To better understand the psychological factors underlying this commitment to individual prevention measures, a team of psychology researchers led by Michael Cunningham at the University of Louisville surveyed several groups of people about their attitudes and responses. The studies, published in in April, revealed associations between individuals’ response to prevention measures and their belief in the credibility of science, control and coping mechanisms and political orientation.

Cunningham and colleagues at UofL, York College in Pennsylvania and FifthTheory, a digital assessment and survey solutions company in Chicago, conducted a series of three online surveys to delve deeper into the psychological determinants of COVID-19 prevention behaviors.

The first study of the series surveyed students, faculty and staff at two higher education institutions in the U.S. The researchers compared respondents’ assessments on the a measure of acceptance of responsibility and adherence to prevention measures, with additional questions to determine respondents’ belief in the credibility of science, political orientation and beliefs about the virus and the degree to which preventing an infection was within an individual’s control.

It showed that those who attributed COVID-19 safety to personal effort rather than inherent ability or outside forces, who had a progressive political orientation and who believed in the credibility of science were more likely to embrace COVID-19 prevention actions such as wearing masks, social distancing and vaccination.

The study began before the COVID-19 vaccine was available, but once the Pfizer vaccine received Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in December 2020, the team added questions to the survey about willingness to take the vaccine. This gave them insight into attitudes both before and after respondents were confident a vaccine would be a reality.

“The attitudes about the pandemic may differ depending on what you think the solutions are going to be, so issues of sensitization and denial and repression may come in to play slightly differently when you think there is a solution versus when you don’t,” Cunningham said. “We were thinking a vaccine would come but we didn’t all know when it was going to hit, so when it did in December of 2020, that changed the equation quite a bit.”

After the vaccine received authorization, responses to the survey shifted slightly, showing that individuals had become less committed to personal carefulness and health-consciousness to avoid the illness and less likely to believe that becoming ill from the virus was due to fate or luck.

The second study in the series addressed work-related attitudes related to the pandemic. The researchers surveyed adults across the U.S. and found that an intention to be vaccinated corresponded to a willingness to work, less emotional distress and greater focus on customer experience.

The third study documented the personal attributes and motives of individuals who volunteered to help administer vaccines in Kentucky. Nearly 60% of those individuals were motivated by a desire to help others, whereas almost 40% said they volunteered so they could receive the vaccine themselves. Compared to the general population, the survey found the volunteers more likely to be older, to have higher levels of education, to believe in the credibility of science, vote liberal and attribute COVID-19 protection to personal effort.

The results of these studies led the researchers to propose a COVID-19 mindset hierarchy model that ranks individuals in terms of their response to pandemic. The model goes from the most basic level 1, acceptance vs. denial of COVID-19, to the most mature level 5, in which individuals become involved in community-based eradication efforts. The knowledge base incorporated in the model is useful in shaping health safety messaging going forward, not only with COVID, but with monkeypox and other plagues that have not yet emerged.

Cunningham and his team are planning additional research to further understand the psychological impact of the pandemic and related losses, to validate the COVID-19 mindset hierarchy and to examine the relation of COVID behaviors to more general health care related topics, such as support for a single-payer system.

Her desire to work in health care stems from the empathy and compassion nurses showed her during one of the most difficult times in her life. Abdulnur shares with UofL News more about her story and future career goals.

UofL News:��Describe how nurses influenced your decision to pursue the profession.

Abdulnur:��During my hospitalization for a [SLE] flare-up, I lost a lot of hope that I could pursue nursing due to my new diagnosis. However, I had a specific nurse, her name was Taylor – I could never forget – who encouraged me to keep going. Her words really inspired me and was most of the reason I decided to pursue nursing.

Nurses are so empathetic and compassionate, and seeing a first-hand example of this really widened my perspective and increased my respect towards the profession. I also observed the same when my grandmother was hospitalized for a severe stroke, and the nurses comforted us during an emotional time.

I was already considering a nursing major during that time due to my family history – my mom was a nurse in England, her mother in Jamaica, and there is just a long line of nurses in my family. I also have a passion for giving others hope and bringing them to their best selves.��

��UofL News:��What has surprised you about nursing school?

Abdulnur: I knew that nursing school would be hard, but no one really talks about how hard it can be mentally. There are so many things in our personal lives that can occur alongside school, and it almost feels like you are trying to juggle everything and stay afloat. Sometimes I find myself trying to take it day by day, or week by week because everything is so overwhelming. Things can be completely calm one week, and then the next it’s like you have three exams, eight assignments and a paper due within days. It really keeps you on your toes, especially when you are trying to balance school with aspects of your personal life.

UofL News:��Why did you choose UofL?

Abdulnur:��I chose UofL for two reasons: the proximity and scholarships. I am from Louisville, and I felt too connected with my family to be hours away from home. It’s nice to be able to separate my personal life from my school life and still be able to drive 15 or 20 minutes to see my family. It was also extremely helpful that UofL offers the Porter Scholarship for African-American and Hispanic students.

UofL News:��What is it like to be in nursing school during a pandemic?

Abdulnur:��It is extremely challenging. A major roadblock I hit was at the beginning of the pandemic when all classes were online. I do not learn well from recorded lectures; I have to physically be there in class. Because of this major change, my grades plummeted. I still passed, but it was a major setback. I had to completely modify how I learned and how I studied just to fit around the changes being made due to Covid. All of my classes are in person this semester, but even clinicals are altered, as we cannot shadow critical care units, the specialty I was most looking forward to, since I want to be an ER nurse.

UofL News:��What advice would you give someone considering nursing school?

Abdulnur:��I would tell them it is definitely worth it. Sometimes nursing can be challenging, but no good thing ever comes easy. There are so many rewarding moments, even as a student in clinicals where you realize that you love what you do. If you have a passion for nursing, all the studying and exams and stress will be worth it in the end – it already is worth it for me!

Adrianne Kelly contributed to this story.

Of course, we’ve since learned the COVID-19 pandemic, and all of the uncertainties that come with it, remains. Still, 2021 seemed a little different. We know a little more about this virus, for example, and can make better mitigation efforts.

For UofL, that has meant a return to in-person operations while maintaining some hybrid elements. It meant masks and pop-up vaccination sites and plenty of continued mindfulness about safety. It meant a non-traditional raiseRED dance marathon, a livestreamed International Fashion Show and a Commencement ceremony at Cardinal Stadium for the first time ever.

In other words, it meant we carried on as a community – carefully, collaboratively – understanding that time doesn’t stop and neither do we. Our Cardinal spirit was on full display during 2020. In 2021, we brought that spirit to the next level��– achieving records and reaching milestones while illustrating that not even a lingering global pandemic can slow us down.

Here are just a few of the highlights from the past year to instill pride and to motivate us into 2022.

Pandemic-inspired

When the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S., UofL went to work with an all-hands-on-deck mentality, searching for solutions, helping others and creating effective workarounds. That mentality continued in 2021 and extended to our pedagogical efforts. Our online learning programs experienced a 40% growth in the face of the pandemic, for example, while our law and dental faculty received an international award for creating a novel online teaching method in these new times.

Outside of the classroom, when vaccinations became available in late 2020, our UofL Health team was the first to step up and get the injection to prove their safety and efficacy. And when the city rolled out mass vaccinations, our medical, nursing and public health students and faculty were on the front lines. ��

As new variants appear, our groundbreaking COVID-19 wastewater research continues to provide critical learnings and is now backed by a CDC grant for $8.6 million.

Our School of Medicine joined a handful of other organizations, including local activist Christopher 2X’s nonprofit Game Changers, to launch a new campaign with a goal of ensuring all children have access to a face mask.

Diversity wins

Of course, our focus extends well beyond the pandemic. During summer 2020, former president Neeli Bendapudi announced a plan for UofL to become the premier antiracist metropolitan research university in the country. Several major steps have been taken since, including new hires and courses.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. For the eighth year, UofL has been named a recipient of the Higher ����ֱ�� Excellence in Diversity Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, for example.��

Toyota invested $1.7 million this year to increase opportunities for underrepresented students and assist them in earning engineering degrees at UofL. Further, the inaugural class of graduates from the Louisville Teacher Residency Program began their teaching careers with JCPS. The program is a collaboration between JCPS and the UofL College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development to recruit more teachers of color. And, our Brandeis School of Law is addressing barriers to opportunities for lawyers of color in the underrepresented environmental law niche.

Notably, UofL recently opened a new Cultural and Equity Center, which brings together several offices that provide resources and create a sense of belonging for underrepresented students. The center is home to the Office of Diversity ����ֱ�� and Inclusive Excellence, Cultural Center, LGBT Center, Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice and the Women’s Center. ��

Research 1 Institution

UofL especially lived up to its status as a Carnegie-designated Research 1 institution this year, garnering a record-breaking $201.5 million in research funding for the fiscal year. This is more than $30 million over the previous record set a year earlier and supports work addressing some of the biggest global problems of our time. Our research literally spans the cosmos, and has yielded opportunities for education, training and policy development to address child trafficking in Kentucky; realized the health benefits of living in areas of high greenness;��and turned invasive plant species that threaten local ecosystems into art.

Further, a team of UofL researchers is developing a pilot program for the city that will divert a portion of 911 calls to health, behavioral health and ancillary services. In March, the National Institutes of Health provided a $7.8 million grant to fund work at ���Ǵڳ�’s Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center, in collaboration with Medtronic, to develop and test software applications designed for spinal cord injury. Not long after that, the NIH also provided UofL with an $11.3 million grant to support research into liver-related illness.

Don’t expect anyone at UofL to rest on research laurels, either. The Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute (LARRI) just opened a 10,000-square-foot space dedicated to research, education and collaboration in robotics, for example.��Researchers from UofL are also working with Eli Lilly and Company in a clinical trial to determine whether its monoclonal antibody treatment, bamlanivimab, can reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities.

Meanwhile, faculty in ���Ǵڳ�’s College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development are conducting research to help JCPS school leaders create systems and structures that allow for equitable experiences for students and staff, and��UofL and��Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF)��are collaborating on research that will enhance travelers’ experience and airport operations through innovation.����

This focus on research is reaping plenty of reward as evidenced by UofL-born startup Talaris Therapeutics’ $150 million initial public offering earlier this year. Expect this momentum to continue, as UofL recently opened a new office, called UofL New Ventures, to help launch and grow startup companies built on university research and technologies.

Business and community

Beyond startup support, UofL has proven time and time again that we are dynamically connected to our community as a premier metropolitan university. There were plenty of supporting examples of this connection in 2021. For instance, Kosair Charities granted UofL $6.6 million to support children’s health efforts, including $5.5 million to fund the Kosair Charities Pediatric Neurorecovery Center for another 5 years.

Louisville-based Yum! Brands, one of the largest restaurant companies in the world, partnered with the UofL College of Business to create the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence. The center provides education to future and existing franchising professionals, allowing underrepresented people of color and women to unlock opportunities to create generational wealth.

UofL received a five-year grant totaling $2 million to help minority-owned manufacturing businesses adopt additive manufacturing and 3D printing technology. The Plan Room, a new business accelerator created by OneWest to assist minority-owned construction companies in developing their businesses, began receiving support from the��.

Further, UofL and the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Security Innovation Network entered into an agreement that solidifies collaboration among DoD end-users, UofL students and faculty and Metro Louisville’s early-stage venture community.

And, UofL is one of 32 universities nationwide participating in a U.S. Department of Energy program to help manufacturers in the region improve their energy efficiency. UofL will receive $2.2 million of a $60 million investment in the current cohort of DOE Industrial Assessment Centers program.

Student success

Our students have also proved they’re exceptionally resilient this year, creating change, contributing to innovation and generally just kicking some you-know-what. UofL continued its track record as an institution rife with prestigious scholars, for example, generating more Fulbright scholars than all Kentucky public higher education institutions combined.

In addition, the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, awarded to one college junior in Kentucky each year, went to triple-major Lexi Raikes (English, French, political science), who planned to use the $30,000 scholarship to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Ten students in Professor Chris Reitz’s Art and Activism seminar created the “Promise, Witness, Remembrance” exhibition honoring Breonna Taylor. The exhibition was featured at the Speed Art Museum in the spring.

Two Speed students, Jorge Sanchez and Mercedes Pastor, finished second at an international simulation competition, while music major Benjamin Carter’s “A Winter Night” helped earn him the 2021 Kentucky Music Educators Association Composition Award, and��Sophomore Rawan Saleh was recognized as a top 20 under 20 from the Arab American Foundation for her work to end racism.

A UofL student startup aimed at fighting cancer and led by MD/PhD student Jordan Noe�� won the inaugural CardStart Innovation competition. The startup is developing a new cell-based therapy for the treatment of aggressive solid tumors.

���Ǵڳ�’s Cardinal Battalion Ranger Team finished in the top 10 at the Sandhurst Military Skills Competition. Additionally, nearly 50% of the class earned an “outstanding” ranking at Cadet Summer Training, which means they’re ranked in the top 15% of cadets in the country.

A group of UofL undergraduate students is focused on closing what it calls “the perception gap” through the launch of a new, nonpartisan online magazine. The is modeled after the Harvard Political Review.

A UofL-based Unified Sports basketball team has been selected to represent the state as part of Team Kentucky at the 2022 Special Olympics Games in June. The team combines traditional Special Olympics athletes with teammates who do not have an intellectual disability. It is the first unified team that Special Olympics Kentucky has ever sent to a USA Games.

Our student-athletes achieved a 91% graduation rate this year, matching the Cardinals’ best mark in the Graduation Success Rate report developed 17 years ago by the NCAA. Outside of the classroom, we sent 10 athletes to the Tokyo Olympic Games; Catcher Henry Davis became overall draft pick in the Major League Baseball Draft; our spirit squad won its seventh consecutive national title; and our volleyball team has been ranked No. 1 for much of the season while remaining unbeaten and headed to the Final Four. Further, six of our student-athletes earned a Top 6 for Service award for their community service efforts and our entire athletics department finished second among all Division I NCAA institutions for the Team Works Service Challenge.

Accolades

The accolades certainly didn’t stop on the athletic field. In 2021, UofL was named one of the most “transfer-friendly” schools in the U.S., for example.��

���Ǵڳ�’s fully online programs were also acknowledged by U.S. News & World Report to be among some of the top education opportunities for online students in 2021 across the following categories: Online Bachelor’s, Online Bachelor’s Psychology, Online Graduate Criminal Justice, Online Graduate ����ֱ�� and Online Graduate Engineering.��

For the 12th consecutive year, UofL was recognized for its commitment to serving military-connected students by earning “2021-2022 Military Friendly” institution designation. UofL was one of only 29 Carnegie Designated Tier 1 Research institutions in the nation to earn the designation.

And in September, UofL once again held onto its spot as the top-ranked Kentucky college or university in Sierra Magazine’s 15^th Annual “Cool Schools” rankings.

A bright future ahead

If we’re able to accomplish all of this in a global pandemic, imagine what’s next for UofL. The future is undoubtedly bright, particularly as the Belknap Campus continues its transformation and prepares for new residence halls to open soon. Designed with input from student advisors, the halls create a modern experience aimed at helping students achieve success and providing them with a great place to learn.

We’re also positioned well as a great place in which to invest. Raise Some L, ���Ǵڳ�’s annual day of giving, drew support this year from a record number of donors, including Cardinal fans in all 50 states for the first time. Together, these donors have pledged to fund education, research and community engagement efforts throughout the university.

And we’ve put in the work to ensure we’re a great place to work. UofL recently launched a new Employee Success Center, providing employees with professional development opportunities, onboarding, mentoring, workshops and other engaging initiatives and programs.

Bendapudi announced Dec. 9 that she was leaving to take the same role at Penn State University. Provost Lori Gonzalez has been named interim president, while Josh Heird has been named interim athletic director. We are starting the new year with new leadership and with that comes new opportunities. And, as we’ve especially proven these past two years, nothing can stop us.

The Health Resources and Services Administration has awarded more than $1.2 million over 5 years to the UofL and Norton Children’s project, out of a $48 million award to establish a Regional Pediatric Pandemic Network. The amount awarded to UofL and Norton Children’s is expected to grow throughout the next four years. The project will involve preparing for global health threats, including pandemics, and supporting communities in everyday pediatric readiness.

Charles G. Macias, chief quality officer at University Hospitals�� Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, will lead the project. Mary E. Fallat will head the UofL and Norton Children’s effort.

“We began this work before the global pandemic, and 2020 proved how important it is for hospitals, health care infrastructures, government and private entities to work together to create a coordinated emergency response model,” Macias said. “This grant is an amazing opportunity to grow a national model whose impact can inform all aspects of pediatric preparedness, from daily efforts to global health threats.”

The network brings together five children’s health care facilities but also creates a network of networks—including the nation’s only two federally-funded Pediatric Disaster Centers of Excellence, which are funded through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and the work of the Emergency Medical Services for Children Innovation and Improvement Center, funded through HRSA’s EMSC program.

The Regional Pediatric Pandemic Network includes:

• UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, affiliated with Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio����
• University of Louisville School of Medicine Department of Surgery and Norton Children’s Hospital
• University of California San Francisco and its Benioff Children’s Hospital, Oakland, California����
• University of Utah and Primary Children’s Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Saint Louis University and Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri

This network of children’s hospitals represents a broad geographic diversity and will serve as a hub-and-spoke model of expertise to support efforts for pediatric readiness and disaster/pandemic preparedness by incorporating specific focus areas, called “domains,” such as trauma, equity, analytics and others, to define best practices as supported by the ASPR, HRSA, EMSC, and other existing workgroups.

Norton Children’s Hospital will be the hub for integration of trauma and burns into the network, and Fallat is the principal investigator for the site. The hospital is well positioned for this effort as it has been a leader in pediatric trauma care for the region since the late 1980s, when the hospital administration supported Fallat’s efforts to build a trauma program at the hospital. Norton Children’s Hospital is a Level I American College of Surgeons verified trauma center led by David Foley.

Thanks to support from the community through the Norton Children’s Hospital Foundation, the trauma program remains a regional center for the highest level of emergency care for children. The foundation plans to raise an additional $5 million to further advance the care available to children from throughout Kentucky, Southern Indiana and beyond.��

”This is extremely important work from a number of perspectives,” Fallat said. “The first is that current efforts for national and state preparedness often forget about children. The second is that trauma still claims the lives of more children in this country annually than any other cause. The third is that efforts to prepare for mass casualty events in different domains such as infectious diseases, trauma, natural disasters and others – often operate in silos, and this grant will unite them. Lastly, there is a need in all hospitals to build ’pediatric preparedness’ into the emergency department structure and function, and adult providers need to be a part of this.

“We need to build confidence in community surgeons/emergency providers/trauma teams. Many rural medical providers are used to caring for adults and experience added stress when they are called on to care for children. They want to provide the care but realize and are distressed by a sense of higher stakes,” she said. ��“A goal should be to build a team that can, together with the surgeon, support each other to provide their best care to kids. Extrapolating to the grant at large, this seems a reasonable goal for all aspects of emergency planning.”

The UofL portion of the project also will involve Kristina K. Bryant, professor of pediatrics, system pediatric epidemiologist and infection control, UofL Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases; Beth Spurlin, assistant professor of pediatrics at UofL and director of EMS and mass casualty at Norton Children’s Hospital, and Gena Cooper, assistant professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Kentucky and Kentucky Children’s Hospital.����

“The pandemic’s impact on children and the health care systems that care for children extend beyond the diagnosis and management of infectious diseases to challenges with access to care and a behavioral health crisis,” said Daniel Simon, president, academic and external affairs and chief scientific officer, UH. “This new network will help to accelerate research-informed pediatric care transformation for sick and injured children across national organizations and infrastructures and we are proud to be leading efforts here in Cleveland and the nation.”

Between Aug. 25 and Sept. 1, investigators from the tested nearly 3,000 Jefferson County residents for the to detect the presence of the virus in participants’ nasal swabs by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method and for the presence of antibodies against the virus in their blood.

The results showed that approximately 1.1% of all the participants tested positive for active coronavirus infections. Among vaccinated participants only 0.7% had an active infection, while nearly 5% of unvaccinated participants were actively infected. This number would roughly correspond to 7,260 active infections in the county, a nearly tenfold increase in infection rates over the rates measured in April, despite a sharp increase in vaccinated residents, as shown in Figure 1.

As in previous testing rounds, the team also tested for antibodies in participants. They found that independent of their vaccination status, in both the sampled and volunteer groups, nearly 16% of the participants had natural infection antibodies against the virus suggesting that they must have been infected by the virus in the recent past. These data indicate that in the last few months, at least 100,000 adults in Jefferson County have had COVID-19.

“These results highlight the steep rise in coronavirus infections in our community and provide a startling snapshot of the current state of the pandemic,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, director of the Envirome Institute. “Our estimates suggest that the number of infected individuals may be twice as high as that indicated in public records.

“Our work shows the vaccine is working as intended. Our population was almost 90% vaccinated, much higher than the 64% of fully vaccinated county residents. In the entire cohort, vaccinated people were over 12 times less likely to be infected compared with unvaccinated people. Though in our volunteer group, 65% of the active infections were in fully vaccinated individuals who had received the vaccine earlier this year. Most reported no or mild allergy-like symptoms and did not recognize that it may be a COVID infection thus did not think they needed to get tested.”

The study also provided estimates of where in Jefferson County the infections are most prevalent. To identify infection rates in different areas, the researchers classified the participants into neighborhood zones, as shown in Figure 2.

The highest rate of active infection was found in Zone 3A, or far southwestern Jefferson County. The highest rate of those recently having had an infection was found in Zone 3B, central southern Jefferson County, as shown in Figure 3.

Participants from Zone 3B also reported lower rates of vaccination, although vaccination rates were lowest in Zone 1B in western Jefferson County, as shown in Figure 4.

“Even though nearly 90% of the participants in the entire study population were vaccinated, we had areas that reported as low as 60% vaccination, and the persistence of infection in some geographical areas seems to be related to lower rates of reported vaccination,” said Rachel Keith, associate professor of environmental medicine at UofL who conducted the study. “Our results show that much work remains to be done and that knowing that rates of infection are high in their community may be an added incentive for some individuals to get vaccinated.

“Additionally, knowing that fully vaccinated individuals may still get an active infection allows those individuals to take additional precautions such as masking or testing which helps keep the community safe, including any young or immunocompromised friends and families who may need extra protection.”

“The vaccine is very effective. Nearly 96% of vaccinated individuals had detectable levels of antibodies against the virus in their blood. However, in a small number of people (less than 0.6%) the levels of antibodies were undetectable in our assay, even though these individuals were fully vaccinated,” Keith said. “The lack of a measurable response in some individuals even after vaccination may be due to their health and immune status. We are analyzing our results to find out more about why some rare individuals do not develop high antibody levels in response to vaccination.”

Using the data from more than 7,000 individuals tested over the past year, the team is trying to identify personal and environmental characteristics that increase the risk for coronavirus infection and how vaccination reduces this risk.

For this round of testing, the team collected samples at 13 locations across Jefferson County. Active coronavirus infections were analyzed by Bluewater Labs and antibodies against the virus were assayed at at the .

To randomly sample people from all parts of the city and to include proportional number of individuals of different age and race/ethnicity, researchers at UofL partnered with Westat to mail approximately 30,000 letters asking people to participate in the study. Nearly 1,000 people who responded to this invitation were tested and an additional 1,886 booked their own appointments after hearing about the study in the news or on social media.

This study was supported in part by a contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Additionally, second-year students are invited to join in on the activities to make up for their Welcome Week celebration being held virtually last year.

“Welcome Week is extremely important to our new Cardinal students because it helps them get familiar with their new home,” said Kaitlyn Robinson, assistant director of Welcome Week and Parents Association. “By participating in Welcome Week, they learn about campus resources available to them and make important connections that are going to help carry them during their first year here at UofL.”

With the continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Welcome Week staff are making sure student health and safety is a priority during the events. UofL will follow CDC guidelines, including mask mandates, regardless of vaccination status at any indoor event, surface sanitization and hand sanitizer stations at every Welcome Week event.

Welcome Week this year includes events like Late Night Ice Cream Floats, SOUL, Sunrise Yoga and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity’s Annual Icebreaker. The coordinators have also developed new events for first- and second-year Cards to look forward to, such as the Cardinal Frenzy, Prom and the first-ever Welcome Back Concert.

“I think students are most excited about the Welcome Back concert and Prom this year,” Robinson said.��

Prom is for first and second-year students who did not get to experience their high school prom because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event is about having fun with friends and coming as you are. After five years of trying to get a concert added to the list of events, SHAED will be taking over Cardinal Stadium for the Welcome Back Concert. Students will be able to be on the field for this inaugural event.

With hybrid events offering both in-person and virtual options to join, students can feel safe and included in making those new memories this year. Along with a hybrid event model, Welcome Week staff are introducing a new event that will let Cards experience various cultures from around the world. WorldFest is an opportunity for students to see how their differences are what make them special in this world and UofL.

“There’s never been a Welcome Week like this one before,” Robinson said.

To stay up to date about the events, download the UofL New Cards app from or the . Welcome Week questions can also be emailed to��ffyiatul@louisville.edu.��

If you are fully vaccinated

• You no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance on campus in most settings.
• Be mindful of the specific requirements that still apply with public transportation and health care settings on campus, regardless of vaccination status. For example, Cardinals who wish to use the TARC shuttle services or health care facilities on our campuses will still need to wear a mask. Those settings are still required to abide by the state’s and the Kentucky Health Department’s masking standards, regardless of vaccination status.
• For the foreseeable future, you should continue to carry a mask with you in case you interact with university affiliates, health care facilities or other vendors that have mask requirements in place.

If you are not fully vaccinated

• Continue to wear a mask and practice physical distancing in all public, indoor settings on campus.
• . There are numerous, convenient locations available in our area and beyond.
• Remember, the vaccines are safe and effective. They are among our greatest tools for fighting the pandemic and protecting ourselves, each other and our loved ones.

Vaccine strongly encouraged, not required

At this time, we do not plan to require vaccinations for students or employees this summer or fall. We do strongly encourage all Cardinals to get vaccinated. If you have questions about the vaccine, visit the or review our for answers to frequent questions such as “Will I need a booster dose?” “Do I have to quarantine following an exposure if I’m fully vaccinated?” and more.��

Thank you, again, for your continued patience as we respond to changes in CDC and state guidelines. We will continue to keep you regularly updated and remember; in addition to reviewing our FAQs, you can speak with a helpful member of our when you have questions or concerns.��

This year’s Top 4 SGA leaders, elected in March for the 2021-22 academic year, are going to have one extra (and exciting) challenge: Re-establishing the vibrant on-campus experience that colleges thrive on and COVID-19 tried to erase.

The Top 4 leaders — student body president, executive vice president and two vice presidents (one for academics and one for service) — lead the university’s student government network across eight schools and colleges.

Here’s what they had to say about the upcoming school year.

Ugonna Okorie, student body president��

Okorie, a senior majoring in public health and healthcare management, said she is confident UofL students will be able to “navigate through the uncertainty.”��

“I don’t think we’ll ever go back to exactly how things were in 2019 (and earlier), but instead, we’ll take the lessons learned in 2020 and apply those lessons in 2021 and years to come,” she said. “But what does that look like in practice? As a community, are we ready for this change? I think navigating through the uncertainty that lies ahead for us will be a challenge, but a challenge I know we will be able to overcome.”

Okorie said one of her goals is to help SGA work with the university’s diversity and equity units to help further ���Ǵڳ�’s anti-racism efforts and ensure all students feel their voices are heard.

One thing she can’t wait for? The annual International Fashion Show. The student-led event was held in January 2021, but without a live audience. “I am always in awe of their theme and how they incorporate it in the celebration of cultures here at UofL.”����

Sydney Finley, executive vice president

Finley, a junior English and political science major, said she predicts the return to in-person learning and programming will be “a major adjustment for some students and staff.”

SGA’s job will be to make sure students feel “supported during this time,” she said.

For Finley personally, she said she isn’t sure what to expect because most of her college experience so far has been shaped by the pandemic.

“Being a commuter student who has only taken distance education courses for the past couple of semesters, I look forward to being on campus more often and being able to see my friends in person rather than through a screen,” she said.��

She is hoping to incorporate more social service activities in student government while also focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

In addition to the International Fashion Show, Finley said she is looking forward to attending talks by featured speakers on campus.

Alexa Meza, academic vice president

Meza is a senior political science major who said she will focus on preparing students to make a smooth transition back to campus and in-person classes.

“We can’t expect all students to be able to go back to normal after the past year and a half we’ve had,” she said. “I plan to advocate for student needs when it comes to course delivery, academic spaces on campus, and academic resources students can utilize in a post-pandemic environment.”

She added that “asking students to return to how life and college was before the pandemic is unrealistic,” and noted the Top 4 will advocate for understanding, compassion and flexibility from administration and faculty.

Meza said it is hard to remember how life on campus was before the pandemic.

“I was halfway through my sophomore year and a completely different person at the time. Now I’m thinking about graduation and grad school,” she said.

What is she looking forward to the most?��

“I think just being in the company of others,” she said, “whether they be your friends or complete strangers. … Being in the classroom, on-campus concerts and events, and sporting events are all things we took for granted, so for upperclassmen, I imagine it’ll feel like we’re freshmen all over again!”

Eli Cooper, services vice president

Cooper is a senior who is working on an individual major in social change and also a major in political science.��

He said some of his first initiatives for the new academic year will be “advocating for gender-inclusive dorms and space on campus, developing a policy prioritizing gender-neutral restrooms in new constructions, and laying the groundwork for more inclusive dining policies.”

He noted the transition from online learning to in-person engagement is going to create opportunities along with the challenges. The Top 4, he said, will have to prioritize its goals.

“I’m excited for the potential that this year brings, but I know that the pandemic and the things we have had to do to adapt to a virtual world are taxing in ways that we have yet to identify,” he said. “In addition, parsing out the adaptations that are useful post-pandemic versus those that negatively impact our university will be an interesting struggle as we move into the upcoming year.”

Cooper said virtual life has left him missing “the little moments of socialization that you are able to have when sitting in the library, grabbing food in the SAC, or walking between classes. I never really realized how much of a positive impact that waving to a friend or distracting yourself from a paper for a 5-minute conversation could have on your day. I’m excited for a lot of the things that next year could hold but I think I’m most excited for these little moments that can really make your day great.”

From December 10-14, project researchers tested 700 individuals in South Louisville for both active infection and antibodies, indicating previous infection, to develop a “snapshot” of the rates of infection in that area of the county. From those test results, the researchers estimate that as of these dates, nearly 11.16% of South Louisville residents have been exposed to the virus. Extending this estimate to all of Jefferson County would mean that nearly 73,636 individuals (1 in 10) have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic.��

“The latest rates are the highest we have seen since we began testing in June and are higher than we had expected based on our previous testing drives,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, director of the UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute. “These rates show that the pandemic continues to grow at an accelerated rate. Indeed, it is likely to get worse before getting better.”

Key findings from the project’s latest round of testing:

• About 3.57% of those tested had an active coronavirus infection.
• Antibody testing indicates that the true rates of infection may be 1.6 times higher than reported in publicly available data.
• More than 28,000 Louisville residents may have been infected between November and December.
• About 73,000 people in Louisville likely have had a coronavirus infection at some point since the beginning of the pandemic, based on antibody testing.
• The highest rates of infection in December were found in people 18-to-34 years of age (10%), which was four times higher than those 35-to-59 years of age (2.6%).
• Women and men had similar rates of infection.
• Current rates of infection were much higher among non-whites (8.8%) than among whites (1.43%). To-date, nearly twice as many non-whites as whites have been infected by the virus.

The is a unique series of studies to estimate the true prevalence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, in Jefferson County. This phase of the project involves testing a representative sample of individuals from different areas in the city in proportion to the age and race of the population of the area. For this round of testing, the project researchers tested individuals living in South Louisville neighborhoods that are part of Green Heart Louisville, a separate, ongoing project to test whether increasing green space in a neighborhood improves air quality and human health.

Data released for the December tests show at least 3.57% of participants from the area were currently infected by the virus, which is nearly double the rate reported for the entire County in November (2%).

The project researchers with the , directed by Kenneth Palmer, also tested samples from the participants for antibodies against the virus and found a 1.6-fold increase in the number of individuals who previously had been exposed to the virus. Study researchers estimate that by December 14, about 73,000 individuals had been infected by the virus rather than the 48,228 known cases documented so far. These data also suggest that approximately 15,000 individuals became infected between November and December.

“Reasons for the increase in the rates of infection are not clear, but may relate to a drop in temperature,” Bhatnagar said. “From our previous work we know that . However, part of the reason may also be fewer precautions by young people and increased travel during the Thanksgiving holiday.”

Bhatnagar said he expects infection levels to continue to rise due to colder weather temperatures.

“Our models suggest that infection rates likely will continue increasing at least until the end of December and that things are likely to get much worse in the coming months as temperatures dip even further,” he said. “We are entering the most dangerous and deadly phase of the pandemic and we have to maintain high vigilance for at least the next two months until the temperatures begin to rise again or a large number of individuals are vaccinated.”

“In what may be a glimmer of hope, we have seen a consistently increasing awareness of the importance of repeated COVID-19 testing among the residents of Jefferson County, especially the South Louisville area where there was a robust push for testing and awareness by the local community members,” said Alok Amraotkar, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Envirome Institute who conducted the study. “We will keep building on these relationships with the community to curb the spread of COVID-19 virus.”

In an effort to obtain a uniform sample of residents, investigators at the Brown Envirome Institute mailed 20,000 letters to households across the study area. The invitations were sent to individuals selected using addresses derived from��U.S. Census Bureau tract boundaries. In addition, any adult resident of the area was invited to participate through news, emails and social media messages.

Nearly 1,000 individuals were tested, 700 of whom live in the Green Heart Louisville study area. The testing took place at community drive-up or walk up locations. Participants were tested both for the presence of the virus via nasal swabs, indicating current infection, and for antibodies against the virus in their blood, indicating a previous infection. Samples for the virus were tested by Bluewater Diagnostic Laboratory and antibodies were measured at ���Ǵڳ�’s Regional Biocontainment Laboratory by the .

Wastewater monitoring results reinforce findings

The Co-Immunity Project also has been monitoring the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in Louisville wastewater in collaboration with MSD since June. During this round of community testing, daily wastewater samples were gathered from seven manhole locations within the study area. All locations revealed daily presence of the virus at levels consistent with those found across Louisville in this time period. These levels are 10 times higher than area levels just six weeks ago.

The researchers are planning to conduct a fourth round of randomized coronavirus testing in Jefferson County January 22-28.

This study was supported in part by the City of Louisville, the James Graham Brown Foundation, the Owsley Brown Family Foundation, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence and others.