Meigs County in Tennessee reported one of the highest covid-19 vaccination rates in the South for much of the past year. But those reports were wrong because of a data error that has surfaced in other states as well.
Legislators in Kansas are pushing bills to expand exemptions for school vaccines, allowing religious exemptions for all vaccine requirements in the state’s schools without families having to provide any proof of their beliefs. Similar bills are being introduced around the nation as the anti-vaccine movement gains traction among politicians.
Some U.S. states have reduced use of the procedure, including by sharing C-section data with doctors and hospitals. But change has proved difficult in the South, where women are generally less healthy heading into their pregnancies and maternal and infant health problems are among the highest in the U.S.
Conservative lawmakers may find their anti-abortion agendas complicated by state constitutions that explicitly grant citizens the right to privacy, regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court does.
The top 12 states using antibody therapies produced by Regeneron and Lilly — which research shows don’t work against the omicron variant — include several Southern states with some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, but also California, which ranks among the top 20 for fully vaccinated residents.
Efforts by states and the private health plans that many states pay to cover low-income Americans has been scattershot and hampered by a lack of data.
Students in many places are starting the new school year with their masks off — even in one Colorado county that was one of the nation’s first delta variant hot spots.
As the nation confronts the delta variant, many consumers are again facing delays getting tested. The problem appears most acute in the South and Midwest, where new infections are growing the fastest.
Black and Hispanic students have lost up to 12 months of learning, which could lead to lower incomes and shorter, sicker lives.
The pandemic will undermine Americans’ health for years. Even those not infected by the coronavirus could suffer health problems related to poverty, job loss, eviction — or all of the above.