bird flu

Flu season foo season; bad and getting worse this year

The virus was moving faster than expected. Across the country, emergency rooms were filling up with feverish patients, their bodies wracked by chills and muscle pain. Some had difficulty breathing. The U.S. winter virus season had arrived in full force—and by at least one metric, it was the most intense in fifteen years. The data was unambiguous. One of the key indicators of flu activity—the…


Pandemics, pork chops and chicken nuggets

I’ve wasted too much time lately combing the news for an answer to a crucial question about pandemics like Covid-19: Are they inevitable? Newscasters and the scientists, doctors and politicians they interview rarely venture beyond daily counts of the stricken to explain why we have pandemics. I suspect it’s because the answer is harder to stomach than the horror of the pandemic itself. Animals humans…