Media Coverage

The pharmacy in Hankinson, North Dakota, a town of about 900 people at the state’s extreme southeastern tip, has been in operation since 1897. The town was a decade old by then and had quickly swelled with settlers enticed by ads for good farmland along the railroad. A pharmacy was one of those signs of a town’s arrival; a knowledgeable druggist was essential. This remained true through the years, even though it turned out that the region’s population had already peaked and was slowly dwindling, as it still is. The earliest owners of Hankinson Drug had kept a stock of jewelry as well as pharmaceuticals, and both traditions remain alive with the current proprietors. In recent years, their pharmacy has been the only one in the county outside Wahpeton, a bigger town 30 minutes away on the Minnesota border.

The United States is in a competition for global talent, as the Fourth Industrial Revolution[i] reshapes much of the world. The United States must engage in a major new challenge– a holistic Artificial Intelligence international competition while addressing the age-old American conundrum surrounding immigration policy.  The job outlook for technical professionals, specifically those in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, has never been brighter. These professionals have many opportunities where they can balance their desire for intellectual stimulation, impact, work culture, and compensation. For many organizations, the demand for AI talent greatly outstrips supply.

Megan Jacob is a mother of three who just got her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. She’s also an associate professor in clinical microbiology and director of Diagnostic Laboratories at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). Now, under her leadership, the college is home to COVID-19 testing labs for the NC State community. With the laboratories capable of completing 8,000 tests per day — and current expectations for campus demand at about 11,000 tests per week — much of the university community’s health is in the hands of her and her lab team. “I’ve hired some really great people in our lab who, in their cover letters, say, ‘I just want to contribute to fighting the pandemic,’” says Jacob. “It has truly brought out some of the best in people.”

Experts now say there’s a simple reason why Nevada’s COVID-19 vaccine allotment has seemed low for months. Fast-growing states have been disadvantaged due to the federal government’s reliance on old population data. Weekly vaccine allocations are proportional to each state’s estimated adult population recorded in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014-18 American Community Survey. The 2015-19 estimates show Nevada with a 1.9 percent larger adult population, one of the biggest increases in the nation. “We get a smaller share of the vaccines compared to what we should have because we’re using kind of older data, and Nevada has grown since then,” UNLV epidemiologist Brian Labus said. “The farther back you look, the greater the gap is going to be.” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said Monday the allocation method will continue as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine comes online.

North Carolina went from getting its first COVID-19 case to its first vaccination in less than a year. Vaccine demand has now outweighed supply making appointments difficult to get. Many people are left wondering when it will be their chance to get a COVID-19 vaccine if they don’t fall in the priority groups. Dr. Julie Swann is the head of the N.C. State Industrial and Systems Engineering Department. She models pandemics and said we are still in the early stages of vaccinations. “If we we continued at the same rate, 70 percent of the population would receive a first dose by late summer, early fall so that’s a ways away,” said Swann. She said that timeline could be moved up if vaccine manufacturing speeds up, creating more supply. The introduction of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine could move up the timeline too as it only required a single dose, reaching Americans twice as fast.