"Kids, Christians, & COVID-19" - w/Dr. Danny Avula

With school starting in many states around the country, a lot of parents are wondering if it's safe for their kids to be back in public school especially with the prevalence of the Delta Variant. We talk with Dr. Danny Avula this week to answer many of your COVID-19 questions about this. Dr. Avula is the Virginia State Vaccination Coordinator, as well as, a practicing pediatrician so if anyone can answer these questions it's definitely him! We also talk about why kids have been relatively sparred from high rates of covid and whether or not he expects that to change. Then we discuss the important role of the church in promoting vaccinations. As a practicing Christian, Dr. Avula has some thoughts on this as well!


Guest Bio:
Dr. Danny Avula is Director of the Richmond City and Henrico County Health Departments. He is a public health physician board certified in pediatrics and preventive medicine, and he continues to practice clinically as a pediatric hospitalist. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he attended the VCU School of Medicine, and completed residencies at VCU and Johns Hopkins University, where he also received a Master’s in Public Health. He is an Affiliate Faculty member at VCU, where he regularly serves as an advisor and preceptor to graduate and medical students.

Governor McAuliffe appointed Dr. Avula to the State Board of Social Services in 2013 and he served as Board Chair from 2017 to 2019. He is the Immediate Past Chair of the Richmond Memorial Health Foundation, and serves on several other community boards. He has been named one of Richmond's "Top Docs" every year from 2013-2019. He is a recent recipient of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Community’s Humanitarian Award, and in 2019, he was a Richmond Times Dispatch ‘Person of the Year’ honoree.

At home, Danny devotes his time to life with his wife and five kids, and to learning how to be a good neighbor in the rapidly changing community of Church Hill, where he has lived for the past fifteen years. His work has been featured nationally by the CDC, The New York Times, NPR, PBS Newshour, Christianity Today, and MSNBC.