Category Archives: Pandemic

Fun with DIY Box Fans (and Protection from Covid through Filtration and Better Ventilation)

If you can’t afford a fancy air purifier, here is a low-cost DIY alternative.

Delta Force: Notes on Our Newest Covid Variant of Concern

The increasingly dominant Delta variant: Vaccines and transmissibility (especially through children) during “Vaccine Summer.”

The Health Externalities of Downsizing

This column finds a significant increase in drug prescriptions and hospitalizations following mass layoffs, driven primarily by mental and cardiovascular conditions

CDC Continues on Form: Suppressing Aerosol Transmission in Covid FAQ, “See No Evil” Testing for Breakthrough Cases

Romanov-like efficiency…

Is the Only Green Thing about Cannabis the Almighty Dollar?

Cannabis has an enormous carbon footprint when grown indoors, with a utopian proposal for growing it outdoors.

Covid Was a Tipping Point for Telehealth. If Some Have Their Way, Virtual Visits Are Here to Stay.

Health industry leaders and many patient advocates are pushing Congress and the Biden administration to preserve the pandemic-fueled expansion of telehealth.

Wolf Richter: Oh Lordy, Yellen Comes Out for Higher Interest Rates: “A Plus for Society’s Point of View and the Fed’s Point of View”

“We want them to go back to” a normal interest rate environment.

In Missouri and Other States, Flawed Data Makes It Hard to Track Vaccine Equity

Just as an uneven approach to containing the coronavirus led to a greater toll for Black and Latino communities, the inconsistent data guiding vaccination efforts may be leaving the same groups out on vaccines

Food Insecurity: A Potentially Underrated Collateral Damage of the Pandemic

Increases in hunger and food insecurity under Covid are significant, yet have gone largely under the radar.

Rethinking Unemployment: From Adam Smith to Marx “Reserve Army of the Unemployed” to the Neoliberal War on Full Employment

Unemployment as a balancing act between workers ‘fearing the sack’ and employers ‘fearing the quit,” with employers usually winning out.

How Is Your Economy?

One of our periodic reader queries as to what they make of the state of the economy based on local sightings.

Why Colombia Has Erupted in Protest

The pandemic exacerbated intolerable poverty and economic distress in Colombia. As repression mounts, is there any way out?

Little-Known Illnesses Turning Up in Covid Long-Haulers

Yet more types of long Covid damage, this one particularly debilitating.