We're Not Hunting Hard Enough For Variants

The U.S. is struggling to monitor Covid-19 variants, a key part of watching for the emergence of dangerous mutations that might spread quickly, evade vaccines or kill more infected people. The country ranks 32nd in the world for the number of tests it’s done to detect mutations per 1,000 Covid cases. Kristen V. Brown reports that other countries, like the U.K., have established robust, nationwide surveillance programs to identify new Covid genomes and track the spread of existing ones.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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For much of human history, we’ve turned to diets to lose weight and improve our health. But it’s mostly been in vain. No matter how much the number on the scale drops begins to go down, chances are that the weight will come back. That’s just what the science says. But when it comes to weight, the facts just don’t seem to matter. Losing It, a new series from Bloomberg’s Prognosis, looks at how we got weight loss so wrong — and whether there’s a better way forward.