The Columbia Daily Spectator asked Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA, ICAP’s global director, about how Columbia University’s housing resources are being shifted from student use to care for patients with COVID-19.

University Professor Wafaa El-Sadr, director of the Global Health Initiative at the Mailman School of Public Health, believes that within the next few months we will have a better sense of the trajectory of the outbreak. Until then, however, it is vital that various entities continue to plan ahead.

 

“One of the most important things to think about is, ‘What is the capacity?’” said El-Sadr. “Not just the capacity today of our health system, but to think of what will be needed tomorrow, and next week, and the week after, and so on. I think this is what’s been done elsewhere, to anticipate the need for more space to house people who have COVID-19 and if the need arises, then, to be able to utilize the resources and the capacity that exists in empty housing.”

Read the full article on the Columbia Daily Spectator

Read the latest ICAP updates on COVID-19 here