So Speaker Vos and Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald want Gov. Evers to allow an exception to the Safer at Home order for Easter Sunday services. (They’ve also included Passover in their request, but they’re either too ignorant or too dishonest to concede that Passover is commemorated traditionally in a home setting. It’s obviously a certain…
Public Health
Animals, Coronavirus, Public Health, Science/Nature
Prudent Human Changes Concerning Exotic Animals
by JOHN ADAMS •
Karin Brulliard reports The next pandemic is already coming, unless humans change how we interact with wildlife, scientists say: The new coronavirus, which has traversed the globe to infect more than 1 million people, began like so many pandemics and outbreaks before: inside an animal. The virus’s original host was almost certainly a bat, scientists…
Coronavirus, Medicine, Public Health, Television
Dr. Rishi Desai Delivers the Truth to Fox News Viewers
by JOHN ADAMS •
The best part of this is the awkward silence from the @foxnews host after Dr. Desai speaks the truth. pic.twitter.com/TqtEumFuLy — Steve Hall (@being_steve) April 2, 2020 Ed Mazza reports that A doctor’s no-holds-barred analysis of coronavirus testing shortcomings is going viral – not just because of his blunt talk but because of where he made…
Coronavirus, Medicine, Military, Public Health
USNS Comfort Arrives In New York Harbor
by JOHN ADAMS •
Via Reuters: The USNS Comfort, a 1,000-bed U.S. Navy hospital ship, arrives in New York Harbor and docks on Manhattan’s west side after departing Norfolk, Virginia. The Comfort will treat non-coronavirus patients, including those who require surgery and critical care, the Navy said. Hospitals in New York City have been overrun with patients suffering from…
Coronavirus, Economics, Public Health
‘Come Meet the Biggest Fool in America’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Conservative Jonathan V. Last, writing at The Bulwark, invites readers to Come Meet the Biggest Fool in America. In part of an email newsletter sent to subscribers today, Last rightly excoriates economist Richard Epstein for minimizing the risks from the coronavirus pandemic. Last writes (yes, a pun) that I mention all of this as a…
Coronavirus, Public Health, Television
Frontline: Covering Coronavirus in Cremona, Italy
by JOHN ADAMS •
A reporter’s emotional journey back to her homeland in Italy, now the global epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. “I never thought that I would be making a film like this in Italy,” says FRONTLINE correspondent Sasha Achilli. “I feel immensely proud of the way that the Italian doctors are doing everything they can.” Italy’s doctors, she says,…
City, Public Health, Reasoning
Specific Numerical Claims Require a Citation
by JOHN ADAMS •
During a public health emergency involving a contagious infection, it is possible – and so it is rational – to assume that some portion of that emergency lies hidden beyond one’s immediate view. This likelihood can be described simply, in this very way: some portion of this emergency likely lies hidden beyond one’s immediate view.
Update, 3.28.20: the original article linked below has been updated (with the remaining, substantially-cited portions helpfully still present). A personal note in this, sincerely offered: a thank you to the editor for the update. We find ourselves – as an entire country – in startling and difficult circumstances. We will make our way as best we can.
Remaining original remarks after the excerpt –
Coronavirus, Ethics, Public Health
A Right – and Duty – of Protection
by JOHN ADAMS •
One does not have to be a member of the Southern Baptist tradition (as I am not) to agree with Dr. Russell Moore’s description of the obligation to care for the elderly. Moore, the president of that denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, writes that God Doesn’t Want Us to Sacrifice the Old to Coronavirus:…
Coronavirus, Public Health, Trump
No, the Country Will Not “Open” on Easter
by JOHN ADAMS •
Conservative Jonathan V. Last, writing at the Bulwark, states what should be obvious – The Country Will Not “Open” on Easter: We talked yesterday about the benchmarks that need to be met in order to begin re-opening the economy: A clear understanding of the infected population and rate of transmission; the healthcare system at a…
Coronavirus, Public Health, State Government, Wisconsin
Wisconsin Department of Health Services: Emergency Order 12 (‘Safer at Home Order’)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Coronavirus, Mendacity, Public Health, Television
They Protected Themselves. They Lied to You.
by JOHN ADAMS •
Embed from Getty Images In the first 10 days of March, some of the commentators on Fox News and Fox Business played down the threat of what would soon be recognized as a pandemic. Many of the networks’ elderly, pro-Trump viewers responded to the coverage and the president’s public statements by taking the virus less seriously than…
Coronavirus, Mendacity, Public Health, Television
Fox & Fiends
by JOHN ADAMS •
Coronavirus, Public Health
What’s Worse Than Today? Yesterday’s Complacency.
by JOHN ADAMS •
Babbittry, Boosterism, Coronavirus, Corporate Welfare, Disinformation, Economy, Mendacity, Newspapers, Opioids, Public Health
A Newspaper’s Boosterism During a Pandemic
by JOHN ADAMS •
A worthy person – a man or woman committed to reason, honesty, and seriousness of purpose – would have little respect for the Janesville Gazette. This critical view is not a new one, truly: the paper’s work has been inferior during the Great Recession, during an opioid crisis, during cheerleading for countless state and local…