Princeton disease ecologist C. Jessica Metcalf and Harvard physician and epidemiologist Michael Mina say that predicting disease could become as commonplace as predicting the weather. The Global Immunological Observatory, like a weather center forecasting a tornado or hurricane, would alert the world, earlier than ever before, to dangerous emerging pathogens like SARS-CoV-2.
When a local hospital experienced a surge in coronavirus patients last spring, it tapped Princeton University researchers for urgent solutions to help protect its healthcare workers.
Since then, University labs have delivered more than 3,000 reusable face shields to hospital staff in the emergency department and other areas of Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center, as well as 1,500 specialized covers for the powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs) used by medical workers in high-risk environments. University labs recently received a request for another 1,000 PAPR covers.
The alarming rate at which COVID-19 has killed Black Americans has highlighted the deeply embedded racial disparities in the U.S. health care system.
Princeton researchers now report that low-income Black households also experienced greater job loss, more food and medicine insecurity, and higher indebtedness in the early months of the pandemic compared to white or Latinx low-income households.
Measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 through non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as mask wearing and social distancing are a key tool in combatting the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. These actions also have greatly reduced incidence of many other diseases, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
An invention to apply plasma to frequently touched items for continuous disinfection could provide a safe and effective, non-chemical way to reduce pathogens on various surfaces such as keypads, escalator handrails and other high-touch surfaces, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) inventors say.
The invention (patent pending) directs cold plasma from different orientations to keep surfaces disinfected without hand sanitizer, sprays, ultraviolet light or other chemical-based solutions.
For the first time, researchers have directly visualized how speaking produces and expels droplets of saliva into the air. The smallest droplets can be inhaled by other people and are a primary way that respiratory infections like COVID-19 spread from person to person.
With implications for the transmission of diseases like COVID-19, researchers have found that ordinary conversation creates a conical, "jet-like" airflow that quickly carries a spray of tiny droplets from a speaker’s mouth across meters of an interior space.
A study of more than a half-million people in India who were exposed to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 suggests that the virus’ continued spread is driven by only a small percentage of those who become infected.
A survey of Princeton researchers who returned this summer to on-campus laboratory-based activities found a high level of compliance with the University's health and safety protocols.
New research suggests that the impact of natural and vaccine-induced immunity will be key factors in shaping the future trajectory of the global coronavirus pandemic, known as COVID-19.
