Health

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

Published

12 months 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

How a Vegan Diet Can Help You Lose Weight 8X Faster

Published

10 hours ago

February 28, 2026

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How a Vegan Diet Can Help You Lose Weight 8X Faster

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Health

Cancer-linked herbicide in the spotlight after controversial order: ‘Toxic by design’

Published

11 hours ago

February 28, 2026

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Cancer-linked herbicide in the spotlight after controversial order: ‘Toxic by design’

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There has been a shake-up in the Make America Healthy Again movement regarding glyphosate, a widely used herbicide that has been the subject of significant controversy.

The debate follows an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that ensures an adequate supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides related to national defense.

MAHA supporters have previously pushed a pesticide-free agenda, warning of potential health harms caused by glyphosate.

Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said he believes there is sufficient evidence linking glyphosate to neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis, to warrant limiting exposure.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that ensures an adequate supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides related to national defense. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

“With Parkinson’s, this association appears to be due to the gut, vagus nerve and brain axis, where the exposure affects the microbiome in the gut, which then ascends slowly up to the brain, causing the neurodegenerative disease years later,” Siegel told Fox News Digital.

“There is also a growing association being found between high-dose glyphosate or occupational exposure and metabolic disorders, liver disease and some cancers, specifically lymphoma.”

He added, “Growing research backs this. I favor limiting it.”

“When we apply them across millions of acres and allow them into our food system, we put Americans at risk.”

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Studies have shown that glyphosate, which is used in products such as Roundup, owned by Monsanto, could raise cancer risk.

In one University of Washington study published in the journal Mutation Research, researchers found that exposure to it increased the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41%.

The nonprofit Investigate Midwest, which analyzed data from both the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Cancer Institute, also recently found that pesticides may contribute to cancer rates.

RFK JR BACKS BEEF, DECLARING ‘WAR ON PROTEIN IS OVER’ AS HE THANKS AMERICA’S CATTLE RANCHERS

Among the top 500 counties for per-square-mile pesticide use, more than 60% had cancer rates above the national average of 460 cases per 100,000 people, according to the report.

Investigate Midwest, which is based in Illinois, interviewed more than 100 farmers, environmentalists, lawmakers and scientists as part of a partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship.

Among the top 500 counties for per-square-mile pesticide use, more than 60% had cancer rates above the national average of 460 cases per 100,000 people, according to one study. (iStock)

Iowa, which used 53 million pounds of pesticides last year, holds the nation’s title for second-highest cancer rate.

Bill Billings, a resident of Red Oak, Iowa, was diagnosed with cancer in 2014.

“The cancer specialist said, very directly, (my) cancer is a result of being exposed to chemicals,” Billings said in the report.

Kelly Ryerson, founder of Glyphosate Facts and owner of the Instagram account @glyphosategirl, told Fox News Digital her journey researching the herbicide began with her own health struggles.

Ryerson, who is based in California, previously struggled with chronic illness and autoimmune issues, which she said improved when she stopped eating gluten.

Iowa, which used 53 million pounds of pesticides last year, holds the nation’s title for second-highest cancer rate. (iStock)

After attending a medical conference at Columbia University’s Celiac Disease Center, Ryerson began to question modern farming practices rather than the gluten itself.

“A lot of times, farmers are spraying Roundup on our grains right before harvest to facilitate an easier harvest,” she said. “After that easier harvest, because everything’s dry at the same time, those crops go directly to the mill and may end up in our food supply, at alarmingly high levels.”

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In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization framework, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The classification was based on limited evidence of cancer in humans (notably non-Hodgkin lymphoma in some studies) and sufficient evidence in experimental animals.

“President Trump’s executive order reinforces the critical need for U.S. farmers to have access to essential, domestically produced crop protection tools, such as glyphosate,” a Monsanto spokesperson said. (Wolf von Dewitz/picture alliance via Getty Images)

A spokesperson for Monsanto told Fox News Digital it will comply with Trump’s order to produce glyphosate and elemental phosphorus.

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a vocal critic of Roundup, working with his legal team in 2018 to award $289 million to a man who alleged the weed killer caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to reports.

Following backlash to Trump’s executive order, Kennedy said he supports the order but acknowledged that “pesticides and herbicides are toxic by design, engineered to kill living organisms.”

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“When we apply them across millions of acres and allow them into our food system, we put Americans at risk,” he posted on X. “Chemical manufacturers have paid tens of billions of dollars to settle cancer claims linked to their products, and many agricultural communities report elevated cancer rates and chronic disease.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

Ashley J. DiMella is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.

Health

Common nighttime noise exposure may trigger heart problems, study suggests

Published

23 hours ago

February 28, 2026

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Common nighttime noise exposure may trigger heart problems, study suggests

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Living near heavy traffic could negatively impact your heart health.

A European study, published in the journal Environmental Research, found that exposure to nighttime road traffic noise is linked to changes in the blood, leading to worsened cholesterol and cardiovascular risks.

The researchers considered data from the U.K. Biobank, Rotterdam Study, and Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966, including more than 272,000 adults over the age of 30, according to a press release.

Nighttime road noise exposure was estimated at all participants’ homes based on national noise maps. Researchers also took blood samples to measure the participants’ metabolic biomarkers for disease, then mapped the link between nightly noise levels and existence of biomarkers.

Exposure to loud noise was associated with increased concentrations of cholesterol-related biomarkers. (iStock)

The study found that people exposed to louder noise at night — especially sounds above 55 decibels — showed changes in 48 different substances in their blood. Twenty of these associations “remained robust” throughout all cohorts.

Exposure to loud noise was associated with increased concentrations of cholesterol-related biomarkers, especially LDL “bad” cholesterol, IDL (intermediate-density lipoprotein) and unsaturated fatty acids.

NEARLY 90% OF AMERICANS AT RISK OF SILENT DISEASE — HERE’S WHAT TO KNOW

As noise levels increased, starting at around 50 decibels, cholesterol markers rose steadily, the release stated.

The authors concluded that this study “provides evidence that nighttime road traffic noise exposure from 50 dB upward is associated with alterations in blood cholesterol and lipid profiles in adults.”

Researchers noted a link between traffic noise and cardiometabolic disease. (iStock)

Study co-author Yiyan He, doctoral researcher at the University of Oulu in Finland, noted that in this type of research, small effect sizes are expected, and environmental exposures such as traffic noise are “typically modest.”

SIMPLE NIGHTLY HABIT LINKED TO HEALTHIER BLOOD PRESSURE, STUDY SUGGESTS

“Despite this, we observed statistically robust and consistent associations across many biomarkers, especially those related to LDL and IDL lipoproteins,” she told Fox News Digital.

MISSING SLEEP MAY TAKE A HIDDEN TOLL ON YOUR BRAIN AND LONGEVITY, RESEARCH REVEALS

“We also identified a clear exposure-response pattern starting at around 50 dB, suggesting that metabolic changes become more evident as noise levels increase.”

This aligns with public health guidance, as the World Health Organization recommends lower nighttime noise limits at around 40 to 45 dB, Yiyan He added.

“This finding may clarify the association between traffic noise and cardiometabolic diseases,” the researchers wrote. (iStock)

“The 55 dB level is often used as an interim benchmark associated with substantial noise annoyance and sleep disturbance,” she said. “In our study, we observed associations not only at 55 dB, but also indications of effects emerging at around 50 dB.”

The strength and consistency of the cholesterol-related associations were surprising, as these changes are usually “subtle.”

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“Instead, we found consistent associations across multiple large European cohorts, which strengthens confidence that the findings may reflect real biological patterns,” Yiyan He went on. “We were also interested to see that effects were minimal below ~50 dB, suggesting a possible threshold-like pattern.”

HEART DISEASE THREAT PROJECTED TO CLIMB SHARPLY FOR KEY DEMOGRAPHIC

The researcher noted that these findings were consistent across genders, education levels and obesity status.

The study was restricted to White Europeans, which posed a limitation. There was also a lack of information on the fasting status in the UK Biobank.

Changes in cholesterol levels were more severe than researchers expected. (iStock)

“Fasting can influence levels of certain metabolites, particularly fatty acids,” Yiyan He said. “However, based on UK Biobank documentation, fewer than 10% of participants were fasting for at least eight hours, and our main findings focused on cholesterol-related biomarkers, which are generally less sensitive to short-term fasting.”

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The researchers also lacked information on bedroom location, indoor noise exposure and time spent at home.

“These factors may introduce non-differential exposure misclassification,” Yiyan He said. “Additionally, noise exposure estimates were based on participants’ temporary residential addresses at the time of blood sampling, without considering the duration of residence.”

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“Many of these limitations would tend to bias results toward the null, so the consistent associations we observed remain noteworthy.”

Experts recommend taking measures to limit traffic noise at night. (iStock)

Based on this latest research, Yiyan He noted that nighttime noise is a “health-relevant exposure,” not just “an annoyance.”

“Our findings suggest that nighttime traffic noise may subtly but consistently affect metabolic health,” she said. “While the changes in cholesterol and lipid levels for any one individual are small, traffic noise affects a very large number of people, which means the potential public health impact could be substantial.”

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The researcher recommends taking measures like improving sound insulation, using noise-reducing strategies and placing bedrooms on the quieter side of the home when possible.

“Because sleep is a key pathway linking noise to health, protecting the nighttime sleep environment is especially important,” she added.

Angelica Stabile is a lifestyle reporter for Fox News Digital.