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The Covid-19 virus has killed over 200,000 people, overwhelmed health systems and confined billions of people in their homes. Large sections of the world economy have been locked down. We are desperate for a vaccine, and research is underway around the world toward that goal. However, the challenge facing us has been underestimated. Vaccines often take 10 years to bring to market. We want a new vaccine as fast as possible, where each month matters. (Susan Athey, Michael Kremer, Christopher Snyder and Alex Tabarrok, 5/4)

Scientists across America are working hard to develop treatments for and vaccines against the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Unfortunately, several activist groups are making their jobs harder. (Fred Reinhart, 5/4)

For countries battling the coronavirus pandemic, Sweden sets a seductive example. While the world’s biggest economies have shut down, one small, well-governed Scandinavian country has allowed most businesses to stay open. The strategy apparently relies on “herd immunity,” in which a critical mass of infection occurs in lower-risk populations that ultimately thwarts transmission. But the reality is not so simple for Sweden. Government authorities there seem to be for this strategy, then against it, then for it again if the data look promising. (Ian Bremmer, Cliff Kupchan and Scott Rosenstein, 5/4)

Years of my cancer research work came to a grinding halt on March 13. I certainly wasn’t alone. Researchers across the country had to shutter their labs when universities suspended research that was considered “non-essential” to follow social distancing and help slow the spread of Covid-19. (Deborah Watkins Bruner, 5/1)

Here’s a mind-boggling plan to safely open the economy and deal with a COVID-19 surge in the fall. Within six months, ramp up testing to 30 million Americans a week and create a giant COVID Community Healthcare Corps to do massive contact tracing. That’s at the core of a “National Covid-19 Testing Action Plan” proposed by experts assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation. (Gregory J. Wallance, 4/29)

Fear, economic distress and isolation could trigger anxiety and depression in anyone. For people who have opioid use disorders, the coronavirus pandemic is a tinderbox of potential triggers and double binds. Disjointed, often punitive approaches to assistance could leave many addicts at heightened risk of relapse or greater exposure to the virus. For more than a decade, I led a double life, fueled by heroin and mental illness. There was nothing recreational about my use — no dinner parties with pairings of Dilaudid (hydromorphone) and Chilean sea bass, no afternoons of shooting up and playing Ultimate Frisbee. I lost a lot of friends to overdoses and tried many times to stop before I finally got sober 12 years ago. (David Poses, 5/1)

Since nearly half of all patients with severe respiratory failure who are placed on a ventilator die, we tend to declare victory if a COVID-19 patient comes off the machine alive. But the reality is that many survivors of severe respiratory failure and other forms of critical illness fare poorly, even if they do beat their underlying disease. Their likelihood of developing PTSD, depression or anxiety is similar to that of soldiers returning from combat. (Marissa Wagner Meryman, 5/4) 

In the months and years ahead, we’re going to have to train ourselves to be especially attentive to the mental health needs of our first responders to this pandemic. In the aftermath of a disaster, they’re at a far greater risk for post-traumatic stress, substance abuse and major depression than the average civilian. Yet seeing themselves as vulnerable is disruptive — antithetical, even — to their self-concept. They’re the healers in this equation, not the ones who need to be healed. It wasn’t just my friend who taught this to me. Last week NBC ran an interview with the sister of Lorna M. Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital who died by suicide on April 26. (Jennifer Senior, 5/3)

Almost 80 years ago, America faced an enormous health crisis. The conflagration of World War II was spreading across the globe, creating a dire need for nurses. In response, we created a program called the Nurse Corps. From 1943 to 1948, 124,000 nurses got expedited training to provide life-saving care to soldiers, sailors, and civilians worldwide. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is creating another nightmare shortage of front-line health care workers. It’s time to revive the Nurse Corps for the modern age. (Ivy Love, 5/3)

Last Tuesday, President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to “take all appropriate action . . . to ensure that meat and poultry processors continue operations.” Although technically the executive order neither forces plants to open nor compels workers to show up, it reveals the president’s utter disregard for plant workers who could face a high risk of contracting COVID-19 from workplaces contaminated with the coronavirus. (Margot J. Pollans, 5/4)