Living With COVID (w/Dr. Monica Gandhi)

We now have all the necessary tools to end the COVID "emergency" phase. Here's how (and why) we can live with this coronavirus.

Here's an extended Twitter thread outlining the key points we discussed (easy for sharing). And here's every show we've done with UCSF Professor and infectious disease specialist Dr. Monica Gandhi.

Video: https://zdoggmd.com/living-with-covid/

Topics & Timecodes

00:00 Intro, mask mandates, individual control & benefits of one-way masking

05:22 Long COVID, innate vs adaptive immunity, seroprevalence among varying age groups

10:27 Vaccine protection against severe COVID, natural immunity, media catastrophizing, animal reservoirs & endemicity

15:23 Hepatitis outbreak in children, did pandemic sheltering weaken our kids’ immune responses, masking children & the precautionary principle

20:00 Creating an endpoint, the purpose of non-pharmaceutical interventions, hospitalizations with COVID vs. for COVID, death rate as a key metric

23:53 Hybrid immunity, Omicron as the great equalizer, CDC messaging & it’s role in terrifying the vaccinated & convincing the unvaccinated that vaccines don’t work

31:49 Covaxin vs Sinovac, India vs. China, downstream effects of lockdowns, excess deaths 

40:32 Age-based risk stratification, immune response in children, what a “mild” case of Omicron looks like, Paxlovid & other therapeutics

46:10 Omicron mutations & why they point to approaching endemicity, public & mental health strategies

49:38 The value of holistic treatment, right brain vs. left brain, reductionism, importance of recognizing the many tools we have to combat COVID

59:32 What’s next for Monica, why docs suck at talking about risk, final thoughts

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