Discussed in this episode: A new paper finds that SARS-COV2 infects a type of immune cell the in the lungs called interstitial macrophages, helping to explain the cascade of inflammation, lung damage, and scarring seen in severe COVID-19. The virus enters those cells using a receptor (CD209) different from the ACE2 receptor targeted by current … Continued
What happened to California’s prisons and jails when the Covid pandemic struck? Why did so many people die behind bars, and why were so many on the outside affected (and afflicted)? Hadar Aviram sheds light on multiple aspects of California’s Covid-19 correctional disaster, including activist efforts to prevent it. Hadar Aviram and Chad Goerzen, Fester: … Continued
March marks four years since the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health failures and government inaction have forced communities to take matters into their own hands. On today’s show, we look at two groups steeped in the values of community care: the Auntie Sewing Squad and Pandemic Solidarity for the Long Future. GUESTS: Kristina … Continued
Discussed in this episode: The CDC has updated its COVID vaccine guidance to recommend adults age 65+ get an additional dose of the latest COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC has also weakened its guidance on how long to isolate when sick with COVID-19, to make it the same as for other respiratory virus infections. (We discussed … Continued
Discussed in this episode: A newly-published study in Nature Neuroscience points to a likely mechanism by which Long Covid produces neurological symptoms like brain fog: disruption of the blood-brain barrier Because of fundraising at KPFA, we’ll only be taking questions via email for the next week (the station needs its phone lines free for people … Continued
Discussed in this episode: A new article in the journal Cell finds Long Covid associated with reduced levels of serotonin circulating in the bloodstream. (The authors’ explanation: the persistent presence of the virus, and/or its fragments, causes the body to crank out more type I interferons. The interferons cause inflammation in the gut that reduces uptake … Continued
0:08 — John Nichols is National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation 0:33 — Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University. Chelsea Waite, senior researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education. Morgan Polikoff, is an Associate Professor at the USC Rossier School of Education
Discussed in this episode: COVID hospitalizations continue to trend up, nearly doubling rates from mid-summer. (That’s a large increase from a low baseline: in most of the country, hospitalization rates are still what the CDC considers “low.”) A new observational study using patient data from Stockholm suggests the percent of COVID cases that result in … Continued
Discussed in this episode: A new paper in Science Translational Medicine draws results from animal experiments, human samples, and human autopsies to suggest a mechanism for some cases of Long Covid: the virus binds to a protein on our cells’ mitochondria and can enduringly alter their function. Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 … Continued
Discussed in this episode: New research published in Nature examined if people who got infected without showing symptoms had something in common genetically. They did: a mutation on the HLA-B (that’s short for Human Leukocyte Antigen) gene. In the laboratory, T-cell samples collected from those people *before* infection reacted strongly to SARS-COV2, suggesting the mutation helps … Continued
