Hundreds of researchers attended the first two COVID-19 Research Virtual Town Halls, which are being held weekly via Zoom.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Here is some of what Chancellor Gary S. May addressed in his Friday coronavirus update April 10:
- Commencement — It will be virtual in June, and the campus is surveying graduates on their interest in attending a ceremony in the fall.
- Guide to Remote Assessment and Testing Options — For faculty, alternatives to online proctoring.
- Summer Sessions — Remote instruction will continue.
- Graduate instruction — Increased flexibility for late drops and Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grading in spring quarter 2020.
- Global Teaching and Learning Resources in a Time of COVID-19
And this week brings the new FacultyConnect Zoom gathering, a weekly opportunity for faculty members to reflect upon and share their experiences with remote instruction. The meetups, organized by the Center for Educational Effectiveness, will be from 12:10 to 1 p.m. Thursdays starting April 16.
Each FacultyConnect session will revolve around a specific online/remote teaching topic, and will be co-hosted by a faculty member and a facilitator from the Center for Educational Effectiveness. This week’s program: Tips for a Smooth Remote Teaching Experience, co-hosted by Jeanette Ruiz, assistant professor of teaching, Department of Communication; and Cecilia Gomez, education specialist in the Center for Educational Effectiveness.
See the FacultyConnect webpage for all the topics, hosts and registration links.
The COVID-19 Research Virtual Town Halls began April 3, when the Zoom call maxed out at 300 participants. The next week drew about the same number. The Office of Research has boosted the capacity to 500 and enabled password protection. To learn more about participating, join this Sympa mailing list.
The research town halls are scheduled from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Fridays, hosted by Allison Brashear, dean of the School of Medicine; and Prasant Mohapatra, vice chancellor of research.
Zoom privacy and security: The campus privacy officer and chief information security officer joined forces to discuss some concerns raised by the UC Davis teaching community. Their letter also introduces FAQs with resources to help strengthen privacy and security on Zoom.
COVID-19 research
Last week the Office of Research awarded the first 10 grants from its COVID-19 Research Accelerator Funding Track, or CRAFT, program. CRAFT awards are open to principal investigators in all disciplines. Researchers can apply for support awards up to $5,000 and project awards up to $25,000. The proposal deadline is 5 p.m. every Wednesday, and grants will be awarded weekly until all the funds are exhausted.
The UC Office of the President also has called for research proposals for shares of $2 million in funding.
Some COVID-19-related research is already making it into the news:
- The Link Between Virus Spillover, Wildlife Extinction and the Environment — Exploitation of wildlife by humans through hunting, trade, habitat degradation and urbanization facilitates close contact between wildlife and humans, which increases the risk of virus spillover, according to a study published April 8 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. “Spillover of viruses from animals is a direct result of our actions involving wildlife and their habitat,” said lead author Christine Kreuder Johnson, project director of USAID PREDICT and director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the One Health Institute, a program of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
- COVID-19 and the Built Environment — What is the role of building design in disease transmission, and can we change how we design the built environment to make it healthier? Those questions are addressed in a review in the journal mSystems by David Coil, project scientist, and Professor Jonathan Eisen at the UC Davis Genome Center and School of Medicine, and colleagues at the Biology and the Built Environment Center, University of Oregon.
- Researchers Launch New COVID-19 Tracking Application — The application offers a simple, intuitive way for users to track COVID-19 data at the country, state and county level. “I found many of the best real-time visualizations of the COVID-19 data to be either complex dashboards or snapshots associated with media stories that made it difficult to get a simple, quick comparison of the latest COVID-19 trends,” said Christopher Barker, an associate professor of epidemiology with the School of Veterinary Medicine who led the project.
Happy ending
And, finally, this report from UC Davis Health, about a coronavirus patient who left the hospital Thursday (April 9), after two weeks, saying he felt 100 percent better.
The patient, Vincent Carter, of Sacramento, offered this advice: “Take social distancing very seriously. This illness doesn’t care about race, creed, color or age. It can snatch anyone. It is not a good thing.”
He added that it was the “love and support” of family, friends and his care team that helped get him through the very difficult and serious health problems caused by COVID-19.