In most cases, the danger of transmitting COVID-19 makes avoiding large gatherings a no-brainer. Could the social changes the protestors are demanding lead to long-term health benefits that are worth the short-term risks?

If we want to achieve herd immunity to COVID-19, is the shortcut just to mingle without wearing masks, get a lot of us sick — and let a lot of people die?

The world is going to need billions and billions of vaccines. Who will make them, and where will they come from?

A key to staying safe from COVID-19 is contact tracing — breaking the chain of transmission from person to person. Kelly Driscoll, head of the Community Tracing Collaborative in Massachusetts, explains how contact tracing works and what it can do to block the spread of the virus.

We are definitely not out of the woods yet with COVID-19, but communities across the world have either eased their lockdowns already or are planning to do so within the next few weeks. Michael Osterholm, a professor of public health advising the state of New York on its reopening plan, explains how this pandemic will play out.

This isn’t the first pandemic humanity has faced. From the black death to Spanish flu, from AIDS to Ebola; we’ve been here before. But historian Mark Honigsbaum, author of The Pandemic Century, says that the complacency and hubris of scientific experts keep preventing us from learning from the past.

Researchers are moving at unprecedented speed, but they’re still struggling to understand this pandemic. What does the novel coronavirus do to our bodies? Virologist Dr. Angela Rasmussen answers questions about what happens when we get COVID-19, the role immunity and how small scientific discoveries will be the key to understanding this disease.

The hunt to find antiviral drugs has pressed on as we await a vaccine. Remdesivier is the latest treatment that has been touted to help patients suffering from COVID-19. But does this and other antiviral drugs really help cure patients? Scientist Derek Angus helps answer this and understand what role Antiviral drugs play in our community.

David Wallace-Wells has rung the alarm about climate change in the pages of New York Magazine and his book, The Uninhabitable Earth. Now he’s trained his sights on our latest all-encompassing challenge, covid19. Wallace-Wells tells us why climate change and pandemics are related, and he’ll examine humanity’s ability to solve existential crises.

There are billions and billions of planets out there. What could they be like? Could any of them be alive? Exoplanet-hunter and undergraduate MIT student Charlotte Minsky is helping to vet discoveries of possible planets outside our solar system. She tells us what she finds, and how she finds them.