In this episode, Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks with researchers who break down three papers about the delta variant. Carli Jones, a PhD student at Hopkins School of Medicine talks about a preprint study on the emergence and spread of the delta variant in India. Wendy Grant-McAuley, also a PhD student, talks about an Oxford University paper on how the delta variant responds to various antibodies in a lab setting. Shirlee Wohl, a post-doctoral fellow at the Bloomberg School talks about a preprint looking at an outbreak of the delta variant among vaccinated people at a Texas wedding. These researchers are part of the Hopkins novel coronavirus research consortium, with many summaries of new studies available at http://ncrc.jhsph.edu.

Dr. Stephen Thomas, the director of the University of Maryland Center for Health Equity, works with barber shops in the African-American community to offer health services. Mike Brown, a barber and a certified community health care worker, works with Dr. Thomas to provide vaccines in his barber shop. They talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the community role of barber shops, the importance of community trust, and lessons for other public health efforts.

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein speaks to Jason Dearen, author of the book Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, A Deadly Disease. The book covers the nationwide meningitis outbreak caused by the New England Compounding Center, which sold medications contaminated with mold and fungi for injection into joints, the spine, and other sterile spaces. They discussed what led to this catastrophe, the legislation that passed in its aftermath, and the future of oversight in this area.

Fungal diseases are rare but, once diagnosed, incredibly hard to treat and often fatal. The overwhelming surge of COVID-19 cases in India has given rise to mucormycosis, also called “black fungus” for the appearance of the lesions caused by the infection. Dr. Arturo Casadevall talks with Stephanie Desmon about this and other fungal diseases, why COVID patients in India are particularly vulnerable, why treatments are slow and often ineffective, and why the pharmaceutical industry hasn’t invested more in treating these often deadly infections.

The pandemic has caused trauma, grief, and stress leading to depression, anxiety, and worsening of other mental health conditions. Dr. Adam Karpati, former executive deputy commissioner for mental hygiene at the New York City Health Department and currently the Senior Vice President of Public Health Programs at Vital Strategies, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the profound mental health impact of the pandemic, in the context of prior failures to support people with mental illness. Dr. Karpati sets out a vision for a more organized, caring, and effective system of mental health care.

Will we need COVID-19 booster shots and, if so, when? Where is the FDA in its approval process of the vaccines currently under emergency use authorization? What goes into this process? Why, if the current vaccines are so good, are companies still trying to make new ones? Dr. Anna Durbin returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about all things COVID-19 vaccines.

Vermont has had far fewer COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths than many other states, and health commissioner Dr. Mark Levine credits a number of reasons why. Dr. Levine talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about Vermont’s response to the pandemic, how the state is now addressing gaps in vaccination, and why it’s so important for all decisions to be driven by data and science, not politics.

The COVID-19 pandemic will change our culture in all kinds of ways, both concrete and conceptual. Coming to work if you’re sick, for example, may hopefully be a thing of the past while normalizing mask use during COVID surges may become part of our new future. Conceptually, our culture is changing as more people become aware of how social determinants of health like housing, employment, and education are directly tied to people’s wellbeing. Former New York City health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about these and other cultural changes we may see in the aftermath of the pandemic.

On June 5, 1981, the CDC identified a cluster of five cases of a rare pneumonia occurring in previously healthy young, homosexual men in the US. Forty years later, despite great advances in therapies for prevention, and extending life expectancy and quality of life, the pandemic is still growing in some places and killing millions around the world. Epidemiologist Dr. Chris Beyrer, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for AIDS research, talks with Stephanie Desmon about the work that still needs to be done, what we’ve learned from the AIDS pandemic, and how we need to apply these lessons to the global COVID-19 response. 

The US is not the only country facing COVID-19 vaccine hesitation. Around the world, public health officials are grappling with this issue that has the potential to slow or even derail efforts to end the pandemic. Dr. Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, talks with Stephanie Desmon about the spectrum of vaccine hesitancy, the promise of continuing medical education for doctors as a helpful tool, why it’s crucial to address vaccine demand AND supply, and why there’s no “silver bullet” despite the urgent need to get as many people vaccinated as possible.