Thomas Campbell [professor of medicine at CU School of Medicine], who is overseeing the trial site at UCHealth in Colorado, said he has received more than 2,000 emails and hundreds of calls from would-be volunteers.
In fact, the antibody treatments are so scarce that officials in Utah have developed a ranking system to determine who is most likely to benefit from the drugs, while Colorado is using a lottery system. Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the Center of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado, said that giving the powerful access was patently unfair.
“It’s really a very scary rise,” Dr. Jonathan Samet, the dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, said in an interview. “Clearly, Coloradans have lapsed.”
“The tests have to be used when they’re supposed to be used,” said Andrea Prinzi, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Colorado, Anschutz. “That’s when they’re going to help you the most.”
“Wow,” said Dr. Matthew K. Wynia, an infectious disease specialist and director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado. He noted that the editorial did not explicitly mention Mr. Biden, but said it was clearly “an obvious call to replace the president.”
Red-level or “unhealthy” air quality also is probably best avoided. “I would caution anyone against outdoor exercise when the A.Q.I. is ‘unhealthy’ or higher,” says James Crooks, clinical assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health and associate professor of biostatistics at National Jewish Health hospital in Denver, who has studied the health effects of Colorado wildfires.
“There is no good reason not to do it in kids,” said Sean O’Leary, a Colorado pediatrician who sits on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on infectious diseases. “It’s a matter of people not being comfortable with doing it.”
Dr. Maya Haasz, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said that for the past few years, every child over age 10 who comes to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital Colorado, where she is an attending physician, is screened for suicide risk, using a questionnaire. “Somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of our patients presenting for nonmental health concerns screen positive,” she said — and this was true before the pandemic.
