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.
The future of our ocean | Rolling Stone
“It raised temperatures on the coast all the way from British Columbia down to Southern California,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. The big question is how much the Blob accelerated wildfires; 2017-18 saw historic blazes, including the Camp Fire in Northern California, the largest in the state’s history, which burned more than 150,000 acres and killed at least 85 people. Swain says the Blob increased nighttime temperatures in the western third of the state, where many of the wildfires flared. “Firefighters will tell you that’s really important, because wildfires often lie down at night, burning more slowly and behaving less erratically, becoming less dangerous to approach for human crews. While the Blob was off the coast, that didn’t happen.”
Zoom security flaws could leave users at risk | Washington Post
Elana Zeide, a researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles’s law school who studies technology and policy, said the extra scrutiny of Zoom has helped draw attention to its questionable design decisions. But the attention has also highlighted a tension for people scrambling amid the chaos of “social distancing” to find a simple way to gather online. “You have schools and parents in a pinch, and there are only so many tools to use,” she said.
Medical, nursing, EMT students eager to contribute | Orange County Register
Even though the governor’s announcement initially included medical students, his office later changed the program to exclude them because they may not have the necessary training and licensing, said Dr. Clarence Braddock, vice dean for education at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The UC system is exploring the possibility of graduating medical students early if they meet their graduation requirements, he said. “If they are willing to go to places in crisis such as New York or New Orleans, where the situation is being closely watched, and there are residency programs that are ready to bring them on board, it could happen,” Braddock said. “At UCLA, not many of our students will be graduating early. We will, however, offer that option to students.”
Rates of coronavirus infection in wealthy areas are deceiving | Los Angeles Times
Chandra Ford, professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said there is probably “testing bias” in the data because tests haven’t been equally available across the county. As more people get tested in the coming months, areas with greater shares of homeless people and uninsured workers will see infection rates rise disproportionately, she said. “Over the long run, the population of people who were missed are likely to be the most vulnerable members of our society,” said Ford, founding director of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice and Health at UCLA.
Testing issues cloud scope of California’s virus outbreak | Associated Press
“Testing is uneven, which is to put it kindly,” said Dr. David Eisenman, director of the Center of Public Health and Disasters at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The number of cases identified is not an accurate count of anything because it’s such a select group of people who get the testing done.”
L.A. scrambles to open shelters and find hotel rooms for patients | Los Angeles Times
Randall Kuhn, a professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said there has been an unexpected shift in thinking about the value of investing in shelters for homeless people, not just permanent housing. “COVID-19 has done that work for us in under a week,” Kuhn said via email, referencing a recent report that he co-wrote. “Now ... we can imagine a reality in which everyone is quickly sheltered (safely) and then must be moved to permanent housing as part of the next phase.”
How to navigate public spaces and more | New York Times
“Acts of kindness and support in a community are deeply important during any national crisis, but not just for our physical survival,” said Dr. Jena Lee, a child and adult psychiatrist and clinical instructor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Helping others permeates a sense of hope and meaning in our shared humanity that is just as vital to our survival.”
Rohingya now face COVID-19 | Washington Post Opinion
Thomas Lee, a physician at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles and the founder of Community Partners International, one of the aid groups helping to maintain health care for the refugees, explains that “flattening the curve” — managing the number of infected patients applying for treatment — will be a far greater challenge in an environment where there already aren’t enough resources to go around. “There are just a few hundred hospital beds with a population of nearly a million people,” he says, adding that many residents already suffer from pneumonia and other respiratory ailments, heightening their vulnerability to the coronavirus.
What could help us return to normal? | Orange County Register
“Our economy is winding down, as stay-at-home orders are being issued by more and more states. Yet a great nation like ours cannot economically sustain itself with people working only from home,” wrote Ralph R. Frerichs, professor emeritus of epidemiology at UCLA. “This is where serological tests come in.” (UCLA’s Dr. Jianyu Rao and Roger Detels are also quoted.)
Why isn’t California a bigger coronavirus hot spot? | The Wrap
Neal Baer, an adjunct professor in UCLA’s Department of Community Health Sciences, said that Los Angeles’ “car culture,” together with the city’s “safer at home” order, could be another “critical reason” as to why Angelenos have not yet seen as high a number of cases. “That’s not to say that people don’t get exposed in Los Angeles, but maybe we’re less exposed,” Baer said. “Two weeks ago, we were already sheltering, and we were in our cars weeks before then.”
Experts say mitigation efforts could reduce U.S. deaths | Xinhua
While enhancing the mitigation efforts, the United States is also stepping up the development of treatments for COVID-19, including experimenting with the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and blood-related therapies, and offering fast tests. “These measures would help delay the peak of the epidemic, leaving more time for the U.S. medical system to prepare for the crisis, and prevent it from collapsing,” 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.
Could the coronavirus reshape the social safety net? | PBS Newshour
Whenever the state plays a more active role, “there’s a trade off: personal freedom versus a government that’s much more intrusive and places many more restrictions on our lives,” said Lee Ohanian, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and senior fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution. “It really boils down to, how big of a social safety net do we want?”
Is the coronavirus airborne? Experts can’t agree | Nature
Scientists in the United States have shown in the laboratory that the virus can survive in an aerosol and remain infectious for at least 3 hours. Although the conditions in the study were “highly artificial”, there is probably “a non-zero risk of longer-range spread through the air”, says co-author Jamie Lloyd-Smith, an infectious-diseases researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Do new tenant eviction provisions go far enough? | KPCC-FM
“There will be an enormous number of eviction cases, and a tsunami of homeless people who have fallen out from the economy,” said UCLA’s Gary Blasi.
How melatonin can make you sleep better | Insider
One of the most effective ways to amplify melatonin production is to cause a change in core body temperature, according to Alon Y. Avidan, MD, MPH, Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center. “If someone gets out of the shower or a hot bath, that drop of temperature from the bath to the room’s temperature is allowing for a more robust melatonin release, he says. Similarly, turning the heat down in your bedroom to fall asleep in a cooler environment can do the trick, too.
The best earplugs for sleep, travel and more | Travel + Leisure
“Some sleepers are just more sensitive to any ambient noise during the night — cars on the street, other late-night wakers walking around, clocks ticking, and more. In these cases, earplugs may help,” said Dr. Nina L. Shapiro, director of pediatric ear, nose, and throat at the Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.