Prognosis: Breakthrough

So far, more than 300,000 people globally are known to have died because of the coronavirus. The U.S. is fast approaching the grim milestone of 100,000 fatalities. And as shocking as those numbers are, experts believe there are actually many more deaths we’re not counting. We need to understand how fast, and in what groups, mortality is rising, in order to fine-tune the policies that govern our response to the virus. Jason Gale reports that experts are looking past the official count to find other ways to investigate just how many people are dying.

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Knowing how many people are being tested for coronavirus is essential for getting an accurate picture of the spread of the virus. But the government hasn’t readily provided this data. Instead, experts, media outlets and even the Trump administration have turned to a surprising source for these numbers: A volunteer effort by a team of journalists, called the Covid Tracking Project. Emma Court reports on what we're learning from the project.

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There's an innovative, but risky way we could speed up development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Some scientists argue we should intentionally infect volunteers with the coronavirus to get a vaccine sooner. How would it work? Today's special episode is a collaboration with Tradeoffs, a podcast about our costly, complicated and counter-intuitive health care system. Tradeoffs' Dan Gorenstein explores how scientists could ethically and safely infect people to speed up the fight against COVID-19.

Subscribe to the Tradeoffs podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Or check them out at tradeoffs.org.

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There’s a growing public health argument about how people should calculate risk when it comes to social distancing. Many states are now lifting stay-at-home restrictions, summer is around the corner, and people in the third month of what many hoped would be a weeks-long disruption are desperate to visit friends and get outside. That means we will be socializing a lot more--in many cases, without clear guidelines as to what’s really risky. Kristen V. Brown reports that as we learn more about how the virus spreads, and what constitutes risky behavior, messaging from experts will have to become a little more nuanced than just “stay home, stay safe.”

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Calls continue to mount for the release of inmates at risk of COVID-19 infection as cases rise at correctional facilities across the country. So far, 70 percent of inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Oakdale Federal Correctional Complex, a low-security prison about 200 miles west of New Orleans, is one of the federal prisons hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Jordan Gass-Poore’ reports on what is being done to combat the spread of the disease in the prison population.

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Covid-19 has sparked an unprecedented mobilization of researchers looking to create a drug that can stem the spread of the virus. Globally, drug developers are working on as many as 100 experimental vaccines. But as nations rush to ease lockdowns and restart economies, some countries seem to want to secure early supplies of a vaccine for themselves. James Paton reported on efforts to democratize international access to vaccines, and the dangers of creating immunization gaps.

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The Internet has been teeming with theories about the origin of the coronavirus. Scientists have been saying for more than three months that it most likely originated in a species of bat found in the south of China, and then managed to somehow jump into people. But alternative explanations have been floated. United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly blamed China, and specifically a laboratory in Wuhan that was researching dangerous viruses. Jason Gale talked to a World Health Organization scientist to tease out the most plausible explanation for where the virus came from.

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The tedious and time-consuming practice of contact tracing is seen as an essential ingredient for suppressing the coronavirus around the world; but not every country has invested in it. The World Health Organization has praised Germany for its contact tracing practices. The country has about a quarter the deaths of neighboring France, despite a more flexible lockdown. Last weekend it continued its cautious move toward pandemic normalcy by letting restaurants re-open. Naomi Kresge reports on the Würzburg region, where armies of tracers are fighting the virus with old-fashioned tools.

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The aviation industry is wrestling with ways to control the coronavirus and get people back to flying. Airports have seen a 90 percent drop in passengers since mid-March. But as states ease lockdown restrictions, more people are expected to fly. Airports today are starting to make changes in the hopes that passengers will be safer as they fly. Justin Bachman reports on what it looks like to fly during a pandemic, and how air travel may change going forward.

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When Covid-19 hit, Gilead Sciences Inc. had enough of its experimental drug remdesivir ready to test and start manufacturing it at a larger scale. That's because it had started stockpiling not just the drug, but its ingredients, at the first hint there may be a new coronavirus. Robert Langreth reports on why the company was able to act early to prepare for a pandemic when so many businesses and institutions did not.

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