Studies Show that COVID-19 Can Spread Quickly in Homeless Communities

Researchers have been studying COVID-19 in homeless communities, specifically in shelters with two or more confirmed cases in the weeks prior to their study. They found that in these shelters with clusters of cases, the proportion of positive tests was higher than in shelters with lower amounts of previously reported cases.

In Triaging Coronavirus, Prioritize Vulnerable, Health-Care Workers (Seattle Times - Written by John Lynch and Karin Huster)

By John Lynch (MPH '11) and Karin Huster (MPH '13)

As we swiftly surpass 100,000 cases and 4,000 deaths globally, every one of us is understandably rattled and may be asking, will I be next? Will I get infected with COVID-19? Will I end up in the hospital? Will it kill me, my family or friends?

We're all in this Together: Coronavirus Lessons from Hong Kong (Seattle Times Op-Ed by Karin Huster, MPH '13)

HONG KONG — It’s been hard to be far away from home, watching a pandemic of panic over the new coronavirus ripple across the world.

A month ago I left Seattle for Hong Kong — a city of 7.3 million bordering mainland China and one of the planet’s most densely populated — as part of a Doctors Without Borders effort to rein in the widespread fear gripping the city as it began to wrestle with a virus the world knew little about.

That fear has now reached home.

Karin Huster (MPH, 2013) on Battling Ebola Outbreaks in Africa: ‘It’s the Best Job in the World’

Karin Huster encounters death up close, and repeatedly.

She has seen babies perish in their mothers’ arms. She has watched people grieve as their loved ones were buried in white body bags drenched in bleach. She has survived a clinic where she worked being attacked, burned and shot at.

“It’s the best job in the world,” she says. “And I don’t mean this lightly.”

Treating Ebola Patients in a War Zone: Q&A with Karin Huster, MPH 2013

Before reaching her current position of Field Coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, Karin Huster was a Registered Nurse and an MPH student at the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health. Working alongside professors , Huster gathered a multitude of skills that she’s used to advance her career. In addition to her wide-ranging field work, Huster is a regular writer and contributor to radio shows and podcasts.

NPR: WHO Says Ebola Epidemic Is Over. What Have (And Haven't) We Learned?

By Karin Huster, MPH ('14)

This month marks two years since the first Ebola cases were confirmed in Guinea. The time has come for recollection and reflection, frank opinions and lessons learned. What did we do well? What should we have done differently? What has Ebola taught us? I spent 6 weeks in Liberia, 4 1/2 months in Sierra Leone, and 6 months in Guinea during the epidemic, working with Ebola patients and focusing on strategies to fight the disease. These thoughts come from the experiences that I had working in the field.