Speaker 1: There are tents outside our hospitals. Every time I see them,
Speaker 1: I stop startled. Their drab and dirty flaps seems so
Speaker 1: out of place against the grand facades of world class hospitals.
Speaker 1: Desperate times, desperate measures. The last time I worked in
Speaker 1: a tent was West Africa in twenty fourteen, during the
Speaker 1: able outbreak. In those same tents, I saw too much pain, loneliness,
Speaker 1: and death, people dying alone. I never thought I'd have
Speaker 1: to see or experience that ever again. I never wanted to.
Speaker 1: Once was painful enough. There's no way to describe what
Speaker 1: we're seeing. Our new reality is unreal. The people and
Speaker 1: places we've known so long and so well have been transformed,
Speaker 1: our ears, our ICUs. Everything looks, sounds, and feels different.
Speaker 1: Just one week and it's a whole different world. The
Speaker 1: patients I normally see are nowhere to be found. Every
Speaker 1: single patient I see has COVID nineteen. Every single patient
Speaker 1: working in the er means walking through a corridor of coughing,
Speaker 1: each a slightly different pitch and different frequency, but all
Speaker 1: caused by the same exact thing. It's not just the
Speaker 1: volume of patients that's hitting us, it's the severity respiratory arrest,
Speaker 1: respiratory arrest. Respiratory arrest. Each takes six to eight professionals, nurses,
Speaker 1: respiratory texts, er docs, anthesiologists. Each takes an hour or more,
Speaker 1: back to back, all shift long. And it's not just
Speaker 1: the unrelenting severity. We're being asked to do things we've
Speaker 1: never done before. Run a code as your goggles fog
Speaker 1: and you can't decipher the vital signs on the monitor.
Speaker 1: Try to predict which COVID patient will crash if you
Speaker 1: send them home and which won't. Talk to palliative care,
Speaker 1: talk to family members, long discussions about likely outcomes. Listen
Speaker 1: as family members sob. They can't be here when they
Speaker 1: ask to withdraw care. We face time so they can
Speaker 1: say goodbye. We stop, turn off the ventilator and wait.
Speaker 1: Your hands upon theirs. You think of their family at home, sobbing.
Speaker 1: Someone starts saying a prayer. You can't help but cry.
Speaker 1: This isn't what we do. You stand by you wait,
Speaker 1: This isn't what we do. You stand by you wait.
Speaker 1: Time of death, seven nineteen pm. I know what my
Speaker 1: colleagues are feeling. I see it on their faces. We
Speaker 1: are exhausted. Hours in goggles, gowns, and masks feel like days.
Speaker 1: But we are only at the beginning. The mental exhaustion
Speaker 1: is only starting to set in the things we do,
Speaker 1: the things we see. This isn't what we do. I
Speaker 1: worry about my colleagues. Every day someone calls me crying.
Speaker 1: How long will they hold? How long will I hold?
Speaker 1: I remember how this anxiety gnawed at me every day
Speaker 1: in Guinea during abola. Would today be the day I
Speaker 1: got infected? Won't know for a week. The days add up,
Speaker 1: the worry adds up. I've never seen my colleagues so afraid,
Speaker 1: so unsettled. But I've also never seen them all work
Speaker 1: so well together. I've never seen us more unified, more focused,
Speaker 1: more sincere. Yes we worry about Ppe, Yes we worry
Speaker 1: about lack of medications. Yes we worry about one another.
Speaker 1: But I've never seen so much sense of purpose, so
Speaker 1: much honor to do this job. We didn't sign up
Speaker 1: for this, but we will show up for this. Every day.
Speaker 1: I think of this when I finally get home, close
Speaker 1: in a bag, hot shower, look in the mirror, indentations
Speaker 1: of goggles still deep in my face, blisters on the
Speaker 1: bridge of my nose. How long will we hold Jesus? Wow?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was.
Speaker 1: How Long will we Doctors Last? By Craig Spencer, published
Speaker 1: in The Washington Post on April third of this year.
Speaker 1: Craig Spencer is the Director of Global Health in Emergency
Speaker 1: Medicine at New York Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center. Also,
Speaker 1: if you want to read this and more from him,
Speaker 1: he has another really nice thread on his Twitter account
Speaker 1: describing what day to day life has been like for
Speaker 1: an er doctor during this pandemic.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, it's incredible and so difficult to imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's horrific. Erin Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: Well, Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh.
Speaker 1: And I'm Erin alman Updyke and this is this podcast
Speaker 1: will kill you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this episode is a continuation of our Anatomy of
Speaker 2: a Pandemic series, which is our series on COVID nineteen.
Speaker 2: In each of these episodes, we address different aspects of
Speaker 2: the pandemic with the help of experts in the field,
Speaker 2: because hey, we're not experts.
Speaker 3: We're not experts.
Speaker 2: Our first six episodes covered things like from the virus's
Speaker 2: biology to clinical disease, from control efforts to do mental
Speaker 2: health coping strategies.
Speaker 1: As you might be able to guess from the title
Speaker 1: of this episode, we're going to talk today about how
Speaker 1: spillover events happen and why. We'll talk about what we
Speaker 1: currently know about where SARS COVID two came from, and
Speaker 1: how we can use this pandemic to be better prepared
Speaker 1: to stop another. We were fortunate enough to speak with
Speaker 1: doctor JOHNA. Mazette, an incredible disease ecologists whose specialty lies
Speaker 1: in identifying emerging pathogens of public health concern.
Speaker 2: But before we get to that, we do have a
Speaker 2: couple of pieces of business to go over. First. Let's
Speaker 2: talk first hand accounts. Yes, so, we are working on
Speaker 2: more episodes of this series covering things like how the
Speaker 2: pandemic has impacted the economy, or education or marginalized populations,
Speaker 2: as well as update episodes on topics we've already covered.
Speaker 2: And for these update episodes, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: We want to hear how this pandemic has affected your life,
Speaker 2: your job, your family, your friends, etc. If you are
Speaker 2: willing to share your story with us for inclusion as
Speaker 2: a possible first hand account in one of these episodes,
Speaker 2: please go to our website this podcast willkill you dot
Speaker 2: com and click on COVID nineteen firsthand at the top
Speaker 2: of the page, and then that'll take you to a
Speaker 2: form that you can fill out and then we can
Speaker 2: get back to you with more details real quick.
Speaker 1: Another thing we wanted to say about first hand accounts,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like what everyone says in their Twitter
Speaker 1: bio retweets are not endorsements. There are so many people
Speaker 1: that are having so many different experiences and different perspectives
Speaker 1: during this pandemic. One of our goals with presenting these
Speaker 1: first hand accounts is to show just how huge the
Speaker 1: diversity is in how this pandemic is affecting people. So
Speaker 1: we hope that by hearing these stories, it's a way
Speaker 1: for us all to increase our understanding and empathy during
Speaker 1: these horrible, stressful times. We recognize that no single experience
Speaker 1: is going to be universal.
Speaker 2: So yeah, exactly, Okay. Another piece of business alcohol free episodes.
Speaker 2: So a little bit ago, we posted on our social
Speaker 2: media about alcohol free episodes now being available and so
Speaker 2: let me tell you what these are. So some educators
Speaker 2: reached out to us to ask whether there were versions
Speaker 2: of episodes that didn't contain the quarantine talk, and if
Speaker 2: there weren't, whether they could actually edit those portions out
Speaker 2: themselves for use in the classroom. And so, instead of
Speaker 2: having a bunch of people doing the same obnoxious work
Speaker 2: over and over again editing out the quarantine talk, we thought,
Speaker 2: you know, it's going to be easier to have them
Speaker 2: all in one place, available for whoever wants to use
Speaker 2: it for whatever reason. And so what we did is
Speaker 2: we edited out all the quarantiny talks from our past
Speaker 2: episodes and put these quote alcohol free episodes in a
Speaker 2: playlist on a page on our website called alcohol Free Episodes,
Speaker 2: which you can find under the episode tab.
Speaker 1: Are regular episodes like the one that you're currently listening to.
Speaker 1: Even though this is a little irregular for a regular
Speaker 1: episode that you get from your normal podcast sources, we
Speaker 1: will still have quarantines and plusy burtas, so you don't
Speaker 1: need to worry about losing those. These edited versions of
Speaker 1: our episodes is just an attempt for us to be
Speaker 1: more inclusive and accessible, because we recognize that a lot
Speaker 1: of teachers could get in trouble for sharing a podcast
Speaker 1: with their students that has a good amount of alcohol talk,
Speaker 1: and also maybe people who are in recovery or just
Speaker 1: don't want to listen to might find it difficult to
Speaker 1: listen to. This isn't about censorship or being sheltered or
Speaker 1: anything like that, and there's definitely no need for some
Speaker 1: of the harsh words that we've seen on social media
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 2: No, please, guys, let's just kind be kind, especially during
Speaker 2: this time. We all need it, right, we do, we do.
Speaker 2: And as we said, you do not need to worry
Speaker 2: that we're going to stop doing Quarantiny recipes because we're
Speaker 2: going to every single episode and we're about to in
Speaker 2: this one. So nothing is changing about the podcast. We're
Speaker 2: just providing an additional resource for people who want to
Speaker 2: use it. And frankly, we're flattered that some educators want
Speaker 2: to use our podcast in their classroom, like that's thrilling.
Speaker 3: Yes, it really is.
Speaker 2: So if you do not wish to hear quarantine Y Talk,
Speaker 2: you can find the edited quarantine Free versions under the
Speaker 2: episodes tab of our website, and there's also a disclaimer
Speaker 2: there at the top of that page that says that
Speaker 2: there might still be some references to alcohol throughout the
Speaker 2: episodes that we just haven't found, and so if you
Speaker 2: find one, of those and you want us to remove it,
Speaker 2: please send us the timestamp and the context of the mention.
Speaker 2: And if you do wish to hear quarantiny talk, just
Speaker 2: keep listening.
Speaker 1: Because it's quarantiny time.
Speaker 3: It's quarantiney time. What are we drinking this time?
Speaker 2: This time we're drinking Quarantini seven.
Speaker 3: Such a classic name.
Speaker 2: It is one for the ages. Quarantiny seven has rum,
Speaker 2: orange liquor, lemon juice, and cinnamon simple syrup. Demorros simple
Speaker 2: syrup also works pretty.
Speaker 3: Well too, fabulous.
Speaker 1: As always, we'll post the recipe for this quarantini and
Speaker 1: the non alcoholic plus e burrita on all of our
Speaker 1: social media pages and on our website. I wanted to
Speaker 1: say that very clo you.
Speaker 2: Enunciated that one that time. Okay, now that that's out
Speaker 2: of the way, let's go over a few things before
Speaker 2: we dive into the interview with doctor Mazette. First of all, masks.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, if you've been following the news at all,
Speaker 2: you may have seen that the CDC has now recommended
Speaker 2: people wear masks under certain circumstances. So let's talk about
Speaker 2: that decision. Earlier episode of this series, we went into
Speaker 2: masks a little bit, and we had repeated the CDC's
Speaker 2: previous recommendations for masks and why those recommendations were made
Speaker 2: a quick recap. So previously, wearing a mask was not
Speaker 2: advised for those who were not sick, and there were
Speaker 2: a number of reasons stated for this. One that maybe
Speaker 2: the most important one, masks are in very short supply
Speaker 2: and should be reserved for healthcare workers who are battling
Speaker 2: with this virus on a daily basis. Number two, most masks,
Speaker 2: especially those that are the most effective, require proper fitting
Speaker 2: in order to work. Number three, masks can lead to
Speaker 2: you touching your face more to adjust them or pull
Speaker 2: them down or to the side, And if that mask
Speaker 2: has viral particles on it, that's an easy way to
Speaker 2: become infected yourself, or if you're already infected, you can
Speaker 2: easily contaminate your hands and then other surfaces that you
Speaker 2: touch after adjusting your mask. And number four, it can
Speaker 2: in some case maybe give people a false sense of
Speaker 2: security and lead to less hand washing or physical distancing.
Speaker 3: So as of.
Speaker 1: April third of this year, the CDC is now recommending
Speaker 1: that people wear masks in certain situations, so kind of
Speaker 1: more broadly is now their recommendation. So the question is
Speaker 1: why is that what has changed? Quite honestly great question.
Speaker 1: According to the CDC website, it's because we know that
Speaker 1: a good chunk of people, we don't know exactly how many,
Speaker 1: but a good chunk of people can be infected with
Speaker 1: the virus, not show any symptoms, but still be able
Speaker 1: to transmit the virus asymptomatic transmission. Anyone who's listened to
Speaker 1: this podcast has known that for quite some time. Right,
Speaker 1: we've talked about that. Yeah, there's also evidence that people
Speaker 1: can transmit the virus before they start showing symptoms, even
Speaker 1: if they do eventually become symptomatic. And of course, if
Speaker 1: you have a mile infection, you can still transmit the virus.
Speaker 2: So none of this is new, brand new information discovered
Speaker 2: in the past week.
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: So these things asymptomatic transmission, infections before showing symptoms, We've
Speaker 2: known about these things, or at least highly suspected them
Speaker 2: for a while. And we meaning like the broader scientific community,
Speaker 2: not just like Aaron and.
Speaker 1: Aaron all the deeds.
Speaker 2: No, we didn't, We're our experts. Do we need to
Speaker 2: say it again?
Speaker 4: Uh So?
Speaker 2: But why has this recommendation changed now, and we don't
Speaker 2: know exactly because we're not in the room where these
Speaker 2: policy changes are being discussed and where these decisions are made.
Speaker 1: If anyone who's in those rooms wants to come on
Speaker 1: the podcast and talk to us about it, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you, because this is also a
Speaker 1: very interesting like, these are difficult things coming up with
Speaker 1: these policies and recommendation, So it would be fascinating to
Speaker 1: get to talk to somebody who actually does that. We
Speaker 1: don't do that, no, nope, So let's talk about what
Speaker 1: these new recommendations are exactly. On the CDC website as
Speaker 1: of April fourth, this is what it says. The CDC
Speaker 1: recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other
Speaker 1: social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, for example, grocery
Speaker 1: stores pharmacies, especially in areas of significant community based transmission.
Speaker 1: It is critical to emphasize that maintaining six feet social
Speaker 1: distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus.
Speaker 1: CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face
Speaker 1: coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help
Speaker 1: people who may have the virus and do not know
Speaker 1: it from transmitting it to others. The cloth face coverings
Speaker 1: recommended are not surgical masks or N ninety five respirators.
Speaker 1: Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved
Speaker 1: for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended
Speaker 1: by current CDC guidance end quote. So there is they're
Speaker 1: basically saying, wear a mask if you absolutely have to
Speaker 1: go out to help prevent transmitting this virus to other people,
Speaker 1: But masks are no replacement for staying at home. Also
Speaker 1: washing your hands and never touching your mask with dirty hands,
Speaker 1: does that make sense?
Speaker 2: And also washing your hands after touching your.
Speaker 1: Mask, yes, just washing your hands every time your hands
Speaker 1: go anywhere near your.
Speaker 2: Face for sure. Yeah, okay, okay, But this is an
Speaker 2: ongoing thing, and so there's going to be more information
Speaker 2: and we'd love to do a deeper dive into it
Speaker 2: with someone who is working first hand on this.
Speaker 5: Knows more than we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: All right. Are we ready to talk about spillover events?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: I sure?
Speaker 3: Am okay.
Speaker 2: I think the listeners of this podcast maybe don't need
Speaker 2: a whole lot of setup for this particular topic, because
Speaker 2: if you've listened to us before, you've heard us talk
Speaker 2: about spillover events and what they are, and diseasy collegy
Speaker 2: and what that is. So let's get right to it
Speaker 2: right after.
Speaker 3: This short break.
Speaker 4: I'm Jonah Mazette.
Speaker 6: I'm a professor of epidemiology and disease ecollege at the
Speaker 6: University of California Davis in the Veterinary School and the
Speaker 6: University of California, San Francisco in the Medical School, and
Speaker 6: I'm the executive director of the UC Davis One Health
Speaker 6: Institute there. I use one Health in everything I do
Speaker 6: and that our big team does, and what that means
Speaker 6: is we're looking at interconnectedness human, animal, plant, and environmental
Speaker 6: health and bringing together multidisciplinary teams to work on those
Speaker 6: really complex problems like this COVID nineteen situation. I've been
Speaker 6: the principal investigator for the Predict project that's been working
Speaker 6: in thirty five countries all over the world to identify dangerous,
Speaker 6: potentially pathogenic viruses that could spill over from animals into
Speaker 6: people and build the systems that are needed to be
Speaker 6: able to respond quickly and be ready for just the
Speaker 6: scenario that we have. And I've been doing that for
Speaker 6: ten years leading that team, and we detected and discovered
Speaker 6: one hundred and sixty novel coronaviruses through PREDICT when just
Speaker 6: a handful we're known, and as importantly, we learned about
Speaker 6: their hosts and the interfaces. And more importantly, I think
Speaker 6: we trained about sixty eight hundred people in this approach
Speaker 6: so that the world it can be better.
Speaker 4: I just wish more of them were here.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 6: I'm the director of the One Health Workforce Next Generation,
Speaker 6: which is the logical follow on from PREDICT, meaning that
Speaker 6: we want this trained workforce to be expanded in the
Speaker 6: most likely hot spots for spillover, so that academics all
Speaker 6: over the world.
Speaker 4: Can be training.
Speaker 6: People to be the workforce for hopefully to prevent anything
Speaker 6: like this ever happening again.
Speaker 4: And finally, I'm also on.
Speaker 6: The board of the directors of the new Global Viral Project,
Speaker 6: which really grew out of the PREDICT project. PREDICT provided
Speaker 6: the proof of concept that we don't need to wait
Speaker 6: for the next epidemic or tragically pandemic. We can get
Speaker 6: in front of the curve, in front of the wave.
Speaker 6: We can't understand viruses and know where they are sort
Speaker 6: of lurking and availab ble to spill over into people.
Speaker 6: We can know what they are, we can know how
Speaker 6: to detect them, we can know how to prevent our
Speaker 6: own risky behaviors that put us in harm's way.
Speaker 2: Awesome, so many different things that you're working on.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, No, it doesn't apologue.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's incredible, and it sounds like, I mean, some
Speaker 2: of these things sound like really fascinating. And you know
Speaker 2: you mentioned predict and you mentioned doing surveillance for emerging pathogens,
Speaker 2: and so can you take us through sort of a
Speaker 2: step by step of how that's done, Because there's like
Speaker 2: logistics involved with these working across international borders, and then
Speaker 2: there's the people in the field doing the sampling to
Speaker 2: then how do you group all of this information together
Speaker 2: and then disperse it to the people that need it.
Speaker 2: How does that work?
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a lot of minutia and not sexy work
Speaker 6: involved there, and a lot of it also qualifies or
Speaker 6: for being highlighted on dirty jobs.
Speaker 4: We swab a lot.
Speaker 6: Of butts on throats and noses. So I can take
Speaker 6: you through it. But the way that we begin is
Speaker 6: we begin with math. We begin with looking at the
Speaker 6: best science and pulling it together mathematically to identify hot
Speaker 6: spots that might be the places most likely for spillover
Speaker 6: to occur. And once we identify those countries, if they
Speaker 6: overlap with our funders for the PREDICT project, USA ID
Speaker 6: or US Agency for International Development where they want and
Speaker 6: can work, then we can approach the governments in those
Speaker 6: countries and ask if they'd like to participate. And the
Speaker 6: PREDICT Project was the first time I'd ever started an
Speaker 6: international effort where every single government that we talked to
Speaker 6: said absolutely, yes, this is critically important.
Speaker 4: We want to get in front of this.
Speaker 6: It's not we don't have the resource to do this,
Speaker 6: but we've loved a partner, so that was really refreshing.
Speaker 6: So we immediately had a collaborative process. But we in
Speaker 6: those initial government meetings, we brought together the ministries of Environment, Health,
Speaker 6: and Agriculture where the veterinary sector usually lives, so that
Speaker 6: we could apply the one health approach in those countries
Speaker 6: to really identify on the ground the best hotspots to
Speaker 6: target our work and then really get out there and
Speaker 6: collaboratively look at it from the animal side, the environmental side,
Speaker 6: as well as the human side. So we brought those
Speaker 6: teams together. I can talk to you more if you
Speaker 6: like about how that went. But once we found those
Speaker 6: hot spots to investigate, then we needed to train folks
Speaker 6: to be really safe biosafety and biosecurity number one, even
Speaker 6: including how to pack and ship samples. And before anybody
Speaker 6: could go out in the field, they needed to have
Speaker 6: a clearances for working with people and animals so that
Speaker 6: we knew that we could conduct the work in the
Speaker 6: most appropriate way. Then you have to get with the communities,
Speaker 6: because most communities, if you show up in white suits,
Speaker 6: even my house, if someone showed up in my front
Speaker 6: yard in a white suit trying to sample the birds
Speaker 6: in my yard, or in some of the communities where
Speaker 6: we work their food in the market, that would be
Speaker 6: horrifying to anyone. So we work with the communities and
Speaker 6: talk to them about what we're going to do, have
Speaker 6: them help us target exactly what kind of high risk
Speaker 6: interfaces they're seeing in their areas, and they become the
Speaker 6: really great informational partner and operational partners for us. Finally,
Speaker 6: then you can do the more sexy stuff, the stuff
Speaker 6: people like to film on the Discovery Channel of sampling
Speaker 6: the bats, sampling the non human primates, and getting sort
Speaker 6: of down into the mud, getting with the rodents and
Speaker 6: the shrews people's houses and trying to find the virus safely.
Speaker 6: Those samples didn't have to go to the laboratory. And
Speaker 6: we had to strengthen the capabilities for molecular virology in
Speaker 6: almost every place we work, because we were working in
Speaker 6: the least resource countries of the world most times, and
Speaker 6: most of them did not have the technology, they had
Speaker 6: the will to do this work, especially for wildlife. They
Speaker 6: didn't have places to do the wildlife virology. So we
Speaker 6: had to help build that up, and our teams at
Speaker 6: Davis and Columbia University were amazing and coming up with
Speaker 6: a low cost platform to really discover many, many, you know, more.
Speaker 4: Than thousand viruses.
Speaker 6: So once you get that done and you get in
Speaker 6: the lab and you safely do that, then you have
Speaker 6: to figure out what you do with that information.
Speaker 4: And there's two important things.
Speaker 6: One, it needs to get back to those governments and
Speaker 6: all of those across the platforms, those different ministries so
Speaker 6: that they can take action or at least have that
Speaker 6: information in their repository so that they know what to
Speaker 6: look for when something strange happens. And you have to
Speaker 6: get that information back into the hands of people like me,
Speaker 6: people like our team at Eco Health Alliance the mathematical
Speaker 6: modeling to really help inform on what should be done
Speaker 6: from a public health perspective globally and to figure out
Speaker 6: how to better target surveillance going forward. So it's kind
Speaker 6: of circular, and we do it better iteratively over time.
Speaker 3: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like a huge effort in just coordinating
Speaker 2: everyone's movements and activities and permits and all of that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, it's amazing. And so you know, hypothetically,
Speaker 2: let's say that you do or clearly you have found
Speaker 2: pathogens that have been a potential concern for public health
Speaker 2: health safety, and so what happens when you do identify
Speaker 2: let's say, a potential spillover event. What happens in that case?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean there are multiple scenarios. In the predict project.
Speaker 6: We assisted governments with forty five now forty six unfortunately
Speaker 6: counting this one outbreak investigations, many of which stayed really small,
Speaker 6: I think, testament to being prepared, some of which, like
Speaker 6: this one, the project was actually finished in the countries
Speaker 6: where we were working at that time, where were reactivated
Speaker 6: now thankfully, but those teams reactivated and helped identify the
Speaker 6: first cases of SARS Kobe two coming into their countries
Speaker 6: using the predict platform as well. But you know, when
Speaker 6: we do have a very concerning finding, we again have
Speaker 6: to be very careful. We go to the ministries and
Speaker 6: these viruses, we consider them sovereign to their property of
Speaker 6: their sovereign nation, so we always bring it back to
Speaker 6: the governments first and talk to them about how to
Speaker 6: release the information to the public. Certainly, we write publications,
Speaker 6: and we've gotten into a very interesting ethical dilemma sometimes
Speaker 6: about whether or not we should talk to the communities
Speaker 6: at risk or get our paper out. I think most
Speaker 6: all of us on the team feel like it's the
Speaker 6: right thing to do to put information out, even if
Speaker 6: it's not published. Now that's becoming more commonplace with pre
Speaker 6: prints and with this current again COVID nineteen situation, we're
Speaker 6: seeing that becoming more the norm, which I think is fantastic.
Speaker 4: Public health should be first.
Speaker 6: And foremost on all of our minds, and so that's
Speaker 6: a positive change that's coming out of this horrible tragedy.
Speaker 6: And I think there will be others.
Speaker 4: But yeah, we inform the ministry.
Speaker 6: I can give you an example, we identified a novel
Speaker 6: of bolavirus when we were working in Sierra Leone and
Speaker 6: we found it in bats that were living in people's homes.
Speaker 6: There aren't that many ebola viruses in the world, so
Speaker 6: we were immediately concerned about that, and we took that
Speaker 6: to the government and we worked with them to develop
Speaker 6: an outreach platform, even developed a illustrated guided book that
Speaker 6: could go out with the narrators picture book to all
Speaker 6: of the communities where we were working to start to
Speaker 6: give them the information but also the tools and the
Speaker 6: skills to be able to protect themselves in the communities,
Speaker 6: and then press releases and papers and all of those
Speaker 6: other things come as well. But at first and foremost,
Speaker 6: it's about letting the governments know so that they can
Speaker 6: prepare their plan and then working with the communities so
Speaker 6: they can protect themselves.
Speaker 2: Gotcha that makes sense. Yeah, So you talked about identifying
Speaker 2: hot spots where emerging infectious diseases or spillover events are
Speaker 2: more likely to occur. Can you talk about how you
Speaker 2: decide what a hot spot is and whether you know
Speaker 2: sort of what makes a hot spot a hot spot?
Speaker 3: Basically?
Speaker 6: Okay, Yeah, so hotspots for us uh, you know involve
Speaker 6: you know, a map with colors, and of course the
Speaker 6: hotter the spot, the redder the place on the map,
Speaker 6: but what what are the underpinnings of that map. So
Speaker 6: we've done a lot of research throughout well many of
Speaker 6: us before predicts started, but throughout the decade of predict
Speaker 6: to really figure that out and improve those models is
Speaker 6: kind of what I was saying about bringing that data
Speaker 6: back into the models and the things that make a
Speaker 6: hot spot a hot spot so far are places where
Speaker 6: there's wildlife, so biodiversity is critical. Places where people are
Speaker 6: interacting with that wildlife, and so we call those high
Speaker 6: risk in our faces. So we identify those higher risk
Speaker 6: in our faces. Those often come together where human population
Speaker 6: growth is high, biodiversity is high, and landscape change is
Speaker 6: high or evolving. So in the more pristine areas we
Speaker 6: often have a little bit lower risk. In the more
Speaker 6: urban areas, we have high risk for amplification and spread,
Speaker 6: but a little bit lower risk for spillover. It's kind
Speaker 6: of those intermediate areas where things are changing, you're chopping
Speaker 6: down for us to make farmland. Those kinds of areas
Speaker 6: where we really see the systems of the animals and
Speaker 6: the people being stressed and the ecosystems being stressed, and
Speaker 6: that makes for a perfect recipe for spillover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. So on the podcast we've talked
Speaker 2: a lot about spillover events in general, but could you
Speaker 2: kind of give us like a step by step and
Speaker 2: maybe whether there are any patterns that we can see
Speaker 2: in all spillover events.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm sure your listeners are quite a bit better
Speaker 6: verse now about the human food value chain, including all
Speaker 6: the way from hunting or farming food, especially wildlife or
Speaker 6: species that aren't used to being farmed or are coming
Speaker 6: in too often contact with humans, or throughout evolutionary history
Speaker 6: haven't been living in close contact with humans.
Speaker 4: So all the way through that wildlife human food.
Speaker 6: Value chain, we have concerns, and certainly we've been raising
Speaker 6: the flag about our concerns, especially at the market level
Speaker 6: where you have a lot of wildlife species mixing together
Speaker 6: that don't normally live together. So again, really big ecosystem disturbance,
Speaker 6: even if the ecosystem is the market, because you're housing
Speaker 6: these animals together, and then all the way through to restaurants,
Speaker 6: restaurants that keep live animals, but restaurants that buy the
Speaker 6: animals at those markets. So that's one that people are
Speaker 6: now aware of that we've been kind of concerned about
Speaker 6: warning about. Conservation organizations also been warning about for a
Speaker 6: long time. Other ones are really things that people didn't
Speaker 6: necessarily aren't thinking about.
Speaker 4: Here, there's a huge bat guano.
Speaker 6: Industry all the way from going into caves and collecting
Speaker 6: guano from natural caves that just the humans in their
Speaker 6: digging is a big at us system disturbance, or setting
Speaker 6: up actual attractants for bats to collect their guano so
Speaker 6: that they preferentially, you know, roost in palm fronds right
Speaker 6: at the farm and then you can take that guano
Speaker 6: and put it right onto the fields for fertilizer. So
Speaker 6: these are really other important in our faces. And then
Speaker 6: there were ones that just take us into the wilds.
Speaker 6: For example, we need elements and minerals for our cell
Speaker 6: phones to make them faster, thinner, sexier, better, and we
Speaker 6: often need need those minerals for rare places for human
Speaker 6: populations to go, like deep into caves. So all these
Speaker 6: things are our interfaces that I think you can think of,
Speaker 6: but they do all have something in common, and that
Speaker 6: is that people are sort of treading heavily into systems
Speaker 6: or effectively changing the evolutionary patterns that have been at
Speaker 6: work for hundreds of years. So when we disrupt those patterns,
Speaker 6: we put ourselves at risk, both because we may be
Speaker 6: out of our element, but most especially because we're putting
Speaker 6: pressure on the systems, including the wildlife in those systems.
Speaker 6: So we may expose ourselves to things that we're susceptible
Speaker 6: to because we're evolutionarily naive.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And so you know, in talking about land use
Speaker 2: change and that interface or that barrier between humans and
Speaker 2: wildlife seems to have kind of decreased. Well, the barrier
Speaker 2: has decreased, the land you change has increased over the past, say,
Speaker 2: one hundred two hundred years, And so do we see
Speaker 2: a corresponding increase in spillover events?
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, we certainly have.
Speaker 6: Our projections and those of other great scientists show that
Speaker 6: we can expect about three recognized emerging infectious diseases each year.
Speaker 6: And I think that our projections will be updated to
Speaker 6: even show more. Our predictata is showing that spillovers are
Speaker 6: happening actually quite frequently, even of things as scary as avlaviruses,
Speaker 6: and that they don't always, in fact, don't often take
Speaker 6: off and cause a recognized outbreak. They might only make
Speaker 6: one person sick and then, for whatever reason, that person
Speaker 6: doesn't infect someone else again.
Speaker 4: As we look at how.
Speaker 6: Humans, animals, and the environment interact, sometimes all of the
Speaker 6: perfect scenarios come together for tragedy, and sometimes they don't,
Speaker 6: and just one person gets sick and no physician anywhere
Speaker 6: would pick that up and think of.
Speaker 4: Testing for something new. In that scenario, the person either
Speaker 4: gets better or they unfortunately don't, and it ends. So
Speaker 4: those spillovers are happening a lot. I think if you
Speaker 4: look throughout history, initially there wasn't great evidence of germ
Speaker 4: theory or people didn't believe in it, so we don't
Speaker 4: have a lot of data for you know, hundreds of
Speaker 4: years ago. And then those pathogens that.
Speaker 6: Were noticed and picked up were the ones we were
Speaker 6: sharing with domestic animals, which make total sense because we're
Speaker 6: living in close contact with them, especially the ones that
Speaker 6: we eat, so we were sharing pathogens with them, and
Speaker 6: we recognize that, and we now documented that we know
Speaker 6: how to control that. Over time, I think we got
Speaker 6: a little complacent, and especially as the human population has grown,
Speaker 6: you know, eight billion people on the Earth were living
Speaker 6: in more frequent contact with wildlife pushing out into wild lands.
Speaker 4: And we need to figure it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it's kind of when you think about
Speaker 2: it that way too. It's hard to know how many
Speaker 2: close calls we've had in terms of pandemics, how many
Speaker 2: just was a dead end host kind of a situation.
Speaker 2: So and so, you know, going now specifically into Star's
Speaker 2: CoV two, which is of course, as you know, the
Speaker 2: virus that causes COVID nineteen, what do we know at
Speaker 2: this point as to how it's spilled over into humans,
Speaker 2: what those steps were.
Speaker 4: We don't know much at all.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, my soapbox, if we had been
Speaker 6: doing this work more broadly earlier.
Speaker 4: And people were beyond.
Speaker 6: Sort of the same people that all collaborate had, if
Speaker 6: we had been paying more attention, we would have been
Speaker 6: able to know a lot more. But unfortunately this kind
Speaker 6: of work will probably not be done or known until
Speaker 6: after the pandemic at Lease begins to wane, because right now,
Speaker 6: the best minds to do this work have to be
Speaker 6: focused on the human to human spread.
Speaker 4: We have to get that under control.
Speaker 6: We do believe with quite a bit of confidence that
Speaker 6: the virus is bat origin and that the evolutionary host
Speaker 6: is vats. Whether or not it's spilled over into an
Speaker 6: intermediate host is a good question, but it didn't need to.
Speaker 6: We know from our other work and receptor binding work
Speaker 6: that these Stars related and Stars too related viruses can
Speaker 6: have quite broad host plasticity or a host range, and
Speaker 6: they can infect numerous species. So there's a lot of
Speaker 6: talk about what that species might have been. And it
Speaker 6: could have been anything that people were exposing themselves to
Speaker 6: in markets or other things, or it could have been
Speaker 6: a bat flying through. So it will take some time
Speaker 6: to figure that out.
Speaker 2: When we do, which I assume hopefully, we will get
Speaker 2: at least a clearer picture of how that spillover event occurred.
Speaker 2: How can we use that information in the future, like
Speaker 2: what does that tell us?
Speaker 6: So always in retrospect we can learn more about how
Speaker 6: to control our risk. That said, I want to live
Speaker 6: in a world where we're not doing it retrospectively. I
Speaker 6: think we can learn more now. And we were learning again,
Speaker 6: as I mentioned, with the predict project. We knew that
Speaker 6: these markets where animals were sort of housed and really
Speaker 6: high density kind of crushed together, stacked on top of
Speaker 6: each other, and multiple species we're mixing that might have
Speaker 6: been occurring in the market that at least amplified, if
Speaker 6: not started, this pandemic. We know that's dangerous, we knew
Speaker 6: it before. Hopefully we will see solid policy change. There's
Speaker 6: some great movement towards that, and some concerning event reopening
Speaker 6: markets and things that point to us really having a
Speaker 6: hard time changing our behavior. Humans are the issue here.
Speaker 6: We have to get more comfortable with change and that's
Speaker 6: evolutionary to us. We're not comfortable with that, so that's
Speaker 6: going to be tough. So we can learn from this one.
Speaker 6: We can also because we have lots of samples and
Speaker 6: lots of people interested, we can learn as we're responding
Speaker 6: to this one about our transmission risk and those intermediate hosts.
Speaker 6: We just have to do the work, and there's so
Speaker 6: much more attention now. I think the time is here.
Speaker 6: We can have a lot of positivity and hope that
Speaker 6: this horrible, horrible tragedy will help us to do things
Speaker 6: differently to keep anything like this from happening again, but
Speaker 6: also to allow us to strengthen our governmental and public
Speaker 6: health systems so that we're much more nimble and ready
Speaker 6: and able to respond to anything that comes our way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So going back again quickly, just to spill over
Speaker 2: events in general, can you talk about what it means
Speaker 2: for a pathogen to jump species? And also, you know,
Speaker 2: I feel like I hear mostly or read mostly or
Speaker 2: for some reason just associate mostly viruses as jumping species
Speaker 2: more than bacteria. Is that a known characteristic or is
Speaker 2: it just that we hear more about the viruses?
Speaker 6: Well, Aaron, I mean, I think the reason you're hearing
Speaker 6: about it now is because we're paying attention to viruses. Frankly,
Speaker 6: I would say, other than a few really important viruses
Speaker 6: like influenza and HIV, we haven't been in our medical
Speaker 6: history been paying very much attention to viruses. Frankly, you know,
Speaker 6: we know a lot lot more about bacteria because we've
Speaker 6: been paying attention to them. They're easier to work with
Speaker 6: without molecular tools, and now we have the tools, so
Speaker 6: we have no excuses. We need to do that for
Speaker 6: viruses and know as much about them as we've known
Speaker 6: about bacteria.
Speaker 3: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: So you know, I want to talk now a bit
Speaker 2: about what happens when prevention, So identifying these pathogens before
Speaker 2: they spill over or write at a spillover event when
Speaker 2: that has to shift to control efforts. So what are
Speaker 2: the first steps taken for disease ecologists that are studying
Speaker 2: this outbreak in particular, and how is the one health
Speaker 2: approach being used to study and slow down the current pandemic.
Speaker 6: Well, we have to get together and make sure that
Speaker 6: we're again working in that sort of one health approach
Speaker 6: where we're collaboratively bringing the disciplines together.
Speaker 4: Everybody has their.
Speaker 6: Area of expertise and can work on their own specific part,
Speaker 6: but we need to communicate and collaborate to really get
Speaker 6: a handle on things. So in really good one health responses,
Speaker 6: we see the governments and entities regulatory entities that are
Speaker 6: in charge pulling together those platforms for communication, collaboration and
Speaker 6: assignments of everybody's different role and then coming back together.
Speaker 6: In Uganda, for example, they have a Zonautic Disease Task
Speaker 6: Force that over the years of the predict project, we
Speaker 6: saw it going from just you know, being sort of
Speaker 6: ad hoc and stood up often way too late when
Speaker 6: an outbreak started, to being a constant, permanent committee that
Speaker 6: was ready and available and would be activated within hours
Speaker 6: of a first case being identified, and then you could
Speaker 6: see that the environmental team would go out and start
Speaker 6: sampling in the environment, understanding the environmental exposures, figuring out
Speaker 6: how to clean those up and protect people. You saw
Speaker 6: the animal side trying to find the hosts, making sure
Speaker 6: additional spillovers don't happen or things don't get amplified in
Speaker 6: animal hosts while the really important work for human to
Speaker 6: human spread contact tracing control go into place. Unfortunately, at
Speaker 6: least here in our country, that didn't happen this time,
Speaker 6: and I'm you know, disappointed about that.
Speaker 4: But the only thing that.
Speaker 6: We can do now is say we have the opportunity
Speaker 6: to fix that for the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I wanted to talk a bit about conservation and
Speaker 2: how wildlife conservation fits into this and what role we
Speaker 2: see wildlife conservation playing in spillover events or preventing them,
Speaker 2: and then also maybe a little bit of the conflict
Speaker 2: in terms of how wildlife conservation is sort of a
Speaker 2: you know, public greater good thing when people are struggling
Speaker 2: to feed their families. I don't know if you wanted
Speaker 2: to chat a little bit about that.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, so, especially in this one, I think there's a
Speaker 6: moment here that we shouldn't lose. From a wildlife conservation perspective,
Speaker 6: people are aware that wildlife in markets now presents a risk,
Speaker 6: and it's really the heavily trafficked wildlife that presents the
Speaker 6: biggest challenge from a conservation perspective. And even for the
Speaker 6: most heavily trafficked wildlife penguins, we're seeing that they're likely
Speaker 6: susceptible hosts or at least could be infected with closely
Speaker 6: related if not this Stars two coronavirus.
Speaker 4: So first and foremost.
Speaker 6: Wildlife that is moving around the planet, sometimes legally, sometimes
Speaker 6: not legally, and into our value chains for medicines, foods,
Speaker 6: and things, those are targets of surveillance and control. And
Speaker 6: for wildlife that's trafficked or hunted, captured, transferred illegally, we
Speaker 6: can really do a greater good for the wildlife while
Speaker 6: also doing an amazing risk reduction effort for humans. So
Speaker 6: I think that the time is now to look at that.
Speaker 6: And frankly, a lot of that traffic wildlife is moved
Speaker 6: by the same bad actors that move drugs and traffic humans,
Speaker 6: and we want to see that stopped. Certainly, there are
Speaker 6: places where we look at the tradeoffs of protein availability
Speaker 6: and nutrition and what's available to people. So certainly we
Speaker 6: can think about better ways to get protein into diets
Speaker 6: than eating wildlife. But really, frankly, in my last decade
Speaker 6: of work and going to these markets, most of the
Speaker 6: wildlife is more expensive.
Speaker 4: We have papers on this. Most of the wildlife is
Speaker 4: more expensive.
Speaker 6: Than chickens and even pork, which is sometimes a very
Speaker 6: highly valued meat.
Speaker 4: And it's really.
Speaker 6: Tradition and sort of the everybody at Thanksgiving has the
Speaker 6: thing they like the best. Some people want to make
Speaker 6: sure there's turkey or macaroni and cheese, and families all
Speaker 6: over the world have those preferences and traditional dishes.
Speaker 4: That make events special.
Speaker 6: And that is a lot of what we see in
Speaker 6: the legal wildlife trade. And so again it's human behavior
Speaker 6: and what will tolerate and what will change to protect
Speaker 6: ourselves as well as the planet.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, absolutely, I mean, and it's hard because I
Speaker 2: think this is again where something like a one health
Speaker 2: approach or a more interdisciplinary approach is really crucial in
Speaker 2: trying to get messages not only from the people studying
Speaker 2: these pathogens to people maybe expose these pathogens, but also
Speaker 2: vice versa. What are the things that they're concerned about,
Speaker 2: what are the trade offs that they view, and how
Speaker 2: do we come to a compromise while also making everyone healthy?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Absolutely so so far in this pandemic. What do you
Speaker 2: think we have learned from a one health or maybe
Speaker 2: a disease ecology perspective that you think could help us
Speaker 2: prepare for or hopefully stop the next one.
Speaker 4: Well, certainly need to be ready earlier.
Speaker 6: So what we did with the predict project provided a
Speaker 6: proof of concept that we need to go even further,
Speaker 6: and we need to have a one health approach to
Speaker 6: be able to prepare.
Speaker 4: That's why you know, I've.
Speaker 6: Joined the Global Virum Project, and we really want to
Speaker 6: understand the host, the interfaces, the geographical locations, not just
Speaker 6: identify the viruses early, but understand what will make them
Speaker 6: a jumper and how to target therapeutics and diagnostics. And
Speaker 6: that takes more than just finding the virus once. Really,
Speaker 6: you know, we've been working on a risk ranking for
Speaker 6: all the new viruses that we've found and others have found,
Speaker 6: and a tool that we call spillover that that will
Speaker 6: help us rank those viruses. We've used experts from around
Speaker 6: the world the best in the field to help us
Speaker 6: rank about forty different factors epidemiological, ecologically, viralogically, to help
Speaker 6: us collect that information and rank new viruses as they're found.
Speaker 6: The key thing to that is is having enough detections
Speaker 6: to understand if they're single host viruses or if they're
Speaker 6: easily moving between species. And if they're easily moving between species,
Speaker 6: that certainly moves them way up high on our risk ranking.
Speaker 2: How do you determine whether something easily moves between species?
Speaker 2: Is that something like that's a genomic question or is
Speaker 2: it an experimental question.
Speaker 4: We can do it multiple ways.
Speaker 6: So certainly we can do it genomically, looking at both
Speaker 6: the virus' ability to bind to receptors and then the
Speaker 6: host receptors' ability to receive that virus.
Speaker 4: That's happening with coronaviruses.
Speaker 6: We've been doing that for quite a few years and
Speaker 6: working with some of the best folks out there, like
Speaker 6: at North Carolina University to do that work.
Speaker 4: But you can also do it in a low tech way.
Speaker 6: And frankly, if you go out and sample the wildlife
Speaker 6: and you find the viruses, then they're getting into those wildlife,
Speaker 6: so you don't necessarily for every single virus need to
Speaker 6: do heavy duty laboratory investigations because that's very expensive and
Speaker 6: time consuming. You can start by identifying those viruses and
Speaker 6: if you're doing heavy sampling, you can say, okay, this
Speaker 6: one is only ever being found in this one species.
Speaker 4: It's much less likely to jump.
Speaker 6: Let's look at it spike protein and in the host
Speaker 6: that is two receptors. To see what makes that one
Speaker 6: different than all these coronaviruses that seem to be able
Speaker 6: to jump.
Speaker 4: And we find in dozens of posts.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm. You know, I think the predict project with
Speaker 2: its one health approach is such a perfect example of
Speaker 2: how you can have expertise in one field and bring
Speaker 2: so many different people together with all so many different
Speaker 2: expertise together to still work on one common goal. And
Speaker 2: so you know you mentioned mathematician AND's field, ecologists, veterinarians, physicians, Like,
Speaker 2: what are some other examples of people? Because I know
Speaker 2: that people after this are going to want to get
Speaker 2: involved and maybe this is something that speaks to them.
Speaker 2: So what can they do?
Speaker 4: I mean a big one that we need more of that.
Speaker 6: We have some great social scientists working with us, both
Speaker 6: in the behavior realm and the in economics on the
Speaker 6: Predict Project and the Global viron Project, those areas of
Speaker 6: expertise are underrepresented in health work, and frankly, because they're
Speaker 6: underrepresented in health work in academia, we've undertrained people to
Speaker 6: help us with this, and we're going to feel that,
Speaker 6: especially from the behavior change perspective, we really need those
Speaker 6: medical and cultural anthropologists that are willing and able to
Speaker 6: innovate in behavior change if we're going to get in front.
Speaker 4: Of these things.
Speaker 2: Awesome. So what do you think are some of the
Speaker 2: biggest barriers or es in identifying these spillover events in
Speaker 2: the future? And maybe you know, even though we've learned
Speaker 2: so much from this, what do you think in the
Speaker 2: future is going to make it more difficult to prevent
Speaker 2: something like this from happening again.
Speaker 6: Well, for me, the future is right and I have
Speaker 6: a lot of hope that this tragedy will allow us
Speaker 6: to not have to live with the barriers anymore. I
Speaker 6: think the barriers have always been there and we can
Speaker 6: break them down now. The barriers are really human nature barriers.
Speaker 6: We deal with what we were worried about because it
Speaker 6: just happened, instead of looking forward. It's hard to prioritize
Speaker 6: resources to things that might only might happen instead of
Speaker 6: definitely will happen. And when the resources are limited, of
Speaker 6: course we're going to take care of what's affecting our
Speaker 6: population right now, but in some of the better resource
Speaker 6: countries like our own, we need to contribute to and
Speaker 6: take care of what we know will come, even if
Speaker 6: we don't know when. So I think those barriers are
Speaker 6: lowered right now. We have to take advantage of that
Speaker 6: lowering to really stop chasing the last eponemic and start
Speaker 6: preparing for the next one. And we can prepare sort
Speaker 6: of agnostically to the pathogen to be ready to bring
Speaker 6: in the right people. So if the next one happens
Speaker 6: to be a paramixa virus like measles in that family,
Speaker 6: we can have all the contingency plans and bring in
Speaker 6: the best labs that work on those every day for
Speaker 6: that emergency early phase response, so that while our government
Speaker 6: gets ready and makes its test kits and everything, we
Speaker 6: aren't just waiting. We're testing, and we're using that very
Speaker 6: willing and able workforce that can be pre approved on
Speaker 6: a contingency basis. So I really think those barriers are
Speaker 6: down right now, but we need to take advantage of this,
Speaker 6: this opportunity that's presented itself out of chaos and tragedy.
Speaker 2: That was awesome. Thank you so much, doctor Mazette. I
Speaker 2: just had the greatest time talking with you.
Speaker 3: I'm just so jealous, Aaron.
Speaker 1: I'm at home with a baby currently who doesn't like
Speaker 1: to nap for long enough for me to get to
Speaker 1: do these interviews.
Speaker 2: Listen, your presence was missed, and.
Speaker 1: Yep, someday I'd like to meet you, doctor Mazette. Anyways,
Speaker 1: what did we learn from that interview?
Speaker 2: We learned a lot of things, a lot of things.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the five just as we have for
Speaker 2: other episodes in the series. So the first thing that
Speaker 2: we learned isn't that new, and we've said it before,
Speaker 2: but I think it bears repeating. Spillover events have been
Speaker 2: on the rise for a very long time, and there
Speaker 2: is no slowing down. In sight. Researchers estimate that we'll
Speaker 2: see three recognized emerging infectious diseases every year. Three Those
Speaker 2: are just the ones that we recognize, and so that
Speaker 2: means that there are a good deal of spillover events
Speaker 2: or emerging infectious diseases that we may not even realize
Speaker 2: are there simply because the person got better or they
Speaker 2: died and no one else got infected, and we didn't
Speaker 2: know what to look for, or even that we should
Speaker 2: be looking for something. So the more we look, the
Speaker 2: more likely we are to catch something early and stop
Speaker 2: a potential pandemic in its tracks.
Speaker 1: Dang three A year, three a year, my gracious all right?
Speaker 3: Number two.
Speaker 1: There is a usual sequence of events that emerging infectious
Speaker 1: disease researchers follow when they collect and present their data. Normally,
Speaker 1: it goes like this, collect data, present the data to
Speaker 1: governments of the countries where you're working, and then begin
Speaker 1: the lengthy process of publishing the data in peer reviewed articles.
Speaker 1: An ethical dilemma can arise about whether the data you've
Speaker 1: collected should be shared with the communities at risk before
Speaker 1: being published, And the reason for that dilemma is not
Speaker 1: because you're worried about being scooped, but because the peer
Speaker 1: review process is an important way of double checking your
Speaker 1: work with people who don't have any horse in the race.
Speaker 1: By and large, though, there seems to be consensus that
Speaker 1: getting that information to the communities at risk as soon
Speaker 1: as possible is the right thing to do, even if
Speaker 1: the data aren't published yet. And this is something that
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot in this current pandemic and will
Speaker 1: hopefully cause us to re examine the way we get
Speaker 1: public health information out there in the future.
Speaker 2: Number Three, we know how spillover events happen and we
Speaker 2: can estimate where they are most likely to occur. Spillover
Speaker 2: events are caused by humans invading wild spaces and wild
Speaker 2: animal habitats, changing the natural environment. When people do this,
Speaker 2: we stress the systems and the wildlife, and that leads
Speaker 2: to us exposing ourselves to things to which we are
Speaker 2: immunologically naive, something we've never our bodies have never seen before.
Speaker 2: And so the places that tend to be hot spots
Speaker 2: for spillover events are high in biodiversity and have increasing
Speaker 2: or evolving landscape change. And this is because in those
Speaker 2: places the barriers between humans and wildlife are lowered, and
Speaker 2: the wildlife trade in particular poses a pretty huge threat
Speaker 2: not only to the conservation of some of them most
Speaker 2: trafficked animals, but also to public health because that's where
Speaker 2: a lot of these spillover events happen, and conservation efforts
Speaker 2: would go a long way towards reducing the likelihood of
Speaker 2: spillover events, but policies also need to be sensitive and
Speaker 2: keep in mind cultural traditions and the basic needs of
Speaker 2: people living in these hotspots.
Speaker 1: Number four, how many times can we say this, We
Speaker 1: need to stop chasing the last pandemic and spend more
Speaker 1: resources on stopping the next one. What by doing that
Speaker 1: we can enable an entire, willing and skilled workforce that
Speaker 1: can give us a leg up on preventing another devastating pandemic.
Speaker 1: We've said before that when these emerging infections occur, we're
Speaker 1: not starting from scratch, but let's make sure we can
Speaker 1: do all we can to start as far away from
Speaker 1: scratch as possible. Invest in global heal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh okay. Number five, we gotta work together. We
Speaker 2: got to work together. So working together this is what
Speaker 2: the one Health approach is all about. And so by
Speaker 2: recognizing that the health of humans, animals, plants, and the
Speaker 2: environment is interconnected, it makes it so that a lot
Speaker 2: of disciplines have to work together to understand the drivers
Speaker 2: of disease, and people who work in one Health have
Speaker 2: done a great job of collaborating across disciplines that are
Speaker 2: very different. But there is also a need for more
Speaker 2: social scientists in healthcare and especially health research fields, because
Speaker 2: we can do all of this super cool ecology or
Speaker 2: microbiology or mapping research, but if we want this research
Speaker 2: to make an impact on people, we need to communicate
Speaker 2: these things to communities and get them involved.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Okay, what a fun episode.
Speaker 2: It was so great. I mean honestly, like, I was
Speaker 2: very nervous. I felt like completely starstruck, and it was
Speaker 2: really fun to talk with her. So and also thank
Speaker 2: you so much to Brooke for putting us in touch
Speaker 2: with doctor Rosette. It was very appreciated.
Speaker 1: Fantastic guest to have. And also a huge thank you
Speaker 1: to my very good friend Zuwen Spiegelman for all of
Speaker 1: your help with our first hand account form. Reminder, if
Speaker 1: you'd like to share your first hand account with us,
Speaker 1: please go to our website this podcast will Kill You
Speaker 1: dot com and click on COVID firsthand.
Speaker 2: Ah, let's do sources real quick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's okay.
Speaker 2: Once again, that first hand account was by doctor Craig
Speaker 2: Spencer and the article appeared in the Washington Post. We
Speaker 2: will also post a link to the new recommendations on
Speaker 2: the CDC website regarding the use of cloth face coverings excellent.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the music for this
Speaker 1: and all of our episodes.
Speaker 2: Did you know that you can find blood ba Bill's
Speaker 2: music if you click on our website and then you
Speaker 2: click on music, you can find it. You can, Dan,
Speaker 2: and thank you to you listeners for listening. We know
Speaker 2: that these are very trying times and so.
Speaker 1: We hope that you find I don't know those of
Speaker 1: you who find comfort in more information, which is obviously
Speaker 1: the kind of people that we are. Hopefully you're getting
Speaker 1: something out of these episodes, and we hope you're staying
Speaker 1: safe and well mentally and physically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. And if there's an aspect of this
Speaker 2: pandemic that you want us to cover in more depth
Speaker 2: or more detail, we're open to hearing suggestions.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, until next time, wash your hands.
Speaker 5: You feel the animals. Bum bum bum