Tag: Covid-19
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Brace for the surge
IS there one pandemic, or two? That was a question being asked a year ago, when wealthy countries accounting for only 15% of the global population had 80% of the Covid deaths. Could it be that the rich world was more vulnerable, somehow, because its populations were older, or more individualistic, or had forgotten to…
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How elimination versus suppression became Covid’s cold war
A year ago, when the World Health Organization published a report showing that China had shut down a highly contagious virus in a city of 11 million people, epidemiologist Michael Baker assumed that the international body would advise the rest of the world to follow China’s example. When to his amazement it didn’t, he decided…
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What can we learn from Africa’s experience of Covid?
AS Africa emerges from its second wave of Covid-19, one thing is clear: having officially clocked up more than 3.8m cases and more than 100,000 deaths, it hasn’t been spared. But the death toll is still lower than experts predicted when the first cases were reported in Egypt just over a year ago. The relative…
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‘We took a huge risk’: the Indian firm making more Covid jabs than anyone
ADAR Poonawalla, 40, is the chief executive of the Serum Institute of India (SII), the Pune-based, family-owned vaccine manufacturer that is producing more Covid-19 vaccines by dose than any other in the world. For now it’s the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine rolling off its production lines, but SII has signed contracts with three other developers – Novavax,…
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Has Covid changed the price of a life?
THE dilemmas are achingly familiar by now. Should we lock down or stay open? If we lock down, when and in what order should the different sectors of the economy open up? What about schools? Places of worship? Cultural and sporting venues…? This article first appeared in The Observer on 14 February 2021. To continue reading, click…
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Another wave is possible
AT 8.30am on Tuesday 26 January the waiting room of the emergency department at the Lariboisière hospital in Paris was still empty, festooned with signs reading “emergency department on strike” that predate the pandemic but have been left pointedly in place… This article first appeared in The Guardian on 7 February 2021. To continue reading, click…
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Should Covid-19-related patents be waived for the duration?
This article first appeared in UnHerd on 26 January 2021.
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Anti-vaxx through history
SARAH and her brother Benjamin (not their real names) have never seen eye to eye. She’s a professional scientist, he – according to Sarah’s description – is someone who is susceptible to conspiracy theories. They maintained an uneasy truce until a few weeks ago. Tensions came to a head when Sarah was on the phone…
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The great opportunity: how Covid transformed global crime
BY the end of March, one week into the UK’s first lockdown, recorded crime in Lancashire had dropped by a startling 40% compared with the four-year average. “At first there was some mild panic,” says DCI Eric Halford, of Lancashire Constabulary. “Most senior officers expected a surge in demand…” This article first appeared in The Guardian on…
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Update on KK Shailaja and her ‘Covid brigade’
BY mid-May, the Indian state of Kerala had contained the first wave of Covid-19, earning praise for the quick thinking and joined-up response of its health minister, KK Shailaja, and her team. By July, however, there were suggestions that those plaudits had been premature, and that Kerala’s Covid-19 response had come unstuck. Had it…? This…