Among the many lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is how cumbersome one‐size‐fits‐all regulations, administered by an impersonal bureaucracy, hamper a rapid and flexible response to an evolving public health emergency. The U.S. Navy Medical Corps provides us with the most recent example.
Policy & Ethics
There has never been a shortage of idiots on the planet, but sometimes it takes an earth-shattering event to help them reach their full potential. A little humor for dark times.
Anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense says governments and corporations are using the coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) to advance a "global immunization agenda." The group claims that our leaders just needed the right pandemic as a pretext to goad us into getting vaccines. This is a clever story. It's also false.
Bad luck played a role in the COVID-19 pandemic, but China's criminally negligent and malevolent behavior has placed the world in a position in which bad things are likelier to occur. Therefore, China must bear the brunt of the blame, and our relationship with that country should not go back to normal.
On Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show, New York Times science and health reporter Donald McNeil praised China's mass quarantine camps as the best way to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. A CBC documentary reveals what that policy entails: Citizens are literally being dragged out of their homes as they cry and scream. Others have their doors welded shut.
When coronavirus patients are admitted to all general hospitals, the risk of infecting other patients as well as hospital personnel is a serious concern. One way to address this problem is to consider isolating coronavirus patients to certain designated medical centers thus reducing the likelihood of exposure to other patients and their attending medical staff.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently issued a national emergency order to pay doctors for services rendered to patients in states in which they are not licensed to practice, so long as they hold an equivalent license in another state. This would be a good move. Luckily, many states are already ahead of the federal government on implementing such measures.
DeSmogBlog, a climate activist website that ruthlessly smears scientists, is headed by Brendan DeMelle, an anti-vaxxer who helped RFK, Jr. write an infamous and since-retracted article linking vaccines to autism.
The answer to that question: They both purport to improve health outcomes by harnessing the state’s regulatory authority for taxation or prescribing behavior. However, neither has shown to produce any health benefit. A new study shows that Florida physicians follow the rules, but not whether the rules help patients.
Much of the discussion around immigration has to do with the impact on the countries receiving the newcomers. But when speaking of coveted "workers," like physicians for instance, perhaps we should consider the effects on the countries they're leaving.
To ACSH advisor Dr. David Shlaes, the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus in a nursing facility is scary but not surprising. He's appalled by the poor care of the elderly in our long-term care facilities, most of which are for-profit organizations.
The tenure of the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been marred by incompetence and deference to dictators. The coronavirus pandemic is far too serious to allow Dr. Ghebreyesus to continue in his post. The WHO should be led by someone else.