Texas COVID-19

The measles outbreak in West Texas didn't happen just by chance. Health officials say the easily preventable disease has ripped through communities sprawling across more than 20 Texas counties in part because health departments were starved of the funding needed to run vaccine programs.

Katherine Wells was celebrated early during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then public health became a political litmus test.

Public health experts say Texas needs better messaging on vaccinations and quarantining and more people conducting contact tracing to contain the spread.

The U.S. government ending its public health order means a range of changes, from free tests and vaccines to Medicaid coverage.

Nearly one out of every 100 people living in Lamb County died of COVID-19. It’s one of the highest death rates in the nation.

For some local relief programs, a lack of staffing, political support and effective community outreach got in the way of spending federal funds to prevent evictions, a new report found. More than $30 million went unspent and had to be returned.

“I think we are just in the beginning of, unfortunately, this crisis … I think things are going to get, unfortunately, a little worse,” says San Antonio-based Dr. Mehmood Khan.

The numbers are especially bleak for rural hospitals, which are usually independently owned and were already vulnerable before the pandemic.

State math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress dipped significantly between 2019 and 2022, but reading scores for fourth and eighth graders held steady.

Less than a third of $18 billion in aid has been used so far, with two years left to spend it.