Could this city be the model for how to tackle the housing crisis and climate change?

VIENNA — At the edge of a wide, grassy park in Vienna, there's a modern building with lots of windows and a sleek wood facade. For the past six years, Sebastian Schublach has lived here with his family in a light-filled four-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor.

Up on the roof, where Schublach can relax in the communal library with a view of the city and park, there are solar panels to reduce climate pollution. There's a rooftop garden full of rosemary — the greenery helps keep the building cool in summer. Thick, insulated walls reduce the need for heating and cooling — Schublach's apartment doesn't even need an air conditioner. "It's not cold in winter times. It's not hot in summer times," Schublach says. "It's very comfortable."

In the United States, high-quality, climate-friendly apartments like this are mostly rare and unaffordable, says Daniel Aldana Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and co-director of the think tank the Climate and Community Institute. But in Vienna, sustainable buildings like Schublach's aren't just affordable, they're widespread. Schublach's apartment is what the Viennese call "social housing" — housing that's built or supported by the government. Now this social housing is a key driver of Vienna's ambitious climate action.

Long COVID Rates Higher in Women: Evidence Grows

When Brazilian scientist Letícia Soares contracted COVID-19 in April 2020, she was in the final stretch of her postdoctoral studies in disease ecology at a Canadian university. By August, she was bedbound.

What began as piercing migraines quickly escalated into a cascade of long COVID symptoms — gastrointestinal distress, sleeplessness, joint and muscle pain, and crushing fatigue. For Soares and many other women with long COVID, it also included sudden menstrual changes that exacerbated her other symptoms.

“It just baffled me,” said Soares, now 40. “It was debilitating.”

Before COVID, she had a stable, predictable cycle while using a hormonal IUD — light cramping, mild abdominal swelling, and consistent, manageable bleeding. Then, after her infection, her period disappeared entirely. A couple of years later, the pattern reversed: prolonged, heavy bleeding returned, compounding her long COVID symptoms and triggering severe crashes from post-exertional malaise — one of the hallmarks of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a condition linked to post-viral illness.

Cases like Soares’s are leading scientists to spend more time trying to understand the biologic sex disparity in chronic illnesses such as long COVID that initially had all but been ignored. New research from the National Institutes of Health RECOVER initiative, the largest observational study to date, confirms what many have long suspected: Women face a significantly higher risk of developing long COVID than men. While men are more likely to experience severe acute illness and higher mortality, growing evidence suggests women are more vulnerable to chronic symptoms.

Published in JAMA Network Open, the study analyzed data from over 12,200 participants who had been infected by COVID between 2021 and 2024. Even after adjusting for clinical and demographic factors, women had a 31%-44% higher likelihood of developing long COVID than men. The risk was especially pronounced among nonpregnant, nonmenopausal participants.

This study is the first to examine risk across different groups assigned women at birth, revealing that age, pregnancy, and menopause all play a role in long COVID likelihood, said lead author Dimpy Shah, MD, PhD, assistant professor of population health sciences at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “That is a very novel finding.”

Via Violet Blue's Threat Model - Covid: July 3, 2025