The article below is an adapted excerpt from the introduction of How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic, an anthology recently published by NYU Press that chronicles experiences of ableism and diverse disability activism in New York City (and beyond) during the first four years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The anthology’s authors are a collective...
We all know now that students’ ability to learn suffered significantly during the pandemic. Some kids struggled to pay attention and some just dropped out entirely, never to return. National test scores since then show that most students haven’t recovered even five years later. Nevertheless, I guess I’d had it in the back of my...
McDonald’s has suffered its biggest drop in US sales since the height of Covid, a fall that it said was driven by wider concerns about the US economy. The world’s largest burger chain’s revenue at US stores open at least a year sank 3.6% in the first three months of 2025 compared with the same...
Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed the text of a legally binding treaty designed to better tackle future pandemics. The pact is meant to avoid the disorganisation and competition for resources seen during the Covid-19 outbreak. Key elements include the rapid sharing of data about new diseases, to ensure scientists and pharmaceutical...
Aggressive deportation tactics have terrorized farmworkers at the center of the nation’s bird flu strategy, public health workers say. Dairy and poultry workers have accounted for most cases of the bird flu in the U.S. — and preventing and detecting cases among them is key to averting a pandemic. But public health specialists say they’re...
Nobody knew about the COVID-19 virus in particular at the time, but there is plenty of evidence that it was circulating in Wuhan in mid-2019, and US soldiers who participated in the World Military Games held in Wuhan in October 2019. But as part of a Congressionally mandated investigation, the Biden administration was required to...
Content warning: discussions of addiction and suicide The pandemic took the lives of many battling drug and alcohol addiction to new lows. However, for some, it was the trigger that finally forced them to confront their demons. The number of over 50s seeking treatment for alcohol and drug addiction in England has increased by 50% since 2020,...
Exeter is set to pay tribute to all those who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic with a series of special commemorations, five years after the nation went into lockdown. The commemorations taking place in the city have been organised by the City Council, working alongside the University of Exeter, and reflect on the challenges...