Pien Huang
Pien Huang is a health reporter on the Science desk. She was NPR's first Reflect America Fellow, working with shows, desks and podcasts to bring more diverse voices to air and online.
She's a former producer for WBUR/NPR's On Point and was a 2018 Environmental Reporting Fellow with The GroundTruth Project at WCAI in Cape Cod, covering the human impact on climate change. As a freelance audio and digital reporter, Huang's stories on the environment, arts and culture have been featured on NPR, the BBC and PRI's The World.
Huang's experiences span categories and continents. She was executive producer of Data Made to Matter, a podcast from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was also an adjunct instructor in podcasting and audio journalism at Northeastern University. She worked as a project manager for public artist Ralph Helmick to help plan and execute The Founder's Memorial in Abu Dhabi and with Stoltze Design to tell visual stories through graphic design. Huang has traveled with scientists looking for signs of environmental change in Cameroon's frogs, in Panama's plants and in the ocean water off the ice edge of Antarctica. She has a degree in environmental science and public policy from Harvard.
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The agency is replacing its COVID-specific guidance with general guidance for respiratory viruses that says people should stay home when they are sick. -
The CDC is dropping its isolation guidance for COVID, instead advising around respiratory viruses in general. The change reflects the reality that severe outcomes are less frequent, says the director.
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The state has at least 10 cases of the illness to date but the state's surgeon general has not called for vaccinations or quarantining of exposed kids. This goes against science-based measures. -
A measles outbreak in a Florida elementary school flummoxes public health experts, who say the state surgeon general's response contradicts established public health measures to contain the virus.
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The current guidance advises five days of isolation. Unnamed health officials have indicated that this guidance may soon go away, a move that troubles public health experts. -
The CDC is reportedly planning to drop the isolation guidance for those who test positive for COVID-19. Experts say this may align with the current how people are behaving but may not bode well.
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An elementary school in Florida, credits daily mindfulness lessons with helping students cope with stress — and turning the school around academically. The lessons are delivered through an app. -
NPR's Juana Summers talks with Regina Barber and Pien Huang of Short Wave about a double emergence of cicadas this spring, invasive ants in Kenya, and the secrets in an ancient wad of chewing gum.
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Flu is rising, and COVID levels are higher than last season's peak. But COVID hospitalizations and deaths are down. Nonetheless, COVID is still the most dangerous virus circulating. -
Respiratory illnesses are rising after the holidays. CDC Director Mandy Cohen and other health experts share data and advice on how to navigate what is typically the peak respiratory virus season.
