CU Anschutz In The News

“What happens in schools is going to be reflective of the broader community no matter how good a job we do in implementing the mitigation measures,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, professor and pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine in Aurora. “If we see that in mid-August we are seeing similar levels of disease to what we’re seeing in Texas and Arizona, I don’t know that it’s safe to open schools at that point because there’s so much virus circulating.”

Dr. Michelle Barron, medical director of infection prevention and control at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital [and CU School of Medicine], received an unusual call last month from the microbiology lab: Confirmation of the third case this year of trench fever, a rare condition transmitted by body lice that plagued soldiers during World War I. Barron’s epidemiological training kicked in. “Two is always an outbreak, and then when we found a third — OK, we clearly have something going on,” Barron recalled thinking.

People are wary about close contact with others, so the pandemic is a real threat to bystander CPR, Dr. Sarah Perman of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora told Reuters. Writing in the journal Circulation, she notes that the American Heart Association recommends hands-only CPR and precautions such as covering faces to reduce the spread of respiratory droplets that may carry the coronavirus.

The current focus centers on airborne transmission, said Dr. Lisa Miller, professor of epidemiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “What CDC is saying is they don’t think objects — or fomites, as they’re called in science literature — are the main way coronavirus spreads,” Miller said. “Based on the literature and the outbreaks that we’re seeing, it’s mostly a person-to-person respiratory spread. Things like your mail or currency don’t seem to be a major factor.”

Dr. Abigail Lara, a pulmonary critical care physician at UCHealth, is the daughter of immigrant parents from Mexico. She was the first in her family to go to college, the first to go to grad school, and today not only is she a doctor, but she’s also an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Wary of missteps, companies are turning to consultants and academic experts for guidance. “The appetite for the information is huge,” says Mike Van Dyke, an associate professor at the Center for Health, Work & Environment at the Colorado School of Public Health. The center began doing weekly webinars for businesses related to Covid-19 this spring that attracted at least 200 attendees each, compared with the 40 or 50 who typically attended the group’s online events before the pandemic.

"Alzheimer's and other kinds of dementia can cause changes in thinking and memory that could make someone unsafe to handle a gun, even if that person has a lifetime of experience," said lead researcher Dr. Emmy Betz, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, in a statement.

The cannabis industry is growing quickly, and medical professionals are needed to help lead and provide guidance. That’s where a new program from the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences comes in.