Category: Coronavirus

Coronavirus, Drugs, Health Policy

Lifesaving COVID Medications Can Be Hard to Come By

February 14, 2022

Early in the pandemic, states competed for the limited supply of ventilators, personal protective equipment and tests in a chaotic free-for-all. To avoid a repeat, the federal government is buying millions of doses of the COVID-19 therapeutic medications and allocating those to states, which in turn distribute them to pharmacies or hospitals. In many places, what is arriving is far less than the need.

Coronavirus, Laboratory Medicine

What Patients Can Learn With Confidence From One Negative Rapid Test (Hint: Very Little)

January 14, 2022

There are just so many variables. Testing may come either too soon, before enough virus is present to detect, or too late, after a person has already spread the virus to others. And most rapid tests, even according to their instructions, are meant to be used in pairs — generally a day or two apart — for increased accuracy. Despite that, a few brands are sold one to a box and, with the tests sometimes expensive and in short supply, families are often relying on a single screening.

Supreme Court building
Coronavirus, Health Policy, Politics, Vaccines

Justices Block Broad Worker Vaccine Requirement, Allow Health Worker Mandate to Proceed

January 14, 2022

The OSHA rules are opposed by many business groups, led by the small business advocacy organization the National Federation of Independent Business. It argued that allowing the rules to take effect would leave businesses “irreparably harmed,” both by the costs of compliance and the possibility that workers would quit rather than accept the vaccine.