Coming in April 2021 from Johns Hopkins University Press. Now available for preorder on Amazon. Killing Season: A Paramedic’s Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Opioid Epidemic

There are to COVID tracking sites I follow every day.   They both have color coded maps that show how each state is doing according to their metrics. Connecticut is not doing as well as it has in the past.  Our dailey cases and test positivity rate have gone up and stayed there over the last […]

Recent data on fatal overdoses in Connecticut shows overdoses among black and Hispanic citizens are increasing as a proportion of total overdose deaths. To date in 2020, 29% of overdose deaths in Connecticut have been black or Hispanic people compared to 18% in 2015, 21% in 2016 and 2017, 24% in 2018, and 28% in […]

In Connecticut, when EMS responds to an opioid overdose, after they have taken the patient to the hospital, accepted a refusal, or presumed a patient dead, they are required to contact the state poison control center and answer a series of questions about the overdose. The program, known as SWORD (Statewide Opioid Reporting Directive), that […]

This week the local aquatics center opened for the first time since the COVID scare locked the state down back in late March.  I have already swum twice and have lanes reserved nearly every day of the week ahead. I missed the pool terribly when it was closed.  The water has always been my buffer […]

You can wear a mask and still get COVID.  The mask is not fool-proof, but masks can reduce the viral load you are exposed to.  With a smaller viral load, you may get COVID, but it is likely to be much milder than if you got a full blast of the virus. A new commentary […]

I am pro-vaccine.  I believe in science and in the public health model. When I was in high school, I read an essay called The Tragedy of the Commons.  It basically said that if people acted in their own self-interest rather than in the interest of the group, tragedy would result.  Resources would be depleted.  […]