Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 7:12 PM, for 12h 41m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 15.1% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1846, Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine. Lori Aratani…
Public Health
Daily Bread, Ethics, Liberty, Public Health, Reasoning, Religion, Vaccines
Daily Bread for 9.6.21: Formation, Moral
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Labor Day in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:26 AM and sunset 7:19 PM, for 12h 53m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.4% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 2008, the federal government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing…
Daily Bread, Legislature, Litigation, Public Health, UW Madison, UW System, Vaccines, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 9.4.21: Nass Digs In
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will see showers with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:24 AM and sunset 7:22 PM, for 12h 58m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.2% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1882, the Pearl Street Station in New York City becomes the first power plant…
Daily Bread, Public Health, UW Madison, UW System, Vaccines
Daily Bread for 9.3.21: UW-Madison Reports 90% Vaccinated
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:22 AM and sunset 7:24 PM, for 13h 01m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.7% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1777, during the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge, the Flag of the United States…
Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Medicine, Public Health
Daily Bread for 8.24.21: Ron Johnson’s Push for Ivermectin
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will see afternoon thundershowers with a high of 91. Sunrise is 6:12 AM and sunset 7:41 PM, for 13h 29m 20s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM. On this day in 1909, workers start pouring concrete…
Coronavirus, Covidiocy, Health, Public Health
A Private Insurance Response to Vaccine Refusal (Updated)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Elisabeth Rosenthal and Glenn Kramon write, in Don’t Want a Vaccine? Be Prepared to Pay More for Insurance, about insurance companies rejecting waivers for anti-vax insureds who expect coverage for expensive COVID-19 treatment. Insurance companies should go farther, as Rosenthal and Kramon advocate: Get a Covid-19 shot to protect your wallet. Getting hospitalized with Covid-19…
Coronavirus, Public Health, Vaccines
The Great Vaccinated/Unvaccinated Divide
by JOHN ADAMS •
Politics, Public Health, Rhetoric, Trumpism, UW System, Vaccines, WISGOP
Steve Nass: Troll-King in Autumn
by JOHN ADAMS •
For many years, Steve Nass, as a state representative (now a state senator) was a notable farthest-to-the-right Wisconsin politician. The bête noire of liberals and universities, he was the state’s unmatched troll, criticizing the center-left time and again. Nass was a right-wing populist long before Trump. He was the great troll-king of Wisconsin, firing florid press releases…
City, Coronavirus, Culture, Education, Public Health, School District, Science/Nature
Wise Words for Whitewater from Steak-umm
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a thread on Twitter from Steak-umm (an American brand of thin-sliced frozen steaks) that does a better job (truly) discussing the role of science and skepticism about the pandemic than much of what’s published online. The full thread is available at Twitter, and excerpts are imediately below. It’s spot-on for Whitewater. (Note: the thread…
Public Health, Republicans, Vaccines
Delta, Disinformation, and the GOP Dance
by JOHN ADAMS •
Aside
IF PUBLIC OFFICIALS DON’T WANT TO READ DISCUSSIONS ABOUT PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY, THEN THEY SHOULDN’T RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE.
Coronavirus, Culture, Politics, Public Health, School District, Science/Nature
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Science
by JOHN ADAMS •
It seemed reasonable, months ago, to wait until the end of the 2020-2021 school year to assess how well the Whitewater Unified School District managed the pandemic. It doesn’t seem so reasonable now, for reasons of culture as much as public health. Generally – and sensibly – one has reason to be skeptical of lay…
Coronavirus, Public Health, Walworth County
The Problems of COVID-19 Aren’t Uniformly Acknowledged (and Likely Never Will Be)
by JOHN ADAMS •
David Leonhardt accurately writes that Heavily Republican areas of the U.S. have a growing Covid problem: Cases have begun to rise more rapidly in communities with lower vaccination rates. Consider this chart, which looks at the number of new cases in counties across the U.S., grouping counties by the share of residents who have been…
Coronavirus, Culture, Public Health
Social Distancing: Who Maintains, Who Doesn’t?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at ProMarket, Tim Besley and Sacha Dray assess One Year Into the Pandemic: Who Maintains Social Distancing and Who Doesn’t. Their full analysis is well worth reading. They write that social capital is an important factor behind reducing risks of infection. Social capital is an index that encompasses the presence of strong social networks,…