Atlantic
Long COVID complications spark quest to better understand long-term consequences of other viruses
Several months into the pandemic, a new aspect of COVID-19 started gaining attention from scientists, journalists, and health-care professionals. Instead ...
COVID ad infinitum: Why the coronavirus could be part of our lives for a very long time
Experts knew from early on that, for almost everyone, infection with this coronavirus would be inevitable. As James Hamblin memorably ...
Could Paxlovid help treat long COVID?
In the two years since she caught the coronavirus, 38-year-old Jessica McGovern has cycled through “well over 100 drugs, supplements, ...
Is a new COVID surge cycle beginning?
At this very moment, the United States, as a whole, remains in its legit pandemic lull. Coronavirus case counts and ...
Social reckoning? Do we need cathartic nationwide acknowledgement of COVID’s horrific death and injury toll?
On May 24, 2020, as the United States passed 100,000 recorded deaths, The New York Times filled its front page ...
Why we might need not annual COVID boosters
In many parts of the world, the variant’s record-breaking wave is receding. Having a bespoke vaccine in 100 days would ...
Many people equate COVID with flu. Here’s why it’s more like smoking
It’s suddenly become acceptable to say that COVID is—or will soon be—like the flu. Such analogies have long been the ...
More than 7 million immunocompromised people in the US remain vulnerable to COVID. How should their concerns be addressed?
COVID-19 is still all around us, everywhere, and millions of people... are walking around with a compromised immune system. A ...
Vaccinating the elderly: An unappreciated strategy to reduce COVID deaths
No other basic fact of life matters as dramatically as age for COVID. Other common factors associated with risk—race, diabetes, ...
Challenging the endemic hypothesis: ‘We have no idea what will happen next’
Endemicity, so the narrative goes, is how normal life resumes. (Some pundits and politicians would argue that we are, actually, already at ...
Viewpoint: Masking school children to protect against COVID? Why the negatives may outweigh the benefits
The CDC guidance on school masking is far-reaching, recommending “universal indoor masking by all students (age 2 and older), staff, ...
COVID risk social contract: Is it okay to walk into a bar if you might sicken someone who might need hospital care?
When is it morally acceptable for one person to subject another to risk? Is it okay to walk into a ...
‘COVID Rashomon’: Fractured response to Omicron surge has spurred some Americans to say they’re ‘vaxxed and done’
The messiness of Omicron data—record-high cases! but much milder illness!—has deepened our COVID Rashomon, in which different communities are telling ...
COVID force shift: Surge in milder variant focus global adaptation strategy rethink
Now Omicron is sweeping across state after state—even highly vaccinated ones—and new cases are shooting up and up. The virus ...
Viewpoint: Shutting down schools during COVID? Democrats over-reached and screwed up their COVID response
I can’t imagine that I would have arrived here—not a Republican, but questioning my place in the Democratic Party—had my ...
Is the Omicron variant really ‘milder’ than Delta?
Omicron cases have thus far been relatively mild. This pattern has fueled the widespread claim that the variant might be less ...
Omicron appears to be milder than Delta — but it’s more infectious, including to the vaccinated. What does that mean for you?
Back in July, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced that COVID had become “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” an unfortunate turn ...
Lab leak vs wet market: Navigating the odds of competing COVID origin theories
Those inclined to think... that the pandemic must have started from a traded wild animal share a fundamental intuition with ...
How concerned should vaccinated people be about spreading COVID?
In the early days of vaccine bliss, many Americans had thought that the shots were a ticket to normalcy—and at ...
What’s next for ‘living with COVID’? America’s path to endemicity is lined with potholes
The answers were simpler when we thought we could vaccinate our way to herd immunity. But vaccinations in the U.S ...
‘Opting for what feels safe rather than what is safe’: Why are many pregnant women brushing off advice to get COVID vaccines?
At least 200 pregnant people have died of COVID-19, including 22 in August alone; nearly 23,000 have been hospitalized. Newborns ...
Will schools mandate vaccines for kids?
COVID-19 vaccination for 5-to-11-year-olds is finally a go. But even as the emergency-use-authorization process unfolded, so too did arguments over whether ...
Sperm donor controversy: Does everyone have a right to know their biological parents?
In the United States, where anonymous donation is still technically offered, some donor-conceived people are asserting a right to know ...
Public health has taken a huge credibility hit during the COVID pandemic. Here’s what led to this crisis
[P]ublic health has succeeded marvelously by some measures, lengthening life spans and bringing many diseases to heel. But when the ...
Winter COVID guide: What we need to know about our second pandemic year
For nearly two years now, Americans have lived with SARS-CoV-2. We know it better than we once did. We know ...
Viewpoint: Battles over ‘virginity testing’ and ‘virginity-restoration surgery’ reveal the persistence of dangerous pseudoscience
Some girls are born without a hymen, while others tear the membrane long before they have sex, most commonly by ...
Will ‘long COVID’ become a neglected disease, sabotaging the lives of millions of victims?
A small number of fully vaccinated people have become long-haulers after breakthrough infections, although no one knows how common such ...
At-home antigen tests are booming — but are they reliable? Here’s the case for and against them
Researchers have long known that rapid [COVID-19] antigen tests, although convenient, sacrifice some accuracy for their art. Compared with PCR-based ...
