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The Trump administration’s Covid response seems increasingly to reflect a policy preference among some conservatives: Protect the elderly and let others try to get on with their lives. This thinking assumes that herd immunity will slow the pandemic if more younger people are infected. Many features of federal policy seem to be following this philosophy. It’s important to protect the old and the vulnerable, who are at the highest risk of severe illness and bad outcomes. But like most issues of medicine, it isn’t a binary choice. (Scott Gottlieb, 8/30)

We were startled and dismayed last week to learn that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a perplexing series of statements, had altered its testing guidelines to reduce the testing of asymptomatic people for the coronavirus. These changes by the C.D.C. will undermine efforts to end the pandemic, slow the return to normal economic, educational and social activities, and increase the loss of lives. (Harold Varmus and Rajiv Shah, 8/31)

Like most physicians, I considered March the starting line of a race, a race to learn as much as we could as quickly as we could about the novel coronavirus. The more we understood, I figured, the more lives would be saved. But we lost the race, falling behind nearly every other country in whatever metric used to measure success in fighting this virus. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now saying that its testing guidelines would exclude people who do not have COVID-19 symptoms, we can now say this as a country: We have not only lost the race because we failed to learn, we have quit trying to win. (David Weill, 9/1)

Distrust in science and common sense has reached an incredible level recently with publicity about QAnon, a group whose online numbers possibly total in the millions of followers. QAnon strongly opposes masks and vaccinations, and they accuse “Democratic elites” of “sex trafficking children and cannibalism.” QAnon also claims that these elites, led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, or Bill Gates, have manufactured this coronavirus to bring down Trump. (Michael Kitchell, 8/31)

The botanical product oleandrin, derived from the Nerium oleander plant, has hit the headlines because of a claim by a TV pillow pitchman that it might be an effective treatment for Covid-19. President Donald Trump has not officially given his support ("Is it something that people are talking about very strongly? We'll look at it. We'll look at it," he told a reporter last week.) (Kent Sepkowitz, 8/27)

Americans and American biomedical researchers have often prided themselves on conducting the best clinical research in the world. Yet with over six million Covid-19 cases and almost 183,00 deaths, the United States has produced little pathbreaking clinical research on treatments to reduce cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Even one of the most important U.S. studies to date, which showed that the antiviral drug remdesivir could reduce the time Covid-19 patients spent in the hospital to 11 days from about 15, had too few patients to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in mortality. (Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Cathy Zhang and Amaya Diana, 9/1)

As Covid-19 surges in some cities and across the country, it has subsided in New York City, where we live and work. Here, health care workers breathe collective sighs of relief, though we continue to do so through masks and behind face shields. Hospital hallways are empty, yet heavy with the sadness of lives lost. (Alexander El Sehamy and Gali Hashmonay, 9/1)

The mission of the U.S. Department of Labor, as spelled out in the congressional statute that created the agency, is “to assure so far as possible every working man and women in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions.” That’s a fairly straightforward mission to ensure that America’s workers are protected on the job and that workplaces are safe. Yet, the agency’s leaders, including Secretary Eugene Scalia, have profoundly failed on that front in “responding” — if one can even use such a word in this case — to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Paul Bland, 8/31)

Coronavirus cases already are spreading quickly among college students across the country even though classes have only just begun. It’s happening largely because young people don’t appear to take seriously the idea of not partying or gathering in large groups, even if they know their irresponsibility might force their schools to shut down. The coronavirus spread on campus speaks to a much bigger problem in America: the inability to grasp the concept of delayed gratification. The equation has always worked like this: People accept a relatively small amount of sacrifice and inconvenience to reap benefits and freedoms down the road. Some Americans, it seems, just can’t wrap their minds around the idea of waiting patiently, or sacrificing now, to make the pandemic disappear sooner. They want it all — now! (8/31)

The truth is we reopened too early. Bars should have remained closed. And if you had acted decisively to mandate masks, you would have saved lives. But “truth” has been hard to come by with the steady drumbeat of attacks on the press. As an elected official, I understand the temptation to lash out when criticized. And certainly, I’d love it if journalists only captured my best moments. The truth is, occasionally journalists get things wrong, like we all do. But not liking the facts that a newspaper accurately reports does not give you license to attack the men and women who are doing their job to provide the public with credible data. (Jen Jordan, 8/29)