Public Health

At 70, Linda Findley has long been active in her small town of Fort Scott, Kansas, which sits more than an hour away from any major city. Findley, whose husband died in an accident just after the local hospital closed, helps with the Elks and fundraising, and — like many people in this part of […]

In California’s Mendocino County, public health officials and community clinics say they have hit their vaccination stride. Despite the county’s remoteness and its largely rural population spread among wooded mountains, rugged coastline and idyllic vineyards, about 40% of eligible adults have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine. But now they face renewed […]

Bartenders were pouring Old-Fashioneds at a bar with a bullet hole straight through the wood. Servers in corsets and fishnet stockings roamed the room, passing an old piano that, twice a week, fills the building with ragtime tunes. It was a Friday evening at the Diamond Belle Saloon on the main drag in Durango, Colorado. […]

Masks and physical distancing are proving to have major fringe benefits, keeping people from getting all kinds of illnesses — not just covid-19. But it’s unclear whether the protocols will be worth the pain in the long run. The teachers at New Hope Academy in Franklin, Tennessee, were chatting the other day. The private Christian […]

Even as the pandemic took a devastating toll on health care workers and older adults in the United States, many home care workers reported to work and provided vital care to vulnerable people despite the health risks to themselves and their families. KHN and The John A. Hartford Foundation held an interactive web event to examine the […]

The development of the first covid vaccines may have seemed to occur at a dizzying pace. After all, scientists identified a new virus and created vaccines to protect against its most severe effects within a year. But the research underpinning these vaccines isn’t that new at all, vaccine experts say. Some of it is decades […]

A new poll of attitudes toward covid vaccinations shows Americans are growing more enthusiastic about being vaccinated, with the most positive change in the past month occurring among Black Americans. About 55% of Black adults said they had been vaccinated or plan to be soon, up 14 percentage points from February, according to a poll […]

“Sorry Dr Fauci and other fearmongers, new study shows vaccines and naturally acquired immunity DO effectively neutralize COVID variants. Good news for everyone but bureaucrats and petty tyrants!” — Sen. Rand Paul in a tweet, March 21, 2021 That Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky often disagrees with infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is well known. […]

Could a decades-old antidepressant be a secret weapon against covid? A few scientists think so, after two small studies showed that fluvoxamine, typically prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder, prevented serious illness in all participants who took the pills soon after developing symptoms. It’s an exciting notion: A $10, two-week course of this drug could reduce death […]

Here’s one big takeaway from our country’s disastrous 2020 covid response: For 20 years, we’ve lavished attention and money on fighting human terrorism and forgot that the terrorism of nature is equally deadly, deserving equal preparation. Today, with more than 545,000 U.S. covid deaths, I hope we’ve learned the huge cost of allowing our public […]