UVA researchers have recently presented a case series pointing to a potential association between infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the development of acute appendicitis in children.
(Commentary by Deborah Parker, professor of Italian) From the onset, I wanted to teach in person. I’ve found Zoom meetings tedious and think students already spend too much time in front of computer screens. I wanted to engage students directly, knowing that meeting in person would be more fulfilling for both them and me.
A group of criminologists and law professors has challenged a new report by the Pretrial Justice Institute that says pretrial risk assessment instruments used by many judges to help determine which defendants should be released while their cases are pending are dangerous and have unintended consequences. Risk assessment tools “can support the effectiveness of other reform efforts,” contends the group, led by James Austin of the JFA Institute, Sarah Desmarais of North Carolina State University and University of Virginia law Prof. John Monahan.
The UVA Center for Politics says a convention can lead to candidates further to the right or left of their respective party. "They tend to draw the attention of more party loyalists, more of your hardcore partisans," said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball.
Despite the increase in projected doses, health experts are warning that early vaccinations will not drastically control the spread of the virus. Bryan Lewis, a computational epidemiologist at the University of Virginia, says that’s an intentional part of the distribution design. “What we’re really trying to do with these first doses is protect the people who need to be protected the most,” he said. “These first shipments of this vaccine are mainly targeting saving lives and allowing the hospitals to function.”
Among the 60 highest-ranked business schools, Texas A&M University led all schools with five accounting faculty from underrepresented groups. They made up 12% of the total accounting faculty. The University of Virginia and Cornell University had higher percentages of accounting faculty from underrepresented groups, but a smaller total number. Some 36 of the nation’s leading business schools had no faculty members from underrepresented groups who were teaching accounting.
A University of Virginia COVID-19 model projects that cases here will continue to trend upward until the end of February.
The most startling statistic from Takeoff’s new research report, conducted in partnership with Timothy Lasseter, professor at the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia, is that the percentage of shoppers who shopped exclusively for groceries online pre- and post-pandemic barely moved at all.
Though there are likely many contributors to the emergence of Lyme disease (including climate change), researchers think changes in land use have played a major role. That’s why scientists like Pyrros Telionis, a postdoctoral researcher at UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute, are studying how land cover affects Lyme disease risk.
Robert Pianta, the dean of UVA’s School of Education and Human Development, said simultaneously teaching in-person and online puts unprecedented pressure on educators, who are largely left to improvise in the absence of research or established best practices.
Through personal tragedy and professional triumph, a UVA School of Nursing professor is helping to make the final moments of life a little more equitable for all. In 2017, Kim Acquaviva published a book about LBGTQ hospice and palliative care inclusion.
Two York County brothers are working to help people in the community affected by COVID-19. Jeffrey and Sabian Beyon started sewing face masks back in April after they were inspired to help. [Sabian is a second-year student at UVA.]
The Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall. I have since learned that because a penny’s lightweight, flat round shape, and the fact that it experiences a lot of air resistance would most likely not kill someone if tossed from the Empire State Building. However, according to Louis Bloomfield, physicist at the University of Virginia, “falling ballpoint pens are the real danger. If someone nonchalantly tossed one of those off the top of the Empire State Building, it could kill.”
At issue in both cases is the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, which set the “de minimis” standard for religious accommodations under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Courts and employers will have to take the statute more seriously if the employees win either of these cases, said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, who filed a brief on behalf of legal scholars urging the high court to take the cases. Hardison “took all the teeth” out of the protections for religious workers, he said.
Kathleen Flake, who teaches Mormon studies at the University of Virginia, has no issue with what the manifesto says. She just questions why it even exists. “No one needs more ‘-ites,’ or divisiveness,” she says. “You don’t need the Book of Mormon to tell you that anymore. The wisdom of it is manifest everywhere today.”
In an accompanying editorial, David Kaufman, MD, of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and Karen Puopolo, MD, PhD, of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, stated that these findings are reassuring for clinicians and patients who want to practice rooming-in and breastfeeding.
The months-long process will require even vaccinated residents to continue safety precautions, including mask-wearing, social distancing, and staying home whenever possible to reduce the spread of the virus. Virginia is currently experiencing its worst surge of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with hospitalizations at an all-time high and cases continue to climb in all five geographic regions. “It’s going to take some sacrifice,” said Bryan Lewis, a computational epidemiologist at UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute, which partners with the state health department to model the potential spread of ...
There are several reasons our vaccine options have outstripped treatments. The first is cost-effectiveness: While vaccines are expensive and time-consuming to develop, they have the potential to stop the pandemic. Treatments only help those already sick, so are less valuable to governments overall. “I’m not surprised that there’s been more aggressive funding to work with vaccines, because I think, in the end, that’s how we’re going to turn the tide on this,” Taison Bell, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Virginia, said.
These and other results largely failed to impress experts, many of whom said the drug would need to have far bigger benefits to outweigh its price tag and potential harms. “It seems more incremental than blockbuster,” said Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care physician at the University of Virginia, who was involved in the clinical trial. Although Bell described baricitinib as a reasonable addition to the COVID treatment toolbox and even deserving of an emergency approval, “I don’t think it’s a game changer,” he said.
These and other results largely failed to impress experts, many of whom said the drug would need to have far bigger benefits to outweigh its price tag and potential harms. “It seems more incremental than blockbuster,” said Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care physician at the University of Virginia, who was involved in the clinical trial. Although Bell described baricitinib as a reasonable addition to the COVID treatment toolbox and even deserving of an emergency approval, “I don’t think it’s a game changer,” he said.