Not a Doctor

  • Are we ready for the next pandemic?

    The U.S. response to the bird flu and measles outbreaks are worrying signs that our pandemic preparedness has eroded. I’ve been covering bird flu for a while now. It wasn’t great under Biden. There was never enough testing to understand where outbreaks are happening and how they are spreading. Health leaders chose not to deploy…

    Melody Schreiber

  • Why experts think we’ll have another flu pandemic

    And how climate change and large-scale industrial agricultural amplify outbreaks. Scientists often debate where the next pandemic will come from and what virus will cause it, but they tend to agree on one thing: At some point, the world will see another flu pandemic, I reported recently for Sierra Magazine. “If you go back in…

    Melody Schreiber

  • What is bird flu, and why worry about it?

    The H5N1 outbreak in the United States is heating up. Here’s what you need to know. I’ve been writing about bird flu for some time now, but I realized I’ve never really talked about what it is, how people are getting sick, and why it’s a threat. The past few months brought a few worrying…

    Melody Schreiber

  • How can lessons from Covid make health care better?

    A new study on Covid mortality underscores the importance of making health care more equitable now, before the next pandemic takes off. Welcome to Not a Doctor. I’m Melody Schreiber, a journalist and the editor of What We Didn’t Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth. I’m not a doctor, or a scientist, or really an expert of any kind. I…

    Melody Schreiber