• R0: How Scientists Quantify the Intensity of an Outbreak Like Coronavirus and Its Pandemic Potential

    “R0,” pronounced “R naught,” represents an important concept in epidemiology and is a crucial part of public health planning during an outbreak, like the current coronavirus pandemic that’s spread globally since it was first identified in China. Scientists use R0 – the reproduction number – to describe the intensity of an infectious disease outbreak. R0 estimates have been an important part of characterizing pandemics or large publicized outbreaks, including the 2003 SARS pandemic, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, and the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. It’s something epidemiologists are racing to nail down about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

  • America Is Acting Like a Failed State

    A global pandemic is a test — a mandatory exam — in national competence, Derek Thompson writes. It is a test for individuals, companies, and institutions. “And it is, above all, a test for the state. Only the national government can oversee the response to a national outbreak by coordinating research on the nature of the disease.” He adds: “In a country where many individuals, companies, institutions, and local governments are making hard decisions for the good of the nation, the most important actor of them all—the Trump administration—has been a shambolic bonanza of incompetence.”

  • ECDC: COVID-19 Not Containable, Set to Overwhelm Hospitals

    In a stark and urgent COVID-19 risk assessment update today, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said that, in a few weeks or even days, other countries in the region may face huge surges that mirror those of China and Italy.

  • Testing and Isolation, Not Travel Bans, Are Best Tool Against Coronavirus, Experts Say

    Travel bans may slow the outbreak somewhat, a growing body of research is showing that the best tool is one that is falling short in the United States: testing and isolating infected people.

  • WHO Declares COVID-19 Pandemic; Trump: No Travel from Europe over COVID-19, Tax Relief for Workers

    Last night President Donald Trump took an unprecedented step in the ongoing effort to fight the spread of COVID-19: A ban on all travelers from Europe beginning at midnight on 13 March and lasting thirty days. He also said insurers will waive copays for COVID-19 treatment and called for tax relief for workers affected by the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday declared COVID-19 a pandemic, pushing the threat beyond the global health emergency it had announced in January.

  • Coronavirus Control Measures Aren’t Pointless – Just Slowing Down the Pandemic Could Save Millions of Lives

    Some people may start to feel fatalistic in the face of the relentless spread of COVID-19. There are no vaccines and no specific treatments for people who get sick. What’s the point of fighting something that’s bound to happen anyway? Why not just let the epidemic run its course? But public health officials and medical professionals have been advocating for rapid and decisive efforts to “flatten the curve.” Rather than letting the virus quickly rampage through the population and burn itself out fast, the idea is to spread all those infections out over a longer period of time. Yes, it would potentially prolong the epidemic. But in doing so, public health agencies and the health care infrastructure gain invaluable time to respond to the crisis.

  • Extremists Use Coronavirus to Advance Racist, Conspiratorial Agendas

    As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus surges globally, extremists continue to use the virus  to advance their bigotry and anti-Semitism, while also promoting conspiracy theories and even boogaloo (the white supremacist term for civil war). As usual, extremists are relying primarily on fringe social media platforms to disseminate their views, but as the virus spreads, it has gotten easier to find xenophobia, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories on mainstream social media platforms.

  • Italy COVID-19 Total Tops 10,000; Funding Grows for Treatments, Vaccines

    Italy’s surge of COVID-19 cases continued today in the wake of a national lockdown announced yesterday, as some of the country’s neighbors closed borders and other countries in Europe, such as France, reported similar steep rises.

  • Italy Expands COVID-19 Lockdown to Whole Country

    Italy yesterday expanded its COVID-19 lockdown to include the whole country, affecting about 60 million people, as the World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday said the threat of a pandemic from the COVID-19 virus is very real, signaling a tone of increased urgency. Italy’s announcement marks the first time a whole country has been placed on lockdown and comes on the heels of 1,797 new cases yesterday and quickly rising numbers in other European countries. Over the weekend, Italian officials had announced a lockdown for Lombardy region and 14 provinces in other regions.

  • Chinese and Russian State-Owned Media on the Coronavirus: United Against the West?

    Beginning in late January, when news emerged of a “novel coronavirus” spreading through China, Beijing’s propaganda apparatus shifted into overdrive. The epidemic has also been heavily covered in externally directed Russian state-backed media outlets, offering an opportunity to compare and contrast the approaches of both countries’ propaganda apparatuses.

  • Italy COVID-19 Surge Triggers Massive Lockdown; U.S. Cases Pass 500

    A dramatic jump in Italy’s COVID-19 cases and deaths yesterday made it the second worst-hit country behind China, as the country announced a massive lockdown affecting 16 million, and in the United States, the number of new cases steadily rose with at least four more states reporting their first cases. In other developments, plans are under way to disembark passengers of the Grand Princess cruise ship, waiting off the coast of San Francisco, and place them in federal quarantine. And federal officials yesterday issued warnings about cruise ship travel and the risk of travel and large crowds to seniors and those with underlying medical conditions.

  • What’s the Difference Between Pandemic, Epidemic and Outbreak?

    The coronavirus is on everyone’s minds. As an epidemiologist, I find it interesting to hear people using technical terms – like quarantine or super spreader or reproductive number – that my colleagues and I use in our work every day. But I’m also hearing newscasters and neighbors alike mixing up three important words: outbreak, epidemic and pandemic. Simply put, the difference between these three scenarios of disease spread is a matter of scale.

  • WHO Urges Whole-Government COVID-19 Approach as Cases Climb Globally

    The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday said some countries are depending on their health ministry to shoulder the battle against COVID-19 and that a whole-of-government approach is needed, as the novel coronavirus spreads to more countries and fuels hot spots across multiple continents. New cases piled up again yesterday at a brisk pace in three hard-hit countries—Iran, Italy, and South Korea.

  • U.S. Accuses Russia of Spreading Fear, Panic on Coronavirus

    The United States is accusing Russia of opening up its entire disinformation playbook to prey on growing fears about the spread of the coronavirus. Moscow’s effort, underway for weeks, according to officials, includes the use of state-run media outlets, fake news websites and “swarms” of fake online personas to churn out fabricated information in at least five languages. 

  • What Can the Black Death Tell Us about the Global Economic Consequences of a Pandemic?

    Concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus have translated into an economic slowdown. A look back at history can help us consider the economic effects of public health emergencies and how best to manage them. In doing so, however, it is important to remember that past pandemics were far more deadly than coronavirus, which has a relatively low death rate. By far the worst death rate in history was inflicted by the Black Death. Caused by several forms of plague, it lasted from 1348 to 1350, killing anywhere between 75 million and 200 million people worldwide and perhaps one half of the population of England. The economic consequences were also profound.