Today on AirTalk, we break down the latest COVID-19 news. Also on the show, we talk about the impact of pandemic on the veteran community; discuss the effect of California's drought conditions on water supply; and more.
Veterans Affairs Secretary On COVID-19 Impact, Vaccination Efforts, Homelessness And More
President Joe Biden has named several goals over the last few months to get a handle on the coronavirus pandemic. That includes a goal of getting 70 percent of U.S. adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4.
Although some say it’s looking unlikely that the country will meet that goal, the Department of Veterans Affairs is working to ensure every veteran has the opportunity to be vaccinated. Today on AirTalk, we talk about the impact of COVID-19 to the veteran community, vaccination efforts, homelessness and more.
Today’s topics include:
Covid-19 impact and vaccination efforts
CA incentive programs and how they apply to veterans
Handling of surge in need for care following the pandemic
Homelessness
The West LA VA campus
Proposed tax plan to help CA veterans
Priorities for women and LGBTQ individuals who have served
Addressing suicide rates among veterans
Health records updates and reviews
Guest:
Denis McDonough, secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs; he tweets
COVID AMA: Cal/OSHA Workplace Mask Rules Proposal, How Close SoCal Is To Herd Immunity And More
In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, we speak with UCSF’s Dr. Peter Chin-Hong.
Today’s topics include:
California workplace mask rules could ease for the vaccinated
San Francisco is nearing coronavirus herd immunity, but L.A. still has months to go
Pandemic shows risk of obesity, and challenge of weight loss
US deaths from heart disease and diabetes climbed amid COVID-19
Celebrations (and questions) greet US vaccine donation plan
He flew to India to see his parents sick with COVID-19. Now, this Arizona man is unable to get back to his pregnant wife
Guest:
Peter Chin-Hong, M.D., infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the UCSF Medical Center; he tweets
Climate Change Exacerbates Drought In Western United States
Each year Lake Oroville helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops, sustain endangered salmon beneath its massive earthen dam and anchor the tourism economy of a Northern California county that must rebuild seemingly every year after unrelenting wildfires.
But the mighty lake — a linchpin in a system of aqueducts and reservoirs in the arid U.S. West that makes California possible — is shrinking with surprising speed amid a severe drought, with state officials predicting it will reach a record low later this summer.
While droughts are common in California, this year’s is much hotter and drier than others, evaporating water more quickly from the reservoirs and the sparse Sierra Nevada snowpack that feeds them. The state’s more than 1,500 reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be this time of year, according to Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis.
Over Memorial Day weekend, dozens of houseboats sat on cinderblocks at Lake Oroville because there wasn’t enough water to hold them. Blackened trees lined the reservoir’s steep, parched banks.
At nearby Folsom Lake, normally bustling boat docks rested on dry land, their buoys warning phantom boats to slow down. Campers occupied dusty riverbanks farther north at Shasta Lake.
Droughts are a part of life in California, where a Mediterranean-style climate means the summers are always dry and the winters are not always wet. The state’s reservoirs act as a savings account, storing water in the wet years to help the state survive during the dry ones.
Last year was the third driest on record in terms of precipitation. Temperatures hit triple digits in much of California over the Memorial Day weekend, earlier than expected. State officials were surprised earlier this year when about 500,000 acre feet (61,674 hectare meters) of water they were expecting to flow into reservoirs never showed up. One acre-foot is enough water to supply up to two households for one year.
“In the previous drought, it took (the reservoirs) three years to get this low as they are in the second year of this drought,” Lund said.
Today on AirTalk, we’re learning more about drought conditions and wildfire risks ahead of the summer. Questions? Give us a call at 866-893-5722.
With files from the Associated Press
Guest:
Lauren Sommer, correspondent covering climate change for NPR; she tweets
One Study Explores Relationship Between Pupil Size And Attention, Reasoning And Memory
Could the size of one’s pupils be an indicator of cognitive ability?
A newly-published study in the peer reviewed journal Cognition suggests there may indeed be a correlation between pupil size and higher scores on tests that measure cognitive abilities. The authors measured the size of the pupils of over 500 study participants with a high powered camera and computer that can measure how light reflects off the pupil and cornea. Then, they had the participants work through a series of tests that looked at things like memory capacity, “fluid intelligence,” which they define as the capacity to reason through new problems and attention control during distractions. The researchers report finding higher scores in fluid intelligence and attention control, and to a lesser degree memory capacity, among people with larger pupils, findings they argue tell us have some fascinating implications for what we know about the relationship between our eyes and the brain.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll talk more with the lead author of this new study about how they set up their experiment, what they found as they analyzed the data they collected and what it all tells us.
Guest:
Jason Tsukahara, Ph.D. student in cognition and brain science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he does research in the Attention & Working Memory Lab; lead author of a new study published in the journal Cognition, “Is baseline pupil size related to cognitive ability? Yes (under proper lighting conditions)”
Celebrating KPCC’s Backbone: Underwriting And Product
While most of you probably know KPCC by the voices you hear on air every day, our station requires the contributions of so many talented, unique individuals whose names aren’t said at the end of a news story or even in the production credits at the end of the week. These are the people who truly make KPCC -- who keep our broadcast equipment running, who put on our pledge drives and help secure sponsorships and major donations, who put together the pre-recorded spots you hear between shows, who make sure that our facilities at the Mohn Broadcast Center are operating smoothly.
This week on AirTalk, we’re highlighting some of these amazing people who work at KPCC who might not be as familiar with but whose tireless efforts are critical to what you hear on the air every day. Today, we’re featuring Veronica Lopez, who works in our underwriting department as director of corporate sponsorship, and Michael Cosentino, a member of our product development department which works on things like KPCC.org, LAist.com, the KPCC app and more.
Guests:
Veronica Lopez, KPCC director of corporate sponsorship
Michael Cosentino, KPCC senior producer for emerging platforms