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California Healthline’s Samantha Young helped lead a discussion about the state’s response to the novel coronavirus. Infections and hospitalizations are surging across the state.
Local governments around the country are declaring racism a public health crisis. That could be lip service, or it might lead to shifting resources from policing to health care, housing and other services, experts say.
Public health officials have been alarmed by the increase in COVID-19 cases linked to family gatherings and socializing. While Gov. Gavin Newsom is defending the state’s reopening, local health officials worry the situation could get worse this summer.
Like other people, many men who have sex with men have done all they could to avoid the coronavirus. Now some are braving renewed contact while balancing risk.
State legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom have hammered out an agreement on a budget that rejects Newsom’s proposed cuts to health care services for older and low-income people.
If you’ve been in a crowd — a protest or rally — experts have advice for figuring out whether you might have been exposed to the coronavirus, and where and when to get tested for it.
A Los Angeles ophthalmologist's offer on Instagram has ballooned into a loose network of physicians providing medical care to protesters who were injured while rallying against police brutality and racism. While clashes with the police have died down in some parts of the country, some protesters are seeking care for festering wounds from days-old injuries.
The shifting federal guidelines about how to reopen during the pandemic have perplexed many small-business owners, including the Prestifilippos, who dug deep into their wallets to provide a new kind of dining experience they hope is safe.
As California begins one of the largest contact-tracing training programs in the country, many of the new recruits will be librarians: who are known to be curious, tech-savvy and really good at getting people they barely know to open up.
Six months after agreeing to a $575 million settlement in a landmark antitrust case, Sutter Health has yet to pay a single dollar and now says the terms may be untenable, given the strain caused by the pandemic.
Public health officials are asking for more money in California’s state budget. But unlike some rich and powerful health care interests, they don’t have an army of lobbyists to curry favor with lawmakers.
Public health officials are confronting growing pressure — and threats — across the country as the backlash to the coronavirus response continues. At least 27 state and local health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired since April across 13 states.
Health clinics in isolated African American communities in the San Francisco Bay Area provide crucial services to neglected populations. But like thousands of other community clinics around the nation, their finances have been wrecked by the pandemic shutdown.
The practice of narrative medicine helps health care professionals hear the life stories behind a patient’s immediate complaints. Some doctors are finding that these skills also provide an alcove of needed reflection amid the pandemonium of COVID-19.
Nationwide, coronavirus infection numbers are trending down, but several states are seeing upticks, with the heaviest impact falling on communities of color and nursing home residents.
Some California hospitals near the Mexican border have received so many COVID-19 patients the past few weeks that they have had to divert some to other facilities. Hospital officials say most of the infected patients are U.S. citizens or legal residents who live in, or recently traveled to, Mexico and came to the U.S. for care.
Courtrooms aren’t built for social distancing, and pandemics don’t offer ideal conditions for fulfilling the right to a speedy trial. But, eventually, every court in the nation will have to reckon with a return that may risk safety to some degree.
The COVID-19 pandemic is showcasing California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership style to a national audience. The first-term Democrat doesn’t shy away from making splashy announcements and lofty promises, but his plans often lack detail and, in some cases, follow-through.
Experts estimate local and state health departments will have to hire 100,000 to 300,000 people as contact tracers to get the economy back on track. Many states are trying hard to hire from the racial and ethnic minority communities hit hardest by the virus.
Xavier Becerra has made battling health care consolidation a priority since he became attorney general. Now that COVID-19 threatens vulnerable health care practices, he’s pushing to expand his authority to slow health care mergers.
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