In this week’s column, Victor Sierpina explains the many ways that owning a pet can be beneficial to one’s well-being.

Research conducted at UTMB found that 90 percent or more of people undergoing total knee or hip replacement in 2017 received a prescription for opioid pain relievers within 60 days of surgery, up from 82 percent three years earlier. JAMA Network Open published the findings.

The quest to develop a Covid-19 vaccine has been one of the fastest in history, as some candidates are already entering final-stage clinical trials that will demonstrate whether they protect people from the virus. Interviewed for the story UTMB’s James Le Duc said, “This is a huge experiment, and no one knows how it’s going to turn out.”

UTMB’ doctors Richard Rupp and Alan Barrett help explain the vaccine clinical trials process as scientists continue the quest to find a Covid-19 vaccine. “Everything we’re doing at the moment is what we normally do to develop a vaccine. It’s just we are squashing everything together at warp speed, but we’re not cutting corners,” said Barrett. “It’s just everything is being put together to do it at the speed we can to get the data.”

Many colleges plan to conduct a fall football season even in the face of advice from scientists and health care professionals that say it is a bad idea. Interviewed for this story, UTMB’s Susan McLellan says it is not a good idea for any athlete who plans to make the sport part of their career.

This week, Megan Berman and Richard Rupp explain the accelerated process being utilized to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Some worry the process may not be safe, but the doctors explain the technologies researchers are using were specifically developed so vaccines could be rapidly produced in the face of an emerging infectious disease.