The Centers for Disease Control is warning Americans to stay home during the holidays, after more than 250,000 people have died from COVID-19. In Arizona, the virus is surging. Thursday the Arizona Department of Public Health reported more than 4,100 new cases which is the highest number of cases in one day since mid-July. Modeling from both the ASU Biodesign Institute and the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health warn of dire days ahead if current COVID-19 trends remain constant.

Health experts say that if you do need to travel, they recommend that you wear both a face mask and a face shield. You should sanitize frequently and get tested for the coronavirus before you visit with others outside your household. "If there's any possibility of limiting contact with others and limiting it to outdoors as opposed to indoors, all these things would be preferable," said Dr. Shad Marvasti, an associate professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Arizona's largest health care system is reinstating visitor restrictions due to exponential increases in COVID-19 cases that could soon overwhelm hospitals across the state. Effective 6 p.m. If the rise of coronavirus transmission in Arizona is not quickly addressed, new COVID-19 cases "will overwhelm our capacity to provide optimal hospital care within a matter of weeks," according to a Nov. 18 report by Joe Gerald, an associate professor at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health who has been tracking the pandemic’s spread in Arizona for months.

A clinical trial at the University of Arizona Health Sciences designed to study the safety and effectiveness of a personalized cancer vaccine in combination with the immunotherapy drug Pembrolizumab will expand its cohort after promising preliminary data was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can relieve pain, according to a new study by University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers. The finding may explain why nearly half of all people who get COVID-19 experience few or no symptoms, even though they are able to spread the disease, according to the study's corresponding author Rajesh Khanna, a professor in the UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson's Department of Pharmacology.

Research at the College of Nursing brings a unique perspective to advancing health and healthy equity.

Joe Gerald, an associate professor at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and an epidemiologist working on modeling the COVID-19 pandemic, has been named to Arizona Sen.-elect Mark Kelly's 13-person bipartisan transition team. Gerald said he is encouraged by recent reports of two promising vaccines now in the works, though he cautioned against using such announcements as an excuse to relax.

Francisco A. Arabia, MD, a professor of surgery and internal medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and a Banner Health physician, received the 2020 Health Care Heroes Award by the Phoenix Business Journal.