The covid pandemic has spotlighted the often-unseen role of public health in Americans’ daily lives. And the picture has not all been pretty. What is public health and why is it so important — and controversial? Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, explains the basics. Then, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Lauren Weber of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss what could happen next.
As students return to campus, schools across the country are taking steps to enforce public health advice to keep people safe from covid. In deeply conservative South Carolina when elected officials tried to stop that, a professor took on the establishment and won.
As the delta variant overtakes Mississippi and other undervaccinated parts of the country, one 13-year-old girl’s experience with covid and MIS-C shows a community’s reluctance to embrace public health precautions and continued vulnerability to the pandemic.
V-safe is a new safety monitoring system that lets anyone who has been vaccinated against covid-19 report possible side effects directly to federal health officials. Experts believe the smartphone tool has so far helped demonstrate the vaccines are safe.
Fall and football go hand in hand. But with covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths soaring from the delta variant, is it safe to go to the stadium? KHN asks the experts.
Lynn Casteel Harper, a minister at the interdenominational Riverside Church in New York City, discusses the spiritual dimension of aging.
Back-to-school season has fueled immediate covid outbreaks. Instead of beefing up protections, some districts are letting students go without masks, physical distancing and quarantines. And parents are left to make impossibly tough decisions.
Zoom in on states with overall good vaccination rates and you see a checkerboard effect, with rural areas far lagging urban zones. That’s allowed the pandemic to rage in places like Jackson County, Oregon, overwhelming hospitals.
Televisits took off during the worst days of the pandemic, but states are now rolling back the temporary rules that facilitated them. That’s adding fuel to debates about states’ authority over medical licensing.
Two days before hosting an outdoor Wilco concert, the St. Louis Music Park announced it would require proof of vaccination or a negative covid test for all ticket holders, sending some attendees scrambling and upending plans. Concertgoers, promoters and venues nationwide are all having to pivot quickly to find safer ways of enjoying live music amid the pandemic’s delta surge.
