With real-time data streaming in from highly specialized researchers in the U.S. and abroad, NIH scientists became convinced that boosting the covid-19 vaccine was needed to save lives, prompting the president to announce a plan with a Sept. 20 start date. Scientists at the regulatory agencies weren’t yet convinced. A meeting Friday will determine what happens next. Here’s the story from behind the scenes.
After their brother died, two sisters faced a barrage of misinformation, pandemic denialism and blaming questions. Grief experts say that makes covid-19 the newest kind of “disenfranchising death.”
There’s agreement that the plan includes important action items but also elements that will trigger political opposition.
At least 26 states have passed laws to permanently limit public health powers, a KHN investigation has found, weakening the country’s ability to fight not only the current resurgence of the pandemic but other health crises to come.
Unvaccinated people are filling intensive care beds and dying of covid in record numbers in Tennessee and other Southern states. Many tell their nurses and doctors they regret the decision not to get the vaccine when they could.
Germans pay less than $1 per test. Brits get them free. Why do Americans pay so much more? Because companies can still demand it.
Those seeking to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in Tuesday’s recall election disagree with him on more than mask and vaccine mandates. The conservative candidates tend to favor free-market solutions over Newsom’s expansion of publicly funded health coverage.
Many more people could benefit from the lifesaving treatment than are receiving it, which has made for messy triaging as the delta variant surges across the South and in rural communities with low covid vaccination rates.
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.
