CU Anschutz In The News

“It’s not necessary for most people with COVID-19 to come into the hospital. If people aren’t sick enough to be in the hospital, if they can manage their illness at home, keep themselves away from others until the illness resolves, then that will help protect the people who have to be in the hospital, like people with cancer and other illnesses, that are more susceptible,” says Dr. Thomas Campbell, professor of Infection Disease at the University of Colorado.

“You definitely don’t want people making those decisions in the heat of the moment, when they haven’t slept and they haven’t eaten and there’s no air conditioning,” said Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus. “You make worse decisions under those circumstances.”

"If you have the genetic material and know what it’s alphabetical order is, it’s possible that you make a vaccine slightly faster," said Dr. David Kroll, a professor at the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy at the Anschutz Medical Campus. "What you’re trying to do there is figure out what dose is required to give an immune system response that could fight off or inactivate the virus.”

Michelle Barron, MD, medical director of infection prevention and control at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, clarifies to Yahoo Lifestyle why the guide might not exactly be relevant to the general public in preparing for coronavirus outbreaks: “These CDC guidelines apply to healthcare workers who wear respirators — not the standard masks for the public at large.”

Dr. Michelle Barron, an infectious disease specialist at UCHealth [and CU School of Medicine] in Colorado, says that the virus can’t survive in the conditions under which packages are generally transported. “The virus will either dry out or will die without the appropriate humidity and temperature it prefers,” she tells Rolling Stone.

Dr. Michelle Barron, the medical director of infection control and prevention at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital [and CU School of Medicine], tells a story of an unannounced drill a couple years ago for responding to the Ebola virus. A member of Barron’s team talked of recent travel to Africa, then collapsed to the floor. Just as her alarmed colleagues were about to stick an IV in her arm, the woman fessed up that it was a drill. “That’s the way hospitals operate,” Barron said. “We’ve got to plan for these things. There’s nothing special for (coronavirus) we needed to do in that regard because we do it on a daily basis.”

“I think there’s a lot of fear over the coronavirus because it seems very new and it’s spreading very quickly,” says Dr. Charles Little, Medical Director of Emergency Preparedness for UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital. “I think it’s important to keep it in context. We’ve just come through flu season, where we’ve had tens of thousands of deaths from that. We’re not nearly at that level of deaths from the coronavirus, even worldwide, so it’s important to keep it in perspective.”

"Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands, wipe down surfaces with sanitizing wipes. Keep your phone clean too," said Dr. Michelle Barron, medical director for Infection Control and Prevention at the University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus. "Stay hydrated, eat healthy. I mean, common things we recommend for flu actually are very much applicable for this as well."