Listen: Why the World Can’t Reopen If Schools Can’t

Many plans for school reopenings involve a mix of online and in-person instruction, which could have huge downstream effects for kids and their parents. Staff writer Helen Lewis joins hosts Katherine Wells and James Hamblin on the podcast Social Distance from London to discuss.Listen to the episode here:Subscribe to Social Distance on Apple Podcasts,...

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The Tragic Loss of Coronavirus Patients’ Final Words

Of all the wrongdoings of this pandemic, the one that haunts me most is how people are left to die alone. Health-care workers have been heroic throughout all this, but they do not replace the loved ones whom the dying need to be with, and speak with, even if only one last time.A hallmark of COVID-19 has been the speed with which some patients have crashed,...

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Fashion’s Racism and Classism Are Finally Out of Style

Luxury fashion’s love of hierarchies has never been subtle. Telling people what they should look like often also requires telling them what’s unacceptable: To spend money on feeling better, people first need to feel bad. For decades, the industry tolerated nearly no dark skin, fat bodies, wrinkles, or outward indications that a person wasn’t summoned...

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This Is Not a Normal Mental-Health Disaster

The SARS pandemic tore through Hong Kong like a summer thunderstorm. It arrived abruptly, hit hard, and then was gone. Just three months separated the first infection, in March 2003, from the last, in June.But the suffering did not end when the case count hit zero. Over the next four years, scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong discovered...

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The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay

Join Ed Yong for a conversation about COVID-19 at Pulse, The Atlantic's virtual summit on health care on July 15. Register here.Saskia Popescu’s phone buzzes throughout the night, waking her up. It had already buzzed 99 times before I interviewed her at 9:15 a.m. ET last Monday. It buzzed three times during the first 15 minutes of our call. Whenever...

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Listen: How the Coronavirus Affects Kids

Early on in the pandemic, it seemed as if kids were spared the worst effects of the coronavirus. But in May, a mysterious illness that affected children and appeared to be linked to the virus emerged. As parents now look to send kids back to school and day care, how should they think about these risks? What do we now know about this new syndrome?James...

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Listen: How Is College Going to Work?

Colleges and universities pack students into dorms, classrooms, and parties. Now they have to figure out how to do that during a pandemic. The staff writer Adam Harris joins the podcast Social Distance to discuss what schools are planning for the fall.Listen to the episode here:Subscribe to Social Distance on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or another podcast...

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The U.S. Is Repeating Its Deadliest Pandemic Mistake

In early April, Melvin Hector, a geriatrician in Tucson, Arizona, went into Sapphire of Tucson Nursing and Rehabilitation to check on one of his patients, who had been sent to the hospital the previous day. Hector found the woman in her room, wearing a surgical mask. She had been tested for COVID-19, but the results had not yet come back. When Hector...

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Scolding Beachgoers Isn’t Helping

We’ve entered another risky, uncertain phase of America’s pandemic summer. COVID-19 cases are surging across most states, and once again, intensive-care units are filling up. Eighteen states have either paused or rolled back their plans to reopen, and even Republican governors who previously resisted public-health guidelines about masks are now asking...

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Australia Has a Flesh-Eating-Bacteria Problem

About a week after Steven Mikac began taking antibiotics for the strange spot on his leg, the flesh around his ankle started to tighten and swell. The moist orifice of a wound opened up and took the form of a small bullet hole. A plug of tissue had gone missing—dissolved into pus and slime. Walking was excruciating. Working, unbearable. In early October...

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