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 upfront@kpfa.org .
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: 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
Discussed in this episode: The morning newsletter at the New York Times, citing excess mortality data, suggests the pandemic is “over” The WHO’s updates show COVID deaths are down almost everywhere right now — including the southern hemisphere, which is in the middle of winter. That suggests COVID’s not settling into an endemic pattern of … Continued
Filling in for Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Philip Maldari hosts Covid Calls this week, featuring Dr. John Swartzberg, Clinical Professor Emeritus of Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley. Discussed in this episode: Growth of the anti-vaccination movement and its weaponization in US politics The spread of Measles in the United States The rules and timelines for receiving a … Continued
Filling in for Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Jesse Strauss hosts Covid Calls this week, featuring Dr. John Swartzberg, Clinical Professor Emeritus of Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley. Discussed in this episode: Covid infectiousness correlated with particular blood types: https://fortune.com/well/2023/06/27/which-blood-type-greater-risk-getting-covid-19/ The childhood diabetes rate has risen in correlation with covid – we discuss whether there’s a causal link: … Continued
Dr. Swartzberg is off this week! Our guest expert is Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and infectious disease physician at UCSF Medical Center. Discussed in this episode: The public health department in Los Angeles is warning it confirmed six new Mpox cases over last week. The Mpox vaccine is widely available, and no longer … Continued
Brian was off camping this week. Philip Maldari sat in as host. Discussed in this episode: A key FDA committee has advanced plans for a fall booster drive using a monovalent vaccine targeting the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant. Why the US COVID death rate looks so much higher than the rest of the world’s (some of the … Continued
Discussed in this episode: A randomized controlled trial shows the cheap, widely-available diabetes drug Metformin significantly reduces (by 41%) the likelihood of long covid in unvaccinated people who get infected: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(23)00299-2/fulltext (Vaccinated and boosted people still did considerably better than unvaccinated people who received Metformin. Vaccinated people didn’t receive enough added benefit from Metformin to … Continued
Discussed in this episode: What it means when “cryptic lineages” turn up in wastewater samples, like here The CDC’s latest survey of blood donor samples shows 96.4% have antibodies from COVID, vaccination, or both. Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
Discussed in this episode: New York Times reporting on a COVID wave(let) in China New work trying to refine symptom clusters that can be used to define Long Covid for the purpose of studying it, and to discern sub-types: Thaweethai T, Jolley SE, Karlson EW, et al. Development of a Definition of Postacute Sequelae of … Continued
The CDC is warning that a new cluster of cases of Mpox (formerly known as Monkeypox) in Chicago may foretell a wider outbreak; some local public health authorities are starting a new vaccination push ahead of Pride Month activities. Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
