Atlantic
COVID and evolutionary fitness: As vaccines limit the virus’ ability to evolve into lethal strains, scientists hope future variants will be less threatening
There is no playbook for evolution. Delta could continue to ratchet up its rate of spread, or it could be ousted ...
Think of vaccines more like flame retardants than impenetrable walls. Some people will inevitably get sick
The first thing to know about the COVID-19 vaccines is that they’re doing exactly what they were designed and authorized ...
We will all likely get COVID. How can we adapt to living with the virus?
We don’t know exactly how the four common-cold coronaviruses first came to infect humans, but some have speculated that at ...
‘Two Americas’: How politics will shape our emergence from the pandemic
Newton, [Massachusetts] is an outlier even among outliers: More than 95 percent of people older than 30 have gotten at ...
Delta has disrupted the timeline for corralling COVID. What can we expect now in the months ahead?
In May, after the CDC ended indoor masking for vaccinated people, President Joe Biden gave a speech that felt like ...
When might the Delta variant reach its peak?
We will soon get the first glimmers of data that show how Delta behaves when all restrictions are lifted in ...
How dangerous is the Delta COVID variant? Very — if you’re not vaccinated
Here… are three simple principles to understand how [key COVID factors] interact. Each has caveats and nuances, but together, they ...
Did the global pandemic trigger a worldwide mental health crisis? Here’s why those fears never played out
As clinical scientists and research psychologists have pointed out, the coronavirus pandemic has created many conditions that might lead to ...
Viewpoint: ‘Potent political weapon’ – The early and wholesale rejection of lab-leak COVID origin theory is now fully politicized
Democrats and public-health experts have asked: What should we do? Former President Donald Trump, for his part, minimized the need ...
Podcast: COVID has left many with survivor’s guilt. How can we process this onslaught of ‘cascading collective traumas’?
At least 580,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and this official tally probably omits hundreds of thousands of uncounted deaths ...
A single vaccine to protect us against COVID, SARS, MERS and all other coronavirus diseases? It may be possible
“A universal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is step one,” [Anthony] Fauci said. Step two would be a universal coronavirus vaccine, capable of ...
Viewpoint: Tribalism and COVID — Many progressives rejecting science on lockdowns and becoming major hindrance to return to near-normalcy
The spring of 2021 is different from the spring of 2020... Scientists know a lot more about how COVID-19 spreads—and ...
Viewpoint: Do we still need to wear masks outdoors? Taking face coverings off in restaurants is ‘like watching people put on seatbelts in parked cars, then unbuckling them when they drive’
One systematic overview of COVID-19 case studies concluded that the risk of transmission was 19 times higher indoors than outside ...
Very rare and very expected: Don’t be surprised when some vaccinated people get COVID
[N]early 40 million Americans have received the jabs they need for full immunization. A vanishingly small percentage of those people ...
Viewpoint: This one man may be responsible for spreading more COVID misinformation than anyone else on TV or social media
Alex Berenson: the former New York Times reporter, Yale-educated novelist, avid tweeter, online essayist, and all-around pandemic gadfly [has] has ...
Natural GMO: Whiteflies stole a gene from plants millions of years ago that can protect them from pesticides
Pale, squishy, and smaller than a sesame seed, these sap-sucking bugs terrorize more than 600 plant species, infecting them with ...
Republicans, young people and minorities: How to persuade the vaccine hesitant to get a COVID shot
As the United States screams past 500,000 fatalities, the choice between a deadly disease and a shot in the arm ...
With widespread COVID vaccine hesitancy, the US may never reach herd immunity. Where will that leave us?
For COVID-19, the herd-immunity threshold is estimated to be between 60 and 90 percent. That’s the proportion of people who ...
Why the mounting number of coronavirus mutations portends a potentially troubling future
For most of 2020, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 jumped from human to human, accumulating mutations at a steady rate ...
How the coronavirus is mutating, evolving—and getting more difficult to contain
Each day, [the new UK COVID variant] B.1.1.7 is being found in more people in more places, including all around the United States. Experts ...
Over 60 years, vaccines have prevented 4.5 billion cases and saved 10 million lives. Now anti-vaxxers want to roll back the clock
The misleading claims Americans will soon hear about the newly released COVID-19 vaccines are nearly identical to claims made about smallpox ...
Should you abort a fetus with Down syndrome as the Danish do almost universally?
[I]n 2004, Denmark became one of the first countries in the world to offer prenatal Down syndrome screening to every ...
Bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel makes his case for why he wants to die at 75
By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. I will have loved and been loved ...
What you should and shouldn’t worry about in the small print when a COVID vaccine is approved
Over the next few months, the companies behind the leading [COVID] vaccine candidates will start releasing the first data from ...
Right to protection against infection? Do masks and stay-at-home orders violate the Constitution? Check out the Third Amendment
[P]rotesters have resisted [COVID] safety measures under the belief that they violate constitutionally guaranteed liberties… But a profound historical counter-vision ...
Vaccine chaos: Doses likely released first are the hardest to deploy
[T]he COVID-19 vaccine will be a whole new challenge. “The COVID situation is significantly different and more complex than anything ...
Trump did not ‘beat COVID’: Recovering from an illness is not a form of warfare
“Our president is strong and will beat the virus,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “He’s a fighter,” said former press secretary Sarah Huckabee ...
Don’t expect closure on the pandemic. COVID is here for a while even if vaccines prove to work
Whatever the end of the pandemic might look like, the United States is nowhere close to it at the moment; week ...
