1 00:00:00,920 --> 00:00:03,840 Speaker 1: This is gem Nation with jen Zyn. 2 00:00:04,440 --> 00:00:06,480 Speaker 2: As we make our way through the pandemic, there's been 3 00:00:06,519 --> 00:00:09,120 Speaker 2: another illness we keep hearing about, and yesterday we heard 4 00:00:09,119 --> 00:00:12,920 Speaker 2: about another case of monkey pox in Australia. Should we 5 00:00:12,960 --> 00:00:15,360 Speaker 2: be worried? We thought we'd get the man on himself, 6 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:18,000 Speaker 2: Doctor Norman Swan, Hello, ci. 7 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:20,759 Speaker 3: Doctor Swan, thank you for getting me to get my 8 00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:23,200 Speaker 3: bow screening test. It's you that's made me go on 9 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:23,959 Speaker 3: pokema poo. 10 00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:26,759 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, just too much information, but I'm glad to 11 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:27,120 Speaker 1: hear it. 12 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:29,520 Speaker 3: I like the way you walk off camera as well. 13 00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:31,000 Speaker 3: You're very stern with it. 14 00:00:31,160 --> 00:00:32,840 Speaker 2: But when people are too poking their pooh, you don't 15 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:33,440 Speaker 2: want to hang around. 16 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:36,800 Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, this is a very private moment. 17 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:37,440 Speaker 1: That's right. 18 00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:41,000 Speaker 2: Well, what about monkey pox? Before coronavirus, we may not 19 00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:43,840 Speaker 2: have cared about infectious diseases as much as we do now. 20 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:45,960 Speaker 2: Are we right to be anxious? 21 00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:49,600 Speaker 1: Well? It is growing internationally, but it's a very small 22 00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:52,840 Speaker 1: numbers at the moment, relatively speaking, so it's about between 23 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,880 Speaker 1: six and eight hundred cases reported. Kings will be much 24 00:00:55,920 --> 00:01:01,160 Speaker 1: more out there. It started off in gayme Ale community 25 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:05,480 Speaker 1: men who are sexual men, and it's now spreading beyond 26 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:08,880 Speaker 1: that to the heterosexual community. It's probably in parallel, not 27 00:01:08,920 --> 00:01:14,280 Speaker 1: necessarily from the game aal community, and it's an unpleasant 28 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:19,160 Speaker 1: virus potentially, although the version that's out there from West 29 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:22,080 Speaker 1: Africa is the milder form of the virus and it 30 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:28,319 Speaker 1: causes these like chicken pox like spots on your body. 31 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:30,360 Speaker 1: It's as if you've been spinning and the spots go 32 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:32,319 Speaker 1: out to the edges of your body, to your face, 33 00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:35,720 Speaker 1: to your hands, but also in your growing and there 34 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:37,840 Speaker 1: is a fatality rate of about one percent, so it 35 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:41,600 Speaker 1: can be quite It can be quite nasty, and is 36 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:45,280 Speaker 1: spread like COVID through the air as well as by contact. 37 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 3: Right, I thought it was a purely a contact things. 38 00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:52,400 Speaker 1: No, No, it's a respiratory virus small it's the relation 39 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:55,280 Speaker 1: of smallpox and spot box of are spiritual virus as well. 40 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:59,760 Speaker 1: So just like COVID that hangs in the air with aerosols, 41 00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:05,720 Speaker 1: it's just not as infectious as COVID. So it's not 42 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:09,359 Speaker 1: necessarily going to spread like wildfire. But when you look 43 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:12,079 Speaker 1: at the graph, it's going straight up, but a very 44 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:16,560 Speaker 1: small numbers globally at the moment, and there are, unlike 45 00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:18,959 Speaker 1: COVID at the beginning. There are treatments. There are a 46 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,560 Speaker 1: couple of antiviral drugs at work, and the smallpox vaccination works. 47 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 1: And what you can do if it starts to really 48 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:27,800 Speaker 1: become worrisome is that you can because it's got a 49 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:30,120 Speaker 1: long incubation period, it sort of eat your body for 50 00:02:30,160 --> 00:02:34,040 Speaker 1: a while before it shows itself. You've got time that 51 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:36,560 Speaker 1: you don't have with COVID, so you can what's called 52 00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:39,280 Speaker 1: ring vaccinate around the person. So if you do the 53 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:41,640 Speaker 1: contact tracing and work out with the person that's been 54 00:02:41,639 --> 00:02:44,480 Speaker 1: in contact with, you can actually vaccinate those people and 55 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:46,880 Speaker 1: the people around them. So you get a kind of 56 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:48,760 Speaker 1: ring of confidence, as they used to say in the 57 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:49,320 Speaker 1: two past. 58 00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:52,040 Speaker 3: Says yes, right, and that would be the smallpox vaccaine 59 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:53,600 Speaker 3: that would kill monkey pocks. 60 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:56,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, or protect against it to a very high level. 61 00:02:57,040 --> 00:02:59,800 Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess the same protocols in for COVID 62 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:03,800 Speaker 2: if it is a transmissible airborne disease, masks and things. 63 00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:06,200 Speaker 2: I know, we wish the coronavirus is over, but then 64 00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:08,920 Speaker 2: and we're acting as if it is, but the numbers 65 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:10,040 Speaker 2: really are higher than ever. 66 00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:13,800 Speaker 1: Yeah, we may just be coming off the top of 67 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:17,240 Speaker 1: this wave, but you've got BA four and BA five. 68 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:20,680 Speaker 1: Just to explain, you've got the Omicron family, and it 69 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:23,480 Speaker 1: started off with BA one back in December. They moved 70 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:25,560 Speaker 1: into BA two and every time a new one comes along, 71 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:27,720 Speaker 1: it's a bit more contagious than the one before that 72 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,200 Speaker 1: to get another wave, and BA four and BA five 73 00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:34,079 Speaker 1: are the latest ones, and they're a bit more contagious. 74 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:39,040 Speaker 1: They're also a bit more evasive of the vaccine, so 75 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:42,680 Speaker 1: they're not quite the vaccines not quite so pretty effective 76 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,360 Speaker 1: but not quite as effective, and there is probably more 77 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:48,960 Speaker 1: of a risk of reinfections. They're starting to hear people 78 00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:52,360 Speaker 1: getting covered twice and it may be that they've got 79 00:03:52,360 --> 00:03:56,120 Speaker 1: the latest version of the Omicron virus. So we can't 80 00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:59,560 Speaker 1: relax unfortunately, Well we all have relaxed, but mainly relaxed, 81 00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:00,440 Speaker 1: which too much. 82 00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:03,280 Speaker 2: Do you think you should be wearing masks? 83 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:06,640 Speaker 1: Well, I certainly think that if you're vulnerable, so you've 84 00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,800 Speaker 1: got something else wrong with you, you've got heart disease, 85 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:14,840 Speaker 1: you've got diabetes, you've got an elderly frail relative, I 86 00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:17,239 Speaker 1: think that they should you are they should be wearing 87 00:04:17,320 --> 00:04:20,800 Speaker 1: N ninety five masks when you go into risky indoor spaces. 88 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:23,960 Speaker 1: I think it's legitimate to ask whether people have got 89 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:26,960 Speaker 1: symptoms of respiratory infection and not come in contact with them. 90 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:28,880 Speaker 1: I think I think the main thing at the moment, 91 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:31,920 Speaker 1: when the rules have been relaxed, that you look after 92 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,680 Speaker 1: yourself with an N ninety five mask web and just 93 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:39,839 Speaker 1: the blue surgical mask. Where we're you know, we're tolerating 94 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:44,400 Speaker 1: a very high number of deaths every day, and yes 95 00:04:44,440 --> 00:04:46,240 Speaker 1: they are on the over eighty year olds, but we 96 00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:48,960 Speaker 1: don't seem to care that it's the over eighty year olds, 97 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:52,839 Speaker 1: And well that doesn't matter, and we could get that 98 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:55,320 Speaker 1: rate right down. And there's something wrong with the way 99 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:58,440 Speaker 1: we're getting the anti viral drugs out there, because you 100 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:04,400 Speaker 1: could actually reduce that three potentially by eighty percent because 101 00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:06,240 Speaker 1: we just don't know enough about the people who are 102 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:09,960 Speaker 1: dying and whether they're actually getting these anti viral drugs. 103 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,320 Speaker 1: So forty a day could be three a day or 104 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:16,120 Speaker 1: not three, maybe seven or eight a day if we 105 00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:18,640 Speaker 1: had an effective way of getting these anti viral drugs, 106 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:21,120 Speaker 1: like I think GPS are pretty stretched at the moment, 107 00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:23,280 Speaker 1: and I think that the testing is not being done. 108 00:05:23,279 --> 00:05:25,640 Speaker 1: There's a lot of things going wrong where we could 109 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:27,719 Speaker 1: be saving lives wet, having to go back into lockdown 110 00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:29,040 Speaker 1: or going back the way we are. 111 00:05:29,240 --> 00:05:32,159 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well yeah, I can't say it's going back 112 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:33,000 Speaker 3: into lockdown now. 113 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:35,120 Speaker 2: But if we could bring if we could bring that 114 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:37,599 Speaker 2: death right down, you know, that should be. I know 115 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:40,400 Speaker 2: that Anthony Albaneze is sort of working towards trying to 116 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:42,480 Speaker 2: get a task force together that you'd like to think 117 00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:43,960 Speaker 2: that would be one of the things he's looking at. 118 00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:47,960 Speaker 1: It has to be. It's just this is the worst 119 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:51,599 Speaker 1: year of the pandemic. Interestingly, the worst year of the 120 00:05:51,640 --> 00:05:55,320 Speaker 1: Spanish flu pandemic nineteen eighteen was nineteen twenty third year, 121 00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:57,960 Speaker 1: and it was for the same reasons. People just got 122 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,159 Speaker 1: sick of wearing masks. I mean, remember in those days, 123 00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:04,440 Speaker 1: all you had was social distancing and isolation and people 124 00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:07,280 Speaker 1: just and mask wearing, and people just got sick of it. 125 00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:09,880 Speaker 1: And when they got sick of it, the numbers went up. 126 00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:12,680 Speaker 1: And that's what we're experiencing. And the other problem we've got, 127 00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:15,200 Speaker 1: and just when you think it's safe to go out 128 00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:18,039 Speaker 1: is that is that every six months in the past 129 00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:20,680 Speaker 1: couple of years, we've had a new variant, and we 130 00:06:20,720 --> 00:06:22,880 Speaker 1: haven't had a new variant for six months, so we're 131 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:26,680 Speaker 1: due for another one. Well, well it might be okay, 132 00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:31,240 Speaker 1: So a new variant will be more contagious than the 133 00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:35,680 Speaker 1: one before, so you'll get another spike. And the question 134 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,000 Speaker 1: is will it be more dangerous, will it be more virulent? 135 00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:41,280 Speaker 1: And that's kind of a random thing, So it may 136 00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:43,400 Speaker 1: be less, it may be the same, it maybe more, 137 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:46,960 Speaker 1: and that we've just got to wait and see. And 138 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:49,599 Speaker 1: I think what we're evolving into with COVID is a 139 00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:51,160 Speaker 1: bit like the flu. I mean, it's not the flu, 140 00:06:51,480 --> 00:06:54,200 Speaker 1: but it's a bit like the flu pattern where we're 141 00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:56,719 Speaker 1: we're just it's going to be around forever, and we're 142 00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:58,200 Speaker 1: going to have just like the flu, We're going to 143 00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:00,120 Speaker 1: have good years and we're going to have bad years. 144 00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:04,360 Speaker 1: We've got vaccination, we've got drugs that contreated, and occasionally 145 00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:07,240 Speaker 1: we will actually have another pandemic year, just like we 146 00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:11,360 Speaker 1: get pandemic years with flu. And that's the pattern we're 147 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:12,640 Speaker 1: just going to settle into. 148 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,320 Speaker 3: Well, bring back the good old days of when we 149 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:18,160 Speaker 3: just had bird flu and that was just dasy. 150 00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:21,360 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well I had this either through last week. 151 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:23,920 Speaker 1: By god, you want that with a vaccination on telling 152 00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:24,760 Speaker 1: you it's not nat. 153 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:26,800 Speaker 2: No it's funny. We always think that a cold is 154 00:07:26,840 --> 00:07:28,680 Speaker 2: a flu. The flu is something very different. 155 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:31,440 Speaker 3: Well, Dr Norman Swan, thank you for being on our show. 156 00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:33,200 Speaker 1: It's always my pleasure.