Opinion

The latest round of hype on Covid-19 drugs began when Stat News reported on a leaked video discussion about Gilead Sciences Inc’s remdesivir. A Chicago doctor who had tested it on severely ill patients suggested it was working — that most of those who were given the medicine recovered and were discharged. The market is reacting as if the drug ...

A New York Times article published earlier this month proclaimed that, according to scientists, “never before have so many of the world’s researchers focussed so urgently on a single topic.” It went on to describe the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine and drugs for treating it, involving global collaborations of medical researchers. Epidemiologists are also labouring tirelessly to save ...

President Trump’s decision to include his signature on stimulus checks has struck many as unseemly, even unconstitutional. From the perspective of US history, it could have been worse. If not for a colourful little episode during the Civil War, Trump may have had the leeway to go bigger, putting himself on actual money. But he can’t — thanks to a ...

Now that Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed presumptive candidate Joe Biden, it’s worth considering just how profoundly Sanders seems to have shifted the policy landscape. Despite the rise of inequality and other long-term economic problems, a majority of Democrats probably felt too comfortable with the current system to embrace revolutionary change. Although the Sanders ...

The US government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) provides forgivable loans to small businesses, mainly to pay their employees during the current sudden stop. News that it has run out of money is more than a big setback to the well-being of the economy. It’s also a serious health obstruction and, unlike many related concerns, one that can and should be ...

A series of dispatches from America in the age of Covid-19. The hunt for a roll of toilet paper: It’s now one of those shared experiences in American life we will all one day tell our grandchildren about, just before they infect us with some new virus. None of the delivery services here in Berkeley, California, even pretend that they ...

The US Space Force — which has been dismissed variously as a fantasy, a presidential folly and a prospective Pentagon turf war — was finally set to launch for real on Saturday — as 86 newly minted space warriors graduate from the Air Force Academy. The surprise in this space startup, so far, is that most of the bad things ...

Judging by the number of motor vehicles being stolen in New York City right now, cars have become no less desirable during a lockdown. Burglary rates aren’t a reliable economic indicator, but they’re far from the only sign that car demand could prove more resilient than might appear from recent record sales declines. If unemployment doesn’t surge even higher — ...

President Donald Trump’s reopening guidelines for states are more cautious than you might expect from someone who consistently calls for a rapid return to economic activity. The “gating” metrics that states are supposed to meet before reopening are fairly robust: They should see a two-week downward trajectory of flu and Covid-like symptoms, and a two-week downward trajectory of documented cases ...

The coronavirus pandemic and its devastating effect on the US economy has ensured that big government—the one that’s already spending some $4.7 trillion in the current fiscal year—is poised to get even larger. As in past crises that led to massive government interventions, new initiatives will largely stay in place once the business downturn ends to the long-term detriment of ...