As some states adopt covid vaccine requirements, not everyone agrees mandates for children are the way forward. Taking a page from history: We have two paths to putting the pandemic behind us: a quicker, more certain one of mandatory vaccination or a stuttering, drawn-out, likely more deadly affair.
At Salem Health Salem Hospital in Oregon, the omicron surge is still swamping health care workers. They are ground down emotionally but keep showing up for their patients.
A public health official who said he was anti-abortion and anti-mandate for masks and covid vaccines did not pass the purity test of a Missouri senator who opposes covid public health restrictions. The senator killed the official’s nomination to be state health director, highlighting how hands may be tied in the nationwide fight against infectious diseases.
Pandemic living has come with a barrage of daily choices that have many of us complaining of a sort of brain freeze. That exhaustion is real, and it’s got a name: “decision fatigue.”
Alice Wong, a writer and organizer in San Francisco, says the isolation and loss of the pandemic have shown society what it’s like to be disabled.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is drawing criticism for his hands-off handling of the covid crisis even though the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and FDA report to him. Meanwhile, the Department of Labor looks to enforce mental health “parity laws” that have failed to achieve their goals. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Noam N. Levey, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode about a large emergency room bill for a small amount of medical care.
Home health and hospice agencies are experiencing extreme worker shortages, which means they can’t provide services to all the patients seeking care.
Many parents of children too young for vaccines are exhausted. Some feel isolated and even forgotten by those who just want to move on even as omicron continues to sweep through parts of the country.
As omicron surges, more nursing homes are facing a double whammy: Lab tests are taking too long, and fast antigen tests are in short supply.
Say you’re on Day 6 — or 8 or 10 — of a symptomatic covid infection, and a rapid antigen test comes back positive. Could the test just be detecting bits and pieces of dead virus? If you’re a petri dish, sure. But if you’re a human, chances are you’re still infectious. Virologists weigh in.
