With the virus still raging in the U.S., public health experts say we can't afford to just wait around for the vaccine. They share advice for what communities can do now to slow the death toll.
The two companies making COVID-19 vaccines each promised to deliver 100 million doses to the federal government by the end of March. So far, they appear to be running behind.
As the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines unfolds in the U.S., numerous questions around distribution, supply, hesitancy and efficacy persist. Experts from Harvard and the CDC tackle these questions.
Drugs for COVID-19 are sorted into three basic categories: They work, they don't work, or there simply isn't enough information to know. A generic steroid is one medicine that proved helpful.
Paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman says the concept of "getting exercise" is relatively new. His new book, Exercised, examines why we run, lift and walk for a workout when our ancestors didn't.
Daily numbers of new cases are finally starting to wane, and hospitalizations are down slightly. But health care systems are still overburdened and another resurgence remains a threat.
Lou Gehrig's disease can take months to diagnose, then rapidly incapacitate patients, leaving many families bankrupt before disability payments and Medicare kick in. A recent law aims to change that.
Although vaccination has begun, this winter has been the deadliest season of the pandemic. The U.S. death toll jumped from 300,000 to 400,000 in just five weeks.
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in America to earn her medical degree. Her sister Emily followed in her footsteps. Janice Nimura tells the story of the "complicated, prickly" trailblazers.
Black vaccine hesitancy goes back to history of distrust of medicine, say doctors and researchers. To help, it's important to empower people with knowledge to make their own choices.
First, can someone who has been vaccinated still spread the disease? Second, will the vaccine remain effective as the virus itself evolves? And third, how long will the vaccine's protection last?
When schools closed last spring, children with severe mental illnesses were cut off from the services they'd come to rely on. Many have since spiraled into emergency rooms and even police custody.
It's a trying time to be a human. Mental health experts say it's OK to give yourself a break on you new year's resolutions and offer advice for a kinder, gentler approach to goal-setting in 2021.
As states suddenly expand the categories of people eligible for the first scarce shipments of vaccine, who will be watching to make sure those hit hardest by the pandemic aren't left behind?
Emergent BioSolutions is under contract with Operation Warp Speed to make COVID-19 vaccines, but the terms could allow employees and their families to get vaccinated ahead of schedule.
President-Elect Joe Biden shares details of how his administration hopes to tackle the country's public health crisis. It's an aggressive plan that he needs Congress to fund.
Mask-wearing hit an all-time high, but other COVID-19 precautions are less common now than last spring, a survey finds. Experts worry we're ill-prepared for the spread of more infectious new variants.
A federal appeals court ruled the effort by nonprofit Safehouse to open a "supervised injection site" to prevent overdose deaths is laudable but illegal under the so-called federal crack house law.
It appears to be 50% more infectious, and researchers predict the new coronavirus variant could start to dominate in the U.S. by March. The time to prepare is now, they say.
It takes time after vaccination for immunity to the virus to build up, and no vaccine is 100% effective. Plus, scientists don't yet know if the vaccine stops viral spread. Here's what's known so far.
Antibody-based drugs that bind to the coronavirus to prevent it from invading cells can help patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. But the medicines can be tough to find in time.
Even if the Biden administration releases all available doses of COVID-19 vaccines, supplies will remain limited. How best to use that limited supply is a question mathematicians can help answer.
