One More COVID Summer?
Since the pandemic’s earliest days, epidemiologists have been waiting for the coronavirus to finally snap out of its pan-season spree. No more spring waves like the first to…
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A Major Breed of Flu Has Gone Missing
In March 2020, Yamagata’s trail went cold. The pathogen, one of the four main groups of flu viruses targeted by seasonal vaccines, had spent the first part of…
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Life Is Worse for Older People Now
Last December, during a Christmas Eve celebration with my in-laws in California, I observed what I now realize was the future of COVID for older people. As everyone…
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The COVID Question That Will Take Decades to Answer
To be a newborn in the year 2023—and, almost certainly, every year that follows—means emerging into a world where the coronavirus is ubiquitous. Babies might not meet the…
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Airplane Toilets Could Catch the Next COVID Variant
Airplane bathrooms are not most people’s idea of a good time. They’re barely big enough to turn around in. Their doors stick, like they’re trying to trap you…
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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Another COVID Surge
When I called the epidemiologist Denis Nash this week to discuss the country’s worsening COVID numbers, he was about to take a rapid test. “I came in on…
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The Fatal Error of an Ancient, HIV-Like Virus
Many, many millions of years ago, an HIV-like virus wriggled its way into the genome of a floofy, bulgy-eyed lemur, and got permanently stuck. Trapped in a cage…
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