For some, COVID-19 has meant grief, for others inconvenience. But the year has made us ask: Should we go back to “normal” when the future arrives? Protesters demanding more resources for public health and against social inequality, Madrid, Spain, 27 Septmber 2020 (AP...
COVID-19 left me in limbo in the United States, full of fear and anger. Then I returned home to China to face criticism before reuniting with my family. An empty John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (All photos by Jasmine Li) So this is where I am going...
The coronavirus pandemic has put strains on students, their families, schools, entire communities. But Jasmine Li, a Chinese student at Westover School in the United States, provides a first-person account of the special difficulties facing foreign nationals caught in limbo as COVID-19 triggered global travel restrictions. Li cannot return to her temporary home at school, and when she finally makes it home to China, she discovers some compatriots consider her a traitor and urge her to leave. Adolescence can be a difficult period of self-discovery, but Li’s painful experiences are the product of a globalized world that, in normal circumstances, offers extraordinary opportunities but which, during a pandemic, sees forgotten borders re-emerge. Ask each student to describe their most difficult moment during the pandemic. How do their experiences compare?
Experts had foreseen a coronavirus pandemic, but COVID-19 has still inflicted untold damage on the world. Will we draw the right lessons this time? A man walks past a poster warning that consuming wildlife is illegal, in Guangzhou, China, 25 May 2020. (EPA-EFE/ALEX...
The coronavirus has given us mountains of data and an escalating mortality toll. News Decoder correspondent Sarah Edmonds moves beyond real-time developments and the numbers to ask world-class experts — a lead investigator for one of the top vaccine trials, a research fellow at Cambridge University and an official at the World Health Organization — what lessons the world will draw from the pandemic. Often, solid reporting boils down to asking simple questions and then finding the right people for answers. Edmonds follows that script in her handling of a complex topic. A model for our students.
It can be hard for young men to step outside the “Man Box,” which pressures them to act a certain way. Here are questions to help step beyond. The above video was produced by Jesuit Social Services, which is based in Melbourne, Australia and operates under...
Most cities are built and governed by men. Experts are taking into account the needs of women as they reshape our urban spaces. Women collect water near Bhopal, India, 2 May 2020. (EPA-EFE/SANJEEV GUPTA) More than 83% of Egyptian women have been sexually harassed...
Worried that COVID-19 could hurt the fight against malaria, aid groups have redoubled efforts to save lives in Africa. The worst may have been avoided. Mobile clinic in Central African Republic treating people against malaria (Ton Koene/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)...
A Canadian tech firm and foundation have teamed up with an NGO in Rwanda to offer a chatbot that answers young people’s questions about sex. Screenshots of a smartphone with the IrindeBot chatbot (photo courtesy of Rival Technologies Inc) Talking about sex is...
Oil-rich Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy but spends little on healthcare, with dire consequences for its teeming population. Its census could help. A health clinic in Nigeria in 2008 (Ton Koene / VWPics via AP Images) This story won second prize in News...
Both the 1918 flu pandemic and COVID-19 struck during crucial U.S. elections, infecting the nation’s leaders. But in 1918, a world war was raging. A hospital in Kansas during the 1918 flu epidemic (Wikimedia Commons) After six months of sheltering in place due...
Black Americans are dying at a higher rate from COVID-19 than whites. “The Kids Are Alright” podcast looks at the disparities in mortality. “COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate, but it is infecting a society that does.” So states Sage...