Griffin Dalrymple is an energetic 7-year-old who loves going to school in Eureka, Montana. But two years ago, the boy described by his mother, Jayci, as a “ball of fire” was suddenly knocked back by severe bacterial pneumonia that hospitalized him for two weeks. As her son lay in the intensive care unit with a […]

[UPDATED on March 6] Brandon Dell’Orto listened to the comments and complaints as the school board meeting dragged on hour after hour. Many parents were angry. Their kids were sad, bored, borderline depressed, fed up with a school model that didn’t allow them to be on campus every day. The parents wanted schools open. They […]

Tim Dupin thought — or at least hoped — that Missouri firefighters, paramedics and other emergency medical services personnel would be among the first to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. After months of feeling overlooked by elected leaders in the distribution of safety equipment and other resources, surely, Dupin thought, their role on the front […]

California rolled out a statewide covid vaccination website this week aiming to streamline the appointment process after months of criticism, but the site is riddled with its own snags, preventing many from signing up for shots. The vaccine sign-up website, My Turn, is the state’s answer to a previous hodgepodge of vaccination appointment systems that […]

As the speed of covid vaccinations picks up, so do the reports of doses going to waste. And it’s more than just a handful at the end of the day because of a few appointment cancellations. Health officials are trying to rein in waste without slowing down vaccinations. The incidents range from 335 discarded doses […]

With more than 20 million acres of corn and soybeans, Illinois is among the top U.S. producers of those crops. To make it all happen, the state relies on thousands of farmworkers — some of whom travel to the state for seasonal work and others, like 35-year-old Saraí, who call Illinois home. Being an agricultural […]

For nearly a year, nursing homes and assisted living centers have been mostly closed to visitors. Now, it’s time for them to open back up and relieve residents of crushing isolation, according to a growing chorus of long-term care experts, caregivers, consumer groups and physicians. They’re calling for federal health authorities to relax visitation restrictions […]

There’s a reason soldiers go through basic training before heading into combat: Without careful instruction, green recruits armed with powerful weapons could be as dangerous to one another as to the enemy. The immune system works much the same way. Immune cells, which protect the body from infections, need to be “educated” to recognize bad […]

As managed-care giant Kaiser Permanente assumes a prominent role in California’s new covid-19 vaccination strategy, it is drawing mixed reviews from members across the country for the way it has run its own vaccine program over the past two months. Conversations with 10 Kaiser enrollees in five states — Colorado, Washington, Virginia, Maryland and California […]

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on PRX. There’s good news and bad news on covid-19 this week. On the one hand, several million doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine authorized by the FDA for emergency use are already going into the arms of people around the nation. And the Biden […]