Coronapod: Old treatments and new hopes
Nature Podcast
podcast@nature.com
4.5 • 893 Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2020
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Benjamin Thompson, Noah Baker, and Amy Maxmen discuss efforts to develop treatments for COVID-19.
In this episode:
02:00 A push for plasma
In New York, hospitals are preparing to infuse patients with the antibody-rich blood plasma of people who have recovered from COVID-19. This approach has been used during disease outbreaks for over a century and we discuss how it works, and how effective is might be.
We also talk about how drug trials for potential treatments are progressing, how scientists are pulling together, and what COVID-19 outbreaks on cruise ships are telling epidemiologists.
News article: How blood from coronavirus survivors might save lives; News article: What the cruise-ship outbreaks reveal about COVID-19
18:44 Switching focus
In the wake of the outbreak, academics are coming together to meet the challenge of the pandemic. We speak to an immunologist and a bioengineer who have changed their research focus and are putting their expertise into action.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to CoronaPod. |
| 0:03.3 | In this show, we're going to bring you nature's take on the latest COVID-19 developments. |
| 0:09.1 | And we'll be speaking to experts around the world about research during the pandemic. |
| 0:15.4 | I really don't know how this plays out. We also don't know a ton about this, you know, virus. |
| 0:20.0 | So there's so many open questions. I just have a really hard time making predictions We also don't know a ton about this, you know, virus. So there's so many open |
| 0:21.0 | questions. I just have a really hard time making predictions because I don't know how the |
| 0:25.2 | outbreak is going to change. |
| 0:29.9 | Hi, Benjamin Thompson here with episode two of CoronaPod. I'm in my South London basement, and |
| 0:36.1 | once again, I'm joined from, well, dozens of miles away by Noah Baker, Nature's chief multimedia editor. |
| 0:42.0 | Noah, hi. Hi. Yeah, I'm also sitting back in my little booth talking to California, as you do in a pandemic. |
| 0:48.3 | Amy, you're thousands of miles away. And you're Amy Maximon, of course, senior reporter here at Nature. How are you doing? |
| 0:53.7 | I'm good. How are you? We're doing okay here, I think. I mean, last week we all spoke about being in |
| 0:58.6 | lockdown. How are you both coping with it? Lockdown's intensified in the UK. So the government has now |
| 1:04.5 | officially said that we, by law, aren't allowed to go outside and there shall be fines. Our prime |
| 1:10.1 | minister, Boris Johnson, |
| 1:11.3 | and our health minister, Matt Hancock, have both now tested positive for the coronavirus, |
| 1:16.2 | so they're self-isolating. Everything's become even more real, if possible. Yeah, over here, |
| 1:21.1 | it seems fine. I'm just like growing out my bangs and my toenails, but I just talked to one of my |
| 1:27.0 | sources and he pointed out something |
| 1:29.5 | very wise, which is the disaster right now and the hotspots is inside of hospitals. So it looks |
| 1:36.3 | really good here. But if you see any of the reports coming out of New York City, for example, |
| 1:41.2 | it's just terrifying. It is amazing the difference, actually. |
... |
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