In The News

Is the Virus Wrecking Democracy? Chatham House

Marjorie Buchser June 24, 2020
Most of the world's population has lived with some travel restrictions and social-distancing requirements at some point since the start of the year to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Economic recovery is a priority. Digital technologies allowed many people to safely communicate and work. The pandemic deepened dependence on technology tools and programs, explains Marjorie Buchser for Chatham...

Tech Didn’t Stop Covid-19: MIT Technology Review

David Rotman June 23, 2020
The world received early warnings about Covid-19’s high transmission and mortality rates in early January, weeks before the disease took beyond China where it originated. Muddled communications, slow development of tests, fragmented data collection systems and equipment shortages compounded the spread. “In an age of big data in which companies like Google and Amazon use all sorts of personal...

Capitalism as Victim of Covid-19? Salon

Matthew Rozsa June 18, 2020
The pandemic and climate change demonstrate that survival depends on the ability to learn while relying on best evidence. Political leaders who downplay or deny the consequences of Covid-19 and climate change – trying to protect economies for the short term, rejecting early warnings and refusing to adapt – actually risk more economic damage. Such disasters also show that the free-market...

Tracking COVID-19 with Air Travel Data: Rand

Russell Hanson, Christopher A. Mouton, Adam R. Grissom and John P. Godges June 15, 2020
Rand Corporation researchers have developed a Covid-19 air-traffic visualization tool that combines case data from Johns Hopkins University with travel data from the International Air Transport Association. “Together, these data sets make it possible to visualize how coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections and commercial air travel have interacted to export infection risk across the world...

Anticipate Another Global Depression? FT

June 6, 2020
High employment rates accompany the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Global economists assessed the possibility of economic depression for the Financial Time. Full recovery depends on availability of treatments and vaccines and maintenance of trust. Robert Zoellick, former World Bank president, reminds that the 1930s Great Depression caused more than economic pain: “It metastasised to a loss of...

US to Cut Ties with WHO: STAT

Andrew Joseph May 29, 2020
The US president announced that the country will halt funding and withdraw from the World Health Organization. The US is the agency’s largest funder, providing about 15 percent of the budget. “The move has alarmed health experts, who say the decision will undermine efforts to improve the health of people around the world,” writes Andrew Joseph for STAT. “It’s not immediately clear whether the...

Sewage Reveals Covid-19 Totals: New Haven Register

Ed Stannard and Justin Papp May 28, 2020
Analysis of human waste could become a Covid-19 surveillance tool, providing early warnings about increases in cases and hotspots. An analysis of solid waste from a New Haven waste-treatment facility over 40 days shows that the amount of SARS-CoV-2 found in samples correlates with testing totals and hospitalizations, reports a multidisciplinary team of researchers with Yale University and the...