May 6, 2020 • 19 mins
States around the country are beginning to get their army of coronavirus detectives ready to work. In California specifically, the state has teamed up with two universities to train more than 3,000 employees per week to become contact tracers. A robust system of contact tracing will be crucial for states to manage the spread of the virus as they reopen and one estimate says that the country needs 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 people. Rachel Becker, reporter at CAL Matters, joins us for more.
Next, the current lockdown has turned the nation’s highways into speedways. With less cars on the road, people are driving faster than ever, leading to increases of tickets issued for people driving over 100 mph. In some areas, officials are even closing some streets to allow for residents to move more freely. Jim Carlton, reporter at the WSJ, joins us for the open roads.
Finally, murder hornets are a thing, but they’re most likely not coming for you. The Asian giant hornet looks fearsome and can grow to nearly two inches with a stinger a quarter of an inch long. But while these hornets can pack a venomous punch, they mostly target honeybees and have only been spotted in Washington State last December. Sara Kiley Watson, editorial assistant at Popular Science, joins us for what to know about murder hornets.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Wednesday, May six. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles
and this is the daily dive. States around the country
are beginning to get their army of coronavirus detectives ready
to work. In California, specifically, the state has teamed up
with two universities to train more than three thousand employees
(00:20):
per week to become contact tracers. The robust system of
contact tracing will be crucial for states to manage the
spread of the virus as they reopened, and one estimate
says that the country needs thirty contact tracers or every
one thousand people. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters, joins
us for more. Next, the current lockdown has turned the
(00:40):
nation's highways into speedways. With less cars on the road,
people are driving faster than ever, leading to increases of
tickets issued for people driving over on pro hour. In
some areas, officials are even closing some streets to allow
for residents to move more freely. Jim Carlton, reporter at
The Wall Street Journal, joins us for the roads. Finally,
(01:01):
murder hornets are a thing, but they're most likely not
coming for you. The Asian giant hornet looks fearsome and
can grow to nearly two inches with a stinger a
quarter of an inch long. But while these hornets can
pack a venomous punch, they mostly target honeybee and have
only been spotted in Washington State last December. Sarah Kylie Watson,
editorial Assistant and Popular Science joins us for what to
(01:24):
know about murder hornets. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in a virtual academy for a recruitment effort and
training effort for new tracers. These are simply disease detectives.
Joining us now is Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters.
Thanks for joining us, Rachel, thanks for having me. I
(01:46):
wanted to talk about the army of coronavirus detectives needed
to reopen states. We're gonna talk about California specifically, but
really this is something that's going to be happening across
the country. States need to get a robust sist of
contact tracing in order to help limit the spread of
coronavirus once things start getting back open and once the
(02:06):
economy start moving again. So Rachel tell us a little
bit about the plan that California is going through because
they're using the University of California, Los Angeles and the
University of California, San Francisco to help train a bunch
of workers. Tell us about it. So, California has been
doing contact tracing already at the local level. So the
(02:27):
sixty one city and county public health departments have been
conducting contact tracing for forever. It's a it's a cornerstone
of public health for tuberculosis, for s t I s
sexually transmitted infections, and for the novel coronavirus. But as
the coronavirus keeps spreading, it's really taxed their existing staff.
(02:48):
Some have managed to lean on county employees to help
with contact tracing, but yesterday Governor Gavin Newsom announced that
California will be kind of stepping up to help as
well with what he called a training academy from the
University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California,
San Francisco. And this trading academy will provide twelve hours
(03:11):
of online instruction eight hours of in person instruction to
redeployed state employees in large part to help with contact tracing,
and the local health departments in the state can request help,
and then they'll be assigned contact tracers that are part
of this new workforce. And we've talked about this before,
(03:32):
contact tracing and kind of the attitude and a person
needed to be able to do all this stuff. It
is kind of a challenging job to call somebody cold
calls a lot of times and then convince them, let's say,
if they're positive or they come in contact with somebody
that's positive, to stay home for two weeks. It could
be a pretty challenging job. It requires really a lot
of people's skills. I was talking to one disease control
(03:56):
branch chief in Riverside County and she said it can
take multiple phone calls to really build enough trust to
reconstruct someone's string of contact. Sometimes people will call the
public health department to verify that the phone called they
received as in fact public health contact tracer and not
a scam. And it can take multiple interviews to really
(04:16):
have someone trust enough to disclose whom they might have encountered.
That trust is so important because having people willing to
talk about whom they might have exposed is really key
to identifying the chain of viral transmission that could continue
to spread without identifying testing and isolating folks who may
(04:36):
have been exposed. So other public health folks I've talked
to have really emphasized the need to ensure that there
is wage replacement and paid sickly. So people are willing
to be tested and willing to name folks that they
might have exposed without worrying that they're going to be
out of work themselves or that they're going to put
their friends, their families, and their co workers out of work. Also,
(04:58):
I'm reading that this new online training program that they're
going to be working on is going to help standardize
the contact tracing statewide, which is great. I think if
a lot of people working off that same platform, it's
going to just help. And then it's also gonna sync
up with the California's existing digital disease surveillance platform. So
all this stuff to help everybody kind of streamlined the
whole thing. And I spoke with a local public health
(05:21):
department officially yesterday who hadn't yet seen the training program
at the state as far as I know, has not
released any examples of what the training will look like.
But the idea that this public health department officer was
so excited about was that This means that this whole
core of contact tracers will be trained the same way,
and so you won't have differences in approaches across the
(05:44):
state for those who are kind of pitching in at
the local level. Everybody will have the same level of expertise.
And then this data management platform, again very little detail
has been released from the state, but it's supposed to
sync up with the existing disease surveillance system already, and
so what I've heard, and again we don't know this
(06:04):
for sure yet, but what I've heard is that this
can import information from cal ready, so it's kind of
a seamless transition. So if you get a positive test
result reported on cal ready, it should be able to
sync up with this new contact tracing platform. I've also
heard excitement about the fact that this contact tracing platform
(06:24):
will be statewide, which means that it'll be easier to
follow cases and contacts that cross county lines, which as
we see the state opening back up, will certainly occur
more and more. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters, thank
you very much for joining us. Thanks for inviting me.
(06:49):
So he goes from like nothing like you know, sup,
pulpt of boulevard in al Fagundo, which I'm sure you
know usually has packed, and he'll go over and as
like nothing at all as it goes down, and then
he'll go to finding somebody going to Hunter was an
hour down the four or five. Joining us now is
Jim Carlton, reporter for the Wall Street Journal based out
of San Francisco. Thanks for joining us, Jim. Good to
be with you, Astar. I wanted to talk about one
(07:10):
of these side effects of what's going down with all
these shutdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic. I'm sure a
lot of people have noticed that the highways and roads
have turned into these kind of speedways a lot of times.
This might be changing now is some of the states
are starting to reopen. I just know anecdotally. I live
here in Los Angeles. There are moments where there is
(07:31):
a little traffic and you're like, hey, isn't everybody's supposed
to be home? But you notice these moments when people
are rolling down the road hundred miles an hour. You
see it all over the place. And beyond that, even
the traffic reporters here in big cities have to get
pretty creative with how they cover the traffic because it's
changed completely. Jim tell us a little bit about it.
It's just amazing. And in fact, you mentioned traffic reporters
(07:53):
right there. You're not because it was Rick Dicker. He's
the with ktd V Fox. I love the flies around
as sky Fox helicopter, and I talked to him and
he said that, so he goes from like nothing like
you know, so Pulpica Boulevard in El Segundo, which I'm
sure you know usually has packed, and he'll go over
and as like nothing at all. So he goes down
and then he'll go to finding somebody going on a
hundred miles an hour down the four or five. And
(08:14):
he actually has started a segment called Speeder of the
Day and where he'll take the Skypox and he'll like
clock him from his helicopter going like a hundred hundred ton,
So you make Speeder of the Day. So that but
it's yeah, so obvious because the highways are wide open
all across America. People are using them speedways just like
you said. You know, I do this podcast for I
Heart Radio, but I'm associated with the local radio station
(08:35):
out here, and we had to talk to our traffic
reporters on our people in the air as well. When
this was starting, how are we going to change our
coverage because there is no traffic, so we're thinking of
things like, well, if there's like a costco that has
a huge line, maybe they can do a flyover and
just kind of do an eye in the sky. Report
of that, we had to change our tactics because of
the traffic was so different now. But back to the road.
(08:55):
California Highway Patrols they said statewide during this time they
have had to issue overd citations for drivers going over
one hundred miles an hour. That's crazy. I was prised
with that statistic when I talk to them. I've seen that,
you know. I talked to an HP officer up in Vallejo, California.
He said that they just got somebody for going a
hundred and fifty miles an hour, and I was surprised.
(09:18):
I mean, I guess intuitively it makes sense, but thinking
is ASCO there's people speeding more, but the c HP
has fewer people in cats, so I think, actually, your
odds are getting a take aer actually much higher now. Yeah, yeah,
they're looking for you, you know, I mean just kind
of anecdotally. Again, I just see a lot of cops
out I think maybe they were always there, but now
that since there's less cars, you noticed them a little
bit more. So you've got to be careful. The police
(09:39):
enforcement is still out there. And I wanted to move
into San Francisco, back into your territory a little bit.
It said that the fallen traffic there has been about
n LA is probably not much everybody. Yeah, Sam's just
like you know, there's a lot that contributes to that too.
I think there's local officials are actually closing down roads
so that things are more accessible to people. In Oakland.
(10:00):
I think they close about ten percent of their roads
out there. That's a lot of roads to seventy four miles, right,
And what's happening because of that, the skateboarders, there's a
lot of people walking around or they're kind of taking away.
I mean, it's it's actually pretty interesting when you talk
about it, because there's one place called the Great Highway.
It's like our pH and it goes along the ocean
and normally there's a lot of traffic, but they close
(10:22):
off two miles and now it's like every day there's
bicycles skateboards. That saw a guy on a unit cycle
the other day. Uh, and there's some other streets all
over San Francisco and Oakland. In Oakland, I saw on
Twitter there was a woman who put on a dance
party with her a couple of other parents, and like
three little toddlers rocking out to this dance party in
the middle of the street. So I mean, I mean
(10:43):
kind of humans are reclaiming the streets, some pedestrians, bicyclist,
and it's gonna be interesting to you know, see how
this is going forward. So how do officials and law
enforcement respond to that when people are gathering like that?
You know, down over here in southern California, we're having
an issue where people are going out to local beaches
too much. That's why the governor had to close down
some beaches in Orange County. Is there any of that
(11:04):
going on at their local enforcement having to get involved?
Not to the same degree, but I mean I think that,
for example, Ocean Beach is pretty well socially distanced and
so it's not too bad. But I mean it's more
kind of like an admonishment. It's not like what we
see another person of the country, like New York City.
I think, you know, social media is kind of filled
with images of officers kind of strong arming people that
(11:25):
weren't social distancing, right. But I mean, I think you know,
this whole thing with the road, though Oscar is just amazing,
another thing is just the animals. The animals have to retaken.
I mean, there's like a gaggle of geese going down
the Laws Vegas trip and Grand Rappa's Michigan. They had
a herd of deer like I had taken over a road.
You know, there's a guy kind of waiting patiently beyond
like und deer. And while some of that can be
(11:46):
nice and cute and fun and all, I mean, there
are some dangers to it. In Contra Coasta County you
wrote about in your article, there was car racing side shows,
or people are doing donuts and racing up and down
the highway and officials are warning them this is very dangerous,
don't do this. In fact, I just noticed in my
own neighborhood in San Francisco, I noticed like fresh tracks
where people have been doing donuts. And I guess it
(12:07):
is a dream if you're a speed demon. Now and
now is the time, man, Now is the time I
interviewed somebody for this article, and so he was kurt
chased on and he lives in Orangeville, California, which is
their Sacramento. And he told me that his f one
fifties super cab a few weeks ago, and he said
he's going up close to hundred miles an hour ago
to an RV camping site. Normally it's about a two
hour drive and traffic on the I five, and this
(12:28):
time it took him under an hour. Everybody's got to
be careful. The roads are a little lighter right now,
but still you gotta practice safety the way you would
at any time of the year, regardless of circumstances. So
we'll have to keep saying how this develops. Jim Carleton,
reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much
for joining us. There's a pleasure, thank you. One of
(12:56):
these big hornets carries more venom than a little honey
be or something that also can have a pretty ouch,
you know, sting. But these guys, they aren't really going
after humans. They are a predator to honeybees. Joining us
now with Sarah Kylie Watson, editorial assistant at Popular Science.
Thanks for joining us, Sarah, thank you so much for
(13:17):
having me. I wanted to talk about murder hornets coming
back from the weekend. It was one of those stories
that everybody was kind of talking about, saying, oh, great,
we're going through this coronavirus pandemic and now we have
murder hornets to worry about. Actually, once you dig a
little deeper into what's actually happening, it's not really something
we have to worry about in our everyday lives. It
(13:39):
is a concern, especially to the honey bee population, but
it's not something that's gonna attack people walking around through
the streets when they're taking their dog for a walk
or going for a jog or something like that. So, Sarah,
we wanted to talk about these murder hornets. Tell us
what they actually are, and then we'll get into some
other angles on it. These murder hornets are actually Asian
(14:00):
aunt hornets. They come from places like Japan, and they
are pretty big. That's one of those things that makes
them so newsworthy is that they can be like two
inches long and they have a stinger up about a
core of an inch lan And they were spotted actually
the end of last year, December nineteen at two spots
in Washington State, so that's kind of where this all started.
(14:23):
They definitely have that murder look. They have these big,
huge faces, they got these orange and black stripes that
make them look really scary, and they do have venom.
They usually attack in groups, and they can give somebody
a pretty toxic dose of venom. I think they say
it could be equivalent to that of a venomous snake
in a series of stings can be fatal, but in
(14:45):
Japan they maybe kill about fifty people in a year.
And as you mentioned, this story kind of originates last year,
and a lot of this news came from the New
York Times piece that they wrote over the weekend, and
the story is really about how we're rushing to stop
them from basically making an establishment here, from basically establishing
(15:05):
their presence in the United States. So it's not so
much that they're all over the place. It was just
a story about this happened last fall and we're kind
of looking on how to stop it. So tell us
a little bit more about how they operate. These are again,
very large hornets, and the reason why they are so
venomous is because of their size. You've got to think
(15:26):
about it like one of these big hornets carries more
venom than a little honeybee or something that also can
have a pretty ouch, you know, sting. But these guys,
they aren't really going after humans. They are a predator
to honey bees, and so what they do is when
they spy a bee colony, they market and then they
(15:47):
go back and as a group kind of take over
the colony, kill the honeybees and end up using their
larva to feed their own young. So obviously that's not
good for honeybee populations retally since they're not used to
these types of hornets in the United States or in Washington,
so they can reach havoc on a honey bee colony,
(16:09):
especially one that's not prepared for them. And even when
they were spotted in Washington last year, there weren't that
many that they found, right, So, I think they found
two separate spottings that were verified, and I think there
might have been a couple that weren't verified or weren't
ever confirmed. So it's not like they're everywhere. There's been
a couple of spottings, and of course it's still a
(16:31):
concern because we're not used to them in this part
of the world, but it's not like they're popping up
everywhere in the United States or that they're quickly traveling
to other parts. And one of the things that you
wrote about in your article two is that honey bees
could fight back. Maybe not ours because they're not used
to these huge Asian hornets being around so often, so
they maybe haven't developed the mechanism to fight back. But
(16:54):
some Asian bees do a thing called heat bawling so
that they can fight back on these guys. How does
that work? The bees that have kind of co evolved
with them in Japan and other parts of Asia, what
they do to fight back against these big hornets as
they kind of bowl up around them and as a team,
these honey bees kind of shiver their wings or their
(17:14):
flight muscles, and that heats up where the hornet is,
so that raises the temperature inside that ball to over
a hundred degrees fahrenheit. Also kind of overwhelms the hornet
with he O two, which simultaneously cooks and chokes the hornet.
And the honey bees that we have here are not
used to these massive hornets, so they don't have this mechanism,
(17:38):
which makes them even more susceptible to being targeted. So,
going just back to how everybody was so worried about
this is not really something that we have to worry about.
This is a concern obviously for the honeybee population, and
we don't want them to set roots in here. You
mentioned in your article too that they most likely hitchhiked
on a cargo ship from Asia to the Pacific think
(18:00):
or sometimes people bring them here to cultivate them as
a food source. We don't know officially how they got here,
but it makes sense with an international economy that sometimes
when you're shipping things all over the world, that a
couple of animals might hitchhike all over the place. They
aren't known in some points to be eaten. But again,
we don't know for sure how they got here, so
(18:22):
we don't know if someone brought them in to cultivate them,
but it's probably more likely that they hitch hiked on
some kind of shipping vessel. Yeah, and as I mentioned,
coming back from the weekend, you're hearing stories. I guess
there was a few people that have gotten stung by
these and they said it felt like red hot thumb
tacks being driven into your flesh. You get scared, you
think something crazy is going to happen, especially in kind
(18:43):
of these unprecedented crazy times that we're going through right now.
But for the most part, nothing really to worry about.
The murder hornets is just another good story prime for
what we're going through right now. If you see a
giant bee or a giant hornet, just don't chase after it.
And at your local agricultural folks. Now, I'm glad you
brought that up. That's an important thing to know. If
(19:04):
you do see an extra large hornet, something like that,
something that just doesn't look like it belongs where it
is contracted local agriculture department and then they can handle
it from there. So very good tip right there. Sarah
Kylie Watson, editorial Assistant and Popular Science, thank you very
much for joining us. Thank you again for having me.
(19:29):
That's it for today. Join us on social media at
Dailey Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram, Leave us
a comment, give us a rating, and tell us the
stories that you're interested in. Follow us and I Heart Radio,
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This episode of
The Daily Dive was produced by Victor Wright and engineered
by Tony Sarrantino. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this was your
(19:51):
daily dive.
It's Wednesday, May six. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles
and this is the daily dive. States around the country
are beginning to get their army of coronavirus detectives ready
to work. In California, specifically, the state has teamed up
with two universities to train more than three thousand employees
(00:20):
per week to become contact tracers. The robust system of
contact tracing will be crucial for states to manage the
spread of the virus as they reopened, and one estimate
says that the country needs thirty contact tracers or every
one thousand people. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters, joins
us for more. Next, the current lockdown has turned the
(00:40):
nation's highways into speedways. With less cars on the road,
people are driving faster than ever, leading to increases of
tickets issued for people driving over on pro hour. In
some areas, officials are even closing some streets to allow
for residents to move more freely. Jim Carlton, reporter at
The Wall Street Journal, joins us for the roads. Finally,
(01:01):
murder hornets are a thing, but they're most likely not
coming for you. The Asian giant hornet looks fearsome and
can grow to nearly two inches with a stinger a
quarter of an inch long. But while these hornets can
pack a venomous punch, they mostly target honeybee and have
only been spotted in Washington State last December. Sarah Kylie Watson,
editorial Assistant and Popular Science joins us for what to
(01:24):
know about murder hornets. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in a virtual academy for a recruitment effort and
training effort for new tracers. These are simply disease detectives.
Joining us now is Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters.
Thanks for joining us, Rachel, thanks for having me. I
(01:46):
wanted to talk about the army of coronavirus detectives needed
to reopen states. We're gonna talk about California specifically, but
really this is something that's going to be happening across
the country. States need to get a robust sist of
contact tracing in order to help limit the spread of
coronavirus once things start getting back open and once the
(02:06):
economy start moving again. So Rachel tell us a little
bit about the plan that California is going through because
they're using the University of California, Los Angeles and the
University of California, San Francisco to help train a bunch
of workers. Tell us about it. So, California has been
doing contact tracing already at the local level. So the
(02:27):
sixty one city and county public health departments have been
conducting contact tracing for forever. It's a it's a cornerstone
of public health for tuberculosis, for s t I s
sexually transmitted infections, and for the novel coronavirus. But as
the coronavirus keeps spreading, it's really taxed their existing staff.
(02:48):
Some have managed to lean on county employees to help
with contact tracing, but yesterday Governor Gavin Newsom announced that
California will be kind of stepping up to help as
well with what he called a training academy from the
University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California,
San Francisco. And this trading academy will provide twelve hours
(03:11):
of online instruction eight hours of in person instruction to
redeployed state employees in large part to help with contact tracing,
and the local health departments in the state can request help,
and then they'll be assigned contact tracers that are part
of this new workforce. And we've talked about this before,
(03:32):
contact tracing and kind of the attitude and a person
needed to be able to do all this stuff. It
is kind of a challenging job to call somebody cold
calls a lot of times and then convince them, let's say,
if they're positive or they come in contact with somebody
that's positive, to stay home for two weeks. It could
be a pretty challenging job. It requires really a lot
of people's skills. I was talking to one disease control
(03:56):
branch chief in Riverside County and she said it can
take multiple phone calls to really build enough trust to
reconstruct someone's string of contact. Sometimes people will call the
public health department to verify that the phone called they
received as in fact public health contact tracer and not
a scam. And it can take multiple interviews to really
(04:16):
have someone trust enough to disclose whom they might have encountered.
That trust is so important because having people willing to
talk about whom they might have exposed is really key
to identifying the chain of viral transmission that could continue
to spread without identifying testing and isolating folks who may
(04:36):
have been exposed. So other public health folks I've talked
to have really emphasized the need to ensure that there
is wage replacement and paid sickly. So people are willing
to be tested and willing to name folks that they
might have exposed without worrying that they're going to be
out of work themselves or that they're going to put
their friends, their families, and their co workers out of work. Also,
(04:58):
I'm reading that this new online training program that they're
going to be working on is going to help standardize
the contact tracing statewide, which is great. I think if
a lot of people working off that same platform, it's
going to just help. And then it's also gonna sync
up with the California's existing digital disease surveillance platform. So
all this stuff to help everybody kind of streamlined the
whole thing. And I spoke with a local public health
(05:21):
department officially yesterday who hadn't yet seen the training program
at the state as far as I know, has not
released any examples of what the training will look like.
But the idea that this public health department officer was
so excited about was that This means that this whole
core of contact tracers will be trained the same way,
and so you won't have differences in approaches across the
(05:44):
state for those who are kind of pitching in at
the local level. Everybody will have the same level of expertise.
And then this data management platform, again very little detail
has been released from the state, but it's supposed to
sync up with the existing disease surveillance system already, and
so what I've heard, and again we don't know this
(06:04):
for sure yet, but what I've heard is that this
can import information from cal ready, so it's kind of
a seamless transition. So if you get a positive test
result reported on cal ready, it should be able to
sync up with this new contact tracing platform. I've also
heard excitement about the fact that this contact tracing platform
(06:24):
will be statewide, which means that it'll be easier to
follow cases and contacts that cross county lines, which as
we see the state opening back up, will certainly occur
more and more. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters, thank
you very much for joining us. Thanks for inviting me.
(06:49):
So he goes from like nothing like you know, sup,
pulpt of boulevard in al Fagundo, which I'm sure you
know usually has packed, and he'll go over and as
like nothing at all as it goes down, and then
he'll go to finding somebody going to Hunter was an
hour down the four or five. Joining us now is
Jim Carlton, reporter for the Wall Street Journal based out
of San Francisco. Thanks for joining us, Jim. Good to
be with you, Astar. I wanted to talk about one
(07:10):
of these side effects of what's going down with all
these shutdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic. I'm sure a
lot of people have noticed that the highways and roads
have turned into these kind of speedways a lot of times.
This might be changing now is some of the states
are starting to reopen. I just know anecdotally. I live
here in Los Angeles. There are moments where there is
(07:31):
a little traffic and you're like, hey, isn't everybody's supposed
to be home? But you notice these moments when people
are rolling down the road hundred miles an hour. You
see it all over the place. And beyond that, even
the traffic reporters here in big cities have to get
pretty creative with how they cover the traffic because it's
changed completely. Jim tell us a little bit about it.
It's just amazing. And in fact, you mentioned traffic reporters
(07:53):
right there. You're not because it was Rick Dicker. He's
the with ktd V Fox. I love the flies around
as sky Fox helicopter, and I talked to him and
he said that, so he goes from like nothing like
you know, so Pulpica Boulevard in El Segundo, which I'm
sure you know usually has packed, and he'll go over
and as like nothing at all. So he goes down
and then he'll go to finding somebody going on a
hundred miles an hour down the four or five. And
(08:14):
he actually has started a segment called Speeder of the
Day and where he'll take the Skypox and he'll like
clock him from his helicopter going like a hundred hundred ton,
So you make Speeder of the Day. So that but
it's yeah, so obvious because the highways are wide open
all across America. People are using them speedways just like
you said. You know, I do this podcast for I
Heart Radio, but I'm associated with the local radio station
(08:35):
out here, and we had to talk to our traffic
reporters on our people in the air as well. When
this was starting, how are we going to change our
coverage because there is no traffic, so we're thinking of
things like, well, if there's like a costco that has
a huge line, maybe they can do a flyover and
just kind of do an eye in the sky. Report
of that, we had to change our tactics because of
the traffic was so different now. But back to the road.
(08:55):
California Highway Patrols they said statewide during this time they
have had to issue overd citations for drivers going over
one hundred miles an hour. That's crazy. I was prised
with that statistic when I talk to them. I've seen that,
you know. I talked to an HP officer up in Vallejo, California.
He said that they just got somebody for going a
hundred and fifty miles an hour, and I was surprised.
(09:18):
I mean, I guess intuitively it makes sense, but thinking
is ASCO there's people speeding more, but the c HP
has fewer people in cats, so I think, actually, your
odds are getting a take aer actually much higher now. Yeah, yeah,
they're looking for you, you know, I mean just kind
of anecdotally. Again, I just see a lot of cops
out I think maybe they were always there, but now
that since there's less cars, you noticed them a little
bit more. So you've got to be careful. The police
(09:39):
enforcement is still out there. And I wanted to move
into San Francisco, back into your territory a little bit.
It said that the fallen traffic there has been about
n LA is probably not much everybody. Yeah, Sam's just
like you know, there's a lot that contributes to that too.
I think there's local officials are actually closing down roads
so that things are more accessible to people. In Oakland.
(10:00):
I think they close about ten percent of their roads
out there. That's a lot of roads to seventy four miles, right,
And what's happening because of that, the skateboarders, there's a
lot of people walking around or they're kind of taking away.
I mean, it's it's actually pretty interesting when you talk
about it, because there's one place called the Great Highway.
It's like our pH and it goes along the ocean
and normally there's a lot of traffic, but they close
(10:22):
off two miles and now it's like every day there's
bicycles skateboards. That saw a guy on a unit cycle
the other day. Uh, and there's some other streets all
over San Francisco and Oakland. In Oakland, I saw on
Twitter there was a woman who put on a dance
party with her a couple of other parents, and like
three little toddlers rocking out to this dance party in
the middle of the street. So I mean, I mean
(10:43):
kind of humans are reclaiming the streets, some pedestrians, bicyclist,
and it's gonna be interesting to you know, see how
this is going forward. So how do officials and law
enforcement respond to that when people are gathering like that?
You know, down over here in southern California, we're having
an issue where people are going out to local beaches
too much. That's why the governor had to close down
some beaches in Orange County. Is there any of that
(11:04):
going on at their local enforcement having to get involved?
Not to the same degree, but I mean I think that,
for example, Ocean Beach is pretty well socially distanced and
so it's not too bad. But I mean it's more
kind of like an admonishment. It's not like what we
see another person of the country, like New York City.
I think, you know, social media is kind of filled
with images of officers kind of strong arming people that
(11:25):
weren't social distancing, right. But I mean, I think you know,
this whole thing with the road, though Oscar is just amazing,
another thing is just the animals. The animals have to retaken.
I mean, there's like a gaggle of geese going down
the Laws Vegas trip and Grand Rappa's Michigan. They had
a herd of deer like I had taken over a road.
You know, there's a guy kind of waiting patiently beyond
like und deer. And while some of that can be
(11:46):
nice and cute and fun and all, I mean, there
are some dangers to it. In Contra Coasta County you
wrote about in your article, there was car racing side shows,
or people are doing donuts and racing up and down
the highway and officials are warning them this is very dangerous,
don't do this. In fact, I just noticed in my
own neighborhood in San Francisco, I noticed like fresh tracks
where people have been doing donuts. And I guess it
(12:07):
is a dream if you're a speed demon. Now and
now is the time, man, Now is the time I
interviewed somebody for this article, and so he was kurt
chased on and he lives in Orangeville, California, which is
their Sacramento. And he told me that his f one
fifties super cab a few weeks ago, and he said
he's going up close to hundred miles an hour ago
to an RV camping site. Normally it's about a two
hour drive and traffic on the I five, and this
(12:28):
time it took him under an hour. Everybody's got to
be careful. The roads are a little lighter right now,
but still you gotta practice safety the way you would
at any time of the year, regardless of circumstances. So
we'll have to keep saying how this develops. Jim Carleton,
reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much
for joining us. There's a pleasure, thank you. One of
(12:56):
these big hornets carries more venom than a little honey
be or something that also can have a pretty ouch,
you know, sting. But these guys, they aren't really going
after humans. They are a predator to honeybees. Joining us
now with Sarah Kylie Watson, editorial assistant at Popular Science.
Thanks for joining us, Sarah, thank you so much for
(13:17):
having me. I wanted to talk about murder hornets coming
back from the weekend. It was one of those stories
that everybody was kind of talking about, saying, oh, great,
we're going through this coronavirus pandemic and now we have
murder hornets to worry about. Actually, once you dig a
little deeper into what's actually happening, it's not really something
we have to worry about in our everyday lives. It
(13:39):
is a concern, especially to the honey bee population, but
it's not something that's gonna attack people walking around through
the streets when they're taking their dog for a walk
or going for a jog or something like that. So, Sarah,
we wanted to talk about these murder hornets. Tell us
what they actually are, and then we'll get into some
other angles on it. These murder hornets are actually Asian
(14:00):
aunt hornets. They come from places like Japan, and they
are pretty big. That's one of those things that makes
them so newsworthy is that they can be like two
inches long and they have a stinger up about a
core of an inch lan And they were spotted actually
the end of last year, December nineteen at two spots
in Washington State, so that's kind of where this all started.
(14:23):
They definitely have that murder look. They have these big,
huge faces, they got these orange and black stripes that
make them look really scary, and they do have venom.
They usually attack in groups, and they can give somebody
a pretty toxic dose of venom. I think they say
it could be equivalent to that of a venomous snake
in a series of stings can be fatal, but in
(14:45):
Japan they maybe kill about fifty people in a year.
And as you mentioned, this story kind of originates last year,
and a lot of this news came from the New
York Times piece that they wrote over the weekend, and
the story is really about how we're rushing to stop
them from basically making an establishment here, from basically establishing
(15:05):
their presence in the United States. So it's not so
much that they're all over the place. It was just
a story about this happened last fall and we're kind
of looking on how to stop it. So tell us
a little bit more about how they operate. These are again,
very large hornets, and the reason why they are so
venomous is because of their size. You've got to think
(15:26):
about it like one of these big hornets carries more
venom than a little honeybee or something that also can
have a pretty ouch, you know, sting. But these guys,
they aren't really going after humans. They are a predator
to honey bees, and so what they do is when
they spy a bee colony, they market and then they
(15:47):
go back and as a group kind of take over
the colony, kill the honeybees and end up using their
larva to feed their own young. So obviously that's not
good for honeybee populations retally since they're not used to
these types of hornets in the United States or in Washington,
so they can reach havoc on a honey bee colony,
(16:09):
especially one that's not prepared for them. And even when
they were spotted in Washington last year, there weren't that
many that they found, right, So, I think they found
two separate spottings that were verified, and I think there
might have been a couple that weren't verified or weren't
ever confirmed. So it's not like they're everywhere. There's been
a couple of spottings, and of course it's still a
(16:31):
concern because we're not used to them in this part
of the world, but it's not like they're popping up
everywhere in the United States or that they're quickly traveling
to other parts. And one of the things that you
wrote about in your article two is that honey bees
could fight back. Maybe not ours because they're not used
to these huge Asian hornets being around so often, so
they maybe haven't developed the mechanism to fight back. But
(16:54):
some Asian bees do a thing called heat bawling so
that they can fight back on these guys. How does
that work? The bees that have kind of co evolved
with them in Japan and other parts of Asia, what
they do to fight back against these big hornets as
they kind of bowl up around them and as a team,
these honey bees kind of shiver their wings or their
(17:14):
flight muscles, and that heats up where the hornet is,
so that raises the temperature inside that ball to over
a hundred degrees fahrenheit. Also kind of overwhelms the hornet
with he O two, which simultaneously cooks and chokes the hornet.
And the honey bees that we have here are not
used to these massive hornets, so they don't have this mechanism,
(17:38):
which makes them even more susceptible to being targeted. So,
going just back to how everybody was so worried about
this is not really something that we have to worry about.
This is a concern obviously for the honeybee population, and
we don't want them to set roots in here. You
mentioned in your article too that they most likely hitchhiked
on a cargo ship from Asia to the Pacific think
(18:00):
or sometimes people bring them here to cultivate them as
a food source. We don't know officially how they got here,
but it makes sense with an international economy that sometimes
when you're shipping things all over the world, that a
couple of animals might hitchhike all over the place. They
aren't known in some points to be eaten. But again,
we don't know for sure how they got here, so
(18:22):
we don't know if someone brought them in to cultivate them,
but it's probably more likely that they hitch hiked on
some kind of shipping vessel. Yeah, and as I mentioned,
coming back from the weekend, you're hearing stories. I guess
there was a few people that have gotten stung by
these and they said it felt like red hot thumb
tacks being driven into your flesh. You get scared, you
think something crazy is going to happen, especially in kind
(18:43):
of these unprecedented crazy times that we're going through right now.
But for the most part, nothing really to worry about.
The murder hornets is just another good story prime for
what we're going through right now. If you see a
giant bee or a giant hornet, just don't chase after it.
And at your local agricultural folks. Now, I'm glad you
brought that up. That's an important thing to know. If
(19:04):
you do see an extra large hornet, something like that,
something that just doesn't look like it belongs where it
is contracted local agriculture department and then they can handle
it from there. So very good tip right there. Sarah
Kylie Watson, editorial Assistant and Popular Science, thank you very
much for joining us. Thank you again for having me.
(19:29):
That's it for today. Join us on social media at
Dailey Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram, Leave us
a comment, give us a rating, and tell us the
stories that you're interested in. Follow us and I Heart Radio,
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This episode of
The Daily Dive was produced by Victor Wright and engineered
by Tony Sarrantino. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this was your
(19:51):
daily dive.
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