A weekly update on new research and developments concerning COVID-19 (and occasionally other infectious diseases that hit the news).
We take questions via call-in during the live broadcast, Mondays at 7:33am Pacific, streaming via kpfa.org. Podcasts with show notes go up later the same day. Between live shows, we take questions via email at [email protected] .
Our guest most weeks is Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Our question-wrangler most weeks is Brian Edwards-Tiekert, host of KPFA’s morning public affairs program, UpFront.
Music: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
Discussed in this episode: Four and a half years after the start of a pandemic spread by an airborne pathogen, the World Health Organization has released consensus guidance on how to describe and characterize pathogens that travel through the air. California will stop publishing data on COVID hospitalizations, because of dwindling federal support. (The state … Continued
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
Discussed in this episode: A new peer-reviewed double-blind trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine has raised some doubts about the benefit of Paxlovid for most people. Patients receiving the placebo were hospitalized or died at twice the rate of patients receiving Paxlovid, but the 1300-person study was too small for that to … Continued
Discussed in this episode: Avian Influenza (H5N1) has popped up in cows in several states, raising concerns that the virus has jumped to a mammalian species and is now capable of transmitting from cow to cow. Then on Monday, Texas reported a case in a human that works with cows. When is it time to … Continued
This episode’s all listener questions, including: When does it make sense to wait for the new booster? Can you start Paxlovid too early? Where do you get a PCR test these days? Does your reaction to a booster tell you anything about your immune performance? To send us a question in advance of next week’s … Continued
Discussed in this episode: Cases of Norovirus, which causes intense vomiting and diarrhea, are rising sharply and likely approaching their seasonal peak. Alcohol-based sanitizers don’t work very well on this virus: it’s better just to scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water. Here are tips from the CDC on how … Continued
Discussed in this episode: Are there downsides to getting too many doses of COVID vaccine? A new study of one man who got 217 (!) doses couldn’t find any. To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected] . Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org Podcast music credit: Now … 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: The Washington Post (and subsequently, other outlets) is reporting, based on anonymous sources, that the CDC is considering changing its guidelines on COVID isolation to give people with COVID cases an all-clear after they’ve been fever-free for 24 hours without the help of fever -suppressing medication. Because of fundraising at KPFA, … Continued
