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Lauren Weber was a Midwest correspondent for KFF Health News until December 2022.
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After months of burnout from the pandemic, hospitals are scrambling to fill nursing and other jobs. Some administrators, particularly in rural areas, are afraid to implement vaccine mandates that alienate their short-handed staffs.
At the center of the nation’s delta variant outbreak, public health efforts are mired in a political turf war.
Thousands of schools have spent millions of federal covid relief dollars snapping up air cleaning technology that claims to inactivate covid-19. But the devices fall into a regulatory gap.
Across Missouri, more than 100 schools have spent over $3.5 million — often at the taxpayers’ expense — snapping up ionization and other air-purifying devices in an attempt to keep kids safe from covid-19. But experts warn the largely unregulated technology hasn’t been thoroughly tested in classroom settings and is “often unproven.”
The technology that schools have been snapping up in the fight against covid “has not shown significant disinfection effectiveness” to install on its planes, Boeing found. Now the company’s study is being debated in a proposed class-action suit.
Black Americans’ vaccination rates still trail all other groups, while Hispanics show improvement. Native Americans show the strongest rates nationally.
A KHN investigation found that more than 2,000 schools have spent millions of dollars for systems, lured by air purifier companies’ claims that experts say mislead or obscure the potential for harm from toxic ozone.
Congress has poured tens of billions of dollars into public health since last year. While health officials who have juggled bare-bones budgets for years are grateful for the money, they worry it will soon dry up, just as it has after previous crises such as 9/11, SARS and Ebola. Meanwhile, they continue to cope with an exodus from the field amid political pressure and exhaustion that meant 1 in 6 Americans lost their local health department leader.
Dr. Robert Redfield, Trump’s CDC director, lends his scientific credibility to its Clean Air Systems subsidiary, which touts a “virus-killing ion technology” added to its fans. But indoor air quality experts question whether some of its technology works in the real world.
The underfunding of public health and political backlash destabilized Missouri’s vaccine rollout, creating racial inequity and forcing some residents to drive hours to get shots.
Same building. Same procedure. Same doctor. But now you’re charged a hospital facility fee. For one Ohio Medicare patient, the copay for a shot that used to cost her about $30 went up to more than $300.
Air-cleaning companies with limited oversight are targeting a growing market of schools desperate for covid-19 protection. Donald Trump’s former covid adviser lands with one that built its business, in part, on ozone-emitting technology.
The University of Missouri settled a collection of 22 medical malpractice and false advertising lawsuits over knee surgeries for $16.2 million. One doctor involved in the cases is among Missouri’s highest-paid state employees; the other is a veterinarian.
A KHN investigation found covid vaccine registration and information websites at the federal, state and local levels are flouting disability rights laws and limiting the ability of people who are blind or visually impaired to sign up for shots.
Louisiana’s St. James Parish Hospital thought the vaccine would mean the end of its long covid fight. Then the ICU beds surrounding them ran out.
Covid vaccines are reaching more Americans, but Black residents are being vaccinated at dramatically lower rates in the 23 states where data is publicly available. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to release national data next week.
Black Americans are receiving covid vaccines at a much lower rate than their white peers due to a combination of mistrust and access issues, leaving them behind in the mission to vaccinate the nation’s population.
A federal program that sends retail pharmacists into nursing homes to vaccinate residents and workers has been hindered by bureaucratic hurdles and scheduling woes.
The oxygen delivery infrastructure is crumbling under pressure in Los Angeles and other covid hot spots, jeopardizing patients’ access to precious air and limiting hospital turnover.
After missteps in Washington, each state and county is left to juggle where to send vaccines first and how to get them to each nursing home, hospital local health department and even school.
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