Episode #10 - Shaswath Sekar - Coronavirus 101 with a Virologist

In the latest episode, I got the amazing opportunity to have a much-needed conversation with Shaswath Sekar, a virologist in training, who is working on vaccines for COVID-19 - with the deluge of information dumped upon us by the media, anecdotes from friends and strangers, it has become really messy to understand the crux of this deadly virus - its origin, impact, and more importantly what the science community is doing to get rid of it - that's why I got in touch with someone who's been in the field, fighting the coronavirus long before any of us had even heard its name.

Presenting to you Coronavirus 101 - everything you wanted to know about the coronavirus from an expert's perspective ( including why calling it the coronavirus is not really accurate).

Episode guide:-

02:40 - As a virologist, what does your day look like?

08:20 - How has the working landscape changed in light of the pandemic?

13:00 - What were the first few weeks like when this got blown up? How was the response within the virologist community?

16:08 - SARS-COV2, COVID-19, Coronavirus - are they all one and the same?

18:48 - How the virus evolved strong enough to infect humans?

25:47 - Why bats are the chief instigators of so many deadly viruses?

27:20 - Why do different people get affected in a different manner - asymptotic, symptomatic, severity, etc.

33:30 - Correlation between blood type and the risk of getting affected

39:10 - What goes on behind the scenes when a person takes a COVID-19 test - why does it take so long to get the results?

49:50 - Could we have actually prevented this pandemic - SARS COV-1, Bill Gates' prediction, etc.

54:25 - Impact of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the science community

55:20 - Crowdsourced Q&A's

01:11:21 - What are some of the promising drugs, works on vaccine etc.

01:16:28 - Are measures to flattening the curve still relevant in a country like India?