COVID-19

With Americans about to celebrate a third Thanksgiving since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, infectious disease doctors say it may be safe to celebrate with slightly more relaxed rules this year.

“It’s important to just recognize we are in a very different place from two years ago. This population is getting more and more immune,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician at the University of California San Francisco.

A study published today by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, led by Dr. Ninez Ponce, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Fred W. and Pamela K. Wasserman professor and chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management, shows that the economic effects of COVID-19 increased the risk for poor mental health among California adults.

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic raised significant political tension around immigration in the US. On the one hand, despite imposing restrictions on international travel in response to COVID-19, the US continued to issue visas for immigrant travel (albeit in smaller amounts), with 4,253,736 visas offered in fiscal year 2020 (compared with 9,204,490 in FY 2019). In contrast, in March 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) implemented Sections 362 and 365 of the Public Health Service Act, encoded in Title 42 of the US Code.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the nation, only 30% of California adults said in July that they “always” wore a mask when they left their homes, according to a new UCLA survey. This is a significant decrease from the 54% who “always” wore a face covering in February and March.
 
And now most California adults (51%) said they “sometimes” or “never” use a mask, compared to 48% who said they “always” or “usually” do.
 

Dr. Akihiro Nishi, UCLA Fielding School assistant professor of epidemiology, will serve as co-principal investigator on a $1 million National Science Foundation project to improve pandemic preparedness.