Here is a roundup of my essays, interviews and podcasts about the coronavirus.
The Spectator, September 5, 2020
Rush jab; Fast-tracking vaccines can be disastrous – even if they work
Click here to read the article.
The Motley Fool Authors in August Podcast.
Click here to listen. Released August 12, 2020
COVID-19 — How Did We Get Here? Mashable video (7 mins 30 secs). Released April 22, 2020.
Click here to see the video.
Social Distancing in the Rabbinic Tradition. The Lehrhaus March 16, 2020
As many synagogues are closed for Shabbat, and others limit the numbers who may attend, the time seems right to see what our rabbinic tradition has to say about a new phrase that has entered our lexicon: social distancing. There is a long history of isolating those with disease, beginning with our own Bible…
Click here to read more.
The Complicated Truth About Public Closings. The Atlantic March 14, 2020.
They may only delay the arrival of the coronavirus, but that delay may itself be crucial…
Click here to read more.
The 1918 flu pandemic, a cautionary tale. CBS Sunday Morning. March 8, 2020.
Click here to see the interview and read the transcript.
The History of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Letters & Politics. Pacifica Podcast March 9, 2020
Click here to listen.
The Coronavirus vs. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic. RadioWest Podcast, March 6 2020.
In his recent article for The Atlantic, Dr. Jeremy Brown, author of Influenza: The 100-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History, wrote: “If the terrible influenza pandemic of 1918 and the current coronavirus outbreak share one feature, it is this: People are terribly afraid.” According to Dr. Brown, while fear links these two outbreaks together, that is where the similarities end between the coronavirus and the influenza pandemic. We’ll talk about what happened in 1918, how the country handled it and how our responses to these medical emergencies have changed over the past 100 years…
Click here to listen to this podcast.
Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic. The Atlantic March 3 2020.
The differences between the global response to the Great Flu Pandemic and today’s COVID-19 outbreak could not be more striking…
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Chicken Soup Won’t Stop the Coronavirus. Tablet, Feb 27, 2020.
The bad news is that there is no current vaccine or medication against the virus. The good news is that simple non-pharmacological interventions are extremely effective at preventing its spread…
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A Long-Forgotten Jewish Remedy for the Coronavirus Outbreak. The Lehrhaus Feb 11, 2020
In the last century there was, however, a particularly Jewish response to a life-threatening epidemic. It was known in Yiddish as the Shvartze Chassaneh, the Black Wedding, and took place in response to the terrible waves of cholera, typhus, and influenza that ravaged the Jews of Eastern Europe, Israel, and North America…
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What Past Crises Tell Us About the Coronavirus. The Wall Street Journal Feb 1-2, 2020.
A look at three episodes from the annals of our own epidemics reveal some lessons that we should heed as the news unfolds…
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