Health Care : NPR

MedStar Washington Hospital Center’s “ready room” in Washington, D.C., has mostly been used to house emergency supplies — but some storage carts have been moved out to make way for patient assessment stations.

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A couple wear face masks as they visit Buckingham Palace in London on Saturday. After criticism for responding slowly, the United Kingdom has urged the public to avoid unnecessary contact.

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Michelle Schaeffer, director of Syringa Clinics in Idaho, says her facility and an adjoining hospital have about a month’s supply of masks left.

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The U.S. Strategic National Stockpile was started in 1999 to prepare for certain threats to national security. It includes about $8 billion worth of vaccines, medicine, protective gear, ventilators and other kinds of medical equipment.

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Ventilators can be a temporary bridge to recovery — many patients in critical care who need them for help breathing get better.

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Early symptoms of COVID-19 are much the same as those of the flu or a cold. Don’t panic. Call your doctor to check in, if you’re worried, but treating mild or moderate symptoms at home until you’re well will protect you and help stop the spread of whatever you have.

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In the 1960s, demographers warned that we were on track for a global population explosion. That’s not exactly what happened.

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Remote work is not an option for home, health and nursing aides, who look after some of the most vulnerable, often themselves without health insurance and earning little.

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Nurse Jeff Gates prepares to assess another patient in UW Medicine’s drive-through coronavirus testing clinic in Seattle.

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President Trump signs an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill in the White House Friday. That’s significantly more than he originally requested from Congress.

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“Access to testing is really the major tool we have right now to fight this new coronavirus,” says Dr. Keith Jerome, who runs a University of Washington lab in Seattle that can now test for the virus.

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