Portside

The international community—which never has any problem committing great resources in the pursuit of war —has never done anything to prepare for the possibility of pandemics. Nothing at all.

Even before the coronavirus prompted shelter-in-place orders and the suspension of 2020 census field operations, census staffers said plans to count the homeless were muddled and deficient. The Trump Administration doesn’t want to count everyone.

Epidemics are tests of social and political systems, and Zimbabwe, with its high rate of HIV and malnutrition, is extremely vulnerable. The 2008 cholera epidemic exposed Zimbabwe’s political weaknesses; will the coronavirus do the same in 2020?

The challenge is how to build the foundation and infrastructure that can prevent the worst outcomes and better withstand the catastrophes when they come.

The catastrophe demonstrates the results when public health is subordinate to private profit and to a governmental apparatus that adulates the superiority of private over public administration.

New York poet Esther Cohen addresses the suddenness of change and notices what hasn’t changed at all.

An international consortium is racing to test three possible antiviral treatments for Covid-19 and 10 different vaccines. No one of these experiments is guaranteed to succeed, but the chances of finding one that will are high.

We don't have to debate whether Medicare for All is possible. It exists. The Canadian system, also called Medicare, guarantees coverage to every resident north of the U.S. border.

A very American story about capitalism consuming our national preparedness and resiliency

How we know ending social distancing will lead to more deaths, in one chart