Background: We evaluate the public health surveillance program, Screen, Test, and Protect (STP) designed to control and prevent COVID-19 at a large academic university in the United States. Methods: STP was established at the University of Florida in May 2020. This report details STP's full-time workforce, centralized database, and testing and…

The importance of honey bees to global agriculture is largely undisputed (Calderone, 2012; Southwick & Southwick, 1992). Simultaneously, commercial beekeeping operations face tremendous industry stressors that have led to increased management requirements and elevated colony losses in Florida and around the United States. in recent decades…

Young adults are very socially active. During infectious disease outbreaks, their interpersonal interactions serve as a mode of viral transmission, especially to vulnerable populations such as the elderly and immunocompromised. A lack of compliance with recommended health behaviors among college students during the early months of the COVID-19…

Mosquitoes are both a nuisance and public health threat. In recent decades, outbreaks of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika in Florida have raised awareness of the importance of domestic and peri-domestic container mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The synanthropic nature of these species, coupled with their preference for human…

More than 260 presidentially-declared major disasters have occurred since 2017, affecting every state and several U.S. territories, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Many of these natural disasters have had devastating effects, including rendering K-12 school facilities unusable for extended periods of time. These…

This paper shares reflections on over 50 live Zoom instructional lessons with toddlers and preschoolers amid the first three weeks of school closures due to COVID-19 in the State of Florida. Reflections resulted in three themes: 1) implementing digital sessions with young children; 2) establishing and maintaining home-based child engagement…

P. K. Yonge Development Research School (PKY) is a single-school, K-12, public school district and "Virtually PKY" is the name of our efforts during emergency remote teaching necessitated by COVID-19. Our ability to plan and execute "Virtually PKY" was predicated on years of district-wide leadership and professional learning…

Individual teachers, administrators, and parents made tremendous efforts to continue educating the Commonwealth's children between March and June of this year. But no amount of dedicated individual effort could have overcome fundamental challenges: weak guidance to districts from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) against…

The goal of safely and sustainably reopening K-12 school buildings for in-person learning is widely recognized as critical to minimizing the impact of academic, social, emotional, and mental strains brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order for in-person learning to succeed on an ongoing basis, schools must be able to offer safe…

Government officials are taking swift public health actions to slow the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of March, statewide school closures affected 55.1 million K-12 public school students across the country. While school closures affect all students, students from underserved communities feel this impact even greater. Data on…