Public health laboratories need to have a voice in outbreak response planning, and past challenges must inform future efforts to effectively address emerging health threats in the United States.
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The proportion of the US population subject to state-issued COVID-19 prevention measures varied greatly throughout the pandemic. During periods of high disease transmission and low coverage of state-issued measures, local or federal interventions may provide additional layers of protection if local or federal governments can issue prevention policies for their jurisdictions. Research demonstrates that early, sustained, and layered implementation of
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The COVID-19 pandemic created a “new normal” in 2020 that included controversial mitigation strategies such as masking up and staying home and became the country’s primary focus, punctuated by a summer of civil unrest, peaceful (and sometimes not so peaceful) protests, and a contentious presidential election. The student projects we’ve selected this year reflect the best of 2020 as students
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by Chrissie Juliano, MPP This post originally appeared on the Front Lines Blog and is republished here with permission from the Big Cities Health Coalition. The past year has been immensely challenging and consequential for the field of public health, particularly big city and other local and state health officials and their staff. Ten months after the first US case of COVID-19, our members
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As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated in March 2020, US states adopted “stay at home” orders (SHOs) to limit their residents’ movements away from home and slow the spread of the virus. However, this public health intervention became politically polarized as many Democratic governors rushed to adopt SHOs, while many Republican governors resisted until the issue of White House recommendations on
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by Chrissie Juliano, MPP This post originally appeared on the Front Lines Blog and is republished here with permission from the Big Cities Health Coalition. Nearly five months ago, I received an invite from a colleague at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) to join a call discussing the first case of coronavirus in the state of Washington. While driving back
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by Cynthia Golembeski, MPH; Ans Irfan, MD, MPH; Brie Williams, MD, MS; and Homer Venters, MD, MPH Photographer Ron Levine took the photo of William Howard “Tex” Johnson when Johnson was 67 and serving time for snatching $24 in 1959 in Birmingham, AL. The photo is part of the “Prisoners of Age” series, which includes interviews with aging inmates and
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by Stephen Berger, MD As of April 10, 2020, thirty-one individual drugs had been suggested for the treatment of COVID-19. And as of that date, none was proven to be effective. The most contentious issue in all of this is the word “proven.” Over 330 agents are used in the field of Infectious Disease, sold under more than 29,300
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by Janelle Menard, PhD, MPH, and Elizabeth B. Pathak, PhD, MSPH The rapid spread of COVID-19 has capsized social and economic systems on a global scale, and no one is entirely spared from its reach. Much media attention has been given to the fact that children often present with much milder symptoms and rarely become seriously ill with COVID-19 when
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by John S. Marr, MD, MPH, and Lloyd F. Novick, MD, MPH Over the past few decades, we have become acquainted with models predicting the path of hurricanes. Now, over the last few weeks, we have become inundated with numerous graphs and “modelings” of COVID-19 escalations. They have become a regular part of the White House briefings. Dr. Tony Fauci
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