Across the United States, prisons and jails have become hot spots for COVID-19. Governments at the state and federal level are being pressed to release inmates before the end of their sentence in order to minimize the spread of the disease.

Whether or not you agree with a mandate to wear a mask, many of us will do so during our daily business.

Governor Tim Walz today signed Executive Order 20-81, which requires Minnesotans to wear a face covering in indoor businesses and indoor public settings. Researchers have advocated for masking, calling it a simple and effective step to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. To date, 30 state…

After nearly three months of quarantine, millions of Americans are ready to travel – an overnight trip, a weekend getaway, a summer sojourn. With states reopening, that’s now possible, with a caveat. Before coronavirus, few people likely thought twice about staying in a hotel room, rental ho…

Israel Shippy doesn’t remember much about having COVID-19 — or the unusual auto-immune disease it triggered — other than being groggy and uncomfortable for a bunch of days. He’s a five-year-old, and would much rather talk about cartoons, or the ideas for inventions that constantly pop into h…

Today, Senator Tina Smith and Protect Our Care Minnesota were joined by a panel of Minnesota health care leaders and racial justice experts for a roundtable discussion on health inequities in Minnesota and the importance of access to quality, affordable health care for every Minnesotan. Roun…

As Minnesota legislators continue discussions about how best to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, health care experts urged them to work in a unified, bipartisan, science-based way, with an eye to the future.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the appointments of former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark to the newly formed Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. The announ…

Panic about a second wave of coronavirus cases is “overblown,” Vice President Mike Pence wrote in June, implying the U.S. has COVID-19 under control. On the other hand, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warns that the U.S. is still firmly w…

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the U.S., the virus hit African Americans disproportionately hard. African Americans are still contracting the illness – and dying from it – at rates twice as high as would be expected based on their share of the population.