How COVID-19 Works

We’re in the middle of an odd, tense time and Josh and Chuck are here to explain what’s going on and how to stay safe. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of five
Heart Radios. How stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the
Global Nightmare. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry over there,
and we are stuff you should know. It was, uh,
that's an Alice Cooper song. Right, that's welcome to my Nightmare.

(00:24):
Oh I think it. It is my nightmare, isn't it? Yeah?
But he should have thought bigger. Yeah, you really should have.
It was kind of excited. Yeah, well, put we saw
him in concert once, remember that's right, big shout out
to Anita Strouss. Yes, guitarist, extraordinary for Alice Cooper among others.
It's enthusiast what enthusiast science? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.

(00:51):
So we should uh. I think everyone knows right now
that we are now set up to record apart from
one another. Chuck. Um, So my first question before we
have to get serious is what are you wearing? I
knew it. Can I tell you seriously what I'm wearing? Yeah,
I'm going to tell you. Okay, Um, I am wearing

(01:13):
an apron and that's it. Wow? Yeah what about you?
So your cosplaying is sexy chef? Yeah? Yeah, that's what
I like to think of myself as it's not really cosplay,
that's kind of normal life stuff. Yeah, I am wearing
um and this is not a plug, but it is

(01:34):
what I'm wearing. I'm wearing me and these I'm wearing.
I'm wearing my mac Weldon. Uh. I don't know what
they call him. You know, kind of the warm up
pants that you can go to the grocery store in sure,
but do not go to the grocery store, Chuck, not not.
And I'm wearing a Max fun Con two thousand and
twelve T shirt and my slippers. So basically this is

(01:57):
your UM I got all this free outfit, boy, it
really is. I paid for the slippers, Okay, but I
mean if you name dropped the slippers, maybe you can
get a replacement for him. I don't want to do that,
even though they're super comfy. Maybe we can get a
slipper sponsorship. Did you did you ever stop wearing slippers
out of the house? Uh? Well, what do you mean? So?

(02:19):
I think it was our five second Rule episode where
we talked about the point of slippers is to just
have these things that are house bound and never leave
your house, and then you you just wear them in
your house and then instead of outside, so the outdoors
germs never come inside on the bottom of your feet. Boy,
that's you're calling out like a nine year old episode.

(02:39):
Uh you know, I may go get the mail or something. Okay,
all right, well before you were going and like getting
ice cream at the convenience store in those things if yeah, yeah,
and I feel like the fact that you're not doing
any more, you may have forgotten, but that's my influence, chuck.
Or I may have just gotten gained some self respect,

(03:00):
right there you go. I like to think both of
those from my influence. Okay, uh yeah. So at the
head of the show, I think we should announce we're
doing an episode on COVID nineteen. It is Tuesday. I
don't even know what date it is. And this will
come out on the right, that's what Jerry's promising right now.

(03:23):
That remains to be seen though, so it'll be sort
of up to date. But two days a lot can change, um,
as we all know. Uh. And the other thing too,
is it I think we are going to stay out
of sort of the politics and the economics of the
of this, because that's an almost separate podcast in itself
that I have no interest in ever doing I Well,

(03:45):
I'm surprised to hear you say that last part. I
was figuring that that would be one we do, like
years from now, like go back and look at the
coronavirus pandemic of because I think so many weird, remarkable,
in interesting things are going to grow out of this
and are already going on. I could totally see us

(04:05):
doing that. But I get what I can vibe on
what you're saying, because after recording this, like I'm hoping
that we can finish this episode and never talk about
coronavirus again. Like, I get what you're saying. That would
be great. Yeah, I'm tired of knowing about it, you know. Yeah,
And we you know, we debated quite honestly whether or

(04:26):
not to even do this, but it seems like we
had more people asking for just a level headed take
on it from us than people saying, I would really
rather be distracted, so we'll distract you after today. Yeah.
And we're also, I mean, we're not riding that wave
where we're like trying to feed your news addiction that
like you can't get enough breaking information about this global pandemic.

(04:47):
Like like you said, we're just trying to add just
trying to do a stuff you should know on coronavirus,
on COVID nineteen specifically, and we we got we got
some big help, a big assist from Dave Rouge, who
initially pushed back. We had to convince him to do it. Remember,
he's like, you sure if people want to hear this? Yeah,
We're like, yeah, we're pretty sure. We'll find out though.

(05:07):
So thanks a lot, Dave Rouse, you did good. And also, um,
a big shout out to the grabster to who's been
under the weather so hanging their grab stir. Yeah, so
let's let's get going. I learned a lot in the
last couple of days. Uh. And the first kind of
dumb thing that I learned was that COVID nineteen stands

(05:28):
for coronavirus disease two thousand nineteen, which I didn't even
know that until two days ago. Is that right? Yeah?
I mean it's not talked about a lot, and I
didn't bother to look it up. So yeah, and I
guess it's not intuitive looking at it if you think
about it, But um, there's other names for it to
the who so so what you just said coronavirus disease

(05:49):
two thousand nineteen COVID nineteen. That's the name of the disease, right,
there's another name for the disease that the who calls
two thousand nineteen and cove okay, and then the virus
itself if you want to really show off at your
next online dinner party. Um, the virus itself is is

(06:11):
technically named stars Cove two. Yeah, dash big seed, little
old big vas too. That's right. And as we'll see,
the reason that it is called stars Cove two is
because it bears a striking genetic resemblance to stars Cove one.

(06:32):
I guess you could call it or the stars the
stars virus that um that swept the swept the world
not too long ago too, Yeah, And I can't help
every time I hear of stars I still the first
thing I think of is the Saturday Night Live sketch
with Peter stars Guard when he developed the Stars Guard
stars Guard. Yeah, when did we talk about that before?

(06:54):
Was it the virus is one or the Spanish flu episode? Maybe?
I don't think we did one on stars did No,
not as far as I remember, huh, Because because I
don't know much about coronaviruses, or I didn't until we
really started researching this. But um, that is what covid is.
It's a coronavirus, and coronaviruses have been around for a while. Um.

(07:15):
They're a family of viruses that typically cause upper respiratory
infections in humans and chickens and pigs and cows. Coronavirus
is usually cause um diarrhea or intestinal infections. Um, but
in humans it's usually the upper respiratory tract. Although we
have seen now that coronavirus can cause pig or cow

(07:37):
like infections in humans too, we've seen that recently. But
but for the most part, you've probably been exposed to
a coronavirus. You've probably been made sick by one. And
normally coronavirus is just give us something that we would
take as a cold or a common flu. Yeah. And
the corona means crown in both Spanish and Latin. And

(07:58):
these images that you've seen, the illustrations of what it
looks like under a microscope, Um, those little spikes protruding
from the surface, those are kind of what I guess
how it got its name as corona. Yeah, Dave puts
it here like it reminds him of Pinhead from the
Hell Raiser movies, who, by the way, has a really

(08:18):
good backstory. I was reading about him just happen by
happenstance the other day. Yeah, he's a really interesting guy.
The whole reason he got into, you know, being a
center byte in Hell was, um, he was disillusioned by
the chaos of World War One and lost like all
all faith in any meaning to life, so he started

(08:40):
to he just ditched this world for hell instead. Oh wow,
I didn't know there was a backstory. Oh yeah, there's
a bunch of It's kind of been built up over
the course of some of Clive Barker's novels. The movies
have contributed to it, some other people have kind of
contributed to it. And there's like this robust kind of
mythos around that guy. It's it's really interesting stuff. See,
I'm appreciated eating our sides more than ever today. Yeah,

(09:03):
I mean to it's kind of like, do we have
to talk about this? Yeah, let's talk more about movies.
Have you seen the new Candy Man that's coming? Are
they remaking Candy Man? Yeah, Jordan Peel's producing it, and
I saw trailer looks pretty good. Did you like UM US.
I did. I was, and I was not moved entirely

(09:26):
by it. I really like get Out a lot more
than US. But I'm a fan of Jordan Peel to
think he's got a great mind and everything. But I
don't know if I was expecting more from US or
I was expecting something different. I'm not sure. Well, I
like to get Out more. For sure. US got a
little wacky, but then I think I appreciate it more.
It's like a sort of a Twilight Zone kind of wacky. Yeah.

(09:47):
I guess if I had gone into it expecting that,
I think I would have liked it more. Yeah, I
dug it great acting too, Oh yeah, for sure, across
the board. All right, do we have to talk about
this now? Yeah? Back to it, all right. See's said
that chances are that at some point you might have
had a coronavirus UM. You might have just thought it
was a cold UM novel coronavirus viruses. You've probably heard

(10:09):
that in the news lately. This is different because this
is an animal coronavirus that evolves and then infects a
human and thus rendering it novel or new to us. Yeah,
like those other coronavirus is the ones that give us
colds or whatever. Who knows how long they've been around,
and it's possible they followed the exact same process that
these novel coronaviruses have followed. But this novel coronavirus that

(10:34):
causes COVID nineteen, like you said, it's new to us,
and we think that it literally just made the jump
from animal to human, possibly in a live animal food
market in Wuhan, China. Um and as recently as late
December two thousand nineteen. Yeah, so there's kind of a

(10:56):
lot to this. I think they pretty much are pouse
it of that that's what happened. Um. They think that
they have a patient zero, fifty five year old man
from the Hubai province, but they're not positive about that. Uh.
And now there's some debate about the timeline. UM. Officially

(11:16):
it was December thirty one, but now they're saying it
may have been first detected in mid November. UM, the
patient zero is not confirmed. Uh. They they've also think
they have zero down the fact that it just like
in the movie Contagion, it started with a bat and
then this animal, this very strange animal that had never

(11:38):
heard of before, called a pangolin has served as the
intermediate host because they did genome sequencing of the virus
and it has identical genome sequence to that of uh
when it's in a human. Yeah, that's it's really interesting
to think that if you look at a lot of
the research Chuck, that we're hearing about and we're learning

(11:58):
and just generally stuff that people walking around know about coronavirus,
it has come from China doing an astounding amount of
research and um work on examining and trying to figure
out and trying to defeat this coronavirus. So, um, I
mean they've they've they've definitely done a lot of work,

(12:19):
you could say, for to to to kind of explain
to the world what's going on. Even though I believe
they're they're pretty roundly criticized for potentially not warning the
world and enough time. Um, but I guess that's getting
to that political stuff. Yeah, and just to be clear
of finding a patient zero isn't so they can, you know,

(12:39):
say you did it, you did it, you have to
pay for this. Yeah, it's it's helpful in trying to
figure this whole thing out. That's why timelines are important.
Tracing it back to his roots is important. Uh. Since
that time, China has closed down about twenty wildlife arms
to try and curb in part to try and curb
the pangul and trade, which is a delicacy to eat

(13:03):
in China. Um, but I just read today apparently in
Nigeria they account for about fifty of the pangol in
trade and the penalty they already had in place is
still the current penalty, which is two dollars and seventy
cents for a first time offenders. So there's a lot
of pressure on Nigeria right now to shut down their
trade as well. And yeah, pangulin is a it's it's

(13:24):
a mammal, right, but it is covered in like these
kind of dragon like scales, and it looks like a
small ant eater. It looks like a dragon head sex
with an ant eater. Yeah, and it's tough to look at,
Like it hurts my teeth looking at pangolins for some reason.
I can't quite put my finger on why. But it's
almost like they just shouldn't be or something. Well, Uh,

(13:46):
I'm not gonna say what I was gonna say, So
let's talk about the spread of covid. Okay, so UM
there the way that it's spread initially or the way
that just about well, any zooonotic virus. I'm not sure
if all viruses start like this, but they usually typically
start in an animal and it spreads through close contact

(14:08):
between an animal, a sick animal, and human who then
contracts that it's a zoonotic transmission right from animal to human.
It is I'm surprised we haven't hit on it before. UM.
And then so that's an animal to person transmission. From
that point on, that person is infected, they get sick,
and then they transfer it to somebody who UM, who

(14:33):
comes in close contact with them, which we'll talk more about,
but these days, close contact for coronavirus and COVID nineteen
is considered within six ft for an extended period of
time or present with somebody sneezes or coughs in in
you know, a small area, and then that person can
get sick. That's person a person transmission. And then the

(14:53):
last one, and this is the one that's the hardest
to deal with and the one that we're seeing right
now the stage that we've entered UM around the world
is what's called community spread. Yeah, that one's the scary one,
because that's the final stage where people get sick who,
as far as they know, didn't have any contact with
another sick person. Um. And this is when you know,

(15:15):
those very first stages of the outbreak, it was all
person to person after obviously the animal transmission. Uh. And
then when it developed into community spread, that's when people
started to get UM a little freaked out. I think, yeah,
because I mean they can't say, oh, I was around
you know Timmy, who's sick with this right now, so

(15:37):
I got it from him. It's like, I have no
idea where I got this, And that makes the whole
thing scary. It makes people freaked out. It makes it
much more difficult to UM to contain when people don't
know where they're getting it from, and it it makes
you need to take much more draconian measures to to
prevent the spread of this stuff. It's where it starts

(15:59):
to get out of cont role is when it hits
community spread. Yeah. UM. And you know when you see
like these graphic maps of of how it's spread, it's
really frightening, is the only word that can be used
to describe how quickly this thing has taken hold. UM.
And you know this is stuff that everyone knows unless
you've just been under a rock or like my friend Clay.

(16:22):
About a week before this happened, he went to Nepal
for a two month piking trip. Yeah. I was like, well,
that's your new home, buddy, I hope you like it.
Is he there still? Yeah, he's still there. Oh my gosh. Okay,
that's good. He's not sick or anything. He's just hanging out. Yeah.
I don't think he's seen a lot of people. I

(16:43):
think he's deep, you know, into the woods and stuff. Well, man,
that's about as good a place as you could possibly
be right now. Yeah, And he was planning on being
there for two months anyway. Uh, yes, he had a
plan a trip. It may not have been two months,
but I'm not sure. I mean, I am concerned about it, obviously,
But he says everything's cool. Yeah. It sounds like your

(17:04):
friend Clay maybe one of the luckiest people in the world. Maybe. Wow, Well,
keep it, keep at it, Clay. You're doing social distancing right.
Just go to Nepal and stay in the woods. Should
we should we take a little break here? Yes? We should.
All right, let's break and we'll talk about some of
the symptoms right after this stuff. You should know. Gosh,

(17:27):
sh stuff you should know. Okay, chuck. So we're talking
about symptoms here, um there. It turns out so the

(17:52):
there's like a classic set of symptoms that they now
recognize as if you have these, there's a really good
it's right now that you you have COVID nineteen. Um.
The the cluster of symptoms are a fever. It's usually
a high fever m hm. A dry cough is a
really dead giveaway. And a dry cough is you know

(18:13):
where where you it's almost like the back of your
throat is tickling and you can get no relief from it,
and you're not like coughing up flim that can help
get rid of that cough or that sensation of needing
to cough. It's like a dry cough. Yeah, which is
really troubling right now because it's pollen season here in
the United States and dry cough for a lot of

(18:34):
people is a is a regular thing every spring, So
it's especially worrisome I think for a lot of folks
with allergies, Yeah, for sure. Um and and I keep
getting like I don't normally get allergies, but it's pretty
bad this year. And I'm like, I've got not a
dry cough, but you know, a little tickle here there,
my nose is maybe a little running here there. So
I'm like always really paying extra attention to that stuff.

(18:57):
It's it's exhausting basically. Yeah. And then the third one
is UM. So you've got fever, dry cough, and then
difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, that kind of thing. And
from studies they they've found according to the Journal of UM.
Uh what is JAMMA stand for? I used to know, oh,
the Journal of the American Medical Association, duh, so jama

(19:20):
UM found that on average, people start to display that
symptom of shortness of breath within five days of the
onset of the rest of their symptoms. So if you
have a fever, if you have a dry cough, and
after a few days you start to develop a shortness
of breath or difficulty breathing, you're a really good candidate
to get tested for COVID and maybe need to go

(19:42):
to the hospital. Yeah. And I've seen um, I've seen
the chess thing described from people who have coronavirus or
COVID nineteen is everything from you know, fifty pound weight
on your chest too, to a belt strapped around their
chest that keeps getting tighter and tighter that you can't.
That sounds awful, Yeah, it sounds very specific. Um. If

(20:06):
you feel actual severe pain and pressure in your chest. UM,
if you have bluish lips or a bluish face, if
all of a sudden you're confused and you normally aren't
confused mentally, then those are signs that they say you
really need to get to the hospital right away. Yeah,

(20:27):
for sure. I mean that's anytime your skin or lips
are blue, that's that's a bad sign. But that's one
of the big um signs of COVID is is that
difficulty breathing leads to a lack of oxygen, which is
why everybody keeps talking about this need for ventilators. Um.
Part of this process of a really bad case of
COVID we're talking about a bad case here, UM, is

(20:50):
that you may need a ventilator to help you breathe
because you're not getting enough oxygen into your lungs breathing
on your own. So that's why ventilators have been kind
of like sole pretty stars, um, really sought after in
this in this pandemic, right now, yeah, and why the
shortage of ventilators is super scary because you've got in

(21:11):
that situation and we'll talk more about, um, the biggest fear,
which is overwhelming the medical system. But uh, then you
have potentially mild cases that develop into more serious and
even fatal cases, right, Yes, and that typically seems to
be in seen most in people who are older. I

(21:31):
think uh sixty five and over is at uh graduated
increased risk from that age forward. People who have compromised
immune systems already. I think people with diabetes are are
at risk. UM. But for the most part, something like
eight percent of cases of COVID are relatively mild and
are going to appear to you to be just like

(21:53):
a seasonal cold, running knows, cough um, sore throat um,
just just something that you would wouldn't even need to
like do anything more than take some medicine at home.
For the vast majority of cases of people who are
who have are going to get COVID nineteen are going

(22:14):
to experience a mild case. It's actually it's I guess
what I'm trying to say is don't be freaked out.
It's very rare to get these extreme cases, Yes, statistics
are on your side, UM, and that's how it's treated
as well. In mild cases, it's treated sort of like
the flu. You get rest, you have a lot of fluids, UM,

(22:34):
you try to manage your fever, and generally in the
side of a couple of weeks, you will recover. In
mild cases, right, one of the problems that I saw
the chuck is that when the case becomes more advanced
and you have difficulty breathing, it's it's um. It just
kind of like reeks havoc on your lungs and the

(22:56):
air sax and your lungs avioli um start to become
damn it. And when they become damaged, they can very
easily get infected and filled with fluid, and then you
have pneumonia. And that's an entirely different co morbidity that
is um difficult to manage that that can kill you,
but also isn't necessarily going to kill you. But it's

(23:18):
it's another problem that they're finding can arise out of
a COVID nineteen infection. Yeah, I think uh Dave has
here down. The latest statistic is about one to three
percent of infections get to the secondary pneumonia, and if
that happens, you have what's called ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome.

(23:39):
And the scary part about ARDS is thirty of those
cases end up proving fatal. Right yeah, even if you
have ever been a later right um. And one of
the things that's kind of confounded people UM studying this
pandemic has been like that every once in a while,
a young, healthy person will will die from this, and

(23:59):
it's very puzzling. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
And I saw that there was a an article in
The Lancet from January that talked about a study that
found that in cases UM where people were severely ill,
they found what's called the cyto keine storm, which I
know we've talked about before, but basically, your body throws
everything it has at this infection, and it's actually an

(24:23):
overblown immune reaction, so so much so that your body
attacks its own organs and you can die from multiple
organ failure. Again, this is in the worst case scenarios,
but it does explain why some younger, healthy people have
mysteriously died from this. They think that it's their body
just overreacted to the to the illness yeah, and you know,

(24:46):
and I know that they have to report accurate findings.
But I think one of the things that is certainly
not helped um with the social distancing is the initial
news that, um, it's really only a problem if you're elderly,
are over a certain age. And so now that I mean,
since then, the messaging has been really ramped up on

(25:09):
millennials and younger people. Um. There's stories every day now
where younger people are like, hey, I've got it, this
is no joke. Please please, please don't take this lightly. Yeah,
I've seen some people doing making videos like that, and
and good for them for doing that. Um. Yeah, we
got a lot of things wrong early on in this
in this outbreak in the United States, for sure, Yes

(25:29):
you could say, you could say that. Um. One of
the other things I want to point out though, speaking
about numbers and statistics and everything, though, is that like
when we when we talk about like the rates of mortality,
which we'll talk about in a second, it's really important
to remember that, you know, even if the mortality rate
is as high as three percent, that means that of

(25:52):
people who get it recover. And one thing I've really
been heartened to see Chuck, is if just in the
last couple of days the news agency's have started to
report total cases, and then next to that are recoveries,
and then after that our deaths. It used to just
be total number of cases and deaths. Now there's a
big old bar in between those two. That's recovered people

(26:14):
who have gotten the the had come down with COVID
nineteen and have now recovered and are no longer ill. Yeah.
I mean the fatality rate is I've seen four percent, uh,
Dave has here um. Some people place it below one percent,
some above two. It's somewhere in that range. Uh. And

(26:35):
if you want to compare it to Stars, Stars had
a fatality rate of about ten percent UM, but it
was much more contained. So that's sort of the main
difference in what we're seeing here with COVID nineteen. Yeah.
The reason why no one can say at this point
what the fatality rate actually is, in part is because
the UM testing was so flubbed early on in the

(26:58):
United States that so few people were given tests the
results were skewed, right, So if you took a test
for COVID nineteen, the chances are you had such terrible
symptoms that you went to the hospital and they tested
you there. Well, that totally leaves out people who had

(27:18):
COVID nineteen but had those mild cases and didn't go
to the hospital and so they didn't get a test.
So this vast number of people who came down with
COVID nineteen and it was just like the flu or
the common cold, so that their numbers weren't added to this,
which makes the number of people who were tested and
then died really disproportionate to the actual numbers of people

(27:41):
who die when they have COVID nineteen, at least in
the United States and in South Korea, which is held
up as like this model for how to handle a
pandemic from this point forward. They had plentiful widespread testing
early on and throughout, and they took a lot of
really good containment measures. But because they had really good testing,

(28:04):
um it became clear that the fatality rate, at least
in South Korea, it was point seven percent, which is
still higher than a seasonal flu, which usually about point
one percent, but it's not nearly as high as, like
you said, four percent. So our our understanding of the
actual fatality rate is not it's not clear yet, but
it's probably not anywhere near as high as four percent. Yeah,

(28:28):
that's what the thinking is, um, and that you know,
the asymptomatic individuals, they are a simps, is what I
call them. That's another one of the scary parts about
it is it's hard to get accurate numbers on even
the number of people that have it because there could
be there could be people, uh, there could be far

(28:48):
more people that have it that just don't develop the
symptoms and are still spreading it because they think they're great. Right.
There an enormous problem. And that's one of the things.
I know we've talked about this before, but like a
worst case scenario for a virus is one that infects
a person but takes a while for symptoms to show up,
because like you said, they're a simps walking around infecting

(29:12):
everybody else because they can spread it um even though
they don't know they're sick yet. And by the way,
Chuck a Simps. Excellent band name, and I see them
all with matching man chi che haircuts, the whole, the
whole four or five piece band. Interesting the a Simps

(29:34):
manchy Chi was that sort of like, uh, I remember
the song ironically, but I can't picture They're they're little
fuzz heads, weren't they. They were. They were kind of
kind of like mop top, like the Beatles with their
matching haircuts. Early on, it was a little like that.
I guess, all right, are you saying the Beatles were
a simps the Yeah? I think that was their original

(29:56):
the original name with Pete Best in Hamburg. Wow. Uh,
all right, let's talk about how to how it spreads. Um.
You did mention earlier, but it bears repeating. Um. This
six foot rule is because you are most likely to
get infected by being sneezed around, being coughed around, and

(30:17):
getting those airborne droplets from an infected person. Even though
they do know now it can live on surfaces, and
they're they're rapidly trying to test how long it lives
on various types of surfaces, because that's that's a big,
big deal. Yeah. So, and I didn't know this. Um.
An infected surface is called a foe might Did you

(30:37):
know that? I don't think so. So. Grocery store cart
handle foue mic um potentially uh, plastic from a a glove.
Uh if it's a plastic glove, foe might it's a
foamte yeah, cardboard. Uh. I know that they're testing cardboard

(30:59):
a lot right now because a lot of people obviously
you're getting home deliveries now. And um, just quick little
non doctor recommendation from Dr Chuck. Here. When I get
a package, now, I go outside with my surgical gloves on.
I opened it on the front porch and I put
a firebomb in that cardboard box. Push it into the street.

(31:22):
Very smart said I don't bring that outer box inside
though at all. No, no, no, you send it down
the street a flame in a wheelchair like um Philip
Smore Hofman dragon Man. That was one of the creepier
images in movie history. I think it's great, especially when
he like hits the wall in like jerks back. Word

(31:44):
that it was great. Um. The the There was a
I think a N I H study that looked at
Foe mies. It found that in the air when somebody sneeze, sneezes,
or coughs into the air, that aerosolized um air or
air sulized virus sorry can can survive for three hours

(32:05):
in the air UM four hours on copper surfaces, twenty
four hours on cardboard, two to three days on plastic,
and stainless steel. Um. The thing is, this is really
reassuring because I too have been super worried about things
like boxes or touching grocery carts or anything like that.
The CDC says that up to this point, there have

(32:28):
been no documented cases of infection from foe mines. That's huge, man,
that's huge, because that means that if if you're not
around a sick person, at least up until this point,
at least documented wise, if you haven't been around somebody
who's sick, you haven't gotten it from touching something. And

(32:48):
that's a big thing that people have been talking about,
Like don't touch your face is one way to avoid
the spread, which we'll talk about, but don't touch your
face after not only like being around somebody, but don't
touch your face after touching a car or box or
touching a grocery cart or something like that, because it
could be a foam mic. But the idea that no
one has gotten sick yet from a foam mic I
found extraordinarily reassuring. Although it's not like we should go

(33:11):
get cocky now and you can just do whatever, but
I feel like I can relax a little bit, even
though I'm going to be just as vigilant, I can
be a little more relaxed about it. Yeah, I mean,
you're not gonna go start licking grocery cart handles like
you usually do. Man, some of the tastes I've discovered
or it's almost like it's like the impossible colors version

(33:33):
of tastes, and some some like almost something that HP
Lovecraft would had have trouble describing. Well, that's how you
discovered the new form of umami that had previously been undiscovered,
right right, jumanti um. And to be clear, to this
whole cardboard box on the porch thing and the surgical

(33:53):
gloves for me, um, that's a an abundance of caution,
just being like, you know, wide not just leave it
on the porch just because I don't know, and the
surgical gloves thing. And keep in mind, I really literally
haven't left the house in ten days, I don't think. Um.
But previous to that, I was wearing the gloves, like

(34:15):
when I had to run to the store to get
our stuff, just so I didn't have to sanitize my
steering wheel and my car door handle and everything like
that every single time I did anything. It's just smart, Yeah,
it's really hard to do too, Like if you're if
you think about it, you're you're like, wait, but I
need my hand to touch my credit card because but

(34:37):
then I need my gloved hand to punch in the
numbers for my zip code, and like it's like you
really have to be on point to keep up with it.
And even then you're just it's impossible to be perfect,
you know. Yeah, I mean we've been um again, we
haven't been out much at all, but when we have
had to be out, we're sanitizing our credit cards. When
we come back, we spray our door handle and you know,

(34:59):
not like Howard use level stuff, but just just trying
to be smart, right, although Howard hughes level stuff right
now is not not the worst idea, Like I have
Peenix boxes on my feet right now. No, no, no judgment,
of course. Um so, Chuck, we're talking about how it spreads. Um,
what actually happens with this virus is once somebody coughs

(35:19):
or sneezes or licks their hand and wipes a elevator
button or something with it. Um, it's it's that is
an infected surface. Although apparently people haven't gotten sick from
it yet but more often than not, apparently you're going
to get sick if you're around somebody who coughs or
sneezes and you get it from the aerosolized virus. When

(35:40):
that when that virus enters your body through your mouth,
your nose, or your eyes, it sets up shop um,
usually around in your throat, which is where that dry
cough starts um. And the reason that those those spiked
proteins that form the coronavirus is crown are there is
because that's how it interacts with the cell. And the

(36:02):
way that it interacts with the cell is through an
enzyme that's present on the outer membranes of most cells
in the human bodies, and this enzyme is called furin.
Furin I say furin fu r I N. Furin activates
that that protein spike, and that's how the virus can

(36:23):
pump its its genetic information into the cell, which hijacks
the cell's functions and says you're making copies of me now,
and then it just kind of spreads from there. And
this is why they think that the um that you
can get things like diarrhea like a cow or a pig,
or you can suffer multiple organ failure or it can

(36:45):
go after other stuff. Is because most of the organs
and systems in your body have cells that contain furin
on their outer envelopes, and so the the coronavirus UM
can can interact with just about any cell that has furin. Yeah,
and it makes me really uncomfortable for you to talk
about my outer envelopes and diarrhea and cows and pigs

(37:08):
in the same sentence. Yeah, it's all pretty bad. Uh.
The and you know we've talked about touching your face,
which is tough for me as a nail biter and
just general oral orally fixated individual. Um that six foot
distance Uh, disinfecting light switches and door knobs and countertops
surely doesn't hurt. And uh and I know everyone has

(37:30):
heard this a gazillion times, but we would be negligent
if we didn't talk about washing your hands with soap
and water hot water for at least twenty seconds. Um.
Pretend you're a surgeon, and you've seen shows about surgeons.
Just pretend like you're in the match camp and just
wash like they wash. There was no chance that we

(37:53):
were not going to reference match in this episode. I know, Uh,
they there's different songs like the ABC song or I
Don't want no scrubs. I guess you could sing like
a surgeon if you wanted to. Oh that's a good one,
but at least get in there for twenty seconds. We
have handwashing parties at my house several times a day,
even though we're not going out. We take our temperature

(38:15):
every morning, um as a family. And uh, you know,
because I took that trip to Philly, New York and
d C right as this was launching to see Bonnie
Prince Billy and uh you know, we went on two trains,
two planes Penn Station in New York for God's sake,
which is already the filthiest place on earth. And uh,

(38:39):
I was not freaking out, but I was definitely at
a higher risk than the rest of my family. So
I've been watching stuff. And tomorrow actually will be my
fourteen day, the end of my fourteen day window. So
unless something really happens overnight, then I feel pretty good. Man.
I'm glad to hear that. That's great. That's got to
be a big relief. It is, you know. I try

(39:02):
not to focus on it, but um, you know, my
wife and daughter didn't go to Penn station and didn't
eat a Philly chee steak at two in the morning,
you know, I know, and yet they could have suffered
for it, you know. Yeah. So, um, I think a
lot of people are counting down days. I know. You
me is from this past Thursday, which is the last

(39:23):
time her dad went out to get supplies, um from
the grocery store, and she's like nervously counting, accounting to
fourteen from from Thursday, just trying to will you know,
him not to get sick um. And I think that's
just kind of like it's everybody's got these these little
countdown clocks going on right now of their own. It's

(39:45):
just talk about like an anxious thing to do while
you're sitting around in your home, not not leaving, you know,
to pass right exactly. You're you're you're counting down the
days in the hopes that an illness doesn't pop up
in the meantime. Like what a strange, horrible thing for
everybody to be doing right now. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, we

(40:08):
should mention masks really quickly to uh. The c D
says there's no need to wear a mask unless you
are sick or you're caring from one for someone who's sick.
If you're healthy, if you're not sick, if you're keeping
yourself clean, masks aren't necessary. You shouldn't go out and
buy hundreds of these things. Um. I mean, I'm not

(40:29):
gonna judge in one. If they had some and they
want to wear them out, more power to you. Uh.
Some people say that they wear them to keep from
touching their face because they're really fixated, so that you
know there's something to that. But um, the rush on
buying things like surgical masks has um put a dent
in the medical supply chain, which is not cool. No,

(40:49):
And I have to say, like, I know we're not
getting political or whatever, but I've read a New York
Times article with with this guy. It was about masks
and the masks shortage, and there was this one man,
you factorer in Texas, who said, man, short of setting
myself on fire in front of the White House, I've
done everything I can to warn the government that we

(41:10):
are in a really precar precarious position. He said. I
told that the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and the
Trump administration that we rely on like of our medical
masks from overseas, and if a pandemic happens, we're gonna
be reliant on other countries who are dealing with their
own stuff to send us masks. And he said that's

(41:33):
even the case with American manufacturers who moved their operations
overseas for cheaper labor. And in fact, there's a company
that makes medical masks and it's an American company that
moved their jam to France, and France under this pandemic
said well, by the way, we've taken over your factory
and none of these masks are leaving France. You can't

(41:54):
send them anywhere. It's illegal there are though you're an
American company, this is in France, and we just Nash
realized everything. So, um, this guy has been warning any everybody.
I can't imagine what that's like to be to have
seen this coming so clearly, uh, and to to just
not be listened to, you know, because exactly what he
predicted his panned out. Oh boy, All right, well, let's

(42:16):
take another break and we'll talk about containing the spread.
Everyone's favorite two words these days social distancing and um,
a little bit more about COVID nineteen. Right after this
stuff you should know, Nash, stuff you should know. So

(42:53):
I just want to say, everybody, I think it's laughable.
Anyone including me who thought that I wasn't going to
get political at all in this episode. Well, you indicted
the past three administrations. So that's okay. That seems fair
and balanced, fair and balanced. So, uh, until we have

(43:14):
a vaccine, we can only contain COVID nineteen. It is
about twice as contagious as the seasonal flu. Yeah, that's
a big, big big deal. Yeah, it's very contagious. Um.
And like we said, the big fear right now obviously
is loss of life. But the real, real big fear
is that the medical system becomes overwhelmed and treatable infections

(43:38):
UM can become deadly because we don't have the resources
that we need. Right. So the in addition to social distancing,
if that one isn't the Oxford English Dictionaries word of
the year, oh yeah, then flattening the curve has got
to be. It's one of them. They're they're gonna tie
for first probably, and I we should probably blame what

(44:00):
flattening the curve is for like the three people who
aren't already familiar with it, shall we? Alright, so flattening
the curve is this idea that, um, we're going to
get x number of infections because this is a pandemic,
A lot of people are going to get infected by
coronavirus and become sick from it, right, But what we

(44:20):
can manage is the time scale that that number of
infections takes place over. So let's say we know that
an area is going to get just statistically speaking, a
thousand infections from this pandemic. It's way different to have
those thousands and thousand infections all at once over the
course of one week than it is to have that

(44:42):
same number of infections one thousand over the course of
ten weeks because of the strain that it puts a
medical staff and medical equipment. We have a limited amount
of of medical staff and medical equipment, and if they're
all called for at the same time, that's problem. But
we can reuse that medical staff, we can reuse that

(45:04):
medical equipment over the span of time. So a ventilator
can support two patients who need it for a week
each over the course of two weeks, but it can
only support one patient of those two if they need
it on the same week. So flattening the curve is
all about making this this this number of infections that
were surely going to see spread out over time rather

(45:26):
than happening all at once. And the main mechanism for
flattening the curve is social distancing, which is just stay
away from one another to cut down on that rate
of infection. Yeah, and you know what, we we try
to remain judgment free on the show and tell people
to live their life. But this is one instance where um,

(45:46):
if you are not social distancing, if you are going
out to bars and restaurants and having gatherings, then you're
doing a very very bad thing right now. You're doing
something extraordinarily selfish, full stop. And I know a lot
of people are like, well, I'm young, and it doesn't
doesn't it's not gonna get me. And even if it
does get me, I'm young and healthy, I'll be fine.

(46:06):
It will be like a cold. The problem is is
you're the same person who's going out in public and
then touching an elevator button and making that person sick.
Or if you're sick and you're out running around, you're coughing,
you're sneezing, you're being gross, and you're aerosolizing the air
with the virus. Which can stay via viable for three hours.
So you're getting other people sick, and those other people

(46:28):
might not survive that COVID nineteen case that you've given
them because they're not young and they're not healthy, and
the idea that that you're just flouting that that is
just it's I think maybe blood boiling is the right term. Yeah, it's.
It really really has been pretty upsetting to see, even

(46:50):
in my own super cool neighborhood where people seem to
do the right thing most times. Uh And on the
the neighborhood page is on Facebook, people are talking and
doing the right thing. But you know, even up until
like a few days ago, I was driving through my
little neighborhood area where the bars and restaurants are, and

(47:13):
some of them are still full of people, and I
just like, I want to, like I put a loud
speaker on top of my car like in uh and
oh jeez, why am I in Slacker in the Link
Ladder film and just drive around saying very bad things
to people in public. When I think allowed speakers in cars,
I think of Blues Brothers. Yeah that too, and that

(47:36):
was that was probably Slacker was probably stolen from that anyway,
did they use a cop car and slacker? No, it's
at the very beginning of slacker. There's this guy. Actually,
he probably in Steel because I think it was a
real dude in Austin that would just drive around sort
of preaching to the masses from inside of his car. Uh.
But we need that guy right now to get people
in their houses. Man. It's it's like it's a couple

(47:58):
of weeks. Just do it. Just it. It's it's easy,
especially for two guys who can continue to work from
home to say that. So I don't I don't want
to give the impression that we don't have any sympathy
and our hearts don't go out to people who who
do work at those bars and restaurants and need that
money to survive. And so staying at home, and if

(48:19):
everybody else stays at home like really deeply affects their
potential to hang in there and survive. Like like that's
not lost on us, That's not lost on anybody, I
don't think. And I think the thing that is the
most blood boiling or people who who are going out
and like not doing anything that that has any economic impact,

(48:41):
they're just being jerks. They're like playing basketball, or they're
just going to the beach, you know, like like that
kind of stuff is what drives me the most crazy. Yeah,
just knock it off. Um it had. The heartening thing
to see has been how many people are stepping up
to uh contribute to their local favorite restaurants and bars,

(49:05):
whether it's a go fund me or supporting their curbside pickups,
or or just then mowing your favorite uh server some money. Um,
that's happening all over the place to try and keep
people solvent while this is going on. But the big
picture is if we don't do this now, it's just
going to be more drawn out and people are going

(49:27):
to be more affected economically. Um, So the right thing
to do is just to shut it down for a
little while. That I mean, from everything I've seen, what
we're doing now, this kind of half hearted approach to
social distancing and quarantining. Like we're getting all of the
negative economic effects but little to none of the public

(49:50):
health benefits. So we're doing it in the exact possible
worst way right now. Yeah. I saw one doctor say
that if you could literally just a pause button. Yeah,
in the United States right now, there would be no
COVID nineteen in two weeks. Yeah, if we could freeze
everybody just six ft apart for fourteen days, the virus

(50:11):
would stop in its tracks. And we've seen this is
the thing. This isn't like conjecture, This isn't philosophy or
modeling or anything like that. This is based on what
we've seen in other countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, UM, China,
even UM Japan has done a really good job of
quarantining where they have they've they've basically figured out the

(50:35):
way to contain this is extensive and widespread testing for
the disease and then really strict and um uh really
well followed and meticulous social distancing and quarantining people taking
it seriously so that you can test the people to
see who have it um and and and isolate them,

(50:58):
quarantine them, treat them to keep them away from everybody else,
and test other people as as time goes on, so
that you can have people living a normal life because
they're not sick, and the people who are sick have
been identified and are being quarantined and isolated while they're
being treated. Yeah, I mean, it's it's very easy to

(51:18):
look at a place like Singapore and look at a
country like Italy, Um, who did not do it right
In America. Italy was just before us. UM. These are
two great examples of the difference that this can make.
As of today, Singapore has five and fifty eight cases,
and despite that, I just saw a new announcement today
that they are closing schools and closing entertainment venues just

(51:43):
because they're really trying to be super proactive and get
out in front of it. UM. Italy the infection the
infection rate was almost nothing throughout February, and then in
March it spiked to twenty five thousand new cases a
week two weeks later. This is uh, these are numbers

(52:05):
that should speak for themselves and you shouldn't have to
talk people into social distancing. Yet here we are, you
know it is. It's saddening. Um. The one other problem,
or I guess the big problem again is the idea
that if a lot of people become sick, if you
have a spike in cases like Italy saw, where it

(52:25):
suddenly goes up to twenty five thousand new cases a week,
a lot of those people have to be hospitalized, and
it stretches and over taxes and eventually overwhelms the health
care structure in the in in the country, and in
the United States, like every town has a brand new,
gleaming hospital and lots of doctors. But it turns out
if you look at the statistics, the United States has

(52:47):
a paltry number of hospital beds per one thousand people. Um,
we have two point eight hospital beds per one thousand people,
which even sounds small, but if you put it in context,
really small. Um. Japan and Korea have the most. They
have thirteen point one and twelve point three hospital beds

(53:07):
per thousand people. Next is Russia at eight point one,
in Germany at eight point oh, and then you go
there's a lot of countries in between Germany and the
United States, which finally pops up with two point eight
hospital beds per one thou people. The problem is that's
just hospital beds. That's just a bed to put people,
and that's not specialized hospital beds, like people with a

(53:29):
bad case of COVID nineteen frequently need like an I
see you bed, And so already in the United States,
in hard hit areas like New York, we're starting to see, um,
I see you rooms that were meant to hold one
patient starting to be tripled and quadrupled up with patients
who all have COVID nineteen um, and just to just

(53:51):
to try to give them the the advanced level of
care that they need. Um, because we don't have enough beds.
And so that's why that that not social distancing. Why
just going out and carrying on like nothing's going on
is just such a ridiculously arrogant thing to do at

(54:12):
a time like this. Yeah, And I feel like every
day it's gotten a little bit better. Um, Like you
really have to be pretty uh selfish and um, what's
the word. There's a word that I can't say on
the air for when you've got a lot of gumption

(54:33):
to do something despite everyone's saying you shouldn't. Guts not
guts because that impites bravery. Nerve there you go. Yeah,
Like as of today when we're recording this, which is
two days before release, if you're still out doing things
like that now, then you really have got a special
brand of nerve. Yeah. And and and conversely too, we

(54:55):
should point out to self quarantine is a gift. That's
a gift you're giving other people. Nobody's telling there's no
martial law, you're not going to be shot on site
or arrested or whatever if you leave your house if
you've been exposed to COVID nineteen. But the official guidelines
from the CDC and the World Health Organization is, if
you know you've been around somebody who has tested positive

(55:15):
for COVID nineteen, they ask you to self quarantine for
fourteen days, because fourteen days is the longest as far
as we know that it takes for symptoms to show up.
That's why people are counting down fourteen days. Right. So
if you hang out by yourself, isolated away from everybody
else like you were doing for fourteen days, and you
don't get sick, you don't have COVID and you're not

(55:36):
spreading it, you're not you're not a risk factor any longer.
So but to to stop your life and to say
I'm not going outside because i don't want to risk
other people getting sick because I'm not sure if I
have it or not, that is an enormous gift to
give to people. And I mean, it's what you did. Um.
My friends Mitch and Patrick, you know dirty Mitch from

(55:57):
the scabies episode. He he and his husband Patrick were
um exposed to somebody with COVID nineteen. They have no
idea if they had it or not. But the first
thing they did was self quarantine, and they just committed
to giving up fourteen days of their life of going outside,
of interacting with other people, of doing whatever, just because
they didn't know, in part because testing is not widely

(56:19):
available in the United States. So this is the alternative.
It's on It's on us to to make that decision
in that choice, and it is a really kind thing
to do. So hats off to YouTube Chuck for doing that. Well,
hats off to everyone doing the right thing. Um, and
you're right, unless you're rich and famous, it can be
hard to get a test right now, which is another problem.
But we're not going to go down that rabbit hole either. Uh. Well,

(56:43):
we've been at it for close to an hour. Maybe
let's wrap up with some talk of vaccine. Um. Obviously,
a vaccine is the ultimate end goal for all this.
There are a lot of organizations working all over the
world rapidly trying to develop and test vaccines. The National
Institute of Health, Walter Reid, Army Institute of Research, and

(57:06):
countless others are trying. Um. They apparently there. The government
is trying to cut a lot of red tape to
speed things up, but it's still has to go through
clinical trials. You can't just rush rush something to market,
as much as everyone would like that, and it could
take a long time, could take up to a year

(57:27):
to get results of these trials. I saw that the
NIH vaccine trials could could be in full swing by
the fall. UM and that one has promised UM the
m A m RNA DASH twelve seven three because it
was being developed for MERS, so they kind of had
a head start. Remember, MERS is a type of novel coronavirus,
so they're like, this might work for this UM this

(57:50):
stars Cove two coronavirus. Will we'll find out UM, So
hopefully by the fall that one might be UM just banging,
who knows, that's what we need as a banging, robust vaccine.
Lots of chains, gold chains, and I swagger to it,

(58:10):
just banging. Yeah, and I and I don't think this
is getting too political, although it is a little bit.
But I just did a little last minute research and
found out, you know, there's this drug called what's the
name of it, no uh rim desivere. So this is
not um f D A approof for COVID nineteen. It's

(58:33):
still got to go through the clinical trials, but it
has been used as an emergency emergency measure to treat
a couple of cases seemingly effectively. Uh. And they're expecting
some results from a trial in April. Uh. And I
just learned yesterday. I just kind of dug into, uh
this this drug. Yesterday the f d A granted the

(58:54):
company who makes a Guilelead Sciences UM orphan drug status.
And this is from the nineteen eight three Orphan Drug Act,
which is meant for rare diseases only. UM. Coronavirus or
COVID nineteen is obviously not it's speeding up to not
be a rare disease. But there's a little loophole in
that Orphan Drug Act if you get exclusivity, which is

(59:18):
what happened. They granted them exclusivity, uh, for to profit
exclusively for seven years on this drug. If you if
you get that in and that designation in before it
hits that two hundred thousand person threshold, which means it's
not a rare disease anymore, then it sticks. And so
yesterday the FDA granted Gilly Head Sciences Um exclusivity for

(59:40):
seven years, which obviously the fear there is that it
could lead to a block on supplies for generic versions.
It could be super expensive. And at the end of
this article that I read, I found out that a
man named Joe Grogan, who serves on the White House
Task Force for Coronavirus Um, lobbied for gilly Head Sciences
from two thousand eleven to two thousands seventeen, which is

(01:00:02):
always a little bit concerning. And these are the guys
who have come up with an anti viral drug that
has shown promise to treat COVID nineteen. That's right, and
they have now as of yesterday, been granted that seven
year window to profit exclusively UM and block potentially block
generic suppliers for making this. And here's the real kicker,
here's the cherry on the rotten cherry on top, is

(01:00:25):
that they were developing this for ebola, so it was
developed with seventy nine million dollars of taxpayer money and
now they have been granted exclusive status for seven years.
That's almost as much of a bedtime story as hearing
about senators who were briefed about the pandemic and then
went and sold all of their um, sold a bunch

(01:00:47):
of stock before the stock market crashed without telling anybody
about it, while also downplaying the pandemic too. Yeah, send
them to jail, Send them to jail. There was a
time in this country, it wasn't long ago, were people
who did that were stripped of any honor. We're basically
drummed out of out of town on a rail by

(01:01:09):
irate citizens. There was a time in this country. So man,
that was Grandpa Clark all the way. It's right, I
suddenly just grew um patches on my elbows. They think
cardigans about a sprout out of him. Team. Before we
wrap up, I would like just to know your biggest

(01:01:29):
fear and all this, what has been your biggest fear? Um?
Loved ones dying? That's my that's my biggest fear, um.
I think you know, economics is a huge one. I'm
I'm really scared about that in the long lasting effects
people losing their jobs and and just the setbacks that

(01:01:49):
comes from that. But ultimately people, people, people I love
and care about, dying, especially unnecessarily, you know, like the
idea that that we could have done some things differently
and there would have been abundant medical care. That's that's
my greatest fear. What about yours, Well, I've seen in

(01:02:10):
too many movies about like domino effect type things, so
my I mean obviously worried about friends and loved ones,
But my biggest fear has been worst case scenarios, which
is everything from uh, the U. S. Military getting a
large outbreak and somebody like I don't know, another hostile

(01:02:33):
country saying, now's a great chance. Jeez, Chuck, I didn't
even thought about that, or um medical personnel or police forces,
um things getting disrupted so much with our health professionals,
or are people who keep us safe that that things
become really scary on a citizen level. So like people

(01:02:55):
are what scare me? Yeah, and it becoming like the
urge or something like that, Right, that's what scares me.
That's great, that's great. That was a good one to
end on, Chuck, because I mean, the whole reason this
episode was to reassure people and then just pull the
rug right out from under him at the last minute.
But you know what, Having said that, I'm always consistently

(01:03:17):
reminded of the ability and the will of not only
Americans but human beings to do the right thing, and
the vast, vast majority of people will come together and
not um not going to attack mode. Yeah, I I
totally I believe that. I think that that UM people
are generally good overall, UM, And there are definitely bad

(01:03:38):
people out there, but I think the good ones out
number them, and when pushed against the wall, the good
ones can fight back pretty effectively. Also Also, I mean
that kind of raises another point too that I found.
It's it's really easy to just kind of let your
mind run away and focus on all of the terrible
stuff that can happen or all of the terrible stuff
that is happening, UM, and you kind of have to

(01:04:03):
you have to exercise your mind to not do that.
You have to stay on top of it and remind
yourself that you can also just as easily think positively too,
And you've got to try to do that in times
like these, for sure, and in times like these that
make it sound like this happens every couple of years
or something like this is definitely monumental and historic and

(01:04:23):
and once in a lifetime hopefully. Yeah. One other thing,
if you think that you might have COVID nineteen, I
found there's a self triage tool. UM. They say that
if you think you have it, you should call your doctor,
your hospital nine on one and and say I think
I have COVID nineteen. There's an online tool now at
g E h R C O V I D T

(01:04:45):
R I A G E dot A K I D
O L A B S dot com, gare COVID triage
dot Akito labs dot com. And it's just basically a
questionnaire that says, hey, this isn't a diagnosed this, but
this might this might give you clearer, um, a clear
view into whether you're just sitting there freaking yourself out

(01:05:07):
or else. If this this is actually something you might
need to call your doctor or your hospital about. Right.
Good stuff. Uh, And hopefully all of this will be
a weird distant memory not too far from now. And
since I said that it's time for a listener mail, yeah,
you know what I think. Instead of listener mail on

(01:05:29):
this one, let's just encourage people to be kind of
one another, be cautious, be smart, UM, help out someone
in need if you can, and just hang in there.
I know we have listeners right now that that have
COVID nineteen. UM. Statistically that's uh, that's just got to
be the case. So be well and please take care
of one another. Yep, and think positive. Everybody think positive. Right.

(01:05:53):
If you want to get in touch of this while
you're hanging out socially distancing, being responsible, you can send
us an e mail. You can wrap it up, spank
it on the bottom, maybe wipe it off with some
lightsol wipes or something first, and send it to Stuff
podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know

(01:06:14):
is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H