New England is on fire – with Covid infections, not foliage.

All six New England states are now in the top 10 for highest rates of Covid-19 infections. New Hampshire currently has the highest rate of Covid-19 infections in the country, followed by Rhode Island (No. 2), Maine (No. 3), Massachusetts (No. 5), Connecticut (No. 5) and Vermont (No. 10), according to the New York Times. Hospitals throughout the region are in crisis as they fill to capacity.

In response to this surge in infections, New York (No. 18) has imposed a statewide indoor mask mandate to tamp down the spread of the virus. But Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has staunchly refused to do the same — and backed his chief of staff, Jason Gibbs, who last week lashed out at a public health critic.

“We should all be open to engaging in debate on policies and the evidence and data that underlie them,” says Anne Sosin, a Policy Fellow at the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy at Dartmouth College who has been the target of criticism from Scott and Gibbs. She adds that personal attacks “erode the will to do the hard work that needs to be done. But I can say that this will not silence me.”

We speak about New England’s deepening pandemic and attacks on science and public health with Sosin and Jon Levy, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health.