How New York City Vaccinated 6 Million People in Less Than a Month

Raton, a town once surrounded by eight coal mines, now has a main street of boarded-up buildings. There is reason for optimism as the town diversifies its local economy, betting on "a mix of small manufacturing businesses, health care and specialty services, and hospitality for travelers" to endure the sudden decline in mining revenue. Its calculated revitalization may hold lessons for other towns.

Twenty years ago, five, poor, rural counties sued the state of North Carolina for failing to provide students with a good education, and won. In 1997 the Chief Justice Supreme Court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the case known as Leandro v. State. However, the decision wasn’t really enforced by the government, and until 2017 a court appointed agency was hired to investigate the state. “Leandro sets the bar but you still need to have elected officials, school officials and court officials willing to uphold it,”

To reach kids who must stay at home as a result of the coronavirus and may not have access to reliable internet, teachers in Tennessee's Shelby County schools are recording easily accessible TV lessons. Though teachers can no longer get the same level of feedback from students or adjust to their on-the-spot questions, the lessons are to some degree interactive and aim to reinforce lessons students learned before schools went remote.

Rather than send local residents to city-run testing sites in the East Bay of California, clinics in East Oakland are now running their own testing sites to better serve their community. Although one of the sites has already tested nearly 100 people and residents who are underinsured or uninsured can be tested for free, some believe the effort should have started much sooner.

Health officials in North Carolina have shown that contact tracing can successfully identify those who have been exposed to COVID-19. The efforts of the contact tracers in one county resulted in 35 people being quarantined after an exposure to the virus during a child's birthday party, however that was only possible because of those individuals "were willing to be open and honest and forthcoming."

The state of Vermont has been able to keep COVID-19 cases to a minimal, at least in part by focusing on offering preventive protections for the most at-risk and vulnerable – such as the unhoused. The state's response has included "state-supported housing for the homeless, hazard pay, meal deliveries, and free, pop-up testing in at-risk communities," all of which prioritize high-risk populations rather than those who can easily self-isolate at home.

In an effort to help get accurate information to the communities who are being disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, a program called Live Chair Health has started to train barbers "on chronic issues that disproportionately affect Black communities" and teach them "how to have conversations with their clients about the diseases." Aside from providing COVID-19 information, the initiative has helped patrons access primary care and address other medical issues such as high blood pressure.

To discourage the spread of misinformation about the Covid vaccine and decrease vaccine hesitancy in minority communities, religious leaders and other influential people in Britain have launched campaigns to dispel concerns. According to a survey about overall willingness to take the vaccine, the efforts – which include posters, sermons, a help line, and WhatsApp chats – have been working.

Genetic genealogy's use in criminal cases has gone mainstream. As the cases of three murder victims in Indiana illustrate, the science of DNA evidence combined with genealogical research and detective work is rapidly ramping up, from a hobby to a curiosity and now to a major commercial and criminal-justice opportunity. Hundreds of missing persons have been identified from decades-old remains, or murder suspects identified from old biological evidence in cold cases. By creating a family tree of the victim or suspect, investigators can zero in on an identity more quickly and inexpensively than ever.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a white mob killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed the thriving neighborhood of Greenwood, the Centennial Commission supported a number of initiatives to learn from the past and build a better future. At the base of an ancient elm tree that witnessed the massacre, Up With Trees distributed 100 elm seedlings to children to plant around Tulsa. The commission convinced state education officials to develop a new curriculum on the massacre for K-12 students.