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The COVID-19 pandemic has been the greatest public health emergency in the last century. But we now are at the precipice of another public health crisis–the impact of the increasing frequency and severity of cybersecurity breaches. This is a universal concern as virtually all of healthcare, from remote clinics to major research institutions, is now on a connected digital platform that is regional, national and international. (Dr. Mark P. Jarrett and Dr. Reuven Pasternak, 7/19)

When a smallpox epidemic struck Boston in 1721, officials attempted to control it by isolating the afflicted in a “pesthouse” and quarantining ships and their crews in Boston Harbor. Cotton Mather, one of the city’s leading citizens and the foremost Puritan intellectual in New England, urged a different course. For centuries, a form of inoculation called variolation had been practiced in India to ward off smallpox. It involved making a cut in the skin and then rubbing it with a drop or two of fluid squeezed from the pustules of someone with a mild case of smallpox. Mather had read a Greek physician’s description of how the procedure was employed in the Ottoman Empire as well. He also had a firsthand account of the treatment from Onesimus, an African-born slave who had been inoculated against smallpox in his native country and never came down with the disease. (Jeff Jacoby, 7/17)

Buried in the sweetness of a return to some sort of pre-pandemic life is the dread of something less palatable: an uncomfortable date with my scale. I know it’s going to tell me I’ve gained 10 pounds. And with that knowledge, there’s a fleeting thought that maybe I’m not ready to put on a public face, at least not yet — not while I’m looking like this. Before you judge me, know that I’m really not a shallow person. Honest. I’m at a place in my life where I rarely worry about what other people think of me, because I know how rarely they do. I even teach mindfulness and self-compassion to other healthcare workers, showing them how to handle their negative self-talk with grace and gentleness. So why let a modest weight gain during a planetary crisis get under my skin? (Jillian Horton, 7/20)