Selena Simmons-Duffin
Selena Simmons-Duffin reports on health policy for NPR.
She has worked at NPR for ten years as a show editor and producer, with one stopover at WAMU in 2017 as part of a staff exchange. For four months, she reported local Washington, DC, health stories, including a secretive maternity ward closure and a gesundheit machine.
Before coming to All Things Considered in 2016, Simmons-Duffin spent six years on Morning Edition working shifts at all hours and directing the show. She also drove the full length of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014 for the "Borderland" series.
She won a Gracie Award in 2015 for creating a video called "Talking While Female," and a 2014 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for producing a series on why you should love your microbes.
Simmons-Duffin attended Stanford University, where she majored in English. She took time off from college to do HIV/AIDS-related work in East Africa. She started out in radio at Stanford's radio station, KZSU, and went on to study documentary radio at the Salt Institute, before coming to NPR as an intern in 2009.
She lives in Washington, DC, with her spouse and kids.
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The White House launched two new efforts to help Americans get free access to rapid COVID tests. It's still hard to find tests, and reimbursement for tests bought at a store isn't necessarily easy.
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When he came into office, Biden launched an ambitious seven-point plan for defeating the virus. Here's how experts score his results. -
President Biden announced new measures to respond to the COVID surge. He is sending troops to hospitals in some states and said that more tests and masks are being ordered for distribution nationwide.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held only two telebriefings in 2021. That lack of transparency has prompted criticism — and a pledge from director Dr. Rochelle Walensky to be more open. -
The new CDC guidelines for COVID-19 isolation and quarantine have garnered a lot of criticism. And this is just one example of the agency's on going communication problems.
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Subtle developmental differences in children whose brains seemed normal at birth underscore the need to follow children long term — a lesson that may be key for babies exposed to COVID-19. -
President Biden is laying out his next steps for taking on the omicron variant, including giving out more at-home tests and sending support teams to overwhelmed hospitals.
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President Biden is expected to address the surge in omicron cases, but is his administration's response fast and sufficient enough to meet what could be the most challenging month yet in the pandemic?
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Coronavirus cases are beginning to surge again in the U.S., just weeks after the discovery of the omicron variant. Data from the U.K. shows it is even more transmissible than delta.
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The White House continues the same COVID-19 messages and strategies even as models suggest an omicron surge is coming.
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A new statewide mask mandate in California went into effect Wednesday, bringing the total number of states with mask mandates to 10. That has some public health advocates worried as omicron spreads.
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As he prepares to leave his post of 12 years, Francis Collins reflects on the agency's biomedical advances, the dangers of polarizing medicine and the huge health gaps that still exist in the U.S.
