Health Care

Foreign Policy in Focus) – With oil prices down and wealthy countries bungling COVID-19, the pandemic has exposed the weaknesses that wealth papers over. During the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (527-565 AD), a mysterious plague spread out of the Nile Valley to Constantinople and finished off the Roman Empire. Appearing first in China […]

Drugs

Isolation and Opioids During the Pandemic

Tomdispatch

By Mattea Kramer | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – In our new era of nearly unparalleled upheaval, as a pandemic ravages the bodies of some and the minds of nearly everyone, as the associated economic damage disposes of the livelihoods of many, and as even the promise of democracy fades, the people whose lives were already […]

Authoritarianism

Covid Lies: Why Your life Hangs on the Deranged Whims of One Man

Martin Powers

A Declaration of Independence from Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Aztec Politics: Trump sacrificed 200K by Downplaying Covid-19 to save the Stock Market from Panic

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bob Woodward’s new book of interviews with Trump and figures in his administration records how Trump told the reporter in mid-March that he plays down the coronavirus to avoid a panic. According to CNN, which obtained Woodward’s tapes, Trump said: “I wanted to always play it down. I still like […]

Donald Trump

Fourth World: Or American Carnage from a Pandemic President

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – The year was 1991 and the United States was suddenly the globe’s lone superpower, its ultimate hyperpower, the last and greatest of its kind, the soon-to-be-indispensable nation. The only one left — alone, utterly alone and triumphant atop the world. Who could have asked for more? Or better? It had been a […]

Health Care

De-Privatize and Expand Medicaid, NOW!

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida– (Special to Informed Comment) – The COVID-19 pandemic shows the urgent need for expansion of the Medicaid health insurance program. In too many states, political decisions by state legislators to deny health insurance to thousands of their citizens has resulted in an almost non-existent social and health safety net. Decisions in 2016/2017 by […]

Epidemics

A Doctor Went to His Own Employer for a COVID-19 Antibody Test. It Cost $10,984

ProPublica

This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues. By Marshall Allen | – ( ProPublica) – When Dr. Zachary Sussman went to Physicians Premier ER in […]

Epidemics

Fears Pandemic could Spur Dramatic Spike in Homelessness

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Jessica Myers (Luce Foundation: Southwest Stories Fellowship): ( Cronkite News) – PHOENIX – For more than three decades, André House just west of downtown has provided food, showers, temporary housing and other services to Arizonans experiencing homelessness or poverty. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of families seeking such services has […]

Epidemics

Palestinians in Gaza Face Covid-19 Alone and Isolated, in Israel’s Open-Air Prison

Middle East Monitor

By Eman Abusidu | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Since Covid-19 first appeared, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have tackled the pandemic with typical determination. Without delay, they implemented a strict quarantine regime with mandatory 21-day isolation in government-run facilities adjacent to the border posts. This seems to have worked well until last […]