People with weakened immune systems are at higher risk of getting severely sick from COVID-19 and may be sick for a longer period of time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some schools are being proactive about accommodating their immunocompromised students. The University of Virginia is offering some in-person instruction, but is making all courses available online, for example.
When classes resume at the University of Kentucky next week, the world will look very different for the university’s undergraduates. Some of them will be studying at home, virtually. Those who’ve chosen to live on campus will take a mix of in-person, hybrid and online courses, the former in physically distanced classrooms wearing masks under the shadow of COVID-19. The University of Virginia is taking a similar approach.
In May, the nonprofit Northwest Evaluation Association and collaborators at Brown University and the University of Virginia projected that students would return to school this fall having made only two-thirds of their typical school-year gains in reading and less than half of their typical school-year gains in math.
UVA coach Bronco Mendenhall may not be in a hurry this month, but there’s plenty of work to be done at UVA before a potential season is played, work being done amidst the swirling uncertainty around the season.
Two UVA students are launching a podcast Wednesday about the Unite the Right events from 2017 and how they affected Charlottesville’s immigrant community. Mehdy Elouassi and Abdullah Paracha say they created the podcast as a student project through the Religion, Race and Democracy Lab at UVA.
Another round of positive-free COVID-19 testing has Virginia football coach Bronco Mendenhall feeling good about the safety procedures his team and the UVA athletic department are using, even while his overall outlook for fall sports remains grim.
The University of Virginia released their fourth update on COVID-19 student-athlete testing on Monday. There were no new positive tests since the last update issued on July 31. There have been no positive test results since the report issued on July 24.
Dr. Peter Dean, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Virginia who treats the college’s athletes along with MacKnight, was co-author of an analysis published last month by the American College of Cardiology about returning to play after a coronavirus infection. Although he hasn’t diagnosed myocarditis in any UVA athletes who have had COVID-19 so far, he said he’s had athletes in the past with myocarditis caused by other factors.
Anne Verbiscer, research professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia, explains how and why the Perseids come to produce such a stellar performance around this time each year. “This meteor shower is special/unique because it has consistently put on a nice ‘show’ each August when the Earth sweeps through the debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Swift-Tuttle is on an elliptical 133-year orbit, so it’s made many trips into the inner solar system, leaving behind a trail of dust particles in its path. Earth smashes into that trail every mid-August.”
Our Verify researchers spoke with two constitutional law experts, Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University and Sai Prakash, professor of law at the University of Virginia. “He can summon them back into session by citing this constitutional authority," Prakash said. "Now whether individual members of Congress comply or not is another question, but that’s never to my knowledge been tested. I don’t think the president’s ever tried to forcibly round up members of Congress.”
A study has found that a gene involved in diabetes, lipid metabolism and coronary artery disease may play a role in the increased risk of stroke among people of African descent. “Given the undue burden that people of African ancestry endure from stroke and other cerebrovascular disease, the lack of investigation of risk factors in this group has been a substantial gap,” says Dr. Bradford B. Worrall, a neurologist at the University of Virginia and co-author of the study.
(Commentary by Ashley Deeks, law professor) “The growth of machine learning tools in military operations raises new questions about where the most critical decision points are located. Are the most important political, operational, and legal decisions made out in the field, where the tools are used, or in headquarters, at the time the tools are developed? This post argues that – perhaps ironically – the growing use of autonomy may end up centralizing key military and legal decisions.”
The University of Virginia held a virtual town hall over Zoom on Friday morning to address the current plan to return to Grounds in the fall and answer questions from students, faculty and staff.
Next month, Charlottesville is set to join a six-month training cohort that focuses on forest and trees carbon accounting hosted through Local Governments for Sustainability, otherwise known as ICLEI. With the ongoing climate action planning, both entities, along with the University of Virginia, will participate in the cohort. As local emissions goals are set, forestry and urban tree management can help capture greenhouse gas emissions.
The University of Virginia’s Racial Equity Task Force released its list of recommendations on Monday, a compilation of funding measures and leadership commitments that ask the university to “commit seriously to racial equity.”
The University of Virginia is hoping to ease fears of the Charlottesville area becoming a COVID-19 hot spot once students return to Grounds. That’s why University leadership held an hourlong virtual town hall, which answered a few questions about issues of public health.
In a virtual town hall Wednesday evening from the University of Virginia, a panel of religious racial justice activists will discuss why they decided to counter-protest and how theology and ethics motivate them to continue the work of racial justice. Panelists include Jalane Schmidt, associate professor of religious studies at UVA; and Grace Ahern, a UVA religious studies graduate and communications director of Showing Up for Racial Justice.
Tech Companies Are Transforming People’s Bedrooms Into ‘Virtual Hospitals.’ Will It Last Post-COVID?
More than 9 million Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services during the first three months of the crisis. And in the University of Virginia’s network, which already had a more robust telehealth program than many others, virtual visits increased 9,000% between February and May. “COVID-19 changed everything when it comes to telemedicine services,” says Dr. Karen Rheuban, director of UVA’s Center for Telehealth. “The genie’s not going back in the bottle.”
The parking lot of the Church of the Incarnation was packed Monday evening for free coronavirus testing. Several groups, including UVA Health and the Thomas Jefferson Health District, hosted the event at the church, one of several testing events the groups have conducted over the past few months.
Among those to issue bonds was the AAA-rated University of Virginia, which raised $600 million in July to fund projects such as new dormitories. It paid a 2.256% yield, the lowest ever for a 30-year “taxable” university issue. “The market was incredibly advantageous. We have both (current and future) capital needs, but we also thought that given the opportunity to go into the market, we could advance fund,” J.J. Davis, chief operating officer, said. “At these rates, why wouldn't you?”