Healthcare

A water drop and ripples

The un-deadliness of Omicron seems like an important detail to report.

By Justin Katz | December 11, 2021 |

So far, no deaths are apparently attributable to the Omicron variant of COVID-19: The World Health Organization (WHO) has informed The Epoch Times that it has not documented any deaths from the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19. According to the WHO, “for Omicron, we have not had any…

A nurse sitting in a doorway

RI really needs to understand the nursing shortage.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

As government officials and the mainstream media debate whether to insist that the people they rule wear masks wherever we go, the constantly growing burden of regulations on the healthcare industry seems never to come into question.

A water drop and ripples

No surprise that naturally acquired immunity is proving itself with COVID.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

Perhaps no aspect of the public health response to COVID has increased my skepticism more than the insane and dogged practice of ignoring the immunity that people can gain from having and recovering from COVID-19.  Whether researchers conclude that it is insufficient, too brief, or whatever, credibility required that it be treated as a real…

Justin Katz's political spectrum illustration

For journalists like UConn professor Mike Stanton, tyranny is the first choice.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

Attitudes like this, from former Providence Journal reporter and University of Connecticut journalism professor Mike Stanton fascinate me.  Commenting on Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee’s hesitance to impose a statewide mask mandate, Stanton writes: Yes, poor leadership. Because it’s contrary to what the doctors & experts recommend. I went to PPAC the other night; they required…

A man blowing his nose

What makes this something other than “just a cold”?

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

The headline that the Providence Journal gave to Mark Patinkin’s latest column puts things in a useful context: “It’s just a cold, right? I thought a booster made me invulnerable — but I got COVID.”  If we step back a pace and look at things objectively, we might indeed wonder what makes COVID something other than…

The pill choice from The Matrix

Mask mandates are the apotheosis of the “do something” placebo.

By Justin Katz | December 7, 2021 |

Oh, Dan, Dan, Dan. In drug trials, researchers give a control group of participants a placebo (or a pill with no medical effect) because it is understood that just doing something can have an effect on people’s symptoms, or at least their perception of their symptoms.  In most cases, the effect is small, which is why…

Reporters taking notes

NPR misses both important points when aligning politics and COVID.

By Justin Katz | December 6, 2021 |

Judging by social media comments, mainstream media types have been thrilled to hear from NPR that people are dying with COVID-19 at a higher rate in Trump-supporting counties across the United States. Of course, substantive analysis would require many more caveats than our social-media-driven culture tends to address.  As the article concedes, the analysis does…

A water drop and ripples

We’re slipping off the tracks with COVID.

By Justin Katz | December 6, 2021 |

We’ve reached the point that an obvious, relatively mild head cold that peters away over a weekend can keep a child out of school for days.  Testing sites in Rhode Island are saying it can take up to 72 hours to get results from COVID tests.  Pharmacies are a day out for appointments, with who-knows-how-long…

A water drop and ripples

Omicron is starting to look like a natural vaccine!

By Justin Katz | December 6, 2021 |

At least that’s how some health professionals are seeing it: Dr. Omar Hamada on Dec. 1 said that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 may provide natural immunity without inducing severe illness, as the symptoms so far resemble more of a “mild, common cold” in South Africa. In an interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report,” the emergency…

A water drop and ripples

Why is the Western media always selling a story about the evil of the West?

By Justin Katz | December 4, 2021 |

You’ve probably heard the mainstream media claim that we’re facing the Omicron variant (which may represent the merger of COVID with the common cold) because greedy, racist Westerners were refusing to share their vaccines with Africa.  Drew Holden and Aaron Sibarium suggest in the Washington Free Beacon that this analysis is all wrong: In fact, several…