Dispatch 14: Covid Crystal Ball

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last summer, at a hospital in England, a man in his 70s being treated for complications with cancer tested positive for covid-19. He had lymphoma, and the disease plus his drugs weakened his immune system, making him particularly susceptible to the virus. He wasn’t too bad off, considering, and was sent home. That was Day 1. This is the story of what the doctors witnessed, over the course of his illness: the evolution of covid-19 inside his body. Before their eyes, they get a hint of what might be to come in the pandemic.

This episode was reported by Molly Webster.

Special thanks to Ravindra Gupta, Jonathan Li.

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Want to learn more about some of the covid case studies? Here are a couple papers to get you started:The “U.K. Paper”, co-authored by Ravi Gupta, one of our sources for the episode:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03291-y

A case study out of Boston, co-authored by Dr. Jonathan Li, one of our sources for the episode:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2031364

For more on immune suppression and covid-19, check out this amazing Scientific American article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-may-arise-in-people-with-compromised-immune-systems/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Wait, you're listening to radio lab from W and Y
0:21.7	Whoops are you there? Yeah, that was amazing you started coming. I still don't see you. I'm Jack
0:28.4	I've been running this radio lab dispatch number whatever number we're at I'm gonna say 14
0:33.3	I'm not sure this dispatch is a little bit more low five than than even our others because
0:38.4	I don't know. I just wanted to play you a conversation. I had senior correspondent Molly Webster
0:43.1	She and I check in every Friday morning where she usually just kind of
0:47.6	Updates me on new research. She's following things. She's been interested in and in this case her research update
0:54.8	To me last Friday was just so interesting. I'm recording you are here
0:59.9	You are recording that we decided to record. Okay, we'll talk and then you just tell me to stop
1:05.4	Whenever I will tell you to stop it. Why would I tell you that?
1:10.9	You know dad you'd be the rare person in my life who doesn't?
1:14.5	She told me about a few new studies that she had just read
1:18.0	These were articles about
1:20.0	Different individual covid patients from different spots around the world and each paper looked at how the virus
1:26.8	behaves inside a
1:28.8	single human body
1:30.4	one a case study from the UK starts with a man in his 70s
1:35.2	Coming into a hospital with an immune system that was already pretty low
1:39.8	Yeah, his immune system was low because he had lymphoma
1:43.6	Uh-huh, and then was on a drug to try and keep the cancer in check and that lowers your
1:51.3	Your immune system so this man in his 70s he had a suppressed immune system and he shows up in a hospital
1:57.5	because of cancer stuff and while he's there they test him and he's positive for SARS-CoV-2
	...

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