Dr. Shad Faraz watched helplessly in 2020 from 500 miles away as his formerly active and fun-loving parents seemed to be “withering away” emotionally and physically in their pandemic-ruled life.
Both have multiple medical conditions that would put them at extra risk of a severe case of COVID-19 if they caught the virus. So they chose to stay inside their 2-bedroom apartment in Toronto day in and out for a year, not even venturing out much for a walk.
But, as Faraz explains in his essay for NPR this week, the stricter-than-necessary choices his parents made to stay safe actually damaged their health. And now, with only the first dose of vaccine behind them, their exuberant reentry into post-vaccination life is making for tricky choices, too.
Read on to learn more about their journey, and to hear Faraz’s tips for thriving in this new “in-between” time, as more of us get vaccinated and we wait for the pandemic to be squelched for good.
PLUS: How Schools Can Help Kids Heal After An Anxious Year |
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| Wearing a close-fitting face-covering in indoor spaces can significantly reduce the spread of the coronavirus, scientists and public health officials agree. But with more than half of U.S. adults now at least partially vaccinated, the mask-weary are starting to ask: Must we keep wearing them when we’re outdoors, too?
"Once you get outside, it starts becoming really, really uncommon for the virus to spread," Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, tells NPR.
Maskless walkers and joggers probably aren’t at much risk to themselves or others, he says. When viral spread has been documented outside it’s tended to be at crowded events when maskless people are very close together for long periods.
“I think it's critically important that we keep indoor mask mandates for a while,” Jha says. “We can't give up on those, not while infection numbers are high.”
Read on for more things to consider before going maskless.
PLUS: Study Finds People With Severe COVID Have A Higher Risk Of Long-Term Symptoms |
When you’re injured in a car accident, you might think an auto policy that includes good coverage would pick up the bills. But there are big gaps, and Mark Gottlieb ran into all of them.
Gottlieb’s car was slammed at an intersection in Hackensack, N.J., in January 2019, leaving him with six broken teeth, four damaged vertebrae and a $700,000 bill for the spinal surgery he needed.
The reasons for a bill that high can be myriad -- auto insurers may not have the same kind of health network restrictions that medical insurers do, for example, so may be charged more than usual for a hospital procedure.
Once Gottlieb exhausted his $250,000 auto insurance coverage, his health plan kicked in, but the charges kept piling up.
Read on to learn more about what Gottlieb wishes he’d known before picking his surgical team.
PLUS: Tips For Getting ACA Health Insurance That’s Cheaper And Better Than What You Have Now |
More of this week's health stories from NPR |
We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism on Shots and follow us on Twitter at @NPRHealth.
All best,
Your Shots editors
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