This Disillusionment of a Rikers Island Doctor

March 24, 2022 7:34 PM

As a physician who cared for the oldest and sickest people in New York’s jails, I thought the pandemic might create a portal to a better world. Two years later, I wonder if we missed our chance.
posted by geoff. (7 comments total)

Well, we usually do.
posted by Naberius at 9:20 PM on March 24, 2022 [4 favorites]

Under Adams, there is zero chance of any improvement not already put in motion, so.
posted by praemunire at 9:36 PM on March 24, 2022 [5 favorites]

This pandemic brought is face to face with so many of the gaping defects in our society. I, too, thought - maybe this time we'll finally be forced to do something. About the health care system, if nothing else.

But here we are two years on and nothing.

One thing I'll give Republicans credit for - they never waste a crisis. They have their laundry list of "solutions" planned out long ahead of time, and when the crisis hits they ram them all right on through while nobody is looking.

Democrats never seem to have a list or the ability to get anything actually done, no matter how devastating the crisis.
posted by flug at 10:38 PM on March 24, 2022 [26 favorites]

Prison Inmates More Vaccinated Than Corrections Staff In At Least 13 States

The most drastic discrepancies are in Pennsylvania, where 91% of inmates are vaccinated versus 42% of corrections staff, and Alabama, where there is a 43% difference between the two, according to the UCLA research, which is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But here we are two years on and nothing.

It's worse than nothing. Some parts of the country now have anti-mask mandate laws, anti-vaccine mandate laws, laws forbidding private entities from requiring vaccines. And so far there's been very little federal pushback because of all the usual reasons involving optics, the current composition of the Supreme Court, federalism, and "states rights".
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:45 AM on March 25, 2022 [12 favorites]

Current US senator Mike Braun said legality of interracial marriages should be allowed to be determined at the state level earlier this week FFS. I have lost all faith in humanity at large.
posted by Mitheral at 10:16 AM on March 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

This is often the problem with decarceration efforts on a wide scale: progressive mayors, governors, and district attorneys might theoretically support scaling back mass incarceration, but when it comes time to look at a list of names and grant the requests, they hesitate.

Now we don't even have that theoretical support. "Regression to the mean" + "the widening gyre", in a sense.
But is that "Regression to the widening gyre" or "Regression to the centre which cannot hold"?
posted by CrystalDave at 10:34 AM on March 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

I will say my experience is that prison docs are unsympathetic and passively cruel characters. This one, at least in writing, appears to be a refreshing exception.
posted by adoarns at 2:23 PM on March 25, 2022 [3 favorites]