Even before the first U.S. death from the mysterious, new coronavirus, Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett and Dr. Barney Graham were in a race against the clock. In 2020, they were research team members at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland. This article shares 3 sidebars about Dr. Corbett and vaccine…

A physical chemistry lab for undergraduate students described in this report is about applying kinetic models to analyze the spread of COVID-19 in the United States and obtain the reproduction numbers. The susceptible-infectious-recovery (SIR) model and the SIR-vaccinated (SIRV) model are explained to the students and are used to analyze the…

Hundreds of clinical trials of potential treatments and vaccines for the "coronavirus 19 disease" (COVID-19) have been set up in record time. This is a remarkable reaction to the global pandemic, but the absence of a global coordination of clinical research efforts raises serious ethical concerns. Some COVID-19 patients might carry the…

Immune literacy--the ability to hear, learn, read, write, explain, and discuss immunological content with varied audiences--has become critically important in recent years. Yet, with its complex terminology and discipline-specific concepts, educating individuals about the immune system and its role in health and disease may seem daunting. Here, we…

Viruses are microscopic organisms that require a host to live and multiply. The Human Papillomavirus is a sexually transmitted virus with strains that are connected with cervical cancer and genital warts. Due to the risk of cervical cancer, women have traditionally been "pre-treated" with various vaccinations as a means of prevention.…

To facilitate people using mathematical reasoning to compare risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the COViD-TASER (Creation of Visualizations of Data: The Application of STEM Education Research) research team to create the COVID-19 Relative Risk Tool (RRT). The RRT uses an interactive bar chart…

Over the past year, educators have developed curricula teaching about the COVID-19 pandemic (Reed 2020; Royce 2020; Sadler et al. 2020). Many of these curricula feature computer simulations of epidemic dynamics (Kelter 2020; Sadler et al. 2020). Because an epidemic pattern is an emergent property of interacting human behaviors, it is crucial for…

A trauma-informed organization serving young children and their families experienced differentials in vaccine uptake. Organization leadership viewed this response through a trauma-informed framework that recognizes legacies of scientific racism and attendant distrust of medical information, particularly new treatments. Trauma-informed frameworks…

COVID-19 is a very complex pandemic. It has affected individuals, different countries and regions of the world equally in some senses and differently in other senses. While sub-Saharan Africa has weathered a range of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, the manner in which the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved necessitates some…

AACRAO Research completed five 60-Second Surveys and four comprehensive reports. Other research-supported work included: supporting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation credit mobility learning portfolio, partnering with NACUBO to create a joint statement on the use of administrative and student success holds, and supporting WICHE in their work…

School-based health services (SBHS) are a convenient, powerful, yet underused strategy to meet student needs and increase equitable access to healthcare. At a time when the nation is combating a youth mental health crisis and federal education funding is at an all-time high, state leaders can do more to leverage federal funding streams,…

The current COVID-19 pandemic shows how little many people know about viruses. Yet apart from COVID-19, the world has observed epidemic spread of another SARS virus, of the Ebola virus, and of the Zika virus during the last two decades. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is still one of the most dangerous viruses worldwide. Some types of the…

In order to contextualise and make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic, Verity Morgan worked with her school's long-standing partner school in Ghana to devise an innovative project combining history and science, past and present. In this article, Morgan sets out the rationale for the project, her detailed adaptation of a British Council resource and…

This paper presents a novel approach to teaching how vaccines work in the body, and introduces a community outreach project and activity we piloted with youth. Our Nuestra Ciencia program addresses scientific misconceptions among bilingual elementary school children in engaging and scientifically accurate ways. Utilizing analogies and…

War and other forms of conflict are frequently the culprit for disrupted immunization practices, as government attention and funding are diverted elsewhere and people are displaced due to fighting. In other instances, the causes are related to deficiencies in resources and infrastructure, such as limited quantities of vaccinations and/or…