Three years after Minnesota’s initial COVID-19 shutdown, impacts persist
Three years ago Saturday, Governor Walz issued Minnesota’s initial COVID-19 shelter in place order, telling Minnesotans to stay at home for two weeks. This followed Walz’s initial school closure issued on March 15, 2020, the closure of dine-in service at restaurants on March 16, and Minnesota’s first known COVID-19 related death on March 19 (click […]
‘You belong here’: Minnesota House passes trans health refuge bill
The Minnesota House of Representatives passed a bill early Friday by a vote of 68-62 that would prevent state courts or officials from complying with child removal requests, extraditions, arrests or subpoenas related to gender-affirming health care that a person receives in Minnesota. Physicians who practice gender-affirming care in Minnesota and families who’ve sought it […]
Growth amid ‘ambiguous loss’: How the pandemic has changed us
[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: It’s 12:19 here in Minnesota Now. This hour, we’re looking back at the three years since our lives were upended by COVID-19. The pandemic has significantly changed our health care institutions and the people who work there. The all hands on deck response to the virus put stress on doctors and […]
Online communities can help with loneliness — to a point
This story comes to you from Marketplace Tech. By Lily Jamali | Marketplace Tech The COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of us to stay at home without the chance to socialize in person. But technology allowed us to stay in touch. Social media platforms helped connect us with the outside world — there was Zoom and […]
It’s not just Adderall: The number of drugs in short supply rose by 30 percent last year
Children’s flu medication was hard to come by in Dec. 2022 as a wave of respiratory viruses spread across the country. Mario Tama | Getty Images It’s not just your imagination: Drugs such as children’s flu medication, common antibiotics and ADHD treatments are getting harder to buy, according to a Senate report published Wednesday. Democrats […]
Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm reflects on three years of COVID-19 and looks towards the future
Three years ago, Governor Tim Walz called for Minnesotans to “shelter in place” because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan was to flatten the curve, or decrease the number of people who were infected all at once so hospitals and ICUs were not totally overwhelmed. Today, there have been more than 1.7 million documented cases […]
Meet the ‘glass-half-full girl’ whose brain rewired after losing a hemisphere
Mora Leeb places some pieces into a puzzle during a local puzzle tournament. The 15-year-old has grown up without the left side of her brain after it was removed when she was very young. Seth Leeb In most people, speech and language live in the brain’s left hemisphere. Mora Leeb is not most people. When […]
The potentially deadly Candida auris fungus is spreading quickly in the U.S.
This undated photo made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a strain of Candida auris cultured in a petri dish. Shawn Lockhart/AP The fungus Candida auris is becoming a more dangerous public health care threat, as the number of drug-resistant cases jumped in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention […]
Medicaid renewals are starting. Those who don’t reenroll could get kicked off
Samuel Camacho, a health insurance navigator with the Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio, assists people in enrolling for or renewing Medicaid. Maddie McGarvey for NPR Dominique Jackson has been on Medicaid for seven years. But the Columbus, Ohio, resident didn’t realize he’d have to verify his eligibility every year to keep his coverage. […]
Two administrators fired amid concerns over Hastings Veterans Home
State officials have fired two top Department of Veterans Affairs administrators amid complaints about operations at the Minnesota Veterans Home in Hastings. In a memo to department staff on Sunday, Commissioner Larry Herke said he was aware of concerns about the Hastings Veterans Home and has “decided to go in a different direction with the […]