This week, the dating app Bumble could not stay out of the news. First, the company launched an anti-celibacy advertising campaign mocking abstinence and suggesting women shouldn't give up on dating apps. Then, at a tech summit, Bumble's founder suggested artificial intelligence might be the future of dating. Both efforts were met with backlash, and during a time when everyone seems irritated with dating - where can people turn? Shani Silver, author of the Cheaper Than Therapysubstack, and KCRW's Myisha Battle, dating coach and host of How's Your Sex Life? join the show to make sense of the mess.
Then, it's been four years since the start of the COVID pandemic. So much has changed - especially attitudes towards public health. Brittany talks to, Dr. Keisha S. Ray, a bioethicist, to hear how public health clashed with American culture - how we're supposed to live among people with different risk tolerance - and what all this means for the next pandemic.
A feasibility study underway will help decide the new model for the facility. Randolph County lost its only hospital in 2020 after decades in operation.
As the COVID pandemic faded in 2022, U.S. life expectancy rose by more than a year. But the virus and drug overdoses spurred by fentanyl still took nearly 300,000 lives.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Missouri, Louisiana and five individuals who were either banned from social media during the pandemic or whose posts, they say, were not prominently featured.
"Long COVID has affected every part of my life," said Virginia resident Rachel Beale said at a recent Senate hearing. "I wake up every day feeling tired, nauseous and dizzy. I immediately start planning when I can lay down again." Beale is far from alone. Many of her experiences have been echoed by others dealing with long COVID. It's a constellation of debilitating symptoms that range from brain fog and intense physical fatigue to depression and anxiety. But there's new, promising research that sheds light onto some symptoms. NPR health correspondent Will Stone talks with Short Wave host Regina G. Barber about the state of long COVID research — what we know, what we don't and when we can expect treatments or even cures for it. Have more COVID questions you want us to cover? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you.
The agency is replacing its COVID-specific guidance with general guidance for respiratory viruses that says people should stay home when they are sick.
The CDC said Americans 65 and older should get another dose of the updated vaccine that became available in September — if at least four months has passed since their last shot.
The current guidance advises five days of isolation. Unnamed health officials have indicated that this guidance may soon go away, a move that troubles public health experts.
The CDC estimates that up to 86% of new COVID-19 cases stem from the latest mutation. The virus continues to evolve so rapidly that "our immune systems have not been able to keep up," an expert says.
Are we in a surge? How would we know? Is winter now "COVID season?" And what do you do if your whole family got the coronavirus over the holidays? We tackle readers' coronavirus questions.
Flu is rising, and COVID levels are higher than last season's peak. But COVID hospitalizations and deaths are down. Nonetheless, COVID is still the most dangerous virus circulating.