Caroline Chen
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Caroline Chen
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On a visit to Hong Kong, ProPublica reporter Caroline Chen encountered a 21-day quarantine, a bevy of COVID tests, universal masking and, finally, a fear-free family holiday.
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Experts say we should investigate “breakthrough infections” to look out for variants and understand who’s vulnerable. In many cases, that’s not happening. Crucial pieces of the puzzle are being tossed in the trash.
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States are struggling to plan their vaccination programs with just one week’s notice for how many doses they’ll receive from the federal government. The incoming Biden administration is deciding what to do with this dysfunctional system.
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Stanford Medicine officials relied on a faulty algorithm to determine who should get vaccinated first, and it prioritized some high-ranking doctors over patient-facing medical residents.
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A review of state distribution plans reveals that officials don’t know how they’ll deal with the difficult storage and transport requirements of Pfizer’s vaccine, especially in the rural areas currently seeing a spike in infections.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci will see data from government-funded vaccine trials before the FDA does. One caveat: Pfizer’s study, which is ahead of the others, isn’t included in his purview.
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While it battles a virus that can spread quickly via silent carriers, the United States has yet to execute a strategy for testing asymptomatic people.
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Among the many ways to shorten the vaccine development timeline, approving a treatment based on antibody data — without completing a phase 3 trial — could be contentious. This is why.
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While most discussions have focused on countries’ use of surveillance technology, contact tracing is actually a fairly manual process. After interviewing contact tracing experts and taking an online course, ProPublica health reporter Caroline Chen presents her takeaways.