Patients with symptoms that last three to 12 weeks after an acute covid infection should adopt a “watchful waiting” approach to recovery, an expert says. Keep in contact with a primary care doctor and take it easy.
Nicolas Montero is 16, and that’s old enough to get a vaccine on his own in Philadelphia. Vaccine regulations vary around the country and, in more than a dozen states, teens can consent to their own medical care.
The Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium has increased access to coronavirus testing in the Philadelphia region, testing more than 10,000 people. The group’s mobile unit and pop-up testing sites also offer patients an opportunity to connect with African American health care providers.
In Philadelphia, New Orleans and Los Angeles, former safety-net hospitals sit empty in the middle of the city. But reopening a closed hospital, even in the midst of a pandemic when health resources are scarce, is not easy or cheap.
An average of three people a day died of opioid overdose in Philadelphia in 2018. But efforts to combat the crisis with a supervised injection site could be stymied by “the crackhouse statute,” a portion of federal law meant to protect neighborhoods during the crack epidemic of the 1980s.
It can be difficult to get a prescription for buprenorphine, one of the gold standards for treating opioid use disorder. And not all pharmacies stock the drug.