Symptom Surveys Required

UC Davis has set up a COVID-19 Daily Symptom Survey, required of all students, employees and visitors upon entering university-managed facilities, and is advising departments and units of their roles in the process and the availability of resources to implement it. Also: We have the link to UCOP’s new FAQ on the flu shot mandate.

COVID-19 Screening Strategy

Many COVID-19 tests can take days to deliver results, so UC Davis will perform its own, collecting saliva samples from the campus population and sending them to the Genome Center for quick analysis. The tests performed here will be chemically similar to those done elsewhere, but without the bottleneck created by proprietary reagents.

Vaccine Trial Is Underway

Dean Allison Brashear of the School of Medicine called it “a historic day” last week when six patients rolled up their sleeves to become the first people in Sacramento to receive a vaccine candidate for COVID-19. They’re among 200 volunteers that UC Davis Health will enroll as part of a Pfizer-BioNTech global clinical trial.

LIVE: Coronavirus in Pets

Cats and ferrets have their own coronaviruses similar to the one impacting the world’s human population, and some animals seem to even be susceptible to the very same SARS-CoV-2 virus as people. Experts from the School of Veterinary Medicine will discuss these topics and more, 11 a.m. Thursday (Aug. 27).

UC Davis Keeps Hold on 4th in Money Magazine Ranking

That’s where we stand among public universities in the magazine’s newest “Best Colleges,” ranking American universities by value, equaling last year’s position. We also maintained our top-10 position among publics and privates, a total of more than 700 in this year’s rankings.

We’re Ahead of the Curve on UC’s Single-Use Plastic Ban

The University of California announced Monday (Aug. 24) it would require all campuses and medical centers to phase out single-use plastic items like utensils, bags and bottles. UC Davis has been working toward this for years, removing bags, providing compostable utensils and asking Pepsi to provide many drinks in cans.