Rae Ellen Bichell

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rbichell@kff.org
@raelnb

A Colorado Town Is About as Vaccinated as It Can Get. Covid Still Isn’t Over There.

San Juan County, Colorado, is one of the most vaccinated counties in the U.S. Leaders across the country continue to expound on the vaccine as the path forward in the pandemic. But San Juan’s experience the past few weeks with its first covid hospitalizations shows that, even with an extremely vaccinated population, masks are still necessary.

Déjà Vu? Consumers Scramble for Covid Tests in Hard-Hit Areas

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, but Californians are also encountering bottlenecks.

Red State, Blue State, Twin Outbreak: Behind Wyoming and Colorado’s Anomalous Covid Spikes

Statistics show that Colorado residents are much more likely than Wyoming residents to be vaccinated against covid. Yet both Wyoming and Colorado were among the top 12 states with the highest covid case rates at the beginning of July. A closer look at a pair of similarly sized counties in those states helps explain why.

Farmworkers Recall Mistreatment as Colorado Aims to Guarantee Medical Access

Agricultural workers living in employer-owned housing can have trouble getting health care. It’s symptomatic of bigger gaps in worker protections that the pandemic spotlighted, say proponents of a newly passed Colorado bill for farmworker rights.

Kidney Experts Say It’s Time to Remove Race From Medical Algorithms. Doing So Is Complicated.

When estimating how well a patient’s kidneys are working, doctors frequently turn to an equation that depends on a question: Is the patient Black? Kidney experts are now debating how to remove the race adjustment and whether the question is a function of sound science. It’s considered just the first step in dismantling institutional racism in kidney care.