Several antiviral pills recently received emergency use authorization from the FDA to help the fight against COVID-19. Local experts say the pills could change the way the illness is treated. “I think this is going to be a major player as to how we treat COVID-19 going forward,” said Dr. Patrick Jackson, a UVA infectious disease expert.
If “flurona” seems new, that may be because it isn’t always even worth looking for. Amita Sudhir, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia, told me over email, “I don’t always test patients who are being discharged [after COVID treatment] for the flu because it often doesn’t change what they would do at home.” Things are different in the case of children, who if they are admitted to the hospital are tested for a long list of respiratory viruses all at once. “I did have one patient who was simultaneously infected with four,” Sudhir wrote, “but none of them were CO...
The most prominent of those conspiracies was QAnon, a sprawling series of beliefs that included accusations that celebrities and Democratic politicians were running a satanic pedophile ring. It helped propel many of those implicated in the attack to Washington on Jan. 6. To many Jews, its falsehoods seemed eerily familiar. “QAnon is, to a great extent, repackaged blood libel,” David Walsh, a UVA researcher, said at the time.
But the closer parallels to Jan. 6 could prove to be the aftermath of the Civil War. “There was no Pearl Harbor Day; there was no D-Day” to commemorate the first anniversary of the end of the Civil War, said Caroline Janney, director of the Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia. One year after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, some in the North worried that celebrations would only exacerbate the nation’s wounds at a time they needed to mend.
Larry Sabato, director of the non-partisan UVA Center for Politics, warned that focusing too much on the amorphous threat to democracy meant Democrats ran the risk of neglecting the bread-and-butter issues that win elections. Although Jan. 6 might serve as a “motivator” for Democratic voters and some independents at the midterm elections, there is little prospect of persuading Republican or conservative-leaning voters, he added.
Among all Americans polled, 64% agreed that American democracy is in crisis and at risk of failing. That sense of alarm boosts Trump’s power, says Larry Sabato, a political analyst and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Jan. 6 has increased his rank and file’s anger and resentment,” he says. “It’s confirmation for them that everybody else is out to get them.”
“You don’t want a president and administration – current or former – to be seen as above the law by the people,” said Barbara Perry, presidential historian at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. “Politics will have taken precedence over law.”
Observers generally agree that Biden, whose own political standing has eroded since he took office, thus far has fallen short on his pledge to unite the country, especially under the ongoing pressure of the pandemic and high partisan tensions in Washington that have metastasized into the broader electorate. “We are terribly disunited and polarized on every facet of politics, of the economy, of public policy, of science,” said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “If we can’t even agree on facts, it’s going to be very difficult on substa...
According to a report from UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, utility-scale solar is on track to become the state’s third-largest source of electricity this year, displacing coal.
“Don’t get me wrong, electric vehicles are an improvement on the status quo,” said Peter Norton, an urban mobility researcher at UVA. Norton’s book, “Fighting Traffic,” explores the social and physical transformation of the American city into a paradise for motorists. “[EVs] are an improvement like a filter was the improvement on a cigarette,” he says. “What we really need to do is stop smoking. The filter doesn’t solve that problem. Similarly, an electric car doesn’t solve car dependency.”
Over the next few weeks for our “24 Seconds” Q&A series, Pelicans.com plans to check in with New Orleans’ rookies to ask them about their adjustment to the pro level. First up is UVA product Trey Murphy, the No. 17 pick in last year’s NBA draft.
Before COVID-19 even had a name, Bill Petri was petrified – or at least very worried. With a doctorate in microbiology and also an M.D., Petri understood better than most laypeople what was about to happen. In his lab at the UVA School of Medicine, Petri and his graduate students began studying the new coronavirus.
Philadelphia 76ers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey announced today that the team has signed [UVA alumnus] Braxton Key to a 10-day contract.
Train passengers were left with travel headaches after Monday’s winter storm. Many people were stranded after the severe weather left trees and debris on the tracks. “I accepted the fact that I was going to sit there and wait,” [UVA student] Eli Vollmer said. But Vollmer didn’t realize just how long he’d be waiting on his Amtrak train.
“In 2022 I have resolved to do more by doing less. My disordered focus on productivity for its own sake has caused me to bounce incessantly from one thing to the next, letting time fall like sand through my hands. In the hope of changing this trend, I have made a New Year’s resolution to set aside Sunday as a day of rest.” —Jack Power, University of Virginia, economics and political philosophy
(Transcript) Kyle Kondik, elections analyst and director of communications at UVA’s Center for Politics, discusses November’s midterm elections.
(Commentary) Not long ago, it was possible to talk about a common culture formed from “the best which has been thought and said,” as one famous formulation put it. In 1987, the University of Virginia’s E.D. Hirsch Jr. had a huge bestseller with “Cultural Literacy,” a list of some 5,000 names, dates, texts, works of art and so on, comprising that common culture. Then, the Internet happened.
The annual list of the most influential education scholars includes eight UVA fauclty members.
(Commentary co-written by W. Bradford Wilcox, sociology professor and director of the National Marriage Project) West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin killed President Joe Biden’s signature “Build Back Better” package just before Christmas — at least for now. But a slimmer version of the bill may yet be resurrected in 2022, which very well could include federal support for child care and prekindergarten. There is still time for congressional leadership to go back to the drawing board, possibly by working to pass a fiscally sustainable and administratively simple child benefit as proposed by Utah Sen....
With no power comes no heat, and experts at the University of Virginia are warning about carbon monoxide poisoning from alternative heating devices.