Dr. Jonathan Epstein leads an institution that is researching just about every angle you can think of when it comes to COVID-19: vaccines, treatments, contact tracing, the long-term effects of an infection, the mystery of being asymptomatic and who should be vaccinated first.
Dr. Epstein is the Chief Scientific Officer at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine. He has been leading this pivotal institution from his home in Wayne, PA since COVID-19 restrictions began back in the spring.
Dr. Epstein shared with us why he is so hopeful and encouraged by the tireless work being done in the medical community, but also why he is disappointed with how our country has handled our worst pandemic in 100 years.
Dr. Epstein also offers his prediction on when the pandemic will end and how we will even know it.
Recorded via Zoom, October 26, 2020
In this podcast:
Dr. Epstein provides an overview on what his scientists at the Perelman School of Medicine are working on, coronavirus-related (1:50), what he believes is the biggest mystery of COVID-19 (3:40), what has been most surprising (and frustrating) about the pandemic (4:15), what it means to have pandemic fatigue not only in the general public but also for health care workers (4:50), what past pandemics tell us about what we should expect over the winter and next year (6:35), shutdowns, vaccines, herd immunity and our "toolbox" in reaching an end to the pandemic (8:30), Dr. Epstein's hopes on a vaccine(s) and treatments (11:30), what we know about the rarity of getting reinfected by COVID-19 and how treatments could play a role (13:15), if this coronavirus is mutating (14:40), the "long-termers" of COVID-19 and how worrying it is that even asymptomatic people have shown organ damage (16:20), how the medical community pivoted so quickly to fill the void of getting a handle on the pandemic early on (18:55), where the virus came from (20:10), how he personally gets through the darkest moments of this year (21:50), how we need to address potential competition between nations when it comes to vaccine development and distribution (23:20), how we will know we have reached the finish line of the pandemic and when that might be (25:30), an assessment of how this country handled the pandemic and how we might handle the next one (26:40), some of the silver linings of the pandemic, including increased connectivity in business and relationships and the better collaboration in medicine (28:25), how historians might look back at the year of 2020 and what the chapter would be called.