Public Health

With millions of older Americans eligible for covid-19 vaccines and limited supplies, many continue to describe a frantic and frustrating search to secure a shot, beset by uncertainty and difficulty.  The efforts to vaccinate people 65 and older have strained under the enormous demand that has overwhelmed cumbersome, inconsistent scheduling systems. The struggle represents a […]

President Joe Biden and a group of Republicans agreed this week on how much Congress should spend on vaccine distribution, covid-19 testing and other health investments that public health officials say are desperately needed to fight the pandemic. But agreement on those popular programs, which make up only 9% of Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief proposal, […]

Communities of color have been among the hardest hit during the pandemic. But advocates in Texas say those communities are likely to have a harder time getting the vaccine in the coming months, so they are urging local leaders to step in. Travis County Judge Andy Brown, the county executive in the Austin area, put […]

MECCA, Calif. — El polvo hace remolinos en el aire mientras Luz Gallegos estaciona su SUV a un lado de la calle de tierra. Acaba de enterarse que su tía murió a causa de covid-19, el tercer familiar en sucumbir al virus en solo dos semanas. Gallegos bajó de su auto a las 11:30 am, […]

April 30 will mark the end of the first 100 days of President Joe Biden’s tenure. That’s a benchmark presidents often set for making good on high-priority campaign promises. In early December, Biden announced that one promise would be to get 100 million covid-19 vaccines into the arms of Americans in the first 100 days, […]

Four weeks after San Diego pediatric nurse Jennifer Minhas fell ill with covid-19 last March, her cough and fever had resolved, but new symptoms had emerged: chest pain, an elevated heart rate and crushing fatigue. Her primary care physician told her she was just anxious, and that none of her other covid patients had those […]

The Biden administration’s much-needed national strategy to end the covid-19 pandemic includes plans to remedy the chaotic vaccination effort with “more people, more places, more supply.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency will open more vaccination sites, the government will buy more doses, and more people will be immunized. Still, by all estimates, the demand for […]

It started as a group of college friends who wanted to help during the pandemic. They had tech skills, so they used 3D printers to make face shields. Then they organized as a nonprofit, Philly Fighting Covid, and opened a testing site in a Philadelphia neighborhood that didn’t have one yet. The organization’s leader, Andrei […]

[UPDATED at 7:45 p.m. ET] California Gov. Gavin Newsom, struggling to salvage a once-bright political future dimmed by his mishandling of the covid crisis, tapped nonprofit health insurer Blue Shield of California last week to allocate the state’s covid vaccine. The company has thus far said little about how it plans to reorganize a gargantuan […]