#5SmartReads - March 10, 2022

Hitha on cryptocurrency, Cuba's COVID vaccines, and what equity really looks like

March 10, 2022

While these are only EOs and only to create policy recommendations, it is a first step in the regulation of cryptocurrency and digital assets.

And while that’s the opposite of the point of the decentralized economy, I do think it’s a good thing to create some guidance to help protect investors who are taking positions in this new asset class.

I have yet to take any positions on cryptocurrency or digital assets (still in my learning phase), but I do confess that the government producing these reports and beginning the stages of a policy around them does help mitigate risk, in my mind.

But not enough to take a position in it. Yet.

“Love, to me, means unconditional support. It's a balance of catering to your partner's needs and vice versa. It's about giving, but also making sure you find someone that gives you just as much back.”

This has become a Deepti Vempati fan account, and I’m very much okay with it.

I truly feel like my friend Aparna (of Indian Matchmaking) walked so Deepti can run, in terms of being a South Asian-American woman who bucks some of the antiquated traditions of our culture to own her power.

And to be dubbed America’s Sweetheart in the process? Queen Deeps, we salute you.

I don’t know how I missed this article 5 months ago, but I’m in awe of Cuba’s biotechnology and public health departments.

They developed TWO highly effective COVID-19 vaccines, and managed to vaccinate over 90% of their country - including young children.

And they’re not done. They’re using the conjugate vaccine technology used in their COVID vaccines to develop more vaccines, and are working to seek regulatory approval of their vaccines in other countries.

The first thing I ever taught myself to cook was Maggi noodles.

And even now, when I’m hangry and want something comforting and flavorful and quick, I still reach for these yellow packages of soft noodles that taste unlike anything else.

I’m glad I’m not alone.

I always thought that Maggi was an Indian brand, but I learned a lot about one of my favorite comfort meals in this very smart read.

I might have to restock my own Maggi stash.

Dr. Uché Blackstock is one of the experts I seek analysis from when it comes to COVID and general health equity.

Because in addition to our healthcare system being a disease management system, it’s an extremely inequitable one at that.

COVID didn’t change that, but revealed it in such a stark contrast that I can’t think about the communities who have been the hardest hit and with the fewest resources allocated to them when I think about the changing public health restrictions.

But don’t take it from me. Take it from Dr. Blackstock:

“It’s an issue of trusting social institutions like schools or the educational system. If you talk to parents from low-income Black communities, I think they will say, ‘I don’t think that the schools are on our side.’ We talk about medical mistrust or institutional mistrust. I actually turn it around and say, it’s more institutional untrustworthiness, that these systems have proven untrustworthy to certain communities. They have to earn the trust of communities.”

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