UAB

Exposure notification app for college students launches pilot phase

College students across Alabama and anyone with a .edu email address are being invited to participate in an anonymous Exposure Notification System app for iPhone and Android users. The app launched in a closed pilot phase on Monday that will allow up to 10,000 downloads for each phone type. The app is part of the … Continued

August 3, 2020

SEC teams to vote on a plan to realign college football schedule

COVID-19 fears are radically changing the 2020 college football schedule. The Southeastern Conference presidents will meet Thursday to consider a plan on how their schools will deal with the rapidly changing college football landscape. Wednesday, the Atlantic Coast Conference met and voted to play a ten-game conference football schedule with one out of conference game. … Continued

July 30, 2020

A college football at the goal line on a grass field

NCAA Board of Governors tables motion to eliminate fall sports championships

Supporters of playing the 2020 college football season won an important victory on Friday when the NCAA Board of Governors voted to table a motion to scrap the FCS, Division two, and Division three football playoffs championships. The conferences wrested effective control of what we think of as major college football, the Division One Football … Continued

July 27, 2020

Stay safe but don’t delay cancer treatment or screenings, UAB doctors warn

Healthcare workers are seeing fewer people getting routine cancer screenings for fear of coming into contact with the novel coronavirus. With no end to the pandemic in sight, doctors are urging people to get screened and move forward with treatment if they have a diagnosis. Not delaying treatment is of paramount importance, said Barry Sleckman, … Continued

July 10, 2020

Jones: We are still in the first wave of the coronavirus

U.S. Sen. Doug Jones on Thursday addressed reporters on the worsening coronavirus crisis in the state of Alabama, along with UAB’s Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, an infectious diseases expert who joined Jones on the conference call. “As a nation, we peaked on April 23 at 39,000 cases a day,” Jones said, adding that by the end … Continued

June 26, 2020

UAB specialist urges masks, personal responsibility over another lockdown

Alabama’s best chance at reversing its upward trend of COVID-19 cases is not to shut down again, but to get more serious about wearing masks in public, social distancing and sheltering in place whenever possible, said a Birmingham infectious diseases expert on Thursday. Shutting down in March and April was like doing a sprint, said … Continued

June 25, 2020

A tunnel too far?

My colleague Josh Moon last week wrote a truthful (if scathing) column about the legacy of former governor George C. Wallace. After laying out his case about how Wallace used racism as a political prop, Moon ended the column this way: “And that is why George Wallace’s name shouldn’t be on any public building.” I agree. … Continued

June 18, 2020

About half of Americans asked say they’d take COVID-19 vaccine

While most Americans believe a vaccine for COVID-19 will be available in 2021, only around half say they’ll get vaccinated according to a recent study. A leading infectious disease expert at UAB worries, however, that there’s no guarantee researchers can create a safe, effective vaccine for the virus at all, and that if a vaccine … Continued

May 27, 2020

Conversations with my brain

I’ve been spending many hours a day grading college papers. Final grades are due Monday, and I’ve still got a pile to plow through. All of my “tests” are essays. So I’ve got to read them closely. It can take 15 minutes to a half-hour on one paper. The manual labor of teaching. If I … Continued

April 30, 2020

Domestic violence cases increase during COVID-19 outbreak

Millions of Americans are staying home to keep themselves safe from COVID-19 but for many, home is not a safe haven. Patricia Speck, a domestic violence prevention specialist at UAB, said that one in four women and one in seven men are expected to experience domestic violence during the pandemic. She said this is due … Continued

April 27, 2020