Valuetainment - Episode 447： Biowarfare Experts On Coronavirus (COVID19)

00:00:00.000 I'm Patrick, your host of Value Tim, and today I have two special guests with me, and these

00:00:25.540 are not just any guests, they're bio-warfare experts and pandemic experts, especially

00:00:30.740 since we're going through this coronavirus pandemic.

00:00:33.040 I decided to bring them on board.

00:00:34.420 One's a lieutenant colonel, the other one is a colonel, both of them are retired, and

00:00:37.680 they give a complete different spin and take on what's taking place with the coronavirus.

00:00:43.100 Today, I have with me two guests.

00:00:45.420 One is Professor Andrew Natsios, who was a former lieutenant colonel for 23 years, and

00:00:50.400 I also have with me Dr. Parker, who's a former colonel in the military.

00:00:53.800 They both are experts on the topic of pandemic, and I'll let them introduce themselves to

00:00:58.260 you on what they do professionally and many different experiences they have, but I got

00:01:01.340 a list of questions to go with them.

00:01:02.580 So having said that, let's get right into it.

00:01:03.860 Gentlemen, thanks for coming out.

00:01:05.000 Thank you.

00:01:05.380 Thank you.

00:01:05.940 So if you don't mind taking a moment and just kind of introducing yourself what you do, you

00:01:09.640 know, we'll take the lead from there.

00:01:10.940 So I'm a professor in the international program at the Bush School of Government at Texas A&M,

00:01:17.280 and I run the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs.

00:01:20.580 General Scowcroft was a national security advisor to President Bush 41, the older Bush who just

00:01:26.680 died a couple of years ago.

00:01:29.640 So 12 years I've taught.

00:01:30.940 I used to teach at Georgetown University in the Welsh School.

00:01:33.720 But for much of my career, my middle later career, I was in international development.

00:01:39.740 So what do you do to help poor people in the developing world, in agriculture, in health?

00:01:44.920 So I was the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, which

00:01:50.420 is the foreign aid program in the U.S. government that helps poor countries.

00:01:54.120 And we've been doing that since 1961.

00:01:56.400 President Kennedy created it.

00:01:58.640 President Bush was one of our great heroes because he tripled the budget for foreign aid.

00:02:03.680 Most people don't know that.

00:02:04.760 And his program on malaria has cut malaria rates in Africa, 50% in many countries.

00:02:11.660 And the HIV-AIDS program he started has also pushed back the HIV-AIDS problem in Africa

00:02:17.680 and other areas of the world.

00:02:20.660 So I did that.

00:02:21.700 I was with World Vision, the NGO, for five years in the 1990s as a vice president.

00:02:26.780 So I have an academic career.

00:02:28.860 I have a career as an aid administrator.

00:02:32.880 And then I have a career in state government in Massachusetts, where I originally come from.

00:02:36.140 I was in the state legislature for 12 years.

00:02:38.380 And then I was chief operating officer for the state.

00:02:41.240 And then I ran the Big Dig, which is a huge construction project in Boston.

00:02:44.600 After there were cost-overrun scandal, I had to fire a bunch of people.

00:02:49.240 And it was kind of a big mess.

00:02:50.480 So I have three careers.

00:02:51.740 And you also work with Dr. Fauci on HIV?

00:02:54.460 Well, I worked with him 15 years ago because he's the one that convinced President Bush to

00:02:58.840 start the program.

00:03:00.360 And we worked with him.

00:03:01.640 And the global health program at AID is its strongest sector that AID works on.

00:03:08.140 There's projects all over the world.

00:03:09.800 And one of the things we should have been doing is mobilizing AID to help people in Africa,

00:03:14.880 Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, in poor countries, to deal with this because

00:03:19.360 they don't have a lot of support.

00:03:20.560 Without AID and without some of the other aid agencies, the U.N. is overcommitted right

00:03:26.500 now.

00:03:27.040 It's just WHO and the World Health Organization.

00:03:30.360 And they need help.

00:03:32.580 So they've begun to mobilize.

00:03:34.480 Congress put a billion and a half dollars in the budget that just went through the president's

00:03:38.300 sign to do this.

00:03:40.100 So I'm happy.

00:03:41.300 But I think they should have done it two months ago.

00:03:42.980 Well, we've got to get into that.

00:03:43.800 Sure.

00:03:44.260 And I've got a list of things I want to get into.

00:03:45.760 How about yourself, Dr. Par?

00:03:46.680 So I would describe my careers, public service, public health, national security.

00:03:54.040 Now I'm the director of the Pandemic and Biosecurity Policy Program in the Scowcroft Institute.

00:03:59.320 And I'm also an associate dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M.

00:04:04.020 Prior to joining Texas A&M, about six years ago, I had 36 years at the federal level, 26

00:04:10.000 years in the Army, active Army.

00:04:11.860 And a lot of my career was spent at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infected

00:04:16.960 Diseases.

00:04:17.620 I was a former deputy commander and commander, affectionately called USAMRIT.

00:04:21.760 Many people know it as that.

00:04:23.380 And so I kind of cut my teeth on biodefense, high consequence emerging infectious diseases

00:04:29.900 from that experience.

00:04:31.480 When I left the Army, I went to the Department of Homeland Security.

00:04:34.620 And then I was drafted and pulled quickly over to the Department of Health and Human Services

00:04:38.800 in 2005, about 30 days before Hurricane Katrina hit.

00:04:43.940 And so I kind of quickly pivoted to emerging infectious diseases, to things like health care

00:04:52.040 capacity and things like that that we're also dealing with today.

00:04:55.160 And then pandemic preparedness and so forth.

00:04:57.600 So I was a principal deputy assistant secretary at HHS for, that's one of the leading forces

00:05:03.620 right now for the Department of Health and Human Services.

00:05:07.280 And my last tour in government service was at the Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary

00:05:12.520 for chemical and biological defense.

00:05:14.420 And my career kind of crosses over, like Andrew said, with Tony Fauci, certainly when I was in

00:05:20.100 HHS and DOD.

00:05:22.000 But it goes back to the anthrax letter attacks in 2001.

00:05:26.520 So it's fair to say you're both qualified to talk on this topic, which is why we have

00:05:29.720 you here.

00:05:30.140 So we're excited for you to come out and spend some time with us.

00:05:32.560 By the way, I posed a question yesterday.

00:05:34.800 What questions would you ask them?

00:05:36.900 And we got lists of questions.

00:05:38.820 First person I asked was my eight-year-old son.

00:05:40.960 What question do you have about this pandemic?

00:05:43.040 I said, Dr. Parker is going to be here.

00:05:45.020 So do you have any questions for him?

00:05:46.100 I said, is he related to Peter Parker?

00:05:47.760 So for full transparency, any relation to Peter Parker, we can get that out there so he knows.

00:05:52.320 No relation that I am with.

00:05:53.320 Okay, so just so you know there is no relation, I know it's important to know that.

00:05:56.480 So let's get right into it.

00:05:57.820 So good, bad, ugly.

00:06:00.900 A lot of people are afraid.

00:06:02.480 I'm in the business world.

00:06:03.700 I'm in the financial world.

00:06:04.940 I mean, and we're creating content and we have employees, agents, clients, everybody.

00:06:09.260 There's a lot of people that are afraid because there's this level of uncertainty of people

00:06:15.300 still don't know what's really taking place.

00:06:17.260 From where you're at and what you know, what good do you know about what's going on right

00:06:21.660 now, progress, bad and ugly.

00:06:24.680 So good, bad, ugly.

00:06:26.000 You can start off with ugly or bad first and then go to good if you want to.

00:06:29.480 But you can take a start.

00:06:30.820 I'll take a start.

00:06:31.860 Well, I think actually one of the good, because we pivoted from a period of what was called

00:06:37.380 containment strategy when the president actually imposed some travel restrictions from China.

00:06:45.060 And at that time, that made a lot of sense.

00:06:47.460 And we took a lot of actions to begin to try to contain the virus when we go back to end

00:06:54.180 of January time frame.

00:06:55.680 And that was essentially to buy us some time to start doing some preparedness.

00:06:59.640 And so the organizations are going to be best prepared, the ones that took time to start

00:07:04.300 preparing back when the containment strategy really began.

00:07:08.200 But we've clearly hit an inflection point where we clearly have transitioned to a mitigation

00:07:13.560 strategy plus containment.

00:07:16.000 And that mitigation strategy is really reliant on what's commonly talked about now is flattening

00:07:23.700 the curve through social distancing, social separation interventions, both personal and

00:07:29.920 at the community level.

00:07:31.220 So what I would say is good about that, that people are taking it seriously.

00:07:35.560 Um, and they are moving out actually with some government guidance at all levels, federal,

00:07:42.760 state, uh, local, but universities, businesses, schools are taking action and people are paying

00:07:49.100 attention to it.

00:07:50.000 And they're not necessarily waiting for the federal government, you know, to tell them to

00:07:54.320 do something.

00:07:55.000 The guidance helps, but I would say that's part of the good that the seriousness we are taking

00:07:59.580 in the social distancing interventions.

00:08:03.000 Now we have a long way to go and I know that's now having a huge impact on, on our economy.

00:08:09.480 Um, but, uh, we, we know that, um, and I would say also that, that is the good as well.

00:08:15.560 So we are getting good guidance or we're getting guidance from the federal, state, local level

00:08:20.340 on what it means to, uh, protect our public health, but we're also seeing a lot of action

00:08:26.160 to try to address some of the economic impacts as well.

00:08:29.500 And so I'll, we'll go into some of the bad later.

00:08:31.520 So that's the good, any good you have.

00:08:34.780 Well, I think there are basically three ways of combating a pandemic.

00:08:39.800 One way is a vaccine.

00:08:41.140 We don't have a vaccine.

00:08:42.040 It'll be a year and a half before we do.

00:08:43.520 We can't wait that long.

00:08:44.960 I mean, the, the consequences would be catastrophic.

00:08:48.540 The second is through medication that will kill the, by taking a pill, you kill the virus

00:08:53.800 called antiretrovirals.

00:08:55.340 We call them antibiotics for a bacterial infection, antiretrovirals for a viral infection.

00:09:00.300 This is a virus.

00:09:02.020 Uh, we have a bunch of, uh, antiretrovirals that already exist, but they don't know what

00:09:07.760 it'll do to this virus.

00:09:08.860 It could make things worse conceivably, not, not likely, but conceivably.

00:09:12.460 We don't know which one works better than the others.

00:09:14.800 So they're testing them now.

00:09:16.460 And Jerry tells me two to six months before.

00:09:19.380 Yeah.

00:09:19.420 There are some promising, uh, antivirals that are already approved, FDA approved for other

00:09:24.060 indications.

00:09:25.460 And the preliminary evidence that suggests that some of these antivirals, uh, may have, uh,

00:09:30.200 efficacy against the COVID, uh, SARS-CoV-2 virus.

00:09:33.380 And so clinical trials have already begun to, uh, look specifically at, uh, this, this virus

00:09:38.760 and, and whether they would help clinically.

00:09:40.820 So this, the social distancing is not going to solve the problem because as soon as you

00:09:45.260 stop doing the social, if you get the infection rate will go down if everybody follows the

00:09:49.480 instructions to do the social distancing and quarantine and all that.

00:09:53.160 So, but, but then when you stop doing it, it'll go up again.

00:09:56.140 The only way to stop it is to kill it and you can kill it through medication and later

00:10:01.640 vaccines to prevent you from getting sick at all.

00:10:04.660 But that's not, these are sequential in terms of timing.

00:10:08.600 So the amount of damage to the economy and the number of people who would die if we waited

00:10:12.200 for the vaccine is, is we, that's not an option, but we have to do it because the permanent

00:10:17.240 long-term fix is massive inoculations around the world and a vaccine.

00:10:21.440 So we're doing, we're doing the right thing now with limited resources and limited tools.

00:10:26.980 Now, let me mention who is at risk because the data is very, very interesting that's coming

00:10:33.060 out and there's more and more data.

00:10:34.460 We had a lot of data from China and there was a large study done that was published in

00:10:38.700 the American Medical Association Journal of American Medical Association by Chinese scientists.

00:10:45.420 They, we think our scientists believe that it was legitimately done.

00:10:48.980 You know, a lot of the data, I don't believe the data coming out of China.

00:10:51.820 I think it's cooked because the Chinese government's an autocratic regime and they're using this

00:10:56.400 crisis to advance their strategic interests that have nothing to do with the, they're using

00:11:02.280 the crisis to push us aside and say, we, we, we are the ones that should be leading the

00:11:06.520 world, not the United States.

00:11:08.500 We can talk about that later.

00:11:09.520 But so, but we have data now out of Italy and Italy and South Korea are democratic systems.

00:11:17.780 They're scientists are not going to be ordered what to do.

00:11:20.380 They won't, they wouldn't follow it anyway.

00:11:22.660 But a study came out yesterday from the very large caseload in Italy, which is now the second

00:11:29.420 largest in the world.

00:11:30.460 It is next to China.

00:11:31.580 And I think there are 27,000 people infected and they've lost a large number of people.

00:11:37.860 Large number.

00:11:38.380 It's the highest death rate in the world.

00:11:39.860 Eight percent of the people get sick, die.

00:11:41.440 Eight percent is the number I saw.

00:11:41.680 Yeah.

00:11:42.200 South Korea, who is way, way ahead of everyone else, has only one percent death rate.

00:11:48.940 Now those figures are going to change.

00:11:50.840 They both have modern health care systems.

00:11:54.340 Italy waited too long to respond.

00:11:57.020 South Korea responded immediately.

00:11:58.260 South Korea tested everyone, massive testing, 250,000 tests.

00:12:02.680 That allowed them to target what they were doing.

00:12:05.660 And the reason they did all this is they had a SARS, another virus similar to this one,

00:12:10.900 that took place 15 years ago.

00:12:12.540 They screwed it up then and they fixed it.

00:12:14.140 The Koreans fixed their system.

00:12:15.600 So they were prepared from a password.

00:12:16.500 That's exactly correct.

00:12:17.420 That's very good news.

00:12:18.300 Yes.

00:12:19.380 Preparedness does work if you do it at the senior level with all the ministries in the case of

00:12:24.640 South Korea, our departments in our case.

00:12:26.560 So now who is at risk?

00:12:28.260 The study says, in the one that just came out, 99% of the people who have died in Italy

00:12:34.060 had some other comorbidity, which means some other disease.

00:12:39.320 They had cancer.

00:12:40.620 They had a heart attack.

00:12:41.720 They had a stroke.

00:12:42.460 They had diabetes.

00:12:43.480 They have an autoimmune disorder.

00:12:45.640 You said 90%?

00:12:46.600 99%.

00:12:47.400 99%.

00:12:47.920 99%.

00:12:48.400 99%.

00:12:49.000 99%.

00:12:49.520 Okay.

00:12:49.880 That's what the study says.

00:12:50.780 Got it.

00:12:51.400 Okay.

00:12:51.800 Now, the one that people have not talked about at all, I mean, it's in the data, and there's

00:12:57.180 a study in China and one that I saw that is exactly the same but not the same percentages that was

00:13:04.180 done in Wuhan in a small sample.

00:13:05.960 The group that is most at risk are people who have hypertension, which means high blood pressure.

00:13:12.260 Now, we looked up the data this morning.

00:13:14.420 According to the Center for Disease Control, the preeminent group of scientists in the United

00:13:18.020 States and the federal government, 108 million Americans, 30% of the population, have high

00:13:24.280 blood pressure.

00:13:25.820 Okay.

00:13:26.320 30 million should be on medication, and they're not.

00:13:30.480 And 75% of these people should be trying to control their high blood pressure by minimizing,

00:13:36.940 for example, the amount of salt they use, exercising more, not eating fried foods, for example.

00:13:42.600 I mean, you can lower your blood pressure without medication, but they're not doing that.

00:13:46.240 So, obesity causes high blood pressure.

00:13:48.780 That contributes to it a lot.

00:13:50.960 So, 75% of the people who died in Italy had high blood pressure that was not being treated.

00:13:58.880 Okay?

00:13:59.500 So, Jerry gave me an explanation.

00:14:01.920 You don't want to go.

00:14:02.660 I didn't even understand what he was talking about as to why there may be a biological connection

00:14:07.400 between this virus and high blood pressure and why that is killing people.

00:14:11.500 So, the advice is get your blood pressure tested.

00:14:16.820 If you have high blood pressure, you should be on medication.

00:14:20.060 Maybe it's too late in your life to do it because if you don't take the medication, you're

00:14:23.960 likely to have a stroke or a heart attack with high blood pressure if it's not treated properly.

00:14:29.940 Exercise more.

00:14:30.980 If you improve your lung capacity, that will also make your lung stronger because the other

00:14:36.460 element of this is the younger people have very low rates.

00:14:41.480 They have the same rate of infection, but they have very low rates of mortality, under 40.

00:14:46.300 Very low.

00:14:48.200 In the case of Italy, most of the people who died were over 60 years old.

00:14:52.840 Huge percentage were over 60 years old.

00:14:56.460 That doesn't mean younger people can't get sick.

00:14:58.580 It means they won't die from it.

00:15:00.680 Now, there is some evidence that it can also damage your lungs if you get it, but you survive

00:15:05.600 20 to 30 percent reduction in your lung capacity.

00:15:07.540 How accurate is that, by the way?

00:15:08.480 It's a preliminary report.

00:15:09.900 All of this is a preliminary report.

00:15:10.740 You know, I think we all have to be cautioned to not focus on any given statistic or any given

00:15:22.840 literature or publication in the moment.

00:15:25.500 There's a lot we still don't know about this virus, and we have to just understand that

00:15:30.780 and appreciate it.

00:15:32.080 But every day, we are learning so much more about this virus.

00:15:36.160 You know, and knowledge, the scientific knowledge about this virus is extremely important to

00:15:39.960 how we guide our public health response.

00:15:42.660 And we just have to accept that right now, we are still in a data-gathering mode.

00:15:46.620 It's very similar to other outbreaks that we've experienced, including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

00:15:53.940 We are in somewhat of a fog of war, unfortunately, but that happens with all kind of serious outbreaks.

00:16:00.580 This happens to be a really serious outbreak and a real, potentially real serious virus that

00:16:05.980 we have to pay attention to.

00:16:07.660 We don't have to worry.

00:16:08.580 I mean, worrying can be counterproductive.

00:16:10.900 We have to be concerned about it.

00:16:13.520 I'd like to go back.

00:16:14.180 Could I go back and visit the community mitigation a little bit, too, and just to maybe show

00:16:20.000 some examples of why it's important at a macro level?

00:16:22.920 And by the way, just out of curiosity, are we still on good, or have we gone to bad,

00:16:26.760 or have we not gone to ugly yet?

00:16:28.480 We're still on good.

00:16:29.320 We're still on good.

00:16:30.280 Okay, so we're going to get to bad and ugly.

00:16:31.640 All the stuff I was bringing up is-

00:16:32.260 You brought some bad stuff.

00:16:33.140 There's bad stuff.

00:16:33.780 He got some bad stuff.

00:16:34.500 We're not on ugly yet, so let's see where you're going to go now.

00:16:36.060 I'm going to go back maybe to the good again and why community mitigation is important and

00:16:42.680 why flattening the curve is a real phenomenon.

00:16:46.040 And we can just look at the macro level without getting into statistics, but look at China and

00:16:53.620 the impact of COVID in China.

00:16:56.280 And so where there were some draconian social distancing measures put in place around first,

00:17:04.460 around Wuhan, and then the entire Hubei province, which included up to 60 million people, that

00:17:10.500 was a complete, complete shutdown with a lot of police control and invasion of privacy and

00:17:17.220 et cetera, et cetera.

00:17:17.960 So when you look at that, and it became a crisis.

00:17:22.540 It was just out of control.

00:17:23.920 But when you look at the data from the rest of China, actually that lockdown of the Hubei

00:17:28.840 province actually mitigated the severity of the disease in the rest of China.

00:17:34.480 And so that's just an example on a macro level that these actually community mitigation-

00:17:38.460 Now, that's draconian.

00:17:39.320 We're never going to do something like that in our country, and most countries would not

00:17:44.440 do that.

00:17:45.440 But then there's some other good examples.

00:17:46.840 And so you look at Singapore, you look at Taiwan, they have largely mitigated the severe

00:17:53.000 impacts.

00:17:54.080 They have a lot of cases, but they've been able to mitigate some of the severe impacts

00:17:58.000 and the overwhelm of the hospital systems and so forth, and mitigated the number of deaths.

00:18:02.840 But it was social distancing, essentially.

00:18:04.900 The community mitigation, social distancing, and containment, and laboratory testing.

00:18:09.140 Compare that to Italy, where Professor Natsios has already said they waited way too late

00:18:14.160 to implement any community mitigation, and we see the results compared to Italy versus

00:18:19.780 Taiwan, Singapore.

00:18:20.900 And then South Korea is somewhere kind of in the middle.

00:18:23.820 But they jumped out at it too.

00:18:26.120 They had kind of a unique case with the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was part of what started

00:18:30.520 there.

00:18:31.100 No, that was Japan.

00:18:31.940 I'm sorry.

00:18:32.300 I got that mixed up.

00:18:33.060 That was Japan.

00:18:34.080 But Japan got a lot of elevated cases too.

00:18:36.840 But South Korea had to do with the church in Daegu.

00:18:43.440 But what really helped South Korea, as Professor Natsios said, was the extensive laboratory testing

00:18:50.020 so they can identify where there were hot spots in their communities and do something about

00:18:54.180 it and more aggressive in the community mitigation measures.

00:18:57.500 And so, but those are just at the macro level can give you an example of countries that have

00:19:03.120 done well versus those that have not.

00:19:05.660 So, Doc, you said that China took the approach of a draconian?

00:19:09.200 It was extremely draconian.

00:19:10.620 So, can you elaborate what you mean by that for somebody that doesn't know what you mean

00:19:14.200 by that?

00:19:14.440 Well, you know, I would just say it was essentially a complete shutdown and forced quarantine of a

00:19:27.480 population of 60 million people.

00:19:30.320 And people were not allowed to leave their house.

00:19:32.580 There was enhanced surveillance, police powers, information was not flowing.

00:19:39.960 And so that was, I guess I would call the draconian just something that only an authoritative

00:19:45.520 government like China would or could do.

00:19:50.120 They put paper on people's homes with tape.

00:19:53.160 And if you break the tape and go outside, the police would come.

00:19:56.140 So, you cannot leave your house or you get into trouble with the police.

00:20:01.300 So, what do you think about the threat that's going around saying we may possibly be put on

00:20:07.740 a shutdown?

00:20:08.380 So, if you're saying that, you're saying that there's no way in America we're going to be

00:20:11.760 put on a shutdown.

00:20:12.340 Because I've lived in Iran before where we were on curfew, we shut down, you couldn't

00:20:15.120 even leave the place.

00:20:15.920 And it was a law where the government's going around looking at you to see what you're doing,

00:20:19.740 right?

00:20:20.360 You're saying that's not possible in the U.S.?

00:20:22.240 Well, not like it was good.

00:20:24.960 Not like what was happening.

00:20:25.940 Not with a paper.

00:20:26.420 Not with a National Guard coming out.

00:20:28.780 Not with a National Guard coming to arrest us and police powers.

00:20:33.680 It's not a police state.

00:20:33.860 It's just, we're not a police state.

00:20:36.000 Okay.

00:20:36.940 Now, can we take some aggressive social separation measures without having all the kind of authoritarian

00:20:43.660 type regime?

00:20:45.000 Of course we can.

00:20:45.740 How aggressive?

00:20:46.880 Well, we are doing things like now.

00:20:49.060 Universities are moving to distance learning and taking social distancing measures.

00:20:56.940 Some industries and businesses are maximizing work-from-home policies.

00:21:03.860 There are areas where schools are closing down.

00:21:06.860 In fact, I think I heard this morning that one state, Kansas, the governor, decreed that

00:21:12.140 schools should close for the remainder of the spring.

00:21:16.500 And so, yes, those are all that.

00:21:17.860 All of our classes we're going to do by.

00:21:19.340 We're going to do by distance learning.

00:21:20.800 Are you choosing to do that?

00:21:22.260 Are you being forced, you're ordered to do that?

00:21:24.580 And we can't travel abroad.

00:21:25.740 There's no travel abroad.

00:21:26.640 And who is ordering you?

00:21:28.060 The provost of the university.

00:21:29.200 Okay, got it.

00:21:29.900 She's our ultimate boss.

00:21:31.020 But who's, is anybody forcing her?

00:21:33.120 No, I don't think so.

00:21:33.920 No, no, no.

00:21:34.240 These are just prudent measures under the circumstances with a public health threat that globally is

00:21:42.200 very high.

00:21:43.460 In individual communities in the United States, you'll see some people will say in individual

00:21:48.620 communities, the risk may be low, but in some communities, the risk is already high.

00:21:52.500 And so we're going to have individual communities across the United States are going to be impacted

00:21:57.820 at various different times.

00:21:59.400 This is not going to just hit the United States all at once.

00:22:01.800 It's going to hit individual communities at separate times.

00:22:06.000 And so people are just taking some prudent decisions, trying to keep the students, the faculty, in this case, the students and faculty safe and mitigate the

00:22:16.260 loss of life, but also continue with the mission of education.

00:22:19.380 And so, you know, that to me is not a draconian measure.

00:22:23.080 It's a very prudent, safe, sound measure to continue, in this case, our education mission, keep our students safe.

00:22:29.520 I read an article yesterday from Goldman Sachs that was on Forbes, I believe, that said on a call with 1,500 investors, you know, they projected that, you know, 50% of America is going to get coronavirus.

00:22:43.960 About 150 million people are going to get coronavirus, that's the data they gave, and 3 million people are going to die because of it.

00:22:50.520 Now, this article you're reading, you've seen the number being thrown around by other places, not just them saying it.

00:22:55.780 Some of them are exaggerating.

00:22:56.560 Right, some of them are exaggerating.

00:22:57.960 Now, the flip side is, you know, you heard about China slowing it down, and they're no longer getting the kind of surge that they were getting.

00:23:04.940 But then you came back, and you're saying the fact that that happened because they fully shut everything down.

00:23:09.820 So social distancing work, but if you let them loose, because some of my friends said, I did a conference call at 1.30 today saying people who were buying products, and they were doing their businesses based on buying the products from China, those factories are now opening up, and you can order from them again.

00:23:23.700 So now business is back to usual for some places, not everywhere.

00:23:27.520 So the cases are not growing as bad as they are.

00:23:29.420 So if the cases were able to be controlled in China, and we're projecting that we may go to 150 million if we don't take care of it, you know, if you look at those numbers, you know, how long can we really sustain this if we go out the space?

00:23:44.680 If we go social distances, you're talking 50 months of accident.

00:23:47.040 They're using models to project this, and they're very thoughtful people, and they're sincere people.

00:23:52.780 But Bob Cadillac, who was Jerry's predecessor, actually, we gave him a career award at our annual pandemic summit.

00:24:00.480 We've been having pandemic summits for five years.

00:24:02.980 By the way, our white papers are available on the Bush School website.

00:24:06.840 We've been predicting this would happen, not with the coronavirus.

00:24:08.800 We'll put all the links below, by the way.

00:24:10.140 Yes.

00:24:10.360 We'll put all the links below.

00:24:10.920 Okay.

00:24:11.440 So we've been saying this would happen.

00:24:12.860 We proposed a bunch of things that we thought should happen to prepare the country.

00:24:17.580 And when the president signed the executive order in 2018 on pandemics, which was required

00:24:24.300 by statute, they took language out of our white papers and put it in the executive order.

00:24:30.680 So they know we were reading it.

00:24:32.100 We passed it out to Congress, both parties, and they followed some things.

00:24:35.920 They ignored some things.

00:24:36.920 The hard things they ignored.

00:24:38.240 That's what usually happens.

00:24:39.220 But the point here is that once the Chinese put people back in the factories again, it's

00:24:49.960 likely that the infection rate is going to go back up again.

00:24:52.800 Not as like it was before, but it could go back up again.

00:24:56.500 And we're seeing that a little bit in Singapore, a little bit.

00:24:59.280 So we don't know what's going to happen.

00:25:01.520 But there are some people privately that are saying that social distancing works as long

00:25:06.840 as you keep doing it, but then you can't do it forever.

00:25:09.920 Now, so the question is how long this is going to last.

00:25:13.940 And we don't know that.

00:25:15.240 We don't know that.

00:25:16.140 Yeah, we don't know that.

00:25:17.540 But we know, I think we can take some lessons in what we're seeing in China.

00:25:21.380 They were locked down.

00:25:22.920 And the cases now are, you know, they're on the down slope of that epi curve.

00:25:29.480 And that was about two months.

00:25:30.460 And so that's what you're seeing, too, with Dr. Fauci, who's really our preeminent person

00:25:37.180 in the United States.

00:25:38.460 You know, he is talking about, you know, an estimate.

00:25:40.440 And he really admits, you know, we don't know for sure.

00:25:43.160 But that's the estimate that he's been using, that this may be, you know, two months, you

00:25:46.860 know, to get on the real down slope of this epi curve.

00:25:51.160 I was going to quote Bob Cadillac, Jerry's successor.

00:25:56.180 He's a colleague, colleague friend.

00:25:57.520 But he said that the models don't work.

00:26:01.420 And the models are that we're predicting these three million people.

00:26:04.880 But even if you take a much more conservative view, right now, the death rate in the United

00:26:09.180 States is 2%.

00:26:10.020 So it's not 1% like Korea.

00:26:11.760 It's not 8% like Italy.

00:26:12.900 It's 2%.

00:26:13.600 Let's say it's going to be 1%.

00:26:15.580 Because Fauci, when he was testifying before Congress, he was 1%.

00:26:19.080 That's a conservative estimate.

00:26:20.880 That's still 10 times higher than the death rate for the flu.

00:26:25.140 The flu is one-tenth of 1%.

00:26:26.640 So this is, it's a conservative estimate.

00:26:29.700 And if you say 20% of the people are going to get infected, that's 66 million people.

00:26:36.260 Say 1% of 66 million is 1.8 million people.

00:26:39.600 That's a lot of people.

00:26:41.180 And some communities will be hit harder than others.

00:26:43.500 I always come back just to make sure I got the quote on the models right.

00:26:45.840 Because, and it's essentially, because models can be very valuable as well.

00:26:50.680 Yes, they are.

00:26:51.100 Because there are a lot of assumptions, you know, models are as good as assumptions that

00:26:54.460 go into it.

00:26:55.080 So going back to what I said, there's still a lot that we don't know.

00:26:57.480 And so we're having to put assumptions of what we, you know, what we can estimate.

00:27:01.080 But at the end of the day, just like hurricanes, you know, when we see a hurricane come out

00:27:05.460 in the Atlantic, how many different model projections are there?

00:27:08.260 A whole bunch of them.

00:27:09.220 You know, as a hurricane gets closer to us, then the models start to converge a little

00:27:13.460 bit.

00:27:13.980 So it's kind of analogous to that.

00:27:15.520 So, you know, when we're seeing a hurricane way out in the Atlantic Ocean, all models actually

00:27:21.300 are very confusing.

00:27:23.360 But as it gets closer, those models begin to occur, and then they become more helpful.

00:27:28.640 How bad can this thing get?

00:27:30.180 How ugly can it get?

00:27:30.860 Well, let me kind of go back to some of the statistics, too, and why we need to be really

00:27:36.880 concerned and careful.

00:27:38.240 We've heard a lot up until kind of recently, the good news is what looks like only 80%,

00:27:43.000 81% of the people, it's mild.

00:27:45.960 And that is, you know, the good news.

00:27:48.040 But the unfortunate news, it's 20% or not.

00:27:51.240 And so, you know, actually going back to the biggest cohort, again, from the Journal of American

00:27:56.040 Medical Association, which was published by China Scientists, but has been through pretty

00:28:02.860 thorough peer review, you know, 15% of those are severe.

00:28:10.420 And many of those require some level of hospitalization.

00:28:14.340 But some of those in that 15% category slide into the critical care.

00:28:19.080 And that critical care is requiring intensive care, ventilator support, and so forth.

00:28:24.140 So it's really that 5% number that we should be concerned about.

00:28:27.900 And those, you know, the more that we can keep those in that severe category from sliding

00:28:32.220 into the critical category, because once you slide into that critical category, that's

00:28:36.080 almost a 50% mortality.

00:28:37.340 And it's not just a disease of elderly, although those over 60 are one of the vulnerable populations,

00:28:45.840 but anybody that has one of these other comorbidities.

00:28:49.080 And so going back up to the macro level, in the United States, there's about 105 million

00:28:54.860 people that kind of fall into this vulnerable population category.

00:29:00.080 70% of that 105 million people are actually in the over 65.

00:29:05.100 But 30% of them fall in this 18 to 59-year-old category that happen to have a comorbidity

00:29:11.780 or underlying health condition.

00:29:13.200 So there is a report, we're getting them anecdotally, but there was articles in this happening in

00:29:19.420 Europe in the newspapers, that younger people below 30 are just ignoring this.

00:29:24.540 Maybe they read the data that, by the way, there's no child under the age of nine who's

00:29:28.860 died.

00:29:29.140 So there are, children can get it, and they show symptoms, but it's not severe, and they

00:29:36.940 don't die, thank heaven.

00:29:38.320 We don't understand why that is.

00:29:40.580 So the research eventually will tell us why.

00:29:43.940 But younger people are going to the bars.

00:29:47.460 There's, I heard reports of comorbidity parties with a lot of kids getting together.

00:29:52.280 Now, that's irresponsible to do that, but they should think about their parents and their

00:29:57.520 grandparents, because if they get sick, they can get members of their family who are older,

00:30:02.100 who are over 60, sick.

00:30:03.800 And you wouldn't want to be responsible for your grandparents or your parents dying.

00:30:08.080 I'm sure they're not even thinking of that.

00:30:09.800 They say, well, I'm invulnerable.

00:30:11.020 I can't die from this because I'm young and healthy and all that.

00:30:14.720 Well, they can get other people sick.

00:30:16.160 They can get the professors sick, which Gary and I worry about a little bit.

00:30:19.140 They could be an asymptomatic carrier.

00:30:20.840 That's right.

00:30:21.400 That's the other thing.

00:30:22.660 People can carry the disease and have no symptoms and not be sick at all.

00:30:27.380 They're the most dangerous because they don't even know they're ill.

00:30:30.860 And there is some evidence, not substantial evidence yet, that there is asymptomatic carriers.

00:30:37.080 Yes, there is.

00:30:38.240 It's a question of whether it's a major driver of the transmission.

00:30:41.560 Probably not, but it can happen.

00:30:43.140 Right.

00:30:44.480 Interesting.

00:30:44.860 So, you know, are you hearing about what UK is doing with the herd immunity?

00:30:50.340 What are your thoughts on that?

00:30:51.800 Because, you know, somebody asked a question.

00:30:54.140 They said, well, Pat, if we know the cases below 50, the death rate is below 1% and cases

00:31:02.640 above 150 is higher.

00:31:05.800 Why don't we do social distancing for those above 50, but below 50, let them go to work because

00:31:11.900 they're not really being effective.

00:31:13.000 And so when they come back home and their parents are living with them, they're not going to

00:31:18.760 die, the ones under 50, they go back home, they're infected, and they kill their parents

00:31:23.060 and grandparents?

00:31:23.740 Is that what you're telling me?

00:31:25.000 That doesn't make any sense.

00:31:26.560 The UK is doing that.

00:31:27.560 That's not a bad, it's not a good idea.

00:31:29.400 It's a terrible idea.

00:31:30.420 I hope we don't do it in the United States.

00:31:31.640 So how familiar are you with what they're doing?

00:31:33.140 Yeah, let me actually go back to models because this is actually where I think models has converged

00:31:40.560 over the years just on the application of non-pharmaceutical interventions, social distancing.

00:31:46.460 And so the models have pretty much been in agreement over the years, particularly as we

00:31:49.660 studied pandemic influenza, the threat of pandemic influenza, starting back in the 2006-2007 time

00:31:56.240 frame and then applied in the 2009 pandemic.

00:31:58.840 The community mitigation or non-pharmaceutical intervention measures, interventions, you

00:32:03.220 have to be pretty aggressive.

00:32:04.600 You can't just pick one demographic, not another demographic.

00:32:08.520 You have to make sure that you're doing things for industry, universities, other non-government.

00:32:13.920 You just can't piecemeal a community mitigation measure because the models tell you that's not

00:32:19.540 effective.

00:32:19.920 And that's essentially what you described from the UK would be kind of a piecemeal approach

00:32:24.240 to community mitigation, trying to socially separate one demographic versus the others,

00:32:30.080 when in reality, you just can't do that.

00:32:32.300 And be analogous at the end of the day.

00:32:34.080 We can come back to borders in a minute and how borders and border closures, what effect

00:32:38.980 they may have on stopping, ultimately stopping something.

00:32:42.900 But we can come to that.

00:32:44.180 But it'd be simple because at the end of the day, viruses don't respect and know borders and

00:32:49.180 boundaries.

00:32:49.920 So there's a, so UK herd immunity is, if you don't mind, just explain what herd immunity

00:32:54.500 is.

00:32:54.720 Well, that's when you have enough people in the population that haven't immunity to a

00:33:01.200 given virus, that the, that there's immunity and the transmission from the virus is going

00:33:07.540 to ultimately die out.

00:33:09.340 And that measles is a good example that we know measles is very infective.

00:33:13.220 And you have to have over 95% of the population needs to be immune, which means that's your,

00:33:22.300 your, you have to have a herd immunity in the population of over 95% to really kind of stop

00:33:29.160 transmission and not have disease.

00:33:31.140 If our herd immunity drops below 95%, we will see transmission of, of measles.

00:33:37.720 COVID-19, we're not sure what it is yet, but some of the early studies say it's probably

00:33:41.380 in the 60, 65%.

00:33:43.620 We don't know for sure.

00:33:44.620 I'm just, you know, but that's a statistic I'll throw out.

00:33:46.520 And so I don't think what the measures UK are going to do are going to provide enough

00:33:50.760 herd immunity to stop transmission.

00:33:52.620 So they, they, they want 70% of the population to get it, so their immune system can fight

00:33:56.780 against it.

00:33:57.240 And then they go back to business as usual.

00:33:58.740 So let me go back to what I was asking.

00:34:00.320 Well, let me tell you the other problem with that.

00:34:02.340 Herd immunity by getting the disease does not always guarantee you won't get it again.

00:34:06.580 Right.

00:34:07.440 And they're, they're, they, we don't have enough scientific research at this point to conclude

00:34:11.380 that getting the most diseases, if you get one, you build up antibodies.

00:34:14.780 And if you get the disease 10 years later, you, you, you, your antibodies will kill it.

00:34:19.280 But we don't know that because some viruses, that is not the case.

00:34:24.740 And so they're making some assumptions that are, in my view, they're very dangerous.

00:34:28.240 Very dangerous.

00:34:28.780 Very dangerous assumptions.

00:34:29.820 The assumptions they're making is very dangerous.

00:34:31.660 Yes.

00:34:32.140 So let me, let me ask you the flip side on this.

00:34:34.060 So you're saying, uh, uh, are you willing to go to work and get the virus and bring it

00:34:38.760 back?

00:34:39.140 And God forbid somebody that's about 50 in your family that lives with you ends up getting the

00:34:43.440 virus, right?

00:34:44.000 That's what you said.

00:34:44.580 Okay.

00:34:45.380 So the, the flip side to that is if you're saying we cannot get a vaccine for 18 months,

00:34:50.360 I know they did the testing on a vaccine in Washington and I think they did 45 of them

00:34:54.140 a couple of days ago.

00:34:54.940 They keep testing and then they're saying it's a record breaking time.

00:34:57.640 You heard what, uh, President Trump's just said a couple hours ago that fastest record

00:35:02.360 breaking time on the progress they're making, et cetera, et cetera.

00:35:05.260 But you're still saying 18 months.

00:35:07.700 For a vaccine?

00:35:08.300 For a vaccine.

00:35:09.280 Sure.

00:35:09.520 Yeah, absolutely.

00:35:10.820 And so the record, what it is record breaking progress that we're making in vaccine development.

00:35:15.540 And, and, and we're, today we're, we're able to use new tools that are essentially allowing us to

00:35:21.280 design, uh, new vaccine candidates.

00:35:24.440 The operative word here is candidate.

00:35:26.020 Uh, based on, uh, based on the, the, um, the, the genetic sequence.

00:35:32.540 So the, the operative word candidate, that means it's still an experimental phase.

00:35:36.740 And so the good news is at least, you know, there's at least what I've seen in the data.

00:35:41.640 There's at least 20 companies, universities, or 20 vaccine candidates in development from

00:35:46.660 private sector or universities.

00:35:48.120 So that's 20 vaccine candidates going in, in some phase of very early discovery development

00:35:53.640 and beginning to go into from preclinical to clinical phase one studies.

00:35:58.300 Phase one study is just the first clinical study.

00:36:01.080 There's a phase two study that follows a phase one study.

00:36:04.300 There's a phase three study that follows a phase two study.

00:36:07.880 And the phase one is only looking at safety.

00:36:10.120 Is there any untoward safety, um, observations in a very small study of humans?

00:36:16.280 Phase two is a larger cohort, maybe 200 and maybe five to 200 to 500 people.

00:36:21.980 Uh, and it's, and the, and the vaccine candidate is produced at a little bit larger scale under

00:36:27.800 good manufacturing quality control standards.

00:36:30.280 And it also looks at safety, but it begins to look at, does the vaccine,

00:36:34.300 produce an effective immune response.

00:36:36.700 It's not, it's not tested in, in, against the virus in a hotspot.

00:36:41.940 Phase three is, is then when you begin to use a more commercially scalable type manufacturing

00:36:48.500 process for that vaccine candidate, that's still an experimental stage and put it in a

00:36:53.780 larger population to really look at clinical efficacy in a, in a hotspot.

00:36:58.300 And to see whether the vaccine is working against the virus, those stages in that manufacturing,

00:37:04.660 advanced development, manufacturing, and quality control take a long time.

00:37:09.520 And it's hard to shorten that out.

00:37:11.460 So the projections of, of what Dr. Fauci says, that it's probably going to be 12 to 18 months

00:37:16.440 before we have a vaccine that's deployable, deployable and moves from a vaccine candidate,

00:37:22.420 experimental to a licensed product or a product that can be used under emergency use authorization,

00:37:28.040 where we have enough confidence that the vaccine doesn't cause untoward side effects,

00:37:33.140 and it might have efficacy.

00:37:35.460 Those, those things, we can't shortcut those, those steps.

00:37:38.940 Because if you do one that is only 75% effective, and there's another one that's 92% effective,

00:37:45.900 don't you think we should know that before we start selling the stuff?

00:37:49.080 And you want to make sure it doesn't have safety problems.

00:37:50.900 Exactly.

00:37:51.440 What if it has a side effect no one anticipated?

00:37:53.880 Well, I mean, you, you, we were all in the military, guys, and you know,

00:37:56.520 we were getting all these vaccines.

00:37:57.620 You know, military property, you're taking this and, you know, there's risk that later

00:38:01.980 on you can have a three, your third ear on your forehead, but you know, you're, since

00:38:05.400 you're military property, guys, then we're going to take these care of guns.

00:38:07.680 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.

00:38:08.480 You can't tell them you don't remember that.

00:38:10.020 I remember, I was in military medical research and development.

00:38:13.320 So then you remember those days.

00:38:14.060 I remember those days.

00:38:14.840 I was one you were testing on.

00:38:16.760 No, you weren't testing.

00:38:18.040 Most of those vaccines that our soldiers, including me, received were licensed.

00:38:26.120 There was a period in the Gulf War that some were, were used on an emergency investigation.

00:38:31.260 They did that to us in the Gulf War.

00:38:33.020 An investigational new drug status.

00:38:35.820 But there's been, there was decades of abuse and laboratory researchers like me that told

00:38:43.040 us that, you know, we understood the safety profile and the efficacy profile, but the vaccines

00:38:47.780 that we get in the military have been FDA licensed.

00:38:51.100 It was just, you know, we didn't like it because we were getting a lot of shots at one time is

00:38:55.460 what we didn't like.

00:38:56.340 So here's a question for you.

00:38:57.780 Here's a question for you.

00:38:58.720 So if you're saying 12 to 18 months, 25, he's saying 12 to 18 months.

00:39:02.340 And I agree with him.

00:39:03.420 I think that's extremely aggressive because of the fact that-

00:39:05.580 It is extremely aggressive?

00:39:06.760 It is.

00:39:07.420 It is.

00:39:07.820 Even 12 to 18 months?

00:39:08.680 Yes.

00:39:09.240 Yes.

00:39:09.340 Okay.

00:39:09.640 But let's just say they can pull it off because Trump's going to put pressure on them

00:39:12.400 and they're going to do 12 to 18 months.

00:39:13.480 Okay, fine.

00:39:13.800 At what point do you think, best case scenario, we'll have it ready that if we have a million

00:39:21.120 cases, we can give a million people vaccines?

00:39:23.760 Could that be four months from now?

00:39:25.300 But you don't give it to them when they have the-

00:39:27.180 You give it to them before they get sick.

00:39:28.860 Right.

00:39:29.360 Like a flu shot you get when the season's coming.

00:39:30.960 So at some point-

00:39:31.920 So then that means you have to give it to 100 million people.

00:39:33.940 It's not like you're giving it to a million.

00:39:35.100 That's correct.

00:39:35.320 Let me put a perspective on it.

00:39:37.980 So some point in this development of phase one, phase two, phase three, there could be

00:39:44.400 some point in a phase three area where we're beginning to see that we're not seeing untoward

00:39:51.240 side effects or safety issues and we're seeing some evidence that it's effective.

00:39:56.320 There could be a point before it's actually licensed if everybody, you know, the scientific

00:40:00.760 community, it would come to a conclusion that maybe this vaccine can, we can go ahead and

00:40:06.200 begin to use it before it gets FDA licensed under what's called an emergency use authorization

00:40:10.940 because there is growing evidence and sufficient data that would warrant its safety and efficacy

00:40:17.620 in a, with a risk, an elevated risk.

00:40:21.980 Now, there wouldn't be probably the scale that might be needed, but we could also then think

00:40:27.260 about who would be prioritized to get a vaccine in limited quantities in hotspots.

00:40:33.560 And so who would that be?

00:40:34.940 Well, you know, we, we, we are putting our healthcare workers in on the front line of this.

00:40:40.520 And so we would have to think about, you know, is it our healthcare workers?

00:40:43.280 Is it our, is it, is it the, the, the population that's, you know, most at risk, but those are

00:40:48.100 some of the kind of ethical questions that would have to be addressed, you know, at that

00:40:51.300 time.

00:40:51.540 And we're going to have some ethical questions right now and just, you know, hospital preparedness

00:40:55.320 as well.

00:40:56.160 So, so let me ask you a question.

00:40:57.520 Here's cases.

00:40:58.660 Okay.

00:40:58.900 I'll just give you cases.

00:41:00.340 The number on how it's doubling.

00:41:02.500 You've seen this before.

00:41:03.820 This is okay.

00:41:05.360 So I got, I got a question for you with what we're seeing with charts on assuming these

00:41:10.740 cases keep doubling.

00:41:11.840 And I ran it at four days, six days and 10 days.

00:41:14.840 And this is just U S in four days.

00:41:17.640 If it doubles every four days, we're looking at 8 million cases by May 1st, just in U S.

00:41:23.440 Let's just say that's too aggressive.

00:41:24.900 Four days.

00:41:25.740 Let's take it to six days.

00:41:27.260 Six days.

00:41:28.720 We'll be at 4 million by May 19th.

00:41:32.020 Okay.

00:41:32.380 If it's six days, 4 million, that's still a big number by 519.

00:41:36.760 If it doubles every 10 days, we're looking at September 4th, all of U S July 2nd, 4 million

00:41:43.740 cases.

00:41:44.240 If we got 4 million cases and we use the 2% number, 4 million, 2%, 80,000, 80,000 is

00:41:52.360 seven times bigger than what we had with the H1 V1 in, uh, in, uh, 2009, 2010 with Barack

00:41:57.940 Obama.

00:41:58.300 We had what?

00:41:58.740 57 million cases.

00:41:59.760 I don't know the exact number, but we had quite a, so if we're going this direction,

00:42:04.340 okay, if we're going this direction and we're looking at the numbers that way, it's going

00:42:08.800 to double at that rate.

00:42:11.100 Okay.

00:42:11.840 Uh, we don't have the vaccine.

00:42:13.780 We're not going to have it for 12 months to give it to people, 12 to 18 months.

00:42:17.540 What, what are we doing?

00:42:18.540 We have, we have the drug.

00:42:19.600 Well, that's why, that's why, that's why we actually, you know, we, I think you're putting

00:42:23.060 way too much emphasis on just on a vaccine solution.

00:42:26.000 And that's why.

00:42:27.060 So we have the solution right now with a drug to fix it.

00:42:29.500 No, not now.

00:42:30.740 You're putting way too much emphasis on a medical countermeasure as the fix right now, because

00:42:35.820 public health measures are actually tried and true.

00:42:38.080 And, and, and we were talking about the community mitigation, uh, community, uh, social distancing

00:42:44.360 measures are going to be very effective and they're buying us some time until the antivirals

00:42:48.460 or the vaccines come on.

00:42:49.400 That leads me to my next question.

00:42:50.260 So the, that's why what we're doing right now in the social separate community, um, social

00:42:56.840 distancing interventions are essential because those numbers are kind of frightening.

00:43:02.160 And you're all, you're also assuming we'll know the numbers because we have enough

00:43:04.520 laboratory diagnostic capability.

00:43:06.520 Uh, but that's another, you know, and that's another, you know, we can talk about that in

00:43:09.340 a minute.

00:43:09.980 Uh, but, uh, but you're, you're really explaining kind of the, you know, the, the classic rules

00:43:14.900 of epidemiology and, and the, you know, the doubling and replication.

00:43:18.860 Uh, and this is where we are still in an exponential growth phase of what we can see, of what we've

00:43:24.500 been able to diagnose.

00:43:25.020 Exponential growth.

00:43:25.760 So this is not a linear growth.

00:43:27.080 It doesn't go from one case to two cases to three cases.

00:43:30.720 It doubles and then it doubles again and then doubles again.

00:43:32.960 That's the, the, that's what exponential means.

00:43:35.380 And that's very dangerous.

00:43:36.640 That's why there's a huge risk to this.

00:43:39.200 Jerry is, and this is where we might disagree a little bit.

00:43:42.380 Okay.

00:43:42.820 I think that, I don't think the American people in a democracy are going to take, are going

00:43:48.620 to show the discipline, particularly younger people to, to implement.

00:43:53.860 They should, I'm not saying they shouldn't.

00:43:55.360 I'm saying that they were, I think we're gonna have trouble with it after two or three months

00:43:58.480 of this.

00:43:58.760 Oh yeah.

00:43:59.100 We can't go that long.

00:43:59.940 Yeah.

00:44:00.040 And if we don't have, uh, drugs that can kill the virus by the end of that period, we're

00:44:06.380 going to have trouble.

00:44:07.600 So, so I think the most important is not to focus on the vaccine.

00:44:11.160 The president is focusing the vaccine that, in my view, that's a mistake because it's too

00:44:15.520 far into the future.

00:44:16.500 The, the, the measure that's going to relieve us from, and the economy from this, uh, the

00:44:23.380 damage that's being done is these, uh, drugs that already exist.

00:44:27.820 They're simply testing them to see whether they're effective against this disease.

00:44:32.060 That is what is going to allow us to relax these social, uh, measures that are, are, are,

00:44:37.520 are the thing to do now.

00:44:39.280 And we need to emphasize to young people, they cannot simply dismiss this and go to a bar

00:44:44.460 and have fun with their friends.

00:44:46.320 That is, does not work.

00:44:47.640 It defeats the whole purpose of this.

00:44:50.040 If people behave that way.

00:44:51.220 I, I, I think that part's fine.

00:44:52.800 And I think they'll adjust to that with the bar part because, you know, yesterday I'm going

00:44:57.280 to eat something, lunchtime.

00:44:58.940 I go, I'm not going to, let me go to a neighborhood services.

00:45:01.140 Oh, close.

00:45:02.140 Let me go to, let's close.

00:45:03.000 Then I went to Hop Daddy.

00:45:04.320 Uh, we're closed, but we can, you can order and we'll bring the food outside.

00:45:06.900 Okay.

00:45:07.300 It's a sit down place.

00:45:08.280 But I sat outside.

00:45:09.120 They brought the food.

00:45:09.680 I took the food.

00:45:10.320 I came to the office.

00:45:11.080 Okay.

00:45:11.660 That works.

00:45:12.360 So bars start shutting down.

00:45:13.420 People know Friday, Saturday night, you know, my concern isn't that.

00:45:17.040 So, so what the good news you just gave is that because so many people are just talking

00:45:22.880 about vaccines and we're relying on this vaccine, it's putting the fear in people, assuming that's

00:45:26.580 going to take 12 to 18 months.

00:45:27.700 That's very concerning for the average person.

00:45:29.680 You're saying we made the, the entrepreneurs and scientists, if they team up together, they

00:45:34.740 can come out with the right medication to help slow it down or, you know, do anything

00:45:38.840 to it.

00:45:39.220 And that could happen.

00:45:41.980 Now, the problem is, the problem is, even if they do all this science, there is the

00:45:48.020 issue that the Chinese have effectively, by subsidizing their pharmaceutical industry

00:45:52.900 over the last 10 years, have bankrupted our pharmaceutical companies that produce the

00:45:58.840 basic elements.

00:45:59.600 It's called API, active pharmaceutical ingredients.

00:46:03.140 We're getting to the bad.

00:46:04.280 We're getting, this is the bad.

00:46:05.260 This is very bad.

00:46:05.860 Is it ugly or not ugly?

00:46:06.900 Well, it's ugly.

00:46:07.700 I think it's ugly.

00:46:08.680 So this is qualified ugly right now.

00:46:09.940 Yes, there's a book called China Rx.

00:46:13.060 We didn't write the book.

00:46:14.160 Okay.

00:46:14.620 And it's on this subject.

00:46:16.140 It's been a systematic attempt to bankrupt, not just American companies, Japanese companies,

00:46:21.420 European companies from producing pharmaceuticals.

00:46:23.840 80% of German drugs are dependent on China.

00:46:27.660 80% of our drugs are dependent on China.

00:46:30.700 So if the pandemic continues in China, and you're Xi Jinping, what are you going to do?

00:46:37.060 Export all those drugs to the United States and Europe?

00:46:39.760 No.

00:46:40.400 You're going to keep them inside the country and treat your own people.

00:46:42.800 I would expect them to do that.

00:46:44.420 But we have allowed this to happen.

00:46:46.540 This is a national security issue.

00:46:48.580 I am for free trade.

00:46:49.760 I actually believe globalization is a good thing because it's taken millions of people

00:46:54.340 out of poverty.

00:46:55.220 It's reduced costs.

00:46:56.700 It's improved the quality of products.

00:46:58.700 It's made a globalized world.

00:47:00.280 A lot of people hate capitalism, and I'm not one of those.

00:47:03.200 Okay?

00:47:03.600 However, we don't allow our defense, our weapons systems to be produced in other countries.

00:47:09.200 There's a reason for that because there's a national security question.

00:47:12.440 We need to produce those weapons in the United States for our military.

00:47:15.460 We need to do that for pharmaceuticals as well, as well as, as Jerry said earlier, medical

00:47:20.840 disposables, like the face masks.

00:47:23.480 We don't have enough ventilators now.

00:47:25.880 So there are measures that affect the survival of the American people, and there needs to be

00:47:32.080 a complete rethinking of this.

00:47:34.400 Now, did the pharmaceutical companies deliberately try to bankrupt themselves?

00:47:38.160 Of course not.

00:47:39.020 They didn't do that.

00:47:40.320 The Chinese did it by subsidizing their own pharmaceutical companies to become the dominant

00:47:45.460 force in pharmaceutical, active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are necessary to make the

00:47:51.080 drugs for the whole world, not just for us.

00:47:54.720 And we need to address this issue, and that's not for right now, but it's soon.

00:47:59.860 We need to deal with it soon because if we get the drugs, the question is, we get the

00:48:04.640 drugs approved through these scientific tests, we then have to produce them, right?

00:48:08.840 Can we?

00:48:10.040 Well, can we produce them?

00:48:11.720 I don't know.

00:48:12.440 I don't know which drugs are produced where.

00:48:13.800 We'll find out.

00:48:14.900 When you say, I don't know, what do you mean you don't know?

00:48:16.900 Like, we literally don't know?

00:48:18.320 No.

00:48:18.760 I'd say we've just lost, we've offshored a lot of our pharmaceutical manufacturing, biologics

00:48:25.040 or vaccines, antibodies.

00:48:27.060 Not all, but we've offshored a lot of our actual manufacturing.

00:48:30.480 We have a very, very strong research base in the United States and kind of early discovery

00:48:34.840 and early development.

00:48:35.660 But we've offshored a lot of manufacturing.

00:48:39.300 And we need to bring it home.

00:48:41.440 So one day...

00:48:42.300 And I'm going to say something about the vaccine, too, because we need to, this COVID vaccine

00:48:47.600 that is being developed.

00:48:48.720 One of these candidates is going to be successful, I hope.

00:48:51.340 And we need to make sure that we, whatever one is successful or several that are successful,

00:48:57.820 we need to make sure we're manufacturing here at home.

00:49:00.720 And this vaccine will be important in 18 months or whenever it does get licensed because many

00:49:06.800 believe that, you know, we will get through this.

00:49:09.500 I mean, there's going to be this epi curve if it's two months, but it may come back and

00:49:13.800 it may become endemic, you know, and like other viruses have become.

00:49:17.740 And that's when the vaccine is going to be very important, if it does become endemic.

00:49:22.060 Can you break that down for somebody that's not in your world?

00:49:24.580 Yeah.

00:49:24.820 So if we look at, compare to influenza, and so we have many circulating strains of the

00:49:33.200 influenza virus.

00:49:35.100 And it's...

00:49:35.420 Influenza is the flu.

00:49:35.940 It's the flu.

00:49:36.680 It's the flu.

00:49:37.480 And so we have flu is all these different strains are endemic in our society.

00:49:42.020 And every year we have to really develop a new flu vaccine every year based on the circulating

00:49:48.000 strain of flu in a given year, given season.

00:49:52.200 And so flu is endemic.

00:49:53.580 It continues to, excuse me, evolve genetically.

00:49:58.720 And that's why a new vaccine is always, always needed.

00:50:01.160 So this virus may act similarly to that.

00:50:04.240 We don't know yet.

00:50:05.320 But because it is circulating around the world already, almost every country now has got

00:50:11.540 coronavirus, and we're probably not going to be able to completely get rid of it.

00:50:16.460 And so therefore, it will probably be, you know, in our, at a much lower level, and it

00:50:22.300 may peak up at some times.

00:50:23.800 But that's a vaccine is going to be very, very critical for us to have in case it does

00:50:27.520 become endemic.

00:50:28.560 Usually as a population, we're kind of getting back to some, you know, herd health and population,

00:50:32.460 we'll begin to develop, you know, some immunity just by natural exposure to it.

00:50:36.840 And some of the population will become, you know, if we were to get infected, then hopefully

00:50:41.680 our signs are, you know, less severe in the future.

00:50:44.280 So it sounds like you like what UK is doing.

00:50:46.180 I mean, you're going back to it.

00:50:47.180 Not urgently.

00:50:48.140 Indirectly.

00:50:48.580 You're indirectly.

00:50:49.460 No, no, no.

00:50:50.120 We want herd immunity, but not this way.

00:50:52.060 In the long term.

00:50:52.300 Not the way that we're supposed to.

00:50:53.220 In the long term.

00:50:54.080 So in other words, what you were talking about is the fact that the virus is constantly evolving.

00:50:59.940 So if it's constantly evolving, we have to also make sure the vaccine is constantly evolving.

00:51:03.480 Well, that would be, so we don't know enough about COVID and it may not evolve as rapidly

00:51:07.500 as the flu.

00:51:07.900 What doesn't evolve?

00:51:08.960 Is there a virus that doesn't evolve?

00:51:10.740 Measles is a very stable.

00:51:11.980 Doesn't evolve.

00:51:13.080 It's pretty much the same.

00:51:13.780 Very stable.

00:51:13.900 So if you had measles when you were a kid and you didn't, because you didn't get the immunization,

00:51:21.240 the vaccine, you're not going to get measles the rest of your life.

00:51:25.120 Because the, your body, you know where you're.

00:51:28.280 Your body fought it off.

00:51:29.360 That's right.

00:51:30.020 And they've developed antibodies.

00:51:31.380 You know where we store our, I did not know this until my wife became ill.

00:51:35.000 We store our antibodies in our bone marrow.

00:51:38.960 So our army, our Marine Corps, our 101st Airborne is in our bone marrow.

00:51:44.960 And when a disease.

00:51:45.600 No wonder I like bone marrow.

00:51:46.560 When the disease comes out, the army of antibodies says, this is disease in here.

00:51:54.300 We're going to kill this thing.

00:51:55.460 And they march out and they search all over our whole body and they kill all the viruses.

00:52:00.160 So that's the whole idea of a vaccine.

00:52:02.780 You want to build up the antibodies before you get the disease.

00:52:06.660 So you don't have to get it to develop the antibodies.

00:52:08.980 So two ways to develop the antibodies.

00:52:11.000 You can get a vaccine, which doesn't give you the disease, or you can get the disease and that's how you get protection.

00:52:18.100 Let me go back to the question with the medication you were talking about.

00:52:21.300 Okay.

00:52:21.960 How fast?

00:52:23.100 If we are absolutely crushing it, how fast can we come out with some kind of a medication to help with coronavirus?

00:52:29.900 I think that's going to be very fast.

00:52:31.460 I'm not going to give you a month other than a range of maybe two to six months.

00:52:34.880 Two to six months.

00:52:35.440 And that's what I'm hearing.

00:52:37.160 And that's because we're able to repurpose antivirals that are already FDA licensed, are in development, well down the development pipeline for other indications.

00:52:49.060 For other diseases.

00:52:49.800 Other diseases.

00:52:50.820 Right.

00:52:51.220 Okay.

00:52:51.520 So two to six months.

00:52:52.600 Yeah.

00:52:53.180 And those are some of the estimates I've heard from others as well.

00:52:57.280 But that's only because they're already licensed for another indication and initial data looks like they may be effective against COVID.

00:53:07.500 And so these could be repurposed relatively quickly.

00:53:10.860 If all that, you know, the clinical trials, you know, prove out to what the data looks like right now.

00:53:15.880 I don't know the information of, you know, how available, how much, you know, how large a manufacturing base is for those antivirals.

00:53:23.080 But I know that that has to be being looked at right now very, very seriously.

00:53:28.760 So you're saying you started off with the good news and you've gone back to the same word multiple times.

00:53:35.180 Both of you, you're sticking to your gun, social distancing, social distancing, social distancing.

00:53:40.120 Right.

00:53:40.560 That's the only tool we have at the moment.

00:53:41.860 Is it fair to say you're above 50?

00:53:44.600 What do you mean?

00:53:45.220 Age wise.

00:53:46.440 Oh, I'm in the vulnerable population.

00:53:48.060 So I wanted you to sit here.

00:53:51.640 I'm 70.

00:53:52.380 I'm 70 years old.

00:53:53.320 I wouldn't put you at 70.

00:53:54.320 I'll put you at a different number lower than that, but okay.

00:53:56.180 Oh, I was going to say, that's good.

00:53:57.120 I thought you were going to say 80.

00:53:58.200 That's why I said about 50.

00:53:59.440 So if you're saying social distancing, why are you sitting so close to me and why are you getting close to five other people here?

00:54:06.440 Because there are 2 million people who may listen to your program and listen to our advice and stop infecting other people by listening to what Jerry and I are saying in terms of social distancing.

00:54:16.220 We didn't drive three hours up here just to be seen on TV.

00:54:19.280 We go on the TV all the time.

00:54:20.560 But your program is devoted to this and we're hoping some people will take the advice, particularly younger people, and be more restrained in interacting with other people.

00:54:28.540 And by the way, the president's instruction, which comes from CDC, from our scientists, say groups smaller than 10.

00:54:36.300 We have not met 10 people today.

00:54:38.180 Can you go get five other people in there real quickly?

00:54:40.240 No, no.

00:54:40.520 We did not stop and eat because of this.

00:54:43.320 We ate before we came.

00:54:44.400 We're going to eat when we get back home today.

00:54:46.240 Okay.

00:54:46.740 So this leads me to the question I've been trying to ask you this entire time.

00:54:50.440 So if we go at this pace, social distancing.

00:54:54.060 Okay.

00:54:54.240 So if profits for companies go lower and lower and lower and lower, you know what happens.

00:55:02.060 Companies have to lay off.

00:55:03.400 Right.

00:55:03.480 So you saw the article on CNN, which the experts are talking about unemployment can go to 20%.

00:55:09.420 I'm sure you've seen that.

00:55:10.780 Okay.

00:55:11.400 So when's the last time we saw 20%?

00:55:13.580 A long time ago.

00:55:14.520 I mean, we're talking about Great Depression 20%.

00:55:16.640 Okay.

00:55:17.460 So you look at this and you say, okay, there's two communities.

00:55:22.160 You know how they say people vote with their pocket?

00:55:23.940 You know how they say people vote with their pocket?

00:55:25.320 I think people also do research or data or anything also with their situation.

00:55:32.040 Let me explain it and please challenge me here if I'm wrong.

00:55:34.620 Okay.

00:55:35.080 So if I'm 70 years old or if I'm 60 years old, I'm probably telling everybody social distance.

00:55:41.920 Okay.

00:55:42.080 But if I'm 30 years old and I got a wife and two kids and I got a $2,500 mortgage payment,

00:55:47.160 I got a job and expenses with only $25,000 in the bank, I can't social distance for too long.

00:55:52.240 So I'm sitting here watching these 67-year-olds keep constantly saying social distance, social distance.

00:55:57.180 You already have your pension.

00:55:58.380 You already have a million dollars that's going to pay you for the rest of it.

00:56:00.400 You're already relying on a retirement from the military.

00:56:02.800 You can social distance.

00:56:04.240 I can social distance.

00:56:05.580 You put me in a tough position.

00:56:07.000 What do you say to that community?

00:56:07.760 Wait a second.

00:56:08.720 Wait a second.

00:56:09.580 This person, most people don't work for themselves.

00:56:12.180 They work in an institution.

00:56:14.200 Who's the CEO and the vice president?

00:56:16.720 They're probably older people because people have to have experience to run.

00:56:20.400 You start killing off the people who are running American industry.

00:56:23.140 Now, some people who are hostile to the American system say, well, let's kill all the capitalists

00:56:27.500 off.

00:56:27.980 We want all the CEOs, the vice president, middle man.

00:56:31.020 No, I'm not saying you're saying it.

00:56:32.180 No, I'm saying if you're my CEO, I'd say, dude, go home.

00:56:34.900 Go stay.

00:56:35.600 You go home.

00:56:36.480 Let us run the company.

00:56:37.400 We got jobs.

00:56:38.360 We got to make money.

00:56:39.400 But don't because you want to stay.

00:56:40.560 Because they cannot isolate themselves from every single older person in the society.

00:56:46.340 It does not work.

00:56:48.100 They cannot isolate.

00:56:49.000 No, I'm not talking about isolate yourself.

00:56:50.820 I'm telling you if the 70-year-old.

00:56:52.160 Well, that's what you have to.

00:56:52.880 If you're telling the rest of us, anybody over 50 years old or 60 years old, that they should

00:56:57.840 stay home this whole time, that's what you're saying.

00:57:00.520 No, no.

00:57:00.740 You're saying social distance.

00:57:02.580 I'm saying, say social distance to people about 50.

00:57:05.560 But the people that are less than 1% risk of dying, let them continue the economy going.

00:57:10.340 Because if we had 20% of unemployment, you know what comes after 20% unemployment.

00:57:14.000 If you go to look at the cities that it's the highest level of crime, what do they have

00:57:16.640 in common?

00:57:17.040 Well, I know what you're...

00:57:18.420 I know the economic...

00:57:19.780 So you know how the economic consequences of this could be.

00:57:22.100 So the risk we're taking is we're assuming we know how bad this thing could be.

00:57:26.120 We have some data to show based on the cases that it's less than 1% for people below 50.

00:57:30.900 Maybe UK is taking a decent approach that we ought to consider with people below 50.

00:57:35.180 That's all I'm saying.

00:57:36.180 So if you are the CEO of a company and you're 70, listen, sir, thank you so much for the

00:57:40.220 job.

00:57:40.760 You stay home, you run conference calls.

00:57:42.200 The problem is there are a lot of people under 50, which is what we're seeing in Italy now.

00:57:46.660 There's an uptick of people in their early 40s and late 30s being hospitalized in Italy

00:57:52.680 with severe consequences from this virus.

00:57:54.600 A professor told me that that's due to high blood pressure because of 75%.

00:57:58.640 I don't know.

00:57:59.080 I need to introduce you to this professor.

00:58:00.400 Guess how many of the 30% of Americans who have high blood pressure are younger?

00:58:04.420 And how many Americans are obese?

00:58:06.940 Do you know how many Americans are obese?

00:58:09.440 It's a very big number.

00:58:10.280 35% of the population.

00:58:10.960 It's a very big number.

00:58:11.800 And they're not all old men.

00:58:13.180 You're right.

00:58:13.700 It's a very big number.

00:58:15.120 I can't dispute that part.

00:58:16.160 And so there are people, people that get cancer who are young.

00:58:19.940 They have HIV AIDS.

00:58:23.620 I mean, they may be on intravectrovirals now for that.

00:58:26.480 Okay.

00:58:26.680 So there are people with other comorbidities, other diseases, diabetes, that make them more

00:58:32.960 vulnerable.

00:58:34.120 And they are underage.

00:58:35.520 It's not just by age.

00:58:36.880 It's not just by age.

00:58:38.520 It's also by these other diseases.

00:58:40.300 A big factor of it is also age, though.

00:58:42.420 When you look at it, I know what you're saying.

00:58:43.980 I know I saw the asthma part, the high blood pressure, you know, obesity.

00:58:48.440 You're seeing this data that's coming up.

00:58:50.000 Yes, but, you know, there's still an opportunity to continue the economy going if we got some

00:58:55.200 people that can go back to work and continue their jobs.

00:58:57.680 Because, you know, we had a guy that called me and says, hey, Pat, we had one of our guys.

00:59:02.940 He says, we had a person that was here who they take a lot of, what do you call the students

00:59:07.420 that come here that they're not from U.S., but they live with them.

00:59:09.780 What are the international?

00:59:11.420 Foreign exchange students.

00:59:12.060 Foreign exchange students, right?

00:59:13.120 Yes.

00:59:13.420 Yeah.

00:59:13.760 So foreign exchange students staying with us.

00:59:15.460 And one of the foreign exchange students that stayed with them was from China, right?

00:59:18.960 So next thing you know, he came here, he went and visited a family, came back.

00:59:22.200 Somehow, someway, they ended up getting coronavirus.

00:59:24.680 So I said, okay, you know, I had it.

00:59:26.280 What did it feel like?

00:59:26.940 Dry cough, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

00:59:28.800 I was feeling the same thing.

00:59:29.980 It was two weeks.

00:59:30.640 It was stronger than the flu.

00:59:32.200 I kind of had no clue what was going on.

00:59:33.760 Then I realized that's what I had, but I'm over it.

00:59:36.440 And I experienced it, and I'm gone, right?

00:59:38.460 To me, my wife and I are talking, please challenge me on this as much as you want.

00:59:44.820 I am wanting you to challenge on what I'm about to say here.

00:59:47.560 My wife and I are sitting there.

00:59:48.600 And I said, babe, listen, here's what's going to change this challenge that we're facing

00:59:54.300 today, okay?

00:59:55.320 And this isn't even my main question I want to ask you this entire time.

00:59:58.080 My main question I'm going to get to here in a minute.

00:59:59.960 I said, babe, the world has to see thousands of people get coronavirus on the news, on TV,

01:00:09.040 on YouTube, doing a video saying, I have coronavirus.

01:00:12.340 Here's what it feels like.

01:00:13.500 This is what I'm going through.

01:00:14.660 Here's what I'm doing.

01:00:15.420 So if anybody's watching as they got coronavirus, the best thing you can do to help the world

01:00:18.820 is document it and put it on YouTube so we can see what you're going through.

01:00:21.880 Here's the symptom.

01:00:22.640 This is my age.

01:00:23.340 This is what I weigh.

01:00:24.040 This is my height.

01:00:24.680 I need to be this way.

01:00:25.880 I have been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

01:00:28.080 I've never been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

01:00:29.980 That has given us intel.

01:00:31.220 So once the world kind of sees all this data and comes back and says, okay, it's a virus.

01:00:36.080 It's bad.

01:00:36.860 We got to be careful.

01:00:38.000 But you know what?

01:00:38.860 We can get past it if we get it as well.

01:00:40.700 So then comes the acceptance that we can overcome it if we do get it.

01:00:44.500 What is your thoughts on the way I'm viewing this?

01:00:47.900 Because any other way, I'm seeing us going like this till the end of the year, because

01:00:51.780 if we don't find this in the next six months, 20% unemployment may be a small number compared

01:00:56.180 to where it could be six months from now.

01:00:57.520 Well, every epidemic, and you've seen Dr. Fauci talk about this.

01:01:01.060 It's this epi curve.

01:01:02.920 And what we're trying to do is flatten that curve.

01:01:07.340 Because the consequences of that curve being very rapid and very steep is that you are going

01:01:13.180 to have a lot of people from the 18 to the over 60, they're going to fall in this critical

01:01:18.120 category.

01:01:19.480 And we are going to have a higher death rate, whatever the age may be.

01:01:23.660 And we're going to have our hospitals overwhelmed.

01:01:25.860 And you're going to have physicians have to make extremely difficult decisions who lives

01:01:31.880 and who dies.

01:01:33.740 And actually, I think it would be a good idea if you could probably interview.

01:01:37.340 Some children and young kids from Italy who actually probably had to deal with their parents

01:01:47.140 dying in Italy to COVID and probably not even being able to see their parents buried.

01:01:54.480 And so this is going to have huge impacts on kids and young people when they lose their

01:02:01.840 family members.

01:02:02.680 And so that's something that needs to be thought about as well.

01:02:06.180 You know, I get your point.

01:02:08.400 You know, the economic impacts and younger people, it's a very, very good question.

01:02:15.180 But I also don't want to see our country end up where we have our ICUs and our hospitals just

01:02:22.700 completely overwhelmed.

01:02:23.800 And we're having to make decisions about who lives, who dies, and crisis standards of care.

01:02:28.780 And that would be a fundamental shock to our country if we got into that kind of situation.

01:02:34.760 And that's what's happening in Italy right now.

01:02:36.560 That's the difference between an 8% death rate in Italy, which is extremely high.

01:02:41.180 It's three times higher than the flu was in 1918.

01:02:44.260 And a 1% rate, less than 1% rate in South Korea.

01:02:48.100 And remember, we don't know really what the true death rate is, because we don't know what

01:02:52.840 the denominator, that means we don't know exactly how many number of cases there are, because

01:02:56.940 we don't, Italy has more diagnostic capability than we do.

01:03:00.320 But even if it's 1% in a given community, that can overwhelm a hospital system, a system

01:03:06.700 in a given community where attending physicians and so forth are having to make these very, very

01:03:11.580 horrible kind of decisions.

01:03:12.720 South Korea is fine, because I think they're number two in the amount of hospital beds per

01:03:17.860 1,000 people they have.

01:03:19.500 And Japan is number one on the list for, I think, 13.03.

01:03:23.340 I think South Korea was like 12.05.

01:03:25.580 And in the U.S., it's like 2.8 beds per 1,000.

01:03:28.500 We have 924,100 beds, of which 60-something percent is being used.

01:03:34.100 We only have 300,000 available beds.

01:03:36.460 And then outside of that, the ventilators, the machines that we keep hearing about, that

01:03:39.500 we don't have that many of that available.

01:03:40.640 New York Times yesterday just said that New York needs 18,000 of those in the next two

01:03:47.740 to four weeks.

01:03:49.120 So that part I fully see as a big challenge of not having the capacity to handle it.

01:03:53.300 And I don't know who's going to run those ventilators.

01:03:55.660 You know, the other part is the healthcare workers, having the respiratory technicians,

01:03:59.360 having the pulmonologist.

01:04:01.580 I don't worry about that part.

01:04:02.520 You know why I don't worry about that part?

01:04:03.580 Because the two of you have experience where you know in the field, the other day I interviewed

01:04:09.800 a sergeant major of Iraq, Iraqi military.

01:04:12.680 He was a 19-year-old sergeant major.

01:04:14.140 I said, how the hell are you a 19-year-old sergeant major?

01:04:16.220 He says, when Saddam fell and Iraq started the new military, they only had 25 soldiers,

01:04:22.560 and nobody wanted to be a sergeant major because you were the number one person they wanted to

01:04:26.040 kill.

01:04:26.300 And I said, I'll do it.

01:04:27.160 So I became a sergeant major.

01:04:28.540 You know how back in the days, hey, you're a corporal.

01:04:31.060 I haven't done the correspondence.

01:04:32.460 You're now a sergeant.

01:04:33.220 Hey, you're a sergeant.

01:04:33.940 You know, people were getting promoted in war.

01:04:35.400 So I think that's not really the big concern from my end.

01:04:39.320 The thing, the way I'm processing this with the economy is, are we comfortable the economy

01:04:45.440 fully going into shambles?

01:04:47.480 Like, you know, the part that concerns me, I remember in army, I think you had to be younger

01:04:54.400 than 35 to join the army.

01:04:56.040 And the reason why I remember this, I had a guy in my camp, in my boot camp, who had

01:05:00.080 been in the army before.

01:05:01.320 He got out, but it had been 10 years since he got back into the army because he had like

01:05:05.660 $40,000 of credit cards, and the army agreed to pay off his $40,000 of credit card.

01:05:09.120 But he was 34.

01:05:10.560 And he told me the age was 35, right?

01:05:13.160 So why is it 35?

01:05:14.220 Why can't a 50-year-old go to boot camp, right?

01:05:16.580 A 50-year-old doesn't go to boot camp, but the military says, listen, we just don't want

01:05:20.100 a 50-year-old going to boot camp.

01:05:21.480 We want the oldest 35.

01:05:22.780 And if you think about going to war, how many people go to front lines?

01:05:26.160 It's not the 40-year-old.

01:05:27.300 It's not the 50-year-old.

01:05:28.460 It's the 22-year-old, 18-year-old, 11 Bravo that's going to be at the front lines.

01:05:31.900 Why not treat it the same way?

01:05:33.200 Let the younger guys that are driving the economy, let them go to work and do their

01:05:36.100 part if their immune system is as strong to it.

01:05:38.000 Because if we don't, and this thing goes the way it is, you remember-

01:05:43.300 You know, one of the things that's going to happen here, American capitalism, there's

01:05:46.840 a reason why it's a superior system to government-run businesses in China, for example, is they

01:05:52.900 are extremely adaptive.

01:05:55.440 For example, businesses-

01:05:56.500 I agree.

01:05:57.020 Restaurant, my Greeks are in, I'm a Greek-American, Greeks dominate the restaurant business

01:06:02.540 in the United States.

01:06:03.080 They're finding ways now to say, okay, you can't come to our restaurant.

01:06:06.740 Choose what you want online and we'll deliver it.

01:06:09.560 And I'm getting more and more emails from the restaurant, my wife and I like to go out

01:06:13.600 to eat.

01:06:14.620 We haven't started doing it.

01:06:15.740 We're going to start doing that.

01:06:17.240 Okay?

01:06:17.660 So there are ways to adapt.

01:06:19.440 I thought all the universities are going to have to be closed.

01:06:21.860 I learned how to use Zoom.

01:06:23.880 I did not know how complex Zoom is.

01:06:26.220 Sure.

01:06:26.740 But you can run an entire classroom from your-

01:06:30.860 I'm going to be-

01:06:31.540 We have to have etiquette.

01:06:33.500 Because one of the professors was saying, some of the kids did not know that you could see

01:06:38.120 them and they were, the men weren't wearing shirts, you know, or they had inappropriate

01:06:42.340 pictures on their walls.

01:06:43.380 The men or the women?

01:06:44.800 The men.

01:06:45.620 The men shouldn't be in it.

01:06:46.820 Because you can see the picture.

01:06:48.320 Everybody can see-

01:06:49.120 We have a guy who does that, Hector's his name.

01:06:50.700 He likes to wear the tank tops.

01:06:51.800 Okay.

01:06:52.220 Well, I'm going to tell my kids they're going to be properly dressed and no inappropriate

01:06:55.880 pictures on the walls of the room in which they have the Zoom going on.

01:06:59.540 These are sort of etiquette things.

01:07:01.140 Never even occurred to me.

01:07:02.260 But I got training for two hours yesterday and I'm 70 years old.

01:07:06.020 I'm adapting to this new distance learning, they call it.

01:07:10.180 I never thought I would use distance learning, but I am going to do it Monday morning.

01:07:14.960 So-

01:07:15.260 And we're not-

01:07:16.260 We understand the economic impacts.

01:07:18.140 I'm not minimizing that.

01:07:19.980 This is going to be part of our research in the pandemic and biosecurity policy center

01:07:24.760 for years is trying to understand the economic impacts of this.

01:07:27.820 We have to find ways to try to mitigate the economic impacts.

01:07:32.820 It's not going to be easy.

01:07:34.880 You can't separate the two.

01:07:37.100 These are going to be tough challenges.

01:07:38.900 And the administration actually is trying to find new measures.

01:07:42.880 They are-

01:07:43.520 And Congress, they are beginning to address this.

01:07:46.540 Is it going to address everything?

01:07:47.660 I'm sure it's not.

01:07:48.900 Are we going to address everything we need to do for the COVID from a public health medical

01:07:52.360 perspective?

01:07:53.100 I'm sure we're not.

01:07:53.880 You know, and so both have got to be tackled and tackled very aggressively.

01:07:58.420 So, so, so I'll give you the flip side.

01:08:00.840 Again, I'm going to keep challenging you and you guys.

01:08:03.540 I've been challenged by doctors and professors my entire life, so I enjoy it.

01:08:06.860 Okay.

01:08:06.980 It's like I-

01:08:07.680 And we do too.

01:08:08.140 I, I, this is what I look forward to.

01:08:10.680 Okay.

01:08:11.480 So you said Greeks, restaurants, we're going to do it this way.

01:08:15.700 Teachers, you're seven years old.

01:08:17.220 Yesterday, you're learning how to do Zoom and you got to make sure that these guys put a

01:08:20.560 shirt on before you can teach them whatever you're teaching.

01:08:22.560 I'm just, I'm being a little bit humorous now.

01:08:25.100 I get it.

01:08:25.420 I'm giving you a hard time.

01:08:26.520 Believe me, I give one of my guys a hard time I'm going to hear from.

01:08:29.100 But, but how do I Zoom someone on a plane to New York?

01:08:35.080 How do I Zoom a gym that is filled with so much metal where they're saying that the coronavirus

01:08:42.840 can live on a metal for 12 to 24 hours?

01:08:46.220 How do, how do gyms Zoom?

01:08:48.280 You know, how, how do many businesses that you have to Zoom?

01:08:52.580 I mean, I understand Zoom and if I'm a personal trainer, I'm fine.

01:08:55.740 I understand if I'm an accountant and I'm Zooming, I'm fine.

01:08:58.800 I, I, I even think doctors can Zoom because there's business models right now that is built

01:09:03.220 on that.

01:09:03.820 But not every business.

01:09:05.240 Yeah.

01:09:05.440 Not every business.

01:09:06.360 I know.

01:09:06.740 I understand that.

01:09:07.360 So, so, so how do you explain that to the flight attendant that's making $59,000 a year

01:09:12.700 saying, what do I do about this?

01:09:13.700 There have to be, there have to be federal interventions and that's what they're talking

01:09:17.520 about.

01:09:17.820 I have to say, given the very, very partisan nature and polarization of our political system,

01:09:23.220 I am shocked and pleased at how much the Democrats and Republicans are getting together

01:09:28.480 to address this challenge now.

01:09:30.640 The, the partisan rancor seems to actually have diminished like it did during World War II.

01:09:35.240 So, so they are beginning to get stuff done.

01:09:38.380 That is a great thing to see.

01:09:39.400 They really are.

01:09:39.720 You're saying like, you know, governor of New York and tweeting out and, you know, you

01:09:47.180 never thought I was going to take place in the Trump.

01:09:49.360 Never.

01:09:50.080 So, so I, I think when you're challenged with something of this magnitude, then people start

01:09:56.400 getting together and they're, they, there's a lot of things that can be done if people

01:10:00.940 put aside the egos and the partisanship.

01:10:03.880 Now it's unfortunate it's a presidential election year, but it is, that's what it is.

01:10:07.540 And that's the way it is.

01:10:08.940 But, uh, you still didn't answer my question though.

01:10:11.300 Well, but, but some of these things you cannot fix.

01:10:14.200 The airlines are in big trouble.

01:10:15.960 We don't want the airlines to go bankrupt.

01:10:18.040 I understand that.

01:10:19.020 You saw Boeing.

01:10:19.660 Boeing needs a bill out, right?

01:10:20.700 I am, I am in, uh, I, I go on planes all the time.

01:10:24.040 So does Jerry.

01:10:24.520 We're traveling constantly.

01:10:25.440 We travel a lot.

01:10:25.980 So we don't want the planes go bankrupt and the economy recovers.

01:10:29.460 We need the airlines to be whole.

01:10:31.580 So there are a lot of things that have to be considered.

01:10:33.820 This is not going on forever.

01:10:34.920 Small businesses have to be considered.

01:10:36.220 What the consequences for, uh, small businesses in the United States.

01:10:40.680 I'll give you the last crazy one.

01:10:41.800 It's not going to go on forever.

01:10:43.260 We are going to have to, it's not going to go on forever.

01:10:45.100 But, but we got to mitigate its severity and we got to mitigate the economic impacts.

01:10:49.460 No doubt about it.

01:10:50.260 If we don't find a medication for two months from now and vaccines not here for 12 to 18

01:10:55.420 months and they're still preaching, uh, social distancing and now they're paying a thousand

01:11:00.040 dollars a month to every American that that idea was brought up by Andrew Yang, which was

01:11:03.680 a back in the day negative tax that Milton Friedman used to talk about.

01:11:06.900 That's right.

01:11:07.420 I mean, you know, then, oh, it's going to be another month and another month and another

01:11:12.040 month, right?

01:11:12.700 Where the social distancing, the peak, there's always in an outbreak, it's going to go up

01:11:18.380 and it's going to come down.

01:11:19.820 And we are trying to mitigate the peak of that, that outbreak.

01:11:23.700 So it's lower.

01:11:24.180 So it's lower.

01:11:25.440 And the social distancing measures are going to be needed just long enough to lower the

01:11:30.140 peak before they can be pulled off.

01:11:32.160 Social interventions are not going to need to be going until we have an antiviral, until

01:11:37.540 we have a vaccine.

01:11:38.820 Uh, cause the, the peak will come down at some point when there's enough people infected.

01:11:43.620 Um, uh, but we, so at some point they're going to, we're going to be able to pull these

01:11:49.940 off.

01:11:50.180 Um, but right now we need to be really aggressive and we have to, you know, think in terms of

01:11:56.540 weeks rather than days.

01:11:57.600 So the Orthodox church I go to, Orthodox never changed anything.

01:12:03.780 It's the same as it's been in the first century, which is why I like it.

01:12:07.640 Okay.

01:12:07.860 All right.

01:12:08.120 We have a young priest.

01:12:09.200 And I said, father, you know, we can't have services now.

01:12:12.000 The archdiocese has said, no services, all the altar boys and the choir and the priest.

01:12:16.020 And that's it.

01:12:16.880 I said, well, what about the rest of us?

01:12:18.280 He's putting in a, um, maybe I shouldn't say this in the area.

01:12:23.000 He's putting in a TV camera that we can all participate in the divine liturgy, which is

01:12:28.740 very calming thing.

01:12:30.080 If you're in, if you're under severe stress, your, your religious devotion makes a difference,

01:12:36.400 calms people down.

01:12:37.540 A hundred percent.

01:12:37.920 So he's going to put in a very inexpensive and he's going to, he's going to in real time

01:12:43.920 that we won't be able to take the Eucharist, but it, it is, it, you know, it's a, it's a

01:12:48.660 very innovative way of using technology.

01:12:52.040 My wife's Catholic.

01:12:53.060 She's doing the, her, her church is doing the same thing.

01:12:56.580 Has, has the priest on the Catholic side, like has the level of forgiveness gone up?

01:13:00.620 Like, are they a little bit more lenient right now than before?

01:13:02.780 Like father, I have sin.

01:13:04.600 He's like, listen, right now, everyone's forgiven.

01:13:06.520 Don't worry about it.

01:13:07.420 But you know, if you're, if you're a priest is able to zoom heaven, his church is going

01:13:11.860 to blow up.

01:13:12.700 If he can zoom heaven right now, it's game over.

01:13:16.000 Let me tell you what I've come up with.

01:13:17.560 You want to talk to your grandpa?

01:13:18.960 Have him right here with me.

01:13:20.040 That's game changing.

01:13:20.780 That's game changing, right?

01:13:21.980 Everybody forgets about everything else.

01:13:24.020 So you look, my concern with the economy is, is I'm just, you're in the world and I'm trying

01:13:28.440 to see what you're thinking about with this whole thing.

01:13:30.060 Because, you know, I also remember there was a time where under another administration, I think

01:13:34.400 was in 2011 or 12, where unemployment benefits were paying off for 24 months.

01:13:38.280 If you remember, it was 24 months.

01:13:40.120 And then they kept saying, well, people can't have a job.

01:13:41.980 And at the moment unemployment went to 12 months, next thing you know, everybody started applying

01:13:45.380 jobs and getting jobs.

01:13:46.400 So my concern is also people are not working and we're just kind of subsidizing and they're

01:13:50.660 getting, you know, giving them money and they're taking care of everything for them.

01:13:54.860 And then when it comes back down to going and work, then they're not used to working

01:13:58.360 40, 50 hours a week.

01:13:59.420 What are we going to do after that?

01:14:00.280 Yeah, but the data shows from previous epidemics that it's a V, so the economy collapsed and

01:14:08.620 it bounces extremely quickly back up again.

01:14:11.320 It's not like we had structural, huge structural problems with debt in 2008.

01:14:16.440 I've seen that data, yeah.

01:14:17.040 This is not the same thing as 2008.

01:14:19.220 It took years to rebuild the financial system.

01:14:22.900 We're not facing that in this case.

01:14:24.320 2008 is greed.

01:14:25.420 2008 has nothing to do with this.

01:14:26.960 This is more 9-11 than it is 2008.

01:14:29.580 That is exactly the point.

01:14:30.880 That's exactly the point.

01:14:31.940 We're not facing a 10-year recession or a five-year recession.

01:14:36.120 It's going to be a quick rebound after we get control of this.

01:14:40.580 So that's good news.

01:14:41.540 That's very good news.

01:14:42.360 We got some more good news.

01:14:43.620 That's the very good news to end this month.

01:14:45.760 We got some good news on this news.

01:14:47.580 Now, guys, I'm hoping you have the insight on this because God knows how many memes are blown

01:14:51.740 up right on Instagram.

01:14:52.820 What the hell is going on with these toilet papers?

01:14:54.820 Why toilet papers?

01:14:56.320 I don't know why.

01:14:57.120 I'm not getting this toilet paper stuff.

01:14:59.820 I'm not either, frankly.

01:15:01.660 I understand some of the things at the supermarket.

01:15:04.600 Okay?

01:15:04.780 So we went in and we didn't overbuy.

01:15:07.180 It's just my wife and I.

01:15:08.180 Our kids are grown up.

01:15:08.840 So the only thing were green apples.

01:15:13.120 The green apples were all sitting there.

01:15:14.640 I said, people must not like green apples.

01:15:16.880 Okay?

01:15:17.380 That's concerning.

01:15:18.460 Maybe there's something about the green apples.

01:15:20.820 You know, there are no potatoes left, no onions.

01:15:23.320 Onions for me, the big thing.

01:15:24.680 Onions and the garlic.

01:15:25.920 If the garlic ran out, I'd have big problems eating.

01:15:28.380 You and I both.

01:15:28.760 So you go down.

01:15:31.280 The fish is all there.

01:15:32.420 There's no problem with it because the price is so high.

01:15:35.160 Okay?

01:15:35.840 No chicken whatsoever.

01:15:37.440 No turkey whatsoever.

01:15:38.480 And no beef.

01:15:39.740 The only thing that was left was a little pork.

01:15:42.220 I thought that was interesting.

01:15:43.500 But then you go down.

01:15:44.920 See the toilet paper.

01:15:46.760 And the hand towels.

01:15:49.800 I've been trying to get sanitizers, just one bottle, for three weeks.

01:15:57.180 I go in early in the morning.

01:15:58.640 I go in late at night.

01:15:59.560 I said, when is it?

01:16:00.540 They said, well, you're in the wrong place.

01:16:01.780 I said, I come in three times a day to just check.

01:16:04.260 I can't find it.

01:16:06.080 So I understand why they want the sanitizer.

01:16:09.160 I don't get there with the toilet paper.

01:16:10.660 I do not understand that.

01:16:11.760 Do you have a theory on it or no?

01:16:13.300 Well, my only theory is that I think most people don't understand that this might be weeks, not days.

01:16:23.160 And just like, you know, before a hurricane, we all run to the store and buy milk, eggs, and toilet paper, and water.

01:16:30.460 And so I think many people believe this is kind of like, you know, we're preparing for the next storm.

01:16:34.980 And we are.

01:16:36.060 But it's just going to be more prolonged.

01:16:37.640 And I think what people don't understand is we don't need, in fact, please, people should be encouraged not to go hoard.

01:16:46.120 Our critical infrastructures, to include our grocery stores, are not going to shut down.

01:16:50.800 And the critical infrastructures that produce the same things that go into our grocery stores are not going to shut down.

01:16:57.180 Society is going to make sure that we have these critical things continue to move forward and function.

01:17:02.540 And so our store, they're not going to run out of toilet paper.

01:17:04.740 And I think our society just, you know, thinks this is another hurricane.

01:17:09.060 And that's a good analogy, but it's just going to take, it's going to last longer.

01:17:12.220 And it's not like things are going to be destroyed.

01:17:15.060 Well, the way you're saying it, I would even go to the store even more.

01:17:19.100 Because if you're telling me, it's going to be weeks.

01:17:21.520 But the critical infrastructures are going to...

01:17:23.580 I would go to Costco right now and get off the diet.

01:17:25.140 But you don't have to eat anymore of these.

01:17:26.700 They're going to be restocked.

01:17:28.480 They're going to be restocked.

01:17:29.580 They're going to be restocked and restocked and restocked.

01:17:32.080 So you're not going to need more food because of the virus.

01:17:38.180 Yeah.

01:17:39.080 Okay?

01:17:39.520 And you can still go shop.

01:17:41.320 You're not going to need food because of the virus.

01:17:43.160 You're not going to need any food.

01:17:44.180 Well, no, any more food.

01:17:44.580 You're going to eat the same amount of food whether there's a virus or not a virus.

01:17:47.380 Yeah.

01:17:47.740 But if they do shut down, and next thing you know, they're closing out of the market.

01:17:49.940 But they're not going to shut down the grocery stores.

01:17:51.680 They're not going to shut the grocery stores.

01:17:54.280 They're not going to shut down the industries that are producing the food and other supplies that go into our grocery stores.

01:18:00.400 And so there's really no reason to be hoarding like they are.

01:18:05.320 Really not.

01:18:06.320 I got a different kind of question for you.

01:18:08.360 What are your thoughts about if coronavirus happened in 94?

01:18:11.980 Not today.

01:18:12.940 Okay?

01:18:13.600 So go to 94.

01:18:14.840 No Facebook.

01:18:15.640 No YouTube.

01:18:16.220 Not even MySpace.

01:18:17.160 No Twitter.

01:18:17.980 No Friendster.

01:18:19.360 No nothing.

01:18:20.340 No Skype.

01:18:20.800 That's right.

01:18:21.300 You would be struggling if there's music.

01:18:22.840 So no Zoom.

01:18:24.060 None of this stuff.

01:18:25.340 94.

01:18:26.440 News doesn't go like this.

01:18:27.820 You don't just go all of a sudden, boom, update, update, notification, notification, notification.

01:18:32.700 If this pandemic happened in 1994, how different would have the people reacted to the way media keeps saying,

01:18:41.260 end of the world, end of the world, end of the world.

01:18:43.280 By the way, we need to stop using apocalyptic language.

01:18:47.360 Correct.

01:18:47.860 Okay?

01:18:48.640 Tell the media that.

01:18:50.080 Well, I know that.

01:18:50.840 And they are being apocalyptic about it.

01:18:52.800 I wrote an article.

01:18:53.780 Actually, it's called For Al-Arabiya, which is the U.S. government's Arab language news service for the Middle East and North Africa.

01:19:01.060 They asked me to write a column.

01:19:02.540 As a former AID, it's not well-known in the United States, USAID.

01:19:05.920 American people don't know all the good things they do around the world.

01:19:08.160 But in the Arab world, AID is very well-known.

01:19:10.240 So they said, would you, as a former administrator, write something?

01:19:13.340 Because people don't know what's going on.

01:19:14.740 They're afraid.

01:19:15.300 There's panic in the Middle East and in North Africa.

01:19:18.080 And I said, sure.

01:19:19.120 So I wrote it, and I said, there are two dangers here.

01:19:22.080 One is to understate the risk by dismissing this and not listening to the experts like Dr. Fauci.

01:19:28.540 And the other is to suggest the apocalypse is upon us and the world is about to end.

01:19:32.860 It's not about to end.

01:19:33.920 This is nowhere near what it was in 1918, where 5% of the world's population died in six months.

01:19:40.600 We didn't even know what a virus was then.

01:19:42.860 We're just beginning to develop the germ theory of disease.

01:19:46.740 They used to think that it was swamp gas that caused illnesses.

01:19:53.200 And they were still bleeding people 100 years ago.

01:19:56.020 They thought the problem was too much blood or there's something wrong with your blood,

01:19:59.520 and they would bleed you as a way of treating a disease.

01:20:02.460 That was 100 years.

01:20:03.900 So while we have a much more advanced system, now we have science.

01:20:07.720 We know a lot more, and we also know how to produce vaccines.

01:20:11.660 We weren't producing vaccines 125 years ago the way we are now.

01:20:15.600 So an advanced medication.

01:20:17.860 You know, most of the drugs produced in the 19th century, they were jokes.

01:20:21.300 They weren't serious.

01:20:22.240 In fact, they hurt you if you took them.

01:20:24.100 So we have a much more advanced system.

01:20:27.640 We don't, and that means we can respond.

01:20:30.460 And the structures of government are much more sophisticated, even though people get disgusted

01:20:34.280 with the government.

01:20:35.040 You know who's going to be the big solution of this?

01:20:37.520 People talk about the Chinese model working.

01:20:39.800 That's baloney.

01:20:40.880 The Chinese model is not a superior model to our model.

01:20:43.420 Our model is highly decentralized at the state and local level.

01:20:48.380 Most of the response is not taking place at the federal level.

01:20:51.400 That's the most visible because the news media folk.

01:20:53.280 It's what the 50 governors are doing, all the mayors, the boards of selectmen in New

01:20:56.780 England, where I originally came from, the county judges in Texas.

01:21:01.720 They are the ones who run the systems that we actually connect with.

01:21:05.600 Who runs the school systems?

01:21:07.220 The federal government doesn't run any schools.

01:21:08.600 How many universities do they run?

01:21:09.840 None.

01:21:10.840 How many factories do they run?

01:21:12.460 It's a highly decentralized system.

01:21:15.180 And what's amazing to me is if you watch what's happening across the country, people are

01:21:19.840 simply saying, I see the threat, I'm the leader of an institution, I'm going to protect my

01:21:24.060 people, which is my job, and that's what they're doing across the country.

01:21:28.360 And that's the good news.

01:21:29.480 That's very good news, that we as a democracy are taking responsibility at our own level,

01:21:36.440 not saying, well, we're going to wait for someone from Washington to tell us how to fix

01:21:39.300 this, which is not a good idea.

01:21:43.020 That's what we did yesterday.

01:21:44.020 We made a list of people that have kids who they can't find people in daycare to take

01:21:49.340 care of them, so they're working from home, and folks that are about 50 years old are

01:21:53.400 working from home, and then we made a list of anybody that's pregnant, anybody that has

01:21:57.800 any kind of health based on the conversations that they had, they're all working from home,

01:22:01.940 and we're going to have a few people that are working from here.

01:22:04.680 We made that decision yesterday, so I agree with that.

01:22:06.480 But the question I want to ask you, in 94, would the U.S. government in 94 have reacted

01:22:14.280 the way we are reacting today with the amount of fear that's in people right now because

01:22:19.700 of social media?

01:22:21.020 Would the steps and the way the government reacted in 94 have been the same as it is

01:22:25.220 today?

01:22:26.860 Actually, is it social media that's driving some of the fear as opposed to public health

01:22:31.720 authorities and media?

01:22:34.300 Because I think a lot of, you know, actually the Director General of the World Health Organization

01:22:38.600 described before he declared a pandemic, that we are actually in an infodemic.

01:22:45.020 And so what we have now is we have an infodemic.

01:22:47.500 I agree.

01:22:47.960 A hundred percent agree.

01:22:48.780 So much misleading information, fear-mongering, and trying to get anxiety and worry in people,

01:22:55.440 and so it's infodemic, and it's the fear is actually much worse than COVID.

01:22:59.980 And so somehow we've got to do a better, that does tell me that we need to do a better job

01:23:06.120 as a society in risk communication and communicating, you know, what the risks are and what we're

01:23:11.700 doing about it, and counter this misinformation that is an infodemic.

01:23:16.960 So social media, maybe we would have been better in 94 without the proliferation of social media.

01:23:21.700 That's what I'm saying.

01:23:22.580 Well, I agree with that.

01:23:24.480 One of the things that's happening is people are taking advantage of this to make money.

01:23:28.220 Apparently, they confiscated fake testing kits at one of the ports.

01:23:35.660 Where are we at?

01:23:36.780 I think it was in Los Angeles, wasn't it?

01:23:38.200 It was in the West Coast somewhere.

01:23:39.480 I saw it this morning on the news.

01:23:40.980 It was very interesting.

01:23:42.100 Someone has produced a, it's not a test kit, but it looks like one.

01:23:46.160 And it's a fake, and people trying to make money on it.

01:23:49.180 There are people running around saying that if you can hold your breath for a certain number

01:23:54.220 of seconds that you don't have the disease.

01:23:56.100 That's complete nonsense.

01:23:57.060 Does it damage your lungs in later stages?

01:23:59.640 Yes.

01:23:59.960 But by that time, frankly, it's going to not going to, you're going to have testing that

01:24:03.160 can tell you who you have.

01:24:04.480 Holding your breath is not going to tell you whether they have the disease or not.

01:24:08.140 The third thing that I've heard now is that if you breathe in 133 degree steam into your

01:24:16.240 system, it will kill the virus.

01:24:18.380 That's utter nonsense.

01:24:19.600 You could singe your lungs if you do it.

01:24:22.140 I don't know how bad 100, actually, I've been in 133 in Kuwait.

01:24:26.020 So, actually, I survived.

01:24:28.700 But that's not going to kill the virus.

01:24:30.280 It's ridiculous to talk about things like that.

01:24:32.480 So, people should be very careful.

01:24:34.560 If you want to find out what to do, go on the Center for Disease Control website.

01:24:39.700 They give you advice.

01:24:41.420 These are the top scientists in the United States.

01:24:43.360 That's what we're driving them to.

01:24:43.860 Yes.

01:24:44.280 You really need to keep doing that, driving people to authoritative sources.

01:24:48.440 And actually, I would actually encourage people in their communities, wherever you may live,

01:24:54.780 is go to your local public health website first.

01:24:57.160 Good idea.

01:24:58.060 Because it's your local public health, your local emergency management, your local community

01:25:02.960 has got the most authoritative, up-to-date information for the community you live in.

01:25:08.040 And then the CDC has got the most authoritative.

01:25:10.340 And they get their guidance and recommendation from the CDC and then apply it to their local

01:25:14.720 communities.

01:25:15.440 But anything you can do to continue to promote people going to authoritative sources of information

01:25:21.100 would be very good.

01:25:22.100 We're actually looking at a group that does kind of artificial intelligence,

01:25:26.420 has a, you know, to look at social media.

01:25:29.180 But we're trying to perhaps use a group that can help us identify how misinformation is

01:25:35.520 bubbling up through social media to also kind of counter it with the right information.

01:25:39.180 Who's we, by the way, when you say that?

01:25:40.220 Well, I can't talk because it's a proprietary company.

01:25:41.880 I can introduce you to somebody.

01:25:43.140 Yeah.

01:25:43.340 I would love to do that.

01:25:44.980 I would love to do that.

01:25:45.660 Offline, we can make an introduction to somebody that's very experienced.

01:25:47.680 That would be fantastic because we need to do that and try to put some countermeasures

01:25:52.360 of vaccine against social media, bad social media.

01:25:55.180 Because social media is also very important, too.

01:25:57.740 It's a good way that we communicate and get information out, but we just have to counter

01:26:01.140 the misinformation.

01:26:02.220 I'd be right for sure.

01:26:02.680 There is a statement now, I've heard on this, that this was all a conspiracy to defeat the

01:26:07.380 president.

01:26:08.280 Regardless of that, that's just nonsense.

01:26:10.300 Do you think that the Italians created this, what's happening in Italy?

01:26:13.880 Do you think it's all made up?

01:26:15.240 That's ridiculous.

01:26:16.140 The Chinese made up 80,000 of their people dying and collapsed the economy in order to affect

01:26:22.180 our presidential, that's not what's happening.

01:26:24.740 So people, these conspiracy theories on the left and the right are not helpful.

01:26:30.020 Well, you can't tell people to stop doing it.

01:26:31.700 They'll do it anyway.

01:26:32.360 But I'm just telling you, it's not helpful and it's nonsense.

01:26:35.540 This is a real problem.

01:26:37.220 It's a crisis.

01:26:37.980 It is not the apocalypse.

01:26:39.040 So we have to be, we can't create public panic on the other one.

01:26:43.300 We need to take the steps necessary to get this under control.

01:26:47.120 Has, who's the big whistleblower?

01:26:49.380 The two big whistleblowers, what are their names?

01:26:52.920 I'm curious, you know, if any of these whistleblowers are coming out and given any kind of insight

01:26:56.520 because eventually some of this news is going to come out.

01:26:59.520 You know, the main whistleblower in China was a doctor who came out saying, this is,

01:27:02.260 this is bigger than we think it is.

01:27:03.800 Yes.

01:27:04.100 And then he died.

01:27:04.700 He died from coronavirus himself.

01:27:05.820 Personally, he's 37 years old.

01:27:10.260 He wasn't in a high-risk group.

01:27:11.420 I don't think he was in a high-risk group.

01:27:12.960 I think they may have.

01:27:14.560 You sound like a conspiracy theorist.

01:27:15.600 No.

01:27:16.300 The question is, how did a 37, why did a 37-year-old die?

01:27:21.040 I can't believe this stuff.

01:27:22.560 Do you realize we just went from, don't buy these conspiracies.

01:27:27.000 Well.

01:27:27.680 But to go there with you, I am not far from where you are, okay, with what you're saying.

01:27:32.940 So we're on the same page.

01:27:34.340 What's your opinions on China?

01:27:35.460 I've had General Spaulding here.

01:27:37.120 He was a general in the Air Force, and he went in a, you know what he did.

01:27:40.900 I don't know him personally, but I know.

01:27:41.980 Yeah, he did some work on China, and he came here, and he held nothing back on China.

01:27:48.540 Nothing.

01:27:50.380 You know, I mean, he talked about 5G's effects and what they're trying to do with Made in

01:27:54.840 China 2025, how they want to take over the world, et cetera, et cetera.

01:27:57.840 There was no filtering there.

01:27:59.380 What are your thoughts on China?

01:28:00.740 What are your thoughts on China?

01:28:01.380 I think that we are exaggerating.

01:28:03.480 Let me tell you.

01:28:04.260 When I was, I'm 70 years old, so I remember when I was in my 20s, articles in all the

01:28:09.940 news media that the Japanese model is going to take over the whole world, even a country

01:28:13.520 of 100 million people, how they're going to take over the whole world.

01:28:15.860 And the Japanese model, their industrial system is far superior to us.

01:28:20.360 You read anything like that in the last 30 years?

01:28:22.900 No.

01:28:23.760 Why?

01:28:24.280 The Japanese model was, had deep problems with it.

01:28:27.660 So does the Chinese model.

01:28:29.060 Do you know what the Chinese have?

01:28:30.260 They have a highly educated technocracy.

01:28:34.100 Very well.

01:28:34.780 Very gifted scientists.

01:28:36.400 Very smart people.

01:28:37.680 And they're good business people.

01:28:39.380 And they've collected a lot of money.

01:28:41.500 They got a billion and a half dollars, most of our dollars in their sovereign wealth fund.

01:28:44.960 You know what they have that we have that they don't have?

01:28:48.900 We have very strong, highly functional, resilient institutions.

01:28:53.900 You know what makes a society, and this is what I teach in my courses, what's the difference

01:28:57.880 between a poor country and a rich country?

01:28:59.500 It's not they have riches in the rich country.

01:29:02.260 They have institutions that produce wealth.

01:29:04.920 The Chinese have weak and corrupted institutions.

01:29:08.160 They're trying to fix them.

01:29:09.820 You know how many law schools there were in 1980 in China?

01:29:13.300 Four.

01:29:14.240 Four.

01:29:14.600 Four.

01:29:14.960 They had 2,000 lawyers in the whole country.

01:29:16.940 You cannot have a modern economy without a legal system.

01:29:20.740 No rule of law, no economy.

01:29:22.800 You have to have a rule of law.

01:29:24.840 Okay?

01:29:25.260 Milton Friedman assumed when the Soviet Union collapsed that all they had to do was free

01:29:31.260 the markets up and everything would be great.

01:29:33.520 At the end of the 1990s, he was at the Cato Institute, a libertarian institute, and he said,

01:29:37.440 we made a terrible mistake.

01:29:38.580 No rule of law, no rule of law, no economic growth, and there's a whole school of institutional

01:29:45.300 economics that say that.

01:29:46.220 The Chinese have profound dysfunctions in their system, which we're creating a threat.

01:29:54.620 Is there a threat?

01:29:55.740 Yes, there is.

01:29:56.360 We need to deal with it.

01:29:57.380 We're seeing it in the pharmaceutical industry.

01:29:59.000 We need to directly address it.

01:30:00.340 But let's not make some mythological, powerful figure out there of a country when, in fact,

01:30:06.580 they have deep internal problems.

01:30:08.540 And, by the way, they recognize it.

01:30:10.620 If you talk to Chinese privately, they'll tell you it.

01:30:13.120 If you go on, I don't read Mandarin Chinese, but some of my friends do, they said, you should

01:30:19.380 see the rage of the Chinese people against their own government.

01:30:23.560 It's unbelievable.

01:30:24.860 They're saying things they would never say in a totalitarian or autocratic system because

01:30:29.340 of the level of anger.

01:30:30.700 They believe the government lied to them.

01:30:32.420 They believe that they knew about this.

01:30:33.880 It was going on for two months before they did anything.

01:30:36.540 And they're very, very, there's a lot of anger.

01:30:38.820 There's a lot of fear in the Chinese government of an uprising in China, like they had in

01:30:43.080 Tiananmen Square.

01:30:43.900 It wasn't, by the way, just Tiananmen Square in 1979 when there was an uprising in China.

01:30:47.700 It was across the country.

01:30:49.260 The center of it was in Beijing.

01:30:51.620 They were afraid of that happening again.

01:30:53.420 There have been four shocks to China in the last year.

01:30:56.240 This is the fourth one.

01:30:57.880 They had this shock with the African swine flu.

01:31:01.960 Poor prices are up, which is the principal source of protein there.

01:31:04.540 130, 140 percent rise in prices in China.

01:31:07.940 That upset people a lot.

01:31:09.460 You know, there are huge price increases before Tiananmen Square.

01:31:12.140 That's one of the things that drove it in 1979, the uprising in China.

01:31:15.940 Same thing's happening now with price increases.

01:31:18.960 And you have a lot of money being spent to keep factories producing things that no one wants.

01:31:25.260 Why are they doing that?

01:31:26.520 Because they're afraid of unemployment causing social unrest in the country.

01:31:32.280 So they have a lot of internal problems.

01:31:34.620 But we do need to understand they've been manipulating the international system against us.

01:31:40.900 The Russians are doing the same thing.

01:31:42.900 They're using social media to defeat us.

01:31:46.140 And we need to be more aware of it.

01:31:48.340 Half of the anti-vaccine movement is coming from Russia, from these autobots.

01:31:53.740 They're attempting to turn Americans against...

01:31:55.440 Social, you know, the social media misinformation campaign.

01:31:58.920 That's exactly what it is.

01:32:00.040 They're running around saying the U.S. military planted this virus in China.

01:32:03.820 That's a bull-faced lie.

01:32:05.720 It's absolutely outrageous.

01:32:07.740 Why are they doing it?

01:32:08.680 They're trying to deflect attention from their own failures in the early stages of this.

01:32:12.960 Now, did they act later?

01:32:14.420 Yes, they did.

01:32:15.120 But the thing was loose for two months.

01:32:16.980 What were they doing those two months?

01:32:18.360 Nothing.

01:32:19.440 They're suppressing the information.

01:32:20.900 A democracy cannot suppress information because free press, free associations, civil society,

01:32:30.420 all of our institutions just don't permit it.

01:32:32.980 You cannot suppress information in a democracy.

01:32:35.740 I don't trust any country that is ran on a one-party system where there's no free press

01:32:43.920 or free speech, where the country controls the data.

01:32:47.720 I don't trust any of it.

01:32:49.660 China has been saying their unemployment has been between 2.8% to 3.2% the last 30 years.

01:32:55.140 You're out of your mind to say you're employing 1.5 billion people and only 3% of them don't

01:33:01.460 have jobs.

01:33:02.180 So what I'm concerned about, why is there a community of people in America on media that

01:33:09.680 are constantly protecting China?

01:33:11.460 I've had so many strong debates myself with some of the most powerful people in the world

01:33:16.440 that protect China, and it goes over and over and over, and they keep protecting China.

01:33:21.300 Why is there a community protecting China?

01:33:23.260 I don't understand this part.

01:33:24.420 What's your opinion on it?

01:33:25.400 You're around it all the time.

01:33:27.080 Well, there are some people who have vested interests, economic interests, intellectual interests.

01:33:32.520 They may have friends in China.

01:33:34.180 They may be dealing with the Chinese government.

01:33:35.700 That's one group of people of a conflict of interest.

01:33:37.800 I understand them, by the way.

01:33:38.960 I actually understand them.

01:33:40.060 Let's set those aside.

01:33:41.200 There's a second group of people.

01:33:42.880 I have some friends in this community as well who say, if we start provoking the Chinese

01:33:48.640 and they're really suffering internal problems, they could become extremely aggressive internationally.

01:33:55.880 They have a large land army, and we could face a war with them.

01:33:59.640 We do not want to have a war with China.

01:34:01.960 We don't want to have a war with China.

01:34:03.280 It would be a catastrophe for both countries and for the world.

01:34:07.180 We don't need World War III, nuclear or not.

01:34:09.720 Forget the nuclear part of it, okay?

01:34:11.380 We do not want a conventional war with China.

01:34:14.880 The loss of a human population, whether it's in the military or not, would be enormous.

01:34:22.400 So they're the people who say, well, we just look the other way, okay?

01:34:27.120 We just want to ignore their—respect their system.

01:34:29.500 Well, I don't respect their system if they're cheating on the rules, and they're using the

01:34:33.340 rules, I think, to their own advantage against us.

01:34:37.200 And I have a problem with that.

01:34:39.360 As many—increasingly, by the way, the Chinese think, well, if Trump were in office, this

01:34:43.320 would go away.

01:34:44.380 Nonsense.

01:34:45.220 The Democrats are saying the same thing now.

01:34:47.120 It's not a partisan question anymore.

01:34:49.840 I saw Biden say that as well.

01:34:51.200 Yes.

01:34:51.740 The pharmaceutical issue—I mean, I'm a free trader.

01:34:55.280 Pharmaceutical issue—I didn't realize this before we started studying this.

01:34:59.200 By the way, we brought this issue up in our white paper in 2018.

01:35:05.840 This is not something we just—we wrote an article that was circular around the world,

01:35:09.400 but our white paper that's been on our website for two years now, we said this was a problem

01:35:13.420 two years ago.

01:35:14.800 No one listened to it.

01:35:15.720 Now they're listening to it.

01:35:16.760 There have been congressional hearings on this and all that.

01:35:19.060 So those issues we need to confront the Chinese on.

01:35:23.240 But what we don't need is to push them so far that we have a conflict with them—I mean

01:35:29.080 a military conflict, which is what these things sometimes descend into.

01:35:33.620 Do you have a different opinion on that?

01:35:35.260 Are you on the same page?

01:35:36.260 Yeah, same.

01:35:36.720 You know, if I would add just maybe one more category, and I'll speak kind of like from

01:35:40.420 my public health colleagues in that world.

01:35:42.800 And we like to collaborate.

01:35:45.280 We like to trust people.

01:35:46.940 And there's been a lot of, say, Chinese scientists that have trained in the United States.

01:35:50.700 And so there's a lot of, you know, I guess, friendly relationships and colleagues in the

01:35:56.920 public health and science community between the U.S. and China.

01:36:00.760 So there's another factor, and that's naivete.

01:36:02.540 That, you know, although that, you know, we are colleagues on kind of that professional

01:36:08.160 level, too many don't realize that they may have—there's only so far they can collaborate

01:36:16.420 and that they may be using that friendship and collaboration to a bigger strategic advantage.

01:36:21.900 So there's naivete is another component of that.

01:36:23.920 I can totally see that.

01:36:24.740 I have two more questions for you before we wrap up.

01:36:26.840 Virus, coins, money, phone, where it lives.

01:36:31.380 You've heard a lot of different data, 12 hours, 18 hours, clothes, dogs, pets, sex.

01:36:38.040 What can you tell us about the lifespan of this virus?

01:36:41.400 I'm not going to talk about all of that.

01:36:42.740 Well, I mean, you can take any part you want.

01:36:44.620 You got kids, so you know about sex.

01:36:45.840 So what can you tell us about any of this stuff on how a person could get, you know, coronavirus?

01:36:52.020 Well, I think, you know, the primary mode of transmission of coronavirus is going to be

01:36:56.740 person to person.

01:36:57.620 It's going to be droplet.

01:36:58.500 So when we cough or sneeze, and it's the droplets that come out of our mouth, and fortunately,

01:37:04.820 those droplets are falling to the ground.

01:37:06.620 And that's why this social separation is recommended at six feet.

01:37:10.800 So that's really the primary means of transmission.

01:37:13.140 Now, there are—you know, we're beginning to understand what is the environmental half-life

01:37:18.980 of the virus if it's on a table, on our doorknob, and so forth.

01:37:21.740 So some of those reports are coming out, and it may be in days as opposed to minutes.

01:37:26.600 You know, there's going to be much more.

01:37:27.840 So that's part of that category.

01:37:29.220 It's some of the sciences.

01:37:30.240 Unknown.

01:37:30.860 Unknown.

01:37:31.360 Got it.

01:37:31.820 But we're beginning to fill in the gaps and fill in the holes.

01:37:34.180 But it's really, you know, that droplet transmission from person to person is really the primary

01:37:38.800 means of transmission for now for a health care worker in the hospital.

01:37:43.300 Particularly, they may be doing some type of procedure, caring for a patient that might—it

01:37:49.820 could create an aerosol in the room, which behaves more—may spread more than a droplet.

01:37:56.820 But that's really kind of a special, unique situation in the health care kind of delivery

01:38:00.800 in the hospital situation.

01:38:02.420 So that's why the simple, tried-and-true infection control measures at the personal

01:38:08.920 level are so important.

01:38:11.100 Wash your hands with soap and water, and for 20 seconds, you know, sing the happy birthday

01:38:16.300 song.

01:38:16.720 That's about 20 seconds as a reminder.

01:38:21.340 And, you know, if you're sick, stay home.

01:38:24.280 If you need to seek medical care, by all means do, but call ahead so you know what the procedures

01:38:30.120 are of where you should go so that you're not—they will give you instructions of how to come

01:38:35.680 in.

01:38:37.000 And, you know, cough etiquette, that's all, you know, extremely important.

01:38:41.660 So really, it's how do you avoid exposure, how do you avoid exposing others, you know,

01:38:45.960 kind of think in those simple terms.

01:38:47.380 But it's absolutely essential to make sure we take those simple things.

01:38:52.500 So droplet six feet.

01:38:53.780 I mean, these are some good droplets if it can go six feet, by the way.

01:38:56.500 I mean, legit.

01:38:57.540 They're tiny, tiny, tiny.

01:38:59.000 No, I'm giving you a hard time.

01:39:00.360 But that's what we should do, to try to minimize that exposure.

01:39:03.780 I wash my hands before I eat, long before the virus.

01:39:07.340 I get sick very few times, because the principal mechanism, other than droplets, is dirty hands.

01:39:13.620 I have come to a conclusion that you want to make sure the folks below 50 stop working.

01:39:18.600 I've come to that conclusion.

01:39:19.980 That's what you want to do.

01:39:20.740 No, my kids are below 50.

01:39:22.020 I don't want them to work.

01:39:22.900 You want us to stop working.

01:39:24.280 So, okay, last question.

01:39:28.140 And this is my biggest concern.

01:39:30.600 I'm not concerned about coronavirus.

01:39:32.160 And what I mean by I'm not concerned, don't get me wrong.

01:39:33.840 I don't mean, you know, I'm being irresponsible, and I got a wife and three kids, and we're not taking the right measures.

01:39:40.540 No, I was in L.A.

01:39:41.280 We had a board meeting.

01:39:42.500 I got the news.

01:39:43.500 I told my wife we're going back to L.A.

01:39:45.140 It was spring break for the kids.

01:39:46.300 We were trying to take them to Universal Studios.

01:39:47.700 My board meeting got canceled.

01:39:48.720 We came back the same day.

01:39:49.560 We were supposed to stay three, four days.

01:39:51.260 We're doing the stuff at the company.

01:39:52.720 Everything we're being responsible, what we need to do as a company.

01:39:55.420 Okay, let's set that part aside.

01:39:57.120 I'm not worried about coronavirus because I went and looked at the numbers of how infectious it is.

01:40:02.420 You know, the R0 number, whatever that number is that they look at.

01:40:04.940 You know, that shows like, say it again, R0.

01:40:08.220 R0.

01:40:08.600 R0, yeah, the number that you're looking at on how infectious it is and how measles was like 12 to 16.

01:40:14.320 It's 1 to 14, 16 for measles.

01:40:16.980 Yeah.

01:40:17.120 It's 1 to 2 to 3 for coronavirus.

01:40:20.060 Coronavirus.

01:40:20.320 It's twice as infectious as the flu is.

01:40:25.160 It is.

01:40:25.760 But here's the part.

01:40:26.800 That's not even my question.

01:40:28.280 Forget about coronavirus.

01:40:29.860 Forget about coronavirus.

01:40:31.280 My concern is not coronavirus because, yes, these are still bad numbers.

01:40:34.960 You know, 1% estimate die in, you know, 1.9 to 2.8.

01:40:40.420 Whatever the number, 1 to 1.9 or 1 to 2.8.

01:40:42.700 That's the numbers I got that I'm looking at from CDC.

01:40:44.860 Okay.

01:40:45.460 I'm not worried about this.

01:40:46.600 What are we going to do?

01:40:48.280 Because Ebola was 50% death rate.

01:40:51.120 MERS was 34.4.

01:40:52.660 Smallpox, 30%.

01:40:53.620 SARS, 9.6.

01:40:54.520 What are we going to do in the future?

01:40:56.940 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.

01:40:58.400 You're in the world.

01:40:59.920 20, 30 years from now.

01:41:01.120 When?

01:41:01.680 When?

01:41:01.880 White papers are all about this.

01:41:03.600 If.

01:41:04.160 If.

01:41:04.440 And I want to get the answers.

01:41:05.340 We're going to put your white papers, bro.

01:41:06.440 What are we going to do in the future where we get a virus that is both as infectious as

01:41:12.680 measles and both as deadly as Ebola, right?

01:41:18.020 What are we going to do there to be able to prevent that from all of a sudden half the

01:41:21.160 population in the world dying?

01:41:22.440 Well, first, let me just take, you know, why some viruses spread around the world and some

01:41:27.720 do not.

01:41:28.720 At the end of the day, a virus needs to have a living host.

01:41:31.280 And so, Ebola, you know, the bad news is it's over 40, 50% lethality.

01:41:38.580 But also, those who catch Ebola, you know they have it.

01:41:41.900 And that's why containment measures with Ebola are so effective or can be effective.

01:41:47.160 It doesn't get out of control.

01:41:48.680 So, you can actually control Ebola.

01:41:52.260 We might have another crisis like we had in West Africa or what's happening right now

01:41:56.200 in the DRC, but it did not spread around the world.

01:41:58.800 Could it spread further in the world?

01:42:02.860 Sure, because of our globalization.

01:42:05.040 But each virus is different.

01:42:07.500 And some of these really high lethality viruses, they need a living host.

01:42:12.220 And that's why containment-type measures are extremely important, so we can stop it so

01:42:17.760 it doesn't keep finding a living host.

01:42:19.720 Now, why COVID is concerning is it has a case fatality rate that's a lot lower, actually.

01:42:30.320 But, you know, say it's 1%.

01:42:31.700 But if it spreads around the world and, you know, infects just the United States, you know,

01:42:36.420 some of the numbers you're using earlier, 60, 70, 90, however many, you know, if it's

01:42:41.300 in that range, well, that 1% fatality rate actually is pretty concerning.

01:42:45.140 And so that number's kind of high.

01:42:49.080 But what we have to do, this is really, let me get to what we need to be doing.

01:42:53.380 First, we need to be taking emerging infectious diseases much more seriously than we have

01:42:57.540 in the past.

01:42:57.980 I agree.

01:42:58.580 That really is the issue.

01:43:00.380 And these are, actually, they become not just in the domain of public health.

01:43:04.040 These are really national security issues, health security issues.

01:43:07.040 And so we actually have some of the tools at hand that can actually begin, if we focus

01:43:12.280 our efforts, to begin to think about prevention in the first place.

01:43:16.460 It's going to require some investment.

01:43:18.420 But first, we've got to start taking emerging infectious diseases much more seriously than

01:43:22.420 we do today.

01:43:23.420 And maybe COVID-19 is a wake-up call.

01:43:26.620 But guess what?

01:43:27.420 SARS was supposed to be a wake-up call.

01:43:29.560 2009 pandemic, that was supposed to be a wake-up call.

01:43:32.640 Ebola in the West Africa in 2014, 2016, that was supposed to be a wake-up call.

01:43:37.040 I just hope we can not push the snooze button after this is over.

01:43:41.160 Well, what do we do is what I'm asking.

01:43:42.460 Well, I'll tell you one thing we can do that I can tell you from personal experience.

01:43:47.940 The role of aid agencies like USAID and our NGO community and our contractors and health

01:43:54.320 contractors is to build the capacity of developing countries to deal with their own problems so

01:44:00.700 that they can control these infections before they get out of hand.

01:44:04.120 The trends now are that 75% of the 40 new diseases that have come up, infected people,

01:44:14.120 human beings in the last 50 years, are from animals.

01:44:17.580 Wild animals and domestic animals.

01:44:18.980 Mostly wild animals, but domestic animals.

01:44:21.580 Now, the institutions don't exist in many of these countries to prevent this from happening.

01:44:27.280 They can prevent it.

01:44:28.140 They can reduce it.

01:44:29.000 Those wet markets in China where they sell living animals have been a problem for decades.

01:44:35.420 The Chinese government would not do anything if they have now banned them.

01:44:37.940 They should have banned them a long time ago, and they know that, but they didn't want to

01:44:41.100 do it because it's very unpopular politically.

01:44:42.600 There's a study that was done of the HIV AIDS program that President Bush started and that

01:44:49.040 President Obama continued.

01:44:50.860 It's not a partisan question.

01:44:53.000 And on the malaria program by Senator Daschle, who's a Democratic senator.

01:44:58.240 He was a Republican, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate.

01:45:01.740 And was it Bill Frist?

01:45:03.960 Bill Frist.

01:45:04.320 Bill Frist is a Republican leader in the Senate.

01:45:06.540 So the Republican and Democrat, former senators, they run this bipartisan center on policy,

01:45:13.760 and they looked at why Ebola didn't spread in Africa.

01:45:18.180 Why was it contained in only three countries?

01:45:21.400 And it's because the HIV AIDS program and the malaria program built the capacity of the

01:45:26.820 Nigerian Center for Disease Control.

01:45:29.060 There's no big outbreak in Nigeria.

01:45:30.800 It's a huge country.

01:45:31.980 It's a quarter of Africa is Nigeria.

01:45:34.100 Why didn't it get loose?

01:45:35.060 It's right next door.

01:45:35.920 It's because the Nigerian Center for Disease Control that was trained by USAID and the

01:45:41.920 Center for Disease Control, our Center for Disease Control, CDC, together they helped build

01:45:46.380 this institute and the Nigerians built it.

01:45:48.700 It was very effective in preventing the virus from spreading into Nigeria.

01:45:53.540 So one thing that's not very popular, a lot of people, is to have aid programs that

01:46:00.240 build institutions in other countries to deal with this.

01:46:03.860 It's because the only way to deal with these outbreaks is right in the country itself.

01:46:09.500 That's what we should be doing.

01:46:10.160 So, yeah, most of these dangerous viruses are emerging in low-middle-income countries where

01:46:13.740 we lack, you know, they lack the public health institutional capacities.

01:46:17.620 And so that's where, you know, foreign aid can be very critical because we can, if we can prevent,

01:46:22.640 if we can first detect an outbreak there, then, and if we give them the tools to be able to respond,

01:46:29.260 they can stop the outbreak before it becomes a regional epidemic or a pandemic.

01:46:34.640 And so that's why these international investments are very critical.

01:46:36.700 There's one thing we can do, yeah.

01:46:38.220 We need to fix the federal government.

01:46:39.960 I mean, I don't mean the whole government.

01:46:41.160 I mean, with respect to PAN.

01:46:42.420 There's a whole bunch of questions that have not been resolved about who is responsible for

01:46:48.120 what and how you turn the switch on when you turn the emergency response system on.

01:46:53.400 Now, I'm going to go into it here, but Jerry is a member of the, what's the name of it?

01:46:58.260 Bipartisan Commission for Biodefense.

01:46:59.980 Yes, and I tested, he asked me to testify before, and I did, and he's very, I mean,

01:47:04.980 you should read their report.

01:47:06.020 It's a very powerful report on what needs to be done.

01:47:08.560 So there are issues that have not been settled because senior policymakers in both parties

01:47:13.520 have not seen until now this to be an issue.

01:47:17.480 SARS may have been a wake-up call, Jerry, but people saw it in the newspaper.

01:47:21.500 It didn't affect them personally.

01:47:22.580 That's right.

01:47:22.960 It didn't affect them.

01:47:23.500 This is history changing.

01:47:24.980 This is history changing.

01:47:26.240 This is not something to take lightly.

01:47:27.920 You know, when you grow up, you fear nuclear war.

01:47:32.120 Oh my gosh, you know, nuclear war.

01:47:33.940 And then the last 15 years, you're hearing everybody saying, you know, it's not going

01:47:38.520 to be nuclear, it's going to be a cyber war.

01:47:40.600 That's what it's going to be.

01:47:42.040 Well, I mean, the easiest way to manipulate any kind of war and try to hurt a country is

01:47:46.600 through a bio warfare, which, you know, you guys study it.

01:47:50.720 So to me, when I sit and look at the numbers, see, I'm a data guy, I'm a math guy, I'm a guy

01:47:55.240 that studies exponential growth.

01:47:56.640 We started a business from 66 agents to 14,000 agents in 49 states, because the whole idea

01:48:02.200 was about how can we exponentially grow?

01:48:04.760 So it's the only thing I paid attention to in high school and college was math.

01:48:08.400 Only thing.

01:48:08.940 Everything else I could care less about, right?

01:48:10.920 So when I look at data, I look at it from a different perspective.

01:48:13.020 That concerns me.

01:48:14.120 You know, here's one thing you said.

01:48:16.740 You said you're able to control in the country.

01:48:18.400 So this happens in Hubei, Wuhan, which is part of Hubei, 50 to 60 million people live in

01:48:22.640 that area, whatever the numbers, you've heard 50, you've heard 60.

01:48:25.440 And then it goes to Thailand, first country, I think, that has the case.

01:48:28.420 And then it goes, Thailand, and somehow comes to U.S. because a guy was traveling to Washington

01:48:33.000 who was just in China.

01:48:34.380 30-year-old guy gets it, first case.

01:48:36.180 And then, so then all of a sudden, 150, 150, how many countries we're at right now?

01:48:40.020 I don't know.

01:48:40.340 I think it's 160 plus where we are right now.

01:48:43.280 And it's not as infectious as some of these other ones, right?

01:48:47.260 So my challenge becomes, if you have a daughter and she's 18 years old, she's dating a boy who

01:48:54.120 has AIDS, not because he got it from sex, but because maybe his mother had it and the

01:49:00.040 blood, something, something.

01:49:01.360 What I'm trying to tell you is, would you let your daughter date this guy?

01:49:05.200 Why wouldn't you have certain fears?

01:49:06.620 So if we know China has a wet market, why is U.S. okay with, you know, the travel?

01:49:12.120 They're not creating more travel restrictions.

01:49:14.380 Why does a country like U.S. who has the authority to tell China, listen, if you don't clean house

01:49:19.260 with the way you have these kinds of things, I'm sorry, we're just not doing business with

01:49:21.940 you.

01:49:22.060 We're not going to let your people travel to us.

01:49:23.780 So to me, the concern of me long term as a parent and as a person that runs a business

01:49:28.620 goes to travel.

01:49:30.060 If we don't, if this has to be addressed through travel, if it's not addressed through travel and

01:49:35.040 it's too easy of doing that with every country, eventually if somebody has a virus, it's going

01:49:38.940 to come to you and you never know where it's coming from.

01:49:41.340 So I don't know the answer to that.

01:49:42.720 I think this crisis is going to cause a review, a rethinking of supply chains, a profound rethinking

01:49:54.220 of supply chains.

01:49:55.100 Not just in the pharmaceutical industry, because now Apple realizes they've got five countries

01:50:01.620 or seven countries producing the components of an iPhone that's produced in China.

01:50:05.520 If one of those sequential parts of the supply chain shut down, they can't produce the iPhone.

01:50:12.480 They've created a system that's highly efficient, keeps the price down.

01:50:16.060 That's America's fault.

01:50:16.480 It is.

01:50:16.720 I know.

01:50:17.060 That's America's fault.

01:50:17.940 I'm sorry.

01:50:18.600 That's America's fault.

01:50:19.720 You're right.

01:50:20.000 Because two reasons.

01:50:21.800 The consumer wants to pay cheaper and the entrepreneur wants to sell it for, make bigger

01:50:26.000 profits.

01:50:26.500 Correct.

01:50:26.760 Guess what?

01:50:27.680 This product's going to be 20% more, but guess what?

01:50:29.720 What?

01:50:29.940 It's made in America, period.

01:50:31.160 It's made in the U.S.

01:50:32.140 You don't want it, don't buy it.

01:50:33.380 Right.

01:50:33.720 You know, if you want to go buy a cheaper product that's made in the U.S., but it's not as good

01:50:36.720 of a product, you don't have to buy this thing.

01:50:38.740 But I do think you're seeing more and more bragging rights about companies saying made in the U.S.

01:50:44.160 I think that's going to go even to a whole different level.

01:50:46.880 When I'm seeing a company say made in the U.S., I want to buy the product and support

01:50:50.400 it.

01:50:50.700 Let me mention one last thing we could do.

01:50:54.840 We could set up, CDC was trying to do it.

01:50:57.780 AID was trying to do it.

01:50:59.240 The funding has been cut off from it.

01:51:01.400 No one took it too seriously.

01:51:03.140 AID was identifying the 2,000 viruses that are the ones that, because they're like 150,000

01:51:09.220 viruses they've identified.

01:51:10.420 I don't know the exact number, but it's an enormous number.

01:51:13.460 But most of them are not a threat.

01:51:16.860 They've identified through a project that AID ran with funding from the Congress that

01:51:22.040 came out of, I think, the Ebola.

01:51:26.240 It was out of the Ebola supplemental budget.

01:51:29.280 And it created a system for identifying those viruses and then setting up a sentinel surveillance

01:51:35.080 system around the world to give us early warning.

01:51:38.780 We have an early warning system for famines that we started in 1985.

01:51:43.560 There's been a substantial drop for the first time in, in fact, in history.

01:51:47.260 The first time in history there's been a massive drop in famine deaths is because we have an

01:51:51.720 early warning system to tell us when this is about to happen.

01:51:53.980 We need an early warning system around the world when these virus outbreaks take place and to give us the time.

01:52:02.660 You know what the biggest problem is in the response is time.

01:52:07.500 Three weeks in an emergency response in a fast onset disaster like this is a huge amount of time.

01:52:13.520 If you made decisions, you know, the first week that this happens, you can stop it.

01:52:19.280 I totally agree.

01:52:20.120 Yes.

01:52:20.520 But you need a surveillance system.

01:52:22.420 Yeah, but you can't do it if it's in another country that's not doing it at the levels that you're doing it at.

01:52:26.740 That's what I'm saying.

01:52:27.880 You can set up a system.

01:52:28.260 You're not in charge of that.

01:52:29.760 You can set up a system.

01:52:31.080 You may be able to set up a system, but if they don't want to follow the rules you're following because it's a totalitarian, what are you going to tell them how to do it?

01:52:37.840 I understand that.

01:52:38.380 I understand that.

01:52:38.960 But there is a way of checking what's going on in other countries without actually being yourself in terms of Americans in those countries.

01:52:47.820 So we have to do more to get earlier warning.

01:52:50.340 We have to do more internationally to build capacity and try to prevent an outbreak anywhere it starts from becoming an epidemic.

01:52:55.280 But we also have to do more in our own country so whenever we do have a major outbreak like a pandemic that we can respond better in the United States.

01:53:03.960 We have to have incentives that the private sector is more part of the solution.

01:53:07.320 We can't be totally dependent upon, say, the CDC for laboratory testing as an example.

01:53:11.940 And so we need to have systems in place that the private sector is part of the preparedness activity from the start.

01:53:20.800 We can't just turn it on like a switch when there's a crisis.

01:53:23.420 Find a way to make it profitable today.

01:53:25.060 Absolutely.

01:53:25.800 Absolutely.

01:53:26.080 And that's hard, but we've been talking about it a long time, but we've got to figure that out.

01:53:31.600 You find a way to give them that credit.

01:53:33.100 By the way, does 5G have anything to do with this or not at all?

01:53:36.080 Have you seen any reports with 5G in this or not at all?

01:53:38.420 I have not.

01:53:39.060 Nothing?

01:53:39.460 Okay, one of the conspiracies is 5G, by the way.

01:53:41.580 I don't know if you've seen that.

01:53:42.280 There's a conspiracy about 5G.

01:53:44.260 Go look it up.

01:53:44.860 That it's related to this?

01:53:45.900 Oh, yeah.

01:53:46.420 Oh, yeah.

01:53:46.740 They're saying that 5G with the waves is helping this thing spread.

01:53:52.120 I don't know if you follow any of this stuff with 5G.

01:53:54.300 5G is thread on.

01:53:56.080 Well, that's a whole different topic.

01:53:57.320 I don't want to go to it.

01:53:58.260 All I can say is this.

01:53:59.340 I really enjoy this conversation.

01:54:01.560 I want to say it's a couple hours.

01:54:03.040 To me, it feels like five minutes.

01:54:04.420 Thank you so much for your help and coming out and giving us all the insight and being

01:54:08.940 willing to take some of the questions and push back because that's how we all learn.

01:54:12.080 And hopefully, if this thing, if we have more questions and this is formulating a little

01:54:17.740 bit more in the audience wants you guys back, hopefully, we can invite you guys back in

01:54:20.220 the future as well.

01:54:20.740 Thank you.

01:54:20.980 Thank you very much.

01:54:21.520 Thanks so much for coming out.

01:54:22.240 I'd shake your hands, but you know why we can't because of the time.

01:54:24.780 Yes.

01:54:25.440 Thanks, guys.

01:54:25.860 Thanks, everybody, for listening.

01:54:27.200 And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.

01:54:31.800 Give us a five-star.

01:54:33.220 Write a review if you haven't already.

01:54:34.700 And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,

01:54:38.700 Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

01:54:40.660 Just search my name, PatrickBitDavid.

01:54:42.400 And I actually do respond back when they snap me or send me a message on Instagram.

01:54:47.420 With that being said, have a great day today.

01:54:49.220 Take care, everybody.

01:54:49.960 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - March 27, 2020

Episode 447： Biowarfare Experts On Coronavirus (COVID19)

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