The CommonHealth

In episode 150, Dr. Daskalakis, White House Deputy Coordinator of the monkey pox response, has been at his job for six weeks, attempting an urgent turnaround of a response that went very badly initially. He looks at “his medium term crystal ball” and sees several causes for cautious optimism: a deceleration of spread, changed behavior, greater vaccine availability, greater flexibility in use of HIV and STD resources, improved communications. But much progress still hangs on far more funding, better data flows, and bipartisan political support. Listen to hear more!

In this special episode, we bring you the audio of a broadcast interview that J. Stephen Morrison held on Monday, September 19 with Dr. Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden and Director, the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Fauci addresses the multiple tough challenges that confront us, as we approach year 3 of the pandemic, as well as the historic achievements that give us hope. 

Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, shares his trenchant insights into this confusing moment of transition in the global response to Covid-19. What should be the priorities and the principles to guide action? How to take account of the profound changes in the pandemic, while not losing focus on equity? Please give a listen!

On this 147th episode, we are offering the fireside chat, held on August 30 at CSIS, at which CDC Director Rochelle Walensky laid out her newly announced reform agenda, moderated by Julie Gerberding and Tom Inglesby. Julie is former director of the CDC and current director of the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health, and co-chair of the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security. Tom is Director of the Johns Hopkins University Center on Health Security and co-chair of the Commission Working Group on CDC.  

On this 146th episode, Dr. Chris Murray, IHME, delivers several sharp messages. Tracking Covid is increasingly difficult, a function of both underreporting of cases and overreporting of incidental hospital admissions. Studies are emerging which suggest that protection against severe ill and death may be waning after 20 weeks. Without far better data on hospital admissions, however, we are “flying blind.” Essential “big” investments in next-generation vaccines that block infections and address multiple variants are expensive. Without ample funding, we will “muddle through.” The case for Paxlovid as a lead global tool is strong, but production is expensive. Is Monkeypox “a really scary thing? No!” China clings to Zero-Covid for more than health reasons. That choice is “part of a broader geopolitical strategy.” Hope rests on strong and vibrant scientific cooperation, amid multiple crises.

Dan Diamond, Washington Post, joins J. Stephen Morrison, CSIS, for a tour d’horizon of rapidly unfolding Monkeypox developments: How to explain the early egregious USG stumbles? Are we correcting course in testing, vaccines, and therapies rapidly and effectively enough to head off the entrenchment of Monkeypox? Does the math surrounding vaccines and demand add up? Or are we sailing into a profound gap? How should we be thinking strategically about the global response?

Dr. Marci Nielsen, Vice President for Policy and Advocacy at Resolve to Save Lives, joins J. Stephen Morrison for episode 144. For an 18 month period beginning in the fall of 2020, Dr. Nielsen served as Chief Advisor for COVID-19 Coordination for Kansas Governor, Laura Kelly, where she led outreach efforts across the state to advance dialogue, access to data, and transparency. Regular public fora on schools – when to close or open, promotion of tests, vaccinations, masks – were a key tool to counter rising political tensions and disinformation. Over her career, the public health sector has “never been political” to this extent, fostering a significant “lack of understanding.” “Great hope” lies in strengthening communications, the determined commitment of public health and elected officials, and youth.

Dr. Celine Gounder, senior fellow & editor-at-large for public health at KFF's Kaiser Health News, joins J. Stephen Morrison and Andrew Schwartz for this 143rd episode. Monkeypox has spread beyond the endemic regions, and is rapidly becoming a pandemic. It has already become de facto politicized in the United States because of the community affected, but monkeypox per se is not a gay disease and I will soon reach beyond men-who-have-sex-with- men and endanger the immunocompromised, pregnant women and newborns. Covid-19 taught us that we need to invest in public health infrastructure and move rally fast in introducing tests, data collection, vaccines and therapies, but the U.S. government is not moving quickly enough and at the scale required to avoid monkeypox becoming a permanent fixture in the United States. BA.5, the latest Covid variant, is moving very quickly because its spike proteins are so different from other variants that people are losing residual immunity. New vaccines are in development, but BA.5 may no longer be the dominant variant by the time they become available. 

Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux, Research Director of the Global Public Policy and Social Change Program, Harvard School of Medicine, joins J. Stephen Morrison for Episode 142. Her mentor Dr. Paul Farmer, who recently passed, inspired her with his exhortation to “do hard things together” even when the odds are against you. Her project, the Covid Academy, is developing a locally-informed model for standardized health security outbreak investigation and response. Though the United States is deeply divided politically, Dr. Bourdeaux believes the situation is not as dire as it seems. Common sense can win. “I don’t believe that Americans can’t see reason on this”.

Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter at The New York Times, joins J. Stephen Morrison and H. Andrew Schwartz for this 141st episode. Apoorva unpacks the sudden spread of Monkeypox into Europe and now the United States, outside African states where it is endemic, and the challenges this poses to Americans and Europeans weary of Covid-19, as well as to Africans who fear gross inequities in access to vaccines and therapies, which are presently quite limited in supply.Containment of rising numbers of cases will be through ring vaccination of close contacts, which is doable but requires effective communication which up to now has been wanting. Much transmission is through men having sex with men, which raises the complex specter of stigmatization and politicization. The virus, far less severe and transmissible than smallpox, is nonetheless dangerous for infants, pregnant women, persons living with HIV and others who are immunocompromised. Case counts in Europe top 1,000 (very low numbers thus far in the United States) and are often difficult to confirm because of the resemblance to chickenpox or other rashes. Cases in the United States are projected to rise steeply and be seen in every state over the coming weeks and months.