Tag: Public Health

December 14, 2020

If there’s such a thing as a date with destiny, it’s marked on Dr. Taison Bell’s calendar. At noon Tuesday, Bell, a critical care physician, is scheduled to be one of the first health care workers at the University of […]

December 7, 2020

Americans have made no secret of their skepticism of COVID-19 vaccines this year, with fears of political interference and a “warp speed” timeline blunting confidence in the shots. As recently as September, nearly half of U.S. adults said they didn’t […]

December 3, 2020

California, like the rest of the nation, is seeing a dramatic rise in COVID infections and deaths — and Los Angeles County has some of the most dire statistics. Health officials reported more than 7,500 new cases in the county […]

December 2, 2020

Hospitals in much of the country are trying to cope with unprecedented numbers of COVID-19 patients. As of Monday, 96,039 were hospitalized, an alarming record that far exceeds the two previous peaks in April and July of just under 60,000 […]

November 24, 2020

Registered nurse Pascaline Muhindura has spent the past eight months treating COVID patients at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri. But when she returns home to her small town of Spring Hill, Kansas, she’s often stunned by what she […]

November 17, 2020

As the novel coronavirus emerged in the news in January, Sarah Keeley was working as a medical scribe and considering what to do with her biology degree. By February, as the disease crept across the U.S., Keeley said she found […]

November 6, 2020

The Department of Veterans Affairs is recruiting 8,000 volunteers for the Phase 3 clinical trials of at least four COVID-19 vaccine candidates at 20 federal medical facilities across the U.S., according to officials with the VA and Operation Warp Speed, […]

October 27, 2020

With the development of a coronavirus vaccine nearing its final stages, public health departments across the U.S. are hastily preparing to distribute it — even though they don’t know when it will be approved or which ones will ultimately get […]

October 1, 2020

Public health measures like wearing a mask and avoiding close contact with others could help prevent the forthcoming influenza season from complicating the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday. The […]

September 28, 2020

When it comes to health care, President Donald Trump has promised far more than he has delivered. But that doesn’t mean his administration has had no impact on health issues — including the operation of the Affordable Care Act, prescription […]

September 23, 2020

Reopening colleges drove a coronavirus surge of about 3,000 new cases a day in the United States, according to a draft study released Tuesday. The study, done jointly by researchers at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Indiana University, the University […]

September 10, 2020

Nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center were on edge as early as March when patients with COVID-19 began to show up in areas of the hospital that were not set aside to care for them. The Centers for Disease […]

August 24, 2020

The Trump administration’s latest effort to use COVID-19 rapid tests — touted by one senior official as a “turning point” in arresting the coronavirus’s spread within nursing homes — is running into roadblocks likely to limit how widely they’ll be […]

August 17, 2020

As the coronavirus began to spread through Minneapolis this spring, Health Commissioner Gretchen Musicant tore up her budget to find funds to combat the crisis. Money for test kits. Money to administer tests. Money to hire contact tracers. Yet even […]

August 3, 2020

The World Health Organization said Monday there may never be a magical cure for the coronavirus even as scientists and drugmakers across the globe race to find a safe and effective vaccine. Scientists have made progress in identifying treatments that […]

July 31, 2020

These days, Los Angeles acting teacher Deryn Warren balances her pain with her fear. She’s a bladder cancer patient who broke her wrist in November. She still needs physical therapy for her wrist, and she’s months late for a cancer […]

July 28, 2020

Steve Alvarez started feeling sick around Father’s Day weekend this year. His symptoms started as mild, but developed into a fever, chills and shortness of breath he couldn’t shake. “Just when I started to get to feeling better and I […]

July 20, 2020

Younger people are less likely to be hospitalized or die of COVID-19 than their elders, but they circulate more freely while carrying the disease, and their cases are harder to trace. Together, these facts terrify California hospital officials. People under […]

July 10, 2020

As a teenager, Paulina Castle struggled for years with suicidal thoughts. When her mental health was at its most fragile, she would isolate herself, spending days in her room alone. “That’s the exact thing that makes you feel significantly worse,” […]

July 1, 2020

The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources to confront the worst health crisis in a century. Marshaled against a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million in the U.S., killed more than […]