COVID-19 and Coronaviruses

The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered schools and businesses and altered life across the globe, but journalist Alexis Madrigal says comprehensive, rapid testing might be the key to a safe reopening. For his latest article for the Atlantic, Madrigal talked with public health experts, including Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina, who cite the potential benefits of widespread testing for the virus with a simple, at-home saliva test that uses a paper strip similar to a home pregnancy test.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered schools and businesses and altered life across the globe, but journalist Alexis Madrigal says comprehensive, rapid testing might be the key to a safe reopening. For his latest article for the Atlantic, Madrigal talked with public health experts, including Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina, who cite the potential benefits of widespread testing for the virus with a simple, at-home saliva test that uses a paper strip similar to a home pregnancy test.

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer reports on conditions at a Delaware poultry processing plant owned by a major Trump donor: "No matter what's going on, they've got to keep those chicken lines running."

"Since the very first day of this pandemic, I don't think [we've been] in a more confused position about what's happening," epidemiologist Michael Osterholm says. "We just aren't quite sure what [the coronavirus is] going to do next."
Osterholm is the founder and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

As millions of people remain socially isolated and anxious about COVID-19, several U.S. governors are at least making plans to relax controls in their states and revive economic activity — against the advice of many public health professionals.

New York Times science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. warns that the push to reopen is premature. "We're nowhere near getting on top of this virus," he says.

Of the roughly 100,000 Americans included in the official COVID-19 death count, 20,000 died in New York City in a period of two months. Time magazine reporter W.J. Hennigan recently spent several weeks looking into the practical challenge of how a city deals with so many bodies suffused with a deadly pathogen.

COVID-19 has transformed home life — turning kitchen tables into home offices and classrooms and putting a spotlight on the countless household tasks typically performed by women. Brigid Schulte says the pandemic has laid bare the "grotesque inequality" that exists within many families. Schulte is the director of the Better Life Lab, a work-life, gender equity and social policy program at the New America think tank.

Dan Harris says he's taken to saying, "if you're not anxious right now, you're not paying attention." Thru his daily online coronavirus meditations, he's been trying to help people quiet their anxiety with meditation and mindfulness techniques. Dan Harris wrote a memoir about how meditation helped calm the negative voices in his head, and he has an app.

John Barry, author of the 2004 book, The Great Influenza, draws parallels between today's pandemic and the flu of 1918. In both cases, he says, "the outbreak was trivialized for a long time."

David Fajgenbaum was diagnosed with Castleman disease as a medical student. In Chasing My Cure, he recounts crowd-sourcing his own treatment with a global network of doctors, scientists and patients.

Chef Tom Colicchio is one of the many restaurateurs wondering what will be left of the industry after the COVID-19 pandemic has run its course.

For much of his life, humorist John Moe has dealt with clinical depression that's triggered by stress. Now, faced with the COVID-19 crisis, he says, "my depression wants to flare up."

President Trump's daily briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic have introduced millions of Americans to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. At times, the specialist in infectious diseases has differed with the president during the briefings, correcting him on the seriousness of the virus or on the timeline for developing a vaccine. That's fueled speculation that Fauci's tenure might be cut short.

Author David Rohde refutes Trump's claims about a "deep state" — and argues that the president is the one creating a parallel shadow government filled with like-minded loyalists.

Chesa Boudin's radical leftist parents were imprisoned when he was a toddler. Now he's working to reduce the inmate population in San Francisco — and worrying about his dad, who remains in prison.

For more than two decades, trauma surgeon David Nott spent several weeks each year volunteering in some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones, including Syria, Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, Yemen and Sarajevo. Now he's in London, applying some of what he learned in war zones and disaster areas as he treats patients with COVID-19.

Two years ago, science writer Ed Yong wrote an article for The Atlantic in which he warned that a new global pandemic was inevitable — and that the world would be unprepared for it when it arrived. Now, with the outbreak of COVID-19, much of what Yong warned about in his reporting has come true.