April 8, 2022 • 29 mins
Ryan Gorman hosts an iHeartRadio nationwide special featuring Padi Boyd, Chief of the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA, and the Project Scientist for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Mission. Padi Boyd discusses a new revelation made by the Hubble Space Telescope and other space exploration missions currently underway. Dr. Dara Kass, HHS Regional Director for Region 2, also joins the show to talk about the COVID-19 vaccines and offer the latest information on booster shots.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to I Heart Radio Communities, a public affair special
focusing on the biggest issues impacting you this week. Here's
Ryan Gorman. Thanks so much for joining us here on
I Heart Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have
some important conversations lined up for you. In a moment,
I'll talk to a NASA scientist about an exciting new
discovery recently made by the Hubble Space Telescope. Then I'll
(00:24):
check in with Dr Derek Cass from the Department of
Health and Human Services about the latest information on COVID nineteen,
the vaccines, and who's eligible for this latest round of
booster shots. Right now, to get things started, I'm joined
by Patty Boyd, chief of the exo Planets and Stellar
Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA, and
(00:46):
the project scientist for the Transiting Exo Planet Survey satellite mission. Patty,
thank you so much for coming on the show. Now,
before we get into this groundbreaking observation recently made by
the Hubble Space Telescope, tell us a little bit about
the work the Hubble has been doing for the past
couple of decades. Oh, I would love to and thanks
for having me. I'm very excited to talk about this
(01:07):
groundbreaking discovery from Hubble. So the Hubble Space Telescope is
as its name suggests, in space. It was launched into
a low Earth orbit, so it it goes around the
Earth once every ninety minutes um and it was launched
in and the position of its orbit is such that
the Space Shuttle could rendezvous with it. And over its
long life, which is almost thirty two years now, there
(01:30):
were five servicing missions where astronauts refurbished the instruments and
all the systems on board, and in that fifth and
final servicing mission, they left the observatory at the peak
of its scientific capabilities. So it has continued on making
groundbreaking discoveries like the one we're going to talk about today,
and we expected to continue to operate through this decade
and hopefully beyond. So we have the Hubble Telescope operating
(01:52):
right now, and we also have this new one, the
James Web Telescope, which we've heard so much about recently.
And the reason I bring that up in these correct
me if I'm wrong, But we're expecting to learn a
lot about the origins of the universe from the James
Web Telescope, but in this instance a discovery along those
lines was made by Hubble. You're absolutely right, Um, Hubble
(02:13):
and James Webb Space Health Governor extremely complimentary. So Hubble
looks in the optical part of the spectrum what our
eyes can see, but also Bluer we called out the
ultra violet. They've got ultra violet and optical with Hubble.
And then Web is designed. It's bigger than Hubble, so
it has more collecting area, which means it can see
fainter things, but also designed to observe in the infrared
(02:34):
part of spectrum, so the redder things much redder than
Hubble can see with its instruments. And when things are
red shift that those are things that are moving away
from us at very far distances in our universe. Those
get red shifted into the James Web Space Telescope um
region where it can observe. So Hubble and Web will
be extremely complementary. But what's really exciting about today's discoveries
(02:57):
that really push its Pubble to the limits of what
it can observed. As far as this being a single
star whose light came off that star within the first
billion years of the history of our universe. So it's
a perfect stepping stone. This object that was discovered by
Hubble will actually be observed in detail by Web very soon.
All right. So the star that the Hubble Space Telescope observed,
(03:20):
it took nearly thirteen billion years for the light from
that star to reach us, and that star was created
about six hundred million years after the universe was first created.
It could be a little difficult to follow and comprehend.
Can you put that into some kind of perspective for us? Sure?
(03:42):
And I mean these are cosmological questions, and they are
you know, there are they are hard to grasp. Even
astronomers have um is just grasping them because they're just
unfathomable numbers and time. But we know that our universe
started in a big bang. We have a lot of
observational evidence for that. And at that time U the
universe was made of hydrogen, a little bit of helium,
not much else. Not those heavy elements that we see
(04:04):
around us, like carbon, oxygen, neon. Those were all forged
in the furnaces of the first stars. So that's why
this is such an exciting period of time in the
history of our universe. It's about thirteen point eight billion
years old now, and what why is this? Why are
we cable of seeing something of that old? It's because
light actually travels at a finite speed. You don't notice
(04:27):
that in your day to day interactions, you know, talking
to your friends across the table or um even tell
you to your friends on phone. UM. But light does
have a finite speed. And what that means is it
takes a certain amounts time to reach us. And there's
things from the very earliest universe. Their light has been
traveling towards us for almost the entire history of the universe.
In this case, the light of the star has been
(04:47):
traveling almost thirteen billion years to reach our telescope. Now,
that star that the Hubble Space telescope recently observed, and
I'd love for you to tell us the name and
what it means and all of that, but in real time,
like right now, that star no longer exists. Correct, absolutely correct.
The name of stars Arandel, which is both English for
(05:10):
morning star. So it's a star from mornings in the
history of our universe. Um. But our universe has evolved
and changed dramatically in the ensuing twelve point nine billion years.
Not only has that star evolved, it would have we
would have had a very quick lights that. It's a
massive star, much more massive than the Sun. So they
live half, they die hard, they go out in supernova explosions.
(05:34):
That stars long gone today. But the other change that's
happened is that we've changed the Milky Way galaxy that
we live in as the Sun itself. That's a hundred
billion stars or more, and that has evolved as well
over those twelve point nine billion years. So we look
much different than that light um that than when that
light came from the star, and that star is long gone.
(05:55):
I gotta tell you, I find this absolutely fascinating. I'm
Ryan Gorman, joined by Patty Boyd, chief of the exo
Planets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division
at NASA. She's also the project scientists for the Transitting
Exo Planet Survey satellite mission. So let me see if
I have this right, if we were to look back
this way from Errendel, the star that was recently observed
(06:19):
by the Hubble Space telescope, would Earth not exist yet.
So our star, the Sun, is about four point nine
billion years old right now. So if we were to
be able to somehow transport ourselves to Arndell and magically
have an observatory there that could then look through the
same lensing cluster, sort the big massive galaxy cluster, and
(06:42):
look at our Milky Way. We would be seeing that
stage of the Milky Way when it was less than
a billion years old in the history of the universe.
So what we would see would look dramatically different than
the Milky Way galaxy that we know today. It would
just be forming a be in a kind of a
chaotic state, not not that beautiful spiral structure that we're
used to seeing in images and pictures. So in terms
(07:03):
of trying to understand the origins of our universe, the
Hubble Space telescope has observed this star Horndel, which is
the oldest star we've ever observed. But the James Webb
telescope that's supposed to take us even farther back. Right, Yes,
and that's why this is so exciting. It's like such
an exciting stepping stone, a taste of what's yet to
(07:26):
come with the James Webb Space Telescope. So that telescope
is bigger, so it'll be able to see dim objects
like this one much more easily than Hubble can, and
it's also optimized to see infrared light, So not only
this star, which will give up quite a bit infrared light,
but also the earliest galaxies of our universe, which are
red shifted away from the optical James Webb was specially
(07:48):
designed to go after the first galaxies in the early universe.
This is a antalyzing case of what's to come with
James Webb when it starts science operations in this summer,
and ultimately what does this all mean our ability to
observe the oldest star we've ever seen to date, or
what we're going to see with the James Webb telescope
(08:11):
going even farther back. What are we going to learn
from all of this? It's really about putting together the
picture of how did we get here, Where did we
come from? How did the universe put together? The building
blocks of the modern day universe that we see around
us today. You know, the stars in our Milky Way,
um our Sun, the planets around our Sun. We have
(08:33):
a picture of how that has all evolved, including that
when solar systems form, the stars form at the center
lets that the rocky stuff around it you know the
dust that's they're made up of carbon and other things,
not hydrogen and helium. Those start to form into planets.
And we know that our galaxy is littered with planets
right now. There's more planets than stars in the Milky
(08:54):
Way galaxy. But all that material that makes up the planets,
that was all forged in these first generations of stars.
So once they're very hard to observe. So Randell will
be an excellent example of us to take a look
at a star that's evolving in the very earliest part
of the universe and to test our models of where
those heavier elements come from in the furnaces of these
(09:17):
very native stars, very young stars. I'm Ryan Gorman, joining
right now by Patty Boyd, chief of the Excel Planets
and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA,
and the project scientists for the Transiting Excel Planet Survey
satellite mission. So, the Hubble Space Telescope has been in
outer space for decades now, some thirty years. What are
(09:39):
some of the biggest things that we've learned from the
work that the Hubble has done. So I think one
of I mean there's a lot of answers to that,
because you know, this is a million observations from the
Hubble space helfcope by now. But I think that one
of the real legacy programs where the legacy results of
Hubble was related to. These clusters of galaxies are just
collections of galaxies. So one of the most um iconic
(10:02):
images is what we call the Hubble deep field, where
Hubble was just pointed in a direction in space where
it didn't look like there was much going on there,
and it just stared there without blinking for days. And
what it uncovered was this scheeming a universe scheeming with
galaxies across cosmic time, and it showed us that galaxies
(10:22):
evolved themselves, they collide into each other, they have supermassive
black holes at their centers, and those massive black holes
can often get entangled with each other. So it's really
helped us put together that history of the universe. I
think that will be one of the enduring legacies of published,
just the deep field and everything that it showed us
about how the universe has evolved and come to be,
and what about our little corner in this massive universe,
(10:45):
the Milky Way galaxy. What have we learned about the
portion of the universe that directly surrounds Earth and our
Solar system. So it helps us to put together the
story of the structure of the Milky Way. Uh, you know,
we've got, like you said, over a hundred billion stars
in the Milky Way were just one of a hundred
billion here um and there is a supermassive black hole
(11:06):
at the center of our galaxy. We can see it
how it um operates on individual stars over time, and
that's very common. When we look at the galaxies that
you see in the Hubble deep field, we see that
the galaxies that are near us in time in space,
they all have supermassive black holes at their core. Now too.
That's another result that Hubble really helped elucidate that galaxies
(11:27):
and supermassive black holes go hand in hand um. So
it puts our Galaxy in context with other galaxies. But
one of the most enduring questions that James Webb was
designed to answer is which came first. Did the mass
supermassive black holes form first and then galaxies formed around them,
or did the galaxies form first and then somehow those
(11:48):
supermassive black holes sunk into the middle with all that
mass that we're talking like millions of masses of the
Sun or more. Uh So, it definitely helps us put
the Milky Way in context as far as this evolution goes,
as far as its content goes. Um. But we're really
waiting for the James Webb Space Telescope to kind of
open that chapter of the book, chapter one and how
galaxies form and evolve, and real quick on the topic
(12:11):
of black holes, are they still one of the biggest
mysteries in the universe? Do we know what happens in
them or how they work? Especially the dynamics around supermassive
black holes is pretty well understood and very well modeled
by a series like general relativity. Um, you know what
happens around the supermassive black hole is you're really looking
(12:31):
at um. How matter and space time itself behaves in
extremes in the extremely uh you know the limit of
extreme mass. Uh So, we have a lot of examples
of how we can observe um activity around supermassive black holes.
The real question is how did they get there, When
did they get there, and did they influence the development
(12:52):
of the galaxies and the galactic structure or was it
the other way around? M Ryan Gorman with Patty Boy,
chief of the exo Planets and Still our Astrophysics Laboratory
and the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA. She's also the
project scientist for the Transitting Exo Planet Survey satellite mission.
Obviously one of the big areas of interest for just
(13:12):
about everyone. Is there other intelligent life out there in
the universe? The work that the Hubble Space Telescope has done,
the work that the James Webb Telescope is going to do.
Are those two missions helping us answer that question? Oh? Absolutely,
But now we're really talking about you know, we're when
(13:33):
we're talking about Randell, we're talking about a star that
is at cosmic distances. When we're talking about exo planets,
we're actually talking about very small objects and so those
are easiest to see around the nearest start. So the community,
the astronomics community is really focused on now is finding
examples of exoplanets. These the planets round other stars. We
(13:56):
want to find the ones that are around nearby and
bright starts. Why is at because the signal from them
is relatively strong because they are close and what Pubble
and WEB can start to do now, is if a
planet passes in front of its star, if it's got
an atmosphere, when it blocks some of that light from
the star, some of that light would pass through the
(14:19):
atmosphere and it would get imprinted with the material that's
in the atmosphere. So that allows us to take a
look at the planet as a place and tell me
something about that atmosphere. What's it made of that it
had oxygen and carbon dioxide and ozone in its atmosphere
like ours does. Pubble is not quite capable of doing
that type of a sophisticated spectral analysis on a planet
(14:42):
like the Earth. It can do this type of an
analysis on on on giant planets like Jupiters and Saturns.
What WEB is going to help us do is push
down to smaller planets and to really look for some
of those UH constituents in the atmosphere that we think
are consistent with developing life on a planet. So the
ones that I named are are markers that we're going
(15:03):
to be looking for. Methane, ozone, oxygen, and water vapor
because here on Earth, water and life go hand in hand.
It's a rule, right, do you see water, you see life.
If you have life that have to have access to water.
And we know that the laws of physics and chemistry
are universal. We see them everywhere in the universe. So
if scientists universal, there's very good reasons to think that
(15:26):
the laws of biology will also be universal. And this
is the reason that we follow the water, follow the
water vapor. Really looking forward to being able to disentangle
some of that stuff with web and exo planets. Well,
I tell you what, it is such an exciting time
when it comes to space exploration. Sometimes it's a little
hard to wrap your head around some of these concepts,
but the information that we keep getting, including this most
(15:47):
recent development from the Hubble Space Telescope, just fascinating. Patty Boyd,
chief of the Exoplanets in Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory and the
Astrophysics Science Division at NASA, and the project scientists for
the Transitting X Planet Surveys satellite mission, Patty camp, thank
you enough for coming on the show and breaking all
of that down for us. We really appreciate it. Oh,
it was my pleasure of Thanks for having me, all right,
(16:09):
And finally let's turn to Dr Derra Cass HHS Regional
Director for Region two. She's with us to talk about
COVID nineteen, the vaccines, and the latest information on boosters.
Dr Cass, thanks for taking a few minutes to talk
to us, and let's start with an overview of the
work you do at HHS overseeing Region two. So I
(16:30):
first want to say thank you so much for having
me Ryan Um. Getting to the communities is really what matters.
It's why we do this work. I am an emergency
medicine doctor. Like I said, I've been working in the
ear of almost twenty years. UH. In November, I joined
the Biden administration as the Regional director for Region two,
which serves New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.
S Argin Islands. Which allows us to really connect the
(16:53):
work of the federal government with the people that that
we're here to serve, right the people on the ground,
to make sure that what we're doing is community to
them and that we're hearing what they need. And before
we get into all the latest information on the vaccines
and on COVID nineteen, the different variants and all of that,
tell us a little bit about your personal experience with
this virus, because both personally and professionally, you have been
(17:17):
consumed by COVID for the past couple of years. Yeah,
and certainly if you ask my children, it's certainly picks
up all of my time. I was an emergency as
a doctor in New York City in March of and
so I was on the front lines as this virus really,
you know, kind of decimated our country in the first past.
I worked in the e er in March and found
myself actually infected with COVID nineteen uh in that second
(17:39):
week of March. And you know, the thing about that
infection early on, and it really will kind of speak
to our conversation a little bit today about where we
are now in this pandemic is the uncertainty of that time,
watching so many people get sick, getting sick myself, watching
my friends have unexpected courses of illness. These are people
that never expected to be in the hospital, never worried
(18:01):
about their own mortality, right, women like me that had
young children thinking about whether or not they needed to
write their will. And so when I got sick, I
got scared, right. The uncertainty was crueling, not knowing would
I be able to breathe? Am I going to bring
it home to my family, and I see that that
that anxiety around the uncertainty has really informed so many
of the reactions to the policies we've been putting in place,
(18:23):
and really how people feel about how it impacts their
lives because we're looking for certainty in a time that
is so confusing. So I recovered from my infection in
March of and I went back to work in the
e er. I was able to care for people and
really start communicating that this is our lives, this is
affecting our day to day. How are we managing our children,
our parents right, how are we considering the risks to
(18:45):
our families? And then I was able to get vaccinated
in December as it was first being offered to people, uh,
and got vaccinated and boosted. And we'll talk about my
second COVID infection later on. We talked about the impact
of the vaccine on infections and really the consideration of
what it means to be vaccinated but still get COVID
afterwards that time frame in March of Because we tend
(19:08):
to have short memories, can you bring us back to
what you were experiencing, what you were seeing on the
front lines really ground zero for this virus when it
first started to impact this country. So I can see
that it was it was scary. I mean, there's no
other work to describe it. Right. We were um working
(19:28):
as hard as we could with the information we had,
and we really tried to keep ourselves safe and our
patients safe at a time where we had we're seeing
something we had never seen before, this restipory virus that
was just spreading amongst our communities and and really kind
of taking the floor out from under us. And I
can say that, you know, especially in New York where
I live, our community came together. We really kind of
(19:49):
addressed this as a community based approach. We put on
our masks, we you know, most people stayed home, only
people that had to go to work. And what that
meant I think was changing over the course of the pandemic.
But you know, we really tried to stick together as
a community in New York really saw an incredible response
from that. And then as those waves you know, went
through this country, we saw communities come together and show
(20:10):
their best selves, um, to stick up for each other
and stand together in addressing these waves as they come through.
And I still think that we see this now, although
the fatigue, the exhaustion of making those decisions over and
over again over to now almost three years UM is
really wearing on people. And I think we're seeing that
now in just the desire for people to just have
(20:32):
answers and move on, and that's hard to do even
at this point in the Pandemic'm Ryan Gorman joined by
Dr Derek Cass, HHS Regional director for Region two, and
let's dive into some of the latest information on the
vaccines and COVID nineteen. And I think a lot of
people are asking themselves, if these vaccines don't keep me
(20:55):
from getting COVID nineteen, which we have learned with these
most recent variants in a lot of instances, they don't,
what's the point in getting vaccinated and boosted? What can
you tell us about that? So, first of all, vaccination matters, right,
I think that is an important point that we need
to just put as the foundation of this conversation. And
(21:15):
getting boosted matters as well. And again I'll use an
example from my own life. My fourteen year old order
who is fully vaccinated and boosted, found herself having a
positive rapid COVID test last week. You know, she started
having a sore throat and her nose was running. And
you know, we have rapid tests in our house. Thanks
to the resources of the federal government. Everyone we know
can go to COVID dot gov and order their tests
(21:38):
and find out where their local testing centers are. Uh.
And we had them in our house because she tested herself.
Actually her first test was negative, but two days later
she was positive. UH. And so she was able to
you know, stay home and isolate from our family and
actually didn't give it to anybody else in our family.
But the interesting thing for me as a mom was,
you know, when my first COVID infection happened in March,
(22:00):
I was worried about my actual health and wellness. Would
I have to go to the hospital, would I even
survive this? With my daughter, who had three vaccines before
she was infected, I was not worried about that. Her
biggest concern was what do I do to make up
my math tests? Right? And even in our home, right?
I mean, and she's fourteen years old, so that was
(22:20):
a really big deal. Um. But the bottom line is
in our house we have an an immune compromised person.
My nine year old son had a liver transplant, and
he also was fully vaccinated. For him, that means three vaccines,
even though he's nine. And even in that case of
having somebody in our home who was COVID positive and
having an immune compromised family member, I was not nervous
(22:42):
more than then I will deal whatever comes in front
of us. That we had not done every single thing
we could to protect our family. And that's the power
of the vaccines and the boosters. You know that even
if you get infected, you've done everything you can do
to protect your family and keep them as safe as
humanly possible. And what about those who have been infected.
(23:02):
Maybe they've been infected multiple times, Maybe they were infected
back in in March of and then they've been infected
with Delta or a macron and they're saying to themselves,
why do I need to go get vaccinated? I have
natural immunity. I've got COVID before. What do you say
to them? So this is what I say. I say that, um,
(23:23):
you know, there is no better immunity and no more
reliable immudinating vaccinated IMMANI. It does not undermine the experience
that people have had COVID, have had UM but it's
really important to remember that even if you've had covid
um and you've survived and you've had you know, you
have your antibodies and you have um and you are
ready to move on. Uh, there is no better protection
(23:44):
than getting that at least primary series and really that
booster on top of it. And you know, I know
that it can be frustrating, is even after that you
get covid But we know that the vaccinations provide more
durable immunity and better protection than just the immunity you
get from an infection alone. And we've seen people get
two and some I've heard of three people get people
(24:06):
getting it three times. Uh, you know, the infections because
as each strain comes out, you are more vulnerable to
that strain without the vaccine. So I think it's really
important to acknowledge the experience of people that have had
covid um and and have had natural immunity and a
natural infections from post infectious but it is important to
recognize that the vaccine is absolutely our most durable and
(24:28):
reliable protection for this virus. Before we get into the
information on the boosters and why they're so important, can
you tell us first who's eligible to receive them? Sure? So, Um,
the way we talk about boosters, right, So there's a
primary series, which is the original two shots of the
(24:48):
MR and a vaccine or one jobs than Johnson, and
then there is the booster and that's really everybody over
the age of twelve is eligible for that booster. Um.
It's really important to have that at the time frame
that matches whichever your vaccine was. So if you had
a Maderna or a Fiser vaccine, you can have it
five months after that primary series and two months after
you had J and j H. So that's the booster
(25:11):
that we talked about, where everyone over the age of twelve,
which is my fourteen year old daughter and my forty
nine year old husband, who's not going to be thrilled
that I told you how old he was. Uh, you
know they are. We are all eligible. Um. But then
you get to my seventies six year old mother, and
now I'm going to be in big trouble. Okay, So
she is eligible for a second booster. In fact, just
got hers yesterday. Uh. And that is new information. Everybody
(25:34):
over the age of fifty is eligible for a second
booster um. You know, because of the protection and the
priming of the immune system that that that that provides,
and that's again after a timeline from either your m
R and A or your your your Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
It's really really important that everyone over the age of
(25:55):
sixty five, you know, gets that booster as soon as possible,
and everyone over the age of fifty who is eligible
should really speak to their doctor about um whether or
not they should get that booster and how fast they
should get it. There are a lot of conversations out
there for people that are eligible, uh finding out if
it's their time to do that, and I think that
that's why the recommendation was, please speak to your doctor
(26:17):
because you are eligible. But if you are you know
over six five, have an immune compromise, condition at all,
vulnerable at all for your particular infection. We really think
this additional booster will help you be as protected as
possible if you get COVID nineteen. Ryan Gorman joined by
Dr Derek Cass, HHS Regional director for Region two. We're
(26:40):
talking about the COVID nineteen vaccines and boosters, and I
think inevitably you're going to have people say, especially talking
about this this fourth booster shot that you know, I
just don't want to go through that period after you
get the booster shot where you know, you feel a
little under the weather for maybe a day or two.
Do I really to get yet another one? But you
(27:02):
are adamant about the fact that this latest booster for
those over the age of fifty, it is important to
keep that immunity at a certain level so people don't
get severely o with COVID nineteen. Yeah. I mean remember
that those feelings you have after that vaccine, after that booster,
that's your immune system working. So it all fear it is.
If you don't feel that way, maybe you'll be a
(27:23):
little sad. I get all excited when I have a
little bit of a store arm or I have a
little bit of redness, because I know it's all about
perspective though, right, And I will also remind you, and
I think this is an important thing to reflect on,
is that getting COVID itself is no walk in the park,
even if you're not in danger. And so I want
to be really clear that you know a lot of
(27:45):
this perception around the milder variants, right, So what we've
seen with omercron and now this be a two people
talk about how it's less severe, it's more mild, and
I do want to be very clear that having had it,
it isn't fun and you don't want to get a
severe case or even a you know, if you're going
to be symptomatic, you want to have as best protection
(28:06):
as possible. And that's my daughter, right She had three
days of a positive test. I mean, she's still massed
up when she went back to school after five, but
she was only rapid test positive for three days. And
I really believe that is because her body was ready
for that infection when she was infected, you know. And
even for me, my course, with this overcron version, I
(28:27):
got it again in December. Uh. You know, my husband
likes to say I'm very good a kid of COVID.
Uh you know, I got it again. And it's really
it was not the same experience I had the first time.
Like again, it wasn't a walk in the park and
I'm not trying to get COVID, but it was um.
It was definitely less it was shorter, and it was
less severe. And I give some respect to the vaccines
(28:49):
for getting me there and real quick. COVID DOT doub
that's the one stop shop where people can find out
information on test kits and all of that, and vaccines
dot dov. That's where everyone can go for all the
information on the COVID nineteen vaccines. Yeah, so it's a
one it's basically one stop shop. So you go to
COVID duct of and you can find information on your
local community spread, which is really really important. Right when
(29:13):
we ask people to consider wearing a mask, we're asking
them to look at their community and their personal risk
and understand what is the transmission rate, what are the
hospitalizations in your community, So people may choose to put
a mask on in two weeks even if they're not
wearing one right now. All and again, all the information
on the vaccines you can find at vaccines dot gov.
(29:33):
Dr Derek Cass, HHS Regional director for Region to Dr Cass,
thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much,
and have a great day. Okay, all right, and that's
going to do it for this edition of my Art
Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman. Will be back the same time,
same place next weekend. Thanks so much for listening.
Welcome to I Heart Radio Communities, a public affair special
focusing on the biggest issues impacting you this week. Here's
Ryan Gorman. Thanks so much for joining us here on
I Heart Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have
some important conversations lined up for you. In a moment,
I'll talk to a NASA scientist about an exciting new
discovery recently made by the Hubble Space Telescope. Then I'll
(00:24):
check in with Dr Derek Cass from the Department of
Health and Human Services about the latest information on COVID nineteen,
the vaccines, and who's eligible for this latest round of
booster shots. Right now, to get things started, I'm joined
by Patty Boyd, chief of the exo Planets and Stellar
Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA, and
(00:46):
the project scientist for the Transiting Exo Planet Survey satellite mission. Patty,
thank you so much for coming on the show. Now,
before we get into this groundbreaking observation recently made by
the Hubble Space Telescope, tell us a little bit about
the work the Hubble has been doing for the past
couple of decades. Oh, I would love to and thanks
for having me. I'm very excited to talk about this
(01:07):
groundbreaking discovery from Hubble. So the Hubble Space Telescope is
as its name suggests, in space. It was launched into
a low Earth orbit, so it it goes around the
Earth once every ninety minutes um and it was launched
in and the position of its orbit is such that
the Space Shuttle could rendezvous with it. And over its
long life, which is almost thirty two years now, there
(01:30):
were five servicing missions where astronauts refurbished the instruments and
all the systems on board, and in that fifth and
final servicing mission, they left the observatory at the peak
of its scientific capabilities. So it has continued on making
groundbreaking discoveries like the one we're going to talk about today,
and we expected to continue to operate through this decade
and hopefully beyond. So we have the Hubble Telescope operating
(01:52):
right now, and we also have this new one, the
James Web Telescope, which we've heard so much about recently.
And the reason I bring that up in these correct
me if I'm wrong, But we're expecting to learn a
lot about the origins of the universe from the James
Web Telescope, but in this instance a discovery along those
lines was made by Hubble. You're absolutely right, Um, Hubble
(02:13):
and James Webb Space Health Governor extremely complimentary. So Hubble
looks in the optical part of the spectrum what our
eyes can see, but also Bluer we called out the
ultra violet. They've got ultra violet and optical with Hubble.
And then Web is designed. It's bigger than Hubble, so
it has more collecting area, which means it can see
fainter things, but also designed to observe in the infrared
(02:34):
part of spectrum, so the redder things much redder than
Hubble can see with its instruments. And when things are
red shift that those are things that are moving away
from us at very far distances in our universe. Those
get red shifted into the James Web Space Telescope um
region where it can observe. So Hubble and Web will
be extremely complementary. But what's really exciting about today's discoveries
(02:57):
that really push its Pubble to the limits of what
it can observed. As far as this being a single
star whose light came off that star within the first
billion years of the history of our universe. So it's
a perfect stepping stone. This object that was discovered by
Hubble will actually be observed in detail by Web very soon.
All right. So the star that the Hubble Space Telescope observed,
(03:20):
it took nearly thirteen billion years for the light from
that star to reach us, and that star was created
about six hundred million years after the universe was first created.
It could be a little difficult to follow and comprehend.
Can you put that into some kind of perspective for us? Sure?
(03:42):
And I mean these are cosmological questions, and they are
you know, there are they are hard to grasp. Even
astronomers have um is just grasping them because they're just
unfathomable numbers and time. But we know that our universe
started in a big bang. We have a lot of
observational evidence for that. And at that time U the
universe was made of hydrogen, a little bit of helium,
not much else. Not those heavy elements that we see
(04:04):
around us, like carbon, oxygen, neon. Those were all forged
in the furnaces of the first stars. So that's why
this is such an exciting period of time in the
history of our universe. It's about thirteen point eight billion
years old now, and what why is this? Why are
we cable of seeing something of that old? It's because
light actually travels at a finite speed. You don't notice
(04:27):
that in your day to day interactions, you know, talking
to your friends across the table or um even tell
you to your friends on phone. UM. But light does
have a finite speed. And what that means is it
takes a certain amounts time to reach us. And there's
things from the very earliest universe. Their light has been
traveling towards us for almost the entire history of the universe.
In this case, the light of the star has been
(04:47):
traveling almost thirteen billion years to reach our telescope. Now,
that star that the Hubble Space telescope recently observed, and
I'd love for you to tell us the name and
what it means and all of that, but in real time,
like right now, that star no longer exists. Correct, absolutely correct.
The name of stars Arandel, which is both English for
(05:10):
morning star. So it's a star from mornings in the
history of our universe. Um. But our universe has evolved
and changed dramatically in the ensuing twelve point nine billion years.
Not only has that star evolved, it would have we
would have had a very quick lights that. It's a
massive star, much more massive than the Sun. So they
live half, they die hard, they go out in supernova explosions.
(05:34):
That stars long gone today. But the other change that's
happened is that we've changed the Milky Way galaxy that
we live in as the Sun itself. That's a hundred
billion stars or more, and that has evolved as well
over those twelve point nine billion years. So we look
much different than that light um that than when that
light came from the star, and that star is long gone.
(05:55):
I gotta tell you, I find this absolutely fascinating. I'm
Ryan Gorman, joined by Patty Boyd, chief of the exo
Planets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division
at NASA. She's also the project scientists for the Transitting
Exo Planet Survey satellite mission. So let me see if
I have this right, if we were to look back
this way from Errendel, the star that was recently observed
(06:19):
by the Hubble Space telescope, would Earth not exist yet.
So our star, the Sun, is about four point nine
billion years old right now. So if we were to
be able to somehow transport ourselves to Arndell and magically
have an observatory there that could then look through the
same lensing cluster, sort the big massive galaxy cluster, and
(06:42):
look at our Milky Way. We would be seeing that
stage of the Milky Way when it was less than
a billion years old in the history of the universe.
So what we would see would look dramatically different than
the Milky Way galaxy that we know today. It would
just be forming a be in a kind of a
chaotic state, not not that beautiful spiral structure that we're
used to seeing in images and pictures. So in terms
(07:03):
of trying to understand the origins of our universe, the
Hubble Space telescope has observed this star Horndel, which is
the oldest star we've ever observed. But the James Webb
telescope that's supposed to take us even farther back. Right, Yes,
and that's why this is so exciting. It's like such
an exciting stepping stone, a taste of what's yet to
(07:26):
come with the James Webb Space Telescope. So that telescope
is bigger, so it'll be able to see dim objects
like this one much more easily than Hubble can, and
it's also optimized to see infrared light, So not only
this star, which will give up quite a bit infrared light,
but also the earliest galaxies of our universe, which are
red shifted away from the optical James Webb was specially
(07:48):
designed to go after the first galaxies in the early universe.
This is a antalyzing case of what's to come with
James Webb when it starts science operations in this summer,
and ultimately what does this all mean our ability to
observe the oldest star we've ever seen to date, or
what we're going to see with the James Webb telescope
(08:11):
going even farther back. What are we going to learn
from all of this? It's really about putting together the
picture of how did we get here, Where did we
come from? How did the universe put together? The building
blocks of the modern day universe that we see around
us today. You know, the stars in our Milky Way,
um our Sun, the planets around our Sun. We have
(08:33):
a picture of how that has all evolved, including that
when solar systems form, the stars form at the center
lets that the rocky stuff around it you know the
dust that's they're made up of carbon and other things,
not hydrogen and helium. Those start to form into planets.
And we know that our galaxy is littered with planets
right now. There's more planets than stars in the Milky
(08:54):
Way galaxy. But all that material that makes up the planets,
that was all forged in these first generations of stars.
So once they're very hard to observe. So Randell will
be an excellent example of us to take a look
at a star that's evolving in the very earliest part
of the universe and to test our models of where
those heavier elements come from in the furnaces of these
(09:17):
very native stars, very young stars. I'm Ryan Gorman, joining
right now by Patty Boyd, chief of the Excel Planets
and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA,
and the project scientists for the Transiting Excel Planet Survey
satellite mission. So, the Hubble Space Telescope has been in
outer space for decades now, some thirty years. What are
(09:39):
some of the biggest things that we've learned from the
work that the Hubble has done. So I think one
of I mean there's a lot of answers to that,
because you know, this is a million observations from the
Hubble space helfcope by now. But I think that one
of the real legacy programs where the legacy results of
Hubble was related to. These clusters of galaxies are just
collections of galaxies. So one of the most um iconic
(10:02):
images is what we call the Hubble deep field, where
Hubble was just pointed in a direction in space where
it didn't look like there was much going on there,
and it just stared there without blinking for days. And
what it uncovered was this scheeming a universe scheeming with
galaxies across cosmic time, and it showed us that galaxies
(10:22):
evolved themselves, they collide into each other, they have supermassive
black holes at their centers, and those massive black holes
can often get entangled with each other. So it's really
helped us put together that history of the universe. I
think that will be one of the enduring legacies of published,
just the deep field and everything that it showed us
about how the universe has evolved and come to be,
and what about our little corner in this massive universe,
(10:45):
the Milky Way galaxy. What have we learned about the
portion of the universe that directly surrounds Earth and our
Solar system. So it helps us to put together the
story of the structure of the Milky Way. Uh, you know,
we've got, like you said, over a hundred billion stars
in the Milky Way were just one of a hundred
billion here um and there is a supermassive black hole
(11:06):
at the center of our galaxy. We can see it
how it um operates on individual stars over time, and
that's very common. When we look at the galaxies that
you see in the Hubble deep field, we see that
the galaxies that are near us in time in space,
they all have supermassive black holes at their core. Now too.
That's another result that Hubble really helped elucidate that galaxies
(11:27):
and supermassive black holes go hand in hand um. So
it puts our Galaxy in context with other galaxies. But
one of the most enduring questions that James Webb was
designed to answer is which came first. Did the mass
supermassive black holes form first and then galaxies formed around them,
or did the galaxies form first and then somehow those
(11:48):
supermassive black holes sunk into the middle with all that
mass that we're talking like millions of masses of the
Sun or more. Uh So, it definitely helps us put
the Milky Way in context as far as this evolution goes,
as far as its content goes. Um. But we're really
waiting for the James Webb Space Telescope to kind of
open that chapter of the book, chapter one and how
galaxies form and evolve, and real quick on the topic
(12:11):
of black holes, are they still one of the biggest
mysteries in the universe? Do we know what happens in
them or how they work? Especially the dynamics around supermassive
black holes is pretty well understood and very well modeled
by a series like general relativity. Um, you know what
happens around the supermassive black hole is you're really looking
(12:31):
at um. How matter and space time itself behaves in
extremes in the extremely uh you know the limit of
extreme mass. Uh So, we have a lot of examples
of how we can observe um activity around supermassive black holes.
The real question is how did they get there, When
did they get there, and did they influence the development
(12:52):
of the galaxies and the galactic structure or was it
the other way around? M Ryan Gorman with Patty Boy,
chief of the exo Planets and Still our Astrophysics Laboratory
and the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA. She's also the
project scientist for the Transitting Exo Planet Survey satellite mission.
Obviously one of the big areas of interest for just
(13:12):
about everyone. Is there other intelligent life out there in
the universe? The work that the Hubble Space Telescope has done,
the work that the James Webb Telescope is going to do.
Are those two missions helping us answer that question? Oh? Absolutely,
But now we're really talking about you know, we're when
(13:33):
we're talking about Randell, we're talking about a star that
is at cosmic distances. When we're talking about exo planets,
we're actually talking about very small objects and so those
are easiest to see around the nearest start. So the community,
the astronomics community is really focused on now is finding
examples of exoplanets. These the planets round other stars. We
(13:56):
want to find the ones that are around nearby and
bright starts. Why is at because the signal from them
is relatively strong because they are close and what Pubble
and WEB can start to do now, is if a
planet passes in front of its star, if it's got
an atmosphere, when it blocks some of that light from
the star, some of that light would pass through the
(14:19):
atmosphere and it would get imprinted with the material that's
in the atmosphere. So that allows us to take a
look at the planet as a place and tell me
something about that atmosphere. What's it made of that it
had oxygen and carbon dioxide and ozone in its atmosphere
like ours does. Pubble is not quite capable of doing
that type of a sophisticated spectral analysis on a planet
(14:42):
like the Earth. It can do this type of an
analysis on on on giant planets like Jupiters and Saturns.
What WEB is going to help us do is push
down to smaller planets and to really look for some
of those UH constituents in the atmosphere that we think
are consistent with developing life on a planet. So the
ones that I named are are markers that we're going
(15:03):
to be looking for. Methane, ozone, oxygen, and water vapor
because here on Earth, water and life go hand in hand.
It's a rule, right, do you see water, you see life.
If you have life that have to have access to water.
And we know that the laws of physics and chemistry
are universal. We see them everywhere in the universe. So
if scientists universal, there's very good reasons to think that
(15:26):
the laws of biology will also be universal. And this
is the reason that we follow the water, follow the
water vapor. Really looking forward to being able to disentangle
some of that stuff with web and exo planets. Well,
I tell you what, it is such an exciting time
when it comes to space exploration. Sometimes it's a little
hard to wrap your head around some of these concepts,
but the information that we keep getting, including this most
(15:47):
recent development from the Hubble Space Telescope, just fascinating. Patty Boyd,
chief of the Exoplanets in Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory and the
Astrophysics Science Division at NASA, and the project scientists for
the Transitting X Planet Surveys satellite mission, Patty camp, thank
you enough for coming on the show and breaking all
of that down for us. We really appreciate it. Oh,
it was my pleasure of Thanks for having me, all right,
(16:09):
And finally let's turn to Dr Derra Cass HHS Regional
Director for Region two. She's with us to talk about
COVID nineteen, the vaccines, and the latest information on boosters.
Dr Cass, thanks for taking a few minutes to talk
to us, and let's start with an overview of the
work you do at HHS overseeing Region two. So I
(16:30):
first want to say thank you so much for having
me Ryan Um. Getting to the communities is really what matters.
It's why we do this work. I am an emergency
medicine doctor. Like I said, I've been working in the
ear of almost twenty years. UH. In November, I joined
the Biden administration as the Regional director for Region two,
which serves New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.
S Argin Islands. Which allows us to really connect the
(16:53):
work of the federal government with the people that that
we're here to serve, right the people on the ground,
to make sure that what we're doing is community to
them and that we're hearing what they need. And before
we get into all the latest information on the vaccines
and on COVID nineteen, the different variants and all of that,
tell us a little bit about your personal experience with
this virus, because both personally and professionally, you have been
(17:17):
consumed by COVID for the past couple of years. Yeah,
and certainly if you ask my children, it's certainly picks
up all of my time. I was an emergency as
a doctor in New York City in March of and
so I was on the front lines as this virus really,
you know, kind of decimated our country in the first past.
I worked in the e er in March and found
myself actually infected with COVID nineteen uh in that second
(17:39):
week of March. And you know, the thing about that
infection early on, and it really will kind of speak
to our conversation a little bit today about where we
are now in this pandemic is the uncertainty of that time,
watching so many people get sick, getting sick myself, watching
my friends have unexpected courses of illness. These are people
that never expected to be in the hospital, never worried
(18:01):
about their own mortality, right, women like me that had
young children thinking about whether or not they needed to
write their will. And so when I got sick, I
got scared, right. The uncertainty was crueling, not knowing would
I be able to breathe? Am I going to bring
it home to my family, and I see that that
that anxiety around the uncertainty has really informed so many
of the reactions to the policies we've been putting in place,
(18:23):
and really how people feel about how it impacts their
lives because we're looking for certainty in a time that
is so confusing. So I recovered from my infection in
March of and I went back to work in the
e er. I was able to care for people and
really start communicating that this is our lives, this is
affecting our day to day. How are we managing our children,
our parents right, how are we considering the risks to
(18:45):
our families? And then I was able to get vaccinated
in December as it was first being offered to people, uh,
and got vaccinated and boosted. And we'll talk about my
second COVID infection later on. We talked about the impact
of the vaccine on infections and really the consideration of
what it means to be vaccinated but still get COVID
afterwards that time frame in March of Because we tend
(19:08):
to have short memories, can you bring us back to
what you were experiencing, what you were seeing on the
front lines really ground zero for this virus when it
first started to impact this country. So I can see
that it was it was scary. I mean, there's no
other work to describe it. Right. We were um working
(19:28):
as hard as we could with the information we had,
and we really tried to keep ourselves safe and our
patients safe at a time where we had we're seeing
something we had never seen before, this restipory virus that
was just spreading amongst our communities and and really kind
of taking the floor out from under us. And I
can say that, you know, especially in New York where
I live, our community came together. We really kind of
(19:49):
addressed this as a community based approach. We put on
our masks, we you know, most people stayed home, only
people that had to go to work. And what that
meant I think was changing over the course of the pandemic.
But you know, we really tried to stick together as
a community in New York really saw an incredible response
from that. And then as those waves you know, went
through this country, we saw communities come together and show
(20:10):
their best selves, um, to stick up for each other
and stand together in addressing these waves as they come through.
And I still think that we see this now, although
the fatigue, the exhaustion of making those decisions over and
over again over to now almost three years UM is
really wearing on people. And I think we're seeing that
now in just the desire for people to just have
(20:32):
answers and move on, and that's hard to do even
at this point in the Pandemic'm Ryan Gorman joined by
Dr Derek Cass, HHS Regional director for Region two, and
let's dive into some of the latest information on the
vaccines and COVID nineteen. And I think a lot of
people are asking themselves, if these vaccines don't keep me
(20:55):
from getting COVID nineteen, which we have learned with these
most recent variants in a lot of instances, they don't,
what's the point in getting vaccinated and boosted? What can
you tell us about that? So, first of all, vaccination matters, right,
I think that is an important point that we need
to just put as the foundation of this conversation. And
(21:15):
getting boosted matters as well. And again I'll use an
example from my own life. My fourteen year old order
who is fully vaccinated and boosted, found herself having a
positive rapid COVID test last week. You know, she started
having a sore throat and her nose was running. And
you know, we have rapid tests in our house. Thanks
to the resources of the federal government. Everyone we know
can go to COVID dot gov and order their tests
(21:38):
and find out where their local testing centers are. Uh.
And we had them in our house because she tested herself.
Actually her first test was negative, but two days later
she was positive. UH. And so she was able to
you know, stay home and isolate from our family and
actually didn't give it to anybody else in our family.
But the interesting thing for me as a mom was,
you know, when my first COVID infection happened in March,
(22:00):
I was worried about my actual health and wellness. Would
I have to go to the hospital, would I even
survive this? With my daughter, who had three vaccines before
she was infected, I was not worried about that. Her
biggest concern was what do I do to make up
my math tests? Right? And even in our home, right?
I mean, and she's fourteen years old, so that was
(22:20):
a really big deal. Um. But the bottom line is
in our house we have an an immune compromised person.
My nine year old son had a liver transplant, and
he also was fully vaccinated. For him, that means three vaccines,
even though he's nine. And even in that case of
having somebody in our home who was COVID positive and
having an immune compromised family member, I was not nervous
(22:42):
more than then I will deal whatever comes in front
of us. That we had not done every single thing
we could to protect our family. And that's the power
of the vaccines and the boosters. You know that even
if you get infected, you've done everything you can do
to protect your family and keep them as safe as
humanly possible. And what about those who have been infected.
(23:02):
Maybe they've been infected multiple times, Maybe they were infected
back in in March of and then they've been infected
with Delta or a macron and they're saying to themselves,
why do I need to go get vaccinated? I have
natural immunity. I've got COVID before. What do you say
to them? So this is what I say. I say that, um,
(23:23):
you know, there is no better immunity and no more
reliable immudinating vaccinated IMMANI. It does not undermine the experience
that people have had COVID, have had UM but it's
really important to remember that even if you've had covid
um and you've survived and you've had you know, you
have your antibodies and you have um and you are
ready to move on. Uh, there is no better protection
(23:44):
than getting that at least primary series and really that
booster on top of it. And you know, I know
that it can be frustrating, is even after that you
get covid But we know that the vaccinations provide more
durable immunity and better protection than just the immunity you
get from an infection alone. And we've seen people get
two and some I've heard of three people get people
(24:06):
getting it three times. Uh, you know, the infections because
as each strain comes out, you are more vulnerable to
that strain without the vaccine. So I think it's really
important to acknowledge the experience of people that have had
covid um and and have had natural immunity and a
natural infections from post infectious but it is important to
recognize that the vaccine is absolutely our most durable and
(24:28):
reliable protection for this virus. Before we get into the
information on the boosters and why they're so important, can
you tell us first who's eligible to receive them? Sure? So, Um,
the way we talk about boosters, right, So there's a
primary series, which is the original two shots of the
(24:48):
MR and a vaccine or one jobs than Johnson, and
then there is the booster and that's really everybody over
the age of twelve is eligible for that booster. Um.
It's really important to have that at the time frame
that matches whichever your vaccine was. So if you had
a Maderna or a Fiser vaccine, you can have it
five months after that primary series and two months after
you had J and j H. So that's the booster
(25:11):
that we talked about, where everyone over the age of twelve,
which is my fourteen year old daughter and my forty
nine year old husband, who's not going to be thrilled
that I told you how old he was. Uh, you
know they are. We are all eligible. Um. But then
you get to my seventies six year old mother, and
now I'm going to be in big trouble. Okay, So
she is eligible for a second booster. In fact, just
got hers yesterday. Uh. And that is new information. Everybody
(25:34):
over the age of fifty is eligible for a second
booster um. You know, because of the protection and the
priming of the immune system that that that that provides,
and that's again after a timeline from either your m
R and A or your your your Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
It's really really important that everyone over the age of
(25:55):
sixty five, you know, gets that booster as soon as possible,
and everyone over the age of fifty who is eligible
should really speak to their doctor about um whether or
not they should get that booster and how fast they
should get it. There are a lot of conversations out
there for people that are eligible, uh finding out if
it's their time to do that, and I think that
that's why the recommendation was, please speak to your doctor
(26:17):
because you are eligible. But if you are you know
over six five, have an immune compromise, condition at all,
vulnerable at all for your particular infection. We really think
this additional booster will help you be as protected as
possible if you get COVID nineteen. Ryan Gorman joined by
Dr Derek Cass, HHS Regional director for Region two. We're
(26:40):
talking about the COVID nineteen vaccines and boosters, and I
think inevitably you're going to have people say, especially talking
about this this fourth booster shot that you know, I
just don't want to go through that period after you
get the booster shot where you know, you feel a
little under the weather for maybe a day or two.
Do I really to get yet another one? But you
(27:02):
are adamant about the fact that this latest booster for
those over the age of fifty, it is important to
keep that immunity at a certain level so people don't
get severely o with COVID nineteen. Yeah. I mean remember
that those feelings you have after that vaccine, after that booster,
that's your immune system working. So it all fear it is.
If you don't feel that way, maybe you'll be a
(27:23):
little sad. I get all excited when I have a
little bit of a store arm or I have a
little bit of redness, because I know it's all about
perspective though, right, And I will also remind you, and
I think this is an important thing to reflect on,
is that getting COVID itself is no walk in the park,
even if you're not in danger. And so I want
to be really clear that you know a lot of
(27:45):
this perception around the milder variants, right, So what we've
seen with omercron and now this be a two people
talk about how it's less severe, it's more mild, and
I do want to be very clear that having had it,
it isn't fun and you don't want to get a
severe case or even a you know, if you're going
to be symptomatic, you want to have as best protection
(28:06):
as possible. And that's my daughter, right She had three
days of a positive test. I mean, she's still massed
up when she went back to school after five, but
she was only rapid test positive for three days. And
I really believe that is because her body was ready
for that infection when she was infected, you know. And
even for me, my course, with this overcron version, I
(28:27):
got it again in December. Uh. You know, my husband
likes to say I'm very good a kid of COVID.
Uh you know, I got it again. And it's really
it was not the same experience I had the first time.
Like again, it wasn't a walk in the park and
I'm not trying to get COVID, but it was um.
It was definitely less it was shorter, and it was
less severe. And I give some respect to the vaccines
(28:49):
for getting me there and real quick. COVID DOT doub
that's the one stop shop where people can find out
information on test kits and all of that, and vaccines
dot dov. That's where everyone can go for all the
information on the COVID nineteen vaccines. Yeah, so it's a
one it's basically one stop shop. So you go to
COVID duct of and you can find information on your
local community spread, which is really really important. Right when
(29:13):
we ask people to consider wearing a mask, we're asking
them to look at their community and their personal risk
and understand what is the transmission rate, what are the
hospitalizations in your community, So people may choose to put
a mask on in two weeks even if they're not
wearing one right now. All and again, all the information
on the vaccines you can find at vaccines dot gov.
(29:33):
Dr Derek Cass, HHS Regional director for Region to Dr Cass,
thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much,
and have a great day. Okay, all right, and that's
going to do it for this edition of my Art
Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman. Will be back the same time,
same place next weekend. Thanks so much for listening.
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