Op-ed by Emmy Betz, MD, MPH, practicing emergency physician and researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she directs the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative.
“We were anticipating that once the vaccines were going to become available, we would need to be able to have our students ready to go to support these efforts. They have a few experiential requirements, but this is going to be above and beyond what students would normally do. So, we thought why not make it fun, let’s create a competition,” said Dr. Dana Hammer the Faculty Lead for Student Professional Development in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.
One concern about potentially implementing the vaccine passports is ensuring they are equitable for all people, said Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus. Despite experiencing higher rates of infection and death from the coronavirus, people of color have been vaccinated against the coronavirus at a lower rate than white people.
Still, lead author Ashley Brooks-Russell, an assistant professor in the Colorado School of Public Health, said the findings "highlight that it is relatively easy to access a handgun in Colorado for high school students. "It's clear from our findings that we need to raise awareness and improve efforts to reduce firearm access for youth in Colorado to prevent suicide and fatal injuries," said Brooks-Russell in a statement. "We hope our findings will help inform public health strategies, such as educating parents on the importance of secure home firearm storage, particularly if an adolescent is at risk for suicide."
Dawn Comstock thrived as a tenured full professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz in Aurora. She taught. She researched and published peer-reviewed studies on things like concussions and injuries in high school sports. In many ways, it was a dream gig. Then, the pandemic hit. “I just felt that I had something to offer and I couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore,” Comstock said.
In general, children do not get severely sick from COVID-19. But, according to Joaquin Espinosa, director of the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome at the University of Colorado, it’s not yet clear if that rule holds for children with medically complicated conditions like Down syndrome. “We don't have a lot of data on the very young pediatric population,” he said. “But the prediction is that we will see higher rates of complication even at the younger ages among those with Down syndrome.”
A panel addressing vaccine questions featuring three experts from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus: Ross M. Kedl, Professor of Immunology & Microbiology; Kweku Hazel, Surgical Fellow at the CU School of Medicine; and Rosemary Rochford, Professor at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. Hosted by Sonia Gutierrez, a Journalist with Rocky Mountain PBS.
Dr. Daniel Teitelbaum, at the Colorado School of Public Health, warns benzene exposure could be increased in workers who use hand sanitizer contaminated with it, then put on gloves that prevent evaporation. "If you're not wearing gloves over them, the risk is quite low because your skin is warm, you use that, the benzene will evaporate quite rapidly," he said, adding that threat mostly is for people with "special risks."
