AirTalk

In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the UCSF Medical Center.

Today’s topics include: 

COVID-19 vaccines working well against CA variant 

WaPo: variants will define the next pandemic phase 

Experts split on CA June 15 reopening 

CA expecting significant decrease in vaccination supply

Cal State LA allows all adults to stand in line for vaccine 

Anti-parasite drug gaining support as treatment for COVID-19. Should we be skeptical?

Report: coronavirus pandemic is largest global disruption since WWII

Brazil’s president won’t implement lockdowns. What are the implications?

Guest:

Peter Chin-Hong, M.D., infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the UCSF Medical Center; he tweets @PCH_SF

Today on AirTalk, we talk about California's plan in lifting most COVID-19 restrictions on businesses by June 15. Also on the show, we discuss the impact of a potential boycott on the Beijing Olympic Games; go over the latest COVID-19 news; and more.

In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Dr. Tim Brewer from UCLA.

Today’s topics include: 

AstraZeneca vaccine paused in adolescents after blot clot concerns 

Double mutant variant found in California

More than 40% of new cases coming out of five states 

Young Angelenos head to Bakersfield for vaccine

Study: 1 in 3 develop neuropsychiatric conditions after COVID-19

U.S Army developing vaccine, begins testing in humans  

Most children with inflammatory syndrome had mild COVID-19

Guest: 

Timothy Brewer, M.D., epidemiologist and professor of medicine at UCLA’s school of public health; has served on the advisory boards of the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention

According to a recent study published in Nature, scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel were able to grow mouse embryos in an artificial womb for several days. 

Though the mice have yet to be fully gestated in a robotic womb, this research has some interesting potential applications. According to the New York Times, this experimentation could lead to a great understanding of early development and could have applications in fertility as well. And though it may seem far off in the sci-fi future, this also opens the door for the potential for human embryos to be carried to term outside a human body. 

We sit down with New York Times medical reporter Gina Kolata and developmental biologist Paul Tesar to discuss the research and its potential implications. 

Guests: 

Gina Kolata, medical reporter at the New York Times, where her recent piece is “Scientists Grow Mouse Embryos in a Mechanical Womb”; she tweets @ginakolata 

Paul Tesar, professor of genetics and developmental biologist at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; he tweets @TesarLab

China’s government warned Washington on Wednesday not to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing after the Biden administration said it was talking with allies about a joint approach to complaints of human rights abuses.

A Foreign Ministry spokesperson rejected accusations of abuses against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region. He warned of an unspecified “robust Chinese response” to a potential Olympics boycott.

Human rights groups are protesting China’s hosting of the games, due to start in February 2022. They have urged a boycott or other measures to call attention to accusations of Chinese abuses against Uyghurs, Tibetans and residents of Hong Kong.

The U.S. State Department suggested an Olympic boycott was among the possibilities but a senior official said later a boycott has not been discussed. The International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee have said in the past they oppose boycotts.

We discuss the potential repercussions of a U.S. boycott of the China games and their ripple effects to the 2028 Los Angeles games. 

With files from the Associated Press. 

Guests:

David Wharton, feature sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times who’s been covering the Olympics; he tweets @LATimesWharton

Stephen Cheung, president of World Trade Center Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization that focuses on attracting foreign direct investments to the Los Angeles region; he is also the chief operating officer for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), a non-profit that promotes and secures economic activity for the region;  he tweets @WTCLAStephen

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, associate professor of strategy and policy at U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island, historian and author of the book “Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War,” (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

California plans to lift most coronavirus restrictions on businesses and workplaces June 15, with officials saying enough people should be vaccinated by then to allow for life to almost get back to a pre-pandemic normal.

The mask mandate in the nation’s most populated state will stay in effect, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday, and he cautioned that California will reopen more widely in mid-June only if vaccine supply is sufficient and hospitalization rates stay stable and low. Still, the Democratic governor, who has overseen some of the most restrictive pandemic rules in the country, said it was time to forge ahead, with 20 million vaccines administered in California to date. The announcement signals an end date to more than a year of isolation after California resisted reopening too quickly even while other states pushed ahead.

“We can confidently say by June 15 that we can start to open up as business as usual, subject to ongoing mask-wearing and ongoing vigilance,” Newsom said. “So this is a big day.”

The announcement comes as states across the country have lifted health restrictions as more people get vaccinated. California had some of the nation’s strictest pandemic rules, becoming the first to institute a statewide stay-at-home order last spring and adopting a complex, color-coded tier system in August that dictated which businesses could open and at what capacity depending on how widespread the virus was in a county. Today on AirTalk, we talk with different stakeholders about the plans to lift restrictions and what this could look like in SoCal. Do you have questions or thoughts? Give us a call at 866-893-5722. 

With files from the Associated Press

Guests: 

Jot Condie, president & CEO of the California Restaurant Association, an advocacy organization for the restaurant industry 

Ying-Ying Goh, director of public health and health officer for the City of Pasadena

Maria Salinas, president and CEO of LA Area Chamber of Commerce; she tweets @salinas_ms

Kelly Colopy, director of the Health and Human Services Department for the city of Long Beach

Today on AirTalk, we discuss the latest COVID-19 headlines. Also on the show, we break down Georgia's new voting law; discuss the legal and logistical questions of universities requiring college students to be vaccinated before stepping foot on campus; and more.

Last week, Cornell University became the latest in a growing pool of higher education institutions to announce that COVID-19 vaccinations will be required for students to return to campus.

“Medical and religious exemptions will be accommodated, but the expectation will be that our campuses and classrooms will overwhelmingly consist of vaccinated individuals, greatly reducing the risk of infection for all,” according to a statement from President Martha E. Pollack and Provost Michael I. Kotlikoff. Rutgers University, which also recently announced a vaccine requirement, will provide exceptions. Students taking online courses will not be required to be vaccinated. Legal experts generally expect that colleges and universities can safely require students to be vaccinated, but there are a couple caveats. For one thing, the vaccines are under emergency use authorization, and access could be an issue— but by fall, these same vaccines could also receive full approval. 

Today on AirTalk, we’re learning more about what vaccine requirements for colleges and universities could look like. We’ll also take a look at what local schools are considering. Questions? Give us a call at 866-893-5722.

Guests:

Luoluo Hong, associate vice chancellor for student affairs & enrollment management for the California State University (CSU); she tweets @Luoluo_Hong

Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Hastings, where her areas of expertise include vaccine law and policy, and a member of The Vaccine Working Group on Ethics and Policy, an independent, not-for-profit project that was formed to address key policy challenges associated with the testing and distribution of vaccines intended to prevent Covid-19 transmission in the United States; she tweets @doritmi

Robert Turner Schooley, infectious disease specialist and co-lead of UC San Diego’s COVID-19 management program

It might sound like a concept out of Chris Nolan’s 2010 box-office-hit-turned-cultural-touchstone “Inception,” but researchers in Germany and the United Kingdom were recently able to successfully plant memories in the minds of study participants before going back and helping the participants identify and root out the memories.

In the study, researchers did interviews in which they convinced test subjects that they had experienced events in their childhood that they had not actually experienced, for example that they had been in a car accident when they hadn’t, or that they’d been separated from their family when they actually had not. The researchers then used different interviewing techniques to bring the participants back through their memories and help them realize that they were false. While the study was conducted in a controlled setting and it’s difficult to say given its size how applicable the findings are on an individual level, it does back up pre-existing research about how moldable human memories actually are. And this study, in fact, goes one step further in suggesting that there may be ways that we can help people identify false or misremembered memories.

Today on AirTalk, we’ll explore the study and its findings as well as what the research tells us about how memories can be influenced.

Guests:

Hartmut Blank, co-author of the study "Rich false memories of autobiographical events can be reversed” and reader in psychology at the University of Portsmouth in Southern England

Elizabeth Loftus, distinguished professor of psychological and cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine, where she also teaches in criminology, law and society department

The sweeping rewrite of Georgia’s election rules represents the first big set of changes since former President Donald Trump’s repeated, baseless claims of fraud following his presidential loss to Joe Biden.

Georgia has been at the center of that storm. Trump zeroed in on his loss in the state, even as two Democrats won election to the U.S. Senate in January, flipping control of the chamber to their party. The 98-page measure that was signed into law Thursday by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp makes numerous changes to how elections will be administered, including a new photo ID requirement for voting absentee by mail.

Republican supporters say the law is needed to restore confidence in Georgia’s elections. Democrats say it will restrict voting access, especially for voters of color.

Meanwhile, Major League Baseball decided to pull this summer’s All-Star Game from Georgia over this new law. The state’s governor Brian Kemp vowed to defend the measure, saying “free and fair elections” are worth any threats, boycotts or lawsuits.

We dive into what the law will do, as well as its political and economic impact on the state. 

With files from the Associated Press.

Guests:

Emma Hurt, politics reporter for WABE, Atlanta’s NPR affiliate station; she tweets @Emma_Hurt

Travis Crum, associate professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri; his research interests explore the relationship between voting rights, race, and federalism