Alex Smith
Alex Smith began working in radio as an intern at the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. A few years and a couple of radio jobs later, he became the assistant producer of KCUR's magazine show, KC Currents. In January 2014 he became KCUR's health reporter.
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Though Missouri has been vaccinating seniors for months, nearly half haven't received COVID-19 shots.
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Highly Transmissible COVID-19 Variants Have Been In Missouri Since Early January, State Data SuggestResearchers also found evidence of a mutation that helps the virus evade the immune system.
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Antigen tests now comprise about a third of COVID-19 tests conducted in Missouri but their results are not included in case counts.
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Even as hospital leaders warned that their beds were nearly full -- and Gov. Mike Parson assured the public that the state was prepared -- some hospitals continued to report data that made their capacity appear larger than it was.
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About three-quarters of Kansas and Missouri counties lack intensive care units, forcing critically ill rural patients to seek care in major cities.
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In Kansas City, hospitals are treating local COVID-19 patients as well as patients transferred from rural counties in Missouri and Kansas, where there's no mandate or culture for wearing masks.
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With coronavirus infections at record rates in rural areas, the sickest patients are being sent to big cities for care, and those urban hospitals are getting alarmingly full.
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Some doctors say Missouri's official hospital capacity data is exaggerated because it includes beds that aren't staffed by health care workers.
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Unlike other parts of the country, new case growth in Kansas and Missouri has been slowly climbing since the middle of the summer.
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Health communication experts say that misinformation spread through support groups can undermine trust in medicine and science. But some patients work to counter falsehoods with facts.