It's clear from what people are posting on social media, and the questions they've submitted to Town Hall Q&As, that many are still unclear as to how the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is transmitted, and what can be done to avoid it. The operative concept can be summarized in a single phrase: minimize the probability.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

As the nation slowly emerges from lockdown, we're beginning to appreciate the full impact of the pandemic and that the sickness and death directly caused by the virus are only part of the picture.

The three-month-plus suspension of routine, non-emergency medical care has created secondary, silent epidemics of untreated medical issues that require the urgent focus of both our public health officials and the public themselves. They include domestic violence and likely increases in undiagnosed cancers.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Our previous article argued that the COVID-19 pandemic has offered important insights into the enormous economic cost of suppressing demand as a way to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The most practical demand-side strategy to even approach the deep GHG reduction of the recent lockdowns (by an average of about 17%, according to some studies) would be to adopt some of the less-debilitating lockdown changes to our lifestyle: less commuting and more work being done remotely. But this is probably the only low-cost, straightforward way to reduce demand on carbon-based energy—and even then, the impact would be minimal compared to the lockdowns.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

COVID-19 has turned our world upside down in so many ways, and the food supply chain is no exception. Whether consumers prefer fast or slow food, meat-based or vegan, local or imported, organic or conventional, supermarkets or farmers' markets, every aspect of our food supply chain, from farm to fork, has been affected by this scourge.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Many Americans have begun to seek "authenticity" in their lives. There's nothing wrong with that unless, in the process, they are misled by false advertising that causes them to pay inflated prices for products that are "free from" various things that are actually beneficial. Currently these include the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), which is used to make certain plastics and as an antibacterial agent on metal coatings; and "genetically modified organisms," or "GMOs."

Continue to the full article  |  More articles