The ever-amazing Dr. Monica Gandhi returns to talk Flu/RSV/COVID, viral interference, China's zero-COVID response, MPox, and public health lessons from HIV for the next pandemic—while searching for true meaning beyond our apparent divisions.

Watch the video here.

Here's the paper summarizing Monica's proposed pandemic playbook.

Find all our episodes with Dr. Gandhi here.

Transcript & links here.

Topics & Timecodes:

00:00 Intro

03:27 Influenza, RSV & COVID, "immune debt," viral interference, population immunity, targeted boosting, pregnancy & immunity

12:30 Bivalent boosters, age stratified risk, flu shot uptake, public health’s vaccine messaging failures, China’s zero-COVID policy, mRNA vaccines & the immunocompromised

22:53 Mpox (formerly monkeypox) messaging, why at-risk population targeting is so important

28:17 Monica’s new book Endemic: A Post-Pandemic Playbook, HIV lessons learned but not applied to the COVID pandemic, harm reduction, school closures, global vaccine equity, planning for future pandemics

37:42 Social divisiveness & the moral matrix, societal harms due to the pandemic response, mental health, substance abuse & suicide, the Alt-Middle

44:15 Burnout, healing divisiveness, fostering compassion, searching for meaning through connection, waking up to what “is”

57:46 Final thoughts

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