This week’s summary highlights a few burning questions that have persisted throughout the pandemic – how COVID-19 has affected (1) employment, especially that of parents of school-age children, (2) students’ mental health and wellbeing, and (3) college life. How is
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Ethics and Law of Requiring Proof of Immunity to Access Public Places Notre Dame, Rutgers, Duke, and Brown are among the higher education institutions that will require students demonstrate they have been immunized against Covid-19. Meanwhile, while New York has
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COVID-19 Vaccine Communication This week, The Atlantic reported how public health messaging about the COVID-19 vaccine has backfired. Instead of presenting a balanced optimism since the vaccines have been launched in the United States, the focus has been on negativity
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Trends in ER visits during the COVID-19 pandemic related to mental health and violence In this Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry publication, the authors discuss a cross-sectional study of nearly 190 million emergency department visits and found that
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Characteristics of COVID-19 Spokespersons In this study, scholars studied the COVID-19 communication from 20 heads of government from around the world. Understanding the language used is important because it has been shown to affect compliance for public health recommendations. Particularly
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Vaccine-related Communication With the push to get more people vaccinated against COVID-19, this study assessed theoretically sound psychosocial predictors of people’s willingness to get the vaccine. Results revealed that when individuals had positive attitudes towards the vaccine and perceived there
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MUST READ POLICY PIECES: This week, the New Yorker published “The Plague Year” by Lawrence Wright, a tour-de-force piece of reporting on the nation’s pandemic response. Having read a great deal of policy-related reporting on the outbreak, I believe this
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Effectiveness of Baricitinib and Remdesivir in COVID-19 Treatment An early release, peer-reviewed clinical trial published by the National Institute of Health investigates the combination of baricitinib and remdesivir when used in people hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 infection and shows promise
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COVID-19 Vaccines The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine received an Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for use in adults. On Saturday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which offers guidance to the CDC concerning vaccine policy, unanimously
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Messaging Strategies This week, WISE Indiana’s own Dr. Ross Silverman and an interdisciplinary team of researchers at IUPUI explored the use and effectiveness of metaphors when describing the COVID-19 vaccine. From war to travel to even gaming, the researchers noted
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