In case you missed it: Other coronavirus coverage from Star Tribune Opinion

Star Tribune Opinion has offered a number of commentaries and essays since the emergence on the new strain of coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. Here are some of those headlines, with excerpts. Click on the links to read the full articles:

"For decades, the pharmaceutical industry and its allies have argued that punishingly high drug prices are necessary if Americans wish to have new medications and innovative care. Without high profits to drive innovation, they argue, U.S. pharmaceutical companies would shutter, making their therapeutics unavailable even to those who could afford them. …

"It wasn't always this way. Take the example of the famously innovative physician and researcher Jonas Salk more than 65 years ago. When Salk's team developed an effective polio vaccine that was approved for public use, he refused to patent it. Who owns the patent? 'Well, the people, I would say,' he told journalist Edward R. Murrow in 1955. 'There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?' "

"I am in my late 60s, and the sickest I've ever been was when I had bronchitis several years ago. That laid me out on my back for a few days. This has been much easier: no chills, no body aches. I breathe easily and I don't have a stuffy nose. My chest feels tight and I have coughing spells. If I were at home with similar symptoms, I probably would have gone to work as usual. …

"It's surreal to see everyone panic — news conferences, the stock market falling, school closures — about a disease I have. It does seem likely that coronavirus will spread in the U.S., but it won't help anybody if we all panic. Based on my experience, I'd recommend that everyone get a good digital thermometer, just as a comfort tool, so they can reassure themselves if their noses start running. I have been relatively fortunate: At least six Diamond Princess passengers have died from the virus, of the around 705 passengers who caught it. But coronavirus doesn't have to be a horrible calamity."

"Just how bad will the new coronavirus be? I can't answer that question, but I have observed the debate splitting into two broad camps: Call them the 'growthers' and the 'base-raters.'

"The term growthers refers to the notion of exponential growth, and indeed the number of COVID-19 cases appears (by some accounts) to be following an exponential pattern. Some scientists have estimated that the number of cases doubles about every seven days. If you play that logic out, it is easy enough to see how people might be complacent at first, then in a few months there is a public health crisis.

"The base-raters, when assessing the likelihood of a particular scenario, start by asking how often it has happened before. That is, they estimate its base-rate likelihood. And history shows that major pandemics have lately been rare. The SARS and Ebola outbreaks largely petered out, HIV-AIDS was of a very different nature, and the 1957 and 1968 flu epidemics are now distant memories."

"It's now clear that the epidemic was never going to be contained. At most, its spread was slowed by the lockdown imposed in China and other countries' efforts to identify infected people and anyone they might have been in contact with. …

"Vaccines are many months away, at the earliest. And based on previous experiences with SARS, MERS and pandemic influenza, there is no reason to believe — as President Donald Trump claimed — that COVID-19 will go away this spring as warmer weather arrives in the Northern Hemisphere. Transmission around the world could continue for months. …

"In a world ill-prepared for a potentially life-threatening, easily transmitted disease like COVID-19, the most effective way to mitigate the pandemic's impact is to focus on supporting health care systems that already are overburdened.

"This is the main reason every country's top priority should be to protect its health care workers."