Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

not really our wheelhouse. They have been well maybe one or two times when we've kind of dipped our toe into that. And a part of the deal with breaking science is that sometimes it it breaks you back when you realize, oh, well, that's study about tartar grades had some it's had some problems with it. Remember that's like we're recording another episode on tartar grades the following week. Yep.

Uh so yeah. Obviously, while we like to give the most up to date information we can whenever we dive into a subject, it's actually pretty rare that we cover a science story because it's the subject of current headlines and there are a few reasons for this. You know, we like to go deep a lot of times when news about a discovery first breaks there isn't a lot

of depth yet to explore. But also the early days of a scientific news story are often full of rapid revisions and leads that turn out to be false or misguided. Those can be easier to fix, I think in a printed article, where you can simply go in and make edits or corrections or links to updates. That kind of thing doesn't work very well for recorded audio. So we do our best to cover subjects that we think we can get right the first time, go deep on and

cover in a kind of evergreen way. Um, but right now there is a still developing global health story that we figured it was really important to address on our show, and that's the at this point, very likely global pandemic of coronavirus. So given the subject of today's story, we really need to be even more clear than usual about when we're researching, recording, and the publishing this episode. It was researched the last week of February, recorded on February,

and it will be published on March three. Now we're gonna do what we can to make sure it's up to date at the point of publication, but certainly bear in mind that the story will continue to move in the days and weeks following its publication. So there's a lot of media coverage out there about this right now. Some of it is is great, some of it is perhaps a bit more on the panic side of the equation.

UH studies are flying off the digital press. Government health organizations such as the CDC and UH that's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization or do we call them the who do you like to call them? The w h O? Or the who?

I call them? The who? Are you? Well? They are essential voices in all of this, but in the in some cases governmental um responses and communications have been criticized, and there's also a fair amount of misinformation, races, xenophobia, and fear out there. So we're gonna do what we can to stick to the facts here and to give you a balanced view of the current state of the coronavirus and give you some tips about what you need to do to potentially prepare and to further educate yourself

on the topic. Right, So, I guess we should start with a brief sketch of the timeline on this new disease up to the present. So how did the story begin. Well,

at the end of last year. On December thirty one, twenty nineteen, the National China Office of the World Health Organization was notified of a localized surge in cases of pneumonia with an unknown origin in Wuhan's City, which is in the Hubei Province of China, and it's home to about eleven million people, So this is considered central China.

And if you're if you're listening to this and you're trying to roughly picture it on a map, it's something like six hundred miles more or less directly north of Guangzhou, So we're talking about like an eleven hour bus drive according to Google. Yeah, now, these were cases of pneumonia at the time. That that's how they were recognized. And pneumonia just refers to a type of inflammation and the air sacks of the lungs, usually due to bacterial or

viral infection. I guess there are multiple types of pathogens like fungus and other parasites can get in there too. Uh So pneumonia can have many causes. A common one would be the influence of virus or flu, except the patients presenting at the hospitals and Muhan did not have the flu. By January three, there were forty four cases of Wuhan city pneumonia with unknown ideology, meaning we don't understand what's causing it. But obviously a new, unidentified pathogen

was suspected. So when a new and unfamiliar epidemic breaks out, what tools to epidemiologists have to try to understand things well? One is to look for underlying patterns among the people presenting with the novel infection. Is there anything many or all of them have in common, any place they've all been,

any food they've all eaten, or anything like that? And this method quickly brought a likely ground zero for exposure into focus, which was a specific food market in Wuhan which in some cases sold live animals, including seafood, rabbits, and poultry. This was the juan On Seafood Wholesale Market, and several of the initial patients apparently worked there. The market was shut down on January one and subjected to

sanitation protocols. Yeah, and again, despite its name, the market sees fairly varied trade and numerous animals, including several different varieties of mammals. So we call cases such as this zoonosis in which bacterium, virus or parasite transfers from an animal host to a human host, and there are numerous possible vectors and ways that it can spread. The reverse is also possible, by the way, either known as reverse zunosis or anthroponosis uh, in which one of these pathogens

or virus or whatever basses from a human to an animal. Yeah, and very very often when there is a new disease, it's a case of zoonosis, right, and something is popped up because a disease formerly present in some species of

animal has jumped and suddenly appeared in humans. Yeah, And then that's why it can be dangerous, because suddenly you have a new bacteria, virus, or parasite that the immune system and health experts are not specifically ready for or or you know, or you know, you haven't had a chance for an immunity to build up or for very targeted um uh, you know health strategy to be put in place. Yeah. Well, we're unprepared in multiple ways, right.

We don't have effective treatments yet. Likely we don't have effective vaccines yet. Likely we don't know what to look for yet with this new disease, and people don't have a natural immunity to it, so it hits us in our unpreparedness in multiple ways all at once. So one thing we need to drive home with zoonosis is that it has always occurred, uh, you know, anywhere humans have

been in close confines with animals. Uh, there is a there there is a possibility for for the pathogen to to to switch teams, to mute, to to jump over to a new host, and examples include everything from like rabies and bird flu to to HIV, with with HIV being an example of something that's subsequently mutated into a human only variety. Yeah, I believe the most recent consensus on that is that it was probably originally an immune

virus affecting apes. Right, And and of course there are multiple ways for uh, for the for these this lead to take place. You can come from the eating of animals, from just you know, raising animals and being close proximity with them, pats or another area. And we'll get back to some of the details on that in a bit. Okay, So, what were the symptoms that were identified for this unknown

type of pneumonia that was appearing in Wuhan City. Some of the early symptoms were fever, difficulty breathing, and X rays showing lesions in both lungs. There were initially fears that the virus was a resurgence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or STARS uh an outbreak of viral infection that killed hundreds of people worldwide in two thousand two and two thousand three but was ultimately contained, and these suspicions of association with STARRS were close. They were close

to the mark. On January seven, officials announced they had identified a novel viruses, the Culprit, which was at the time called twenty nineteen in c O V. It was a new strain of the coronavirus family, and coronaviruses are common. They account for all kinds of diseases, including STARS, but also instances of the Common Cold. Like the Common Cold, isn't caused by just one pathogen, but a range of similar viruses that affect the upper respiratory system. On January eleven,

China announced the first death from this new disease. It was a sixty one year old man who had passed away two days earlier of heart failure stemming from the infection, and confirmed infections and deaths continued to spread in the following days. By the twenty second of January, at least seventeen people had died in China. There were more than five and fifty infections. Uh There were attempts to control the spread of the disease through travel restrictions and quarantines,

but that they failed. Essentially they weren't able to contain it. On January, the World Health Organization announced that coronavirus was

a global emergency. At this time, there had been a hundred and seventy deaths in China, with seven thousand, seven hundred and eleven cases reported in the country, where the virus had spread to all thirty one provinces by this time, and also by this time cases are popping up in other countries around the world uh AS one note on February seven, Lee Win Leong, who was one of the first doctors in China to raise concerns about the new virus,

died on February eleventh. There were more than forty two thousand infections and more than a thousand deaths in China, and the World Health Organization at this point announced the new coronavirus had a name, it would be the coronavirus Disease twenty nineteen or COVID nineteen. In the weeks since, the global spread has continued and the number of infections and deaths has climbed, and on the day we're recording this, I was trying to get the most updated count I

could uh. This morning, NBC News was reporting that coronavirus today has been confirmed in at least forty countries, including Italy, Iran, South Korea, and the United States. The most recent public numbers indicate that more than eighty thousand cases of infection have been confirmed and more than deaths, most of which have been in China. As far as the United States goes, the CDC has already announced it expects community transmission of

COVID nineteen within the United States. And community transmission is an epidemiology term. It just means an infection is loose and spreading naturally within a population, So it's no longer that infections only appear in people who have traveled to places with known outbreaks. Community transmission just means it's here and it's spreading naturally among us. Yeah, it's kind of like the kinder egg. Used to the kinder egg with something that you know, you picked up on a vacation

to another country and you brought back and then you shared. Uh. Now you can buy a form of the kinder egg all over the place. So you know, community transmission of the kinder egg is just a reality. Not that I'm I'm comparing the kinder egg to coronavirus, the kindred any other way significantly better than the Yes, definitely. So at the time of this recording, it appears that there is already at least one known case of community transmission in

the United States in Sacramento, California. By the time this episode comes out, I would not be surprised if there are more that have been documented. Uh So, questions are how bad is this disease? How does it compare to other diseases were familiar with? There are two important numbers to understand when we're talking about the impact of a novel pathogen. One is the reproduction number, also known as

are not which is spelled like R zero. I think that's not from how the British would what would call the zero and then the other is the case fatality rate and the reproduction number are not tells you for every one person who becomes infected, how many more people are likely to are they likely to spread the infection to. The case fatality rate is what percent of the people

who contracts the disease die from it. So, for example, measles is a particularly nasty infection because of how easily it's spreads in the current world with an R are not somewhere between twelve and eighteen. So in the world today, if you if you get measles on average, you're potentially going to spread it to like fifteen other people, the

one reason the measles vaccine is so important. A reproduction number greater than one indicates the diseases spreading, right because it's being you know, it's infecting more people than are currently infected. A reproduction number of less than one usually indicates that an infection is dying out. I was reading a piece by ed Young in The Atlantic. However, that pointed out some difficulties with interpreting reproduction numbers for for

emerging diseases. For example, the reproduction number is an average, right, so a disease that has a reproduction number of two could mean that every single person who gets infected spreads the pathogen to two new people. Or it could mean that one person out of fifty spreads the disease to a hundred people, and this this actually has been known

to happen. These cases can become known as super spreaders, cases where certain diseases are spread uh disproportionately by select individuals uh And perhaps counterintuitively, diseases that propagate via superspreaders can be easier to contain than diseases that spread steadily from person to person across all cases. I guess that the easy go to example of this is it's typhoid Mary, right,

Mary Mallan? Yeah? Who as she wasn't the only superspreader of typhoid or typhoid fever, I guess yeah, But she was somebody who worked in food service and food preparation and uh and while not showing strong symptoms of infection, herself kept spreading the typhoid to other people. If memory serves, there's an episode of the Nick that deals with her. Now are there cases of superspreaders of coronavirus. It's still early, but it seems so I was finding several examples in

news reports. For example, one report in The Guardian from yesterday but in an article by Sarah Bosley and Martin Bellum alleging quote. The third British case of coronavirus was a man in his fifties who contracted the coronavirus infection at a conference in Singapore. He then traveled to France, where he stayed with his family in a ski chalet at the alpine resort La Contamin Montjoy. Five people who were in the chalet, including a boy of nine, if

tested positive for coronavirus. Since the man came back to the UK on an easy Jet flight and was diagnosed in Brighton, another Briton who was on holiday in the chalet flew back to his home in Malorca and was admitted to hospital in Palma. The chief medical officer said four more people attested positive in England, all of whom were also on the skiing holiday in France. So it seems like there was a there was a massive transmission

from this one person who contracted it. I was also reading a report of a woman in South Korea who is at this point believed to have so far spread the coronavirus to at least thirty seven people at her church. Yes, I think I was reading about part part of this

deals with like this particular church. You know, they their congregation, how they gather and then how they go out and uh an attempt to spread the word, right, But it could also have to do with just specifics of of individual variation in in you know, how how your immune

system works. Like there appears to be something called a twenty eight rule for the spread of many infectious diseases uh to quote from a two thousand eleven paper by Richard A. Stein and the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Quote in what became known as the rule, a concept documented by observational and modeling studies and having profound implications for infection control, twenty percent of the individuals within any given population are thought to contribute at least eighty percent to the transmission potential of a pathogen, and many host

pathogen interactions were found to follow this empirical rule. Now, this isn't true of every disease, but what they're saying is it's it's been discovered that for many disease eases that are infectious and spread from person to person, of the people infected do eighty percent of the spreading. Now, I think it's it's important, of course, not to demonize people who happen to be super spreaders. They're almost never

spreading a disease on purpose. Uh. The factors that make somebody a super spreader still not fully understood, but it may just have something to do with how their immune system works. Uh. Sometimes it happens because a disease that makes other people very obviously outwardly sick creates almost no symptoms and the super spreader so they don't even know they're spreading it to people. Right, And I believe this was the case with typhoid Mary for example. Right. So yeah,

again it's important not to demonize that in any way. Well, actually, I think with typhoid Mary, I'm not saying we should demonize her either, but I think at some point she was made aware but then had after that, at least for a while, continued to work in food service. So obviously, if you were aware that you are, you know that that you may have an infection that could spread to other people, you should do whatever possible not to spread it to people. And we can talk about practical methods

for that in a bit here. But also coming back to the reproduction number of an infection, the reproduction number, and Young points out and actually several authors I was looking at have have made this point. It's a very good one. It is not a fully fixed biological feature intrinsic to the pathogen. The reproduction number of a pathogen

can be influenced by human interventions. Young points out that stars originally had very different reproduction numbers in China and Canada, so you'd get are nots ranging from like two to five or six, and this was just because of different levels of success in diagnosing and containing the cases that appeared.

Coronavirus is no different. It's are not is influenced by biological facts about the virus itself, but also about how well people respond to it, what kinds of measures we can put in place, uh to contain it and stop transmission. And we'll get to those numbers in a second. But also I mentioned there's there's the the inner action between the reproduction number and the case fatality rate of an emerging pathogen. So meanwhile, UH, the hemorrhagic fever I bola

does not spread super easily between people. It usually has an are not between one and two. It's not highly highly infectious, but I bola is very scary because it has such a high case fatality rate some somewhere around fifty percent of the people who get a bola end up dying from it, and there are diseases with even higher CFRs. Avian influenza A or H five in one

has a CFR somewhere around sixty percent. Coronavirus is nowhere near that high, and in fact, depending on how you measure it, there are greater dangers represented by much more familiar diseases like seasonal flu. Like seasonal flu has a lower case fatality rate than coronavirus appears to. Seasonal flu has something like an average rate of point zero one

percent in the United States at least. However, it's still very dangerous just because of the number of people who get infected that this season alone, the flu has already caused more than twenty five million infections and fourteen thousand deaths in the United States alone. The flu usually has a reproduction number of something like one point three, and it comes in fairly predictable seasonal cycles, so we've kind

of gotten used to it. Even though it is still a great I mean, it kills thousands every year, but I guess it seems less scary to us just because it's been around. We we sort of know what to look for now. So as for the specific reproduction number in case fatality rate of the new coronavirus, at one point, the World Health Organization estimated that its reproduction number was

between about one point four and two point five. I was reading a recent study from the journal Travel Medicine which reviewed studies from between January one of this year and the seventh of February this year, and for this time period the author's right quote, we identified twelve studies which estimated the basic reproductive number for the COVID nineteen

from China and overseas UH. The estimates range from one point four to six point four nine, with a mean of three point to eight, a median of two point seven nine, and interquartile range of one point one six. So maybe the range is by our best estimates now currently averaging between like two point five and three point five. I've also seen estimates between two and three, though, again to drive home, those numbers could change a lot depending on what kinds of new UH new diagnostic methods and

containment methods come online. Reproduction numbers for a new emergent virus I think are going to tend to be higher than they are for something that we're better at looking for, because it takes us longer to recognize it and and stop it spread. As for the case fatality rate, overall, it appears to be somewhere around two percent on average, but it also varies greatly based on factors like the age of the infected person and perhaps other factors that

haven't come into focus yet. One relieving thing about it is that the disease, at least so for appears to be pretty mild rate bordering on non existent in children. Children rarely seem to get it, and when they do, it's usually not severe and they don't die from it. Elderly populations, on the other hand, or people with compromised immune systems or other pre existing diseases, are at much

higher risk. With the case fatality rate that could reach in some cases up to about fifteen percent, which is a lot. So at this point we shoul probably getto the symptoms a bit. You know, what are the symptoms as we understand them so far? For coronavirus. Right. So there are a lot of complications because the disease is so new, and we also don't yet have a good sense of how many people can become infected without showing

major symptoms. It appears that at least some people are getting this virus without major symptoms, which is actually you might think, oh, that sounds good, but that's actually very bad. That can help it spread because some of these others, these other pathogens that we discussed here, like one of the reasons we were able to control them is because it became abundantly obvious when you had them. You know,

you would have like a debilitating fever or something. Uh, and you knew something was wrong and and you we went and sought help, and then it could be uh, there was a red flag there for medical professionals. Right. You're less likely to spread it to more people that way. Um. And then there's another complication along the same lines, which is that it appears there might be a long incubation period before some people end up showing symptoms. Estimates have

been anywhere from like two to fourteen days. We just don't really know for sure. But again that's not good. You don't want people to be uh in a stage where they could potentially be contagious while they're not showing symptoms. But when symptoms do manifest, the basic outlook seems to be familiar. You know. It's like a lot of other respiratory infections. It's going to be fever, cough, shortness of breath.

Those are the main ones. Uh. And then there have been other, like smaller instances of things like uh, digestive trouble, diarrhea, sneezing. But but the main ones are fever, ca off in, shortness of breath. Now, at an early stage of an outbreak like this, there's a lot of danger that's not just the disease itself, but danger from misinformation, from a panic,

from pseudoscience plowing into people's brains. Uh. We were both reading a good article by Kate Kellen and Reuter's that was just about bad science that had been published on preprint servers without peer review and then spread around on the internet and only to later be retracted. Like there there was a study that I think sourced the outbreak of the virus two snakes, and this turned out to not be true. Uh. There was one that said, uh, the virus may have come from outer space or from

upper in the atmosphere. That probably isn't correct. Um. There was another one that was likening it to HIV, saying there were these similarities between coronavirus and HIV. That was widely criticized. So I would say be careful where you're getting your information from right now. There's a tendency because there are so many unknown for very quickly produced and in some cases sloppy science to get out there on preprint servers without proper peer review, and then to just

get picked up by news sites. Yeah. As I'll probably drive home again later. The CDC and and the w h O are both great places to look for answers and if if you hear something that is a little suspect, that's a great place to go to see if there is any validity to it. Yeah. Uh, there're hoaxes abounding there, and you know there there can be really negative results, like there have been riots in Ukraine in response to

the disease. One thing that should not need to be said, but then again, I guess it's it's unbelievable how quickly people can succumb to racist, magical thinking. You do not need to be afraid of Chinese people. You do not need to be afraid of eating Chinese food or interacting with Chinese Americans or any other ethnic Chinese people. The fact that the virus first appeared in Wuhan does not mean that Chinese people in any other part of the

world they're likely to be infected. Use your brain. Yeah, there there have been reports of increased racist attacks on people of Chinese and East Asian origin in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and per CNN is reporting on

the matter. We're talking you know, everything from just idiots on the train saying idiotic things to strangers, um, which I guess is the sort of thing that's can be expected in the in the best of times, right when there's not some sort of additional stress or like this. But then there are also cases of motel employees um being abusive to guests just because they have you know, the right balance of fear and misinformation on hand, right, And it would just be ignorance and fear because obviously

the disease does not have like a racial component or something, right. Yeah, this is not an Asian illness, this is a human illness. It seemingly became a human illness in China, but in doing so it crossed that species barrier. Uh. Coronavirus does not care about your race or nationality. We are all

just potential vessels for it. And then in terms of it being a zoonotic disease of it making this leap um, we do have to again drive home that zoonotic diseases can be found everywhere, every country, every culture, every language, every people. For as long as humans have interacted with animals, and for as long as we continue to do so, we will all be open to potential infection by direct contact, indirect contact, vector born illnesses, food born illnesses, and water

born illnesses. Uh. It can and does happen everywhere. The best any of us can do per the c d C is to wash your hands, stay safe around pets, prevent parasite bites, practice food safety, animal interaction safety, and

avoid animal bites and scratches as well. And then finally, I do want to just I really want to drive home that Dean Koontz did not predict the outbreak in his nine novel Surely now this is one of the because there's a lot there are a lot of memes and going around a lot of misinformation, and you know, some of it is kind of harmless like this. I mean, ultimately, I don't think anybody's actually going after Dean Koontz on

this matter. But but this is another one that has been I think, pretty pretty debunked, where it's like basically he one of one of his novel Novelly wrote in one has some sort of a fictional manufactured disease pop up, and in at least one version of the novel, it

has its origins in in Wuhan. And actually in this case, you know, certainly if this if people pick up and run with this, it's I mean, it's so illogical, but I guess you could imagine someone using this as some additional rationale for conspiracy, thinking about it like, oh, this is some sort of man made weapon, this is not something that occurred naturally, and so forth, which is all uh nonsense. Um, but oh yeah, I guess we didn't

bring that up. But like that, that is another one of the crazy rumors that's going around, is that this is some kind of bioweapon. I was able to find no evidence at all. I mean, it seems like this is yet another one of these zoonotic diseases. These kinds of things emerge all the time. It does not need some kind of crazy conspiracy explanation, right. But again, this is exactly the sort of crazy conspiracy explanation that is always touted whenever there is some sort of a new illness.

It's like like, what if it's a bioweapon? Must be a bioweapon, must have, must be. You know, they are created by one side to punish the other. That sort of thing. Um. But I will say one other thing about Dean Coon's though, is that Watchers is pretty awesome. And uh and and and you know, I think maybe we need another film adaptation, So spread your love for Watchers, not information about COVID nineteen. I never saw the movie.

I read the book. I love that book in high school. Yeah, I don't know how I feel now, though I do recall. I don't it pretty wacky as I as I remember. It's one of those books that this is such a thing, books that loves to give the full correct name of types of guns, you know, or like the terration can't just be like, you know, the dude grabbed his gun. It's like the dude grabbed his nine millimeter modified stock oozy carbine. I don't know exactly what that impulse in

the author is. It's very funny to me. But it also had a talking dog, which was awesome, and had a talking dog, a monster, and then a human assassin that either thought he gained the life forces of people who are actually did um. I don't think that made it into the movie. But you know who did make it into the movie, Michael Ironside. Oh, I gotta see it now. And in the subsequent like the Ironside completion and the a Iron Sides in it, I'm there. But

then get this. The subsequent sequels involved Mark Singer wings Houser and then Mark Hamill. So there's there's there's plenty to go on there. I think we need to take a break, but when we come back, we can talk about what you can do about the coronavirus. Alright, we're back. So I guess one of the big ones to drive

home is just don't panic. Right. Uh. It's also important to remember that the vast majority of infected people will not suffer severe symptoms, and some will have no symptoms at all, which again is a positive and a negative depending on how you look at it. As we discussed previously, so this is not the common cold, but it's also not a fictional super plague out of your favorite pulp novel.

For multiple reasons, including not just self interested reasons. You should do everything you reasonably can not to get infected, but you also don't need to have it in your head that this is going to kill us all again. Like even in these very early sort of worst case scenarios like what happened in Muhan, the CFR, on average, it's still fairly low compared to a lot of other

scary outbreaks. And as we say this, I do have to admit, you know, it is easy to sort of get a panicky if you just especially if you're kind of plugged into social media and you're just kind of scrolling through. I mean, I I find myself feeling a little this just scrolling through a news app that I respect.

You know that that then I trust You're just you're getting a lot of coverage about it right now, where it's covering the you know, the economic side of it, You're it's covering the the epidemiology of it, the just the basic medical challenge of the scenario. And if you just keep plugging into it, you can kind of eventually feed the monster of paranoia in your head. Yeah, some

of the political reactions are not reassuring. Yeah, because that's another thing that's that's part of the news cycle concerning it, is what how our government's dealing with it, how our politicians dealing with it, and some of the communication out there on this front has been highly criticized. Yes, uh So, one thing though that I think you can do that

will help. Uh Number one, of course actually have practical benefits, but also you know, give you more of a sense of control, is to pay attention to real best practices for disease control. So basic practical steps to prevent infection. A lot of these are gonna sound familiar to you because they're essentially the same tactics believed to protect against the spread of other known respiratory diseases. So if you are trying to avoid infection, first of all, most importantly,

avoid close physical contact with people who are sick. However possible, limit exposure to anybody who's coughing, sneezing, or running a fever. How close is too close well, as a general rule, the CDC recommends staying about one meter or three feet away from anyone who is coughing or sneezing. That that's just a general rule, uh for coronavirus. I've seen other experts recommending staying at least five feet away or six feet away. Obviously farther is better. Another one avoid touching

your face with your hands. A really common transmission route for many diseases is that droplets containing infectious agents go from a surface out in the world that you touch to your hands and then your face, especially your eyes, nose, or mouth. Yeah, and reading about all this makes me

realize that I'm terrible at this. Not not that I'm like constantly pawing at my face or like jabbing my eyes or anything, but while I'm thinking about something or researching something, I will typically like bring my hand to my lower face region, like to my chin, but often to like to to my mouth region. And uh, And I'm not sure how I curb myself of that, if I should start wearing boxing gloves or or what what the best course of action is there? I don't know,

are you touching the boxing gloves to door knobs and stuff? Um? Coolkay? Yeah, that doesn't really help, does it? But maybe if I had the gloves on, they would be a reminder. It's like, oh, this is not the comforting gesture that I that I am familiar with. This is a giant boxing glove. Well, we can come back to that in a minute. Okay, So on top of that, and actually, I think I said something else might be most important. This might be most important. I don't know if I can rank what's

most important. Wash your hands very familiar advice, but it really works with soap and water for at least twenty seconds. Wash them frequently, especially after touching surfaces in a public place, especially after going to the bathroom, after blowing your nose,

coughing or sneezing. Yeah, it's easy to lose sight of the importance of this, in part because authority figures and signs are constantly telling you that you should wash your hands, and some of us maybe feel an innate rebellion against that, or it's also generally not something we enjoy. We kind of rushed through it, right. It's easy to rush through those twenty seconds if you're just trying to get back to your your desk to to finish working, or you have somewhere to go. You have to pick up a

kid or something, but it is extremely important. Um, Luckily, I feel like I am pretty good about this, but my son is super good about this because not not because he's super conscientious about the importance of staying German free, as much as that he just gets carried away with putting soap on his hands. So it'll like he like soap up his hands for like, you know, half a minute.

Then it's like a process of like filling up his cupped palms with water and then releasing it, and then he'll ye have left to his own devices to like wash his hands for two minutes. Yeah, water and soap are amazing textures and things. They can be a lot of fun. So maybe that, maybe that really is the message. If you are a kind of person who finds yourself rushing through washing your hands a little bit too much, take time to appreciate the tactile sensations and the warm water. Uh,

you know, maybe you'll enjoy it. Also, if nobody has ever offered you technical tips on washing your hands, here's one I read in a couple of sources. Especially, pay close attention to making sure your fingertips get clean. A lot of times when we wash our hands, we just

kind of like rub our palms together a lot. Pay attention to your finger tips and under your finger nails, because what happens when you actually like handle food or touch your face a lot of times it's your fingertips, right, Yeah, those that's are the way we manually manipulate things. Alternately, you can clean your hands with an alcohol based disinfectant

product like a hand sanitizer gel. These need to be at least sixty alcohol, but some sources say soap and water are better, or at least the evidence for the effectiveness of soap and water is better. Next to whatever extent, you can clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces in your house, your workplace, whatever. You know, you're you're touching the door knob,

you're touching the this and that. You know what these things are in your house, clean them off, yeah, And I mean the thing that may seem counterintuitive about this is that these are not necessarily the places that we're dropping a lot of food or getting sticky that sort of thing. These are just the the features of your house that are commonly manipulated and touched. Another thing that might help is you might want to avoid unnecessary exposure

to large, close crowds or public gatherings. I was just reading that Switzerland today has issued a temporary ban on all public and private gatherings of more than a thousand people. Yeah. In in Japan, you're seeing a well, certainly in an Asi, you're seeing various concerts that have been postponed. I conventions have been shut down. Yeah. I follow New Japan Pro Wrestling in Japan, and they just canceled half of their live events from March and conceivably could cancel more of them.

All part of, you know, helping to maintain public safety in the outbreak. Yeah, you've here, here's a big one. You've probably heard and seen a bunch of stuff about face masks. And here I've got a beef with a lot of news sites that are publishing articles about coronavirus. So you've got the new article about COVID nineteen, and then what's the image that accompanies that article. It's somebody

in a face mask. They got the surgical mask on. People, please stop selecting these images to go with your stories and maybe use an image of the virus itself for something something else, because that this selection of these images suggests that what people need to do to protect themselves from the virus is to go out and buy a bunch of surgical masks and wear them whenever they go

in public. Here's something important to understand, and surgical masks are much more important to prevent you from spreading diseases, especially you know, like bacteria in your mouth and your nose, than to prevent you from contracting of virus. Public health experts do not recommend that healthy people wear face masks for general daily activity. Uh. Like, what a face mask does is, you know, it blocks larger droplets escaping your

nose and your mouth into the environment. Think about when they are actually used, for example, by surgeons, to prevent bacteria and droplets from the surgeon's map, mouth and nose from getting into your body while you're cut open. Is to protect you, not to protect the surgeon. Standard surgical masks or porous They don't form a tight seal around your nose and mouth, and viruses can often penetrate them. They they are generally not believed to be very effective

at preventing you from getting a virus. I was finding, you know, quotes from different epidemiologists and public health experts in different sources, and there were slightly different levels of of response to the idea of wearing surgical masks just

as a protective measure. The opinions to me seemed to range from it will not help and does nothing at all, too it might help a little bit, but it's not going to be very effective, right, And I can well imagine it's the sort of thing where overall would not be a good idea if it then enabled you to to engage in risk your behavior or to pull back on more important things like washing your hand, right, or

here's another one I was actually reading about. Or if it means that you will end up like fut sing with your mask and touching your face more. Uh, this is another thing. Now, there's another type of mask that you've probably read about, and this is the one that would be more effective if you were actually trying to have it as a prophylactic against being infected. These are the IN ninety five or the N ninety nine masks,

which have a more complicated design. They're basically they're not just a piece of material to cover your mouth and knows, they're basically a full face piece respirator. And if they're worned properly. They are supposed to prevent whatever the number

is of all airborne particles from passing in round. But if you haven't had training, there's a good chance that if you try to wear one of these things, you will not only fail, but possibly increase your risk because when people without experience wear these masks, they often keep adjusting and foxing with them, which means you're touching your face. Now.

In theory, at least, these would be more effective than regular surgical masks or procedure masks that protecting you from inhaling the virus, but also not a hundred percent effective, especially again if you're you're not experienced with them, you haven't had training, you don't know exactly how to wear them. There there are other ways that like, for example, uh, I've seen stuff going around on the internet where people talk about like beards being a problem for the virus.

Beards are not a problem. What would be true is that having facial hair would in most cases prevent you from getting a full seal if you were trying to wear one of these, uh, one of these like in ninety five or masks, right, Yeah, Like, if anybody out there has ever attempted to go snorkeling on say, like day five of vacation. Stubble, you kind of get some

of what's going on here. But I say this not just as a person with a beard, being that the beard itself does not make you susceptible to the virus. It would be that if you were trying to wear one of these masks, you should not have a beard.

But also something a lot of public health officials and experts have been saying is that you know, they're sort of urging people mostly please don't go out and like try to buy up or hoard these these types of masks because they're in high demand right now, and they're in high demand for healthcare workers and other people who are actually going to be exposed to people likely to

be infected. Uh So, a lot of these experts are cautioning against regular people who don't probably don't need them buying up all the supply for fear that it will create supply problems for healthcare workers. And that certainly makes sense to me. All right, So those are some some steps that one can take to attempt to prevent uh

becoming sick. What do you do once you are sick or once you think you're sick, right, so what Yeah, if you think you might be sick, if you have symptoms of respiratory illness, especially cough, fever, shortness of breath, first of all, stay home, do not go to work, don't try to power through whatever it is your your public you know, plans where you need to try to isolate yourself as much as possible, especially if you have

recently traveled to an affected area. Originally this was just if you traveled to China in the past two weeks, but now the virus is spread significantly beyond China, so

travel indications are becoming more diffuse. This one is it can be I think harder than we we we give credit, you know, especially with the sort of work culture that is so prevalent these days, you know, where it's we feel this this pressure to push through, to be the person who just all right, to take a bunch of of meds and just go on and get the work done because it just has to be done. Then, and the the in the amount of importance we put we put on our work and our profession as kind of

our defining self. You know, I would say beyond this, I'm not just saying if you, you know, you should stay home. If you are a boss or an employer, you're in a position of authority, it's very important for you to make clear to your workers or direct reports whoever, that they should not be doing this. They should not be trying to power through or come to work if they have a respiratory illness. They should be staying home, and you need to, you know, put whatever in place

to help them do that. Yeah, be that an enhanced teleworking policy or what have you? Now Again, if you think you're sick, also, it's a good idea to separate yourself from other people and animals in your household. Try to stay in a separate room if you can. Try to use a different bathroom if possible. You, you know, the same kind of thing you practice if you saw somebody sick out in public. You want to keep distance between you and other people who might get infected in

your house. When you cough, try to cover your mouth as much as possible. Coughing into the crook of your elbow is usually considered better than coughing into your hand because you're less likely to spread virus to a secondary surface. It's more fun because you you can pretend your Dracula, right, you can be Bella Legosi and plan on from outer space.

Or the guy pretending to be Bella a ghost that's right, because he had actually died, right, and the guy had to cover up his face so you couldn't tell it wasn't Bella um everybody could tell. Also, if you think you may have coronavirus, Uh, this is a better time to wear a regular face mask like a surgical mask. By blocking large droplets from coming off of your face, it will reduce the amount of virus that you spread

to others when you cough or sneeze. But I guess maybe most importantly, also, if you think you may have coronavirus, call your doctor healthcare provider before going to their office. Don't just go. Call and explain, explain what your symptoms are, and especially mentioned if you have had if you've been traveling recently, and this way they will be better able to direct you to the appropriate facilities to prevent unnecessary contact and to get you where you need to go

or tell you what you need to do best. Now more generally, Uh, you know, I was thinking about like how should we prepare for this? Like what what? What else should we be doing if obviously we don't think

we're infected yet. I was reading a really good article in Scientific American from just yesterday by Zane up to fect she and she's reacting to, of course, the fact that, you know, the CDC has begun to warn people within the United States that there's community transmission probably taking place, and this has the potential to pose quite a significant disruption to our lives. Uh. She points out that, you know, there's kind of a psychological issue, and this has been

very true for me at least. A lot of people don't know how seriously to take a problem like this, Like you are afraid of being under prepared, but you're also afraid of overreacting and looking foolish, you know, uh, looking paranoid, you know, being the person who stockpiled hollow point ammunition and canned corn beef hash for the Y two K bug. Yeah, you don't. You don't want to fall into a set of behaviors that make you feel like Michael Shannon might play you in the movie version. Yeah, um,

of course. Yeah. And the point of Defects article is this, don't do that, don't give into panic, don't go crazy, don't start hoarding. Don't fall into doomsday prepper, you know, snake oil territory. I'm sure there are people out there selling all kinds of you know, miracle coronavirus cure or whatever. But do prepare. Do prepare how you can in reasonable ways, and we'll talk about what those are in just a minute here. Because these preparations could not only protect you,

they can help contain the problem overall. Quote, preparing for the almost inevitable global spread of this virus is one of the most pro social out heuristic things you can do in response to potential disruptions of this kind. And in explaining her argument, uh, you know, she mentions we mentioned earlier, of course, that you know, there are not in the fatality rate of a disease, are not fixed

to numbers that are biologically intrinsic to the pathogen. Of course, they're influenced by biological features of the pathogen, but it's better to think of these numbers as something closer to other big numbers in the social sciences, like the unemployment

rate or average human life expectancy. There are numbers that reflect real averages on the ground as collected by epidemiologists, but they can also change a lot based on our individual behaviors and the actions of institutions and to fect She points out that it was effective interventions by our disease control efforts that were able to control the two

thousand three Stars epidemic. But before our interventions are not of Stars, was about three and then after active measures it went down to about point zero four and all ultimately it only killed between nine hundred and a thousand people, which is still too many, but far less than it had the potential to. Likewise, there are certain ways we can prepare now that might help to do what defects. She calls flattening the curve of the pandemic and putting

less strain and stress on infrastructure at crucial times. So what is flattening the curve mean? It means slowing the transmission rate of the disease and the best way to do that to whatever extent possible is to practice community wide isolation, meaning you know, if people can, they should stay home. The more people stay home, the fewer people will catch the virus. The fewer people catch it, the

better our health infrastructure can manage. Crowding at hospitals will greatly increase the case fatality rate not only for coronavirus, but for other dangerous infections at the same time, like the flu. Yeah, that's the thing. It's this is not like like a small town movie theater situation where the new blockbuster comes to town and then, uh, it's the only thing playing. There are still going to be other

featured infections in play. And for that reason, So when it comes to what preparations you actually should engage in to fetch your recommends, first of all, make sure you've gotten your flu shot. You know, this reduces the likelihood that you'll have to go to the hospital with the flu, reducing overall strain on the health care infrastructure, reducing the chance that you could be exposed to coronavirus while seeking treatment for the flu. Uh, And they're also implied comorbidities.

You don't want to be exposed to both flu and coronavirus at the same time. Beyond that, it is reasonable to stock up on some supplies that you could basically use to stay at home for two to three weeks if necessary. We don't know that you're going to need to do that, but it's possible that we could get to a point where the outlook for this pandemic would be a lot better if people could stay home for

roughly two to three weeks. So stuff to get you through two to three weeks at home would include drinkable water. Drinkable water is a great one because this is something that's good to have on hand in case there's a winter storm, in case your it is frequently happens in the area where we live where suddenly there's a boil warning for your water. Well, now you have some fresh water.

And if you if you reach the point where it's like months later and you realize, oh, I still have all that water I bought in case of the coronavirus, Well put in your car with you and the next time there's somebody on a on a hot day, you know, asking for for you know, for a little help, you can always give them a water bottle. Totally beyond that, of course, it's it's good to have food, shelf stable food like canned goods and of course dried foods not bananas, Yeah,

can canned canned goods. Uh, we're specifically mentioned. Also things like pasta, rice, beans, dried fruit and nuts, anything that can hang out and doesn't need to be refrigerated. Of course, it's fine to have refrigerated foods too, but if say the power goes out at some point, or if you do need to stay home for three weeks, stuff might not stay fresh in your fridge for that whole time. Also, it's important that this is one to think about in advance.

Stock up on prescription medications if you can, if you can get a pres option filled, that could get you through a two to three week period, and then on top of that basic first aid supplies and over the counter medications you might need right beyond that, things to keep you busy that you can do at home, you know, books,

video games, board games, all that kind of stuff. So probably not the board game pandemic Um, which is a which is a fun game, but it's just not the time, um but but but yeah, it is important to think about the fact that you you need to be potentially prepared for being a little bit stir crazy with your family, and what are some of the things to have on

hand to help facilitate that stay now. Of course, if it does come to people needing to stay home for a few weeks at a time, there are also options to rely on deliveries for things people need but one of the points that too fectually emphasizes is that delivery services will be very important for people who don't have the ability to prepare ahead of time, you know all that, And so it's better not to wait until the last minute and then put all that stress on various kinds

of infrastruct sure all at once, whether that's health care, infrastructure, delivery workers all that. Yeah, and this is an easy, easy one to fall into, right, because we have so much stuff that is delivered to us on any given day. You know, we might have uh, you know, Amazon Prime, next day delivery, same day delivery for various goods. You may have various meal delivery services that are dropping by

your door, et cetera. And again, not to be alarmist, because even in places, say in China, where the outbreaks have been very severe, generally, uh like, basic services have continued, so there's power and all that. So you know, it's not that you should expect the power to go out, but just to be safe, it's probably not a bad idea to have, say, a portable charger for your phone. Yeah, those are handy to have anyway, especially you're like me and you you keep your phone too long and the

battery just gets gets crappier and crappier. Yep, yep, yep. Another thing. We sort of emphasized this earlier, but defectually makes the same point, and I think it's a very important one. Don't just think about yourself, Think about what you can do for people that you are in a

position of authority over. If you're an employer, if you're a boss, if you're in whatever kind of authority position, please go ahead and make all necessary preparations to allow people to work from home if possible, to miss work for two to three weeks without interruptions, to pay. Yeah, and you know, maybe even send out something about that now before it becomes an issue, you know. And again, of course, it may turn out that we don't need to practice any of the stuff, that we don't actually

need to go into community isolation. But I think to a factually makes a good case that early preparedness for that possibility helps everyone and has relatively low costs, provided you're not like hoarding scarce medical supplies or something right right, like the idea of just having some some extra shelf goods on hand. You know, you're you're you're not wasting money. You can eat them either way. You eat them either way. It's it's just a safeguarding you a little bit for

the future. Towards the end of her article, she she writes, quote, as a society, there are much larger conversations to be had about the way our healthcare industry runs. For example, how to handle global risks and are increasingly interconnected world. How to build resilient communities, how to reduce travel for work. Those are all important discussions, and nothing in this short article replaces that. However, the practical steps facing households are

immediate and important for the sake of everyone else. Prepared to stay home for a few weeks, you'll reduce your own risks, but most importantly, you reduce the burden on healthcare and delivery infrastructure and allow frontline workers to reach and help the people most vulnerable. You know, I want to come back to the subject of information as well here,

because again I think this is key. Trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization UH These are both excellent organizations to go to for information, up to the date information, up to date information about coronavirus. A friend of mine who works with the CDC. Was was recently driving this home on social media. Do not fall into conspiracy ideas and conspiracy thinking that cast the c d C is some sort of deep state adversary

or some sort of state political mouthpiece. Uh. The CDC is a great source of information for news about COVID nineteen and you can if you are not aware of where to find them, you can just go to www dot CDC dot gov. Yeah, these organizations are staffed with excellent public servants and career professionals. These are people who know what they're doing and they're working very hard to get you the best information they can given what we

know at the time. All right, on that note, we're going to take one more break, but when we come back we will discuss long term prospects and analysis. Than all right, we're back. So I know a lot of you probably have this question on your mind, and it's something that of course continues to come up in media coverage. What about a vaccine? Right? Uh that that, of course would be great if we had a vaccine for this

new virus. There is no vaccine yet a number of labs and pharmaceutical companies around the world are working rapidly to develop one. I was reading about a number of different efforts, but most current estimates are saying that it will be at least a year or so before a vaccine will be ready, and that might be an optimistic timeline. Some timelines don't even get to the human testing phase until uh, so we don't know how long it will take.

But and of course there have been rumors, right including rumors by certain high profile politicians that were very close to a vaccine. I guess you could define very close however you want, But but a realistic timeline is that a vaccine with proven efficacy is probably at the very least months, if not years, away, right, So don't put all your eggs in that basket, especially as far as

short term concerns go. Right. More broadly, though, at the time we're recording this, there are being there are other treatments that are being explored, So maybe not a vaccine, maybe sooner than a vaccine. There's the possibility that we could get some kind of anti viral drugs that that could be effective to some extent with with this coronavirus. But as of the day were recording, I don't think I had found any evidence that any had been approved

for human use yet. Now another question is when will the coronavirus peak. I was reading about this in a news feature for Nature by David Syronowsky published on February eighteen, And so what would have a peak refer to? Well, a disease peaks when quote the number of new infections in a single day reaches its highest point. So the bottom line is that it's hard to predict, and estimates

are all over the place. Some experts believe we're very close to the peak already, or perhaps we've even passed it. Some estimate that it's months away. H There are dangers in over relying on guesses like these either way, but it would be good to try to get a sense

of the lay of the land. Um. One of the experts that the author here is talking to is named Brian Labis, who works on disease surveillance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Labis says, quote, if you revise your predictions every week to say that the outbreak will peak in a week or two events, really you will be correct. Um. But the optimistic scenario. Well. On February eleven, Zong and Shan, a prominent Chinese physician UH

predicted a peak by somewhere around the end of February. Meanwhile, a British statistician named Sebastian Funk published models that aligned roughly with this prediction. Quote. Funk estimates that that at the peak, around a million people about ten percent of Wuhan's population will be infected, and according to this model, the outbreak may even have already peaked, but that's the

most optimistic scenario, the worst case UH. The The author here mentions Hiroshi Nishiura, who is an epidemiologist at Hokkaido University and Supporto Japan, who alleges that the outbreak quote will peak sometime between late March and late May. At this point, he says up to two point three million

cases will be diagnosed in a single day. In total, he estimates that between five hundred and fifty million and six hundred and fifty million people across China will be infected, fully forty of the country's population, so that that would be very bad obviously, but that's a worst case scenario, or at least is believed to be at this point, so we don't know for sure when the peak will be.

But there's a good point made by Gabriel Lung, who is an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, who points out that you're not just trying to reduce the overall number of people who get infected. It is actually important to try to reduce the number of people who get infected at the same time because whenever this peak is,

it's going to essentially grind everything to a halt. It. You know, health services, hospitals, doctors become overwhelmed, and that is what contributes to an increasing case fatality rate for the disease. Uh. You know, the less attention individual patients can get because health services are strained by too many people presenting with the disease at the same time, the

worst the outcomes will be. Now, another article that we're looking at for this episode is a piece that came out of The Atlantic by James Hamblin titled You're likely to get the coronavirus um, which, um, that's well, you know, it's uh, it's it's a frank title and and I think it becomes clear when you read it. It's not a it's not a scare tactic article like it. Basically the article gets into the the idea that this is this uh, this illness is here and it might be

with us for a while. Um. He points out that quote. The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease, a

fifth endemic coronavirus. The other four endemic coronaviruses are the alpha coronavirus IS two and n L sixty three, plus the two beta coronavirus is O C forty three in h K you one now two to nine E and O C forty three are among the virus is responsible for the common cold, like we were mentioning earlier, and people around the world are routinely infected with these four coronaviruses. So they're they're not like an emerging pandemic. They're just

with us. They're just always kind of bouncing around within human population, right, They're just they're just part of it there. That's part of our our seasonal exposure to viruses. Now, you might well be wondering, since I've brought out the seasonal aspect of this, what does it really mean for something like this to be a seasonal virus? Why do we have a cold and flu season? It's a good question. Yeah,

So cold and flu are are linked to winter. In the northern hemisphere, they tend to peak in February and March, while in the southern hemisphere the peak is June and September. Now, to be clear, these illnesses are not caused by the cold. That is, sometimes the sort of loose misconception that floats around the virus is the prerequisite. But why is there a link between the virus and cold conditions. Well, scientists don't have a definite answer, but there are some prevailing

ideas on this. So first of all, such viruses may just survive better in colder, dryer climates. Dry air, for instance, might make it possible for viral droplets to disperse further. So maybe when you like sneeze or cough in cold, dry air, the goes farther. Yeah, Like, you know, we're talking about how far away does it make sense to be from an infected person? You know? Is it is it three ft? Is it five feet? Is a six ft?

One of the ideas here is that the the the the necessary distance for a transference is perhaps less due to the uh the dryness of the air. Also, winter conditions tend to force people to spend more time time indoors sealed up, exposing them more to the shared air of people who may have a virus. Another idea is that shorter days and less sunlight lead to lower levels of vitamin D and melatonin, which requires sunlight for generation,

and so this ultimately compromises our immune system. So our immune system is perhaps weaker during the winter and therefore were just more susceptible to these infections. Whatever the exact reason uh the results is that established viral illnesses like influenza follow a seasonal cycle, and the idea is that as this new coronavirus spreads, its potentially becomes just part

of this cycle as well. But it is important to realize that yes, seasonal changes may be good, typically good at cutting into a virus's survival rate, but nothing is a sure thing here with this new coronavirus. A number

of different journalists have written about this topic. I was looking at something written by Tom Arville for The l A Times, and he spoke with Marcy edge F Bonnie, an associate professor of biology at pin State University, who pointed out that while warmer weather typically cuts into an illness is survival rate. This illness will be encountering a

quote completely susceptible US population. So, coming back to what we said earlier, next to no has been exposed to it here before, there's been no chance to develop an immunity, uh much less anything like a vaccine. So the idea, you know, if you hear someone say, well, don't worry that the weather is getting warmer, it's going to take care of it. Um, that's not possible, but not possible but not known. Yeah, there are a lot of caveats

to attach that statement at the very least. Yeah, totally. Well, so we've reached the end of what we had prepared to say here today. But uh, I really hope we have left you not panicking, uh, not more afraid than when you started, but armed with some knowledge that you can use to help ready yourself. Yeah, you've got you've got some information. You've got some knowledge. Um, maybe a little better idea about where you should go for additional information again c D C W h O. Uh, those

are great places to seek out for additional information. Again, bear in mind the date of this publication. Compare that to when you're listening to this episode, because things are going to change. Information is going to improve. Um. Also, yeah, we've we've let you know that there are four Watchers movies so you can watch while you're sealed up in your home eating your noodles and eating your Kinder eggs. Are Kinder eggs shelf stable candy? Yeah? I think they are. Yeah,

I mean they know you heard it here. That's how you get through. I mean they have they have an expiration day. But I think they're good for a little bit. I don't think I've ever had a kinderrect. You don't have to worry about them hatching is the thing. There are no special like Maguai gremlin rules in play. That's a very good, very good feature. Obviously, we'd love to hear from anyone out there, you know, especially if you if you have any firsthand experience with pandemics or with

this particular coronavirus UM. You know, we we we'd appreciate hearing from the via email. Uh. In the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes of our show, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Stuff to blow your mind is everywhere wherever you get it. Just make sure that you, rate, review, and subscribe. This

really helps us out in the long run. And oh for our listeners out there, any listeners who are in the Atlanta area, UM, I want to let you know that there is an event coming up part of the Atlanta Science Festival. It's called How Snakes Work. It is going to be on Saturday, March seven from two pm to four pm. You can find out about it at Atlanta Science Festival dot org. But it's pretty cool because it is a It is a team up effort from how Stuff Works, the website from which we spawned, and

the Amphibian Foundation uh Mark Bendinka's organization. Matt Mark Mendick of course is a friend of the show and has been on to discuss amphibians, uh snakes, lizards and more. Sounds amazing, Yeah, so go check that out. It sounds slimy. Snakes are not slimy, Joe, there are if you greasome up. I guess so huge. Thanks as always to our excellent

audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hi, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.