IEN AIGNERʔTHREE LIONSʔHULTON AR&HI9EʔGET TY &IPHOTOSʔGET TY &OURTESY OF -OHN MARTINIS
crets? Will we wake up one day and find that China
has been reading our mail? Shor’s algorithm, once
a fanciful conjecture, is beginning to look like a
threat. The question is, is the threat imminent?
The Meaning of “Quantum Supremacy”

john martinis got involved in quantum computers
back in the 1980s, “before the word ‘qubit’ was even
invented,” he says.
A qubit is the fundamental unit of information
in a quantum computer—the analogue to a “bit” in
conventional computers, but with some important
differences. A bit can be either a zero or a one; a
qubit can be both numbers at once, and everything
in between—a property known as superposition. A
particles but also allow them to interact with others
bit exists as a tiny pocket of electrical charge in a sil-
in such a way that the computer can perform a use- John Martinis started
making qubits in the
icon chip, which classical computers shuffle around
ful calculation? In other words, how do you harness 1980s. At Google, he
like checkers to perform mathematical operations;
the qualities of superposition and entanglement to developed Sycamore, the
a qubit is a single atom or subatomic particle, which
perform a task, such as factoring a large number for quantum computer used in
last year’s demonstration.
stores information in a peculiar statistical fashion
the purpose of reading an encrypted message? “You Top to bottom: Albert
according to laws of quantum mechanics that are
have to isolate qubits to keep them coherent,” he Einstein; a rendering
wholly beyond our experience in the macroscopic
says, “but if you isolate them super well, they can’t of qubits and quantum
superposition; Martinis.
world. A bit is a discrete unit of information; a qubit
talk to other qubits to do computation.”
is part of a collective, “entangled” with other qubits
Martinis spent years trying to strike this balance,
by a phenomenon that Albert Einstein described as
experimenting with different materials and setups,
“spooky action at a distance.” then turned to the task of getting qubits to work
together in a computer. Eventually he found his
In his early work at the University of California at
way to Google, where he began work on what be-
Santa Barbara, Martinis began by asking basic ques-
tions about how to get information out of things
came Sycamore, the quantum computer used in last
as small as atoms and photons, or particles of light.
year’s demonstration. Sycamore’s 54 qubits are kept
But dealing with single atoms and particles pushes
in a chamber at Google’s lab in Goleta, California
engineering to extreme levels of precision, as Mar-
cooled to within one degree of absolute zero, the
tinis found early on. How do you protect these tiny
lowest temperature possible—more than 500 de-
grees Fahrenheit below zero. The ma-
chine is “programmed” by beaming
faint microwaves into the chamber,
“CURRENT INTERNET SECURITY which stimulate the qubits.
MEASURES AND THE CRYPTOGRAPHY A big issue that Martinis and every
BEHIND THEM WILL NOT WITHSTAND other quantum engineer struggles
with is how to keep the qubits intact
THE NEW COMPUTATIONAL long enough to perform a calculation.
CAPABILITIES THAT QUANTUM Superposition—the ability of qubits
COMPUTERS WILL BRING.” to be both a zero and a one at the
same time—is an essential part of the
machine’s operation. The slightest
24 NEWSWEEK.COM
T E C HNO L OG Y
disturbance, however, can cause a qubit to collapse read the message, you know your computer works.
into a one or a zero, bringing down the whole deli- But Shor’s algorithm was too difficult for the baby
cate entangled constellation of qubits with it. Even quantum computers of the day to handle.
cooled at extreme temperatures, the qubits have Back in 2011, Aaronson and his graduate students
an annoying tendency to dissipate so quickly that came up with the idea of “boson sampling,” which
many calculations result in errors. Making a quan- involves predicting how particles like photons will
tum computer is difficult enough; making one that behave when they bounce around obstacles. It’s a
is not riddled with errors has so far proved beyond tough problem for classical computers because it
the reach of the engineers. involves lots of calculations about quantum me-
“You would like qubits to maintain their superpo- chanics; but since quantum computers live in that
sition of a zero and a one and maintain entangled realm, the calculation should be a doddle. Aaronson
states even while you’re doing operations on them,” not only came up with the experiment but also, cru-
says Scott Aaronson, a computer science professor cially, with a way of checking the results statistically
without having to solve the problems with a classi-
cal computer—which, of course, by the definition of
“quantum supremacy,” should be impossible.
Both Google and USTC wound up adapting Aar-
onson’s approach to their specific machines. Pan
Jianwei and his colleagues at USTC, in fact, built Ji-
uzhang literally as a machine for boson sampling—
using photons, a type of boson, as qubits. They sent
photons, in the form of laser beams, pinging and
ponging through a course of mirrors and other
obstacles. The setup wasn’t meant to be a gener-
al-purpose computer that could be programmed
to perform different tasks but to do one thing
only: demonstrate that a machine made of pho-
tons could perform a calculation of how photons
behave when they move through an obstacle course.
The USTC experiment accomplished more than
this tautological description captures, of course. It
demonstrated that photons could be controlled
and used to produce a computational result. Still,
at the University of Texas at Austin who collabo- engineers have critiqued Jiuzhang on the grounds
rates with Google and other quantum engineers. that it was built for such a narrow purpose. They’ve
“The problem is they’re inherently very fragile. As also tried to show that a classical computer could
soon as information leaks into the environment achieve the same result in a reasonable amount of
about whether a qubit is a zero or a one, the whole time, a task known in vernacular as “spoofing.”
thing collapses. This ‘noisiness’ is the fundamental “The situation is evolving rapidly, from day to
problem in building a quantum computer. This is day, as people try to knock down the new result by
what makes it hard.” showing how to spoof the outputs classically,” said
Coming up with a way to test Google’s and Aaronson in an email. “We don’t know yet how well
USTC’s machines was a difficult problem in itself. they’re going to succeed. Debates about whether, and
To do so required overcoming a conundrum: If you in what sense, the USTC group achieved quantum su-
ask your quantum computer to solve a problem premacy are likely to continue for quite some time.”
that no conventional computer can accomplish in Google’s Sycamore test also made big headlines,
a reasonable amount of time, how do you check the and it also caught some flak in technical circles. IBM
results? The simplest way would be to use Shor’s engineers, who are working on their own quantum
algorithm on an encrypted message; if you can computer, insisted that it’s possible in theory to
NEWSWEEK.COM 25
“WE SHOULD BE INVESTING A LOT IN BASIC RESEARCH,
TRYING TO FUND NEW PROGRAMS AND BUILD UP THE PIPELINE OF TALENT.”
M I S H A F R I E D M A N ʔG E T T Y

T E C HNO L OG Y
spoof Sycamore with a supercomputer, provided it

were equipped with tremendous amounts of mem-
ory. “They said, ‘it only took us two seconds, but it
would take a crippled supercomputer 10,000 years’,”
said Robert Sutor, a mathematician and vice pres-
ident at IBM Research. “Why are you crippling it?
Why would you remove part of its functionality and
then say how wonderful you are?”
Many engineers look at the quantum supremacy
demonstration more as milestones than a signif-
icant developments in their own right. Both Syc-
amore and Jiuzhang were impressive accomplish-
ments; both are a long way from doing anything
remotely useful, claims of “supremacy” to the con-
trary. “I don’t think that quantum supremacy is
completely a done deal,” says Aaronson. “I would
like to see quantum supremacy for some problem
where we can actually easily recognize the answer.”
To get a quantum computer capable of doing in-
teresting things, engineers will need to figure out
how to correct the errors and scale the machines
up to thousands of qubits, and perhaps millions.
The first practical applications are likely to be in
simulating things that involve quantum mechanics,
like chemistry, which could have an impact in drug
development.
“Shor’s algorithm, breaking cryptographic codes,
is one of those things that will happen in the evo-
lution of quantum computers,” says Aaronson. “But
by the time you can do that, you can pretty much
do any quantum computation. It would surprise
me a lot if it was in the next decade.”
So Why Worry?
after the sycamore demonstration in 2019,
Martinis and Google had a parting of ways. “It was
time for me to leave,” he says. In the fall, Martinis
joined Michelle Simmons, an old acquaintance
who had formed Silicon Quantum Computing, a
start-up in Sydney, Australia. Simmons’ company
is making qubits out of phosphorous and silicon,
WORK IN PROGRESS which tend to be more stable than other materials,
Quantum computers are she says, and that means they may not require so
still a long way from doing much error-correcting. They also work at higher
anything remotely useful. “I
don’t think that quantum temperatures, without the cryogenic equipment
supremacy is completely a done IBM and Google’s machines require.
deal,” says Scott Aaronson. “Working at Google was great because we had the
Left: Dario Gil, Director of IBM
Research, stands in front of resources to solve tough problems,” says Martinis.
IBM’s quantum computer. “On the other hand, what’s great right now is there’s
NEWSWEEK.COM 27
CHINA HAS COMMITTED $10 BILLION TO QUANTUM RESEARCH; THE U.S., $1 BILLION, PLUS
an ecosystem where you have the companies, the more than $3 billion.
startups and university groups where people can Google is currently committed to seeing the
solve problems. I think that’s better in the end.” project through and has the cash to do so, but a
Martinis, though, is under no illusion that a change in corporate priorities could put such a
thousand quantum flowers will bloom. The field is long-term effort at risk. “What would really secure
crowded now, but that won’t last forever. “All these American leadership,” said Neven, “is if the govern-
people have a lot of optimism, but when they go to ment would use its enormous purchasing power to
do the systems engineering, they’re going to find reward early risk takers.”
that their ideas might not work so well.” Out of Regardless of whatever shortcomings Jiazhang
the dozen or so projects underway now, Martinis may have, it clearly demonstrates that China is a
says, “it’s a question whether one or two could work. formidable innovator. Neven issued a grim warning
Building a quantum computer is really hard, hard- about the danger of the U.S. being beaten in the
er than you think.” race to develop a quantum computer.
The resources required to pull off a quantum “We are indeed most worried [about] an as of
computer would seem to favor the Googles and the yet unknown competitor [from] China [who will]
IBMs of the world—and China. Google’s Hartmut beat us to the race to an error-correcting machine,
Neven, head of its quantum computing effort, told because China has the ability to steer enormous
a gathering of the Center for Strategic and Inter- resources in a direction that’s deemed strategi-
national Studies earlier this year that building an cally important.”
error correcting quantum computer would cost While China’s ambitions have grown, the
28 NEWSWEEK.COM
T E C HNO L OG Y
PULLING AHEAD technology aims of the U.S. seem diminished. “There has in general remained steady, according to Harri-
China’s ambitions have
grown, but the U.S. has
is a mentality of complacency,” says Elsa Kania, a chi- son. The Pentagon is probably also funding classified
gotten complacent. “Even na expert at CNAS. “There’s a sense and an ideolog- quantum computer research. Documents from the
if China was doing nothing ical commitment to the notion that the market can Edward Snowden cache revealed that the National
in quantum science, we
should be investing a lot in
do it all, that there’s no role for government, and a Security Agency was spending about $80 million on
the basic research, trying backlash against investments in science and educa- a “cryptographically useful quantum computer,” the
to fund some of these new tion. Even if China was doing nothing in quantum Washington Post reported, all of it classified.
programs, and trying to build
up the pipeline of talent,”
science, we should be investing a lot in the basic re-
says Elsa Kania. Left: China search, trying to fund some of these new programs, Getting Ready
launched the ɿrst quantum- and trying to build up the pipeline of talent.” even though the quantum computers themselves
communications satellite
in 2016. Below: The chips
How much the U.S. is spending on quantum seem far off, it’s not too soon to start worrying
at the heart of Sycamore, computing research is difficult to say. Although the about keeping secrets from prying eyes. The pros-
Google’s quantum computer. government’s share of total R&D spending is lower pect of a code-breaking machine emerging some-
FROM TOP: ; IN H UA ʔ-I N LI WAN GʔG E T T Y GO O GLE
than it used to be, “when you include U.S. private time in the next decade is already setting off alarm
companies, we still outpace pretty much everyone bells in some quarters.
in the world,” says Todd Harrison, director of de- The National Security Agency and other intelli-
fense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and gence organizations are thought to be scooping up
International Studies. reams of encrypted information in anticipation of a
Corporate research doesn’t include much basic day in the not-too-distant future when they can de-
R&D, which is what typically yields the biggest long- code them with a quantum computer. And they are
term payoffs. The military, which in the past has also beginning to worry about the day when their
sowed world-changing technologies like the inter- adversaries can decipher their collected secrets, We-
net, could wind up playing a crucial role in quantum too. In the U.S., plans are afoot to introduce new
computing. Funding for unclassified military R&D encryption methods that cannot be broken even
by a quantum computer. The NSA announced in
2015 that it intended to switch eventually to an al-
MILLIONS MORE FROM THE MILITARY AND CORPORATIONS. ternative, quantum-resistant scheme, as yet unde-
termined. “It is now clear that the current Internet
security measures and the cryptography behind
them will not withstand the new computational
capabilities that quantum computers will bring,” an
NSA spokesperson told Quanta’s Natalie Wolchover.
A year later, the National Institutes of Standards
and Technology announced a technical competi-
tion for standards of quantum-resistant encryp-
tion. This fall, NIST narrowed a field of 69 contend-
ers to 15. The most popular scheme, it turns out, is
“lattice-based encryption,” which would require a
computer to find a specific route through grids of
billions of numbers —an entirely different mathe-
matical basis than that of current public-key encryp-
tion schemes, which rely on factoring large numbers.
Persuading government agencies and other or-
ganizations to migrate from the current public-key
encryption schemes to new ones won’t be easy. If
the threat is not clear and present, complacency
can set it. “People are still using web browsers with
encryption that was broken in the nineties,” says
Aaronson. “It’s sad.”
NEWSWEEK.COM 29
Overtreated
THE $1 TRILLION HEALTH CARE PROBLEM THAT’S JACKING UP

GETTY

BY
PHILIP
MOELLER
ART BY
C.J. BURTON
AMERICANS’ MEDICAL BILLS—AND HOW YOU CAN FIGHT IT
NEWSWEEK.COM 31
Best-selling author Philip Moeller takes on health care in
his new book, G E T W H AT ’ S YO U R S F O R H E A LT H C A R E
(Simon & Schuster, January), which explains how to make intelli-
gent health care decisions, talk to your doctor and receive the best
possible care. In this excerpt, Moeller discusses how too many tests
and procedures can lead to unneeded care and bad outcomes, as
well as the costs of misdiagnoses from too little care—and what
steps you can take to get just the right level of care.
americans get too much care they don’t need and too
little care they do need. These twin problems—unneeded and
misdiagnosed care—plagued medicine long before Hippocrates
asked an Athenian to say “Aah” more than 2,500 years ago. They
are fueled by doctors with the best of intentions and those who
are not well informed or paying more attention to their wallets
than their patients’ needs.
Whatever the causes, Americans consume too much health
care, boosting the nation’s annual medical bills by $750 billion to
$1 trillion. This waste is driven by health providers who encour-
age it and consumers who demand too much care, often because
they don’t know the true cost of that care.
At the same time, millions and millions of Americans re-
ceive the wrong medical diagnosis. Their doctors either treat
them for the wrong maladies or don’t uncover their true health
needs and thus fail to treat them at all. Patients can be complic-
it here, failing to communicate effectively with their physicians.
Whatever the causes, misdiagnoses are a huge, largely invisible
medical problem.
BE INFORMED
Unneeded tests are
often ordered for back
pain—and are potentially
counterproductive. The
Choosing Wisely site
discusses factors for
consideration regarding
imaging: it will not help
you get better faster, there
are risks involved and
the tests are expensive.
It also addresses
symptoms that might be
reasons for imaging.
DECE M BER 25, 2020

HEALTH
Other partners, including state health groups, have been using

real-world health insurance claims experience to help determine
the incidence of unneeded care. Milliman, the actuarial consulting
firm, developed the MedInsight Waste Calculator to help research-
ers identify promising areas to reduce wasteful medical spending.
In the real world, unfortunately, progress to reduce unneed-
ed medical care has been slow. It can take years for new clinical
guidelines and treatment protocols to become widely accepted by
doctors, let alone understood by patients. Further, there are strong
incentives for ordering tests and procedures. They are covered by
health insurance, often demanded by patients and are perceived
by many clinicians as a defense against malpractice claims.
We have been given little reason to question how much un-
needed care we get or how to avoid it. It usually takes a wave of
high-visibility media attention to change public perception. The
national plague of opioid addiction, fueled by massive overpre-
scription, is a sobering example.
A 2017 study reviewed the substantial research done since
2012 on the impact of Choosing Wisely’s efforts. It found three
compelling reasons for low patient engagement with efforts to
reduce unneeded care:
• “Most Americans remain poorly informed about the costs and
benefits of particular treatments.”
• “Many patients still seek tests or treatment even when in-
formed that they are unlikely to yield much benefit, because
they have been conditioned to fear rare, life threatening events.”
• “Many patients proceed with low-value treatment either
because they distrust the evidence of its low value presented to
them or because they suspect that the resources saved will only
bolster an insurer’s or provider’s profit margins rather than ben-
efit the public.”
“There’s a whole culture [change] that’s going to have to happen
on the consumer side, of moving away from ‘more is always better,’”
said Beth Bortz, head of the Virginia Center on Health Innovation.
The center has researched low-value care using the Milliman tool.
The Cheapest Care Is “A lot of Americans think that more imaging, more testing, is
the Care You Don’t Need always worth it,” Bortz said. “I think a lot of times consumers
FROM TOP: TETRA IMAGESʔG E T T Y A P O M AR E SʔG E T T Y
the good news about unnecessary care, often called don’t understand the risks of unnecessary imaging, long term.
wasted care or low-value care, is that this problem has been You don’t want more CT scans than you have to have.”
solved—on paper. Beginning in 2012, the American Board of Beyond the cost of an unnecessary test, she said, there is pos-
Internal Medicine (ABIM) began assembling recommendations sible physical harm and longer-term cost and emotional impacts
from leading clinical groups and medical societies about low-value keyed to the results of that first unneeded test. Such “cascade”
treatments. Today, its Choosing Wisely initiative has grown to en- effects can occur when test results delay treatment, lead to other
compass roughly 600 sets of low-value treatment guidelines from tests or reveal other possible health issues, setting off yet another
nearly 90 medical societies and other clinical experts. There is a round of tests.
smartphone app (search for “Choosing Wisely”) that lets people A research study of internists found that nearly all of them
choose from 115 or so sets of common, low-value medical treat- had experienced cascade effects from incidental test findings
ment situations that are explained in plain English. Unneeded tests and that twice as many patient encounters produced no clinical
and treatments for lower back pain are one good example of this. significance versus those with meaningful medical implications
NEWSWEEK.COM 33
requiring further treatment. About a third of the tests might have
been unneeded, the doctors told researchers.
“Most physicians reported that cascades had caused their pa-
tients harm (86.7 percent), including psychological harm (68.4
percent), treatment burden (65.4 percent), financial burden (57.5
percent), dissatisfaction with care (27.6 percent), physical harm
(15.6 percent), disrupted social relationships (8.7 percent), and
death (0.2 percent),” the study found.
Several states have used Milliman’s MedInsight tool to look
at the percentages of specific medical procedures found to be
unnecessary. Virginia and Washington studies looked at nearly
50 procedures and analyzed use patterns by examining millions
of private health insurance claims filed by state residents.
“The two best health care tests in America are PSA [prostate
specific antigen] and pap smears,” MedInsight product manager
Marcos Dachary told me. “Then, with a straight face, you can
say the two worst tests in America are the PSA and pap smears.”
Interpretation matters here.
“Understanding the patient, the patient’s age, the patient’s prior
condition—all of that nuance or context allows us to weigh in ap-
propriateness” to help determine if a procedure was warranted or
unnecessary. The procedures used in the Virginia and Washington
studies, he explained, were those where the clinical nuances had
the least amount of wiggle room for interpretation by providers.
The Virginia Center on Health Innovation study used six pro-
cedure categories and found that between 20 and 100 percent in
each were unnecessary. The Washington Health Alliance has gotten
similar results in its studies.
Unnecessary and expensive MRIs for routine health concerns
top the list, accompanied by annual tests and screening procedures
that produce little benefit, along with prescriptions of opioids and
other powerful drugs for lower back pain, headaches and other
normal aches and pains.
The incidence of low-value care is also widespread in Medicare,
according to a 2018 analysis for Congress. “In 2014, there were be-
tween 34 and 72 instances of low-value care per 100 beneficiaries,”
the report said. “Between 23 percent and 37 percent of beneficia-
ries received at least one low-value service.”
What’s a Patient to Do?

odds are you trust your doctors and are predisposed to
IS IT NECESSARY?
follow their advice. If not, you’d probably look for new doctors. Sometimes imaging
So, when your trusted health care professional says you need a is not in your best
medical procedure or test, you are conditioned to agree. interest. These low-value
procedures can lead to
This can be a stressful interaction to begin with, especially if “cascade effects” resulting
you’re feeling bad and already think something may be wrong. in additional rounds of
Why would you possibly turn down an offer of care, especially one tests that do not speed
up the time for recovery
that is covered by your health insurance? and sometimes delay
Well, you should at least take a time-out at this point. Without treatment that may help.

HEALTH
seeming to question your doctor’s expertise, there are ways to give

yourself some breathing room.
Choosing Wisely’s “Thanks for your guidance and suggestions,” you might say. “I’d
5 Questions to like to go home, give it some thought and talk it over with my fam-
Ask Your Doctor ily. If I did go ahead, when do you recommend I have this done?”
A Connecticut collaboration with Choosing Wisely looked at
A CONNECTICUT COLLABORATION WITH CHOOSING ways that patients can protect themselves from unnecessary care.
WISELY LOOKED AT WAYS THAT PATIENTS CAN It came up with five questions to ask your doctor; groups in oth-
PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM UNNECESSARY CARE.
er states now use the list (see sidebar). Ask those questions and
IT CAME UP WITH FIVE QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR
DOCTOR; GROUPS IN OTHER STATES NOW USE THE LIST.
consult a checklist for getting the right care. Several medical and
patient safety organizations including the National Patient Safety
Foundation and the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine have
1. Do I need this test or procedure? developed widely-used patient guides and a four-page checklist to
FROM TOP: MASKOTʔG E T T Y RON LE9INE ʔG E T T Y
2. What are the risks and side effects? help you get the right care.
3. Are their simpler, safer options? Accurate Diagnosis and Second Opinions
4. What happens if I don’t do anything? sue sheridan became a first-time mother more than 25
5. How much does it cost, and will my years ago. Her son was born in 1995. Like many newborns, he
insurance pay for it? had jaundice. Unlike only a few others, he had a more serious
condition that went undiagnosed by caregivers at her community
hospital in Boise, Idaho.
“My son suffered brain damage from kernicterus [a rare form of
brain damage in jaundiced newborns] that was not diagnosed to
treat his newborn jaundice. [Jaundice is] very, very, very common,”
she said when I spoke with her late in 2019. “It’s the most common
newborn phenomenon. There are national guidelines out there.
And nobody followed them. And he ended up with brain damage.
“A lot of patients don’t even think about looking up guidelines,”
she said. “I wish I would have….That was in 1995. He now has
severe cerebral palsy.”
Sheridan’s exposure to the effects of a missed medical diagno-
sis was not over. “After my son’s effort, four years later my hus-
band died because he had a tumor in his cervical spine that was
removed. We were told it was benign.
“What we didn’t learn,” she continued matter-of-factly, “was
that 23 days later a final pathology report came out. By now, he
was discharged. And it was a malignant cancer, and that docu-
ment never got presented to the neurosurgeon. It got put in my
husband’s file—his medical records. And the neurosurgeon never
saw it, so his cancer went untreated for six months. And by the
time the pain came back, it was too late. And so my husband died
[three years later] when he was 45.”
Enduring these devastating family tragedies triggered Sher-
idan to switch careers from international trade financing to
health care and, in particular, patient safety. Sheridan looked
deeply into what was being done to protect patients. “I thought
somebody was in charge of keeping us safe,” she said. “I learned
that no one is in charge of keeping us safe.”
Sheridan looked deeply into what was being done to protect
NEWSWEEK.COM 35
HE A L T H
patients. “None of the agencies [including the Food and Drug

Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and
Your doctor
other groups] is tasked with keeping us safe,” she said, lamenting recommends
the absence of a health care equivalent to the National Transpor- additional tests.
tation Safety Board, which investigates accidents and identifies
ways to prevent them. “We don’t have that in health care.”
Now what?
Sheridan cofounded Consumers Advancing Patient Safety HERE ARE SOME FOLLOW-UP
(CAPS), which eventually led to advocacy work with the World QUESTIONS TO ASK
Health Organization. Since early 2018, she has been head of FROM SIDM’S TOOLKIT:
patient engagement at the Society to Improve Diagnosis in
Medicine (SIDM).
1. What is my diagnosis?
Sheridan also fought to get a better deal for her family. She What else could it
and her late husband, a physician, brought a malpractice action be? And what’s the
in 1997 related to their son and fought all the way to the Idaho worst it could be?
Supreme Court. There the Sheridans won, triggering a substantial 2. Why do you think this
award to fund Cal’s lifelong care. is my diagnosis? From
After her husband’s death, and with the knowledge learned test results? From my
during the grueling case involving her son, Sheridan settled out physical exam?
of court. “I just did not trust the system,” she said in explaining 3. Can you give me
her decision. written information
In addition to financial awards, Sheridan is proud that the on my diagnosis? A
actions over her son and her late husband’s treatments includ- pamphlet? A website?
ed formal changes in hospital treatment policies. “Malpractice 4. Can you explain the
doesn’t change the system,” she said. “They wanted me to sign gag test/treatment you
clauses and seal everything up, and I refused to do that. Diagnosis want me to have?
is the beginning of the journey, and the beginning of what we 5. What are the risks to
hope is the right treatment,” Sheridan noted. “If you don’t get the the test/treatment
right diagnosis, you’re getting the wrong treatment.” you want me to have?
What happens if I do
nothing?
Bad Medicine Is a Leading Killer
i wish that sue sheridan’s experience was rare, unusual, 6. When do I need to
follow up with you?
unexpected or some other comforting word. It is not.
Each year, an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 people die due to 7. What should I do if
medical diagnoses that caused them to receive the wrong medi- my symptoms worsen
or change, or I don’t
cal care or no care at all. Even the lower range of this estimate is respond to treatment?
comparable to annual gun deaths. I’m hard pressed to find either
epidemic more frightening than the other. There is, however, no 8. Can you suggest
a specialist who
public outrage over lethal medical mistakes. treats the condition
This is likely because people don’t know the scale of medical you’ve diagnosed? I
misdiagnoses. The range of death figures cited here is based on would like to make
autopsy results, not guesswork. And while avoidable deaths are an appointment with
down slightly from estimates made 20 years ago, the death toll them. (This one is
mine, not from SIDM)
from bad or at least off-base medical advice remains enormous.
The incidence of bad diagnoses that do not lead to fatalities
is broader still. A 2014 study found that about 5 percent of all
medical diagnoses for outpatients were in error. Based on the
number of people interacting with health care then, this worked
out to 12 million cases a year.

TRUST BUT VERIFY a heart attack. Gender bias is worse for African American women,
Be an active participant who are at higher risk for stroke. Unless your doctor tells you your
in your care. Be clear,
complete, accurate condition is life threatening and requires immediate treatment,
and consistent when your initial response to a diagnosis involving serious conditions
describing your symptoms should include asking your provider what treatment they recom-
to medical personnel.
Research the care that is mend, where it be performed and if there is a time it should begin.
recommended and don’t When decisions don’t need to be made on the spot in an
be afraid to ask questions. emergency room, don’t rush things. “Thanks for providing your
If you’re not satisɿed, ask
what else it could be. thoughts,” you might say. “It’s a lot to take in all at once. Would it
be okay if I set up a follow-up appointment to discuss this further?”
A diagnosis related to any serious medical problem should trig-
ger an extensive and broadening circle of research among friends,
medical professionals in your community, disease-specific sites,
leading medical sites and social media advocacy groups.
SIDM has a patient toolkit that can help prepare you for a deep-
er dive with your doctor. It’s an interactive form you can complete
Get What’s Yours Rx and print out that asks you questions about your medical condi-
tion, symptoms and any related personal or family medical history,
plus a list of your medications. It allows you to record pain issues.
> Up to a third of all medical care Bring a complete copy of your medical records and tell your doc-
is unneeded. tor anything helpful. Lack of complete or accurate patient records
is regularly cited as a contributing cause of medical misdiagnoses.
> Use “Choosing Wisely” to spot
unneeded care. Ask Choosing Wisely’s 5 questions (see sidebar on previous spread),
and ask some care questions from SIDM’s toolkit (see sidebar).
> Learn how to spot bad medical A variant of this sequence applies when the misdiagnosis may
diagnoses, which kill as many people
as cars or guns. consist of the absence of a diagnosis—a missed call of an illness
or condition. Doctors face much tougher medical issues than they
> Your doctors aren’t perfect, so once did, simply because the things that medicine now can treat
talk to them about suspect care
recommendations. have expanded, as have the tools and medicines for treatment.
“The explosive growth in medical evidence and new technologies
> Ask your doctors informed questions ends up being a double-edged sword,” the SIDM site notes, “making
and use good checklists of
things to cover. diagnosis more accurate but also more complex at the same time.”
If your doctor or your child’s doctor feels a health condition is
not serious—“She just has the flu”—you should follow up with the
“what else might it be” or “what’s the worst it could be” question.
Your doctor needs to hear your concerns, and in thinking about
Where to Start how to reply, they just might change their opinion and do you and
vascular events (strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary your child a lot of good.
embolisms and related circulatory conditions), infections (princi- Health reforms in Washington seem to be the only ones that get
pally sepsis) and cancer are the three leading sources of misdiag- broad attention. But important reforms in the delivery of health
noses. The potentially deadly consequences of these events should care happen all the time, albeit at a less headline-generating pace.
put you and your personal health posse on high alert. Evidence-based tools to spot the care you need and the care you
Women and minorities need to be particularly alert to bias in don’t are great examples of how people can make informed health
THOMAS BARWI& KʔG E T T Y
their diagnoses. They have been routinely excluded from disease decisions. In the process, they can achieve better health outcomes
research studies and remain underrepresented. As a result, their and often spend a lot less money on their care.
symptoms may lead to erroneous diagnoses. A woman who pres-
ents in an emergency room setting with chest or back pain might Ơ From get what’s yours for healthcare: how to get the
be diagnosed with acid reflux or gastro esophageal reflux disease, best care at the right price by Philip Moeller. Copyright © 2021
Sheridan said. That might be true for men, but she could be having by Philip Moeller. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
NEWSWEEK.COM 37
BO OK S
effective in treating visible

Q&A: conditions, such as dermatology
needs, as well as psychological
Philip Moeller and behavioral counseling, where

the privacy can make people
comfortable sharing concerns they
BY MEREDITH WOLF SCHIZER would not share in a face-to-face
appointment. In-person visits are
still the gold standard, however,
and people need to get back into
This is the third “Get make sure the clinician is properly preventive health care.
What’s Yours” book in the licensed, has experience in the care
best-selling series. you need, and knows your health What’s the single most
Why this book? Why now? history (including the meds you important thing a patient
Regardless of who won the presi- take) BEFORE you hop on Zoom or can do to advocate for her-
dential election, it became clear to another platform. self or a loved one?
me that the growing pressure for Never give up
health reform would collide with When should a patient
the reality that serious reform is choose an in-person visit What’s the best way to get
not going to happen anytime soon. instead? the appropriate level of
It took four years to implement Telehealth can be especially screening—particularly
the Affordable Care Act, and it
covers only 7 percent of people
with health insurance. Changing
the system for the other 93 percent
will take many years, even as-
suming we did not have a divided
government. I became convinced
we needed a consumer guide to
the health system we will be living
with for some time, and that the
best time to publish such a book
was after the election.
The pandemic has really

advanced telemedicine.
How can patients get the
most from televisits?
The hierarchy of effective
telemedicine begins with your
primary care doctor, who knows
you and your health history and
can provide remote care as part
of your ongoing medical treat-
ment. But whether you speak
with your own doctor or a
stranger who works for a
telemedicine start-up, the
burden remains on you to
38 NEWSWEEK.COM
for not-easily-catego- book, the value of a solid relation- It is the end of the cal-
rized ailments—without ship with a primary care doctor endar year. Is there some-
consenting to (or request- popped up over and over again. thing specific consumers
ing) overscreening and Find a good doc you trust. can do now to maximize
risking the “cascade ef- their health care dollars?
fect” while also ensuring What changes can consumers Most people have completely
that something important expect from health care un- satisfied their insurance plan
isn’t missed? der a Biden presidency? deductibles and out-of-pocket
Do your homework. Don’t accept I expect the Affordable Care expenses, making care effectively
a doctor’s recommendations Act to be sustained in the case free at the end of the calendar
without further research. As the now before the Supreme Court. year. Refill prescriptions.
book explains, there is extensive President-elect Biden can expand Schedule those appointments
clinical evidence about where we ACA enrollments without Con- you’ve been putting off. 9isit a
get too much care and where we get gressional approval. A sharply surgical center and get that
too little. Use the book’s consumer divided government will limit elective care procedure.
guides and question checklists to large-scale changes to health care.
determine if tests are appropriate. Expanding Medicare to persons How are you coping with
Most tests are not related to med- aged 60 to 65 may be the best the pandemic?
ical emergencies. Take the time to he can do for a while. Lastly, the The isolation from friends and
ɿnd out more about a test, including pandemic will generate bipartisan family is taking a toll, as is not
canvassing reliable news and med- support for higher spending to being able to travel. On the bright
ical sites and talking with friends support frontline health workers side, our home has never been
and others you trust who have and at-risk populations, including in better repair, and my wife and
faced problems similar to yours. tougher scrutiny of nursing homes. I are cooking a lot and eating
Congress also will be sympathetic ridiculously well. A pandemic is
Screening tests can be to more Medicaid funding to the a wonderful time to recuperate,
overused, but are some states. The “bad guys” in health and I’ve had successful cataract
regular ones actually es- care—drug, insurance, equipment surgery and a total knee replace-
sential? Which ones? For and hospital firms—have been ment. Sad to say, and I’m not proud
example, the U.S. Preven- on their best behavior during the about this, a pandemic also is a
tive Services Task Force pandemic and have regained some wonderful time to research and
(USPSTF) recently lowered standing with the public. They are write a book
the age recommendation well-positioned to fend off major
for beginning colonosco- changes to their businesses. Do you have any favorite
py screenings to 45. What podcasts?
about mammograms? There I am a Luddite and listen to only
are conflicting recommen- one occasionally—Fresh Air
dations for beginning with Terry Gross.
those, including starting “Do your homework.
at 40, 45, and 50. What’s next for you?
The book includes an appendix Don’t accept I will get the vaccine as soon as
containing the most highly rec- a doctor’s possible and so will our friends.
GETTY
ommended USPSTF tests. Where Then it’s off on trips with friends
there is no universal standard recommendations and family ASAP. Sometime in late
for when a test should be admin- 2021, the idea of another book
istered, speak with your own
without further will begin invading my dreams,
doctors and find out when they research.” and then it will be deja vu all
recommend you be tested and over again. Maybe I’ll get the
why. In doing research for the other knee replaced
Illustration by O K S A N A G R I V I N A NEWSWEEK.COM 39
Culture HIGH, LOW + EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
BO O K S
Wrap Up
a Good Read
0 thoughtful, easy-to-ɿnd gifts for
everyone on your holiday list

TIKTOK-ER DIXIE D’AMELIO TALKS FAME
“Don’t do something you’re not into or not proud of...people can see through that.” » P.48
having trouble picking out

the perfect gift for everyone on
your list? Did you wait till the last
minute? Never fear, Newsweek has
curated a list of book choices for you,
with a selection of photo essays, biog-
raphies, novels, thrillers and more—
all from 2020, each one proving that My Dark Vanessa Saint X
something good came out of this year By Kate Elizabeth By Alexis Schaitkin
after all. These great reads are avail- Russell CELAD ON BO OKS
WILLIAM MORROW 26.99
able for pick up at nearby bookstores, 27.99 Seven-year-old Claire’s
or online for contactless purchases This explosive debut life was marked
ʀashes between a irreversibly when her
with shipping in time for the hol- 15-year-old’s relationship older sister went missing
iday—or even choose the e-book with her 47-year-old during a family vacation
option. Select gift wrap at checkout teacher and 17 years in the Caribbean. Years
later, when he’s accused later, Claire crosses
and have them shipped directly to the of sexual assault. paths with the man
lucky recipient. All that’s left is to set suspected of killing
her in this addictive
up a Zoom call to discuss what every- and breathtaking
one is reading! —Juliana Pignataro debut novel.
For your ɿction-devouring

best friend:
Heaven and Earth
By Paolo Giordano
PAMELA D ORMAN
BO OKS ʖ 2
Simmering with The Death of
resentment, lust and Vivek Oji
the heat of an Italian By Akwaeke Emezi
summer, Heaven and RI9ERHEAD BO OKS ʖ 27
Earth follows four One of the most highly
friends from the time acclaimed novels of
G E T T Y; TO P R I G H T: M A X M O N TG O M E RY
they meet in the 1990s 2020 will be unlike

Cobble Hill The Invisible Life till 2012 as they follow anything they’ve ever
By Cecily von Ziegesar of Addie LaRue a collision course while read before, beginning
ATRIA BO OKS ʖ 27.00 By V. E. Schwab protecting a deep and when a mother opens
The author of the Gossip TOR BO OKS ʖ 26.99 cataclysmic secret. her door in Nigeria to
Girl series returns with a Addie LaRue makes a ɿnd the body of her son.
plot that’s just as juicy— bargain to live forever, but
this time following four is cursed to be forgotten by
couples and their kids in whomever she meets, in this
Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. magnetic and magical novel.
Illustrations by O K S A N A G R I V I N A NEWSWEEK.COM 41
Culture
For your social media- For your

addicted coworker: mom, who
has already
No Filter, The Inside read pretty
Story of Instagram
By Sarah Frier
much
SIMON SCHUSTER ʖ 2 everything:
Just how did Instagram
become one of the most
inʀuential and relevant
platforms of the modern
world? Frier’s access
to the central ɿgures
in the drama unravels
the tangled web of
the online company’s
unprecedented impact.
How Should One

Follow Me Read a Book?
By Kathleen Barber _ Gallery Books _ 2 By Virginia Woolf
Audrey Miller is a social media oversharer LAURENCE KING
whose constant cataloging has earned her an PUBLISHING ʖ 9.99
unwelcome follower in this chilling tale thatŠll This slim and elegant
make anyone think twice before posting. volume is an update to
a literary classic that
stands the test of time.
For your cousin, who can’t

get enough true crime:
Ex Libris: 100+ By Becky Cooper
Books to Read GRAND CENTRAL
and Reread PUBLISHING ʖ 29
By Michiko Kakutani
In 1969, Harvard
CLARKSON POT TER
anthropology graduate
25.00
student Jane Britton was
Pulitzer Prize-winning
found killed in her home.
literary critic Kakutani
Decades of speculation
shares must-read
and whispers followed,
classics, memoirs,
until Cooper heard the
manifestos and
story—as a student
more—complete
We Keep the Dead herself—and put it all to-
with magniɿcent Close: A Murder at gether over the course of a
accompanying artwork. Harvard and a Half decade in this immersive
Century of Silence and expansive memoir.

For your artsy aunt: For your sister, who could
use some inspiration:
Wintering: The
Power of Rest
and Retreat in
Difɿcult Times
By Katherine May
R I 9 E R H E A D B O O KS ʖ 2 4
The book equivalent
of a warm hug. May’s
calming meditations
read like poetry.
No Time Like the

Future: An Optimist
Considers Mortality
By Michael J. Fox
FLATIRON BO OKS
27.99
Fox reʀects on recent
challenges and shares
the lessons he has
learned since being
diagnosed with
Wild Interiors: Beautiful Parkinson’s at the
Plants in Beautiful Spaces age of 29. By turns
By Hilton Carter _ CICO BO OKS ʖ 24.99 humorous, profound,
reʀective and hopeful.
Chock full of spectacular full-color, full-page
photos and advice for houseplant aɿcionados
to help make a decor statement with greenery.
Keep Moving: Notes

on Loss, Creativity,
and Change
By Maggie Smith
This Brilliant Darkness: Heart Talk: The ATRIAʔONE SIGNAL
A Book of Strangers Journal: 52 Weeks of PUBLISHERS ʖ 24
By Jeff Sharlet Self-Love, Self-Care, A perfect pick-me-
Good Morning, Monster: A
W.W. NORTON & and Self-Discovery up, Smith’s gem is Therapist Shares Five Heroic
COMPANY ʖ 25 By Cleo Wade packed with luminous Journeys to Recovery
In breathtaking photos ATRIA BO OKS ʖ 17.99 quotes and essays By Catherine Gildiner
and short, propulsive Based on the best- about resilience, ST. MARTIN’S PRESS ʖ 27.99
narratives, Sharlet tells selling book, a year- transformation and A longtime psychologist chronicles the lives
the stories of the people long journey through moving forward of ɿve of her most inspirational patients for
he has encountered while the self that’s both no matter the a story thatŠs both wrenching and hopeful.
traveling the road of life. poetry and journal. circumstances.
NEWSWEEK.COM 43
Culture
For your For your video game-

dad, the loving nephew:
history buff:
Ready Player Two
By Ernest Cline
BALLANTINE
BO OKS ʖ 2.99
The much-anticipated
sequel to Ready Player
One picks up days
after Wade Watts wins
the Oasis founder’s
contest, when he makes
an unexpected and
incendiary discovery.
Metropolis: A
History of the
City, Humankind’s
Greatest Invention For your brother, who would
By Ben Wilson
D OUBLEDAY ʖ 32.50 rather be outside exploring:
The supremely beautiful
cover of Metropolis is
outdone only by the epic
narratives of the world’s
A Promised Land
By Barack Obama _ Crown _ 4
inʀuential cities contained
within its pages, span- Arguably the most-anticipated presidential
ning from Uruk in 4000
memoir in modern history, and a must
B.C. to Lagos in 2020.
for any history buffŠs bookshelf.
Stuff You Should

Know: An Incomplete
Compendium of Most- Tightrope: Americans The Light Ages: The
ly Interesting Things Reaching for Hope Surprising Story of
By Josh Clark and Chuck By Nicholas Kristof Medieval Science
Bryant with Nils Parker and Sheryl WuDunn By Seb Falk
FLATIRON BOOKS ʖ 27.99 9INTAGE ʖ 16.95 W.W. NORTON &
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get to being out at a bar on lives have been altered through the 14th Greenwood
trivia night, jam-packed with by poverty, addiction and century by way of a By Michael Christie _ HO GARTH ʖ 2
tidbits about everything the loss of blue collar jobs monk in order to tell the Christie weaves what is, in our opinion, one
from Demolition Derbies in a remarkable study of surprising and vivid story of the best novels of the year a story as lush
to Dolly the cloned sheep. modern American life. of medieval science. and complex as the trees it revolves around.

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the Lens: His Life, His bits and most laugh-out-loud observations.
Movies, His World
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pages of photographs Reʀections on My Life
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NEWSWEEK.COM 45
Culture
01 Peep Drop
Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania
Everyone knows about
06 Krampus, Santa’s Evil Twin
the big ball drop in
Austria
Times Square, but this
Known as a sort of “evil twin” to Santa, Krampus ter-
town in Pennsylvania
rorizes children, rather than bringing them joy. During
takes the New Year’s
tradition to a newer, this “celebration” in early December, people dress as
sweeter level. For 11 this devil-like ɿgure and wander around the streets.
years running, they’ve
hosted an alternative
drop—a 400-pound
4
marshmallow Peep
chick, which descends
to ring in the new year.
5
1
01: PEEPSFESTp; 02: PATRICIO REALPEʔLATINCONTENTʔGETTY; 03: PEDERKʔGETTY; 04: JOE HOWDEN; 05: NITO100ʔGETTY; 06: SEBASTIAN WIDMANNʔGETTY
02 Burning Efɿgies
Ecuador 05 Caga Tió
New Year’s Eve comes Catalonia
with a whole set of This tradition will make any child giggle.
traditions and customs Throughout December, children feed a log
3
to symbolically painted with a cartoon face, and then just
leave the previous before the holiday they are told to sing to
year behind. Here, it and beat it with a stick. Inevitably, the
2
“monigotes”—ɿgures log “poops” out gifts and nougat candy.
that represent what
went wrong in the
last year, sometimes
politicians—are then
burned into the night.
03 Skating to Mass 04 Mari Lwyd

Venezuela Wales
Venezuelans add This eerie pagan tradition is cel-
a unique touch to ebrated in late December and
the usual Christmas requires the skulls of different
mass by strapping animals. Usually a horse skull
on roller skates is decorated and attached to a
Christmas morning stick draped with a white sheet.
and rolling over to Then, these ghostly apparitions
church. In the capital are paraded door-to-door
of Caracas, streets while the petitioners ask for
are closed until a.m. ale and cake at each stop by
to accommodate. reciting rhymes and riddles.

07 Throwing of the Shoe
Czech Republic
This Christmas tradition has little
to do with trimming trees or
singing carols. Rather, young
women step outside their homes
on Christmas Eve and instead of
waiting for Santa, they throw a
shoe over their shoulder. How
it lands is said to predict if the
woman will marry in the next year. 08 Bathtub Carp
Slovakia
9 Carp is a classic Christmas dinner
staple in Slovakia, but to observe this
tradition, you cannot simply walk into
your local supermarket to pick up your
ɿsh. Instead, the carp must swim in the
7 09 Sauna Visit family’s bathtub for up to two days prior
Estonia to being prepared for the festive meal.
This is a holiday tradition most people would
8
6 happily get behind. On Christmas Eve, after
spending the day setting up for the following
day’s festivities, it is traditional to sweat it out
in the sauna with your family.
10
10 Kentucky Fried
Christmas
Japan
07: KVLADIMIRVʔG E T T Y; 0 : ABAD ONIANʔG E T T Y; 0 9 : R A I G O PA J U L AʔAFPʔG E T T Y; 1 0 : S C OT T E I S E Nʔ BLO OMBERGʔG E T T Y
Kentucky Fried Chicken

might not be the ɿrst thing
that comes to mind when
you think of Christmas,
but over the years, it has
become quite the holiday
tradition in Japan. So
much so that in order to
ensure you get your hands
on a holiday bucket, it is
suggested that you order
in advance, as nearly 4
million people choose KFC
as their Christmas dinner.
U NC HAR TE D
WackyWays the Holidays Are

Celebrated Around theWorld
The holiday season is upon us and though they may feel a bit different this year—without large get togethers and more
merry-making from afar—the holidays themselves are certainly not canceled. December is filled with celebrations from
various religions, ending of course with New Year’s which is celebrated, in one way or another, by all. Most are observed in
traditional ways, but in every corner of the globe there are also unique ways of celebrating holidays in late December, from
Christmas to New Year’s—some more familiar than others. From a “pooping” log in Catalonia, to a KFC dinner in Japan,
here are some of the most unusual ways people bring the festivities home—all around the world. —Kathleen Rellihan
NEWSWEEK.COM 47
Culture
PA R T I NG S HO T
Dixie D’Amelio
for dixie d’amelio, tiktok star and regular viral sensation, 2020 Has TikTok changed your career?
has been quite a year. “I graduated high school, released my first sin- TikTok has not only changed my
gle, signed to a label, launched a podcast with my sister [Charli D’Amelio] and career, it essentially created my
launched my YouTube channel.” Her single released in June, “Be Happy,” quickly career. Pre-pandemic, I planned to go
exploded, taking in more than 55 million streams. She released a second earlier immediately to college. Now I have
this month, “One Whole Day,” but she’s just beginning, with hopes of collab- this new path and direction, due to
orating with “Billie Eilish, Lil Uzi Vert or Trippie Redd.” Besides music, she TikTok opening up so many incredible
has a slew of other projects in the works, too, which she’s able to do alongside doors and opportunities.
her popular family: she and her sister, Charli, are two of the most-followed
accounts on the video sharing site TikTok, with a combined following of more You cover different areas: singer,
than 150 million users. “When everything started, we had a rule in our family actress, inʀuencer, etc. What
that we only do things that we want to do.” Her recipe for social media success? would you say your main focus is?
“Be yourself and don’t do something that you’re not into or not proud of because If I had to choose, I would deɿnitely put
people can see through that (especially on social media).” my priority on my music. It’s been a
passion of mine since I was a little girl.
How do you balance solo work and

“TikTok has working with your family?
not only The best part about my focus on

my solo career, separate from my
changed my family or Charli, is that when we work
career, it together, it just feels like fun. We
essentially have a great time with the projects

we do together—like our fashion and
created my makeup partnerships with Hollister
career.” and Morphe, and our podcast
2 CHIX—but then I can go pursue the
things I’m passionate about.
How have you been coping with

the pandemic?
I’ve been able to dive more into music.
It’s kind of wild how much can be done
virtually. I never experienced creating
music before the pandemic, so for me,
it’s all I know. Liam Payne asked me
to be on his Christmas song “Naughty
M A X M ONTG OM E RY
List.” We did everything virtually, from

recording to ɿlming the music video,
but I do hope to meet him in person at
some point. —H. Alan Scott
48 V ISI T N E W S W E E K .C OM F OR T H E F U L L I N T E RV I E W
A Healthier You
Starts With
Healthier Food!
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FIND IT ON NEWSSTANDS NATIONWIDE

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