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In the aftermath of Sept. 11, higher education saw a burst of interest in Middle Eastern studies, Arabic and homeland security.
Today, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, data and anecdotal evidence now suggest we may be seeing a similar rise in demand for health and medical education.
“It’s unprecedented,” said Geoffrey Young, senior director for student affairs and programs at the Association of American Medical Colleges. In the past two decades, the average yearly increase for total applications to medical schools has been about 2.5 percent, he said. This year, applications are up 18 percent over all.
Our COVID-19 model projects that mask use (that’s 95% of a population wearing a mask outside of their homes) is likely to save more lives than a vaccine, even as vaccine rollout scales up.
These mask use maps of WHO regions published in July captures mask usage at a very specific moment in time, as the first wave of the pandemic was waning for many countries and territories. It tells a story of mask use compliance and the impacts of mandates on people’s health and the health of global economies. Data from the Facebook Global symptom survey (based on survey results from the University of Maryland Social Data Science Center) were used to create these infographics. The data reflect people who say they always wear a mask when in public, surveyed on July 14, 2020.