Dr.

Producer Emanuele Berry gets a text message from the other side of the crisis.

For years one group of people has been trying to push a giant boulder to the top of a hill, like Sisyphus. But in this case, it looks like they’ve actually succeeded! David Kestenbaum spoke with four scientists who have been working on a coronavirus vaccine, one that was just shown to work.

You can’t get herd immunity until you deal with the herd, and get enough of them moving together in the same direction. That’s been difficult this past year, in a way it’s never been during any other epidemic in our history.

One of the 590,000 casualties of U.S. Covid-19 this year was Leiah Danielle Jones.

What does “thank you” actually look like? And who gets one? For Flato Alexander and other essential workers, all sorts of symbols that hadn’t bothered them much before suddenly became unbearable.

Some of the first Covid-19 patients to arrive at Henry Ford Hospital were police and others who’d attended a community breakfast in early March called "Police and Pancakes." Aaron K. Foley has this story of this breakfast and of one man — Marlowe Stoudamire — who ended up at Henry Ford.

David Kestenbaum talks to one teacher there who’s already gone through a month of in-person learning to see what the  future might hold for other schools.

Host Ira Glass talks to an Oregon ICU doctor about his desire to help fight COVID in the country’s biggest hot spots, and his frustration over the surprising reason why he can’t.

We meet the doctors. Rana Awdish spends hours of each day walking the floors of the ICU checking in on her co-workers, which means that maybe more than any single person in the hospital she knows best what the staff has been going through at each stage of this pandemic. One doctor that has deep ties to Detroit is Geneva Tatem.

Host Ira Glass talks to a New York City ICU doctor about the little observations nurses are recording about their COVID patients to save for their families.

Among the big items in DeSantis's run for president is medical freedom. Producer Zoe Chace wanted to understand its appeal and its growing popularity.

Host Ira Glass goes to a block in New York City where, over a year into the pandemic, neighbors are still clapping for health care workers every night at 7 p.m. (7 minutes)

Reporter Anna Maria Barry-Jester tells the story of two public health officials in Santa Cruz County, California, whose lives have been completely upended by threats and harassment over the past year. (20 minutes)This story is a collaboration with Kaiser Health News. You can read their version here.

Couples therapist Esther Perel talks to Ira about the very particular ways she’s seeing lockdown impact couples around the world.  Listen to season three of her podcast, “Where Should We Begin: Couples Under Lockdown.” (13 minutes)

People want to do the right thing, but it’s not always possible.

Aviva DeKornfeld talks with a high schooler about how he’s prepped for remote learning with a bunch of kids he doesn’t know. (4 minutes)

A woman’s dog has an unexpected reaction to the pandemic, and a mother has to re-think how to teach her son to drive.

Guest host Chana Joffe-Walt talks to a carpenter whose job output went from fixing doors to something more urgent in the last year. (9 minutes)

Firefighter and paramedic Sam Gebler gets a glimpse of what lurks beneath the surface of a sunny California afternoon.

At Sullivan High School in Chicago, being able to communicate is key. (5 minutes)

Producer Emanuele Berry talks to Jiayang Fan about how Jiayang’s trying to protect her mother, who she worries about as the virus spreads across New York City.