As the COVID-19 vaccines continue to roll out for doctors, nurses and first responders, Dr. Bill Petri, a UVA infectious disease professor, says this will help the community reach herd immunity.
A flurry of headlines this week flooded social media, documenting a seemingly concerning case of COVID-19 in a San Diego nurse who fell ill about a week after receiving his first injection of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. Experts said the sickness is nothing unexpected: The protective effects of vaccines are known to take at least a couple of weeks to kick in. Reporting that a half-vaccinated person contracted the virus is “really the equivalent of saying someone went outside in the middle of a rainstorm without an umbrella and got wet,” said Dr. Taison Bell, a UVA critical care physician.&nbs...
Locally, the NAACP wants to create virtual listening sessions, virtual town halls, using trusted spokespeople within the community. Those trusted people could be from the medical community, including Dr. Ebony Jade Hilton, a UVA associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care, to address the barriers that people have for not taking the vaccine and the issues that date back to the syphilis studies up to the present.
(By Dr. William Petri, professor of medicine) This week I was vaccinated against COVID-19 with the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, which brought to mind some frequently asked questions about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. As I interact with patients in the hospital, some mothers and expectant mothers have asked whether it is safe for them to take the vaccine.
(Commentary by Ashon Crawley, associate professor of religious studies and African American and African studies) Little Richard called himself, over and over again, the architect of rock and roll. Many take this assertion to mean that he thought of himself as an influence in the genre, but as Tavia Nyong’o argued this spring after the artist’s death, influence is “perhaps too weak a word.”
(Co-written by Mary Kate Cary, adjunct professor of politics and senior fellow at the Miller Center) We experienced the election season from a unique perspective. We each taught college courses on the 2020 campaigns while they were underway, and as a result had a sort of three-month-long, focus-group-like conversation with the newest American voters.
(Commentary by Christine Rosen, fellow at UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture) As President-elect Joe Biden begins formulating his domestic policy agenda for the next four years, he might want to look beyond the end of his term in 2024 to 2026. That is the year the United States celebrates the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, and as the nation prepares to celebrate that milestone, Biden has an opportunity to help heal some of the civic and institutional wounds that have been festering in the country for far too long.
After the pandemic shuttered UVA’s annual Family Holiday Concerts this year, director Michael Slon and several others created a concert featuring previous performances by the University Singers and the Charlottesville Symphony at UVA. Hear it at https://youtu.be/095NAUvUhfU. You also can check it out on the University Singers’ YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/universitysingers.
UVA Health will soon offer a free, virtual diabetes program. The program, called “Prevent T2,” is meant for those who are 18 years of age or older who have been diagnosed as prediabetic within the past year and have not been diagnosed for Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.
Santa visited babies in the UVA Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to spread holiday cheer on Tuesday. Dr. Robert Sinkin is the division head of Neonatology at UVA, and he’s also one of Santa’s helpers. He hopes to make Christmas joyful, even in the hospital.
UVA Children’s hosted its annual Season’s Treatings event for patients and families spending time in the hospital during the holidays. Just like everything else this year, the event has been forced to adapt due to COVID-19.
Health care workers at 24 hospitals, including UVA Health, got a treat on Monday. Sheetz employees went to hospitals in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia to unload nearly nine tons of food. The meals included snacks and drinks for medical personnel, including doctors, nurses and hospital staff.
The number of COVID-19 patients being treated at the UVA Medical Center is increasing as more area residents catch the virus, but hospital officials say they are not being overwhelmed.
The local branch of the NAACP has received a grant to address hesitancy regarding vaccination in communities of color. Working with partners including UVA Health, this funding will be used to develop a community and information-sharing plan to address the concerns of communities of color on the reluctance of being vaccinated.
At UVA Health, Grand-Aides have been instrumental in reducing hospital admissions in the eight years since its implementation, said Craig Thomas, a nurse practitioner who oversees the medical center’s aides. Since launching Grand-Aides, hospital readmissions are down an average of 82% within 30 days, he said.
UVA Health’s new emergency department and in-patient bed tower offer an enhanced and more dignified experience for patients and staff. Designed by global architecture firm Perkins and Will, the expansion of the state’s top-ranked hospital prioritizes well-being while maximizing the number of patients who can receive world-class care.
UVA researchers are surveying families to analyze the pandemic’s impact on younger children. Surveyors want to hear about young children’s early care and education experiences during COVID-19.
In the early 1980s, psychologist James W. Pennebaker, then at the University of Virginia, and his colleague conducted a study in which they told some college students to write about their stressful experiences and feelings for 15 minutes a day four days a week. They told others not to do anything unusual. The students who engaged in this “expressive writing,” as Pennebaker called it, were only half as likely to visit the student health center over the next six months as those who did not.
Reasoning that local readers might provide financial support, they created Foothills Forum, a private, independent nonprofit news organization dedicated to researching and reporting the kinds of in-depth explanatory stories that could rarely be produced by the small, stretched staff of the News. Foothills partnered with UVA’s Center for Survey Research to conduct a countywide survey to identify and delve deeply into citizens’ priorities and concerns.
Exploring Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib’s life, works and philosophy, “Ghalib: A Wilderness at My Doorstep” by UVA associate professor of Urdu and South Asian Literature Mehr Afshan Farooqi, an authoritative critical biography of the poet, opens a window to many shades of India and the subcontinent’s cultural and literary tradition.