The announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech that their COVID-19 vaccine trials have tallied a 90% success rate comes as a second wave of the virus is hitting not only public health, but the public psyche.
Tag: coronavirus
No specific treatment or medication exists to treat anosmia. And yet, a patient’s brain can be trained to accelerate the recovery of the lost sense of smell.
La Stampa Editor-in-Chief Massimo Giannini spent a week in ICU with severe effects of COVID-19. Still in quarantine, he’s back following the news — and less than impressed.
Pollsters told us that Donald Trump would pay a heavy price for his mismanagement of the pandemic. What will happen with other world leaders?
New Zealand’s referendum last month to legalize recreational marijuana use was the first time a country put the controversial topic to a popular vote. Initial results point to a narrow defeat of the measure, which would still leave Uruguay and Canada as the only countries to fully legalize cannabis at a national level. Still, in […]
While populists toughen their positions and beat their chests, the deep-seated weakness of their policies is driving everything.
It’s said to be cultural differences, but what separates the success of countries in East Asian and Oceania is above all a question of policy choices.
-Essay- COVID-19’s economic impact on travel is matched only by the existential impact on the modern traveler. In a sign of the desperation of both, several airlines and cruise ship companies have been offering trips to… nowhere. In Australia, Japan and Taiwan, passengers can book a flight that takes off and lands at the same […]
Sweden’s youth see caring for the old and sick as the business of the public sector. But as the welfare state gets weaker, the elderly can rely on neither the system nor the family.
Concurrent emergencies have given rise to ‘exceptional’ measures that then have a tendency of being institutionalized.
For a Milanese writer, this is how his family lunch looks right now.
PARIS — Are you sitting down? Probably. Yes, there are new studies that show the collateral health effects (beyond the virus itself) of COVID-19 and the rolling lockdowns include serious maladies linked to an increase in the sedentary lifestyle. For millions of people suddenly forced to telework and spend more time sitting down, and far […]
The scale and spread of the coronavirus pandemic may make so-called ‘herd immunity’ virtually inevitable, but it can also prompt Argentina to integrate its scattered healthcare services into a single, national service.
Rafaela Dutra was working in Rio de Janeiro’s tourism industry and studying to become a nurse when the coronavirus arrived. A resident of the sprawling low-income favelas in the city’s Zona Norte, she had worked in one of Copacabana’s shiny, high-rise hotels, earning up to twice the region’s minimum monthly wage of 1,200 reais ($220). […]
Across the globe, travel restrictions, stay-at-home orders and shifting health care priorities have combined to make abortion an even more difficult procedure to obtain.
Italy was hit particularly hard and early by the first wave when northern region of Lombardy became the first epicenter of the virus in the West. Now all eyes are on the less developed, more vulnerable southern regions.
“Bienvenue en Absurdie…” President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement of at least four weeks of an all-night curfew in France’s biggest cities sparked some colorful reactions — political and personal — across the country. “Welcome to Absurdia” came from opposition leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a firebrand leader on the political left, who noted that most COVID-19 infections happen […]
France is just one of many countries that have long shunned online consultations. But now that it’s skyrocketing in pandemic times, there may be a mini revolution in health care.
For rural communities in particular, serious water shortages were a big problem even before the COVID-19 outbreak made handwashing all the more imperative.
Swedish-born, Paris-based writer Carl-Johan Karlsson has been seeing “dead museums” since the pandemic arrived… and even earlier.
From Brazil to Canada, Finland to Israel, and well beyond, the impact of the new uptick in coronavirus is being measured across virtually every aspect of society.
The uncertainty around President Trump’s condition since contracting COVID-19 is part of a pattern when powerful politicians fall ill.
The news that Donald Trump has been infected with COVID-19 echoed around the world, making front pages and prompting a gush of wishes from leaders in all continents — and snark from many corners. In the night between Oct. 1 and 2, U.S. Eastern Time, the U.S. president confirmed on Twitter that he and his […]
Ahead of the Nov. 3 election, this is an October Surprise that has four full weeks to play out.
With the pandemic, survivalists around the world have new reasons to prepare for the day it all comes crashing down.
People are dying, economies are tanking and politics are awry. But that’s no excuse to short-shrift the struggle for equality and protections for women.
As the pandemic’s first wave of lockdowns began, there was plenty of chatter about how it would affect couples, relationships and sex — and consequently what it would mean for contraception. Earlier this year, the UN warned in a report that more than 47 million women in 114 countries could lose access to contraception if […]
Even the region’s top hospitals were caught off guard by the pandemic. However, some proved adept at adapting and are looking at ways to better prepare for the next big crisis.
Eight months after cutting itself off from the world, the Chinese megalopolis is coronavirus-free and back to business as usual, albeit with a healthy dose of propaganda.
Italian populist party leader Matteo Salvini’s disappointing results in regional elections is being blamed on his erratic handling of the health crisis in one of the worst-hit countries.
Viewed from the proverbial (and literal) 30,000 feet, the most stunning consequence of the coronavirus pandemic may have been the sudden closing of national borders. In an increasingly open world, the past six months of severe international travel restrictions continues to disrupt lives and hobble the global economy. Last week, the six-months-long closure of the […]
The World Health Organization is far from perfect. But the WHO was never, as Trump and others suggest, involved in some sinister plot with China to hide the truth about COVID-19.
Movie houses, music venues and art galleries are showing signs of life after a long lockdown. They’re also having to be creative with how they reopen, as certain health restrictions still apply.
Our Italian columnist has a chuckle at those wagging their social media fingers at the new movie that pokes fun at quarantine life.
A new study in Spain found that middle-aged women are by far the most likely demographic to be suffering long-term effects of coronavirus.
How is the Chinese economy doing these days? Start by asking Louis Vuitton, whose flagship Beijing boutique boasted record sales in August.
A recent speech by former ECB chief Mario Draghi hit close to home in his native country.
It’s now been four months since most of the world reached the agreement that Sweden’s no-quarantine strategy had failed. In the end, it was the only European country to never go into lockdown, and as the virus spread inside nursing homes, Sweden’s death toll raced beyond that of its Northern neighbors to eventually pass the […]
The pandemic closed classrooms and pushed the education process online. It was a desperate measure for desperate times that avoided the worst, but shouldn’t be the norm.
The halting of AstraZeneca’s vaccine trial is not only a reminder of the challenge of finding a cure, but will feed growing public mistrust of states and scientists.