First up, Contributing Correspondent Gretchen Vogel joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss what scientists have learned from scanning sewage for COVID-19 RNA. And now that so many wastewater monitoring stations are in place—what else can we do with them?
Next, we have researcher Katia Koelle, an associate professor of biology at Emory University. She wrote a review on the evolving epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2: What have been the most important questions from epidemiologists over the course of the pandemic, and how can they help us navigate future pandemic threats?
A new special issue of Science reflects on lessons learned since @WHO officially characterized #COVID19 as a pandemic 2 years ago—and outlines ways to bridge the gaps in our understanding of #SARSCoV2 going forward.
Russian skater Kamila Valieva was still allowed to compete despite testing positive for a banned substance before the Olympic games. She was a heavy favorite for the gold – but ended up coming in fourth place yesterday.
What does this say about the integrity of the Olympic games — and what does it mean for the future of figure skating?
Plus, smart headlights coming to U.S. cars could make American roads safer.
And, how the pandemic is giving us economic lessons in real time.
Guests: The Washington Post’s figure skating analyst Robert Samuels and Axios’ Joann Muller and Emily Peck.
The lightning-fast spread of a seemingly milder coronavirus variant may represent a shift from pandemic to endemic; we ask how that would change global responses.
Concern about video-game addictiveness is as old as video games themselves—but the business models of modern gaming may be magnifying the problem. And newly publicised photographs shed light on Bangladesh’s brutal war for independence.
What will some of 2022’s top themes and stories be? Tom Standage, editor of The Economist’s future-gazing annual, “The World Ahead 2022”, gives his prediction.
Video timeline: 00:00 What to expect in 2022 00:35 Pandemic to endemic 01:35 Inequality in hybrid working 02:34 Taming cryptocurrencies 03:43 The race to dominate space 04:34 The need for corporate climate solutions
The variant hunters are helping us to understand how and why the COVID-19 virus is spreading, allowing us to fight back against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hear from some of the scientists behind the UK’s nationwide sequencing effort to track SARS-CoV-2. Sir Patrick Vallance (the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser) also describes how the expertise that came together during the pandemic is now recognised across the world – and why it’s crucially important to continue to sequence to be ready for future pandemics.
This pioneering work is being carried out by the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, which comprises numerous academic institutions, four public health agencies and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and is administered by the University of Cambridge.
“Incredibly impressive, incredibly high quality and incredibly focused on the mission to make sure that as many people benefited from the science as possible,” Sir Patrick Vallance.
India’s Covid-19 crisis has resulted in record numbers of cases and deaths. WSJ breaks down the chain of events that led to the fastest-growing wave of infection since the pandemic started, and what it means for the world. Photo: Samuel Rajkumar/Reuters
Boomers Daily 