Petrie Dish

Almost overnight, "flatten the curve" became a national motto. This week on Petrie Dish, TPR's weekly podcast about the coronavirus, we unpack the origins of that phrase with a public health expert who helped popularize it. And, we hear from reporters across Texas about some of the negative consequences of quarantine, from a spike in domestic violence reports to the relocation of migrants in camps along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the span of a few weeks, a medical device most of us have never seen or used became a national concern, the signature shortage in our response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This week on Petrie Dish, TPR's explainer podcast about the coronavirus pandemic, we explore how the coronavirus affects the lungs and how our government, our hospitals, and industrious YouTubers are responding to the vast shortage of ventilators.

The virus sweeping across the planet right now is frightening, in part, because there is so much we don't know about it. In the first episode of Petrie Dish, TPR's explainer podcast about the coronavirus pandemic, Bonnie Petrie talks to a virologist about what exactly the coronavirus is and how scientists are studying it.

Stay tuned for a new podcast about how the coronavirus is changing our world, with Texas Public Radio Bioscience-Medicine reporter Bonnie Petrie.