The Atlantic

Listen: Don’t Worry About a ‘New Strain’

At least not yet.

On this episode of Social Distance, James Hamblin and Katherine Wells talk to staff writer Ed Yong about why he isn’t alarmed by recent news stories suggesting that a new strain of the coronavirus is on the loose.

Listen to the episode here:

Subscribe to Social Distance on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or another podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they’re published.


What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of their conversation.

Katherine Wells: Ed, I read something yesterday in the L.A. Times about a new mutant coronavirus strain that is even worse than the original.

This story was based on a new paper which claims to have identified a more transmissible form of the virus, which, thanks to one specific mutation, seems to spread more efficiently than the original virus that emerged in Wuhan. Much panic and fear ensued about this idea that this pandemic, which was already bad enough, is

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