This story was updated on November 5, 2020 to include comment from Dr. Jonathan Heidt. When MU Health Care closed one of its two drive-thru coronavirus testing sites in mid-September, it pointed to a drop in the number of people getting tested. At that point, drive thru testing appointments had fallen by more than 1,000 from the peak of nearly 3,200 at the end of August. Since then, appointments have fallen further, dropping to just 1,500 the week of October 19. Dr. Jonathan Heidt is the vice

Each year in Missouri, thousands of people are held in jails, many of them before being convicted of any crime, simply because they cannot afford the cost of their bail. To combat this problem, one local group is working on a short-term solution to this problem with a Community Bail Fund – despite the additional complications of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

In less than a month, more than 1,300 students at the university of Missouri have tested positive for the coronavirus. Case investigation and contact tracing are key components of controlling the outbreak, but students say the university is falling behind.

A return to pre-pandemic childcare subsidy reimbursements has some Missouri childcare providers feeling left in the lurch.

Amie VanMorlan is a mother of two, a pediatric endocrinologist and the incoming President of the Columbia SEPTA or Special Education PTA. She sat down with me to talk about some of the concerns parents and educators have about the return to school this fall for kids with disabilities – including her own son, Damien.

Missouri has entered its sixth month of navigating the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and for dozens of health departments across the state, CARES Act funding has been slow to arrive. That means crucial public-health positions like contact tracers and case investigators have been left unfilled. So, Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services has found one creative stop-gap – Masters in Public Health student volunteers.

After a night of what seemed like neck-in-neck results, Missourians have voted “Yes” on Amendment 2. The final results were about 53 percent “yes” to 47 percent “no,” which makes Missouri the 38th state to pass Medicaid Expansion.

More than 1,200 Missourians have died from COVID-19 since the first confirmed case back in March. With new data and every day, the human aspect of that loss can get lost in the numbers. Angela Kender is looking to change that. After losing her mother to COVID-19 in June, Kender has decided to organize a project to commemorate her, and everyone else who has lost loved ones to the disease. She’s collecting photographs of those lost at [email protected]. Kender plans to take the

Francisco Bonilla is a pastor who runs a low-power radio station out of his church, Casa de Sanidad in Carthage, Missouri. On a hot summer day, he’s showing me around the studio. Bonilla mainly uses the station to broadcast sermons and religious music. These days, he’s also focused on COVID-19, which has hit a lot of Latinx workers at the Butterball poultry processing plant.

More than two months after the president approved a funding package to bolster local response to COVID-19 outbreaks, the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services department hasn’t received a penny. As confirmed COVID-19 cases continue to increase, according to health director Stephanie Browning the department has only been able to bring on two additional contact tracers - its retired former epidemiologist, and one of its former nurses: both on a part-time basis. While the state