Suppose you asked a group of university students “What is the greatest problem facing the world today? Many might suggest climate change. Given our present battle with coronavirus, some might cite pandemics. Others would surely bring up overpopulation. Few, if any, would mention plummeting birth rates in developed countries. Nations as diverse as Poland, Japan,
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The coronavirus is on everyone’s minds. As an epidemiologist, I find it interesting to hear people using technical terms – like quarantine or super spreader or reproductive number – that my colleagues and I use in our work every day. But I’m also hearing newscasters and neighbors alike mixing up three important words: outbreak, epidemic
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With Senator Elizabeth Warren’s departure from the presidential race last Thursday, Tulsi Gabbard is officially the last woman standing in the Democratic primary. Small consolation as she clings to hope with only two delegates. Gabbard is the first Samoan-American voting member of Congress, but she nonetheless finished second in American Samoa’s Democratic primary, losing out to spendthrift
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For decades, American political discourse has largely operated within the spectrum of opinions voiced by the editorial pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Opinions not embraced by one of these newspapers were unlikely to advance very far, and those voicing such unapproved opinions were, sooner or later, likely to be denounced
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“People who live in the post-totalitarian system,” wrote Vaclav Havel in The Power of the Powerless, “know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible
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Just a few weeks ago I was surprised to see a headline indicating American confidence had increased over the past few years. The following chart from a January Gallup poll gives a glimpse into that confidence: How quickly things change. As a friend recently told me, when everything looks good and optimism is up, that’s
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