How Colleges are Helping With COVID-19

The closure of schools and universities nationwide are included on the list of changes that this coronavirus pandemic has caused. However, these universities are still contributing to the fight against COVID-19.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center is one of the many sites where clinical trials of drug development and testing is taking place. The University of California San Diego has also joined in on conducting a clinical trial on Remdesivir. Remdesivir was a drug that was invented to treat Ebola, and is now studied for a possible treatment of COVID-19.  The University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Control has teamed up with other researchers in both Paris and Venice in an attempt to develop a vaccine.

Public health experts, epidemiologists, and infectious disease specialists are all working on providing the public with updated and accurate health information. The John Hopkins University of Medicine has created a tracker for global infected COVID-19 cases. Using this website, we can see the confirmed cases in each state,  as well as the number of deaths for the United States. Several state universities have also created coronavirus trackers for their state. Western Illinois University has created one for Illinois, and the University of Memphis created one for Tennessee. 

As the number of confirmed cases rises, the number of available hospital beds decreases rapidly. Several institutions, such as Tufts University, Middleburg College, and New York University, have stated that they were preparing to convert on-campus dorms to temporary hospitals. Officials in both Ohio and Michigan have asked their universities to do this as well since the number of confirmed cases soared for both states this week.