Putting the pieces together
Faculty share expertise in media outlets to help people nationwide understand pandemic's complex challenges
Whether in The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, NPR or other national news outlets, faculty from the UF College of Medicine and UF Health are lending their expertise to help people across the country understand the complex challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
“… But if you lose your sense of smell quickly, you want to self-isolate and contact your physician to talk about what actionable steps you might want to take.”
— Steven Munger, PhD, a professor and vice chair in the department of pharmacology and therapeutics and director of the UF Center for Smell and Taste, discussing the loss of smell from coronavirus with CNN, April 3.
“The virus is likely to re-erupt next winter, similar to what happens with the flu.”
— Jerne Shapiro, MPH, a lecturer in the department of epidemiology, commenting on things people need to know about hitting the COVID-19 peak with Kaiser Health News, April 17.
“It is possible to contain an epidemic at the source, but you have to act really quickly and have airtight containment and mitigation right from the beginning. Travel bans are usually put in place when it’s far too late for them to be effective.”
— Ira Longini, PhD, a professor of biostatistics and the co-director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute’s Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases, discussing whether travel restrictions are effective at containing an epidemic with The New York Times, March 19.
“Outbreaks are like an iceberg, where the top part that we can see are the people who are hospitalized or die, but there’s a big bottom part made up of people who were missed. Establishing how big that bottom part is helps us characterize the severity of the disease.”
— Natalie Dean, PhD, an assistant professor of biostatistics, discussing how scientists can get a clearer picture of the true number of coronavirus cases with NBC News, April 23.
“We have a unique situation. This is a brand-new virus. No one has immunity to it, and that means the entire population could acquire an active infection.”
— John Lednicky, PhD, a research professor in the College of Public Health and Health Professions Department of Environmental and Global Health, discussing whether COVID-19 could taper off as the seasons change with theNew York Daily News, March 10.
“This is the first drug to show a clinical benefit. People got out of the hospital quicker and the mortality rate was lower for people who received the drug.”
— Nicole M. Iovine, MD, PhD, chief epidemiology officer for UF Health Shands, explaining results from a national study on the investigational drug remdesivir with News4Jax, May 7.
