Geologists divide up Earth's history into eons, eons into eras, eras into periods. Someday, I imagine, cultural geologists will divide the history of the pandemic into time slices as well. But at the moment, in the late spring of 2022, the boundaries still seem too close to read in sharp detail. For now, each of us has to draw our own provisional stratigraphy.
For me, January 2020 was the time of vague dread, followed by a February of preparing for the storm. March 2020 then arrived, bringing with it the horrible confirmation of just how bad the pandemic would be.
March 2020 to May 2021 was the age of hunkering down--and, for me, reporting like mad on vaccines and other scientific advances. May 2021 to July 2021 felt like the era of elation, followed by summer's disappointment of Delta. After an autumn lull, November marked start of the Omicron Period, which saw a giant spike of cases and deaths.
Geologists look for ways to divide one slice of time from another. A sprinkling of iridium, courtesy of an extinction-level asteroid impact 66 million years ago, marks the end of the Cretaceous Period and the start of the Eocene. It's hard to see any such dividing line marking the end of the Omicron Period. After peaking in January, cases in the United States dropped dramatically. But then they bumped up again in April, thanks to the evolution of some even fitter Omicron subvariants. The spring 2022 surge seems to have peaked. Strikingly, the rate of hospitalizations has remained far below that of the Omicron peak. Maybe the Omicron Period is over, but maybe not.
And if we are indeed entering a new chapter in pandemic history, we can't yet know what it is. Hopefully it won't be marked by the rise of a new, highly virulent strain. Instead, the coronavirus may just go circulating at a low level for a long time, repeatedly infecting us. Vaccines and previous immunity will reduce the damage that these repeated infections cause, but it's hard to say what it might mean for Long Covid. Millions of people already have it; how many millions more will join the ranks?
As for my own work, I feel as if I'm gliding into a new era. There's still plenty of Covid news to work on, and I have a couple stories in the works. But there's also enough bandwidth left over to take on some other subjects.
Not surprisingly, some of the stories I've worked on have been "Covid-adjacent." For example, here is a story I wrote about using machine learning to pinpoint animal viruses that might be especially prone to cause the next pandemic. I also wrote about how climate change is going to move animal hosts into new ranges, where their viruses will have the opportunity to hop into new hosts--raising the risk of even more new outbreaks.
But I've also had time to dive into some other subjects that I haven't really explored since the pandemic started. Here is a story I wrote about the discovery of a human-like tooth in a cave in Laos, dating back 150,000 years ago. It could potentially be key to understanding our enigmatic extinct cousins, the Denisovans. (I also took the opportunity in the piece to sing the praises of fossil teeth. They may not look as spectacular as a dinosaur femur, but every molar and incisor is an exquisite chronicle of evolution.)
I've also had a chance to read more books and even write a review. The book is by Frans de Waal, a primatologist who has done a lot in his research and books to change how we think about our fellow apes. His new book, Different, tackles the hot topic of gender. Although I have some reservations about parts of the book, overall I highly recommend it for a revelatory look at the roles of males and females in the world of primates.
I've even had some time to explore ideas for a new book--more about that later! Meanwhile, I had the honor of giving a lecture about Life's Edge for the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities at Yale. You can watch the video--with lots of delicious details about death-defying water bears--here.
In May, I received another honor: Poland's Smart Book of the Year Award for A Planet of Viruses. I gave a little thank-you speech at the virtual award ceremony (I turn up at about 25:35). That was followed by a longer interview as part of the Copernicus Festival, which you can watch here.
That’s all for now. Stay safe!
You can information and ordering links for all my books here. You can also follow me on Twitter, Goodreads, LinkedIn, and Facebook. If someone shared this email with you, you can subscribe to it here.
For me, January 2020 was the time of vague dread, followed by a February of preparing for the storm. March 2020 then arrived, bringing with it the horrible confirmation of just how bad the pandemic would be.March 2020 to May 2021 was the age of hunkering down--and, for me, reporting like mad on vaccines and other scientific advances. May 2021 to July 2021 felt like the era of elation, followed by summer's disappointment of Delta. After an autumn lull, November marked start of the Omicron Period, which saw a giant spike of cases and deaths.
Geologists look for ways to divide one slice of time from another. A sprinkling of iridium, courtesy of an extinction-level asteroid impact 66 million years ago, marks the end of the Cretaceous Period and the start of the Eocene. It's hard to see any such dividing line marking the end of the Omicron Period. After peaking in January, cases in the United States dropped dramatically. But then they bumped up again in April, thanks to the evolution of some even fitter Omicron subvariants. The spring 2022 surge seems to have peaked. Strikingly, the rate of hospitalizations has remained far below that of the Omicron peak. Maybe the Omicron Period is over, but maybe not.
And if we are indeed entering a new chapter in pandemic history, we can't yet know what it is. Hopefully it won't be marked by the rise of a new, highly virulent strain. Instead, the coronavirus may just go circulating at a low level for a long time, repeatedly infecting us. Vaccines and previous immunity will reduce the damage that these repeated infections cause, but it's hard to say what it might mean for Long Covid. Millions of people already have it; how many millions more will join the ranks?
As for my own work, I feel as if I'm gliding into a new era. There's still plenty of Covid news to work on, and I have a couple stories in the works. But there's also enough bandwidth left over to take on some other subjects.
Not surprisingly, some of the stories I've worked on have been "Covid-adjacent." For example, here is a story I wrote about using machine learning to pinpoint animal viruses that might be especially prone to cause the next pandemic. I also wrote about how climate change is going to move animal hosts into new ranges, where their viruses will have the opportunity to hop into new hosts--raising the risk of even more new outbreaks.
But I've also had time to dive into some other subjects that I haven't really explored since the pandemic started. Here is a story I wrote about the discovery of a human-like tooth in a cave in Laos, dating back 150,000 years ago. It could potentially be key to understanding our enigmatic extinct cousins, the Denisovans. (I also took the opportunity in the piece to sing the praises of fossil teeth. They may not look as spectacular as a dinosaur femur, but every molar and incisor is an exquisite chronicle of evolution.)
I've also had a chance to read more books and even write a review. The book is by Frans de Waal, a primatologist who has done a lot in his research and books to change how we think about our fellow apes. His new book, Different, tackles the hot topic of gender. Although I have some reservations about parts of the book, overall I highly recommend it for a revelatory look at the roles of males and females in the world of primates.
I've even had some time to explore ideas for a new book--more about that later! Meanwhile, I had the honor of giving a lecture about Life's Edge for the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities at Yale. You can watch the video--with lots of delicious details about death-defying water bears--here.
In May, I received another honor: Poland's Smart Book of the Year Award for A Planet of Viruses. I gave a little thank-you speech at the virtual award ceremony (I turn up at about 25:35). That was followed by a longer interview as part of the Copernicus Festival, which you can watch here.
That’s all for now. Stay safe!
You can information and ordering links for all my books here. You can also follow me on Twitter, Goodreads, LinkedIn, and Facebook. If someone shared this email with you, you can subscribe to it here.
If you'd like to learn more about my books, you can visit my web site
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