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.
Category: COVID-19
Telehealth’s Limits: Battle Over State Lines and Licensing Threatens Patients’ Options
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.
Concert Venues Are Banking on Proof of Vaccines or Negative Tests to Woo Back Fans
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.
Medicaid Vaccination Rates Founder as States Struggle to Immunize Their Poorest Residents
Efforts by states and the private health plans that many states pay to cover low-income Americans has been scattershot and hampered by a lack of data.
States Pull Back on Covid Data Even Amid Delta Surge
As covid case numbers rise nationwide, Georgia and some other states have restricted the case count data they share publicly.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Vaccine Approval Moves the Needle on Covid
The FDA’s formal approval of the first vaccine to prevent covid-19 may or may not prompt doubters to go out and get shots, but it has clearly prompted employers to make vaccination a work requirement. Meanwhile, moderates and liberals in the U.S. House put aside their differences long enough to keep a giant social-spending bill on track, at least for now. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Tami Luhby of CNN and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
New Montana Law Sows Confusion, Defiance Over School Quarantines
Some counties are changing their covid quarantine policies in line with a law that bans discrimination based on a person’s vaccine status. But one county has decided to defy the rule.
What Missouri Learned the Hard Way About Rapid Covid Testing in Schools
Missouri’s ambitious school testing plan landed with a thud. What it can teach us now about keeping the delta variant out of classrooms.
Hot Spots Where Covid Vaccination Lags Push Experimental Antibody Treatment
Governors in Southern states, amid a surge of delta-variant infections, are rushing to provide an experimental antibody cocktail therapy, even as they oppose measures like mask mandates and vaccine passports that health officials say can prevent infection in the first place.
Readers and Tweeters Ponder Vaccines and Points of Fairness
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
