News Room

A year into the coronavirus pandemic, Americans are painfully aware that overcoming the scourge is a marathon, not a sprint. Enter Dave McGillivray, who knows a thing or two about endurance events — and logistics. The race director of the Boston Marathon, which is on hold until fall, has been tapped by the state of Massachusetts to run mass vaccination operations at Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park. Idled at his day job by the pandemic, he's part of an emerging group of event organizers and other unconventional logistics experts who are using their skills to help the nation vaccinate as many people against COVID-19 as possible. "It's amazing how our event management skill set can be applied to running a massive vaccination site," said McGillivray, who has been directing the marathon — with its many moving parts — for more than three decades.

After receiving her first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 19, Fran Abbott soon began to worry about the logistics of getting her second. The Southern Nevada Health District recently said that it would email those who got a first dose at one of its sites about scheduling a second dose. But Abbott said that when she received her first dose as a walk-in at Cashman Center in downtown Las Vegas, she wasn’t asked to provide an email address. How, then, could the district contact her? And what if a phone message to the district was not returned in time? “I am worried that I and those who went to Cashman as walk-ins might fall through the cracks,” Abbott, 74, said in an email Sunday, echoing the uncertainty of many older residents about the process for receiving their second doses.

If Georgians don’t mask up, super-spreader strain could prolong the pandemic, experts warn. The United Kingdom’s mutant strain of COVID-19 has already spread through metro Atlanta, threatening to unleash another surge of overfilled hospitals and deaths if Georgians don’t take precautions, state health officials warned Monday. The Georgia Department of Public Health has confirmed 19 people living in nine Georgia counties have been infected with the variant, with cases concentrated in the state’s core metropolitan counties and extending to the Alabama border.

A congressional watchdog agency says the Trump administration failed to implement almost 90% of its recommendations for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to new research, the presence of an Airbnb property can actually contribute to an increase in housing prices and rental rates in a local neighborhood. But it depends on where the property is located. The study sought to assess the impact of home-sharing on residential house prices and rents using data from Airbnb listings from across the United States.  Researchers found that in local neighborhoods with a lower share of owner-occupancy, Airbnb had a higher impact on rising housing prices and rents. In areas with a higher share of owner-occupancy, Airbnb had somewhat less of an impact on property prices and rents.