Understanding Proposed Amendments to the Wisconsin Constitution in a Faith Context by Doug Poland, partner at Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, Ruling Elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison Wisconsin voters who cast ballots in the Spring Election on April 2, 2024, will be confronted with two questions on their ballot that, if they receive a majority of “yes” votes, will amend…
Short and (hopefully) sweet
Changes ahead
Let’s start this week with some updates.
COVID and ILI
Things continue to move in the right direction on the respiratory virus front. COVID hospital admissions are down again. So are wastewater levels, and Wisconsin falls in the “low” category for flu activity. I’ve got no recent data on RSV, but last we heard, that was headed down too.
Give it until Valentine’s Day to drop masks in church gatherings. As I’ve said before, it’s possible to have rebound spikes before the respiratory virus season abates for good. Haste makes waste, as they say, and also a lot of sick people.
Plus: asks and points of interest So it turns out that one way you can take care of your health is to take care of your back? And your humble correspondent isn’t always the best at that? All of which is to say: no essay this week, mostly bullet points. But before we get to those, let’s check in on…
“Nothing about us without us”
+ your pre-Christmas COVID update
I want to add a point to last week’s discussion of disability, but first, let’s take care of a couple of points.
Click here for an updated even page – Housing Justice and Congregational Futures
Happy and Healthy and Together
Putting the “Community” back in “Community Health”
In May of this year, Vivek Murthy issued what’s called a Surgeon General’s advisory. These reports typically call attention to “urgent public health issues” like smoking or obesity. But this one was different. It focused on the effects of loneliness and social isolation.1 It’s long been a concern of Murthy’s and one that he has chosen to use his considerable platform to highlight.
According to the report, social isolation and loneliness have real consequences for health. Those include cardiovascular health, cancer outcomes, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. They can even affect academic and financial success in later life.
Not surprisingly, isolation and loneliness affect COVID too. American counties with less social capital have had more COVID-19 cases and deaths. Areas with more social participation have fewer deaths. Similarly, one broad-based international study found higher levels of interpersonal and government trust associated with lower rates of infection.
The whole report is long but fascinating. It’s a subject that touches many different parts of our lives. I recommend it if you’re interested in public health or policy.
Murthy includes a warning in the advisory: social divisions cause poor health. Americans need to build “more connected lives and a more connected society,” he tells his readers. If we fail to do so,
The Why, How, and Hoo Boy of COVID and RSV shots for children We have a couple of mothers of very young children on staff at the WCC. They asked me an important question the other day: What is it with COVID booster shots for kids? They’re difficult enough to find for preschoolers and up. It’s harder still to find…
Here’s where the church comes in I was going to write this article up last week as part of Mental Illness Awareness Week. But circumstances intervened, as they sometimes do. So instead, let’s do it in observance of World Mental Health Day, October 10th. By now, most of us probably understand that COVID had a profound, and negative, impact on mental…
When the Church Shows Up: Mobilizing Christians for Action at the Capitol Rev. Breanna Illéné, Director of Ecumenical Innovation and Justice Initiatives I had just taken a quiet moment after my first ever time testifying in a legislative committee hearing on behalf of the WCC in one of three hearings taking place last Wednesday. (Note: it is more typical to…
COVID communications tools This week, I have mostly a passel of graphics to share with you. (If you don’t speak cowboy, that means “a bunch.”) But we do need to cover some items of interest first. COVID is in fact on the rise in Wisconsin. According to the CDC, hospitalization rates for COVID are relatively low. But they are showing a steady increase in…