COVID-19 
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
12/21/2022
National Parks Not Immune from National Tantrums
by Tiya Miles
Yellowstone National Park's 150th anniversary saw visitors and staff dealing with the same kinds of frayed civility and random abuse plaguing the rest of the nation. For better or worse, our parks are us.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
12/5/2022
A Whitmer-DeSantis Showdown Would Put Two Visions of Public Health on the Ballot
by Andrew Wehrman
History suggests that Whitmer's approach to public responsibility for pandemic control works better than DeSantis's individualistic framework for controlling disease. Which one might win votes is another question.
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SOURCE: New York Times
11/7/2022
What Links COVID and Curriculum Conflicts in Schools?
Education historians Jack Schneider and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explain why there's a significant overlap between parents, especially conservatives, who objected to pandemic school closures and those who are demanding more control over curriculum decisions.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
10/12/2022
The Selective Politics of the "Learning Loss" Debate
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Discussions of the disruption to learning caused by COVID-related school closures often ignore the endemic inequalities in American education and exposure to harm from COVID, and sideline the voices of teachers who have been sounding the alarm about the dangerous state of their facilities for years.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
9/23/2022
The Risks of Declaring the Pandemic Over
by Molly Nebiolo
As long as America has had pandemics, it has had leaders who sought political benefit by declaring them over, so Joe Biden is in good company. But moving on needs to include planning ahead.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
9/23/2022
COVID Shows the US as a Country Kept from Grieving
Historians Rhae Lynn Barnes, Keri Leigh Merritt, and Yohuru Williams have edited a new collection of essays putting the pandemic in historical perspective, with contributors showing how the pandemic robbed us of both life and time.
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SOURCE: Texas Observer
9/8/2022
I was Fired for Asking My Students to Wear Masks
by Michael Phillips
Sometimes academic freedom is about the ability of professors to advocate on behalf of the campus community's health against administrators who prefer silence as a matter of political expediency.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
4/14/2022
Using DDT to Fight Polio was a Mistake, but Learning from it was Valuable
by Elena Conis
Recent Ivermectin mania echoes the moment in 1940s America when spurious science led American communities to demand to be sprayed with the noxious insecticide, believing it would prevent polio outbreaks; the episode underscores the need for patience in pursuing public health.
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SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
4/4/2022
Faculty Committee: U of Florida Fast-Tracked DeSantis Surgeon General Pick Into Faculty Post
The university’s faculty committee cited procedural irregularities in how Florida's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo gained a tenured position.
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SOURCE: Vox
3/4/2022
What Can the History of Antivax Movements Tell Us about the Future of COVID?
Medical historian Nadja Durbach and philosopher Maya Goldenberg explain that challenges posed by vaccine resistance and mistrust of health authorities are not new; the lesson to learn isn't that resistance is inevitable, but that some of the social conflicts supporting it can be addressed.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
3/8/2022
How did this Level of Death Become Normal?
In absolute and relative terms, The United States has fared horribly in the coronavirus pandemic. Historians and social scientists help writer Ed Yong explain why the nation meets mass death with a collective shrug.
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SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
2/16/2022
The Paranoid Style Comes to Canadian Politics
by Eric Merkley
Canadian politics, until recently, seemed free of the kind of extreme sorting taking place in other democracies, where partisan affiliation, cultural values, and religious or ethnic identity all align closely. The Ottawa protests show cracks in the nation's liberal order that the far right is trying to exploit, says a political scientist.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
2/10/2022
Seat Belt Law History Shows Public Protections Don't Have to be Partisan
by Erica Westly
Seat belt laws originated in the conservative state of Tennessee, but spread with remarkable success to other states. Can this guide public policy around today's controversies like mask and vaccine mandates?
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
2/10/2022
Why Following Joe Rogan Seems Easier than Following the Science
by Yair Rosenberg
"But in order for this science to be followed, it has to include the science of how people interact with each other. In other words, there has got to be a science of the virus, and there’s also got to be a science of society."
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SOURCE: London Review of Books
2/1/2022
Whack-a-Mole
by Rivka Galchen
Reviewer Rivka Galchen looks at two recent books that highlight the importance of cultural beliefs in the acceptance or rejection of vaccines.
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SOURCE: TomDispatch
2/1/2022
How America's Two Pandemics Merged
by Tom Engelhardt
In pandemics past, disease was the single contagion threatening society; today there is also a pandemic of political nihilism.
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SOURCE: The Nation
2/3/2022
Wishful Thinking on COVID is as Dangerous as Prior Episodes of Denial
by Gregg Gonsalves
A convergence has emerged between the right and the center that the Omicron variant is the last hurrah of the COVID pandemic and a signal to go back to "normal." A public health scholar warns this is potentially sacrificing the vulnerable to the wishes of the powerful.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
1/31/2022
Blaming Teachers for COVID-Related Education Problems Misses the Big Picture
by Adam Laats
Too much of what plagues schools today is far beyond the control of teachers, but blaming them is easier for politicians than fixing inequality and underinvestment.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/25/2022
The Antivax Right is Bringing Human Sacrifice to America
Past debates about closing schools and businesses to control the pandemic at least could claim to be about balancing costs and benefits. The campaign to refuse vaccination will kill people for no purpose whatsoever.
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SOURCE: Forward
1/24/2022
A Complete List of Times RFK Jr. has Compared Vaccine Mandates to the Holocaust
The political activist has made a habit of comparing public policies he dislikes to the Holocaust, most recently in a speech at a Washington rally where he invoked Anne Frank.
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