In mid-December, UVA Health physician Taison Bell rolled up his sleeve to be one of the first people in Charlottesville to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Today he shares why he got the vaccine and how we can get it to as many Americans as possible. Bell was named a 2021 Outstanding Faculty member by The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. And: Navigating social lives in the time of Covid can be awkward. How do you tell your friends, ”No, I won’t be joining you at that restaurant, but yes, we can take a walk in the park together” without having to explain or excuse? Carrie Dolan says we need to get better at communicating our personal risk levels during the pandemic or we won’t be able to stop it.

Later in the show: Every day, all over the world, people die because they don’t have access to life-saving medications. A problem that was already acute has become even more visible as countries struggle to produce and supply Covid-19 medications. Frank Gupton and the Medicines for All Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University are using innovative production techniques that cut costs and democratize the industry. Plus: Bioprospectors are companies or people that go looking for materials that can become a new medication. Sometimes these bioprospectors strike gold. But what if that “discovered” medication has been known and used by indigenous people for years? Christopher Morris studies who gets to profit off of selling the medication--the bioprospectors or the indigenous people who found it first?

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