Friday, November 1

COVID-19

Why African Americans Need To Take The COVID-19 Vaccine – What’s Not Being Said
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COVID-19

Why African Americans Need To Take The COVID-19 Vaccine – What’s Not Being Said

Dr. Anthony Fauci and other national health leaders have said that African Americans need to take the COVID-19 vaccine to protect their health. What Fauci and others have not stated is that if African Americans don’t take the vaccine, the nation as whole will never get to herd immunity. The concept of herd immunity, also referred to as community immunity, is fairly simple. When a significant proportion of the population, or the herd, becomes immune from the virus, the entire population will have some acceptable degree of protection. Immunity can occur through natural immunity from personal infection and recovery, or through vaccination. Once a population reaches herd immunity, the likelihood of person-to-person spread becomes very low. The big lie is one of omission. Yes, it is true that...
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Understanding SARS-CoV-2 And How It Causes COVID-19 – And Then Developing Multiple Vaccines Was The Top Scientific Breakthrough For 2020
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COVID-19

Understanding SARS-CoV-2 And How It Causes COVID-19 – And Then Developing Multiple Vaccines Was The Top Scientific Breakthrough For 2020

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory illness COVID-19, has killed approximately 2.2% of those worldwide who are known to have contracted it. But the situation could be a lot worse without modern medicine and science. The last such global scourge was the influenza pandemic of 1918, which is estimated to have killed 50 million people at a time when there was no internet or easy access to long-distance telephones to disseminate information. Science was limited, which made it difficult to identify the cause and initiate vaccine development. The world is 100% more prepared for the current pandemic than it was 100 years ago. However, it has still affected our lives profoundly. I am a physician scientist who specializes in the study of viruses and runs a microbiology laboratory tha...
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Race For A COVID-19 Vaccine International Statistic Of The Year
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COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS

Race For A COVID-19 Vaccine International Statistic Of The Year

Scientists in China published the complete genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 on Jan. 10, 2020. On Dec. 8, 2020, health officials in London began administering an effective coronavirus vaccine to the public. The global scientific community successfully developed a COVID-19 vaccine in just 332 days. CC BY-ND I am a statistician, and this year I was on the judging panel for the Royal Statistical Society’s International Statistic of the Year. Much like Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” competition, we choose one statistic that is meant to capture the zeitgeist of the year. The statistic 332 days was the clear, standout winner. After a year of terrible tragedy, economic hardship and sorrow, this number represents an unparalleled collaboration in the history of medicine that gives ho...
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Inequalities In The Global Financial System Exposed By COVID-19
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BUSINESS, COVID-19

Inequalities In The Global Financial System Exposed By COVID-19

To stem the economic fallout from COVID-19, developed countries have injected an unprecedented US$9 trillion into their economies. The International Monetary Fund has recommended sustained fiscal support, emphasizing greater spending on health care and environmental protection projects. Meanwhile, countries in the “global south” – broadly, low- and middle-income countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa – face more dire circumstances. They don’t have the ability to inject that level of cash into their economies. And it’s not only because their economies are poorer. As an economics professor, I focus on the systemic inequalities in the global financial system that block such access in developing economies. With a greater public awareness of soaring inequality within countries, it is ...
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Here’s How My Team Will Be Getting COVID-19 Vaccines Doses Into Arms Soon
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COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS

Here’s How My Team Will Be Getting COVID-19 Vaccines Doses Into Arms Soon

In late October, I received an email from a member of the California Department of Public Health. I called the number in the email and a bright happy voice answered and asked if the University of California, San Francisco would be interested in the early release and distribution of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Of course, I said yes. I am the chief pharmacy executive at UCSF Health and associate dean and clinical professor at the School of Pharmacy. My team and I are responsible for the distribution of all medications and vaccines throughout the health system, and I am also the person running much of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution for UCSF. UCSF will be receiving our first allocation of the Pfizer vaccine around Dec. 15 and the Moderna vaccine sometime soon after that. We project that ...
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Questions Parents Are Asking, When Can Children Get The COVID-19 Vaccine?
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COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS

Questions Parents Are Asking, When Can Children Get The COVID-19 Vaccine?

The first U.S. COVID-19 vaccines are expected in clinics in mid-December, and states are drawing up plans for who should get vaccinated first. But one important group is absent: children. While two vaccines are expected to be cleared soon for adult use in the U.S., testing is only now getting started with children – and only with adolescents. There are still a lot of unknowns. As an infectious disease pharmacist and professor who helps manage patients hospitalized with COVID-19, I frequently hear questions about vaccines. Here’s what we know and don’t know in response to some common questions about vaccinating kids for COVID-19. When can my child be vaccinated? Right now, it appears unlikely that a vaccine will be ready for children before the start of the next school year in August. A...
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COVID-19 Racial Health Gap 4 Ways To Close It
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COVID-19

COVID-19 Racial Health Gap 4 Ways To Close It

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the reality that health in the U.S. has glaring racial inequities. Since March, people of color have been more likely to get sick and more likely to die from COVID-19 infection because they have been living and working in social conditions that worsen their physical health and mental health. These conditions are rooted in structural inequalities that are also responsible for the severity and progression of COVID-19. While the issues are complex, research has suggested some ways to repair the broken system. Now, at the dawn of a new administration, more effective strategies that look at the realities of these affected communities can be implemented. As research psychologists who study the social influences of health and mental health among marginalized gr...
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Research Projects Are Also Victims Of COVID-19 Pandemic – From Permafrost Microbes To Survivor Songbirds
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COVID-19, VIDEO REELS

Research Projects Are Also Victims Of COVID-19 Pandemic – From Permafrost Microbes To Survivor Songbirds

What do you do when COVID-19 safety protocols and travel restrictions mean you can’t do your research? That’s what these three scientists have had to figure out this year, as the global pandemic has kept them from their fieldwork. Missing a field season can be devastating if your research subject is melting away. Karen Lloyd, CC BY-ND A microbiologist describes the frustration of missing a sampling season in the Arctic at a time when climate change means the permafrost is an endangered resource. A biologist writes about missing for the first time the annual census of a bird population she’s been studying for 35 years and the hole that leaves in her data. And natural events aren’t the only ones researchers are forced to skip. An environmental scientist explains how postponing a global gath...
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Using The Science Of Memory, New DIY Contact Tracing App Expands The Fight Against COVID-19
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COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, TECHNOLOGY

Using The Science Of Memory, New DIY Contact Tracing App Expands The Fight Against COVID-19

Imagine you begin to feel ill on Thursday, a few days after returning from a trip. You’re afraid it’s COVID-19, so you get tested on Friday. Even under good circumstances, it will probably be at least Monday before a contact tracer calls from the health department. And then some phone tag may ensue before you speak with anyone – if you get a call at all. Once a contact tracer does reach you, you will be asked to remember all the people you were in close contact with, starting two days before you began feeling symptoms. That means recalling all the places you went and the people you saw over the past week. It isn’t easy. As time passes, memories fade. Unfortunately, your contacts, unaware they were exposed to the coronavirus, may have already infected others. Concerned about those delays...
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During An Epidemic In 1714 The Death Of Cicely, Young, Black And Enslaved Has Lessons That Resonate In Today’s Pandemic
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COVID-19

During An Epidemic In 1714 The Death Of Cicely, Young, Black And Enslaved Has Lessons That Resonate In Today’s Pandemic

What I believe to be the oldest surviving gravestone for a Black person in the Americas memorializes an enslaved teenager named Cicely. Over 1.4 million people have died from COVID-19 so far this year. How history memorializes them will reflect those we most value. CC BY-ND Cicely’s body is interred across from Harvard’s Johnston Gate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She died in 1714 during a measles epidemic brought to the college by a student after the summer recess of 1713. Another tombstone in the same burial ground remembers Jane, an enslaved woman who died in 1741 during an outbreak of diphtheria, or “throat distemper.” A grave marker for an enslaved woman named Jane uses the archaic ‘1740/1’ Julian calendar notation to denote her death in early 1741. Nicole Maskiell, CC BY-ND When dise...
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