February 18, 2021 • 45 mins
Experts warn in Europe and America there is not enough discussion of zero covid and there should be, which means an aim for elimination instead of this yo yo approach to suppression, that translates into more and more disruptions and lockdowns.
And, schools need to be reopened carefully, with mitigation, because kids are getting and transmitting covid more than you know,
On this Back Story Dana Lewis talks to Deepti Gurdasani, a senior lecturer on epidemiology and statistical genetics at Queen Mary Univ. of London.
And Dr. Eric Feigal-Ding a Washington epidemiologist and one of the early whistle blowers on the pandemic spread from China.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
By the end of July, we'll have over 600 million
(00:03):
doses enough to vaccinate everysingle American by next
Christmas.
I think we'll be in a verydifferent circumstance.
God willing than we are today.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, we must be both optimistic, but also patient
about the root to normality.
Uh, and, uh, even though somethings are very uncertain
because we want this lockdown tobe the last
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hi everyone, and welcome to backstory.
I'm Dana Lewis, politicalleaders from British prime
minister, Boris Johnson toAmerican president, Joe Biden
are talking about vaccines anddiscussing how to reopen schools
and businesses because of peoplenow wearing masks more and
keeping their social distancingand the lockdowns in Europe
(00:57):
rates of COVID hospitalizationand deaths are for the moment
falling great news, but a hugenumber of scientists say, you
can't talk school openingswithout changing classroom
sizes.
The way air is circulatedmandatory masks for kids.
And remember this is an aerosolor air borne virus.
(01:20):
And before you think vaccineswill be our road back to normal,
think again, the mutations inthe COVID-19 pandemic are in the
thousands in increasinginfrequency and spread and
becoming more deadly.
The vaccines can not be tweakedfast enough.
And if we reopen society tooquickly, we will keep having to
(01:42):
return to lockdowns.
So why aren't we talking aboutzero COVID before we reopened on
this backstory to expertepidemiologist, Dr.
Eric Feigel ding with the COVIDaction group in Washington and
here in London, Deepti good.
The sunny from the queen Maryuniversity, both outspoken and
(02:03):
worth listening to, especiallyif you're a parent,
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
[inaudible] is a senior lecturer on epidemiology
and statistics genetics at queenMary university of London.
Hi BP.
Hi, thanks for doing this.
You know, I am struck by readinga lot of science, um, and
following people like you, andthen watching these government
news conferences, for instance,in the United Kingdom where the
(02:33):
prime minister and hisscientists, because they say
they're following the science,never talk about zero COVID.
Why is there this deep chasm ofdisconnect in Europe when the
discussion never even approacheszero COVID?
Yes.
I mean, I actually don't fullyunderstand why that is in the
(02:55):
UK.
It's broadly been taught to beimpossible
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Or unachievable by many members of our scientific
advisory group.
Who've said this publicly, um,and unfortunately discussions
around zero COVID never enteredthe mainstream despite well,
zero COVID being highlysuccessful in many regions.
It was, um, sort of dismissedvery early on as first when it
(03:20):
was done in Southeast Asia asbeing culturally, not in line
with what could be achieved inthe UK and Europe, because we
are freedom loving people.
And when it was in New Zealand,Australia, which, you know, are
more thought to be moreculturally similar, uh, it was
again dismissed as Oh, butEurope and the UK are more
interconnected.
(03:41):
Uh, they have high populationdensity.
So there are several regions tosuggest reasons always to
suggest that Europe or the UKare exceptional in some way to
make this impossible more andmore.
Now we are hearing that NewZealand Australia managed to get
on top of this because theyacted early on.
And since we haven't acted oncannot get on top of it
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Acted early on, and then life went back to normal,
largely because there wasn'tthere wasn't, COVID spreading
rapidly.
I mean, it was very few cases ofit.
Now they've had another outbreakbetween New Zealand and
Australia.
They're being very aggressiveabout the lockdown.
They want to eliminate it, uh,with good track and trace
systems.
And then once they do that,they'll reopen again.
(04:24):
And I, I was reading, um, one ofthe virologists at Northumbria
university this morning sayingthat, you know, the Asia Pacific
nations first contain thetransmission, then they unlock
their economies.
They attempt to return tobusiness as usual, uh, was a bit
of firefighting, which willstill end up burning your house
down.
In other words, if you just, youknow, spray a little bit of
(04:48):
containment on this, but let itburn, it will burn the house
down.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I think that's an excellent analogy.
And we followed sort of almost apolicy of halfway measures in
the interest we thought of sortof protecting the economy,
protecting people's jobs, uh,allowing education in schools,
protecting our health serviceswithout realizing that all of
these things are unfortunatelycompletely tied in with
(05:13):
controlling COVID.
And unless you get on top ofCOVID, you can't protect your
economy, you can't protect yourhealth services and you can't
provide undisrupted educationfor children.
Um, and you know, I think thecountries who understood that
early on treated COVID as athreat, that it was rather than
minimizing it and tookaggressive action are the ones
who went out and countries whominimize the risk posed by this
(05:34):
competitive flu follow thepolicy of halfway measures,
talking about suppression,flattening the curve,
maintaining hospitalizationsjust below capacity.
Well, that never worked becausewe've been in restrictions now
for the longest time in the UK,we're now in our third lockdown
and all of this as a result ofparadoxically, trying to protect
the economy and people'sliberties, right?
(05:56):
We've extended this
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Revolving door of lockdowns.
And now they're saying this islikely the last locked down.
The newspapers are full ofheadlines today.
Talking about prime minister,Boris Johnson's plans to reopen
the economy in the next fewmonths.
Do you think that they'redreaming?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I mean, I think socially with that rhetoric,
they are dreaming.
I mean, if you're talking aboutreopening now and talking about,
uh, acceptable, that's livingwith the virus, then I think in
the same breath, you can't betalking about this being the
last lockdown, becauseessentially we've been here many
times before, and it's verypredictable.
What happens from here?
This is not rocket science.
(06:37):
We know that if you startopening up early, you see sodas
in cases, you see that all overEurope.
Uh, and unfortunately afterthree lockdowns, to me, it's
quite astonishing that thegovernment still hasn't learned
from this.
And we're still applying to goahead, open up, uh, against the
advice, actually, even from thescientific advisory group at
this point in time, for example,yesterday, it was a paper out in
(06:59):
the London school of hygienethat clearly shows that almost
in all scenarios, openingschools up, whether it's primary
or secondary schools or both inthe UK, we need to.
So it is in cases are about onean exponential rises resuming,
which obviously would mean verysoon another lockdown, school
closures and all the devastatingimpacts of that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, there's a lot of debate in that conversation
though.
Isn't there because the, thescience as quoted by the
government at least seems to bethat this spread is pretty
minimal.
Um, in certain age groups ofchildren, I mean, I've got a 13
year old who's at home and in a16 year old.
So it's very different betweenthe two of them and the bubbles
in their schools and whetherthey wear masks or not.
(07:42):
But, and as you know, they're athome right now.
Um, but you're, you'reinteresting because I looked at
one of your tweets and you saidmore misinformation on the BBC,
on schools.
No mention of databased onregular testing of asymptomatic
children in households, whichshows the opposite.
When will the media get thisright?
(08:03):
So you're saying that thestatistics on the, on minimizing
the spread by children, betweenchildren and back into their
households is misleading becauseit doesn't take into account
asymptomatic cases and they arethe majority of the cases.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yes.
I mean, exactly.
So it's not just that itunderestimates cases and
children.
Um, the problem is when you onlytest symptomatic people,
children are less likely to berepresented.
And often you're more likely topick up the adults that they
infect.
So not only are youunderestimating infection,
children, you're missidentifying very likely an adult
(08:39):
as an index case or as a sourceof infection.
Whereas it's very likely to havebeen the child from the school.
And there's a lot of evidencenow to support this from many
studies that have now looked atit, more asymptomatic
transmission based on regulartesting and, um, the community
and in schools.
So for example, if you look atthe office for national
statistics data, if you justlook at the trends of, um,
(09:03):
infection rates in children orinfection positivity in children
over time in the UK, you willsee that infection rates in
primary and secondary schools,children were some of the
highest at the end of Octoberand November and closely
reflected school openings andclosure.
So we have a half-term thathappens in October during which,
(09:25):
you know, both of those sort ofdeclined and then came up again.
And it's hard to explain why theprevalence of infection would be
the highest in those age groups.
If it's just a reflection of,uh, you know, infections, the
community, and to provide evenmore robust evidence for this,
the office for nationalstatistics is actually done
household surveys of people whowere, uh, detected to have
(09:48):
infection based on randomsampling of the population.
So this is not a biased samplingas dependent on children having
symptoms.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
What's the answer?
What is the answer?
Because if you've got to go backto school, right?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Oh yes, they do actually have to go back to
school, but I think they have togo back to school in a way that
we can maintain our below one.
So transmission remains lowwithin schools and from schools
back to the community.
I mean the current mitigationmeasures in the UK are very
focused on things like for mytransmission and hygiene, which
is actually not the major modeof transmission of a Sr Scobey
(10:23):
two.
And there's very littleattention given to aerosol
transmission.
There is early evidence frommany parts of the world to
suggest that mitigating measuresin schools can, would use
transmission and the impact ofschool openings.
Um, and our measures arecompletely out of line with, for
example, the CDC guidance andwhat many countries in Europe
have adopted.
So for example, we don't have inEngland mask wearing within
(10:46):
classrooms, either in secondaryor primary schools, we don't
have any social distancing.
We have essentially open windowsas attention to ventilation, but
no further than there's nomonitoring of ventilation.
And the class sizes in the UKare some of the largest in
Europe.
We have no cap on bubble sizes.
So many schools have bubblesthat are up to several hundred
(11:06):
students, so up to 300 childrenand all of those things
contribute to transmission.
And I think, yes, it's veryimportant that children have a
level of, you know, face-to-faceor in-person learning in schools
because that's very importantfor children's wellbeing, but we
need to have safety measures inplace.
And we also need to have optionsfor parents who are clinically
(11:26):
wonderful, or whose children arevulnerable, who may not want to
send their children forin-person teaching.
So we need to have that sort ofoption for parents.
And we also need to havemitigation measures in place.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Is there, I mean, I work in the media, right?
So, um, I, I find it hard tobelieve that there's media bias.
Um, but you clearly think thereis because you were invited on
the BBC program, which tends togive the government, I think
probably a pretty easy pass onsome of these things.
(11:58):
Um, and when you said that youwant to talk about zero COVID,
they kind of withdrew theinvitation.
I mean, why is there not a morerobust discussion?
Um, and again, that we kind ofgo back to where I started the
interview with you.
Why is there not a more robustdiscussion on, on, I don't want
to call it state media, but itis state funded media, but why,
(12:19):
you know, why do they not reallycall out the government and say,
I mean, what the hell the UK isan Island?
Why didn't they shut it down?
They allowed tens and tens ofthousands of people to arrive
through the airports day by day,through the summer, through the
full, through even Christmas,when they had the new variants,
starting only now have they,they, you know, shut down a lot
(12:43):
of the air traffic.
They still, I think have 20,000people arriving a day.
And you know, they're sayingthat they're going to put people
from so-called red zonecountries like South Africa in
hotel quarantine for 10 days,we're a year into this.
I mean, it, it just seems like
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Those policies don't even go far enough.
Even their own scientificadvisory group has said that
those policies are not going toprevent the input of new
variants or infections into thecountry because they need to be
far more comprehensive.
So yeah, those policies seem tobe more of a PR exercise than
anything that's actually goingto contribute to reducing your
variants coming into the County.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Right.
What's the, I don't understandthe PR exercise.
I mean, is it just to make thegovernment make it look like
they're taking action when theyreally reluctantly don't want to
take any action at all?
Because why like, what do theywin at the end of this?
If they don't shut it down?
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I actually think that it's, it's a real lack of
understanding that these short,this sort of short-term, um, the
short-term, uh, prioritizationof the economy, I think that's
what's happening.
They don't want to restrict, forexample, travel restrictions
from all over the world and havemanaged quarantine from all over
the world because of, you know,the potential impact of the
(13:54):
economy.
But I think there's a completelack of understanding that this
is actually short-term thinkingif you input a new variant, that
for example, puts vaccineeffectiveness at risks and
vaccines are the major part ofyour pandemic strategy.
Um, and you've invested billionsin those vaccines, then actually
that's false economy.
And that's something that Ithink the government has never
(14:15):
really understood this still alot of pressure from within the
government to open up, tobalance everything with the
economy.
And I think that's, what'sliterally killing us and killing
the economy, um, because if theytook a slightly longer term
view, we could actually protectthe economy much better by
following an eliminationstrategy and preventing sort of
new variants coming in thatwould actually potentially
(14:37):
devastate our society andeconomy.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I want to ask you about the new variants.
Do you think, you know, thegovernment keeps saying,
they're, they're, they'revaccinating.
They're going to have everybodyvaccinated by the autumn.
Then they're going to out maybesome new vaccines too, that will
be massaged to deal with thesenew variants that are coming.
I mean, it seems like we're in arace with the new variants and
(15:01):
they, and the government doesn't, um, you know, believes the
promises from the drugmanufacturing companies that,
yeah, no problem.
We'll go back in the lab and,and we'll deal with this.
Do you believe it's that easy?
Speaker 4 (15:16):
So I don't think it's as straightforward as it's made
out to be.
I think there's a huge amount ofuncertainty.
So I think one thing is whychemically manufacturing a new
MRI, new vaccine might berelatively straightforward, uh,
you know, testing it, validatingit, getting it, you know,
positive regulatory approvals,uh, you know, showing that proof
of immunity, safety, et cetera,will take time.
(15:37):
And, um, the problem right nowis that with the level of
transmission that we have andthe sort of poor border
restrictions we have, we areidentifying one new variant in
the UK every week.
I think at last count, there areat least four new variants of
concern that are circulatingwithin the UK, including many
whose properties we don'tactually fully understand and
why we might be trying, uh,making these vaccines now that
(16:00):
you know, will be validated andtested over a period of time.
Um, there's no guarantees thatthey're going to be effective
against the strains that are outthen whose properties we might
understand much later and theimportance of which you might
understand much later.
So as you say, it's between arace between vaccination and,
uh, evolution.
And we need to remember onething, a lot of these variants
(16:21):
have evolved against abackground where the majority of
the population wasn't immune tothe virus as more and more of
the population becomes immune tothe virus with higher levels of
vaccination.
We should expect more adaptationbecause that's just what happens
with viruses.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And when you would expect less, because there would
be less circulation for longerin a, in a host, that's not
correct.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
So there's, um, it's actually, um, the level of
transmission that makes adifference.
So yes, if vaccines rapidlybring down transmission, and if
transmission is low, they willreduce the risk of ours
adaptation.
But that's not really whathappens with vaccines, because
for example, now we'vevaccinated 20% of the
population, which doesn't have amajor impact on art and isn't
having a major impact in our,and that's entirely expected.
(17:05):
So if transmission is allowed tocontinue, side-by-side with
vaccination, then as you seehigher levels of evolution,
because you have people who are,um, I, I guess, immune to a
particular variant of virus, uh,so variants that escape are more
likely to become dominant.
So for example, you know, wehave variants such as, uh, which
carry mutations like the ones inthe South Africa, variant that
(17:27):
we are really concerned about interms of efficacy.
And we're hearing from, uh, youknow, senior advisors to the
government that these are notconcerning because they're not
likely to become dominant.
But the problem is that when youcreate a different environment
for viruses, with high levels ofselection, pressure, it's very
likely that these veins becomedominant because vaccines just
don't have the same impact onthem.
(17:48):
And more variants evolve thatvaccines don't have the same
level of impact on.
So it's very likely that we willsee more and more adaptation and
possibly even at a higher ratethan we're seeing now, if
transmission remains high andthat's a very important caveat.
And one of the important reasonsthat many of us think it's very
important to suppresstransmission during vaccine
rollout, because the only way toactually prevent adaptation is
(18:12):
to eliminate the virus andreally suppress transmission.
There's no other way that we cancontrol adaptation of the riders
that prevent this happening.
And the consequences of this arereally uncertain.
We cannot predict what's goingto happen.
So it's very important toactually reduce that uncertainty
by driving towards elimination.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Is this the last lockdown?
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I really hope so, but the rhetoric from government
doesn't give me a lot of hope.
I really hope that thegovernment changes its strategy
in line with evidence andpolicy.
And I think if they take along-term strategy to this and
really hold up just a little bitlonger before easing
restrictions fix it, as soon asI say, symptoms, that when cases
come down, we can keep them downand have much better quality at
(18:54):
borders so we can preventimportant cases once they come
down.
I think if they put those threemeasures in place, we can
potentially have this as a lastlockdown, but I think it
entirely depends on what thegovernment is going to do at
this point,
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Deep degree, the Sonny, it's great to talk to you
and thank you so much for all ofthe, this, you know, the science
look at this, and obviously weshould be following the science
more than more than the businessand the politics of it.
So thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
[inaudible]
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I get to Washington now and Dr.
Eric Feigel ding, uh, is a wellknown epidemiologist and a
health economist.
And, uh, you know, Eric, Ididn't realize, cause I've
talked to you before that youwere one of the very first
people who really rang the alarmbells back in January, when you
realized what kind of scientificresults we you're starting to
(19:52):
see from China, and that youwere very worried and you, you
must be at this point a yearinto this incredibly frustrated
about how bad we've been in theWest and dealing with this.
Yeah, it's been a very, verylong year, um, now, Oh, well,
over a year and we're still atthis, we're still fighting this
information.
(20:12):
We still fighting people tryingto downplay it.
And by people I don't just mean,um, in political spectrum.
I also mean a lot of, even some,you know, scientists who long
dismissed at the beginning.
There's no as asymptomatictransmission, come on.
That's crazy.
There's asymptomatictransmission.
(20:33):
There's, there's no reinfection.
That's not possible then withina year.
So now we clearly know with thebearings, you can have
reinfection or there's no, youknow, air, it's not that
airborne, just six feet, justkeep your six feet.
And you're good.
But clearly we know that this isan aerosol airport environment.
So it's been fighting against,you know, many, many denialism
(21:00):
and downplaying aneurysm here.
And here we are, you have theCOVID action group, which is,
Speaker 6 (21:07):
That's a group of how many scientists
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Then, Oh, like a dozen or two scientists.
Um, but we are trying to driveadvocacy and covert action group
where we're a little moreUS-focused.
But yeah, it's kind of like theindependence age, uh, that the
UK has in which
Speaker 6 (21:27):
Scientists who provide,
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Which is also a government wise.
Yeah.
It's, you know, in certain wayslike government scientists say
the most, you know, conservativeor the most absolute thing that
they're sure about, but thereare things, especially in this
(21:49):
world where we're concerned onmany fronts about the pandemic,
which not all the evidence isin, but there is a precautionary
principle.
And then in certain ways I leantowards, you know, one side you
could be wrong and there's noreal bad outcome if you're
wrong, but on the other side,you could be right.
(22:11):
And if you are right, even ifit's a smaller chance, it could
have really, really deadly orlarge pandemic impacts.
Give me a practical example.
Well, I think like asymptomatictransmission people said, well,
we're not sure we can't forcertain know there's metric.
We don't have enough data to,for sure know that that's true.
(22:35):
And
Speaker 6 (22:35):
In the end it turned out that most people turned
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Out, you know, 30, 40, 50% of all transmissions and
done by asymptomaticpresymptomatic people.
And, you know, it had, but if wetook the precaution, let's just
assume it's true.
We could have stopped thepandemic way, way earlier or
mitigated way, way more.
And same with aerosol.
People said, well, you know, sixfeet is enough.
(22:58):
You don't have evidence that isair board and flowing through
the whole world.
And, you know, traveling, evenwhen someone leaves the room,
someone else enters in, there'sno one it's not because the
droplets fall to the ground.
How do we take the precautionthat it is airborne because it's
a respiratory virus and likemany other respiratory viruses,
(23:20):
these aerosols float in the airfor a long time, we would have
protected people a lot better.
If we had put in the guidelinesfrom the beginning.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
I mean the world health organization was one of
those organizations that didn'ttake aerosol.
I wouldn't say they didn't takeit seriously, but they were very
late.
And there was that letter thatwent out, I think probably late
summer from a, a number ofscientists, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Right.
This is airborne.
Speaker 6 (23:43):
Just, didn't quite latch onto it for weeks and
weeks.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah.
And you know, Stacia's who wasalso CDC, there's many other
virologist scientists.
Um, in certain ways, you know,aerosol science, is it
environmental science?
It's actually from the scienceof air pollution, uh, particular
matter.
And they've studied aerosols andas well as viruses in these
(24:06):
aerosols, traveling aerosols fora long, long time, well
virologists, you're moremolecular biologists and
geneticists of viruses.
So in certain ways, you know,they, this pandemic expertise is
not defined to any single smalldomain.
We need sociologists, uh, andpublic health communicators to
(24:30):
help people understand aboutvaccines.
We need, uh, aerosol scientistsand these engineers to design
better air cleaning systems andunderstand the air ventilation
dynamics.
Because when the thing we knowenvironmental health, the
solution to pollution isdilution and mental Alation.
Is that dilution.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
Yeah.
I care about I'm sending my, I'msending my kids back to school.
They're in the UK.
They're probably going to goback on March the eighth.
I was talking to my, my 16 yearold, 16 year old today.
And he said, yeah, you know,originally when we went back
just before Christmas, I mean,in September, all the windows
were open and then they kind of,you know, started closing the
windows cause it was too Chile.
And then kind of, they closedall the windows and we were
(25:10):
wearing masks, but then weweren't.
And so the, you know, it startedoff, well probably in London
schools and then, you know, justdeteriorated because everybody
got a false sense of securitysomehow.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
No.
Uh, and I think this false senseof security is oftentimes
fomented by people who say,well, we don't know if there's
truly risks.
The risks are not actuallythere.
Whenever what they actually meanis what we don't know for sure
there could be risk, but they'renot proven.
And how do we take theprecautionary side?
What if, what if you're wrong?
(25:46):
It's not airborne.
You know what, no one's hurt byopening the windows.
Uh, and that it turned out it'snot airborne, but you could
actually save and predict,prevent the pandemic so much
more, you know, by taking thisprecaution and leaning towards
precaution and who, you know,some, there are advocates who
are much more let's you say,progressively or for great
(26:10):
acknowledgement of these risks.
And I think Dr.
Mike, Ryan has WHR she, um, he'sactually Irish.
And he said, you know, if youcannot wait, if you try to wait
until you're absolutely sureabout something you will lose
against the pandemic, you know,perfection is the enemy of good
during the pandemic response.
And I think that is just socorrect.
(26:32):
And you know, that's has been myphilosophy from the beginning,
knew that this was infectious.
And we knew that this hadpandemic potential and people
needed to repair, but we weretalking about, it's just the flu
in mass media all the way untilMarch.
And now we're still talkingabout, Oh, schools are safe
whenever clearly there's so manyevidence there, schools cannot
(26:55):
just be Willy nilly safe.
You can't have sweet little liesto yourselves that they're safe.
You have to take precautions tomake them safe and precautions.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
And what do you say to a mother, a father, a mother
or father listening to this, andthey want to send their kids
back to school because they'vegot to get back to school and
they've got to, they have to getback to a social environment.
They've got to get back tolearning, but you know, we care
about our kids' health.
So what do you say to w I'mconformed to say this for a
living in interviewing expertsabout
Speaker 1 (27:25):
COVID-19?
Yeah, so, uh, first of all, uh,you know, I have a kid he's
seven he's rambunctious.
He needs school.
What I want to emphasize topeople is I'm not against
opening schools.
There are radicals who areagainst opening schools and
radicals for opening schools andignoring all the risks and
science, um, for safe, reopeningand St.
(27:47):
The opening means taking notjust the precautions of
mandatory masks, where someplaces it's not mandatory and
that's very scary, wear them allday long in the classroom.
Yeah, you should.
You should.
And also we should implementtesting, uh, weekly, at least
four teachers and preferablykids, if they can handle it.
(28:08):
But you know, many otherschools, there are schools in
some countries that are doingmandatory testing, you know,
once or twice a week for allstudents as well.
So I think you should havetesting weekly.
And I think you have to makesure that, you know, some of the
CDC guidelines here in the USA,Oh, you know, just maintain six
feet and then you can haveindoor sports, no unique.
(28:31):
You can't just say that isenough.
You have to emphasizeventilation six feet is not
enough.
And you can't do six feet, forexample, for wrestling, right?
You can't do 60 for those.
And you can try to think, well,six feet in basketball, but you
know, that's not how the sportis run.
You have to be honest withourselves.
(28:51):
And unless you put in theventilation systems, the air
cleaning systems by aircleaning.
I mean, if a room has poorventilation, you either put in a
HEPA filter or for lawyers'gymnasiums, you put it upper air
UV where you'd be lights shiningon towards the ceiling, not
down.
And then you circulate the airup and down.
(29:12):
That's upper air UV.
It's actually a very efficientsystem.
Um, or there's even if for aschool that has absolutely no
money whatsoever for any ofthese, there's something called
for example, a core seat box.
And of course the box is takethese air filters, these, um,
you know, uh, 20 inch by 20 inchair filters that you put in your
(29:34):
homes and you take a box fan andyou simply create a cube out of
this with the box stamping sideand take a one, two, three,
four, five additional of these,um, uh, filters.
And you can create this, a HEPAfilter equivalent box that can
(29:55):
disinfect and remove viruses.
Assuming you use the rightfilters.
And it's been shown, it's beenactually shown by aerosol
scientists.
This is actually quite efficientsystem cost nothing more than a
box and a few filters
Speaker 2 (30:08):
As we speak the British newspaper.
It's cause you know, we've beenunder a lockdown since before
Christmas.
I mean, and I hate to use theterm lockdown because while I've
been at home and my kids havebeen at home, there's lots of
construction workers that get onthe tube every day and get on
buses and go to work.
And so so-called essentialworkers that are doing house
renovations.
You know, I, I don't thinkthat's essential, but anyway,
(30:30):
the lockdown, depending on whereyou are, but the numbers are
falling now, but we're stillabove 10,000, uh, cases
estimated per day.
And now the big talk here is howto reopen everything.
Do you, do you think thatthey're there being dangerously,
um, soft in terms of thepressure is from business groups
(30:53):
that want to get their pubs inthere, their shops in their
restaurants opening and thatthey shouldn't, they shouldn't
open too soon.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah.
Um, I I'm in the zero COVIDbelief that it's better if we
not have these yo-yoing up anddown, rollercoasters are opening
and closing and opening andclosing because we've seen time
and time again, it is not theright idea.
And we've seen, you know, wekept, you know, the little
(31:23):
analogy is if you eat bacon alot and you have high
cholesterol and you switch toeating vegetarian or vegan for a
month, it's not like once youswitch back to bacon, again,
that the bacon doesn't harm youit's, we know that people spread
right.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Also just to interrupt you.
I also like this analogy thatsomebody wrote that said, you've
opened your parachute on the waydown and you've decreased the
velocity of the fall.
So it's okay to take yourparachute off.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, of course we are on a downhill roll towards
the natural velocity of thisvirus is just spread.
What we need to do is truly,truly eliminate the virus so
that it cannot keep pushing usdown the Hill.
And, and I know it's an uphillfight, but you know, it is
(32:17):
possible zero.
We are, you know, UK right nowis approximately 0.8.
The cases are dropping in alockdown.
And if we just resist longer, wecan get it to zero.
And once you're at near zero,where we can trace, you know,
small outbreaks, very vigilantlyand the, the, of a cropping up
(32:41):
is so, so much lower.
And UK is an Island
Speaker 2 (32:46):
And that's, and new Zealand's done it.
And Australia is done.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
You know, many other important places that are not
Vietnam is a very denselypopulated place.
It's not an Island.
It's not wealthy in any way, butthey took the zero COVID
approach.
It's possible just it's the,when you're so close, don't give
up because once you give up, itwill allow the virus to spread
(33:12):
again.
But if you just get it down tozero, there is, you know, zero
times 50,000 hundred thousandmillions of people moving around
means zero because you're at azero
Speaker 2 (33:27):
A little bit longer.
That's not even being talkedabout in the U S isn't it
Speaker 1 (33:31):
In the U S we have political issues that are
obviously a lot more difficultto, you know, for example, masks
, mandate, school closings, allthese kinds of things are, you
know, Joe Biden cannot mandateevery single state to follow his
rules.
He can do it for, you know,federal, public transits kind of
things, and federal buildings,but you can't mandate it on the
(33:52):
local level, but UK has this,you know, hopefully more
efficient or at least England,it can be more efficient and
mandated.
Uh, and this is in certain ways,you know, better central control
is, has that advantage ingovernance, but you guys can do
it.
I know you guys can't andbecause you guys are relatively
(34:13):
wealthy of an Island, it's, um,you know, has the resources to
do that.
It has the testing, you know,you guys found to be one 17 when
I'm sure you sure there's manyother strains, but it's just,
you guys found it fast becauseyou guys had the genomics of
surveillance and the technicalexpertise UK has all the
combinations in those how tomanufacture vaccines, design
(34:35):
vaccines, do genomicsurveillance, do all these other
testing and has the advantage ofbeing wealthy and an Island.
So if, if anybody should be ableto do it, UK should be able to
do,
Speaker 2 (34:48):
But they won't because, although they're
talking about this being thelast lockdown, so listen, you've
mentioned mutations, and thenyou tweeted something.
I think in the last few daysthat there's something going on
with this mutation sevenstriking new converging variance
with the same six, sevenpatients.
What is that?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That's in the U S M D U S.
They found some, severalvariants that all share the same
mutation in the variants.
There's other mutations too, butthey all have this one in
common.
And it's just very striking howit's something called convergent
evolution, where once you, ifsomething's advantageous, uh,
(35:29):
many others, uh, will also learnthe same skill.
And this is why owls and batsboth learn to fly, even though
owls and bats are not anywherenear the same evolutionary tree,
but they all converged on aevolutionary adaptive
adaptation.
So the virus has also adaptedand the U K B one 17 also has
(35:54):
advantageously adapted.
Uh, you know, there's the fiveOh one Nelly, um, a mutation
that many others also have andis also acquired that[inaudible]
4k in the, in the sub lineage inWales and England, uh, that
allows it to bade, um,antibodies, just like South
Africa and Brazil, one done CVantibodies, evade vaccines, or,
(36:17):
you know, something basicallydid the, this variance has
acquired the[inaudible]nickname, EGFR mutation.
And this mutation has been shownin South Africa that people who
were previously infected andshould have immunity had almost
no him very little and a large,large portion of people had no,
(36:42):
uh, advantageous, uh, antibodyrecognition of the new variants
with this E mutation.
And for vaccines, it was highlyattenuated instead of 80 90% or
75.
It was 50 or 60% efficacybecause of this.
And this is most predominantlyin a South Africa, Brazil, very,
(37:05):
but the, the Kent's UK B one 17variants for most part, don't
have it, but there's a subtlelineage separately in Wales.
And in England that they learnedit.
So this is what we callconvergent evolution.
Like these mutations, they willalways adapt to something that
makes them much more fit andrigorous and faster spreading
(37:28):
and can penetrate them, uh, inimmunity better.
And so this is why the longer welet the virus circulate the more
of these mutations we're goingto accumulate.
So layman's,[inaudible] sorry,what was the last part, but what
more, more, more searches, morelockdowns.
(37:51):
And so I think it's crazy forthem to say, Oh, this will be
the last lockdown.
They don't know what else couldbe coming.
You know, B one 17 has alreadydominated UK, but, um, B one 17
is good for infecting Virginfields of uninfected people, but
the South Africa Barre or, or UKSabir and the witness, each
(38:12):
mutation can invade areas inwhich people have already been
infected and think they'reimmune, but they're not.
And it's also shown that theanswer to AstraZeneca vaccine is
pretty weak against this, um,the South Africa variant.
So if anything, you see, andmost of Europe is a reliance on
(38:33):
the Oxford AstraZeneca, which isgood for the older strains and
the UK strain, but not againstthese mutated ones.
This is where this is what youreally come back to zero.
Yeah.
Zero just so much.
But you know, a virus cannotmutate if it can't replicate.
(38:53):
That's the main thing I wantpeople to remember, remember no
more mutations, if there's nomore virus and the virus cannot
survive being muzzled, but thevirus can adapt to in more and
more people, if you just let itfloat around and seen it with
many immunocompromised people,that one immunocompromised
(39:16):
people, do you think that's howthe Kentz Marriott Rose one
immunocompromised person justallow 20 mutations to arise from
their bodies because theycouldn't defeat the virus and
the virus learn how to defeatthe person.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Is there ridiculous thinking to use my term, but you
can massage that how you wantin, in suggesting that well,
okay, let's just get everybodyvaccinated.
We'll reopen.
And then, you know, as thevariants mutate, we can massage
(39:50):
every vaccine.
And, you know, we'll just giveyou another vaccination in the
autumn or at Christmas time, abooster booster.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But by before now, and thenboosters, not coming soon enough
boosters still have to gothrough clinical trial testing.
Unfortunately, it'll take quitea while unless the shortcut it
somehow.
Um, it w it will be quite awhile before we have the
booster.
If we have a booster, now we canadapt, but this is not the last
(40:19):
mutation.
This is just the mutations thatwe're talking about now.
And it's gonna be so many, manymore mutations.
The variety is the spice oflife, right.
And whenever it's challenged,it's the reason, oftentimes we
see mutations is either someonecompromised.
(40:40):
And then, you know, they're,they're have very, very weak
immune system, not able to fullysuppress it, just like our
lockdowns.
You know, if it's not verystrict and not long enough
cancer suppress it, uh, we,these mutations will crop up and
they'll actually do something.
Some folks are worried that, um,these mutations that can evade
(41:02):
immunity will crop up wheneverwe hit her to me.
So basically the closer we areto 80%, 90% vaccinated, then the
virus is running out of Virginfields of people to, in fact,
who've never been infectedbefore.
So then it will evolve to try toevade.
It's kind of like when adultwalls are closing in, when a dog
(41:26):
has cornered, it will getdesperate and try to find ways
to skip over this fence.
And right now, our fence is nothiding.
What you have to do is you havetwo backs, innate and locked
down at the same time, veryquickly to muzzle this out.
And once he muzzled it out andit's gone, then you can
(41:48):
basically live on with yournormal lives again.
And that's what people want.
People want normal lives, notyo-yo uncertainty.
And I guarantee you, if wereopen too quickly, we're going
to have this yo-yo uncertainty.
This virus will come ragingback, raging back.
Once you reopen everything andschools, obviously it's a
(42:09):
complicated issue schools.
It does increase transmission,but if you take all the
mitigations, it won't increaseit as much.
And if you mitigate otherthings, you can still allow,
it's kind of like a buffer.
You can still allow for someschool transmission and still
keep the art under one, right?
Keeping the are under one iskey.
(42:31):
So if you lower everything elselow enough, you can ha allow a
little bit of schooltransmission and still have the
overall trend go down.
And, you know, obviously that'smaybe the, perhaps the best, but
you can't just swing open thedoors cause school reopenings,
it's very, very subjectivething.
Are you swinging doors openwithout mass and any ventilation
(42:53):
precaution, uh, or are you doingit with mass ventilation, HEPA
filters or this course, the boxapproach and with testing and
all these other things that canhelp protect the school and the
community, if you reopenedcarefully.
Yes, you can.
But the fear is when you simplysay it's safe to reopen, it
(43:17):
becomes red as, Oh, it's okay.
Kids are not at risk when,whenever that's clearly not the
case.
Anybody who says kids are not atrisk or kids don't transmit in
school, or just blindly, blindlynaive, or just deceiving.
Speaker 6 (43:32):
We really have a range in there.
And I I'll let you go, because Iknow we've talked for a long
time and I appreciate yourinsight.
But, you know, from Asia wherethey really shut it down and
they did zero COVID and then NewZealand and Australia, and then
in Europe where it's been kindof allowed the perk along, but
there have been some prettyserious lockdowns.
And we're at the end of twomonths, now, two months now in
(43:54):
the UK, and then to places likeFlorida, where I talked to
somebody this week and theysaid, Oh, you know, we, we're
not doing what you guys aredoing over there.
You know, we're w we're we'velearned to live with this virus.
And so it seems like we reallygo to an extreme
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Florida.
Yeah.
Well, Florida is just differenthome, but it's, I think UK of
all places can win.
I think it has the resources.
It has the expertise.
It has the centralizedgovernment that if it, we want
(44:30):
it to could achieve zero coded,they can bring it home if they
want to.
They can, they can just, youknow, it's that last mile, that
last kilometer of effort, youknow, in running a marathon,
that's hardest.
But if you can reach the promiseland by just persevering a
(44:50):
little bit longer, right.
You know, like U K from famouslymade the keep calm and carry on
right now, we need to keep onthe lockdown and carry on till
we hit that zero or near zerolevel it's daunting,
Speaker 3 (45:07):
But nobody wants to have wasted the last two months
and return back and do this allagain, three months from now,
Dr.
Eric[inaudible] Eric.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Stacy.
And that's our backstory on zeroCOVID.
I'm publishing a newsletter onsub stock.
It's Dana Lewis dot[inaudible]dot com.
(45:28):
And there, I try to lead youthrough some of the big stories
of the day and recommend whatyou can read on news of the day.
Sign up if you like, it's freeas is this podcast.
All I ask is you subscribe andplease share it.
Thanks for listening tobackstory.
I'm Dana Lewis, and I'll talk toyou again soon.
By the end of July, we'll have over 600 million
(00:03):
doses enough to vaccinate everysingle American by next
Christmas.
I think we'll be in a verydifferent circumstance.
God willing than we are today.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, we must be both optimistic, but also patient
about the root to normality.
Uh, and, uh, even though somethings are very uncertain
because we want this lockdown tobe the last
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hi everyone, and welcome to backstory.
I'm Dana Lewis, politicalleaders from British prime
minister, Boris Johnson toAmerican president, Joe Biden
are talking about vaccines anddiscussing how to reopen schools
and businesses because of peoplenow wearing masks more and
keeping their social distancingand the lockdowns in Europe
(00:57):
rates of COVID hospitalizationand deaths are for the moment
falling great news, but a hugenumber of scientists say, you
can't talk school openingswithout changing classroom
sizes.
The way air is circulatedmandatory masks for kids.
And remember this is an aerosolor air borne virus.
(01:20):
And before you think vaccineswill be our road back to normal,
think again, the mutations inthe COVID-19 pandemic are in the
thousands in increasinginfrequency and spread and
becoming more deadly.
The vaccines can not be tweakedfast enough.
And if we reopen society tooquickly, we will keep having to
(01:42):
return to lockdowns.
So why aren't we talking aboutzero COVID before we reopened on
this backstory to expertepidemiologist, Dr.
Eric Feigel ding with the COVIDaction group in Washington and
here in London, Deepti good.
The sunny from the queen Maryuniversity, both outspoken and
(02:03):
worth listening to, especiallyif you're a parent,
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
[inaudible] is a senior lecturer on epidemiology
and statistics genetics at queenMary university of London.
Hi BP.
Hi, thanks for doing this.
You know, I am struck by readinga lot of science, um, and
following people like you, andthen watching these government
news conferences, for instance,in the United Kingdom where the
(02:33):
prime minister and hisscientists, because they say
they're following the science,never talk about zero COVID.
Why is there this deep chasm ofdisconnect in Europe when the
discussion never even approacheszero COVID?
Yes.
I mean, I actually don't fullyunderstand why that is in the
(02:55):
UK.
It's broadly been taught to beimpossible
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Or unachievable by many members of our scientific
advisory group.
Who've said this publicly, um,and unfortunately discussions
around zero COVID never enteredthe mainstream despite well,
zero COVID being highlysuccessful in many regions.
It was, um, sort of dismissedvery early on as first when it
(03:20):
was done in Southeast Asia asbeing culturally, not in line
with what could be achieved inthe UK and Europe, because we
are freedom loving people.
And when it was in New Zealand,Australia, which, you know, are
more thought to be moreculturally similar, uh, it was
again dismissed as Oh, butEurope and the UK are more
interconnected.
(03:41):
Uh, they have high populationdensity.
So there are several regions tosuggest reasons always to
suggest that Europe or the UKare exceptional in some way to
make this impossible more andmore.
Now we are hearing that NewZealand Australia managed to get
on top of this because theyacted early on.
And since we haven't acted oncannot get on top of it
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Acted early on, and then life went back to normal,
largely because there wasn'tthere wasn't, COVID spreading
rapidly.
I mean, it was very few cases ofit.
Now they've had another outbreakbetween New Zealand and
Australia.
They're being very aggressiveabout the lockdown.
They want to eliminate it, uh,with good track and trace
systems.
And then once they do that,they'll reopen again.
(04:24):
And I, I was reading, um, one ofthe virologists at Northumbria
university this morning sayingthat, you know, the Asia Pacific
nations first contain thetransmission, then they unlock
their economies.
They attempt to return tobusiness as usual, uh, was a bit
of firefighting, which willstill end up burning your house
down.
In other words, if you just, youknow, spray a little bit of
(04:48):
containment on this, but let itburn, it will burn the house
down.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I think that's an excellent analogy.
And we followed sort of almost apolicy of halfway measures in
the interest we thought of sortof protecting the economy,
protecting people's jobs, uh,allowing education in schools,
protecting our health serviceswithout realizing that all of
these things are unfortunatelycompletely tied in with
(05:13):
controlling COVID.
And unless you get on top ofCOVID, you can't protect your
economy, you can't protect yourhealth services and you can't
provide undisrupted educationfor children.
Um, and you know, I think thecountries who understood that
early on treated COVID as athreat, that it was rather than
minimizing it and tookaggressive action are the ones
who went out and countries whominimize the risk posed by this
(05:34):
competitive flu follow thepolicy of halfway measures,
talking about suppression,flattening the curve,
maintaining hospitalizationsjust below capacity.
Well, that never worked becausewe've been in restrictions now
for the longest time in the UK,we're now in our third lockdown
and all of this as a result ofparadoxically, trying to protect
the economy and people'sliberties, right?
(05:56):
We've extended this
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Revolving door of lockdowns.
And now they're saying this islikely the last locked down.
The newspapers are full ofheadlines today.
Talking about prime minister,Boris Johnson's plans to reopen
the economy in the next fewmonths.
Do you think that they'redreaming?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I mean, I think socially with that rhetoric,
they are dreaming.
I mean, if you're talking aboutreopening now and talking about,
uh, acceptable, that's livingwith the virus, then I think in
the same breath, you can't betalking about this being the
last lockdown, becauseessentially we've been here many
times before, and it's verypredictable.
What happens from here?
This is not rocket science.
(06:37):
We know that if you startopening up early, you see sodas
in cases, you see that all overEurope.
Uh, and unfortunately afterthree lockdowns, to me, it's
quite astonishing that thegovernment still hasn't learned
from this.
And we're still applying to goahead, open up, uh, against the
advice, actually, even from thescientific advisory group at
this point in time, for example,yesterday, it was a paper out in
(06:59):
the London school of hygienethat clearly shows that almost
in all scenarios, openingschools up, whether it's primary
or secondary schools or both inthe UK, we need to.
So it is in cases are about onean exponential rises resuming,
which obviously would mean verysoon another lockdown, school
closures and all the devastatingimpacts of that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, there's a lot of debate in that conversation
though.
Isn't there because the, thescience as quoted by the
government at least seems to bethat this spread is pretty
minimal.
Um, in certain age groups ofchildren, I mean, I've got a 13
year old who's at home and in a16 year old.
So it's very different betweenthe two of them and the bubbles
in their schools and whetherthey wear masks or not.
(07:42):
But, and as you know, they're athome right now.
Um, but you're, you'reinteresting because I looked at
one of your tweets and you saidmore misinformation on the BBC,
on schools.
No mention of databased onregular testing of asymptomatic
children in households, whichshows the opposite.
When will the media get thisright?
(08:03):
So you're saying that thestatistics on the, on minimizing
the spread by children, betweenchildren and back into their
households is misleading becauseit doesn't take into account
asymptomatic cases and they arethe majority of the cases.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yes.
I mean, exactly.
So it's not just that itunderestimates cases and
children.
Um, the problem is when you onlytest symptomatic people,
children are less likely to berepresented.
And often you're more likely topick up the adults that they
infect.
So not only are youunderestimating infection,
children, you're missidentifying very likely an adult
(08:39):
as an index case or as a sourceof infection.
Whereas it's very likely to havebeen the child from the school.
And there's a lot of evidencenow to support this from many
studies that have now looked atit, more asymptomatic
transmission based on regulartesting and, um, the community
and in schools.
So for example, if you look atthe office for national
statistics data, if you justlook at the trends of, um,
(09:03):
infection rates in children orinfection positivity in children
over time in the UK, you willsee that infection rates in
primary and secondary schools,children were some of the
highest at the end of Octoberand November and closely
reflected school openings andclosure.
So we have a half-term thathappens in October during which,
(09:25):
you know, both of those sort ofdeclined and then came up again.
And it's hard to explain why theprevalence of infection would be
the highest in those age groups.
If it's just a reflection of,uh, you know, infections, the
community, and to provide evenmore robust evidence for this,
the office for nationalstatistics is actually done
household surveys of people whowere, uh, detected to have
(09:48):
infection based on randomsampling of the population.
So this is not a biased samplingas dependent on children having
symptoms.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
What's the answer?
What is the answer?
Because if you've got to go backto school, right?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Oh yes, they do actually have to go back to
school, but I think they have togo back to school in a way that
we can maintain our below one.
So transmission remains lowwithin schools and from schools
back to the community.
I mean the current mitigationmeasures in the UK are very
focused on things like for mytransmission and hygiene, which
is actually not the major modeof transmission of a Sr Scobey
(10:23):
two.
And there's very littleattention given to aerosol
transmission.
There is early evidence frommany parts of the world to
suggest that mitigating measuresin schools can, would use
transmission and the impact ofschool openings.
Um, and our measures arecompletely out of line with, for
example, the CDC guidance andwhat many countries in Europe
have adopted.
So for example, we don't have inEngland mask wearing within
(10:46):
classrooms, either in secondaryor primary schools, we don't
have any social distancing.
We have essentially open windowsas attention to ventilation, but
no further than there's nomonitoring of ventilation.
And the class sizes in the UKare some of the largest in
Europe.
We have no cap on bubble sizes.
So many schools have bubblesthat are up to several hundred
(11:06):
students, so up to 300 childrenand all of those things
contribute to transmission.
And I think, yes, it's veryimportant that children have a
level of, you know, face-to-faceor in-person learning in schools
because that's very importantfor children's wellbeing, but we
need to have safety measures inplace.
And we also need to have optionsfor parents who are clinically
(11:26):
wonderful, or whose children arevulnerable, who may not want to
send their children forin-person teaching.
So we need to have that sort ofoption for parents.
And we also need to havemitigation measures in place.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Is there, I mean, I work in the media, right?
So, um, I, I find it hard tobelieve that there's media bias.
Um, but you clearly think thereis because you were invited on
the BBC program, which tends togive the government, I think
probably a pretty easy pass onsome of these things.
(11:58):
Um, and when you said that youwant to talk about zero COVID,
they kind of withdrew theinvitation.
I mean, why is there not a morerobust discussion?
Um, and again, that we kind ofgo back to where I started the
interview with you.
Why is there not a more robustdiscussion on, on, I don't want
to call it state media, but itis state funded media, but why,
(12:19):
you know, why do they not reallycall out the government and say,
I mean, what the hell the UK isan Island?
Why didn't they shut it down?
They allowed tens and tens ofthousands of people to arrive
through the airports day by day,through the summer, through the
full, through even Christmas,when they had the new variants,
starting only now have they,they, you know, shut down a lot
(12:43):
of the air traffic.
They still, I think have 20,000people arriving a day.
And you know, they're sayingthat they're going to put people
from so-called red zonecountries like South Africa in
hotel quarantine for 10 days,we're a year into this.
I mean, it, it just seems like
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Those policies don't even go far enough.
Even their own scientificadvisory group has said that
those policies are not going toprevent the input of new
variants or infections into thecountry because they need to be
far more comprehensive.
So yeah, those policies seem tobe more of a PR exercise than
anything that's actually goingto contribute to reducing your
variants coming into the County.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Right.
What's the, I don't understandthe PR exercise.
I mean, is it just to make thegovernment make it look like
they're taking action when theyreally reluctantly don't want to
take any action at all?
Because why like, what do theywin at the end of this?
If they don't shut it down?
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I actually think that it's, it's a real lack of
understanding that these short,this sort of short-term, um, the
short-term, uh, prioritizationof the economy, I think that's
what's happening.
They don't want to restrict, forexample, travel restrictions
from all over the world and havemanaged quarantine from all over
the world because of, you know,the potential impact of the
(13:54):
economy.
But I think there's a completelack of understanding that this
is actually short-term thinkingif you input a new variant, that
for example, puts vaccineeffectiveness at risks and
vaccines are the major part ofyour pandemic strategy.
Um, and you've invested billionsin those vaccines, then actually
that's false economy.
And that's something that Ithink the government has never
(14:15):
really understood this still alot of pressure from within the
government to open up, tobalance everything with the
economy.
And I think that's, what'sliterally killing us and killing
the economy, um, because if theytook a slightly longer term
view, we could actually protectthe economy much better by
following an eliminationstrategy and preventing sort of
new variants coming in thatwould actually potentially
(14:37):
devastate our society andeconomy.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I want to ask you about the new variants.
Do you think, you know, thegovernment keeps saying,
they're, they're, they'revaccinating.
They're going to have everybodyvaccinated by the autumn.
Then they're going to out maybesome new vaccines too, that will
be massaged to deal with thesenew variants that are coming.
I mean, it seems like we're in arace with the new variants and
(15:01):
they, and the government doesn't, um, you know, believes the
promises from the drugmanufacturing companies that,
yeah, no problem.
We'll go back in the lab and,and we'll deal with this.
Do you believe it's that easy?
Speaker 4 (15:16):
So I don't think it's as straightforward as it's made
out to be.
I think there's a huge amount ofuncertainty.
So I think one thing is whychemically manufacturing a new
MRI, new vaccine might berelatively straightforward, uh,
you know, testing it, validatingit, getting it, you know,
positive regulatory approvals,uh, you know, showing that proof
of immunity, safety, et cetera,will take time.
(15:37):
And, um, the problem right nowis that with the level of
transmission that we have andthe sort of poor border
restrictions we have, we areidentifying one new variant in
the UK every week.
I think at last count, there areat least four new variants of
concern that are circulatingwithin the UK, including many
whose properties we don'tactually fully understand and
why we might be trying, uh,making these vaccines now that
(16:00):
you know, will be validated andtested over a period of time.
Um, there's no guarantees thatthey're going to be effective
against the strains that are outthen whose properties we might
understand much later and theimportance of which you might
understand much later.
So as you say, it's between arace between vaccination and,
uh, evolution.
And we need to remember onething, a lot of these variants
(16:21):
have evolved against abackground where the majority of
the population wasn't immune tothe virus as more and more of
the population becomes immune tothe virus with higher levels of
vaccination.
We should expect more adaptationbecause that's just what happens
with viruses.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And when you would expect less, because there would
be less circulation for longerin a, in a host, that's not
correct.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
So there's, um, it's actually, um, the level of
transmission that makes adifference.
So yes, if vaccines rapidlybring down transmission, and if
transmission is low, they willreduce the risk of ours
adaptation.
But that's not really whathappens with vaccines, because
for example, now we'vevaccinated 20% of the
population, which doesn't have amajor impact on art and isn't
having a major impact in our,and that's entirely expected.
(17:05):
So if transmission is allowed tocontinue, side-by-side with
vaccination, then as you seehigher levels of evolution,
because you have people who are,um, I, I guess, immune to a
particular variant of virus, uh,so variants that escape are more
likely to become dominant.
So for example, you know, wehave variants such as, uh, which
carry mutations like the ones inthe South Africa, variant that
(17:27):
we are really concerned about interms of efficacy.
And we're hearing from, uh, youknow, senior advisors to the
government that these are notconcerning because they're not
likely to become dominant.
But the problem is that when youcreate a different environment
for viruses, with high levels ofselection, pressure, it's very
likely that these veins becomedominant because vaccines just
don't have the same impact onthem.
(17:48):
And more variants evolve thatvaccines don't have the same
level of impact on.
So it's very likely that we willsee more and more adaptation and
possibly even at a higher ratethan we're seeing now, if
transmission remains high andthat's a very important caveat.
And one of the important reasonsthat many of us think it's very
important to suppresstransmission during vaccine
rollout, because the only way toactually prevent adaptation is
(18:12):
to eliminate the virus andreally suppress transmission.
There's no other way that we cancontrol adaptation of the riders
that prevent this happening.
And the consequences of this arereally uncertain.
We cannot predict what's goingto happen.
So it's very important toactually reduce that uncertainty
by driving towards elimination.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Is this the last lockdown?
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I really hope so, but the rhetoric from government
doesn't give me a lot of hope.
I really hope that thegovernment changes its strategy
in line with evidence andpolicy.
And I think if they take along-term strategy to this and
really hold up just a little bitlonger before easing
restrictions fix it, as soon asI say, symptoms, that when cases
come down, we can keep them downand have much better quality at
(18:54):
borders so we can preventimportant cases once they come
down.
I think if they put those threemeasures in place, we can
potentially have this as a lastlockdown, but I think it
entirely depends on what thegovernment is going to do at
this point,
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Deep degree, the Sonny, it's great to talk to you
and thank you so much for all ofthe, this, you know, the science
look at this, and obviously weshould be following the science
more than more than the businessand the politics of it.
So thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
[inaudible]
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I get to Washington now and Dr.
Eric Feigel ding, uh, is a wellknown epidemiologist and a
health economist.
And, uh, you know, Eric, Ididn't realize, cause I've
talked to you before that youwere one of the very first
people who really rang the alarmbells back in January, when you
realized what kind of scientificresults we you're starting to
(19:52):
see from China, and that youwere very worried and you, you
must be at this point a yearinto this incredibly frustrated
about how bad we've been in theWest and dealing with this.
Yeah, it's been a very, verylong year, um, now, Oh, well,
over a year and we're still atthis, we're still fighting this
information.
(20:12):
We still fighting people tryingto downplay it.
And by people I don't just mean,um, in political spectrum.
I also mean a lot of, even some,you know, scientists who long
dismissed at the beginning.
There's no as asymptomatictransmission, come on.
That's crazy.
There's asymptomatictransmission.
(20:33):
There's, there's no reinfection.
That's not possible then withina year.
So now we clearly know with thebearings, you can have
reinfection or there's no, youknow, air, it's not that
airborne, just six feet, justkeep your six feet.
And you're good.
But clearly we know that this isan aerosol airport environment.
So it's been fighting against,you know, many, many denialism
(21:00):
and downplaying aneurysm here.
And here we are, you have theCOVID action group, which is,
Speaker 6 (21:07):
That's a group of how many scientists
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Then, Oh, like a dozen or two scientists.
Um, but we are trying to driveadvocacy and covert action group
where we're a little moreUS-focused.
But yeah, it's kind of like theindependence age, uh, that the
UK has in which
Speaker 6 (21:27):
Scientists who provide,
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Which is also a government wise.
Yeah.
It's, you know, in certain wayslike government scientists say
the most, you know, conservativeor the most absolute thing that
they're sure about, but thereare things, especially in this
(21:49):
world where we're concerned onmany fronts about the pandemic,
which not all the evidence isin, but there is a precautionary
principle.
And then in certain ways I leantowards, you know, one side you
could be wrong and there's noreal bad outcome if you're
wrong, but on the other side,you could be right.
(22:11):
And if you are right, even ifit's a smaller chance, it could
have really, really deadly orlarge pandemic impacts.
Give me a practical example.
Well, I think like asymptomatictransmission people said, well,
we're not sure we can't forcertain know there's metric.
We don't have enough data to,for sure know that that's true.
(22:35):
And
Speaker 6 (22:35):
In the end it turned out that most people turned
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Out, you know, 30, 40, 50% of all transmissions and
done by asymptomaticpresymptomatic people.
And, you know, it had, but if wetook the precaution, let's just
assume it's true.
We could have stopped thepandemic way, way earlier or
mitigated way, way more.
And same with aerosol.
People said, well, you know, sixfeet is enough.
(22:58):
You don't have evidence that isair board and flowing through
the whole world.
And, you know, traveling, evenwhen someone leaves the room,
someone else enters in, there'sno one it's not because the
droplets fall to the ground.
How do we take the precautionthat it is airborne because it's
a respiratory virus and likemany other respiratory viruses,
(23:20):
these aerosols float in the airfor a long time, we would have
protected people a lot better.
If we had put in the guidelinesfrom the beginning.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
I mean the world health organization was one of
those organizations that didn'ttake aerosol.
I wouldn't say they didn't takeit seriously, but they were very
late.
And there was that letter thatwent out, I think probably late
summer from a, a number ofscientists, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Right.
This is airborne.
Speaker 6 (23:43):
Just, didn't quite latch onto it for weeks and
weeks.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah.
And you know, Stacia's who wasalso CDC, there's many other
virologist scientists.
Um, in certain ways, you know,aerosol science, is it
environmental science?
It's actually from the scienceof air pollution, uh, particular
matter.
And they've studied aerosols andas well as viruses in these
(24:06):
aerosols, traveling aerosols fora long, long time, well
virologists, you're moremolecular biologists and
geneticists of viruses.
So in certain ways, you know,they, this pandemic expertise is
not defined to any single smalldomain.
We need sociologists, uh, andpublic health communicators to
(24:30):
help people understand aboutvaccines.
We need, uh, aerosol scientistsand these engineers to design
better air cleaning systems andunderstand the air ventilation
dynamics.
Because when the thing we knowenvironmental health, the
solution to pollution isdilution and mental Alation.
Is that dilution.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
Yeah.
I care about I'm sending my, I'msending my kids back to school.
They're in the UK.
They're probably going to goback on March the eighth.
I was talking to my, my 16 yearold, 16 year old today.
And he said, yeah, you know,originally when we went back
just before Christmas, I mean,in September, all the windows
were open and then they kind of,you know, started closing the
windows cause it was too Chile.
And then kind of, they closedall the windows and we were
(25:10):
wearing masks, but then weweren't.
And so the, you know, it startedoff, well probably in London
schools and then, you know, justdeteriorated because everybody
got a false sense of securitysomehow.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
No.
Uh, and I think this false senseof security is oftentimes
fomented by people who say,well, we don't know if there's
truly risks.
The risks are not actuallythere.
Whenever what they actually meanis what we don't know for sure
there could be risk, but they'renot proven.
And how do we take theprecautionary side?
What if, what if you're wrong?
(25:46):
It's not airborne.
You know what, no one's hurt byopening the windows.
Uh, and that it turned out it'snot airborne, but you could
actually save and predict,prevent the pandemic so much
more, you know, by taking thisprecaution and leaning towards
precaution and who, you know,some, there are advocates who
are much more let's you say,progressively or for great
(26:10):
acknowledgement of these risks.
And I think Dr.
Mike, Ryan has WHR she, um, he'sactually Irish.
And he said, you know, if youcannot wait, if you try to wait
until you're absolutely sureabout something you will lose
against the pandemic, you know,perfection is the enemy of good
during the pandemic response.
And I think that is just socorrect.
(26:32):
And you know, that's has been myphilosophy from the beginning,
knew that this was infectious.
And we knew that this hadpandemic potential and people
needed to repair, but we weretalking about, it's just the flu
in mass media all the way untilMarch.
And now we're still talkingabout, Oh, schools are safe
whenever clearly there's so manyevidence there, schools cannot
(26:55):
just be Willy nilly safe.
You can't have sweet little liesto yourselves that they're safe.
You have to take precautions tomake them safe and precautions.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
And what do you say to a mother, a father, a mother
or father listening to this, andthey want to send their kids
back to school because they'vegot to get back to school and
they've got to, they have to getback to a social environment.
They've got to get back tolearning, but you know, we care
about our kids' health.
So what do you say to w I'mconformed to say this for a
living in interviewing expertsabout
Speaker 1 (27:25):
COVID-19?
Yeah, so, uh, first of all, uh,you know, I have a kid he's
seven he's rambunctious.
He needs school.
What I want to emphasize topeople is I'm not against
opening schools.
There are radicals who areagainst opening schools and
radicals for opening schools andignoring all the risks and
science, um, for safe, reopeningand St.
(27:47):
The opening means taking notjust the precautions of
mandatory masks, where someplaces it's not mandatory and
that's very scary, wear them allday long in the classroom.
Yeah, you should.
You should.
And also we should implementtesting, uh, weekly, at least
four teachers and preferablykids, if they can handle it.
(28:08):
But you know, many otherschools, there are schools in
some countries that are doingmandatory testing, you know,
once or twice a week for allstudents as well.
So I think you should havetesting weekly.
And I think you have to makesure that, you know, some of the
CDC guidelines here in the USA,Oh, you know, just maintain six
feet and then you can haveindoor sports, no unique.
(28:31):
You can't just say that isenough.
You have to emphasizeventilation six feet is not
enough.
And you can't do six feet, forexample, for wrestling, right?
You can't do 60 for those.
And you can try to think, well,six feet in basketball, but you
know, that's not how the sportis run.
You have to be honest withourselves.
(28:51):
And unless you put in theventilation systems, the air
cleaning systems by aircleaning.
I mean, if a room has poorventilation, you either put in a
HEPA filter or for lawyers'gymnasiums, you put it upper air
UV where you'd be lights shiningon towards the ceiling, not
down.
And then you circulate the airup and down.
(29:12):
That's upper air UV.
It's actually a very efficientsystem.
Um, or there's even if for aschool that has absolutely no
money whatsoever for any ofthese, there's something called
for example, a core seat box.
And of course the box is takethese air filters, these, um,
you know, uh, 20 inch by 20 inchair filters that you put in your
(29:34):
homes and you take a box fan andyou simply create a cube out of
this with the box stamping sideand take a one, two, three,
four, five additional of these,um, uh, filters.
And you can create this, a HEPAfilter equivalent box that can
(29:55):
disinfect and remove viruses.
Assuming you use the rightfilters.
And it's been shown, it's beenactually shown by aerosol
scientists.
This is actually quite efficientsystem cost nothing more than a
box and a few filters
Speaker 2 (30:08):
As we speak the British newspaper.
It's cause you know, we've beenunder a lockdown since before
Christmas.
I mean, and I hate to use theterm lockdown because while I've
been at home and my kids havebeen at home, there's lots of
construction workers that get onthe tube every day and get on
buses and go to work.
And so so-called essentialworkers that are doing house
renovations.
You know, I, I don't thinkthat's essential, but anyway,
(30:30):
the lockdown, depending on whereyou are, but the numbers are
falling now, but we're stillabove 10,000, uh, cases
estimated per day.
And now the big talk here is howto reopen everything.
Do you, do you think thatthey're there being dangerously,
um, soft in terms of thepressure is from business groups
(30:53):
that want to get their pubs inthere, their shops in their
restaurants opening and thatthey shouldn't, they shouldn't
open too soon.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah.
Um, I I'm in the zero COVIDbelief that it's better if we
not have these yo-yoing up anddown, rollercoasters are opening
and closing and opening andclosing because we've seen time
and time again, it is not theright idea.
And we've seen, you know, wekept, you know, the little
(31:23):
analogy is if you eat bacon alot and you have high
cholesterol and you switch toeating vegetarian or vegan for a
month, it's not like once youswitch back to bacon, again,
that the bacon doesn't harm youit's, we know that people spread
right.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Also just to interrupt you.
I also like this analogy thatsomebody wrote that said, you've
opened your parachute on the waydown and you've decreased the
velocity of the fall.
So it's okay to take yourparachute off.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, of course we are on a downhill roll towards
the natural velocity of thisvirus is just spread.
What we need to do is truly,truly eliminate the virus so
that it cannot keep pushing usdown the Hill.
And, and I know it's an uphillfight, but you know, it is
(32:17):
possible zero.
We are, you know, UK right nowis approximately 0.8.
The cases are dropping in alockdown.
And if we just resist longer, wecan get it to zero.
And once you're at near zero,where we can trace, you know,
small outbreaks, very vigilantlyand the, the, of a cropping up
(32:41):
is so, so much lower.
And UK is an Island
Speaker 2 (32:46):
And that's, and new Zealand's done it.
And Australia is done.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
You know, many other important places that are not
Vietnam is a very denselypopulated place.
It's not an Island.
It's not wealthy in any way, butthey took the zero COVID
approach.
It's possible just it's the,when you're so close, don't give
up because once you give up, itwill allow the virus to spread
(33:12):
again.
But if you just get it down tozero, there is, you know, zero
times 50,000 hundred thousandmillions of people moving around
means zero because you're at azero
Speaker 2 (33:27):
A little bit longer.
That's not even being talkedabout in the U S isn't it
Speaker 1 (33:31):
In the U S we have political issues that are
obviously a lot more difficultto, you know, for example, masks
, mandate, school closings, allthese kinds of things are, you
know, Joe Biden cannot mandateevery single state to follow his
rules.
He can do it for, you know,federal, public transits kind of
things, and federal buildings,but you can't mandate it on the
(33:52):
local level, but UK has this,you know, hopefully more
efficient or at least England,it can be more efficient and
mandated.
Uh, and this is in certain ways,you know, better central control
is, has that advantage ingovernance, but you guys can do
it.
I know you guys can't andbecause you guys are relatively
(34:13):
wealthy of an Island, it's, um,you know, has the resources to
do that.
It has the testing, you know,you guys found to be one 17 when
I'm sure you sure there's manyother strains, but it's just,
you guys found it fast becauseyou guys had the genomics of
surveillance and the technicalexpertise UK has all the
combinations in those how tomanufacture vaccines, design
(34:35):
vaccines, do genomicsurveillance, do all these other
testing and has the advantage ofbeing wealthy and an Island.
So if, if anybody should be ableto do it, UK should be able to
do,
Speaker 2 (34:48):
But they won't because, although they're
talking about this being thelast lockdown, so listen, you've
mentioned mutations, and thenyou tweeted something.
I think in the last few daysthat there's something going on
with this mutation sevenstriking new converging variance
with the same six, sevenpatients.
What is that?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That's in the U S M D U S.
They found some, severalvariants that all share the same
mutation in the variants.
There's other mutations too, butthey all have this one in
common.
And it's just very striking howit's something called convergent
evolution, where once you, ifsomething's advantageous, uh,
(35:29):
many others, uh, will also learnthe same skill.
And this is why owls and batsboth learn to fly, even though
owls and bats are not anywherenear the same evolutionary tree,
but they all converged on aevolutionary adaptive
adaptation.
So the virus has also adaptedand the U K B one 17 also has
(35:54):
advantageously adapted.
Uh, you know, there's the fiveOh one Nelly, um, a mutation
that many others also have andis also acquired that[inaudible]
4k in the, in the sub lineage inWales and England, uh, that
allows it to bade, um,antibodies, just like South
Africa and Brazil, one done CVantibodies, evade vaccines, or,
(36:17):
you know, something basicallydid the, this variance has
acquired the[inaudible]nickname, EGFR mutation.
And this mutation has been shownin South Africa that people who
were previously infected andshould have immunity had almost
no him very little and a large,large portion of people had no,
(36:42):
uh, advantageous, uh, antibodyrecognition of the new variants
with this E mutation.
And for vaccines, it was highlyattenuated instead of 80 90% or
75.
It was 50 or 60% efficacybecause of this.
And this is most predominantlyin a South Africa, Brazil, very,
(37:05):
but the, the Kent's UK B one 17variants for most part, don't
have it, but there's a subtlelineage separately in Wales.
And in England that they learnedit.
So this is what we callconvergent evolution.
Like these mutations, they willalways adapt to something that
makes them much more fit andrigorous and faster spreading
(37:28):
and can penetrate them, uh, inimmunity better.
And so this is why the longer welet the virus circulate the more
of these mutations we're goingto accumulate.
So layman's,[inaudible] sorry,what was the last part, but what
more, more, more searches, morelockdowns.
(37:51):
And so I think it's crazy forthem to say, Oh, this will be
the last lockdown.
They don't know what else couldbe coming.
You know, B one 17 has alreadydominated UK, but, um, B one 17
is good for infecting Virginfields of uninfected people, but
the South Africa Barre or, or UKSabir and the witness, each
(38:12):
mutation can invade areas inwhich people have already been
infected and think they'reimmune, but they're not.
And it's also shown that theanswer to AstraZeneca vaccine is
pretty weak against this, um,the South Africa variant.
So if anything, you see, andmost of Europe is a reliance on
(38:33):
the Oxford AstraZeneca, which isgood for the older strains and
the UK strain, but not againstthese mutated ones.
This is where this is what youreally come back to zero.
Yeah.
Zero just so much.
But you know, a virus cannotmutate if it can't replicate.
(38:53):
That's the main thing I wantpeople to remember, remember no
more mutations, if there's nomore virus and the virus cannot
survive being muzzled, but thevirus can adapt to in more and
more people, if you just let itfloat around and seen it with
many immunocompromised people,that one immunocompromised
(39:16):
people, do you think that's howthe Kentz Marriott Rose one
immunocompromised person justallow 20 mutations to arise from
their bodies because theycouldn't defeat the virus and
the virus learn how to defeatthe person.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Is there ridiculous thinking to use my term, but you
can massage that how you wantin, in suggesting that well,
okay, let's just get everybodyvaccinated.
We'll reopen.
And then, you know, as thevariants mutate, we can massage
(39:50):
every vaccine.
And, you know, we'll just giveyou another vaccination in the
autumn or at Christmas time, abooster booster.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But by before now, and thenboosters, not coming soon enough
boosters still have to gothrough clinical trial testing.
Unfortunately, it'll take quitea while unless the shortcut it
somehow.
Um, it w it will be quite awhile before we have the
booster.
If we have a booster, now we canadapt, but this is not the last
(40:19):
mutation.
This is just the mutations thatwe're talking about now.
And it's gonna be so many, manymore mutations.
The variety is the spice oflife, right.
And whenever it's challenged,it's the reason, oftentimes we
see mutations is either someonecompromised.
(40:40):
And then, you know, they're,they're have very, very weak
immune system, not able to fullysuppress it, just like our
lockdowns.
You know, if it's not verystrict and not long enough
cancer suppress it, uh, we,these mutations will crop up and
they'll actually do something.
Some folks are worried that, um,these mutations that can evade
(41:02):
immunity will crop up wheneverwe hit her to me.
So basically the closer we areto 80%, 90% vaccinated, then the
virus is running out of Virginfields of people to, in fact,
who've never been infectedbefore.
So then it will evolve to try toevade.
It's kind of like when adultwalls are closing in, when a dog
(41:26):
has cornered, it will getdesperate and try to find ways
to skip over this fence.
And right now, our fence is nothiding.
What you have to do is you havetwo backs, innate and locked
down at the same time, veryquickly to muzzle this out.
And once he muzzled it out andit's gone, then you can
(41:48):
basically live on with yournormal lives again.
And that's what people want.
People want normal lives, notyo-yo uncertainty.
And I guarantee you, if wereopen too quickly, we're going
to have this yo-yo uncertainty.
This virus will come ragingback, raging back.
Once you reopen everything andschools, obviously it's a
(42:09):
complicated issue schools.
It does increase transmission,but if you take all the
mitigations, it won't increaseit as much.
And if you mitigate otherthings, you can still allow,
it's kind of like a buffer.
You can still allow for someschool transmission and still
keep the art under one, right?
Keeping the are under one iskey.
(42:31):
So if you lower everything elselow enough, you can ha allow a
little bit of schooltransmission and still have the
overall trend go down.
And, you know, obviously that'smaybe the, perhaps the best, but
you can't just swing open thedoors cause school reopenings,
it's very, very subjectivething.
Are you swinging doors openwithout mass and any ventilation
(42:53):
precaution, uh, or are you doingit with mass ventilation, HEPA
filters or this course, the boxapproach and with testing and
all these other things that canhelp protect the school and the
community, if you reopenedcarefully.
Yes, you can.
But the fear is when you simplysay it's safe to reopen, it
(43:17):
becomes red as, Oh, it's okay.
Kids are not at risk when,whenever that's clearly not the
case.
Anybody who says kids are not atrisk or kids don't transmit in
school, or just blindly, blindlynaive, or just deceiving.
Speaker 6 (43:32):
We really have a range in there.
And I I'll let you go, because Iknow we've talked for a long
time and I appreciate yourinsight.
But, you know, from Asia wherethey really shut it down and
they did zero COVID and then NewZealand and Australia, and then
in Europe where it's been kindof allowed the perk along, but
there have been some prettyserious lockdowns.
And we're at the end of twomonths, now, two months now in
(43:54):
the UK, and then to places likeFlorida, where I talked to
somebody this week and theysaid, Oh, you know, we, we're
not doing what you guys aredoing over there.
You know, we're w we're we'velearned to live with this virus.
And so it seems like we reallygo to an extreme
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Florida.
Yeah.
Well, Florida is just differenthome, but it's, I think UK of
all places can win.
I think it has the resources.
It has the expertise.
It has the centralizedgovernment that if it, we want
(44:30):
it to could achieve zero coded,they can bring it home if they
want to.
They can, they can just, youknow, it's that last mile, that
last kilometer of effort, youknow, in running a marathon,
that's hardest.
But if you can reach the promiseland by just persevering a
(44:50):
little bit longer, right.
You know, like U K from famouslymade the keep calm and carry on
right now, we need to keep onthe lockdown and carry on till
we hit that zero or near zerolevel it's daunting,
Speaker 3 (45:07):
But nobody wants to have wasted the last two months
and return back and do this allagain, three months from now,
Dr.
Eric[inaudible] Eric.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Stacy.
And that's our backstory on zeroCOVID.
I'm publishing a newsletter onsub stock.
It's Dana Lewis dot[inaudible]dot com.
(45:28):
And there, I try to lead youthrough some of the big stories
of the day and recommend whatyou can read on news of the day.
Sign up if you like, it's freeas is this podcast.
All I ask is you subscribe andplease share it.
Thanks for listening tobackstory.
I'm Dana Lewis, and I'll talk toyou again soon.
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