Day: March 11, 2021

Public discussion of “herd immunity” often treats it like an on-off switch: When the U.S. reaches herd immunity, the crisis will be over; until then, the country has little immunity from Covid-19.

But that’s not right.

Herd immunity is more like a light dimmer. The more people develop immunity — either from having been infected or from being vaccinated — the less easily the virus will spread.

Nearly 30 percent of Americans have now had the virus, according to Youyang Gu, a data scientist. (That includes many people who have never taken a Covid test.) About 18 percent have received

When Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan, referred to the British royal family as “the Firm” in their dramatic interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday, she evoked an institution that is as much a business as a fantasy. It is now a business in crisis, after the couple leveled charges of racism and cruelty against members of the family.

Buckingham Palace responded on Tuesday that “the whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.” The allegations of racism, the palace statement said, were “concerning,” and “while some recollections

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A tourist bus plummeted into a ravine on Indonesia’s main island of Java after its brakes apparently malfunctioned, killing at least 26 people and injuring 35 others, police and rescuers said Thursday.

The bus was carrying a group of Islamic junior high school students and their parents from the West Java province town of Subang to a pilgrimage site in the province’s Tasikmalaya district when the accident happened late Wednesday on a winding road, the local police chief Eko Prasetyo Robbyanto said.

He said the bus plunged into the 65-fooot-deep ravine after the driver lost control of