Health

Science Amid Chaos: What Worked During the Pandemic? What Failed?

Published

1 year ago

March 14, 2025

Science Amid Chaos: What Worked During the Pandemic? What Failed?

Until 2020, few Americans needed to think about how viruses spread or how the human immune system works. The pandemic offered a painful crash course. Sometimes, it seemed that the science was evolving as quickly as the virus itself.

So The New York Times asked experts to revisit the nightmare. Of the most significant public health measures introduced during Covid, which have held up scientifically, and which turned out to be wrongheaded?

The question is particularly important now, because pandemics that could upend American lives are inevitable. One candidate has already surfaced: bird flu.

Perhaps the biggest lesson learned, several experts said, is that recommendations during any pandemic are necessarily based on emerging and incomplete information. But during Covid, federal agencies often projected more confidence in their assessments than was warranted.

Next time, the scientists said, officials should be more forthright about the uncertainties and prepare the public for guidance that may shift as the threat comes into clearer focus.

Rather than promote preventive measures as infallible solutions, they should also acknowledge that no single intervention is perfect — though many imperfect measures can build a bulwark.

If you venture out in a “huge, heavy rainstorm, your umbrella alone is not going to keep you from getting wet,” said Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne viruses at Virginia Tech.

“You need your umbrella; you need your boots; you need your waterproof pants and jacket; and you would probably try to avoid the puddles,” she said.

Vaccines

A victory, but officials oversold the benefits at first.

The mRNA vaccines were, in a sense, victims of their own unexpected success in clinical trials in 2020. Those results were spectacular: The shots warded off symptomatic illness caused by the original version of the coronavirus at miraculous rates.

But government officials had to walk back their enthusiasm as breakthrough infections with the Delta variant surged in the summer of 2021. Americans were told to get boosters. Then again, and again.

Federal health officials should have acknowledged at the start that the long-term effectiveness was unknown, said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University.

Mistrust over the safety and effectiveness of the Covid vaccines is now taking a toll on other immunizations, including those targeting childhood diseases like measles.

“Making claims early on that this was going to prevent all infections was, I think, a little bit of an overpromise” that eventually undermined public trust, said Saskia Popescu, an infection prevention expert at the University of Maryland.

Still, the vaccines saved an estimated 14 million lives just in the first year after their introduction.

Airborne Spread

Surfaces were not the problem. Indoor air was.

Disagreements among scientists about how the coronavirus traveled had profound ramifications for how Americans were told to protect themselves.

Early on, health officials insisted that the virus was spread through large droplets that were coughed or sneezed out by an infected person onto other people or objects. The “fomite” theory led to protocols that made little sense in retrospect.

Remember the plexiglass barriers during the Presidential debates? The face shields? Schools closed for cleaning days midway through the week. People were scrubbing down groceries and mail.

“The whole hygiene theater was terribly unfortunate,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota. It wasted millions of dollars and gave people a false sense of security.

Health agencies took months to admit that the virus was carried aloft by tiny droplets, called aerosols, that could be exhaled, traveling long distances indoors. Sadly, that insight initially led to another overreaction.

Some states closed down beaches and parks, and forbade interactions outdoors, even though “there’s good scientific evidence that outdoor events are lower risk,” Dr. Dean said.

Eventually, understanding that the virus was primarily floating indoors prompted the Biden administration to earmark funds for improved ventilation in schools.

Masking

It worked if you used the right masks, correctly.

As the pandemic spread in the United States, masking morphed from a public health intervention into a cultural flashpoint.

Assuming that the coronavirus traveled like the flu and worried that hospitals might not have enough resources, federal heath officials at first told the public that masks were not needed.

That advice was suddenly reversed once scientists learned that the coronavirus was airborne. Even so, officials initially recommended cloth masks — which are not very effective at keeping out airborne viruses — and did not endorse more protective N95 respirators until January 2022, well after much of the public had stopped using cloth masks.

Dozens of studies have shown that when used correctly and consistently, N95 masks or their equivalents can prevent infected people from spreading the virus and protect wearers from contracting it.

Unfortunately, several flawed studies and the politics of personal freedom created a culture war surrounding the use of masks, especially by children, said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

In the event of another respiratory outbreak, “I feel quite anxious that a whole constituency has already discarded masks,” he said.

Children in Asia routinely wear masks, especially during respiratory virus and allergy seasons, some experts noted.

“I wish we could infuse more infection prevention into especially elementary schools during respiratory virus season,” Dr. Popescu said. “It seemed like a really great way to get children back in schools.”

Herd Immunity

A chimera. We never got there.

For nearly two years after the pandemic began, experts talked of reaching herd immunity once enough of the population had acquired protection either by being ill or getting vaccinated.

That was a mistake, experts said. Herd immunity is only possible if immunity is sterilizing — meaning it prevents reinfections — and lifelong. Immunity to most viruses is neither.

Seasonal coronaviruses change rapidly enough that people undergo repeated infections throughout their lives, said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who insisted early on that the new coronavirus might also cause reinfections.

Once vaccines arrived, officials at first presented the shots as a way to stay safe from the virus forever, rather than as a means to lessen the severity of infections.

“There was a lot of confusion and misconceptions about herd immunity — that the toothpaste was going back in the tube somehow,” Dr. Dean said.

School Closures

Necessary at first. Questionable as time went on.

Few aspects of the pandemic provoke as much rancor as school closures. In many parts of the country, test scores never recovered and absenteeism has become an intractable problem.

But experts said it was the right decision to close schools in the spring of 2020, when a poorly understood pathogen was sweeping across the country. Ideally, schools would have reopened that fall, but with measures — improved ventilation, testing, masks — to mitigate the risks.

“And of course, we didn’t really have any of those things,” Dr. Hanage said.

By early fall in 2020, it was clear that schoolchildren were not driving community transmission significantly. Still, many schools stayed closed for months longer than they needed to, forcing children to muddle through remote learning and causing some to fall irrevocably behind.

“It’s a really difficult one to Monday-morning quarterback,” Dr. Shaman said.

“We don’t have the counterfactual, that alternative scenario to see how it really would have played out.”

If bird flu turns into a pandemic, it would be foolish to base school policies on how the coronavirus behaved, he and others warned. Other respiratory viruses, like the flu, tend to be deadlier among young children and older adults.

“We have every reason to think that a future flu pandemic would be far more dangerous to young people than Covid was,” Dr. Hanage said. “I think we should talk about what we could do to mitigate transmission in schools.”

Lockdowns

They slowed the virus, but the price was high.

The pandemic destroyed local businesses, sent unemployment rates soaring and increased household debt. Many people now feel that lockdowns were to blame for much of the damage — and that their harms outweighed any benefits.

Many scientists see it differently. “The economy got shut down by just the pure force of the pandemic,” said Dr. Osterholm.

No American state’s policies neared the strictness of those in China, India, Italy or Jordan — where people were not allowed to leave home at all — and much of the work force and societal activities continued because they were deemed essential, he noted.

By the end of May 2020, indoor dining and religious services had resumed in much of the country, if they had been paused at all, although many cities continued to institute temporary bans as virus levels rose and fell.

The shutdowns may have been unpopular in part because they were introduced with no clear explanation or end in sight.

Instead, Dr. Osterholm said, health officials could have instituted a “snow day” concept. People stayed home when hospitals were overwhelmed, as they do when roads are snowed under, but their behavior returned to normal when the situation eased.

The shutdowns eased the burden on hospitals and slowed the transmission of the virus, buying time to develop a vaccine. Studies from multiple other countries have also shown that stay-at-home orders and restrictions on mass gatherings were the most effective measures for curbing transmission of the virus within communities.

“Whatever people did in 2020, before folks were vaccinated, saved millions of lives,” Dr. Hanage said. “If we had done nothing, truly done nothing at all, things would have been much, much worse.”

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Health

Widespread habit may raise colorectal cancer risk more than you think

Published

3 hours ago

March 21, 2026

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Widespread habit may raise colorectal cancer risk more than you think

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Colorectal cancer is now officially the leading cause of cancer-related death among men and women 50 and younger, according to research from the American Cancer Society.

While some risk factors — like age, family history and genetics — can’t be controlled, there are some lifestyle behaviors that can increase the chances of the disease.

One of those is drinking alcohol, which has been linked to an increased risk of at least six different types of cancer.

HIDDEN VIRUS INSIDE GUT BACTERIA LINKED TO DOUBLED COLORECTAL CANCER RISK, STUDY FINDS

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies alcoholic beverages as a Group 1 carcinogen, which means there is strong, sufficient evidence that it causes cancer in humans.

Dr. Tereza Cristina Sardinha, chief of colon and rectal surgery services at Catholic Health on Long Island, New York, confirmed that alcohol is a well-known risk factor for all cancers, but particularly those of the gastrointestinal tract.

Drinking alcohol has been linked to an increased risk of at least six different types of cancer. (iStock)

“The alcohol, or ethanol, will metabolize and break down into acetaldehyde,” she shared with Fox News Digital. “This metabolism of alcohol is very toxic to the DNA of the cell, which over time can lead to the development of cancer.”

Alcohol also changes the microbiome of the gut, which is another strong factor in cancer risk, according to Sardinha.

Colorectal cancer is now officially the leading cause of cancer-related death among men and women 50 and younger. (iStock)

“The microbiome has a significant effect on many pathogens in the colon and rectum, and diet and alcohol definitely affect the types of bacteria in your gut.”

When the gut’s “first line of defense” is disrupted, it can trigger a series of changes, particularly DNA damage, inflammation and oxidative stress within cells, the doctor said.

“These processes are closely linked to cancer development, which is why alcohol is considered a carcinogen.”

NEARLY 40% OF CANCERS CAN BE PREVENTED WITH 3 LIFESTYLE CHANGES, STUDY FINDS

The relationship between alcohol and colorectal cancer risk is “dose-dependent,” she said.

“Patients who drink regularly for a long period of time, meaning at least 10 years, will have a lifetime increase in the development of colorectal cancer.”

“The negative impact of spirits (hard liquor) is greater than beer, which is more than wine,” a doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)

Research shows that for those who drink at least two drinks per day — which is considered “moderate consumption,” the doctor said — the lifetime risk of colorectal cancer will increase by at least 25%.

A heavier drinker, consuming more than two drinks a day, will have an exponentially greater risk.

COLORECTAL CANCER NOW DEADLIEST TYPE FOR CERTAIN GROUP OF AMERICANS, STUDY FINDS

“What really makes the difference is not only the volume but the frequency,” Sardinha said. “I just saw one of my patients who I operated on last week, and she drinks six beers a day, and she developed colon cancer. She’s not morbidly obese, she’s not a smoker. The only risk factor she has is alcohol.”

The doctor advises her patients to avoid alcohol “or at least minimize intake.”

“What really makes the difference is not only the volume but the frequency.”

If someone stops drinking, the risk won’t disappear immediately, the doctor noted.

“It takes about an average of 10 years to know if cancer risk decreased or not,” she said. “But we do know that if you continue drinking, your risk will definitely increase.

MOM WITH NO SYMPTOMS HAD STAGE 4 COLORECTAL CANCER — AND A RARE SURGERY SAVED HER LIFE

“That’s why we recommend that patients stop drinking or exponentially decrease their intake in the same way we tell them to exercise and increase fruits and vegetables in their diet.”

Sardinha pointed out that alcohol isn’t the only culprit.

“Not all heavy drinkers develop cancer, so there has to be some other mechanism that plays a role,” she said.

And not all types of alcohol are equal in terms of colorectal cancer risk, according to Dr. Nathan Goodyear, integrative medicine physician at Williams Cancer Institute in California.

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“The negative impact of spirits (hard liquor) is greater than beer, which is more than wine,” he told Fox News Digital.

A Danish study also found that wine consumption was associated with a lower risk of death, while beer and spirits were not, Goodyear pointed out. Spirits had the highest risk, especially at three to five drinks per day.

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“The effects of wine, beer and spirits were independent of each other,” the doctor said.

The context in which alcohol is consumed can also play a role, he noted.

In addition to stopping or limiting alcohol intake, doctors say other healthy lifestyle behaviors, like exercise, have been shown to decrease the chances of colorectal cancer. (iStock)

“In the U.S., alcohol is often used in the context of addiction — another hit to keep the high,” Goodyear said. “But in some communities, such as Sardina, Italy, and Ikaria, Greece, wine is part of the culture, social connections and community.”

“Wine is taken outside the context of addiction and taken within the context of a plant-based diet, social settings, daily movement, faith, community and life.”

Other ways to minimize risk

In addition to stopping or limiting alcohol intake, Sardinha shared other healthy lifestyle behaviors that have been shown to decrease the chances of colorectal cancer.

One “huge and well-established” factor is regular exercise, she said.

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“If you don’t exercise, if you don’t move, you definitely increase your risk of colorectal cancer,” she told Fox News Digital. “Even for patients who have been diagnosed with cancer, once they have surgery and are able to exercise, that will improve their long-term prognosis.”

Smoking is another highly carcinogenic habit, and it’s a common myth that it’s only associated with lung cancer.

“We do know that if you continue drinking, your risk will definitely increase.”

“Smoking is a risk factor for most cancers, and colorectal cancer is one of them,” Sardinha said.

Taking steps to address and prevent obesity is also a well-established way to minimize risk, as is adopting a healthy, high-fiber diet to promote proper bowel function, according to the doctor.

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“Diets that are lower in fiber are often more constipating, and, therefore, if there’s anything in the food that is carcinogenic, that is going to have more direct, prolonged contact with the bowel wall, with the cells, and increases the chances of DNA damage,” she said.

“Obviously, we cannot change our family history, but those good lifestyle habits will make a difference in the risk of colorectal cancer.”

Melissa Rudy is senior health editor and a member of the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to melissa.rudy@fox.com.

Health

Wellness expert reveals surprising health benefits of daily cold exposure: ‘Huge difference’

Published

15 hours ago

March 21, 2026

Press Room

Wellness expert reveals surprising health benefits of daily cold exposure: ‘Huge difference’

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Interview of the week

Wim Hof breaks down his three-pillar method for more energy, less stress

Rises and falls

→ Cigarette smoking plummets to historic single-digit low in U.S.

→ Male fertility rates decline as experts reveal health threats

→ Surges in adult ADHD stimulant prescriptions have doctors concerned

Conversation starters

→ Canadian patients left waiting 15+ hours in emergency room

→ The real reason for sagging jowls, and what will and won’t help

→ Study reveals surprising results after stopping GLP-1 weight-loss drugs

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This article was written by Fox News staff.

Health

Needle-free diabetes management could be on the horizon, study suggests

Published

1 day ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Needle-free diabetes management could be on the horizon, study suggests

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Oral insulin could one day replace injections for people with diabetes, new scientific discoveries suggest.

Researchers from Kumamoto University in Japan have announced the development of an insulin pill to help lower blood sugar.

For diabetics, insulin is typically administered via injection, but the pill would offer a non-invasive treatment option.

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“Insulin injections remain a daily burden for many patients,” said associate professor Shingo Ito, a researcher in the study’s press release. “Our peptide-based platform offers a new route to deliver insulin orally, and may be applicable to long-acting insulin formulations and other injectable biologics.”

Oral insulin could one day replace injections for people with diabetes, new scientific discoveries suggest. (iStock)

The study, published in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, tested the delivery of oral insulin by building a carrier peptide called DNP-V. This peptide helps to transport insulin through the small intestine, where protein drug absorption is usually poor.

In diabetic mice models, the researchers administered the peptide by mouth with zinc-stabilized insulin, which was formulated with zinc ions to make it more stable, according to the study.

“Insulin injections remain a daily burden for many patients.”

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The result was a rapid and significant drop in blood glucose, as well as a sustained (longer-term) decrease. The mice’s blood sugar was reduced to near-normal levels.

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When DNP-V was attached directly to insulin, the results showed enhanced absorption in the intestines and a similar glucose-lowering effect, the researchers noted.

The treatment was effective in different diabetes models, significantly reducing blood sugar spikes after meals with just one dose per day.

The study was done in mice, which leaves uncertainty if the treatment will translate to humans. (iStock)

The findings suggest that DNP peptides could serve as flexible, adaptable platforms for delivering large-molecule drugs by mouth, the authors concluded in the study abstract.

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“This technology can simply and effectively convert injectable biopharmaceuticals into orally administrable forms, offering a promising path to practical, patient-friendly oral therapies,” they wrote.

Although the researchers are optimistic about the findings translating to larger therapeutic models, they noted that the results in mice do not guarantee the same outcome in humans, and that more research is needed.

For diabetics, insulin is typically administered via injection to regulate blood sugar levels. (iStock)

Dr. Marc Siegel commented on this development, noting that oral insulin could make a big difference in healthcare.

“Insulin use, especially in type 1 diabetes, is sometimes difficult to regulate by injection,” Siegel, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. “Oral use would have major advantages.”

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He added, “This is very promising provided that it works in humans, which is a big ‘if.’”

Fox News Digital reached out to the study authors for comment.

Angelica Stabile is a lifestyle reporter for Fox News Digital.