Episode 114: Ebola & other infectious diseases

spk_0:   0:02
Hello, everybody. Hello,

spk_1:   0:03
everybody. And welcome to the show. The big show. The largest and most important podcast that is recorded in our car. And we're driving in our car. We're going Well, we're going north, but at the moment, we're going west. But we're going north going north today.

spk_0:   0:20
And despite what those vultures think, we're not dying for being circled.

spk_1:   0:25
Were here in North Missouri. We're heading towards the Iowa border at the moment. I am. You know what we're not going to be running into in Iowa. Elephants. Good. Good point. There are no elephants in Iowa that I know about the state or the De Moines Zoop Borrowed one for a while or two, actually.

spk_0:   0:47
Probably don't let them roam on the roads, though.

spk_1:   0:49
No, but they were just borrowing office. Yes. I think the nearest nearest elements to us is probably the ST Louis Zoo, As a guess.

spk_0:   0:59
Might be closer from here.

spk_1:   1:01
Might be closer from here. I'm not. I would have to measure, so, yeah, we're not gonna have all of them, so Well, we're having We've got a mystery podcast here. We're gonna talk about other things that probably don't two in north Missouri, and we shouldn't probably really spend a whole lot of time prepping for them. There's a mystery podcast cause my co host Spice does not have any idea what we're going to talk about.

spk_0:   1:29
We could talk about tsunamis.

spk_1:   1:32
We could. There likely You're very unlikely here. And if they hit here, we've got worse. Problems were about 900 feet above sea level at about 1000 miles from any coast. That's a guess, but it's pretty good guess, since the Gulf of Mexico is probably as close as anything to hearing. It's 900 some odd miles to the Gulf of Mexico, and it has to cross mountain ranges between us and it. So anyway, long story short, I'm going to try and dial us in a little bit. We're going to talk about something, at least to start with something that I've been seeing popping up in my news feeds lately, and it seems to happen every two or three years, and I'm not really sure I have followed all the links, But there seems to be people starting to come up with with prepping articles about it and understanding and explaining it and I'm just kind of almost rolling my eyes a little bit over the subject. But that's right. Our old friend Ebola is back in the news again.

spk_0:   2:44
Oh, I haven't seen the Ebola.

spk_1:   2:46
Yeah, I've seen two or three of them the last day. So one of the things we're going to talk about is infectious diseases like Ebola. What are the real concerns if you really have to watch out? For now? The reason that Ebola scares people so badly is it's just oh darn deadly. And it's such a horrific,

spk_0:   3:09
horrific, unpleasant way

spk_1:   3:11
to die. Any kind of kind of hemorrhagic fever is just a bad thing. Okay, it ISS

spk_0:   3:17
when your immune system turns against you, the story is bad.

spk_1:   3:22
Having said that, I didn't unless something drastically changes in the transmission of Ebola, which could be done but hasn't. It is a very difficult disease for one person in north Missouri to catch and spices going to tell us why,

spk_0:   3:50
because it's not on this continent. That's the basic reason,

spk_1:   3:55
right? But even if it were of this continent, it's not that easy to catch. It's just not

spk_0:   4:01
if one human has it, it's pretty easy to catch it from that human if you're taking care of them,

spk_1:   4:08
yes, but having again, Having said that, this is a first world country. We have first world medical care. And unlike Africa, we don't have the stigma. Ah, lot of Ebola is caught in Africa because it's a stigmatized disease.

spk_0:   4:32
So people will not go to seek medical care as soon as they suspect they have it right. And they often end up getting taken care of at home by people with neither training or equipment

spk_1:   4:44
or any type of protective material. And so the whole family gets it. And that's where the big outbreaks come from. Because you know, it's not only a deadly disease that you have to treat in a specific and very careful way with the right tools and be very, very careful. But it's a disease with a kind of a longer incubation period and a stigma attached to it, too.

spk_0:   5:11
And the funeral practices in Africa require a lot of contact with E deceased by the family members.

spk_1:   5:23
Okay, so let's let's just take, we're gonna use Ebola as an example, because it's what pops up in the news. But there are other diseases that are like this. They may not be exactly like this, but I'm thinking off the top of my head a 1918 flu type disease, much more virulent are much more transmissible. Yes, because it was pneumonic.

spk_0:   5:49
That most easy way to catch a disease is for cough droplets from one person to travel through the air, land on the surface, last for some period of time and then be able to be transmitted to the hands of somebody else. And then the new victim transfers those viruses to their own. Mucous membranes usually be a hand contact with infected surfaces, sometimes from directly breathing the droplets being coughed by the person whose expelling them that is the most highly transmissible diseases are transmitted by that. That mechanism

spk_1:   6:26
right in the people need to remember that, you know, you think about coughing in transmission. And some of these, uh, viruses are aerosol. I or in aerosol, is not just the droplets. And it's coming into your body through any orifice that can transmit and people dope from members of the cover your mouth recovery knows. But your eyes are really serious. Infection. Uh, portal.

spk_0:   7:04
If you, uh see medical people now who are caring for people with infectious diseases, you'll notice they are often wearing clear face shields. Thio stop little droplets from hitting their surface of their eyes. Also, any breaks in the skin or good way to get him across. So if you've been caring for you, touch something that's got these viral particles on it. If you've got any breaks in your skin that can get in that way, if you're so freaked out by having to deal with somebody who's got this infectious disease that you wash so frequently and so aggressively, but you cause skin irritation, you're causing micro breaks in the skin and actually increasing the risk of transmission that

spk_1:   7:46
I I ran into that last year. Two years last year, we had really got flu. Season was really, really bad in our area. Really, really, really bad. Flu shot did not work hardly at all. They missed. They convey whiffed, wanted suffer mutated on him. Yeah, it just didn't It was only a fraction of a percent. He was a very tiny percent of about 30%. The actual disease that hit around here was nowhere near the flu shot though they missed, it happens and even the best flu shots or just good guesses as to based on on what was what was going around over across the pond six months ago. Which generally is what comes over here,

spk_0:   8:37
and they know they're not going to catch all the strains. They go for the top 3 to 5 strains, which covers about on a good year. 80% of all transmissions, right? Bad year, 30 to 40.

spk_1:   8:49
Last year's disease was a little more virulent than a lot of them. It was a little more burial, some old. They had quite a few deaths from older people in infants, Children, people with compromised immune systems. So anyway, long story short, I was like a fanatic washing my hands because I have a I have a job that takes me from one person's desks to another person's desk. And so I'm always constantly moving between desks and I'm touching their furniture. I'm touching there keyboards. I'm touching their mice,

spk_0:   9:25
and a lot of those people have kids who are fantastic little germ transmission factories.

spk_1:   9:30
Right? So my routine is I go to somebody task. I helped them out. I turn around. I go back to the kitchen hot, so hot water. And so then I go on to the next coworker. I do not stop between the two, and they know. I mean, I'm We have an office where, where people are, you know, it's it's kind of Ah, you kind of have to have thick skin because we get on each other pretty hard. Were Ah, we joke around a lot and, you know, you could become the butt of the office jokes pretty quickly. But nobody jokes about my compulsive hand washing because what they realizes they don't want the germs that I'm carrying on their keyboard, you know, if anyways, does anything do you really do you know where my hands have been? Don't give me that look like you're have Scott all

spk_0:   10:41
over your

spk_1:   10:41
hands brew End of end of end of discussion. But my hands got I mean, they were a mess last year. He really looked up. They were read wrong there, broke out with

spk_0:   10:56
micro cracks all over the surface.

spk_1:   10:58
Yeah, I got to the point where I actually literally started here having to wear gloves instead because I could make my hands were just, I could barely use them. So anyway, appropriate amount of cleaning. And so getting back to the Ebola thing, I look at this Ebola because is there so much in this story that trips my prepping trigger? Because it's so deadly? It is so fear that it's such an easy media push button to get everybody's emotions and feelings cranked up to 11. And if you get if you let the media crank you up,

spk_0:   11:56
media loves fear.

spk_1:   11:57
Only love fear. That's that's how they make their money. They make their money off, making you afraid that is their job. Their job is to make you afraid so that you will watch them and give them money. I do not. I've never understand what's so hard to understand people. These people are news junkies sitting there. Oh my gosh, This? Oh, my gosh, Well, of course, that's what it is. They make money scaring you. It's like going to the Halloween movies. God help us. You know there. Might they make their money scaring you? It's their job. So Ebola thing. Perfect timing. What is more scary than hemorrhagic fever? Very little being burned alive. Maybe,

spk_0:   12:45
but you don't catch that from somebody else. So you don't have that? Uh, you get in with stranger danger when you start talking about hemorrhagic fevers too, and people of this stranger danger and they love Thea hatred of outsiders because they could be contaminated. That's a That's a deep Oh, yeah, human fear. They're triggering there

spk_1:   13:10
because it's those people, even even you look back to where we were notice. When I was talking about the 1918 flu, I called it the 1918 flu. I did not call it the Spanish flu.

spk_0:   13:24
They didn't start it, guys, we started it.

spk_1:   13:27
Well, we didn't start it. A

spk_0:   13:29
pig in Kansas,

spk_1:   13:30
a pig in Kansas started. We didn't start it. So if you look at it, bacon is humanity's rebel.

spk_0:   13:45
If we people have been so dang addicted to Bacon, the hogs would've been on that farm in the first place.

spk_1:   13:51
Speaking off, which be sure to fully cook your pork. You know this already. Anyway, that's another. That's another podcast entirely. Now what do the other lessons to learn from the every time the Ebola pops up well, to me, what it is when I ever hear these words the first thing I stop and think of and have stopped and think thought of since I really became a preference. Okay, this Ebola thing, this is silly. This is a non issue for me right now. I'm not saying it could never be an issue. It's just something I don't need to worry about here in Missouri. Yeah, I'm

spk_0:   14:36
not gonna catch it.

spk_1:   14:36
I'm not gonna catch it in Missouri. I'm going to die one of these days, but it's not going to be from a boa. But what does Ebola may a za prepper. Ebola means cleaning supplies. Ebola means disinfectant. Ebola means protective gear. Whether it be all the way up to a HAZ mat suit which don't laugh. I have some no not cases and cases of him. But I have a few in both of our sizes. I have a view that I even have a size that will fit anybody. It may require a lot of duct tape for some people.

spk_0:   15:25
Duct tape fixes everything,

spk_1:   15:26
but it will fit any money. Okay, here's the shields. Isolation gear masks in training.

spk_0:   15:37
Let's pause before we get too carried away with the equipment during training. If you have a complete HAZ mat suits and you do not know how to safely donit and take it back off.

spk_1:   15:49
Most important, don't

spk_0:   15:50
have a HAZ mat suit. You've got a way to hold the germs until you get your paws on them when you take the suit off and transmit it to you. That way

spk_1:   16:00
we should do a video on the proper way to to, uh, take off gloves. Plus those neoprene whatever they are

spk_0:   16:12
not really usually

spk_1:   16:13
yeah clubs, because if you don't know how to take off your gloves, it's no better than not wearing gloves. Because if you're gonna infect yourself with, you know, there's a specific way to safely remove gloves and you need to know it. If you don't know how to do it. Well, we'll probably make a video one of these days to show you how to do that, because really simple and she doesn't call, but there is a proper way to do it. So, yes,

spk_0:   16:47
people is not a risk. But other fluid transmissible diseases definitely are, and Ebola is in the class of things that are pretty easily transmitted by body fluids. It's not very much aerosolized It's hard to catch by somebody coughing, although it can happen mostly when you catch it, you catch it from other bodily fluids that have been transferred to you. And since people with many kinds of illnesses are ejecting fluids in all directions and cannot stop themselves from doing that, that ups the risk of transmission. It's actually a mechanism that the virus is air using to promote their own transmission to make you vomit. So norovirus Israel risk

spk_1:   17:37
real risk. And those we got around got those will

spk_0:   17:41
kill most. Every winter

spk_1:   17:43
they will kill you. And if they don't kill you, the Olympic you so so you want to die. And frankly, if you are, if you have one of those and it hits you, you are. You're down for the count, you are incapacitated. So if you're in a survival situation with the normal violator virus, you're in trouble.

spk_0:   18:05
It's hard enough to travel in a car when somebody else is driving. When you've got norovirus, much less drying motivate on your own feet, That would not be

spk_1:   18:16
so Yeah, definitely. Definitely. That's what I think of when I hear the you scare things. Okay, Ebola is not gonna get me, but what could? That's a similar sort of thing that really does exist here in North Misery.

spk_0:   18:34
Here's one thing I think is often overlooked in this discussion is developing personal habits that make you less likely to get transmission? There's something people in my field talk about called universal precautions. That means you handle every single sample of blood or other body fluids as if you knew them to be contaminated, because sooner or later you'll be right and you don't know when. Well, the idea of universal precautions should be extended to contact with the outside world in places where you could be catching communicable diseases from. I don't have to use universal precautions when I'm running around at the place because nobody else is out of place and they're not gonna give me anything because they're not there but what I am at my workplace and I'm touching buttons or door handles. Common use items like that. You just should be assuming that there are some germs on some of those surfaces and make sure you get him off before you start handling your food and things.

spk_1:   19:45
A key point we walk into a restaurant. We'll sit down. We'll order our food off the menu

spk_0:   19:53
because we don't want to be rude about making the server wait.

spk_1:   19:57
Besides, the menu is a commonly handled item. True. You know once where once we get past the commonly handle items, well, head to the bathroom and we'll wash our hands before we eat. Now, how many people I guaran tee you that only a tiny percentage of people who go to a restaurant who opened that front door was a big pole out, you know, and they go in and sit down on the handle a menu that 200 other people probably handled the day they're handling that with, you know, people who may not have washed their hands after they went to the bathroom. People who've been dealing with their snotty kids, people who just changed the baby. Okay. And yeah, I am trying to make you whole term a phobic. If you think about it, I've got all that stuff. And then you just gonna sit there and eat with your hands. No, you could get by with that at home, Okay? Because it's your own germs. And if you're like with us. If one of us has it, we try very hard not to get it to the other. Where somebody? It

spk_0:   21:14
is an interest, tight house,

spk_1:   21:16
you know? So it's a it's a 50 50. Whether it works, even if we're really careful. Sometimes it does. Yeah, sometimes it doesn't even if we're careful because we sleep in the same room way. Have one bathroom. We have one kitchen. You do what camp. There's only so much you can do. But like for restaurants and stuff like that common areas. As long as you're sticking to your area, you should be fine. But when you start handling the stuff, other people, that this sounds a little German phobic. But, yeah, I get sick a lot less. Other people, too, because what? I don't have kids. What, you just forget about it. If you get kids, your kids are walking little germ bombs.

spk_0:   22:03
I come in contact with a whole bunch of people in the course of my work, and I still don't get seconds. Often as

spk_1:   22:08
I come up with a dozen. The isn't nearly as money, but they all have kids, so they you know it's it's there.

spk_0:   22:17
The other side of that is taking care of yourself in a general way, with sleep, food and exercise. So you're immune systems. Good does. That will allow you to shed a lot of minor exposures without developing over illness from it.

spk_1:   22:30
Right? And it is the rare thing. But it does happen. But it is the rare thing we're having. A good immune system is bad. Mostly, it's good. Mostly it's good. Mostly it's good. What is bad. It could be really

spk_0:   22:47
hemorrhagic Fevers are the example. Are the counter example? But because that's your only own immune system getting so hyped up against the threat that it kills you and the Carlin all much rather have the good immune system.

spk_1:   23:00
And, of course, the 1918 flu type situation. That would be. But this is definitely and, I mean definitely a, um, situation where it's the exception, not the rule. I'm stepping to be driving through a town, and I've seen the guards. He also

spk_0:   23:22
started sale day

spk_1:   23:23
were charged field over the area. Well, that's a preschool stuff. Lots of speed, lots of

spk_0:   23:31
good outdoor work, clothes sadly being sold by a person who is 50% bigger than I am, at least

spk_1:   23:38
Yeah, very, very least I'd say close to 100%. Yeah,

spk_0:   23:43
probably. So. Not gonna be buying that cool outdoor or outdoor wear,

spk_1:   23:50
And then we're driving past a really nice pool.

spk_0:   23:53
Good immune systems, Universal precautions. Your mileage may vary. I usually go for the angle vaccinations.

spk_1:   24:04
I don't know.

spk_0:   24:04
I go for them because I am in contact with so very many people, some of whom are absolutely going to be ill when they come talk to me. So my exposure is basically guaranteed for whatever germs are going around that year and people poor in my kind of position, seeing a whole bunch people, some of whom are sick, can be transmission nodes. I'm not so much concerned for myself because I probably wouldn't get very sick, and it would help develop my resistance to future illness. So if it was just me, I probably wouldn't do it. But when someone who is in contact with a whole bunch of people gets a disease like that, they service transmission nodes, too. Amplify epidemics. So I think it's more of a responsibility if you're a transmission mode kind of person to protect yourself from getting ill on behalf of all the other people you're coming in contact with. That's just opinion of mine now

spk_1:   25:05
and, of course, another. They always talk about this when it's time to do the flu shots to people who are, uh, at risk because they're immuno suppressed older people. People have had medical treatments that suppress immunization. People had, like chemotherapy recently or other type of situations that

spk_0:   25:27
keep your on a lot of allergy or auto immune disorder. Medications are also in that category, and I think a lot of people don't realize that allergy medications often work by immuno suppression. So if you take a bunch of those, you are probably immuno suppressed some degree

spk_1:   25:45
like that one they gave me for for allergies. Took one pillow.

spk_0:   25:51
It is a potent immuno suppressant.

spk_1:   25:53
Yeah, what was, I think pregnant predicting his own. Yeah, he was having really bad allergic reactions, and I've got it if I need it, but I don't want to take it. It's kind of like, Yeah,

spk_0:   26:04
it's the nuclear option. When the allergies were half ready to kill you,

spk_1:   26:08
we're literally It's starting to get to be difficult to breathe through any pipe. You know, that's what it's for. I've only taken one, and I was pretty desperate then. So anyway, that's what I wanted to talk about. I've been seeing to start to pop up in the news and, yeah, you know, here's your take away. Okay?

spk_0:   26:37
Infectious diseases are out there. It probably won't be Ebola, but the same defenses work against basically the whole smear. Oh,

spk_1:   26:46
All right. We'll catch you next time. Bye.