ONLINE: The UW Now
press release: Stream at the WAA YouTube channel.
While parts of the country are beginning to emerge from the pandemic, cases of COVID-19 are rising again in other areas. One of the key drivers of this uptick has been the delta variant. What makes this variant different from others? To what extent do existing COVID-19 vaccines protect against it? Should vaccinated individuals keep wearing masks or get a booster shot?
On the next UW Now Livestream, a panel of experts share the most up-to-date information about the delta variant of COVID-19.The talk will be moderated by Mike Knetter, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association.
Featured Guests:
David O’Connor, PhD, is the UW Medical Foundation (UWMF) Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. In close collaboration with Dr. Tom Friedrich, O’Connor’s laboratory leads an international network of investigators studying COVID-19 to test vaccines and medical countermeasures. O’Connor and Friedrich have been responsible for sequencing SARS-CoV-2 genomes from cases throughout Dane and Milwaukee Counties to understand how these viruses are moving throughout Wisconsin. O’Connor is also actively involved in HIV/AIDS research with the goal of developing a vaccine. He is also conducting Zika research to understand when and how the virus leads to fetal abnormalities and what interventions could prevent or reverse those outcomes.
Jeff Pothof, MD, is an associate professor of clinical health sciences in the School of Medicine and Public Health. He has served in many emergency health care leadership positions and has been actively involved with the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), serving on the board of the Wisconsin chapter. He is a past chair of ACEP’s Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Section and has served on the Quality and Patient Safety Committee. In 2016, Pothof took a system-level position as UW Health’s medical director for quality. In September 2018, he accepted the position of UW Health chief quality officer. He continues to practice clinically in emergency departments at University Hospital and UW Health at The American Center. Pothof has also flown with the UW Med Flight critical care transport program as a flight physician since 2010.
Ajay Sethi, PhD, is an associate professor in the department of population health sciences and is the faculty director for the Master of Public Health program at UW-Madison. As an infectious disease epidemiologist, he studies modifiable behavioral and structural factors associated with infectious disease transmission and morbidity. He teaches the popular course Conspiracies in Public Health at the UW, preparing future health care workers for difficult conversations.
More info: https://www.allwaysforward.org/uwnow/. A recording of this livestream will be available on uwalumni.com after the event.
WFAA plans to host The UW Now Livestream weekly, featuring UW–Madison faculty and staff with unique expertise.