PNWcurrents Episode II is live: This month, we look at our region’s response to COVID-19

A month ago, most of the COVID-19 relat­ed restric­tions imposed in the Pacif­ic North­west were lift­ed, in what was dubbed a “grand reopening”.

Restau­rants began open­ing at one hun­dred per­cent capac­i­ty, stores dropped mask require­ments, con­certs resumed, and sta­di­ums began wel­com­ing fans back to the stands with­out any phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing. For many peo­ple, the end of the emer­gency mea­sures came as a very wel­come development.

How­ev­er, the pan­dem­ic isn’t over.

Across the nation, and in our own Pacif­ic North­west, vac­ci­na­tion efforts are lag­ging, cas­es are ris­ing, and the spread of the high­ly infec­tious delta vari­ant of COVID-19 is alarm­ing sci­en­tists and health experts.

Our region’s response to COVID-19 is the top­ic of this mon­th’s episode of PNWcur­rents, NPI’s unique­ly region­al pod­cast, which I am hon­ored to host.

You can lis­ten to it on demand using the play­er below. You can also down­load it to lis­ten any­where using your favorite pod­cast­ing app or service.

Want to read the tran­script and get more details on the episode’s production?

Just launch the ded­i­cat­ed page for Episode II!

Pre­sent­ed in a pan­el for­mat, PNWcur­rents brings togeth­er thinkers, activists, elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and top­i­cal experts to have con­struc­tive con­ver­sa­tions about local and region­al pol­i­tics, pol­i­cy, major issues, and ideas that impact the Pacif­ic North­west. It’s a forum for per­cep­tive dis­course like no other.

Join­ing me for Episode II are:

• Dr. Hilary God­win, Dean of the UW School of Pub­lic Health and pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal & Occu­pa­tion­al Health Sci­ences, rep­re­sent­ing Wash­ing­ton. Over the last year, Hilary has host­ed a series of webi­na­rs cov­er­ing the lat­est news around the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, and has offered her exper­tise to sev­er­al local publications.
• Dr. Chun­huei Chi, Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Glob­al Health at Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty, rep­re­sent­ing Ore­gon. Chun­huei is a pro­fes­sor of health man­age­ment and pol­i­cy whose work focus­es on com­par­a­tive health sys­tems, and who has been study­ing SARS-CoV­‑2, the virus that caus­es coro­n­avirus dis­ease 2019, since it began spread­ing in late 2019.
• Dr. David Pate, for­mer Pres­i­dent and CEO of St. Luke’s Health Sys­tems, rep­re­sent­ing Ida­ho. David has played a crit­i­cal role as an advis­er on Gov­er­nor Brad Little’s Coro­n­avirus Response Group, estab­lish­ing him­self as a lead­ing expert on pub­lic health in Ida­ho. He has also co-authored an upcom­ing book “Prepar­ing for the Next Pan­dem­ic: Lessons, Sto­ries and Rec­om­men­da­tions,” to be pub­lished by Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

Because PNWcur­rents is a pod­cast avail­able on demand, you can lis­ten to episodes any­time: while gar­den­ing, while jog­ging, while run­ning errands, while work­ing on a home improve­ment project, or (one of my favorites) fix­ing the bro­ken strings on your mask. The choice is yours!

Pro­duc­ing PNWcur­rents requires mon­ey as well as time and energy.

We think it’s worth it, and we hope you will, too.

We invite you to sup­port the pro­duc­tion of PNWcur­rents by becom­ing a mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute if you aren’t already!

You can donate month­ly as a Com­mon­wealth Bond­hold­er, or annually.

Thank you for lis­ten­ing, and I hope you enjoy Episode II!