This would be much less of a worry if more people were vaccinated, which is why I do not find it scandalous to pass (some degree of) moral judgment on the willfully unvaxxed.
That the public health authorities have thoroughly discredited themselves provides a partial excuse for irresponsible behavior. It does not justify it.
I do not expect or want conservatives to embrace a formal policy of medical triage based on vaccination status, or even to support mandates.
I do want them to say, calmly but clearly, that the vast majority of unvaccinated Americans are doing something irrational and immoral.
This group includes many Democrats—especially many non-white Democrats—who do not have any more excuse than rightwingers at this point.
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NEW: The Biden administration will offer bonuses to doctors who "create and implement an anti-racism plan" under new rules from the Department of Health and Human Services, which also reward doctors for "trauma-informed care."
Effective Jan. 1, Medicare doctors can boost their reimbursement rates by conducting "a clinic-wide review" of their practice's "commitment to anti-racism." govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR…
The plan should cover "value statements" and "clinical practice guidelines," according to HHS, and define race as "a political and social construct, not a physiological one"—a dichotomy many doctors say will discourage genetic testing and worsen racial health disparities.
NEW: Boston University is requiring all students and faculty to affirm that they should "intervene" if a woman is complimented on her husband or encouraged to have children, guidance transmitted during a mandatory Title IX training this semester. 🧵
The training included multiple-choice questions that had to be answered correctly in order to complete it. Some questions were empirical—"How often do you think people make false allegations?"—while others asked about the appropriate course of conduct in a given scenario.
Faculty who did not complete the training would "not be eligible for merit-based salary increases," the school said in an email, with further penalties possible for "continued non-compliance." Students who did not complete it would "be blocked from registering next semester."
I am sympathetic in principle to (certain) Covid restrictions, and to (certain) critiques of ossified Reaganism. But Covid poses a real problem for conservatives trying to define themselves in opposition to the Reaganite Right.
Even if you like lockdowns, the FDA, NIH, and CDC have spent the last two years vindicating, over and over again, every imaginable warning about government incompetence and bureaucratic malevolence. It’s hard to look at Covid and think: “see, the government CAN do things.”
There are counterexamples, of course. Warp Speed was triumph (though private corporations did most of the leg work), and the US did some of the most aggressive economic stimulus in the world. But these exceptions seem to prove the Reaganite rule.
To hear the media tell it, the emergence of the Omicron variant in South Africa is the direct result of "vaccine hoarding" by Western countries. As @DrewHolden360 and I explain in the Free Beacon, this narrative is mostly false.
@DrewHolden360 Five of the eight countries from which the Biden administration has suspended travel have pumped the brakes on new vaccine shipments because the countries have more doses than health officials can administer. That's a tragedy, but it's not due to vaccine hoarding.
Vaccine hesitancy is widespread across Africa. A recent survey that spans five West African countries found that 6 in 10 people were vaccine hesitant—compared with 13 percent or less in France, the United Kingdom, and other parts of Europe and 27 percent in the United States.
NEW: The dean of Yale Law School authorized the email condemning second-year law student Trent Colbert for his use of the term "trap house." The revelation suggests she has been downplaying or deliberately obfuscating her involvement in the scandal.
The revelation comes amid a contentious review of Gerken's deanship. Gerken vowed in October not to "act on the basis of partial facts" and tasked Yale Law School deputy dean Ian Ayres with assembling a report on the incident.
In a follow-up email that appeared to summarize the report, Gerken said that the administration's message condemning Colbert was inappropriate and implied it had been sent without her permission.
SCOOP: The two accrediting bodies for all US medical schools now say that meritocracy is "malignant" and that race has "no genetic or scientific basis"—positions many doctors worry will lower standards of care and endanger lives.
The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits all medical schools in North America, is cosponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Association for Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Those are the same groups that on Oct. 30 released a controversial guide to "advancing health equity" through "language, narrative, and concepts."
Yes, the same guide everyone was mocking on twitter the other week.