COVID-19
The Forum is our signature feature, bringing writers, scholars, and activists into dialogue about fundamental issues and pressing challenges.
This special series, Thinking in a Pandemic, collects all our COVID-19 coverage in one place—the latest analysis from doctors and epidemiologists, philosophers and economists, legal scholars and historians, activists and citizens.
A collection of these essays appears in print in Thinking in a Pandemic and The Politics of Care.
How Did We Fare on COVID-19?
To restore public trust and prepare for the next pandemic, we need a reckoning with the U.S. experience—what worked, and what didn’t.
How Not to Do Industrial Policy
Instead of pouring public funds into private industry—as the U.S. did with COVID-19 vaccines—we must build public capacity and prioritize public objectives.
Escape from the Closed Loop
Protests in China are shining a light not only on the country’s draconian population management but restrictions on workers everywhere.
Up from Federalism
In the United States, the division of power between state and national government hurts democracy rather than helps it.
How the Other Half Dies
Until COVID-19, tuberculosis killed more people each year than any other infectious disease. Its rising toll is increasingly fueled by mass incarceration.
Reaping What We Sow
Making the issue a matter of personality traits can distract us from the historical and material origins of our present crisis.
Why We Don’t Act
Why do we fail to predict—and even more importantly, prevent—social and political crises?
The Lives of Others
Combatting the West’s pandemic self-interest requires humanism in addition to humility.
Public Policy after Pandemic
The United States wasn’t prepared for COVID-19, despite decades of warnings. What must we do to plan more effectively?
What Health Care Should Be
Physicians have been fighting for health justice for decades. To succeed, we need practical models for collectively remaking our systems of care.
The Inescapable Dilemma of Infectious Disease
Our mastery over microbes is only a few decades old. It is also far more precarious than we imagine.
The Long-Term Safety Argument over COVID-19 Vaccines
Concerns about long-term side effects have helped fuel vaccine hesitancy. An immunologist explains why we can be confident in vaccine safety.
Hospitals Need More Than Vaccine Mandates
If we want to address vaccine hesitancy in the health care system, we must treat its lowest paid workers better.
Why Aren’t We Talking about Farmers in India?
They are fighting in a global war over the future of agriculture. Modi is chocking the debate.
Science Doesn’t Work That Way
Its authority derives not from unbiased scientists but from the institutions and norms that structure their work.
COVID and the Climate Crisis Can’t Be Separated
—and nor can our health and the health of animals. An earth day reading list.
Spectacle and Social Murder in Pandemic India
Narendra Modi’s government has used lockdown to force further neoliberalization and continue its assault on pro-democracy activists.
The Politics of the Anthropocene in a World After Neoliberalism
Can today’s crises inspire action at the scales required to think about planetary sustainability?
Get our newsletter
Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975
Registered 501(c)(3) organization
Help Us Stay Paywall-Free
Become a Member