Kaiser permanente

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Every Monday, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here. Question of the Week Caitlin Flanagan’s masterful “ Chasing Joan Didion ” has me thinking about travel. What have you learned while away from home? Paint a picture of where you went and share your insights. Conversations of Note Top of the mind: the mass shooting Saturday in Buffalo, New York, in which a white-supremacist terrorist killed 10 people. My colleague Graeme Wood, an expert on murderous extremists , read the killer’s apparent manifesto and grappled with whether it ought to be shared or suppressed. The Los Angeles Times editorial board argued that “Americans have ignored the insidious creep of white supremacy into the public discourse to the point that it has become normalized.” … [Read more...] about Tucker Carlson Deserves Blame—But Not for Buffalo

COVID-19 has officially claimed 1 million lives in the U.S., according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The disease has killed more than 30 out of every 10,000 people in the country since the pandemic began. Since March 2020, an average of nearly 1,250 people have officially died of COVID-19 in the U.S. every day. That count, which peaked in January 2021 with up to 4,400 deaths a day, has slowed down recently, with an average of 350 to 600 daily deaths in April and May, according to Johns Hopkins. While this death toll is staggering, it’s almost certainly a serious undercount. Many COVID-related deaths are not officially counted as COVID, so the actual number of deaths from the disease could be several hundred thousand higher, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. California, which has more people than any other state, has also had the most deaths: More than 90,000 Californians have died of COVID-19 as of early May, an average of about 113 … [Read more...] about 1 million Americans have died of COVID-19. Data shows California’s role in the staggering toll

By Jay Hancock | KHN Millions of free COVID-19 rapid tests arriving in Americans’ mailboxes are long-awaited vindication for Dr. Michael Mina, who, as a Harvard assistant professor, had been advocating for two years that the best way to limit COVID-19 is to identify it quickly, cheaply, and widely with rapid antigen tests so infected people know to isolate themselves. “Rapid Tests Are the Answer to Living With Covid-19” was the headline on an October New York Times op-ed he co-authored. The Atlantic called him “America’s biggest antigen-test advocate.” In much of the world, rapid tests are “free for people and sold to governments for $3 ea[ch] to offer to their residents,” he tweeted last May. On Oct. 22, he was one of a small group of experts on a Zoom call to advise the Biden administration to urgently ramp up testing by purchasing and sending Americans free tests. But three weeks after that call, on Nov. 12, Mina announced he was leaving academia to become … [Read more...] about Pandemic Advisers Keep Joining the For-Profit COVID Industry

The mental health of Black women is always in jeopardy, particularly in the workplace, and not just during Mental Health Awareness Month. While Karine Jean-Pierre was recently named the first Black and LGBTQ+ person in the role of White House press secretary, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the first Black female Supreme Court Justice and Vice President Kamala Harris is in the White House, it is possible to think Black women are well-represented in the workplace in this country. That is not the case. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed a " Stop Woke Act" to end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in the workplace. The bill is "the first in the nation to end corporate wokeness and Critical Race Theory in our schools, we are prioritizing education not indoctrination," said Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez . Due to the intersecting identities of being a woman and being Black, Black women are at risk for dual oppression and double … [Read more...] about Improve the health of Black women. Make racial trauma at work extinct | Opinion

Health authorities are investigating several cases of monkeypox that have recently emerged throughout the world, including in the U.K., Germany and the U.S., where the public's trust in the nation's top infectious disease expert may be hindered by past criticism. While the U.S. has only confirmed one case of monkeypox so far amid the current rise, previous criticisms of Dr. Anthony Fauci may make it more difficult for him to lead certain segments of the public through a larger monkeypox outbreak, according to one expert. Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), became a household name in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But conservative media attacks and other factors, including criticism of masking and vaccination requirements, resulted in a gradual degradation of American confidence in Fauci . As of April this year, for example, research from the Kaiser Family … [Read more...] about Fauci COVID criticism may set him up for failure on monkeypox