Category: NPR

As temperatures drop around the country, unhoused people are especially vulnerable. NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks to hotel shelter worker Yusra Murad about the challenge of keeping people safe and warm.

Even after getting one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, some people are having trouble getting their second shot. Here’s how to maximize the likelihood you’ll get both doses, to be fully immunized.

The prize committee said Dr. Anthony Fauci, long-time head of the United States’ leading infectious diseases research institute, “is the consummate model of leadership and impact in public health.”

The federal insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov, has reopened for changes and new sign-ups until May 15. But states with their own exchanges have different rules. Here’s what you need to know.

Even when forced online by the pandemic, music therapy sessions continue to help patients in some ways talk therapy can’t. “Music is this portal,” says one therapist and COVID-19 long-hauler.

Without federal tracking, no one knows how many people in disability group housing have fallen ill or died from the virus. And few states are prioritizing them for vaccination.

The same electronic systems used to record when patients get a physical or go to the ER are also used to log data when coronavirus vaccines are given. But the systems don’t share information easily.

Guidance from the CDC on who should be prioritized to get the COVID-19 vaccine was meant to be flexible and inclusive. But “the attempt to have equity created more inequity,” says one researcher.

Slavitt tells NPR that getting more vaccines out quicker will involve lots of “small steps.” He says people will have to be “more patient than they want to be,” but supplies are increasing.

With vaccine still scarce, and eligibility differing from place to place, some people have easier access to “extra” doses than others. Careful, ethicists warn. Going out of turn is a slippery slope.