The Atlantic
Or is it still risky to be optimistic?
January 29, 2021
People are getting vaccinated, but it’s not happening quickly enough. Case counts are dropping fast, but a near-record number of people are still sick. Do we have reason for optimism? Or could optimism still get us in trouble?
Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer, staff writers and co-founders of the COVID Tracking Project at
The Atlantic, join James Hamblin and Maeve Higgins this week to discuss. Listen to their conversation here:
Subscribe to
Social Distance on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or another podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they’re published.
This is the Jan. 28, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
The day before President Joe Biden took office, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce one of the country’s most influential business groups, and a longtime opponent of aggressive climate policies made a seemingly major announcement: It would support a market-based approach to slashing emissions. American climate policy, the Chamber said, “should recognize the urgent need for action.”
But three days later as the Biden administration prepared to pause new oil and gas leases on public lands and waters the group released a statement reading, in part, “There is never a good time to disrupt domestic energy production.”
The Physics of Covid-19–If You Squeeze the Coronavirus, Does It Shatter?, asks Katherine Wu for The New York Times. –Scientists are exploring the physics of viruses, to understand how these pathogens assemble themselves and might be rent apart.
The Pandemic Is Finally Softening. Will That Last? asks Robinson Meyer for The Atlantic –The pandemic is softening, but the reprieve may not last. “In other words, the numbers are finally moving in the right direction. But while the trajectory of the pandemic is encouraging, the overall level of infection is staggering”
Physicists Study How Universes Might Bubble Up and Collide, reports Charlie Wood for Quanta. –Since they can’t prod actual universes as they inflate and bump into each other in the hypothetical multiverse, physicists are studying digital and physical analogs of the process. f our universe is a bubble that inflated inside a larger multiverse, it might bear scars from collisions with nearby bubbles. “What lies
The Atlantic
The Atlantic Daily: The Pandemic Is Finally Softening
The seven-day average of cases is down a third from its mid-January peak. But the U.S. needs to quickly distribute vaccines before another surge begins.
January 27, 2021
Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.
After weeks of brutal expansion, the pandemic is finally beginning to let up. The seven-day average of cases is down a third from its mid-January peak. But the U.S. needs to quickly distribute vaccines before another surge begins.