Experts Call for Better Masks As Pandemic Rolls On
Jan. 19, 2021 Abraar Karan, MD, has been treating COVID-19 patients for 10 months. In that time, he hasn’t gotten the virus, and he credits his N95 mask for protecting him.
“I’ve seen more COVID patients than I can count since March, and I get tested regularly, and I’ve not tested positive. I want others to have that kind of protection, too,” says Karan, an internal medicine doctor at Brigham and Women s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
But N95 masks are in short supply, and Karan says he’s frustrated that high-filtration, or hi-fi, masks aren’t available for the public nearly 1 year into the coronavirus pandemic. Karan recently co-authored an op-ed highlighting his concerns and calling for a national initiative to make masks with higher filtration easier to get even having the government send them to people’s homes.
Many Lincoln parents are uncertain about allowing their teens to participate in a vaccine trial.
January 15, 2021 7:02 pm
Moderna is having trouble finding teenage participants for their COVID-19 vaccine trials, according to USA Today.
Here in Lincoln, several parents informed Channel 8 on Facebook that they would not allow their teenagers to participate in a vaccine trial. Ayesha Shinall, a mother of three teenage children, explains why.
“I respect what other parents do, I am not their children’s parents,” Shinall said. “I personally wouldn’t let my kids get a vaccine that I feel was just kind of thrown together. There’s just, it’s like, this thing just dropped out, dropped on the face of the earth and they’re saying, ‘Here you go, we have a vaccine, but we’re not gonna give you a lot of information on it.’ So I personally would not allow my kids to do it.”
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Research!America and the Rita Allen Foundation are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2021 Civic Engagement Microgrant Initiative. Now in its third year, the microgrant program provides funding to graduate student and postdoc-led science policy groups from across the U.S. to develop and lead outreach activities in their local communities.
The 2021 Civic Engagement Microgrant Initiative is providing funding for 19 groups whose projects include podcasts, roundtable discussions, data visualization projects, and policy-orientated science fairs. Four grants will be used to start-up new groups. All activities will be conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 50 applications were received, a 50% increase from last year. The program is supported by a grant from the Rita Allen Foundation.