Latest / Apple News Today / Polio is back in America. Here’s what to know.

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Polio is back in America. Here’s what to know. · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Thursday, August 18th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  We're living with COVID and just starting to understand monkeypox. But now, there's news of a different health threat, one that most people haven't thought about in a few generations. A case of polio in America has people wondering how it happened and whether they themselves have been vaccinated.
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  Earlier this summer, a man in Rockland County, New York was the first confirmed case of polio in the United States in nearly a decade. He hadn't been vaccinated against the disease, and as a result of the illness, he was paralyzed. New York City health officials also found polio in the sewage system.
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  Now, polio typically spreads when people don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. But it is preventable. Nationwide, about 93% of people are vaccinated, and it's very effective. But in Rockland County, the vaccination rate is as low as 37% in some areas. Dr. Peter Salk is the son of Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine. He told "CBS" that he's worried some people are getting lax about the vaccine because they haven't heard about the polio virus in a long time.
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  Peter Salk: So, it's natural for people to think, "Oh, these are not really problems," and "I don't really need to get my children immunized." I just don't think this is a very good social stance to be taking in this day and age.
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  New York's polio case is getting most of the headlines, but other cities in American are also concerned. And polio has been found in the sewers in London and Jerusalem as well.
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  Picture this: you're pregnant and your due date is approaching, but the closest hospital is a 90-minute drive away. The maternity ward there is closed several days a week. And since babies famously don't always arrive on a schedule, if someone goes into labor on a day when it's closed…
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  Claire Suddath: …they may send her to a different hospital yet another hour away or more, or if she's too far along, they will deliver her in the ER. The problem is that ER nurses don't know how to read fetal heart monitors, don't necessarily know how to assist with C-sections, so it's just not a great situation at all.
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  This is not a hypothetical. In parts of west Texas, this is the current reality. The person telling us this story is Claire Suddath, a senior writer with "Bloomberg Businessweek." She reports that this part of Texas is one of the most dangerous places to get pregnant and have a baby. That's because Big Bend Regional Medical Center is the only hospital within 12,000 square miles that delivers babies. And it's dealing with serious problems.
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  Suddath: Because of the widespread nursing staffing shortages in the pandemic, Big Bend has lost so many labor and delivery nurses that it's only able to keep its maternity ward open a few days a week.
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  There are no reported deaths related to closures at this hospital, but the doctors say there have been close calls. It can be stressful and dangerous when there isn't a nearby hospital that's ready to care for pregnant patients 24/7. Many can't do it because of staffing and budget issues.
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  Suddath: It's so expensive to staff a maternity ward. You need nurses and doctors and surgeons and anesthesiologists, if you're gonna offer epidurals.
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  Compared to other wealthy countries, the United States ranks very low in terms of maternal healthcare. For every 100,000 women who give birth in Germany, fewer than four die. In Canada, it's eight. In the United States, that number is 24. And the rate is higher in rural counties compared to urban ones. Babies in rural areas are more likely to die too. Suddath says big moves are needed for a problem this size.
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  Suddath: To really, truly fix this would require such a giant overhaul of just the way the U.S. addresses healthcare and maternal healthcare specifically. You know, the practicalities of that and the political implications, I think, make it incredibly difficult. But I think a practical answer would be really boosting the rural healthcare workforce and making sure that hospitals are staffed, making sure that areas have hospitals.
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  The Biden administration recently released a plan to address America's maternal health crisis. It includes a budget request to expand the workforce and a proposal to extend Medicaid coverage to a full year postpartum.
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  About six months into Russia's war in Ukraine, we may be entering a deadly new phase of conflict, one where Ukraine strikes back hard against Russian forces. Signs include a series of explosions at Russian bases in Crimea. It's not yet clear what happened there, but Ukraine has been hinting that its forces are responsible. Christopher Miller is in Ukraine covering the war for "POLITICO." And he told us, if Ukrainian forces are behind the Crimea attacks, that's a big deal.
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  Christopher Miller: Ukraine being able to carry out attacks in Crimea, which is a peninsula that Russia forcibly annexed back in 2014 and has occupied since, is really a devastating morale blow to Russian forces that have thought that Ukraine didn't have the means to strike them so far and so deep behind the front line.
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  Ukraine has been attacking Russian positions in the south, using new Western weapons with longer range. Miller told us that this is likely the first phase in a larger counteroffensive that Ukraine is preparing. But there's no guarantee it will succeed.
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  Miller: Ukraine still is outmanned and outgunned by Russia. Russia certainly has more manpower, more ammunition. And, you know, this is one of the concerns on the Ukrainian side, that they haven't received enough support from the West.
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  These days, fighting is mostly concentrated in Ukraine's south, no longer in major cities across the country. In fact, Miller says, in Kyiv and Lviv, people are returning from abroad, businesses are opening back up. But there are still daily reminders of the war.
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  Miller: It does feel, you know, relatively normal at times, until you hear the air raid sirens. You know, we get alerts on our phones now anytime there's an air raid. And so, you can be at a cafe, meeting with some friends or something, and then suddenly your phone will go off and you'll be reminded that, of course, we're still in a war zone here.
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  And there's no sense that an end of the war is in sight. After the explosions in Crimea, hardliners in Russia are calling on Putin to retaliate harshly.
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  Supersonic passenger flight might be in the not-so-distant future. American Airlines put a deposit down this week to buy 20 of these types of jets from Boom Supersonic. "CNN" explains that the jets could fly twice as fast as current commercial airliners. Supersonic planes were once thought of as the next big thing in air travel. Maybe you know some older friend or family member who remembers the Concorde. That was the super-quick, super-expensive jet that took flight in the '70s. For a huge fee, you could fly from New York to London in about three hours. That's less than half the usual time. One problem with the Concorde, though, was that it made this sound.
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  That sonic boom was so loud that the Concorde was barred from flying over land; it could only fly over water. And that's one reason why the economics of supersonic flight never quite worked out. It was too expensive to fly over too few routes. In 2003, the Concorde was taken out of service. Now, the company Boom says its jet will be quieter and can succeed where the Concorde couldn't. American Airlines is making a big bet that it's right, but it's still got a ways to go. The first prototype isn't expected to take a test flight until later this year.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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