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CREDIT: MARINA MUUN

Reset: The Science of Crisis & Recovery

The Covid-19 pandemic is having a powerful impact on virtually every facet of life. With support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Knowable Magazine from Annual Reviews has embarked on a series of stories exploring the evolving knowledge of the new coronavirus and the illness it leaves in its wake. Taking a broader view, this ongoing series also examines how the world is responding to the current crisis and how the world may change post-pandemic.

Together, this collection of reported stories, essays, Q&As, expert commentaries, videos, comics and online events is presenting a diversity of views, informed by the evidence, about how we navigate and learn from these unprecedented times.

Reset is supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

An illustration shows a crowd of people with different colors, representing a contagious illness, passing from left to right.
Health & Disease

Preparing for future pandemics: Learning from Covid-19

By Hunni Media for Knowable Magazine

VIDEO: Knowable Magazine’s interviews with experts during the pandemic revealed many missed opportunities and blunders in the US response to Covid-19, which was marked by excess American deaths and disability. The experience does offer lessons on how to better prepare for what scientists call the inevitable emergence of the next global health emergency.

A stylized graph shows rise and fall of three viruses, represented by colored spiky balls. The red one is most prevalent, then green, then blue.
Health & Disease

Covid, RSV and the flu: A case of viral interference?

By Amber Dance

The ‘tripledemic’ unfolding this winter is one of several odd trends among respiratory virus infections these last years. Viruses, it turns out, can block one another and take turns to dominate.

Illustration showing nasal sprays and coronavirus particles
Health & Disease

What next-gen Covid-19 vaccines might look like

By Bob Holmes

From building up defenses in the nose to slowing down a virus’s ability to make copies of itself, scientists are rolling out a raft of creative approaches to fighting infection

A tinted aerial photo shows a bunch of people sitting at tables in a cafeteria with lamps emitting violet light.
Health & Disease

How to fight Covid with light

By Chris Baraniuk

Some wavelengths of light in a range called far-UVC kill microbes in experiments and appear to be harmless to people. Could they be used to make indoor spaces safer against the coronavirus?

Conceptual illustration shows an image of a woman wearing a surgical mask with symbols of time passing without relief, as well as red blobs that look like virus particles.
Health & Disease

How long will it take to understand long Covid?

By Marla Broadfoot

Covid long-haulers experience a litany of symptoms, and researchers have proposed a variety of theories to explain them. It’s a morass to figure out, but the answers are important for the multitudes still suffering from an infection that happened to them months or even years ago.

A collage of photos of people with long Covid holding signs saying how long they’ve had it and what their symptoms are. “Please hear our SOS” appears in large letters at the bottom of the collage
Health & Disease

Long Covid: A parallel pandemic

By Hunni Media for Knowable Magazine

VIDEO: Tens of millions of people are living with long Covid. Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki explains the current state of play in the search for causes of, and treatments for, this potentially debilitating illness.

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Health & Disease

Covid-19: Origins of an outbreak

By Hunni Media for Knowable Magazine

VIDEO: Where do new diseases come from? As people increasingly push into remote areas, the risk of encountering new pathogens increases, says wildlife epidemiologist Jonna Mazet.

Reset17
Health & Disease

A path to Covid-19 vaccine equity

VIDEO: When can the people who still need a Covid-19 vaccine expect to get one? Delve into the supply, distribution and political issues delaying global access to a lifesaving, economy-rescuing marvel.

Street art by Banksy shows an old woman sneezing violently. Artwork was photographed in Totterdown, Bristol in the UK.
Health & Disease

How zinc helps you fight off infections

By Diana Kwon

Our bodies require the vital mineral for the healthy functioning of the immune system 

Lab researchers wearing full protective suits, supplied with clean air, are shown in a lab.
Society

Question the ‘lab leak’ theory. But don’t call it a conspiracy.

By Ivan Oransky

OPINION: If there’s one thing the pandemic has taught us, labels get in the way of facts and make the truth that much harder to find.

Reset14 — Why sleep matters for personal and public health
Health & Disease

Why sleep matters for personal and public health

VIDEO: Disrupted sleep ups the risks for heart disease, cancer and depression. How? And what can be done about the inequities that leave communities of color and poor people at greater risk? 

Photo shows the exterior of a large building with a sign saying “This Hospital is CLOSED. If this is an emergency, call 911.”
Society

Let’s change how we pay for hospitals

By John Colmers and Sherry Glied

OPINION: Many health facilities were already in fiscal straits before Covid-19 — except in Maryland. The state’s innovative and sound approach could be the answer to rescuing systems nationwide.

Reset 13 — The science of viral variants
Health & Disease

Viral variants: From Covid to the flu

VIDEO: Some variants of SARS-CoV-2, such as Delta, will drive new waves of COVID-19 infections. What can previous studies of the flu, HIV and SARS tell us about the course that this pandemic may take?

A UCLA staff member collects a free Covid-19 self-test from an on-campus vending machine.
Health & Disease

Why Covid-19 testing went so wrong in the US, and what to do now

By Hunni Media for Knowable Magazine

VIDEO: Delays, errors and a fragmented response initially kept public health officials in the dark about the spread of SARS-CoV-2. More tests and easy access could still play a critical role in slowing the virus.

Illustration shows a variety of ways that scientists might work in a lab to find potential new therapies.
Health & Disease

Why we are developing a patent-free Covid antiviral therapy

By Alpha Lee, John Chodera and Frank von Delft

OPINION: During global health crises such as pandemics, drug discovery should be publicly funded and open, with no research secrets locked away

Illustration of a mouth with megaphone and collage of items representing conspiracy theories coming out of it.
Society

The psychology and politics of conspiracy theories

VIDEO: In the past year, conspiracy theories have had a big impact on politics and public health. What makes them so appealing? How can we disrupt their influence? Join us to explore these issues and more.

Elementary school students wear face masks while they sit at their own desks in a classroom in Los Angeles in April 2021. Their masked teacher walks amongst them, with a Welcome Back sign on the wall behind.
Health & Disease

Covid’s main lesson? For this journalist, it’s unpredictability

By Hunni Media for Knowable Magazine

VIDEO: New York Times science reporter Apoorva Mandavilli chronicles the rise of the delta variant, the latest of many twists in the pandemic that she’s covered since it began. Delta has left parents in an especially tough spot, with schools opening but young children still vulnerable.

A falsely colored image combines a time-lapse image of the trajectory of larger droplets and the still image showing the distribution of a diffuse gas cloud of saliva and mucus. Most of the larger droplets are pulled down by gravity well before the smaller droplets carried in the gas cloud.
Physical World

To understand airborne transmission of disease, follow the flow

By Anil Ananthaswamy

Viruses and bacteria travel in fluids, such as the air we breathe. Studying exhalations, toilet flushes and rain drops, with math and modeling, can sharpen the big-picture view of how to prevent infections.

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