Coronapod: Dexamethasone, the cheap steroid that could cut coronavirus deaths
Nature Podcast
podcast@nature.com
4.5 • 893 Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2020
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode:
00:37 Lessons from the Ebola outbreak
We get an update on the pandemic response in the African countries still reeling from the 2014 Ebola crisis. Resource strapped and under pressure – can the lessons learned from Ebola help keep the coronavirus under control?
15:32 Dexamethasone, a breakthrough drug?
A UK-based drugs trial suggests that a cheap steroid could cut deaths by a third among the sickest COVID patients. We discuss what this could mean for the pandemic.
News: Coronavirus breakthrough: dexamethasone is first drug shown to save lives
20:06 One good thing
Our hosts pick out things that have made them smile in the last week, including altruistic bone marrow donors, and skateboarding.
22:48 The numbers don’t lie
A huge amount of projections, graphs and data have been produced during the pandemic. But how accurate are numbers and can they be relied upon?
News: Why daily death tolls have become unusually important in understanding the coronavirus pandemic
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Imagine sweeping through green fields, floating five feet above ground, sun on your face as you slide by on track to your destination, not a care in the world as you simply lean back, and before you know it, you're there. |
| 0:16.8 | London to Birmingham from just £16 each way. |
| 0:20.5 | Avanti West Coast. |
| 0:22.2 | Feel good travel. |
| 0:23.8 | Exclusions and limitations apply. |
| 0:25.6 | Full terms and conditions can be founded at avantiwestcoastcoast.coastcoastco.com. |
| 0:28.8 | com. |
| 0:28.8 | Welcome to CoronaPod. |
| 0:35.5 | In this show, we're going to bring you nature's take on the latest COVID-19 developments. |
| 0:41.4 | And we'll be speaking to experts around the world about research during the pandemic. |
| 0:47.8 | I really don't know how this plays out. We also don't know a ton about this, you know, virus. |
| 0:52.3 | So there's so many open questions. I just have a really |
| 0:54.7 | hard time making predictions because I don't know how the outbreak is going to change. |
| 1:02.0 | Welcome to episode 14 of CoronaPod. I'm Benjamin Thompson back once again in the South London |
| 1:08.4 | basement. And, well, I say episode 14, I think that's kind of a guess |
| 1:12.7 | from me, but I'm hoping that Noah Baker or Amy Maximum, who are joining me here today, will be |
| 1:17.7 | able to help me out on a bit. Indeed, episode 14 is the number. So you haven't been here for a |
| 1:23.0 | couple of episodes, but we're glad you're back now. And we can hear the news from the South London |
| 1:27.1 | basement, which we have been so sorely missing. And how are you both doing? I'm doing well. |
| 1:32.6 | Yeah, I'm all right too, actually. Well, no, as you said, I've been off for a few weeks, and it does |
| 1:36.7 | seem to me that things have shifted. Yeah, I would say it's pretty unnerving here in the U.S. right now. I was in Berkeley and now I'm in Boston, Massachusetts, |
| 1:44.4 | and a lot of people are coming out and gathering and getting together, you know, bars are |
... |
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