News
Fill reignites passion as public health leader during pandemic
Nov. 17, 2020—Until recently, most Tennesseans wouldn’t know who Mary-Margaret Fill, MD, MPH candidate, was or what she did as a leading epidemiologist at the Tennessee Department of Health. Then a pandemic happened. Early on in the pandemic, Fill occasionally appeared in front of Tennesseans during the governor’s frequent briefings on the rising number of COVID-19 cases...
Patrick looks at how the healthcare landscape has changed during COVID-19
Nov. 17, 2020—Dr. Stephen Patrick wrote in guest column about the experience his wife and children had when a man shook his head at them in disgust just because they were wearing masks at the grocery store. Nearly five months later, COVID-19 cases are raging and the death rate is twice as high in counties without a mask mandate compared with counties...
The New York Times discusses the pandemic and capitalism with Dusetzina
Nov. 17, 2020—Over the summer, Pfizer had reached a $1.95 billion “advance purchase” agreement with the United States government, ensuring it would be well compensated for eventually delivering 100 million doses of vaccine. In other words, though the government did not directly fund the drug development, it created the groundwork in which the pharmaceutical company could spend...
Struggling rural hospitals are overwhelmed by COVID-19 deaths says Schaffner
Nov. 17, 2020—Many of the nation’s nearly 1,800 rural hospitals lack the equipment, workforce and expertise to handle a surge of COVID-19patients. Nurses and doctors are getting sick, leaving already short-staffed hospitals more desperate for workers. “These are often family doctors taking care of these patients,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University School of Medicine professor of preventive medicine and an infectious...
Graves: Tennessee areas without mask requirements have higher death toll per capita
Nov. 13, 2020—Tennessee areas where mask requirements were instituted over the summer have substantially lower death rates due to COVID-19 as compared to areas without mask requirements, according to a new analysis by Vanderbilt Department of Health Policy researchers. The analysis, led by John Graves, PhD, associate professor of Health Policy and director of the Vanderbilt Center...
CNBC discusses next steps in Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine development with Neuzil
Nov. 11, 2020—Dr. Kathleen Neuzil from the University of Maryland School of Medicine breaks down the next steps and challenges involved in getting Pfizer’s 90% effective vaccine to the broader American population. Plus, after Monday’s raucous trading session, CNBC’s Kate Rooney dives into which investors were buying the dip in “stay at home” stocks like Zoom and Peloton.
Schaffner is optimistic that COVID-19 vaccinations may start in December
Nov. 11, 2020—William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine professor, says he’s “guardedly optimistic” a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. may be used to protect health-care workers before the end of the year. He speaks with Bloomberg’s Alix Steel on “Bloomberg Markets.”
Self led study shows Hydroxychloroquine does not help patients hospitalized with COVID-19
Nov. 10, 2020—Findings from a national study published Nov. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) “do not support” the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the report concludes. The Outcomes Related to COVID-19 treated with Hydroxychloroquine among In-patients with symptomatic Disease (ORCHID) study found that, when compared to...
Schaffner reacts to new COVID-19 vaccine news
Nov. 9, 2020—Pfizer Inc PFE.N said on Monday its experimental vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on initial data from a large study, a major victory in the fight against the pandemic. Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE BNTX.O are the first drugmakers to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. “The...
Creech recruiting for Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial
Nov. 9, 2020—Vanderbilt University Medical Center is recruiting candidates to participate in their second COVID-19 vaccine trial. “By having vaccines that work in different ways. By different manufacturers, maybe with different those schedules, that really gives us options when we go to deploy this,” said Dr. Buddy Creech, director of Vanderbilt’s vaccine research program. That’s the hope...
Grijalva discusses COVID-19 household transmission with Nashville Public Radio
Nov. 6, 2020—A study that’s causing public health officials to grow more concerned about COVID spreading between loved ones is based primarily on families in Nashville. Researchers hope it’ll reveal the most common ways relatives and roommates get each other sick. The existing research on household transmission of COVID-19, like this study from New York, mostly relies on...
Creech begins study of second COVID-19 vaccine
Nov. 5, 2020—Vanderbilt University Medical Center has begun recruiting up to 250 participants for a phase 3 clinical trial testing an investigational COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. “The COVID-19 vaccine landscape is evolving quickly, and we are proud to be conducting additional vaccine clinical trials here at Vanderbilt,” said Buddy...
Schaffner comments on new COVID-19 lockdowns
Nov. 5, 2020—As the United States teeters on the edge of what some say is the start of a dark winter with roughly 90,000 new Covid-19 cases per day, Europe is already seeing an “astronomical” number of new cases and deaths, prompting governments to roll out strict lockdown measures to slow the spread. Like the U.S., pandemic fatigue has set...
Health Policy led study highlights the importance of masks during the pandemic
Nov. 5, 2020—In addition to slowing the spread of the virus, new evidence from Tennessee shows that mask mandates could reduce the severity of the virus. A paper by researchers at Vanderbilt found that at Tennessee hospitals where at least 75 percent of Covid-19 patients came from counties with mask requirements, coronavirus hospitalization rates are the same as they...
Schools need contact tracing and COVID-19 tracking protocols to open says Buntin
Nov. 3, 2020—“We should shift the discussion from the risk of opening K-12 schools to how those schools can open while minimizing risk,” said Melinda Buntin, chair of the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. Buntin said researchers and school leaders should study what’s working in schools that open successfully without cases, or are...