The Cal State system, where I teach, just announced a murky but far-ranging & evidently unprecedented public-private initiative to, per the Chancellor, “establish the CSU as the nation’s first and largest AI-powered public university system[.]” This is very concerning imo, not least because the Cal State system is in widespread and widely reported fiscal emergency as a result of slashed state budget appropriations, which has translated into program closures and faculty and staff layoffs on our campus and beyond. It seems predictable that AI will

Not great!

“Presumptive” seems maybe overly cautious to describe the case, which was not just symptomatic but also “tested positive for H5N1 at the SFDPH Public Health Laboratory, which performed this testing as part of enhanced surveillance efforts.” Without endorsing any unhelpful conspiracism, I might just note that the phrase “the risk to the general public remains low” has accumulated some negative associations. But this news is, to be sure, a hard public health update to deliver

Link

sf.gov/news/presumpti…

The phrase “don’t panic” should be permanently retired in PH. It is mystifying & encourages deference to authority instead of validating reasonable fears. It encourages conspiratorial critiques. And it lost all credibility from repetition by Dems as well as by 45 during COVID Too, attributions of “panic” have historically been made in ways that are sexist, ethnocentrist, classist, and racist. The term implies that a fearful individual is a member of an antisocial, hysterical “mob” (see, e.g., Gustave Le Bon’s “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”)

Starting soon

https://twitter.com/SafiyyaPatelNEU/status/1723763180957061392

Was difficult to get Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta on the phone initially. He confirmed that Shifa hospital is being sniped. Doctors and patients are in the corridors. Their ICU patients have all died. Dr. Abu Sitta: “We need you on the outside to start thinking about the day after.”

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Today in @thenation with @arijitchakrav:

The Coronavirus Still Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings

The Covid-19 pandemic is not a state of mind—and telling us not to panic isn’t healthcare.

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thenation.com/article/societ… You might be forgiven for thinking it’s been a very quiet few months for the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides the messy rollout of new boosters, the coronavirus has largely slipped out of the headlines. But the virus is on the move.


2/pbs.org/newshour/show/…

They’ve gone under the radar—but “We’re in a different/a better place” are admin talking points, sometimes used in parallel to “we have the tools.” Jha, Walensky, Becerra, Murthy, Biden, and the WH press secretary have all invoked the idea of being in a better/different place
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https://twitter.com/CDCDirector/status/1695175746094879196

For example, here is one set of comments about being in “a better place” by Joe Biden on Jan 19, 2022—in the middle of the Omicron wave, with 144,441 people hospitalized with COVID per WH data on Jan 18 (21,111 of whom had been hospitalized on that day alone)
2/

The Surgeon General’s newly issued advisory on loneliness contains a feature on COVID-19 that’s identified as a “call-out” in the table of contents. It’s just one page on the impacts of the pandemic on loneliness
1/ The online preamble to the advisory, just noting en passant, seems to borrow from the private sector in its approach to appealing to a reader’s curiosity
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Today, two new pieces deconstructing Emma Green’s deeply flawed New Yorker essay on the People’s CDC.
“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Virus” by @gregggonsalves in @thenation. A free education is to be had here, in public health and in not mincing words
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https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1613184502368731137

Gonsalves argues that Green’s piece is grounded in reactionary centrism—and that its “hippie-punching” tendency amounts to a kind of red-baiting.
“For Green, public health is too important to be left to the experts—especially those conspiring to sap our American way of life.”
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It's unfortunate to see some of the most respected venues in journalism taking this turn—exceptionalizing individuals and groups who advocate for greater public health protections and portraying them as deviant, immature, countercultural, Marxists, etc. 1/
newyorker.com/news/annals-of… This essay describes critiques as “grievances”; positions as “beliefs,” and accuses the People’s CDC of “activist-speak” and “eye-popping claims.” In this, it gives a ton of cover to agencies & officials who have gone out of their way to distort, misdirect, and miscommunicate 2/

Our third pandemic winter is at hand.
In @TIME today with @n_hold
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time.com/6223311/our-th… @TIME @n_hold After last winter’s brutal Omicron wave, American leaders should—at least, in theory—be well equipped to deal with the months ahead.

Health agencies should be preparing clear, actionable messages on COVID measures for the holiday season.
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In @thenation today, my piece unpacking the idea of “COVID fatigue” and challenging the (seemingly straightforward) claim that the general public is tired of responding to the pandemic.
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thenation.com/article/societ… As I argue, the Biden administration and the CDC have been unraveling the federal pandemic response with this claim as justification.
Despite many continued concerning COVID trends, the admin has continued investing a disproportionate resources in managing impressions.
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Timely & excellent piece by @asosin and @RanuDhillon on the CDC’s rollback of COVID protections.
As they argue, the CDC’s stated intent w/ these rollbacks—to minimize “severe” disruptions to our lives—is based in a v narrow definition of “disruption” 1/5
thehill.com/opinion/white-… @asosin @RanuDhillon Stats on some of those disruptions: “Recent census data shows that 7.6% of American adults are currently experiencing symptoms consistent with Long COVID.” 2/5

“Meeting people where they are” is Wen’s entire COVID proposal; the middlegame and the endgame. By “people,” she means groups who actively or passively oppose public health measures, and by “meet where they are,” she means “stay where they are, possibly permanently”

https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1535351192301326338

Efforts by Wen and others like her to invoke a public that is “tired” and sees masks or testing (or really any measure) as “burdensome” are an ideological manipulation that invokes “the public” for the benefit of elites

Re: professional organizations declining to cancel meetings -- this is a great opportunity to put ourselves in mind of how puerpal fever was spread to women in childbirth before the advent of handwashing protocols in obstetrical practice. (thread) Folks will remember that before Joseph Lister introduced important and at the time controversial changes to the protocols for surgery, physicians did not wash their hands between patients, believing themselves to be gentlemen. In retrospect, this seems obviously misguided.