By Cade Novara (PO ’23) For the past eight months, the country has been ravaged by the coronavirus. The lack of a cohesive, coordinated response from the government has left the United States with nearly 8 million cases and 217,000 deaths from the virus. Despite claims that the virus does not discriminate among groups, it…
By Andy Xu (PO ’24) The Race for a Vaccine Imagine you’re asked to be among one of the first recipients of the FDA approved COVID-19 vaccine. You might consider refusing and, as of now, that decision wouldn’t be uncommon. In fact, over two-thirds of Americans say that they intend to forgo such a vaccine…
Guest Contributors Anubhav Das and Winy Daigavane, National University of Advanced Legal Studies In January 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was reported. In the five months since, it has spread all over the world. Around the world, public health officials have enacted stringent measures to mitigate the impact of the virus. However, deaths continue…
By Rya Jetha (PO ’23) An extreme public health crisis demands an extreme response from governments. Closing off borders, contact-tracing citizens, and limiting rights has proven necessary for flattening the curve. However, governments walk a fine line between enacting extreme measures to combat COVID-19 and using the public health crisis to consolidate authoritarian power. President…
By Edward Jung (PO ’22) Developing a concrete definition for the relationship between a doctor and their patient is a difficult question whose answer lies within the intersection of medicine, ethics, and the law. Medical students are taught in medical school that their primary obligation is to patients; yet, from the Hippocratic Oath to Hollywood’s…
By Camryn Fujita (SCR 21′)Guest Contributor As many states across the nation begin to re-open businesses to mitigate the economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Hawaii is in a tough situation. Hawaii has one of the lowest infection rates in the nation. As a result, Governor David Ige has allowed retailers, medium-risk…
By: Andy Liu (HMC ’23) Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, nations across the world have rapidly intervened to contain the virus’ spread. Much has been made of the different approaches that the world’s developed nations have taken toward containing COVID-19; whether it’s the United States’ federal approach, with individual states having their own…
By: Calla Li (PO ’22) May 6, 2020; marks the 138-year-anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the only piece of immigration legislation in American history to exclude an ethnic group by name. At the time, economic anxiety ran high due to the increasingly fierce competition to find gold in Northern California, causing rising…
By Aditya Bhalla (PO ’23) Over the last few months, the coronavirus pandemic has caused a marked increase in racially motivated attacks and xenophobic sentiment, particularly towards the Asian-American community. As early as January, when the threat of the virus began to seep into media outlets around the world, anti-Asian rhetoric began filtering into the…
By Christopher Tan (PZ ‘21) In Milan, hospitals have been overwhelmed by a deluge of patients. In Madrid, authorities turned a historic ice-rink into a morgue for the dead. In Paris, officials scramble to find more ventilators for rising numbers of critical cases. With lightning speed, the spread of COVID-19 has devastated European health services…