Events

David K. Mineta’s career in behavioral health began in Santa Clara County over 25 years ago. In 1996, Mr. Mineta worked with Asian American Recovery Services (AARS) throughout the Bay Area. He began as a manager of a youth prevention program, rose quickly to Associate Director and in 2007, was named Deputy Director. Prior to AARS, Mr. Mineta was a counselor in the San Jose Unified School District and later in Santa Clara County’s Alcohol and Drug Department. Mineta also served twice as board president for the Jefferson Union High School District Board of Trustees. He served as a member of the American Public Health Association and Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America before being unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on June 22, 2010, as Deputy Director of Demand Reduction for the White House Drug Policy Office.

Monica Gandhi MD, MPH is Professor of Medicine and Associate Division Chief (Clinical Operations/Education) of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF/ San Francisco General Hospital. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic has received a great deal of attention, we'll discuss for one of the first times the hypothesis that universal masking reduces the “inoculum” or dose of the virus for the mask-wearer, leading to more mild and asymptomatic infection manifestations.  Masks, depending on type, filter out the majority of viral particles, but not all. We first discuss the near-century old literature around the viral inoculum and severity of disease We will then include examples of rising rates of asymptomatic infection with population-level masking, including in closed settings (e.g. cruise ships), outbreaks, and countrieswith and without universal masking. Asymptomatic infections may be harmful for spread but could actually be beneficial if they lead to higher rates of exposure. Exposing society to SARS-CoV-2 without the unacceptable consequences of severe illness with public masking could lead to greater community-level immunity and slower spread as we await a vaccine

Joel Ernst trained in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and in Hematology and Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.  He joined the faculty at UCSF where he established a research program in host-pathogen interactions and immunity, and cared for patients with infectious diseases, including the earliest AIDS patients, at San Francisco General Hospital.  He was recruited to the NYU School of Medicine in 2003, where he was Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology as well as Director of the Graduate Program in Immunology and Inflammation, and Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Microbiology.  In 2018, he was recruited to UCSF where he is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Experimental Medicine. 

COVID-19 is a global pandemic that has changed every aspect of life for billions of people.  The cause is an RNA virus, termed SARS-CoV-2, that is transmitted by the respiratory route and that leads to diverse clinical consequences.  Global control of COVID-19 will depend on development and deployment of vaccines that are safe, able to be produced rapidly in hundreds of millions (or billions) of doses, and inexpensive.  Likewise, preventing complications and mortality requires development and clinical use of drugs that control the infection and that prevent and treat the complications.  This presentation will feature general information about the infection, general principles of antiviral and anti-inflammatory drugs, and principles of vaccine development, testing, and implementation.  It will also provide a summary of the present status of drug and vaccine development for COVID-19.