I have been getting lots of requests for my opinion about where we are and what is coming. The first question is: How bad will the coronavirus epidemic be in the U.S.? The short answer is, we don’t know – but it could be pretty nasty. An im…
Category: Infectious disease
COVID-19: Why I’m very concerned
While it’s well known that China and Iran have under-reported their COVID-19 statistics, Italy has been fully transparent. What we are learning is very concerning. The Lombardy province alone has experienced a surge in deaths due to the coronavirus— fr…
Should you panic about coronavirus?
Susan Desmond-Hellmann has a unique set of experiences. Until February, she was the CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where part of her job was thinking up new ways to battle infectious disease. Before that, she was the chancellor of the …
How big will the coronavirus pandemic be? An epidemiologist answers.
The Harvard historian Jill Lepore recounted recently in The New Yorker magazine that when democracies sink into crisis, the question “where are we going?” leaps to everyone’s mind, as if we were waiting for a weather forecast to tell us how healthy our…
Self-quarantines will lead to health worker shortages
As the U.S. battles to limit the spread of the highly contagious new coronavirus, the number of health care workers ordered to self-quarantine because of potential exposure to an infected patient is rising at an exponential pace. In Vacaville, Californ…
Should we avoid exposing residents to coronavirus?
The arrival of the novel COVID-19 to the U.S., and the inevitability of its eventual spread, raises an interesting question: Should we avoid exposing residents to the virus? Before we try to answer this question, we should start with some important qua…
Should we avoid exposing residents to coronavirus?
The arrival of the novel COVID-19 to the U.S., and the inevitability of its eventual spread, raises an interesting question: Should we avoid exposing residents to the virus? Before we try to answer this question, we should start with some important qua…
Practicing oncology during COVID-19
Being an oncologist in New York, having recovered from the trauma of flooding from Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath that ensued when hospitals were flooded in 2012, my anxieties are now heightened again over the global threat and uncertainties surroun…
What COVID-19 taught me about autonomy
I came back from a family vacation to Italy one day before the first case of novel coronavirus was reported there. Two days later, the CDC issued a Level 3 travel warning for visitors to Italy. Eight days later, and six days after returning to work, …
What prevents coronavirus? A pathologist grades COVID-19 precautions.
COVID-19 is here, and it isn’t going away. The SARS-CoV2 virus, and the disease it causes, has entered the ecosystem of human pathogens and is running up numbers that make it appear to be heading into the realm of the pandemic. Let’s look a…
