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The first outbreak of polio in the United States struck Rutland County, Vermont, in the summer of 1894. The disease began with fever, sore throat, and fatigue; it sometimes went on to damage the [...]

In late March, Scott Aberegg, a critical-care doctor at the University of Utah, was eating lunch in his hospital cafeteria. On his phone, he noticed an e-mail that was circulating among the [...]

Beth saw her first dead body of the day just as she was leaving the emergency department. Earlier, she’d admitted a patient with the coronavirus; now she was on her way to an upstairs doctor’s [...]

Even before the pandemic, American health care was in trouble. Although it is the most expensive system in the world, with a cost roughly equivalent to Germany’s G.D.P., it has delivered variable [...]

Two weeks ago, the global coronavirus pandemic and America’s struggle with racist policing looked like separate crises. But there can be no doubt that the overlap between these two crises has [...]

As this wave of the coronavirus starts to slow, I can’t help but notice that many of the people still getting infected are those who don’t have the luxury of distance—those who, by necessity or [...]

Among the patients I care for at the hospital is a young woman recovering from covid-19. To keep her blood oxygenated, she needs a device called a non-rebreather mask. The mask is connected by a [...]

A woman and her husband are admitted to my ward; before the coronavirus, they were healthy, enjoying morning walks and evening cocktails. Now, while her breathing improves each day, his declines. [...]

Almost certainly, the density of New York City has played a major role in the spread of the coronavirus. While it circulated among us, millions of New Yorkers touched the same subway turnstiles [...]

Right now, the most striking feature of the hospital might be the difference between the world outside and the world within. Outside, New York—America’s largest and densest city—is a ghost town. [...]