Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.
“The burden of this pandemic now rests on the shoulders of the unvaccinated,” writes Anita Sircar. “On those who are eligible to get vaccinated, but choose not to, a decision they defend by declaring, ‘vaccination is a deeply personal choice.’ But perhaps never in history has anyone’s personal choice impacted the world as a whole as it does right now.”
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“The United States remains among nations with the highest rate of new Covid-19 cases, driven mostly by a surge in the South, where many states are lagging in getting people vaccinated against the coronavirus,” Aya Elamroussi reports.
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“People who once rejected the vaccine or simply waited too long are now grappling with the consequences, often in raw, public way,” The New York Times’ Jack Healy reports.
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Jamie Swift, a registered nurse who oversees infection prevention at Johnston Memorial Hospital, a rural healthcare provider in The Old Dominion, is very familiar with covidiots. In her community, they’re everywhere.
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The Washington Post has published a discomforting report about America’s ineffective response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, which details the resistance to mask wearing and physical distancing in many parts of the country.
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An enthusiastic Donald Trump backer who trusted Trump and Pence instead of public health experts and lost family members as a result has a warning for people who still think like he once did.
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The mayor of Milwaukee and others weigh in on the continued downsizing of the Democratic National Convention.
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Erin S. Bromage, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, has published an informative primer on which environments the novel coronavirus is most easily transmitted in, which also discusses how people can minimize getting sick.
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During a COVID-19 update press conference, Governor Jay Inslee offered a scathing response to Republican legal attacks: “Anyone can file a lawsuit, and anyone has.”
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Want to better understand the times we are living in? Here’s a collection of pandemic literature that is credible, trustworthy, and fascinating.
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Via The Los Angeles Times: “California’s stay-at-home order reduced vehicle collisions on roadways by a little more than half, saving taxpayers an estimated $1 billion since the order went into effect, according to a UC Davis survey that estimated the impact of the order on traffic.”
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“More than 1,500 people on the company’s cruise ships have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and dozens have died,” a report from Bloomberg says. How did this happen? Austin Carr and Chris Palmeri explain.
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“A global pandemic of this scale was inevitable. In recent years, hundreds of health experts have written books, white papers, and op-eds warning of the possibility.”
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