Verónica Zaragovia
Health Care ReporterVerónica Zaragovia was born in Cali, Colombia, and grew up in South Florida. She’s been a lifelong WLRN listener and is proud to cover health care for the station. Verónica has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master's degree in journalism. For many years, Veronica lived out of a suitcase (or two) in New York City, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, D.C., San Antonio and Austin, where she worked as the statehouse and health care reporter with NPR member station KUT.
In 2016, she received a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship and moved to Germany’s capital city of Berlin where she lived for several years, working as a freelance reporter and radio instructor to American college students at the Center for International Educational Exchange (CIEE). In between that time, she also spent six months in Colombia, reporting on the peace treaty between the Colombian government and the former FARC guerrilla group, with the support of a grant from the Pulitzer Center.
Verónica speaks English and Spanish fluently and can converse in French, German and Hebrew. She loves warm weather and friendly, diverse people, and that’s why Miami will always be home.
-
Florida needs to get many more people vaccinated in order to reach what’s called community immunity. So far, roughly 45% of people 16 and older have gotten at least one COVID-19 shot in the state. -
Miami-Dade County is still not cutting people’s water service or collecting late fees for those who haven’t been able to pay their bill, but the county is asking for donations to an emergency fund called WASD Cares, in order to avoid water shutoffs in the future.
-
We have listed advice below on how to go about getting your second shot in South Florida. This guidance will likely change and we'll continue to update this post as we receive new information.
-
Hundreds of students in Florida's second-largest school district stopped going to class during the pandemic. Some have switched districts without informing their schools, some didn't have computers or internet access and others had to stay home to take care of siblings.
-
Miami-Dade County organized a pop-up event to vaccinate people against COVID-19 at PortMiami on Wednesday.
-
Demand is dropping for COVID-19 vaccines, the reason cited by Broward Health for stopping its first-dose vaccinations after April 23. Jackson Health System will do the same later this month. Still, officials have efforts underway to make sure people still get vaccinated.
-
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that racism is a serious threat to a person’s health. It’s a threat that even shows up in doctors’ offices and hospitals. For Black women, that experience can be especially fraught in pregnancy and childbirth.
-
Dr. Howard Pratt, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Community Health of South Florida in Miami, says the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict is a step, but that as a Black doctor, he’s concerned about how much stress and anxiety many of his Black patients continue to feel.
-
Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government covers 90% of the cost to expand Medicaid in Florida. The recent $1.9 trillion federal COVID-19 relief measure signed by President Joe Biden also offers extra money to incentivize the 12 Medicaid expansion holdout states, which includes Florida.
-
For decades, women in Florida who give birth and don’t have health insurance have been eligible for two months of Medicaid. Now, a group of lawmakers in the state House of Representatives from both parties stood together and said they want to extend the 60 days of Medicaid coverage after birth.
-
The only FEMA-supported site that has first Pfizer vaccines this week is at Miami Dade College's North Campus — through April 7. The satellite sites are only for second doses.
-
Thousands of people have descended on South Florida beaches for the same reasons as any other Spring Break — the weather, water, and two-for-one drink specials. But there's one major difference — the ongoing pandemic.
