'Western Mass News' Asks Erika Hamilton, Microbiology, to Reflect on COVID

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Erika Hamilton of the College of Natural Sciences's Department of Microbiology was recently asked by Western Mass News to reflect on COVID-19 as part of the outlet's marking of the four-your anniversary of the U.S.'s national emergency declaration regarding the disease in 2020.

While this declaration officially ended in May of 2023, Dr. Hamilton argued that, though the COVID-19 virus isn’t going away, there is a silver lining: “COVID is not done with us and luckily, we do know that there are certain subsets who are more susceptible to severe COVID infection, those people are being encouraged to get vaccinated. Anybody should get vaccinated for it, but there are certain groups of people—particularly over the age of 65 or with compromised immune systems, who do need to be more careful than other folks.”

Click here to watch Dr. Hamilton's remarks.