A poll out Monday confirmed many experts’ worst fears about the public’s faith in scientific leadership. According to a survey published on the website STAT, a bipartisan supermajority of Americans—78 percent in all—now worry that the approval process for a Covid-19 vaccine “ is being driven more by politics... Read more
Years ago, I fact-checked two memoirs by powerful men. Their books wised me up to an invisible poltergeist in world events: the feverish infatuation of one straight man for another. One of the authors was Michael Eisner, then the CEO of Disney. He offered insight into how powerful producers... Read more
President Trump announced a “new” treatment for Covid-19 on Sunday, just in time for the start of the Republican National Convention. From now on, per a new Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration, hospitals can more easily order transfusions of Covid-19 convalescent plasma—a blood product... Read more
Executives at Facebook are reportedly considering the option of a “kill switch” that would turn off all political advertising in the wake of a disputed presidential election. Put more simply: Executives at Facebook are reportedly admitting they were wrong. As recently as mid-August, Facebook leaders were on a press... Read more
President Trump’s executive orders seeking to ban China-owned WeChat and TikTok in the US had been signaled for months. When secretary of state Mike Pompeo told Fox News in early July that the US was “looking at” clamping down on the social media apps, the writing was on the... Read more
But small differences in these kinds of polls can make a big difference in the headlines they generate—and the decisionmaking they inform. Whereas the Associated Press-NORC Center poll gave respondents the options of answering “yes,” “not sure” or “no” to receiving a hypothetical Covid-19 vaccine, a Pew Research Center... Read more
The dreaded “Covid party” has come to Alabama. Even as the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in the state reached record highs, news came out this week that college students in Tuscaloosa have been throwing parties with infected guests, then betting on the contagion that ensues. “They put money... Read more
When the pandemic hit, the world of women’s roller-derby spun into action. On April 6, an international governing body for the sport, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, put out a call for public health professionals in their midst to come together and devise a plan. Mikaela Kosich (derby... Read more
The first study, posted on June 3 by Supriya Garikipati from the University of Liverpool and a colleague, did try to distinguish between women leaders in governing and less powerful roles. While they didn’t find a significant difference in Covid-19 cases and deaths based on leaders’ gender, they did... Read more
On May 18, education ministers from the EU gathered on a conference call to discuss the reopening of schools. Children had been back to class for several weeks in 22 European countries, and there were no signs yet of a significant increase in Covid-19 infections. It was early still,... Read more
