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More than a year after U.S. health care workers on the front lines against COVID-19 were saluted as heroes with nightly clapping from windows and balconies, some are being issued panic buttons in case of assault and ditching their scrubs before going out in public for fear of harassment. Across the country, doctors and nurses are dealing with hostility, threats and violence from patients angry over safety rules designed to keep the scourge from spreading. (Hollingsworth and Schulte, 9/30)

Families of veterans who died in one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in a U.S. nursing home called Wednesday for changes in how Massachusetts oversees its veterans homes. Members of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home Coalition said in a virtual hearing held by state lawmakers that Massachusetts’ two state-run facilities — the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke and the Soldiers’ Home in Chelsea — should be overseen by the state Department of Public Health, not the state Department of Veterans Services. (9/29)

Over the years, Charles Chamberlain has fired off dozens of letters to the editor of his local newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times. The Spring Hill, Fla., man has pontificated on oil prices, Social Security and the influence of money in politics. He has railed against former president Donald Trump’s election-fraud lies and the ‘cold, calculating and cynical’ ethics of herd immunity. Chamberlain, 81, is no fan of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who he believes has sacrificed public health for partisan politics amid a pandemic that has killed more than 54,000 Floridians. So when DeSantis appointed Joseph Ladapo — a controversial physician who has questioned the safety of the coronavirus vaccines — to serve as the state’s new surgeon general, Chamberlain was, naturally, peeved. (Lipscomb, 9/30)

In a speech on the North Carolina House floor, a lawmaker who recovered from COVID-19 thanked supporters and blamed some Democrats for “vile and nasty” messages he received from people while he and his wife were sick. Rep. Keith Kidwell, a Chocowinity Republican and House deputy majority whip, made his first return to the House floor after being hospitalized in mid-August with COVID-19. (Vaughan, 9/29)

She lived a life of adventure that spanned two continents. She fell in love with a World War II fighter pilot, barely escaped Europe ahead of Benito Mussolini’s fascists, ground steel for the U.S. war effort and advocated for her disabled daughter in a far less enlightened time. She was, her daughter said, someone who didn’t make a habit of giving up. And then this month, at age 105, Primetta Giacopini’s life ended the way it began — in a pandemic. “I think my mother would have been around quite a bit longer” if she hadn’t contracted COVID,” her 61-year-old daughter, Dorene Giacopini, said. “She was a fighter. She had a hard life and her attitude always was ... basically, all Americans who were not around for World War II were basically spoiled brats.” (Richmond, 9/30)

The messages are short. Succinct. Devastating. “Fly with the angels, Peggy.” “To my aunt, one of my favorite humans. We miss you.” “I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make you proud. Te amo grandpa.”“ Sue Kaye Ziemann fought and beat leukemia, but covid took her too soon.” Walking through the hundreds of thousands of white flags blanketing 20 acres of the National Mall to honor the Americans who have died of covid-19, visitors stop to write a few words of farewell on the flags themselves. They are goodbyes that many never had a chance to say in person. It is an intimate goodbye. And a national one. (Sanchez, 9/30)