You may have noticed more people around you with a runny nose, chills or coughing. These can be the telltale symptoms of COVID-19, the highly infectious disease that is making a come-back this fall, now with a new strain in the mix. 

With the help of Dr. Donald Milton, a School of Public Health environmental health professor and renowned airborne disease expert, the World Health Organization (WHO) wants to change how people across medical and scientific fields talk about transmission of respiratory viruses like COVID-19.

The study, published March 16 in Obstetrics & Gynecology, found pregnancy-related deaths climbed to 45.5 per 100,000 live births in 2021, up from rates of 36.7 in 2020 and 29 pre-pandemic. The deaths include people who died while pregnant or within one year of the end of their pregnancy due to a condition related to or aggravated by the pregnancy.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts have taken a disproportionate toll on American mothers who were pregnant or just gave birth. Maternal mortality (i.e., deaths during pregnancy or in the early postpartum period) increased by 18% in 2020, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, exceeding the ~16% increase in overall US mortality in 2020.

Results of a new study led by the University of Maryland School of Public Health show that people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 exhale infectious virus in their breath – and those infected with the Alpha variant (the dominant strain circulating at the time this study was conducted) put 43 to 100 times more virus into the air than people infected with the original strains of the virus.

Washington, D.C., June 2, 2021 – President Biden today announced the formation of a White House-backed partnership between the University of Maryland’s Maryland Center for Health Equity, the Black Coalition Against COVID and the beauty and personal care brand SheaMoisture to recruit 1,000 Black-owned barb

Getting ready to ditch your mask as the percentage of the U.S. population vaccinated against COVID-19 steadily rises? Not so fast, warns Dr. Donald Milton, professor of applied environmental health at the University of Maryland and a leading expert on how viruses spread through the air.