Faye Flam

Political opponents are usually too quick to label each other “anti-science.” But the label is entirely deserved when it comes to the US Congress, which has spent months denying a White House request for billions in additional Covid-19 research funds. There’s still so much to learn about the…

People no longer know what to do about the Covid pandemic. Part of the problem is the very language we use to talk about it. Words such as “breakthrough,” “booster” and even “sick” mean different things to different people — and to experts and the general public. The solution is for experts to be…

We’re now in a very weird pandemic phase. On Twitter, doctors such as Eric Topol sound five-alarm warnings about the latest subvariants of omicron. Offline, even in blue states, people are back to parties, bars and restaurants — and will soon be flying around the world with no testing requirements…

Fewer than half of eligible Americans have received a third Covid vaccine shot despite clear evidence of its benefit. That booster shot improves your odds of avoiding even mild omicron. So why haven’t more people gotten it? One reason may be that we’re all over map in our risk of getting…

Approximately a million people have died from Covid-19 in the US. The country now faces a new surge in BA.2 and BA.2.12.1; other variants are likely to follow. Yet Americans are now packing into restaurants, parties and exercise classes as if it’s 2019. It’s easy to blame Covid fatigue, but…

Rapid antigen tests have been among the tools many public health experts and politicians have to ease into “living with Covid.” But many people are still skeptical about the tests’ reliability. The bigger problem may be with the advice people are getting on how to use them. It’s never been clear…

After a judge overturned a CDC mandate that US airlines require passengers to wear masks on airplanes, the TSA immediately stopped enforcing masking in airports. One viral video even showed a flight attendant walking down an airplane aisle asking people to throw their masks away. But with Covid…

One of the more astonishing things that scientists learned from deliberately exposing volunteers to Covid-19 was that nearly half of them never got infected — even when the virus was introduced directly into their noses. More surprising still, these were people who hadn’t been previously infected…

Rabbits were the victims of the deadliest epidemic in recent history — a germ warfare attack, really — with a virus that killed off more than 99% of the 100 million rabbits inhabiting Australia in 1950. However, the virus didn’t “win” — both the virus and the rabbits are still around today and…

In the US, Covid cases in the Northeast are increasing again, which has some people worried about yet another surge. This is also one of the most heavily vaccinated parts of the country. While the Covid vaccines have been very effective at stopping hospitalization and death, it’s now clear they…