epidemic - The Atlantic

epidemic

The Friend-Group Fallacy

January 7, 2026

A colorful illustration of a man eating alone in his home as a group of friends walk by his window laughing

Imagine a Drug That Feels Like Tylenol and Works Like OxyContin

Richard A. Friedman

November 29, 2024

An red-and-black duo-tone illustration of two brains, with images of a flower and thorns overlayed on top of them

The ‘Peak Obesity’ Illusion

October 18, 2024

a white measuring tape curled into a graph-like curve with two peaks against a white background

What We Meant When We Said Crackhead

Donovan X. Ramsey

July 11, 2023

Boy doing backflip

What Can One Disease Do to a Landscape?

April 7, 2022

A puma, vicuñas, and a condor, with blue squiggly lines linking them

This Pandemic Isn’t Over

June 9, 2021

A COVID-19 burial in India

An Old-School Crime Drama That’s Thoroughly Modern

May 18, 2020

The Epidemics America Got Wrong

March 22, 2020

Demonstrators protest near City Hall in New York in 1985.

Fighting the Flu

February 1941 Issue

During the influenza epidemic, members of the Red Cross Motor Corps, all in uniform with cloth face masks, pose for a portrait with stretchers behind a row of ambulances, St Louis, Missouri, October 1918.