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Italian mayors are fed up and letting their fellow citizens know
This funny video has been making the rounds–it's indicative, of course, of how serious the situation is. We need more leaders like this!
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Why having an incompetent President is a problem during a national emergency
Yesterday I noted that Governors, not the President, have authority to take public health measures like shutting down businesses and requiring individuals to stay home, but this interview makes very clear why having an imbecile as President is a real problem; an excerpt: What is supposed to happen is the federal government has to activate…
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The authority to lockdown business and quarantine people rests with the states, not the federal government…
…so the decision-maker who matters in the U.S. is your Governor not the monster-child. See the comments on Twitter from law professor Bobby Chesney (Texas).
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Timeline for various COVID-19 experimental drugs
Here. If we're lucky, it looks like we may know more in April or May about some of them, and if we're VERY lucky it will turn out some of them actually work.
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Khalidi from York U/Toronto to CUNY Graduate Center
Muhammad Ali Khalidi (philosophy of science and cognitive science, medieval Islamic philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at York University, Toronto, has accepted appointment as Presidential Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center, effective July 1. Those of you who have not read his Natural Categories and Human Kinds: Classification in…
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How coronavirus progresses, day by day: mild, moderate, severe, critical, fatal
This video is circulating via Tech Insider and is quite informative:
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Natural selection and coronavirus
A concise primer from philosopher Alex Rosenberg (Duke).
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The best anti-Trump joke yet
Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, Pope Francis and a ten-year-old schoolboy are on a plane, that is going down. There are only four parachutes. Trump declares, "I'm the smartest person in the U.S.A., the country needs me." He grabs one and jumps. Johnson declares, "Britain can't survive Brexit without me," as he grabs one…
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Italian death toll declining
Let's hope this optimism based on somewhat less life-altering grief in the last couple of days is warranted.
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A public health message about the coronavirus “shitshow” and dangerous “dumbfuckery”
Courtesy of Australians:
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Most readers do not yet know anyone with COVID-19
That's one takeaway from the poll tacked on to a post yesterday (Sunday): 68% (of about 350 respondents) report that they know of no friends or acquaintances who have COVID-19, while 22% know 1 or 2 people, 9% know 3 to 7, and 1% know ten or more. Sadly, these numbers are likely to change…
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A list and description of treatments and vaccines in development
An informative description of what's being worked on.
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Three senior hires for Wash U/St. Louis: Copenhaver, McGrath, Watson
The Department of Philosophy at Washington University, St. Louis has made three senior hires: Becko Copenhaver (early modern philosophy, philosophy of mind) from Lewis & Clark College; Matthew McGrath (epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of perception) from Rutgers University, New Brunswick; and Lori Watson (political and legal philosophy, feminist philosophy) from the University of San Diego. After…
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I’m falling behind on e-mails, but thanks to all who have written
I am glad so many have found my attempt to sort through the news and information related to the coronavirus useful (traffic has been very high–up 40% since February, and while traffic usually goes up in March, not by this proportion–and thanks especially to all those who have written, I'm trying to acknowledge all those…
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The COVID-19 disaster in Italy, in perspective
Italy now has 53,578 confirmed cases (they are not testing everyone), and 4,825 deaths. China reports 81,397 confirmed cases (they are also not testing everyone), and 3,265 deaths. But China's population is nearly 1.4 billion people, while Italy's is about 60 million. If China's statistics were as grim as Italy's, China would have more than…
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Daily updates from the head of surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City…
…are being posted on this Twitter account. Since this hospital is in the "thick of things" in the hardest hit spot in the U.S., it's a window into what's going on.
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Spreadsheet of recorded philosophy lectures with links
You can add to it as well. (Thanks to Tyron Goldschmidt for the pointer.)
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Support independent bookshops during the pandemic
A suggestion from philosopher David Velleman: If people are worried about their local independent bookstores during the crisis — or even under normal conditions — they should consider buying their books from https://bookshop.org. This site enables independent bookstores to set up their own sites within the bookshop.org domain, with all fulfillment functions performed by a…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Blodwyn Pig, “Dear Jill,” 1969
Another nice number from the debut album of ex-Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams' band:
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Good speech by Dr. Emily Landon (U of Chicago) explaining why Illinois Governor was correct to require a “lockdown” for at least two weeks
The "lockdown" begins at 5 pm today. To put this in a bit of context, Cook County, where Chicago is and with 5.2 million people, has 548 confirmed cases as of today (the caseload did not quite double in the last two days); New York City, with 8.5 million people, has about 7500 confirmed cases…
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Twitter threads by Yale’s Christakis related to COVID-19…
…collected here. (We've noted a couple of them previously.)
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More on hydroxychloroquine (the anti-malaria drug) as a *possible” treatment for COVID-19
A mixed verdict so far, with skeptics, but also some hopeful assessments. What might the mechanism be by which it could work? In the UK, Robin May, Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, explained that there is a scientific rationale for the use of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19, based on…
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The challenges of fine-tuning a vaccine against the coronavirus
A lucid explanation from a Cambridge scientist. (Thanks to Joe Hatfield for the pointer.)
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Leiter v. Trump
A funny message, from longtime reader Larry Franz: Thank you for your COVID-19 posts. The public needs reliable information like you've been providing. We also need TV networks to stop giving the president free access to misinform the public. He's a risk to public health. Alas, I can only address one of these issues!
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If you get COVID-19, are you then immune?
Another very informative thread from Professor Christakis at Yale. The short answer is: probably for awhile, but not forever.
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“Why travelling changes us”
Philosopher Emily Thomas (Durham) comments. (The timing, alas, is a bit ironic here, but it's still worth a read.)
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Another perspective from England…
…from a reader who works in the healthcare sector, about an hour or so from London: As per other commenters, life is very sombre indeed. Patience is thin. Nerves are frayed. Cynicism is gone. The time for worry is well upon us. We have many patients but fewer staff. Everything is being cancelled. Many of…
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New study of CFR for COVID-19 in Wuhan
The experts I follow on Twitter think this study is the best yet. They suggest a case fatality ratio of 1.4% for symptomatic cases. If there are many asymptomatic cases (there are clearly a non-trivial number, but we don't yet know how many), then the mortality rate for all infections even in Wuhan would be…
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Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”…for teachers
(Thanks to John Tilley for the pointer.)
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“The Legal Problem with Diversity Statements,” Berkeley’s in particular
I believe this is an open access version of my essay at CHE. UPDATE: Alas, this appears to be paywalled, I'll repost when there's a public version.
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Biosecurity news from Johns Hopkins: what a Wuhan-like explosion of cases would do in the US
Very straightforward and to the point: The bottom line is that demand would far exceed capacity, and some people in need of critical care would not be able to get it. But it is not just Wuhan; Italy is currently in the midst of a similar outbreak, and critical care services are overwhelmed there, too.…
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A Title IX horror story
This isn't typical, of course, but it does illustrate how any system, including one that was supposed to serve a constructive purpose, can be hijacked by malevolent actors. And now that the story has appeared, there will no doubt be others looking to exploit the system this way. Title IX administrators are going to need…
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More than 99% of those who died in the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy had familiar co-morbidities…
…but there's little solace in that for the living (there is no solace for the dead), as they are extremely common: Almost half of the victims suffered from at least three prior illnesses and about a fourth had either one or two previous conditions. More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes…
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Demand for hospital beds compared to supply by region of the country based on various scenarios of the spread of the virus
There are some notable differences even among major metropolitan areas. This also makes clear why "flattening the curve" is crucial: most areas can cope with 20% getting infected over the next 12 months, none can cope with 60% getting infected during that time.
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Trump’s and the right-wing media’s disinformation campaign on coronavirus
A philosopher elsewhere kindly invited me to share the following: I think we're seeing that Trump's initial misinformation about the risk posed by the coronavirus is causing fewer Americans to socially distance than otherwise would. Willingness to socially isolate tracks party affiliation, with way fewer Republicans than Democrats saying they're willing to do so: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/republicans-are-far-more-likely-than-democrats-to-think-the-coronavirus-threat-is-exaggerated-new-survey-finds-2020-03-10 . It's…
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Yes, the U.S. completely screwed up coronavirus testing, but testing is not a panacea, and may now make things worse
This is an important point, from a former head of the CDC: A surge in people being tested could actually spread disease, because people can become infected by someone else waiting to be tested. Getting tested today is no guarantee you won’t get infected tomorrow — and may give you a false sense of security.…
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So where do we go from here with coronavirus?
A propos the issue broached here, this also seems a sober assessment from a piece in the NYT.
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News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.
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