Just like an army of ants caught in an ant mill, individuals, groups and even whole societies are sometimes caught up in a death spiral, a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing dysfunctional behavior characterized by continuous flawed decision making, myopic single-minded focus on one (set of)...

Several teams have been publishing global estimates of excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we examine potential flaws and underappreciated sources of uncertainty in global excess death calculations. Adjusting for changing population age structure is essential. Otherwise, excess...