Health and Sanity category archive
The Epidemiologist’s Epic Exercise in Ineffectuality 0
In the midst of a long, detailed article tracking the course of COVID-19 in the United States, Jonathan Lemire and Calvin Woodward succinctly summarize why Donald Trump has failed to halt, nay, to slow the spread of the pandemic.
His conventional weapons failed him. The virus doesn’t have a Twitter account.
Picturing the Path to Pariah 0
Meanwhile, the White House plans to throw in the towel on the coronavirus (via Atrios).
“He Can’t Handle the Truth” 0
Laurie Roberts takes a look at one Arizona’s congresscritter’s call to shoot the messenger.
Unmasking (and) the Common Good 0
At AL.com, Kyle Whitmire considers Alabama’s reluctance to order/request/ask persons to wear masks in the face of the current pandemic. In doing so, he explains the concept of the common good in simple terms:
Follow the link for the rest of his piece, in which he tries to figure out why many no longer seem to care about the common good in these viral times.
Maskless Marauders . . . 0
. . . infest the House.
Afterthought:
I had a routine dental appointment yesterday.
I was asked to wait in my vehicle until the staff could take my temperature and double-check my medical history, then wear a mask in the office. When the tech went to work on me, natch, I took off my mask, but he wore a mask and a face shield (the face shield was new).
Which only goes to prove that my dentist and his staff are smarter than your average Republican Congressperson.
As too is my dresser drawer.
Selfishness Unmasked 0
Will Bunch is depressed at what the coronavirus has revealed about (far too many) Americans’ loss of the concept of a common good. Here’s a bit, in which he explores the some of the forces behind of our epidemic of ignorant intransigence:
No other nation has botched its coronavirus response so badly because no other nation holds science in such low esteem. “Who made you perpetrators over my life?” the self-proclaimed Trump Girl demanded of the experts at the Palm Beach County meeting. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Stanford psychiatry prof Keith Humphreys noted that the United States simply can’t impose a coronavirus testing regimen like South Korea or Singapore because we don’t trust the government on public health. “Clusters of gun-toting protesters opposing public health measures are a real — and uniquely American — problem,” he wrote, “but it’s the much more prevalent distrust in government’s role in public health that would curtail the success of any test, trace and isolate program.”
I commend the entire article to your attention. It is a long and depressing read, but an important one.
A Grave Discussion 0
While we’re on this topic, I suggest that you read Vinita Mehta’s post at Psychology Today Blogs exploring why right-wingers don’t take the threat of COVID-19 as seriously as persons elsewhere on the political spectrum.
Image via Job’s Anger.
Blown Smoke 0
David deconstructs a strawman argument.
This, by the way, is a frequent tactic of persons who do not have the facts on their side. It’s not always a right-wing tactic, but often is because the facts lean left.
Immune Response, Reprise 0
Andie Dominick of the Des Moines Register interviewed ER doctor Tom Benzoni about COVID-19 in Iowa and published an edited version of the transcript on its editorial page. Here’s a tiny bit; follow the link for the rest (bold type is used to indicate a question).
Any thoughts for people who don’t think the virus is real or a threat?
Gravity is just a theory. You can go ahead and walk out a second-story window because gravity is a theory. The virus doesn’t care what you believe.
Immune Response 0
Writing at Psychology Today Blogs, Nathan Heflick discusses the results of a survey that indicates that many persons may be unreasonably optimistic about their ability to escape COVID-19. He finds the implications of their optimism disturbing.
A snippet:
Follow the link for the complete article.
Stories of the Fall 0
Der Spiegel interviews two economists, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, in an attempt to figure out what the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed about health care in the United States.
They are not optimistic.
Here’s a bit:
DER SPIEGEL: Is it possible to identify the point when things started to go wrong in the U.S.?
Deaton: One great question to ask is: Why doesn’t America have a strong federal welfare state with health care like other European countries do? One answer is the issue of race. In the middle of the 20th century, it was the southern senators of the Democratic party who blocked any consideration of publicly funded health care. People don’t like to pay for services that go to people that don’t look like them, especially when they are black.
It’s a tough read, but a worthwhile one.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery (Updated) 0
Addendum:
Apparently, the noose had been there for some time without having been remarked on.
That doesn’t make it any less disgusting. A hangman’s noose is a complex knot; it doesn’t get tied by accident.
