Public Health

There’s reason for optimism on the coronavirus pandemic: The number of new Covid-19 cases is dropping, and 98.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered in the United States. But a decline in the number of coronavirus tests being conducted threatens this progress, because those tests are vital to tracing the path and velocity of Covid-19.

The average number of tests being conducted daily to detect the coronavirus in the United States has dropped 20 percent since Feb. 1. At the same time, the nation does not have enough rapid tests to conduct routine testing outside of sites run by local health departments and medical clinics. America needs to expand the nation’s testing capacity and accelerate the proliferation of rapid coronavirus tests in order to overcome Covid-19.

The uncounted: People who are homeless are invisible victims of Covid-19 No one seems to have any idea how many homeless people have died, despite extraordinarily detailed statistics on the nation's Covid deaths. Usha Lee McFarling STAT

LOS ANGELES — They are the invisible victims of Covid-19, marginalized not just in life, but also in death.