Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects

Dr. Anna DeForest

John Woodrow Cox, in the Washington Post, with a heartbreaking story about 3 coronavirus orphans.

Anna DeForest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, with what I would describe as an absolutely must read piece highlighting the crushing devastation COVID is wreaking on front-line physicians.

Maggie Koerth, in Five Thirty Eight, explains how every decision is a risk, and how every risk is a decision.

Hilda Bastian, in Wired, explains why there needs to be frank transparency around any possible COVID19 side effects even if they're minor.

Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, with an explainer on how herd immunity might only require 20% of us to be immune (whether by vaccine or infection) if we are diligent with our behaviours.

Paul Krugman, in The New York Times, on how the rush to open bars before schools threatens our kids' education.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, considers what might happen were we to be facing another pandemic before we've figured out how to deal with COVID

Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how to fix the American dumpster fire that is their response to COVID to date.

U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Levi Riendeau / Public domain

Saturday Stories: Is It Airborne?, Exhausted Experts, Sweden, Cancer During COVID, And Schools

Apoorva Mandavilli, in The New York Times, with a discussion on whether or not SARS-CoV2 is airborne and what that actually means.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, covers the toll COVID19 has had on the "not ok" experts covering, studying, and managing it.

Peter S. Goodman, in The New York Times, with the cautionary lesson from Sweden that it's the virus, not quarantines, that devastate the economy.


Bill Gardner, in the Incidental Economist, with his (first on this topic) blog post highlighting the realities he's facing after being diagnosed with cancer, in Canada, during the time of COVID.

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, Gretchen Vogel, and Meagan Weiland, in Science, summarize the a bit all over the place data on reopening schools around the globe

Photo by Alex Valavanis / CC BY-SA

Saturday Stories: No Heroes In Science, Selflessness, School Reopening, And Vaccine Developments

Stuart Richie, in Unherd, reminds us why there should be no such thing as science heroes.

Wency Leung, in The Globe and Mail, discusses her decision to donate one of her kidneys to a stranger and reflects on selflessness in the time of COVID

Carl Zimmer, in The New York Times, on the phenomenon of COVID19 super spreaders.

Hilda Bastian, in her blog Absolutely Maybe, brings us up to date on all the developments in the race to the first COVID19 vaccine.

Sarah Cohodes, on Twitter (and you don't need an account to read), with a terrific thread on considerations around school reopening.