The Week in Philly from KYW Newsradio

We've been living and working in a pandemic for more than a year. And a lot of people are feeling burnout creeping up on them. Whether it's anxiety, depression, motivation or focus problems -- most people have probably experienced these things to one extent or another, but after a year of separation, and work/life balance being messed up and dealing with incredible loss the whole time... this feel...

There was some fascinating research recently released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation about how parents feel about the future for their kids. And overall, they're pretty optimistic -- but they have some big and important concerns about barriers long in place in American society, things like systematic racism that could hinder the opportunities children will have. Jennifer Ng'andu, Managing D...

Since the early days of this pandemic, health officials have said that one of the keys of containing this virus would be contact tracing. If you test positive, someone calls you and asks who you've been around. Then they reach out to those people and ask them to quarantine and get tested. And for the people you've been around who you don't know -- there's an app for that. Pennsylvania's app has be...

The U.S. is recommending a pause for distribution of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to investigate reports of potentially dangerous blood clots in 6 patients. Dr. Paul Offit is the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA vaccine advisory committee, he joins KYW Newsradio in Depth to break down what they think h...

We have spent more than a year now in a pandemic. It's been a challenge for everyone’s mental health, regardless of how much COVID has affected you directly. But now that it seems like brighter days are ahead, we wanted to stop and try to take inventory of the effect the last year has had on everybody. Clinical psychologist Dr. Jaime Zuckerman joins KYW Newsradio In Depth to talk about the toll th...

A year plus into the pandemic and some cold unemployment water got thrown on the jobs party last week. What's behind the unemployment ups and downs? Economic indicators get thrown around a lot, which ones should you care about? Billionaires got a lot richer over the past year, what does that mean for the overall economy? And the US is desperately overdue for an infrastructure update. What are the...

The majority of colleges and universities have temporarily eliminated the standardized testing requirement for admission because of the pandemic. This might look like a small move, but it's having big ripple effects for students. Application Nation founder Sara Harberson joins KYW Newsradio In Depth's Suzanne Monaghan to talk about what it means for students and colleges alike, and if the changes...

With bars and restaurants in a weird place, society basically turned on its head and most people social distancing for the past year, the dating scene has been kind of depressing for a lot of people. Kristi Price is a matchmaker and dating coach, she joins KYW Newsradio In Depth to talk about some really interesting shifts in the people who have reached out to her, why they took the plunge, and wh...

Early in the pandemic there were a lot of stories and anecdotes about people wiping down all their groceries before putting them away, because no one really knew how much risk they posed for spreading COVID-19. This has led to some interesting research and not just for what it proved about the threat some groceries like fruits and vegetables found in open-air bins of area grocery stores posed for...

The pandemic changed how we live, where we go, what we do, and it even changed what we post on social media. That's according to some really interesting research on how what people are sharing on social media now compared with a year ago in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Jason Thatcher is one of the co-authors of the study, he's the Milton F. Stauffer Professor in Information Systems a...

We are seeing more and more children return to in person learning across the country, and pretty much everyone agrees it is really important that that trend continues. So what's it going to take to keep kids safe in school? What are some of the problems that public schools specifically are facing as a result of the pandemic? What problems that were around even before COVID-19 still need to be addr...

How much would a person know about you just by looking at your search history? The answer is probably a lot -- so we wanted to check in with Molly VandenBerg, a Google technology expert to ask about what people have been Googling now that we're a year into the pandemic, and what people are doing to spring clean their routines.

Vaccination levels are rising across the country, and hopefully some of the hesitancy that we've been hearing about is being beaten back. We wanted to check in with Dr. Atul Grover, Executive Director of the Association of American Medical Colleges Research and Action Institute to ask about the questions he's getting about the vaccine, how we're doing at getting shots in arms, and a new question t...

Are the days of browsing the lots and test driving cars in the rearview mirror? The car buying experience has gone through some major changes during the coronavirus pandemic, and that's not the only thing that changed. What we want from our vehicles has shifted, too. Geoff Cudd, founder of findthebestcarprice.com joins KYW Newsradio In Depth to break down the trends he's watching in car buying and...

There's been so much breaking news about vaccines in the last week -- most of it good but not all. Pfizer says its vaccine is highly effective six months after the second shot. The Pfizer and Moderna shots have been proven safe for adolescents. J&J tossed millions of doses because of a manufacturing error. And the CDC says that Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines work just as well in real life as th...

A year into this pandemic, shots are going into arms and more than a hundred million Americans have gotten at least one dose of a vaccine. That's incredibly positive news, but it doesn't tell the whole story -- while equitable distribution is improving, we still have a long way to go. Dr. Cedric “Jamie” Rutland, Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician with the American Lung Association joins KYW New...

Deepfakes are videos that are created to look real, but aren't. Some of them are really convincing, and they're a big concern for criminologists, who worry about everything from what could happen on a grand scale if a damaging fake video of a president or head of state goes mainstream, to how a deepfake could destroy reputations and lives on a personal level. Dr. Robert D'Ovidio, Associate Profess...

We have all learned about the incredible importance of public health preparedness over the past year. Since 2003, Trust for America’s Health, a non-profit public health policy, research and advocacy organization has released a yearly report tracking the country’s level of public health emergency preparedness. This year’s report is out and it finds the Delaware Valley at different levels of prepare...

Universal basic income is an idea that made some headlines during the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination as Andrew Yang made it a signature policy idea of his campaign, but most people probably aren’t familiar with what it means and what would be involved. Before the pandemic, UBI in any form was probably a long shot at best to take hold in the US, but after three rounds of gover...

New unemployment claims dipped below 700k for the first time in a year. GDP for the fourth quarter was stronger than expected, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell says he's happy with the economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. And then a boat got stuck in the Suez Canal and messed with global supply chains. What a week! David Fiorenza, Associate Professor of Practice at Villanova School of Busine...

The shopping experience has changed for everyone and every store in the midst of the pandemic. So which changes will stick around once the pandemic is over? Are stores and companies starting to market and position themselves for a world where COVID-19 is in the rear view mirror? Will readily available hand sanitizer be a selling point for your shopping experience down the road? Sheri Lambert, Assi...

The Race to Vaccinate is a KYW Newsradio in Depth special presented by Independence Blue Cross. We've been through a year unlike any other in memory, and there's finally light at the end of the tunnel. At the one year mark of this pandemic, Carol MacKenzie sat down with KYW Newsradio Medical Editor Dr. Brian McDonough to ask him some of the questions we've been getting from listeners about the vac...

There's been a lot of talk recently about whether America's elected leaders are doing the best job representing the American people. And since the number of Representatives in the US House was set at 435 a century ago, the average House member now represents more than 700,000 people. That's just a massive number. So what would happen if we increased the number of people in the House of Representat...

We are waist deep in the best time of year for college basketball fans: the NCAA Tournament. But this year, along with the games, the headlines have been focused on some pretty big disparities when it comes to what is available for the players taking part in the men’s tournament and the players in the women’s tournament -- things like the size and quality of the weight room. Dr. Karen Weaver, Adju...

For the most part there are two types of financial situations people are in a year after the pandemic started. Some people worked from home and cut expenses and were able to save a lot of money. Other people had to spend their savings and visit food banks and take out loans. Both groups are now in this situation where it's not crazy to think about life after the pandemic and what that means for th...