After a Decade of Lobbying, ALS Patients Gain Faster Access to Disability Payments

In late December, then-President Donald Trump signed a law that eliminates — only for people with Lou Gehrig’s disease — the required five-month waiting period before benefits begin under the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Gaining SSDI also gives these patients immediate Medicare health coverage.

Biden Takes the Reins, Calls for a United Front Against Covid and Other Threats

On health care, President Joe Biden made it clear that combating the covid-19 pandemic will be his top priority. “We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation,” he said. “We will get through this together.”

California Is Overriding Its Limits on Nurse Workloads as Covid Surges

As covid patients flood California emergency rooms, hospitals are increasingly desperate to find enough staffers to care for them all. But some nurses worry hospitals will use the pandemic as an excuse to permanently roll back their hard-won nurse-patient ratios.

Patients Fend for Themselves to Access Highly Touted Covid Antibody Treatments

Months after President Donald Trump credited monoclonal antibody therapy for his quick recovery from covid-19, only a trickle of the product has found its way into regular people. While hundreds of thousands of vials sit unused, sick patients who might benefit from early treatment have been left on their own to vie for access.

On Trump’s Last Full Day, Nation Records 400,000 Covid Deaths

On the day before the inauguration of a new president, the country marks a once unthinkable milestone of 400,000 deaths. The winter surge of the pandemic claimed 100,000 Americans in just five weeks.

Are Public Health Ads Worth the Price? Not if They’re All About Fear

Public service announcements about drug use or other public health problems often fall short, public health marketing experts say, because they incite people’s worst fears rather than giving people solutions.

Black Americans Are Getting Vaccinated at Lower Rates Than White Americans

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.

Geography Is Destiny: Dentists’ Access to Covid Shots Depends on Where They Live

A handful of states are making dentists a lower priority than other health professionals for inoculations, even though they have their hands in people’s mouths and are exposed to aerosols that spray germs in their faces.

Delicate Covid Vaccines Slow Rollout — Leading to Shots Given Out of Turn or, Worse, Wasted

“Thaw. Rest 15 minutes. Do not shake. Do not refreeze.”Do not shake. Do not refreeze.” Moderna’s vaccine comes with complicated instructions. And both available vaccines are good for only six hours once the vial is open. So at day’s end, health workers are left to either throw out precious doses or get shots into any arm that’s available.