Some Articles About COVID-19

This week has been a big week for important articles about COVID-19. Several of them are by The Atlantic's staff writer, Ed Yong, who has been writing about the pandemic since March. I have seen mentions of a Pulitzer prize for him, and I would be very surprised if he doesn't win one. All of these are worth your time.

• How the Pandemic Defeated America by Ed Yong (The Atlantic): This is one of the two cover stories from the September issue of the Atlantic. It's about 10,000 words long but if you want to really understand the situation the United States now faces, you should read it carefully. It may be the best single article yet written about the pandemic. Keep in mind that because of the lead-times of print publication, it was written in June so is not completely up to date.
• Immunity Is Where Intuition Goes to Die by Ed Yong (The Atlantic): "I wrote a guide to the immune system—how it theoretically works, how it reacts to the new coronavirus, why it’s all so maddeningly complicated, and what we know about how long immunity lasts."
• The Atlantic's star pandemic reporter: We aren't ready for another 'generation-defining crisis' by Kerry Flynn (CNN): A interview with Ed Yong. This may keep you up at night.
• I’d Need Evidence Before I’d Get a Covid-19 Vaccine. It Doesn’t Exist Yet by Natalie Dean, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida (New York Times). "Scientists need to show us the data. And that’s exactly what they’re working on."
  
• A Vaccine Reality Check by Sarah Zhang (The Atlantic): "So much hope is riding on a breakthrough, but a vaccine is only the beginning of the end."
• Scared That Covid-19 Immunity Won’t Last? Don’t Be by Akiko Iwasaki and Ruslan Medzhitov, professors of immunobiology at Yale (New York Times). "Dropping antibody counts aren’t a sign that our immune system is failing against the coronavirus, nor an omen that we can’t develop a viable vaccine."