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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Good and Not-So-Good News on Covid
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. 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 administration has brokered a deal with rival manufacturer Merck to produce even more doses of the J&J vaccine, which can be transported and administered more easily than the covid vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. But at the same time, the covid-19 caseload is starting to ...
California Healthline
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Kaiser Permanente, Big Player in State Vaccine Effort, Has Had Trouble Vaccinating Own Members
USE OUR CONTENT It can be republished for free. 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 — revealed a common frustration: difficulty snagging an appointment. Many also described receiving sporadic and sometimes confusing information from the company, though some said Kaiser has b...
California Healthline
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Accidentally Trashed, Thawed or Expired: Reports of Covid Vaccine Spoilage
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. This story is from a partnership that includes NPR, Nashville Public Radio and KHN. It can be republished for free. The incidents range from 335 discarded doses in Lee County, North Carolina, that were damaged in shipping, to nearly 5,000 doses that went to waste in Tennessee in February, prompting additional federal oversight. “I...
California Healthline
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Reopening of Long-Term Care Facilities Is ‘an Absolute Necessity for Our Well-Being’
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. This story also ran on CNN. It can be republished for free. They’re calling for federal health authorities to relax visitation restrictions in long-term care institutions, replacing guidance that’s been in place since September. And they want both federal and state authorities to grant special status to “essential ...
California Healthline
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Beijing’s SARS Lockdown Taught My Children Resilience. Your Covid Kids Will Likely Be Fine.
This story also ran on The Washington Post. It can be republished for free. Many parents are filled with angst as they prepare for their children to exit a year of pandemic isolation: Will it be OK to send them to school, per the recent recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Will school feel like school if students are masked and can’t trade snacks? Will children’s development be impaired by nearly a year of seeing few friends? With 20-20 hindsight, I can provide some reassurance, because my kids were 8 and 10 when SARS hit Beijing nearly two decades ago, shutting ...
California Healthline
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In California, Caregivers of People With Disabilities Are Being Turned Away at COVID Vaccine Sites
This story is part of a partnership that includes KPCC, NPR and KHN. It can be republished for free. In California, confusion and botched communication has caused some eligible parents and family caregivers of people with disabilities to be turned away at covid vaccination sites. Oscar Madrigal is one of those caregivers. His two sons are on the autism spectrum and his youngest requires almost constant care. As the vaccination effort began, Madrigal hoped he and others like him would be prioritized, and he didn’t have long to wait. In January, the California Department of Developmental Service...
California Healthline
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‘Into the Covid ICU’: A New Doctor Bears Witness to the Isolation, Inequities of Pandemic
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. This story also ran on Reveal. It can be republished for free. This week marks a grim milestone: Half a million Americans have died of covid-19. KHN reporter Jenny Gold, in collaboration with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, spent eight months following one first-year medical resident working on the front lines of the pandemic. Dr. Paloma Marin-Nevarez graduated from the Stanford University medical school in June, right before the virus began its second major surge. She’s one of more than 30,000 new doct...
California Healthline
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Connecticut Is Doling Out Vaccines Based Strictly on Age. It’s Simpler, but Is it Fair?
With covid vaccines expected to remain scarce into early spring, Connecticut has scrapped its complicated plans to prioritize immunizations for people under 65 with certain chronic conditions and front-line workers. Instead, the state will primarily base eligibility on age. Gov. Ned Lamont pointed to statistics showing the risk of death and hospitalization from covid-19 rises significantly by age. Yet, shifting to an age-based priority system — after health workers, nursing home patients and people 65 and up have been offered vaccines — has frustrated people with health conditions such as canc...
California Healthline
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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Staffing Up at HHS
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. More than a month into President Joe Biden’s term, nominees to fill some of the top posts at the Department of Health and Human Services are finally getting confirmation hearings in the Senate, starting with the nominee for secretary, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Barring something unexpected, it appears that Becerra, along with the surgeon general nominee, Vivek Murthy, and the nominee for assistant secretary for health, Rachel Levine, will all be confirmed, despite criticisms raised by some Republicans. Meanwhile, ...
California Healthline
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College Tuition Sparked a Mental Health Crisis. Then the Hefty Hospital Bill Arrived.
This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free. Despite a lifelong struggle with panic attacks, Divya Singh made a brave move across the world last fall from her home in Mumbai, India. She enrolled at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, to study physics and explore an interest in standup comedy in Manhattan. Arriving in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic and isolated in her dorm room, Singh’s anxiety ballooned when her family had trouble coming up with the money for a $16,000 tuition installment. Hofstra warned her she would have to vacate the dorm after the term ended if sh...
California Healthline
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