Take as Directed artwork

Take as Directed

262 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★ - 41 ratings

Take as Directed is the podcast series of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center. It highlights important news, events, issues, and perspectives in global health policy, particularly in infectious disease, health security, and maternal, newborn, and child health. The podcast brings you commentary and perspectives from some of the leading voices in global health and CSIS Global Health Policy Center in-house experts

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Episodes

CommonHealth Live! with Dr. Sandro Galea

March 22, 2024 20:09 - 46 minutes

In the fifth episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, J. Stephen Morrison speaks with Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor, Boston University School of Public Health on the public health workforce pipeline. How to position public health schools and departments within universities to be more powerful, better funded, with better access to senior leadership? What are the concrete changes in the curricula of public health programs and the recruitment of faculty and students that a...

Noam Unger, CSIS: The urgency of health adaptation? “It’s self-evident but requires massive changes.”

March 18, 2024 14:52 - 33 minutes

In our ongoing series on climate and health, we had the great fortune to enlist a friend and colleague, Noam Unger, Director of the CSIS Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative, to discuss PREPARE, the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience. Why did it take so long for adaptation to rise in significance?  PREPARE is “a presidential initiative that is not coming with a big bag of money along with it,” which means its principal focus is coordination around food, wate...

Dr. Andrés G. (Willy) Lescano, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia: "A Perfect Storm Scenario"

March 14, 2024 21:25 - 38 minutes

Since the start of 2024, several countries in South America have experienced a rapid increase in cases of dengue, a viral disease transmitted by the aedes aegypti mosquito. According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), this year alone at least 18 countries in the Americas have reported cases, with more than 400 deaths. In Peru, at the end of February, the government declared an emergency in 20 districts, setting up makeshift clinics and sending additional financial and human resou...

The CommonHealth Live! with Dr. Vanessa Kerry and Minister Austin Demby

March 01, 2024 21:29 - 1 hour

In the fourth episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, Vanessa Kerry, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health and Austin Demby, Minister of Health and Sanitation for Sierra Leone join Julie Gerberding, CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security Co-chair and CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health for a discussion about the intersection of climate change and global health. How do you make new partnerships around...

Donald G. McNeil, The Wisdom of Plagues

February 15, 2024 20:44 - 57 minutes

Donald G. McNeil, the prize-winning science and health reporter—45 years with the New York Times—unpacks his newly published memoir, The Wisdom of Plagues. It covers his remarkable personal and professional story, his reflections on the travails facing PEPFAR, the stark lessons of Covid, his "radical" prescriptions for the future, and his reflections three years after abruptly departing the NYT. 

The CommonHealth Live! WHO Senior Advisor Dr. Scott Dowell on the Global Health Emergency Corps

February 13, 2024 20:41 - 46 minutes

In the third episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, World Health Organization (WHO) Senior Advisor Dr. Scott Dowell joins J. Stephen Morrison for a discussion about the Global Health Emergency Corps (GHEC) concept, development thus far, and plans for 2024. What will it take to bring GHEC to life? What might the U.S. role be?

Dr. Sandro Galea, Boston University SPH, ‘Within Reason’

February 01, 2024 20:57 - 35 minutes

Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of the BU School of Public Health, discusses his incisive, provocative new book, ‘Within Reason.’ Its central proposition: public health slipped into illiberalism during Covid-19, a “closing of the mind.” Over the course of the book, Dr. Galea unpacks that striking phenomenon: how and why it happened, what it means, and what needs now to happen to correct course? The loss of trust is the most poignant but not the only price. Give a listen!

Dr. Joseph Majkut, Director, CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change: COP28 is “a punctuation mark.”

January 23, 2024 15:53 - 41 minutes

Joseph Majkut, Director of the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program, unpacks the big picture of COP28 (Dubai, Nov. 30-Dec 13, 2023), both the formal negotiations and the “trade show.” Is the commitment to “transition away” from fossil fuels a truly pivotal moment? What’s the significance of the launch of the "Loss and Damage Fund" especially with regard to tensions between the North and the South? What to make of the day dedicated to health and climate? How to assess UAE leadership...

The CommonHealth Live! IRC President David Miliband: A New Crisis Landscape

January 11, 2024 19:34 - 50 minutes

In the second episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, J. Stephen Morrison speaks with International Rescue Committee (IRC) President and CEO David Miliband about the recently released IRC 2024 Emergency Watchlist. The onset of 2024 has brought with it record levels of humanitarian crises. How and why are global humanitarian crises evolving? How do we address these unprecedented global challenges? What can be done to reduce the impact on affected communities? This event is made possible by t...

Dr. Yanzhong Huang: the need for a US-China détente on global health

December 14, 2023 18:51 - 34 minutes

Dr. Yanzhong Huang, Council on Foreign Relations and Seton Hall University, argues in the CFR report Negotiating Global Health Security (co-authored with Georgetown Professor Rebecca Katz) that the US-China clash over Covid-19 origins in Wuhan has had a catastrophic impact on US-China relations. A "détente" is now needed. But how is that to be achieved, given the multiple ongoing geopolitical crises? Given what is happening in Congress vis-a-is China? And given that political will at the high...

Senator Thomas Daschle: the decline of U.S. vaccination levels is a national security threat

December 07, 2023 14:57 - 31 minutes

On the occasion of National Influenza Vaccination Week, former Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, chair of the Coalition to Stop Flu, joins us to discuss the Coalition’s mission and composition, its recent compelling report, ‘The 2022-2023 Influenza Season: Outcomes and Policy Recommendations,’ and the comprehensive legislation it has had a hand in crafting and advancing, The Influenza Act (S. 3219, H.R. 5846 – 118th Congress 2023-2024). Senator Daschle is alarmed by the decline in vaccin...

The CommonHealth Live! Ambassador John Nkengasong: World AIDS Day 2023: A Journey of Hope

November 30, 2023 16:17 - 35 minutes

In this episode recorded in advance of World AIDS Day 2023, Katherine speaks with Ambassador John Nkengasong, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Senior Bureau Official with the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State. They discuss the current challenges around PEPFAR reauthorization; opportunities for enhanced U.S. diplomatic engagement to strengthen domestic and donor funding for global HIV programs; the critical role youth organizations can play in promo...

Heidi Larson, Chair and Co-Founder of the Global Listening Project: “The people part of the Covid experience was our Achilles heel”

November 27, 2023 16:46 - 26 minutes

In this episode, Heidi Larson, Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, speaks with Katherine about the goals of the Global Listening Project, which is focused on “driving real understanding and positive action to better prepare society for times of crisis.” She shares information on the Project’s recent survey results regarding how people in more than 70 countries experienced the Covid-19 pandemic; how people perceive, trust,...

Jenelle Krishnamoorthy, Vice President and Head of Global Public Policy, Corporate Affairs, Merck & Co.: “Driving Meaningful and Sustained Progress on AMR

November 16, 2023 21:01 - 32 minutes

In this episode Merck’s Jenelle Krishnamoorthy, a member of the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security, joins Katherine to discuss the growing challenge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR); the importance of incentivizing research and development of new amicrobials, even as there is pressure to use them in a limited way; plans for a United Nations High-Level Meeting on AMR in 2024; and opportunities to improve funding, governance, and international collaboration to meet the global ...

Dr. Dylan George, Director, CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA): “We are really looking at the past, when we look up at the sky.”

November 07, 2023 18:22 - 33 minutes

Dr. Dylan George, Director of the CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA), walks us through the CFA’s status, almost two years after its launch. Though still a startup, CFA has modeled multiple outbreaks, including Omicron, Mpox, and now the respiratory virus season (Covid, RSV, flu). Its clients? The White House and executive agencies, and increasingly, state, local and territorial officials. Its products? October 24, it issued its Respiratory Season Outlook. On November 8, C...

Dr. Suerie Moon, Geneva Graduate Institute: “Treaties will not solve every problem.”

November 02, 2023 20:01 - 29 minutes

Dr. Suerie Moon, Co-Director of the Global Health Center and Professor of Practice, International Relations and Political Science, walks us through the status of the pandemic accord negotiations (underway for two years), the recently released new draft, what lies ahead in the next round of deliberations, and how that diplomatic process relates to parallel negotiations underway over reform of the International Health Regulations (IHR). The draft treaty speaks to four core issue sets: One Healt...

Leonard Rubenstein, JHU: recent conversations in Kyiv

October 12, 2023 15:50 - 19 minutes

Len Rubenstein shares his trenchant, mixed reflections from a September visit to Ukraine, specifically the multiple burdens that the war imposes on Ukrainian society. Ukrainian morale and resolve remain strong, though gaps persist in medical rehabilitation services, including prostheses for soldiers who have lost limbs. 500 Ukrainian military medics and reportedly 20,000 Ukrainian civilians are currently held in Russian prisons, in violation of international law. Almost everyone points to the...

Dr. Eric Goosby: The M72 vaccine could be a breakthrough. “It is a moment.”

October 05, 2023 13:57 - 28 minutes

Dr. Eric Goosby walks us through the Lancet Commission report on tuberculosis—which he chaired—that was issued immediately prior to the September 22 UN High Level Meeting on TB. The environment for progress remains very tough—shortfalls in political will, prioritization, finances, and investment by industry. But there are recent, promising gains in diagnostics and therapies. And a promising vaccine, M72, is now in advanced trials. That could be a breakthrough in the future. GSK, in partnershi...

Kate Dodson, UN Foundation and Nellie Bristol, CSIS Senior Associate: “Process got in the way of ambition in New York.”

September 28, 2023 20:06 - 35 minutes

Kate Dodson, UN Foundation and Nellie Bristol, CSIS Senior Associate, survey the outcomes of the UN General Assembly during the third week of September, with a special focus on SDGs and the health High Level Meetings (HLMs on pandemic preparedness and response, TB, Universal Health Coverage). Big cross-cutting themes emerged–gaps in finance, equity, health workforce, access, R&D, and intellectual property. Results were decidedly mixed: “process got in the way of ambition.” Overload carries a ...

What do we make of 2023’s summer of climate shocks?

September 15, 2023 14:45 - 59 minutes

In this episode of The CommonHealth, we share the audio of a September 11 conversation among several different CSIS scholars on the question of whether the climate shocks of this summer were simply a continuation of underlying trends – an exclamation point – or a thunderclap signaling the arrival of a new moment. Hear from economist Stephanie Segal, climate scientist Joseph Majkut, water and food security expert Caitlin Welsh, and CommonHealth’s co-host, J. Stephen Morrison. 

Dr. Scott Dowell, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: “I am optimistic.”

August 31, 2023 17:04 - 35 minutes

Dr. Scott Dowell, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, unpacks the foundation’s $2 billion in investments during the three-year acute phase of the pandemic. Some of the most impactful were in surveillance and modeling. The Seattle Flu Study, which predated the pandemic, was fortuitous in what it taught us. Bill Gates’ 2022 book, How to Prevent a Pandemic, introduced the concept of ‘the GERM team’ which has now evolved into the Global Health Emergency Corps, led by the World Health Organizatio...

Dr. Celine Gounder, KFF Health News: “Most people do not believe the lies or the truth.”

August 28, 2023 19:08 - 24 minutes

Dr. Celine Gounder walks us through what to expect as the fall respiratory virus season unfolds—the ‘tripledemic’ of Covid, flu, and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). Promising new vaccines are becoming available amid confusion, disinformation, and burnout of the health workforce. Competent communications remain essential, though “most people do not believe the lies or the truth.” The elderly and the immunocompromised stand to gain the most from these vaccine opportunities. In the post-Covid...

Morrison & Simoneau, ‘The Worst is Over – Now What?'

August 17, 2023 20:44 - 34 minutes

In this episode of The CommonHealth, Andrew Schwartz engages Michaela Simoneau and co-host J. Stephen Morrison on their newly published analysis of the post-Covid moment, “The Worst is Over—Now What?” How do we define this moment we have entered, and what are the factors that lead inexorably towards pessimism? Inversely, what is the argument for a positive, sober realism? Optimism rests on pursuing five pathways for progress: rebuild trust, sustain bipartisan legislative achievements, operati...

Sera Young, Northwestern University: “Accountability is probably the most powerful tool that we have”

August 03, 2023 13:07 - 28 minutes

According to the recent report from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, coverage of safely managed water and sanitation supplies has improved globally since 2000, but the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal targets related to universal coverage. Placing a special emphasis on gender, the JMP report notes that inadequate access to water and sanitation, as well as hygiene services, affects men and women in significant, but ...

Anuradha Gupta, Sabin Vaccine Institute: ‘Whether a country is poor or has a large population, progress is possible’

July 31, 2023 14:05 - 41 minutes

In this episode, Anuradha Gupta, President of Global Immunizations at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, discusses key findings from the new World Health Organization-UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization Coverage (WUENIC). The latest report shows that countries are beginning to recover from decreases in coverage observed during the pandemic, although there is considerable regional and sub-national variation, and some low-income countries continue to show stalled progress. Gupta emphasizes the ...

Gary Edson, Covid Collaborative: “PEPFAR is a pawn in the culture wars.”

July 20, 2023 15:23 - 31 minutes

Gary Edson, Covid Collaborative, reflects on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), now at its 20th anniversary. It originated with a Republican president, George W. Bush, who transformed development assistance. Bipartisanship was vital, and PEPFAR fulfilled moral and geostrategic goals. Now, PEPFAR reauthorization is in peril in the post-Dobbs era. What needs to happen to rescue things? In the toxic, polarized post-Covid era, how do we step over that noise and bring about a...

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYT: “Our attention has turned.”

July 13, 2023 18:50 - 34 minutes

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYT national correspondent on health and politics, unpacks the post-Dobbs era: does it imperil or boost the right to contraception? Or both? Does it put the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) under new scrutiny? Calls to “take a fresh look” at PEPFAR may signal trouble. “Abortion politics is laying over all of our conversations” in this “super-partisan era.” In the post-Covid era, the reporting environment has loosened. Why is it that filling the US leade...

Dr. Mitch Wolfe: CDC regional offices are inextricably linked to security.

July 06, 2023 14:14 - 33 minutes

Dr. Mitch Wolfe, former CDC Chief Medical Officer, explains the genesis of CDC’s vision for six regional offices as a “long-term permanent overseas presence” that would expand coverage, deploy senior staff to develop regional strategies, and provide specialized technical expertise. Geopolitical security calculations predominate as CDC gets more involved in politics and policies. Proximity builds networks and knowledge. To succeed, the CDC regional offices will need strong leadership, an aggre...

Helen Branswell, STAT: “In the spring of 2022, I thought my head would explode.”

June 30, 2023 17:53 - 34 minutes

Helen Branswell, STAT, unpacks for us important complicated topics that can, frankly, be confusing. She explains why this is a big moment for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). She illuminates why GAVI is moving ahead with a hexavalent (6-in-1) vaccine that incorporates polio vaccines, and what that signals for the future of global polio control. In her recent profile of Mandy Cohen, the incoming CDC Director, Helen reflects on the changed understanding of what is required to lead CDC effecti...

Dan Diamond, Washington Post: “Easier to play offense than defense”

June 22, 2023 19:18 - 30 minutes

Dan Diamond, Washington Post, reflects on big emerging themes. The administration’s scientific, biomedical, and public health leadership has emptied. What should we make of Mandy Cohen’s appointment to be the next Director of CDC? With the turnover, who will be the “quarterback” of government during the next crisis? Congressional panels are raising “uncomfortable” questions about Covid's origins. It is an “open question” what happens with the reauthorization of PEPFAR and the Pandemic All-Haz...

David Kramer, George W. Bush Institute: “The most successful global health program in history”

June 15, 2023 13:46 - 34 minutes

Twenty years after President George W. Bush signed the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003, establishing PEPFAR, David Kramer, the Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas, discusses the process of establishing the multi-billion dollar program at the Department of State; how ensuring equitable access to health care services for vulnerable and marginalized populations is important for national security; how investing in HIV services...

Jeremy Konyndyk, Refugees International: Opponents of public health are winning.

June 08, 2023 14:48 - 40 minutes

Jeremy Konyndyk, President of Refugees International, is a humanitarian leader, emergency operator, and policy innovator. He joins us to share his thoughts on diverse crises. During the Turkey/Syria earthquake, donors failed to surge resources to Syrian civil groups, something that is indefensible a decade plus into Syria’s war. U.S. policy on the southern border is narrowly understood to be law enforcement versus protection of rights of individuals in flight, a disappointment not expected of...

Matthew Goodman, CSIS: a dramatic G7 Hiroshima Summit

June 02, 2023 17:54 - 33 minutes

Matt Goodman, CSIS SVP and Simon Chair in Political Economy, unpacks the several striking developments at the recent G7 Summit in Hiroshima. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unified and energized the G7, with side benefits in economic security, nuclear disarmament, food security, health and climate. With the Ukrainian counteroffensive imminent, the G7 made multiple specific commitments on Ukraine. On China, “economic coercion” and “de-risking” were the watchwords. Paragraph 51 of the communiq...

Adam Havey, Emergent BioSolutions: “Lead with the facts.”

May 26, 2023 19:20 - 36 minutes

Adam Havey, Executive VP, Emergent BioSolutions, speaks to the “great unwinding” with the end of the Public Health Emergency, including the outstanding work to bring about adequate sustained funding for preparedness capabilities. To keep long-term bipartisan investment front and center, “lead with the facts.” 8 in 10 voters favor government action. There were several hard lessons at the Bayview facility in Baltimore, where over 500 million Covid vaccine doses were contaminated. How do we reba...

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid Response Coordinator: Pandemic wartime is over, the “great unwinding” is fully on.

May 17, 2023 16:21 - 38 minutes

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid Response Coordinator, speaks to the “great unwinding” of the $4.6 trillion pandemic wartime transformation of America into a temporary social democracy. As we rush to the exits, are we emerging stronger? We do see huge turnover of public health leadership across the country, a real loss. We also see that cities and states, the front lines, have “learned a ton” about Test to Treat, mass vaccination. Will we transition out of this “collective trauma” of ang...

Joe Grogan: “Worried about the war that we are waging against innovators who have the audacity to be successful.”

May 12, 2023 17:00 - 38 minutes

Joe Grogan, former Assistant to the President and Director, White House Domestic Policy Council in the Trump Administration, shares his insights on several outstanding policy challenges. How has the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) reshaped innovators’ investment patterns in new drugs, and what adjustments might improve outcomes? It will be difficult to keep the proposed Next Gen $5 billion for Covid vaccines and therapies at the top of the agenda on the Hill, in the absence of strong figures li...

Thomas Bollyky, CFR: The roots of the US Covid catastrophe—“a syndemic of politics and race.”

May 04, 2023 14:44 - 35 minutes

“Not all U.S. states struggled equally.” Thomas Bollyky, CFR, led an ambitious, nuanced effort to break down Covid outcomes across 50 states and Washington DC, published in the Lancet in April. There is a striking four-fold difference between the best and worst performing U.S. states. Some of the best states, led by Republican and Democrat governors alike, rivalled the best performers in Europe. High-performing states provide a formula for success which may be helpful in the future. Pre-pande...

Professor Heidi Larson, co-founder of The Global Listening Project: "The only way you're going to be relevant is if you listen."

April 27, 2023 14:01 - 25 minutes

As World Immunization Week gets underway, Professor Heidi Larson, anthropologist, founder of the Vaccine Confidence Project, and co-founder of The Global Listening Project, discusses the importance of closing the gaps in routine immunization coverage that have widened during the Covid-19 pandemic; describes why trust in health care providers has declined as beliefs about health and scientific expertise have become more polarized; and explains that in order to reach people with information tha...

Sachiko Imoto, SVP, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)—the alignment of Japan-U.S. health security priorities

April 21, 2023 13:15 - 44 minutes

Sachiko Imoto, SVP, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), is the lead on JICA’s human development work. In our conversation, she illuminates several key dimensions of Japan’s policy. What health gains will the Japanese Presidency of the G7 in 2023 generate? Both the U.S. and Japanese governments are committed to supporting the Pandemic Fund, Universal Health Coverage/primary care, surveillance, and equity and access to new countermeasures. What are the areas where Japanese-U.S. coope...

Minister Dan Jørgensen of Denmark: “Imagine a Pandemic Where You’re Not Able to Treat the Disease Because of Resistance”

April 20, 2023 15:17 - 31 minutes

Dan Jørgensen, Denmark’s Minister for International Development and Global Climate Change Policy, reflects on a busy week of spring meetings at the World Bank, the importance of considering gender equality in supporting climate adaptation programs, the growing challenge of antimicrobial resistance in the context of climate change, and the role the private sector can play in helping to advance climate mitigation and adaptation projects.

Prof. Victor Cha: Unpacking North Korea’s isolation

April 13, 2023 15:52 - 29 minutes

We sit down again with Victor Cha, Professor at Georgetown University and Senior Vice President at CSIS, for an update on what we know, suspect, and do not know about a North Korea still in extreme isolation from the rest of the world; the status of its Covid outbreak and response; the heightened risk of famine; and the burgeoning exchange of North Korean weapons and ammunition in return for Russian food and energy. A narrow reopening with China is underway, while the continued high pace of m...

Professor Jennifer Nuzzo: “I am glad we are having this conversation” on school closures.

April 06, 2023 14:28 - 36 minutes

Professor Jennifer Nuzzo, Brown University SPH Pandemic Center, reflects on the recent March 28 hearing that the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic staged on school closures. The subject remains “a political football.”  But “we now better understand the potential harms. We have not all suffered the same harms.” Progress possible? Not clear, given how toxic the politics has become. Need to “take down the heat.” “We need a national plan for schools’ recovery.”

Admiral Raquel Bono (ret.): At the pandemic’s front face in Washington State

March 30, 2023 12:59 - 43 minutes

Dr. Raquel Bono, a recently retired, highly accomplished 3-star Admiral as 2020 opened, unexpectedly found herself advising Washington State Governor Inslee at the very advent of the pandemic. What did she experience and learn over the next six and a half months? Subsequently she became the chief medical officer for Viking Cruises, as it reopened its operations. What did that reveal, in particular about its interactions with CDC? Her views on Congress rescinding the mandate for Covid vaccines...

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYT: “You cannot keep a raccoon dog as a pet.”

March 24, 2023 14:07 - 35 minutes

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, the iconic health policy/politics reporter at the New York Times, helps us inaugurate The CommonHealth podcast, companion to the newly launched CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security. Her recent prodigious output delves deeply into the evolving – and thoroughly confusing – story of the swirling debate over Covid origin in China. The Biden administration will soon declassify what intelligence it has on the Wuhan Institute of Virology: what might that mean? Wil...

Goodbye, Coronavirus Crisis Update. Hello, The CommonHealth!

March 23, 2023 17:39 - 50 seconds

Welcome to The CommonHealth, the podcast of the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security. The CommonHealth replaces the Coronavirus Crisis Update. In it, we delve deeply into the puzzle, at home and abroad, that connects pandemic preparedness and response, HIV/AIDS, routine immunization, primary care, and the geopolitical impacts these have on human and national security.

Sam Radwan, Enhance International “Is this the calm before the storm?”

March 09, 2023 20:18 - 29 minutes

Sam Radwan, founder of Enhance International, has worked on health developments inside China for two decades. He shares his insights and raises some difficult questions. Over 80 year olds continue to be highly vulnerable; only 66% have been vaccinated. China’s 400 million rural poor live with starkly different medial support realities, and we have little visibility into what they are experiencing. An increasing number of Chinese will be traveling abroad to seek medical care, as medical litera...

Dr. Michael Osterholm, CIDRAP, Univ. Minnesota: Fighting Omicron “like trying to stop the wind.”

February 16, 2023 14:04 - 31 minutes

In this newest episode in our series on China, Mike Osterholm reflects. There is no easy explanation for why the Chinese government did so little to prepare while knowing Zero-Covid was failing. Even as Omicron reached an R-naught of up to 16, and 8 million elderly above 80 had received no vaccine. We are now seeing progress by the Chinese in data sharing through George Gao’s recently published Lancet paper. Luckily, there Is no evidence of a dangerous new subvariant emerging, though we have ...

Dr. Scott Rivkees, former Florida Secretary of Health: What happened behind the scenes?

February 09, 2023 14:31 - 26 minutes

Dr. Scott Rivkees served under Governor DeSantis as Florida’s Surgeon General and Secretary of Health for 27 months during the pandemic, in what became a rocky political experience. Behind the scenes, what was he able to achieve, in serving Florida’s 67 counties, and in particular, in protecting seniors, managing schools, setting early vaccine priorities? What were the hard lessons for public health professionals, as vaccine hesitancy grew, and morphed into refusal? How well did CDC fare in t...

Dr. Chris Murray, IHME, "…we are in for a harder spell…”

February 02, 2023 14:12 - 22 minutes

As part of our series on China post-COVID-19, Chris Murray reflects on where things stand, almost two months after President Xi threw off Zero-Covid controls.  A huge Covid-19 wave has likely led thus far to a million deaths. It is likely not over. Don’t expect greater Chinese government transparency on numbers. That remains a highly sensitive matter domestically and, no less important, an integral component of China’s foreign policy image and prestige. The Chinese government is driving to ge...

Dr. Scott Kennedy, CSIS -- “Give us our lives back!”

January 26, 2023 09:44 - 31 minutes

In our continued series on China post-Zero Covid, Dr. Scott Kennedy recounts the revelations from his six weeks in Beijing and Shanghai in late 2022, and reflects on what has transpired – societally, politically, medically -- since President Xi suddenly threw off the Zero-Covid controls in early December.  What is the “toll” for not preparing for the colossal speak of Covid? What to make of a “crisis of confidence” that the government has to face, that is going to “hurt?” What can we expect i...

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