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Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And today on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be doing something a little bit different than we usually do.

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Speaker 1: We are going to be talking about an ongoing global

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Speaker 1: disease outbreak. So if you've listened to us for a while,

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Speaker 1: you know that while science is the heart of the show,

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Speaker 1: we you know, we rarely cover breaking science news. It's

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Speaker 1: not really our wheelhouse. They have been well maybe one

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Speaker 1: or two times when we've kind of dipped our toe

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Speaker 1: into that. And a part of the deal with breaking

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Speaker 1: science is that sometimes it it breaks you back when

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Speaker 1: you realize, oh, well, that's study about tartar grades had

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Speaker 1: some it's had some problems with it. Remember that's like

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Speaker 1: we're recording another episode on tartar grades the following week. Yep.

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Speaker 1: Uh so yeah. Obviously, while we like to give the

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Speaker 1: most up to date information we can whenever we dive

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Speaker 1: into a subject, it's actually pretty rare that we cover

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Speaker 1: a science story because it's the subject of current headlines

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Speaker 1: and there are a few reasons for this. You know,

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Speaker 1: we like to go deep a lot of times when

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Speaker 1: news about a discovery first breaks there isn't a lot

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Speaker 1: of depth yet to explore. But also the early days

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Speaker 1: of a scientific news story are often full of rapid

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Speaker 1: revisions and leads that turn out to be false or misguided.

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Speaker 1: Those can be easier to fix, I think in a

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Speaker 1: printed article, where you can simply go in and make

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Speaker 1: edits or corrections or links to updates. That kind of

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Speaker 1: thing doesn't work very well for recorded audio. So we

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Speaker 1: do our best to cover subjects that we think we

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Speaker 1: can get right the first time, go deep on and

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Speaker 1: cover in a kind of evergreen way. Um, but right

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Speaker 1: now there is a still developing global health story that

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Speaker 1: we figured it was really important to address on our show,

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Speaker 1: and that's the at this point, very likely global pandemic

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Speaker 1: of coronavirus. So given the subject of today's story, we

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Speaker 1: really need to be even more clear than usual about

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Speaker 1: when we're researching, recording, and the publishing this episode. It

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Speaker 1: was researched the last week of February, recorded on February,

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Speaker 1: and it will be published on March three. Now we're

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Speaker 1: gonna do what we can to make sure it's up

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Speaker 1: to date at the point of publication, but certainly bear

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Speaker 1: in mind that the story will continue to move in

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Speaker 1: the days and weeks following its publication. So there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of media coverage out there about this right now.

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Speaker 1: Some of it is is great, some of it is

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Speaker 1: perhaps a bit more on the panic side of the equation.

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Speaker 1: UH studies are flying off the digital press. Government health

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Speaker 1: organizations such as the CDC and UH that's the Centers

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Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization

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Speaker 1: or do we call them the who do you like

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Speaker 1: to call them? The w h O? Or the who?

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Speaker 1: I call them? The who? Are you? Well? They are

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Speaker 1: essential voices in all of this, but in the in

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Speaker 1: some cases governmental um responses and communications have been criticized,

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Speaker 1: and there's also a fair amount of misinformation, races, xenophobia,

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Speaker 1: and fear out there. So we're gonna do what we

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Speaker 1: can to stick to the facts here and to give

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Speaker 1: you a balanced view of the current state of the

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Speaker 1: coronavirus and give you some tips about what you need

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Speaker 1: to do to potentially prepare and to further educate yourself

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Speaker 1: on the topic. Right, So, I guess we should start

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Speaker 1: with a brief sketch of the timeline on this new

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Speaker 1: disease up to the present. So how did the story begin. Well,

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Speaker 1: at the end of last year. On December thirty one,

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, the National China Office of the World Health

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Speaker 1: Organization was notified of a localized surge in cases of

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Speaker 1: pneumonia with an unknown origin in Wuhan's City, which is

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Speaker 1: in the Hubei Province of China, and it's home to

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Speaker 1: about eleven million people, So this is considered central China.

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Speaker 1: And if you're if you're listening to this and you're

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Speaker 1: trying to roughly picture it on a map, it's something

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Speaker 1: like six hundred miles more or less directly north of Guangzhou,

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about like an eleven hour bus drive

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Speaker 1: according to Google. Yeah, now, these were cases of pneumonia

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Speaker 1: at the time. That that's how they were recognized. And

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Speaker 1: pneumonia just refers to a type of inflammation and the

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Speaker 1: air sacks of the lungs, usually due to bacterial or

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Speaker 1: viral infection. I guess there are multiple types of pathogens

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Speaker 1: like fungus and other parasites can get in there too.

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Speaker 1: Uh So pneumonia can have many causes. A common one

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Speaker 1: would be the influence of virus or flu, except the

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Speaker 1: patients presenting at the hospitals and Muhan did not have

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Speaker 1: the flu. By January three, there were forty four cases

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Speaker 1: of Wuhan city pneumonia with unknown ideology, meaning we don't

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Speaker 1: understand what's causing it. But obviously a new, unidentified pathogen

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Speaker 1: was suspected. So when a new and unfamiliar epidemic breaks out,

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Speaker 1: what tools to epidemiologists have to try to understand things well?

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Speaker 1: One is to look for underlying patterns among the people

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Speaker 1: presenting with the novel infection. Is there anything many or

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Speaker 1: all of them have in common, any place they've all been,

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Speaker 1: any food they've all eaten, or anything like that? And

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Speaker 1: this method quickly brought a likely ground zero for exposure

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Speaker 1: into focus, which was a specific food market in Wuhan

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Speaker 1: which in some cases sold live animals, including seafood, rabbits,

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Speaker 1: and poultry. This was the juan On Seafood Wholesale Market,

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Speaker 1: and several of the initial patients apparently worked there. The

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Speaker 1: market was shut down on January one and subjected to

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Speaker 1: sanitation protocols. Yeah, and again, despite its name, the market

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Speaker 1: sees fairly varied trade and numerous animals, including several different

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Speaker 1: varieties of mammals. So we call cases such as this

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Speaker 1: zoonosis in which bacterium, virus or parasite transfers from an

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Speaker 1: animal host to a human host, and there are numerous

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Speaker 1: possible vectors and ways that it can spread. The reverse

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Speaker 1: is also possible, by the way, either known as reverse

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Speaker 1: zunosis or anthroponosis uh, in which one of these pathogens

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Speaker 1: or virus or whatever basses from a human to an animal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and very very often when there is a new disease,

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Speaker 1: it's a case of zoonosis, right, and something is popped

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Speaker 1: up because a disease formerly present in some species of

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Speaker 1: animal has jumped and suddenly appeared in humans. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: then that's why it can be dangerous, because suddenly you

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Speaker 1: have a new bacteria, virus, or parasite that the immune

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Speaker 1: system and health experts are not specifically ready for or

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Speaker 1: or you know, or you know, you haven't had a

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Speaker 1: chance for an immunity to build up or for very

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Speaker 1: targeted um uh, you know health strategy to be put

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Speaker 1: in place. Yeah. Well, we're unprepared in multiple ways, right.

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Speaker 1: We don't have effective treatments yet. Likely we don't have

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Speaker 1: effective vaccines yet. Likely we don't know what to look

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Speaker 1: for yet with this new disease, and people don't have

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Speaker 1: a natural immunity to it, so it hits us in

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Speaker 1: our unpreparedness in multiple ways all at once. So one

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Speaker 1: thing we need to drive home with zoonosis is that

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Speaker 1: it has always occurred, uh, you know, anywhere humans have

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Speaker 1: been in close confines with animals. Uh, there is a

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Speaker 1: there there is a possibility for for the pathogen to

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Speaker 1: to to switch teams, to mute, to to jump over

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Speaker 1: to a new host, and examples include everything from like

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Speaker 1: rabies and bird flu to to HIV, with with HIV

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Speaker 1: being an example of something that's subsequently mutated into a

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Speaker 1: human only variety. Yeah, I believe the most recent consensus

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Speaker 1: on that is that it was probably originally an immune

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Speaker 1: virus affecting apes. Right, And and of course there are

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Speaker 1: multiple ways for uh, for the for these this lead

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Speaker 1: to take place. You can come from the eating of animals,

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Speaker 1: from just you know, raising animals and being close proximity

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Speaker 1: with them, pats or another area. And we'll get back

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Speaker 1: to some of the details on that in a bit. Okay, So,

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Speaker 1: what were the symptoms that were identified for this unknown

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Speaker 1: type of pneumonia that was appearing in Wuhan City. Some

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Speaker 1: of the early symptoms were fever, difficulty breathing, and X

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Speaker 1: rays showing lesions in both lungs. There were initially fears

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Speaker 1: that the virus was a resurgence of the Severe Acute

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Speaker 1: Respiratory Syndrome or STARS uh an outbreak of viral infection

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Speaker 1: that killed hundreds of people worldwide in two thousand two

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Speaker 1: and two thousand three but was ultimately contained, and these

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Speaker 1: suspicions of association with STARRS were close. They were close

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Speaker 1: to the mark. On January seven, officials announced they had

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Speaker 1: identified a novel viruses, the Culprit, which was at the

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Speaker 1: time called twenty nineteen in c O V. It was

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Speaker 1: a new strain of the coronavirus family, and coronaviruses are common.

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Speaker 1: They account for all kinds of diseases, including STARS, but

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Speaker 1: also instances of the Common Cold. Like the Common Cold,

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Speaker 1: isn't caused by just one pathogen, but a range of

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Speaker 1: similar viruses that affect the upper respiratory system. On January eleven,

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Speaker 1: China announced the first death from this new disease. It

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Speaker 1: was a sixty one year old man who had passed

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Speaker 1: away two days earlier of heart failure stemming from the infection,

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Speaker 1: and confirmed infections and deaths continued to spread in the

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Speaker 1: following days. By the twenty second of January, at least

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Speaker 1: seventeen people had died in China. There were more than

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Speaker 1: five and fifty infections. Uh There were attempts to control

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Speaker 1: the spread of the disease through travel restrictions and quarantines,

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Speaker 1: but that they failed. Essentially they weren't able to contain it.

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Speaker 1: On January, the World Health Organization announced that coronavirus was

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Speaker 1: a global emergency. At this time, there had been a

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy deaths in China, with seven thousand, seven

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Speaker 1: hundred and eleven cases reported in the country, where the

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Speaker 1: virus had spread to all thirty one provinces by this time,

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Speaker 1: and also by this time cases are popping up in

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Speaker 1: other countries around the world uh AS one note on

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Speaker 1: February seven, Lee Win Leong, who was one of the

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Speaker 1: first doctors in China to raise concerns about the new virus,

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Speaker 1: died on February eleventh. There were more than forty two

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Speaker 1: thousand infections and more than a thousand deaths in China,

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Speaker 1: and the World Health Organization at this point announced the

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Speaker 1: new coronavirus had a name, it would be the coronavirus

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Speaker 1: Disease twenty nineteen or COVID nineteen. In the weeks since,

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Speaker 1: the global spread has continued and the number of infections

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Speaker 1: and deaths has climbed, and on the day we're recording this,

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Speaker 1: I was trying to get the most updated count I

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Speaker 1: could uh. This morning, NBC News was reporting that coronavirus

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Speaker 1: today has been confirmed in at least forty countries, including Italy, Iran,

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Speaker 1: South Korea, and the United States. The most recent public

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Speaker 1: numbers indicate that more than eighty thousand cases of infection

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Speaker 1: have been confirmed and more than deaths, most of which

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Speaker 1: have been in China. As far as the United States goes,

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Speaker 1: the CDC has already announced it expects community transmission of

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen within the United States. And community transmission is

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Speaker 1: an epidemiology term. It just means an infection is loose

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Speaker 1: and spreading naturally within a population, So it's no longer

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Speaker 1: that infections only appear in people who have traveled to

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Speaker 1: places with known outbreaks. Community transmission just means it's here

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Speaker 1: and it's spreading naturally among us. Yeah, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like the kinder egg. Used to the kinder egg with

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Speaker 1: something that you know, you picked up on a vacation

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Speaker 1: to another country and you brought back and then you shared. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Now you can buy a form of the kinder egg

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Speaker 1: all over the place. So you know, community transmission of

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Speaker 1: the kinder egg is just a reality. Not that I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm comparing the kinder egg to coronavirus, the kindred any

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Speaker 1: other way significantly better than the Yes, definitely. So at

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Speaker 1: the time of this recording, it appears that there is

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Speaker 1: already at least one known case of community transmission in

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Speaker 1: the United States in Sacramento, California. By the time this

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Speaker 1: episode comes out, I would not be surprised if there

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Speaker 1: are more that have been documented. Uh So, questions are

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Speaker 1: how bad is this disease? How does it compare to

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Speaker 1: other diseases were familiar with? There are two important numbers

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Speaker 1: to understand when we're talking about the impact of a

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Speaker 1: novel pathogen. One is the reproduction number, also known as

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Speaker 1: are not which is spelled like R zero. I think

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Speaker 1: that's not from how the British would what would call

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Speaker 1: the zero and then the other is the case fatality

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Speaker 1: rate and the reproduction number are not tells you for

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Speaker 1: every one person who becomes infected, how many more people

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Speaker 1: are likely to are they likely to spread the infection to.

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Speaker 1: The case fatality rate is what percent of the people

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Speaker 1: who contracts the disease die from it. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: measles is a particularly nasty infection because of how easily

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Speaker 1: it's spreads in the current world with an R are

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Speaker 1: not somewhere between twelve and eighteen. So in the world today,

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Speaker 1: if you if you get measles on average, you're potentially

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Speaker 1: going to spread it to like fifteen other people, the

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Speaker 1: one reason the measles vaccine is so important. A reproduction

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Speaker 1: number greater than one indicates the diseases spreading, right because

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Speaker 1: it's being you know, it's infecting more people than are

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Speaker 1: currently infected. A reproduction number of less than one usually

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Speaker 1: indicates that an infection is dying out. I was reading

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Speaker 1: a piece by ed Young in The Atlantic. However, that

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Speaker 1: pointed out some difficulties with interpreting reproduction numbers for for

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Speaker 1: emerging diseases. For example, the reproduction number is an average, right,

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Speaker 1: so a disease that has a reproduction number of two

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Speaker 1: could mean that every single person who gets infected spreads

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Speaker 1: the pathogen to two new people. Or it could mean

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Speaker 1: that one person out of fifty spreads the disease to

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Speaker 1: a hundred people, and this this actually has been known

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Speaker 1: to happen. These cases can become known as super spreaders,

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Speaker 1: cases where certain diseases are spread uh disproportionately by select

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Speaker 1: individuals uh And perhaps counterintuitively, diseases that propagate via superspreaders

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Speaker 1: can be easier to contain than diseases that spread steadily

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Speaker 1: from person to person across all cases. I guess that

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Speaker 1: the easy go to example of this is it's typhoid Mary, right,

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Speaker 1: Mary Mallan? Yeah? Who as she wasn't the only superspreader

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Speaker 1: of typhoid or typhoid fever, I guess yeah, But she

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Speaker 1: was somebody who worked in food service and food preparation

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Speaker 1: and uh and while not showing strong symptoms of infection,

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Speaker 1: herself kept spreading the typhoid to other people. If memory serves,

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Speaker 1: there's an episode of the Nick that deals with her.

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Speaker 1: Now are there cases of superspreaders of coronavirus. It's still early,

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Speaker 1: but it seems so I was finding several examples in

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Speaker 1: news reports. For example, one report in The Guardian from

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Speaker 1: yesterday but in an article by Sarah Bosley and Martin

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Speaker 1: Bellum alleging quote. The third British case of coronavirus was

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Speaker 1: a man in his fifties who contracted the coronavirus infection

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Speaker 1: at a conference in Singapore. He then traveled to France,

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Speaker 1: where he stayed with his family in a ski chalet

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Speaker 1: at the alpine resort La Contamin Montjoy. Five people who

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Speaker 1: were in the chalet, including a boy of nine, if

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Speaker 1: tested positive for coronavirus. Since the man came back to

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Speaker 1: the UK on an easy Jet flight and was diagnosed

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Speaker 1: in Brighton, another Briton who was on holiday in the

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Speaker 1: chalet flew back to his home in Malorca and was

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Speaker 1: admitted to hospital in Palma. The chief medical officer said

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Speaker 1: four more people attested positive in England, all of whom

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Speaker 1: were also on the skiing holiday in France. So it

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Speaker 1: seems like there was a there was a massive transmission

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Speaker 1: from this one person who contracted it. I was also

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Speaker 1: reading a report of a woman in South Korea who

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Speaker 1: is at this point believed to have so far spread

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Speaker 1: the coronavirus to at least thirty seven people at her church. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I think I was reading about part part of this

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Speaker 1: deals with like this particular church. You know, they their congregation,

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Speaker 1: how they gather and then how they go out and

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Speaker 1: uh an attempt to spread the word, right, But it

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Speaker 1: could also have to do with just specifics of of

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Speaker 1: individual variation in in you know, how how your immune

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Speaker 1: system works. Like there appears to be something called a

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Speaker 1: twenty eight rule for the spread of many infectious diseases

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Speaker 1: uh to quote from a two thousand eleven paper by

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Speaker 1: Richard A. Stein and the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

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Speaker 1: Quote in what became known as the rule, a concept

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Speaker 1: documented by observational and modeling studies and having profound implications

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Speaker 1: for infection control, twenty percent of the individuals within any

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Speaker 1: given population are thought to contribute at least eighty percent

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Speaker 1: to the transmission potential of a pathogen, and many host

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Speaker 1: pathogen interactions were found to follow this empirical rule. Now,

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Speaker 1: this isn't true of every disease, but what they're saying

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Speaker 1: is it's it's been discovered that for many disease eases

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Speaker 1: that are infectious and spread from person to person, of

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Speaker 1: the people infected do eighty percent of the spreading. Now,

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's important, of course, not to demonize

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Speaker 1: people who happen to be super spreaders. They're almost never

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Speaker 1: spreading a disease on purpose. Uh. The factors that make

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Speaker 1: somebody a super spreader still not fully understood, but it

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Speaker 1: may just have something to do with how their immune

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Speaker 1: system works. Uh. Sometimes it happens because a disease that

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Speaker 1: makes other people very obviously outwardly sick creates almost no

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Speaker 1: symptoms and the super spreader so they don't even know

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Speaker 1: they're spreading it to people. Right, And I believe this

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Speaker 1: was the case with typhoid Mary for example. Right. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: again it's important not to demonize that in any way. Well, actually,

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Speaker 1: I think with typhoid Mary, I'm not saying we should

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Speaker 1: demonize her either, but I think at some point she

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Speaker 1: was made aware but then had after that, at least

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Speaker 1: for a while, continued to work in food service. So obviously,

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Speaker 1: if you were aware that you are, you know that

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Speaker 1: that you may have an infection that could spread to

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Speaker 1: other people, you should do whatever possible not to spread

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Speaker 1: it to people. And we can talk about practical methods

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Speaker 1: for that in a bit here. But also coming back

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Speaker 1: to the reproduction number of an infection, the reproduction number,

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Speaker 1: and Young points out and actually several authors I was

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Speaker 1: looking at have have made this point. It's a very

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Speaker 1: good one. It is not a fully fixed biological feature

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Speaker 1: intrinsic to the pathogen. The reproduction number of a pathogen

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Speaker 1: can be influenced by human interventions. Young points out that

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Speaker 1: stars originally had very different reproduction numbers in China and Canada,

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Speaker 1: so you'd get are nots ranging from like two to

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Speaker 1: five or six, and this was just because of different

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Speaker 1: levels of success in diagnosing and containing the cases that appeared.

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Speaker 1: Coronavirus is no different. It's are not is influenced by

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Speaker 1: biological facts about the virus itself, but also about how

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Speaker 1: well people respond to it, what kinds of measures we

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Speaker 1: can put in place, uh to contain it and stop transmission.

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Speaker 1: And we'll get to those numbers in a second. But

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Speaker 1: also I mentioned there's there's the the inner action between

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Speaker 1: the reproduction number and the case fatality rate of an

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Speaker 1: emerging pathogen. So meanwhile, UH, the hemorrhagic fever I bola

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Speaker 1: does not spread super easily between people. It usually has

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Speaker 1: an are not between one and two. It's not highly

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Speaker 1: highly infectious, but I bola is very scary because it

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Speaker 1: has such a high case fatality rate some somewhere around

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Speaker 1: fifty percent of the people who get a bola end

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Speaker 1: up dying from it, and there are diseases with even

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Speaker 1: higher CFRs. Avian influenza A or H five in one

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Speaker 1: has a CFR somewhere around sixty percent. Coronavirus is nowhere

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Speaker 1: near that high, and in fact, depending on how you

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Speaker 1: measure it, there are greater dangers represented by much more

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Speaker 1: familiar diseases like seasonal flu. Like seasonal flu has a

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Speaker 1: lower case fatality rate than coronavirus appears to. Seasonal flu

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Speaker 1: has something like an average rate of point zero one

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Speaker 1: percent in the United States at least. However, it's still

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Speaker 1: very dangerous just because of the number of people who

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Speaker 1: get infected that this season alone, the flu has already

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Speaker 1: caused more than twenty five million infections and fourteen thousand

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Speaker 1: deaths in the United States alone. The flu usually has

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Speaker 1: a reproduction number of something like one point three, and

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Speaker 1: it comes in fairly predictable seasonal cycles, so we've kind

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Speaker 1: of gotten used to it. Even though it is still

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Speaker 1: a great I mean, it kills thousands every year, but

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Speaker 1: I guess it seems less scary to us just because

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Speaker 1: it's been around. We we sort of know what to

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Speaker 1: look for now. So as for the specific reproduction number

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Speaker 1: in case fatality rate of the new coronavirus, at one point,

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Speaker 1: the World Health Organization estimated that its reproduction number was

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Speaker 1: between about one point four and two point five. I

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Speaker 1: was reading a recent study from the journal Travel Medicine

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Speaker 1: which reviewed studies from between January one of this year

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Speaker 1: and the seventh of February this year, and for this

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Speaker 1: time period the author's right quote, we identified twelve studies

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Speaker 1: which estimated the basic reproductive number for the COVID nineteen

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Speaker 1: from China and overseas UH. The estimates range from one

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Speaker 1: point four to six point four nine, with a mean

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Speaker 1: of three point to eight, a median of two point

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Speaker 1: seven nine, and interquartile range of one point one six.

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Speaker 1: So maybe the range is by our best estimates now

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Speaker 1: currently averaging between like two point five and three point five.

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Speaker 1: I've also seen estimates between two and three, though, again

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Speaker 1: to drive home, those numbers could change a lot depending

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Speaker 1: on what kinds of new UH new diagnostic methods and

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Speaker 1: containment methods come online. Reproduction numbers for a new emergent

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Speaker 1: virus I think are going to tend to be higher

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Speaker 1: than they are for something that we're better at looking for,

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Speaker 1: because it takes us longer to recognize it and and

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Speaker 1: stop it spread. As for the case fatality rate, overall,

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Speaker 1: it appears to be somewhere around two percent on average,

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Speaker 1: but it also varies greatly based on factors like the

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Speaker 1: age of the infected person and perhaps other factors that

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Speaker 1: haven't come into focus yet. One relieving thing about it

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Speaker 1: is that the disease, at least so for appears to

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Speaker 1: be pretty mild rate bordering on non existent in children.

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Speaker 1: Children rarely seem to get it, and when they do,

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Speaker 1: it's usually not severe and they don't die from it.

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Speaker 1: Elderly populations, on the other hand, or people with compromised

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Speaker 1: immune systems or other pre existing diseases, are at much

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Speaker 1: higher risk. With the case fatality rate that could reach

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Speaker 1: in some cases up to about fifteen percent, which is

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Speaker 1: a lot. So at this point we shoul probably getto

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Speaker 1: the symptoms a bit. You know, what are the symptoms

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Speaker 1: as we understand them so far? For coronavirus. Right. So

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of complications because the disease is

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Speaker 1: so new, and we also don't yet have a good

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Speaker 1: sense of how many people can become infected without showing

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Speaker 1: major symptoms. It appears that at least some people are

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Speaker 1: getting this virus without major symptoms, which is actually you

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Speaker 1: might think, oh, that sounds good, but that's actually very bad.

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Speaker 1: That can help it spread because some of these others,

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Speaker 1: these other pathogens that we discussed here, like one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons we were able to control them is because

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Speaker 1: it became abundantly obvious when you had them. You know,

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Speaker 1: you would have like a debilitating fever or something. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and you knew something was wrong and and you we

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Speaker 1: went and sought help, and then it could be uh,

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Speaker 1: there was a red flag there for medical professionals. Right.

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Speaker 1: You're less likely to spread it to more people that way. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then there's another complication along the same lines, which

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Speaker 1: is that it appears there might be a long incubation

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Speaker 1: period before some people end up showing symptoms. Estimates have

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Speaker 1: been anywhere from like two to fourteen days. We just

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Speaker 1: don't really know for sure. But again that's not good.

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Speaker 1: You don't want people to be uh in a stage

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Speaker 1: where they could potentially be contagious while they're not showing symptoms.

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Speaker 1: But when symptoms do manifest, the basic outlook seems to

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Speaker 1: be familiar. You know. It's like a lot of other

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Speaker 1: respiratory infections. It's going to be fever, cough, shortness of breath.

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Speaker 1: Those are the main ones. Uh. And then there have

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Speaker 1: been other, like smaller instances of things like uh, digestive trouble, diarrhea, sneezing.

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Speaker 1: But but the main ones are fever, ca off in,

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Speaker 1: shortness of breath. Now, at an early stage of an

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Speaker 1: outbreak like this, there's a lot of danger that's not

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Speaker 1: just the disease itself, but danger from misinformation, from a panic,

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Speaker 1: from pseudoscience plowing into people's brains. Uh. We were both

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Speaker 1: reading a good article by Kate Kellen and Reuter's that

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Speaker 1: was just about bad science that had been published on

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Speaker 1: preprint servers without peer review and then spread around on

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Speaker 1: the internet and only to later be retracted. Like there

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Speaker 1: there was a study that I think sourced the outbreak

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Speaker 1: of the virus two snakes, and this turned out to

432
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 1: not be true. Uh. There was one that said, uh,

433
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 1: the virus may have come from outer space or from

434
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:44,360
Speaker 1: upper in the atmosphere. That probably isn't correct. Um. There

435
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: was another one that was likening it to HIV, saying

436
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: there were these similarities between coronavirus and HIV. That was

437
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: widely criticized. So I would say be careful where you're

438
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 1: getting your information from right now. There's a tendency because

439
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:02,679
Speaker 1: there are so many unknown for very quickly produced and

440
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 1: in some cases sloppy science to get out there on

441
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: preprint servers without proper peer review, and then to just

442
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: get picked up by news sites. Yeah. As I'll probably

443
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 1: drive home again later. The CDC and and the w

444
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 1: h O are both great places to look for answers

445
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 1: and if if you hear something that is a little suspect,

446
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: that's a great place to go to see if there

447
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 1: is any validity to it. Yeah. Uh, there're hoaxes abounding there,

448
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: and you know there there can be really negative results,

449
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: like there have been riots in Ukraine in response to

450
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,639
Speaker 1: the disease. One thing that should not need to be said,

451
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 1: but then again, I guess it's it's unbelievable how quickly

452
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: people can succumb to racist, magical thinking. You do not

453
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,199
Speaker 1: need to be afraid of Chinese people. You do not

454
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,440
Speaker 1: need to be afraid of eating Chinese food or interacting

455
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,959
Speaker 1: with Chinese Americans or any other ethnic Chinese people. The

456
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 1: fact that the virus first appeared in Wuhan does not

457
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: mean that Chinese people in any other part of the

458
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: world they're likely to be infected. Use your brain. Yeah,

459
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,199
Speaker 1: there there have been reports of increased racist attacks on

460
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,160
Speaker 1: people of Chinese and East Asian origin in Australia, Canada,

461
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: and the United States, and per CNN is reporting on

462
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,400
Speaker 1: the matter. We're talking you know, everything from just idiots

463
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: on the train saying idiotic things to strangers, um, which

464
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 1: I guess is the sort of thing that's can be

465
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 1: expected in the in the best of times, right when

466
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: there's not some sort of additional stress or like this.

467
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 1: But then there are also cases of motel employees um

468
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,439
Speaker 1: being abusive to guests just because they have you know,

469
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: the right balance of fear and misinformation on hand, right,

470
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: And it would just be ignorance and fear because obviously

471
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 1: the disease does not have like a racial component or something, right. Yeah,

472
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: this is not an Asian illness, this is a human illness.

473
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: It seemingly became a human illness in China, but in

474
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: doing so it crossed that species barrier. Uh. Coronavirus does

475
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 1: not care about your race or nationality. We are all

476
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: just potential vessels for it. And then in terms of

477
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: it being a zoonotic disease of it making this leap um,

478
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 1: we do have to again drive home that zoonotic diseases

479
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 1: can be found everywhere, every country, every culture, every language,

480
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: every people. For as long as humans have interacted with animals,

481
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: and for as long as we continue to do so,

482
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: we will all be open to potential infection by direct contact,

483
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: indirect contact, vector born illnesses, food born illnesses, and water

484
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: born illnesses. Uh. It can and does happen everywhere. The

485
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: best any of us can do per the c d

486
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: C is to wash your hands, stay safe around pets,

487
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: prevent parasite bites, practice food safety, animal interaction safety, and

488
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: avoid animal bites and scratches as well. And then finally,

489
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: I do want to just I really want to drive

490
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: home that Dean Koontz did not predict the outbreak in

491
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 1: his nine novel Surely now this is one of the

492
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: because there's a lot there are a lot of memes

493
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: and going around a lot of misinformation, and you know,

494
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 1: some of it is kind of harmless like this. I mean, ultimately,

495
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's actually going after Dean Koontz on

496
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: this matter. But but this is another one that has

497
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: been I think, pretty pretty debunked, where it's like basically

498
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: he one of one of his novel Novelly wrote in

499
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 1: one has some sort of a fictional manufactured disease pop up,

500
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: and in at least one version of the novel, it

501
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 1: has its origins in in Wuhan. And actually in this case,

502
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: you know, certainly if this if people pick up and

503
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: run with this, it's I mean, it's so illogical, but

504
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: I guess you could imagine someone using this as some

505
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: additional rationale for conspiracy, thinking about it like, oh, this

506
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 1: is some sort of man made weapon, this is not

507
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: something that occurred naturally, and so forth, which is all

508
00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: uh nonsense. Um, but oh yeah, I guess we didn't

509
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: bring that up. But like that, that is another one

510
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: of the crazy rumors that's going around, is that this

511
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: is some kind of bioweapon. I was able to find

512
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: no evidence at all. I mean, it seems like this

513
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: is yet another one of these zoonotic diseases. These kinds

514
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 1: of things emerge all the time. It does not need

515
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 1: some kind of crazy conspiracy explanation, right. But again, this

516
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: is exactly the sort of crazy conspiracy explanation that is

517
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:28,360
Speaker 1: always touted whenever there is some sort of a new illness.

518
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: It's like like, what if it's a bioweapon? Must be

519
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: a bioweapon, must have, must be. You know, they are

520
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: created by one side to punish the other. That sort

521
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: of thing. Um. But I will say one other thing

522
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: about Dean Coon's though, is that Watchers is pretty awesome.

523
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: And uh and and and you know, I think maybe

524
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: we need another film adaptation, So spread your love for Watchers,

525
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: not information about COVID nineteen. I never saw the movie.

526
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: I read the book. I love that book in high school. Yeah,

527
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel now, though I do recall.

528
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: I don't it pretty wacky as I as I remember.

529
00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: It's one of those books that this is such a thing,

530
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: books that loves to give the full correct name of

531
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: types of guns, you know, or like the terration can't

532
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: just be like, you know, the dude grabbed his gun.

533
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: It's like the dude grabbed his nine millimeter modified stock

534
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: oozy carbine. I don't know exactly what that impulse in

535
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: the author is. It's very funny to me. But it

536
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: also had a talking dog, which was awesome, and had

537
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: a talking dog, a monster, and then a human assassin

538
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: that either thought he gained the life forces of people

539
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: who are actually did um. I don't think that made

540
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: it into the movie. But you know who did make

541
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: it into the movie, Michael Ironside. Oh, I gotta see

542
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: it now. And in the subsequent like the Ironside completion

543
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 1: and the a Iron Sides in it, I'm there. But

544
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: then get this. The subsequent sequels involved Mark Singer wings

545
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: Houser and then Mark Hamill. So there's there's there's plenty

546
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: to go on there. I think we need to take

547
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: a break, but when we come back, we can talk

548
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: about what you can do about the coronavirus. Alright, we're back.

549
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: So I guess one of the big ones to drive

550
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: home is just don't panic. Right. Uh. It's also important

551
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 1: to remember that the vast majority of infected people will

552
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: not suffer severe symptoms, and some will have no symptoms

553
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: at all, which again is a positive and a negative

554
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it. As we discussed previously,

555
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: so this is not the common cold, but it's also

556
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: not a fictional super plague out of your favorite pulp novel.

557
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: For multiple reasons, including not just self interested reasons. You

558
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: should do everything you reasonably can not to get infected,

559
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: but you also don't need to have it in your

560
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 1: head that this is going to kill us all again.

561
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: Like even in these very early sort of worst case

562
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: scenarios like what happened in Muhan, the CFR, on average,

563
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: it's still fairly low compared to a lot of other

564
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: scary outbreaks. And as we say this, I do have

565
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: to admit, you know, it is easy to sort of

566
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 1: get a panicky if you just especially if you're kind

567
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: of plugged into social media and you're just kind of

568
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: scrolling through. I mean, I I find myself feeling a

569
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: little this just scrolling through a news app that I respect.

570
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: You know that that then I trust You're just you're

571
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 1: getting a lot of coverage about it right now, where

572
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: it's covering the you know, the economic side of it,

573
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:24,959
Speaker 1: You're it's covering the the epidemiology of it, the just

574
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: the basic medical challenge of the scenario. And if you

575
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: just keep plugging into it, you can kind of eventually

576
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: feed the monster of paranoia in your head. Yeah, some

577
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: of the political reactions are not reassuring. Yeah, because that's

578
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: another thing that's that's part of the news cycle concerning it,

579
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,719
Speaker 1: is what how our government's dealing with it, how our

580
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: politicians dealing with it, and some of the communication out

581
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: there on this front has been highly criticized. Yes, uh So,

582
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: one thing though that I think you can do that

583
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: will help. Uh Number one, of course actually have practical benefits,

584
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: but also you know, give you more of a sense

585
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: of control, is to pay attention to real best practices

586
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: for disease control. So basic practical steps to prevent infection.

587
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: A lot of these are gonna sound familiar to you

588
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: because they're essentially the same tactics believed to protect against

589
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: the spread of other known respiratory diseases. So if you

590
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: are trying to avoid infection, first of all, most importantly,

591
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: avoid close physical contact with people who are sick. However possible,

592
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: limit exposure to anybody who's coughing, sneezing, or running a fever.

593
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: How close is too close well, as a general rule,

594
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: the CDC recommends staying about one meter or three feet

595
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: away from anyone who is coughing or sneezing. That that's

596
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: just a general rule, uh for coronavirus. I've seen other

597
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: experts recommending staying at least five feet away or six

598
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: feet away. Obviously farther is better. Another one avoid touching

599
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: your face with your hands. A really common transmission route

600
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: for many diseases is that droplets containing infectious agents go

601
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: from a surface out in the world that you touch

602
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: to your hands and then your face, especially your eyes, nose,

603
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: or mouth. Yeah, and reading about all this makes me

604
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: realize that I'm terrible at this. Not not that I'm

605
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: like constantly pawing at my face or like jabbing my

606
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: eyes or anything, but while I'm thinking about something or

607
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: researching something, I will typically like bring my hand to

608
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: my lower face region, like to my chin, but often

609
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: to like to to my mouth region. And uh, And

610
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how I curb myself of that, if

611
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: I should start wearing boxing gloves or or what what

612
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: the best course of action is there? I don't know,

613
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: are you touching the boxing gloves to door knobs and stuff? Um? Coolkay? Yeah,

614
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 1: that doesn't really help, does it? But maybe if I

615
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: had the gloves on, they would be a reminder. It's like, oh,

616
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: this is not the comforting gesture that I that I

617
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: am familiar with. This is a giant boxing glove. Well,

618
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: we can come back to that in a minute. Okay,

619
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: So on top of that, and actually, I think I

620
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: said something else might be most important. This might be

621
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: most important. I don't know if I can rank what's

622
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: most important. Wash your hands very familiar advice, but it

623
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: really works with soap and water for at least twenty seconds.

624
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: Wash them frequently, especially after touching surfaces in a public place,

625
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: especially after going to the bathroom, after blowing your nose,

626
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 1: coughing or sneezing. Yeah, it's easy to lose sight of

627
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: the importance of this, in part because authority figures and

628
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: signs are constantly telling you that you should wash your hands,

629
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: and some of us maybe feel an innate rebellion against that,

630
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: or it's also generally not something we enjoy. We kind

631
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: of rushed through it, right. It's easy to rush through

632
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 1: those twenty seconds if you're just trying to get back

633
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,400
Speaker 1: to your your desk to to finish working, or you

634
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: have somewhere to go. You have to pick up a

635
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: kid or something, but it is extremely important. Um, Luckily,

636
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:42,359
Speaker 1: I feel like I am pretty good about this, but

637
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 1: my son is super good about this because not not

638
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: because he's super conscientious about the importance of staying German free,

639
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 1: as much as that he just gets carried away with

640
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 1: putting soap on his hands. So it'll like he like

641
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: soap up his hands for like, you know, half a minute.

642
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: Then it's like a process of like filling up his

643
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: cupped palms with water and then releasing it, and then

644
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 1: he'll ye have left to his own devices to like

645
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: wash his hands for two minutes. Yeah, water and soap

646
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: are amazing textures and things. They can be a lot

647
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 1: of fun. So maybe that, maybe that really is the message.

648
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:19,360
Speaker 1: If you are a kind of person who finds yourself

649
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: rushing through washing your hands a little bit too much,

650
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:27,400
Speaker 1: take time to appreciate the tactile sensations and the warm water. Uh,

651
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you'll enjoy it. Also, if nobody has

652
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 1: ever offered you technical tips on washing your hands, here's

653
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 1: one I read in a couple of sources. Especially, pay

654
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: close attention to making sure your fingertips get clean. A

655
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: lot of times when we wash our hands, we just

656
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: kind of like rub our palms together a lot. Pay

657
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: attention to your finger tips and under your finger nails,

658
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: because what happens when you actually like handle food or

659
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: touch your face a lot of times it's your fingertips, right, Yeah,

660
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 1: those that's are the way we manually manipulate things. Alternately,

661
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: you can clean your hands with an alcohol based disinfectant

662
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: product like a hand sanitizer gel. These need to be

663
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: at least sixty alcohol, but some sources say soap and

664
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 1: water are better, or at least the evidence for the

665
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: effectiveness of soap and water is better. Next to whatever extent,

666
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: you can clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces in your house,

667
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,760
Speaker 1: your workplace, whatever. You know, you're you're touching the door knob,

668
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: you're touching the this and that. You know what these

669
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: things are in your house, clean them off, yeah, And

670
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 1: I mean the thing that may seem counterintuitive about this

671
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: is that these are not necessarily the places that we're

672
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 1: dropping a lot of food or getting sticky that sort

673
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,839
Speaker 1: of thing. These are just the the features of your

674
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: house that are commonly manipulated and touched. Another thing that

675
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: might help is you might want to avoid unnecessary exposure

676
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: to large, close crowds or public gatherings. I was just

677
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: reading that Switzerland today has issued a temporary ban on

678
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,879
Speaker 1: all public and private gatherings of more than a thousand people. Yeah.

679
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: In in Japan, you're seeing a well, certainly in an Asi,

680
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: you're seeing various concerts that have been postponed. I conventions

681
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: have been shut down. Yeah. I follow New Japan Pro

682
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,879
Speaker 1: Wrestling in Japan, and they just canceled half of their

683
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: live events from March and conceivably could cancel more of them.

684
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: All part of, you know, helping to maintain public safety

685
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,399
Speaker 1: in the outbreak. Yeah, you've here, here's a big one.

686
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 1: You've probably heard and seen a bunch of stuff about

687
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: face masks. And here I've got a beef with a

688
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: lot of news sites that are publishing articles about coronavirus.

689
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 1: So you've got the new article about COVID nineteen, and

690
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: then what's the image that accompanies that article. It's somebody

691
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: in a face mask. They got the surgical mask on. People,

692
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: please stop selecting these images to go with your stories

693
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: and maybe use an image of the virus itself for

694
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 1: something something else, because that this selection of these images

695
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: suggests that what people need to do to protect themselves

696
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: from the virus is to go out and buy a

697
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: bunch of surgical masks and wear them whenever they go

698
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: in public. Here's something important to understand, and surgical masks

699
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: are much more important to prevent you from spreading diseases,

700
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: especially you know, like bacteria in your mouth and your nose,

701
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: than to prevent you from contracting of virus. Public health

702
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,840
Speaker 1: experts do not recommend that healthy people wear face masks

703
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,479
Speaker 1: for general daily activity. Uh. Like, what a face mask

704
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: does is, you know, it blocks larger droplets escaping your

705
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: nose and your mouth into the environment. Think about when

706
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: they are actually used, for example, by surgeons, to prevent

707
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:34,280
Speaker 1: bacteria and droplets from the surgeon's map, mouth and nose

708
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 1: from getting into your body while you're cut open. Is

709
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: to protect you, not to protect the surgeon. Standard surgical

710
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 1: masks or porous They don't form a tight seal around

711
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 1: your nose and mouth, and viruses can often penetrate them.

712
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 1: They they are generally not believed to be very effective

713
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: at preventing you from getting a virus. I was finding,

714
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 1: you know, quotes from different epidemiologists and public health experts

715
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 1: in different sources, and there were slightly different levels of

716
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: of response to the idea of wearing surgical masks just

717
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: as a protective measure. The opinions to me seemed to

718
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: range from it will not help and does nothing at all,

719
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: too it might help a little bit, but it's not

720
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: going to be very effective, right, And I can well

721
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: imagine it's the sort of thing where overall would not

722
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 1: be a good idea if it then enabled you to

723
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: to engage in risk your behavior or to pull back

724
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 1: on more important things like washing your hand, right, or

725
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,439
Speaker 1: here's another one I was actually reading about. Or if

726
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: it means that you will end up like fut sing

727
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 1: with your mask and touching your face more. Uh, this

728
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: is another thing. Now, there's another type of mask that

729
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 1: you've probably read about, and this is the one that

730
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: would be more effective if you were actually trying to

731
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: have it as a prophylactic against being infected. These are

732
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: the IN ninety five or the N ninety nine masks,

733
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: which have a more complicated design. They're basically they're not

734
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: just a piece of material to cover your mouth and knows,

735
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: they're basically a full face piece respirator. And if they're

736
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: worned properly. They are supposed to prevent whatever the number

737
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: is of all airborne particles from passing in round. But

738
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: if you haven't had training, there's a good chance that

739
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: if you try to wear one of these things, you

740
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 1: will not only fail, but possibly increase your risk because

741
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 1: when people without experience wear these masks, they often keep

742
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,399
Speaker 1: adjusting and foxing with them, which means you're touching your face. Now.

743
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: In theory, at least, these would be more effective than

744
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: regular surgical masks or procedure masks that protecting you from

745
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: inhaling the virus, but also not a hundred percent effective,

746
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: especially again if you're you're not experienced with them, you

747
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: haven't had training, you don't know exactly how to wear them.

748
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:47,720
Speaker 1: There there are other ways that like, for example, uh,

749
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: I've seen stuff going around on the internet where people

750
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: talk about like beards being a problem for the virus.

751
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: Beards are not a problem. What would be true is

752
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: that having facial hair would in most cases prevent you

753
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:03,319
Speaker 1: from getting a full seal if you were trying to

754
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 1: wear one of these, uh, one of these like in

755
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 1: ninety five or masks, right, Yeah, Like, if anybody out

756
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: there has ever attempted to go snorkeling on say, like

757
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 1: day five of vacation. Stubble, you kind of get some

758
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: of what's going on here. But I say this not

759
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: just as a person with a beard, being that the

760
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: beard itself does not make you susceptible to the virus.

761
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: It would be that if you were trying to wear

762
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 1: one of these masks, you should not have a beard.

763
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: But also something a lot of public health officials and

764
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: experts have been saying is that you know, they're sort

765
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: of urging people mostly please don't go out and like

766
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: try to buy up or hoard these these types of

767
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,439
Speaker 1: masks because they're in high demand right now, and they're

768
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 1: in high demand for healthcare workers and other people who

769
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,320
Speaker 1: are actually going to be exposed to people likely to

770
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: be infected. Uh So, a lot of these experts are

771
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: cautioning against regular people who don't probably don't need them

772
00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: buying up all the supply for fear that it will

773
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: create supply problems for healthcare workers. And that certainly makes

774
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,359
Speaker 1: sense to me. All right, So those are some some

775
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: steps that one can take to attempt to prevent uh

776
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: becoming sick. What do you do once you are sick

777
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 1: or once you think you're sick, right, so what Yeah,

778
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: if you think you might be sick, if you have

779
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 1: symptoms of respiratory illness, especially cough, fever, shortness of breath,

780
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:25,280
Speaker 1: first of all, stay home, do not go to work,

781
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:27,839
Speaker 1: don't try to power through whatever it is your your

782
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: public you know, plans where you need to try to

783
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: isolate yourself as much as possible, especially if you have

784
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 1: recently traveled to an affected area. Originally this was just

785
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: if you traveled to China in the past two weeks,

786
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 1: but now the virus is spread significantly beyond China, so

787
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: travel indications are becoming more diffuse. This one is it

788
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,240
Speaker 1: can be I think harder than we we we give credit,

789
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: you know, especially with the sort of work culture that

790
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: is so prevalent these days, you know, where it's we

791
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: feel this this pressure to push through, to be the

792
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: person who just all right, to take a bunch of

793
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 1: of meds and just go on and get the work

794
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: done because it just has to be done. Then, and

795
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: the the in the amount of importance we put we

796
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: put on our work and our profession as kind of

797
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: our defining self. You know, I would say beyond this,

798
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying if you, you know, you should

799
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:23,840
Speaker 1: stay home. If you are a boss or an employer,

800
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 1: you're in a position of authority, it's very important for

801
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 1: you to make clear to your workers or direct reports whoever,

802
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: that they should not be doing this. They should not

803
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: be trying to power through or come to work if

804
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,760
Speaker 1: they have a respiratory illness. They should be staying home,

805
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: and you need to, you know, put whatever in place

806
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: to help them do that. Yeah, be that an enhanced

807
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: teleworking policy or what have you? Now Again, if you

808
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:52,280
Speaker 1: think you're sick, also, it's a good idea to separate

809
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: yourself from other people and animals in your household. Try

810
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: to stay in a separate room if you can. Try

811
00:43:57,200 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: to use a different bathroom if possible. You, you know,

812
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:01,879
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing you practice if you saw

813
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: somebody sick out in public. You want to keep distance

814
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 1: between you and other people who might get infected in

815
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:10,240
Speaker 1: your house. When you cough, try to cover your mouth

816
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: as much as possible. Coughing into the crook of your

817
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:15,720
Speaker 1: elbow is usually considered better than coughing into your hand

818
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: because you're less likely to spread virus to a secondary surface.

819
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 1: It's more fun because you you can pretend your Dracula, right,

820
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: you can be Bella Legosi and plan on from outer space.

821
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: Or the guy pretending to be Bella a ghost that's right,

822
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: because he had actually died, right, and the guy had

823
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: to cover up his face so you couldn't tell it

824
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: wasn't Bella um everybody could tell. Also, if you think

825
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 1: you may have coronavirus, Uh, this is a better time

826
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: to wear a regular face mask like a surgical mask.

827
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 1: By blocking large droplets from coming off of your face,

828
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:48,240
Speaker 1: it will reduce the amount of virus that you spread

829
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: to others when you cough or sneeze. But I guess

830
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: maybe most importantly, also, if you think you may have coronavirus,

831
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,280
Speaker 1: call your doctor healthcare provider before going to their office.

832
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: Don't just go. Call and explain, explain what your symptoms are,

833
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: and especially mentioned if you have had if you've been

834
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 1: traveling recently, and this way they will be better able

835
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: to direct you to the appropriate facilities to prevent unnecessary

836
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 1: contact and to get you where you need to go

837
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: or tell you what you need to do best. Now

838
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: more generally, Uh, you know, I was thinking about like

839
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:25,279
Speaker 1: how should we prepare for this? Like what what? What

840
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:27,839
Speaker 1: else should we be doing if obviously we don't think

841
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: we're infected yet. I was reading a really good article

842
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: in Scientific American from just yesterday by Zane up to

843
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 1: fect she and she's reacting to, of course, the fact that,

844
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:40,839
Speaker 1: you know, the CDC has begun to warn people within

845
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 1: the United States that there's community transmission probably taking place,

846
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 1: and this has the potential to pose quite a significant

847
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: disruption to our lives. Uh. She points out that, you know,

848
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 1: there's kind of a psychological issue, and this has been

849
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 1: very true for me at least. A lot of people

850
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: don't know how seriously to take a problem like this,

851
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: Like you are afraid of being under prepared, but you're

852
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 1: also afraid of overreacting and looking foolish, you know, uh,

853
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: looking paranoid, you know, being the person who stockpiled hollow

854
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,840
Speaker 1: point ammunition and canned corn beef hash for the Y

855
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: two K bug. Yeah, you don't. You don't want to

856
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 1: fall into a set of behaviors that make you feel

857
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:22,839
Speaker 1: like Michael Shannon might play you in the movie version. Yeah, um,

858
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah. And the point of Defects article is this,

859
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: don't do that, don't give into panic, don't go crazy,

860
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 1: don't start hoarding. Don't fall into doomsday prepper, you know,

861
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: snake oil territory. I'm sure there are people out there

862
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:40,800
Speaker 1: selling all kinds of you know, miracle coronavirus cure or whatever.

863
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: But do prepare. Do prepare how you can in reasonable ways,

864
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:46,360
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about what those are in just a

865
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 1: minute here. Because these preparations could not only protect you,

866
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: they can help contain the problem overall. Quote, preparing for

867
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 1: the almost inevitable global spread of this virus is one

868
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: of the most pro social out heuristic things you can

869
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: do in response to potential disruptions of this kind. And

870
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: in explaining her argument, uh, you know, she mentions we

871
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, of course, that you know, there are not

872
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: in the fatality rate of a disease, are not fixed

873
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: to numbers that are biologically intrinsic to the pathogen. Of course,

874
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:21,839
Speaker 1: they're influenced by biological features of the pathogen, but it's

875
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 1: better to think of these numbers as something closer to

876
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,720
Speaker 1: other big numbers in the social sciences, like the unemployment

877
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: rate or average human life expectancy. There are numbers that

878
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 1: reflect real averages on the ground as collected by epidemiologists,

879
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: but they can also change a lot based on our

880
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: individual behaviors and the actions of institutions and to fect

881
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 1: She points out that it was effective interventions by our

882
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: disease control efforts that were able to control the two

883
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 1: thousand three Stars epidemic. But before our interventions are not

884
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: of Stars, was about three and then after active measures

885
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: it went down to about point zero four and all

886
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 1: ultimately it only killed between nine hundred and a thousand people,

887
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: which is still too many, but far less than it

888
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: had the potential to. Likewise, there are certain ways we

889
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 1: can prepare now that might help to do what defects.

890
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: She calls flattening the curve of the pandemic and putting

891
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: less strain and stress on infrastructure at crucial times. So

892
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: what is flattening the curve mean? It means slowing the

893
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: transmission rate of the disease and the best way to

894
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: do that to whatever extent possible is to practice community

895
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 1: wide isolation, meaning you know, if people can, they should

896
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: stay home. The more people stay home, the fewer people

897
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: will catch the virus. The fewer people catch it, the

898
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,919
Speaker 1: better our health infrastructure can manage. Crowding at hospitals will

899
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 1: greatly increase the case fatality rate not only for coronavirus,

900
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: but for other dangerous infections at the same time, like

901
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: the flu. Yeah, that's the thing. It's this is not

902
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: like like a small town movie theater situation where the

903
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: new blockbuster comes to town and then, uh, it's the

904
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: only thing playing. There are still going to be other

905
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 1: featured infections in play. And for that reason, So when

906
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: it comes to what preparations you actually should engage in

907
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:10,399
Speaker 1: to fetch your recommends, first of all, make sure you've

908
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: gotten your flu shot. You know, this reduces the likelihood

909
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 1: that you'll have to go to the hospital with the flu,

910
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: reducing overall strain on the health care infrastructure, reducing the

911
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 1: chance that you could be exposed to coronavirus while seeking

912
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: treatment for the flu. Uh, And they're also implied comorbidities.

913
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,319
Speaker 1: You don't want to be exposed to both flu and

914
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 1: coronavirus at the same time. Beyond that, it is reasonable

915
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 1: to stock up on some supplies that you could basically

916
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:39,800
Speaker 1: use to stay at home for two to three weeks

917
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:41,920
Speaker 1: if necessary. We don't know that you're going to need

918
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 1: to do that, but it's possible that we could get

919
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,439
Speaker 1: to a point where the outlook for this pandemic would

920
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 1: be a lot better if people could stay home for

921
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 1: roughly two to three weeks. So stuff to get you

922
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:53,839
Speaker 1: through two to three weeks at home would include drinkable water.

923
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 1: Drinkable water is a great one because this is something

924
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: that's good to have on hand in case there's a

925
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: winter storm, in case your it is frequently happens in

926
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: the area where we live where suddenly there's a boil

927
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:06,919
Speaker 1: warning for your water. Well, now you have some fresh water.

928
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: And if you if you reach the point where it's

929
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 1: like months later and you realize, oh, I still have

930
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 1: all that water I bought in case of the coronavirus,

931
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: Well put in your car with you and the next

932
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: time there's somebody on a on a hot day, you know,

933
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:21,239
Speaker 1: asking for for you know, for a little help, you

934
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 1: can always give them a water bottle. Totally beyond that,

935
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 1: of course, it's it's good to have food, shelf stable

936
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: food like canned goods and of course dried foods not bananas, Yeah,

937
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: can canned canned goods. Uh, we're specifically mentioned. Also things

938
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 1: like pasta, rice, beans, dried fruit and nuts, anything that

939
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 1: can hang out and doesn't need to be refrigerated. Of course,

940
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,439
Speaker 1: it's fine to have refrigerated foods too, but if say

941
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 1: the power goes out at some point, or if you

942
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: do need to stay home for three weeks, stuff might

943
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:52,840
Speaker 1: not stay fresh in your fridge for that whole time. Also,

944
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: it's important that this is one to think about in advance.

945
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: Stock up on prescription medications if you can, if you

946
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 1: can get a pres option filled, that could get you

947
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: through a two to three week period, and then on

948
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,319
Speaker 1: top of that basic first aid supplies and over the

949
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 1: counter medications you might need right beyond that, things to

950
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: keep you busy that you can do at home, you know, books,

951
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 1: video games, board games, all that kind of stuff. So

952
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 1: probably not the board game pandemic Um, which is a

953
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 1: which is a fun game, but it's just not the time,

954
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: um but but but yeah, it is important to think

955
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 1: about the fact that you you need to be potentially

956
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: prepared for being a little bit stir crazy with your family,

957
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 1: and what are some of the things to have on

958
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 1: hand to help facilitate that stay now. Of course, if

959
00:51:34,600 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: it does come to people needing to stay home for

960
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:40,400
Speaker 1: a few weeks at a time, there are also options

961
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:43,279
Speaker 1: to rely on deliveries for things people need but one

962
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:46,840
Speaker 1: of the points that too fectually emphasizes is that delivery

963
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: services will be very important for people who don't have

964
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 1: the ability to prepare ahead of time, you know all that,

965
00:51:52,480 --> 00:51:55,439
Speaker 1: And so it's better not to wait until the last

966
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,359
Speaker 1: minute and then put all that stress on various kinds

967
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 1: of infrastruct sure all at once, whether that's health care, infrastructure,

968
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,880
Speaker 1: delivery workers all that. Yeah, and this is an easy,

969
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: easy one to fall into, right, because we have so

970
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,439
Speaker 1: much stuff that is delivered to us on any given day.

971
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 1: You know, we might have uh, you know, Amazon Prime,

972
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 1: next day delivery, same day delivery for various goods. You

973
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: may have various meal delivery services that are dropping by

974
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 1: your door, et cetera. And again, not to be alarmist,

975
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 1: because even in places, say in China, where the outbreaks

976
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:32,920
Speaker 1: have been very severe, generally, uh like, basic services have continued,

977
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,799
Speaker 1: so there's power and all that. So you know, it's

978
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: not that you should expect the power to go out,

979
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 1: but just to be safe, it's probably not a bad

980
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: idea to have, say, a portable charger for your phone. Yeah,

981
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 1: those are handy to have anyway, especially you're like me

982
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: and you you keep your phone too long and the

983
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 1: battery just gets gets crappier and crappier. Yep, yep, yep.

984
00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: Another thing. We sort of emphasized this earlier, but defectually

985
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 1: makes the same point, and I think it's a very

986
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: important one. Don't just think about yourself, Think about what

987
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: you can do for people that you are in a

988
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 1: position of authority over. If you're an employer, if you're

989
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: a boss, if you're in whatever kind of authority position,

990
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 1: please go ahead and make all necessary preparations to allow

991
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:14,399
Speaker 1: people to work from home if possible, to miss work

992
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: for two to three weeks without interruptions, to pay. Yeah,

993
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:19,799
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe even send out something about that

994
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 1: now before it becomes an issue, you know. And again,

995
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:24,480
Speaker 1: of course, it may turn out that we don't need

996
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 1: to practice any of the stuff, that we don't actually

997
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 1: need to go into community isolation. But I think to

998
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: a factually makes a good case that early preparedness for

999
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: that possibility helps everyone and has relatively low costs, provided

1000
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: you're not like hoarding scarce medical supplies or something right right,

1001
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:42,120
Speaker 1: like the idea of just having some some extra shelf

1002
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:45,800
Speaker 1: goods on hand. You know, you're you're you're not wasting money.

1003
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:47,919
Speaker 1: You can eat them either way. You eat them either way.

1004
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:51,319
Speaker 1: It's it's just a safeguarding you a little bit for

1005
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 1: the future. Towards the end of her article, she she writes, quote,

1006
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 1: as a society, there are much larger conversations to be

1007
00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 1: had about the way our healthcare industry runs. For example,

1008
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 1: how to handle global risks and are increasingly interconnected world.

1009
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 1: How to build resilient communities, how to reduce travel for work.

1010
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: Those are all important discussions, and nothing in this short

1011
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 1: article replaces that. However, the practical steps facing households are

1012
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 1: immediate and important for the sake of everyone else. Prepared

1013
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: to stay home for a few weeks, you'll reduce your

1014
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: own risks, but most importantly, you reduce the burden on

1015
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 1: healthcare and delivery infrastructure and allow frontline workers to reach

1016
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:30,879
Speaker 1: and help the people most vulnerable. You know, I want

1017
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,399
Speaker 1: to come back to the subject of information as well here,

1018
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:37,760
Speaker 1: because again I think this is key. Trust the Centers

1019
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:40,920
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization

1020
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 1: UH These are both excellent organizations to go to for information,

1021
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,400
Speaker 1: up to the date information, up to date information about coronavirus.

1022
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:51,239
Speaker 1: A friend of mine who works with the CDC. Was

1023
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 1: was recently driving this home on social media. Do not

1024
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 1: fall into conspiracy ideas and conspiracy thinking that cast the

1025
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 1: c d C is some sort of deep state adversary

1026
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,280
Speaker 1: or some sort of state political mouthpiece. Uh. The CDC

1027
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:08,440
Speaker 1: is a great source of information for news about COVID

1028
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:12,360
Speaker 1: nineteen and you can if you are not aware of

1029
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 1: where to find them, you can just go to www

1030
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:17,880
Speaker 1: dot CDC dot gov. Yeah, these organizations are staffed with

1031
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: excellent public servants and career professionals. These are people who

1032
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: know what they're doing and they're working very hard to

1033
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:26,440
Speaker 1: get you the best information they can given what we

1034
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 1: know at the time. All right, on that note, we're

1035
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:30,439
Speaker 1: going to take one more break, but when we come

1036
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:35,719
Speaker 1: back we will discuss long term prospects and analysis. Than

1037
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:40,160
Speaker 1: all right, we're back. So I know a lot of

1038
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 1: you probably have this question on your mind, and it's

1039
00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: something that of course continues to come up in media coverage.

1040
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:47,959
Speaker 1: What about a vaccine? Right? Uh that that, of course

1041
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:49,839
Speaker 1: would be great if we had a vaccine for this

1042
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: new virus. There is no vaccine yet a number of

1043
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:56,280
Speaker 1: labs and pharmaceutical companies around the world are working rapidly

1044
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 1: to develop one. I was reading about a number of

1045
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:01,799
Speaker 1: different efforts, but most current estimates are saying that it

1046
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 1: will be at least a year or so before a

1047
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:07,719
Speaker 1: vaccine will be ready, and that might be an optimistic timeline.

1048
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 1: Some timelines don't even get to the human testing phase

1049
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 1: until uh, so we don't know how long it will take.

1050
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 1: But and of course there have been rumors, right including

1051
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: rumors by certain high profile politicians that were very close

1052
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 1: to a vaccine. I guess you could define very close

1053
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: however you want, But but a realistic timeline is that

1054
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 1: a vaccine with proven efficacy is probably at the very

1055
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: least months, if not years, away, right, So don't put

1056
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:38,120
Speaker 1: all your eggs in that basket, especially as far as

1057
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:41,960
Speaker 1: short term concerns go. Right. More broadly, though, at the

1058
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:44,279
Speaker 1: time we're recording this, there are being there are other

1059
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:48,120
Speaker 1: treatments that are being explored, So maybe not a vaccine,

1060
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:51,239
Speaker 1: maybe sooner than a vaccine. There's the possibility that we

1061
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:53,880
Speaker 1: could get some kind of anti viral drugs that that

1062
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 1: could be effective to some extent with with this coronavirus.

1063
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 1: But as of the day were recording, I don't think

1064
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:03,400
Speaker 1: I had found any evidence that any had been approved

1065
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:06,439
Speaker 1: for human use yet. Now another question is when will

1066
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: the coronavirus peak. I was reading about this in a

1067
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:13,840
Speaker 1: news feature for Nature by David Syronowsky published on February eighteen,

1068
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:17,440
Speaker 1: And so what would have a peak refer to? Well,

1069
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: a disease peaks when quote the number of new infections

1070
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,120
Speaker 1: in a single day reaches its highest point. So the

1071
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:26,920
Speaker 1: bottom line is that it's hard to predict, and estimates

1072
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:30,000
Speaker 1: are all over the place. Some experts believe we're very

1073
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 1: close to the peak already, or perhaps we've even passed it.

1074
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 1: Some estimate that it's months away. H There are dangers

1075
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: in over relying on guesses like these either way, but

1076
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 1: it would be good to try to get a sense

1077
00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: of the lay of the land. Um. One of the

1078
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 1: experts that the author here is talking to is named

1079
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:52,200
Speaker 1: Brian Labis, who works on disease surveillance at the University

1080
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:55,440
Speaker 1: of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Labis says, quote, if you

1081
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,360
Speaker 1: revise your predictions every week to say that the outbreak

1082
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:00,320
Speaker 1: will peak in a week or two events, really you

1083
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:05,080
Speaker 1: will be correct. Um. But the optimistic scenario. Well. On

1084
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: February eleven, Zong and Shan, a prominent Chinese physician UH

1085
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 1: predicted a peak by somewhere around the end of February. Meanwhile,

1086
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:17,960
Speaker 1: a British statistician named Sebastian Funk published models that aligned

1087
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:21,720
Speaker 1: roughly with this prediction. Quote. Funk estimates that that at

1088
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: the peak, around a million people about ten percent of

1089
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: Wuhan's population will be infected, and according to this model,

1090
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 1: the outbreak may even have already peaked, but that's the

1091
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 1: most optimistic scenario, the worst case UH. The The author

1092
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 1: here mentions Hiroshi Nishiura, who is an epidemiologist at Hokkaido

1093
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 1: University and Supporto Japan, who alleges that the outbreak quote

1094
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:47,280
Speaker 1: will peak sometime between late March and late May. At

1095
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:49,880
Speaker 1: this point, he says up to two point three million

1096
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:53,160
Speaker 1: cases will be diagnosed in a single day. In total,

1097
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:55,880
Speaker 1: he estimates that between five hundred and fifty million and

1098
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty million people across China will be infected,

1099
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,440
Speaker 1: fully forty of the country's population, so that that would

1100
00:59:03,440 --> 00:59:06,400
Speaker 1: be very bad obviously, but that's a worst case scenario,

1101
00:59:06,640 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 1: or at least is believed to be at this point,

1102
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: so we don't know for sure when the peak will be.

1103
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:14,400
Speaker 1: But there's a good point made by Gabriel Lung, who

1104
00:59:14,560 --> 00:59:17,760
Speaker 1: is an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, who

1105
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: points out that you're not just trying to reduce the

1106
00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 1: overall number of people who get infected. It is actually

1107
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:25,919
Speaker 1: important to try to reduce the number of people who

1108
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 1: get infected at the same time because whenever this peak is,

1109
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:34,960
Speaker 1: it's going to essentially grind everything to a halt. It.

1110
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 1: You know, health services, hospitals, doctors become overwhelmed, and that

1111
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 1: is what contributes to an increasing case fatality rate for

1112
00:59:43,880 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 1: the disease. Uh. You know, the less attention individual patients

1113
00:59:47,440 --> 00:59:50,840
Speaker 1: can get because health services are strained by too many

1114
00:59:50,840 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 1: people presenting with the disease at the same time, the

1115
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 1: worst the outcomes will be. Now, another article that we're

1116
00:59:57,080 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 1: looking at for this episode is a piece that came

1117
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:03,640
Speaker 1: out of The Atlantic by James Hamblin titled You're likely

1118
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:10,320
Speaker 1: to get the coronavirus um, which, um, that's well, you know,

1119
01:00:10,400 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's it's a frank title and and I

1120
01:00:13,240 --> 01:00:14,920
Speaker 1: think it becomes clear when you read it. It's not

1121
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:18,320
Speaker 1: a it's not a scare tactic article like it. Basically

1122
01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 1: the article gets into the the idea that this is

1123
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 1: this uh, this illness is here and it might be

1124
01:00:24,880 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: with us for a while. Um. He points out that quote.

1125
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 1: The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely

1126
01:00:32,800 --> 01:00:36,680
Speaker 1: outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease, a

1127
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 1: fifth endemic coronavirus. The other four endemic coronaviruses are the

1128
01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:47,200
Speaker 1: alpha coronavirus IS two and n L sixty three, plus

1129
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:50,080
Speaker 1: the two beta coronavirus is O C forty three in

1130
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:53,400
Speaker 1: h K you one now two to nine E and

1131
01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: O C forty three are among the virus is responsible

1132
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:59,520
Speaker 1: for the common cold, like we were mentioning earlier, and

1133
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 1: people around the world are routinely infected with these four coronaviruses.

1134
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:07,920
Speaker 1: So they're they're not like an emerging pandemic. They're just

1135
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:10,919
Speaker 1: with us. They're just always kind of bouncing around within

1136
01:01:11,040 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 1: human population, right, They're just they're just part of it there.

1137
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 1: That's part of our our seasonal exposure to viruses. Now,

1138
01:01:17,160 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 1: you might well be wondering, since I've brought out the

1139
01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:22,520
Speaker 1: seasonal aspect of this, what does it really mean for

1140
01:01:22,600 --> 01:01:25,920
Speaker 1: something like this to be a seasonal virus? Why do

1141
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:29,760
Speaker 1: we have a cold and flu season? It's a good question. Yeah,

1142
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: So cold and flu are are linked to winter. In

1143
01:01:34,440 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 1: the northern hemisphere, they tend to peak in February and March,

1144
01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:42,120
Speaker 1: while in the southern hemisphere the peak is June and September. Now,

1145
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 1: to be clear, these illnesses are not caused by the cold.

1146
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:49,880
Speaker 1: That is, sometimes the sort of loose misconception that floats

1147
01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 1: around the virus is the prerequisite. But why is there

1148
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:57,880
Speaker 1: a link between the virus and cold conditions. Well, scientists

1149
01:01:57,920 --> 01:02:01,600
Speaker 1: don't have a definite answer, but there are some prevailing

1150
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:05,240
Speaker 1: ideas on this. So first of all, such viruses may

1151
01:02:05,280 --> 01:02:09,800
Speaker 1: just survive better in colder, dryer climates. Dry air, for instance,

1152
01:02:09,880 --> 01:02:13,600
Speaker 1: might make it possible for viral droplets to disperse further.

1153
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:16,960
Speaker 1: So maybe when you like sneeze or cough in cold,

1154
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:20,320
Speaker 1: dry air, the goes farther. Yeah, Like, you know, we're

1155
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: talking about how far away does it make sense to

1156
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 1: be from an infected person? You know? Is it is

1157
01:02:24,720 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 1: it three ft? Is it five feet? Is a six ft?

1158
01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 1: One of the ideas here is that the the the

1159
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:34,520
Speaker 1: the necessary distance for a transference is perhaps less due

1160
01:02:34,520 --> 01:02:38,280
Speaker 1: to the uh the dryness of the air. Also, winter

1161
01:02:38,400 --> 01:02:41,560
Speaker 1: conditions tend to force people to spend more time time

1162
01:02:41,640 --> 01:02:46,080
Speaker 1: indoors sealed up, exposing them more to the shared air

1163
01:02:46,160 --> 01:02:49,720
Speaker 1: of people who may have a virus. Another idea is

1164
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 1: that shorter days and less sunlight lead to lower levels

1165
01:02:52,760 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: of vitamin D and melatonin, which requires sunlight for generation,

1166
01:02:57,120 --> 01:03:00,280
Speaker 1: and so this ultimately compromises our immune system. So our

1167
01:03:00,320 --> 01:03:03,960
Speaker 1: immune system is perhaps weaker during the winter and therefore

1168
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 1: were just more susceptible to these infections. Whatever the exact

1169
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: reason uh the results is that established viral illnesses like

1170
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:15,800
Speaker 1: influenza follow a seasonal cycle, and the idea is that

1171
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 1: as this new coronavirus spreads, its potentially becomes just part

1172
01:03:20,240 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: of this cycle as well. But it is important to

1173
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,200
Speaker 1: realize that yes, seasonal changes may be good, typically good

1174
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: at cutting into a virus's survival rate, but nothing is

1175
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:34,280
Speaker 1: a sure thing here with this new coronavirus. A number

1176
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: of different journalists have written about this topic. I was

1177
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:40,000
Speaker 1: looking at something written by Tom Arville for The l

1178
01:03:40,040 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: A Times, and he spoke with Marcy edge F Bonnie,

1179
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:47,760
Speaker 1: an associate professor of biology at pin State University, who

1180
01:03:47,800 --> 01:03:51,040
Speaker 1: pointed out that while warmer weather typically cuts into an

1181
01:03:51,080 --> 01:03:54,600
Speaker 1: illness is survival rate. This illness will be encountering a

1182
01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:58,520
Speaker 1: quote completely susceptible US population. So, coming back to what

1183
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:01,040
Speaker 1: we said earlier, next to no has been exposed to

1184
01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:04,080
Speaker 1: it here before, there's been no chance to develop an immunity,

1185
01:04:04,440 --> 01:04:08,280
Speaker 1: uh much less anything like a vaccine. So the idea,

1186
01:04:08,360 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 1: you know, if you hear someone say, well, don't worry

1187
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:13,600
Speaker 1: that the weather is getting warmer, it's going to take

1188
01:04:13,600 --> 01:04:17,880
Speaker 1: care of it. Um, that's not possible, but not possible

1189
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:20,040
Speaker 1: but not known. Yeah, there are a lot of caveats

1190
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:24,160
Speaker 1: to attach that statement at the very least. Yeah, totally. Well,

1191
01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 1: so we've reached the end of what we had prepared

1192
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:29,240
Speaker 1: to say here today. But uh, I really hope we

1193
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:33,320
Speaker 1: have left you not panicking, uh, not more afraid than

1194
01:04:33,320 --> 01:04:36,160
Speaker 1: when you started, but armed with some knowledge that you

1195
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 1: can use to help ready yourself. Yeah, you've got you've

1196
01:04:39,320 --> 01:04:41,800
Speaker 1: got some information. You've got some knowledge. Um, maybe a

1197
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:44,000
Speaker 1: little better idea about where you should go for additional

1198
01:04:44,040 --> 01:04:47,919
Speaker 1: information again c D C W h O. Uh, those

1199
01:04:47,920 --> 01:04:51,360
Speaker 1: are great places to seek out for additional information. Again,

1200
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:54,880
Speaker 1: bear in mind the date of this publication. Compare that

1201
01:04:54,920 --> 01:04:57,840
Speaker 1: to when you're listening to this episode, because things are

1202
01:04:57,880 --> 01:05:02,120
Speaker 1: going to change. Information is going to improve. Um. Also, yeah,

1203
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 1: we've we've let you know that there are four Watchers

1204
01:05:04,560 --> 01:05:06,640
Speaker 1: movies so you can watch while you're sealed up in

1205
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 1: your home eating your noodles and eating your Kinder eggs.

1206
01:05:10,200 --> 01:05:16,200
Speaker 1: Are Kinder eggs shelf stable candy? Yeah? I think they are. Yeah,

1207
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:18,960
Speaker 1: I mean they know you heard it here. That's how

1208
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:20,920
Speaker 1: you get through. I mean they have they have an

1209
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:23,960
Speaker 1: expiration day. But I think they're good for a little bit.

1210
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:25,960
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever had a kinderrect. You don't

1211
01:05:25,960 --> 01:05:28,360
Speaker 1: have to worry about them hatching is the thing. There

1212
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:31,560
Speaker 1: are no special like Maguai gremlin rules in play. That's

1213
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:34,200
Speaker 1: a very good, very good feature. Obviously, we'd love to

1214
01:05:34,240 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 1: hear from anyone out there, you know, especially if you

1215
01:05:36,640 --> 01:05:41,400
Speaker 1: if you have any firsthand experience with pandemics or with

1216
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 1: this particular coronavirus UM. You know, we we we'd appreciate

1217
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:48,280
Speaker 1: hearing from the via email. Uh. In the meantime, if

1218
01:05:48,280 --> 01:05:49,919
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of our show,

1219
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 1: you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Stuff

1220
01:05:52,760 --> 01:05:55,120
Speaker 1: to blow your mind is everywhere wherever you get it.

1221
01:05:55,160 --> 01:05:58,240
Speaker 1: Just make sure that you, rate, review, and subscribe. This

1222
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:00,560
Speaker 1: really helps us out in the long run. And oh

1223
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:03,040
Speaker 1: for our listeners out there, any listeners who are in

1224
01:06:03,080 --> 01:06:05,920
Speaker 1: the Atlanta area, UM, I want to let you know

1225
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:08,680
Speaker 1: that there is an event coming up part of the

1226
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 1: Atlanta Science Festival. It's called How Snakes Work. It is

1227
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:16,520
Speaker 1: going to be on Saturday, March seven from two pm

1228
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:18,480
Speaker 1: to four pm. You can find out about it at

1229
01:06:18,520 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 1: Atlanta Science Festival dot org. But it's pretty cool because

1230
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:24,919
Speaker 1: it is a It is a team up effort from

1231
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:28,640
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works, the website from which we spawned, and

1232
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:32,840
Speaker 1: the Amphibian Foundation uh Mark Bendinka's organization. Matt Mark Mendick

1233
01:06:32,920 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 1: of course is a friend of the show and has

1234
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:38,760
Speaker 1: been on to discuss amphibians, uh snakes, lizards and more.

1235
01:06:39,120 --> 01:06:42,480
Speaker 1: Sounds amazing, Yeah, so go check that out. It sounds slimy.

1236
01:06:42,640 --> 01:06:45,360
Speaker 1: Snakes are not slimy, Joe, there are if you greasome up.

1237
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:48,720
Speaker 1: I guess so huge. Thanks as always to our excellent

1238
01:06:48,760 --> 01:06:51,720
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to

1239
01:06:51,720 --> 01:06:53,920
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

1240
01:06:54,000 --> 01:06:56,040
Speaker 1: or any other to suggest a topic for the future,

1241
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:59,320
Speaker 1: just to say hi, you can email us at contact

1242
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:09,720
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1243
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:12,280
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I heart Radio. For

1244
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:14,560
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart

1245
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:17,360
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your

1246
01:07:17,360 --> 01:07:30,640
Speaker 1: favorite shows.