Anna Maria Barry-Jester

Researchers are quick to stress that a coronavirus mutation in itself is no cause for alarm. In the course of making millions and billions of copies as part of the infection process, small changes to a virus’s genome happen all the time as…

The inoculation clinics themselves can be a bureaucratic slog, as county staffers verify the identities and occupations of people coming in for shots to ensure strict compliance with the state’s multitiered hierarchy of eligibility. Photo…

Around the U.S., more than half of public health departments combat mosquitoes. In some states, including Florida and California, specific departments are dedicated to tracking and preventing their spread. Photo credit…

An electronic billboard near downtown Bakersfield, Calif., displays a public service announcement about sexually transmitted diseases on February 2, 2017. The Kern County public health department has embarked on a massive information…

LOS ANGELES, CA - Months into the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, widespread diagnostic testing still isn’t available, and California offers a sobering view of the dysfunction blocking the way. It’s hard to overstate…

California Governor Gavin Newsom says he will announce a plan on Tuesday for an “incremental release of the stay-at-home orders,” for COVID-19 restrictions, a decision he says will be made without “political pressure” in an apparent…

As California enters the most critical period in the state’s battle against COVID-19, the state’s 416 hospitals — big and small, public and private — are scrambling to build the capacity needed for an onslaught of critically ill patients.…

The closures are part of a broad strategy to limit public interaction and slow the spread of COVID-19. But the decision is far from easy, with conflicting science about how effective such closures are in containing epidemics weighed…

As the highly contagious new coronavirus continues its spread through the U.S., the general public could learn a thing or two from Amelse and the millions of other Americans with weakened immune systems who already live by rules of…

To date, the CDC has tested fewer than 500 people in the U.S. for the virus. By contrast, South Korea, which is several days into an outbreak, had tested more than 66,000 people and confirmed more than 1,700 cases as of Thursday…

NEW YORK, NY - Even as U.S. authorities have taken the drastic steps of quarantining residents returning from China, and temporarily banning foreign visitors who recently traveled to affected Chinese regions, they have urged the vast…

The first person-to-person case announced Thursday involves a man in his 60s with underlying health issues who is married to a Chicago-area woman who contracted the virus while traveling in Wuhan, China, and was diagnosed upon her return.…

Every other week, Norm Ciha and his homeless neighbors temporarily relocate their camp from land alongside a freeway off-ramp in Oakland, Calif., to a nearby vacant lot, until state cleanup crews have come and gone. They call it “the…

Winds in excess of 70 to 80 mph whipped through the region, bringing down trees and pushing the Kincade Fire toward the house of nurse Peggy Goebel, a Red Cross volunteer, as she helped oversee medical operations at an evacuation shelter…

Condoms can help prevent the spread of syphilis. Women who acquire syphilis before or during pregnancy and aren’t treated are at risk for passing it on to their babies. File photo: Pixabay. CALIFORNIA - One of the nation’s most…

As federal and state health officials struggle to identify what exactly is causing the deadly outbreak, vaping advocates are stepping into the void and crafting an alternative narrative that is being echoed broadly in online communities.…

This hoodie doubles as a vaping device. Users can take a puff of nicotine (or marijuana) through the drawstring. This product was purchased by KHN and is pictured on a model. Photo credit: Anna Maria Barry-Jester/KHN. CALIFORNIA - In…

Under the Trump administration, the FDA, which has oversight of all tobacco products, originally gave e-cigarette manufacturers until 2022 to file applications for approval for their devices, but a federal judge recently advanced the…