Healthcare

A water drop and ripples

Forcing health insurers to cover at-home tests is just plain foolish.

By Justin Katz | January 14, 2022 |

Sorry, but I don’t see how this, from Janine Weisman, isn’t a display of the need for greater education in economics: Good to know: Starting tomorrow, health insurers must pay for your at-home #COVID-19 home test kits. All @BCBSRI plans except Medicare fully cover the home test kits without a prescription, and each person on…

People at picnic tables

According to the mainstream narrative, who is actually responsible?

By Justin Katz | January 14, 2022 |

In order to improve them, we have to understand how our institutions work, but we’re not very good at assessing them anymore. Maybe the problem is the mix of self-esteem culture with identity politics and progressive domination of our cultural institutions.  Saturated in that social brew, our governing class has become something like a giant…

A water drop and ripples

Going forward, disregard the American Psychological Association as a bunch of politicized kooks.

By Justin Katz | January 13, 2022 |

Look, the APA was ideologically captured decades ago, but at least they were judicious about it.  They kept their profession front and center and only advanced the ideology where it didn’t seem to interfere too much.  Christopher Ferguson’s explanation of his resignation from the organization is an acknowledgment that the organization has gone off the…

RIDOH Director Nicole Alexander-Scott

Dr. Alexander-Scott is out in the Department of Health.

By Justin Katz | January 13, 2022 |

Not a lot of details have been provided, but Department of Health Director Nicole Alexander-Scott has given her two-week notice to leave her job: Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, will stay on for two weeks during the search for new leadership, McKee said. She will then act as a…

A water drop and ripples

Fauci didn’t do himself any favors punching back at Paul politically.

By Justin Katz | January 13, 2022 |

I haven’t seen the same thing some of my fellow conservatives have in video of the latest heated exchange between Republican Senator Rand Paul and top health bureaucrat Anthony Fauci.  Paul made some good points, but he didn’t leave Fauci quivering in guilt and fear, as some would have it.  Actually, it would have been…

Reporters taking notes

At the intersection of COVID and politics, omissions proliferate.

By Justin Katz | January 13, 2022 |

How does a news organization publish an entire article, by WPRI’s Steph Machado, with associated television news clip, about a tug-of-war between the mayor of Providence and the city council over vaccine mandates for police and not mention crime in the city? The deadline is Friday for all city workers to get at least one…

A water drop and ripples

Broadly speaking, maybe we shouldn’t fear the Omicron.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Well, this is what a lot of us are hoping to see: The SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron is leading to the end of the worldwide pandemic, Denmark’s chief epidemiologist predicted, meaning “we will have our normal lives back in two months.” Tyra Grove Krause said on Danish TV 2 that a new study from Denmark’s State…

A water drop and ripples

Remote learning leads to negative behavior, and teacher unions don’t care.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Well, this is no surprise: “Remote learning poses a challenge for children’s behavioral health and functioning,” study co-author Emily Hanno told UPI in an email. “This aligns with what we know about how stress and disruption affect children’s behavior,” said Hanno, a post-doctoral researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Mass. Stress…

School girl in medical mask

McKee’s new school policy for COVID feels like backfilling.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2022 |

Governor Dan McKee, along with the Rhode Island departments of health and education, implemented new guidelines for how schools handle COVID infections, yesterday.  Employees and students who have been vaccinated and boosted (depending on age) do not have to quarantine, even if they had close contact with somebody who tested positive.  Notably, the same applies…

A water drop and ripples

Back to the with/for distinction in hospitalizations.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2022 |

Rhode Island’s Department of Health claims that almost everybody listed as hospitalized with COVID is in the hospital at least partly because of COVID, but I keep seeing stories like this: The majority of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in New Jersey were actually admitted for reasons other than COVID-19, officials said on Jan. 10. Of the…