public health

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/7/2021
  

  Herd Immunity is Almost Here. What Next?

  by John M. Barry

  The best-case scenario for humanity's future with the Coronavirus, in which virus strains produce much fewer and much less dangerous cases of illness, requires reducing the number of unvaccinated people around the globe. 

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• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  10/14/2021
  

  Manhood, Madness, and Moonshine

  by Dillon Carroll

  Today's concern for "deaths of despair" among white Americans isn't unprecedented; a wave of alcoholism and temperance advocacy after the Civil War highlighted the relationship between social unsettlement, substance abuse and social reformism.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/12/2021
  

  History of Past Pandemics Shows COVID Will Be an Era, not an Event

  Medical and Science Historians Allan Brandt, Jeremy Greene, Frank Snowden and Jonathan Moreno argue that we are unlikely to experience any clear end of the COVID pandemic. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  10/5/2021
  

  The Inescapable Dilemma of Infectious Disease

  by Kyle Harper

  Control of infectious diesase is arguably humanity's greatest triumph. Has that triumph changed our environment to make diseases tougher to control? Has our success stopped us from being able to think of how to thrive without control of infections? 

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• SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  10/4/2021
  

  Georgia State Professor Files Complaint over Denied Request to Teach Remotely

  “I would like to be at a place where my administration cares about my health, my basic fundamental health, and is not willing to put my life at risk for a Board of Regents political policy,” historian Dan Immergluck said.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/5/2021
  

  The Lesson of Venice's 17th Century Plague? Tax the Rich

  by Yong Kwon

  By making only a temporary commitment to public works funded by taxing the city's merchant elite, Venice emerged from the plague with an overburdened workforce, less ability to attract labor, and a declining economy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/5/2021
  

  Frustration, Anger, and Deaths Won't Convince the Unvaccinated

  by Matthew Newsom Kerr

  "Vaccine resisters in the 19th century significantly stymied public health efforts, and the anger felt by health officials shaped their responses — not always for the best."

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/27/2021
  

  The Legal Standard Encouraging Religious Exemptions to Vaccination is Baffling

  by Charles McCrary

  American courts have established sincerity of individual belief as the standard for recognizing a religious accommodation or exemption. Even though no major religions ban vaccination, this standard could still sustain widespread refusal of coronavirus vaccines. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/22/2021
  

  With Students Back on Campus, Faculty Push Back Against COVID Policies They Consider Inadequate

  "Many are enjoying seeing students back on campus. But for others those scenes are fraught."

• 
• SOURCE: ABC News
  9/20/2021
  

  US COVID Death Count Surpasses Estimates of 1918 Influenza

  Historian Christopher McKnight Nichols notes "we have effective vaccines now.... the thing they most wanted in 1918, we've got. And for a lot of different reasons, we botched the response." 

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• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  9/17/2021
  

  Policing Religious Exemptions to Vaccines

  A lawsuit against Creighton University, a Jesuit institution, would expand the justification for religious exemptions to vaccination from explicit declarations of opposition by a religious body to any impulse of individual conscience. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/10/2021
  

  The Limits of My Empathy for Covid Deniers

  by Tressie McMillan Cottom

  "This is a social problem with big structural issues. That does not absolve me of my responsibility for seeing the humanity in people I vehemently disagree with, but it does make me feel less guilty about being unable to save them."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/9/2021
  

  Vaccination Mandates Are an American Tradition. So Is the Backlash

  Historians Michael Willrich and Elena Conis explains the history of vaccination resistance and the civil liberties and political conflicts that have accompanied it. 

• 
• SOURCE: Substack
  9/10/2021
  

  If Fighting Terrorist Attacks Is a Government Responsibility, So Is Fighting a Killer Virus

  by Claire Potter

  "Vaccine refusers are killing their children and killing each other to support an extreme idea about human freedom that is unsupported in United States law."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/7/2021
  

  The Masked Professor vs. the Unmasked Student

  "Universities are caught between the demands of their faculty for greater safety precautions, and the fear of losing students, and the revenue they bring, if schools return to another year of online education."

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  8/27/2021
  

  We’re Begging Students to Save Our Lives

  by Amy Olberding

  "We beg teenagers to think of our babies, to feel for our dead, and please not to kill us. Some of them oblige. Some do not — an alarming number do not. The university’s response so far amounts to: Beg better."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/31/2021
  

  It's the Moment the Antivax Movement Has Been Waiting For

  by Tara Haelle

  The antivax movement has appropriated common-sense ideas like parental control and bodily autonomy to sow widespread fear and hostility toward the COVID-19 vaccinations.

• 
• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  9/2/2021
  

  The Agency of the Irresponsible

  by Sarah Swedberg

  When universities bend to political pressure and adopt "personal responsibility" policies for vaccination, masking, and social distancing they give agency to the irresponsible and take it away from those who are actively working to protect public health. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/19/2021
  

  There is No Precedent for the Politicization of the Pandemic

  by Howard Markel

  The COVID pandemic is going to be the future baseline case study for the social impact of pandemics, and is unfortunately likely to be a cautionary tale, says a medical historian. 

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• 8/15/2021
  

  Children's Teeth, Collected Decades Ago, Can Show the Damage of Nuclear Testing

  by Lawrence Wittner and Joseph Mangano

  The Radiation and Public Health Project will use thousands of baby teeth collected for a discontinued 1960s study of radiation exposure to assess the health toll of nuclear testing.