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KPFA - Corona Calls episodes
- Corona Calls for 04.14.2025 – what’s happening to the next vaccines?
Discussed in this episode:
- The FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) has had its meetings suspended indefinitely under the Trump presidency. (Normally, it would be meeting about this time issue advices on what variants of influenza and COVID to target with next round of vaccine manufacturing)
- The FDA’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises on policy around vaccination — e.g., who should be eligible for which vaccines — is meeting this week for the first time under the new administration.
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 04.14.2025 – what’s happening to the next vaccines? appeared first on KPFA.
37 min - Corona Calls for 04.07.2025 – Measles on the Move
Discussed in this episode:
- The measles outbreak centered in the Texas panhandle has now likely produced three deaths (two confirmed, one still under investigation). That’s as many measles deaths as the US saw in the preceding 24 years, combined.
- The high death count suggests there may be significant unreported measles in circulation (normally measles in the US kills 1-3 people per thousand people it infects; barely 600 cases have been confirmed so far).
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 04.07.2025 – Measles on the Move appeared first on KPFA.
38 min - Corona Calls for 03.17.2025 – BA.3.2
Discussed in this episode:
- A new subvariant detected in South Africa — BA.3.2 — shows more new mutations on the spike protein than any variant since the advent of Omicron variant, which drove a global surge in illness starting in late 2021.
- Donald Trump has withdrawn his nomination of physician, vaccine critic, and former republican congressman Dave Weldon to head the Centers for Disease Control.
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 03.17.2025 – BA.3.2 appeared first on KPFA.
36 min - Corona Calls for 03.10.2025 – COVID at 5
Discussed in this episode:
- This week marks the fifth anniversary of the first COVID shelter-in-place orders in the United States.
- The measles outbreak in West Texas has now infected 198 people, sent 23 to the hospital, and killed one child.
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 03.10.2025 – COVID at 5 appeared first on KPFA.
34 min - Corona Calls for 03.03.2025 – Measles on the march
Discussed in this episode:
- An outbreak centered in West Texas has just produced the first measles death in the United States in 5 years.
- The Trump administration cancelled a meeting of a committee that had been scheduled to advise the FDA on the makeup of next year’s flu vaccine. Now it will have to rely on flu vaccine guidance from the World Health Organization, an entity the Trump administration is trying to pull the United States out of.
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 03.03.2025 – Measles on the march appeared first on KPFA.
29 min - Corona Calls for 02.24.25 – A bad flu year (and a worse political one)
Discussed in this episode:
- For the first time since 2019, deaths from influenza have outpaced deaths from COVID.
- Amidst mass-firings of public workers at federal public health agencies, the Department of Health and Human Services has indefinitely postponed the meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) that had been scheduled for this week that had been scheduled for this week. (ACIP is panel of outside experts appointed to 4-year terms. Strictly speaking, their work is advisory, but their recommendations on things like vaccination schedules have almost always been adopted by the Centers for Disease control; their recommendations also help determine which vaccinations health insurers cover.)
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 02.24.25 – A bad flu year (and a worse political one) appeared first on KPFA.
30 min - Coronacalls for 02.10.2025 – Bird Flu Warning Signs
Discussed in this episode:
- A strain of bird flu not previously detected in cattle has been found in dairy herds in Nevada. It’s the same strain responsible for putting teen on life support for 6 weeks in British Columbia, and killing a man in Louisiana.
- Data that appeared without comment in a weekly CDC report, then disappeared without comment, suggests there may have been some household transmission of bird flu between humans and domesticated cats.
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Coronacalls for 02.10.2025 – Bird Flu Warning Signs appeared first on KPFA.
36 min - Corona Calls for 02.03.2025 – Public health infrastructure is being dismantled
Discussed in this episode:
- RFK Jr went through some extreme verbal contortions during two days of confirmation hearings to be Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.
- Under orders from the Trump Whitehouse, the CDC’s web page is starting to be purged of data and materials important to public health.
- Donald Trumps’s attempt to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization could limit efforts to contain outbreaks in other parts of the world before they get bigger, and deprive the US of data it would need to formulate a response to an emerging public health threat.
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 02.03.2025 – Public health infrastructure is being dismantled appeared first on KPFA.
39 min - Corona Calls for 1.21.2025
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 1.21.2025 appeared first on KPFA.
38 min - Corona Calls for 01.13.2025 – A human death from bird flu
Discussed in this episode:
- H5N1 Avian Influenza has produced its first human death in the US.
- This was a different strain (D1.1) from what’s moving through dairy herds (B3.13). The victim is believed to have contracted the virus directly from bird flocks he kept in his yard.
- Virus samples from the victim showed genetic changes expected to make the virus better-able to attach to receptors in the human lung. The same changes were not present in samples collected from the victim’s birds, suggesting they emerged over the course of the victim’s infection.
- The good news: that means those mutations aren’t spreading in the wild. The bad: these types of mutations can emerge swiftly when people start getting infected.
To send us a question in advance of next week’s show, write to: [email protected]
Tune in live Monday mornings at 7:30am Pacific at kpfa.org.
Podcast music credit: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
The post Corona Calls for 01.13.2025 – A human death from bird flu appeared first on KPFA.
38 min
About KPFA - Corona Calls
From the publisher's feed
A weekly update on new research and developments concerning COVID-19 (and occasionally other infectious diseases that hit the news).
We take questions via call-in during the live broadcast, Mondays at 7:33am Pacific, streaming via kpfa.org. Podcasts with show notes go up later the same day. Between live shows, we take questions via email at [email protected] .
Our guest most weeks is Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Our question-wrangler most weeks is Brian Edwards-Tiekert, host of KPFA’s morning public affairs program, UpFront.
Music: Now Son by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.