Health

By Mark Smith and Chris Thomas | – Of an estimated 228 million cases of malaria worldwide each year, around 93% are in Africa. This proportion is more or less the same for the 405,000 malaria deaths globally. That’s why there are huge efforts underway to provide detailed maps of current malaria cases in Africa, […]

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 […]

Arab World

Coronavirus in the Middle East: a testing time for relations between regimes and their citizens

Brian Whitaker

( Al-Bab.com ) – THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic is not only testing the ability of governments to manage an unusual kind of crisis – it is also testing their relationship with the people they govern. Success in confronting the virus depends on governments and citizens working together, but among the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East […]

Donald Trump

6 Million Stricken with Covid-19: Trump has turned the US into a Sh*thole Country

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US reported its six millionth coronavirus case, and deaths are headed toward 200,000. It is hard to explain just how bad the US death rate under Trump from the novel coronavirus is. Reuters: “U.S. coronavirus cases top 6 million” It isn’t only that it is worse than other industrialized […]

Donald Trump

Rotten in Denmark: The Centers for Disease Control stopped Recommending Testing and Tracing

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Centers for Disease Control guidelines on testing in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic have once again become a subject of attention and controversy. CNN summarizes the change: “The CDC, changing its Covid-19 testing guidelines, no longer recommends testing for most people without symptoms, even if they’ve […]

Donald Trump

How our TV News is letting Trump get away with Claiming the Pandemic is Behind Us when we have a 9/11 every 3 Days

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Republican National Convention wants the pandemic to be in the past. It isn’t. Cases are up almost 1 percent this week. We still have over 40,000 new cases daily, down from a peak of 70,000 in mid-July. Some of the decline is a result of less testing, connived at […]

Desertification

Pandemic Karma: Destroying Forests to Raise certain Foods Put us Closer to Viruses

The Conversation

By Terry Sunderland | – As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths […]

Democratic Party

How in the World did Americans make even a Pandemic Partisan? The Virus doesn’t Care

The Conversation

By Andrea Robbett and Peter Hans Matthews | – Politics can divide even friends and families. When this happens, we like to tell ourselves that the explanation lies in honest differences in values and preferences. From this standpoint, friends from different political parties won’t really disagree, for example, about the number of workers displaced in […]