Low Wages and Pandemic Gut Staffing Support for Those With Disabilities
Group homes and facilities that serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities were hurting for staffers before the pandemic. Now the nationwide job crunch and pandemic pressures are making it even worse.
Mounting Covid Deaths Fuel School Bus Drivers’ Fears
Since August, school bus drivers and monitors have died of covid-19 in at least 10 states, including Georgia and Florida. Masks are required on school buses, but enforcing the rules in districts without school mask mandates is especially hard to do.
California Moves on Climate Change, but Rejects Aggressive Cuts to Greenhouse Emissions
Drought, wildfires, extreme heat: California lawmakers cast climate change as the culprit in an emerging series of public health threats, setting aside billions to help communities respond. But they stopped short of more aggressively reducing the state’s share of the greenhouse emissions warming the planet.
The Checkup Is in the Mail? Soliciting Letter Carriers to Help Deliver Health Care
Here’s an out-of-the-box idea: Have letter carriers spend less time delivering mail and take time to perform home visits and basic health checks on the growing population of frail and elderly.
Will ‘Dr. Disinformation’ Ever Face the Music?
Some of the top spreaders of spurious covid-19 and vaccine information are physicians with active medical licenses. Are medical oversight boards ready to step up to stop them?
At an Overrun ICU, ‘the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways’
Billings Clinic in Montana is past the tipping point as it looks for places to add intensive care unit beds and is on the cusp of rationing care to deal with the surge of sick covid patients in a state with significant anti-vaccination sentiment.
Public Health Experts ‘Flabbergasted’ That Biden Still Hasn’t Picked an FDA Chief
The Food and Drug Administration has been mired in controversies related to drug approvals and covid vaccines, all without a permanent leader.
Cuando se desestima o estigmatiza a las muertes por covid, el dolor se mezcla con ira y vergüenza
Las víctimas de covid están sufriendo la misma estigmatización que los que mueren por sobredosis o suicidio. Ellos son los responsables, piensan algunos.
The Solution to Au Pairs’ Health Coverage Gaps May Be Simple: ACA Plans
Private agencies that bring young adults to the U.S. to care for children generally offer basic health insurance, but plans may exclude many types of necessary care. What the agencies might not mention is that au pairs are eligible to enroll in comprehensive coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces and likely qualify for premium subsidies that would make the insurance affordable.
La máscara de tela, ¿es suficiente para proteger contra la variante delta?
Las máscaras siguen siendo una pieza fundamental en la lucha contra la pandemia, porque las personas se infectan principalmente con el SARS-CoV-2, el virus que causa covid-19, al inhalar pequeñas partículas de aerosol que permanecen en el ambiente y las gotas respiratorias que se producen al toser y estornudar.
I Got a ‘Mild’ Breakthrough Case. Here’s What I Wish I’d Known.
I was miserable for five days, am fully recovered a month later and have learned even more about what we do and don’t know about covid now.
Ask KHN-PolitiFact: Is My Cloth Mask Good Enough to Face the Delta Variant?
Public health experts increasingly urge people to upgrade to surgical masks, but also maintain that cloth masks still offer protection.
Científicos analizan los sistemas inmunes únicos de los niños mientras más son víctimas de covid
Aunque no hay evidencia de que la variante delta cause una enfermedad más grave, el virus es tan infeccioso que los niños están siendo hospitalizados en gran número, principalmente en estados con bajas tasas de vacunación.
Covid-Overwhelmed Hospitals Postpone Cancer Care and Other Treatment
Patients with advanced cancer and heart disease are among those who have had to have surgeries and other treatments delayed and rescheduled as a high number of critically ill, unvaccinated covid patients strain the medical system.
Scientists Examine Kids’ Unique Immune Systems as More Fall Victim to Covid
Doctors are trying to figure out why some kids become much sicker than others and, in rare cases, don’t survive.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Much Ado About Drug Prices
Democrats have hit a snag in their effort to compile a $3.5 trillion social-spending bill this fall — moderates are resisting support for Medicare drug price negotiation provisions that would pay for many of the measure’s health benefit improvements. Meanwhile, the new abortion restrictions in Texas have moved the divisive issue back to the political front burner. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interview’s KHN’s Phil Galewitz about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment, about two similar jaw surgeries with very different price tags.
When Covid Deaths Are Dismissed or Stigmatized, Grief Is Mixed With Shame and Anger
After their brother died, two sisters faced a barrage of misinformation, pandemic denialism and blaming questions. Grief experts say that makes covid-19 the newest kind of “disenfranchising death.”
How Fauci and the NIH Got Ahead of the FDA and CDC in Backing Boosters
With real-time data streaming in from highly specialized researchers in the U.S. and abroad, NIH scientists became convinced that boosting the covid-19 vaccine was needed to save lives, prompting the president to announce a plan with a Sept. 20 start date. Scientists at the regulatory agencies weren’t yet convinced. A meeting Friday will determine what happens next. Here’s the story from behind the scenes.
Más de la mitad de los estados han revertido poderes de salud pública durante la pandemia
Motivados por votantes enojados por los cierres y los mandatos sobre el uso de máscaras durante la pandemia, legisladores republicanos en más de la mitad de los estados de EE.UU. están quitando los poderes que los funcionarios estatales y locales usan para proteger al público contra las enfermedades infecciosas
Over Half of States Have Rolled Back Public Health Powers in Pandemic
At least 26 states have passed laws to permanently limit public health powers, a KHN investigation has found, weakening the country’s ability to fight not only the current resurgence of the pandemic but other health crises to come.
