public health

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  4/1/2020
  

  The Military Knew Years Ago That a Coronavirus Was Coming

  The Pentagon was well aware of not just the threat of a novel influenza, but even anticipated the consequent scarcity of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds. 

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• SOURCE: Fast Company
  3/24/2020
  

  The Untold Origin Story of the N95 Mask

  The most important design object of our time was more than a century in the making.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/29/2020
  

  The Government Must Pay People to Stay Home

  by Gabriel N. Rosenberg

  The earliest effective government responses to epidemic illness in the United States came not in the context of human health, but in the context of livestock.

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• SOURCE: Vox
  3/30/2020
  

  A Brief History of Beards and Pandemics

  Unlike what was thought during the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, beards cannot trap germs nor transfer disease.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/28/2020
  

  The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the US to COVID-19

  The Coronavirus Task Force squandered its best chance of containing the virus’s spread. Instead, Americans were left largely blind to the scale of a looming public health catastrophe.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/29/2020
  

  The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed.

  As the coronavirus spreads, the collapse of the project helps explain America’s acute shortage.

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• SOURCE: TIME
  3/27/2020
  

  'You Must Wash Properly.' Newspaper Ads From the 1918 Flu Pandemic Show Some Things Never Change

  While the 1918 flu and COVID-19 are different diseases, newspaper advertisements from 1918 show that, in some ways, the two moments are strikingly similar.

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• SOURCE: CNBC
  3/28/2020
  

  The History of Hand Sanitizer

  How the coronavirus staple went from mechanic shops to consumer shelves.

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• 3/29/2020
  

  Getting Medieval on COVID? The Risks of Periodizing Public Health

  by G. Geltner

  Pundits have described fighting the pandemic in terms of “medieval” or “modern” approaches. A historian of late medieval public health explains that dichotomy is a false one, and dangerous as well.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  3/25/2020
  

  This Is Just the Beginning

  by Yascha Mounk

  If we commit to strict social distancing now, we can radically curtail the number of new cases and buy time—time to put in place the measures we need to contain the pandemic in a less economically destructive way.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/26/2020
  

  The Power of Purell Compels You!

  The Purellification of America is about sanitation, but it is really about sanity. Fear, control, and the fear that we have no control.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/25/2020
  

  President Trump’s Desire to Reopen Businesses Quickly is Dangerous

  by Christopher McKnight Nichols

  History teaches us that prioritizing the economy could kill hundreds of thousands.

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• SOURCE: N+1
  3/23/2020
  

  Coronavirus and Chronopolitics

  by Gabriel Winant

  What matters now is the balance of authority in everyday life—between young and old, worker and boss.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/23/2020
  

  Trump Has Given Unusual Leeway to Fauci, but Aides Say He’s Losing His Patience

  Mr. Trump knows that Dr. Fauci, who has advised every president since Ronald Reagan, is seen as credible with a large section of the public and with journalists.

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• SOURCE: Daily Beast
  3/20/2020
  

  Will Americans Actually Comply With a Long-Term Lockdown?

  Historian Scott Knowles said the response in the U.S.—where both the president and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have advised the entire country against participating in large gatherings—is essentially unprecedented.

• 
• SOURCE: NBC News
  3/22/2020
  

  Progress is Why Viruses Aren't Named After Locations Anymore

  While the White House has stood by President Donald Trump's frequent use of the phrase "Chinese virus" in reference to COVID-19 experts say the argument just doesn't hold up.

• 
• SOURCE: Michigan Radio
  3/23/2020
  

  What Does “Flatten the Curve” Mean? We Asked the UM Medical Historian who Helped Coin the Term

  Markel and his cohorts designed a study of the 1918-19 flu pandemic to compare cities that did flatten the curve--with those that didn't.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  3/21/2020
  

  A Historical Lesson in Disease Containment

  Tuberculosis sanatoriums offered patients fresh air, entertainment, and socialization—for those who could afford them.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/18/2020
  

  Trump is Frantically Rewriting His Epic Failures. Don’t Let Him.

  “He’s likely to be responsible for many deaths,” Max Skidmore, a political science professor and the author of a book on presidential responses to pandemics, told me.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/22/2020
  

  The Virus Can Be Stopped, But Only with Harsh Steps, Experts Say

  In interviews with a dozen of the world’s leading experts on fighting epidemics, there was wide agreement on the steps that must be taken immediately.