Pandemic

For a fourth consecutive summer, COVID-19 is on the rise, though this year's warm-weather wave appears milder than those in the emergency period of the pandemic. COVID-19 indicators of hospital admissions, emergency department visits, test positivity, and wastewater levels have all been increasing in the past month, with a peak not yet clearly in sight,…

Decades of China's one-child policy have led to an aging population and lopsided ratio between elderly and youth.  The country is on pace to lose nearly half of its current population by 2100, per Terry Group, which says that bodes poorly for economic growth. Chinese government data showed China's population shrank in 2022 for the…

Enlarge / A woman watches white flags on the National Mall on September 18, 2021, in Washington, DC. Over 660,000 white flags were installed here to honor Americans who have lost their lives to COVID-19. Amid the pandemic, Republican voters in Ohio and Florida had a significantly higher rate of excess deaths after the nationwide…

People in the US transmitted the pandemic coronavirus to white-tailed deer at least 109 times, and the animals widely spread the virus among themselves, with a third of the deer tested in a large government-led study showing signs of prior infection. The work also suggests that the ubiquitous ruminants returned the virus to people in…

For the first time, a majority of Americans now say the COVID pandemic is over. This comes after the WHO declared the pandemic over in May. Signs suggest people are going back to their pre-pandemic lives. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on…

Student "learning loss," could prove to be more economically damaging than the Great Recession.  School shutdowns hit Black and Hispanic students harder than White and Asian students.  The federal government has given $190 billion to schools in the hopes of mitigating the impact.  Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics…

Our panel on pandemic lessons included Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo (center) and Dr. Caitlin Rivers (right). In many ways, modern advancements stole the show in the COVID-19 pandemic. With unprecedented speed, researchers decoded and shared the genetic blueprints of SARS-CoV-2. They developed highly effective, safe vaccines and treatments. Near real-time epidemiological data were at people's fingertips,…

Enlarge / An MRI image of a brain with an abscess causing seizures. As pandemic restrictions eased, pediatricians around the country saw alarming upticks of rare brain abscesses in children under 18 years old, with national cases steeply climbing to a peak in December 2022. That's according to two studies led by researchers and health…

A new study analyzed financial misconduct investigations into traders at a UK bank amid the pandemic. Remote employees were significantly less likely to generate a securities misconduct report. Possible explanations included the physical distance from employees already engaged in misconduct. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized…

Enlarge / It's hard to recover from a shortage, especially when buyers take on stockpiling habits, Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said in a recent interview. But the British company is on track to return some stock to individual buyers.Raspberry Pi Having to make the pandemic-pressure choice to either disappoint hobbyists and educators or let…