- Lancet study: Covid natural immunity is at least as protective as two doses of mRNA vaccines.
- Nearly all contemporary countries were colonized at some point in their history by a foreign power; yet most citizens have a favorable attitudes toward their country’s former colonizer. HT: Tyler
- Losing fitness: Scientists have found that it is around the three-week mark [of no exercise] that people experience the biggest changes in their ability to get through a workout. (NYT)
- North Carolina’s medical system would have had an additional 55 hospitals, including 24 in vulnerable rural areas, were it not for the state’s certificate-of-need regulations. (WSJ)
- Cocaine Bear scene: what are the effects of swallowing a tablespoon of cocaine?
Category: Tuesday Links
Tuesday Links
- Covid infection creates immunity at least equal to two doses of mRNA vaccine, according to a meta-analysis of 65 studies from 19 countries.
- Why did it take two decades for a generic competitor for the nation’s leading (and costly) arthritis drug to become avaible to consumers?
- Benefit of placebos: “taking a sugar pill can be beneficial even when you know it’s a sugar pill.” (WSJ)
- Why can’t we have one-stop-shopping for safety net benefits for the poor, instead of multiple siloed benefits?
- Study: 76% of homeless people in high-income countries suffer from a mental disorder, with substance use disorders and schizophrenia being the most common. HT: Arnold Kling
- In Utah, it is legal to forcibly sterilize a person with a disability.
Tuesday Links
- Valentine fact of the day: one in four female physicians is married to another physician. It’s called “assortive mating,” and Charles Murray noted some time ago that it is one reason why we are “Coming Apart.” Call it “Cupid’s invisible hand.”
- New York state drops masking rules for hospitals and nursing homes. But facilities can impose their own rules.
- Infant mortality is twice as high among black mothers as among whites and this is true for rich women as well as the poor.
- Climate change subsidies: it helps if you’re rich.
- If the “abortion pill” is banned, there is an off-label use of another drug that will achieve the same result.
- Art Laffer has a new book.
Tuesday Links
- Stunning new mask study: “We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.”
- Scott Sumner: ChatGPT is confused about supply and demand; but so are most economists.
- How dangerous is H5N1?
- More details, including the role of minks.
- How nature mummifies the dead: in bogs. Also, Steven Pinker is right: the past was more violent than the present. (NYT)
- Only 25% of hospitals are fully compliant with federal price transparency rules, Some of the largest conglomerates are among the offenders.