Stories
Netia McCray likes to start her day with a cup of coffee. But sometimes, making that cup can be too much. McCray became sick with COVID more than two years ago and never fully recovered. Since then, simple tasks deplete her energy. She still has trouble breathing, moving and thinking clearly. It takes her hours…
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Health care workers in Maine have been besieged by the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest surge in hospitalizations has pushed an already overextended workforce to the brink. To get a better sense of what hospital workers are facing, we asked frontline staff to record audio diaries. The first audio diary was submitted by ICU nurse Cynthia…
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COVID data out of Massachusetts General Hospital show a new version of the omicron variant is in the state, but in very small numbers. The variant, known as BA.2, will likely increase in Massachusetts as it is elsewhere that cases have been detected, said MGH Dr. Jacob Lemieux. In those countries, BA.2 is extending the wave of…
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When Jessica Potter, the principal at Center Woods Elementary in Weare, N.H., planned for COVID-related absences this year, she and her staff booked every available substitute teacher months in advance. But last week, the school had twice as many staff absences as available substitute teachers. So, Potter shifted gears: She reassigned special education staff. Office…
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Fans of Athens Pizza in Brimfield, Mass., learned the restaurant’s beloved owner was sick via Facebook. “The pizza will be closed for the rest of the week,” reads the post from Nov. 30, 2021. “Unfortunately we have been exposed to Covid.” Get well wishes poured in, but Athens Pizza will not reopen. Tony Tsantinis, 68,…
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Every morning before school, Lauren O’Malley-Singh’s heart races as she straps on an N95 mask. “I feel like I’m drowning,” said O’Malley-Singh, a nurse at Brighton High School in Boston. She’s drowning in coronavirus tests. She gives upwards of 40 rapid tests a day, isolating the students who test positive, calling their parents and finding…
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On a recent evening at the MassWildlife field headquarters in Westborough, Mass., Martin Feehan stood face-to-face with a 160-pound dead buck, splayed out on the loading dock. The deer died of a broken leg, after it was apparently hit by a car in Needham. Feehan, a deer and moose biologist, had brought it to headquarters to…
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When patients or nurses need help in an emergency room, an alarm normally sounds. At Cambridge Health Alliance hospital in Everett, the beeps from the alarms never seem to stop these days. The CHA Everett ER had near record levels of patients last week, even though the holiday week is normally quiet. On a recent afternoon, there…
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Holly Gochis, a 54-year-old hospital nurse, contracted her second case of COVID last November and is still sick. “I can’t even go down one flight of stairs without my heart rate going to 150 and myself becoming short of breath. And that’s today,” says Gochis. “It’s been a year.” A year of migraines, chest and…
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As Maine schools enter their third pandemic-affected year, they have a new tool that officials are hoping will lead to fewer interruptions. It’s called “pooled testing” and is designed to identify COVID-19 cases early, and keep more students in the classroom. But in some districts, a shortage of labor and supplies has already challenged…
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