Video: The Healthy Nurse Who Died at 40 on the COVID Frontline: ‘She Was the Best Mom I Ever Had’

[embedded content]Yolanda Coar was 40 when she died of COVID-19 in August 2020 in Augusta, Georgia. She was also a nurse manager, and one of nearly 3,000 frontline workers who have died in the U.S. fighting this virus, according to an exclusive investigation by The Guardian and KHN. Read more of the health workers’ stories behind the statistics — their personalities, passions and quirks. “Lost on the Frontline” examines: Did they have to die? Related Topics Contact Us Submit a Story Tip Syndicated from https://khn.org/news/article/video-the-healthy-nurse-who-died-at-40-on-the-covid-frontline-she-was-the-best-mom-i-ever-had/https://wp.me/p7iF68-T1l#COVID19, #HealthIndustry, #LostOnTheFrontline, #Multimedia, #Nurses, #States, #N...

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Live Free or Die if You Must, Say Colorado Urbanites — But Not in My Hospital

ERIE, Colo. — Whenever Larry Kelderman looks up from the car he’s fixing and peers across the street, he’s looking across a border. His town of 28,000 straddles two counties, separated by County Line Road. Kelderman’s auto repair business is in Boulder County, whose officials are sticklers for public health and have topped the county website with instructions on how to report COVID violations. Kelderman lives in Weld County, where officials refuse to enforce public health rules. Weld County’s test positivity rate is twice that of its neighbor, but Kelderman is pretty clear which side he backs. “Which is worse, the person gets the virus and survives and they still have a business, or they don’t get the virus and they lose their livelihood?”...

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In Fast-Moving Pandemic, Health Officials Try to Change Minds at Warp Speed

Nine months into the pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 people in the U.S., Kim Larson is still trying to convince others in her northern Montana county that COVID-19 is dangerous. As Hill County Health Department director and county health officer, Larson continues to hear people say the coronavirus is just like a bad case of the flu. Around the time Montana’s governor mandated face coverings in July, her staffers saw notices taped in several businesses’ windows spurning the state’s right to issue such emergency orders. For a while, the county with a population of 16,000 along the Canadian border didn’t see much evidence of the pandemic. It had only one known COVID case until July. But that changed as the nation moved into its third...

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Analysis: Some Said the Vaccine Rollout Would Be a ‘Nightmare.’ They Were Right.

WASHINGTON — Even before there was a vaccine, some seasoned doctors and public health experts warned, Cassandra-like, that its distribution would be “a logistical nightmare.” After Week 1 of the rollout, “nightmare” sounds like an apt description. Dozens of states say they didn’t receive nearly the number of promised doses. Pfizer says millions of doses sat in its storerooms, because no one from President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed task force told them where to ship them. A number of states have few sites that can handle the ultra-cold storage required for the Pfizer product, so, for example, front-line workers in Georgia have had to travel 40 minutes to get a shot. At some hospitals, residents treating COVID patients...

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Las vacunas de COVID parecen ser seguras y efectivas, pero todavía hay preguntas

SOBRE NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOLNoticias en español es una sección de Kaiser Health News que contiene traducciones de artículos de gran interés para la comunidad hispanohablante, y contenido original enfocado en la población hispana que vive en los Estados Unidos. Use Nuestro Contenido Este contenido puede usarse de manera gratuita (detalles). El reciente lanzamiento de dos vacunas para COVID-19 es una luz de esperanza en medio de la pandemia.Ahora hay un camino que puede llevarnos a tiempos más felices, incluso mientras observamos y sufrimos la horrible avalancha de nuevas infecciones, hospitalizaciones y muertes que marcan el final de este año lamentable. Los trabajadores de salud y los residentes de hogares de adultos mayores ya han comenzado...

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At Risk of Extinction, Black-Footed Ferrets Get Experimental COVID Vaccine

This story also ran on CNN. This story can be republished for free (details). In late summer, as researchers accelerated the first clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines for humans, a group of scientists in Colorado worked to inoculate a far more fragile species.About 120 black-footed ferrets, among the most endangered mammals in North America, were injected with an experimental COVID vaccine aimed at protecting the small, weasel-like creatures rescued from the brink of extinction four decades ago.The effort came months before U.S. Department of Agriculture officials began accepting applications from veterinary drugmakers for a commercial vaccine for minks, a close cousin of the ferrets. Farmed minks, raised for their valuable fur, have...

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Retiree Living the RV Dream Fights $12,387 Nightmare Lab Fee

Lorraine Rogge and her husband, Michael Rogge, travel the country in a recreational vehicle, a well-earned adventure in retirement. This spring found them parked in Artesia, New Mexico, for several months. In May, Rogge, 60, began to feel pelvic pain and cramping. But she had had a total hysterectomy in 2006, so the pain seemed unusual, especially because it lasted for days. She looked for a local gynecologist and found one who took her insurance at the Carlsbad Medical Center in Carlsbad, New Mexico, about a 20-mile drive from the RV lot. The doctor asked if Rogge was sexually active, and she responded yes and that she had been married to Michael for 26 years. Rogge felt she made it clear that she is in a monogamous relationship. The doctor...

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COVID Vaccines Appear Safe and Effective, but Key Questions Remain

The recent rollout of two newly authorized COVID-19 vaccines is a bright ray of hope at the pandemic’s darkest hour. We now have a path that can lead us to happier times — even as we watch and suffer from the horrible onslaught of new infections, hospitalizations and deaths that mark the end of this regrettable year. Health care workers and nursing home residents have already begun to get shots in the first phase of the rollout. Vaccinations should start to be available to the general public sometime in the first few months of next year. The two vaccines — one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the other by Moderna — use the same novel genetic approach. Their development in under a year, shattering all records, is a marvel of science. It’s...

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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: 2020 in Review — It Wasn’t All COVID

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. COVID-19 was the dominant — but not the only — health policy story of 2020. In this special year-in-review episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” podcast, panelists look back at some of the biggest non-coronavirus stories. Those included Supreme Court cases on the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid work requirements and abortion, as well as a year-end surprise ending to the “surprise bill” saga. This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Sarah Karlin-Smith of Pink Sheet. Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast: The coronavirus pandemic strengthened the hand of ACA supporters, even as the Trump administration sought...

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As the Terror of COVID Struck, Health Care Workers Struggled to Survive. Thousands Lost the Fight.

Workers at Garfield Medical Center in suburban Los Angeles were on edge as the pandemic ramped up in March and April. Staffers in a 30-patient unit were rationing a single tub of sanitizing wipes all day. A May memo from the CEO said N95 masks could be cleaned up to 20 times before replacement. Patients showed up COVID-negative but some still developed symptoms a few days later. Contact tracing took the form of texts and whispers about exposures. By summer, frustration gave way to fear. At least 60 staff members at the 210-bed community hospital caught COVID-19, according to records obtained by KHN and interviews with eight staff members and others familiar with hospital operations. The first to die was Dawei Liang, 60, a quiet radiology technician...

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