The benefits of ventilation reach far beyond the coronavirus. What if we stop taking colds and flus for granted, too?
Since nearly the start of the pandemic, schools have been caught up in personal, intensely political debates over closure, remote learning, social distancing, and masking. Throughout, many have hoped that things would settle down once vaccines became widespread.
Since the beginning of COVID-19, I have heard two numbers associated with reducing the risk of catching the virus from someone else. Six feet – that's how far we were told to stay from others. And 15 minutes – that's said to be a cutoff for close contact. But the delta variant is more contagious. So shouldn't it be – I dunno – zero feet and 15 seconds? Seriously, what's the recommendation now?
Nearly 18 months into the pandemic, there’s no consensus on how to keep students and staff safe.
School boards are at war with governors over masks. Superintendents are developing contingency plans on the fly. And schools that only just opened have had to shut down.
An analysis by British academics, published by the UK Government's official scientific advisory group, says that they believe it is "almost certain" that a SARS-Cov-2 variant will emerge that "leads to current vaccine failure." SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes Covid-19.
The delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal federal health document that argues officials must “acknowledge the war has changed.”
Variants and new hotspots show what the virus’s long tail will be like
Just a few weeks ago, much of the world seemed poised to leave Covid behind.
U.S. President Joe Biden declared the U.S. close to independence from the virus. Britons hit the dance floor to celebrate “Freedom Day.” Singapore’s legendarily strict government signaled it would begin to loosen its zero-cases approach and make life and travel more manageable.
The Delta variant is the fastest, fittest and most formidable version of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 the world has encountered, and it is upending assumptions about the disease even as nations loosen restrictions and open their economies, according to virologists and epidemiologists.
The Delta variant is changing calculations of governments around the world, raising doubts about how quickly they can leave the coronavirus pandemic behind, widening the gulf between highly vaccinated places and the rest, and infiltrating countries that had previously kept the virus at bay.
Recently, one of my colleagues took a trip to Florida. He went to see family, in a long-awaited visit that he had previously only managed to make once during the pandemic, driving the whole way from New York while “peeing behind dumpsters.” Now that everyone was fully vaccinated, it seemed totally reasonable to fly there and to have everyone gather, unmasked, together. It was a relief and a joy. They even went to a hockey game indoors with thousands of people.