Sarah Zhang
staff writer , eukaryote // email: [email protected]
Last synced from Twitter 1108d ago
The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 10d 26 tweets
No matter what happens now, the virus will continue to circulate around the world.
4
Sarah Zhang A really fascinating question: There are four coronaviruses in humans that cause the common cold. Could they have also first emerged in a pandemic long ago like COVID-19? 9d
3
Sarah Zhang This coronavirus is probably going to be with us forever now. I wrote about what the future could look like and why it's actually not as dire as it may sound! 9d
1
Sarah Zhang ICYMI, I wrote about why the coronavirus is probably never going away and why that's not as scary as it sounds at first 3d
Hygiene Theater Is a Huge Waste of Time
Derek Thompson - The Atlantic 18d 58 tweets
Companies are power scrubbing their way to a false sense of security.
2
Sarah Zhang Back in March, I talked to a bunch of companies that do "deep cleanings" and one guy said to me, hey we keep talking about cleaning surfaces but this virus spreads through the air. And here we still are. Read on our coronavirus hygiene theater 17d
A Vaccine Reality Check
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 20d 42 tweets
So much hope is riding on a breakthrough, but a vaccine is only the beginning of the end.
6
Sarah Zhang I know we all want vaccines to bail us out from COVID-19, but so many things still need to go perfectly. I wrote about why a vaccine will not immediately end the pandemic 1/ 20d
The Birdsong That Took Over North America
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 42d 6 tweets
Since 2000, a strange new type of song in white-throated sparrows has spread across the continent at stunning speed.
1
Sarah Zhang Around 2000, scientists first noticed a strange new song among white-throated sparrows in western Canada. Then, they realized it was spreading. This new song type is taking over the entire country! 42d
How a Negative COVID-19 Test Can Mislead
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 54d 7 tweets
We know that people who don’t feel sick can spread COVID-19—but very little about how reliable COVID-19 tests are for these cases.
2
Sarah Zhang We know that people who feel healthy can spread COVID-19. We don't know how how well COVID-19 tests actually work in people who feel healthy. My latest on the dilemma of a negative COVID-19 test 52d
How — and When — Can the Coronavirus Vaccine Become a Reality?
ProPublica 58d 15 tweets
It is likely we’ll eventually have a coronavirus vaccine — but perhaps not as quickly as some expect. From development, to clinical trials and distribution, ProPublica reporter Caroline Chen explains the tremendous challenges that lie ahead.
1
Sarah Zhang An extremely helpful primer on what to expect from a COVID-19 vaccine, by 57d
The Pandemic Broke End-of-Life Care
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 58d 6 tweets
In a Boston ICU, staff members orchestrate goodbyes over Zoom and comfort patients who would otherwise die alone.
1
Sarah Zhang This small detail about the iPads for families to say goodbye to dying patients gutted me. It's so hard to hold the plastic-wrapped iPad so that everything is in the camera frame. An intimate and sacred moment, made almost absurd by tech difficulties. 58d
4
Sarah Zhang Ever since the pandemic began, I've been haunted by stories of coronavirus patients dying alone. I spoke to a palliative care team caring for these patients in a Boston ICU. They were often the last ones—the only ones—in the room when a patient died. 58d
1
Sarah Zhang Over and over again, the caregivers I interviewed talked about conversations with the children of patients, who felt horribly guilty about giving COVID-19 to their parents who were now dying. 57d
One Biscuit, a Billion Stories
The Atlantic 62d 12 tweets
Tracking India’s lockdown through the country’s favorite comfort food
1
Sarah Zhang This story is really worth reading—it's about a biscuit but also so much more 59d
At Least the Pandemic Isn’t Creating Super Rats
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 66d 4 tweets
Sheltering in place produced a “natural experiment” for urban wildlife, but city rodents are not evolving to be more aggressive.
America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic
Alexis C. Madrigal, Robinson Meyer - The Atlantic 67d 40 tweets
Businesses are reopening. Protests are erupting nationwide. But the virus isn’t done with us.
2
Sarah Zhang "As the long, hot summer of 2020 begins, the facts suggest that the U.S. is not going to beat the coronavirus. Collectively, we slowly seem to be giving up" 66d
The U.S. Is Spending Millions of Dollars Rearing Flesh-Eating Worms
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 79d 13 tweets
Inside America and Panama's long-running collaboration to rid an entire continent of a deadly disease.
6
Sarah Zhang I know we're in the middle in the pandemic, but would you like to read about flesh-eating worms? 79d
6
Sarah Zhang In 2016, I was writing about the return of flesh-eating screwworms in Florida, when I learned about a U.S. government program that sounded totally bonkers 1/ 79d
1
Sarah Zhang I got dozens bed bug bites while reporting this story, which somehow feels very appropriate 78d
We Don’t Even Have a COVID-19 Vaccine, and Yet the Conspiracies Are Here
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 81d 13 tweets
Even as vaccines for the disease are being held up as the last hope for a return to normalcy, misinformation about them is spreading.
4
Sarah Zhang I wrote about COVID-19 vaccine skepticism, which already exists and which names like "Operation Warp Speed" really do not help 79d
Why the Coronavirus Hits Kids and Adults So Differently
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 90d 8 tweets
COVID-19 is much less severe in children, and it could have to do with a child’s still-developing immune system.
1
Sarah Zhang Why does the coronavirus affect kids and adults so differently? My latest, on what we know about who a kid's immune system is different from an adult's 90d
1
Sarah Zhang A point I want to make about COVID-19 and the new syndrome in kids. COVID-19 is not caused by an especially weird virus. Lots of viruses have rare, unusual effects. We just usually don't see so many kids with the same virus at the same time to notice 90d
There’s Only One Way Out of This Mess
Robinson Meyer - The Atlantic 97d 7 tweets
America’s economy faces the same problem today it did two months ago: The country does not have enough tests to contain the virus.
1
Sarah Zhang We still don't have enough tests. We still don't have enough tests. We still don't have enough tests. We still don't have enough tests. 96d
A Much-Hyped COVID-19 Treatment Has a Weird Connection to Black-Market Cat Drugs
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 97d 9 tweets
An antiviral almost identical to remdesivir is widely available in China’s underground marketplaces—as a game-changing treatment for a different coronavirus in cats.
5
Sarah Zhang This might be the strangest story I've ever, ever reported. It has: - a fatal cat disease - remdesivir, the COVID-19 drug du jour - the black market in China - Newt Gingrich's sister - did I mention...CATS? 97d
3
Sarah Zhang After 50 years, a scientist finally found a seeming cure for a 100% fatal cat disease. But the only way to buy it is the Chinese black market. Here's a very strange tale about drug discovery—and its unlikely connection to COVID-19. 96d
Antibody Tests Won’t Get Us Back to Normal
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 107d 8 tweets
The immunity tests were supposed to be a “game changer,” but they are instead revealing that the majority of Americans are still vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.
5
Sarah Zhang Yes, a lot more people have had COVID-19 than the official case amounts. But we are still nowhere, nowhere close to herd immunity. I wrote about the false hope of antibody tests 107d
Could Cats Accidentally Control Spacecraft? An Investigation
Marina Koren - The Atlantic 112d 5 tweets
Operating a mission is a labyrinthian process from start to finish, with all kinds of checks and fail-safes along the way.
1
Sarah Zhang I showed this wonderful story to my cat and asked him why he wasn't being more productive in quarantine 112d
Life After the ICU
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 113d 2 tweets
Being taken off a ventilator can be just the beginning.
The People Who Risked Death for Immunity
Sarah Zhang - The Atlantic 119d 7 tweets
When yellow fever swept through 19th-century New Orleans, immunity became so valuable, people were willing to go to extreme lengths for protection.
1
Sarah Zhang "When yellow fever swept through New Orleans two centuries before our current pandemic, it made immunity a form of privilege—one so valuable, it was worth risking death to obtain." 119d
We’re Not Ready for This Kind of Grief
The Atlantic 122d 7 tweets
The coronavirus pandemic will leave lasting emotional scars.
1
Sarah Zhang "There are two unique forms of grief that everyone touched by war understands. There’s the grief associated with the loss of human life.... Then there’s the grief associated with the loss of a life as we once knew it." 122d