COVID-19 Digest - April 4, 2021

Many of Colorado's small towns are losing young people as they follow job opportunities in bigger cities. But a new effort is trying to reinvigorate the economies of these tight-knit communities.

In this collaboration, the Community Engagement, Design and Research Center and the Denver Department of Health & Environment are jointly tackling how to best manage information and activities among dozens of small and large Denver food banks during times of increased demand.

CU Boulder was the first site to roll out a federally-funded study led by the COVID-19 Prevention Network at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Study leaders vaccinated 11 of the roughly 700 CU Boulder student volunteers who will ultimately participate.

A dedicated team of faculty, staff and students has been working around the clock since the start of the fall semester to monitor the virus that causes COVID-19 in our campus wastewater. It's been critical to keeping campus safe during this pandemic, and systems like it could even help us catch the next one.

Business leaders around the state are feeling increasingly hopeful about Colorado's economy, a response to increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates and the easing of public health restrictions.

Hear about Lori Peek's formative years in small-town Kansas, her love for teaching and mentoring and how her research is helping us learn from disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the COVID-19 pandemic. Peek is a professor, faculty associate at the Institute of Behavioral Science and the director of the Natural Hazards Center.