January 15, 2021 | CRT Update January 15, 2021 Dear RVU Family: Positive cases of COVID-19 have increased 5.10% since last week in CO and 10.04% in UT.  Hospitalizations in UT are at an all-time high but hospitalizations in CO are declining. Since the CRT email last week, RVU has had 6 new positive cases with 5 students (4 clinical, 1 pre-clinical) and 1 employee. The running total of positive RVU cases is 86 (6.47% infection percentage) for students and 18 (5.96% infection percentage) for employees. We understand that there are a lot of questions regarding vaccination plans.  Federal recommendations and state plans continue to be fluid; information is constantly being updated. To ensure our RVU community is kept informed, the COVID Response Team will host its next Town Hall early next month. The date/time will be announced shortly. Updates for this week are as follows: Student Return to Campus: Pre-clinical students will be returning to campus starting Tuesday for labs. Please remember that everyone entering campus must wear a surgical mask. Masks are available upon entering the building by Security. Only one surgical mask per person per week is allotted. Paper bags will also be provided to store your […]

January 8, 2021 | CRT Update Dear RVU Family: We are off to a hopeful 2021 with the light visible at the end of this pandemic tunnel due to the arrival of the COVID vaccines. We understand that many of you are eager to get the vaccine and we are getting many inquiries. Please understand that vaccination plans are run by the state health departments and we do not have control over the priority categories imposed by each state on who gets vaccinated next.  While we are advocating to get all of you vaccinated as soon as possible, we must be good citizens and be mindful of the collective good of public health, especially to those who are more vulnerable. We had had a great turn-out for our CRT Town Hall on Tuesday. If you missed it or would like to watch it again, the Mediasite recording is available here.  You can access the just the Power Point slides by clicking here (note: it is a big file due to Dr. Ambler’s embedded videos). Updates for this week are as follows: RVU COVID Stats Update: Since January 1, we have had 8 new positive cases (2 clinical students and 6 […]

January 4, 2021 | CRT Update Dear RVU Family, Happy New Year and welcome back! We hope that you had a wonderful, safe and rejuvenating winter break. We have a few time-sensitive updates that we would like to share with you in this brief CRT email. We understand that students are on a two-week quarantine period at each respective training site. However, the RVU buildings are not closed. Students may access the building for individual study through the reservation system. Please note that this does not include OMM tables or any other situations of close contact during this time. Our CRT Town Hall via Zoom is scheduled for tomorrow at noon. We hope you will attend. New variants of the COVID-19 virus are in the United States. One particular variant is being reported to have higher transmissibility which increases the risk of higher case numbers and hospitalizations.  Therefore, we must continue to be very vigilant and continue to strictly observe all safety protocols. Our next email will be sent out on Friday as usual. In addition to the typical updates, the message will also include answers to questions which couldn’t be addressed during the Town Hall due to time constraints. […]

December 23, 2020 | CRT Update Dear RVU Family, The year 2020 will be quite the memorable year for all of us. The pandemic has tested our resolve and challenged us like never before. Through it all, we have persevered and we continue to indomitably weather the storm. We continue to remain RVU Strong. As we near the end of this difficult year, there is hope that 2021 will usher in a brighter tomorrow. The COVID-19 vaccine is now available and our physician faculty and alumni have begun to get vaccinated. We continue to advocate to get all of our students and employees vaccinated as soon as possible. We are currently in talks with Intermountain (UT) and HealthOne (CO) for vaccinating our clinical students as healthcare workers. We will share more information on vaccines and our plans at our next CRT Town Hall scheduled for January 5th at noon. Our goal is to ensure that all of you get vaccinated. Final update for 2021: Moderna vaccine. The Moderna vaccine was approved by the FDA for EUA on December 18. It is approved for individuals 18 years of age and older. Efficacy and side effect profiles are similar to the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine. […]

December 18, 2020 | CRT Update Dear RVU Family: As this challenging year is coming to an end, we are all heavyhearted to see that the COVID-19 situation in our nation and both of our states is actually worse than when the pandemic first started. The past 30 days has been the worst period for COVID-19 case counts at RVU, with 40 confirmed positive cases plus 18 cases awaiting test results. The positive cases included 6 employees and 34 (12 pre-clinical and 22 clinical) students who became infected. We now have a cumulative case count of 85 people testing positive, which represents a 5.20% infection percentage of our entire RVU family. Our hearts and thoughts are with all who are afflicted. We are very fortunate and grateful that we have not lost anyone to the virus. We are also very appreciative of our very hard-working Contact Tracers – thank you. Updates for this week are as follows: COVID-19 Vaccine: The FDA approved the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine 1 for Emergency Authorization Use on December 11. The Moderna vaccine is expected to gain approval today as well. Shipments of the Pfizer vaccines have arrived at many hospitals and vaccinations for healthcare personnel began […]

December 11, 2020 | CRT Update Dear RVU Family: As suspected, COVID-19 cases continue to surge nationwide and unfortunately at RVU as well. Confirmed COVID-19 cases at RVU since December 1 include 14 students (8 in CO & 6 UT) and 4 employees (2 each in CO & UT) for a cumulative total of 82 positive cases to date. Updates for this week include: How are we Doing? Results from the recent employee Gallup Survey revealed that employees strongly agree that “RVU cares about my safety while on campus” (4.52 out of 5.00) and were very satisfied (4.41 out of 5.00) with the CRT’s management of this pandemic. Additionally, 88% of the respondents stated they would like to continue to see the CRT email updates once a week. A survey sent to students in mid-October revealed a preference for continued once a week communication as well. The majority of student respondents (59%) rated the communication content as either “good” or “excellent.” COVID-19 Vaccine Update: The Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine was recommended for Emergency Authorization Use approval by the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee yesterday. It is expected that the FDA will approve the committee’s recommendation. The novel mRNA vaccine […]