As the omicron variant completes its sweep across the U.S., states with scarce supplies of monoclonal antibody therapies continue to use two treatments that federal health officials warn no longer work against the highly contagious version of the virus that causes covid-19. The antibody treatment now most recommended is sotrovimab from GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, […]
NEW YORK — In recent months, mobile covid-19 testing tents and vans have sprouted on urban sidewalks and street curbs as demand has skyrocketed in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant. Some of the sites run by private companies offer legitimate, timely and reliable results, but others are more like weeds. High […]
As my kindergartner fumbled with his shoes, I stood at our door sifting through the mental parenting checklist newly lodged in my brain: backpack. Sweatshirt. Snacks. Sunscreen. Water bottle. KN95 mask. Vaccination card. Jesse asked for his cloth mask, and I explained again that if he wore that one he’d need to have on a […]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Californians go to the polls later this year, they will confront contentious health care choices. Voters will weigh whether to overturn a state law that bans flavored tobacco products and will likely consider increasing the cap on medical malpractice awards. They may also vote on proposals that effectively legalize psychedelic mushrooms […]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California has become the first state to require health insurance plans to cover at-home tests for sexually transmitted infections such as HIV, chlamydia and syphilis — which could help quell the STI epidemic that has raged nearly unchecked as public health departments have focused on covid-19. The rule, part of a broader […]
After Amanda Wilson lost her son, Braden, 15, to covid-19 in early 2021, she tried to honor his memory. She put up a lending library box in his name. She plans to give the money she saved for his college education to other teens who love the arts and technology. But in one area, she […]
One by one, the nurses taking care of actress Judi Evans at Riverside Community Hospital kept calling out sick. Patients were coughing as staffers wheeled the maskless soap opera star around the California hospital while treating her for injuries from a horseback fall in May 2020, Evans said. She remembered they took her to a […]
Since the start of the pandemic, Luz Gallegos and her team of 56 advocates for immigrants have battled the scorching sun, illiteracy and deadly propaganda in the fields and fruit groves of the Coachella Valley. As they fanned out to educate farmworkers on how to protect themselves from covid-19, they quickly learned that rumors and […]
MADERA, Calif. — Growing up amid the dusty agricultural fields of the Central Valley, Ruby Marentes-Cabrera can’t recall a time when it wasn’t difficult to breathe. Diagnosed with asthma early in childhood, the ninth grader has come to detest the pistachio trees that surround her home because the dust, pesticides and other allergens that blow […]
On March 31, 1977, as a measles epidemic swept through Los Angeles, the county health department issued an ultimatum to the parents of the county’s 1.6 million schoolchildren: Get your kids vaccinated within a month or keep them home. The “no shots, no school” warning was a novel threat at the time. Since the 1920s […]