Emerging COVID-19 news
On March 4, days after Stanford suspended its winter quarter overseas study program in Florence, Italy, the university announced that it will suspend all Bing Overseas Studies Programs for spring quarter out of concern for the health and safety of students. Provost Persis Drell announced on March 6 that all of Stanford's classes will be held online rather than in person for the remaining two weeks of winter quarter and that Admit Weekend, scheduled for April 23-26, has been canceled. The university remains open and research activities, support services and overall university operations continue to function.
In response to the rapidly evolving events, Stanford has activated a campus emergency operations organization focused on actively monitoring the local and global health situation around COVID-19 and coordinating the university’s response. Updates can be found here.
Test, wash hands, repeat.
Last week, as new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the Bay Area, Stanford’s Clinical Virology Laboratory deployed an in-house diagnostic test for use in patients suspected of infection at Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children’s Health. The test delivers results in 12-24 hours; rapid identification of the virus could help slow the spread. As with all currently available tests, it’s not yet clear how long a person needs to be infected before testing positive, or whether someone who's infected could be identified by the test before displaying symptoms, reports Stanford Medicine.
Stan Deresinski, clinical professor of infectious diseases, told KTVU news that the newly available test will likely mean more local cases will be reported, and he cautioned against panic. “There will be a big jump in numbers, at least initially, simply because many, many more people are being tested.”
Bring in the virus hunters.
What’s it like to be a member of an elite squad of contagion hunters who helicopter into outbreaks to halt their spread? In two words, badass and old-school. Clinical assistant professor Seema Yasmin, Stanford Health Communication Initiative’s director of research and education, writes in Rolling Stone about the disease detectives who are working to slow the spread of COVID-19. Modern techniques like rapid genome sequencing help, she writes, but a lot of the work is “boots on the ground.”
We may not all be able to parachute in to save the day, but there are other ways to help. Stanford researchers want your computer to help figure out how a protein on the surface of the coronavirus folds, which could eventually lead to the development of drugs to treat people who are infected, reports The Verge.
Take a deep breath.
Take yourself back to a time before global pandemic and Super Tuesday. How about the year 1972, which, admittedly, had its issues . . . but at least Lake Lag had water. So enjoy that view—or 14 others—while you take a few slow breaths, a simple tactic Stanford studies show relieves stress via a small group of neurons in your brain.
Photo credit: Chuck Painter
March Madness, easy on the madness.
As president of the WNBA Players Association, Nneka Ogwumike, ’12, is winning better salaries and benefits for WNBA players with the help of other former Cardinal players, including her sister Chiney Ogwumike, ’14. “A lot of people called it groundbreaking. But it’s more ground-establishing,” Chiney told STANFORD magazine. Stanford Alumni Association president Howard Wolf, ’80, sat down with Amy Brooks, '96 MBA '02, the NBA’s chief innovation officer, to talk about her path to the NBA, her favorite moments playing for Stanford, and the future of the leagues on the podcast Stanford Pathfinders. And Cardinal women’s basketball is one of 16 teams that could potentially host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament later in March, so stay tuned. At press time, Stanford Athletics was working with Stanford Environmental Health & Safety to establish attendance guidelines for each venue and will limit the number of attendees in order to allow for sufficient social distancing.
But wait, there’s more.
Only 4% of sports journalism coverage is about women’s sports. To bridge the gender gap, former Cardinal soccer player Haley Rosen, ’15, MA '16, founded a media platform dedicated to women’s sports.
Elizabeth Wallace, ’18, was six months into her teaching stint in Indonesia when she taught a lesson on the Ant and the Grasshopper, about the importance of hard work and planning ahead. But her students showed her the flip side of this Aesop’s fable.
In order to develop futuristic tech such as quantum computers, scientists will need to be able to control photons, the basic particles of light. But that’s hard. So scientists found a way to trick them into behaving like electrons—which they control easily using magnetism.
Becoming an independent consultant may be an appealing career prospect, but going it alone isn’t for everyone, says longtime strategy and marketing consultant Robbie Kellman Baxter, MBA '96. Baxter offers advice on making the transition, including planting seeds while you’re still working at a conventional job by building your network and asking yourself some questions before you take the plunge. “People simply underestimate how different it is from working full time for an organization: the selling, infrastructure management, costs, loneliness. Nothing drives home the financial impact like paying for your own insurance the first time. That can be a real shock!”
How do babies learn language? And is it the same across languages and cultures? Mike Frank, ’03, built Wordbank, an open-source database, to find out.
Connecting with new people may be the last thing on your mind right now, but when you’re ready to dip your (sanitized) toe back into the dating pool, consider this: The idea that a population of available singles can be analyzed as a marketplace or an economy may be discouraging, commodifying and alienating, but Nobel laureate and economics professor Alvin Roth, MS '73 PhD '74, says we can’t blame dating apps. The idea of a dating market, he says, has been around since long before Tinder. “Have you ever read any of the novels of Jane Austen? Pride and Prejudice is a very market-oriented novel. Balls were the internet of the day. You went and showed yourself off.” Just bring your social distancing yardstick with you for now.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
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