Dr. Amesh Adalja is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and expert on emerging infectious diseases, pandemic preparedness and biosecurity.
He gets us up-to-date on the latest COVID 19 news, best current hopes for treatments and best ETA for a vaccine.
We discuss a world in which the novel coronavirus is here to stay and how best to navigate our new normal in responsible and realistic ways. He examines how early mishandlings and misinformation led to extreme responses such as Lockdown that otherwise wouldn’t have needed to be considered, and how we can learn from those to be prepared for a possible even much worse pandemic.
We also give some attention to how the relentless plague of partisan politics creates wedge issues out of what ought to be seen as a common enemy that we should all unite against - COVID 19 - and how conspiracy thinking and armchair epidemiologists exacerbate an already difficult to contain pandemic, and confuse the general public into self-defeating ideas and behaviors.
Dr. Adalja has been keeping an eye on emerging infectious diseases and candidates for potential pandemics for a long time and has wise, specific and instructive things to say about how to weather the crisis, when and how to return to work, and why panic is the worst possible mindset for a plague-beset world.
Dr Adalja's Bio on the Center for Health Security Site
Dr Adalja's In-Depth Episode of Sam Harris' Making Sense Podcast
Dr Adalja compares COVID 19 to past pandemics on The Drive with Peter Attia
