It’s been a long, dark winter of covid concerns, stoked by high post-holiday case counts and the American death tally exceeding 530,000 lives lost. But with three vaccines — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — now authorized for emergency use in the United States, there seems to be hope that the pandemic’s end may […]

LONG BEACH — Era un jueves por la tarde y Rhianna Alvarado se ponía con dificultad los guantes protectores, que eran demasiado grandes para sus pequeñas manos. Con su madre guiándola en cada movimiento, se acercó a su padre y suavemente le quitó el tubo de plástico de la garganta que le permite respirar. Luego […]

LONG BEACH — On a recent Thursday afternoon, Rhianna Alvarado struggled to don her protective gloves, which were too big for her petite hands.  With her mom coaching her every move, she edged close to her father and gently removed the plastic tube from his throat that allows him to breathe. She then cautiously inserted a new […]

Nearly all women who deliver babies through cesarean section at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City receive injections of the blood thinner heparin for weeks after the procedure, to prevent potentially life-threatening blood clots. Obstetric leaders there say that’s good medical practice because the formation of those clots, called venous thromboembolism or […]

window.addEventListener(‘message’, function(event) { if (typeof event.data[‘datawrapper-height’] !== ‘undefined’) { var iframes = document.querySelectorAll(‘iframe’); for (var chartId in event.data[‘datawrapper-height’]) { for (var i=0; i<iframes.length; i++) { if (iframes[i].contentWindow === event.source) { iframes[i].style.height = event.data['datawrapper-height'][chartId] + 'px'; } } } } }); For all of our grousing about covid fatigue, a few novel trends are clear one […]

This spring, high school senior Nathan Kassis will play baseball in the shadow of covid-19 — wearing a neck gaiter under his catcher’s mask, sitting 6 feet from teammates in the dugout and trading elbow bumps for hugs after wins. “We’re looking forward to having a season,” said the 18-year-old catcher for Dublin Coffman High […]

In the nation’s battle against the diabetes epidemic, the go-to weapon being aggressively promoted to patients is as small as a quarter and worn on the belly or arm. A continuous glucose monitor holds a tiny sensor that’s inserted just under the skin, alleviating the need for patients to prick their fingers every day to […]

In the year since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, millions of families have endured the excruciating rise and fall of the U.S. outbreak — waves of sickness that leave untold wounds long after hospitalizations ebb and infections subside. Some have borne the tragedy more than others, with multiple family members lost to […]

Joan Phillips, a certified nursing assistant in a Florida nursing home, loved her job but dreaded the danger of going to work in the pandemic. When vaccines became available in December, she jumped at the chance to get one. Months later, it appears that danger has faded. After the rollout of covid vaccines, the number […]