“Especially for the older LGBT community, who grew up when being gay was dangerous, or even illegal, to stay safe they had to develop this silence about who they are,” said Carey Candrian, an LGBTQ elder-care expert and associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “That stays with them, despite growing acceptance and new laws. They’re fearful to disclose their identity.”
Last month, Glen Mays was having dinner at a rural mountaintop restaurant west of the city when a fellow diner collapsed with a heart attack. Mays, a college professor, leapt into action, clearing a space and giving the 60-ish woman CPR. For 35 minutes. "It was exhausting," he said. "I knew as soon as it happened that it would be 30 minutes or more until we got an ambulance up there." An ambulance racing up a nearby canyon from the outskirts of Denver finally reached the woman, and the EMTs got her heart beating again before rushing her to the hospital. Mays doesn't know if she survived. But he does know her chances of survival are significantly lower than had she been in Denver. "Incidents that are survivable in urban areas are often not in rural areas," said Mays, the chair of the department of health systems and policy at the Colorado School of Public Health.
“The days of that being a profitable, desirable business? It’s a lot tougher than it was a decade or two ago,” said Gina Moore, an associate dean at the University of Colorado’s School of Pharmacy. “You come out of eight years of college – four years of undergraduate and four years of pharmacy school –with pretty significant student loan debt. It’s very hard to go to a rural community where you don’t make any money.”
To calculate an accurate death rate, the total number of positive COVID-19 cases among vaccinated individuals must be known. But that number isn't, said Lisa Miller, an epidemiologist and clinical professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. "We don't know that because we're not out there testing everyone (vaccinated)," she told USA TODAY.
"We're facing an urgent need to strengthen the measures we have in place right now," said Glen P. Mays, a public health professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. "Part of the challenge is that the strategies we have that work have been politicized. There's mistrust and misinformation."
At the University of Colorado, Thomas Campbell said his medical practice has used its electronic medical records to identify and reach out to everyone at high risk for COVID-19. "I've already had over 100 people email me personally and said 'sign me up,'" said Campbell, also an infectious disease physician at UCHealth.
Scientists and public health officials are battling both the new coronavirus and the skepticism of a society that hasn't seen a similar epidemic or quarantines for generations, said Glen Mays, chairman of the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
Opinion column by Steven Berkowitz, professor of psychiatry and the director of the Stress, Trauma, Adversity Research and Treatment Center at the CU School of Medicine, and co-author: “As these children and parents arrive at our doorstep seeking asylum, as is their legal right, it is wrong for this administration to knowingly place them in dangerous environments when safe alternatives exist and their presence in the United States has no negative impact on our society. It is our duty to protect them.”
