What you were all really thinking about over your candlelit Valentine’s Day dinner date at home last night is finally here!
This is the first edition of The Curve: Pandemic news in your inbox. For those of you who haven’t already done so, please consider subscribing below.
To find out why I started this free, weekly newsletter you can catch up here. For the rest of you who are already up to speed this Monday morning, let’s jump right in.
The latest
For starters, here’s where things stand in Ohio: 1,809 new cases, six deaths on Sunday
And what things look like nationwide: The latest COVID case count in the U.S.
Shot stories: Seniors frustrated trying to schedule a COVID vaccine
In my latest story for The Columbus Dispatch, I spoke with several Ohioans who tried to navigate the scheduling process for a COVID-19 vaccination appointment. Many spent hours and even days or weeks trying to set up a shot. One couple I spoke to ended up flying back home to Ohio from their winter home in Florida.
CDC: Strong evidence in-person schooling can be done safely
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance Friday on how students and teachers can return to the classroom amid the pandemic, report Colin Binkley and Mike Stobbe of the Associated Press. While vaccinating teachers is ideal, it’s not completely necessary as long as masking, distancing and other precautions are taken, Binkley and Stobbe report.
State employee involved in wrong virus death count resigns
This week it was revealed that Ohio’s coronavirus death county was about 4,000 shy of where it was supposed to be, reports Jackie Borchardt for the USA Today statehouse bureau. An employee who was involved resigned and an epidemiologist overseeing the count has been reassigned.
What the experts are reading
As often as possible, I’ll reach out to experts in the field of health care and epidemiology to see what they’re reading and think the public should be too.
Dr. Bill Miller is senior associate dean of research and a professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University’s College of Public Health. Here’s what he’s read lately.
CDC study shows double masking could squash the pandemic
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted experiments to assess ways of improving the fit of medical masks including placing a cloth mask over a medical mask, knotting the ear loops of a mask and then tucking in and flattening the extra material close to the face.
The Pandemic Broke the Flu
This story by reporter Katherine J. Wu at The Atlantic, details how the efforts Americans have taken to combat COVID-19 defeated flu season before it even got started. Since early fall, Wu writes that about 800,000 laboratory samples have been tested in the United States for the flu and reported to the CDC, and only 1,500 or so have come up positive—a mere 0.2 percent.
Good reads
In this section of the newsletter, I’ll try to highlight the work I’m doing along with the awesome journalism from some of my colleagues in the USA Today Network and at other news outlets.
Only 20 of 500 independent Ohio pharmacies have the COVID vaccine
In this story, fellow Columbus Dispatch reporter Céilí Doyle and I took a look at the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to pharmacies and how it can be improved. We found many independent pharmacies were left out of the initial vaccine launch. Cedarville, a rural Ohio town that Gov. Mike DeWine calls home, has a single pharmacy that isn’t affiliated with a major chain. It has yet to get access to the shot but hopes to soon.
Reaching Black Ohioans with shots in a place they trust: the church
My colleague Anne Saker at the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote this story highlighting a unique approach to boosting COVID-19 vaccinations in Ohio’s Black community. The Ohio Department of Health allotted 250 doses of vaccine to the Cincinnati Health Department to dispense at a one-day clinic at New Prospect, a Black church.
N.Y.’s Vaccine Websites Weren’t Working. He Built a New One for $50.
Although COVID-19 vaccines haven’t been offered to much of the general public yet, many have already heard horror stories of people struggling to sign up for a shot. That’s what led a 31-year-old software engineer who works for the rental app Airbnb to build his own website, reports Sharon Otterman of The New York Times.
Undocumented immigrants' fear deportation by getting a COVID shot
Fellow Columbus Dispatch reporter Danae King recently wrote about the issues that may arise in trying to vaccinate undocumented immigrants for COVID-19. Although the federal government has tried to reassure immigrants, that may not be enough to convince them to get the shot, King writes.
What we know about COVID variants and what they mean for vaccines
In this story for health news website STAT, reporter Andrew Joseph delves into the question of how effective vaccines will be against emerging variants of the coronavirus. So far, we know that vaccines approved or on the path toward authorization appear less effective at preventing at least one strain of the virus.