The You&Me Blog

We haven’t posted much on COVID lately. Frankly, it was just rather depressing. And by depressing, we are not strictly speaking about those who have suffered losses due to COVID infections, but also the frustration of watching media hype, hysteria (from all ends of the political spectrum, let us be clear about that) and mismanagement make a bad situation worse, and knowing that there is nothing we can do about it. Anyway, now we have vaccines. And those are very helpful. There are always many questions that people have about vaccines, of course, but here we are going to address one question:...

The creation of statistical data is informed by basic questions of ethics and philosophy. How do we decide that something is a thing? How do we identify things as being in particular category? And which do we value more: beneficence or autonomy? What information should be gathered, and what should be allowed to be seen by the public? What are we trying to prove, or to say, about the world at large with our information? And once we get those things settled as best we can, then there are practical considerations. Can the data we want actually be measured? Do we have the resources to do so? What...

Okay, there’s not a study, but you know it’s probably true… But, masks don’t actually do anthin…Hush! Of course they aren’t a perfect solution. But like wishing Tinkerbell alive in Peter Pan, if we all pretend really hard then good things will happen. Namely that maybe we can extricate ourselves from political and media fear spiral we find ourselves trapped in and get our economy and our rights back on track. Now, before any reader consigns us to the brigade of tin foil hat wearers (with MAGA scrawled on that hat somewhere), let’s be clear: the COVID-19 virus is not nothing. We are not...

Hi there! We haven’t posted much on COVID and/or coronavirus news lately. It’s a fast-moving target, there are other places to get information (but be careful!) and we have already said that the US needs better testing, better planning and more coordinated responses, as well as a reduction in panic-mongering and an increase in realistic risk-reduction strategies. But sometimes…you just want to say something, especially about our particular pet peeve: politicians, who may be fine as administrators and lawyers, stepping into the realm of practicing medicine, where they most definitely do not...