On October 5, 2020, this report was posted as an MMWR Early Release on the MMWR website (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr). There is increasing evidence that children and adolescents can efficiently transmit SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (1-3). During July-August 2020, four state health departments and CDC investigated a COVID-19 outbreak that occurred during a 3-week family gathering of five households in which an adolescent aged 13 years was the index and suspected primary patient; 11 subsequent cases occurred. Both heads of each household were interviewed to assess demographic characteristics, exposures, symptoms, close contacts, and outcomes. Parents provided data for all children, adolescents, and young adults. Thirteen of the index patient's relatives sought viral testing; test results were reported by respondents, and all test results that were reported to be positive were verified in state reporting systems. For three children and adolescents who were not tested while symptomatic, a chemiluminescent immunoassay* detecting total antibody to SARS-CoV-2 was performed 28-46 days after symptom onset; results were positive for all three children and adolescents, including the index patient and her two brothers, indicating earlier infection. Likely exposure periods † and infectious periods § were estimated from symptom onset dates. This activity was reviewed by CDC and was conducted consistent with applicable federal law and CDC policy. ¶ While away from home, the index patient was exposed during a large COVID-19 outbreak in June 2020. Because of her exposure, she sought testing for SARS-CoV-2 after returning home. A rapid antigen test performed 4 days after exposure, when she was asymptomatic, was negative (Table) (Figure). She experienced nasal congestion 2 days later, her only symptom. That same day, she, her parents, and two brothers traveled to * https://www.fda.gov/media/136967/download. † The likely exposure period was estimated to begin 14 days before symptom onset and end 2 days before symptom onset, which corresponds to the longest potential incubation period. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/ clinical-guidance-management-patients.html. § The infectious period was estimated to begin 2 days before symptom onset and end 10 days after symptom onset, according to CDC guidance. https://www. cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/contact-tracing/contact-tracing-plan/ investigating-covid-19-case.html.

Background/objective The association between maternal pre-pregnancy obesity and adverse child health outcomes is well described, but there are few data on the relationship with offspring health service use. We examined the influence of maternal pre-pregnancy obesity on offspring health care utilization and costs over the first 18 years of life. Methods This was a population-based retrospective cohort study of children (n = 35,090) born between 1989 and 1993 and their mothers, who were identified using the Nova Scotia Atlee Perinatal Database and linked to provincial administrative health data from birth through 2014. The primary outcome was health care utilization as determined by the number and cost of physician visits, hospital admissions and days, and high utilizer status (>95th percentile of physician visits). The secondary outcome was health care utilization by ICD chapter. Maternal pre-pregnancy weight was categorized as normal weight, overweight, or obese. Multivariable-adjusted regression models were used to examine the association between maternal weight status and offspring health care use. Results Children of mothers with pre-pregnancy obesity had more physician visits (10%), hospital admissions (16%), and hospital days (10%) than children from mothers of normal weight over the first 18 years of life. Offspring of mothers with obesity had C$356 higher physician costs and C$1415 hospital costs over 18 years than offspring of normal weight mothers. Children of mothers with obesity were 1.74 times more likely to be a high utilizer of health care and had higher rates of physician visits and hospital stays for nervous system and sense organ disorders, respiratory disorders, and gastrointestinal disorders compared to children of normal weight mothers. Conclusion Our findings suggest that maternal pre-pregnancy overweight and obesity are associated with slightly higher offspring health care utilization and costs in the first 18 years of life.

IntroductionCancer is a leading cause of illness globally, yet our understanding of the financial implications of cancer caused by working conditions and environments is limited. The goal of this study is to estimate the costs of productivity losses due to occupational cancer in Canada, and to evaluate the factors associated with these costs.MethodsTwo sources of data are used: (i) Individual level administrative claims data from the Workers Compensation Board of Nova Scotia; and (ii) provincial aggregated cancer claims statistics from the Association of Workers Compensation Boards of Canada. Benefits paid to claimants are based on actuarial estimates of wage-loss, but do not include medical costs that are covered by the Canadian publicly funded healthcare system. Regional claims level data are used to estimate the total and average (per claim) cost of occupational cancer to the insurance system, and to assess which characteristics of the claim/claimant influence costs. Cost estimates from one region are weighted using regional multipliers to adjust for system differences between regions, and extrapolated to estimate national costs of occupational cancer.Results/DiscussionWe estimate that the total cost of occupational cancer to the Workers’ Compensation system in Canada between 1996 and 2013 was $1.2 billion. The average annual cost was $68 million. The cancer being identified as asbestos related were significantly positively associated with costs, whereas the age of the claimant was significantly negatively associated with costs. The industry type/region, injury type or part of body affected by cancer were not significant cost determinants.ConclusionGiven the severity of the cancer burden, it is important to understand the financial implications of the disease on workers. Our study shows that productivity losses associated with cancer in the workplace are not negligible, particularly for workers exposed to asbestos.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13561-017-0145-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

IntroductionDepression is among the most common mental illnesses in Canada. Although many factors contribute to depression, stress is among the most commonly reported. Studies suggest that marginalized groups often experience high levels of stress.ObjectiveTo examine associations between ethnicity and depressive symptoms among university students.AimTo identify if ethnic groups, particularly Aboriginal students, are at greater risk of depression.MethodsOnline survey data were collected from students attending eight universities in the Canadian Maritime Provinces (n = 10,180). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the 12-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Ethnicity was organized into five groups: Caucasian only, Aboriginal only, Aboriginals with other ethnicities, Mixed Ethnicity (not including Aboriginal), and Other (single ethnicity not including Aboriginal or Caucasian). Unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression models were used to assess associations between ethnicity and elevated depressive symptoms. Adjusted models accounted for demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioural characteristics.ResultsIn adjusted analyses for men, Mixed (OR: 2.01; 95% CI: 1.12–3.63) and Other ethnic students (OR: 1.47; 95% CI: 1.11–1.96) were more likely to have elevated depressive symptoms than Caucasians. There were no differences between those who were Aboriginal and those who were Caucasian. In unadjusted and adjusted analyses for women, depressive symptoms in ethnic groups (including Aboriginals) were not significantly different from Caucasians.ConclusionAmong male university students in the Maritime, ethnicity (other than being Aboriginal) was associated with depressive symptoms in comparison to Caucasians, after adjusting for covariates. However, among women, ethnicity was not significantly associated with depressive symptoms.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

For this issue of M/C Journal we were inspired to select the theme of ‘technique’ by the intersection of the critical discourses around technology and the praxis of everyday life that has been a preoccupation of late-20th and early-21st century cultural studies. We wanted to revisit, rupture, and reconstruct the foundational terms that give this journal its name—media and culture—by using the common nexus of technology. This special issue enlivens the idea of technique within the gamut of technology, media, science, culture, and creativity. The idea of technique is itself an intriguing prompt for the authors in this issue. It has inspired their pursuit of ideas of processes and procedures, methods and makers, habits and hacks, routines and rituals, and knowledge and know-how. Sharing a common etymology with technology, technique builds upon the ancient Greek term techne that describes the arts and mechanical crafts. If we connect technique and technology to this genealogical inheritance, we are presented with an insistence upon understanding how we craft not only objects but also the world. Throughout history we can find plenty of examples of tools and devices all increasing in technical complexity over time to meet the needs of human societies as they unfold across time—from axes and spears, drawing and writing implements, and clockwork mechanisms to telescopes, eye-glasses, and time-keeping and counting machines. As technical objects have become more complex, the cultures that produce them have produced increasingly specialised knowledge and fragmentary perceptions of the world in which they exist. Technology is thus the study of how to apply techne, craft; when people employ technology they are not just making use of a tool or device, they are also generating and employing techniques constitutive of a world view. While this might seem high-minded, the above reflection is based on the recognition that humans make use of techniques every day. Marshall McLuhan famously described this everyday relation with technologies and their techniques as extensions of the human body, notably of the senses. For McLuhan (1964), media are the substance of these extensions, and these extensions include a range of things beyond the tired trio of newspapers, radio and television, such as those engaged with by our authors in this issue. There is a long cross-cultural genealogy of ideas about technology and technique, which is far too large to discuss in sufficient detail here, it may suffice for us to summarise our focus by turning to the work of the influential British Cultural Studies scholar Raymond Williams. For Williams (1974), technology is used by people, and in this use people create meaningful exchanges of information structured by techniques and know-how. Used in this way, Williams argues, technology becomes a medium of communication that interacts with a social context. More strongly, Williams suggests that it is from a social necessity first and foremost that people develop techniques that make use of technology that is available in their milieu. The insight of Williams is that technology is frequently a (or the) material basis for late capitalist culture, and that techniques are a culmination of the knowledge of what technology is used for and, significantly, how to use it. Media are thus the applied use of technology as forms a social link, a mediation, between ourselves and the world. As history has demonstrated however, there are always unintended consequences that come with each new medium. Sometimes it is as simple as unintended uses that go beyond anything the original creator dreamed of. People routinely test the limits and boundaries of a new medium by examining what is already possible. Creativity is key to these experiments. For instance, the classic definition of ‘a hacker’ has very little to do with computer crime. Instead, the word ‘hacker’ defines someone who is motivated to solve problems through playful creativity and, often, displays of wit—and, of course, proficiency with techniques. It just so happens that the techniques uncovered by computer hackers also have applications elsewhere in society, a trend that continues to this day with the increase in interest in a range of 'hacker-esque' activities.  Whether it's the political activist group Anonymous who directly employ techniques of subversion to further their varied agendas (Coleman 2014), or the more benign 'Maker' movement that champions a Do-It-Yourself approach to technology and hardware. The articles included in this issue of the M/C Journal explore a variety of techniques as they manifest through a specific medium. Each article presents a case study that answers Katherine Hayles' (2004) call for more "media-specific analysis" in cultural and critical theory. Liam Cole Young anchors this issue with his discussion of the relationship of technology to culture. Young charts the origins and history of a branch of German media studies that informs what we now call ‘cultural techniques’ or Kulturtechniken. Young invites his readers to reconsider the technology-culture relationship by rethinking Kulturtechniken so often misappropriated as techniques of audience and content analysis. Specifically, Young seeks to reposition the frame of institutional media studies, thus providing an alternative to the fetishisation of audiences and content in favour of a view that is sensitive to the intellectual history of ‘cultural techniques’, bringing them in dialogue with an understanding of the material specificity of media formats and the material realities of logistical media.  Peng Liu draws our attention to the bodily techniques and responses of the artist structured by Chinese painting and the Confucian perspective. Liu argues that his memories and experiences of the Forgotten City and Chinese culture impress themselves upon his mapping of the aesthetic as he paints. Focusing on the interrelation and resistances of the body-as-artist and the conceptual structures that inform his sense of self, Liu imagines and reflects upon himself as a Chinese-artist. César Albarrán Torres and Justine Humphry delve into the cultural politics and labour of ‘self-care’ and ‘self-control’ in relation to the expansion of gambling enabled by Internet-enabled mobile devices. Torres and Humphry suggest that recent policy decisions enacted by neo-liberal governance in Australia has resulted in attempts to regulate or interrupt gambling addiction. In so doing, they argue that these policies have reconfigured the self-discipline of the subject-state relation in the Australian context. Nicole Pepperell and Duncan Law take us into the recent history of the faith in Internet technology as a progressive force of economic, legal, political and social emancipation. Examining the politics of the Internet’s divergent potentials, Pepperell and Law suggest that rhetorical, social and politics techniques have proven themselves decisive in the success or failure of realising the Internet’s emancipatory potential. They note that it is not without irony that recognising the limitations of politicised technologies may have a positive impact on the manifestation of private freedoms. To close this special issue, Jamileh Kadivar turns her gaze to the case of techniques of surveillance and counter-surveillance in Iran during the non-violent protests of the Iranian Green Movement in 2009. Kadivar argues that the centrality of surveillance for a convergent media environment cannot be understated, and its operation and function served to target and repress protest and dissent in Iran during the northern hemisphere’s late autumn of 2009. Yet Kadivar notes the important role of visibility in the contestations of surveillance in Iran and other dissenting movements such as Occupy. The editors of the 'technique' issue of M/C Journal wish to thank the M/C editorial team for the opportunity to gather articles under the theme. Thank you also to the scholars who provided constructive feedback during the peer-review process. And, most importantly, thank you to our authors without whom this issue would not be possible. References Coleman, Gabriella. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: the Story of Anonymous. United Kingdom: Verso Books, 2014. Hayles, N.Katherine. “Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis.” Poetics Today 25.1 (2004): 67-90 McLuhan, H. Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Berkeley, Calif.: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Williams, Raymond. Television: Technology and Cultural Form. London, UK: Collins, 1974.