Flu Vaccine 101: Pandemic Edition

It’s that time of year again. As fall approaches, influenza is knocking on the door… but this flu season, AGAIN, promises to be far from typical. We are smack dab in the middle of a pandemic – still! COVID19 has devastated lives and livelihoods. The Delta variant is a monster and, even though we now … Read more

What life was like before vaccines

Before and after vaccines

If you’ve ever wondered what life was like before vaccines, or what life could be like if we allow immunization rates to fall, now you know. Or, at least, now you have a sense – suffering, death, anxiety, fear, poverty, and more. In 2020, we will certainly fare better in our fight against the novel … Read more

COVID19: fighting our fight or flight response

Scrabble tiles fear

The process by which we make decisions is suffused with emotion. We can’t escape it. We are genetically programmed to behave in an emotional, instinctive manner. It is what helped us survive as a species. When our early human ancestors were confronted with a threat, say a charging lion, they didn’t stop to contemplate the … Read more

It’s a COVID-19 world now. Is this our new normal?

Man with mask

All 50 states are reporting cases of the novel Coronavirus. It’s a COVID-19 world now. Is this our new normal? More people are getting tested (though still not enough). The numbers of cases of COVID-19 are surging, and so are deaths from this frightening illness. Every day we read some new headline about risk factors, … Read more

Vaccine Data: Do the Math

Math

Have you ever had a discussion with your child about why they need to be able to do math when “Nowadays we have technology and everyone just uses a calculator”? I mean (eye roll and sigh)… Who is this “everyone”, anyways? Kids are great at making you feel out of the loop and old at … Read more

Herd Immunity: It’s all up to you and it’s the right thing to do

Anyone who is able to save a life, but fails to do so, violates ‘You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor’. ~ Maimonides (Jewish physician and philosopher, born 1135) Maimonides implored us, as do religious and philosophical leaders of most of the world’s religions, to care for each other. We are … Read more

100 Years Later

“Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” — Winston Churchill 2018 marks exactly 100 years since the Spanish Flu of 1918 ripped a path across the earth, claiming the lives of millions and changing the course of history. Most estimates lay the death toll around 50 million but some go … Read more