public health

Before COVID-19 came along, the world wasn't so great at counting deaths and understanding why people die. But the virus has propelled countries to ramp up their efforts.

The Navajo Nation has seen a turning point in its battle against the virus. Cases are down dramatically. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez says that's because citizens heed public health advice.

"We've got to take a deep breath," says one health official about the rapid timeline pushed by the CDC. "It is very clear that we need to lean forward to prepare to deliver the vaccine."

A study seeks to learn how hundreds of thousands of Jews, crammed in the ghetto by the Nazis, halted an outbreak of epidemic typhus. Some — including survivors alive today — say frame of mind was key.

The spread of COVID-19, the ensuing economic crisis and the reckoning around social injustice has made 2020 a year like none other. NPR wanted to know how these events might shape political choices.

Las Vegas is on shaky footing as it reopens with one of the nation's highest infection rates. An NPR analysis shows the city could run into trouble with hospital capacity if cases keep climbing.

According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 20 million people worldwide have tested positive for the virus. The milestone comes almost exactly five months after the WHO declared it a pandemic.

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, about how the county has become a hotspot.

Pointing to the pandemic's disproportionate toll on people of color, over 1,200 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call on the agency to declare racism a public health crisis.

Through a partnership between state and local government, volunteers and city workers in Richmond, Va., are passing out PPE in at-risk neighborhoods.

Governors and mayors in some regions with rising COVID-19 counts have made masks mandatory in public places. But sometimes their own police refuse to enforce the mask rules.