KHN

It typically takes years of persuasion to change habits in the name of health safety. Local officials who are stuck with the responsibility of enforcing statewide pandemic-related mandates are trying to transform behavior fast.

A gynecologist in Carlsbad, New Mexico, tested the 60-year-old grandmother for various sexually transmitted infections without her knowledge. Her share of the lab fee was more than $3,000.

Months before federal officials authorized experimental vaccines to ward off the coronavirus in humans, scientists tried a veterinary vaccine in endangered ferrets. Drugmakers are researching similar efforts for other animals proving vulnerable to the virus, such as farmed minks, in part to guard against virus mutations that could pose new risks to people.

Yolanda Coar was 40 when she died of COVID-19 in August 2020 in Augusta, Georgia. She was also a nurse manager, and one of nearly 3,000 frontline workers who have died in the U.S. fighting this virus, according to an exclusive investigation by The Guardian and KHN.

Recent deaths on a small Native American reservation in Montana have underlined the heightened risks for Indigenous youths and how suicide prevention programs are struggling to operate during the pandemic.

Democrats are treating health care as a more critical issue than their Republican counterparts in Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoffs. It’s a strategy they hope will woo independents and motivate base voters. The results will determine which party controls the chamber during the first years of the Biden administration.

A long-debated measure to stop doctors, hospitals and other health care providers from billing patients for charges not covered by their insurance will gain congressional approval as part of the sweeping government spending package.

After missteps in Washington, each state and county is left to juggle where to send vaccines first and how to get them to each nursing home, hospital local health department and even school.

Republican Greg Gianforte said that he will encourage people to wear masks and wear one himself when he’s sworn in as governor, but that he trusts Montana residents to make the right health decisions for themselves.

Fears about lingering coronavirus at the White House are prompting a massive disinfection initiative before the Bidens move in.

A UCSF emergency room physician reflects on California’s response to COVID-19 and on lessons learned — or not — as the coronavirus makes its second devastating surge.

Scientists learned the wrong lesson from past outbreaks, but Dr. Anthony Fauci doesn’t cast blame.

As some patients linger near death, staffers at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center seek ways to expand capacity for a surge of cases that isn’t letting up.

Enacted in March, an emergency measure covers about half of full-time workers nationwide, permitting 10 days of paid sick leave for all who fall ill or need to quarantine, and 50 more days of extended leave for parents who need to care for a child at home due to COVID-related school or day care closures.