Health

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 […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s America Fails Coronavirus, as 170K – 202K die, Child Cases Spike, while other Countries are back to Normal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s America is still failing Coronavirus, big time. The death toll has now passed 170,000 here, though there have been about 204,000 extra deaths so far this year above what is normal, so that is likely the true coronavirus toll. It is worrying that the CDC now says that coronavirus […]

Donald Trump

How Trump’s Expansion of Junk Short-Term Health Insurance Plans Puts Americans at Risk

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health, and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, recently concluded that the latest GOP/Trump Short Term Limited Duration Insurance (STLDI) plans present a significant threat to the health and financial well-being of American families. STLDI plans involve […]

Corruption

Lebanon’s Leaders Resign over deaths of 200, but Trump refuses Accountability for 163,462 Deaths

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Monday, the prime minister of Lebanon and his entire cabinet resigned en masse, reports Bassem Mroue at the Associated Press. Last week an enormous explosion destroyed Beirut’s port and part of the city, killing over 200 persons and wounding thousands, and leaving 300,000 homeless. The explosion came about after […]

Epidemics

Not just the Lungs: How COVID-19 might increase risk of Brain Inflammation and loss of Clear Thinking

The Conversation

By Natalie C. Tronson | – Of all frightening ways that the SARS-COV-2 virus affects the body, one of the more insidious is the effect of COVID-19 on the brain. It is now clear that many patients suffering from COVID-19 exhibit neurological symptoms, from loss of smell, to delirium, to an increased risk of stroke. […]

Climate Crisis

OK, Boomers: Will the America we die in be unprecedentedly Hot, Racist, Unequal, Sickly and Authoritarian?

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Let me be blunt. This wasn’t the world I imagined for my denouement. Not faintly. Of course, I can’t claim I ever really imagined such a place. Who, in their youth, considers their death and the world that might accompany it, the one you might leave behind for younger generations? I’m […]

Donald Trump

What the huge COVID-19 testing undercount in the US means: We may actually have 30 million Cases

The Conversation

Melissa Hawkins | – Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutions recently published a study which estimated that the true number of people infected by COVID-19 could be six to 24 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. Melissa Hawkins, professor of public health at American University, explains what […]

Epidemics

Cramped ICE Detention Centers during COVID-19 Threaten Migrant Safety, even Officers

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Jessica Myers | Luce Foundation: Southwest Stories Fellowship | – ( Cronkite News) – PHOENIX – In the six months Maria Chávez’s husband has been detained at La Palma Correctional Center, he has been quarantined twice after being exposed to suspected cases of COVID-19. And quarantine, for him, has meant solitary confinement. Andrés gets […]

Australasia

100 days without COVID-19: how New Zealand got rid of a virus that keeps spreading across the world

The Conversation

By Michael Baker, Amanda Kvalsvig, and Nick Wilson | – On Sunday, New Zealand will mark 100 days without community transmission of COVID-19. From the first known case imported into New Zealand on February 26 to the last case of community transmission detected on May 1, elimination took 65 days. New Zealand relied on three […]