Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Moving From Vaccine Apartheid To Vaccine Equity; Covid Risk Coverage Needs Reassessed
NPR: What The Navajo Nation And Ireland Can Teach Rich Countries About Generosity In A Pandemic
Last year, the Irish people raised nearly $2 million dollars for the Navajo and Hopi Nations so they could protect themselves from the pandemic. At the time, the infection rate in the Navajo community – 2,304 cases per 100,000 — was the highest in the country and nearly 40% higher than even the epicenter of New York City. It was a show of thanks to Native Americans for a $170 gift sent by the Choctaw to the Irish people at the height of the potato famine in 1847. When vaccines became available, Navajo Nation leaders made a concerted effort to obtain vaccines from the U.S. government and get shots in arms quickly to ensure that their residents were protected from the virus. The results have been tremendous, with nearly 90% of the eligible population receiving at least a first dose. (Sriram Shamasunder and Priti Krishtel, 5/10)
Scientific American: It's Time To Reevaluate How We Talk About COVID Risk
I have never had as much suicidal ideation as I’ve had over the last year and a half, during this pandemic. I have not been in any particular physical danger. Thinking about ending one’s life can be an understandable coping mechanism to survive adverse conditions, such as living alone through a pandemic and going without touch or indoor companionship for months on end. I have a good therapist, and my ideas about suicide never progressed beyond thoughts towards making any plans to actually go through with it. The “logic” to these thoughts happened in a cycle like this. (Steven W. Thrasher, 5/19)
The New York Times: Is The U.S. Learning All The Wrong Lessons From Covid-19?
Michael Lewis’s new book, “The Premonition,” is about one of the most important questions of this moment: Why, despite having the most money, the brightest minds and the some of the most robust public health infrastructure in the world, did the United States fail so miserably at handling the Covid-19 pandemic? And what could we have done differently? The villain of Lewis’s story is not Donald Trump; it’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The argument laced through the book is that the C.D.C. was too passive, too unwilling to act on uncertain information, too afraid of making mistakes, too interested in its public image. What we needed was earlier shutdowns, frank public messaging, a more decentralized testing regime, a public health bureaucracy more willing to stand up to the president. (Michael Lewis and Ezra Klein, 5/11)
