Category: Infectious disease

How creative solutions to inequitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution can save lives now

The current COVID-19 vaccines have been developed with unprecedented efficiency and speed. Years of research, development, production, and regulatory approvals have been compressed into months. But accelerating the science is only half the puzzle. If w…

Give health care workers a break. Get a vaccine!

Cities across the country, including Chicago and New York, have announced reopening — Broadway will be full capacity soon. This is at the same time as the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has lifted, walk-in vaccines are available around the …

Give health care workers a break. Get a vaccine!

Cities across the country, including Chicago and New York, have announced reopening — Broadway will be full capacity soon. This is at the same time as the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has lifted, walk-in vaccines are available around the …

The fifth child: Succeeding with the COVID vaccination program

How do people respond to a gift, especially if it is lifesaving? Pretty much as they would many millennia ago. Over the past five months, while helping inoculate about 100,000 people at one of Tucson, Arizona’s COVID vaccination centers, I was constant…

The COVID-19 pandemic vowels: adaptability, empathy, innovation, optimism, unity

It feels like the days when I could go to all-you-can-eat buffets, when I could actually catch a smile from a patient and when I could hug someone after a successful chemotherapy round were written in history books long ago. In some ways, I have spent …

Not gone, but nearly forgotten: HIV in youths during COVID

When I was in college three decades ago, someone close to me was diagnosed with HIV. He was in his early 20s. The only drug available was the controversial AZT, an expensive drug originally designed to treat cancer. I thought my friend would die. Since…

The disparity no one talks about: COVID vaccines and men

As an epidemiologist and former public health official, I’ve noticed a lot of coverage in the news about  COVID vaccine hesitancy issues in BIPOC communities, and I, like many other clinicians, am working hard to address those issues.  But there is one…

Mother’s Day during the COVID-19 pandemic

Kisses, hugs, cuddles, breakfast in bed/beautiful brunch outdoors is how I remember celebrating Mother’s Day with my kids in the past, but 2020 was a bit different. As a physician caring for children with COVID-19, along with being a mother of 2 young …

Responding to the COVID pandemic: a lesson in coalescence [PODCAST]

“When faced with an existential crisis, any organization, as large as a nation or as small as a marriage, will go one of two ways. Either it will bond together, coalesced in a common purpose, or it will collapse in a spasm of blame and shame. Whi…

The tragic dance of the vaccine rollout

You would think that the vaccine rollout wouldn’t be so difficult. We had some brilliant scientists who raced against time and developed novel vaccines with technology never used before. Both Pfizer and Moderna used unique mRNA technology. The va…