Media Coverage

The role of University Institutional Review Boards is to approve university research projects involving human subjects. The IRB-approval process ensures that all the necessary steps are taken to protect the rights and safety of people who participate in a research project.  No study involving human subjects can begin and proceed without prior IRB approval.  IRBs apply ethical principles that ensure the well-being of all human participants.   

As colleges and universities reopened in the fall of 2020, many emerged as hot spots of Covid-19 transmission. The narrative that has emerged to explain this centers on irresponsible, party-going 20-somethings who refuse to listen to reason. Some schools have expelled students who held gatherings in their dorms. A few governors have called out these students as drivers of the epidemic. With no national Covid-19 control plan in sight, it may be politically expedient to blame youths for the nation’s woes.

Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute’s COVID-19 Simulator website have designed a new tool that focuses on a particular potential superspreader event: football games. The new tool, called the COVID-19 Football Tracker, arose from a collaboration among Harvard Medical School, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Boston Medical Center. The feature is an extension of the Institute’s existing COVID-19 Outbreak Detection Tool, which visualizes the effects of different COVID-19 prevention measures.

Coronavirus cases are trending up in a number of states, forecasting a fall surge that could push hospitals to capacity and deplete already scarce supplies. Experts worry that hospital systems in hard-hit areas may not be ready.

This year has been a parade of unprecedented events, and the early voting in the general election is proving to be no exception. Through Thursday, more than 78 million Americans had voted. Of those early votes, more than 51 million — or approximately two-thirds — were mail ballots, according to the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida.