• EPIDEMICSWhat Makes a Global Killer

    By Alvin Powell

    Larry Brilliant, doctor who helped vanquish smallpox, assesses COVID response and warns of rising threats, including lack of trust. “The first lesson is that we live in a cause-and-effect world. Truth matters and communicating that truth in as transparent and honest a way as you possibly can matters” Brilliant says.

  • EPIDEMICSmRNA Vaccine Beats Infection for Key Defense against COVID-19: Stanford Scientists

    By Bruce Goldman

    The Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine directed at COVID-19 is much better than natural infection at revving up key immune cells called killer T cells to fight future infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

  • COVID ORIGINSCOVID-19 Origins: New Evidence, and More Politics

    Last week, researchers released a report linking SARS-CoV-2 to six near-complete samples of raccoon-dog mitochondrial DNA sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. The report says that “These results provide potential leads to identifying intermediate hosts of SARS-CoV-2 and potential sources of human infections in the market.”

  • COVID ORIGINSReport Describes SARS-CoV-2 Market Sequences, Biden Signs COVID Intel Declassification Bill

    By Lisa Schnirring

    In two major developments regarding investigations into the source of SARS-CoV-2, an international research group that examined genetic sequences from the animal market detailed their findings in a new report, and President Joe Biden signed a bill to declassify US intelligence on virus origins.

  • ARGUMENT: COVID’S ORIGINSA Major Clue to COVID’s Origins Is Just Out of Reach

    Last week, the ongoing debate about COVID-19’s origins had yet another plot twist added to it. A French evolutionary biologist stumbled across a trove of genetic sequences extracted from swabs collected from surfaces at a wet market in Wuhan, China, shortly after the pandemic began. Katherine J. Wu writes that the sequences bolster the case for the pandemic having purely natural roots. “But what might otherwise have been a straightforward story on new evidence has rapidly morphed into a mystery centered on the origins debate’s data gaps.” Wu says that public access to the sequences was locked, and, as a result, a key set of data which could have shored up the case for a purely animal origin became unavailable to scientists.

  • PANDEMICSCOVID Pandemic “Likely” Caused by Wuhan Lab Accident: FBI

    FBI Director Christopher Wray has accused China of obstructing US efforts to find the cause of the coronavirus pandemic. He said his agency believes COVID-19 spread due to a lab accident in the city of Wuhan.

  • PANDEMICSWhat Is Spillover? Bird Flu Outbreak Underscores Need for Early Detection to Prevent the Next Big Pandemic

    By Treana Mayer

    While not all animal viruses or other pathogens are capable of spilling over into people, up to three-quarters of all new human infectious diseases have originated from animals. The current epidemic of avian influenza has killed over 58 million birds in the U.S. as of February 2023. Following on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, large outbreaks of viruses like bird flu raise the specter of another disease jumping from animals into humans. This process is called spillover.

  • PANDEMICSAmerican Democracy and Pandemic Security

    Covid-19 cost the nation and the world millions of lives and trillions of dollars in economic losses and caused major societal deficits in learning, health, and well-being. The United States faced specific challenges in how its national pandemic response, rooted in its culture and federated system of public health, was organized and executed. National crises have historically brought the country together. Yet, the United States was unable to organize cohesive leadership at the national, state, local, and tribal levels, and it failed to rapidly unify its citizens to act in solidarity to suppress the emerging pandemic.

  • PANDEMICSCould Bird Flu in Mink Signal Threat of a Human Pandemic?

    By Jeannette Cwienk

    A bird flu outbreak on a Spanish mink farm has alarmed scientists. The virus may be spreading for the first time from mammal to mammal — and could become a danger for humans.

  • PANDEMICSDisease X: How to End Pandemics

    A new book tracks how the world can stop future pandemics. It offers a perspective on the COVID-19 response and lays out a roadmap to prepare to beat the next Disease X. The book challenges us to understand continual and growing infectious disease threats, but also offers hope and looks ahead to a pandemic-free future.

  • MISINFORMATIONWhy Did So Many Buy COVID Misinformation? It Works Like Magic.

    By Christina Pazzanese

    Misinformation and disinformation about COVID and government-led health measures to combat the pandemic hampered efforts to form a unified national response to the disease. Public health officials, who struggled to convince doubters and skeptics, are still working through how and why it happened. Harvard Law panelists say both misinformation and magic exploit how brains process information.

  • DOOMSDAYDoomsday Clock Set at 90 Seconds to Midnight

    The Doomsday Clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight, due largely but not exclusively to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the increased risk of nuclear escalation. The new Clock time was also influenced by continuing threats posed by the climate crisis and the breakdown of global norms and institutions needed to mitigate risks associated with advancing technologies and biological threats.

  • DOOMSDAYThe Last of Us: Fungal Infections Really Can Kill – and They’re Getting More Dangerous

    By Rebecca A. Drummond

    Millions have been tuning in every week to watch the highly anticipated TV adaptation of “The Last of Us.” The show depicts a post-apocalyptic world where society has collapsed due to the outbreak of a dangerous, brain-controlling fungal infection that turns humans into hostile, cannibalistic “zombies.” Fortunately for us, a fast-spreading fungal pandemic is pretty unlikely – but this doesn’t mean fungi aren’t still a concern.

  • CONSPIRACY THEORIESCOVID-19 Conspiracy Theories That Spread Fastest Focused on Evil, Secrecy

    In the early pandemic, conspiracy theories that were shared the most on Twitter highlighted malicious purposes and secretive actions of supposed bad actors behind the crisis, according to an analysis of nearly 400,000 posts.

  • PANDEMIC RESILIENCEHow Countries Responded to the COVID-19 Pandemic

    Researchers offer new insights into how countries respond to systemic shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. A new, data-driven approach quantifies pandemic resiliency in multiple dimensions.