The covid pandemic drove major changes to Montana health policies, including the permanent expansion of telehealth regulations, a pullback on local public health officials’ authority and the easing of vaccination requirements for workers and students.
When they were 6, Hallel told their parents they are a boy-girl. At 9, they are helping their parents, grandparents and friends understand what it means to be nonbinary.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has outsourced his way through the covid-19 pandemic, tasking his private-sector allies in Silicon Valley and the health care industry with fundamental public health duties such as testing, tracing and vaccination. Among the losers: the state’s weakened public health system.
Some immigrant groups are closing the ethnic gap on COVID-19 shots. For many Kurdish Americans, their fears about vaccination are entangled with their experiences in refugee camps after fleeing Iraq.
With older adults vaccinated, doctors say a growing share of their covid patients are in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, as more contagious variants circulate among people who remain unvaccinated.
Across Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, where death rates from stroke are above the national average, routing patients from rural areas to the right level of care can be an intricate jigsaw puzzle. The closest hospital might not offer the full scope of stroke treatments, but hospitals with more advanced care could be hours away.
A KHN investigation found that more than 2,000 schools have spent millions of dollars for systems, lured by air purifier companies’ claims that experts say mislead or obscure the potential for harm from toxic ozone.
California officials are optimistic they can vaccinate millions more before hitting a hard wall of vaccine resistance.
More than 200,000 doses of covid vaccine have gone to waste since December, KHN has learned. Two national pharmacy chains account for most of it.
Even as the nation has moved on to vaccinating everyone 16 and older, the vast majority of people homebound due to frailty or age — and among the most vulnerable to covid’s devastation — have not yet been vaccinated. California offers a sharp lens on the challenges.
