This piece first appeared in the Tampa Bay Times. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tens of thousands of deaths and more than three million infections, with predictions of many more to come. Nursing home residents have been among the most affected by the pandemic. In some states, half or more of all COVID deaths have…
Tag: COVID-19
Telemedicine Saved My Life
This piece first appeared in the Orlando Sentinel. Tragically, COVID-19 has already claimed the lives of over 2,000 Floridians. The virus is contagious and deadly, especially to the elderly and those with underlying conditions. But for me, the pandemic and the rules created to stop its spread created an odd confluence of events that likely…
Social Equity: The Predictable Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19 on Minority Communities
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has demanded global attention as it claims the lives of more than 560,000 humans globally and more than 135,000 humans in the United States alone. COVID-19 death data in the United States by race, reveals a striking image of inequity. The data indicate that there are disproportionate deaths in Black and…
DeSantis’ Coronavirus Leadership Reflects the Prudence Florida Needs Overall
This piece first appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat. Six months into America’s COVID-19 crisis and, remarkably, the virus continues to confound experts. Nevertheless, Gov. DeSantis continues to be attacked as if the best approaches are obvious and clear. In fact, DeSantis, like his peers in other states, is being forced to make severe policy trade-offs…
Masks and Masculinity: Trump’s Strong Man Performance
This post first appeared on the Institute for Research on Male Supremacy blog. President Donald Trump’s refusal to wear a mask in public serves as a form of masculinity performance that characterizes Trump as a strong man—tougher than the COVID-19 virus, and unable to be controlled by establishment forces telling him what to do. While…
Suffering in Silence: How COVID-19 School Closures Inhibit the Reporting of Child Maltreatment
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has generated immediate challenges for policymakers across multiple areas including health, fiscal, environmental, and education policy. To contribute to ongoing policy discussions, recent academic work has sought to understand the impact of COVID-19 policy responses on outcomes ranging from job losses to mortality to pollution. In a recent paper, we…
Protests and Pressure: Why is Trump Responding to the Black Lives Matter Movement Now?
Today, Donald Trump is scheduled to sign an executive order on police reform. According to senior White House officials, the order will create a database to track police officers with histories of misconduct and use federal monies to incentivize police departments to meet higher standards on the use of force. The order will not address…
The Covid-19 Pandemic Shows the Power and Limits of American Federalism.
This post first appeared on The LSE US Centre’s daily blog on American Politics and Policy American federalism allows different responses to policy challenges, and the nation’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic is no exception. When looking at any sort of crisis, the chief executive of a state or municipality is often the leader in…
Take Lessons of Empathy beyond Pandemic, into the Classroom
This piece first appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat. COVID-19 has thrown higher education into an unprecedented period of uncertainty. Funding sources, school openings, grades — each facet of the system is under a microscope. As another crop of seniors make way for a new crop of freshmen in the fall, the lesson to learn and…
Sharing the Love: Now is the Time for Pets to Keep Us Together
This was first published on Linkedin. What strange and unsettling times these are. In nearly every country, the new normal of self-isolation and social distancing is forcing us to adapt in ways most of us could never have imagined. It’s a considerable challenge – and not just for us humans. Whether it’s a cat accustomed…
