613 - COVID Update: Variants, Vaccines, and No More "Boosters"
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2023
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The pandemic phase of COVID-19 is officially over, but there's still work to be done. Virologist and podcast regular Dr. Andy Pekosz talks with Stephanie Desmon about transitioning to annual COVID vaccines (no longer referred to as boosters!); "Arcturus," or variant XBB.1.16; and the importance of investing in the development of antivirals and other treatments.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.u. |
| 0:22.6 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:32.1 | It's Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:34.1 | Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to Johns Hopkins virologist, Dr. Andy Peckosch, a podcast regular. |
| 0:40.0 | This time, the topic is the status of COVID-19 variants and vaccines. |
| 0:44.6 | Now that the pandemic is officially over, despite more than 1,000 COVID deaths a week in the U.S. |
| 0:50.2 | alone, they discuss new booster policies, new variants, including a very contagious one |
| 0:55.6 | in India, and what the disease will look like going forward. |
| 0:59.4 | Let's listen. |
| 1:01.7 | Andy Pecosh, thanks so much for joining me. |
| 1:04.0 | Oh, always a pressure, Stephanie. |
| 1:05.7 | So today I want to sort of get a little status update for people on COVID and the COVID vaccine, |
| 1:10.7 | because, |
| 1:11.5 | as you know, COVID is officially over. Well, at least the pandemic phase of COVID is officially over. |
| 1:19.5 | And I do think it's important that we now sort of readdress how we're dealing with COVID-19, |
| 1:25.4 | whether it be the vaccines or whether it be reporting test results, |
| 1:29.9 | it's still out there. It is still killing a large number of Americans every week. But we're |
| 1:36.3 | certainly past the stage where we would expect to see really large increases in cases. |
| 1:42.7 | And because of the vaccine and other efforts, you know, most of the population |
| 1:47.7 | has some level of immunity to COVID-19, which is just going to naturally reduce the disease |
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