Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Roaring Twenties; Appalachian Trail And The Pandemic; And The Amputation Epidemic
The Atlantic: After The Coronavirus, Prepare For The Roaring Twenties
When confronted with disaster, believing that everything will change is all too easy. How is it possible to write poems after Auschwitz, to enjoy a Sunday stroll in Lower Manhattan following 9/11, or, indeed, to dine in restaurants after a pandemic kills hundreds of thousands of people in the span of a few cruel months? In 1974, the sociologist Jib Fowles coined the term chronocentrism, “the belief that one’s own times are paramount, that other periods pale in comparison.” The past few weeks have, understandably, confronted us with an especially loud chorus of chronocentric voices claiming that we are on the cusp of unprecedented change. Academics, intellectuals, politicians, and entrepreneurs have made sweeping pronouncements about the transformations that the pandemic will spur. (Mounk, 5/21)
Undark: To Prevent Pandemics, Bridging The Human And Animal Health Divide
Nadia began coughing on March 27. The 4-year-old Malayan tiger’s keepers at the Bronx Zoo in New York City also noticed she wasn’t finishing her daily allotment of raw meat. Concerned, they called in Paul Calle, the zoo’s head veterinarian. The team immobilized and anesthetized Nadia, so she could be put through a series of X-rays, ultrasounds, and routine blood work to look for known causes of respiratory disease in cats. “Since New York City is the epicenter for Covid in the U.S.,” said Calle, “we wanted to make sure we checked her for that, too.” (Peeples, 5/18)
The New York Times: How The Pandemic Splintered The Appalachian Trail
When Kelsey Foster started hiking the Appalachian Trail in early March, she had left her whole life behind — her job, her apartment, her family. The mood was still lighthearted as news about the coronavirus trickled out to hikers in those first few days. “There started being kind of jokes about it, like, ‘You left society at the right time,’” Ms. Foster said. “‘There’s no way to social distance better than being a backpacker.’” But by the end of the month, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the organization that leads management of the trail, which crosses 14 states along its 2,190-mile route from Georgia to Maine, was urging hikers to stay away. (Yuhas, 5/21)
San Francisco Chronicle: How A UCSF Lab Took On The Global Race To Block The Coronavirus
In late February, the virus expert Nevan Krogan called an early morning meeting at his UCSF lab in Mission Bay and told 20 fellow scientists that their lives were about to change. The new coronavirus, which emerged in China, was now spreading from person to person in California. Health authorities had just confirmed it. Soon the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 would be everywhere, Krogan realized, and many were bound to die. But maybe the San Francisco scientists could do something to help, Krogan told the group, if they agreed to work through the night at the lab, achieving in months or weeks what normally would take years, racing to complete one big project. (Fagone, 5/1)
ProPublica: The Black American Amputation Epidemic
It was a Friday in the hospital after a particularly grueling week when Dr. Foluso Fakorede, the only cardiologist in Bolivar County, Mississippi, walked into Room 336. Henry Dotstry lay on a cot, his gray curls puffed on a pillow. Fakorede smelled the circumstances — a rancid whiff, like dead mice. He asked a nurse to undress the wound on Dotstry’s left foot, then slipped on nitrile gloves to examine the damage. Dotstry’s calf had swelled to nearly the size of his thigh. The tops of his toes were dark; his sole was yellow, oozing. Fakorede’s gut clenched. Fuck, he thought. It’s rotten. Fakorede, who’d been asked to consult on the case, peeled off his gloves and read over Dotstry’s chart: He was 67, never smoked. His ultrasound results showed that the circulation in his legs was poor. Uncontrolled diabetes, it seemed, had constricted the blood flow to his foot, and without it, the infection would not heal. A surgeon had typed up his recommendation. It began: “Mr. Dotstry has limited options.” (Presser, 5/19)
Undark: The Wild Shrub At The Root Of The Afghan Meth Epidemic
Muhammad Rehman Shirzad squints against the late afternoon sun as he scrambles up the side of a steep ravine in the district of Surobi on the eastern edge of Afghanistan’s Kabul Province. This rugged gorge, only an hour’s drive from the national capital, is a far cry from the sprawling pink-and-red poppy fields that have long put Afghanistan at the heart of the global heroin trade. But these high, rocky outcroppings are home to a plant that may soon play as central a role in the country’s drug economy as the infamous opium poppy. Rehman, a forensic scientist with the Afghan government’s Forensic Medicine Directorate, stops to catch his breath and scans the uneven ground ahead. He is searching for Ephedra sinica, a hardy, sage-colored shrub that grows abundantly across central and northern Afghanistan. The plant contains a naturally-occurring stimulant called ephedrine — the synthetic version of which is a common ingredient in decongestants and weight loss pills, and is often used to make crystal methamphetamine. (Hendricks, 5/20)
