News Room

Most healthcare employers will want to vaccinate their staff against COVID-19, but the task in surgery centers will not be easy. On the positive side, one part of the access issue is solved: clinical trials produced positive interim results for several of the dozens of vaccine candidates. “It’s an exciting time to be talking about vaccines in general, and to have two vaccines ready for FDA approval is historic,” said Kathleen M. Neuzil, MD, MPH, FIDSA, fellow with the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). She spoke at IDSA’s virtual COVID-19 vaccine briefing on Dec. 3.

It’s almost impossible for humans to draw unbiased maps, even when they’re trying. A new mathematical method developed by Cornell researchers can inject fairness into the fraught process of political redistricting – and proves that it takes more than good intent to create a fair and representative district. The two-step method, described in the paper, “Fairmandering: A Column Generation Heuristic for Fairness Optimized Political Districting,” first creates billions of potential electoral maps for each state, and then algorithmically identifies a range of possibilities meeting the desired criteria for fairness.

One year ago, no one had ever heard of COVID-19. That’s because, technically, it didn’t exist. Even as reports of a mystery illness started to pop up in China on New Year’s Eve, it would be days before scientists figured out a new coronavirus was the cause; weeks before they gave the disease its name; and months before they declared COVID-19 a pandemic, putting the whole world on high alert. Since then, people across the globe have poured their energy into figuring out how the novel coronavirus works — and how to stop it. Here, Wisconsin experts discuss what COVID-19 science has taught us in its first year, and what’s ahead as we turn the corner into 2021.

Dozens of hospitals in metro Atlanta remain overcrowded as January begins, some with zero beds available for patients. Georgia’s database shows that as of Monday, 28.1% of hospitalizations in the state were COVID-related. Further, Georgia's ICU beds were at 88.6 percent capacity and inpatient beds were at 83.5 percent capacity as January begins. In Fulton County, Wellstar AMC South, Wellstar AMC North, and Grady Health System are in severe capacity. Medical Experts say it’s not just due to Covid-19.

Washington state will rely on an honor system to determine eligibility for COVID-19 vaccinations, so those administering vaccines do not have to police who qualifies. The state plans to launch an online questionnaire — called PhaseFinder — soon where people can determine their own eligibility for vaccination. When more vaccination sites are available, members of the public could present screenshots of their questionnaire results at vaccination sites, said Mary Huynh, a deputy director at the state Department of Health. The state also plans to provide a template letter for employers to vouch for workers’ eligibility.