Covid-19

UF biostatisticians confirm in a recent meta-analysis that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and getting a booster or two is the best way to protect against severe outcomes.

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected people who experience incarceration in state or federal run correctional facilities. To mitigate transmission and disease burden, US state and federal Departments of Correction (DOCs) implemented vaccine programs in the winter of 2020–2021. However, vaccine hesitancy is common among incarcerated populations due to distrust of the medical community and uncertainty around vaccine effectiveness.

The Emerging Pathogens Institute’s annual Research Day event celebrates pathogens research and the people who work in this critical academic space. After three years of meeting virtually, the event was held in person at the Reitz Union on Feb. 16, 2023 on the University of Florida’s campus. Researchers and students exhibited 123 abstracts and posters that probed pathogens and infectious diseases topics spanning from lab research to field investigations and bioinformatic analyses.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a valuable epidemiologic tool to detect the presence of pathogens and track disease trends within a community. WBE overcomes some limitations of traditional clinical disease surveillance as it uses pooled samples from the entire community, irrespective of health-seeking behaviors and symptomatic status of infected individuals. WBE has the potential to estimate the number of infections within a community by using a mass balance equation, however, it has yet to be assessed for accuracy.

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (round blue objects) emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19. (Image captured and colorized at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana. Credit: NIAID) Researchers can measure how effective a vaccine is at preventing disease…

Experts in viral evolution and artificial intelligence are teaming up to create an algorithm capable of predicting novel coronavirus variants before they become public health threats. They will also study how the coronavirus mutates in people coinfected with HIV and COVID-19 to better understand how variants emerge.

University of Florida researchers are refining wastewater surveillance techniques—a public health tool dating to the 1940s—to monitor cities, neighborhoods, and individual buildings for traces of COVID-19, fentanyl, and pesticides.

A UF mathematician collaborates with Yale School of Public Health researchers to evaluate the agreement of results between PCR testing and 18 commercially available rapid antigen tests for decision-making in remote work settings on when to end an individual's quarantine.

UF researchers find particles from virus that causes COVID are transported beyond quarantine spaces due to airborne nature.

UF researchers determined how long children remain infectious with the omicron viral variant after receiving a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2.