Category: COVID-19

It’s Time to Scare People About COVID

Our public messaging about the virus should explain the real costs — in graphic terms — of catching the virus.

Tracking COVID’s Spread Inside a Tight-Knit Latino Community

Contact tracing for COVID-19 in a Latino immigrant community has some unique challenges. But as public health officials in Telluride, Colorado, are showing, using resources from inside those communities can help track and contain the coronavirus.

A Child’s Death in the Heartland Changes Community Views About COVID

As America enters a dark winter with no national directives against COVID-19, Washington, Missouri, faced the same dilemma numerous other communities are grappling with: enact restrictions to curb the pandemic or leave people to their own will? Then a local 13-year-old died.

Demand for COVID Vaccines Expected to Get Heated — And Fast

With two vaccines against coronavirus disease poised for release within weeks, experts say they expect attitudes to shift dramatically from hesitancy to “Beanie Baby”-level urgency.

Fear and Loathing as Colleges Face Another Season of Red Ink

When campuses stay open, COVID infections spread widely, and sometimes kill. But by closing dorms and dining halls, scores of smaller schools face finances so ruinous they could be fatal for their institutions.

‘An Arm and a Leg’: Obamacare Alum Andy Slavitt Takes Stock of the COVID Pandemic — So Far

On the latest episode of ‘An Arm and a Leg’: Come for insights from an Obama administration health policy leader, stay to hear how frank health policy conversations can get uncomfortable.

Last Call for COVID: To Avoid Bar Shutdowns, States Serve Up Curfews

Authorities are ordering early closures — generally around 10 p.m. — to curb the spread of COVID-19. But will the coronavirus observe this curfew?

What Happened When the Only ER Doctor in a Rural Town Got COVID

Hospitals across the country are struggling as staffers get infected with the coronavirus. It’s especially tough for small, rural hospitals, where even one doctor out sick can upend patient capacity.

After a Deadly COVID Outbreak, Maryland County Takes Steps to Protect Health Workers

Prince George’s County in Maryland is taking action after a coronavirus outbreak left veteran public health worker Chantee Mack dead and several colleagues with lasting medical problems. But some staffers say more still needs to be done to keep public health workers on the front lines of the COVID fight safe.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Who Will Run the Biden Health Effort?

The official transition to a Joe Biden administration has finally begun, and he is expected to announce his health care team soon, including a new secretary of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, as the COVID-19 pandemic worsens in the U.S., officials are preparing for the effort to get Americans vaccinated as soon as vaccines are approved by the FDA. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Julie Appleby, who wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment.