Why are pregnant women so likely to get infected with coronavirus? These are some of the contributing factors.

After years of hearing about how fat people are ruining it for everybody, the epidemic has provided new ways to make overweight and obese people feel bad.

Not only overweight and obese people are dealing with the ugly possibility of falling ill with coronavirus but they also have to deal with the weight stigma.

At this moment in history, we must realize that children are not magically immune to COVID-19 and that both obesity and COVID are equal-opportunity predators.

It did not take long for the unholy alliance between Obie and Covie to become apparent. And there is no end in sight, at least for the obesity epidemic.

Many of the measures society takes to protect children from the virus can paradoxically end up worsening the problem by causing even more obesity.

Obesity and coronavirus celebrate their convergence to form what some call colliding pandemics and others call a perfect storm.

There is a case to be made for the idea that school with masks is better than no school, but some folks don’t see it that way.

A quick looks at some studies of what is already known about the many links between the COVID-19 pandemic and childhood obesity.

What has been termed “vaccine resistance” or “lack of vaccine confidence” has both rational and emotional elements, like lack of access to the internet.

Many of the disruptions caused by COVID-19 also happen to be “obesity villains”​ that bear some responsibility for the ever-worsening obesity epidemic.

Latinx in the United States have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19. Latinx cultural leaders are using “artivism” to encourage vaccination.

When obesity, poverty, and minority join forces, the result is likely to be a life with severely impaired health. Add the virus, and it gets even worse.

Hospitals across the U.S. are full of unvaccinated patients of middle age and younger, who are undergoing COVID-related respiratory failure and renal failure.

More young adults were showing up in hospitals, due to the increasingly contagious variants. They were also the last group prioritized to receive vaccines.

Some people still believe that COVID-19 only pursues elderly, obese, diabetic, chronically ill, or otherwise previously debilitated people. But no.

Some people still believe kids can’t catch the virus, and neither can healthy, non-obese adults who take care of themselves. Neither proposition is supportable.

One of the most insidious pieces of misinformation spread by purveyors of nonsense is that healthy people don’t catch the virus. The reality proves otherwise.

From HEPA filters to ventilation, how can we make schools and homes safer during the pandemic?

With an earlier acceptance of the importance of aerosol transmission, the course of events might have been very different.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and asking students, teachers, and other employees to wear serviceable masks is a reasonable request.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 commands us to both mask up and vaccinate, especially since even fully vaccinated people can spread the disease to others.

Testing the general population, whether symptomatic or not, is vitally important if we are to form an accurate picture of what is really going on.

The coronavirus’s insane, monomaniacal drive to reproduce creates a crushing onslaught. Time is a very important factor, too.

Part of the value of testing will be lost unless the accurate and complete numbers are passed along to those who know how to extract meaning from them.

Hospitals across the country are increasingly occupied by COVID victims in their 30s and 40s, some of whom tend to experience “Long COVID.”

A hefty proportion of people suffer from “Long COVID” at this moment, and some of them are children and teens. Young people can definitely transmit the virus.

From a heart full of compassion, the “hippie doctor” Larry Brilliant expresses some thoughts on herd immunity, contact tracing, vaccinating kids, and more.

Some doctors are very active in fighting misinformation about COVID-19. There are also some disturbingly contrary professional voices out there.

Deniers continue to spread the lie that only the elderly and obese come down with the virus, never the young and fit. Evidence to the contrary keeps piling up.