Blurb: Some front-line workers who die of covid-19 have been considered eligible for accidental death benefits because it is presumed their infection was contracted on the job. But some employers now suggest that if the workers didn’t follow established safety protocols, such as getting vaccinated, those benefits may be denied.
Even as the U.S. prepares to roll out a covid-19 vaccine to elementary school-aged kids, its efforts to inoculate teenagers — who have been eligible for the shot since May — continue to meet with a lackluster response. So far, about half of kids 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated in the U.S., compared with […]
Reports of waning effectiveness and mixed messages about booster shots fuel the politicization of vaccination.
Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to exhaustion, partisan politics and jobs that pay more for less work. The public health nurses, epidemiologists and microbiologists who work to keep our communities healthy are abandoning the field.
A federal allocation plan meant to ensure equitable distribution of powerful monoclonal antibody treatments for high-risk patients fails to prioritize nursing home residents, a population that remains particularly vulnerable even after vaccination.
A huge thank you to our readers who participated in our third annual KHN Halloween Haiku Contest. Based on a review by our expert panel of judges, we unmask the winner and serve a sampling of finalists.
Certain patients who couldn’t get in to see a doctor earlier in the pandemic, or were avoiding the covid risks inside hospitals, have become too sick to stay away. Many ERs now struggle to cope with an onslaught of demand.
President Joe Biden unveiled a compromise “Build Back Better” framework shortly before taking off for key meetings in Europe, but it’s unclear whether the framework can win the votes of all Democrats in the House and Senate, and it leaves out some of the party’s health priorities, notably significant provisions to lower prescription drug prices. Meanwhile, younger children may soon be eligible for covid vaccines. Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet and Rachana Pradhan of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
The pandemic has so seriously strained already tight state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Virginia, Texas and elsewhere that these facilities for the poorest and most vulnerable people with mental illness struggle to admit new patients.
The covid vaccination rate for first responders in the state is more than 95%. But it’s lower in more rural areas, where ambulance crews can’t function if even just a few people quit.
