647 - The Zombie Episode: Pandemics in Science Fiction
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What can we learn from depictions of pandemics in films and series like The Last of Us, I Am Legend, and Contagion? Dylan George, director of the new Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics at the CDC, recently participated in a panel at Awesome Con to discuss these and other depictions of dystopian realities in media. Dr. George talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what these iconic pieces got right, where they took some creative liberties, and what they reveal about gaps in our own public health systems and abilities to respond.
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.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:30.7 | This is Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:33.1 | Today, zombies. |
| 0:35.7 | Dr. Dylan George is the director of the new Center for Forecasting and Outbreak |
| 0:39.4 | Analytics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He joins Dr. Josh Sharfstein |
| 0:44.7 | to talk about what we can learn from science fiction about pandemic preparedness. Let's listen. |
| 0:52.5 | Dr. Dylan, George, thank you so much for joining us in Public Health on call. |
| 0:56.7 | You work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Outbreak Analytics. |
| 1:03.4 | We'll talk about your job a little bit, but I want to start with why I'm calling you, |
| 1:08.5 | which is I heard you gave a presentation at AwesomeCon. |
| 1:11.6 | And my first question is, what is AwesomeCon? |
| 1:14.6 | Yeah, AwesomeCon is a big gathering where people come together to talk about comic books, movies, |
| 1:22.6 | and various kind of like sci-fi culture and things along those lines. |
| 1:27.9 | And so everybody comes together. |
| 1:29.4 | Everyone's in costume. |
| 1:30.8 | I wasn't, I was dressed as a scientist, I guess. |
| 1:33.5 | But it's a really great coming together. |
| 1:35.6 | It's kind of like a Comic-Con in D.C. |
| 1:37.5 | Yeah. |
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