How Pandemics End

On December 11, the Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer to begin distributing its vaccine for Covid-19. The triumphant moment comes on the brink of a grim winter, amid record case levels across the United States, and it is accompanied by countless unknowns. For Episode 22 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Nicholas Christakis, a physician and sociologist at Yale University and the author of Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, about what to expect in the coming year and beyond—what it will take to recover from the pandemic’s devastation, and how our lives may be permanently changed. Later in the show, Melody Schreiber, a frequent contributor to The New Republic, and Rebecca Coyle, the executive director of the American Immunization Registry Association, join to discuss the challenges of the vaccine rollout. When will vaccines be available to ordinary people? What kinds of problems may arise as they’re distributed and tracked? How long, in other words, will all this last?

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