
How a Well-Meaning Health Policy Created California’s Coronavirus Nightmare
The state’s hyperefficient health-care system runs pretty well—unless a pandemic strikes.
Our health writers explore wellness culture, human behavior, mortality and disease, and other mysteries of the body and the mind.

The state’s hyperefficient health-care system runs pretty well—unless a pandemic strikes.

We’re behind, but that may change quickly.

Getting vaccines to hospitals and nursing homes was supposed to be the easy part.

America reported a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the first week of 2021.

I’m just a kindly winter evangelist, standing in front of your outdoor restaurant table, asking you to wear layers.

Death and case counts are unreliable during the holidays, but hospitalizations are hitting new records in the South and West.

The COVID Tracking Project’s extensive, daily data collection reveals the simple yet devastating ways the U.S. has failed.

Hospitalizations are down across the Midwest, but a handful of states are showing worrisome signs.

As vaccines roll out, the U.S. will face a choice about what to learn and what to forget.

Five states—Arizona, California, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas—account for 40 percent of all new cases reported in the past seven days.