WEBVTT - What can a movie about a pandemic teach us about the real thing? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.600 Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and welcome to next Question. 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:09.480 In this unprecedented time of the coronavirus pandemic, many of 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:13.520 us are cooped up on edge, full of anxiety about 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.120 our upturned worlds and fearful that family, friends, are ourselves 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.720 could succumb to this virulent bug. And yet a lot 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.680 of people are finding comfort in a surprising source, Steven 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:34.440 Soderbergh's two thousand and eleventh thriller Contagion. A mysterious and 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.520 highly contagious virus crosses continents in a matter of days 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.360 and kills Gwyneth Paltrow within the first eight minutes of 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.879 the movie. What happened to her? What happened to her? 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:53.840 The result citywide lockdowns, panic driven looting, spreeze, and mass graves. 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:59.600 And without a vaccine, we can anticipate that approximately one 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:04.880 in people on the planet will contract the disease. When 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.520 I recently rewatched the movie, like thousands of you according 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.800 to social media and the iTunes charts, I was struck 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.360 by how familiar it all seemed, from the rapid spread, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.679 to the government's controlled messaging, to the social distancing and 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:24.320 a public growing more frightened by the day. I do 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:29.080 think in times of you know, anxiety and panic, people 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.560 turn to popular culture to enhance their understanding of what's 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.120 going on. Scott Burns is a filmmaker and the screenwriter 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.119 of Contagion, and he said, though the movie seems prescient now, 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.880 if you talked to any one of the experts he 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.200 consulted with ten or twelve years ago, they would have 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.120 told you the very same thing, that it was a 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.960 matter of when and not if we would encounter exactly 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:59.600 what we're encountering. So I believe in science, and I 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:04.400 think of people who I worked with are extraordinarily dedicated scientists. 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:10.040 So um, I'm not surprised, which leads me to my 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:14.240 next question. What kind of movie about a pandemic teach 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.079 us about the real thing? I was lucky enough to 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.600 spend a little bit of time, from the comfort of 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.080 our own homes, of course, with not only Scott Burns, 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.720 but also one of the lead consultants on the film, 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.679 Dr Ian Lipkin, a k a. The Virus Hunter. Yes, 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.280 I'm me a loopcoun my professor at Columbia University, and 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.280 I worked closely with Scott in developing the concept of 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.800 the film. Before we talked to Dr Lipkin about his 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.720 reaction when you approached him to be a consultant on 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.680 this film. What piqued your interest initially, Scott in tackling 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.480 this in the form of a feature film. Steven Soderberg 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.480 and I had just completed doing another film with Matt 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:02.760 Damon called The Informant and we were actually um on 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:04.919 our way home and he said, what do you think 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:09.440 you want to do next? And I said that I 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:15.880 want to do a pandemic movie that is entirely science based. 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.200 I had seen Outbreak when I was growing up, like 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.240 a lot of people, um, but I wanted to do 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.959 one that was, you know, more of the moment and 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:31.359 really looked at a pandemic as sort of a tracer 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.240 bullet through our society. So you decide you want to 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.960 put your lens on this topic and you want to 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:45.080 do as much research as possible. How were you led 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:50.080 to Dr Ian in terms of his knowledge on the topic, Well, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.320 The informant Um and a movie I had done before that. 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:55.600 I had done with a company in l A called 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:00.960 participant Um, which is owned by Jeff Skoll, and Jeff 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:06.880 Um has a philanthropical arm to his company and they 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.960 focus on a variety of threats to the world. One 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.360 of them was pandemic illness. And because Jeff and I 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.080 knew each other, when he found out, I wanted to, 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.960 you know, to write that as my next movie. He 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.560 insisted that he be involved in his company and be 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:30.720 involved because it was so central to their mission. And uh, 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.680 Jeff introduced me to Dr Larry Brilliant, who was an 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:38.359 epidemiologist in the Bay area. Um and and Larry was 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.920 my first point of contact, and he was part of 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.040 a team, you know, along with d. A. Henderson, that 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.479 helped eradicate smallpox in the sixties. Um and I had 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.520 lunch with Larry, and like I said, he was one 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.640 of the people who said, it's really a matter of 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.479 when and not if. And he told me that he 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.279 thought the best barologists in the world was was Ian Lipkin. 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.960 And he helped me get a meeting with Ian. And 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.279 when I sat in the end's office, the agreement that 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.360 we made was that this was only worth doing if 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.040 the science was authentic. Um and we began to talk 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.520 about the limitations of what that might mean to a story, 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.400 and it became clear to me in talking to Ian 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.960 that when you look at the complexity of nature, and 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:32.320 when you begin to understand what viruses are um, you know, 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:37.039 sadly there really are no limitations. Dr Lipkin, when you 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.160 were approached by Scott, what did you think of the 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.840 notion of turning this into a movie. Ironically, there were 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.440 two independent filmmakers who approached me one day after the 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.919 next in the same location to talk about making a 0:05:54.000 --> 0:06:00.440 pandemic movie, and Scott was the first. I met the 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.640 second individual who wanted to make something that was going 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:07.760 to look like Outbreak, which was an unrealistic, a very 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:12.000 entertaining film, and I came back to Scott and I said, 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:16.799 let's do this. From the very beginning was clear that 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.599 what Scott wanted to do was to educate as well 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:24.599 as entertain, so that this would have an impact. So 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.880 we had a great deal of fun deciding what the 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.000 virus would look like, what the various components would be 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:37.560 of storyline. He understands obviously narrative, and what I was 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.039 trying to do is to provide the scientific underpinning for 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.320 what he wanted to do, and then periodically to provide 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.040 a sort of a list of things that I thought 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.440 were critical to convey, which he would then weave into 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.320 the story. So it was a very, very interactive process 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:55.960 and a great deal of fun. I was going to 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.159 say only a virologists would describe that as a great 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.279 deal of fun, Doctor Lipkin. And when when you talked 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.320 about what was critical to include in the plot, and 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.720 then Scott, I want to ask you about how you 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:15.440 did this monumental research because you did it, I understand 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.680 for three over three years. But were some of the 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:23.120 things that you wanted to ensure would be featured in 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.400 the movie, Dr Lipkin. From the very beginning, we want 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.880 to emphasize the point of one health, the idea that 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.520 infectious agents emerge in wildlife and then move into humans. 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.000 We wanted to understand the factors that contribute to that 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.960 and what can be done for risk reduction, and the 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:47.040 sorts of things we identified then I have played out here. 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.560 We wanted to talk about the challenges and finding ways 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:57.120 to identify an infectious agent, the political interactions which can 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.760 interfere with progress and sign it's which he covered extremely well. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.200 The social unrest that was associated with people who come 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:11.040 out of the woodwork promising various false panases. We'd begun 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.080 to see those here too. And then the implications of 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:20.560 such an outbreak for social structure, loss of life, how 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:26.200 we respond, and ultimately how it all resolves. One positive 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:31.560 thing emanating from this, Dr Lipkin is, in recent years 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:38.200 science has been treated with skepticism and even hostility by 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.600 many people, not only in this country but around the world. 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:46.120 Do you think this will win back some of the 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.480 I think much needed and much an appropriate respect for 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:57.480 the scientific community. I hope so. UM. When the movie 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:02.599 first came out, there was a big uptick and applications 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:07.800 for training at the CDC in the Epidemiology Intelligence Service. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.160 We think, you know, as I look right now at 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.719 the number of applications we're receiving at the School of 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.680 Public Health of Columbia, despite the fact that we're shut down, 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.240 there are people are writing asking how can they join, 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.040 how can they be helpful, what can they do? So 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:30.280 it is having an impact in that respect. This trend 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:36.520 to not believe science or to dismiss it, uh, must 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.360 be disconcerting to you. It is one of the large 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.280 challenges we have is that people think that their ways 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:50.600 to shortcut, for example, with clinical trials, and it's very 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:55.640 important that we have appropriately controlled trials otherwise we get 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:57.040 to the end of a trial and we don't know 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.360 what works and what doesn't, and we subject people to 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:06.640 expense and risk that's really unjustified. Um. So another example 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.200 of that is vaccines. People have this notion who don't 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:14.600 understand how vaccines are trialed and proven, that we can 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.679 just roll out of vaccine in a few months time, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:23.040 and it's just not true. It's critical that the leadership 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.800 on which we rely at the very top of the 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:31.120 regional and state and federal governments respect the people who 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.240 are trying to give them the best information that they can. 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:39.000 So the President has excellent people in the director of 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.440 n I I D. Tony Fauci and and um, you 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.360 know in the new head of the of the Task Force, 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:51.440 Deborah Burkeleum. But sometimes they appear to be sidelined. And 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.640 this is unfortunate because some of the drugs that are 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.840 proposed haven't really been proven to be a use. Maybe 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.240 they will be, and maybe they want um. So it's 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:04.120 important that we do this in the stepwise and the 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.559 logical fashion so that we minimize the risk of people 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.360 when we come back will isolate the moments in the 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:30.160 movie that nine years later seems so real contagion, of course, 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.120 isn't just about the spread of a new virus. It's 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.200 about the spread of information about how narratives around public 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:41.480 health are created, who creates them, and how they're disseminated. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.880 And it's this behind the scenes element of the movie 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.839 that's so uncanny to watch today. Pretty early in the film, 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.840 we're introduced to Kate Winslett's character, an epidemic intelligence officer 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:59.000 with the CDC who's been dispatched to Minnesota where there's 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.360 been a cluster of an infections and deaths. She meets 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.120 with the heads of the Minnesota Department of Health to 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:10.080 evaluate the situation and determine the public response and how's 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:11.720 the public going to react to that. It's hard to 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.480 say plastic shark in a movie will keep people from 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.720 getting in the ocean, But a warning on the side 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:18.240 of a pack of cigarettes when we're going to need 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:19.839 to walk the government through this before we start to 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:24.000 freak everybody out. I mean, we can't even tell people 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.000 right now what they should be afraid of. We tried 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:27.320 that with swine food, and all we did was get 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:35.760 healthy people scared. That's really eerie, Scott listening to that dialogue. Yeah, well, um, 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.520 you know, when I went to CDC, you know, one 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.240 of the things that I learned early on is that 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.679 we have fifty different state health departments and you know, 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.080 within those states, they all operate differently. And one of 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.600 the tricky parts of this, and we're certainly seeing it, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:01.480 is you need a coherent sort of program because without that, 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.360 you know, you get this patchwork going, and a virus 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.640 doesn't really care about a state border, um, and so 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:14.280 much of you know, there's so much interstate travel and 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.680 commerce in this country, and then you know there's the 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:23.440 entire globe, and so until you have a consistent federal 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.000 program that tells the states how to act, and that 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.920 it's embraced by the state's governors, regardless of their political orientation, 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:37.520 we're very, very vulnerable. And it's tricky to explain to 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:42.559 people who don't have a background in these things how 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.880 how they proliferate. And that's what I was trying to 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.960 do in that scene, is is think about if you're 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:54.360 someone who is sent to a state to tell them, 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.680 you know what's going on, Um, you know what the 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.760 resistance is. You're going to meet just from the officials, 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.960 not to mention from the general public. So at this point, 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.480 I think we have to believe this is respiratory maybe 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:11.600 fall mights too. What's that it refers to transmission from surfaces. 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.600 The average person touches their face two or three thousand 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.239 times a day, two or three thousand times a day, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.840 three to five times every waking minute. In between, we're 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.640 touching door knobs, water fountains, elevator buttons, and each other. 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:32.640 Those things become mights. The only pushback we had from 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.280 the Minnesota Department of Health was that they said, nobody 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.080 needs to explain to us what a foam might is. 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.240 And my defense of that was, well, we needed a 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.120 teachable moment and we had to do this, unfortunately at 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.040 your expense, but somebody had to be Somebody had to 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.560 explain what an or not was. That wasn't part of 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.640 what you were talking about there, but which is the 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:58.360 transmissibility in text and what full mights are, so that 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.880 we could get that point across that said, this is 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.320 a um. This is a harbinger of what came to 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.640 be recently because it turns out that FOAMT transmission is 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:15.920 extremely important with this infection. This virus persists on surfaces 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:20.680 for up to three days, and so the opportunities for 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.560 transmission are much greater, and they are with many respiratory 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.560 tract infections. So we have say, as you said at 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:33.160 the very beginning, Katie, this is eerily prophetic. But so 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.400 many things in the film are, which I think is 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:40.400 really a testament to Scott's imagination and somehow managing put 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.560 it all in there. What about the battle that we 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:49.800 heard unfolding between Kate Winslet's character and all the considerations 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:54.120 about how transparent you should be. It's the biggest shopping 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:55.840 weekend of the year. I think we need to consider 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.840 closing schools and who stays home with the kids, people 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.800 that work at stores, government work as people that work 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.200 at hospitals. When will we know what this is? Have 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:09.200 you seen those factors being brought to bear, Dr Lipkin 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.960 in the current pandemic. Three weeks ago, I had a 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:18.280 conversation with a very high level official, elected official where 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.360 we talked about closing schools, and I said that I 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.680 thought this was something that we should do. And the 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.240 response that came back from not only this elected official, 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:33.000 but also the individuals who were advising this official, was 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.720 that there was going to be no way to feed 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.960 the children who depended on schools for their breakfasts and 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.720 for their lunch. And then when these children went home, 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:43.480 their parents were going to have no way to take 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.080 care of them, and the grandparents who frequently assigned to 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.280 take care of these children might become infected because these 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.000 kids would carry back this virus from the community into 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.640 their houses. And I said, I understand all of things things, 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.360 but if we don't do it now, it's going to 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.400 get worse. And ultimately, of course, this is what we've done. 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.440 We've had to close all of these schools. We need 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:12.359 a national policy, we actually need an international policy. But 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.320 if we just stick naturally for a moment, we need 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.160 to have a way in which everybody understands that this 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:20.560 is what we're going to need to do for some 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:22.760 period of time. And I think that period of time 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:27.960 is probably six weeks, maybe eight weeks. But we have 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.120 to enforce it rigorously if we're going to get out 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:34.840 of this. Were you disappointed with the both the response 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.359 at the federal, state and local level to this pandemic? 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.919 Very much so? Um I came back from China the 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.760 first week of February, and it was clear to me 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:51.760 that we were headed for a very difficult situation. I 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:53.560 managed to speak with a number of people I know 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.600 quite well. One of them is the mayor of Chicago, 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.560 who's an old family friend, and she took things very seriously, 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.359 but she was unable to do much of what she 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:08.000 wanted to do. And here in New York, as you know, UM, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.560 there's been a struggle between the city and the state, 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.359 upstate and downstate in terms of kinds of responses that 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.199 we're willing to entertain. I think that we should have 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.000 closed things earlier, and I think that that would have 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.199 made a difference, But we'll never know. What about the 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:30.680 federal response. Dr Lipkin, Well, the problem in talking about 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:35.280 the response at the federal level is that I don't 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.480 want to discourage cooperation. I think there are many things 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:41.840 that the President has done that I think I've been 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.440 extremely helpful. I think that some decisions about closing borders, 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.600 for example, uh two people who are coming in from 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.239 areas where they were concerns, we're very very useful. I 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.200 was very concerned when I heard that he was proposing 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.760 that we opened everything up. I he's served because I 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:02.760 think that would be too soon. But he's now back 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.080 off and and I'm very appreciative that he's done that. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.920 I think that's important. Why do you think people did 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:15.240 not take the potential threat seriously? In this kind of work, 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.000 you're a victim of your own success. If you're proactive, 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.439 if you prevent an outbreak from taking hold, then nobody 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.359 really knows about it. You've been successful, but there's no 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.680 you know, it's not like you store up goodwill and 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:30.960 resources so that you'd be ready for the next one. 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.600 The feeling therefore is that it's really not going to happen, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:39.520 and people become somewhat complacent. After nine eleven with the 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.880 anthrax attacks, there was a lot of interest in jump 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:47.359 starting the biological research that we do into emerging infectious 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.840 agents and bio defense in general, and there was a 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.160 program set up which is one of the first places 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.200 I worked with Larry Brilliant closely. It's something called the 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:00.679 National bio Surveillance Advisory Subcommittee's a very long name, but 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.840 our objective was to try to figure out how prepared 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.080 we were to get the information needed so that we 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.840 would be able to respond in real time in the 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.919 event or emergency. One of the things we learned and 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:18.200 that was established under under George Bush was that UM, 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.280 there was a lot of duplication within the government, we 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.360 could become more efficient and more effective if we were 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:29.560 to synchronize the integrated efforts. And then the second version 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:31.879 of that which was under Obama, I shared with the 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:36.320 Jeffrey Engel from North Carolina who was in the Department 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.360 of Health. There that group came out with a very 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:43.080 similar set of recommendations to the first group and UM 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.280 and then that committee was disbanded and to my knowledge 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:49.600 it's not been reconvened, and I don't know that ever 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:54.679 will be convened. So without that committee in place in 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.720 the White House providing real time advice to the people 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.040 who need to make decisions, it's very difficult to see 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.560 how we're going to get out of this. When we 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.840 have financial crisis, we have a fit right which responds 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.439 and tries to make decisions and has some autonomy. We 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:13.560 don't have that. In public health. We have very very 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.760 good people like UM, you know at n A h 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.280 h h S and I think the Secretary of h 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:25.000 h S is also excellent, but they are purely advisory 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.560 and if people don't listen to them, UH, then there 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.080 is a there's a risk and in this case, a 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.919 price to be paid. Scott, I thought we might explore 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.480 the behavior of this virus through your film. Matt Damon, 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:46.560 who is the protagonist, is immune to this. If I'm immune, 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:50.080 can't you use my blood to cure this? Blood serums 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.320 can take a long time to make and are very expensive. 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:54.560 But the good news here is that you're not going 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.840 to get sick. Tell me how you were able to 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.880 establish him as a character and why that was so 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.160 important to the plot of the film. Um. Well, he's 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.240 Matt Damon and nobody wants to see him die. Um, 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.240 So that part was easy. No, there you go. You're 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:14.240 going all Hollywood on us, Scott. One of the things 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.760 that he and I discussed is that humans are all 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.920 very different, and we're seeing it with this virus as well, 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:24.800 and that people you know who have underlying conditions may 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.639 have one experience, people who are of a certain age 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:33.720 may have another. UM, And that you know in the film, 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:39.040 Matt's character is exposed um, but doesn't get sick. Um. 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:41.719 And I think that that's an important thing for us 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:46.359 to remember at this moment in in time, is that 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:51.240 you know that humans have seen pandemics before and that, 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:56.160 you know, we survive and we have remarkable immune systems. Um. 0:22:56.200 --> 0:23:00.280 You know, I think that that that's something that people 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:07.040 should celebrate. We're we're pretty you know, incredible animals. Everyone 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.040 has a different experience, and just as in history there's 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.800 a typhoid mary um who can spread a disease, there 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.080 are also individuals who seem to be resistant and we 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:21.800 can learn quite a bit from them. Dr Lipkoln there 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:26.080 are Matt Damon's running around who are seemed to be 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:30.080 immune to this virus UM. I think that as we 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:33.840 learn more about this pandemic, we're going to find that 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:38.199 the majority of people who are infected have only mild 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:42.280 disease or no apparent disease whatsoever, and there are ways 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:44.359 in which we can sort this out. It's not going 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:46.439 to help us in the short term, but in the 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:49.120 longer term I think it will. I think what we're 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:50.919 going to find is that the majority of people who 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:54.720 are infected with a virus don't have symptoms or have 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:58.440 only mild symptoms of the disease. They are nonetheless capable 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:02.280 of infecting other people, particularly people who are vulnerable because 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:08.440 they have underlying medical conditions. Obesity, hypertension, diabetes, or they 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:12.200 simply happen to be older. Right, and if you're a smoker, 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:17.200 very good time to stop. Well. I've heard of cases 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:23.160 where seemingly healthy people who haven't smoked for decades are 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:26.680 succumbing to this disease, or people who have never smoked 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:30.560 in the first place. Um, have you been able to 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:35.720 understand why somebody healthy in their thirties or forties seems 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:38.440 to be affected? Is that the level of virus they're 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:42.159 coming into contact with or could it be an underlying 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:45.679 condition they just don't know about. I think either of 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:49.080 those is possible. I mean, there aren't people who probably 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:52.239 do get a larger dose of virus than others. Uh, 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:55.320 And they're probably people who are even a compromised but 0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:59.679 don't realize it, either because they're not getting sufficient sleep, 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:03.160 or because they're malnourished, or there's something about which they're 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:06.399 not aware. There may also be genetic factors that we 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:11.879 don't yet understand. All of this is understudy now in 0:25:12.000 --> 0:25:16.720 many institutions. We should say it's somewhat of a cruel 0:25:16.800 --> 0:25:21.000 irony that you yourself dr lipkin as you stifle yet 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:25.639 another cough has been you've been diagnosed with COVID nineteen. 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:28.560 How do you think you got it? And how are 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:33.439 you doing well? There? There is a concern initially because 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:35.840 we do work with the virus in our laboratory, that 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:38.879 I might have become infected there, but in fact the 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:43.160 virus work is not something I had been anywhere near 0:25:44.280 --> 0:25:48.440 UH for several weeks, and we didn't even open the 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:51.359 virus that we're using as a sample to grow the 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:54.359 stocks or using for our work now until after I 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:56.439 had already left the LAMB. So my case was a 0:25:56.560 --> 0:26:02.600 community acquired I traveled through China without any difficulty, never 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:05.560 never got infected there, and I got infected here in 0:26:05.600 --> 0:26:10.199 the community. This is now a community acquired disease and 0:26:10.280 --> 0:26:13.439 it's very easy for anyone to get it. And one 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:16.240