In the News
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April 9, 2020
Krista Wigginton, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is part of a U-M research team working to establish a scalable process for recycling N95 masks, testing both to determine effective methods to kill virus particles on the masks, and testing how many times N95 masks can be treated before the masks can’t be used: “We’re testing against viruses that are pretty similar to COVID-19. Close enough that we feel there wouldn’t be any major differences.”
Michigan Radio -
April 9, 2020
“The last thing you want is for health care workers to have a false sense of protection and (inadvertently) perform a risky procedure on a patient,” said Christopher Friese, professor of nursing and health management and policy, commenting on the use of homemade protective gear and medical supplies by health care professionals on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19.
National Geographic -
April 8, 2020
Meilan Han, professor of internal medicine, says most of the research about the coronavirus suggests older people are more likely to be hospitalized and die of the disease, but “there are young people in the United States that clearly are experiencing severe disease and are on ventilators. … We don’t have a lot of published data from the U.S., so we’re looking to the little bits of published data that are coming out of China. What they’re seeing is that one of the risk factors … does appear to be smoking.”
Detroit Free Press -
April 8, 2020
“Once (the virus is) there, it will spread like wildfire because there’s basically no way in the crowded conditions that exist in current jails and prisons to implement social distancing,” said Sonja Starr, professor of law. “We do not have the luxury of time here, and we do not have the luxury of being able to just take small steps and hope that this problem is going to go away.”
Vox -
April 8, 2020
Ariangela Kozik, a research fellow in internal medicine, says instead of buying into the hype of antimicrobial cleaning products, we should trust the familiar, time-tested compounds we know will work to keep us safe — soap, alcohol, and in some cases, bleach: “There may be a misconception out there that if chemicals are really strong, that must mean they’re better. … Throwing chemicals at everything is not going to fix the problem.”
Popular Science -
April 7, 2020
Melissa Borja, assistant professor of American culture, and William Lopez, clinical assistant professor of health behavior and health education, were interviewed about how scholars are confronting coronavirus-related racism. “If we think only about curing this disease but not how we talk about it, we are going to miss things like the anti-Asian violence that is coming as the labeling of this disease as the ‘Chinese virus,’” Lopez said. For Borja, “simply being a support for students has been important for me as a professor who puts human relationships first before anything I do.”
Inside Higher Ed -
April 7, 2020
“That’s huge. By any measure this is a massive change in behavior, and if we can make a similar reduction in the number of contacts we make, every indication is that we can defeat this epidemic,” said Aaron King, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, commenting on data that suggests that Americans in wide swaths of the West, Northeast and Midwest have complied with orders from state and local officials to stay home.
The New York Times -
April 7, 2020
“Everybody is going to struggle in different ways, but kids are vulnerable and voiceless. Kids are going to suffer from this, too,” said Shawna Lee, associate professor of social work, whose research shows that the stress and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus is taking its toll on parents — and children are feeling the psychological and physical brunt of it.
U.S. News & World Report -
April 6, 2020
West African lions divide their time evenly between the region’s largest national parks — where they are protected and face fewer human pressures — and the hunting preserves that surround them, according to a camera survey by doctoral student Kirby Mills and assistant professor Nyeema Harris, both of ecology and evolutionary biology. “We were surprised by the lions’ lack of spatial response to humans because they have shown avoidance behaviors in other systems.”
UPI -
April 6, 2020
“Crises are fundamentally presidential moments, and given that, Biden just doesn’t have the capacity to truly break in,” said Josh Pasek, associate professor of communication and media, and political science, on the physical and political isolation of Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden as Donald Trump commands Americans’ attention with his coronavirus response.
International Business Times (U.K.)
