Jennifer Lee
Jennifer Lee focuses on how health policy decisions and infectious disease trends translate into real-world consequences for patients and frontline providers, with a particular emphasis on vaccination campaigns, outbreaks and strain on the health system. She is a senior reporter for CBC News specializing in health stories across web, radio and video platforms. Her coverage tracks the intersection of epidemiology, access to care and political choices, often grounding complex issues in the experiences of affected Albertans and the warnings of medical experts.
COVID-19 vaccination campaigns and respiratory virus shots
Lee’s recent work returns repeatedly to the planning and rollout of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns and other respiratory virus immunizations, scrutinizing how provincial decisions align with federal guidance and public health advice. In a detailed piece on Alberta’s fall COVID-19 vaccine plan, she reports on expert pressure for the province to follow federal recommendations and addresses timelines, eligibility criteria and the logistics of delivering updated shots.
She covers the practical side of these campaigns through stories on pharmacists preparing to once again administer free COVID-19 vaccines to high-risk Albertans, describing ordering processes, funding arrangements and the workload implications for pharmacy teams. Her reporting on RSV immunization highlights how high-risk newborns in Alberta are slated to receive a new shot, explaining who qualifies, how the program is structured and why clinicians view it as an important tool against severe respiratory illness in infants.
Across these pieces, she combines policy detail with operational realities, documenting both the official plan and what it means for people trying to access vaccines.
Lee also tracks changing COVID-19 risk through coverage of new Omicron subvariants on the rise in Alberta, focusing on expert assessments of transmissibility, immune escape and the potential impact on hospitalizations. Her work on comparative vaccination rates looks at how Alberta’s COVID-19 coverage stacks up against other provinces, using data-driven analysis and expert commentary to explore why gaps persist and what they imply for future waves. These stories position her as a reporter who stays with COVID-19 beyond acute crises, following the long tail of policy, uptake and variant evolution.
Deadly flu seasons and measles resurgence
A second strand of Lee’s beat is sustained coverage of influenza and measles, especially when rising case counts or deaths signal a system under pressure. She has reported on Alberta’s flu season being described as the deadliest in recent memory, drawing on mortality figures and expert calls for action to examine whether vaccination, public messaging and health system preparedness are keeping pace with the threat. In a related piece, she details warnings that the province may be on track for the deadliest flu season on record, emphasizing trends over multiple years and the concern among infectious disease specialists. Her measles coverage follows both acute and ongoing phases of an outbreak, including stories on an alarming new uptick flagged by clinicians and on the province’s case count topping 2,000 in a single year while the outbreak remained unresolved. These articles show her pattern of returning to the same diseases as conditions evolve, documenting not just headline events but the cumulative toll on patients and services.
Health system strain, ER wait times and private care experiments
Lee regularly reports on stress points within the health system, especially emergency departments and policy moves that could shift the public–private balance of care. In coverage of patients treated in the Red Deer emergency room waiting area, she details how long waits and crowding push care into unconventional spaces, using patient accounts and clinician perspectives to convey the impact on safety and dignity.
Her reporting on mandate letters and proposals to expand private health care in Alberta examines worries that these initiatives could exacerbate inequities, fragment services or divert resources from the public system. A later story on Alberta’s “experiment” to expand private health care brings in experts who underscore that the consequences depend on the specific design of dual practice arrangements and safeguards against queue-jumping, reflecting her focus on practical implementation rather than abstract debate.
Across these pieces, Lee’s health policy coverage is grounded in how changes affect access, quality of care and the daily realities of patients and providers.
Drug shortages, pharmacy pressures and health misinformation
Another recurring theme in Lee’s work is the stability of the drug supply and the pressures facing pharmacists, alongside efforts to counter health misinformation. She has covered an estrogen patch shortage that left some Albertans scrambling for alternatives, tracing how supply disruptions affect symptom control, treatment continuity and patient choice, and capturing the frustration of those navigating sudden changes to their medication. Her reporting on prescription forgeries documents pharmacists scrambling to keep up with rising reports, exploring how fraud trends intersect with controlled substances, workload and safety, and how the profession and regulators respond.
In stories about pharmacists preparing for fall COVID-19 campaigns, she again highlights the demands placed on community pharmacies as they take on expanded roles in immunization and public health.
Lee also tackles misinformation directly, as in her coverage of claims linking autism and Tylenol promoted by Donald Trump. In that piece, she details the lack of conclusive evidence for such a connection and presents Health Canada’s position alongside expert assessments, clarifying the state of the science for readers. This blend of supply-chain reporting, frontline pharmacy perspectives and clear rebuttals of misleading health narratives shows her interest in both the infrastructure of care and the information environment surrounding it.
4 more health journalists.
Alanna Smith
Alanna Smith is a national health reporter whose work links health policy and politics to real access to care, with a constant focus on health equity, infectious disease and the toxic drug crisis. She reports for The Globe and Mail on infectious diseases, hospitals and long-term care, mental health, drug policy and the pressures on health systems in Western Canada. Her stories connect big-picture decisions to patients, families, front-line workers and volunteers, showing how funding, privatization and federal standards shape public care. She has covered trauma care inequities, proposed public‑private models in Alberta, drug toxicity and overdose policy, respiratory virus surges, measles elimination, gene‑editing advances and gender‑affirming health care laws. Her work combines narrative reporting, data, legal and policy analysis, and has been recognized by national journalism and press freedom organizations.
Allan Levine
Allan Levine is a historian and author whose journalism uses the past to explain present-day issues. He writes for the Winnipeg Free Press, including the Now & Then column, which examines current events through history. His subjects include public health, disease, medical treatment, health systems, politics, social conflict, strikes, wars, antisemitism and Canadian public life. His polio reporting traces Manitoba epidemics, hospital pressures, treatment, mortality and the arrival of vaccines through archival data and medical history. He also writes about the Winnipeg General Strike and Jewish communities, including discrimination, rights and security. His work draws on books about Canadian political leaders, Jewish history and the wartime economy, including The Dollar A Year Men. He writes long-form, analytical pieces that combine dates, statistics, policy decisions and narrative storytelling to connect people and institutions with broader historical change.
Angela Amato
Angela Amato is a digital news producer with CTV News, and her coverage is distinct for linking health research and public safety concerns to legal and policy decisions that shape daily life. She reports on health, justice, politics, business, arts and culture, crime and public-interest stories. Her health work covers academic and clinical research, including studies on vaping and lung blood flow, exercise tolerance and early heart dysfunction in young adults. She also reports on motorcycle gang arrests, homicide and death investigations, Indigenous justice stories, wildfire evacuations, ambulance contracts, property taxes, labour negotiations and political advocacy rules. She explains complex findings in plain language and stays close to documents, data and expert sources. Her background includes investigative and daily newsrooms, and she has earned nominations for national journalism awards.
Apoorva Mandavilli
Apoorva Mandavilli covers the collision of infectious disease science, vaccine policy and public health agencies for The New York Times, following how research, regulation and politics shape outbreaks and access to vaccines. She reports on science and global health with a steady focus on infectious diseases and pandemics, including Covid-19, mpox, H.I.V., malaria and tuberculosis, treating them as ongoing global threats. Her work explains complex epidemiology and virology in clear narratives about risk, evidence and the consequences of scientific decisions. She repeatedly returns to vaccine policy, law and misinformation, tracing how court fights and agency disputes affect immunization schedules and public trust. She also reports on global health programs, funding cuts and inequity in care and technology. A longtime science journalist and former founding editor in chief of Spectrum, she has written widely on science and health and received major honors for medical science reporting and pandemic coverage.