Emphasizing foreign origins of a disease can have racist connotations and implications for how people understand their own risk of disease.
A taxi rank marshal sprays hand sanitiser on a commuter wearing a mask as a preventive measure as she arrives at the Wanderers taxi rank in Johannesburg.
Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images
Reactions in South Africa give little reason for hope that the virus will bring people closer together or trigger more energetic action against poverty.
Commuters outside Nairobi Railway Station wash their hands before entering the train station as a preventive measure against COVID-19.
Photo by Dennis Sigwe/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
There is no evidence that the coronavirus has evolved into a deadlier strain. It is almost certainly less lethal than initially reported, but that might mean there are more cases than we realised.
It’s a matter of scale.
Edward A. "Doc" Rogers/Library of Congress via AP
From the neighborhood to the newsroom to the White House, nobody stays silent during a health emergency. These terms are often mixed up, and it matters who is using them and when.
The federal government has activated its emergency response plan to deal with a spread of the coronavirus locally, in anticipation of it becoming a “pandemic”.
The virus that causes COVID-19 seems able to spread to anyone, anywhere.
NIAID/Flickr
While identifying a new disease by its place of origin seems intuitive, history shows that doing so can have serious consequences for the people that live there.
The declaration does not mean the risk to Canadians has changed, but it does mean Canada must step up to help those countries with weaker heath-care systems.
A man wearing a surgical mask makes a child wear one outside a hospital where a student who had been in Wuhan is kept in isolation in Thrissur, Kerala state, India.
AP Photo
The World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus to be a public health emergency on Jan. 30, 2020. Does the action really change anything? An expert answers four questions.
Kenyan health workers from port health services screen inbound travelers for temperatures at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
EPA/Daniel Irungu
The World Health Organization decided that the coronavirus outbreak in China is not a public health emergency of international concern. At least, not at the moment.
Once contentious, genomic editing is now heavily regulated by the World Health Organization and other governments.
(Shutterstock)
One year after the first CRISPR babies were announced, changes in policies and regulations have meant that there have been no new CRISPR announcements since.
World AIDS Day is observed annually in many countries to raise people’s awareness in the fight against HIV.
AP Photo/Themba Hadebe
Babies born with the HIV virus in their blood are at a turning point in the infection. With immediate treatment these children can develop much stronger immune systems to fight the virus.
Director of Koi Tū, the Centre for Informed Futures; former Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau