Infectious diseases claim the lives of 17 million people around the world every year, and that number has risen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the average U.S. life expectancy dropped by a year and a half compared to 2019 – the largest decline since World War II. This decrease was even greater among historically marginalized populations. The events…
According to Christopher da Costa, MD, PhD, FIDSA, there is very little in medicine that’s quite as exciting as infectious diseases. The unpredictability of an outbreak of a highly contagious infectious disease that could emerge without warning is fascinating – and the COVID-19 pandemic has been no exception. With more than 20 years of clinical practice experience and over 15 years of experience working predominantly in vaccine and infectious diseases therapeutics clinical development for…
COVID-19 first arrived on U.S. shores in January 2020 with the return of a Snohomish County, Washington, man who had traveled to Wuhan, China, and unwittingly brought back the deadly souvenir. Within weeks, the Seattle region had become the epicenter of the first COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., and Jeffrey Duchin, MD, FIDSA, had the…
In April 2020, Virginia Banks, MD, MBA, FIDSA, was giving a talk on COVID-19 to the National Association of Black Journalists chapter in Cleveland, Ohio, when a question stopped her in her tracks: “Are you aware of the disparities in COVID-19 cases among African American and Latino populations?” they asked. An infectious diseases specialist in Youngstown, Ohio,…
The first role infectious diseases specialist Michael Saag, MD, FIDSA, played in the COVID-19 pandemic was that of a patient. He had just arrived home in Alabama after a 20-hour car ride from New York City with his son, Harry, on March 12, 2020, when Harry spiked a fever. Within days, Dr. Saag also developed symptoms, and he and Harry both tested positive…