Many countries reacted slowly and inadequately to the spread of COVID-19. Some critics have said this is due to initial reports of the disease, which indicated that it mainly affected older populations. “Older adults are not some kind of expendable commodity,” said Nancy Morrow-Howell, the Betty Bofinger Brown Distinguished Professor of Social Policy at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and an international leader in gerontology.
At a time when the world is focused on a global health pandemic, Brian Carpenter, a professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says it may be difficult to grieve for and memorialize an individual. But we must.
The $2 trillion plan to prop up a pandemic-reeling United States, amid the news that there were 3.3 million unemployment claims lodged in the previous week, is expected to pass the House on March 27. An array of Washington University in St. Louis experts offer perspectives on the plan.
As the coronavirus spreads across the United States, larger cities, like New York and Seattle, are dealing with increasing numbers of infections and deaths daily. However, less populated rural areas are not immune from the disease, say two public health experts at Washington University in St. Louis, and controlling it in rural America presents a unique set of challenges.
Tim McBride, the Bernard Becker Professor at Washington University in St. Louis’ Brown School and a leading health economist, said that the coronavirus outbreak will exacerbate problems in Missouri’s public health systems, which were already underfunded relative to most of the rest of the country, as well as issues facing low-income residents with challenges accessing medical care.
We must consider this coronavirus crisis as a wake-up call to prioritize equity and challenge ourselves to consider how to better serve historically underserved communities, says a public health expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
The U.S. Senate, with significant prodding from the Trump administration, is working on a plan to directly provide cash assistance to millions of Americans amid the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts in economics and finance from Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School weigh in on how it could help housing and households and maybe pay some bills — but still not answer the problems at hand.
As schools and entertainment venues close due to the coronavirus outbreak, many of us are seeing our social circles reduced quite significantly. An expert on social support at Washington University in St. Louis offers a few evidence-based suggestions for thriving during household isolation.
In Giovanni Boccaccio’s classic “Decameron,” ten young Florentines flee the bubonic plague of 1348, which devastated their city and killed one-third to one-half the population of Europe. The book also represents “one of the oldest and most celebrated examples of social distancing,” says Rebecca Messbarger, professor of Italian and founding director of the Medical Humanities program in Arts & Sciences.
The built environment often shapes the spread of disease. Many early cases of COVID-19, the 2019 novel coronavirus, centered on a seafood market in Wuhan City, China. Airports, hospitals and other gathering points can easily become sites of virus transmission. But as the world grapples with the COVID-19 outbreak, Hongxi Yin, associate professor in advanced building systems and architectural design at Washington University in St. Louis, is exploring whether using portable furnaces to sterilize contaminated building exhaust might help to stem the contagion.
