Did You Wash Your Hands?: Recent Episodes
WABE
The coronavirus pandemic has us all asking a lot of questions: How long will I have to practice “social distancing”? Will there be a cure for COVID-19? Can I ever touch my face again?
WABE health reporter Sam Whitehead and guests will try to answer those questions. He’ll talk with experts, public officials, journalists, and everyday people about how the coronavirus is affecting their lives.
Since March of 2020, we've been bringing you different perspectives on living through and understanding the coronavirus pandemic. Today, host Sam Whitehead sits in the interview chair to share some of the things he's learned.
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Dave O'Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says there's lots of disagreement among scientists about the value of COVID-19 booster shots even as federal regulators make recommendations for them.
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Dr. Kimberly Manning, an internist at Grady Memorial Hospital, says giving people a space to share their concerns about COVID-19 vaccines can make them more confident in getting them.
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Dr. Joe Bresee, with the Task Force for Global Health, shares how the nonprofit's work on standing up influenza vaccination programs equip it to help countries establish COVID-19 vaccination programs.
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This week, we held a special live taping of the podcast with Dr. Lilly Cheng Immergluck, Immergluck, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Morehouse School of Medicine, and Dr. Audrey Arona, who leads the Gwinnett, Newton, and Rockdale health district. The conversation focused on some of the challenges ahead and even some reasons for optimism.
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Cecile Viboud, an epidemiologist with the National Institutes of Health who helps run the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, joins me to talk about the latest projections from the group, which show the pandemic slowing down in the next few months.
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Sarah Jane Tribble, with Kaiser Health News, says top U.S. scientists started talking seriously about COVID-19 booster shots in January, at a time when many Americans hadn't received their first vaccine doses.
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Lawrence Gostin, who directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law. says there's a long history of vaccine mandates in the U.S. that have paved the way for those President Biden recently announced.
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Becky Sayler has three kids in elementary school in the Cobb County School District. Within the first week of school one of them contracted COVID-19. She shares how her family has been navigating the situation.
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Dr. Carlos del Rio, infectious diseases specialist at Emory University, says low vaccination rates and the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus are to blame for the current wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
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N.R. is an emergency room physician at a large hospital in metro Atlanta. He shares his experiences dealing with the current wave of the pandemic.
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Dr. Robert Jansen, chief medical officer of the Grady Health System, which runs Georgia's largest hospital, says the current wave of the pandemic could soon be as large at the one that swamped health care facilities this winter.
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Over the course of the pandemic, many communities have turned to the non-profit group CORE for help with COVID-19 testing and vaccination. Ann Lee, CEO of CORE discusses that work.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says even fully vaccinated people can spread the coronavirus. That's based on new research on the high-transmissible delta variant. Dr. Colleen Kraft, and infectious diseases physician and researcher at Emory University, helps unpack what that means for the pandemic.
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U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are pushing a plan to create a federal Medicaid look-alike program to extend health coverage to low income Georgians. Both say the plan was inspired, in part, by the pandemic.
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Christopher Wimer, co-director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, says the expanded child tax credit payments going out to families in July could dramatically reduce child poverty in the country.
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Dr. David Brett-Major, an infectious diseases physician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says we're still learning a lot about how and why the delta variant of the coronavirus is so troublesome.
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Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, says the pandemic has brought some big changes to the workplace, though it's unclear which will persist.
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Since March of 2020, we've brought you scores of conversations about different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, we're doing something a little different. Health reporter Sam Whitehead plays the guest and answer questions about the origins of the show and what's coming next.
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Joshua Weitz, a quantitative biologist at Georgia Tech, says some two-thirds of Georgians could have some immune protection against the coronavirus, either through vaccination or natural infection.
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Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at the Rockefeller University, says it's not uncommon for people to get infected by a virus even once they've been vaccinated against it, but that doesn't mean a vaccine isn't working.
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Liz Hamel, director of public opinion at the Kaiser Family Foundation, says attitudes on COVID-19 vaccines have changed a good bit over the course of the vaccine rollout.
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Dr. Wendy Armstrong, medical director of Grady Health System's HIV clinic, says a plan to end the HIV epidemic by 2030 was already ambitious, but COVID-19 has made the effort even harder.
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Dr. Melanie Thompson, an HIV researcher and physician in Atlanta, says COVID-19 and HIV has exposed similar inequities in the U.S.. She says the fight against one pandemic can teach us things about addressing the other.
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Carl Zimmer, a columnist for the New York Times, says some scientists think the theory that the coronavirus accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab is unlikely but still deserving of investigation.
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Julie Rosenberg, with Ariadne Labs and the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University, says the spread of the coronavirus around the world could have major implications for the future of the pandemic in the U.S..
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Roxane Silver, a psychologist at UC-Irvine, says living though the many traumatic events of the last 18 months could better prepare some for the stresses of the future.
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Roxanne Scott, who covers immigration for WABE, says detention centers run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement haven't been spared by COVID-19 and shares the story of a former detainee.
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Dr. Evan Anderson, a physician and researcher at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, says finding a COVID-19 vaccine that's safe and effective in young children is crucial for ending the pandemic. He's working on clinical trials of Moderna's vaccine in kids 6 months through 11 years old.
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Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, shares her thoughts on the vaccine rollout in the South and across the U.S. and on where the pandemic goes from here. We also check in with Dr. Kathleen Toomey, head of the Georgia Department of Public Health.
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Adriane Casalotti, with the National Association of County and City Health Officials, says the Biden administrations promise to pump more than $7 billion into the nation's public health system could help fight COVID-19 and future pandemics.
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Glen Nowak, former director of media relations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discusses the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the agency's public health guidance.
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Amit Prasad, a sociologist at Georgia Tech, says there are cultural and historical reasons why people believe misinformation about the pandemic and knowing that can help address its spread.
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Jennie Lavine, who studies infectious disease dynamics at Emory University, says it's likely the coronavirus will be with us for a long time, but that doesn't necessarily mean a bleak future.
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Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says we'll reach herd immunity eventually. What's less certain is how many people will get sick and die along the way.
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Dr. Cecil Bennett, a family medicine doctor in Newnan, Georgia, says primary care physicians can play a key role in the vaccine rollout, especially when it comes to addressing vaccine reluctance.
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Thomas Gillespie, a disease ecologist at Emory, says changing how humans interact with animals and the natural world could change the course of future pandemics.
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Selena Simmons-Duffin, health policy reporter for NPR, says still still not clear how federal officials' decision to briefly pause administration of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine will impact the national vaccination effort.
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Cheryl Klaiman, a psychologist with the Marcus Autism Center, says the disruptions of the pandemic have been especially challenging for kids with autism spectrum disorder, but many have found ways to cope.
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Curtis Chang, a consultant and theologian, says convincing evangelical Christians to get vaccinated against COVID-19 means getting them to trust secular institutions they often view with skepticism.
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Rachel Kidman, an epidemiologist at Stony Brook University, says more than 40,000 children have likely lost parents to COVID-19 and other causes of death related to the pandemic, and the number continues to grow.
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Bishop Frederick Williams, head of Gethsemane Worship Center in Albany, says his church had dozens of members hospitalized in the early days of the pandemic, as the coronavirus ravaged southwest Georgia.
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Adrienne Levesque has been dealing with COVID-19 and its after-effects for a year. She's one of many so-called Long-haulers who've faced months of health challenges in the wake of a coronavirus infection.
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Andy Miller, editor of Georgia Health News, says healthcare wasn't the biggest issue for state lawmakers during the recently-wrapped 2021 legislative session, despite the pandemic.
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Mark Thompson, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, led a recent study that showed the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna worked well outside of the controlled conditions of clinical trials.
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During the pandemic, the Tuskegee syphilis study has been invoked as a reason for vaccine hesitancy in the Black community. But Doctor Rueben C. Warren, director of the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, says it's not that simple.
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Brian Castrucci, with the de Beaumont Foundation, says many self-identified Republicans are reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but his nonprofit has found some ways to convince them.
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George Painter, president of the Emory Institute for Drug Development, says antiviral drugs play an important role in fighting this pandemic and the next one. A drug he developed is currently going through clinical trials.
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Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, with the University of Florida College of Medicine, says what little we do know about the safety and efficacy of COVId-19 vaccines in pregnant individuals is promising.
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Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for Kaiser Health News, says the Biden administration's COVID-19 aid plan does a lot to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and make it's coverage more attainable.
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Two experts who have been fighting COVID-19 for the last year — Dr. Carlos del Rio from Emory University and Fulton Board of Health director Dr. Lynn Paxton — share what they think comes next in the pandemic. The conversation was recorded during a recent live taping of the podcast.
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Two experts who have been fighting COVID-19 for the last year -- Dr. Carlos del Rio from Emory University and Fulton Board of Health director Dr. Lynn Paxton -- share what they've learned from their experiences. The conversation was recorded during a recent live taping of the podcast.
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Helen Branswell, a writer for STAT, has been covering the coronavirus outbreak from early 2020 when there was growing concern about at "mystery pneumonia outbreak" in China and has reported on nearly every aspect of the pandemic since.
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Thursday, March 4th at 7:30 PM EST, WABE health reporter Sam Whitehead will be joined by a panel of experts to discuss what comes next in the pandemic, and what we've learned about the coronavirus in the last year.
Dr. Carlos del Rio from Emory University and Dr. Lynn Paxton, Fulton county's health director, will share stories from the front lines of fighting COVID-19 and take your questions.
Sign up for this free, virtual event at www.wabe.org/community
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Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says the $1.9 trillion plan could mean lots of aid for Georgians, but isn't likely to garner bipartisan support.
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Dr. Andrew Kim, co-founder of Ethne Health in Clarkston, Georgia, says he's working to make sure the largely non-white, immigrant community his clinic serves has access to COVID-19 vaccines.
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Dr. Kawsar R. Talaat, with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says vaccinating children against COVID-19 will be a key part of ending the pandemic, and says researchers are working now to make that happen.
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Priya Chidambaram, a policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation, says long-term care facilities across the country have been hit by the pandemic because of their close ties to the communities where they're located.
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Shivani Patel, who's been tracking equity issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, says getting the most-vulnerable communities equal access to COVID-19 vaccines helps everyone.
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Deana Holiday Ingraham, mayor of the predominantly Black city of East Point, says she regularly hears from residents who are frustrated by their inability to get access to COVID-19 vaccines.
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Alexis Madrigal, co-founder of The COVID Tracking Project, talks about the decision to stand down The Atlantic's effort to collect and share data about the coronavirus.
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Peggy Honein, a researcher working on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 response, says multiple layers of intervention can help schools open safely and slow the spread of the coronavirus.
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Cody Hall, director of communications for Governor Brian Kemp, says if he could change anything about the state's COVID-19 vaccine rollout, he'd have state leaders talk more about supply constraints.
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Philip Santangelo, a biomedical engineering researcher at Georgia Tech, explains how the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna work--and how scientists know so much about them.
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Joy Fernandez de Narayan, who manages the 'street medicine' program for the Mercy Care clinic, says the program that offers care to people experiencing homelessness in Atlanta has had to change to keep providing services during the pandemic.
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Dr. Jermaine Jackson, who runs Piedmont Healthcare's Pulmonary COVID-19 Recovery Clinic, says some people spend months dealing with the consequences of a coronavirus infection.
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Dr. Audrey Arona, who leads the health district that serves Gwinnett county, says her office has seen high demand for COVID-19 vaccines even though supplies remain low. (Audio updated 1/21/21)
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Vivian Ho, health economist at Rice University, says there's a relationship between a state's decision to issue strict lockdown measures early in the pandemic and how many COVID-19 deaths ultimately occurred there. More here: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/state-restrictions-and-covid-19-death-rate/
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Thomas Friedrich, professor of virology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says a new, more transmissible variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 could have big implications for the pandemic in the U.S. if its starts spreading widely in the country.
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Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York, says it's no small feat to get vaccines from where they're produced to where they're administered--but it's a critical part of any vaccination effort.
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Anna Barry-Jester, a reporter with Kaiser Health News, says public health leaders are facing more public scrutiny during the pandemic, and that's pushed many to leave their jobs. She chronicled many of their stories with colleagues from KHN and the Associated Press. Read more here: https://khn.org/news/article/pandemic-backlash-jeopardizes-public-health-powers-leaders/
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We’ve talked to a lot of people this year in Georgia who’ve been personally touched by the pandemic: they've been sick, they've lost loved ones. As we approach the end of 2020, we’re listening back on some of those conversations.
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As we approach the end of 2020, we’re revisiting some of the conversations that touch on what COVID-19 has exposed about the world we live in and how we can live safely in it.
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Dan Wakin, an obituaries editor at the New York Times, says his paper has been working for months to tell the stories of some of victims of the pandemic in a project called "Those We've Lost." View the project here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/obituaries/people-died-coronavirus-obituaries.html
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Joshua Weitz, who studies how viruses transform human health at Georgia Tech, has created a tool to help people calculate the likelihood of being exposed to the coronavirus at events of different sizes. He shares how it works and discusses the current state of the pandemic.
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Jodie Guest, from the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, lays out some of the basics of two COVID-19 vaccines that could soon be approved for emergency use by U.S. regulators.
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Holley Wilkin, who teaches health communication at Georgia State University, says it's not enough for officials to set appropriate public health policies to slow coronavirus transmission--they also need to be good at messaging them.
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Dr. Willarda Edwards, with the American Medical Association, says the health disparities laid bare by COVID-19 contributed to the AMA's recent decision to officially recognize racism as a public health threat.
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Sarah Owermohle, who covers health care for Politico, says some Americans could get access to COVID-19 vaccines before the end of the year. Still, many questions remain about their long term efficacy and how they'll be distributed.
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Even if you've managed to hold on to a job, keep food on the table, stay healthy, keep the kids learning, and not get too overwhelmed by politics, this is an incredibly stressful time. And for many people, those things haven't all fallen into place. Dr. Vaile Wright, senior director for healthcare innovation at the American Psychological Association, says chronic stress, as so many people are experiencing, can have long-term effects, even once the pandemic is over.
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Dr. Stanley Perlman, a virologist at the University of Iowa, says we've learned a lot about SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 since it was first discovered, but there is still much we don't know.
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John Haupert, CEO of the Grady Health System, says his Atlanta hospital is treating a rising number of people with coronavirus infections and that the current surge could surpass the one the region saw this summer.
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Pien Huang, who covers health for NPR, says the decision to strip the Centers for Disease Control of Prevention of its job of collecting COVID-19 from hospitals has far-reaching consequences.
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Cria Perrine, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says Thanksgiving gatherings could be the "perfect storm" for spreading the coronavirus. She shares the agency's tips for how to celebrate safely.
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Ariel Hart, health care reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says Governor Brian Kemp's plans to overhaul the individual health insurance market in Georgia could affect hundreds of thousands of people and could be undone if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act.
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Keren Landman, a freelance reporter in Atlanta, read through thousands of emails from state officials to uncover the story of how Georgia public health officials didn't have much control over the state's COVID-19 data dashboard. Read her story here: https://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/behind-georgias-covid-19-dashboard-disaster/
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Dr. Paulina Rebolledo, from Emory University, says there are a number of reasons members of the Latinx community are more likely to become severely ill from COVID-19 and many of them are structural.
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Brent Stephens, who studies indoor air quality at the Illinois Institute of Technology, says there's increasing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can spread through tiny, floating droplets. He says there are some steps people can take to make indoor spaces safer.
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Erin Lipp, a professor of environmental health science at the University of Georgia, leads a team using wastewater to track the spread of the coronavirus. She says our waste can tell us a lot about how the pandemic is progressing.
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Jen Kates, with the Kaiser Family Foundation, says President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have different pitches for how they'll handle the coronavirus pandemic if they win next month's election. It's an issue that's top of mind for many voters.
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Sarah Evanega, from the Cornell University Alliance For Science, says the coronavirus has spawned a pandemic of misinformation. In a recent study, she found a few important super-spreaders of falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
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Roxanne Scott, who covers the U.S. Census for WABE, says the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the national headcount into disarray. It's sparked a legal fight that has pushed the final deadline back and forth on the calendar, and experts say that could lead to an undercount in Georgia.
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Drs. Colleen Kelley and Valeria Cantos are helping run a coronavirus vaccine trial at Emory University. They say it's not easy to get Black and Latinx people to volunteer for medical research, even though they've been the groups hardest hit by COVID-19.
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Yamil Berard, an investigative reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says dealing with the coronavirus has pushed many rural hospitals in Georgia to the brink and has forced some to close their doors. (Read more from Berard here: https://www.ajc.com/news/investigations/push-comes-to-shove-moment-for-rural-hospitals-in-georgia/OUDVXKRW7JHHDPQ7TKIZJYWUZY/)
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Deirdre Barret, who studies dreams at Harvard Medical School, says the pandemic is affecting how people dream and that women are seeing outsized effects.
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Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, says it's time for the U.S. leaders to rethink how they're handling the COVID-19 outbreak, especially as there's still a long way to go before life returns to something resembling normal.
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Apoorva Mandavilli, a reporter for the New York Times, says recent changes to Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's coronavirus testing guidance were made against the objections of agency scientists. (More on the story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/health/coronavirus-testing-cdc.html)
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Dr. James Hildreth, president of Meharry Medical College, and the other heads of the country's historically Black medical schools want to make sure the people most impacted by the pandemic have access to a vaccine that's proven to work for them.
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Dr. Tom Frieden, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says efforts from elected officials to undermine the public health agency could draw-out our fight against the coronavirus.
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Kelly Girtz, the mayor of Athens-Clarke County, talks about what the spike in coronavirus infections at the University of Georgia has means for his community--and what he thinks should be done to slow the spread of COVID-19.
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John King, Georgia's insurance commissioner, has been tapped by Governor Brian Kemp to set up a network to distribute a possible coronavirus vaccine. He shares his vision for how such a system could work and some of the challenges the effort could face.
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Dr. Laura Blaisdell, a pediatrician in Maine, says implementing multiple interventions helped prevent the spread of the coronavirus at four summer camps. She shares the findings of her recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Melanie McNeil, Georgia's long-term care ombudsman, says the pandemic has hit nursing homes and other long-term care facilities hard--causing thousands of resident deaths and months of isolation from the outside world.
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Dr. Kathleen Toomey, head of the Georgia Department of Public Health, says the summer spike in COVID-19 cases can be linked to people not following state guidelines. She's urging people to adhere to best practices during the coming Labor Day weekend. Toomey also discusses the latest on testing and contact tracing in the state.
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Martha Dalton, who covers education for WABE, says school districts all over metro Atlanta have faced challenges as they've tried to start the year. Some have seen COVID-19 outbreaks that have led to school closures; others have had problems rolling out remote learning.
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Dr. Amesh Adalja, who studies infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, calls the failure of the U.S. to provide adequate testing for the coronavirus "the original sin of the pandemic." He says Georgia and many other states have faced similar challenges when it comes to establishing needed testing infrastructure.
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Eric Jackson, who covers sports for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, says some of the ways that leagues and teams are adapting to competition during the pandemic may be with us for some time.
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Christina Jewett, with Kaiser Health News, and Danielle Renwick, with The Guardian, discuss their efforts to chronicle the health care workers who have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. The project, a joint effort of both news outlets, is called 'Lost on the Frontline' (khn.org/lost-on-the-frontline).
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Steve Whatley, chairman of the Randolph County Hospital Authority, says Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center couldn't weather COVID-19 after years of financial turmoil. That's why the small hospital in Cuthbert, Georgia plans to close its doors this fall.
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Tom Smith, an economist at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, says it could take months or years before the U.S economy recovers from the damage caused by the coronavirus.
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Road races – from local 5Ks to some of the largest marathons in the world – have been either postponed or canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Rich Kenah from the Atlanta Track Club joins us to discuss how runners stay motivated and what races may look like in the future.
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The root of many of the issues with Georgia’s June 9th primary election was the pandemic. Many trained and experienced poll workers backed out and there was a shortage of polling places. That led to long lines. So what steps are being taken to fix these issues for the fall? A conversation with AJC reporter Mark Niesse.
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Don Avery, CEO of Fairview Park Hospital in Dublin, Georgia, says his facility has treated more COVID-19 patients in the month of July than it did in the first three months of the pandemic.
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Dr. Sara Goza, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, says schools should prioritize students returning to classrooms for in-person instruction, but only if that can be done with the safety of students, teachers, and staff in mind.
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Paul Root Wolpe, a medical ethicist at Emory University, says it's not easy for health care workers or everyday people to navigate the ethical challenges presented by the coronavirus--but it can be done.
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Dr. Jonathan Wortham, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says a study of more than 10,000 COVID-19 deaths showed members of minority groups were more likely to die from the disease at younger ages.
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Martha Dalton, who covers education for WABE, says metro Atlanta's public schools are trying to navigate how to safely start the fast-approaching school year, and it's not easy.
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The HIV epidemic can teach us a lot about how to handle the coronavirus, especially how to carry on our lives while minimizing risk, says Dr. Eric Kutscher from NYU Langonne Health. He recently co-authored an essay on the topic (https://jamanetwork.com/channels/health-forum/fullarticle/2766837) in the Journal of the American Medical Association's Health Forum.
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Stephannie Stokes, who covers housing for WABE, says evictions haven't been happening since courts closed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. But they could reopen soon, and many are worried about a looming eviction crisis.
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Dr. Audrey Arona, who leads the Gwinnett County health department, says an increased demand for coronavirus testing means it takes longer for people to receive results. That makes it trickier for public health officials to track people who are sick and who they've been in contact with.
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Van Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Georgia, says a rise in coronavirus infections led him to issue a first-in-the-state requirement that people wear face masks in his city. It seems to violate a state order that prevents local governments from making their own public health rules.
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Dr. Lynn Paxton, director of the Fulton County Board of Health says the rise in COVID-19 cases should prompt officials to look at "dialing back" continuing to lift restrictions intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
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There is so much data out there about the coronavirus pandemic. Sam Whitehead talks with three different doctors from the world of public health about the best numbers to watch.
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Dr. Anne Spaulding, who studies healthcare in jails and prisons at Emory University, says these settings can be perfect incubators for a highly contagious virus and can have major impacts in the communities where they're located.
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Andy Miller, editor of Georgia Health News, says pressure from federal officials has led two medical device sterilization facilities in metro Atlanta to ramp up operations in the midst of the pandemic. The two facilities had previously reduced operations because of elevated emissions of the toxic gas, ethylene oxide.
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Wenjie Sun, a social worker who lives in Decatur, Georgia and is currently expecting her second child, says COVID-19 has added an additional element of uncertainty to her pregnancy.
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Dr. Carl Reddy, from the Task Force for Global Health, shares some of the challenges developing countries face when it comes to responding to the pandemic and discusses the COVID-19 outlook for the rest of the world.
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Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, says we've learned a lot about the coronavirus, but there are some important questions that don't have answers.
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Emma Hurt, who covers the state legislature for WABE, says Georgia lawmakers have a lot to accomplish when then re-convene next week, and they'll have to do it all in the midst of a pandemic.
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Ryan Breshears, chief of behavioral health for the Wellstar Health System, says the coronavirus pandemic is a stressful situation that could have both short-term and long-term impacts on peoples' mental health.
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Johnny Edwards, an investigative reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has been speaking with people inside and outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who worry the agency's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has harmed its public reputation.
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Jenesta Hadley, who works at a healthcare laundry facility in south Georgia, is one of the many people who's job keeps the healthcare industry running in the midst of the pandemic. She says her job has become even more dangerous in the time of the coronavirus.
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Kathleen Hartnett, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says visits to hospital emergency departments dropped sharply in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and patients delaying emergency care could face serious health complications.
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Dr. Howard Markel, physician and historian of medicine at the University of Michigan, says recent protests and the tactics used to stop them could spread the coronavirus. He says similar situations occurred during the 1918 flu pandemic.
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Ivan Oransky has been tracking questionable studies on COVID-19 for the blog "Retraction Watch", which he co-founded (https://retractionwatch.com/retracted-coronavirus-covid-19-papers/). He shares his tips on telling the good research on the coronavirus from the not-so-good.
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Turgay Ayer, who studies healthcare analytics at Georgia Tech, helped build The COVID-19 Simulator (https://covid19sim.org/), which predicts how the coronavirus will spread as states start to lift restrictions on movement and activity. It predicts, the more states open, the more COVID-19 will spread.
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Molly Samuel, who covers the environment for WABE, says the state's farmers were still recovering from Hurricane Michael when the coronavirus struck, forcing them to innovate.
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Dr. Andi Shane, Medical Director of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, says physicians are still learning a lot about Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a new condition possibly linked to the coronavirus. Also, how the pandemic is affecting childhood vaccination rates.
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Willoughby Mariano, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says the Georgia Department of Public Health's handling of coronavirus data has made it harder for people to trust public officials.
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Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, talks about her agency's efforts to hire an army of disease detectives, to track down the contacts of everyone in Georgia who tests positive for COVID-19. She also addresses recent issues with her agency's COVID-19 data.
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Earlier in the year, as hospitals started to see more and more COVID-19 patients, many put elective procedures on hold. That put Barbara Russell in a tough spot. Her surgery was meant to hold off cervical cancer.
Engagement at WABE is powered, in part, by our collaboration with America Amplified, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting-funded initiative to use community engagement in our reporting.
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Scott Steiner, CEO of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, shares what he thinks is behind a recent rise in COVID-19 cases in Albany and how his hospital is watching for a potential second surge in patients.
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Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, an epidemiologist with the Morehouse School of Medicine .and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, says COVID-19 has "ripped the sheets off the basic inequity, structured inequity by race in this country."
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Liz Essley Whyte, a reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, has obtained an internal government document that shows federal officials are worried about Georgia's ability to handle a surge of COVID-19 patients even as the state continues to loosen shelter-in-place restrictions.
More on the story here: https://publicintegrity.org/health/coronavirus-and-inequality/as-georgia-reopens-its-intensive-care-beds-are-largely-full/
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George Simmons, a recent graduate of Banneker High School in College Park, joins me to discuss how the coronavirus has upended his senior year and what it could mean for his future.
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Melita Nichols tells the story of losing her 27-year-old daughter, Qunia "Nia" Roberts, to the coronavirus after her own fight with COVID-19. Roberts remains one of the youngest people to die of the disease in hard-hit southwest Georgia.
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Isaac Fung, an epidemiologist at Georgia Southern University, walks through some of the COVID-19 data compiled by the Georgia Department of Public Health (https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report) and discusses what it tells us (and what it doesn't).
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Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of CARE USA, says the international humanitarian organization CARE is offering aid in the U.S. for the first time. That as the non-profit faces a potential downturn in donations as the nation's economy suffers.
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Roxanne Scott, who covers the U.S. Census for WABE, says the conronavirus pandemic is complicating the national headcount--and is showing its real importance.
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Dr. Natalie Lane, medical director for the emergency department of the Children's Hospital of Georgia, says its not totally clear why kids seem to be less affected by the coronavirus, but cautions the pandemic could still affect them profoundly.
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Dr. Brendan Jackson, medical epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, talks about a new report that finds African-Americans are more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19, and some adults could expect severe illness even without underlying risk factors.
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The Atlanta History Center has launched a project to collect documents, stories, and artifacts that show how everyday people are living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of the organization, says it's not always easy to know what will have historical value.
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Lis Hernandez, owner of Venezuelan restaurant Arepa Mia, says she doesn't feel safe opening her two locations for dine-in service, despite the fact that she has permission from state officials to do so. She's been completely closed for the last month and says it's taken a toll on her business.
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Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, explains the basics of contact tracing--and lays out some of the challenges of tracking and isolating people with COVID-19.
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Dr. Aneesh Mehta, with the Emory University Vaccine Center, says antibody testing could help public health officials get a better sense of who's been infected by the coronavirus. It's less clear, however, what kind of immune protection those who've recovered might have.
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Devon Orland, legal director with the Georgia Advocacy Office, a federally-mandated advocacy group for people with disabilities, says COVID-19 has cut her off from her clients in nursing homes and state hospitals. That has her worried for their safety.
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Joshua Weitz, a quantitative biologist at Georgia Tech, says models can't give us certainty about what will happen with the coronavirus pandemic, but they can still help tailor interventions to keep people safe. Plus, his thoughts on Governor Brian Kemp's decision to start re-opening Georgia's economy.
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Governor Brian Kemp will allow some Georgia businesses to resume operations at the end of the week, less than one month after issuing a statewide shelter-in-place order to fight COVID-19. Emma Hurt, WABE government and politics reporter, talks about what the move could mean for the economy and the spread of the pandemic.
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Will Tauxe, a third-year family medicine resident physician in Columbus, Georgia shares the story of his personal fight with COVID-19 and what it will mean for how he treats patients in the future.
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Is there anyone who hasn't been affected in some way by the pandemic? Molly Samuel talks about WABE's effort to collect and share personal stories of living through the coronavirus.
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Lots of people have had their employment situations changed by the pandemic. Many have lost jobs. Many are working in different hours or different settings. A long-time custodian at the Atlanta airport and a long-haul truck driver share how their work has changed.
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COVID-19 has led Georgia officials to delay the state's presidential primary election multiple times and to push vote-by-mail in new ways. Emil Moffatt, who covers voting for WABE, talks about what the changes could mean for November's general election.
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Dr. Chirag Patel, Medical Director for Population Health at Wellstar Health System, says the coronavirus isn't going away any time soon and shares his thoughts on what's needed to ride out the pandemic in the long-term.
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Michael Fowler, Dougherty County coroner, on how the coronavirus has made death investigations harder and more important than ever--and what its meant for the people of Albany, Georgia.
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The effort to fight the spread of the coronavirus has lead to massive economic upheaval, and it won't be easy to recover from says Tom Smith, economist with Emory University's Goizueta Business School.
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As Easter approaches, how one metro Atlanta church has transitioned to online services because of the coronavirus. A conversation with the Rev. Joseph McBrayer, associate pastor of Oak Grove United Methodist Church.
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Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta is facing the COVID-19 pandemic short on beds and receiving the same amount of regular patient traffic. Dr. Robert Jansen, Grady's chief medical officer, on how the hospital is coping and what doctors are learning about how the coronavirus affects those it infects.
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Schools across the state have sent students home for the remainder of the year to stop the spread of COVID-19. Martha Dalton, WABE education reporter, says making the transition out of the classroom has come with challenges.
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Dr. Sandra Ford leads the boards of health for both Fulton and DeKalb counties, which each have more COVID-19 cases than almost anywhere else in the state. A conversation about testing capacity, workforce shortages, and much more.
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Georgians shouldn't worry about getting access to coronavirus testing or treatment--even if they don't have insurance, says John King, state insurance commissioner. But taxpayers are likely to be on the hook for some of the cost of that care.
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After facing weeks of pressure, Governor Brian Kemp has asked the entire state of Georgia to stay home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Emma Hurt, WABE government and politics reporter, on the reasons behind the decision and the latest on the situation in Albany, Georgia.
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Piedmont Healthcare, like many other hospital systems, is doing what it can for a potential flood of patients with COVID-19. Scott Hill, the system's chief operating officer, says dealing with the surge won't be easy.
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A look at how Emory University Hospital is preparing for a surge of COVID-19 patients with Dr. Colleen Kraft. The member of Governor Brian Kemp's coronavirus task force also shares her thoughts on Georgia's approach to fighting the virus.
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Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a lack of investment in the country’s public health system has “significant consequences.” He shares what his agency has learned about the virus, his take on the best tools to fight it, and much more.
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This week, Congress passed a $2.2 trillion dollar relief package aimed at blunting some of the economic pain caused by the coronavirus. U.S. Senator David Perdue digs into the contents of the bill and shares his thoughts on the country’s lack of preparedness for a pandemic.
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From enforcing "stay-at-home" orders to reducing arrests to keep people out of jails, the coronavirus pandemic is changing how the Atlanta Police Department handles things. A conversation with WABE criminal justice reporter Lisa Hagen.
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Dr. Andrew Reisman, president of the Medical Association of Georgia and family medicine doctor, on how the coronavirus pandemic is changing his practice and those of other physicians across the state.
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Governor Brian Kemp has issued an executive order calling for people “with an increased risk of complications from COVID-19” to isolate themselves. Dr. Carlos del Rio, who studies public health and infectious diseases at Emory University, says it might not be enough to slow the spread of coronavirus.
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People without stable housing are especially hard to help during a pandemic, even though they’re particularly vulnerable. Stephannie Stokes, WABE housing reporter, discusses how the city of Atlanta and its non-profit partners are trying to protect them.
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This week, Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued an executive order closing bars, gyms, and movie theaters--and ordering restaurants to transition to take-out service only. A look at how one coffee shop is trying to adapt.
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A look at how one hospital in Albany is dealing with an influx of coronavirus patients, dozens of quarantined staff, and equipment shortages with Andy Miller, editor of Georgia Health News.
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Social distancing means in-person press conferences have quickly become a thing of the past. Plus, a look at Georgia’s latest COVID-19 case counts and the state’s efforts to ramp up testing.
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