IN SEPTEMBER 2020doctors and public-health officials in the northern hemisphere were on high alert. They did not know how covid-19 would behave in the first winter of the pandemic. Respiratory viruses tend to surge during cold weather. And there were the usual concerns about influenza, the shape-shifting virus that sickens and kills many people every year. At worst, doctors feared they would see simultaneous outbreaks of covid-19 and flu which would overwhelm hospitals and send deaths soaring—a “twindemic”.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Northern exposure”
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