COVID-19

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.

Sweden’s Relaxed Approach to COVID-19 Isn’t Working

With few restrictions and no tracing of the disease’s spread, the government is relying upon Swedish character and traditions to see it through the pandemic.

The Virus Has Seized the Means of Production

Virology is often confused with the invisible workings of capital.

COVID-19 Crisis Capitalism Comes to Real Estate

Proptech is leading to new forms of housing injustice in ways that increase the power of landlords and further disempower tenants and those seeking shelter.

Not Persuasion, But Power: Against “Making the Case”

How can we “make the case” to a society that doesn’t have ears to hear it?

Models v. Evidence

COVID-19 has revealed a contest between two competing philosophies of scientific knowledge. To manage the crisis, we must draw on both.

Deaths of Despair

Boston Review talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton about COVID-19, the relationship between culture, financial hardship, and health, and why capitalism’s flaws are proving fatal for America’s working class. 

Trump, WHO, and Half a Century of Global Health Austerity

Any attempt to revive solidarity between rich and poor nations must begin by recapturing the commitment to social and economic rights on which the World Health Organization was founded.

Hydroxychloroquine and the Political Polarization of Science

How a drug became an object lesson in political tribalism.

COVID-19 and the Color Line

St. Louis is a microcosm of American structural racism.

Resisting Distance Learning

Technological changes threaten the interests of students and teachers alike.

The Right Not to Work

Faculty voices must be heard as decisions are made about reopening.

Higher Education in the Age of Coronavirus

COVID-19 will accelerate a number of troubling longer-term trends—including less public funding and a migration of courses online.

International Labor Solidarity in a Time of Pandemic

A new geoeconomic order is creating opportunities for organizing along supply chains.

Technocracy After COVID-19

Crisis management only blurs ever more the boundary between politics and technical expertise.

The New Politics of Care

The right response to COVID-19 is to rebuild our economy from the ground up, putting people to work in a massive jobs program to secure the public health of all.

What Would Boccaccio Say About COVID-19?

The Florentine humanist’s description of the Black Death in the Decameron remains one of the most thoughtful accounts of a society living under a pandemic.

COVID-19 Requires More Democracy, Not Less

We must take very seriously the responsibility to judge our leaders’ policies. When they fail us, we must act as leaders ourselves.

Ethics at a Distance

We may feel individually powerless to contribute to social transformation. But each of us bears responsibility for helping to create a more just world.

The Urgent Need for Civil Justice Reform

We face a surge of civil litigation in the wake of COVID-19—from eviction fights to loan disputes—but the system has languished in dire need of reform for decades.

Body Politics

What does solidarity look like when our bodies cannot come together, in public, to agitate for a better world?

Let the People Go

States should release from prison far more than the very small percentage of low-level, nonviolent offenders they hold.

COVID-19 Around the World

From Brazil to Beijing, we take a look at how different continents are coping with the crisis.

Abortions Don’t Drain Hospital Resources

A doctor’s case against COVID-19 abortion bans.

COVID-19 and the Revival of the “Welfare Queen” Myth

Conservatives have long been sounding the alarm about “undeserving” people receiving public assistance.

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