(Commentary by Anna Mendez, executive director of Partner for Mental Health and a fellow at the UVA Equity Center) Virginia’s mental health crisis system was teetering on the edge of failure prior to the pandemic, and the challenges of COVID-19 accelerated its collapse. For hospitals, this meant too many patients and too few staff; therefore, the recent order halting admissions to five state hospitals was unsurprising.
(Commentary by Gerard Robinson, fellow of practice at UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture) We began 2021 with the promise of bipartisan movement to address our nation’s civic education crisis. Two high profile initiatives provided a roadmap and potential funding for drastically improving how we teach civics in our country. However, a volatile debate over how to discuss issues of race within the classroom has threatened to derail these efforts. It is imperative that we work across party and ideological aisles to chart a path forward.
(By Justin Vesser, manager of ambulatory pharmacy services at UVA Health) While the COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the U.S. have been proved to be safe and effective, recent reports of rare adverse events, or side effects, have raised concerns. While reports like these can be scary, they’re a sign that the vaccine safety reporting system is working. They also highlight how the relative risks of rare side effects like these need to be put into context.
The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia is opening The Little Museum of Art at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, July 16. This exhibit is inspired by the little free libraries and the idea of take a book leave a book. Once this exhibit ends, the artwork will move to the free museum store, where the public can take or leave an art piece of their own. The art is from Charlottesville and UVA artists.
Asthma-related emergency room visits are down significantly at the University of Virginia Medical Center and across the country. Nationally, ER visits related to asthma are down 80%. Dr. Monica Lawrence with UVA Health says this trend could be due to more people washing their hands, social isolation, or other pandemic-related restrictions.
Mask mandates and the Delta variant were discussed at UVA Health’s COVID-19 briefing Friday morning. Nationally, cases are beginning to rise and a lot of that has to do with the highly infectious Delta variant. Many states across the country are bringing back masking rules, regardless of vaccination status. UVA Health doctors say there is a small increase in cases and hospitalizations locally. However, it will not be necessary to restore previous mask rules.
UVA Health recognizes the negative turnover trends and is trying to help. It was announced Friday nurses will be receiving bonuses. “UVA is facing challenges and recruiting and retaining nurses and that’s really because the pandemic, COVID, we’ve been 18 months, you know in a very stressful situation,” CEO of UVA Medical Center Wendy Horton said. “It’s really important that we make sure that we’re caring for nurses.”
In 2014, psychologists at the University of Virginia conducted a simple experiment to showcase the power of the human mind. They placed subjects in a room by themselves with no distractions for roughly 10 minutes, letting them be alone with their thoughts. Given the infinite possibilities that our imaginations hold, it aimed to promote the sheer pleasures we can derive from just thinking. It turns out that people hated it.
(Podcast) Hosted by Andrew Keen, “Keen On” features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by [UVA professor] Leidy Klotz, the author of “Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less,” to discuss why we overlook subtraction, and how we can access its true potential.
Amyloid beta and tau are two toxic molecular substances that accumulate in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, creating plaques and tangles and destroying nerve cells. Pew Latin American fellow Guillermo Eastman – who is conducting research at the University of Virginia under the mentorship of George S. Bloom – is investigating how these substances alter the production of different proteins in brain cells and examining how these changes affect neurons’ survival, structure, and function.
New models from the UVA Biocomplexity Institute indicate infections are likely to climb because vaccination rates are well below herd immunity. “With many Virginians returning to normal, the virus has room to run,” researchers wrote in the latest UVA report released Friday.
The UVA Biocomplexity Institute, which produces a weekly COVID-19 model report, noted how the Crater Region is on an “In Surge” trajectory, or currently experiencing sustained rapid and significant growth of 2.5 cases per 100,00 or higher. UVA predicts the Delta variant will grow more dominant as the time comes, according to the report, with unvaccinated individuals and communities with low vaccination rates.
Several other examples demonstrate blended learning in practice, as provided by my colleagues. The Integrated Core Experience program at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce in Charlottesville operates in similar fashion, but it’s far more ambitious: more than 300 undergraduates within one course tackle real client problems presented at the beginning of the semester. To help students build the foundational skills needed to solve these unstructured complex problems, commerce professor Keisha Lashley and her colleagues utilize the case study method and take students on a seme...
Back in March, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed an executive order requiring all state agencies, including universities, to pull back on plastic. There are two phases: cut out certain single-use plastics by July 21, then slowly phase out all other single-use plastics by 25% each year until they’re entirely eliminated by 2025. To meet orders, University of Virginia is going green.
The University of Virginia recently received a massive donation of Mormon memorabilia, books and other materials that officials say could make the university a leading site east of the Rockies for studying the religion.
UVA says many students who are eligible to enroll in classes on Grounds and Academic Division employees report being fully vaccinated. According to a release, 85% of eligible students and 78.5% of the Academic Division employees are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
UVA’s fall semester is quickly approaching and classes will be back to normal for the most part. Many students say they feel safe transitioning to normal because of UVA’s high vaccination rates. The latest data shows that 85% of students are fully vaccinated. Some say this in-person semester will allow for more effective learning rather than only having online classes.
UVA Health is trying to prevent more turnover. Wendy Horton, the CEO of UVA Health, says all patient-facing nurses were getting a bonus this year: $3,000 for full-time nurses and $1,500 for part-time. This is part of the hospital’s efforts to be more competitive in terms of pay and benefits and to hold onto more staff members during a national crisis.
A hunch and hard work has led a UVA medical research team to a clinical trial to determine if an allergy-related asthma drug can be used to treat COVID-19. Research by Mary Young and Allie Donlan, part of Dr. William Petri’s medical research team, has led to a human trial of dupilumab, also known as Dupixent, to see if it can keep COVID patients off ventilators.
The day the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was lifted from its pedestal in Charlottesville and driven away, [UVA student] Zyahna Bryant stood nearby, wearing pearls. The adult adornment was telling. It showed she had grown up while waiting for that moment. At 15, Zyahna was a girl when she created the petition to remove the statue in her hometown. At 20, when that finally happened, she was a woman who had grown used to juggling homework with hate mail.