TWiV 712: Deutscher Virus Wahnsinn

January 28, 2021

Gisa, Steffi, and César join TWiV to discuss their careers, their research, and the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler

Guests: Gisa Gerold, Stefanie Becker, and César Muñoz-Fontela

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Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv

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3 comments on “TWiV 712: Deutscher Virus Wahnsinn

  1. John Hempel Jan 28, 2021

    Gisa, Steffi,

    It was very nice to listen to two people from U Hannover! My uncle (Loren C Hurd), a metallurgical chemist, got his PhD from U Wisconsin in 1929, and then did a post-doc at Hannover, through 1932. Unfortunately, beyond that, I have no idea of what he worked on there. Despite his inorganic career he did publish at least one paper in J Biol Chem in 1936, on Kjeldahl nitrogen determination, but that one does not seem connected to Hannover. And despite doing my own post-doc in Stockholm at Karolinska ~50yrs later, I think you are the first investigators from Hannover that I have ever “met”.

    Steffi – Very interesting to learn the correlation between the COVID lockdown and TBEV. And fun to learn how one collects ticks! (Rich – I am so glad you asked.) A friend in North Carolina, who hunts wild boars to protect his chestnut trees will be interested to learn about how you get the well-fed ones.

    César – The bureaucratic bungling of getting the vaccines out in developed countries certainly seems correct. I just learned today that my Swedish mentor, despite being 78, has still not received his. (Even despite sitting on two Nobel Committees!) And now the border between Sweden and Norway is closed for the first time since WWII.

    Gisa – great background art!! It should be on a T-shirt!

  2. Richard Feb 4, 2021

    In this episode, I was particularly interested to be remained of West Nile virus and it’s impacts on bird populations. Hopefully the Wikipedia and CDC web sites are reasonably up-to date about it. Although I might add it’s much more informative for us to hear this on TWIV, without being forced to wade through all the interesting, but confusing web site information available to a non-specialist.

    Bird flu (A H5N1) caused deaths of 750 pelicans at Senegal bird sanctuary
    Weeks after 40,000 poultry culled by another outbreak, parks chief says more must be done to prevent the disease from spreading
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/30/bird-flu-caused-deaths-of-750-pelicans-at-senegal-bird-sanctuary