KCAL9, July 8, 2020 (Video)
UCI Health/Ducks blood drive
After conducting a successful blood drive at Honda Center in May, the need for blood donations continue to grow because of the pandemic. As a result, UCI Health and the Ducks teamed up for more drives, including one today. The blood has now been collected with the potential to save up to 230 lives.
Science, July 3, 2020 (Editorial)
Editorial: Surviving the trauma of COVID-19
Roxane Cohen Silver, UCI professor of psychological science, public health, and medicine writes, "Successfully managing COVID-19 and its aftermath will require that behavioral scientists provide a roadmap for public officials to ensure the public's cooperation, trust in, and implementation of what is learned from biomedical science. … Although the timing of containment of COVID-19 remains unknown, most people will get to the other side of the pandemic recognizing strengths and coping skills that they did not realize they had."
The Washington Post, July 10, 2020
The Technology 202: Tech to contain coronavirus on college campuses sparks fresh privacy concerns
The University of California, Irvine is using a WiFi-based system its own researchers developed to monitor how many people are congregating in certain buildings on campus. Researchers developing the system tell me data it collects could be used to aid contact tracers seeking to reconstruct any infected person's moves on campus. The school is taking a gradual approach to rolling out the system, initially beginning with research labs, and taking steps to ensure student privacy, said Pramod Khargonekar, UCI's vice chancellor for research. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.]
KPCC – AirTalk, July 8, 2020 (Audio)
Supreme Court issues two big religious liberties rulings on fair employment, ACA contraceptive mandate
The Supreme Court ruled that more employers who cite religious or moral grounds can decline to offer cost-free birth control coverage to their workers, upholding Trump administration rules that could leave more than 70,000 women without free contraception. … Guests: … Michele Goodwin, UCI Chancellor's Professor of law and director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy.
Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2020
Coronavirus deaths are now rising along with cases and hospitalizations. When will the wave crest?
While those numbers help paint an overall picture of the virus' toll on the region, Dr. Shruti Gohil, associate medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at UC Irvine, has kept her eye trained specifically on hospitalization numbers, which experts say is a better indicator of severe cases in the community. "If you look at the number of people who are requiring hospitalization, it gives you a better sense of the tip of the iceberg," Gohil said. "There's a larger portion of the population under that tip that indicates widespread community transmission." [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.]
Previously "In the News"