Joe Rogan & Infectious Disease Doc Michael Osterholm On Coronavirus

Photo: JRE Clips

Joe Rogan & Dr. Michael Osterholm The Honest Details About COVID19:

We don’t normally do public health concerns here, but for every rule there is an exception.

So instead of focusing purely on new research for incremental improvements,

We’d recommend instead this video with Joe Rogan and Dr. Michael Osterholm.

In it, they discuss the under-appreciated seriousness of Covid 19.

Some of those concerns include how long it’s is likely to last, what the landscape might look like, and how we might avoid diseases of this type in the future…

A Few Numbers On The Disease:

So according to Dr. Osterholm, corona virus could take 3-7 months to unfold across the US.

In that time, he estimates a total of 96 Million cases, which is almost 1/3 of the population.

Of those, his guess is about 48 Million will require hospitalization.

And out of those, 480,000 people will die in those 3-7 months he mentioned.

He also emphasizes that this disease is not to be taken lightly like a Flu might.

A recent set of tweets from citizens in and around Milan, Italy went out confirming this idea,

Especially when describing the hospital-overload in the most affected areas where doctors actually have to make the decision of which people to save, and which to let die.

A Nasty Bug That Spreads Fast:

Strangely-enough, some conspiracy theorists are saying things like corona virus is actually an escaped bioweapon from some lab.

Dr. O assures us that mother nature is way better than human engineers at creating nasty viruses,

And the evil geniuses in hazmat labs only wish they could create something as effective.

The incubation period for CV19 can be as early as 4 days.

And one of the more important points on social-distancing and isolation is this:

Plenty of people can be asymptomatic-carriers and not even know they have the disease.

By that time, they’ve infected several more people.

Michael estimates that its progression is one of doubling every 4 days largely in-part to those last 2 points.

He even points out that at-least with SARS, you could know you had the disease BEFORE you were contagious.

Carriers Can Spread This Disease Before They Realize They Have It:

Not-so with Covid19!

And the worst part of this pandemic? -It’s transmitted not by contact, but by BREATHING.

The individual viruses become suspended in the air that an infected person has just breathed.

And the rate of replication inside a host is outrageous.

Dr. O says that in some cases, tested-individuals were producing 10,000 times the amount of viruses of even a SARS sufferer back in 2003!

So although there is a shortage of N95 respirators, especially for the doctors, nurses, and med-techs fighting this thing on the front lines every hour they can stay awake,

Only something as good as an N95 is likely to protect you if you are not sufficiently socially-distanced or isolated.

Spread Through Breathing & Asymptomatic-Carrier “Infection Factories”:

And that’s why cruise ships have such a bad reputation.

Because they recirculate the same air and have everyone on board re-breathing it.

The doc says for example, that the first thing the cruise ship companies should have done was to move the passengers into on-shore quarantine,

In-stead of keeping them on the ships, because more people would just get infected that way.

Also important along with distancing and isolation is understanding it doesn’t discriminate by age.

For example, children are notorious virus-factories.

They may not get that sick themselves, but what they do is become carriers and then bring the nasty bugs home to Mom & Dad,

And then get the whole house sick!

Anybody Can Catch It And Then Hurt Their Own Family:

So it is also with Covid19 and younger people.

The pictures of carefree yahoos on beaches in Florida is an example of the bad judgment that comes with assuming this is just an old person’s disease.

There are actually plenty of cases between the ages of 25-54 of people showing symptoms,

But also as Asymptomatic-Carriers, people in their 20s and 30s can then bring the disease back to their families,

Just like the little children in pre-school and get the whole family sick.

But in this case, it may very likely result in the deaths of their grandparents,

And anyone else with health risk-factors like High Blood-Pressure, Cardiovascular Disease, and Obesity.

Which is a real problem, because 45% of all Americans over the age of 40 are classified as obese.

Some Of The Things That Do Work At Slowing Coronavirus:

So what can you do?

Well Dr. Mike has about the same recommendations as the standard ones.

Hand-washing is very effective and so are the sanitizer-gels, especially because they’re so portable.

Social-distancing and isolation really work well also, because it removes replication and re-transmission from the chain,

Somewhat like adding control-rods to a nuclear reactor might slow that system by interfering with the chain-reaction.

And also avoiding large places of gathering with many people present,

As the international and local governments are having most people do at this point,

Governmental Measures Are Correct About Isolation & Distancing:

Even though they can not be anywhere near as draconian as China was with their people.

-Which resulted in heartbreaking consequences by scofflaws in places like northern Italy, for example.

If you’re able to get one without hurting the cause of our healthcare workers trying to save lives,

Dr. O states but does not advise for civilians that though surgical masks are ineffective,

N95 respirators would work much better at stopping transmission through breathing.

Drinking plenty of water, getting your vitamins, and also plenty of high-quality Sleep and Naps is also good medicine for your immune-system.

The Future Of Pandemics In A Complicated, Interconnected World:

What happens in the future?

Interestingly-enough Michael could have been part of the NatGeo series, “Breakthrough”.

Because not only did he write the book on how pandemic-outbreaks would happen in the future after the SARS & MERS episodes,

His team put out notes this year on January 20th and in the first week of February warning about the milestones of the spread for COVID19.

And some of the most important notes he makes are as-follows:
1) The global supply-chain is both interlinked and unbalanced.
1a) Ex: Many vital & life-saving drugs are now exclusively made in China.
1b) Ex 2: The world-supply of IV bags was severely-disrupted when a hurricane knocked out the main factory in Puerto Rico.
1c) So when a pandemic hits even just one country or region, its effects are now felt around the world quickly.
1d) This is also because we don’t stockpile anything like back in the days of World War II
2) Though some regulation is coming, places like the “Wet Markets” in China are the source of these diseases and are not shutting-down anytime soon.
2a) The concentration of people and different animals in those places is so high, another pandemic is inevitable.
2b) Because of modern interconnectedness, viruses will spread just as fast as supply-chain problems. One sneeze in Wuhan and the rest of the world catches a really bad cold.
3) SARS & Zika still have no effective & safe vaccines.
4) The vaccine for COVID19 is probably not just 1 year away, but several.
5) Herd-immunity may work somewhat, but it’s a costly and dumb solution.
6) Once the initial flareup and recession of these diseases, people tend to just forget about them.
7) So even though SARS & MERS were both in the corona virus family and we could have had a general vaccine with 50% effectiveness by now, we don’t.

Maybe CV19 Will Change Attitudes & Budgets About Vaccine Research:

So hopefully, even though corona virus may have a 2% or higher mortality-rate almost matching The Spanish Flu,

Maybe governments and scientists can get together on less-than-perfect but still helpful disease-family type vaccines,

And perhaps stop or at least slow the next pandemic that’s coming after this one.

Because even though there is no data right now that shows COVID19 slows down in hot & humid weather, we may just get a different version of it next winter.