Health Care

Trump keeps trying to Blame China for his Bungling on Coronavirus: Enough with the Conspiracy Theories

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Conspiracy theorists never let a crisis go to waste. When something truly terrible happens, the conspiracy theorist sets to work to determine the dark, hidden forces at work behind the scenes that have produced the crisis. Some people might see God or the Devil as the prime mover behind […]

Epidemics

Believe it or Not: Fighting the Coronavirus depends on Keeping our Oceans Healthy

China Dialogue

By Torsten Thiele, Marie-Christine Imbert and Timothy Bouley |- ( China Dialogue ) – We must think about how we emerge in a new and more sustainable post-crisis world that places living resources at its heart. When thinking about life on Earth, there is no better place to start than the ocean. Life was born […]

Donald Trump

Top 5 Reasons Trump’s West Wing May be Emerging as a Coronavirus Epicenter

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jana Winter and Hunter Walker at Yahoo News broke the story that 11 Secret Service agents have tested positive for the coronavirus. Likely some of them served in the West Wing. This week it was revealed at that a US military valet who brought Trump food came down with the […]

Epidemics

The Middle East was beset by Terrorism; now it Faces Coronavirus and Economic Freefall

Inequality.org

By Colin Powers| – ( Inequality.org ) – As acutely as COVID-19 and related policy responses are widening inequality in the United States, the pandemic’s biased effects threaten to be even more pronounced in many parts of the global south. This certainly appears to be the case for the non-Gulf countries of the Middle East […]

Donald Trump

Other Countries get Testing, Contact Tracing and Open Economies: We get President Lysol and Malign Neglect

Tomdispatch

By Ann Jones | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Donald Trump is not a president. He can’t even play one on TV. He’s a corrupt and dangerous braggart with ill-concealed aspirations for a Crown and, with an election coming up, he’s been monopolizing prime time every day, spouting self-congratulation and misinformation. (No, don’t inject that […]

Epidemics

Is Big Pharma more Interested in Profiteering than Protecting us from Coronavirus?

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – April 12, 1955 stands out as the brightest day in the history of vaccine development and public health when news of the discovery by Jonas Salk of a vaccine for the polio virus was made public. The most venerated medical scientist of the 20th century, Jonas Salk, M.D., […]

Epidemics

Stop Calling them Heroes if You won’t give Essential Workers Sick Leave and Health Care like Every Other Industrialized Country

Juan Cole

By Paul F. Clark | – The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated the degree to which we depend on the work of others. This is particularly true of essential workers like truck drivers, grocery store employees and hospital nurses who are ensuring the rest of us stay safe and are able to get the supplies, food […]

Epidemics

Lockdown Singing: the Science of why Music helps us connect in Isolation

The Conversation

By David M. Greenberg and Ilanit Gordon | – “Don’t hold back, sing with all of your heart,” said our colleague Simon Baron-Cohen on a Zoom meeting the other night with his fellow band members. Simon is director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University by day and bass player of the blues and […]

Donald Trump

Unionize! Trump has coerced Workers at Covid-19 Hot Spot Meat Packing Plants into Front Lines

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Me. (Special to Informed Comment) – Should we be surprised that Smithfield[s pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was a hotspot for the Covid19 virus? No, and here is another no brainer. There are many such hotspots among meat processing plants around the US. How we handle such facts will affect […]