Science File

For more than a year, public health officials have repeatedly told us that masks save lives. They’ve warned us to keep our distance from our neighbors, who’ve morphed into disease vectors before our eyes.

Now they are telling us that if we’re vaccinated, we no longer need to wear masks or physically distance ourselves in most cases — even indoors. To many people, myself included, this seems hard to reconcile with so many long months of masking and physical distancing and sacrificing our social lives for fear of covid-19.

What is an anxious, pandemic-weary (and wary) soul to do?

First, it’s important to stress that the dramatic rollback of mask-wearing and physical distancing recommended last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a policy California has adopted starting Tuesday as part of a broader reopening — applies only to people who have been fully vaccinated.

Even if … Read the rest

Cuando Kiki Radermacher, terapeuta de salud mental, llegó a una casa de Missoula, Montana, por una llamada de emergencia al 911 a fines de mayo, el hombre que había pedido ayuda estaba atrincheado en una esquina, gritándole a los policías.

 La casa que estaba alquilando iba a venderse. Había llamado al 911 cuando el miedo de quedarse sin hogar lo hizo tener pensamientos suicidas.

“Le pregunté: ‘¿Quieres sentarte conmigo?’”, recordó Radermacher, miembro del equipo móvil de respuesta a crisis de la ciudad. Luego ayudó al hombre a encontrar un servicio de apoyo. “Realmente queremos empoderar a las personas para encontrar soluciones”.

Missoula comenzó a enviar a este equipo especial en llamadas de emergencia de salud mental en noviembre como un proyecto piloto, y el próximo mes el programa se volverá permanente.

Es una de las seis iniciativas de respuesta móviles a crisis en Montana, que comenzó como una prueba en … Read the rest

It took covid-19 to give millions of Americans the option of telling their doctor about their aches and pains by phone.

But now that more doctors and patients are returning to in-person appointments, policymakers across the country are divided over how much taxpayer money to keep spending on phone appointments. Although they were a lifeline for Medicaid and Medicare patients who don’t have the technology for video visits, critics say they don’t provide the same level of patient care and aren’t worth the same price.

In California, the Democratic-controlled legislature wants the state’s Medicaid program for low-income people — called Medi-Cal — to keep paying for phone calls at the same rate as for video and in-person visits, a policy that began during the pandemic. But Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget plan directs Medi-Cal to reduce the rate.

Medi-Cal paid for a whopping 2.4 million phone appointments from March 1, … Read the rest

KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed the FDA’s approval of a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease on WAMU’s “1A” on Wednesday.

• Click here to hear Rovner on WAMU

KHN correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed the increase in alcohol use and misuse by young women on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Wednesday.

• Click here to hear Pattani on NPR
• Read Pattani’s “Women Now Drink as Much as Men — And Are Prone to Sickness Sooner“

KHN freelancer Harris Meyer discussed the FDA’s approval of a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease on Newsy on Tuesday and WCPN’s “The Sound of Ideas” on Wednesday.

• Click here to watch Meyer on Newsy
• Click here to hear Meyer on WCPN
• Read Meyer’s “FDA Weighs Approval of a Lucrative Alzheimer’s Drug, but Benefits Are Iffy“

KHN social media manager Chaseedaw Giles discussed opioid use and hip-hop music on NBC Lx’s “First Look” on Tuesday.

• Click here

Promise: “Double the number of drive-through testing sites, invest in next-generation testing, including at home tests and instant tests, so we can scale up our testing capacity by orders of magnitude.”

Before vaccinations were widely available, covid-19 tests were considered one of the few tools to help control the spread of the coronavirus.

That’s why then-candidate Joe Biden promised during the 2020 presidential campaign to boost the United States’ testing capacity as one way he would “beat covid-19.”

Specifically, Biden’s campaign website promised that, if elected, he would “double the number of drive-through testing sites” and “invest in next-generation testing, including at-home tests and instant tests, so we can scale up our testing capacity by orders of magnitude.”

KHN has teamed up with our partners at PolitiFact to analyze Biden’s promises during the 2020 presidential campaign. Now that Biden has been president almost five months, we checked how he has … Read the rest