Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And today on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing something a little bit different than we usually do.
Speaker 1: We are going to be talking about an ongoing global
Speaker 1: disease outbreak. So if you've listened to us for a while,
Speaker 1: you know that while science is the heart of the show,
Speaker 1: we you know, we rarely cover breaking science news. It's
Speaker 1: not really our wheelhouse. They have been well maybe one
Speaker 1: or two times when we've kind of dipped our toe
Speaker 1: into that. And a part of the deal with breaking
Speaker 1: science is that sometimes it it breaks you back when
Speaker 1: you realize, oh, well, that's study about tartar grades had
Speaker 1: some it's had some problems with it. Remember that's like
Speaker 1: we're recording another episode on tartar grades the following week. Yep.
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah. Obviously, while we like to give the
Speaker 1: most up to date information we can whenever we dive
Speaker 1: into a subject, it's actually pretty rare that we cover
Speaker 1: a science story because it's the subject of current headlines
Speaker 1: and there are a few reasons for this. You know,
Speaker 1: we like to go deep a lot of times when
Speaker 1: news about a discovery first breaks there isn't a lot
Speaker 1: of depth yet to explore. But also the early days
Speaker 1: of a scientific news story are often full of rapid
Speaker 1: revisions and leads that turn out to be false or misguided.
Speaker 1: Those can be easier to fix, I think in a
Speaker 1: printed article, where you can simply go in and make
Speaker 1: edits or corrections or links to updates. That kind of
Speaker 1: thing doesn't work very well for recorded audio. So we
Speaker 1: do our best to cover subjects that we think we
Speaker 1: can get right the first time, go deep on and
Speaker 1: cover in a kind of evergreen way. Um, but right
Speaker 1: now there is a still developing global health story that
Speaker 1: we figured it was really important to address on our show,
Speaker 1: and that's the at this point, very likely global pandemic
Speaker 1: of coronavirus. So given the subject of today's story, we
Speaker 1: really need to be even more clear than usual about
Speaker 1: when we're researching, recording, and the publishing this episode. It
Speaker 1: was researched the last week of February, recorded on February,
Speaker 1: and it will be published on March three. Now we're
Speaker 1: gonna do what we can to make sure it's up
Speaker 1: to date at the point of publication, but certainly bear
Speaker 1: in mind that the story will continue to move in
Speaker 1: the days and weeks following its publication. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of media coverage out there about this right now.
Speaker 1: Some of it is is great, some of it is
Speaker 1: perhaps a bit more on the panic side of the equation.
Speaker 1: UH studies are flying off the digital press. Government health
Speaker 1: organizations such as the CDC and UH that's the Centers
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization
Speaker 1: or do we call them the who do you like
Speaker 1: to call them? The w h O? Or the who?
Speaker 1: I call them? The who? Are you? Well? They are
Speaker 1: essential voices in all of this, but in the in
Speaker 1: some cases governmental um responses and communications have been criticized,
Speaker 1: and there's also a fair amount of misinformation, races, xenophobia,
Speaker 1: and fear out there. So we're gonna do what we
Speaker 1: can to stick to the facts here and to give
Speaker 1: you a balanced view of the current state of the
Speaker 1: coronavirus and give you some tips about what you need
Speaker 1: to do to potentially prepare and to further educate yourself
Speaker 1: on the topic. Right, So, I guess we should start
Speaker 1: with a brief sketch of the timeline on this new
Speaker 1: disease up to the present. So how did the story begin. Well,
Speaker 1: at the end of last year. On December thirty one,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, the National China Office of the World Health
Speaker 1: Organization was notified of a localized surge in cases of
Speaker 1: pneumonia with an unknown origin in Wuhan's City, which is
Speaker 1: in the Hubei Province of China, and it's home to
Speaker 1: about eleven million people, So this is considered central China.
Speaker 1: And if you're if you're listening to this and you're
Speaker 1: trying to roughly picture it on a map, it's something
Speaker 1: like six hundred miles more or less directly north of Guangzhou,
Speaker 1: So we're talking about like an eleven hour bus drive
Speaker 1: according to Google. Yeah, now, these were cases of pneumonia
Speaker 1: at the time. That that's how they were recognized. And
Speaker 1: pneumonia just refers to a type of inflammation and the
Speaker 1: air sacks of the lungs, usually due to bacterial or
Speaker 1: viral infection. I guess there are multiple types of pathogens
Speaker 1: like fungus and other parasites can get in there too.
Speaker 1: Uh So pneumonia can have many causes. A common one
Speaker 1: would be the influence of virus or flu, except the
Speaker 1: patients presenting at the hospitals and Muhan did not have
Speaker 1: the flu. By January three, there were forty four cases
Speaker 1: of Wuhan city pneumonia with unknown ideology, meaning we don't
Speaker 1: understand what's causing it. But obviously a new, unidentified pathogen
Speaker 1: was suspected. So when a new and unfamiliar epidemic breaks out,
Speaker 1: what tools to epidemiologists have to try to understand things well?
Speaker 1: One is to look for underlying patterns among the people
Speaker 1: presenting with the novel infection. Is there anything many or
Speaker 1: all of them have in common, any place they've all been,
Speaker 1: any food they've all eaten, or anything like that? And
Speaker 1: this method quickly brought a likely ground zero for exposure
Speaker 1: into focus, which was a specific food market in Wuhan
Speaker 1: which in some cases sold live animals, including seafood, rabbits,
Speaker 1: and poultry. This was the juan On Seafood Wholesale Market,
Speaker 1: and several of the initial patients apparently worked there. The
Speaker 1: market was shut down on January one and subjected to
Speaker 1: sanitation protocols. Yeah, and again, despite its name, the market
Speaker 1: sees fairly varied trade and numerous animals, including several different
Speaker 1: varieties of mammals. So we call cases such as this
Speaker 1: zoonosis in which bacterium, virus or parasite transfers from an
Speaker 1: animal host to a human host, and there are numerous
Speaker 1: possible vectors and ways that it can spread. The reverse
Speaker 1: is also possible, by the way, either known as reverse
Speaker 1: zunosis or anthroponosis uh, in which one of these pathogens
Speaker 1: or virus or whatever basses from a human to an animal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and very very often when there is a new disease,
Speaker 1: it's a case of zoonosis, right, and something is popped
Speaker 1: up because a disease formerly present in some species of
Speaker 1: animal has jumped and suddenly appeared in humans. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then that's why it can be dangerous, because suddenly you
Speaker 1: have a new bacteria, virus, or parasite that the immune
Speaker 1: system and health experts are not specifically ready for or
Speaker 1: or you know, or you know, you haven't had a
Speaker 1: chance for an immunity to build up or for very
Speaker 1: targeted um uh, you know health strategy to be put
Speaker 1: in place. Yeah. Well, we're unprepared in multiple ways, right.
Speaker 1: We don't have effective treatments yet. Likely we don't have
Speaker 1: effective vaccines yet. Likely we don't know what to look
Speaker 1: for yet with this new disease, and people don't have
Speaker 1: a natural immunity to it, so it hits us in
Speaker 1: our unpreparedness in multiple ways all at once. So one
Speaker 1: thing we need to drive home with zoonosis is that
Speaker 1: it has always occurred, uh, you know, anywhere humans have
Speaker 1: been in close confines with animals. Uh, there is a
Speaker 1: there there is a possibility for for the pathogen to
Speaker 1: to to switch teams, to mute, to to jump over
Speaker 1: to a new host, and examples include everything from like
Speaker 1: rabies and bird flu to to HIV, with with HIV
Speaker 1: being an example of something that's subsequently mutated into a
Speaker 1: human only variety. Yeah, I believe the most recent consensus
Speaker 1: on that is that it was probably originally an immune
Speaker 1: virus affecting apes. Right, And and of course there are
Speaker 1: multiple ways for uh, for the for these this lead
Speaker 1: to take place. You can come from the eating of animals,
Speaker 1: from just you know, raising animals and being close proximity
Speaker 1: with them, pats or another area. And we'll get back
Speaker 1: to some of the details on that in a bit. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: what were the symptoms that were identified for this unknown
Speaker 1: type of pneumonia that was appearing in Wuhan City. Some
Speaker 1: of the early symptoms were fever, difficulty breathing, and X
Speaker 1: rays showing lesions in both lungs. There were initially fears
Speaker 1: that the virus was a resurgence of the Severe Acute
Speaker 1: Respiratory Syndrome or STARS uh an outbreak of viral infection
Speaker 1: that killed hundreds of people worldwide in two thousand two
Speaker 1: and two thousand three but was ultimately contained, and these
Speaker 1: suspicions of association with STARRS were close. They were close
Speaker 1: to the mark. On January seven, officials announced they had
Speaker 1: identified a novel viruses, the Culprit, which was at the
Speaker 1: time called twenty nineteen in c O V. It was
Speaker 1: a new strain of the coronavirus family, and coronaviruses are common.
Speaker 1: They account for all kinds of diseases, including STARS, but
Speaker 1: also instances of the Common Cold. Like the Common Cold,
Speaker 1: isn't caused by just one pathogen, but a range of
Speaker 1: similar viruses that affect the upper respiratory system. On January eleven,
Speaker 1: China announced the first death from this new disease. It
Speaker 1: was a sixty one year old man who had passed
Speaker 1: away two days earlier of heart failure stemming from the infection,
Speaker 1: and confirmed infections and deaths continued to spread in the
Speaker 1: following days. By the twenty second of January, at least
Speaker 1: seventeen people had died in China. There were more than
Speaker 1: five and fifty infections. Uh There were attempts to control
Speaker 1: the spread of the disease through travel restrictions and quarantines,
Speaker 1: but that they failed. Essentially they weren't able to contain it.
Speaker 1: On January, the World Health Organization announced that coronavirus was
Speaker 1: a global emergency. At this time, there had been a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy deaths in China, with seven thousand, seven
Speaker 1: hundred and eleven cases reported in the country, where the
Speaker 1: virus had spread to all thirty one provinces by this time,
Speaker 1: and also by this time cases are popping up in
Speaker 1: other countries around the world uh AS one note on
Speaker 1: February seven, Lee Win Leong, who was one of the
Speaker 1: first doctors in China to raise concerns about the new virus,
Speaker 1: died on February eleventh. There were more than forty two
Speaker 1: thousand infections and more than a thousand deaths in China,
Speaker 1: and the World Health Organization at this point announced the
Speaker 1: new coronavirus had a name, it would be the coronavirus
Speaker 1: Disease twenty nineteen or COVID nineteen. In the weeks since,
Speaker 1: the global spread has continued and the number of infections
Speaker 1: and deaths has climbed, and on the day we're recording this,
Speaker 1: I was trying to get the most updated count I
Speaker 1: could uh. This morning, NBC News was reporting that coronavirus
Speaker 1: today has been confirmed in at least forty countries, including Italy, Iran,
Speaker 1: South Korea, and the United States. The most recent public
Speaker 1: numbers indicate that more than eighty thousand cases of infection
Speaker 1: have been confirmed and more than deaths, most of which
Speaker 1: have been in China. As far as the United States goes,
Speaker 1: the CDC has already announced it expects community transmission of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen within the United States. And community transmission is
Speaker 1: an epidemiology term. It just means an infection is loose
Speaker 1: and spreading naturally within a population, So it's no longer
Speaker 1: that infections only appear in people who have traveled to
Speaker 1: places with known outbreaks. Community transmission just means it's here
Speaker 1: and it's spreading naturally among us. Yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the kinder egg. Used to the kinder egg with
Speaker 1: something that you know, you picked up on a vacation
Speaker 1: to another country and you brought back and then you shared. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now you can buy a form of the kinder egg
Speaker 1: all over the place. So you know, community transmission of
Speaker 1: the kinder egg is just a reality. Not that I'm
Speaker 1: I'm comparing the kinder egg to coronavirus, the kindred any
Speaker 1: other way significantly better than the Yes, definitely. So at
Speaker 1: the time of this recording, it appears that there is
Speaker 1: already at least one known case of community transmission in
Speaker 1: the United States in Sacramento, California. By the time this
Speaker 1: episode comes out, I would not be surprised if there
Speaker 1: are more that have been documented. Uh So, questions are
Speaker 1: how bad is this disease? How does it compare to
Speaker 1: other diseases were familiar with? There are two important numbers
Speaker 1: to understand when we're talking about the impact of a
Speaker 1: novel pathogen. One is the reproduction number, also known as
Speaker 1: are not which is spelled like R zero. I think
Speaker 1: that's not from how the British would what would call
Speaker 1: the zero and then the other is the case fatality
Speaker 1: rate and the reproduction number are not tells you for
Speaker 1: every one person who becomes infected, how many more people
Speaker 1: are likely to are they likely to spread the infection to.
Speaker 1: The case fatality rate is what percent of the people
Speaker 1: who contracts the disease die from it. So, for example,
Speaker 1: measles is a particularly nasty infection because of how easily
Speaker 1: it's spreads in the current world with an R are
Speaker 1: not somewhere between twelve and eighteen. So in the world today,
Speaker 1: if you if you get measles on average, you're potentially
Speaker 1: going to spread it to like fifteen other people, the
Speaker 1: one reason the measles vaccine is so important. A reproduction
Speaker 1: number greater than one indicates the diseases spreading, right because
Speaker 1: it's being you know, it's infecting more people than are
Speaker 1: currently infected. A reproduction number of less than one usually
Speaker 1: indicates that an infection is dying out. I was reading
Speaker 1: a piece by ed Young in The Atlantic. However, that
Speaker 1: pointed out some difficulties with interpreting reproduction numbers for for
Speaker 1: emerging diseases. For example, the reproduction number is an average, right,
Speaker 1: so a disease that has a reproduction number of two
Speaker 1: could mean that every single person who gets infected spreads
Speaker 1: the pathogen to two new people. Or it could mean
Speaker 1: that one person out of fifty spreads the disease to
Speaker 1: a hundred people, and this this actually has been known
Speaker 1: to happen. These cases can become known as super spreaders,
Speaker 1: cases where certain diseases are spread uh disproportionately by select
Speaker 1: individuals uh And perhaps counterintuitively, diseases that propagate via superspreaders
Speaker 1: can be easier to contain than diseases that spread steadily
Speaker 1: from person to person across all cases. I guess that
Speaker 1: the easy go to example of this is it's typhoid Mary, right,
Speaker 1: Mary Mallan? Yeah? Who as she wasn't the only superspreader
Speaker 1: of typhoid or typhoid fever, I guess yeah, But she
Speaker 1: was somebody who worked in food service and food preparation
Speaker 1: and uh and while not showing strong symptoms of infection,
Speaker 1: herself kept spreading the typhoid to other people. If memory serves,
Speaker 1: there's an episode of the Nick that deals with her.
Speaker 1: Now are there cases of superspreaders of coronavirus. It's still early,
Speaker 1: but it seems so I was finding several examples in
Speaker 1: news reports. For example, one report in The Guardian from
Speaker 1: yesterday but in an article by Sarah Bosley and Martin
Speaker 1: Bellum alleging quote. The third British case of coronavirus was
Speaker 1: a man in his fifties who contracted the coronavirus infection
Speaker 1: at a conference in Singapore. He then traveled to France,
Speaker 1: where he stayed with his family in a ski chalet
Speaker 1: at the alpine resort La Contamin Montjoy. Five people who
Speaker 1: were in the chalet, including a boy of nine, if
Speaker 1: tested positive for coronavirus. Since the man came back to
Speaker 1: the UK on an easy Jet flight and was diagnosed
Speaker 1: in Brighton, another Briton who was on holiday in the
Speaker 1: chalet flew back to his home in Malorca and was
Speaker 1: admitted to hospital in Palma. The chief medical officer said
Speaker 1: four more people attested positive in England, all of whom
Speaker 1: were also on the skiing holiday in France. So it
Speaker 1: seems like there was a there was a massive transmission
Speaker 1: from this one person who contracted it. I was also
Speaker 1: reading a report of a woman in South Korea who
Speaker 1: is at this point believed to have so far spread
Speaker 1: the coronavirus to at least thirty seven people at her church. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think I was reading about part part of this
Speaker 1: deals with like this particular church. You know, they their congregation,
Speaker 1: how they gather and then how they go out and
Speaker 1: uh an attempt to spread the word, right, But it
Speaker 1: could also have to do with just specifics of of
Speaker 1: individual variation in in you know, how how your immune
Speaker 1: system works. Like there appears to be something called a
Speaker 1: twenty eight rule for the spread of many infectious diseases
Speaker 1: uh to quote from a two thousand eleven paper by
Speaker 1: Richard A. Stein and the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Speaker 1: Quote in what became known as the rule, a concept
Speaker 1: documented by observational and modeling studies and having profound implications
Speaker 1: for infection control, twenty percent of the individuals within any
Speaker 1: given population are thought to contribute at least eighty percent
Speaker 1: to the transmission potential of a pathogen, and many host
Speaker 1: pathogen interactions were found to follow this empirical rule. Now,
Speaker 1: this isn't true of every disease, but what they're saying
Speaker 1: is it's it's been discovered that for many disease eases
Speaker 1: that are infectious and spread from person to person, of
Speaker 1: the people infected do eighty percent of the spreading. Now,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's important, of course, not to demonize
Speaker 1: people who happen to be super spreaders. They're almost never
Speaker 1: spreading a disease on purpose. Uh. The factors that make
Speaker 1: somebody a super spreader still not fully understood, but it
Speaker 1: may just have something to do with how their immune
Speaker 1: system works. Uh. Sometimes it happens because a disease that
Speaker 1: makes other people very obviously outwardly sick creates almost no
Speaker 1: symptoms and the super spreader so they don't even know
Speaker 1: they're spreading it to people. Right, And I believe this
Speaker 1: was the case with typhoid Mary for example. Right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: again it's important not to demonize that in any way. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I think with typhoid Mary, I'm not saying we should
Speaker 1: demonize her either, but I think at some point she
Speaker 1: was made aware but then had after that, at least
Speaker 1: for a while, continued to work in food service. So obviously,
Speaker 1: if you were aware that you are, you know that
Speaker 1: that you may have an infection that could spread to
Speaker 1: other people, you should do whatever possible not to spread
Speaker 1: it to people. And we can talk about practical methods
Speaker 1: for that in a bit here. But also coming back
Speaker 1: to the reproduction number of an infection, the reproduction number,
Speaker 1: and Young points out and actually several authors I was
Speaker 1: looking at have have made this point. It's a very
Speaker 1: good one. It is not a fully fixed biological feature
Speaker 1: intrinsic to the pathogen. The reproduction number of a pathogen
Speaker 1: can be influenced by human interventions. Young points out that
Speaker 1: stars originally had very different reproduction numbers in China and Canada,
Speaker 1: so you'd get are nots ranging from like two to
Speaker 1: five or six, and this was just because of different
Speaker 1: levels of success in diagnosing and containing the cases that appeared.
Speaker 1: Coronavirus is no different. It's are not is influenced by
Speaker 1: biological facts about the virus itself, but also about how
Speaker 1: well people respond to it, what kinds of measures we
Speaker 1: can put in place, uh to contain it and stop transmission.
Speaker 1: And we'll get to those numbers in a second. But
Speaker 1: also I mentioned there's there's the the inner action between
Speaker 1: the reproduction number and the case fatality rate of an
Speaker 1: emerging pathogen. So meanwhile, UH, the hemorrhagic fever I bola
Speaker 1: does not spread super easily between people. It usually has
Speaker 1: an are not between one and two. It's not highly
Speaker 1: highly infectious, but I bola is very scary because it
Speaker 1: has such a high case fatality rate some somewhere around
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the people who get a bola end
Speaker 1: up dying from it, and there are diseases with even
Speaker 1: higher CFRs. Avian influenza A or H five in one
Speaker 1: has a CFR somewhere around sixty percent. Coronavirus is nowhere
Speaker 1: near that high, and in fact, depending on how you
Speaker 1: measure it, there are greater dangers represented by much more
Speaker 1: familiar diseases like seasonal flu. Like seasonal flu has a
Speaker 1: lower case fatality rate than coronavirus appears to. Seasonal flu
Speaker 1: has something like an average rate of point zero one
Speaker 1: percent in the United States at least. However, it's still
Speaker 1: very dangerous just because of the number of people who
Speaker 1: get infected that this season alone, the flu has already
Speaker 1: caused more than twenty five million infections and fourteen thousand
Speaker 1: deaths in the United States alone. The flu usually has
Speaker 1: a reproduction number of something like one point three, and
Speaker 1: it comes in fairly predictable seasonal cycles, so we've kind
Speaker 1: of gotten used to it. Even though it is still
Speaker 1: a great I mean, it kills thousands every year, but
Speaker 1: I guess it seems less scary to us just because
Speaker 1: it's been around. We we sort of know what to
Speaker 1: look for now. So as for the specific reproduction number
Speaker 1: in case fatality rate of the new coronavirus, at one point,
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization estimated that its reproduction number was
Speaker 1: between about one point four and two point five. I
Speaker 1: was reading a recent study from the journal Travel Medicine
Speaker 1: which reviewed studies from between January one of this year
Speaker 1: and the seventh of February this year, and for this
Speaker 1: time period the author's right quote, we identified twelve studies
Speaker 1: which estimated the basic reproductive number for the COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: from China and overseas UH. The estimates range from one
Speaker 1: point four to six point four nine, with a mean
Speaker 1: of three point to eight, a median of two point
Speaker 1: seven nine, and interquartile range of one point one six.
Speaker 1: So maybe the range is by our best estimates now
Speaker 1: currently averaging between like two point five and three point five.
Speaker 1: I've also seen estimates between two and three, though, again
Speaker 1: to drive home, those numbers could change a lot depending
Speaker 1: on what kinds of new UH new diagnostic methods and
Speaker 1: containment methods come online. Reproduction numbers for a new emergent
Speaker 1: virus I think are going to tend to be higher
Speaker 1: than they are for something that we're better at looking for,
Speaker 1: because it takes us longer to recognize it and and
Speaker 1: stop it spread. As for the case fatality rate, overall,
Speaker 1: it appears to be somewhere around two percent on average,
Speaker 1: but it also varies greatly based on factors like the
Speaker 1: age of the infected person and perhaps other factors that
Speaker 1: haven't come into focus yet. One relieving thing about it
Speaker 1: is that the disease, at least so for appears to
Speaker 1: be pretty mild rate bordering on non existent in children.
Speaker 1: Children rarely seem to get it, and when they do,
Speaker 1: it's usually not severe and they don't die from it.
Speaker 1: Elderly populations, on the other hand, or people with compromised
Speaker 1: immune systems or other pre existing diseases, are at much
Speaker 1: higher risk. With the case fatality rate that could reach
Speaker 1: in some cases up to about fifteen percent, which is
Speaker 1: a lot. So at this point we shoul probably getto
Speaker 1: the symptoms a bit. You know, what are the symptoms
Speaker 1: as we understand them so far? For coronavirus. Right. So
Speaker 1: there are a lot of complications because the disease is
Speaker 1: so new, and we also don't yet have a good
Speaker 1: sense of how many people can become infected without showing
Speaker 1: major symptoms. It appears that at least some people are
Speaker 1: getting this virus without major symptoms, which is actually you
Speaker 1: might think, oh, that sounds good, but that's actually very bad.
Speaker 1: That can help it spread because some of these others,
Speaker 1: these other pathogens that we discussed here, like one of
Speaker 1: the reasons we were able to control them is because
Speaker 1: it became abundantly obvious when you had them. You know,
Speaker 1: you would have like a debilitating fever or something. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you knew something was wrong and and you we
Speaker 1: went and sought help, and then it could be uh,
Speaker 1: there was a red flag there for medical professionals. Right.
Speaker 1: You're less likely to spread it to more people that way. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's another complication along the same lines, which
Speaker 1: is that it appears there might be a long incubation
Speaker 1: period before some people end up showing symptoms. Estimates have
Speaker 1: been anywhere from like two to fourteen days. We just
Speaker 1: don't really know for sure. But again that's not good.
Speaker 1: You don't want people to be uh in a stage
Speaker 1: where they could potentially be contagious while they're not showing symptoms.
Speaker 1: But when symptoms do manifest, the basic outlook seems to
Speaker 1: be familiar. You know. It's like a lot of other
Speaker 1: respiratory infections. It's going to be fever, cough, shortness of breath.
Speaker 1: Those are the main ones. Uh. And then there have
Speaker 1: been other, like smaller instances of things like uh, digestive trouble, diarrhea, sneezing.
Speaker 1: But but the main ones are fever, ca off in,
Speaker 1: shortness of breath. Now, at an early stage of an
Speaker 1: outbreak like this, there's a lot of danger that's not
Speaker 1: just the disease itself, but danger from misinformation, from a panic,
Speaker 1: from pseudoscience plowing into people's brains. Uh. We were both
Speaker 1: reading a good article by Kate Kellen and Reuter's that
Speaker 1: was just about bad science that had been published on
Speaker 1: preprint servers without peer review and then spread around on
Speaker 1: the internet and only to later be retracted. Like there
Speaker 1: there was a study that I think sourced the outbreak
Speaker 1: of the virus two snakes, and this turned out to
Speaker 1: not be true. Uh. There was one that said, uh,
Speaker 1: the virus may have come from outer space or from
Speaker 1: upper in the atmosphere. That probably isn't correct. Um. There
Speaker 1: was another one that was likening it to HIV, saying
Speaker 1: there were these similarities between coronavirus and HIV. That was
Speaker 1: widely criticized. So I would say be careful where you're
Speaker 1: getting your information from right now. There's a tendency because
Speaker 1: there are so many unknown for very quickly produced and
Speaker 1: in some cases sloppy science to get out there on
Speaker 1: preprint servers without proper peer review, and then to just
Speaker 1: get picked up by news sites. Yeah. As I'll probably
Speaker 1: drive home again later. The CDC and and the w
Speaker 1: h O are both great places to look for answers
Speaker 1: and if if you hear something that is a little suspect,
Speaker 1: that's a great place to go to see if there
Speaker 1: is any validity to it. Yeah. Uh, there're hoaxes abounding there,
Speaker 1: and you know there there can be really negative results,
Speaker 1: like there have been riots in Ukraine in response to
Speaker 1: the disease. One thing that should not need to be said,
Speaker 1: but then again, I guess it's it's unbelievable how quickly
Speaker 1: people can succumb to racist, magical thinking. You do not
Speaker 1: need to be afraid of Chinese people. You do not
Speaker 1: need to be afraid of eating Chinese food or interacting
Speaker 1: with Chinese Americans or any other ethnic Chinese people. The
Speaker 1: fact that the virus first appeared in Wuhan does not
Speaker 1: mean that Chinese people in any other part of the
Speaker 1: world they're likely to be infected. Use your brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there have been reports of increased racist attacks on
Speaker 1: people of Chinese and East Asian origin in Australia, Canada,
Speaker 1: and the United States, and per CNN is reporting on
Speaker 1: the matter. We're talking you know, everything from just idiots
Speaker 1: on the train saying idiotic things to strangers, um, which
Speaker 1: I guess is the sort of thing that's can be
Speaker 1: expected in the in the best of times, right when
Speaker 1: there's not some sort of additional stress or like this.
Speaker 1: But then there are also cases of motel employees um
Speaker 1: being abusive to guests just because they have you know,
Speaker 1: the right balance of fear and misinformation on hand, right,
Speaker 1: And it would just be ignorance and fear because obviously
Speaker 1: the disease does not have like a racial component or something, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not an Asian illness, this is a human illness.
Speaker 1: It seemingly became a human illness in China, but in
Speaker 1: doing so it crossed that species barrier. Uh. Coronavirus does
Speaker 1: not care about your race or nationality. We are all
Speaker 1: just potential vessels for it. And then in terms of
Speaker 1: it being a zoonotic disease of it making this leap um,
Speaker 1: we do have to again drive home that zoonotic diseases
Speaker 1: can be found everywhere, every country, every culture, every language,
Speaker 1: every people. For as long as humans have interacted with animals,
Speaker 1: and for as long as we continue to do so,
Speaker 1: we will all be open to potential infection by direct contact,
Speaker 1: indirect contact, vector born illnesses, food born illnesses, and water
Speaker 1: born illnesses. Uh. It can and does happen everywhere. The
Speaker 1: best any of us can do per the c d
Speaker 1: C is to wash your hands, stay safe around pets,
Speaker 1: prevent parasite bites, practice food safety, animal interaction safety, and
Speaker 1: avoid animal bites and scratches as well. And then finally,
Speaker 1: I do want to just I really want to drive
Speaker 1: home that Dean Koontz did not predict the outbreak in
Speaker 1: his nine novel Surely now this is one of the
Speaker 1: because there's a lot there are a lot of memes
Speaker 1: and going around a lot of misinformation, and you know,
Speaker 1: some of it is kind of harmless like this. I mean, ultimately,
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's actually going after Dean Koontz on
Speaker 1: this matter. But but this is another one that has
Speaker 1: been I think, pretty pretty debunked, where it's like basically
Speaker 1: he one of one of his novel Novelly wrote in
Speaker 1: one has some sort of a fictional manufactured disease pop up,
Speaker 1: and in at least one version of the novel, it
Speaker 1: has its origins in in Wuhan. And actually in this case,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly if this if people pick up and
Speaker 1: run with this, it's I mean, it's so illogical, but
Speaker 1: I guess you could imagine someone using this as some
Speaker 1: additional rationale for conspiracy, thinking about it like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is some sort of man made weapon, this is not
Speaker 1: something that occurred naturally, and so forth, which is all
Speaker 1: uh nonsense. Um, but oh yeah, I guess we didn't
Speaker 1: bring that up. But like that, that is another one
Speaker 1: of the crazy rumors that's going around, is that this
Speaker 1: is some kind of bioweapon. I was able to find
Speaker 1: no evidence at all. I mean, it seems like this
Speaker 1: is yet another one of these zoonotic diseases. These kinds
Speaker 1: of things emerge all the time. It does not need
Speaker 1: some kind of crazy conspiracy explanation, right. But again, this
Speaker 1: is exactly the sort of crazy conspiracy explanation that is
Speaker 1: always touted whenever there is some sort of a new illness.
Speaker 1: It's like like, what if it's a bioweapon? Must be
Speaker 1: a bioweapon, must have, must be. You know, they are
Speaker 1: created by one side to punish the other. That sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Um. But I will say one other thing
Speaker 1: about Dean Coon's though, is that Watchers is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: And uh and and and you know, I think maybe
Speaker 1: we need another film adaptation, So spread your love for Watchers,
Speaker 1: not information about COVID nineteen. I never saw the movie.
Speaker 1: I read the book. I love that book in high school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel now, though I do recall.
Speaker 1: I don't it pretty wacky as I as I remember.
Speaker 1: It's one of those books that this is such a thing,
Speaker 1: books that loves to give the full correct name of
Speaker 1: types of guns, you know, or like the terration can't
Speaker 1: just be like, you know, the dude grabbed his gun.
Speaker 1: It's like the dude grabbed his nine millimeter modified stock
Speaker 1: oozy carbine. I don't know exactly what that impulse in
Speaker 1: the author is. It's very funny to me. But it
Speaker 1: also had a talking dog, which was awesome, and had
Speaker 1: a talking dog, a monster, and then a human assassin
Speaker 1: that either thought he gained the life forces of people
Speaker 1: who are actually did um. I don't think that made
Speaker 1: it into the movie. But you know who did make
Speaker 1: it into the movie, Michael Ironside. Oh, I gotta see
Speaker 1: it now. And in the subsequent like the Ironside completion
Speaker 1: and the a Iron Sides in it, I'm there. But
Speaker 1: then get this. The subsequent sequels involved Mark Singer wings
Speaker 1: Houser and then Mark Hamill. So there's there's there's plenty
Speaker 1: to go on there. I think we need to take
Speaker 1: a break, but when we come back, we can talk
Speaker 1: about what you can do about the coronavirus. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So I guess one of the big ones to drive
Speaker 1: home is just don't panic. Right. Uh. It's also important
Speaker 1: to remember that the vast majority of infected people will
Speaker 1: not suffer severe symptoms, and some will have no symptoms
Speaker 1: at all, which again is a positive and a negative
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it. As we discussed previously,
Speaker 1: so this is not the common cold, but it's also
Speaker 1: not a fictional super plague out of your favorite pulp novel.
Speaker 1: For multiple reasons, including not just self interested reasons. You
Speaker 1: should do everything you reasonably can not to get infected,
Speaker 1: but you also don't need to have it in your
Speaker 1: head that this is going to kill us all again.
Speaker 1: Like even in these very early sort of worst case
Speaker 1: scenarios like what happened in Muhan, the CFR, on average,
Speaker 1: it's still fairly low compared to a lot of other
Speaker 1: scary outbreaks. And as we say this, I do have
Speaker 1: to admit, you know, it is easy to sort of
Speaker 1: get a panicky if you just especially if you're kind
Speaker 1: of plugged into social media and you're just kind of
Speaker 1: scrolling through. I mean, I I find myself feeling a
Speaker 1: little this just scrolling through a news app that I respect.
Speaker 1: You know that that then I trust You're just you're
Speaker 1: getting a lot of coverage about it right now, where
Speaker 1: it's covering the you know, the economic side of it,
Speaker 1: You're it's covering the the epidemiology of it, the just
Speaker 1: the basic medical challenge of the scenario. And if you
Speaker 1: just keep plugging into it, you can kind of eventually
Speaker 1: feed the monster of paranoia in your head. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: of the political reactions are not reassuring. Yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: another thing that's that's part of the news cycle concerning it,
Speaker 1: is what how our government's dealing with it, how our
Speaker 1: politicians dealing with it, and some of the communication out
Speaker 1: there on this front has been highly criticized. Yes, uh So,
Speaker 1: one thing though that I think you can do that
Speaker 1: will help. Uh Number one, of course actually have practical benefits,
Speaker 1: but also you know, give you more of a sense
Speaker 1: of control, is to pay attention to real best practices
Speaker 1: for disease control. So basic practical steps to prevent infection.
Speaker 1: A lot of these are gonna sound familiar to you
Speaker 1: because they're essentially the same tactics believed to protect against
Speaker 1: the spread of other known respiratory diseases. So if you
Speaker 1: are trying to avoid infection, first of all, most importantly,
Speaker 1: avoid close physical contact with people who are sick. However possible,
Speaker 1: limit exposure to anybody who's coughing, sneezing, or running a fever.
Speaker 1: How close is too close well, as a general rule,
Speaker 1: the CDC recommends staying about one meter or three feet
Speaker 1: away from anyone who is coughing or sneezing. That that's
Speaker 1: just a general rule, uh for coronavirus. I've seen other
Speaker 1: experts recommending staying at least five feet away or six
Speaker 1: feet away. Obviously farther is better. Another one avoid touching
Speaker 1: your face with your hands. A really common transmission route
Speaker 1: for many diseases is that droplets containing infectious agents go
Speaker 1: from a surface out in the world that you touch
Speaker 1: to your hands and then your face, especially your eyes, nose,
Speaker 1: or mouth. Yeah, and reading about all this makes me
Speaker 1: realize that I'm terrible at this. Not not that I'm
Speaker 1: like constantly pawing at my face or like jabbing my
Speaker 1: eyes or anything, but while I'm thinking about something or
Speaker 1: researching something, I will typically like bring my hand to
Speaker 1: my lower face region, like to my chin, but often
Speaker 1: to like to to my mouth region. And uh, And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how I curb myself of that, if
Speaker 1: I should start wearing boxing gloves or or what what
Speaker 1: the best course of action is there? I don't know,
Speaker 1: are you touching the boxing gloves to door knobs and stuff? Um? Coolkay? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't really help, does it? But maybe if I
Speaker 1: had the gloves on, they would be a reminder. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is not the comforting gesture that I that I
Speaker 1: am familiar with. This is a giant boxing glove. Well,
Speaker 1: we can come back to that in a minute. Okay,
Speaker 1: So on top of that, and actually, I think I
Speaker 1: said something else might be most important. This might be
Speaker 1: most important. I don't know if I can rank what's
Speaker 1: most important. Wash your hands very familiar advice, but it
Speaker 1: really works with soap and water for at least twenty seconds.
Speaker 1: Wash them frequently, especially after touching surfaces in a public place,
Speaker 1: especially after going to the bathroom, after blowing your nose,
Speaker 1: coughing or sneezing. Yeah, it's easy to lose sight of
Speaker 1: the importance of this, in part because authority figures and
Speaker 1: signs are constantly telling you that you should wash your hands,
Speaker 1: and some of us maybe feel an innate rebellion against that,
Speaker 1: or it's also generally not something we enjoy. We kind
Speaker 1: of rushed through it, right. It's easy to rush through
Speaker 1: those twenty seconds if you're just trying to get back
Speaker 1: to your your desk to to finish working, or you
Speaker 1: have somewhere to go. You have to pick up a
Speaker 1: kid or something, but it is extremely important. Um, Luckily,
Speaker 1: I feel like I am pretty good about this, but
Speaker 1: my son is super good about this because not not
Speaker 1: because he's super conscientious about the importance of staying German free,
Speaker 1: as much as that he just gets carried away with
Speaker 1: putting soap on his hands. So it'll like he like
Speaker 1: soap up his hands for like, you know, half a minute.
Speaker 1: Then it's like a process of like filling up his
Speaker 1: cupped palms with water and then releasing it, and then
Speaker 1: he'll ye have left to his own devices to like
Speaker 1: wash his hands for two minutes. Yeah, water and soap
Speaker 1: are amazing textures and things. They can be a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. So maybe that, maybe that really is the message.
Speaker 1: If you are a kind of person who finds yourself
Speaker 1: rushing through washing your hands a little bit too much,
Speaker 1: take time to appreciate the tactile sensations and the warm water. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you'll enjoy it. Also, if nobody has
Speaker 1: ever offered you technical tips on washing your hands, here's
Speaker 1: one I read in a couple of sources. Especially, pay
Speaker 1: close attention to making sure your fingertips get clean. A
Speaker 1: lot of times when we wash our hands, we just
Speaker 1: kind of like rub our palms together a lot. Pay
Speaker 1: attention to your finger tips and under your finger nails,
Speaker 1: because what happens when you actually like handle food or
Speaker 1: touch your face a lot of times it's your fingertips, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: those that's are the way we manually manipulate things. Alternately,
Speaker 1: you can clean your hands with an alcohol based disinfectant
Speaker 1: product like a hand sanitizer gel. These need to be
Speaker 1: at least sixty alcohol, but some sources say soap and
Speaker 1: water are better, or at least the evidence for the
Speaker 1: effectiveness of soap and water is better. Next to whatever extent,
Speaker 1: you can clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces in your house,
Speaker 1: your workplace, whatever. You know, you're you're touching the door knob,
Speaker 1: you're touching the this and that. You know what these
Speaker 1: things are in your house, clean them off, yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean the thing that may seem counterintuitive about this
Speaker 1: is that these are not necessarily the places that we're
Speaker 1: dropping a lot of food or getting sticky that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. These are just the the features of your
Speaker 1: house that are commonly manipulated and touched. Another thing that
Speaker 1: might help is you might want to avoid unnecessary exposure
Speaker 1: to large, close crowds or public gatherings. I was just
Speaker 1: reading that Switzerland today has issued a temporary ban on
Speaker 1: all public and private gatherings of more than a thousand people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In in Japan, you're seeing a well, certainly in an Asi,
Speaker 1: you're seeing various concerts that have been postponed. I conventions
Speaker 1: have been shut down. Yeah. I follow New Japan Pro
Speaker 1: Wrestling in Japan, and they just canceled half of their
Speaker 1: live events from March and conceivably could cancel more of them.
Speaker 1: All part of, you know, helping to maintain public safety
Speaker 1: in the outbreak. Yeah, you've here, here's a big one.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard and seen a bunch of stuff about
Speaker 1: face masks. And here I've got a beef with a
Speaker 1: lot of news sites that are publishing articles about coronavirus.
Speaker 1: So you've got the new article about COVID nineteen, and
Speaker 1: then what's the image that accompanies that article. It's somebody
Speaker 1: in a face mask. They got the surgical mask on. People,
Speaker 1: please stop selecting these images to go with your stories
Speaker 1: and maybe use an image of the virus itself for
Speaker 1: something something else, because that this selection of these images
Speaker 1: suggests that what people need to do to protect themselves
Speaker 1: from the virus is to go out and buy a
Speaker 1: bunch of surgical masks and wear them whenever they go
Speaker 1: in public. Here's something important to understand, and surgical masks
Speaker 1: are much more important to prevent you from spreading diseases,
Speaker 1: especially you know, like bacteria in your mouth and your nose,
Speaker 1: than to prevent you from contracting of virus. Public health
Speaker 1: experts do not recommend that healthy people wear face masks
Speaker 1: for general daily activity. Uh. Like, what a face mask
Speaker 1: does is, you know, it blocks larger droplets escaping your
Speaker 1: nose and your mouth into the environment. Think about when
Speaker 1: they are actually used, for example, by surgeons, to prevent
Speaker 1: bacteria and droplets from the surgeon's map, mouth and nose
Speaker 1: from getting into your body while you're cut open. Is
Speaker 1: to protect you, not to protect the surgeon. Standard surgical
Speaker 1: masks or porous They don't form a tight seal around
Speaker 1: your nose and mouth, and viruses can often penetrate them.
Speaker 1: They they are generally not believed to be very effective
Speaker 1: at preventing you from getting a virus. I was finding,
Speaker 1: you know, quotes from different epidemiologists and public health experts
Speaker 1: in different sources, and there were slightly different levels of
Speaker 1: of response to the idea of wearing surgical masks just
Speaker 1: as a protective measure. The opinions to me seemed to
Speaker 1: range from it will not help and does nothing at all,
Speaker 1: too it might help a little bit, but it's not
Speaker 1: going to be very effective, right, And I can well
Speaker 1: imagine it's the sort of thing where overall would not
Speaker 1: be a good idea if it then enabled you to
Speaker 1: to engage in risk your behavior or to pull back
Speaker 1: on more important things like washing your hand, right, or
Speaker 1: here's another one I was actually reading about. Or if
Speaker 1: it means that you will end up like fut sing
Speaker 1: with your mask and touching your face more. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is another thing. Now, there's another type of mask that
Speaker 1: you've probably read about, and this is the one that
Speaker 1: would be more effective if you were actually trying to
Speaker 1: have it as a prophylactic against being infected. These are
Speaker 1: the IN ninety five or the N ninety nine masks,
Speaker 1: which have a more complicated design. They're basically they're not
Speaker 1: just a piece of material to cover your mouth and knows,
Speaker 1: they're basically a full face piece respirator. And if they're
Speaker 1: worned properly. They are supposed to prevent whatever the number
Speaker 1: is of all airborne particles from passing in round. But
Speaker 1: if you haven't had training, there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: if you try to wear one of these things, you
Speaker 1: will not only fail, but possibly increase your risk because
Speaker 1: when people without experience wear these masks, they often keep
Speaker 1: adjusting and foxing with them, which means you're touching your face. Now.
Speaker 1: In theory, at least, these would be more effective than
Speaker 1: regular surgical masks or procedure masks that protecting you from
Speaker 1: inhaling the virus, but also not a hundred percent effective,
Speaker 1: especially again if you're you're not experienced with them, you
Speaker 1: haven't had training, you don't know exactly how to wear them.
Speaker 1: There there are other ways that like, for example, uh,
Speaker 1: I've seen stuff going around on the internet where people
Speaker 1: talk about like beards being a problem for the virus.
Speaker 1: Beards are not a problem. What would be true is
Speaker 1: that having facial hair would in most cases prevent you
Speaker 1: from getting a full seal if you were trying to
Speaker 1: wear one of these, uh, one of these like in
Speaker 1: ninety five or masks, right, Yeah, Like, if anybody out
Speaker 1: there has ever attempted to go snorkeling on say, like
Speaker 1: day five of vacation. Stubble, you kind of get some
Speaker 1: of what's going on here. But I say this not
Speaker 1: just as a person with a beard, being that the
Speaker 1: beard itself does not make you susceptible to the virus.
Speaker 1: It would be that if you were trying to wear
Speaker 1: one of these masks, you should not have a beard.
Speaker 1: But also something a lot of public health officials and
Speaker 1: experts have been saying is that you know, they're sort
Speaker 1: of urging people mostly please don't go out and like
Speaker 1: try to buy up or hoard these these types of
Speaker 1: masks because they're in high demand right now, and they're
Speaker 1: in high demand for healthcare workers and other people who
Speaker 1: are actually going to be exposed to people likely to
Speaker 1: be infected. Uh So, a lot of these experts are
Speaker 1: cautioning against regular people who don't probably don't need them
Speaker 1: buying up all the supply for fear that it will
Speaker 1: create supply problems for healthcare workers. And that certainly makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. All right, So those are some some
Speaker 1: steps that one can take to attempt to prevent uh
Speaker 1: becoming sick. What do you do once you are sick
Speaker 1: or once you think you're sick, right, so what Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you think you might be sick, if you have
Speaker 1: symptoms of respiratory illness, especially cough, fever, shortness of breath,
Speaker 1: first of all, stay home, do not go to work,
Speaker 1: don't try to power through whatever it is your your
Speaker 1: public you know, plans where you need to try to
Speaker 1: isolate yourself as much as possible, especially if you have
Speaker 1: recently traveled to an affected area. Originally this was just
Speaker 1: if you traveled to China in the past two weeks,
Speaker 1: but now the virus is spread significantly beyond China, so
Speaker 1: travel indications are becoming more diffuse. This one is it
Speaker 1: can be I think harder than we we we give credit,
Speaker 1: you know, especially with the sort of work culture that
Speaker 1: is so prevalent these days, you know, where it's we
Speaker 1: feel this this pressure to push through, to be the
Speaker 1: person who just all right, to take a bunch of
Speaker 1: of meds and just go on and get the work
Speaker 1: done because it just has to be done. Then, and
Speaker 1: the the in the amount of importance we put we
Speaker 1: put on our work and our profession as kind of
Speaker 1: our defining self. You know, I would say beyond this,
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying if you, you know, you should
Speaker 1: stay home. If you are a boss or an employer,
Speaker 1: you're in a position of authority, it's very important for
Speaker 1: you to make clear to your workers or direct reports whoever,
Speaker 1: that they should not be doing this. They should not
Speaker 1: be trying to power through or come to work if
Speaker 1: they have a respiratory illness. They should be staying home,
Speaker 1: and you need to, you know, put whatever in place
Speaker 1: to help them do that. Yeah, be that an enhanced
Speaker 1: teleworking policy or what have you? Now Again, if you
Speaker 1: think you're sick, also, it's a good idea to separate
Speaker 1: yourself from other people and animals in your household. Try
Speaker 1: to stay in a separate room if you can. Try
Speaker 1: to use a different bathroom if possible. You, you know,
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing you practice if you saw
Speaker 1: somebody sick out in public. You want to keep distance
Speaker 1: between you and other people who might get infected in
Speaker 1: your house. When you cough, try to cover your mouth
Speaker 1: as much as possible. Coughing into the crook of your
Speaker 1: elbow is usually considered better than coughing into your hand
Speaker 1: because you're less likely to spread virus to a secondary surface.
Speaker 1: It's more fun because you you can pretend your Dracula, right,
Speaker 1: you can be Bella Legosi and plan on from outer space.
Speaker 1: Or the guy pretending to be Bella a ghost that's right,
Speaker 1: because he had actually died, right, and the guy had
Speaker 1: to cover up his face so you couldn't tell it
Speaker 1: wasn't Bella um everybody could tell. Also, if you think
Speaker 1: you may have coronavirus, Uh, this is a better time
Speaker 1: to wear a regular face mask like a surgical mask.
Speaker 1: By blocking large droplets from coming off of your face,
Speaker 1: it will reduce the amount of virus that you spread
Speaker 1: to others when you cough or sneeze. But I guess
Speaker 1: maybe most importantly, also, if you think you may have coronavirus,
Speaker 1: call your doctor healthcare provider before going to their office.
Speaker 1: Don't just go. Call and explain, explain what your symptoms are,
Speaker 1: and especially mentioned if you have had if you've been
Speaker 1: traveling recently, and this way they will be better able
Speaker 1: to direct you to the appropriate facilities to prevent unnecessary
Speaker 1: contact and to get you where you need to go
Speaker 1: or tell you what you need to do best. Now
Speaker 1: more generally, Uh, you know, I was thinking about like
Speaker 1: how should we prepare for this? Like what what? What
Speaker 1: else should we be doing if obviously we don't think
Speaker 1: we're infected yet. I was reading a really good article
Speaker 1: in Scientific American from just yesterday by Zane up to
Speaker 1: fect she and she's reacting to, of course, the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, the CDC has begun to warn people within
Speaker 1: the United States that there's community transmission probably taking place,
Speaker 1: and this has the potential to pose quite a significant
Speaker 1: disruption to our lives. Uh. She points out that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's kind of a psychological issue, and this has been
Speaker 1: very true for me at least. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know how seriously to take a problem like this,
Speaker 1: Like you are afraid of being under prepared, but you're
Speaker 1: also afraid of overreacting and looking foolish, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: looking paranoid, you know, being the person who stockpiled hollow
Speaker 1: point ammunition and canned corn beef hash for the Y
Speaker 1: two K bug. Yeah, you don't. You don't want to
Speaker 1: fall into a set of behaviors that make you feel
Speaker 1: like Michael Shannon might play you in the movie version. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah. And the point of Defects article is this,
Speaker 1: don't do that, don't give into panic, don't go crazy,
Speaker 1: don't start hoarding. Don't fall into doomsday prepper, you know,
Speaker 1: snake oil territory. I'm sure there are people out there
Speaker 1: selling all kinds of you know, miracle coronavirus cure or whatever.
Speaker 1: But do prepare. Do prepare how you can in reasonable ways,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about what those are in just a
Speaker 1: minute here. Because these preparations could not only protect you,
Speaker 1: they can help contain the problem overall. Quote, preparing for
Speaker 1: the almost inevitable global spread of this virus is one
Speaker 1: of the most pro social out heuristic things you can
Speaker 1: do in response to potential disruptions of this kind. And
Speaker 1: in explaining her argument, uh, you know, she mentions we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, of course, that you know, there are not
Speaker 1: in the fatality rate of a disease, are not fixed
Speaker 1: to numbers that are biologically intrinsic to the pathogen. Of course,
Speaker 1: they're influenced by biological features of the pathogen, but it's
Speaker 1: better to think of these numbers as something closer to
Speaker 1: other big numbers in the social sciences, like the unemployment
Speaker 1: rate or average human life expectancy. There are numbers that
Speaker 1: reflect real averages on the ground as collected by epidemiologists,
Speaker 1: but they can also change a lot based on our
Speaker 1: individual behaviors and the actions of institutions and to fect
Speaker 1: She points out that it was effective interventions by our
Speaker 1: disease control efforts that were able to control the two
Speaker 1: thousand three Stars epidemic. But before our interventions are not
Speaker 1: of Stars, was about three and then after active measures
Speaker 1: it went down to about point zero four and all
Speaker 1: ultimately it only killed between nine hundred and a thousand people,
Speaker 1: which is still too many, but far less than it
Speaker 1: had the potential to. Likewise, there are certain ways we
Speaker 1: can prepare now that might help to do what defects.
Speaker 1: She calls flattening the curve of the pandemic and putting
Speaker 1: less strain and stress on infrastructure at crucial times. So
Speaker 1: what is flattening the curve mean? It means slowing the
Speaker 1: transmission rate of the disease and the best way to
Speaker 1: do that to whatever extent possible is to practice community
Speaker 1: wide isolation, meaning you know, if people can, they should
Speaker 1: stay home. The more people stay home, the fewer people
Speaker 1: will catch the virus. The fewer people catch it, the
Speaker 1: better our health infrastructure can manage. Crowding at hospitals will
Speaker 1: greatly increase the case fatality rate not only for coronavirus,
Speaker 1: but for other dangerous infections at the same time, like
Speaker 1: the flu. Yeah, that's the thing. It's this is not
Speaker 1: like like a small town movie theater situation where the
Speaker 1: new blockbuster comes to town and then, uh, it's the
Speaker 1: only thing playing. There are still going to be other
Speaker 1: featured infections in play. And for that reason, So when
Speaker 1: it comes to what preparations you actually should engage in
Speaker 1: to fetch your recommends, first of all, make sure you've
Speaker 1: gotten your flu shot. You know, this reduces the likelihood
Speaker 1: that you'll have to go to the hospital with the flu,
Speaker 1: reducing overall strain on the health care infrastructure, reducing the
Speaker 1: chance that you could be exposed to coronavirus while seeking
Speaker 1: treatment for the flu. Uh, And they're also implied comorbidities.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be exposed to both flu and
Speaker 1: coronavirus at the same time. Beyond that, it is reasonable
Speaker 1: to stock up on some supplies that you could basically
Speaker 1: use to stay at home for two to three weeks
Speaker 1: if necessary. We don't know that you're going to need
Speaker 1: to do that, but it's possible that we could get
Speaker 1: to a point where the outlook for this pandemic would
Speaker 1: be a lot better if people could stay home for
Speaker 1: roughly two to three weeks. So stuff to get you
Speaker 1: through two to three weeks at home would include drinkable water.
Speaker 1: Drinkable water is a great one because this is something
Speaker 1: that's good to have on hand in case there's a
Speaker 1: winter storm, in case your it is frequently happens in
Speaker 1: the area where we live where suddenly there's a boil
Speaker 1: warning for your water. Well, now you have some fresh water.
Speaker 1: And if you if you reach the point where it's
Speaker 1: like months later and you realize, oh, I still have
Speaker 1: all that water I bought in case of the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: Well put in your car with you and the next
Speaker 1: time there's somebody on a on a hot day, you know,
Speaker 1: asking for for you know, for a little help, you
Speaker 1: can always give them a water bottle. Totally beyond that,
Speaker 1: of course, it's it's good to have food, shelf stable
Speaker 1: food like canned goods and of course dried foods not bananas, Yeah,
Speaker 1: can canned canned goods. Uh, we're specifically mentioned. Also things
Speaker 1: like pasta, rice, beans, dried fruit and nuts, anything that
Speaker 1: can hang out and doesn't need to be refrigerated. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's fine to have refrigerated foods too, but if say
Speaker 1: the power goes out at some point, or if you
Speaker 1: do need to stay home for three weeks, stuff might
Speaker 1: not stay fresh in your fridge for that whole time. Also,
Speaker 1: it's important that this is one to think about in advance.
Speaker 1: Stock up on prescription medications if you can, if you
Speaker 1: can get a pres option filled, that could get you
Speaker 1: through a two to three week period, and then on
Speaker 1: top of that basic first aid supplies and over the
Speaker 1: counter medications you might need right beyond that, things to
Speaker 1: keep you busy that you can do at home, you know, books,
Speaker 1: video games, board games, all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: probably not the board game pandemic Um, which is a
Speaker 1: which is a fun game, but it's just not the time,
Speaker 1: um but but but yeah, it is important to think
Speaker 1: about the fact that you you need to be potentially
Speaker 1: prepared for being a little bit stir crazy with your family,
Speaker 1: and what are some of the things to have on
Speaker 1: hand to help facilitate that stay now. Of course, if
Speaker 1: it does come to people needing to stay home for
Speaker 1: a few weeks at a time, there are also options
Speaker 1: to rely on deliveries for things people need but one
Speaker 1: of the points that too fectually emphasizes is that delivery
Speaker 1: services will be very important for people who don't have
Speaker 1: the ability to prepare ahead of time, you know all that,
Speaker 1: And so it's better not to wait until the last
Speaker 1: minute and then put all that stress on various kinds
Speaker 1: of infrastruct sure all at once, whether that's health care, infrastructure,
Speaker 1: delivery workers all that. Yeah, and this is an easy,
Speaker 1: easy one to fall into, right, because we have so
Speaker 1: much stuff that is delivered to us on any given day.
Speaker 1: You know, we might have uh, you know, Amazon Prime,
Speaker 1: next day delivery, same day delivery for various goods. You
Speaker 1: may have various meal delivery services that are dropping by
Speaker 1: your door, et cetera. And again, not to be alarmist,
Speaker 1: because even in places, say in China, where the outbreaks
Speaker 1: have been very severe, generally, uh like, basic services have continued,
Speaker 1: so there's power and all that. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: not that you should expect the power to go out,
Speaker 1: but just to be safe, it's probably not a bad
Speaker 1: idea to have, say, a portable charger for your phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are handy to have anyway, especially you're like me
Speaker 1: and you you keep your phone too long and the
Speaker 1: battery just gets gets crappier and crappier. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: Another thing. We sort of emphasized this earlier, but defectually
Speaker 1: makes the same point, and I think it's a very
Speaker 1: important one. Don't just think about yourself, Think about what
Speaker 1: you can do for people that you are in a
Speaker 1: position of authority over. If you're an employer, if you're
Speaker 1: a boss, if you're in whatever kind of authority position,
Speaker 1: please go ahead and make all necessary preparations to allow
Speaker 1: people to work from home if possible, to miss work
Speaker 1: for two to three weeks without interruptions, to pay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe even send out something about that
Speaker 1: now before it becomes an issue, you know. And again,
Speaker 1: of course, it may turn out that we don't need
Speaker 1: to practice any of the stuff, that we don't actually
Speaker 1: need to go into community isolation. But I think to
Speaker 1: a factually makes a good case that early preparedness for
Speaker 1: that possibility helps everyone and has relatively low costs, provided
Speaker 1: you're not like hoarding scarce medical supplies or something right right,
Speaker 1: like the idea of just having some some extra shelf
Speaker 1: goods on hand. You know, you're you're you're not wasting money.
Speaker 1: You can eat them either way. You eat them either way.
Speaker 1: It's it's just a safeguarding you a little bit for
Speaker 1: the future. Towards the end of her article, she she writes, quote,
Speaker 1: as a society, there are much larger conversations to be
Speaker 1: had about the way our healthcare industry runs. For example,
Speaker 1: how to handle global risks and are increasingly interconnected world.
Speaker 1: How to build resilient communities, how to reduce travel for work.
Speaker 1: Those are all important discussions, and nothing in this short
Speaker 1: article replaces that. However, the practical steps facing households are
Speaker 1: immediate and important for the sake of everyone else. Prepared
Speaker 1: to stay home for a few weeks, you'll reduce your
Speaker 1: own risks, but most importantly, you reduce the burden on
Speaker 1: healthcare and delivery infrastructure and allow frontline workers to reach
Speaker 1: and help the people most vulnerable. You know, I want
Speaker 1: to come back to the subject of information as well here,
Speaker 1: because again I think this is key. Trust the Centers
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization
Speaker 1: UH These are both excellent organizations to go to for information,
Speaker 1: up to the date information, up to date information about coronavirus.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine who works with the CDC. Was
Speaker 1: was recently driving this home on social media. Do not
Speaker 1: fall into conspiracy ideas and conspiracy thinking that cast the
Speaker 1: c d C is some sort of deep state adversary
Speaker 1: or some sort of state political mouthpiece. Uh. The CDC
Speaker 1: is a great source of information for news about COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and you can if you are not aware of
Speaker 1: where to find them, you can just go to www
Speaker 1: dot CDC dot gov. Yeah, these organizations are staffed with
Speaker 1: excellent public servants and career professionals. These are people who
Speaker 1: know what they're doing and they're working very hard to
Speaker 1: get you the best information they can given what we
Speaker 1: know at the time. All right, on that note, we're
Speaker 1: going to take one more break, but when we come
Speaker 1: back we will discuss long term prospects and analysis. Than
Speaker 1: all right, we're back. So I know a lot of
Speaker 1: you probably have this question on your mind, and it's
Speaker 1: something that of course continues to come up in media coverage.
Speaker 1: What about a vaccine? Right? Uh that that, of course
Speaker 1: would be great if we had a vaccine for this
Speaker 1: new virus. There is no vaccine yet a number of
Speaker 1: labs and pharmaceutical companies around the world are working rapidly
Speaker 1: to develop one. I was reading about a number of
Speaker 1: different efforts, but most current estimates are saying that it
Speaker 1: will be at least a year or so before a
Speaker 1: vaccine will be ready, and that might be an optimistic timeline.
Speaker 1: Some timelines don't even get to the human testing phase
Speaker 1: until uh, so we don't know how long it will take.
Speaker 1: But and of course there have been rumors, right including
Speaker 1: rumors by certain high profile politicians that were very close
Speaker 1: to a vaccine. I guess you could define very close
Speaker 1: however you want, But but a realistic timeline is that
Speaker 1: a vaccine with proven efficacy is probably at the very
Speaker 1: least months, if not years, away, right, So don't put
Speaker 1: all your eggs in that basket, especially as far as
Speaker 1: short term concerns go. Right. More broadly, though, at the
Speaker 1: time we're recording this, there are being there are other
Speaker 1: treatments that are being explored, So maybe not a vaccine,
Speaker 1: maybe sooner than a vaccine. There's the possibility that we
Speaker 1: could get some kind of anti viral drugs that that
Speaker 1: could be effective to some extent with with this coronavirus.
Speaker 1: But as of the day were recording, I don't think
Speaker 1: I had found any evidence that any had been approved
Speaker 1: for human use yet. Now another question is when will
Speaker 1: the coronavirus peak. I was reading about this in a
Speaker 1: news feature for Nature by David Syronowsky published on February eighteen,
Speaker 1: And so what would have a peak refer to? Well,
Speaker 1: a disease peaks when quote the number of new infections
Speaker 1: in a single day reaches its highest point. So the
Speaker 1: bottom line is that it's hard to predict, and estimates
Speaker 1: are all over the place. Some experts believe we're very
Speaker 1: close to the peak already, or perhaps we've even passed it.
Speaker 1: Some estimate that it's months away. H There are dangers
Speaker 1: in over relying on guesses like these either way, but
Speaker 1: it would be good to try to get a sense
Speaker 1: of the lay of the land. Um. One of the
Speaker 1: experts that the author here is talking to is named
Speaker 1: Brian Labis, who works on disease surveillance at the University
Speaker 1: of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Labis says, quote, if you
Speaker 1: revise your predictions every week to say that the outbreak
Speaker 1: will peak in a week or two events, really you
Speaker 1: will be correct. Um. But the optimistic scenario. Well. On
Speaker 1: February eleven, Zong and Shan, a prominent Chinese physician UH
Speaker 1: predicted a peak by somewhere around the end of February. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a British statistician named Sebastian Funk published models that aligned
Speaker 1: roughly with this prediction. Quote. Funk estimates that that at
Speaker 1: the peak, around a million people about ten percent of
Speaker 1: Wuhan's population will be infected, and according to this model,
Speaker 1: the outbreak may even have already peaked, but that's the
Speaker 1: most optimistic scenario, the worst case UH. The The author
Speaker 1: here mentions Hiroshi Nishiura, who is an epidemiologist at Hokkaido
Speaker 1: University and Supporto Japan, who alleges that the outbreak quote
Speaker 1: will peak sometime between late March and late May. At
Speaker 1: this point, he says up to two point three million
Speaker 1: cases will be diagnosed in a single day. In total,
Speaker 1: he estimates that between five hundred and fifty million and
Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty million people across China will be infected,
Speaker 1: fully forty of the country's population, so that that would
Speaker 1: be very bad obviously, but that's a worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: or at least is believed to be at this point,
Speaker 1: so we don't know for sure when the peak will be.
Speaker 1: But there's a good point made by Gabriel Lung, who
Speaker 1: is an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, who
Speaker 1: points out that you're not just trying to reduce the
Speaker 1: overall number of people who get infected. It is actually
Speaker 1: important to try to reduce the number of people who
Speaker 1: get infected at the same time because whenever this peak is,
Speaker 1: it's going to essentially grind everything to a halt. It.
Speaker 1: You know, health services, hospitals, doctors become overwhelmed, and that
Speaker 1: is what contributes to an increasing case fatality rate for
Speaker 1: the disease. Uh. You know, the less attention individual patients
Speaker 1: can get because health services are strained by too many
Speaker 1: people presenting with the disease at the same time, the
Speaker 1: worst the outcomes will be. Now, another article that we're
Speaker 1: looking at for this episode is a piece that came
Speaker 1: out of The Atlantic by James Hamblin titled You're likely
Speaker 1: to get the coronavirus um, which, um, that's well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's it's a frank title and and I
Speaker 1: think it becomes clear when you read it. It's not
Speaker 1: a it's not a scare tactic article like it. Basically
Speaker 1: the article gets into the the idea that this is
Speaker 1: this uh, this illness is here and it might be
Speaker 1: with us for a while. Um. He points out that quote.
Speaker 1: The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely
Speaker 1: outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease, a
Speaker 1: fifth endemic coronavirus. The other four endemic coronaviruses are the
Speaker 1: alpha coronavirus IS two and n L sixty three, plus
Speaker 1: the two beta coronavirus is O C forty three in
Speaker 1: h K you one now two to nine E and
Speaker 1: O C forty three are among the virus is responsible
Speaker 1: for the common cold, like we were mentioning earlier, and
Speaker 1: people around the world are routinely infected with these four coronaviruses.
Speaker 1: So they're they're not like an emerging pandemic. They're just
Speaker 1: with us. They're just always kind of bouncing around within
Speaker 1: human population, right, They're just they're just part of it there.
Speaker 1: That's part of our our seasonal exposure to viruses. Now,
Speaker 1: you might well be wondering, since I've brought out the
Speaker 1: seasonal aspect of this, what does it really mean for
Speaker 1: something like this to be a seasonal virus? Why do
Speaker 1: we have a cold and flu season? It's a good question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So cold and flu are are linked to winter. In
Speaker 1: the northern hemisphere, they tend to peak in February and March,
Speaker 1: while in the southern hemisphere the peak is June and September. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, these illnesses are not caused by the cold.
Speaker 1: That is, sometimes the sort of loose misconception that floats
Speaker 1: around the virus is the prerequisite. But why is there
Speaker 1: a link between the virus and cold conditions. Well, scientists
Speaker 1: don't have a definite answer, but there are some prevailing
Speaker 1: ideas on this. So first of all, such viruses may
Speaker 1: just survive better in colder, dryer climates. Dry air, for instance,
Speaker 1: might make it possible for viral droplets to disperse further.
Speaker 1: So maybe when you like sneeze or cough in cold,
Speaker 1: dry air, the goes farther. Yeah, Like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about how far away does it make sense to
Speaker 1: be from an infected person? You know? Is it is
Speaker 1: it three ft? Is it five feet? Is a six ft?
Speaker 1: One of the ideas here is that the the the
Speaker 1: the necessary distance for a transference is perhaps less due
Speaker 1: to the uh the dryness of the air. Also, winter
Speaker 1: conditions tend to force people to spend more time time
Speaker 1: indoors sealed up, exposing them more to the shared air
Speaker 1: of people who may have a virus. Another idea is
Speaker 1: that shorter days and less sunlight lead to lower levels
Speaker 1: of vitamin D and melatonin, which requires sunlight for generation,
Speaker 1: and so this ultimately compromises our immune system. So our
Speaker 1: immune system is perhaps weaker during the winter and therefore
Speaker 1: were just more susceptible to these infections. Whatever the exact
Speaker 1: reason uh the results is that established viral illnesses like
Speaker 1: influenza follow a seasonal cycle, and the idea is that
Speaker 1: as this new coronavirus spreads, its potentially becomes just part
Speaker 1: of this cycle as well. But it is important to
Speaker 1: realize that yes, seasonal changes may be good, typically good
Speaker 1: at cutting into a virus's survival rate, but nothing is
Speaker 1: a sure thing here with this new coronavirus. A number
Speaker 1: of different journalists have written about this topic. I was
Speaker 1: looking at something written by Tom Arville for The l
Speaker 1: A Times, and he spoke with Marcy edge F Bonnie,
Speaker 1: an associate professor of biology at pin State University, who
Speaker 1: pointed out that while warmer weather typically cuts into an
Speaker 1: illness is survival rate. This illness will be encountering a
Speaker 1: quote completely susceptible US population. So, coming back to what
Speaker 1: we said earlier, next to no has been exposed to
Speaker 1: it here before, there's been no chance to develop an immunity,
Speaker 1: uh much less anything like a vaccine. So the idea,
Speaker 1: you know, if you hear someone say, well, don't worry
Speaker 1: that the weather is getting warmer, it's going to take
Speaker 1: care of it. Um, that's not possible, but not possible
Speaker 1: but not known. Yeah, there are a lot of caveats
Speaker 1: to attach that statement at the very least. Yeah, totally. Well,
Speaker 1: so we've reached the end of what we had prepared
Speaker 1: to say here today. But uh, I really hope we
Speaker 1: have left you not panicking, uh, not more afraid than
Speaker 1: when you started, but armed with some knowledge that you
Speaker 1: can use to help ready yourself. Yeah, you've got you've
Speaker 1: got some information. You've got some knowledge. Um, maybe a
Speaker 1: little better idea about where you should go for additional
Speaker 1: information again c D C W h O. Uh, those
Speaker 1: are great places to seek out for additional information. Again,
Speaker 1: bear in mind the date of this publication. Compare that
Speaker 1: to when you're listening to this episode, because things are
Speaker 1: going to change. Information is going to improve. Um. Also, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've we've let you know that there are four Watchers
Speaker 1: movies so you can watch while you're sealed up in
Speaker 1: your home eating your noodles and eating your Kinder eggs.
Speaker 1: Are Kinder eggs shelf stable candy? Yeah? I think they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they know you heard it here. That's how
Speaker 1: you get through. I mean they have they have an
Speaker 1: expiration day. But I think they're good for a little bit.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever had a kinderrect. You don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about them hatching is the thing. There
Speaker 1: are no special like Maguai gremlin rules in play. That's
Speaker 1: a very good, very good feature. Obviously, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from anyone out there, you know, especially if you
Speaker 1: if you have any firsthand experience with pandemics or with
Speaker 1: this particular coronavirus UM. You know, we we we'd appreciate
Speaker 1: hearing from the via email. Uh. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of our show,
Speaker 1: you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind is everywhere wherever you get it.
Speaker 1: Just make sure that you, rate, review, and subscribe. This
Speaker 1: really helps us out in the long run. And oh
Speaker 1: for our listeners out there, any listeners who are in
Speaker 1: the Atlanta area, UM, I want to let you know
Speaker 1: that there is an event coming up part of the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Science Festival. It's called How Snakes Work. It is
Speaker 1: going to be on Saturday, March seven from two pm
Speaker 1: to four pm. You can find out about it at
Speaker 1: Atlanta Science Festival dot org. But it's pretty cool because
Speaker 1: it is a It is a team up effort from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works, the website from which we spawned, and
Speaker 1: the Amphibian Foundation uh Mark Bendinka's organization. Matt Mark Mendick
Speaker 1: of course is a friend of the show and has
Speaker 1: been on to discuss amphibians, uh snakes, lizards and more.
Speaker 1: Sounds amazing, Yeah, so go check that out. It sounds slimy.
Speaker 1: Snakes are not slimy, Joe, there are if you greasome up.
Speaker 1: I guess so huge. Thanks as always to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: just to say hi, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.