public health

• 
• SOURCE: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
  10/18/2020
  

  Last Week Tonight: The World Health Organization

  The weekly comedy-investigative program includes an assessment of the World Health Organization's past work eradicating disease in the developing world and the Trump administration's attacks on the agency (includes some vulgar language and jokes).

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/21/2020
  

  The Forgotten Third Amendment Could Give Pandemic-Struck America a Way Forward

  by Alexander Zhang

  Could the Third Amendment's ban on quartering of troops in private homes be expanded to establish a right to protection against pandemics? The history of troop quartering shows objections to it were closely connected with fear of disease.

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  10/20/2020
  

  ‘It’s Negligence’: U. of Michigan Students Ordered to ‘Stay in Place’ After Covid-19 Cases Surge

  Washtenaw County health officials are confronting the administration of the University of Michigan over their planning process for reopening campus as local cases associated with the university surge. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/19/2020
  

  What Fans of "Herd Immunity" Don't Tell You

  by John M. Barry

  Prolonged isolation measures to fight COVID-19 do cause harm--social, emotional, and economic. But advocates of "herd immunity" are not offering a practical or safe plan to protect the vulnerable if the virus spreads on a mass scale. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/15/2020
  

  In Fights Over Face Masks, Echoes of the American Seatbelt Wars

  The fight over seatbelt laws in the United States was fraught with trying to strike a balance between individual and public interests. Those concerns have also been reflected in similar matters of health and safety, including vaccinations, helmet laws — and masks.

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  10/5/2020
  

  Why African Americans Were More Likely to Die During the 1918 Flu Pandemic

  Black Americans in the 1918 flu pandemic were anomalously less likely to catch the flu, but died disproportionately from it because of segregated medicine.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/15/2020
  

  For 200 Years Courts Upheld Rules to Protect Americans’ Health. Until Now

  by John Fabian Witt

  "Now a new generation of judges, propelled by partisan energies, look to deprive states of the power to fight for the sick and dying in a pandemic in which the victims are disproportionately Black and brown."

• 
• 10/15/2020
  

  An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci

  by Martin Halpern

  A history professor who also has a background in public health research urges Dr. Anthony Fauci to resign so that he can freely speak out about the Trump administration's response to the COVID pandemic. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  10/12/2020
  

  Colleges Pledged to Follow the Science. But Divides in Reopening Plans Reflected State Politics

  Although the findings have not been peer reviewed, a working paper on college administrators' decisions to reopen campuses suggests that Republican state leadership was correlated with decisions to return students to campus this fall. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/8/2020
  

  The New England Journal of Medicine Avoided Politics for 208 Years. Now it’s Urging Voters to Oust Trump

  The administration's incompetent response to the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the otherwise non-political medical journal to endorse a vote against Donald Trump.

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  10/4/2020
  

  Coronavirus Can Afflict the Powerful. Yet Food Workers Remain the Most Vulnerable.

  by Angela Stuesse

  The rollback of workplace protections under a generation of conservative state and federal administrations has made low-wage service workers acutely vulnerable to COVID. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  10/3/2020
  

  Notre Dame’s President Went Unmasked at White House, Then Tested Positive. Now He’s Under Fire

  Student Ashton Weber recently helped create a petition, signed by more than 200 undergraduates, calling for Jenkins to resign because of his repeated failures to follow the public-safety precautions expected of students. 

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  10/2/2020
  

  Fearing a Fear of Germs

  by Heather Murray

  Will responses to the Coronavirus, like early public health steps taken in response to HIV, foster suspicion and mistrust? 

• 
• 10/4/2020
  

  "Follow the Science," but Explain and Apologize

  by Susan M. Reverby

  Governments need to establish trust so that their public health announcements are credible and persuasive, but have undermined that trust by conducting ethically questionable studies. A model of apology is part of the solution. 

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  9/13/2020
  

  When 194,000 Deaths Doesn’t Sound Like So Many

  by Rebecca Onion

  Historian Jacqueline Wernimont explains that the rise of quantification helps to obscure the human beings behind the numbers and makes the COVID-19 toll seem more acceptable. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/14/2020
  

  The Dark Side of Campus Efforts to Stop COVID-19

  by Grace Watkins

  While colleges have a legitimate interest in suppressing virus transmission on campus, it is dangerous to expand the surveillance powers of campus police. 

• 
• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  9/8/2020
  

  “All the World’s a Harem”: Perceptions of Masked Women during the 1918–1919 Flu Pandemic

  by Jessica Brabble, Ariel Ludwig and E. Thomas Ewing

  Contemporary sources show that women's mask-wearing practices during the 1918 flu pandemic could be viewed through a sexist lens, but women adapted the practice to claim independence and found examples in popular culture.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/1/2020
  

  ‘The 1918 Flu Is Still With Us’: The Deadliest Pandemic Ever Is Still Causing Problems Today

  Historians John Barry and Howard Markel are among the medical and social science experts who explain that the 1918 pandemic didn't "end" so much as endure in an era of recurrent viral pandemics. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/3/2020
  

  The Summer Sun Didn’t Stop Covid-19. Here’s Why.

  by Janet Golden and Christian Warren

  The misguided hope that the summer sun would stop COVID-19 in its tracks is one of a long series of claims made about the health benefits of the sun. They all reflect how magical thinking can leap into the gaps of scientific certainty. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/2/2020
  

  Gerald Ford Rushed Out a Vaccine. It Was a Fiasco

  by Rick Perlstein

  If steady, mature Gerald Ford succumbed to haste when his presidency was on the line, imagine what Donald Trump will do.