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Apr 7 • 2 tweets • 1 min read
I wrote about a disease that reshaped the landscape of an Argentinian national park, decimating grazing herds, driving giant birds away, changing patterns of vegetation, and ousting the puma from its role as chief terraformer.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
Weirdly refreshing to write about a completely different epidemic with no connection to COVID... except for one detail that appears two-thirds of the way through this piece and that caused me to groan-laugh mid-interview.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

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More from @edyong209

Ed Yong Profile picture
Mar 30
A nice thing: Blurbs have been slowly coming in for my upcoming book and, dear lord, they've exceeded my wildest expectations.

I'm so grateful to these wonderful people for their kind words, and just delighted that writers whose work I deeply admire enjoyed AN IMMENSE WORLD. 1/
A few more... 2/
And a personal favorite that I'm not allowed to have on the jacket but will live forever in my heart. 3/
Read 5 tweets
Ed Yong Profile picture
Mar 17
🚨I wrote a short piece about the COVID funding collapse--the latest example of the panic-neglect cycle that public health people have bemoaned for decades, and that's now spinning at frankly absurd speed *in the middle of a pandemic*. 1/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
I first wrote about the panic-neglect cycle in 2017. At the time, I assumed it would operate on a timescale of years, and that neglect would set in AFTER the crisis was over. Oh, sweet summer child. *pats 2017 self on the head and ruffles his hair* 2/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
For context, what we're seeing now with COVID funding mirrors what we saw with Zika and Ebola. Same arguments.

When thinking about infectious diseases, vital preparations for the future are routinely seen as unnecessary excesses of the present.

3/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 7 tweets
Ed Yong Profile picture
Mar 16
The govt and its advisors have spent months assuring people that "we have the tools".

Maybe I should write an explainer about what the words "we" and "have" mean.

Immunocompromised people: Can we at least get easy and equitable access to treatments before you decide to give up on preventing infections? theatlantic.com/health/archive…

Govt: What if we do the latter while making the former *more* difficult?
This is the same panic-neglect cycle that dooms us to a perpetual state of pandemic unpreparedness. It's truly amazing to watch it unfold *in the middle of a pandemic.*

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 5 tweets
Ed Yong Profile picture
Mar 10
A lot of people are freaking out because of these stories about giant "parachuting" spiders. First, you're fine, and they're pretty.

But also, this is entirely the wrong visual. What spiders actually do is much, much cooler. 1/ Image
A LOT of spiders can travel through the air by "ballooning". But they're not catching the wind with a big web.

They're riding a planetary electric field.👇🏽2/

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
This story is in AN IMMENSE WORLD. As is the time I said "Yes!" when a scientist asked if I wanted to see her giant spiders, and then ended up in a large room with several dozen free-range spiders and a lot of silk and flies in my hair.

bookshop.org/books/an-immen…
Read 4 tweets
Ed Yong Profile picture
Mar 9
A few people have argued that the questions posed in this piece can be simply & fully answered with "the GOP" or "duh, Trump" or some such. To them, I ask: Where does one get a mattress so comfortable that one can fall asleep for 14 straight months?

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
My criticisms of the past administration can be found in... honestly, just take your pick from my back-catalogue, but perhaps start with the 212-word sentence here. Note, though, that even in this piece, the politics are just part of the bigger picture.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
My point is this: Some folks think polarization is the fundamental problem in the US pandemic response. I disagree. It's an accelerant, for problems that are deeper and older. Politics shape how those problems manifest. But the rot is in the rootstock.

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 6 tweets
Ed Yong Profile picture
Mar 8
🚨To mark 2 yrs of the pandemic, I wrote about the sheer scale of death, and how/why so much of the US has normalized to it.

The official toll nears 1 million. The NYT called 100k deaths an “incalculable loss”.

What is 10 times incalculable? 1/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
First, some comparisons. There were more recorded US COVID deaths:
- last Fri than deaths from Katrina
- on any 2 recent weekdays than deaths in 9/11
- last month than from flu in a bad season
- in 2yrs than deaths from 40+yrs of AIDS. 2/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Yes, many countries were badly hit but 🇺🇸 continues to be exceptional. COVID slashed 2 yrs off US life expectancy, the largest such decline in almost a century. And unlike much of Europe, that reduced lifespan didn’t bounce back last year. 3/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 19 tweets

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