Healthy Spaces

 David Bishai, MD, MPH, PhD By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. Psalm 137:1. Pity the eternal frustration of priests--knowing what people ought to do and never being able to get them all to do it. The priest's playbook ties promises of heaven and hell to scriptural conformity.  "Repent or be damned!" echoes from pulpits and tabernacles.   Tales of Babylon and brimstone hailing down at any hint of idol worship still quicken the blood of would-be sinners.  Maybe before the printing press and the enlightenment olden-day priests came close to wiping out sin, but I doubt it.   Other social species are wired for conformity, but in humans the neural circuits for assent run through the frontal lobe.  For 1000 people to do the same thing, 1000 brains have to deliberate.  F or 990 out of 1000 conforming is the easy way.  Doing what others do can save time and effort.    Independent thought ...

Structural Racism and COVID-19  A View from the Trenches David Bishai, Health Officer of Harford County February 15, 2021 In my county whites are three times more likely than blacks to have been vaccinated for COVID-19.  As health officer it's my job to fix that.  I must do so mindful of the generosity of the American taxpayers who paid for all the vaccines entrusted to our health department.  Those taxpayers want justice, fairness, and an end to COVID-19.  This is one of those situations where a common process that is not designed to offer advantages ends up succumbing to built-in disparities in terms of who knows what, who has what and past lived experiences that are not the same for everybody in today's America. Vaccine clinic appointments are creatures of the internet.  Some seniors can get online or get their kids to go online for them.  For others there is the telephone.  I have made the public health department's vaccine pre-registration sy...