Healthwatch, with Dr. Leana Wen: COVID update, Narcan, loneliness

It’s another edition of the Midday Healthwatch, our monthly conversations about public health with Dr. Leana Wen.

We'll be talking today about how, after the US Department of Energy gave oxygen to the lab-leak theory about the origins of COVID, new evidence has emerged suggesting the pandemic began because of animal-to-human transmission in a Chinese live-animal market. And what are the guidelines, and what should be the guidelines, about second bivalent boosters for people who are immunocompromised?

Plus, Dr. Wen has been writing about several other important public health topics. These include: the FDA’s decision to make Narcan available over the counter; the high numbers of people experiencing loneliness, even in this post-COVID period; and what’s best for kids when it comes to social media and screen time.

Dr. Leana Wen joins Tom on Zoom.

Leana Wen is one of America’s most trusted and knowledgeable public health experts, and she has been a regular guest on our show since her time as the Baltimore City Health Commissioner, from 2015-2018. Today, the emergency physician is a research professor of healthy policy and management at the George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. She’s a columnist for the Washington Post, a medical analyst for CNN, and a non-resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. And she's the author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health

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