UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription to view. See more UCLA In the News.
Approach to homeless people could influence coronavirus spread in California | Los Angeles Times
Randall Kuhn, a UCLA researcher who helped compile the study on how the coronavirus will affect homeless people, agreed that the shutdown in California and other states has meant that those sleeping on sidewalks are living without the resources they need… Kuhn said that Los Angeles in particular needs more ways to bring people inside because it’s not a given the outreach workers will be able to continue working on the streets if the outbreak continues. “The proportion of unsheltered individuals who could legitimately ride out more than a week or two of serious lockdown is probably no more than 10%,” Kuhn said. (Also: Los Angeles Daily News, City News Service, KABC-TV, National Public Radio, KCRW-FM, KPCC-FM)
No longer just a walk in the park | New York Times
Walks and runs are signs of life to which even doctors and scientists on the front lines are clinging. Amandine Gamble, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, is a co-author of that study that raised alarm last week about how the virus lingers in the air. She walks near her home in Santa Monica every day. She finds complete adherence to the six-foot rule challenging, she said, and if someone crosses her path, she does not panic.
Coronavirus cases hit two largest U.S. cities differently | Associated Press
“New York City is a more densely packed community than what we see in California, even in Los Angeles, which is much more spread out,” said Robert Kim-Farley, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health. “The mixing, if you will, of population is much greater there.” Still, Kim-Farley warned that with a simultaneous rise in cases and testing, “we’re going to start seeing just tremendous increases,” in the next two weeks in LA. (Kim-Farley is also quoted in the Los Angeles Times and was interviewed on MSNBC’s “Kasie DC” and KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk”)
What rest of U.S. can learn from New York’s response | USA Today
“The disease does not care if you’re in a big city, small city... everybody is at risk,” said Jonathan Fielding, a distinguished professor in residence at University of California, Los Angeles’ Fielding School of Public Health. (Fielding is also quoted in the Los Angeles Times and Time.)
How many could die from the coronavirus? | CNN
“The thing about models is that they are predictive and just based on all of the assumptions that go into them. All of those things can change. I have a colleague who is a modeler and likes to say all models are wrong but they can be useful,” said UCLA’s Dr. Anne Rimoin. (Rimoin was also interviewed on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams”.)
UCLA engineers use 3-D printing to produce face shields for hospitals | City News Service
Engineers at UCLA have begun using 3D printing and laser cutting equipment to produce surgical face shields in an effort to meet the rapidly growing demand for personal protective equipment for health care workers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.… Jayathi Murthy, the dean at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, said she was proud of the rapid response from the UCLA community during the public health crisis. “As problem solvers at heart, we want to apply our knowledge to addressing the shortage of medical supplies at this critical moment,” she said. (Also: KCBS-TV, KABC-TV)
What happens when extreme heat collides with a pandemic? | The Verge
“We’re in between a rock and a hard place if it were to become a heatwave during the time when we’re enacting physical distancing measures,” says David Eisenman, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles’ department of community health sciences. (Eisenman was also interviewed by ABC News.)
Quick coronavirus blood test could spell trouble | Orange County Register
“People are really scared. We’re in an environment where there’s a lot of information and misinformation, a lot of high stress and anxiety,” said Jon Quach, an assistant professor in the internal medicine department at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. At hospitals such as UCLA’s, patients who get coronavirus tests are carefully screened.
How old laws could protect prisoners | Mother Jones
It may be too late to control the Rikers outbreak, says Aaron Littman, a teaching fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles law school and former litigator for the Southern Center for Human Rights. “But,” he says, “jails and prisons across the country, especially in communities that have not been hit as hard thus far, have a closing window of opportunity to dramatically decrease harm to a lot of people.” Yet they must act now: “If they wait until there are infections in their jails and prison, it will likely be too late.”
After complaints, TLC’s ‘My 600-lb Life’ halts filming | The Hollywood Reporter
On a television set, “Everyone’s putting everyone else at risk, so it definitely doesn’t run in one direction,” Dr. Joseph Ladapo, an associate professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, says when given the specifics of this story. “You don’t need a medical degree to know that.”
Testing practices are creating a distorted picture of the outbreak | Live Science
Some states have better public health laboratories than others, said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an epidemiologist at the University of California Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health. New York, for example, has some of the best public health institutions in the country. But labs in other parts of the country are far less equipped. “Public-health laboratories were never really capacitated to be on the front lines of a large disease outbreak,” Klausner told Live Science.
U.S.-China cooperation is key to fight against COVID-19 | Xinhua
Zhang Zuofeng, professor of epidemiology, and also associate dean for research at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Xinhua the disease has swept 201 countries and regions. Epidemics recognize no national borders or races and are a common enemy of humankind. U.S.-China cooperation will contribute to finding the initial etiological factors, intermediate hosts, and transmission routes that caused the epidemic, and will help find more efficient solutions to the crisis, develop vaccines and therapies for COVID-19, and improve prevention mechanism of new infectious diseases, Zhang said.
Pharma and the federal government have to break old patterns | The Intercept
“The Bush-era initiatives to improve vaccine availability and medical surge capacity domestically were good starts but underfunded, as are most public health initiatives,” said Dr. Adva Gadoth, an epidemiologist at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Test results in Louisiana take over two weeks for some | Times-Picayune
“If you know you’re infected and you live with your older parents, if they were to develop symptoms, it would be very helpful for their doctor to know,” said Dr. Timothy Brewer, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California in Los Angeles. Test results are especially important for asymptomatic or mild cases, said Brewer, as those cases may be driving the spread of the disease. (Brewer was also quoted by The Daily Beast.)
The rise of Chinese investment in Africa | Quartz Column
The rise of China in Africa has triggered an ongoing debate about whether Chinese capital is a barrier that entraps African governments in practices that hinder poverty reduction. The most recent contribution to these debates is a book by a professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, Ching Kwan Lee. The book is based on Lee’s ethnographic study in the copper and construction industries in Zambia. It interrogates Chinese state capital in relation to global private capital.
