School of Public Health faculty experts racked up thousands of news clips this calendar year. The interviews and stories mostly focused on helping the public understand the pandemic threat and how to stay safe and healthy, correcting misinformation whenever possible and sharing the latest science on COVID-19 transmission and vaccine development.
While this selection is only a small sampling of stories in which some of our experts appeared between March-December 2020, they provide a good overview of the topics with which we grappled all year and remind us of how far we’ve come over the course of the past ten months.
Many more public health faculty contributed their expertise this year through interviews with the news media than are represented here. We thank all who contributed for their guidance and insights. Many more stories can be found at:
March
March 28, 2020
NPR: WHO Reviews 'Current' Evidence On Coronavirus Transmission Through Air
Don Milton says that World Health Organization information about the spread of COVID-19 was given to the public prematurely.
WHO said that the virus that causes COVID-19 doesn’t seem to linger in the air or be capable of spreading through the air over distances of three feet. But, Milton said it’s far too soon to know that.
"I think the WHO is being irresponsible in giving out that information. This misinformation is dangerous," Milton told NPR.
March 24, 2020
Amanpour: Dr. Lushniak: 'Stay away from each other'
Dean Boris Lushniak, a former Deputy US Surgeon General, talks with Christiane Amanpour about the global COVID-19 pandemic and the confusion created by President Trump's communication.
April
April 3, 2020
WSJ: What Are the Benefits of Wearing a Face Mask?
Don Milton told The Wall Street Journal that the biggest benefit of wearing a mask is protecting others from you in the event that you are sick or asymptomatic, like protecting the grocery clerks when you go to a grocery store.
"We're in a situation where any little bit makes a difference," said Milton.
April 3, 2020
Rolling Stone: Should You Wear a Mask to Fight Coronavirus? A Top Doctor Weighs In, Angry It Has Come to This
Don Milton describes how the United States has botched the response to the pandemic so much that generalized mask wearing has become part of the conversation. Milton told Rolling Stone that other countries like Singapore and South Korea contained the spread of the virus through robust public health measures and mass testing.
“We have that capability,” he said, “We could have done that.” Because we didn’t, he said. “We’re totally behind the 8-ball here. So we’re desperate.”
April 7, 2020
NBC News: African Americans may be dying from COVID-19 at a higher rate. Better data is essential, experts say
State and federal agencies need to do a better job of documenting and addressing potential racial disparities, said Professor Stephen Thomas to NBC News. He said that African Americans have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and asthma, the underlying conditions that increase risk for COVID-19 complications, yet the data are not including racial and ethnic breakdowns.
"I'm glad that we're all in this together," said Thomas. "But when we're all in this together, the dominant culture doesn't see a reason to talk about different racial and ethnic groups. It's just not even on the radar screen."
April 26, 2020
CNN: If sunlight kills coronavirus, why not try UV lamps?
Donald Milton explains the science behind upper room ultraviolet-C lamps that are used for killing viruses, bacteria and fungi. The technology has become fairly standard in hospitals, clinics and other places where germs could be in the air. They only work if the air is circulating enough to carry the germs up to the level of the lamps, and then bring this disinfected air back down to where people are breathing. But there are safety concerns with using UV light and it should not be used to sterilize the body, as the WHO warned against.
May
May 28, 2020
Mother Jones: Black People Have Suffered the Most From COVID-19. But They’re Still Suspicious of Vaccines
Mother Jones interviewed Sandra Quinn and Amelia Jamison to understand the reasons for mistrust of vaccines among the African American community.
“We know that because of the history of segregation, discrimination, and racism there are reasons [Black] people don’t trust the government,” Quinn told Mother Jones. “The government doesn’t always have their best interest at heart.”
Quinn and Jamison published a study that found stark racial differences in trust in different institutions like drug companies, government institutions, and healthcare providers. Jamison said that while almost nobody trusts pharmaceutical companies, white people are generally more trusting of the government.
May 28, 2020
Business Insider: How bars and restaurants should adapt to the coronavirus
Don Milton explains the relative risks of dining outdoors vs. indoors, saying that while outdoors is better and that "more distance is better," but that being outdoors isn't perfectly safe.
"You can still have to breathe, and be downwind of somebody," he said.
June
6/1/20
Los Angeles Times: Scientists to choirs: Group singing can spread the coronavirus, despite what CDC may say
Don Milton advised choirs and performing arts groups not to gather again to sing in person until a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 becomes widely available, even if that takes two years or more.
"The CDC's earlier recommendations were spot on, and I'm sorry to see that they've changed them," Milton said in an interview. "This is very hazardous, and we really need to not be getting together to sing."
6/9/20
The New York Times: In the W.H.O.’s Coronavirus Stumbles, Some Scientists See a Pattern
Even as the World Health Organization leads the worldwide response to the coronavirus pandemic, the agency is failing to take stock of rapidly evolving research findings and to communicate clearly about them, several scientists, including UMD's Dr. Don Milton, warned on Tuesday. “They have a very early 20th century, very unsophisticated view of what aerosols and airborne transmission are,” said Milton, an expert on public health aerobiology who has criticized the health agency for not advocating for stronger measures to mitigate the virus's spread.
July
July 4, 2020
The New York Times: 239 Experts With One Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne
Don Milton spoke with the New York Times about the possible risks of airborne coronavirus particles, following the letter he co-wrote asking that the World Health Organization change their guidelines to factor in the possibility of airborne transmission. Even cloth masks, if worn by everyone, can significantly reduce transmission, and the W.H.O. should say so clearly, he said.
July 11, 2020
NPR's Goats and Soda: Coronavirus FAQ: How Do I Protect Myself If The Coronavirus Can Linger In The Air?
Don Milton spoke to NPR about recommendations for reducing risk of exposure to aerosols, the tiny microdroplets that can carry the coronavirus and can be expelled when we talk or breathe and stay aloft and travel on air currents.
Moving air disperses the particles in the air and makes it less likely that someone will breathe in a concentrated cloud of infectious virus. Donald Milton, an infectious disease aerobiologist at the University of Maryland and the lead author on the open letter about aerosols, also recommends cleaning indoor air, through air filtration and ultraviolet sanitizing light. "You wouldn't drink water downstream from another town without treating it. But we breathe air from other people without treating it," he says. He and others also described the need to limit the time you are in close contact with others and keeping a buffer of personal space.
July 30, 2020
The Atlantic: We Need to Talk About Ventilation
Dr. Don Milton discusses the science behind airborne transmission and why we should be avoiding the "three C's" - closed spaces, crowded places and close conversations in this article by Zeynep Tufekci.
July 31, 2020
ABC News: As temperatures rise with coronavirus cases, experts eye impact of air conditioning
While individuals can take steps to protect themselves, a growing body of research suggests that indoor spaces with poor ventilation or lack of new air can raise the risk of the virus' spread, according to infectious disease aerobiologist Dr. Donald Milton of the University of Maryland.
“Anytime we are going into a closed environment, we are at higher risk,” Milton told ABC News. He added that he was most concerned about people “going to a cooling center where ... the air conditioning is not filtering air or bringing in outside air -- and a lot of people are close together.”
August
August 1, 2020
NPR: Public Health Expert Calls To Repair Distrust In A COVID-19 Vaccine
Sandra Quinn told NPR that resistance to a coronavirus vaccine doesn't surprise her.
"We have forces that undermine science, contradictory messages day in and day out that create skepticism and diminish trust in government," she said on NPR's Weekend Edition.
Quinn says that boosting American confidence in vaccines starts with educating the public about the vaccine trial processes, which involves robust public health efforts and transparency.
"We can't sugarcoat perceived risk of a vaccine," she said. "Talking about just disease risk to people will not do the trick."
August 5, 2020
WYPR On the Record: Anti-Mask Sentiment Has A History
Marian Moser Jones told WYPR that anti-masks sentiments have been around long before the COVID-19 pandemic—during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, there was an Anti-mask League to combat a mask-wearing mandate in many cities and towns throughout the West. She discusses what we can learn from the Spanish Flu pandemic and how the deadly flu played out in Baltimore.
August 19, 2020
Baltimore Sun: The Big Ten put the health of student-athletes first. It was the right decision. | COMMENTARY
SPH Dean Boris Lushniak, along with Rutgers Dean Perry Halkitis and de Beaumont Foundation CEO Brian Castrucci, wrote in support of the decision by the NCAA’s Big Ten Conference to cancel the fall sports season out of concern for the health of student-athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
8/26/2020
The Atlantic: What the 'Emergency' Blood-Plasma Debacle Reveals
The FDA says that politics didn't play a role in the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of blood-plasma, The Atlantic reported. Plasma technically meets the low bar for EUA, but some believe that EUA should be used with more responsibility.
“Their credibility as a regulatory agency I fear has been damaged already,” Sandra Quinn told The Atlantic.
The FDA has already been under fire for issuing an EUA for hydroxychloroquine after Trump became fixated on the drug, which the agency later rescinded when the drug proved to be ineffective, The Atlantic wrote. With plasma, the agency has again issued a EUA following a loud and public campaign by the president based on little scientific evidence.
September
9/10/2020
Vox: A third of Americans might refuse a Covid-19 vaccine. How screwed are we?
The Covid-19 vaccine development process lacks the public’s trust, Vox reported. Furthermore, the White House is diminishing the credibility of the Food and Drug Administration.
“The public’s trust in the FDA is really critical here,” said Dr. Sandra Quinn, chair the Department of Family Science. “With every effort the White House makes to pressure FDA on decisions, we further risk the credibility of the agency and the likelihood the public will take this vaccine.”
There’s a higher level of hesitancy in Black communities, and it could cause ongoing disproportionate Covid-19 suffering, Vox said.
9/30/2020
CBS News: Three scientists give their best advice on how to protect yourself from COVID-19
CBS's Dr. Jon LaPook turned to three leading scientist, including Dr. Don Milton, to try to clear the air on what's known and on the unanswered questions about how SARS-CoV-2 spreads through air. Acknowledging that the science is still not set in stone, Milton, Linsey Marr and Kimberly Prather shared their best advice on how to think about protecting ourselves, based on their current understanding of the way SARS-CoV-2 can spread.
October
10/2/2020
Amanpour: Former Acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak reacts to President Trump and the First Lady contracting coronavirus
Boris Lushniak, former deputy surgeon general and dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health, spoke to CNN about President Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis and the risks he now faces.
“It’s unpredictable what’s going to happen over the next 10 days with the president and the first lady,” Lushniak said.
“They need to be monitored, they need to take isolation very seriously, and those individuals around them who had contact with them need to take quarantine very seriously.”
10/7/2020
The New York Times: Plexiglass Barriers Won’t Stop the Virus at the Debate, Experts Warn
The vice-presidential debate can be made much safer than with the plexiglass barriers being used, experts in airborne viruses said.
Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris will be seated more than 12 feet apart with barriers between them. But the shields will do nothing to protect Harris if Pence is infected with the virus, which can travel airborne, experts told The New York Times.
“At 12 feet 3 inches apart, spray droplet transmission is not the issue,” said Donald Milton, an aerosol expert at the University of Maryland. “What is the ventilation like? What is the direction of the airflow?”
Experts say the safest solution is to move the debate online.
10/29/20
Washington Post: Is it safe to travel for Thanksgiving? Here’s what health experts are doing for the holiday.
The Washington Post asked three public health experts, including Dr. Neil Sehgal, what they plan to do for the Thanksgiving holiday, how they will make those decisions and what precautions they will take against the novel coronavirus, which has spread to record levels in several states. Sehgal explained he canceled his normal holiday travels to California to see family, citing it was not "worth the risk" but still provided advice for those who still planned to travel on how to do it most safely.
November
11/13/20
Washington Post: Va. to tighten coronavirus restrictions amid rise in infections; Md.’s caseload hits record
Dean Boris Lushniak provides context to the uptick of COVID-19 cases in the Washington region. The region is “following not just the national trend but the worldwide trend” as cases tick upward. He said U.S. caseloads often follow those in Europe by two to four weeks, with that continent recently recording large spikes in cases.
11/30/20
DCist: How Locals Are Making Pandemic Pods Work
Over the past eight months, people have chosen to form social pods or bubbles with close friends, family or neighbors, DCist reported. Pods have become an essential resource for children and adults as they continue navigating the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr. Neil Jay Sehgal, a public health professor at the University of Maryland, told DCist that forming a pod that people can trust and who can discuss their pandemic activities, however, may not always include close friends. This can make conversations uncomfortable yet essential, Sehgal said.
He also mentioned the importance of talking to a sexual partner about safe sex measures during the pandemic.
“If you can’t talk about safer sex practices, you shouldn’t have sex with someone. That is the core of the harm reduction in sexual health and wellness,” Sehgal said. “In the same vein, if you can’t talk to someone about their risk behaviors in society, you probably shouldn’t be in a pod with them.”
December
12/11/20
WYPR Midday with Tom Hall: COVID-19 Vaccines, At Last: What We Need To Know
School of Public Health Dean Boris Lushniak and Department of Family Science Chair Dr. Sandra Quinn talked to WYPR regarding the challenges the nation faces as Covid-19 vaccines roll out.
12/14/20
NBC4: Barbershop Program Helping Customers Get Comfortable With COVID-19 Vaccine
Dr. Stephen Thomas and local barbers talk about building trust with the African American and Latino communities to encourage widespread acceptance and uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.