Vaccine Culture War; Elder Care Growth; and Telemedicine Facts

#David French, "Can we escape the vaccine culture war?" TIME, June 21/June 28, 2021. - "After all, the history of the pandemic is intertwined with the culture war, and from the beginning, the response to COVID has broadly split between blue and red, urban and rural, with virtually every important issue decided by your response to a single, vital question: How dangerous is COVID-19?" "[Heavily] Republican white evangelicals are more reluctant to take the vaccine than any other religious community." Vaccine hesitancy is strongly concentrated in the red states.

"When Trump drew the line in the sand, minimizing the virus in the first months of the pandemic, millions of his supporters drew that line right with 'him -- and not as a self-consciously partisan pose, rather, as a deeply held belief and tribal identification." "Partisan tribalism is the primary cause of Republicans reluctance, and it's the reason while evangelicals are disproportionately hesitant to take the vaccine." "Once an issue becomes political, why evangelicals are often more partisan than they are religious." [Existing] data shows that "white evangelicals are more ideologically aligned with a singe political party than any other religious sub-group. in the U.S." 

"From lockdowns to masks to schools to shots, all too many of us are; still living in the political culture created by Donald Trump, the man who faced the great challenge of his presidency, and responded by trying to lie his way to health, prosperity, and that elusive second term." 

#Abigail Abrams, "Elder care grows up," TIME, June 21/June 28, 2021. - "Nursery homes and other group facilities are inherently petri dishes for pathogens." 

In most states, older adults must have a monthly income under $2,382, and $21,000 or less in assets to qualify. That leaves many middle-income American with too much money for Medicaid but unable to afford expensive care. Roughly 8 million seniors  fall into this category, a number expected to reach 14.4 million by 2029, according to a 'Heath Affairs' study.

"Homecare workers earn a mean hourly wage of $1,250, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 15% live in poverty, and more than half rely on some form  of public assistance, like food stamps." "Some 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day, and the Census Bureau projects the number of seniors will reach 74.6 million by 2060, with the majority expected to need long-term-care services at some point." 

#Janie Ducharms, "No therapists still need couches?" TIME, June 21/June 28, 2021. - "In a series of TIME/Harris poll of national surveys conducted this winter and spring, about half of respondents reported using telehealth since the pandemic began, compared with about 25% who said they had beforehand." "High prices mean both therapy and teletherapy remain unattainable for many." More than 125 million people in the U.S. now use telemedicine facilities, according to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

Training more clinicians from underserved backgrounds is the single most impactful way to encourage people of color to get help."

ADDENDUMS:

Sean Gregory, "A turning point for athlete mental health," TIME, June 21/June 28, 2021. - "According to the 'British Journal of Sports Medicine,' the reported prevalence of mental health symptoms and disorders in elite male athletes in team sports varies from 5% for burnout and alcohol use to 45% for anxiety and depression."

*Raj Panjabi, Alarms don't ring themselves," TIME, June 21/June 28, 2021. - "For every $1 a county invests in community health workers, an estimated $10 is returned to society, creating jobs and setting up for a faster way out of the next pandemic." 

Trump in the Crosshairs, Vaccine Hesitancy, and Violence Against Asian-Americans

 Jane Mayer, "Trump in the Crosshairs," The New Yorker, March 15, 2021. - Ruth Ben-Ghist, New York University historian, has said that "Trumpism isn't just about 'him.' It's a whole new way of being in the world. It's about secrecy, domination, trickery, and fraud." "Now he [Trump] is pitted against a D.A. who regards the law as the politically blind foundation of democracy."

Jane Mayer writes that Allen Weisselberg, who managed Trump's money for decades, will be a star witness; however, she also acknowledges that tax cases are "notoriously difficult to prosecute, because the details are dull and complicated; ignorance can be an effective defense." Mayer believes that prosecutors "will likely create a time line and compare it with various financial representations made by the Trump Organization, looking for inconsistencies." 

District Attorney Cy Vance's office learned that condominium owners at the Trump SoHo believed that  they had been cheated by Donald Trump's children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, who were managing the project for the family business. The buyers alleged that the Trumps had lied to them by inflating the number of apartments they had sold, thereby misleading them into thinking the condominiums were better investments than they were. 

Mary Trump, the daughter of Donald's brother, believes that her uncle had swindled her and other family members out of a fair share of the financial distribution of her grandfather's estate. Mary told Jane Mayer that "Vance let two of my cousins off the hook. If he hadn't, he may well have kept Donald from running for President when two of his children were indicted for fraud." 

As for the argument that heads of state can't be prosecuted for what they did while in office, Anne Appelbaum, author of 'Twilight of Democracy', wrote that "it's not uncommon for heads of state to be prosecuted." She warned that the lesson for democracies under strain elsewhere around the world is that failing to lay down the law "is dangerous -- it creates long-tern feelings of impunity, and incentives for Trump and those around him to misbehave again!" 

#Eliana Dockerman, Moms on a mission," TIME, March 29/April 5, 2021. - "Now, inconsistent monitoring of falsehoods by social media and a politically polarized atmosphere -- in addition to genuine confusion about the COVID-19 virus -- has created a perfect storm for vaccine hesitancy. The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that the 147 biggest anti-vaccine accounts on social media gained 7.8 million followers in 2020." Forty-four percent of white evangelical Americans, who make up a significant portion of epidemiologist Emily Smith's following, say they will not get the vaccine, according to a January Washington 'Post'-ABC poll. "In 2019, pre-COVID-19, 19.5% of children had a parent who reported being 'hesitant' about childhood shots, according to a study published in 'Pediatrics.' "  

#Cady Lang, "Silent no more," TIME, March 29/April 5, 2021. - "The violence that has long targeted their community is rarely seen for what it is. Since the start of the pandemic last spring, Asian-Americans have faced racist violence at a much higher rate than in previous years. Stop AAPIHate, a reporting data-base created at the beginning of the pandemic as a response to the increase in racial violence, received 3,795 reports of  anti-Asian discrimination between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021; women reported hate incidents at 2.3 times the rate of men's." 

"A 2018 report from the American Psychological Association outlined the ways in which Asian-American women are exoticized and objectified as 'faceless, quiet, and invisible', or as sexual objects." "A 2018 study by the Pew Research Center found that Asian-Americans experience the largest income-inequality gap [among] ethnic and racial groups in the U.S." 

ADDENDUM:

*"Vatican: No same-sex union blessings," TIME, March 29/April 5, 2021. - "While calling for LGBTQ people to be treated 'with respect and sensitivity,' the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog said on March 15 that Catholic priests cannot bless same-sex unions."