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JOHNSON CITY – A team of experts from East Tennessee State University’s health sciences colleges is helping the university navigate important decisions and policies to protect the health and safety of the campus community and ETSU Health clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Created in response to the pandemic, the Medical Response Team meets regularly to analyze disease trends, craft medical suggestions and aid in decisions and considerations regarding the safe return to campus.

“In addition to following recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and local and state health officials, ETSU is fortunate to have an abundance of medical and public health experts who are carefully monitoring our local trends, as well as the resources and facilities we have here on our campus to ensure that we develop protocols and policies that protect our students, faculty, staff and visitors,” said Dr. Bill Block, vice president for clinical affairs and dean of Quillen College of Medicine.

The team has assisted in the development of ETSU’s policy on face coverings, return to work and class protocol, and a list of frequently asked safety questions. They have also facilitated COVID-19 testing at the ETSU University Health Center and ETSU Health clinical offices.

The team consists of Block; Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health; Dr. Leigh Johnson, associate professor at Quillen and director of COVID response for ETSU Health; Dr. Beth Anne Fox, associate dean and chief of staff at Quillen; Dr. Sheri Holmes, associate dean and chief medical officer for ETSU Health; and Dr. Roslyn Robinson, assistant dean, College of Nursing.

In addition to policies, ETSU experts have also created resources to track COVID-19 data and educate the public about its spread and prevention. Examples include:

• An up-to-date COVID-19 information resources page (www.etsu.edu/cph/covid19.php) provided by the College of Public Health;
• COVID-19 in the Tri-Cities: Data Brief, provided by Dr. Abbey Mann, assistant professor and director of Primary Care Research for Quillen’s Department of Family Medicine. Click the link to subscribe: https://forms.gle/1yFR4331AFb7KHdW6; and
• The Tennessee COVID-19 County Status webpage (https://www.etsu.edu/cas/geosciences/gads/), provided by the Geoinformatics and Disaster Science (GADS) Lab at ETSU.