The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted the elderly, killing one in every 100 older Americans as the US death toll surpasses 800,000. As a result, nursing home facilities are especially vulnerable to severe virus transmission — namely nursing homes, which have experienced drops in facility occupancy due to the pandemic. Now, as infection rates rebound [...]
In a year, the Covid-19 pandemic transformed telehealth from an underutilized niche into a mainstay of care provision. Proponents hold up digital platforms as a means to provide convenient, accessible, and cost-effective healthcare. The benefits telemedicine offers should not be ignored. But amid a too-rapid expansion, providers may risk inadvertently exacerbating access disparities. The idea [...]
Nine months into the pandemic, it has become clear that patients’ health problems may not end when their acute COVID-19 infection does. While formal research into the virus’s long-term implications is still too nascent to provide clear insights, anecdotal evidence of post-recovery health problems has begun to mount. In mid-November, the Centers for Disease Control [...]
The likelihood of a second COVID-19 wave occurring in the fall appears high to the point of inevitability. Given this, outpatient providers must make a concerted effort to inform patients that the instructions that they received in March (i.e., to avoid all “nonessential” healthcare procedures) are no longer relevant. Outpatient clinics have taken significant steps [...]
Since its global debut at the start of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has simultaneously posed an exhausting challenge and sparked remarkable innovation worldwide. In no field is this more evident than vaccine development. Over the last several months, healthcare researchers from all around the globe have collectively adopted a goal that would have seemed laughable [...]
It’s an unfortunate reality that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on people of color in the U.S. In particular, Black and Latino communities have experienced higher mortality and infection rates. As an example, recent CDC data published by the New York Times indicates that African Americans and Latinos residing in the United [...]
COVID-19 has compelled the global research community to push the boundaries of genetic sequencing in virus identification and tracing. For all the problems that the pandemic presents, we have never been in a better position to explore the applications of genomic epidemiology. Advances in technology have allowed us to sequence, track, and map genes faster [...]
A soon-to-be-mother makes last-minute changes to her birth plan as she sees COVID-19 cases climb at her chosen hospital. A young professional cancels her scheduled OB-GYN appointment, anxiously considering the risk of infection. A college student watches her supply of birth control dwindle as her campus clinic remains closed. Since the onset of COVID-19, women [...]
A mother, torn between her worry over her young son’s rash and the fear of leaving isolation, finds solace in a phone consultation with a pediatrician. A confirmed COVID-19 patient quarantines at home, knowing that his texted check-ins with his primary care physician will help him get car without putting others at risk. An elderly [...]