WEBVTT - Beginnings 0:00:08.245 --> 0:00:12.325 School of Humans. What would your life be like right 0:00:12.365 --> 0:00:16.445 now if coronavirus hadn't emerged in twenty nineteen, What would 0:00:16.445 --> 0:00:20.325 the world be like? I'm Sean Revieve. I'm a full 0:00:20.365 --> 0:00:23.405 time freelance journalist. I travel around the country and world 0:00:23.445 --> 0:00:27.045 to tell stories. I've reported on HIV, neuro signs, AI, 0:00:27.205 --> 0:00:32.445 facial recognition, and a host of weirder topics. In twenty twenty, 0:00:32.805 --> 0:00:37.365 I did none of that. Instead, I spent months afraid 0:00:37.365 --> 0:00:39.725 of going to the grocery store, afraid of touching door 0:00:39.805 --> 0:00:43.125 knobs and hugging my best friends. I worried about keeping 0:00:43.165 --> 0:00:46.165 my wife and two year old sons safe. I worked 0:00:46.165 --> 0:00:49.245 half time or no time. I got the news that 0:00:49.285 --> 0:00:52.605 my aunt died alone in a hospital. I spent a 0:00:52.605 --> 0:00:58.005 lot of time on a couch depressed. That's just me. 0:00:58.725 --> 0:01:03.365 You've got your own list. Now. Multiply that by seven 0:01:03.405 --> 0:01:06.125 point eight billion. Lives ground to a halt after a 0:01:06.205 --> 0:01:12.445 novel coronavirus showed up in Wuhan. Nearly two hundred million 0:01:12.485 --> 0:01:15.805 people have been infected with coronavirus since December twenty nineteen. 0:01:16.925 --> 0:01:20.725 More than four million have died. So many lives disrupted 0:01:20.765 --> 0:01:24.285 or damn near ruined we want our old lives back, 0:01:24.605 --> 0:01:35.125 if that's even possible. While a truly universal pandemic, one 0:01:35.165 --> 0:01:38.965 that affects everyone everywhere, may be unprecedented. In our lifetimes, 0:01:39.365 --> 0:01:42.845 humans and viruses have evolved side by side. Our history 0:01:42.885 --> 0:01:46.565 has been shaped by plagues, pandemics, viruses and diseases and 0:01:46.685 --> 0:01:49.885 the fight against them. Today, they are in combat more 0:01:49.925 --> 0:01:53.085 than ever, and vaccines have moved from the background to 0:01:53.165 --> 0:01:58.005 the foreground of our daily lives. So as a journalist 0:01:58.045 --> 0:02:01.245 and generally curious person, I want to know what went 0:02:01.285 --> 0:02:07.445 into them. In this podcast series, we're going to take 0:02:07.445 --> 0:02:09.565 you deep into the science and the people behind the 0:02:09.565 --> 0:02:12.765 coronavirus vaccines. We'll travel back in time to me the 0:02:12.765 --> 0:02:16.405 first innoculators, follow a path from legendary healers in China 0:02:16.525 --> 0:02:19.925 to obscure country doctors in the UK, from an enslaved 0:02:19.925 --> 0:02:23.365 African in Boston to the man who invented dozens of vaccines, 0:02:23.845 --> 0:02:25.965 and we'll draw a direct line between them and the 0:02:26.005 --> 0:02:33.805 shots we're getting today. In this episode about Beginnings, we'll 0:02:33.805 --> 0:02:35.845 talk to a virologists who played a key role in 0:02:35.885 --> 0:02:39.405 releasing the genetic sequence of coronavirus. We'll also hear from 0:02:39.445 --> 0:02:43.605 an evolutionary biologist who explores the origins of all coronaviruses 0:02:47.085 --> 0:02:49.445 from My Heart Radio and School of Humans. I'm Sean 0:02:49.565 --> 0:02:52.125 Revived and this is long shot the two hundred and 0:02:52.125 --> 0:03:03.205 fifty year journey to the COVID nineteen vaccines. Ever since 0:03:03.205 --> 0:03:06.405 coronavirus became the biggest story in the world, vaccines have 0:03:06.445 --> 0:03:10.405 been our greatest hope to stop it. The coronavirus vaccines 0:03:10.405 --> 0:03:13.205 were produced in record time, but they're not slap dash 0:03:13.325 --> 0:03:16.925 overnight inventions. There are a culmination of centuries of research 0:03:16.965 --> 0:03:20.365 and advances and some unbelievable experimentation that began way back 0:03:20.405 --> 0:03:24.405 when with smallpox inoculation, which marks the beginning of one 0:03:24.445 --> 0:03:28.565 of humankind's greatest achievements, the ability to protect from disease. 0:03:29.845 --> 0:03:32.525 It's a practice so old that nobody knows who first 0:03:32.525 --> 0:03:36.805 attempted it or exactly where it originated. To even begin 0:03:36.885 --> 0:03:39.565 to figure that out, you have to probe nameless. Healers, 0:03:39.845 --> 0:03:44.525 myths and legends. Here's writer and actor Leoe I v 0:03:44.725 --> 0:03:49.045 Chen to tell us one of them. To get to 0:03:49.165 --> 0:03:52.285 the top of the highest of the four sacred the 0:03:52.285 --> 0:03:56.965 Buddhist the mountains in China, you must climb sixty thousand 0:03:57.085 --> 0:04:02.205 steps over piles of snow in winter, past the water 0:04:02.325 --> 0:04:06.325 falls and the large greenery in summer. It will take 0:04:06.405 --> 0:04:11.605 you two days to get to the top. Mont er May, 0:04:12.045 --> 0:04:16.765 or er May Shan, was created two hundred and sixty 0:04:16.845 --> 0:04:22.085 million years ago by a volcanic event so explosive that 0:04:22.245 --> 0:04:28.885 it caused the massive extinctions across the planet. The mountain 0:04:29.205 --> 0:04:33.645 is ten thousand feet top. It juts into the heavens 0:04:33.685 --> 0:04:39.085 above the clouds, like a defined place it is. The 0:04:39.245 --> 0:04:44.445 mountain is one of the holiest sites in Buddhism. There 0:04:44.485 --> 0:04:47.965 are more than thirty buddha is the temples on mont 0:04:48.245 --> 0:04:54.605 er May, including the first one built in China. Like 0:04:54.725 --> 0:04:59.645 all holy places, there is a legend about mont er May. 0:05:01.165 --> 0:05:04.685 A thousand and years ago, the son of a local 0:05:04.765 --> 0:05:09.565 governor got very sick from small pox, which by land 0:05:09.685 --> 0:05:15.205 had plagued China for at least a thousand years. The 0:05:15.325 --> 0:05:19.885 governor offered the piles of gold to anyone who could 0:05:20.005 --> 0:05:27.205 help his son. Three Daoists traveled from mont er May 0:05:27.565 --> 0:05:33.725 and offered their services. By washing the small pox, the 0:05:33.925 --> 0:05:40.645 Dooists said, you could grant protection from the disease. The 0:05:40.845 --> 0:05:47.165 governor asked the Daoists to teach him this practice. The 0:05:47.405 --> 0:05:52.565 Daoists agreed, and before they returned to the mountain, they 0:05:52.645 --> 0:05:57.565 placed a book containing the secret of inoculation underneath a 0:05:57.685 --> 0:06:04.445 medal incense thorible. Upon opening the book, the governor learned 0:06:04.845 --> 0:06:09.725 at least tech chniko inoculation had long ago been invented 0:06:09.765 --> 0:06:16.245 by a female Daoist. As a reward for her pioneering discovery, 0:06:16.525 --> 0:06:26.165 she was turned into a goddess. So this myth, this 0:06:26.285 --> 0:06:28.725 one on Mount a Mae. It was written in the 0:06:28.765 --> 0:06:32.725 seventeenth century by a man named Fusheng Lin, and fusheng 0:06:32.845 --> 0:06:36.845 Lin has his own interesting connection to innoculation. Louise, going 0:06:36.925 --> 0:06:40.045 to tell us that story, said about seven hundred years later, 0:06:42.405 --> 0:06:46.605 during the reign of teen Emperors sunt there were at 0:06:46.765 --> 0:06:51.485 least nine outbreaks of small parks in Beijing, the city 0:06:51.605 --> 0:06:55.565 where he lived. Each time there was an outbreak, the 0:06:55.725 --> 0:06:58.885 emperor left his home to go to a bid Saw, 0:06:59.525 --> 0:07:04.285 a place to quarantine from small parks, including one Bidsa 0:07:04.725 --> 0:07:09.925 that was on a literal island. This way, the parks 0:07:10.085 --> 0:07:17.005 could not reach across and infect him. Despite these precautions, 0:07:17.605 --> 0:07:23.845 the emperor caught a small pox as he lay dying, 0:07:24.405 --> 0:07:28.365 the emperor had to decide on a successor among his 0:07:28.605 --> 0:07:35.485 six young sons. He chose the second son at a 0:07:35.605 --> 0:07:40.885 young age. He'd already survived the small pox. With protection 0:07:40.965 --> 0:07:44.485 from the disease, the boy was more likely to have 0:07:44.605 --> 0:07:48.845 a long rule be a stabilizing force for the empire, 0:07:49.525 --> 0:07:55.405 and he was This Song became the County Emperor, the 0:07:55.525 --> 0:08:01.245 longest the ruling emperor in China's history. Low the County 0:08:01.365 --> 0:08:05.605 Emperor survived the small parks, he did not escape to 0:08:05.725 --> 0:08:10.045 trauma every time there was an outbreak of small parks. 0:08:10.365 --> 0:08:14.165 He was haunted both by his foulest death and by 0:08:14.245 --> 0:08:18.725 the isolation, and so when he grew into an adult, 0:08:19.205 --> 0:08:23.805 the Councy Emperor searched far and wide for the umpire's 0:08:23.885 --> 0:08:31.125 best inoculators. Around the sixteen eighty two inoculators were chosen 0:08:31.285 --> 0:08:35.525 to protect the emperor's children. One of them was a 0:08:35.605 --> 0:08:42.805 full Hunling, the author of the story about Monteur May. 0:08:48.405 --> 0:08:52.005 Those early Chinese inoculators used several different methods to protect 0:08:52.005 --> 0:08:55.765 people from small pox. One involved blowing the scab of 0:08:55.765 --> 0:08:58.445 a small pox sufferer into the nose of a patient 0:08:58.605 --> 0:09:01.925 using a bamboo shoot. Another method had the patient wearing 0:09:01.965 --> 0:09:04.765 the clothing of an affected person for two or three days. 0:09:05.765 --> 0:09:08.405 Yet another had a child lay underneath the quilt with 0:09:08.485 --> 0:09:11.365 a sick patient, so that the patients chi would transfer 0:09:11.485 --> 0:09:16.885 to the child. Some methods worked better than others. Even 0:09:16.925 --> 0:09:19.925 in these early times, the inoculators had standards for who 0:09:19.965 --> 0:09:23.485 could or should be inoculated. They avoided the procedure for 0:09:23.565 --> 0:09:26.605 medically fragile patients, who were more likely to develop full 0:09:26.645 --> 0:09:30.245 blown smallpox. It was not recommended for the week or 0:09:30.285 --> 0:09:34.245 otherwise diseased, or for pregnant women. They thought it was 0:09:34.285 --> 0:09:39.605 better to inoculate before puberty. It's unclear which innoculation method 0:09:39.645 --> 0:09:42.525 was favored by fushang Lin, but the story he wrote 0:09:42.525 --> 0:09:45.965 about Mountain Amey and the three Taoists may be evidence 0:09:46.005 --> 0:09:49.245 of the earliest known inoculators, so long ago that the 0:09:49.285 --> 0:09:54.165 first Crusaders hadn't yet invaded Jerusalem, but it might just 0:09:54.205 --> 0:09:58.405 be a story. Real documentation of inoculation doesn't come for 0:09:58.405 --> 0:10:03.045 about five hundred more years. In volume six of the 0:10:03.125 --> 0:10:07.165 late British historian Joseph Needham's enorm a series Science and 0:10:07.245 --> 0:10:10.605 Civilization in China, there is a reference to a fifteen 0:10:10.725 --> 0:10:14.485 forty nine medical text by a Ming dynasty physician. That 0:10:14.605 --> 0:10:20.045 quote casually mentions smallpox inoculation as if it is already 0:10:20.125 --> 0:10:23.485 by then a common practice in China. That's one hundred 0:10:23.525 --> 0:10:27.045 and fifty years before the first known inoculation in say, England. 0:10:27.925 --> 0:10:30.605 But the point is nobody really knows exactly when or 0:10:30.605 --> 0:10:44.565 where innoculation began. All we have our stories. In the 0:10:44.645 --> 0:10:47.765 nineteen eighties and nineties, a relatively new disease ravaged the 0:10:47.765 --> 0:10:51.925 city of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was called acquired immuno deficiency 0:10:51.965 --> 0:10:58.085 syndrome or AIDS, the disease caused by HIV. In Edinburgh, 0:10:58.405 --> 0:11:01.885 HIV spread fast, often through the sharing of needles by 0:11:01.885 --> 0:11:06.445 intravenous drug users. They would in a drugs and shared 0:11:06.485 --> 0:11:09.005 a needle, They passed the needle down, you know, amongst 0:11:09.365 --> 0:11:12.445 these people in these kind of tenement buildings that fuel 0:11:12.565 --> 0:11:16.245 this massive HIV ant break in Edinburgh. That's Eddie Holmes, 0:11:16.885 --> 0:11:20.245 a virologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney. 0:11:20.925 --> 0:11:23.405 Back in the early nineties, he was in Edinburgh studying 0:11:23.445 --> 0:11:25.725 the spread of HIV. So what we were trying to 0:11:25.765 --> 0:11:28.085 do was trying to work out how the virus was 0:11:28.125 --> 0:11:31.525 spreading through that population, how it had diffused, and how 0:11:31.525 --> 0:11:33.525 it got into sydy and how it spreading. I do 0:11:33.605 --> 0:11:36.285 remember that actually getting in Around that time, he got 0:11:36.285 --> 0:11:39.005 a car from Beatrice Hahn. Beatrice harm, who was then 0:11:39.125 --> 0:11:42.325 working in virologist then working at the University of Alabama 0:11:42.365 --> 0:11:45.525 at Birmingham. Hann asked Eddie if he was interested in 0:11:45.605 --> 0:11:49.165 joining her and an HIV related research project. She's been 0:11:49.205 --> 0:11:51.685 the person who's done more than anyone else to reveal 0:11:51.725 --> 0:11:54.885 the origins of HIV. And she asked me in nineteen ninety, 0:11:54.965 --> 0:11:59.645 was I interested in working on that? And I said, no, 0:11:59.765 --> 0:12:01.845 I'm going to do my own, my own work on 0:12:01.925 --> 0:12:04.205 something else. He turned her down to concentrate on his 0:12:04.285 --> 0:12:10.285 own work. By then, AIDS had already killed more than 0:12:10.325 --> 0:12:13.405 sixteen million people. It was known that there were two 0:12:13.445 --> 0:12:18.165 main types of HIV, HIV one and two. Han and 0:12:18.205 --> 0:12:21.045 her colleagues and not Eddie would go on to discover 0:12:21.125 --> 0:12:25.605 that neither type of HIV came initially from humans. Both 0:12:25.645 --> 0:12:29.725 originated in primates HIV one in chimpanzees and HIV two 0:12:29.805 --> 0:12:33.845 in suity manga bays, each of which carry Simian immuno 0:12:33.885 --> 0:12:38.765 deficiency virus or SIV. The virus jumped to humans at 0:12:38.845 --> 0:12:45.045 least seven times, mostly in areas around Congo. It was 0:12:45.085 --> 0:12:49.765 a stunning discovery. Hans said that it was especially sobering 0:12:50.005 --> 0:12:52.725 that two very different primate species could serve as a 0:12:52.765 --> 0:12:56.165 host for human pathogens. She was even more worried because 0:12:56.165 --> 0:12:58.765 she knew that there were dozens more species of primates 0:12:58.805 --> 0:13:04.365 that carried their own forms of SIV. Hans blockbuster paper 0:13:04.445 --> 0:13:07.325 was exciting to Eddie home, but he had some regrets 0:13:07.445 --> 0:13:08.845 knowing that he could have been a part of it. 0:13:09.725 --> 0:13:12.805 That was like saying those the Beatles in nineteen sixty three, 0:13:12.845 --> 0:13:15.325 you know I missed, I missed my opportunity. It's a 0:13:15.405 --> 0:13:23.685 do some great work on that. Instead of discovering the 0:13:23.725 --> 0:13:27.645 origin of HIV, Eddie began working in metagenomics, the study 0:13:27.685 --> 0:13:32.925 of genetic material taken directly from the environment. So our 0:13:32.965 --> 0:13:35.525 focus has always been on these kind of key species, 0:13:35.965 --> 0:13:38.245 but with metagenomics you could at anything. So we're looking 0:13:38.245 --> 0:13:41.645 at this an these wild Invertibrus and known and looked at, 0:13:41.765 --> 0:13:46.205 and we found this amazing diversity of viruses in nature 0:13:46.325 --> 0:13:49.805 and everywhere. So these animals we never looked at suddenly 0:13:49.885 --> 0:13:54.085 saw this this huge diversity of viruses. The virus sphere 0:13:54.205 --> 0:13:58.685 was enormous. Opening that door was facilitated by this this technology, 0:13:58.725 --> 0:14:03.005 the methogenomics. By the time coronavirus hits, Eddie has become 0:14:03.045 --> 0:14:06.765 a pretty big time evolutionary biologist. He studied the flu, 0:14:07.045 --> 0:14:10.885 deng HIV, Hepotatis C and other viruses. He's got grants 0:14:10.885 --> 0:14:13.325 and awards and fellowships, but he still hasn't had his 0:14:13.325 --> 0:14:16.205 Beatles moment, not since turning down the chance to discover 0:14:16.285 --> 0:14:24.285 the origin of HIV back in the nineties. In twenty twelve, 0:14:24.525 --> 0:14:27.365 Eddie moves to Australia to work at the University of Sydney. 0:14:28.045 --> 0:14:31.445 He begins a partnership with Professor Jong jen Jang, then 0:14:31.485 --> 0:14:34.085 working at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention 0:14:34.165 --> 0:14:38.005 in Beijing. He's a character, as they say, I said 0:14:38.045 --> 0:14:40.525 this thing where whenever I sent an email to him, 0:14:40.565 --> 0:14:43.645 he would reply within fifteen minutes, right because he was 0:14:43.685 --> 0:14:45.685 always checking. So I used to send him an email 0:14:45.685 --> 0:14:47.365 like at six am in the morning, thinking right now, 0:14:47.365 --> 0:14:49.845 I'll get he must be asleep. That's three am in 0:14:52.325 --> 0:14:54.805 and then ten minutes later, Hi, Eddie, it's amazing. So 0:14:54.845 --> 0:14:56.685 he'd wake up in the night just to check his 0:14:56.725 --> 0:15:01.645 email you know he's extraordinarily hard working. I mean off 0:15:01.645 --> 0:15:08.005 the scale. Using metagenomic elysis, Eddie and Jang sampled animals 0:15:08.005 --> 0:15:12.445 of all kinds looking for RNA viruses, that is, viruses 0:15:12.445 --> 0:15:16.725 that have rabuclaic acid as their based genetic material, like coronavirus. 0:15:18.285 --> 0:15:21.405 Some of the animals they look at include bats, mice, pigs, 0:15:21.405 --> 0:15:26.565 and birds, but also snakes, crabs, spiders, ticks, shrimp, crayfish, 0:15:26.645 --> 0:15:34.085 woodlight tapeworm, mosquitoes, centipedes, millipedes, leeches, earthworms, octopus, snails, oysters, muscles, clams, barnacles, 0:15:34.445 --> 0:15:40.205 even goddamn sea cucumbers. No species is too obscure In 0:15:40.285 --> 0:15:44.285 these animals and their parasites, they discover thousands of new viruses. 0:15:47.005 --> 0:15:49.125 A lot of their work is done in and around Wuhan, 0:15:49.365 --> 0:15:52.365 an enormous city in central China. It's not very well 0:15:52.405 --> 0:15:54.805 known in the West at the time, but with eleven 0:15:54.845 --> 0:15:57.805 million people, Wuhan is bigger than New York or Paris. 0:15:58.925 --> 0:16:03.285 It's a very big city. It's extremely well connected in China. 0:16:03.325 --> 0:16:06.245 It's very famous for being a travel hub because because 0:16:06.245 --> 0:16:08.485 the Yancy River goes through it's the big river kind 0:16:08.485 --> 0:16:12.885 of delta or big river system brother and the train system. 0:16:13.005 --> 0:16:15.085 You can get from basically anywhere in China to Ruhan 0:16:15.125 --> 0:16:17.165 about six and a half house as an international airport, 0:16:17.205 --> 0:16:19.565 so it's a big hub. It's a really big hub. 0:16:20.165 --> 0:16:24.845 Also around Ruhan, it's just this you know, pristine natural environments. 0:16:24.925 --> 0:16:28.685 Actually's a very interesting place to sample. In twenty fourteen, 0:16:28.845 --> 0:16:31.685 Eddie and Jang even visit the place most associated with 0:16:31.725 --> 0:16:36.365 the first cases of coronavirus, the Huanan seafood wholesale market. 0:16:38.445 --> 0:16:41.085 The local CDC took me there because they said, look 0:16:41.085 --> 0:16:43.965 at this place, it's a really good place for a 0:16:44.005 --> 0:16:51.485 disease to emerge. It's probably like two big supermarkets glued together, 0:16:52.205 --> 0:16:56.005 the set of indoor alleys with a kind of road 0:16:56.085 --> 0:16:57.645 to the middle of it. There's lots of it. It's 0:16:57.685 --> 0:17:01.165 like an indoor, big indoor market, and there's lots of stores, 0:17:01.205 --> 0:17:04.445 and there's there's kind of gutters, there's lots of things 0:17:04.445 --> 0:17:06.925 on sales. There's lots of eye products, lots of fish, 0:17:07.085 --> 0:17:11.685 lots of frozen products. And there's one section where there 0:17:11.685 --> 0:17:16.245 were wildlife. I mean I saw mammalian wildlife there. There's ice, 0:17:16.245 --> 0:17:19.445 saw rodents there, and variety of other things. There's also 0:17:19.485 --> 0:17:22.405 these famous kind of like menu boards outside showing some 0:17:22.485 --> 0:17:26.845 of the kind of wildlife that they're they're selling. It's 0:17:26.925 --> 0:17:29.325 very closed. It feels kind of like, you know, it 0:17:29.405 --> 0:17:33.205 feels kind of sweaty and cramped, and it feels like 0:17:33.285 --> 0:17:38.765 kind of incubator in a way. You know. I took 0:17:38.765 --> 0:17:42.725 the photographs, really crappy photographer took of these raccoon dogs, okay, 0:17:42.925 --> 0:17:46.845 in these cages that raccoon dogs are weird. Theircadians in 0:17:46.845 --> 0:17:49.325 the dog founding and their fur farm, and I think 0:17:49.325 --> 0:17:53.245 they're used for food as well. And what I realized 0:17:53.325 --> 0:17:56.925 is that raccoon dogs they were implicated in the first 0:17:56.925 --> 0:17:59.445 Stars outbreak of two thousand and two two thousand and 0:17:59.525 --> 0:18:02.245 three because there were positive raccoon dogs in these markets 0:18:02.285 --> 0:18:05.285 in Grand Dumb and there they were in this market 0:18:05.765 --> 0:18:12.365 in Wuhan. During the two years before the outbreak of 0:18:12.405 --> 0:18:15.205 COVID nineteen, Eddie and Jang are working on a study 0:18:15.205 --> 0:18:18.685 of Central Hospital of Wuhan. They're studying patients with acute 0:18:18.725 --> 0:18:22.725 respiratory disease symptoms and trying to find out the cars. Again, 0:18:22.765 --> 0:18:26.205 this is before COVID nineteen, But what that meant was 0:18:26.245 --> 0:18:29.965 we were kind of like on site almost looking at 0:18:29.965 --> 0:18:34.525 the same Z syndrome in the right tissue samples with 0:18:34.645 --> 0:18:39.165 the right technology, and so we happen to be in 0:18:39.205 --> 0:18:41.165 the wrong place the wrong time. I feel like when 0:18:41.165 --> 0:18:44.085 it all kind of started, and that gave us the 0:18:44.205 --> 0:18:47.125 kind of an open door to really try and look 0:18:47.125 --> 0:18:49.805 at this some of the early first cases to see 0:18:49.805 --> 0:18:57.885 what was going on. In mid December of twenty nineteen, 0:18:58.365 --> 0:19:00.605 the forty one year old worker at the Huanan seafood 0:19:00.605 --> 0:19:05.885 wholesale market begins getting pneumonia like symptoms, fever, calf pain, easiness, 0:19:06.405 --> 0:19:09.685 that kind of stuff. A few days later, the patient 0:19:09.765 --> 0:19:12.725 is admitted to Central Hospital of Wuhan, among the very 0:19:12.765 --> 0:19:16.725 earliest identified novel coronavirus patients in the world, the same 0:19:16.765 --> 0:19:19.685 hospital where Eddie and Jang have already been studying patients 0:19:19.725 --> 0:19:24.605 with similar symptoms. By this time, Eddie is back in 0:19:24.685 --> 0:19:28.405 Australia and Jang is in Shanghai, but because of their 0:19:28.405 --> 0:19:32.125 prior work at Central Hospital, they particularly Jang, are in 0:19:32.165 --> 0:19:34.645 prime position to see what's going on with these strangely 0:19:34.685 --> 0:19:39.885 afflicted patients. Early in the afternoon on January third, Jang 0:19:39.925 --> 0:19:43.285 receives a package, a metal box holding a test tube 0:19:43.325 --> 0:19:46.725 packed in dry ice. Inside the test tube is a 0:19:46.765 --> 0:19:52.365 swabbed sample from the sick market worker. By this time, 0:19:52.525 --> 0:19:54.965 word of a new contagious virus is spreading among the 0:19:55.005 --> 0:19:58.685 public health community. The first news reports about this mysterious 0:19:58.725 --> 0:20:02.005 illness have been published. In China. There are forty four 0:20:02.085 --> 0:20:06.245 or so confirmed pneumonia of unknown origin cases. Seafood market 0:20:06.245 --> 0:20:10.165 has been closed. Many countries and the World Health Organization 0:20:10.205 --> 0:20:11.845 are trying to figure out what the heck is going 0:20:11.885 --> 0:20:14.645 on and if this disease is going to cross borders. 0:20:16.925 --> 0:20:18.765 Jiang does not know that the test tube in front 0:20:18.765 --> 0:20:21.045 of him contains a sample of a virus that would 0:20:21.085 --> 0:20:24.725 take over the world within months, but he knows it's important. 0:20:25.725 --> 0:20:28.565 Rumors are already spreading that it is SARS like which 0:20:28.605 --> 0:20:32.285 in China and especially in Chinese virologist circles, is a 0:20:32.285 --> 0:20:39.165 big deal. The first severe acute respiratory syndrome where SARS 0:20:39.205 --> 0:20:42.365 epidemic was discovered in the city of Foshan in China 0:20:42.565 --> 0:20:45.805 in November two thousand and two. Eventually it's spread to 0:20:45.845 --> 0:20:50.605 more than eight thousand people in twenty nine countries. SARS 0:20:50.645 --> 0:20:54.485 one was internationally embarrassing for Chinese leadership. They could not 0:20:54.525 --> 0:20:57.805 contain the outbreak and could not treat the disease. Western 0:20:57.845 --> 0:21:03.845 media reported aggressively on China's failures. The last thing Jiang 0:21:04.045 --> 0:21:06.645 or his country wanted was another There are stars, and 0:21:06.845 --> 0:21:12.085 Jang strongly suspected he had it. Sitting in that test tube. 0:21:14.245 --> 0:21:17.085 For the next two days, working around the clock, Jang 0:21:17.125 --> 0:21:20.605 and his team worked to sequence the virus. Around two 0:21:20.605 --> 0:21:29.205 am on the fifth, it was done. Eddie gets an 0:21:29.205 --> 0:21:32.925 email from Jang. Jang emailed me and says, please call 0:21:32.965 --> 0:21:35.045 me immediately. I was driving to the beach and my 0:21:35.125 --> 0:21:38.485 in laws for breakfast, right because it's January. It's summer 0:21:38.485 --> 0:21:40.645 in Sydney, right, And that was that was like eight 0:21:40.725 --> 0:21:42.925 am in Sydney time, so it must have been like 0:21:42.965 --> 0:21:46.885 five o'clock in the morning in Shanghai. And so I 0:21:47.005 --> 0:21:49.765 ranging on. I was in the phone my inlaws and 0:21:50.725 --> 0:21:54.165 he said they managed to get the complete genome on 0:21:54.285 --> 0:21:58.165 the fifth in January. And they they they literally worked, 0:21:58.725 --> 0:22:01.165 you know, non so it took forty hours. They worked NonStop. 0:22:01.965 --> 0:22:03.885 So just put it in context, it's actually very interesting. 0:22:03.885 --> 0:22:08.045 So it took forty hours for some to gain the 0:22:08.085 --> 0:22:14.005 full genome. Okay, two years, two years for HIV to 0:22:14.045 --> 0:22:16.485 be described as the cause of AIDS and took forty 0:22:16.525 --> 0:22:23.205 hours to find this virus. Okay, Now Jang knows he's 0:22:23.205 --> 0:22:26.845 a virus very closely related to SARS one. He reports 0:22:26.845 --> 0:22:29.365 his findings to China's Ministry of Health and to public 0:22:29.405 --> 0:22:33.405 health officials in Wuhan. He also submits the genetic sequence 0:22:33.445 --> 0:22:36.325 for review to a database run by the US NIH 0:22:37.045 --> 0:22:39.525 and as part of a paper co authored by Eddie 0:22:39.565 --> 0:22:42.485 for the journal Nature. But the genetic sequence has not 0:22:42.565 --> 0:22:46.245 been released publicly, which means researchers can't study it's thousands 0:22:46.245 --> 0:22:48.365 of bits of data and use it to start figuring 0:22:48.365 --> 0:22:50.605 out how to stop it, how to build a vaccine 0:22:50.605 --> 0:22:54.005 to protect people from the virus. To put it in perspective, 0:22:54.285 --> 0:22:57.005 there is at most one reported death at this point. 0:22:57.565 --> 0:23:00.765 No other countries have known cases. Nobody could have guessed 0:23:00.765 --> 0:23:04.445 this virus would change the world. Still, the idea that 0:23:04.445 --> 0:23:08.405 there could be another SAR or MIRS is terrifying. MRS 0:23:08.845 --> 0:23:12.325 or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome was another coronavirus that had 0:23:12.365 --> 0:23:15.365 spread in twenty twelve and killed nine hundred people in 0:23:15.405 --> 0:23:19.685 eighteen countries. Nobody wants to see a third coronavirus outbreak. 0:23:20.925 --> 0:23:24.245 Six days after Jang finishes sequencing the virus. The genetic 0:23:24.285 --> 0:23:28.045 information is still not out there, but rumors of the 0:23:28.085 --> 0:23:31.725 novel coronavirus have spread, as has word of the embargoed 0:23:31.765 --> 0:23:35.925 paper in Nature. But Jang doesn't know how Chinese officials 0:23:35.925 --> 0:23:38.565 will react to him releasing the sequence, and a few 0:23:38.645 --> 0:23:42.005 days earlier the government told local authorities not to publish 0:23:42.045 --> 0:23:45.565 information about the virus because the Ministry of Health were 0:23:45.565 --> 0:23:49.045 controlling everything and they wanted they wanted to control the message, 0:23:49.085 --> 0:23:52.085 they wanted to damp down on rumors, they wanted to 0:23:52.125 --> 0:23:55.685 be in control of the situation. And as the days 0:23:55.725 --> 0:23:59.765 went on, more information was slowly being kind of released, 0:24:00.645 --> 0:24:02.565 and so there was I think the Wall Street Journal 0:24:02.565 --> 0:24:05.725 in January eighth published that it was a corona virus. 0:24:05.765 --> 0:24:08.725 I think the Chinese authorities on the ninth announced it 0:24:08.765 --> 0:24:12.685 was a coronavirus. As as the days wore on, it 0:24:12.805 --> 0:24:15.725 got more and more kind of ridiculous that they weren't 0:24:15.805 --> 0:24:19.045 saying exactly what it is, and this is this is 0:24:19.085 --> 0:24:22.645 the sequence, right. We sent our paper off to Nature, 0:24:22.685 --> 0:24:26.605 off to the journal Nature, and they were very keen 0:24:26.685 --> 0:24:34.805 for the sequence to be released as well. On January eleventh, 0:24:35.285 --> 0:24:38.245 jan gets on a plane in Shanghai and it's about 0:24:38.325 --> 0:24:46.925 to take off when a phone buzzards. It's Eddie and 0:24:47.085 --> 0:24:49.405 I said, we need to release these data. Nokay, I've 0:24:49.405 --> 0:24:51.285 been emailing about this and we have to get this release. 0:24:51.845 --> 0:24:53.565 And he said, okay, okay, do it, do it, do it? 0:24:53.845 --> 0:24:55.645 And I said, can you send me the seat I 0:24:55.645 --> 0:24:57.565 haven't got the seats myself. Can you please send it 0:24:57.645 --> 0:24:59.445 to me right? And so he got I think he 0:24:59.525 --> 0:25:01.085 got one of his one of his post docs to 0:25:01.205 --> 0:25:03.525 email me that the sequence. So it arrived on my 0:25:03.725 --> 0:25:07.445 on my email and I thought, oh, you know, Franky, 0:25:07.485 --> 0:25:10.245 I'm knowing. I better get it's done right. So and 0:25:10.365 --> 0:25:13.485 that whole process for me getting the sequence in the 0:25:13.525 --> 0:25:16.405 email to releasing it, I think it's like fifty two 0:25:16.485 --> 0:25:18.685 minutes or something like that. If I didn't even chet 0:25:18.725 --> 0:25:21.805 what it was. And after I said I've posted it, 0:25:22.045 --> 0:25:24.805 it could have been any odd chunk, but luckily it 0:25:25.005 --> 0:25:30.645 was actually the virus. So and then that was that moment. 0:25:30.725 --> 0:25:34.565 Then that was a huge kind of burden off my shoulders. 0:25:34.565 --> 0:25:38.525 At that point, he posts the sequence on a website 0:25:38.565 --> 0:25:43.085 called Virological, a somewhat obscure open access epidemiology discussion board 0:25:43.285 --> 0:25:48.165 founded by one of Eddie's friends. Jang is not the 0:25:48.245 --> 0:25:51.005 first to sequence the virus by this time. It's already 0:25:51.045 --> 0:25:53.445 been done at private labs in Wolhuan as early as 0:25:53.525 --> 0:25:56.765 late December, but Jang and Eddie's sequence is the first 0:25:56.805 --> 0:26:00.285 to catch international notice. Eddie tweets out a link to 0:26:00.365 --> 0:26:04.645 the sequence in January eleventh, Sydney time. This is the 0:26:04.725 --> 0:26:10.765 moment kicking off development for the COVID nineteen vaccines. One 0:26:10.845 --> 0:26:13.245 of the first replies to the tweet is from a 0:26:13.285 --> 0:26:16.325 professor of microbiology and Mount Sinai in New York City. 0:26:16.965 --> 0:26:19.485 He sends a gift of hundreds of planes taking off 0:26:19.725 --> 0:26:24.365 in unison, along with the words and so it begins. 0:26:44.405 --> 0:26:48.045 What if it never began? That is, what if we 0:26:48.125 --> 0:26:51.005 were never struck by the coronavirus known as SARS cove two. 0:26:52.365 --> 0:26:56.205 What if twenty twenty was just a normal year. We 0:26:56.405 --> 0:27:03.885 never quarantined, never wore masks, never sanitized groceries, We just lived. 0:27:05.965 --> 0:27:10.085 I spoke with another evolutionary biologist. His name is Joel Wortheim. 0:27:10.845 --> 0:27:13.725 He's an associate professor of medicine at you See, San Diego. 0:27:14.725 --> 0:27:17.405 He ran these computer based simulations of the virus going 0:27:17.485 --> 0:27:20.125 back and forward in time. The goal was to describe 0:27:20.165 --> 0:27:22.565 the likeliest version of the way the virus spread after 0:27:22.685 --> 0:27:26.125 it first infected a human being. But while doing so, 0:27:26.325 --> 0:27:29.365 he discovered that the very likeliest outcome was that we 0:27:29.525 --> 0:27:33.485 never had a pandemic to begin with, That coronavirus infected 0:27:33.525 --> 0:27:38.445