Coronavirus (COVID-19)

This post provides updated estimates the number of people who are not up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccination living in counties designated by the CDC as being “high” or “medium” COVID-19 community levels. These are areas of elevated risk, with relatively high levels of new COVID-19 cases and strained hospital capacity. This analysis finds that the number of those not up to date on COVID-19 vaccination, and the most at risk for severe illness, living in areas of elevated risk has grown since early June 2022.

Most Parents Open to Getting Their Young Child Vaccinated Haven’t Yet Spoken to Their Pediatrician Most parents of young children newly eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine are reluctant to get them vaccinated, including 43% who say they will “definitely not” do so, a new KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey finds…

In the wake of the FDA’s emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 6 months through 4 years old, many parents remain hesitant to vaccinate their children in this age group, with a slight majority saying they view the vaccine as a bigger risk to their child’s health than getting infected with coronavirus.

Children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years of age finally became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination in the U.S. on June 18, after the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended their use for this population, following emergency use authorization granted by the Food and Drug Administration. Here, we examine the status of vaccine uptake in this group, one month into their eligibility.

This issue brief assesses the availability of oral antiviral treatments by county and certain county characteristics, including metro vs. non-metro status, poverty rate, and majority Black, Hispanic, or American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN).

To help inform ongoing global discussions about the creation of a new financing mechanism for pandemic preparedness and response, including questions about its governance and operations and the extent to which civil society will be formally included, we analyzed 14 major multilateral global health and related institutions to assess how civil society has been engaged in their governance, implementation/programming, and monitoring.

Community health centers have seen a rise in patients seeking non-medical services such as housing, food, nutrition, and transportation during the pandemic and have added new mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services in response to growing need, according to a new KFF survey. Over half of the health…

Community health centers, a national network of safety-net primary care providers, are poised to be on the front lines of the unwinding of the Medicaid continuous enrollment requirement when the public health emergency (PHE) ends. Health centers can be effective in raising awareness about Medicaid renewal requirements and in providing the help needed for enrollees to maintain Medicaid or transition to other coverage.

Medicare spending for skilled nursing facilities increased in 2020 despite an overall decrease in the number of Medicare beneficiaries using SNF services. The higher spending is explained by longer and more expensive SNF stays in 2020 compared to 2019, both of which increased more sharply for Medicare beneficiaries under the age of 65 than for older Medicare SNF users.

Total spending among traditional Medicare beneficiaries fell in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, corresponding to lower service use across most types of Medicare-covered health care services compared to 2019. The lower spending in traditional Medicare contributed to the relatively slower growth in Medicare spending overall in 2020.