Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, April fourteen. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily
Speaker 1: coronavirus update. Researchers are looking into how an immune system
Speaker 1: gone haywire, maybe doing the most damage and patients experience
Speaker 1: some of the most severe symptoms and even death because
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen. This might be happening in two stages. First,
Speaker 1: the immune system fails to respond quickly enough to the virus,
Speaker 1: then responds to aggressively and causes more damage. Joe Walker,
Speaker 1: reporter for The Wall Street Journal, joins us for why
Speaker 1: hyperactive immune response maybe making things worse. Thanks for joining us, Joe,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. We're continuing to learn more about the coronavirus
Speaker 1: and COVID nineteen. One of the things that everybody is
Speaker 1: concerned with is obviously why some people get these very
Speaker 1: severe symptoms from the virus and why some people die
Speaker 1: from it. For a long time, we've been saying people
Speaker 1: with underlying health conditions are more at risk. You know,
Speaker 1: it just seems to kind of create this perfect storm.
Speaker 1: But also included all of this is the immune response
Speaker 1: for every person that could be different due to genetics.
Speaker 1: And other reasons, but an immune system that goes haywire
Speaker 1: could be eyed and why some people are dying from
Speaker 1: the coronavirus. Joe tell us a little bit about this.
Speaker 1: The idea here, right, is that COVID nineteen is flu
Speaker 1: like symptoms that are really really bad. We all know
Speaker 1: that my headache, coughing, fatigue, all this kind of stuff, right,
Speaker 1: pneumonia really terrible symptoms. But most people get over those symptoms,
Speaker 1: you know, their immune system does the job for them.
Speaker 1: And then you have this like maybe fifteen people who
Speaker 1: end up on ventilators and some of them die, and
Speaker 1: people increasingly think that what's happening there is that it's
Speaker 1: not so much the virus anymore. The person's own body
Speaker 1: and their own immune response is just going haywire. It's overreacting, essentially,
Speaker 1: it's doing too much too fast, and what it's doing
Speaker 1: is basically creating this mechanism whereby fluids seep into the
Speaker 1: lungs and fill them up like wounds, and you end
Speaker 1: up in a situation called acute respiratory distress syndrome, which
Speaker 1: basically means you can't breathe, your organs can't get oxygen,
Speaker 1: and barring intervention, you die from respiratory failure, and doctors
Speaker 1: think that there's two stages to this. Two steps. So
Speaker 1: the first is the lag your immune system is kind
Speaker 1: of lagging in attacking it, and then once it sees
Speaker 1: that it's there, then it goes and overcompensates. And then
Speaker 1: this is the part where it can become a problem
Speaker 1: where your immune system is going overboard and it's actually
Speaker 1: destroying healthy cells in addition to trying to fight the virus.
Speaker 1: Exactly the way when researcher pointed out to me was
Speaker 1: like if you have a ride in the streets, you know,
Speaker 1: and you send your local police there, but it's just
Speaker 1: way too much, the riots, way out of control, and
Speaker 1: so then you send in the riot police. But like
Speaker 1: at that point everything is just chaos and it's just
Speaker 1: a mess because you didn't send in the right authority
Speaker 1: of the right police force soon enough, and so then
Speaker 1: everything just kind of is mayhem. So the way that
Speaker 1: you described it in this sort of two stage process
Speaker 1: does seem to be what happens to a portion of
Speaker 1: patients that end up getting really sick and some of
Speaker 1: them die, and this whole moment of chaos in the
Speaker 1: body with the immune system. Doctors and scientists they call
Speaker 1: it a cytokine storm. So it's kind of this perfect
Speaker 1: storm of chaos going on in the body, and they're
Speaker 1: eyeing certain drugs. I don't know if they're full on.
Speaker 1: Immunosuppressants are certain things that can target these things to
Speaker 1: maybe help calm that part down in an effort to
Speaker 1: not have the body go hey wire that way. So
Speaker 1: cyted kinds are these proteins that your immune system uses
Speaker 1: to fight off infections to help keep you healthy when
Speaker 1: you're sick. Right, there's a bunch of different ones and
Speaker 1: usually they're good things, right, But when they use this,
Speaker 1: some kind of goes crazy. Like this, it's putting way
Speaker 1: too many of the cided kinds into your body all
Speaker 1: at once, and that's what's sort of causing the problems.
Speaker 1: And so there are a number of drugs that people
Speaker 1: are testing right now. I'd say the most advanced are
Speaker 1: these two medicines that are both the per if The
Speaker 1: one is called that Camera and the other one is
Speaker 1: called Czara. They're both on the market for other conditions,
Speaker 1: but they blocked these one kind of sided kind of
Speaker 1: particular called Aisle six, and so the hope is that
Speaker 1: if you can block this one side of kind that
Speaker 1: looks like it's playing a role in these negative effects
Speaker 1: you're having, that I could kind of quiet this storm
Speaker 1: and help take all this pressure off the body so
Speaker 1: that can actually fight the virus again. You know. And
Speaker 1: we write in the article about some pretty encouraging anecdotal
Speaker 1: results about people being treated with these drugs and having
Speaker 1: really good results. And we have to be very clear
Speaker 1: on this. There's a lot of talk about different drugs
Speaker 1: going on. Hydroxy Chloroquine is one that the President likes
Speaker 1: to talk about. People have hit or miss evidence with it.
Speaker 1: That's something more that people are saying, take it beforehand
Speaker 1: or early on when you get COVID nineteen for people
Speaker 1: that have really really bad symptoms. These are for people
Speaker 1: where the body is actually starting to do harm to itself.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of on a different spectrum. I think
Speaker 1: that's right, because you know, look, all drugs have side effects,
Speaker 1: and you never know exactly how bad each persons side
Speaker 1: effects will be, so it's not the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you really just want to like fool around with and
Speaker 1: take for giggles. And so with these words, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the target the immune system in particular. Um, you
Speaker 1: want to be really careful. I will just say though,
Speaker 1: that one of the tricky things about this disease is
Speaker 1: that the cytokine's storm process seems to happen really quickly.
Speaker 1: So it's not as though you're totally healthy one day
Speaker 1: and then out eventilator the next. But they can be like,
Speaker 1: you're pretty sick, you're pretty sick, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you're kind of having trouble breathing, and then
Speaker 1: that's really when I think doctors are saying that they
Speaker 1: think these types of drugs might be most beneficial. So
Speaker 1: you really want to try to catch it at the
Speaker 1: right time, even while being careful about not kind of
Speaker 1: giving them out. Willy Newly to everybody. Joe Walker, reporter
Speaker 1: for The Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Thank you my pleasure. I'm Oscar Ramirez and
Speaker 1: this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: For today's big stories, you can check me out on
Speaker 1: the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday, So follow
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