Dr. Liz Chamberlain, a licensed psychologist at CU Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, said while many are optimistic about this turning point, it could cause more stress and anxiety. “We’ve really become accustomed to being more isolated, keeping our distance, working from home and being in Zoom meetings. I think it’s going to be a difficult transition to get back to however we’re going to be next,” said Chamberlain.
Vitamin D may help boost the innate immune system in a number of ways, explained Dr. Adit Ginde, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and one of the study's authors. One mechanism, he says, is by increasing antimicrobial peptides, which function as natural antibiotic and antiviral guards against pathogens. Though some researchers are not yet convinced of the evidence for vitamin D and respiratory illness, others, like Ginde, are. "Based on those mechanisms, prevention [of COVID-19] would be the first scenario that you would expect to work," says Ginde. "It's also very clear deficiency causes dysfunction in the immune system."
“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.
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.”
Dr. Jonathan Samet, an epidemiologist and the dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, said that he hopes people will continue to be vaccinated in large numbers, which will help reduce the spread of the pandemic, and urged people to continue other precautions, like masking and distancing, until coronavirus numbers recede. "I don't think anyone would have thought we'd be looking forward to summer where we're mostly vaccinated," Samet said. "A year ago, that was not a prediction I would have made. I think we can look forward to a summer that would be far better than I thought it would be."
That doesn’t mean all travel has to be forbidden, said Dr. Sean O’Leary, vice chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Children’s Hospital Colorado. “It’s really a personal decision, and depends on lots of different factors. Does the child have underlying health issues that may put them at higher risk?” he said, referring to conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cystic fibrosis and asthma.
