COVID-19

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/7/2021
  

  Herd Immunity is Almost Here. What Next?

  by John M. Barry

  The best-case scenario for humanity's future with the Coronavirus, in which virus strains produce much fewer and much less dangerous cases of illness, requires reducing the number of unvaccinated people around the globe. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/12/2021
  

  History of Past Pandemics Shows COVID Will Be an Era, not an Event

  Medical and Science Historians Allan Brandt, Jeremy Greene, Frank Snowden and Jonathan Moreno argue that we are unlikely to experience any clear end of the COVID pandemic. 

• 
• 10/10/2021
  

  The Horseshoe Crab is the Unsung, and Threatened, Hero of the Pandemic

  by William Sargent

  With due regard to Anthony Fauci, horseshoe crabs are truly the unsung heroes of the pandemic.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  10/5/2021
  

  The Inescapable Dilemma of Infectious Disease

  by Kyle Harper

  Control of infectious diesase is arguably humanity's greatest triumph. Has that triumph changed our environment to make diseases tougher to control? Has our success stopped us from being able to think of how to thrive without control of infections? 

• 
• SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  10/4/2021
  

  Georgia State Professor Files Complaint over Denied Request to Teach Remotely

  “I would like to be at a place where my administration cares about my health, my basic fundamental health, and is not willing to put my life at risk for a Board of Regents political policy,” historian Dan Immergluck said.

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/5/2021
  

  The Lesson of Venice's 17th Century Plague? Tax the Rich

  by Yong Kwon

  By making only a temporary commitment to public works funded by taxing the city's merchant elite, Venice emerged from the plague with an overburdened workforce, less ability to attract labor, and a declining economy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/5/2021
  

  Frustration, Anger, and Deaths Won't Convince the Unvaccinated

  by Matthew Newsom Kerr

  "Vaccine resisters in the 19th century significantly stymied public health efforts, and the anger felt by health officials shaped their responses — not always for the best."

• 
• 10/3/2021
  

  Ending COVID in Our Lifetimes Requires Seeing the Bonds of Shared Humanity

  by Michael Hogan

  "In the end, like those who sought to escape the plague in Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death,” we are all vulnerable and at risk if we do not look to see that our fellow human beings both at home and abroad are safeguarded as well."

• 
• 10/3/2021
  

  How Evangelical Conversion Narratives Feed the "Free Choice" Rhetoric at Your School Board Meeting

  by Rebecca L. Davis

  Evangelical Christianity grew in America by emphasizing the power of individual conversion as a "choice for Christ." This frame explains not only the prominence of Evangelicals among anti-mask and anti-vaccine protesters, but also the frequent rhetorical connections they make between COVID policy and LGBTQ tolerance. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  9/28/2021
  

  Droning On: America's Assassins-in-Chief

  by Tom Engelhardt

  Since the Bush administration, every President has used drone technology to be the nation's assassin-in-chief. In a nation increasingly tolerant of mass COVID death at home, does this even have the power to shock?

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/27/2021
  

  The Legal Standard Encouraging Religious Exemptions to Vaccination is Baffling

  by Charles McCrary

  American courts have established sincerity of individual belief as the standard for recognizing a religious accommodation or exemption. Even though no major religions ban vaccination, this standard could still sustain widespread refusal of coronavirus vaccines. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/29/2021
  

  Violence Over Schools is Nothing New

  by Sherman Dorn

  "The history of education teaches us that violence surrounding democratic schooling is part of a recurring pattern and that we have a choice to passively accept or assertively confront violent impulses."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/22/2021
  

  With Students Back on Campus, Faculty Push Back Against COVID Policies They Consider Inadequate

  "Many are enjoying seeing students back on campus. But for others those scenes are fraught."

• 
• SOURCE: ABC News
  9/20/2021
  

  US COVID Death Count Surpasses Estimates of 1918 Influenza

  Historian Christopher McKnight Nichols notes "we have effective vaccines now.... the thing they most wanted in 1918, we've got. And for a lot of different reasons, we botched the response." 

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  9/17/2021
  

  The Complex Politics of Vaccine Resistance

  by Nicole Hemmer

  Despite the fact that no major religion forbids vaccination, vaccine resisters often leverage religious exemptions to gain moral authority for what are often political or conspiracy-based views. Public health advocates need to recognize that exemption claims are a tool, not a belief.

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  9/17/2021
  

  Policing Religious Exemptions to Vaccines

  A lawsuit against Creighton University, a Jesuit institution, would expand the justification for religious exemptions to vaccination from explicit declarations of opposition by a religious body to any impulse of individual conscience. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/15/2021
  

  Dosing Arkansas Prisoners with Ivermectin Just Latest Incident of Medical Abuse

  by Lydia Crafts

  "News that an Arkansas prison doctor deceived inmates to take Ivermectin as a COVID preventative shows that nonconsensual research and the experimental use of drugs on vulnerable people remain common — despite evidence of its danger and laws designed to prevent it."

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/16/2021
  

  Politicians, not Migrants, are Fueling the Pandemic's Resurgence

  by Randa Tawil

  At the height of colonialism, European governments rejected calls for quarantine to keep global commerce humming, and blamed supposedly unsanitary local populations for the inevitable spread of cholera. Governors in some US states are repeating this mistake today. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/10/2021
  

  The Limits of My Empathy for Covid Deniers

  by Tressie McMillan Cottom

  "This is a social problem with big structural issues. That does not absolve me of my responsibility for seeing the humanity in people I vehemently disagree with, but it does make me feel less guilty about being unable to save them."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/9/2021
  

  Vaccination Mandates Are an American Tradition. So Is the Backlash

  Historians Michael Willrich and Elena Conis explains the history of vaccination resistance and the civil liberties and political conflicts that have accompanied it.