Healthy Communities Online

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Angela Rasmussen, who leads the core virology team at the Viral Emergence Research Initiative at the Georgetown University Center for Global Health, Science and Security. A renowned expert on emerging pathogens that pose great harm to human health, she helps us unlock some of the mysteries around Sars-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus. She talks about the swift production of the vaccine as a “scientific achievement of our lifetimes”. And looks…

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This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with ER physician Dr. Megan Ranney, Assistant Dean of the Institute for Translational Science at Brown University and Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health. A frequent spokesperson across the media landscape on the COVID-19 pandemic, and founder of #GetUsPPE and the MyCOVIDrisk app, Dr. Ranney warns the new COVID-19 variant which is highly transmissible could spark a new wave of super-spreader events, and that poor preparation on vaccine distribution…

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This week, Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Alejandro Cravioto, Chair of SAGE, the international panel of experts making COVID-19 vaccine recommendations to the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Cravioto talks about their global team of scientists and the rigorous guidelines governing the approval process for emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine – as well as all others in the queue. He also discusses the need to scale up production for global distribution, as well as the…

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This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, co-creator of the rotavirus vaccine, and member of the FDA Advisory Committee that approved emergency authorization for the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer. Dr. Offit says development of this new vaccine is a remarkable achievement backed by decades of scientific research that the Advisory Committee found to be safe an efficacious for widespread…

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This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter reflect on 2020 at the end of a year like no other. When the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold, they welcomed many of the world’s most renowned infectious disease, virology, and epidemiology experts. From Dr. Anthony Fauci to Dr. Ashish Jha, from New York Times writer and “Pandemic” docu-series producer Dr. Sheri Fink, to innovative scientists like Dr. Eric Topol, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, Dr. Michael Osterholm to US Surgeon General Dr….

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This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with notable vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez, founding Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor University College of Medicine. Author of “Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-Science”, Dr. Hotez warns deaths from COVID-19 will continue to rise dramatically until a national program of masks, testing, and social distancing is in place. He warns that we are months away from widespread vaccine distribution,…

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