School districts that successfully brought students back while keeping COVID-19 cases low in the 2020-2021 school year faced a new set of challenges in fall 2021, ranging from tricky quarantine policies to staff burnout.
Missouri officials lobbied the CDC for additional funding to distribute gift cards to residents who got vaccinated, but only 20 out of 115 eligible local health departments opted into the program. This project was a collaboration between the Missouri Independent and Documenting COVID-19.
If the U.S. doesn’t comprehensively track its own data, it has to rely on other countries to tell it how to keep Americans safe. Meanwhile, without clear evidence, many Americans have been confused about whether they need a booster shot.
An investigation, based on hundreds of public records, revealed how miscommunication and a lack of preparedness hurt Southwest Missouri’s ability to address the Delta surge in summer 2021. This project was a collaboration between the Missouri Independent and Documenting COVID-19.
This Science News feature explores major hurdles to routine COVID-19 testing programs in K-12 schools, which include: a lack of clear guidance on how testing programs should work, obtaining tests, gaining consent from parents and communicating the value of testing to families and staff in increasingly polarized environments.
In the COVID-19 Data Dispatch’s “Opening” series, Betsy Ladyzhets identified and profiled five school communities that successfully reopened during the 2020-2021 school year. In each one, the majority of the district’s or school’s students returned to in-person learning while case numbers remained low.
In Delaware, a state program enables public schools to easily set up routine COVID-19 testing using rapid antigen tests. This article examines at the program’s successes and challenges.
Wind musicians struggled to find evidence that would free them from musical lockdown, so they partnered with researchers to get some answers. This feature was Science News’ cover story for the magazine’s August 14, 2021 issue.
A year ago, engineers built apps to track potential virus exposure. MIT Technology Review investigated how widely these apps were used and what users thought of the technology. This research shows the impact has been mixed—but there’s still potential.
As millions of Americans get vaccinated for COVID-19, many of us are starting to hope those painful nose swab tests will soon be a thing of the past. Alas, the future of COVID-19 testing is more complicated.
Betsy Ladyzhets 