Take as Directed

In this episode, we are joined by Tom Bollyky of the Council on Foreign Relations. Co-director of a newly released bipartisan CFR Independent Task Force on pandemic preparedness and the response to Covid-19, Tom walks us through the Task Force’s findings, including how China’s lack of transparency in the early days of the pandemic fueled the spread of the virus, subsequently compounded by failures...

As UW-Madison opened in early September, it faced a sudden explosion of Covid-19 cases. Hear from Chancellor Rebecca Blank why this happened, the steps taken to re-stabilize the university amid multiple, deep political divisions across Wisconsin, a very public showdown between the university and county authorities, and a runaway Covid-19 outbreak in the state. Hear also about the impending return...

We crossed much sensitive and difficult ground in our extended conversation with Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). President Trump’s bout with Covid-19, the proliferation of White House cases, the claim that the virus is not dangerous: how to make sense of all of this this, and the implications? Why have negotiations over the next Covid-19 emergency spending bill broken down? And how bad are the consequences?...

Our longstanding friend and ally Judyth Twigg joins us to survey the rather bumpy ride that America’s colleges and universities are experiencing as they navigate the pandemic. Are these institutions the new super-spreaders? What form of leadership is showing the best results? Are colleges and universities now the center for innovation in testing? How well exactly do we learn when separated into re...

We sat with Chris Murray for an intense conversation on IHME’s recent, startling (and controversial) forecast that the United States would experience a dramatic surge in Covid-19 infections and deaths by year’s end that will exceed the peak moments of April. Many of the drivers are behavioral – a decline in mask use, rising mobility, lower vigilance and social distancing. But the seasonality is wh...

In this episode, we learn from Richard Rossow, CSIS Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies. India now ranks second in the world in Covid-19 cases, and in a single recent day recorded over 90,000 cases. What explains this dramatic, startling surge that we are witnessing? And how to reconcile that with the Modi’s government’s continued determination to reopen society and the economy? And his co...

We gather to discuss with Dr. Heidi Larson about her new book, Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start – and Why they Don’t Go Away, a wake-up call and appeal to re-think what drives popular distrust in science and rising levels of vaccine refusal and hesitancy. As the world strives to develop safe and effective vaccines to arrest the Covid-19 pandemic, we should expect widespread resistance. How should o...

Both the Democratic and Republican Conventions had to give a central prominence to the pandemic, but chose radically different approaches, story lines, and messages. Two conventions, two realities. Listen as Steve and Andrew work through these divergences and what they presage as we head towards November 3.

 In the global scramble for Covid-19 vaccines, dominated by aggressive nationalist approaches, COVAX has emerged as a promising, nascent, international initiative to develop and equitably distribute Covid-19 vaccines to benefit all countries. In this episode, Steve is joined by Nikolaj Gilbert, President and CEO at PATH; Peggy Hamburg, former Commissioner of the FDA; Kendall Hoyt, Assistant Profes...

Steve joined with CSIS Senior Vice President Heather Conley and Professor Judyth Twigg, Virginia Commonwealth University, to discuss the fast-breaking controversy of this week, as Russia announced it had registered the first Covid-19 vaccine, without first conducting large late-stage human trials, and would soon commence mass immunizations, in Russia and beyond. What domestic and international cal...

In this episode, Steve is joined by two members of the global health team to discuss their new commentary on the race for a Covid-19 vaccine: Katherine Bliss, GHPC Senior Fellow and Anna Carroll, GHPC Associate Fellow. Nationalism among the wealthier and more powerful countries dominates the global scramble for a vaccine. They have locked up much of the future production of promising vaccines, whi...

What happens at the state level can be profoundly decisive. Steve sat with Rep. Peter Welch to discuss how Vermont became such a dramatic outlier, in its quick and effective control of the coronavirus, and the actions taken to preserve those gains. The conversation quickly migrated to Vermont’s state political leadership, the predisposition to respect science, the centrality of social trust and po...

Steve Morrison sat down with Dr. Beth Cameron, Vice President at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and former senior White House official responsible for health security and bio defense, to talk through what the accelerating race for vaccines for Covid-19 means. Should we be excited and hopeful? Should we feel cautious, skeptical? Perhaps both. We survey the landscape – the White House ‘Operation War...

Steve Morrison asks Marc Daalder, an incisive American reporter in New Zealand: how and why did New Zealand succeed in locking down the country, winning public support, and eliminating the virus? So, what now? Can tourists and other visitors ever return, even while the movie industry and other big earning events are exempted? How is New Zealand managing new cases of Covid-19? Marc Daalder is the p...

J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President and director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, sat down for a conversation on July 24 with Dr. Anthony Fauci, as America’s runaway crisis continued to unfold. Will a return to basics be enough, or are lockdowns in our future? Do we really have reliable science on how Covid-19 impacts children, as we debate whether to reopen schools? Can we rely exc...

Andrew and Steve gathered with David Sanger to discuss the NYT's recent investigative team’s efforts, which chronicled the momentous White House decisions taken in early April to step back and push lead responsibility on to the states. This occurred at the same time that the President balked on any national testing strategy, refused to embrace masks, and persisted in escalating pressure upon state...

Dr. Peter Hotez joins us from Houston. How did Texas and many other wildfire states run so out of control? What needs to change in the federal response? How can scientists and the biomedical research community best contribute to escaping this spiral? Dr. Peter Hotez is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine and Director of the Texas Children’s Center for...

"This is a marathon." Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), a renowned leader in Congress on racial justice and global health, discusses her proposed Commission on Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the awakening across America, this historic moment for elected Black women leaders, and this week’s virtual ‘AIDS 2020’ International AIDS Conference. Congr...

In this episode, Steve and Andrew invite Frances Stead Sellers, senior writer on the American desk at the Washington Post. Frances, through her eyes as an English immigrant to America -- and a renowned, veteran journalist -- has thought hard about what makes America what it is, in these days of a pandemic, economic pain and racial injustice. Her recent experiences in reporting have taught her abou...

In this episode, Steve and Andrew speak with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) on the most pressing health issues before America. What is driving the astonishing resurgence of Covid-19 in the south and west, and what is now required? Why are we as a nation still hung up politically over masks and failing to reach the true level of testing we need? What should guide the U.S. in the race for a vaccine? In...

In this episode, the hosts are joined by Julie Gerberding, a senior executive at Merck, a longstanding friend, and generous contributor to CSIS’s work. Congress was highly active the week of June 22 examining across several committees the hard lessons of the past months of the coronavirus pandemic in America and what needs to happen right now -- as the outbreak explodes in the west and south -- an...

In this episode, the hosts engage with Sheryl Gay Stolberg, renowned Washington Correspondent at The New York Times. Since early this year she has been charged with unpacking -- in the midst of the pandemic -- the complex intersection of health, policy, politics and culture. She’s dived into the controversy around hydroxychloroquine, a saga that starkly revealed the collision between science and p...

In this episode, Renee DiResta, a prominent expert who studies malign narratives across social networks and what can be done to rebut them, walks Steve and Andrew through her thinking on several provocative questions: Why does the coronavirus pandemic invite pseudoscience, government conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns? What to make of the recent release of the "Plandemic" video in wh...

In this episode, Steve speaks with Dr. Jean William (Bill) Pape, a renowned public health professor and practitioner appointed in late April by Haitian President Moïse to co-chair the country’s Covid-19 response commission. Having combatted HIV/AIDS, cholera, hurricanes, and an earthquake, Bill deems the coronavirus pandemic as the toughest challenge he has seen, a “perfect storm.” Haiti’s extreme...

In this episode, we speak with Professor Salim Abdool Karim (Slim), a preeminent HIV scientist based in Durban who chairs the scientific Covid-19 advisory group launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa to guide the national response. Looking back to March, Slim bluntly surveys South Africa’s successes and achievements, the acute vulnerabilities of those living with HIV and TB, tough controversies, ma...