Episode 920 Scott Adams： Predicting the Next Chapter in the Virus Saga
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Summary
In this episode of the podcast, I answer some questions about the coronavirus outbreak in the United States and some other things going on in the world. I also talk about a little bit about the new vaccine for the virus.
Transcript
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hey everybody come on in it's been 11 hours since the last time i was with you
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and i think that's too long yeah it's time there's not much happening today so i'm gonna
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take some questions it's been groundhog day every day you wake up and you say do we still
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have a coronavirus yep looks like it's gonna be another one of those days but this one will
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start out a little bit better than many because you're going to be taking the simultaneous sip
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with me and all you need is a cup or mug or a glass a tank or chalice or stein a canteen jug or flask
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a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid i like coffee and join me now for the
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unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day the thing that makes everything better it's called
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delicious so let's talk about the things that are happening
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um so face there's a little uh test of facebook users so facebook users were uh offered 102 dollars
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if they would just give up facebook for a little while and then they tested to see how they did
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it turns out that giving up facebook is really good for your health so the people were uh reported
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improved subjective well-being so apparently we now have at least a little bit of scientific data
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that says facebook's bad for your health did you uh somebody says cpap not respirators work
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if you have a link for that send it to me because i think i know what you're talking about but i don't
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know if it's true so we need a fact check somebody saying that the cpap machines might be better than
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the ventilators which i don't rule out as possible because the ventilators were considered maybe not the
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be all end all and they might have been the wrong pressure and all that stuff
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yeah why why 102 dollars i don't know it's a good question
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um so you've heard about the the patients who had coronavirus and then they recovered
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but then some number of them maybe two percent show that they have the infection still
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and so the researchers say what you're supposed to have antibodies you're not supposed to be able to
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get reinfected but here's the good news turns out you shouldn't be as worried about that as maybe you
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were because there's at least one scientist doctor researcher types who thinks there should not be a
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source of worry and here's his argument because there are several possible explanations
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explanations of why these people are testing positive and of these several possible explanations
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most of them are harmless for example there could be remnants of the virus that are still in people
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and the test is sensitive so it picks it up but a remnant of the virus would not be you know something to
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worry about doesn't mean you have the virus it just means you have some of the garbage from the virus a
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little left over so that's one possibility uh the other possibilities were let's say um
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just an error with the test so it could be that the test is too sensitive meaning it's too good
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so it's picking up more than the virus is picking up the debris from the virus but the other is that the
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test is just not perfect so maybe if the test has some false positives
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um you might be thinking you're retesting people that are positive again but not although it seems
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like that would be the easiest one to test right
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who would get out here and make a long comment about it being boring just to get blocked what's the
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point of that all right um and there may be other issues with the test so here's my current updated
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opinion i had been thinking that this herd immunity wasn't wasn't really guaranteed it's still not
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guaranteed so there's still questions to be answered but uh at least one one researcher scientist who's
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close to this thinks we shouldn't even worry about it that that we'll have immunity so even if two
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percent of the people or even if some people didn't have immunity uh there's probably enough people
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who do to get herd immunity eventually but other people warned hey it's not so easy this isn't like
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a regular virus you could get it and recover but it might take years for your organs to recover
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so apparently this is pretty bad stuff you know you could get better but it might take you years to
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actually be better that's pretty ugly so we'll keep an eye on that um now the anti-trump media
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broadly speaking they they don't have much material to work with lately because it's not a normal time
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and the president keeps taking the advice of experts which is ruining all the fun
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every time the president takes the the advice of experts and the experts back them up
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it just takes all the fun out of the anti-trump people because they're like
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you keep not following x okay you're taking the experts advice but but the next time you're not
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following the experts okay this time you're also taking the experts advice but we're gonna get you
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we're gonna get you one of these days and so far the president has definitely stayed on the right
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side of at least science so he's agreeing with the experts at least to that degree so we're watching
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the anti-trump press uh desperately trying to find things to criticize the president for because
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that's their business model if they don't criticize the press their their audience will go somewhere
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else so they have to they have to criticize the president so here's what they've come up with today
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they've decided to bunch up unrelated things and try to make a story out of it so they've bunched
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together dr drew dr oz and dr phil now i i'd love to know what dr drew thinks about that
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or any of them i guess what they think about being lumped together but the the unfairness of that
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to lump three completely different people with three completely different situations together
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uh that's not fair that is so not fair uh and so uh so this was on uh uh was this where was this
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this was on uh cnn and this was the headline fox news keeps inviting tv doctors on air who say crazy
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crazy things crazy things which were the crazy things i i'm not sure what crazy means all right so dr drew
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as i had apologized for underplaying the seriousness of the virus but keep in mind he was underplaying it
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when the greatest experts in the world were telling us not to be that worried so dr drew correctly you
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know upgraded his opinion apologized for getting it wrong in the beginning but he wasn't that far from
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the experts it's not like it's crazy it's only it only looks crazy if you're looking at it you know in
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the rearview mirror and you take out the context the context at the time was a lot of people were on the
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same page who who were experts uh then there's the dr oz one is this crazy dr oz suggested that children
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would be a safe class of people to go back to school and of course that's a key to getting people
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you know the adults to go back to work because you need the kids to be taken care of essentially
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but he worded it wrong so he just worded it wrong and so the people were looking for trouble
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they they heard it the way they wanted to hear it and it sounded like he was being
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cold about the possibility of children dying now you don't have to have a very high iq to know that
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dr oz did not go on television and say something cold about children dying okay that just didn't
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even happen but of course they twist his words until until it sounds like maybe he said something
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like that if you squint really hard and reduce your iq by 50 so first of all dr oz was just talking
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about tough choices somebody's got to go first right you can't send the parents to work and leave
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the kids at home if they're young kids so he's just making an adult observation that you'd want to do it
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in you know a certain order and this might be a good order and that's it there's nothing crazy about
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that at all but they turned it into that then dr phil was really just guilty of the most universal
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bad comparison in the world of you know regular flu or or other other problems that are not viral to
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this one but and that that was just um bad analysis but it's the same bad analysis that's practically
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universal so which parts of these were crazy these were three people who had three opinions but
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none of it's crazy it's not even close to crazy so that's all they got for that apparently japan is
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having a a new surge in covet 19 cases and i only point that out because people had used them as an
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example of people who got it under control easily and therefore maybe it wasn't such a big problem
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because hey look japan took care of it so easily well it turns out japan did not take care of it so
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easily because it's surging again we hope they get that under control but we are we're definitely
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learning stuff by watching other countries and what they're doing um huffington post uh again not
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having enough fodder to work with so you know they need to criticize trump and anybody on his side
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so here's what they came up with listen to how bad this headline is all right so here's the headline
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for the huffington post right wing economist has been accused of racism before all right if you hear
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the if you see this headline that a right wing economist has been accused of racism before
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what do you think of that guy well you think he's definitely a racist right you don't even have to read
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the story you're like well if he's been accused of racism before even if this one isn't true maybe the
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other one is and maybe if the other one wasn't true probably this one is and you know what are the
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odds that one person would get accused of racism twice unless there's something there you know a
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little smoke there's fire sort of thing so that's how the huffington post you know plays their slander
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they they give you a headline where it leads you to believe there's got to be something here
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i mean there's there's some meat here so let's dig into this right and uh who was it was it uh
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steve morton uh the economist who uh is a trump supporter and this is what he's in trouble for
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so remember the headline he's been accused of racism before so that headline suggests that this story
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is an accusation of racism right because the headline is he's been accused of racism before
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how else can you interpret that then this story is about his potentially being racist right so let's
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dig in what was he doing that was so racist this time that would remind you of that last time
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all right here's what he did he was talking about the uh the social distance protesters who are protesting
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having to stay home in those states where they don't think it's a bigger problem and here's what
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he said i call these people modern day rosa parks they are protesting against injustice and loss of
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liberties oh uh steven moore i'm sorry i had his name wrong steven moore and uh
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and i don't know how to interpret that sentence i call these people modern day rosa parks
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except as a very big compliment rosa parks is there any other way to interpret this
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other than a gigantic compliment and respect respect and admiration for rosa parks now in uh you could
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certainly argue that it's silly to compare these um these protesters to rosa parks but
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if i told you let's say i said you know um so and so is the michael jordan of i don't know being a
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senator if i said somebody was the michael jordan of being a senator would you say oh my god that's a
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little racist no you would say the whole reason you're using michael jordan is because you know
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arguably is the greatest of all time it is literally a sign of admiration and respect
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for the person used as the example the michael jordan of you know being a i don't know a dry
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cleaner or whatever likewise if you're going to use somebody as your symbol of like the ultimate
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respected you know credible person that's really the opposite of racism like that's as that's as
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far as you can get from being racist holding up you know somebody who is like the you know one of
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the greatest icons of the african-american experience you know somebody universally respected
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for being the you know the the the unknown person who changed the world how in the world
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is this racist it can't be further from racist it literally can't be further
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it's just mind-boggling but how many people read the what the huffington post and read that and go
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yep yep it looks like he's insulting rosa parks by comparing her to people who showed up with ar-15s
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in this state oh my god what is wrong with people um i was looking for changing the topic here i was
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looking for uh some deadlines on the states you know i'd said before early on when the whole topic of
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closing stuff down came up i had said that the president needs to give us a date because even if
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that day gets later revised we're all more comfortable with a date now he gave that uh april 15 date then
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you have to revise it and i think maybe that that felt like an embarrassment or uh you know a mistake
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i don't think it was i think it was exactly the right thing to do even though it got revised
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because remember from the start i said you should have a date even if you know you're going to revise it
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because the public needs to needs to focus on something even if it's changed and um i'm
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uncomfortable having the states all make their decisions because the longer um the longer we go
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i mean they obviously they have to be involved in the decision but i'd like them to come up with an
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opening time much sooner even if it changes because having having a date in your head
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makes it way easier to manage your isolation you know imagine being in isolation and not knowing
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when it's going to end versus being in isolation and knowing that in nine days it's over those are
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not the same one of them can make you crazy and the other is like ah i'll just find some way to keep
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busy for nine days and i'll be good it's a completely different mindset and we're experiencing
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as much as we're experiencing a health crisis and an economic crisis it's a psychological crisis
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too and the psychological part you know informs the rest of it as well so i think to get the
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psychology right we need some kind of dates that we can argue about plan for feel bad about you know
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just interact with we just we just need a little bit of solidness and dr chris murphy murray
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who is one of the modelers you know one of the big models he was on i think it was cnn and he was
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talking about uh generally what he thought for reopening dates so he thought that maybe a state
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like hawaii that has the least covid problems so far uh he was thinking that maybe the first part of
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may like may 1st or so they might start opening up but that the worst hit places the hot spots might be
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middle of june and he sees a lot of other stuff in the middle you know mid to late may now that's the
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first time i saw anybody give a an estimate who knew what they were talking about and even though you
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could say well those models are incorrect i don't really care that the models are incorrect
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i care that i had a estimated time and so i could look at those times it's like okay we're not i'm in
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california so we're not as good as hawaii but we're not as bad as new york so that would put us in
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that middle zone you know mid may maybe but we're california so maybe we'll be a little more aggressive
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and staying close but it looks to me like that at least bounds it i'm feeling like mid to late may
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would be a california time uh so that makes me feel better and i wish that i wish that the task force
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would do something similar which is to say in public each of your states will be different
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but it's going to be somewhere between may 1st and we think june 15th you know if you're hot spot it's
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the latter if you're not it's the former and everybody else is going to be somewhere in that middle
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ground that would make a big difference to the psychology uh here's an interesting factoid kim
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jong-un has not been seen in a week oh and apparently there have been at least a few events
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that he typically would always be to because he has some some kind of a traditional value in
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north korea something about his relatives etc and so he's conspicuously missing it's obvious
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it's obvious that there's some kind of choice or inability to be in public so the speculation is
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anything from um he's uh he was trying to put some distance between himself and the events because
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the events were about his family and he wants to be his own person well i doubt that i don't think
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that explanation the other one was they're just trying to keep him safe because they don't want
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him around other people because he might get covid i think that's possible here's the other possibility
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kim jong-un is exactly the kind of person who dies from coronavirus am i right now uh you know i want
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to say this as delicately as possible but kim jong-un does not look like the uh the symbol of good
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health he's got some issues i don't know what they are it might be diabetes but he's he's certainly
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got some weight issues and lots of you know rumors about other issues so at the very least i think he
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smokes although that may be good we don't know smoking could be good or bad we'll have to wait and see
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but if kim jong-un got coronavirus i feel like he wouldn't make it
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at least the odds wouldn't be that good well i guess even let's see at his age at his age even if he's
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not super healthy i think actually he would mostly survive right um so in you know in theory he would
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he would survive even if he got it but uh you do wonder if there's anybody in his circle or anywhere
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anybody anywhere china let's say who might want to slip him a little coronavirus just