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Coronavirus: The economics of contagious disease

How should we think about the tension between opening the economy back up and preserving public health?

 Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs is is an American economist and co-founder and chief strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. He is also the former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the title of University Professor, the highest rank that Columbia bestows on its faculty.

14 May, 2020

What are the major missteps the global community is making that will need to be addressed to prepare us for future pandemics? Is the US economy ready to reopen?

What are the major missteps the global community is making that will need to be addressed to prepare us for future pandemics? Is the US economy ready to reopen? In this Big Think Live session with Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, you'll learn about the public health assumptions that must be rethought and how we can mobilize ourselves and our systems for a more sustainable long-term future.

Ask your questions for Jeffrey Sachs during the live Q&A!

The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions
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American education: It’s colleges, not college students, that are failing

Who is to blame for the U.S.'s dismal college graduation rate? "Radical" educator Dennis Littky has a hunch.

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  • COVID-19 has magnified the challenges that underserved communities face with regard to higher education, such as widening social inequality and sky-high tuition.
  • At College Unbound, where I am president, we get to know students individually to understand what motivates them, so they can build a curriculum based on goals they want to achieve.
  • My teaching mantra: Everything is permitted during COVID-19. Everything is permitted during COVID-19. Everything is permitted during COVID-19.
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What does it mean to "lead without authority"?

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Planet Nine will be discovered in the next decade. Here’s why.

The planet that we are searching for is a little bit smaller and closer than we originally thought.

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The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle may finally be solved

Meteorologists propose a stunning new explanation for the mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle.

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One of life's great mysteries, the Bermuda Triangle might have finally found an explanation. This strange region, that lies in the North Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been the presumed cause of dozens and dozens of mind-boggling disappearances of ships and planes.

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Neanderthal bones: Signs of their sex lives

Inbreeding leads to a problematically small gene pool.

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