Katherine J. Wu, Ph.D.
6,753 posts
Katherine J. Wu, Ph.D.
@KatherineJWu
staff writer @TheAtlantic, covering science. also senior producer @storycollider, senior editor @Open_Notebook. (she/her)
- Hearing a lot of “I don’t care about protecting the unvaccinated.” That’s unfair. Not everyone who is unvaccinated has chosen to be, nor are they necessarily anti-vaccine. 50 million kids are still ineligible in the US. Billions of people around the world have no access. 1/3
- another surge seems on its way. the magnitude and timing are unclear - but what I'm most worried about isn't the offense the virus will hit us with. but the lack of defense we'll mount to meet it. I wrote about how America is woefully unprepared. 1/
- In our attempt to contain one virus, we silenced several others. I wrote about this year's bizarre flu season—our quietest in years—and what it could mean for our future. 1/4
- Yes, you can get COVID-19 after being vaccinated. But it's different from getting COVID-19 as an unvaccinated person: Your body is equipped with defenses it didn't have before. A breakthrough does NOT put your body back at its immunological square one.
- Goal: Achieve the fortitude of this beetle, which can resist forces 39,000x its own body weight, which is about the fold increase of stress that 2020 has brought to our lives.
- I suppose I will die on this hill, or one of many others, but a quick reminder that at the FDA, emergency authorization is not the same as "approval"
- Some professional news: I'm joining the Atlantic this month as a staff writer on the science desk. I am so excited to be a part of this extraordinary team, which includes some of the very people who inspired me to pursue writing in the first place. 1/2
- It took so long to raise awareness about long COVID—with the U.S.'s new focus on severe disease, is it about to slip away from us again? I wrote about long COVID's unknowns, and why we need to push on them more than ever.
- I wrote about how our nation's leadership is once again turning public health into a personal gamble—one that not everyone can afford to take. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
- (1/14) I wrote about the trap of "mildness" and how it's hamstringing our approach to tempering the Omicron wave.
- I'm thrilled that we're getting bivalent vaccines that will help our bodies better combat Omicron subvariants. But with so many other mitigation measures gone, the U.S. is putting a lot of pressure on vaccines to hold the line against the virus.
- Sorry I ignored You on LinkedIn, I often Forget it exists
- Hundreds of millions of coronavirus tests have been run in labs across the country since the pandemic first hit. Behind every single one of those tests is a team of people. I wrote about a few of them, and the herculean efforts they've put in. 1/
