Foster Families Needed - May Is Foster Care Awareness Month Continue Reading Foster Families Needed – May Is Foster Care Awareness MonthRead More
Free School Meals To End This Summer Continue Reading Expanded Free School Meals To End This SummerRead More
The FDA has approved a 2nd COVID booster shot for people 50 and older CREDIT: Grant Hindsley/AFP via Getty Images Listen NWPB’s Rachel Sun talks to experts about the FDA approval of a 2nd COVID booster shot for people 50 and older / Runtime – 3:53 Read The FDA approved a second coronavirus booster shot… Read More
Studies of COVID in wastewater can help predict outbreaks Listen Rachel Sun reports on how scientists at the University of Idaho are tracking COVID through wastewater / Runtime – 1:46 Read Wastewater testing at the University of Idaho is helping to pave the way for a new method of tracking and predicting spikes in COVID-19… Read More
A new subvariant of the Coronavirus has been detected in Washington State Listen Washington State Epidemiologist Dr. Scott Lindquist discusses possible impacts of the new subvariant / Runtime – 22 seconds Read A new sub-variant of the coronavirus that’s spreading in Europe and Asia, is also in Washington State, but is not driving an increase… Read More
Inland NW health care providers reassess how they provide care following 2 years of the COVID pandemic Listen NWPB’s Rachel Sun reports on how Inland NW health care providers have been impacted after 2 years of the COVID pandemic / Runtime – 1:43 Read It’s been almost two years since the first COVID-19 case was… Read More
A popular Tacoma crafts store is hit by post-pandemic and economic factors Listen NWPB’s Lauren Gallup reports on a popular Tacoma store hit by online sales and post-pandemic return to work / Runtime – 2:06 Read For Trina Davis, the past 30 years of business ownership have been filled with many happy memories. “We’ve had… Read More
New research says 1 in 6 couples have different COVID vaccination Listen: Doug Nadvornick reports on a new study about COVID vaccinations amongst couples / Runtime – 1:05 READ: A Washington State University researcher has found that COVID vaccination status differs in about one-in-six intimate couples. Karen Schmaling, a professor of psychology at WSU’s Read More
In happier times – Theda Killgore with her great-granddaughter Chelsea Listen Read During the pandemic, many people who lost loved ones had limited access to say their final goodbyes due to health restrictions at hospitals and assisted living facilities. When 89-year-old Theda Killgore was hospitalized two years ago for pneumonia, her family was given one… Read More
Nan Orton sits at her kitchen table with photos of her parents. Photo by Austin Johnson/Lewiston Tribune Listen Read During the pandemic, many people who lost loved ones had limited access to say their final goodbyes due to health restrictions at hospitals and assisted living facilities. Now, some of those families are sharing their stories.… Read More
Washington State’s mask mandate will end early CREDIT: Noam Galai/Getty Images Read With COVID cases and hospitalizations dropping fast, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Monday that the state’s indoor mask mandate will lift on Saturday, March 12, 10 days earlier than previously announced. Oregon and California were also expected to adopt the March 12 Read More
The Washington Attorney General has banned an Illinois company from conducting COVID testing in Washington. Continue Reading Washington AG bans company from doing COVID testingRead More
Read The Richland School Board Thursday evening voted to allow children to go back in-person and to follow the Governor’s Mask Mandate on a vote of 4 to 1. This after the board called another emergency special executive meeting on Thursday evening to meet with their legal counsel to discuss the mask mandate and a… Read More
Gov. Inslee has announced Washington's indoor mask mandate will end on March 21,with a few exceptions Continue Reading Washington mask mandate to end March 21Read More
More Murrow News Stories PULLMAN, WASH – As 2022 progresses, some people are calling for stringent COVID-19 mitigation efforts like mask-wearing to lessen. “If we’re gonna get it, there’s already different ways we’re gonna get it other than wearing masks,” WSU student Dani Reeves said. Lessening these restrictions means society is shifting from a pandemic to… Read More
It was almost a year ago that Athena Fitness in Olympia was facing financial doom. The women-owned business had opened just before the pandemic struck. In August of last year, new COVID restrictions threatened to put the owners out of business. So, what’s happened since? Read More
BY BILL CHAPPELL The patient came to the hospital because she was repeatedly falling down. She was breathing fine, and her blood oxygen levels were good. But tests showed that the 90-year-old Belgian woman had COVID-19 — and not just one strain, but two variants of the virus. She died at the hospital in just… Read More
Fifteen months after Washington state's first “stay at home” order was issued in response to the coronavirus, businesses across the state are now allowed to return to pre-pandemic operations. Continue Reading 15 Months Read More
A local fire chief is warning of a looming "humanitarian crisis" on the peninsula of Point Roberts in northwest Washington state. It's a strange predicament brought on by a money-losing supermarket and pandemic-related restrictions on crossing the U.S.-Canada border. Read More
The dangerous Delta variant of the coronavirus is spreading so quickly in the United States that it's likely the mutant strain will become predominant in the nation within weeks, according to federal health officials and a new analysis. Read More
The pandemic has taken a massive toll on people's mental health. But a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms what many of us are seeing and feeling in our own lives: The impact has been particularly devastating for parents and unpaid caregivers of adults. Read More
More than 15 months since the first confirmed death due to COVID-19 in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 600,000 lives across the country. Continue Reading U.S. Hits 600,000 COVID Deaths, More Than Any Other CountryRead More
The U.S. is banning the importation of dogs from more than 100 countries for at least a year because of a sharp increase in the number of puppies imported into the country with fraudulent rabies vaccination certificates. Continue Read More
June 3 marks a year since COVID-19 blasted through my immune system. I have never figured out how I got it. And my recovery has come in fits and starts. But mostly it’s just been incredibly, snail-slow. Continue Read More
President Biden said on Wednesday that he has asked the U.S. intelligence community to push to get closer to a "definitive conclusion" on how the pandemic started. Continue Reading President Biden Asks U.S. Intel To Read More
An online lending platform called Kabbage sent 378 pandemic loans worth $7 million to fake companies (mostly farms) with names like “Deely Nuts” and “Beefy King.” Continue Reading Hundreds Of PPP Loans For Pandemic Read More
The shift in guidance was a dramatic reversal from the country's top public health agency, which has been criticized for being too conservative (and convoluted) in its earlier guidelines for those who are vaccinated. The latest changes have left a lot of people with a lot of questions, which NPR's science, health and education reporters are here to answer. Read More
The analysis comes from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who looked at excess mortality from March 2020 through May 3, 2021, compared it with what would be expected in a typical non-pandemic year, then adjusted those figures to account for a handful of other pandemic-related factors. Read More
After spending much of the past year tending to elderly patients, doctors are seeing a clear demographic shift: young and middle-aged adults make up a growing share of the patients in COVID-19 hospital wards. Continue Reading COVID Read More
The Biden administration is set to enact a travel ban on any non-U.S. citizens or permanent residents coming to the country from India as multiple coronavirus variants have driven India's COVID-19 outbreak to troubling new heights. The policy will take effect starting on Tuesday, the White House said. Read More
While some Washingtonians appear eager to get vaccinated and get on with their lives, a new poll reveals even some people who are fully vaccinated remain cautious about getting back to normal. Continue Reading Poll: Washingtonians Aren’t Read More
The U.S. State Department announced plans to expand travel advisories, urging U.S. citizens to stay home as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose "unprecedented risks" around the globe. Continue Reading State Department To Issue Read More
The highly anticipated World Health Organization report on the origins of the coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic is due out Tuesday. NPR has obtained an early copy. According to the report, data suggests that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was not the original source of the outbreak. Read More
Amid growing optimism about the rising pace of vaccinations in the U.S., the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has one request for the American people: Don't act as if the pandemic is over – it's not. Continue Reading CDC Read More
COVID-19 cases are going up in Whitman County. And that’s concerning for the public health department. Late Friday afternoon, Whitman County Public Health released a statement warning residents to reconsider social and other activities outside their homes that could increase their risk of exposure to COVID-19. Read More
A year after the pandemic shut down the country, a growing number of infectious disease experts, epidemiologists, public health officials and others have started to entertain a notion that has long seemed out of reach: The worst of the pandemic may be over for the United States. Read More
This month marks one year since the coronavirus pandemic swiftly upended daily life in the United States. In 2020, March brought about emergency declarations and indefinite school closures, followed by record unemployment claims and dozens of stay-at-home orders. By the end of the month, millions of people were either told to stay inside under lockdown or continue carrying Read More
All public schools in Washington will be required to offer students an in-person learning option starting next month — with school districts having to meet an average of at least 30% weekly in-class instruction by April 19 — under an emergency proclamation Gov. Jay Inslee said he will sign next week. Read More
President Biden is aiming for the country to begin to find a degree of normalcy and begin to move on from the coronavirus pandemic by the July 4th holiday, Biden announced in his first prime-time address Thursday night from the White House on the one-year anniversary of the pandemic. Read More
Washington’s 105-day legislative session has crossed the halfway point and a key deadline for policy (non-budget) bills to clear their chamber of origin has passed. Majority Democrats are moving swiftly to enact a pandemic-era agenda focused on issues like tax reform, police accountability, racial equity and global climate change. Minority Republicans, meanwhile, are Read More
With coronavirus infections on a steady, six weeks long descent in the U.S., it's clear the worst days of the brutal winter surge have waned. Yet researchers are still not sure how sustainable the decline is. And a small but concerning uptick in cases in the last three days has health officials on edge. Read More
This week President Biden is asking Americans to mark the 500,000 deaths with a moment of silence at sunset Monday. He's also ordered flags on all federal buildings lowered to half-staff for five days. Continue Reading ‘A Loss To The Read More
So-called long-haulers are people who survive COVID-19 but have symptoms – sometimes debilitating symptoms – many months later. As scientists scramble to explain what is going on and figure out how to help, disability advocates are also scrambling: They are trying to figure out whether long-haulers will qualify for disability benefits. Read More
President Biden's national security adviser said Sunday that the administration has concerns over the data China has provided to the World Health Organization regarding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Continue Reading Read More
Every year, as a set-up for the Tony Awards, we take you backstage to meet people who aren't even eligible. These are Broadway's essential workers – ushers, stage managers, costumers. But this year, the Tonys seem like a faraway dream; even though nominations for the shortened season were announced in October, no date has been set. So, I decided to check in with some of Read More
A fresh round of federal aid will soon be flowing to Washington businesses and individuals hit hard by the COVID pandemic. On Friday, Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a $2.2 billion relief package funded with money approved by Congress in December. Read More
The average U.S. life expectancy dropped by a year in the first half of 2020, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Continue Reading Report: Read More
The WHO team's main public conclusion so far is that it's "extremely unlikely" that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan. The scientists think the virus most likely started in bats, then jumped to other animals, then to humans. Continue Read More
After Gov. Jay Inslee extended the moratorium multiple times, most lawmakers, lobbyists and advocates expect March 31 will mark its true end — at least at the state level. Then the question of what will happen to renters without the moratorium’s blunt relief will go from hypothetical to very much real. Read More
Ever since the coronavirus reached the U.S., officials and citizens alike have gauged the severity of the spread by tracking one measure in particular: How many new cases are confirmed through testing each day. However, it has been clear all along that this number is an understatement because of testing shortfalls. Read More
