The first case of Flurona has been reported in the United States. Doctors say the co-infections are a mix between Influenza and Covid, where patients will show positive results for both viruses. Health care professionals say the best defense is the vaccine, in addition to wearing masks and social distancing. Doctors recommend surgical masks, like an N-95, which provides the best protection, unlike cloth masks that don’t guard against the transmission of respiratory fluids. Flurona symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, runny nose, body aches and sore throat. “Every year we get the annual Flu shot and it is still important this year, especially when we know that we have a very super-infectious variant circulating and we don’t want to get co-infections with Flu and Omicron,” said Wayne State University professor of infectious diseases Dr. Teena Chopra, MD, MPH. “Respiratory viruses have a very similar way of transmission. You know influenza transmission is through droplet infections, whereas Omicron, which is coronavirus, we know to be airborne and highly infectious.”  

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $4.3 million to the Wayne State University Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases. The funds will increase lab facilities to collect and analyze genomic data to address emerging infectious disease threats and enhance the state’s ability to respond to those threats. The funding, part of $18.5 million provided to WSU, Michigan Tech University, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, will increase infectious disease sequencing capacity in the state, beginning with the COVID-19 virus. “COVID-19 has clearly demonstrated that we need more lab capacity in the state, and specifically in southeast Michigan,” said Marcus Zervos, M.D., co-director of the WSU Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases and COVID-19 advisor to the City of Detroit. “We must be prepared for the next mutation or the next disease.” 

Mark Satta, assistant professor of philosophy at Wayne State University, wrote an article analyzing an upcoming case that the Supreme Court will hear, Shurtleff v. Boston, which addresses whether the city violated the First Amendment by denying a request to temporarily raise the Christian flag on a flagpole outside City Hall, where Boston has temporarily displayed many secular organizations’ flags. Satta writes that the case raises important questions about free speech at a time when many members of the Supreme Court seem concerned about restrictions on religion. The court’s decision will likely clarify one or more free speech doctrines, impacting how courts nationwide interpret the First Amendment’s guarantees. 

Kevin Ketels, assistant professor of teaching in global supply chain management at Wayne State University, shares his insights about the ongoing supply chain and inflation issues. As ongoing supply chain problems impact nearly every industry, some have accused the meat industry of unnecessarily raising prices to increase profit. Ketels says understanding the issue depends greatly on perspective. “If you’re asking the president, he’s saying there’s too much consolidation within the meat processors: they’ve cornered the market. In 1977, we had four firms that controlled 25% of meat processing – it’s about 80% today. That allows them to, perhaps, dictate price and so they have more control,” he said. “If you ask them, they would say that all costs are up: Costs for fertilizer, packaging, transportation, storage, labor. All of those expenses are up, and they’re driving prices up. Plus, demand is up.” Ketels said that he suspects many factors are contributing to the increase in prices, and most of those factors originate with the pandemic and subsequent conditions.   

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced that four universities in the state will be receiving $18.5 million in federal funding over the next two years to expand sequencing for COVID and other infectious diseases. Funding will be distributed to Wayne State University, Michigan Tech University, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan. The funding will be used to collect and analyze genomic data to address emerging infectious disease threats and enhance the state’s ability to respond to those threats.  

Professor Christopher Lund has been named Wayne State University Law School’s new associate dean for research and faculty development. The role, which was first held by professor Jonathan Weinberg, supports and promotes faculty scholarship and academic achievement. Since joining Wayne Law in 2009, Lund has taught a variety of courses, including torts, contracts, Constitutional law, religious liberty in the United States, and evidence, as has been voted Professor of the Year seven times. “During his time at Wayne Law, professor Lund has established himself as an amazing partner for the school, and has been a leading scholar in the field of religious liberty,” said Dean Richard A. Bierschbach. “I know how valuable his insights will be in his new role. He is the ideal choice to continue the outstanding work professor Weinberg has done to showcase the local, national and global impact our faculty have.”  

By Jake Bekemeyer  Wayne State University announced AVL, one of the world’s largest automotive development, simulation, and testing company headquartered in Plymouth Township, is expanding its University Partnership Program for the next generation of engineers. As part of the program expansion, AVL will provide multiple departments in the College of Engineering with access to its full portfolio of cutting-edge simulation software tools, including the AVL Cruise M, AVL Excite, AVL Fire, AVL VSM, and Model.CONNECT. “As part of our strategy to close the skills gap, we want our students to have access to the latest technologies that industry leaders are using to foster innovation and grow their businesses,” said Farshad Fotouhi, dean of the College of Engineering and professor of computer science. “This partnership with AVL allows us to integrate these technologies into our curriculum and provide even greater learning experiences with real-world applications.” Gene Liao, professor of engineering technology and director of the electric-drive vehicle engineering graduate program, says that his students will use these tools in course homework assignments, term projects, and directed study for modeling and simulation. 

By Paul Vachon  Lars Johnson, assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State University, participated in an interview about the future of the workplace. He said the most effective way for employers to address the current labor circumstances is to listen closely to the personal concerns of workers and potential hires. In his view, the post-pandemic economy presents an opportunity for employers to rewrite the traditional social contract between management and worker. These include concerns over workplace safety, flexible scheduling, adequate compensation, and greater respect for employee work-life balance. “The pandemic forced people into their homes and out of their normal work routines, due to either remote work, layoff, or termination, so people had to find alternate modes of work,” he said. “The pandemic shifted the labor market in ways we couldn’t account for. People realized the conditions in which they worked were problematic.”  

As omicron COVID-19 cases skyrocket in Michigan, hospitalizations are increasing as well – although at a far slower rate – and prompting concerns about capacity. Even though the variant is mild for most, the wave has increased hospital admissions statewide by 400 in one week, a 10% rise, while forcing hundreds of critical health care workers to quarantine. Just a few weeks after hospitalizations dropped from a peak of nearly 4,800 patients, the health care system is girding again for another COVID-19 crunch, which may be less lethal but could tax its ability to provide care. On Monday the state reported 61,235 new infections for the past five days, an average of 12,247. For the past week, the daily average of 12,442 is up 65% from the previous week’s average of 7,533 daily cases. Dr. Teena Chopra, director of the Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases and a professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine works with local hospitals and said that although a smaller fraction of those who get infected are requiring hospital care, the previously unseen scale of infections is still leading to hundreds of people sick enough to require a hospital visit, especially in Detroit which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state. “The sheer numbers are so huge, the hospitals are getting overwhelmed,” Dr. Chopra said.

The United States is experiencing a shortage of more than 80,000 truck drivers, according to an estimate from the American Trucking Associations. The ATA also estimates that 72% of America’s freight transport moves by trucks, which shows just how dependent consumers are on the drivers who deliver turkeys to sores or gas to pumps or the Christmas presents you order to your doorstep. This is not just an American problem. Truck haul comparable amounts of freight in places like the European Union and China, and countries and regions around the world, are experiencing driver shortages. This is also not a new problem. Analysts and industry groups have warned of truck driver shortages for years, around the globe. But supply chain disruptions during the pandemic and surges in demand have made this slow-rolling crisis much more acute. The first thing to know about the truck driver shortage, experts say, is that it’s not exactly a shortage. “It’s a recruitment and retention problem,” said Michael Belzer, a trucking industry expert and professor at Wayne State University. “There are in fact millions of truck drivers – people who have commercial driver’s licenses – who are not driving trucks and are not using those commercial driving licenses, more than we would even need,” Belzer said. “That’s because people have gotten recruited into this job, maybe paid to get trained in this job, and realize, ‘This is not for me. This is not adequate for what I’m doing.’”  

Poco Kernsmith, professor, Erin B. Comartin, assistant professor, and Sheryl Kubiak, dean and professor, from the Wayne State University School of Social Work, have studied women who have been convicted of sexual assault, abuse and human trafficking, as well as public attitudes toward sex offenders. These scholars wrote an article outlining key takeaways about female sex offenders present in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial and verdict. The British socialite has been convicted for her role in luring and grooming girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell was found guilty of five counts, including sex trafficking a minor, and now faces a maximum sentence of 65 years behind bars. Maxwell’s trial provided an opportunity for victims of Epstein and Maxwell to give testimony about the abuse they experienced, and the case also highlights the importance of understanding sex offenses perpetrated by women.  

The Wayne State University College of Nursing has received a $1.6 million grant from the state Department of Health and Human Services to educate more mental health and psychiatric nurse practitioners. Umeika Stephens, graduate specialty coordinator for psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners at Wayne State University and a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Detroit, said it is important to have providers who can assess patients’ mental health needs holistically.  “Our goal is to make sure that when patients are able to come in, that they’re able to see a psychiatric nurse practitioner,” Stephens said. “They’re able to see somebody who can not only do therapy, but also prescribe medication for them if they needed it.”  

By Darren Cunningham  The interest in keeping up with COVID and its variants varies from person to person. Some opt to just follow the protocols; others want to know the science behind the severity and transmissibility. Scientists say the newest strain, omicron, spreads quicker than delta but is less severe. Doctors, including Dr. Phillip Levy, a professor of emergency medicine and researcher at Wayne State University, said it's important to keep in mind most of the studies on omicron so far have been conducted in South Africa, a different population with younger people being infected. “So, when you say, ‘could it be more severe?’ It wouldn’t be more severe because omicron itself becomes something different. I mean that could happen, and it may create a new severe variant which would have a new Greek alphabet naming structure. But omicron itself, we still just don’t know what it’s going to do when it hits our population,” said Dr. Levy.

By Malachi Barrett  Culture war controversy surrounding critical race theory gained new ammunition when a Detroit superintendent acknowledged the concept’s influence on anti-racist efforts in his school district. Conservative activists in Michigan and across the country packed school board meetings this year to denounce the teaching of critical race theory – a graduate-level academic framework that examines how racial groups are affected differently by legal systems and institutions. School officials assert CRT is not part of any curriculum in Michigan, but educators are making commitments to understand their own biases and provide students with a wider view of history. Truman Hudson, a professor of teacher education at Wayne State University, said conversations around CRT have become messy because the term is applied too broadly. Critical race theory is a way of thinking about history, Hudson said, and examining the role of race, class, and gender. Hudson said some of the confusion stems from educators themselves, who also conflate CRT with course material. “This is one lens that we can take to explore historic events in this country,” Hudson said. “The unfortunate part is when you start talking about race, it gets misconstrued that it’s CRT, but it doesn’t have to be. The reality is that race is a concern in this country with or without the framework of CRT.”  

Wayne State University announced that classes for the Winter 2022 semester will begin online, as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise, largely due to the omicron variant. The measure is temporary, and classes are scheduled to return to in-person formats on Monday, January 31. The university has also instituted a COVID-19 vaccine booster mandate. 

By Ethan Bakuli  Chronic absenteeism rose significantly for Detroit district students last year as families continued to deal with financial, logistical, and health ramifications of the COVID pandemic. A new Wayne State report shows that 70% of Detroit students were chronically absent – missing 10% or last school year – compared with 62% in 2018-2019. About 54% were described as severely chronically absent, meaning they missed 20% or more of the year. The report comes from a representative survey of more than 800 Detroit families as well as student attendance records and administrative data provided by the Detroit school district. At the core of the study’s results, according to Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, an assistant professor of education at Wayne State, are the ongoing social and economic barriers that chronically absent students face, particularly the difficult choices that families are forced to make in order to meet the expectation of good attendance without an adequate kind of social support structure. “We talked to families who had to quit their jobs to make sure their kids are in schools,” Lenhoff said. “Maybe their child’s attendance is better, but then they’re unemployed, and they’re not making any money.”  

Wayne State University officials announced that boosters will be required for all students, faculty and staff beginning Jan. 3. In a letter to the campus community, school officials said the decision was prompted by the alarming spread of the COVID-19 omicron variant. Recently, both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University made similar decisions. The Campus Health Center is offering all vaccines and boosters, with several booster clinics scheduled in the near future. 

Wayne Health has been hosting drive-through clinics on Mack Avenue to provide monoclonal antibody treatments, which can be the difference between life and death for those most vulnerable to severe illness from COVID-19. But amid Michigan’s worst-yet coronavirus surge, there’s not enough supply of monoclonal antibodies nor are there enough health care workers to administer them. “COVID testing and vaccinations remain our pillar, but we’re also very heavily engaged in monoclonal antibody infusions, which are a great way to prevent people who do contract COVID – particularly high-risk individuals – from getting sick to the point where they require hospitalization or at risk for dying,” said Dr. Phillip Levy, professor of emergency at Wayne State University, chief innovation officer for Wayne Health, and assistant vice president for research. Levy said when the virus attacks the body, it’s like an internal war in which coronavirus particles are the invaders pitted against the antibody soldiers a person’s immune system has called to defend it. “The monoclonal antibodies basically are a pharmaceutical version of the antibodies your body would produce anyway to fight off the virus. And by taking these antibodies and sort of bolstering your natural immune system, you get more soldiers, more fighters against the virus,” said Dr. Levy.  

Hilary Marusak, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Wayne State University, wrote an article sharing an explanation of the impact exercise has on the body’s natural cannabinoids and the associated benefits for mental health and stress relief. The “runner’s high” has long been attributed to endorphins, but research from Marusak’s lab found that exercise reliably increases levels of the body’s endocannabinoids – which are molecules that work to maintain balance in the brain and body – in a process called “homeostasis.” This natural chemical boost may better explain some of the beneficial effects of exercise on brain and body.  

City leaders in Detroit say they’ve got proof that the city was severely undercounted in the 2020 Census, meaning Detroit likely missed out on tens of millions of dollars in future federal funding. Mayor Mike Duggan and researchers with Wayne State University and the University of Michigan outlined evidence during a press conference Thursday suggesting the city may have been undercounted by about 8%. The report used data from the United States Postal Service and a Wayne State audit of 10 block groups in the city shows the census may have missed about 964 residents in those areas alone.