It’s About the Dispersion Factor

A new story by Zeynep Tufekci in The Atlantic reports on why a small percentage of people and clusters appear to be responsible for most Covid-19 infections, and what that means. It turns out that R0 might be less informative during Covid-19 than initially thought…

A Scientific Way to Assess Pandemic Threats

As science reporter Kayt Sukel writes for Forge, life now feels like a game of Would You Rather:

This summer, my husband and I asked ourselves: Would we rather send our kids back to school where they’ll benefit from traditional…

Another Unusual Benefit of Face Masks?

As Shin Jie Yong reports, there’s some thinking and research—led mostly by Akiko Iwasaki, a professor at Yale University—that suggests viruses may replicate better in colder noses and airways. As Yong concludes, the theory that keeping noses covered and warm…

“There are other ways to deal with a pathogen, and that includes cooperating with it.”

As health writer Markham Heid reports, researchers in the field of disease tolerance think they may have answers to the question of why people’s bodies can react so differently to…

“When I got sick with Covid-19 this past spring, the limits of my thinking mind were exposed. Like an intense buildup of pressure that triggers a dormant volcano, Covid brought all of my deepest fears, anxieties, and…

Q&A: A Mother-Son Duo in Clinical Trials for a Covid-19 Vaccine

Judy Stokes and Ian Haydon, who are mother and son, are both participating in different phases of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine clinical trial. Haydon, a science communications manager at the University of Washington, is a…

The Latest: What it’s like to be in a Covid-19 vaccine trial

Dear Reader,

The ongoing Covid-19 vaccine race is one of the most closely watched science experiments of the pandemic. This week, I interviewed a mother and son who are both participating in clinical…