Dr. Paul Stoffels, the chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, tells NPR the company's vaccine is very effective where it matters most: preventing hospitalizations and deaths.
Large corporations such as Starbucks, Honeywell, Microsoft, Costco and Google want to help states with planning and logistics. But the potential of these partnerships is hindered by supply problems.
Amesh Adalja of Johns Hopkins University says strict guidelines around how to roll out the vaccine have discouraged health care providers from giving spare doses to noneligible groups.
Cadres of volunteers, mostly medical professionals, are part of a little-known federal emergency program launched in the aftermath of 9/11. Increasingly, states are deploying them against COVID-19.
The huge spending bill Congress passed last month included aid to rural hospitals, training for new doctors, new rules regarding mental health coverage and requirements for billing transparency.
An insurance regulation known as "the birthday rule" is tripping up couples who are putting their newborn children on the wrong policy and risk losing thousands of dollars.
Death knocked on his door, but Rick Martin survived. He spent 17 days in the hospital with COVID-19, including five days on a ventilator. “I experienced fear like I never imagined before,” Martin says.
Merck, which previously made an Ebola vaccine, had been seen as a serious contender in the worldwide race to come up with an answer to the coronavirus.
Many senior citizens entered their golden years with more debt than previous generations, and now they're struggling financially as they try to provide care for an ailing relative during the pandemic.
Early in the pandemic, shortages of N95 respirators and other medical gear prompted panic across the world. A year later, the masks still aren't widely available to U.S. consumers.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is touting the success of his policy providing COVID-19 vaccines to everyone 65 years and older in the state. But critics say the vaccine distribution favors some groups over others.
South Dakota has administered roughly 80,000 of the 106,000 doses it has received so far, or 75%. Dr. Shankar Kurra in Rapid City says a centralized system helped for coordination.
State health officials are breathing a sigh of relief. But they are also cautious: More than 40 million Californians live in counties where COVID-19 risk is deemed "widespread."
As COVID-19 vaccines roll out, doctors say it's long past time to address the exclusion of pregnant women from research on drugs and vaccines. They say better study design is the answer.
