Facing a slowing rate of Arizonans getting vaccinated, Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday tapped former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, to be his new senior health advisor on COVID matters. Dr. Carmona currently is a professor of public health at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and most recently served as the director of the University of Arizona COVID Response Team.

It is possible, but extremely rare, to contract COVID and Valley Fever at the same time. If you’ve had Valley Fever, you’re not more susceptible to COVID. It’s a popular belief that you won’t get Valley Fever after living here for a few years. The median diagnosis time for residents is actually 12 years, and the fungus can lie dormant in your body. It is not contagious, and there’s no real way to prevent it, but you can help by avoiding dust. The Valley Fever Center for Excellence at the University of Arizona has a wealth of information about the disease on its website.

A landmark study, conducted by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, found youth tobacco and prescription drug use rose while alcohol use declined during the pandemic. Cody Welty, a doctoral student and mental health researcher in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, emphasizes the pressure the pandemic continues to place on kids. “Ask them how their day was and really wait and listen to hear the answer. It’s hard. Online school is hard and going back to school is hard right now,” he said.

Victoria Maizes, MD, executive director of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, shares insights on the health benefits provided by fermented foods.

Last year's influenza season turned out to be the mildest on record, but health experts have renewed warnings that a "twindemic" – in which flu and COVID-19 cases simultaneously rise and overwhelm hospitals – may be possible this year, and they urge Americans to get their flu shot. "Last year, we didn’t have a very big flu season because people were using masks and that decreased the flu season activity," said Ricardo Correa, MD, endocrinologist and associate professor of medicine at the College of Medicine – Phoenix. "If we do the same thing this year and we wear masks as much as we can, then the flu season will not hit us as hard as years prior."

Recent changes to U.S. donor heart allocation were followed by a narrowing of racial disparities in listing and transplant, though much more work remains to eliminate inequality, researchers warned. The article cites an editorial co-authored by Khadijah Breathett, MD, MS, a cardiologist and assistant professor in the College of Medicine – Tucson and Sarver Heart Center researcher, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The AZ HEROES longitudinal study on COVID-19 shows a decline in vaccine effectiveness from 91% prior to delta variant predominance to 66% afterward, suggesting an increased level of vaccination will be required to end the pandemic.

Arizona’s COVID-19 outbreak is still widespread and medical experts say cases are rising at an alarming pace among children. The rate of cases among those 15 and younger is projected to surpass the rate of all other age groups in the state, according to data compiled by Joe Gerald, MD, PhD, an associate professor of public health policy and management at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. "The age distribution of transmission is undergoing a profound shift," Dr. Gerald wrote Friday in his COVID-19 report.