Questions about the Variant Virus, and Posthumous Albums by Pop Smoke and others

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A new variant of SARS-CoV-2 is making its way around the world; in the U.S., it has been found in at least three states: California, Colorado, and New York. Joe Osmundson, an assistant professor of biology at New York University, speaks with the New Yorker staff writer Carolyn Kormann about why this new strain is particularly concerning. It has twenty-three mutations—far more than scientists would expect an RNA virus to have—which makes it at least fifty per cent more contagious than the original virus. The response, Osmundson says, should be to double down on reducing transmission by encouraging a culture of caution. Mask wearing, he warns, might be with us for a long time. Osmundson came of age as a gay man during the AIDS crisis, and he compares our pressing need for social distancing to the cultural change that took place during that era. “It was not a joy, growing up, to worry about H.I.V. every time I had sex, and to feel like if I don’t wear a condom, I might die,” he tells Kormann. “And yet that was part of how we cared for each other. It is a way to care.” Plus, a music editor and writer picks some favorites from a very specific genre: posthumous rap albums.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.3	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Joseph Osmondson is a molecular
0:15.2	biologist at New York University, and he's written extensively about COVID-19.
0:21.0	Recently, the New Yorkers, Carolyn K Korman asked him to explain some of the new and scary
0:26.4	questions about the virus as it develops.
0:29.9	I wanted to talk about some of the stuff we're seeing in the news, and we're now dealing
0:33.7	with not just one, but two strains of the original coronavirus, we know so well.
0:39.2	And these strains are distinct.
0:41.5	Could you break down for me on a really kind of granular level?
0:44.9	How often does this virus SARS-CoV-2 mutate?
0:48.5	You know, biology is never perfect.
0:51.4	And so everything is going to make mistakes.
0:53.4	Your cell sometimes makes mistakes
0:54.8	when it copies all of its DNA. A virus will inevitably mutate. And those mutations are so we call
1:01.2	them the raw material of evolution. So if there are differences in the genetic sequence of a virus,
1:07.1	those differences can have phenotypic differences, which just means differences in how the virus acts.
1:13.5	Does it replicate faster? Does it replicate more in certain cells? And the more transmission that
1:19.2	occurs, the more people the virus is in, the more chances it has to change. Right. So this is yet
1:25.6	again a reason why the NPI is the non-pharmaceutical
1:29.6	interventions. Social distancing is so important. This virus is worrisome. I will say that it is for
1:35.5	sure worrisome. In part because of the number of mutations it has. It has 23 total mutations.
1:42.2	So that's a surprise to scientists.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.