Departments

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COVID-19

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    1/25/2022

    The Antivax Right is Bringing Human Sacrifice to America

    Past debates about closing schools and businesses to control the pandemic at least could claim to be about balancing costs and benefits. The campaign to refuse vaccination will kill people for no purpose whatsoever.

  • SOURCE: CNN
    1/19/2022

    Covidtests.gov is the Right Move, but More Needs to be Done

    by David M. Perry

    So far, the idea of directly distributing tests from the government to the public through the post office seems like a winner. But it remains to be seen if there is sufficient political will and resources to actually commit to cutting out middlemen and giving Americans tools to protect their health.

  • 1/16/2022

    What Happens When the "End Times" are Now?

    by Martyn Whittock

    Evangelical Christianity's enthusiasm for viewing current events as markers of the End Times is nothing new, but those tempted to mockery should nevertheless recognize how politically potent those ideas can be. 

  • SOURCE: The Baffler
    1/12/2022

    Online Christian Martyrs

    by Peter Manseau

    "Imagine if all the energy, resources, and marketing that have been used to inject ideas of martyrdom into issues of public health and safety had instead gone toward making real change."

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    1/4/2022

    Hobbies are How Work Infiltrates Leisure

    "The anxieties of capitalism are not confined to the workplace. They have a long history of leaking into our free time," explains leisure historian Steven M. Gelber.

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    1/11/2022

    Healthy Democracies Don't Scapegoat Their Teachers

    "The failure to confront authoritarianism and the failure to defend public schools and educators from Covid is the same failure. When an institution is a cornerstone of democracy, you fight for it, you fund it, and you respect it."

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    12/20/2021

    Grief Is Evidence of Love

    by Kellie Carter Jackson

    The resurgence of the pandemic is an opportunity to reflect on the late theorist and public intellectual bell hooks, who "gave me... the language to understand grieving and healing as radical, communal acts."

  • SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
    12/19/2021

    Out of Context COVID Stats are Misleading

    by Jim Downs

    The first epidemiologists worked in a narrative mode, without advanced statistical measures. Without discarding quantitative methods, the field needs to refocus on telling evidence-based stories about the pandemic to clarify what's working, what isn't, and what people should do. 

  • 12/19/2021

    In Critical Ways, the 1918 Flu Remains a Forgotten Pandemic

    by George Dehner

    The news has made many comparisons between the current pandemic and the 1918 influenza – especially the grim milestones of infections and deaths – but it's clear that lessons about public policy and public health practices based on the failures of the past remain unlearned.

  • 12/12/2021

    With COVID, None of Us are Safe Until All of Us are Safe

    by Robert Brent Toplin

    Deference to the patent claims of pharmaceutical companies are slowing the urgently needed distribution of COVID vaccines to poorer nations. Residents of rich nations will pay a price as new, potentially dangerous variants like Omicron spread.