People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to have medical conditions that make covid especially dangerous. But a lack of federal tracking means no one knows how many people in disability group housing have fallen ill or died from the virus.
Even while the Senate is busy with Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, the House has gotten down to work on a covid relief bill using the budget reconciliation process. Meanwhile, the watchword for covid this week among the public is confusion — over masks, vaccines and just about everything else science-related. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, the panelists recommend their favorite “health policy valentines” along with their favorite health policy stories they think you should read, too.
Community health clinics are key to getting more Black and Hispanic Americans vaccinated, federal officials say. In Nashville, a vaccination push at federally funded clinics is underway.
Lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing bills to restrict transgender kids from participating in sports and ban doctors from treating them.
Masks imitating the real thing are flooding U.S. ports, and authorities can hardly keep pace.
Techies and startups have thrown together vaccine appointment websites to address the chaotic rollout of covid shots. But software can’t replace vaccines, and for many people the sites are just another piece of the vaccination “Hunger Games.”
Hospitals across the country are seeing rising admissions for alcoholic liver disease, which encompasses hepatitis, cirrhosis and other conditions.
Concerns arising in western North Carolina provide a window into the challenges facing health workers across the country as they seek to persuade vulnerable populations to be inoculated against covid.
Reaching people who may have been in contact with covid patients has helped cut the number of infections, but these tracing efforts become less effective as the number of cases grows.
Multiple-gene panel tests are frequently offered to patients at risk for diseases such as cancer that can assess more than 80 genes. But in screening a wide variety of genes, doctors might see a variant that hasn’t yet been deciphered and be unable to explain its significance, leaving patients with concerns and no answers.
