If you spend any time with doctors, epidemiologists and concerned citizens on Twitter you’ll catch the latest debate: One vaccine or two for COVID. The logic is that given limited supplies of vaccine we’re better off with more folks getting one vaccine with reasonably good protection rather than immunizing a smaller number up front with better protection. To date our ... Continue Reading about One Vaccine or Two | What the Debate Tells Us
Stanford’s COVID Vaccine Algorithm – What We Can Learn
Stanford stepped in just before Christmas when they distributed their COVID vaccine supply according to a homemade algorithm. When the vaccine algorithm was unleashed it invited non-patient facing personnel and only one resident as part of the vaccine’s first phase. It apparently failed because residents as institutional nomads had no ‘home base’ or address that ... Continue Reading about Stanford’s COVID Vaccine Algorithm – What We Can Learn
The Vaccine Selfie – Another View on Medicine’s Moment
The current moment in medicine is defined by the vaccine selfie. Pictures on Twitter and Instagram have marked a turning point in the COVID pandemic where desperate health professionals have begun to show defiance. Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson has another take on the vaccine selfie. She posted a wonderful thread suggesting that the vaccine selfie could have some ... Continue Reading about The Vaccine Selfie – Another View on Medicine’s Moment
COVID Vaccine – 4 Lessons from Speedy Development
The development of a COVID vaccine is one of the most closely watched human experiments in modern medical history. A defining moment shaped by global coordination, federal and private funding and will. I've been thinking how this has played out. Here are a few thoughts on what we might take from the speedy creation of the COVID vaccine. What has been ... Continue Reading about COVID Vaccine – 4 Lessons from Speedy Development
John Snow Memo v. Great Barrington – The Johns Hopkins Debate
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health held a debate on October 30, 2020. Locking Down or Opening Up? A Debate on the Best Path Through the Pandemic - Discussing the John Snow Memo and the Great Barrington Declaration. The debate was part of a series that draws researchers from Johns Hopkins and around the country to learn more about emerging approaches to ... Continue Reading about John Snow Memo v. Great Barrington – The Johns Hopkins Debate
Why We Can’t See COVID as a Wicked Problem
I have been thinking about concept of the wicked problem and how it could explain our debate and deep division over COVID’s public health management. What’s a wicked problem? Proposed by University of California professors W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber in a 1973 article in Policy Sciences journal, a wicked problem describes a problem that is difficult ... Continue Reading about Why We Can’t See COVID as a Wicked Problem