Tuesday Edition

Weighing the risk ethics of requiring vaccinations (Strategy + Business)

As the world continues to struggle with highly contagious strains of COVID-19, businesses are grappling with a thorny question: Should they require employees to get the vaccine? The travel and event industries, tourism-dependent countries, and universities have quickly embraced requiring proof of vaccination for boarding transportation and crossing borders, attending events, and returning to campuses. National, state, and local governments are piloting “vaccine passports,” documents that would prove one’s status. More…

Poor countries are developing a new paradigm of mental health care. America is taking note. (Vox)

When you look at the numbers, it’s easy to gape in horror. In Ghana, a nation of 32 million people, there are only 62 psychiatrists. Zimbabwe, with a population of 15 million, has only 19 psychiatrists. And in Uganda, there are 47 psychiatrists serving a country of 48 million — less than one single psychiatrist for every million people. These are staggering ratios. To get your head around them, take the US as a comparison. There are around 45,000 psychiatrists for all 333 million Americans, which translates to about 135psychiatrists for every million people. More…

How Viruses Hop from Wild Animals to Humans (Scientific American)

Viruses are finely tuned to their hosts, but mutations can and have produced strains that can jump from animals into humans. Sara Sawyer, a virologist at the BioFrontiers Institute of the University of Colorado, Boulder, spoke to Nature about what a virus must do to make the leap between species, and describes a worrying discovery her laboratory has made regarding a future threat. More…

'Safe, inclusive and judgment free': How a Thunder Bay group is making space for adults with autism (CBC)

Excitement fills the room at the Rowan Tree Collective as a small group of young adults scan the Bingo cards in front of them, searching for the latest number called. Someone leaps from their seat and frantically shouts "Bingo." Friends and family cheer them on as they rush over to claim their prize. This space is something that was missing from Thunder Bay just a few months ago. The Rowan Tree Collective is a new programming hub for adults with autism and other neurodiversities. More…

Tell Employees What You Want Them to Strive for (in as Few Words as Possible) (HBR)

In 2016, Microsoft revamped their comprehensive leadership priorities into a simple, six-word phrase: Create clarity, generate energy, and deliver success. This short, memorable list turned out to be far more effective than their previous endless lists of competencies, behaviors, and skills for leaders to focus on. In this piece, the author discusses the advantages of developing a memorable, pithy set of guidelines, arguing that the more concise your leadership principles, the more effectively your people can put them into action. More…