Our picksOne Virus, Two Americas | Techno-Nationalism and Diplomacy | Militant Networks, and more
· One Virus, Two Americas
· COVID Drug Used to Treat Trump Was Tested Using Fetus Cells
· Military Medical Ethics and Dr. Conley’s Misrepresentations of the President’s Health
· The Death and Life of Terrorist Networks. How Alliances Help Militants Survive
· Ukraine Deported Two American Members of a Neo-Nazi Group Who Tried to Join a Far-Right Military Unit for “Combat Experience”
· Techno-Nationalism and Diplomacy
· How Social Networks Are Preparing for a Potential October Hack-and-Leak
One Virus, Two Americas (Ashish Jha, Foreign Affairs)
Federalism Both Saved and Doomed the United States.
The coronavirus pandemic has affected nearly every nation in the world, with results as variable as each government’s response. While some countries rapidly harnessed the powers of science and good governance to contain the virus, others shunned the advice of health experts and failed to slow the spread of the disease. Eight months into the pandemic, the United States finds itself in the latter category, leading the world in COVID-19 deaths, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of population. But if the U.S. response deserves to be called a failure at the national level, the picture is more complicated in the 50 states: certain U.S. states have brought their rates of infection under control, leveraging their own resources to compensate for federal ineffectiveness.
In the United States of America, two nations are responding to one virus. The national government has largely abdicated responsibility for the pandemic response. But in a country with a federalized public health system, states that embrace science and the advice of health experts have largely succeeded in containing the virus, while infection rates have spiraled out of control in those that do not. The divergence of these two Americas reveals the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the U.S. federal system in the midst of the deadliest disease outbreak in a century.
COVID Drug Used to Treat Trump Was Tested Using Fetus Cells (Kiran Stacey, Financial Times)
Administration has tried to restrict practice of using aborted human tissue for scientific studies.
Military Medical Ethics and Dr. Conley’s Misrepresentations of the President’s Health (Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Stephen N. Xenakis, MD, and Jonathan Moreno, Just Security)
What is it about the symbolic power of a lab coat? By standing at the platform in a white coat, the physician to the President, Dr. Sean Conley, and his colleagues leveraged the special trust and confidence that societies endow to their healers. The “white lab coat” symbolizes the unique role that we bestow on members of the medical profession. (Cont.)
