With Mamadi Diakite and Braxton Key graduating and starting their professional basketball careers, Virginia’s underclassmen gain an opportunity to contribute meaningful minutes for a contender entering 2020-21. Under Tony Bennett’s watch, UVa’s 2020-21 roster returns key contributors such as Kihei Clark and Jay Huff, while also adding an impact transfer in Sam Hauser.
The number of COVID cases in Virginia prisons has been rising steadily, with 200 inmates and guards now infected and a 49-year-old prisoner dead. Public health experts say jails and prisons are petri dishes for the virus, and some states have freed thousands of prisoners, but Virginia is moving slowly on that front. By February, infectious disease experts like Dr. Scott Hysell at UVA were warning that COVID-19 could spread rapidly through prisons and jails. “These are populations that share eating and sleeping facilities,” he says. “There’s overcrowding. There are limitations to sanitatio...
(Commentary) At issue is the already much-damaged equilibrium of the Constitution’s separation of powers. If both cases are decided correctly, the vitality of Congress will be enhanced and the pretensions of presidents will be chastened. Today’s column concerns the case involving Congress’s investigative powers. A subsequent column will address the case concerning Congress’s core power, that of controlling government’s purse strings. Tuesday’s arguments will concern standing – whether the House can seek a judicial remedy for its injuries. If it has standing, it should win on the meri...
UVA public policy professor Ray Scheppach, former longtime executive director of the National Governors Association, said the decision governors face on when and how to loosen restrictions is a lot tougher than the call they had to make on closing down. “There are bigger political risks,” he said. “That’s why you see groups of governors getting together.”
Dr. Leigh-Ann Jones Webb, assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia, said having more complete data of all types, including socioeconomic and racial data, is key to determining where additional resources will be needed during the pandemic. Jones Webb encouraged anyone who receives medical care for COVID-19 to include their race and ethnicity in any hospital paperwork.
On Friday, UVA announced – tentatively – that Class of 2020 graduations will take place Oct. 9-11, indicating hope that the novel coronavirus pandemic will have abated by then.
The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday announced the launch of Project Rebound, a local economic recovery initiative to address the COVID-19 economic crisis. The project, hosted by The Chamber and economic offices at the University of Virginia, Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville, aims to bring together local businesses to discuss challenges of COVID-19’s economic impact and to prepare solutions.
A trash orgy, tanning and a hike with a ‘bearded geologist’: Virginia’s first Earth Day celebrations
Like other Virginia universities, UVA planned a roster of talks and seminars leading up to Earth Day. But on the actual day, students’ minds were evidently somewhere else. Attendance at an all-day symposium was “sparse,” and the Cavaliers (who were for the first time both male and female after a federal court case led Mr. Jefferson’s University to go co-ed in 1970) were apparently “more concerned with getting suntans and playing tennis.”
Environmentalists have launched a monthlong program, “Earth Day Every Day,” to promote a range of personal actions that could have a collective impact on the health of our planet. “Adopting a more plant-based diet and wasting less food are some top actions that people can take,” says Dana Schroeder with the Sustainability Office at UVA. “A plant-based diet doesn’t mean you need to be vegetarian or vegan. You could just be eating one less meat-based meal every week.”
(Audio) Could the new coronavirus mutate? Physicians including UVA’s Dr. Amy Mathers provide some context.
(Commentary by Laurie Archbald-Pannone, associate professor of geriatric medicine) Amid the stress and confusion of coronavirus shutdowns and social distancing orders, it can seem to older patients as though everything is on pause. Clinics have postponed regular office visits. Patients worry about going to pharmacies and grocery stores. There’s even anecdotal evidence that people with serious issues such as chest pain are avoiding emergency rooms. One important fact must not get overlooked amid this pandemic: Chronic health conditions still need attention.
As medical scientists work to understand how the new coronavirus makes us sick, how we can prevent or treat the infection, psychologists are tracking our mental health during a pandemic. At UVA, one group is looking for volunteers to evaluate online treatments for anxiety.
If governors drew praise for taking quick action to protect public health, taking responsibility for when and how to reopen could prove far more politically perilous, said Ray Scheppach, a UVA public policy professor and a former longtime executive director of the National Governors Association.
The University Hospital Expansion was set to open in June, until the COVID-19 pandemic derailed those plans. However, rather then delaying the expansion’s opening, the virus sped it up.
(Commentary by Deborah Hellman, professor of law) As cases related to the novel coronavirus continue to strain hospitals, doctors face difficult choices about rationing scarce medical resources like ventilators – choices that will likely determine who lives and who dies.
The farm will deliver 1,000 azaleas and other flowering shrubs to the UVA nurses and doctors who are working day and night to treat patients and fight the spread of COVID-19 on Friday.
Forlano said the state is working closely with academic partners, including Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia medical centers, “to make sure we can expand the testing very quickly.”
UVA researchers presented their findings this week, using data up to April 11. They concluded that “Virginia as a whole will have sufficient medical resources for at least the next couple months” (emphasis theirs) and that the number of coronavirus cases may not overwhelm commonwealth hospitals.
The University of Virginia is anticipating $20 million in losses from housing and dining rebates, according to the letter, while the College of William & Mary projects a financial impact between $13 million and $32 million because of refunds for tuition and room and board, and for spending more on technology related to virtual learning.
Life turned upside down for many UVA students forced to leave Grounds, jobs, housing, and other resources behind. Relief is now on the way for those facing hardships. UVA will rake in roughly $5.8 million through the CARES act. This will go straight to students who have been impacted the most by the crisis.