News Room

In parts of the United States, autumn is coming. The mornings have a coolness. The dogwood leaves show an edge of color. And outside pharmacies, the banners of fall are appearing: “Flu shots here.” This year in particular, health authorities hope Americans will listen. The overlap of the influenza season and the coronavirus pandemic could overwhelm the health care system if people don’t take the vaccine and the incidence of flu is high. Planners are worried about renewed pressure on hospital beds and protective equipment, and less visible pressure on laboratories, which have to use the same machinery and supplies to analyze diagnostic tests for both Covid-19 and flu.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sent a letter last week to the nation’s governors with an urgent request. The Trump administration wanted them to do everything in their power to eliminate hurdles for vaccine distribution sites to be fully operational by Nov. 1.

It’s a sad fact of doing business: customers leave. “You’d like to have 100 percent of customers stay 100 percent of the time,” says Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta. “But that’s just not the case.” There can be plenty of reasons why a once-loyal customer jumps ship—maybe they were unhappy with customer service, or your prices went up, or a competitor offered a better deal. But if a company lets too many customers show themselves the door, then they’ll waste too much of their time recruiting new customers.

For the past decade, university arms races have centered on who can build the most luxurious dorms and biggest sports facilities or offer the most “country club” amenities like posh gyms and pools. But the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign may have cornered what has become the most crucial amenity of all as the 2020 school year kicks off: COVID testing.