Were you surprised by the COVID-19 pandemic? If you were (and I was), you haven’t been paying attention. Pandemics are constantly threatening: in the past few decades we have had HIV, MERS, SARS, H1N1, Zika, and Ebola.
Mike Osterholm is the Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, and the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has advised the past 5 US government administrations and has written a truly fascinating book “Deadliest Enemy”, available at all good bookshops which pay their taxes (that one’s aimed at you, Amazon).
Ruchi Sinha is a consultant Paediatric Intensivist at St Mary’s Hospital, London, and a member of the UK High Consequence Infectious Disease panel. She is also a friend of this podcast having been interviewed what seems like an unimaginably long time ago (last November) in PicPod 33.
Is this pandemic the Big One? How should we react to it now? What is going to happen in the future with this pandemic, or the next one? What are the solutions we can put in place now, to keep us safe(r) for the next time?
How would it have been different if it had been a disease of children instead of adults? Does it help to have a joined up healthcare system? What does Ruchi think of what she said 7 months ago?
And much, much more.
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