Health Sciences In The Media

Vaccines provide a high level of protection against COVID-19. That’s one of the findings of an ongoing research study following health care workers, first responders, and other essential workers in Arizona. Jeff Burgess, MD, MPH, professor and associate dean of research at the University of Arizona Health Sciences, discusses the AZ HEROES study, why the rise of the delta variant in Arizona is worrisome and why it is critical to study the COVID vaccine in people who have been vaccinated.

Pathogens and bacteria can survive in the bathroom for hours, weeks, or months. "Aerosols can spread anywhere from one to six feet, an average of three feet," said Kelly Reynolds, PhD, MSPH, professor and director of the Environment, Exposure Science and Risk Assessment Center at the University of Arizona.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's ban on mask mandates takes effect at the end of September. The school year begins for districts across the state next week. According to researchers in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, coronavirus cases in people under the age of 15 have been consistently higher than those over the age of 65 since the end of March. Those numbers have also climbed dramatically since the beginning of July.

A review by researchers from the College of Medicine – Phoenix finds Arizonans experience five times as many encounters with scorpions as residents of any other state. The team tabulated 57,168 reported scorpion encounters statewide between 2010 and 2015, compared to just 9,695 cases in second-place Texas.

Janko Nikolich-Žugich, MD, PhD, an immunologist and professor of medicine at the College of Medicine – Tucson, said recent findings from the CDC that vaccinated people who are infected with the delta variant could spread the virus just as easily as unvaccinated individuals should prompt behavioral changes across the board. “What we do not know at this point is whether the virus produced in vaccinated people is still at the same level of infectivity, or whether the presence of antibodies in these people may make the virus less infectious,” he said. “Until we learn about that, the delta variant behavior should mandate a change in strategies and approaches.”

The UArizona Center for Rural Health has received a five-year, multi-million dollar grant from state and federal sources to continue their mission of providing health care, education, technical assistance, data analyses and more to rural communities throughout the state.

As concerns grow over the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, Germany on Monday became the largest Western country yet to announce that it will offer vaccine booster shots to a wide range of people considered potentially vulnerable. "The problem here is, we're just sort of going on immunological priors, rather than really great data to justify things one way or the other," said Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, professor and immunologist at the College of Medicine – Tucson.

Maiya Block, a graduate assistant at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is holding an online chat Wednesday to help people who want to have productive conversations with others who are hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine. "We're just trying to equip people with just some basic conversation skills that they can be able to have an effective conversation and talk about the issues in a clear way that won't make it into a heated discussion or continue to pass on any myths," she said.

The COVID-19 pandemic left many people with disrupted sleep patterns. The 4-7-8 technique developed by Andrew Weil, MD, founder of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, is based on ancient meditation and breathing techniques. Also known as the "Relaxing Breath," the method puts the practitioner in a relaxed state almost immediately.

Arizona has recorded more than 6,800 cases of valley fever so far this year, according to July data from the Arizona Department of Health Services. Valley fever is a lung disease caused by the inhalation of Coccidioides,​​ a fungus common in the alkaline soil of the Sonoran Desert. The Valley Fever Center for Excellence at the University of Arizona has a list of valley fever specialists.