News blues
Juneteenth today. History of Juneteenth >> (See Lincoln Project ad, below, too.)***
According to a PNAS study, the US could have saved more than 338,000 lives and more than $105bn in healthcare costs in the Covid-19 pandemic with a universal healthcare system.
More than 1 million people died in the US from Covid, in part because the country’s “fragmented and inefficient healthcare system” meant uninsured or underinsured people faced financial barriers that delayed diagnosis and exacerbated transmission, the report states.Read more >>
The US had the highest death rate from the virus among large wealthy countries and is also the only one among such countries without universal healthcare. It spends almost twice as much on healthcare per capita as the other wealthy countries, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data.
“The current healthcare system in the US is economically inefficient and leaves millions of Americans without adequate access to medical treatment,” said Alison Galvani, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at the Yale School of Public Health and the lead author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I know a little about America’s “fragmented and inefficient healthcare system” that “leaves millions of Americans without adequate access to medical treatment.” I’ll get into it in the next weeks.
America. Land of gross inequality.
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On war
Ukraine. How will this country and its people ever recover? Photo essay >>***
The Lincoln Project:Juneteenth (1:25 mins)
Meidas Touch Work together! (8:40 mins)
Healthy planet, anyone?
$44 trillion.According to the World Economic Forum, $44 trillion is how much of the world’s total economic output is dependent on animals and ecosystem.
Insects pollinate commercial crops, coral reefs protect coastal buildings, wetlands purify water, and all of those services — and more — help fuel economic growth.Read more >>
If the economy is embedded in nature, then the global decline of wildlife and ecosystems is a risk for companies and investors alike. If insects vanish from farmland, say, farmers might have to pay to import pollinators or produce less, which hurts their bottom lines. That’s one reason why WEF ranks “biodiversity loss” as the third most severe risk to the economy over the next decade, after failure to act on climate change and extreme weather.
“The risk of continued biodiversity loss is profound,” Sarah Kapnick, a scientist and strategist at the banking giant JP Morgan, wrote in May, “not just for nature but for financial stability.”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Summertime… and the milkweed’s in blossomcaterpillars are eating…
and the monarchs reign…
(sing to the tune of Summertime)
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| Summertime… and the milkweed’s in blossom |
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| caterpillars are eating… |
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| and the monarchs reign… |
The monarch has four distinct life stages: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis), and adult. Watch >>
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SF Bay Area: Sunrise: 5:47am
Sunset: 8:34pm
KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:52am
Sunset: 5:08pm
