Is This the Pandemic Era?
“We have a long road ahead of us in re-establishing trust in public health and science.”
This episode was recorded live at the Rock Health Virtual Summit.
Jessica Malaty Rivera is an infectious disease epidemiologist and science communicator with an enormous and diverse following of everyday people as well as those working in health and science. Her specialty is in translating complex scientific concepts into impactful, judgement-free, and accessible information for a diverse audience.
Throughout the pandemic, she served as the Science Communication Lead for The COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. Currently, she is a Research Fellow at Boston Children's Hospital Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator, an Infection Preventionist at Netflix, a Senior Advisor to the Pandemic Prevention Institute at the Rockefeller Foundation, and an expert contributor news outlets across the world.
In this episode, we dive into the three outbreaks we’re currently facing: COVID-19, Monkeypox, and Polio. She discusses how we got here, the real public health threat, and what we need to do moving forward.
Topics covered:
Fact vs. fiction when it comes to polio and monkeypox, and if we should worry about them becoming more widespread
How and why the rate of destabilizing pandemics is accelerating
How the politicization of public health has made things “weird and messy”
Why global health is public health, and how public health is national security
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