Public Health

Julie Ann Justo, an infectious disease clinical pharmacist for a South Carolina hospital system, hoped Christmas week would finally be the time her family could safely gather for a reunion. Before the celebration, family members who were eligible were vaccinated and boosted. They quarantined and used masks in the days leading up to the event. […]

El 11 de enero, la Clínica Cleveland de Weston, en el sur de la Florida, estaba tratando a 80 pacientes con covid-19, 10 veces más que a fines diciembre. Casi la mitad fueron hospitalizados ​​por otras razones médicas. El aumento impulsado por la extremadamente infecciosa variante omicron abrumó al hospital de 206 camas: ahora tiene […]

KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber appeared on Newsy’s “Evening Debrief” program to discuss her recent investigative series on the risks of covid’s spread within hospitals. The series, reported with Christina Jewett, documented how more than 10,000 patients were diagnosed with covid after being hospitalized for other medical conditions in 2020 — and how multiple gaps […]

[UPDATED on Jan. 19] Tammy Kaminski can still recall the taste of benzene, a carcinogenic byproduct of burning jet fuel. For nine months after the 9/11 attacks, she volunteered for eight hours every Saturday at St. Paul’s Chapel, just around the corner from ground zero in New York City. She breathed in cancer-causing toxic substances, […]

The Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida, on Jan. 11 was treating 80 covid-19 patients — a tenfold increase since late December. Nearly half were admitted for other medical reasons. The surge driven by the extremely infectious omicron variant helped push the South Florida hospital with 206 licensed beds to 250 patients. The rise in cases […]

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a key Biden administration covid-19 initiative — putting a stop, for now, to a rule requiring businesses with more than 100 workers to either mandate that employees be vaccinated against covid or wear masks and undergo weekly testing. The rule, which covers an estimated 80 million workers, took effect […]

Julie Ann Justo, farmacéutica clínica de enfermedades infecciosas para un sistema hospitalario de Carolina del Sur, esperaba que la semana de Navidad finalmente fuera el momento en que su familia pudiera reunirse de manera segura. Antes de la celebración, los familiares elegibles se vacunaron y tuvieron sus refuerzos. Se aislaron y usaron máscaras. Y muchos […]

La super contagiosa variante omicron se está extendiendo por los Estados Unidos, provocando un dramático aumento de casos y saturando muchos sistemas hospitalarios. Además de instar a los estadounidenses a vacunarse y recibir el refuerzo, funcionarios de salud pública recomiendan que las personas cambien sus máscaras de tela por máscaras médicas de mayor calidad. ¿Qué […]

The highly transmissible omicron variant is sweeping the U.S., causing a huge spike in covid-19 cases and overwhelming many hospital systems. Besides urging Americans to get vaccinated and boosted, public health officials are recommending that people upgrade from their cloth masks to higher-quality medical-grade masks. But what does this even mean? At a recent Senate […]

The Colorado wildfire that destroyed more than 1,000 homes last month has forced the temporary closure of a hospital and upended the lives of health care workers as the state’s already strained health care system braces for another surge in covid-19 hospitalizations. Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, a community outside Boulder that was devastated in […]