Rebecca Hersher
Rebecca Hersher (she/her) is a reporter on NPR's Science Desk, where she reports on outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental and health research. Since coming to NPR in 2011, she has covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, embedded with the Afghan army after the American combat mission ended, and reported on floods and hurricanes in the U.S. She's also reported on research about puppies. Before her work on the Science Desk, she was a producer for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered in Los Angeles.
Hersher was part of the NPR team that won a Peabody award for coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and produced a story from Liberia that won an Edward R. Murrow award for use of sound. She was a finalist for the 2017 Daniel Schorr prize; a 2017 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow, reporting on sanitation in Haiti; and a 2015 NPR Above the Fray fellow, investigating the causes of the suicide epidemic in Greenland.
Prior to working at NPR, Hersher reported on biomedical research and pharmaceutical news for Nature Medicine.
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It's the first confirmed case of coronavirus reinfection in the U.S. The case underscores that everyone should be social distancing and wearing masks, including COVID-19 survivors.
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Family violence increases in places that have been severely burned in bushfires, Australian research finds. The isolation and financial stress of COVID-19 appear to be exacerbating the problem. -
The EPA does not require companies to notify federal regulators if the pandemic interferes with pollution monitoring or reporting. That leaves states alone on the front lines of pollution control.
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Car traffic took a big dip beginning in late March, and headlines celebrated clean air around the U.S. But an NPR analysis of EPA data tells a more troubling story. -
The agency usually provides funding for legal aid hotlines after disasters. But the White House has not approved such funding for those affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
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The number of patients being treated on a Navy hospital ship and inside a convention center has more than doubled in the last two days, after both facilities switched to treating people with COVID-19.
