It’s getting harder to avoid COVID-19, thanks to the dominance of BA.5 in the U.S. and the growing number of other Omicron subvariants. Fortunately, Pfizer’s antiviral treatment Paxlovid can minimize illness from the disease.
But it’s not meant for everyone. Only those who are at increased risk for severe disease from COVID-19 qualify for the drug, including people over …
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The freezer in your kitchen likely gets down to temperatures around -20° C (-4° F). “That keeps your ice cream cold, but it doesn’t turn your ice cream into an impenetrable block of ice,” says Paula Cannon, an associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.
Pfizer’s promi…
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At the height of the pandemic, Meg McNamara’s employer sent her home with symptoms that looked a lot like Covid, but she knew better.
A negative Covid test proved that the 37-year-old’s coughs and red eyes were just her usual allergies. Determined to not be wrongly accused again, the New York-based physician’s assistant turned to over-the-counter medication. She started popping Bena…
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A few Saturdays ago, a charming teacher asked Katherine Palmer, 64, on a date at a local tavern. After a year of staying six feet apart from others, meeting up outside and wearing face masks, spending time with someone in person made her nervous at first. However, as she she started to relax into the date, she began to realize something else: they were hitting it off. Now that she’s fully…
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When Ayisha Siddiqa talks about poetry, her face lights up. For the 24-year-old Pakistani human rights and climate defender, poetry represents hope—a way to bring humanity back into the staid, high-level conversations that increasingly occupy her time. At the annual U.N. Climate Conference in Egypt in November, she shared an original poem titled “So much about your sustainability, m…
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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, 19-year-old Steven Yglecias was, like many teens, living at home and feeling directionless. “I felt uninspired,” Steven told me. “Life was an emotional roller coaster each day.”
Steven is one of the millions of young people who struggle with mental health challenges. In the decade before the pandemic, the share of high sch…
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