University of Arizona in the News

University of Arizona alumna and Las Vegas special education teacher Juliana Urtubey was named the newly named 2021 National Teacher of the Year.

The nation's food supply depends on more than 2 million farmworkers. Yet they are among the hardest of essential workers to get vaccinated for a variety of challenges, including the remoteness of farms from vaccine sites, long work hours, transportation, immigration status, language barriers, and lack of health insurance. The University of Arizona Health Sciences' mobile vaccine unit covers all of Maricopa County and tries to reach all underserved populations. At 9,200 square miles, Maricopa County is one of the largest counties in the U.S. and is as big as New Hampshire.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that five million people in the U.S., roughly 8% of those who received a first dose, have missed their second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. Yet many scientists see a glimmer of hope: 8% missed means 92% returned, which is surprisingly high. "I see that as a really amazing win," said Saskia Popescu, an infection prevention epidemiologist at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas, writes that Andrew Comrie, "a former University of Arizona Provost and a professor of Geography, Development and Environment, has written the most accessible, thorough and fair-minded account of how colleges and universities have responded to cost pressures and resource limitations that I have read."

University of Arizona women's basketball head coach Adia Barnes was among those featured on NBC's special, "Inspiring America: The 2021 Inspiration List," hosted by Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.

Medina Spirit won the 147th Kentucky Derby, giving University of Arizona alumnus and Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert a record seventh victory.

Epidemiologists say they want to see the U.S. vaccination rate to get a little bit higher before resuming eating indoors at restaurants. "It's not just that indoor dining checks one box, it's that it checks many of them," said Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Arizona. "All of those things make it higher risk."

Earlier this week, most observers were surprised when the U.S. Census numbers were released and Arizona did not gain a 10th congressional seat. There was speculation about undercounting and whether members of the Latino community didn’t participate in large numbers, at least in part because of concerns about how the Trump administration might use the information. Jason Jurjevich, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Arizona, is interviewed.

There is no government data yet on whether health authorities' 10-day halt in administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine soured people on the product, and the company declined to discuss the matter. But in spot checks across the country, people seeking vaccines and officials dispensing them appear eager to resume using the vaccine, which is also easier to store and transport. At the University of Arizona, the vaccination campaign has relied heavily on the Pfizer shots because the school has the substantial special freezer capacity required to store those doses.

Cotton farmers in Arizona started planting genetically modified cotton in 1996 in an effort to eradicate an invasive species of moth from Asia or Australia known as the pink bollworm. A recent study from the University of Arizona shows that farmers were able to eradicate the pest with the help of a coordinated, multifaceted program across the Southwest and northern Mexico among university, federal and state scientists, individual cotton growers and the cotton industry.