Setting Sights on D.C. Statehood 🇺🇸

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🇺🇸 Learn what makes Washington, D.C. different from the rest of the country, and how that factored into the police response during the Capitol insurrection. Will DC become the 51st state? ⚾ How is Bianca Smith breaking down barriers in the professional sports world? 👩🏾‍🔬 What's going on with the COVID vaccine rollout? Infectious disease expert, Dr. Monica Gandhi joins The Ten News to discuss the Covid vaccine. 🎨 Plus! See if you can guess the answer to the Trivia Question of the Day: What surprise did archeologists find last year in the Amazon Rainforest?

Links

🇺🇸 Explore Washington DC's case for statehood: Why Statehood for DC
⚾ Discover how Bianca Smith is blazing trails in professional sports
🎨 Unearth the incredible prehistoric rock paintings found by archeologists in the Amazon rainforest
🎇 Join us on Instagram

Transcript

Bethany Van Delft: [00:00:00] Why doesn't D.C. have a governor? What is going on with the COVID vaccine rollout? And what surprise did archeologists uncover in the Amazon? I'm Bethany Van Delft, and we'll get into all this and more on today's The Ten News. The show where in the time it takes to find that missing glove before you head outside, we find out what's up in the world.

[00:00:25] Okay, let's get into The Ten News.

Various voices: [00:00:27] Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Bethany Van Delft: [00:00:35] Over the weekend, we released a special episode about the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Check it out, if you haven't already. Since then there've been more developments to the story. Twitter announced it would permanently ban Donald Trump from the platform due to the risk of further incitement of violence. And even more it's sequential, the House of Representatives has [00:01:00] drafted Articles of Impeachment against him for the "incitement of insurrection." We'll keep following these stories and bringing you updates. Clearly as I'm sure you've heard grownups say, actions have consequences, no matter who you are.

[00:01:18] Our correspondent Bridget Todd lives in Washington, D.C. We heard from her in our special episode about what it was like being there during the insurrection. In that story, she mentions that the mayor had to wait for the federal government to activate the National Guard because D.C. isn't a state. We thought now would be a good time to revisit a story Bridget brought us about that very subject a few months ago.

Bridget Todd: [00:01:45] Most people who live in the United States of America live in a state, like New York or California or in Minnesota or Maine. Well, I live in the United States of America, but I don't live in a state. That's because I live in Washington, D.C. our nation's [00:02:00] capital. In the Constitution, Washington D.C. is meant to be a capital and it's made up of land given by Maryland and Virginia, which is why it's a federal district and not a state. Instead of a governor being in charge D.C. is controlled by Congress. Eleanor Holmes Norton Washington, D.C.'s Congresswoman, doesn't get to vote in Congress like other Congress people do. And even though we pay money for taxes, just like every other state, we don't really get a say in what happens at our own government.

[00:02:29] That's why our license plates have a slogan from the revolutionary war, "taxation without representation." There used to only be 13 States in America, but over the last 200 years, our country has grown and now there are 50 States. And if D.C. were to become a state, there would be 51. Wouldn't that be something? And D.C. already has more people than two of the 50 States, Vermont and Wyoming.

[00:02:54] Oh, wow, man. And it's actually possible that D.C. could become a state. This summer, [00:03:00] the  U.S. House of Representatives voted to make D.C. a state. It was a big deal because it was the first time this has ever happened. Now if the Senate also votes to make D.C. a state and the President signs off on it, viola! D.C. is a state and many people who live in D.C., just like I do are very excited about the possibility of living in the 51st state.

Bethany Van Delft: [00:03:28] Fun fact time. Did you know that when the Boston Red Sox named Bianca Smith as a new minor league coach, she became the first Black woman ever to coach professional baseball? She's breaking barriers, but Bianca says she isn't stopping there. In her introductory press conference, she made it known that she aspires to be an MLB manager, saying "I don't want to limit myself. I want to go as high as I can."

[00:04:01] [00:04:00] Get it, Bianca.

[00:04:06] Well, D.C. and the presidential transition have dominated the news recently, the coronavirus continues to be a serious public health concern. Our Executive Producer, Tracy Leeds Kaplan spoke to infectious disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhi, to help us find out.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:04:25] Can you tell the Ten'ners listening who you are and what you do?

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:04:29] Yes. So my name is Monica Gandhi and I'm an infectious disease doctor and Professor of Medicine at UCLA. And what I used do is HIV but sort of in the middle of this, um, because I do infectious disease, I've turned to COVID-19.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:04:44] Let's talk a little bit about the news that's been coming out about this new strain. Can you just talk a little bit about how and why viruses can have multiple strains and then specifically, what do we know so far about this new one?

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:04:58] Yes. So to be really [00:05:00] accurate, the word would be more like variant. So variants of the same virus, and the reason is RNA viruses they can get a lot of mutations, um, because they're, the way they replicate themselves is kind of error prone essentially, so they can get a lot of mutations. And so this particular strain has a mutation in what's called a spike protein. So what's the spike protein? Well, if you think about the virus, it has little specks all over it and, um, that's what makes it look like a crown, "Corona" in Latin means crown.

[00:05:33] And so you look at it under electron microscope, it looks like a crown. So these spike proteins are sticking out of it and there is a particular mutation on the spike protein, and that particular mutation makes it bind more tightly to yourself. And they, that means it can get in more quickly to your cells and it can replicate itself more, so your nose and mouth have a higher viral load if you get this infectious strain, and you [00:06:00] actually shed more virus out of your mouth and nose, which means it's more transmissible to others. The excellent thing though, which we just found out, we were already suspecting this, but it's really good to hear it verified, that the vaccines still work against this particular UK variant because, um, Pfizer scientists with, along with some University of Texas scientists kind of took this variant, mixed it with people who had gotten the vaccine, and showed that the vaccine is going to produce antibodies and immune responses that will kill off this variant just as well as anything else.

[00:06:33] So that's really reassuring, but what it means is, for the moment as it's spreading, we need to be even more vigilant about masks, distancing, and ventilation. Those three most, and hand hygiene, four most important non-pharmaceutical interventions.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:06:48] Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing right now with the vaccine rollout?

[00:06:53] And I know there's also been this conversation about maybe, um, delaying second doses for people.

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:07:00] Yes. I mean, you know, the theme is that the one awesome thing is that this vaccine got developed, both mRNA vaccines are called, people in the world know them as the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine, um, were developed incredibly quickly and we're so excited about them. They're so incredibly effective. They had this little tweak about them that because they use genetic material, it had to be kept super cold, especially the Pfizer one. And there has been more of a delay in the United States, then we would have hoped because these vaccines got authorized by the FDA in mid-December, we're now January. And they're not moving out into people's arms as quickly as we had hoped. And all sorts of people are putting their heads together to figure out what to do, including maybe mass vaccination campaigns, and tents out in fields or in convention centers. And a lot of people are thinking about that.

[00:07:53] And then that's relevant to the question that you asked. Okay. Can we just give the one dose now? For sure. Give the second [00:08:00] dose later, but what's the question about giving the one dose now to facilitate distribution, which is something that President-elect Biden has announced that he would do. So what does this mean? Well, every vaccine, almost any vaccine you can think of needs more than one dose, actually. I wish we could just get one dose and that's it, but actually it's kind of the way the immune system works. It needs a booster. It needs to see some of the protein again in the future so it can boost your immune response.

[00:08:28] So we should never just give one dose, but the spacing between the first and second dose actually probably doesn't matter. And there's some good evidence that the more you space it out, the better for the immune response. So why did we choose three weeks for Pfizer and four weeks for Moderna? Everyone was in a hurry.

[00:08:46] They had to get these vaccine trials up and going. They wanted to do this really fast. Totally understandable. It's an emergency. It a pandemic, but there's no magic number about giving it a two weeks or four weeks. And so I actually really, really [00:09:00] approve of this idea of giving the first dose to everybody, then we'll get our second batch and then give the second dose when it's ready. We'll get those doses. Um, there'll be available. So I like this idea of giving one dose to everyone. And why? Because we gotta get the population vaccinated. This virus is surging.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:09:16] Now moving to a few questions sent in from our Ten'ners. Aruna, who's 11 years old from Pennsylvania has a question about the vaccine.

Aruna: [00:09:23] My parents said that the coronavirus vaccine is a new type of vaccine. How does it work?

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:09:28] There both called what's called MRNA vaccines, and what that means is there's like a little piece of genetic violate or meaning around it. And that easily when you inject it in someone's arm, goes into people's cells.

[00:09:44] And then that messenger RNA, that MRNA  is the very thing that our cells use to produce a lot of protein. They produce this spike protein of the virus. We produce it ourselves because we're the manufacturers of this spike protein from the RNA. And then we [00:10:00] respond to those. I don't like this, this doesn't look like us, I'm gonna make an immune response against it.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:10:06] Here's a question from Olivia seven years old from New Jersey.

Olivia: [00:10:10] What would you tell someone who is nervous about getting the coronavirus vaccine?

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:10:15] If they're concerned about safety, please talk to your doctor about it. But these are really safe vaccines that MRMA, that genetic material just goes away. It gets degraded from your body once you've made the protein.

[00:10:26] So we'll never be long-term side effects from these vaccines. They're really safe. Um, so please do get vaccinated when it's your turn.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:10:34] And now we go to San Francisco for a question from Nola, who's 11 years old.

Nola: [00:10:38] Our schools safe to reopen?

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:10:40] Teachers are like next. I mean, they are next in line. Just the same as, uh, anyone who's over 75.

[00:10:48] And I really agree with that strategy. I really love the CDC for doing that because children not being in a school has many domino effects on society. So once teachers get the vaccine, we [00:11:00] should feel really safe to go back to the classroom. Even when their kids aren't all vaccinated, because they will be safe from disease and likely safe from passing it on to anyone else.

[00:11:09] So they should feel really assured once they get vaccinated, which is why the CDC put teachers up so high on the list to get vaccinated.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:11:17] How can we all be helpers right now?

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:11:21] You know, one thing I do want to stress as I keep the public, um, has been given some mixed messaging around things. And I think it's really fair for people to be a little confused about like, okay, can I like never see anyone else in my household?

[00:11:35] I actually think that's not the right approach. The right approach is that there's four what are called non-pharmaceutical interventions to prevent the spread of disease. Masks, distancing , ventilation, hand hygiene. Of course, go for a walk with your friend and use all of these non-pharmaceutical interventions. So think safely above the virus that you know is spreads from your nose and mouth, even then you can feel well apply these non-pharmaceutical interventions.

Tracy Leeds Kaplan: [00:12:00] Thank you so much for everything you do, and to all your colleagues for, for helping us navigate this and hopefully come out on the other side smarter and stronger together.

Dr. Monica Gandhi: [00:12:11] Thank you so much. And thank you for having me.

Bethany Van Delft: [00:12:20] It's time for your trivia question of the day.

[00:12:25] What surprised did archeologists find last year in the Amazon? And no, not the Amazon that delivers packages to your doorstep, the rain forest one. Was it a) ancient paintings b) ancient sculptures or c) ancient Mew Pokemon cards.

[00:12:45] Did you guess it, the answer is A! Tens of thousands of prehistoric rock paintings stretching across nearly eight miles of cliff faces were discovered in [00:13:00] Columbia's Amazon rainforest.

[00:13:03] According to a report in the Guardian, the paintings are being described as the Sistine chapel of the ancients and includes depictions of now extinct animals from the ice age that would have been seen by the people who made the paintings over 12,000 years ago. That is exciting.

[00:13:25] Time is up. That's the end of The Ten for today, but as always, you can catch new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Ten News is a co-production of Small but Mighty Media in collaboration with Next Chapter Podcasts and distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News writing team is led by Editorial Director Tracey Crooks.

[00:13:47] With contributions from Steven Tompkins and Bridget Todd. The creative producer is Jenner Pascua marketing is led by Jacob Borenstein with social media and web support by Steven Tompkins and Adam Pharr. [00:14:00] Editing and  sound design by Pete Musto under the production direction of Jeremiah Tittle. Executive Producer Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan round out the team. If you have any questions about the show, a story idea, a fun fact you want to share, or just want to tell us how you're feeling email us at hello@thetennews.com. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review The Ten News on Apple podcasts, iHeartRadio Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:14:30] I am Bethany Van Delft and thanks for listening to The Ten News. Now go check the rocks in your neighborhood for ancient paintings of mastadons cool.