In recent weeks, tens of millions of Americans have lived and breathed through a thick haze of wildfire smoke. In places, it lasted for weeks. The immediate health effects of that are well known to the medical community and anyone who’s been exposed: Eyes sting, throats tighten, snot can turn black. Respiratory problems like asthma and chronic…

A new generation of faster, cheaper coronavirus tests is starting to hit the market. And some experts say these technologies could finally give the U.S. the ability to adopt a new, more effective testing strategy.

It’s still unknown when a COVID-19 vaccine might be available in the United States. But when one is first approved, there may only be 10 million to 15 million doses available, which may be enough to cover around 3% to 5% of the U.S. population. That’s according to estimates from Operation Warp Speed, the government’s…

A poll of households in the four largest U.S. cities by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds roughly one in every five have had at least one member who was unable to get medical care or who has had to delay care for a serious medical problem during…

Black patients are some of the most reluctant to participate in clinical trials, according to FDA statistics. And their inclusion in the coronavirus vaccine trials has been a stated priority for the pharmaceutical companies involved, since African American communities, along with Latinos, have suffered disproportionately from the pandemic. But the trials are moving at a pace that…

With the annual flu season about to start, it’s still unclear exactly how influenza virus will interact with the coronavirus if a person has both viruses.

The pollution began before the storm even made landfall. In the two days before the storm arrived, facilities in Texas released more than 4 million pounds of extra air pollution, according to reports the companies made to state environmental regulators that were analyzed by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund for NPR.

Pre-pandemic, about half of U.S. families reported having trouble finding care for a young child. That number jumped to nearly two-thirds this spring as day cares closed and other caretakers, such as grandparents and nannies, were told to stay home. And with many schools operating remotely, in a hybrid model or abruptly changing course this fall, many more parents, including those…

At scale, the data gathered in those calls also offers vital information about where transmission is happening in a community. That data can drive policy and even guide individuals in assessing what’s more or less safe to go out and do. Read the full article: NPR 

By Dec. 1, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 could reach nearly 300,000. That’s the grim new projection from researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation — one of the more prominent teams modeling the pandemic. The new forecast, released Thursday, projects that between now and December, 137,000 people will…