One study found that in the early months of the pandemic, as many as 40% of Americans skipped medical care. But new health insurance coverage of telehealth visits means that there’s a better option. UVA Health’s Karen Rheuban and Laurie Archbald-Pannone have steered innovative telehealth approaches that bring safe medical care to patients’ homes and long-term care facilities. And: When the world closed down last March, Sarah Gilbert created the Front Porch Project to connect her nursing students with the older adults they were learning to care for. Their distanced conversations started as a health intervention and turned into so much more.

Later in the show: When COVID-19 struck, most of us were caught off guard. Others, like Saskia Popescu, have spent years preparing healthcare systems for events like Covid. Plus: Rural communities face so many barriers to accessing healthcare, but they also show incredible strengths in the way they care for each other. Laura Trull shares how the pandemic has affected rural communities and how public health officials can use rural strengths to help fight back.