Mary Ann Steiner condujo dos horas y media desde su casa en University City, un suburbio de St. Louis, hasta la pequeña ciudad de Ozark, en Centerville, Missouri, para vacunarse contra covid-19. Después de poner su auto en fila en el estacionamiento de una iglesia,… Read More »Brecha de género contra covid: se vacunan más mujeres que hombres
This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free. Mary Ann Steiner drove 2½ hours from her home in the St. Louis suburb of University City to the tiny Ozark town of Centerville, Missouri, to get vaccinated against covid-19. After pulling… Read More »The Gender Vaccine Gap: More Women Than Men Are Getting Covid Shots
Dr. Sarah Van Orman treads carefully around the word “normal” when she describes what the fall 2021 term will look like at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and other colleges nationwide. This story also ran on U.S. News & World Report. It… Read More »Colleges and Universities Plan for Normal-ish Campus Life in the Fall
Reporter Eric Berger discussed vaccine hesitancy among inmates at a Missouri correctional center with Newsy on Thursday. Click here to watch Berger on Newsy Read Berger’s “Inmates’ Distrust of Prison Health Care Fuels Distrust of Covid Vaccines” KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal discussed how the U.S.… Read More »Journalists Dive Deep Into Roots of Vaccine Distrust in Prisons and Covid’s Toll on Public Health
BLAINE, Wash. — In the shadows of covid travel restrictions, a 42-acre park on the far western edge of the U.S.-Canadian dividing line has become a popular opening in an otherwise closed border, a place where Americans and Canadians can gather without needing permission to… Read More »Battle Brews Over Neutral Zone Where Border-Crossing Parties Rendezvous, Risking Infection
This story also ran on Los Angeles Times. It can be republished for free. Here’s one big takeaway from our country’s disastrous 2020 covid response: For 20 years, we’ve lavished attention and money on fighting human terrorism and forgot that the terrorism of nature is… Read More »Analysis: How the US Invested in the War on Terrorism at the Cost of Public Health
In late February, a week after Virginia launched a centralized website and call center for covid-19 vaccine preregistration, Zowee Aquino alerted the state to a glitch that could prove fatal for non-English speakers trying to secure a shot. This story also ran on U.S. News… Read More »‘Press 1 for English’: Vaccination Sign-Ups Prove Daunting for Speakers of Other Languages
Six months after it was controversially hailed by Trump administration officials as a “breakthrough” therapy to fight the worst effects of covid-19, convalescent plasma appears to be on the ropes. This story also ran on NBC News. It can be republished for free. The treatment… Read More »The Hype Has Faded, but Don’t Count Out Convalescent Plasma in Covid Battle
A Senate committee grilled federal officials about the shortage of vaccines to protect Americans against a pandemic virus. Two months later, the U.S. public had lost interest in the virus, and millions of vaccines were sitting in warehouses — although poor countries still needed them.… Read More »The Case for Donating US Covid Vaccines Overseas
Acknowledging that chronic underfunding of public health contributed significantly to the nation’s fragmented response to the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats included more than $100 billion in the recently enacted relief package to address urgent needs and enhance future efforts. Use Our Content It can be republished… Read More »Landmark Covid Relief Law Pumps More Than $100 Billion Into Public Health
This story also ran on KCET. It can be republished for free. Ana Guevara was determined to get a covid vaccine for her mother, 85-year-old Adelina Coto, but she needed help. Guevara, a full-time nanny in Los Angeles, didn’t have the time or knowledge to… Read More »Vaccine Altruists Find Appointments for Those Who Can’t
“When I came into office, the prior administration had contracted for not nearly enough vaccine to cover adults in America. We rectified that.” — President Joe Biden, March 2 news conference During a March 2 news conference on the covid-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden claimed… Read More »Biden’s Criticism of Trump Team’s Vaccine Contracts Is a Stretch
This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free. There’s a reason soldiers go through basic training before heading into combat: Without careful instruction, green recruits armed with powerful weapons could be as dangerous to one another as to the enemy.… Read More »Coronavirus Deranges the Immune System in Complex and Deadly Ways
This story also ran on NBC News. It can be republished for free. Covid-19 infections from variant strains are quickly spreading across the U.S., but there’s one big problem: Lab officials say they can’t tell patients or their doctors whether someone has been infected by… Read More »Have a Case of a Covid Variant? No One Is Going to Tell You
This story also ran on The Washington Post. It can be republished for free. The Rev. Jose Luis Garayoa survived typhoid fever, malaria, a kidnapping and the Ebola crisis as a missionary in Sierra Leone, only to die of covid-19 after tending to the people… Read More »Covid Strikes Clergy as They Comfort Pandemic’s Sick and Dying
This story also ran on Time. It can be republished for free. A Learjet 31 took off before daybreak from Helena Regional Airport in Montana, carrying six Veterans Affairs medical providers and 250 doses of historic cargo cradled in a plug-in cooler designed to minimize… Read More »To Vaccinate Veterans, Health Care Workers Must Cross Mountains, Plains and Tundra
A prominent group of academics is pressing the Biden administration to move faster and take stronger action to protect high-risk workers from airborne exposure to the coronavirus, urging enforceable standards to help safeguard risky workplaces including health care, food processing and prisons. The researchers say… Read More »Prominent Scientists Call on CDC to Better Protect Workers From Covid
This story also ran on U.S. News & World Report. It can be republished for free. Contact tracing, a critical part of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, has fallen behind in recent months as covid-19 cases have soared. President Joe Biden had… Read More »As Pandemic Surged, Contact Tracing Struggled; Biden Looks to Boost It
Every Sunday afternoon, Suzan Mubarak keeps an eye on her phone. That is when her boyfriend will call to let her know he’s outside her house for their weekly wave. This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free. Mubarak, 31, and… Read More »Pandemic Sends a Couple Into Indefinite Long Distance Though Just Miles Apart
The covid-19 variants that have emerged in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa and now Southern California are eliciting two notably distinct responses from U.S. public health officials. First, broad concern. A variant that wreaked havoc in the U.K., leading to a spike in cases… Read More »Can the US Keep Covid Variants in Check? Here’s What It Takes
Cuando los hospitales de todo el país luchan contra la nueva ola de la pandemia, no son camas ni ventiladores lo que escasean. Son las personas que cuidan de los enfermos. Pero existe mano de obra altamente calificada de médicos, enfermeras y otros trabajadores de… Read More »Estados permiten contratar profesionales de salud extranjeros por la pandemia
Use Our Content It can be republished for free. As hospitals nationwide struggle with the latest covid-19 surge, it’s not so much beds or ventilators in short supply. It’s the people to care for the sick. Yet a large, highly skilled workforce of foreign-educated doctors,… Read More »Amid Covid Health Worker Shortage, Foreign-Trained Professionals Sit on Sidelines
This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free. The nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, declared on March 6 — by filing the official paperwork — that they were ready to vote on the prospect of joining a national… Read More »Health Workers Unions See Surge in Interest Amid Covid
Como jefa de enfermería en uno de los hospitales más concurridos de la red de seguridad de atención médica de Chicago, Raquel Prendkowski ha sido testigo del devastador número de víctimas que COVID-19 ha causado entre los residentes más vulnerables de la ciudad, incluyendo a… Read More »Illinois, primer estado en ofrecer cobertura médica a adultos mayores indocumentados
As a nurse manager for one of Chicago’s busiest safety-net hospitals, Raquel Prendkowski has witnessed covid-19’s devastating toll on many of the city’s most vulnerable residents — including people who lack health insurance because of their immigration status. Some come in so sick they go… Read More »Illinois Is First in the Nation to Extend Health Coverage to Undocumented Seniors
This story also ran on Daily Beast. It can be republished for free. As I prepared to get my shot in mid-December as part of a covid vaccine trial run by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, I considered the escape routes. Bailing out of the trial was a… Read More »Eureka! Two Vaccines Work — But What About the Also-Rans in the Pharma Arms Race?
As the covid-19 pandemic heads for a showdown with vaccines it’s expected to lose, many experts in the field of emerging infectious diseases are already focused on preventing the next one. They fear another virus will leap from wildlife into humans, one that is far… Read More »Heading Off the Next Pandemic
Nine months into the pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 people in the U.S., Kim Larson is still trying to convince others in her northern Montana county that COVID-19 is dangerous. As Hill County Health Department director and county health officer, Larson continues to… Read More »In Fast-Moving Pandemic, Health Officials Try to Change Minds at Warp Speed
This story also ran on The New York Times. It can be republished for free. WASHINGTON — Even before there was a vaccine, some seasoned doctors and public health experts warned, Cassandra-like, that its distribution would be “a logistical nightmare.” After Week 1 of the… Read More »Analysis: Some Said the Vaccine Rollout Would Be a ‘Nightmare.’ They Were Right.
WOLF POINT, Mont. — Fallen pine cones covered 16-year-old Leslie Keiser’s fresh grave at the edge of Wolf Point, a small community on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation on the eastern Montana plains. Leslie, whose father is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and… Read More »Health Officials Fear Pandemic-Related Suicide Spike Among Native Youth
Use Our Content It can be republished for free. A year ago, while many Americans were finishing their holiday shopping and finalizing travel plans, doctors in Wuhan, China, were battling a mysterious outbreak of pneumonia with no known cause. Chinese doctors began to fear they… Read More »Many US Health Experts Underestimated the Coronavirus … Until It Was Too Late
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — As the pandemic took hold and well-grooved music festivals canceled their mainstream events, Krista Selico saw an opening. She had been organizing the Helix Festival as an opportunity to give artists in the urban music community a chance to redefine the… Read More »How to Pull Off a COVID-Era Music Festival
With multiple COVID-19 vaccines rapidly heading toward approval, optometrists and dentists are pushing for the authority to immunize patients during routine eye exams and dental cleanings. Across the country, these medical professionals say their help will be needed to distribute the vaccines to millions of… Read More »Come for Your Eye Exam, Leave With a Band-Aid on Your Arm
Not long after the world learned that President Donald Trump had lost his reelection bid, states began issuing a new round of crackdowns and emergency declarations against the surging coronavirus. Taking action this time were Republican governors who had resisted doing so during the spring… Read More »Trump’s Lame-Duck Status Leaves Governors to Wing It on COVID
In Ethiopia, health clinics for teenagers once supported by U.S. foreign aid closed down. In Kenya, a decades-long effort to integrate HIV testing and family planning unraveled. And in Nepal, intrepid government workers who once traversed the Himalayas to spread information about reproductive health were… Read More »Trump’s Anti-Abortion Zeal Shook Fragile Health Systems Around the World
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed to have saved 2 million lives from COVID-19 through his actions to combat the disease. Recently, he made the assertion during the NBC News town hall on Oct. 15 that replaced the second presidential debate. “But we were expected… Read More »Trump Says He Saved 2 Million Lives From COVID. Really?
On Monday, President Donald Trump claimed that the World Health Organization (WHO) “admitted” he was correct that using lockdowns to control the spread of COVID-19 was more damaging than the illness. In a post on Twitter, Trump wrote: “The World Health Organization just admitted that… Read More »No, the WHO Didn’t Change Its Lockdown Stance or ‘Admit’ Trump Was Right
Hi, I’m back with a revamped Friday Breeze, tackling a few hot health care topics of the week and some news you may have missed. Here’s what the Breeze blew in this week, in these dog days of our COVID-constrained, socially distant summer: Schools Reopen:… Read More »Must-Reads of the Week
Millions of people, including the president of the United States, have seen or shared a video in which a doctor falsely claims there is a cure for the coronavirus, and it’s a medley starring hydroxychloroquine. The video shows several doctors in white coats giving a press conference… Read More »Don’t Fall for This Video: Hydroxychloroquine Is Not a COVID-19 Cure
Hiya! I’m Lauren Olsen, your new Newsletter Editor. That’s right — the totally official, no more fill-ins, always-here-for-you Newsletter Editor. As the replacement for editor extraordinaire Brianna Labuskes, I’m here to tackle all your health news needs. Why yes, you’re right — a pandemic is… Read More »Must-Reads of the Week From Lauren Olsen
The Friday Breeze Want to read the best and most provocative stories from the week? Welcome to the Friday Breeze, where we compile them all — so you’re set with your weekend reading. Another week has gone by, and the biggest news remains that COVID… Read More »Must-Reads Of The Week