June 2020

This issue of Population Connection magazine explores the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak, which, at press time, was already responsible for killing over 200,000 people worldwide. Basically, it comes down to the fact that we’ve treated animals terribly for all time, and every now and then it bites us. This time it has drawn blood, so to speak.

Cover image: Christine McCarthy, a nurse for over 20 years and a palliative nurse for the past year, sits for a portrait on an empty hospital bed at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on April 2, 2020. Here at the state’s largest hospital, staff are coping with unprecedented realities in this coronavirus pandemic and are deeply worried about what is yet to come. There is an odd juxtaposition inside this normally bustling world-renowned hospital: Expanded intensive care units are packed with COVID-19 patients, while other floors and places such as family waiting rooms are deserted, quiet. (Erin Clark for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)