CU Anschutz In The News

Dr. May Chu, a clinical epidemiology professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, said that as a public health practitioner, she'd never say an event is "totally safe," but right now, it seems reasonable to "congregate outdoors and have a good time." "I think a few caveats is that if you're not vaccinated, then you do need to be careful not to be so close (to people) so that you put yourself at risk for being exposed," said Chu, who said that she would still advise unvaccinated people to wear masks when mixing with groups from outside their household. "... In general, the rule of thumb is that it's a green light, with a few considerations."

“We’ve known since early on that the full impact was not only deaths due to this virus,” said Dr. Lisa Miller, a professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, adding, “People want to understand this better.”

To help respond to some of the most common queries, we enlisted the help of Dr. Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the vice chair for the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“We are in a mental health crisis right now, so more people are struggling and may be more open to accessing services,” said psychologist Allison Dempsey, associate professor at University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora. “It’s much easier to connect from your living room.”

“The number I track most closely is the number of people admitted into the hospital. I think that is a strong indicator of how severe the cases we’re having,” Elizabeth Carlton, Colorado School of Public Health Assistant Professor. Carlton has been tracking and researching the data since the outbreak started. “Let’s put it in perspective. On average in December when things were at their worst in Colorado, we were admitting about 290 people per day, the last few weeks it’s been as high as 100 per day on average, now we’re dropping down to 70 people,” she said.

“Outdoors is better than indoors if you’re going to be around other people,” said Sean O’Leary, vice chair of the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics and a professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “Less contact is better.”

“The pandemic has been a tale of two realities for us,” says Emily Zadvorny, a clinical pharmacist and the executive director of the Colorado Pharmacists Society. (She also teaches at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy.) Although pharmacists were busy during the early days of the pandemic—especially since they were often the only health care provider open—Zadvorny says the industry has experienced its own “surge” over the past three to four months during the vaccination rollout.

“Colorado is heading in a positive direction again, and vaccination coverage is almost certainly playing a key role in this decline,” said Glen Mays, chair of the Colorado School of Public Health’s department of health systems.