Oh no a new Covid variant!!!

Oh no a new Covid variant!!!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Alex Stone from ABC News is joiningus now, and Alex, I don't
know, are you guys currently,I mean we're past I think for this
area of the country. We areallowed now, I think safely to plant
different types of things in the groundand not have to worry about frost and
all of that stuff. You guys, for the most part, that's gone

(00:23):
for you guys, like months ago, correct, I mean you guys never
get that. Yeah, for themost part, we never really get frost
here in LA But you know,you'll get kind of chilly at night every
now and then, but it's hereand there. But but yeah, we're
moving on. Yeah, yeah,yeah. Today we're at like seventy eight
degrees, so it's kind of perfectoutside right now. Okay, yeah,
it was. That's about where wewere at yesterday. And then yeah,

(00:44):
we're in the low seventies for highsright now. But look, we had
a lot of eighties in April,so I'm one hundred percent okay with all
of that. So in seventies isperfect. Above that you started well maybe
like uppers. Then then it getsa little too hot at night to sleep,
you know, because the house heatsup during the daytime, like let's
just keep it in the mid seventies. Let's keep it right around them,

(01:07):
right the uh there was a uh, the the top ten. I wanted
to see if any of your anyof your kids the names are because they
did a they did a top tenbaby boy names of twenty twenty three,
so clearly really outdated now now thatmy kids are eleven and nine, they

(01:27):
were like the top ten, especiallyone of them was the top ten like
ten years ago. But hit me, what's number one? Liam is at
number one? No, then,no, I know a few Liams.
Ooh, that's been popular for afew years, right right, And if
you have friends with younger kids orwhat have you, probably a bigger chance
or better chance for these names topop up then in their situation, Noah's

(01:49):
next, Oliver's on their James ElijahMatteo, which is interesting. Interesting,
Yeah, Theodore, Henry, Lucasand William are like these are going back
in time, like we're we're kindof going backwards again that these were names
it would have been popular a longtime ago. Person, you're gonna tell

(02:12):
me it's gonna be Ethel and Janeand Margaret right right? You would think
like the old the older lady namesif you like Theodore and even James,
you know you don't. I'm fortythree. I don't know a lot of
Jim's that were born around my timethat you know, James or Jim that

(02:32):
that seemed like an older person duringmy age group that would have been like
the dads were named Jim. Yeah, but my dad's name, Jim is
coming back around. Yeap, yep, my dad's name is Jimmy. It's
not James. But but right,you could, but like my buddies,
you know, they would their dadwould be Jim. But I didn't have
any any friends named Jim. Thatwas like a dad name. I'm sure

(02:54):
Alex right now, to my kids, that's probably a dad name because it
was popular in nineteen eighty Mark,you know, like my, Yeah,
my daughter's friends, she's eighteen,but she has friends that For instance,
they did the girl names the topten. Olivia's at one, then you
got Emma, Charlotte, Amelia,Sophia, Mia is a Bella, and

(03:17):
then Jose. My daughter, Josehas an Ava that's a friend of hers.
So she's eighteen. I daught her. My nine year old daughter has
like two or three avas in herclass. So there it is Evelyn at
nine and then ten is Luna,which is kind of interesting. Yeah.
So yeah, just these are thetop baby girl and baby boy names.

(03:40):
My sister, my sister in lawhas an Onyx. That is her son's
name, Onyx. Interesting and he'sa couple of years old. I think
he's what is he four now,something like that, four or five four.
And then his sister her, hisyounger sister's name is Opal. To
your point with the older kind offemale names open yeah, yeah, My

(04:01):
so my son is Jackson. Don'tyou have a Jackson as well? No,
I have, well, I havea nephew Jackson, and everybody in
his class is named Jackson. Everyboy is Jackson. Ten years ago,
eleven years ago, that that wasthe name, and then some spell it
like he does j A C Ks O N summer j A x O
N. Yeah, there's slightly differentspellings on them, but most of the

(04:25):
boys are Jackson. That was definitelythe popular name at that point. But
there is not another Stone my son'sname. There is no other Stone in
his sture. I knew it wasone of my names. So yeah,
Stone my last name. That's right, and it's ten. So yeah,
there's no other stone. And mykids have a couple of Tesla's in their
class, which really tells you somebodywho is connected. I don't think you're

(04:49):
name of your kid Tesla unless you'rereally into the vehicles. And yeah,
I mean in California, every vehiclewhen you come to a stoplight, every
vehicle except mine is a Tesla.And you didn't, you didn't, you
didn't flip over yet, you know, No, I mean right now,
gas prices in California that you know, we're six, right around six dollars

(05:12):
a gallon for regular unleaded that Ican't tell you that I haven't thought about
it, and that that would bereally nice just plug in and not be
going to the gas station for onehundred bucks every fill up. But but
no, I haven't done it yet. Yeah, I think I saw well,
I don't know what the target dateis, but they want to get
rid of all the combustion. Ona side note, they want to get
rid of all that, so ourvehicles are going to become dinosaurs, I

(05:36):
guess at the point. Yeah,with that, all right, So there's
a and we kind of touched onit a little bit. It was late
last week, but a new subvariant. Doctor say, it might make
you feel yucky this summer, Alex, I guess, yeah. So,
I mean most of us have notthought about COVID in probably last two years,

(05:57):
except maybe to reminisce every now andthen about how weird that time was,
and you know, everything that wenton. Yeah, but the days
of schools closing and lock downs andthat's all over. But yeah, for
many people now they get it.It's like a cold. But there is
a new variant out there. BecauseCOVID is always mutating, it's always evolving
like any virus. And the newone is called the Flirt variants. They're

(06:20):
nickname based off the genetic name,and the doctors added in an eye in
the middle of it to make itflirt. But it's a group of new
variants. And we talked to doctordoctor David Ronstein, infectious disease doc,
and he says, yeah, we'regoing to keep having variants, and this
is one that may make people feel, you know, a little gross over
the summer if it does pick upsteam, which looks like we do.

(06:42):
Keep seeing new mutations, new subvariants pomping up. We call them the
Flirt viruses. Yeah, and sothe beginning of the year, flirt made
up about one percent of COVID cases. Now it's twenty eight percent. They
say, it's no doubt going tokeep climbing, and they're pretty contagious,
but they don't think that they're goingto do a lot more than give most
people the sniffles. Is people aretraveling and in close quarters on planes and

(07:05):
such that they'll spread it, butyou know, it's one of those maybe
later, let's say June July,where you go, wow, it feels
like everybody has had the sniffles recentlyand that it could go back to that.
He says, Look, if you'reover sixty five, if you know
you have conditions that can make yousicker when you get a virus, that
you may want to be more careful. But really, thanks to the some

(07:27):
form of immunity from people having COVIDand from people getting the vaccine, that
now it is pretty minor for formost people. And he says the more
infections we've had, the more vaccinedoses we've got in, the better our
munity is and subsequent infection should hopefullybe less severe for most of us.
So Doc say is going to takeseveral weeks to see if flirt really leads
to any kind of you know,summer surge. But we're talking about something

(07:51):
totally different than what, you know, three or four years ago when we
would say surge that. Now they'rejust looking at historical trends to say,
yeah, people are going to beon planes, they're going to be around
each other, you know, they'llbe together, that that it will probably
be relatively will be relatively minor formost people, and that they may notice
that they've got a little cold andthey may be flirt flirting with you.

(08:11):
So do you still see in Californialike a lot of people masking and stuff?
Because it's okay, wow, soyou could knock me over the feather.
I thought, yes, was goingto be here, just getting ready
to say, I'm stunned by thenumber of people in central Ohio that I
still see it. Yeah about wearingmasks, Hell, I excuse me,
Alex. How I saw a womanwearing Robert gloves the other night at the

(08:33):
grocery store, Like, how couldyou still be living in that much fear
of this thing? Yeah? No, you don't see much of it.
I mean, if you go tothe grocery store. You might see a
person here or there for whatever reasonthat they're still wearing it, but no,
generally, you know, it seemslike that that hear, all of
that has has kind of disappeared.Yeah, and obviously that's music too,
uh, because I my fear isthis bubbling up and then some hor you

(08:58):
know, that starts getting traction again, and then it's like to fly,
you have to. I'm like,oh no, please, don't do it
again, you know, kind ofa thing. So yeah, No,
when I was flying last week,you know, it even dawned on me
as I was looking around, butnot a single person. And it was
a packed Southwest flight, so andyou know, I had what one hundred
and fifty people on board. Therewas not a single mask on board,

(09:20):
and I thought, you know,I don't think I've ever seen this before.
We're not one person on board.Because even for the last number of
years, yea, there were stillsome people who would wear them, and
you know, more power to whateverthey want to do. But on these
flights, I really noticed that seemslike that is a thing of the past.
Nobody had them on Basically the onlyother place I go besides home is

(09:41):
Las Vegas, as you know.And I still see a lot of masks
in Las Vegas. Man, youknow, I feel like the germs in
Las Vegas. It's probably just prudenttoo, even before the pandemic. Oh,
for God's sakes, it's Vegas.COVID is like the least of your
health hazards. And I'm saying beforethe pandemic, you know, that probably
wasn't a bad idea, I think. And then the people who are wearing

(10:01):
masks there, I want to go. You don't like to smell a pot,
do you, because that's really allyou smell when you're there. I
don't think that potting in the cigarettesmoke because you walk through the casinos where
I'm like, oh, I don'tthink any viruses can survive and lost pot
cigarettes and casinos in Vegas. Yeah, absolutely you can't, Ohio, No,
of course not. But Las Vegaswill never do. They'll never get

(10:24):
rid of smoking. You need thelike, not that big five year old
woman sitting at the the uh slotmachine. Slot machine. Yeah, a
slot machine sitting there with a drinkin one hand and cigarette going in the
other without her bread and butter.You're right, you can't run your customers
off. Well, here's the thing. If somebody tried to make a stand
on the strip and do that,it would literally be empty, like the

(10:48):
whole aria try it. At onepoint one of them tried to be a
smoke free and I believe that eitherthey got rid of their casino or they
had to go back to allowing smoking. I don't know which one did it,
but yeah, well yeah, what'sinteresting is they go, you can
smoke there, and then it's like, do not smoke in your room.
If you do, we're going tohit you over the head sees, you
know, come down to our lobbyand do it around. It's hilarious.

(11:11):
I was just gonna say, ifyou're down in the casino by the time,
your room's gonna smell like smoke anyway, once it permeates your clothes,
isn't it. Well, yeah,you're clothes. I thought you meant like
it would get I was like,man, out of these places are so
big that well no, and theirventilation systems are world class. I got
all that right. It was soweird though, you go back to your
hotel room and you know you havethat like old smoke smell. That's stunning.

(11:31):
Smoker but like where you move andit comes out of your shirt from
like the air under your shirt,and you're like, oh, exactly where
you go? It was. Itwas an eye opening experience to me because
I had only been to casinos inWindsor, Canada and Ohio, and but
when my first time I went toThree Rivers Casino there next to next to
the mustard field up the door,and it was just like you might as

(11:56):
well smoke because you're getting the sidestream, like an off of it the
way I got a nicotine high offthat place. Alex to your point too,
with the clothes in Vegas, likewhen you take them off, sometimes
you'll come back in and goes smellslike somebody was smoking in here, and
it's just your clothes that you know. You go to a subway and you're
set like bread. I guess it'sbetter than yes, I do, I
guess. I guess it's probably betterthan coming home smelling like the bunny Ranch.

(12:20):
That's a whole different smell. Igotta be honest too, I'd rather
come home smell like a foot longthan you know, like then old cigarette,
the bunny ranch or at subway subway. That's what I'm talking, you
said, Bunny Ranch, I didn'tknow. Wait on with that. Oh
no, Alex Stone at ABC News, Oh you're still here, Thank you.
Sorry man, we kept you onthe foot or on this for so

(12:41):
long. Day seventy eight Weather poweredby the Basement Doctor sixty seven at your
severe weather station, News Radio sixtyten, WTV, Animal on the Go