The night before Lisa Hardesty’s post-vaccination reunion with her 101-year-old grandmother felt like the night before going to an amusement park as a child. “I cannot wait to hug her,” Hardesty, 54, said a few days beforehand.

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." I've just had my second dose of the vaccine, and now I have a vaccine card.

Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. Jason Gallagher, a licensed pharmacist and professor of infectious diseases at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wanted to help out in the COVID-19 vaccination effort, so he decided to volunteer.

What, exactly, does it mean that a vaccine is, for example, 92% efficacious? Does it mean there's an 8% chance of my getting COVID-19? If so, why would anyone want to get a vaccine that's only 60 or 65% efficacious? I find the subject of vaccine efficacy very confusing!

First of all, don't panic! Losing fistfuls of hair may seem alarming, but it's actually a common response to extreme stress, both physical (i.e., an illness such as COVID-19) and emotional (i.e., living through a pandemic).

I'm eligible for the COVID vaccine and due for a mammogram. Which should I do first?

Since the very beginning of this COVID fiasco, Minnesotans have had plenty of opportunities to feel skeptical about protocols. Wait, that swab is going to go how far up my nose? But for many Black Americans, that skepticism is far from trivial. In fact, it’s partly rooted in historical trauma and systemic inequities that include but aren’t limited to the 1932–1972 Tuskegee syphilis experiment—in which hundreds of Black men were deceived and denied medical treatment, leading to the death of many—and the ongoing trend of higher maternal mortality rates during childbirth for Black women. This history of abuse and racism at the hands of the health-care system has caused Black Americans— who are almost three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white Americans—to be more skeptical of one of the

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." I hate shots. Tell me the truth: How much is this vaccination going to hurt?

On December 14, the first Americans got a vaccine designed to protect them from COVID-19. Health-care workers were put at the head of the line to get these shots. So were older adults living in care facilities. That’s according to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. Over the coming months, other groups of adults will qualify for vaccination. But kids under age 16? They won’t be getting the shots. At least not yet.

When Marvin employees finally step back into their physical offices in Warroad, they’ll find a very different space than the one they left in March. That’s because it just so happened that Marvin was in the middle of redesigning its headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Warroad when the pandemic hit.

I write about many health topics for Health Central. Read my recent stories here.

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." When I booked a flight from Boston to Washington, D.C., in mid-January, I knew that sharing confined indoor spaces with strangers was a risk in the middle of a pandemic.

While COVID-19 has mutated in thousands of mostly harmless ways, the world is increasingly focused on one variant detected in England, dubbed B.1.1.7, and one found in South African, called 501.V2, because they seem to spread more easily than older strains. Although not believed to be any deadlier, B.1.1.7 has now become the dominant variant in some areas of England.

Like most healthcare workers at his hospital in Lafayette, Indiana, Ramesh Adhikari, MD, occasionally gets an email noting that a patient he saw later tested positive for COVID-19. He's reminded to self-monitor for symptoms. But 10 months into the pandemic, it has become increasingly unlikely for contact tracing investigations to result in clinicians quarantining.

Gloria Torres-Herbeck gets the flu vaccine every year, but the 53-year-old teacher in Rochester, Minnesota, isn’t yet convinced she wants to be first in line for a potential COVID-19 vaccine. “I’m not super old, but I’m not as strong as other people,” she said. “So, I need to be realistic on my own situation.