COVID-19 and Reductions in Cancer Mortality

That is the topic of a commentary I wrote with co-authors Joanna MacEwan and Farzad Ali, titled “Does COVID-19 Threaten the Progress Pharmaceuticals Have Made in Reducing Cancer Mortality Over the Last 20 Years?” An excerpt is below: Cancer mortality rates have fallen significantly over the last 20 years. Between 2000 and 2010, overall age-adjusted…

Fearonomics

COVID-19 has had a disastrous effect on the economy. While some portion of the economic effect is people becoming ill, much of the effect is due to individuals changing behavior to avoid contracting the disease. For instance, people are much less likely to go shopping, eat at restaurants, and travel. These latter effects are termed…

Using wastewater to monitor COVID-19

Understanding trends in COVID-19 transmission rates is vital both public health monitoring and policymaking decisions. However, diagnostic capacity may be limited, and test sampling is often non-random, and often COVID-19 cases are not reported when patients have mild or asymptomatic disease. What is the solution? A paper in Nature Biotechnology argues that wastewater testing may…