Healthcare & Policy News

When COVID-19 brought the school year to an abrupt halt early this year, few anticipated that the global pandemic would be the impetus for private school choice reforms across the nation. As is the case with so many other sectors, many private schools struggled after losing tuition and other funding resources due to the strains…

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a dramatic rise in mental health problems. My own experience attests to this, as the prolonged COVID-19 lockdown led me into a state of clinical depression and anxiety from which I am still recovering. And the data indicate that, unfortunately, my own experience is far from unusual. The Centers for…

As Heritage Foundation researchers have demonstrated throughout the pandemic, the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. has been heavily concentrated in a small number of states—and among a small number of counties within those states. Even though the U.S. saw a rapid rise in cases during June and July, the overall levels of concentration have…

A coronavirus outbreak of 29 cases as of Friday connected to one New Zealand family in South Auckland is all it took for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to order a new lockdown of New Zealand’s most populous city, as well as substantially limit daily activities nationwide. The number of cases has risen to 58 as…

Across America, as public schools are choosing to not reopen or to only provide a partial in-person experience this fall, families are struggling to figure out how to ensure their kids get a good education and don’t fall further behind. The good news is, there has never been another time in America so ripe for…

If you’re not convinced that Americans have been sold a distorted view of COVID-19 risk, consider Major League Baseball. Most of the league’s players are among the 46 million Americans between ages 25 and 34. A total of 992 people in this age group have died with COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and…

What’s the No. 1 coronavirus hot spot in America? Is it Los Angeles County, which led the nation with nearly 200,000 confirmed cases on Aug. 2, according to Johns Hopkins University? Is it Miami-Dade County, Florida, which ranked second with more than 121,000 cases? Or is it Houston/Harris County, Texas, where nearly 75,000 cases have…

1. True or False: COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the U.S. False. It’s not even close. As of July 25, the most recent date for which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data is available, there were 135,579 deaths related to the contagion, less than 10% of the more than 1.5…

According to the latest semiannual trade monitoring report by the World Trade Organization, recent data indicates an 18% decline in trade over the past year. The recessionary impact of COVID-19 is largely responsible for the decline, although world trade had already stagnated in 2019 due to slowing world growth and new protectionist measures around the…

Early in health officials’ response to the pandemic, one drug offered hope of a safe, widely available, and cheap therapeutic that would break the death grip that COVID-19 held on the world. However, after its promised efficacy didn’t materialize in large, statistically significant numbers, enthusiasm for the drug, hydroxychloroquine, quickly waned. Why, then, has it…

Decent Americans who are feeling perplexed today shouldn’t be ashamed about it. There is good reason to be perplexed. On the one hand, in the name of health and safety, we are being asked by government to compromise personal freedoms that we have always taken for granted: going to work, going to church, sending our…

As Heritage Foundation researchers have demonstrated throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. has been heavily concentrated in a small number of states—and among a small number of counties within states. Even though the U.S. has seen a rapid rise in cases during the past month, the overall levels of concentration…

Texas has seen a surge of COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, prompting the White House’s coronavirus task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, to call the state one of “three New Yorks.” Some have even blamed the state’s early attempt to reopen as the cause of surge. While the surge needs to be taken seriously, there…

Government-mandated shutdowns and restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic caused unemployment to soar from near-record lows in January to levels unseen in our lifetimes just months later. With the threat of evictions rising, the federal CARES Act in March imposed a four-month eviction moratorium—along with a ban on late fees—on the more than 28%…

Congress has already authorized more than $3.7 trillion of immediate coronavirus relief spending, going to individuals, businesses, and state governments. The response should continue to be targeted at the health crisis and provide necessary protections for the coming economic recovery. The Senate GOP coronavirus bill, entitled the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools Act,…

Congress is considering spending an additional $105 billion on education as part of a Phase IV COVID-19 relief package called the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools (HEALS) Act. The Senate proposal would authorize $70 billion in additional bailout money to be spent on K-12 schools, two-thirds of which would be reserved for schools…