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3 Covid-19 Stories We’re Reading
Funding problems, smell tests, and vaccine questions
For decades, the U.S. public health system has been grossly underfunded. A new report from Kaiser Health News and the Associated Press reveals just how dire the situation is. The two newsrooms interviewed more than 150 public health workers, policymakers, and experts; analyzed spending records from hundreds of state and local health departments; and surveyed statehouses. They found that the U.S. health system is underfunded and under threat and cannot protect Americans’ health. Read the story below.
Because many people with Covid-19 do not have symptoms, the use of temperature checks as a strategy for screening possible cases has been a less than ideal tool. Instead, Stat reports that some experts suggest that smell tests be considered, since loss of smell has been a fairly common Covid-19 symptom. One study found that people with Covid-19 were 27 times more likely than others to have lost their sense of smell but were only 2.6 times more likely to have fever or chills. Read the story below.
