Thoughts on things going on in Science and science.

By H. Holden Thorp

Posts tagged with "COVID-19"

• COVID-19

  Continued discussion on the origin of COVID-19

  13 May, 2021

  The origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the COVID-19 pandemic remains unresolved. Although many scientists believe that the likelihood of zoonotic transfer is far higher than a lab escape, the compromise report from the World Health Organization (WHO) did nothing to help resolve the controversy and probably ma… Read More

• COVID-19

  The best and worst of times for science reporting

  22 April, 2021

  Happy 100th birthday, science journalism! It’s hard to say when popular writing about science really began—surely centuries ago—but Deborah Blum’s editorial in this week’s Science identifies as good a start as any for science journalism as a profession: the founding in 1921 of Science Service, a collaboration between a scientist and a new… Read More

• COVID-19

  A conversation with Juliette Kayyem

  15 April, 2021

  Juliette Kayyem is well known from her frequent appearances on CNN and her roles in Homeland Security in the Obama administration. I interviewed her for a recent editorial on lessons for science communication from the COVID-19 pandemic. Below are some further highlights from our conversation. Holden Thorp: What I’ve been writing about this year i… Read More

• COVID-19

  A draft of history, a template for the future

  8 April, 2021

  This week’s issue of Science includes a remarkable editorial from Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that could serve as a first draft of history related to the development of the messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines. His commentary touches on two policy priorities that have reached an infle… Read More

• COVID-19

  A year of reckoning for science

  18 March, 2021

  Last week marked the 1-year anniversary of the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, and although we learned many tough lessons about trust in science and science communication, the year also revealed an inability to convey observable facts about systemic racism to the public. The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May last… Read More

• COVID-19

  Marking 1 year of COVID-19

  11 March, 2021

  This week marks the first anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic. In Science’s editorial this week, U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins writes about the lessons that researchers have learned during the past year. Collins and his colleagues, especially Anthony Fauci, Barney Gr… Read More

• COVID-19

  Building trust in science requires more than just funding

  4 March, 2021

  The costs of anti-science sentiment in the United States have become magnified in the past year. The inability of scientists to convince the American public about the reality of COVID-19, the effectiveness of masks, and the safety of vaccines has led to loss of life and has decreased the possibility that the pandemic will end… Read More

• COVID-19

  Atlas shrugs

  18 August, 2020

  In its latest attempt to confuse the public about the science of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Trump administration has added Dr. Scott Atlas to the team advising the president.  Although Atlas may be capable of neurological imaging, he’s not an expert in infectious diseases or public health—and it shows.  He’s spreading scientif… Read More

• COVID-19

  Modeling herd immunity

  23 June, 2020

  Today, Science published a study by Britton et al. that incorporates population heterogeneity into modeling the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)—that is, it accounts for the fact that members of a population may have differential exposure and susceptibility to infection. In this model, the authors vary the ex… Read More

• COVID-19

  The end of the handshake?

  12 May, 2020

  In the time of a pandemic, societies adopt practices that necessitate the least human contact. To curtail the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), people have transitioned to social distancing and replaced gestures of greeting and parting for an alternative acknowledgment. In the early days of the pandemic, people were waving, bowing, foo… Read More