General News

Feuer and Salcedo, “New York City Deploys 45 Mobile Morgues as Virus Strains Funeral Homes,” The New York Times, April 2, 2020.

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“‘When you overwhelm the health system, you also overwhelm the death system,”‘ one funeral director said.” As funeral homes and hospital morgues reached their capacities, the New York City medical examiner’s office purchased 45 mobile morgues to increase their ability to handle approximately 3,500 bodies. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-bodies.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Downs, “COVID-19: How cannabis companies are helping in the crisis”

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Article link: https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/covid19-marijuana-companies-help-leafly Published on March 31, 2020, this article highlights the various ways in which the flourishing U.S. cannabis industry is productively responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturing and donating essential supplies to at-need community services (hospitals, police, etc.) across the nation. In fact, they were able to do this simply by repurposing the … Read more

Branswell, “As coronavirus spreads, doctors in the ER warn ‘the worst of it has not hit us yet,'” STAT, March 31, 2020.

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Helen Branswell’s work is worth following regularly. In this piece, Branswell poses the question, “What does it look like to be on the front lines of that response — and what can we expect to happen in facilities across the country in the weeks to come?” and answers with interviews with three clinicians in New … Read more

Greenberg et al., “Managing mental health challenges faced by healthcare workers during covid-19 pandemic,” The BMJ, March 26, 2020.

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This article uses the concept of ‘moral injury’ to provide insight into the mental health challenges faced by healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify approaches to help prevent negative impacts on their mental health.

Myers, “China Created a Fail-Safe System to Track Contagions. It Failed.” New York Times, March 29, 2020.

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After SARS, China established a system for tracking cases of dangerous infectious diseases as well as outbreaks of new diseases. This story helps explain why that system broke down with covid-19, with local leaders not wanting to displease the central Chinese government.

Schwirtz, “Nurses Die, Doctors Fall Sick and Panic Rises on Virus Front Lines,” New York Times, March 30, 2020.

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In New York City’s hospitals, medical personnel are running short of supplies, falling ill, and dying. In China and Italy, medical personnel, and especially doctors, constitute a large percentage of coronavirus cases. The same is beginning in the United States. In Queens, “patients are sometimes dying before they can be moved into beds.” In other … Read more

Chotiner, “The Contrarian Coronavirus Theory That Informed the Trump Administration,” The New Yorker, March 30, 2020.

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In this article, Isaac Chotiner interviews Richard Epstein about his essay, “Coronavirus Perspective,” that claims most epidemiological models of the covid-19 pandemic are mistaken. Chotiner teases out Epstein’s assumptions on which he bases his thinking, and inserts quotations from experts in the fields about which Epstein makes mistaken claims. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-coronavirus-theory-that-informed-the-trump-administration

Watkins, “N.Y.C.’s 911 System Is Overwhelmed. ‘I’m Terrified,’ a Paramedic Says,” NY Times, March 28, 2020.

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We are at a turning point in this pandemic. The United States is becoming the global epicenter. It is clear that covid-19 has been spreading through the country since January, for the most part completely untracked. Now, it is starting to appear all around us. This article tells what it is like for a first … Read more