35 articles from SATURDAY 4.9.2021

‘Complex and quite ambiguous loss’: what Covid has done to our mental health

Melbourne psychologist Chris Cheers says the pandemic’s effect has been akin to grief, and acceptance of it is hard to reachAfter 18 months, psychologist Chris Cheers has begun to understand emotional responses to the global Covid pandemic as a kind of grief.It’s a collective grief, experienced by the whole world at once, but also deeply personal: our losses are not the same just as our...

Let parents decide on Covid jab for 12- to 15-year-olds, say vaccine advisers

Boris Johnson is heading for a clash with backbench MPs over plans for mass vaccination of teenagers Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageParents should choose whether they allow their children to be vaccinated against Covid-19 if ministers overrule scientific advice against mass vaccination of healthy 12- to 15-year-olds, the government’s independent vaccine advisers...

Meet Altos Labs, Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever

Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner’s super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used to make people younger. Milner is a Russian-born billionaire who...

‘A cycle of dread, collapse, relief’: the absurd, tormented story of my hypochondria

I have never been seriously ill or spent a night in hospital, but I’m plagued by fears that a terrible sickness is coming for me. How did I fall victim to health anxiety?“This minute I was well, and am ill, this minute.” The pain arrives slowly, like a Polaroid sharpening into view, but the fear comes suddenly: a channel switched, a cloud sped across the sun. It’s June 1989, I recently...