Epidemics

Medical Worker on Covid-19: Struck me How Different it is when I saw Young Guy gasping out Pink Froth

By Lizzie Presser | – (ProPublica ) – As of Friday, Louisiana was reporting 479 confirmed cases of COVID-19, one of the highest numbers in the country. Ten people had died. The majority of cases are in New Orleans, which now has one confirmed case for every 1,000 residents. New Orleans had held Mardi Gras […]

Epidemics

A Psychologist Explains: Top 3 Ways the Coronavirus Pandemic is Changing Who We Are

The Conversation

By Arie Kruglanski | – For most Americans, the coronavirus pandemic represents a completely unprecedented circumstance, as novel as it is life-changing. No event in recent history has affected us as profoundly and pervasively. Not only does it remind us of our physical fragility, it undermines economic security, throws daily routines topsy-turvy, wreaks havoc on […]

Bernie Sanders

We need a People’s Response to Coronavirus – and the Sanders Campaign is Uniquely Poised to Lead

Waging Nonviolence

By Fhatima Paulino, Carlos Saavedra, and Rodrigo Saavedra | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – The movement behind the Bernie Sanders campaign has the vision, infrastructure and leadership to address the government’s failed pandemic response. The eve of Super Tuesday was just 12 days ago, a moment when many of us in the progressive left were […]

Donald Trump

Trump Spared Iran from Bombing, but his Sanctions Fed Pandemic in which 1 dies every 10 Minutes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Kristen Welker at NBC News report that Trump refused to bomb Iran last weekend for fear it would be a public relations disaster given international sympathy for that country’s coronavirus plight. It appears that some officials had considered bombing Iran in response to Shiite […]

China

Why Americans should stop Talking about “China Flu” and Learn some things from China

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – There is an old saying that politics stops at the water’s edge. Never really true, it is even less appropriate today. Domestic politics and international relations interact with each other, often in subtle or unseen ways to the detriment of us all. President Trump’s insistence on calling […]

Bernie Sanders

The Dem Primary is Over, and we need Bernie Sanders to lead on Health Care from the Senate

David Faris

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – On Tuesday, I cast a joyless vote for the very much politically doomed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primary, in an elementary school where hushed whispers and fearful glances had replaced the normal din of an election day. There was no one standing just outside the perimeter […]

Donald Trump

Trumpandemic: Trump Spreads the Germs of Racial Hatred and Xenophobia

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – President Donald Trump has systematically focused on a xenophobic rebranding of COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus” to help cover up his disastrous response to the pandemic. In a mistake-filled, zombie-like Oval Office address last week, Trump looked into the camera with sickly eyes and warned Americans of an enemy […]

Epidemics

Blues in the time of Pandemic, 1919 — “In a few days influenza would be controlled”

Shalom Goldman

Middlebury, Vt. (Special to Informed Comment) – The great influenza pandemic of 1918-19 , which raged in the aftermath of the 1914-18 World War, killed and incapacitated over 50 million people worldwide. In the U.S. over 600, 000 people died in the pandemic. Survivors of that pandemic have left us a rich cultural legacy , […]

Epidemics

Why the ‘herd immunity’ route to fighting coronavirus is unethical and potentially dangerous

The Conversation

By Arindam Basu | – As most of the world tries to suppress the coronavirus spread, some countries are going it alone – trying to manage the pandemic through so-called “herd immunity”. Herd immunity means letting a large number of people catch a disease, and hence develop immunity to it, to stop the virus spreading. […]