News Room

The expected return of 15,000 University of Massachusetts Amherst students to campus dormitories and nearby apartment complexes next month has alarmed neighboring residents and town officials, who fear the influx of young people will lead to a spike in coronavirus cases. In a sharply worded letter to UMass Amherst chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman warned that the flagship public university’s decision to hold most classes online but invite students to return to campus could be dangerous. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has been deeply disruptive for supply chains as businesses grapple with fluctuations in supply and demand, intermittent outbreaks in different parts of the world, and speculation about reshoring and reducing reliance on China. Many companies are looking at restructuring their supply chains, trying to balance resilience with efficiency and reduced costs — a process either started or accelerated because of the pandemic.

North Carolina’s COVID-19 metrics don’t bode well for the future. Although not as concerning, the numbers don’t look so great for Wilkes County either. Public health experts say the extent to which North Carolinians rise to the occasion with social distancing, facial coverings and other safety measures will have a great bearing on whether conditions here become as bad as they have elsewhere before a vaccine for the virus becomes available for mass distribution. This isn’t expected until 2021.

North Carolinians know more about COVID-19 hospitalizations than they did a week ago. But data critical to the fight against COVID-19 remain missing from North Carolina’s dashboard, researchers say. North Carolina’s new dashboard shows a regional picture of hospital capacity and COVID-19 hospitalizations. The state began breaking down COVID-19 hospitalizations by region and bed type on Friday, July 17.

A new STD is afflicting the world. It infects the young and old, the rich and poor, people of all races and educations. It has challenged our nation’s health care system, wreaked havoc on our economy, infected more than 3.5 million Americans and resulted in more than 140,000 deaths — and it’s still spreading. We all know what this STD is: COVID-19. And yes, it is an STD, a “socially transmitted disease.”