Mask mandates are unpopular. I don’t know anyone who enjoys wearing a mask. Surgeons wear them to avoid infecting surgery patients. Robbers wear them to avoid identification. Masks became political. Liberals who favor collective outcomes support mask mandates while conservatives who favor personal freedom do not. Today in stores I see a few people wearing masks, mostly just a few older people. It always amuses me when a car drives by and the driver — the sole occupant — is wearing a mask.
Category: COVID-19 and Public Health
Tuesday Links
- Misuse of Covid PPP Funds: “largest fraud in US history.”
- Veronique de Rugy: data show that the PPP funds benefited mostly those industries with the largest share of employees able to work remotely (hence the least affected by the lockdown) as well as companies well capitalized (and hence not in need of a loan from the government to make payroll).
- Before publicly dismissing the Wuhan lab leak, Fauci told the FBI it was possible.
- Why do US pharmacies keep running out of drugs? Downplayed: the role of government. see Henderson and Hooper on that.
Wednesday Links
- Less developed countries discover how to provide economical mental health care: use non-specialists.
- How reliable are patient online reviews at detecting physician and hospital quality? Not good.
- Is Obamacare’s free preventive medicine mandate unconstitutional? (WSJ)
- 94% of US residents have gotten Covid.
Friday Links
- Launch price for a course of treatment for Type 1 diabetes approaches $200,000. We predicted the IRA bill would lead to higher launch prices. But even we are shocked by this one.
- Anthony Fauci to be deposed in a lawsuit against the federal government for allegedly colluding with social media companies to censor speech.
- Hospital care at home: outcomes are actually better, but it’s scheduled to go away when the (Covid) public health emergency goes away. (NYT)
- Rare and unusual Covid side effects: hairy tongues, purple toes, welts that sprout on the face, and more. (NYT)
- “Apparently, to the people that write [CDC] guidelines, more people dying of COVID is less of a concern if the deaths are more racially balanced.”
- Over half of Covid deaths are among people who have been vaccinated.
- Scotland is considering these reforms to the National Health Service:
An option to “Pause funding of new development/drugs” unless they can be proved to save the NHS money… Stopping care services altogether and instead sending patients home for care.