Continuing coverage: Dr. Andrew Weil, founder and director of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona and chief science officer for Maui Grown Therapies, will give a free online presentation called "Cannabis and the Anti-inflammatory Lifestyle" on November 5.

Advice to medical students who may be doing their residency interviews virtually. Cheryl O'Malley, associate dean for graduate medical education at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, is quoted.

Sairam Parthasarathy, MD, chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine in the UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson, leads the Arizona effort to reduce disparities in underrepresented communities in COVID-19 research and clinical trials.

The tele-ultrasound training program for lung point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) will enable rural emergency departments to more effectively identify and treat suspected COVID-19 patients.

The virus has claimed the lives of nearly 6,000 Arizonans since the start of the pandemic. That list includes Tolleson Union High School English teacher and assistant baseball coach Ash Freiderich. COVID-19 is once again surging across the Valley. “The storm is here. We are in it and it will only get worse until we act now,” said University of Arizona College of Medicine Public Health Director Dr. Shad Marvasti.

In a head-to-head comparison, researchers at the University of Arizona found that, in symptomatic people, a rapid test made by Quidel could detect more than 80% of coronavirus infections found by a slower, lab-based PCR test. But when the rapid test, called the Sofia, was used instead to randomly screen students and staff members who did not feel sick, it detected only 32% of the positive cases identified by the PCR test. Study author David Harris, a professor of immunobiology and director the biorepository at the University of Arizona, said that some of the concerns about the Sofia's accuracy could be overcome with repeat testing.

To be sure, it is painful and often lonely to abandon social rituals - all of them, not just Thanksgiving and Christmas but funerals, weddings, graduations, birthday parties and religious observances. "They all affirm our social identity," says Elizabeth Connick, chief of the infectious diseases division at the University of Arizona College of Medicine at Tucson. "I fear that some people simply can't bear to stay away. They will attend social gatherings, and some will get infected."

While only one gathering over 100 people was reported the week of Oct. 19, seven were reported the week of Oct. 26 to CART, a collaboration between the university and the Tucson Police Department, said Campus Reentry Task Force Director Dr. Richard Carmona, 17th U.S. surgeon general and a Distinguished Professor in the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.