294 - Dr. Michael Osterholm on the Race Between COVID-19 Variants and Vaccines, How the Pandemic Looks Different than a Year Ago and How Children are More at Risk Now
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
While one-third of Americans have received their first COVID vaccine dose, COVID cases in parts of the U.S. are at their highest levels since December because of new variants that are more contagious. Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert, and adviser to President Biden talks with Stephanie Desmon about the critical place we're in now, his fears for children who are both more likely to spread and be sickened by the B.117 variant, and his worries about newer variants that might not be thwarted by current vaccines.
KEYWORDS: viral mutation; child health
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 3, a Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:12.3 | I'm Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. |
| 0:19.6 | Our goal is to bring scientific evidence |
| 0:22.4 | and experience to the public health news of the day through informative interviews with scientists, |
| 0:27.8 | community leaders, policy experts, public health officials, clinicians, and more. If you have |
| 0:33.9 | ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at public health question |
| 0:38.8 | at jh.edu. |
| 0:41.1 | That's public health question at jhhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:47.4 | Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious |
| 0:52.7 | Disease Research and Policy at the University |
| 0:55.1 | of Minnesota in a leading voice during the COVID-19 pandemic. They discussed the race between |
| 1:00.5 | virus variants and the dissemination of COVID vaccines. He thinks the variants are winning. Let's listen. |
| 1:07.9 | Mike Osterholm, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you. |
| 1:11.6 | So we're at an interesting moment in the pandemic, and I'm wondering how you would describe it. |
| 1:16.6 | I think this is one of the most uncertain moments that I've experienced since the pandemic |
| 1:20.6 | began. |
| 1:22.6 | Even in the earliest days, I think I had a better sense that it was going to be a long, long haul and that it was going to be very bad. |
| 1:31.3 | And I think right now we are really at a point where we have so many different crosswinds |
| 1:36.3 | that are all happening at the same time, some good news, some bad news. |
| 1:41.3 | And I don't think anyone really fully understands yet what the next six to 12 months are going to bring us. |
| 1:48.1 | At the current moment, we see vaccinations increasing rapidly, but we're also seeing cases on the rise in a lot of places. |
| 1:56.8 | I know, for example, Michigan, they have a seven-day average that is the highest since December. |
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