Maverick's Update

The 2021 Olympics will be remembered, not only because it is happening in the middle of a once-in-a-century global pandemic (see 1920 Spanish flu at the Antwerp Olympics), but maybe also because all three countries (China, U.S. and Australia) that medaled in the women’s 4x200m freestyle swimming relay broke the world record for the fastest time ever. Relay team member Katie Ledecky, the American competitive swimmer who has won the most gold medals in the history of female swimmers, swam at a faster clip than everyone else in the relay race — but the gold ultimately went to China’s team that collectively swam .4 seconds faster than we did. Fun fact: Just a month ago, Katie Ledecky graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in psychology — which means one of our most determined and successful humans may be redirecting her superpowers to the mental health field someday. How great is that? Read more in the One Thoughtful Paragraph below.

News that is not necessarily worth a gold medal, but still interesting:

1. The vast majority of Americans definitely want more access to their health information, according to a Pew Research study. But when the Pew surveyors explained that health data on smartphone apps and tablets is unlikely to be protected by HIPAA privacy rules, they got pretty squeamish. So it was not terribly surprising when this New York Times article found that most people really do not know how the HIPAA law works.

2. The U.S. Department of Justice made one thing clear this week: there is no federal law that prevents employers from requiring their employees to get vaccinated. CNN published a list of famous-ish employers who have mandated vaccinations, and the Wall Street Journal reviewed the uneven application of vaccine requirements in the country.

3. Now that this one piece of health information – whether you are vaccinated against COVID-19 or not – is particularly important to daily life activity — Americans need to better understand who can ask about and share their health information.

One Thoughtful Paragraph