Welcome to the Nonprofits, the thrice weekly show that looks at news and current events through the lens of atheism and secular humanism. For our first segment this week, there's a new COVID in town. Jason Friedman, get us going on this story?
Well, I'll tell you guys, it's coming for us again. A new version of COVID, you know, seems to be looming on the horizon of the world stage. Well, it's named NB one eight one, and scientists are stating that his symptoms may seem the same, but new mutations in the strain that differ from the SARS cove two may prove to be a problem for us in the near future. Are we prepared to deal with this looming threat? Or
will the United States drop the ball again? The story is from the huff Post UK and it's by Julia Reees I hope I said that properly, properly and it came out on May twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
All right, ominous, ominous stuff there, Jason, Why don't you start us out by telling us you mentioned that some of there were some similarities with previous variants of COVID.
How is this one similar to what we've seen before.
I mean pretty much, what they're saying is that symptom wise, it's the same shit, you know. I mean, we're really there's really no glaring differences between the symptoms. They first detected it in China this past January, actually, and it accounts for about ten percent of the stars Cove two sequences tested, and apparently that's been a significant jump from two point five percent about four weeks ago. The problem that they're saying is that there's certain mutations apparently that
make it more transmissible. There's like a handful of new mutations and it's on the spike protein, and it may enhance its ability to bind to ourselves. And they're also saying that the variant may be skilled at dodging some of our immune deferences. Now, the thing is, they're saying there's no evidence suggesting that the variant is going to cause more severe diseases or an uptick in hospitalizations or deaths.
And they're honestly just saying it's really too early to like know exactly how effective like shots are and everything, but scientists expect shots they're gonna hold up. So they don't really seem to be causing any type of public panic about it. But they're saying, hey, we should pay attention because you know, this is some new ship.
So it's similar enough that they feel that they have a grip on things and that and that you know, you would expect if it if it's if the vaccine stopped working or something like that, then it would maybe be a much bigger news story or something like that.
Well yeah, but what they're saying is that, I mean, there's just you know, I think they're kind of hinting at like, okay, so your immune system was kind of your first line of defense, but they're saying this thing might have ways to dodge that. But they just they just don't really know so right, you know, because because the kind of there was that old trope. Remember it's like,
well I'm not immunocompromise, so I'll be okay. Right, So right here, they're being like, well, you know, maybe maybe you are healthy and pretty and strong, but you know that doesn't matter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a j Let's jump over to you real quick here.
Jason mentioned something about a spike protein and I know that you had a little bit more information than that.
What what are the big added risk. What's the big difference here?
How is it how is it going to evade our existing immuno systems and stuff like that.
Yeah, you know, like Jason just explained, it seems like it has very similar symptoms. What they're saying is things like you know, you call natal congestion, fever, sort throat, all of that stuff. So you know, kind of all the same symptoms, take all the same over the counter of mitigations, and they use all treatment that you will typically get. But the difference is in the way that it transmits. They said that ten percent of the cases are this new strain right now, and it went up
from two point five percent a month ago. So this is indicating that it is increasing at a more rapid weight than all of the other strains that are currently around. And so with this specific strain, what the scientist found was that the imitations to the spike protein, which means that it is there is a potential for making it easier to transmit. But they still don't know that for sure because it's such a new strain that you know, they are still testing what's going on with it. But
you know, this this is what we do. This is what science. Does you know they can forecast the transmission rate based on what the mutations they are see, you know, on the spike proteins, and you know how fast it is moving across all of the population. You know, probably, so you could you.
Could even say we're seeing evolution happening right in front of us. It's like this new you said that ten percent of the cases. It's not like there's been a big jump in cases. It's just that the balance of the different strains has shifted. So this new strain somehow, maybe it's because of this spike protein mutation or something, but somehow this new variation is outperforming and out competing the other covid variant out there.
Exactly, yeah, it is causing mutations to the spike protein. And I'm sure that all of that. You know what we just say, it makes no sense to our listeners, and one day and you know what the focus of spiked protein anyways.
Exactly, it sounds kind of it sounds kind of dangerous.
Actually, no idea.
So let me let me get a little bit nerdy over here and try to explain it in a way that might make it easier for people to understand. So when you have tiny organisms like bacteria or fungus. They can survive on their own. They can replicate without needing a host or something to help them reproduce. But viruses require hosts in order to make a copy of themselves. So what they do is like they find a way inside the host self. Now, the host can be any living organism, but in the case of covid, it is
human self. So humans also are protected by an outer layer that keeps them, you know, contained within the cult and healthy. So this keeps all kinds of pathogens out, like bacteria and fungus and viruses. So viruses have these tiny little spikes. If you've ever seen like a graphic of what that's little cartoon viruses look like, the covid, it's like a little ball, right, and it has like color of these little things taken out of it.
So yeah, so like the.
Little spikes or the spike protein. And so these spikes are what poke through the human cells to the outer layer of the human soul, right, And so when the virus comes with mutated by proteins, what this can mean is that those spikes are more effective at poking through our cells and therefore they make it easier to transmit from one person to another. So like, yeah, these are things that people need to learn about. When it comes
to biology and trust in science. We don't blindly trust the authority of science, like we trust the consensus, which because many scientists have studied this, they have repeated, they have corroborated that this is correct, that this is what it's doing, that this is what it's going to do. So like, yeah, that's how we know. Thanks, that's how we can put it things in things things science.
It's crazy you say that a jab. When I worked at REAL, when I worked in the research center, I worked at UTMB, I mean, god, I did so much shit and and it's people act like these things are like these weird conspiracies and these scientists like you would just go in and you do a surgery and it's on this heart study, and then we do another surgery
and it's related to this, like antibiotic we're developing. Then I go stain in some slides and I look for different things and different whether it's blood or if it's feces, or if it's or yeah blah blah blah, so it's or it's just it's pretty fucking mundane. Honestly, you just end up finding this stuff and there's like, there's no conspiracy. I just think it's cool. Like I think it's cool that it looks like a little tiny fucking battle mace and it just jams into here. I mean, it's terrifying,
but I think that's pretty awesome. I don't know, I just I just I just had to throw that in there. It made me think about that. It's cool when you find shit like that, like, oh, that's fucked up, that's a mass cell. That's wow, that's not good. It'd be like, Okay, maybe I shouldn't think it's that cool, but you know, but it's pretty cool.
Yeah. I feel the same way about science. I fucking love science. I have my my microscope behind me like my kid, and I always like, look at shit, like I put my finger, well, look at blood.
You know.
When we once got to see like the moving blood cells, and it's like that's the way you to curiosity of people.
Yeahj So look, I've got this cauliflower ear from fighting right here. See we can see it. There's a little nugget right there. So so when I when I got like that, it was real like swollen one time and hanging over and I was at the research center. So I ab it with a syringe and sucked it out and then I stained it. It was beautiful because it was like all these little chunks and like different platelets, and it was beautiful and it looked like a galaxy.
I thought it was really really neat, and it was like drained a couple of mills of blood out of my ear. It hurt, you know, But yeah, I'm sorry, I digress.
No, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine. But I actually I want to stick with you for Jason, what's up? I want to before I do that, though, Aj, there's never too much. You can never be too nerdy, and at least not any show that I'm on. So just so keep bringing the nerd their nerdiness here. We love that, Jason.
I wanted to.
So we're talking about these variants constantly evolving, and of course there's always new viruses popping up all the time, it seems, and so how important is public awareness and readiness for this kind of thing? I mean, so we looked at the science thing, now let's look at the social aspect of it.
Well, I mean, you know, especially with today's social climate, especially here in the States, and being in the state that I live in, living here in Texas, you know, it's you know, our track record isn't the best, right, especially when it's related to COVID and public health things
like that. So and then we look at the people who were in charge of the first COVID thing and all that stuff, like they really dropped the ball, and a lot of those people are still overseeing those things, and their buddies are now overseeing other things that are related to all the things like health and safety and you know, disease and all that shit. So I'm just worried that, like we've seen recently, there's an increased amount
of poor management. So I'm just worried that if we have something like this like last time, we had a lack of reaction and we saw what happened and there was some mere severe amount of like uncertainty and unnecessarily harm, and it could have been pretty easily mitigated because we saw that it was easily mitigated in a lot of other places with very similar social structures. Sadly, like whenever that first wave hit in New York that everybody remembers, my aunt was part of that, and she got COVID
and she fucking died. They had no.
Ability to deal with it.
So look, if our resources have been properly utilized and we we actually quarantined people, you know, and liked the thing that we did, Like that's like you know called group cohesion and working together and pro social behavior, you know, and we like utilized it and actually gave a fuck about each other. Like countless people wouldn't have had to die.
And like there's places that are like have a higher urban saturation than New York, which is wild that did much better than us, and people still had groceries, and people still had their power on and people still had healthcare too. But in the United States, the.
People, so it wasn't a possible task, right, I Mean, it's definitely within within within the realm of past stability here.
Well, what's fucked is like if you take time off work here, especially like in Texas, like you're fucked. Like you can't take time off work. I oversee very important shit in the oil and gas industry. I have a lot of responsibility with my job. I cannot take time off. If I take time off, they just give my job to somebody else, I have very important medical procedures coming up, and I should. In other countries, i'd get four to
six months off of work with pay. I'll be able to take two weeks off if I'm lucky, if I'm if I'm lucky, and it's disgusting, it's frustrating, is the nicest way of putting it. But yeah, you know, poor me, right, it's just so I'm an American and I'm lucky to be here, right, fucking lucky.
America. That's the tagline, all right, So yeah, I just I just any.
I've been rambling. But look, as far as I'm concerned right now, if something shitty is happening in these borders, then I just expect shitty response and then a way for somebody to capitalize on it and to make a whole lot of money. Like we saw with alcohol companies and all those other things. They made a lot of money off of our tragedy and sucked more money out of our economy and fucked us even deeper.
So well, you know, Jason, a lot of people share your pessimism. In fact, I'm going to I'm going to share a little bit of research here with you. Speaking of waxing a little bit nerdy here. So this is according to a recent poll by health policy research organization called KFF. They said less than half of the US public express confidence in government health agencies like the CDC and FDA to carry out many of their core responsibilities, including just three and ten or thirty two percent, who
have confidence in them to act independently. And here's this is key here, act independently without interference from outside interests. Six and ten adults, including three and four Democrats and nearly half of Republicans, say these agencies are not paying enough attention to science when come to making decisions and
recommendations about vaccines. In addition, at least three and ten say these agencies are paying too much attention quote unquote to the belief of officials running the agencies thirty four percent and the interests of pharmaceutical companies thirty percent when making vaccine related decisions. Now, before I ask this next question, which is going to come to AJ but before I ask that question, I do want to point out that these aggregate numbers that I was just reading off are
not necessarily due to any recent changes. These numbers have stayed rather steady for the last several years, although there's been a kind of a partisan shift, and so the more recent studies show that the Democrats trust is decreasing while the Republicans trust is increasing. So, but this poll does not take into very recent changes into account, things
like mass firings at these organizations and so forth. So, having said all that, and this is going to aja what does the lack of trust in critical government health and safety efforts tell us about how those areanizations fit into society. It seems like a silly question that when I ask it here, but should the government be in the business of keeping its citizens healthy? And assuming the answer there is yes, what can they do differently to
change that attitude of Americans? So what we all agree that there's an issue here, that there's a problem with public trust in the government to really to have our best interest in mind?
And so what what how can help can we change that? I mean?
Or is that something that can be changed? Is the is the is the system unfixable? And should it be chucked for maybe something else?
That's a really heavy question on this loaded tall order. But you know what, I do think yes, the answer to that one specific question about whether the government should be keeping their citizens healthy. Yes, they should have part in that. There shouldn't be like all up in your personal business, okay. But one of the examples I can think of right away is the funding cuts to the CDC. We did an article on their nonprofits last week regarding
how these cuts affected communication. The Facebook page for the CDC hasn't been updated since like March Jesus Chris.
That's frustrating.
So fucking first before that they would post two to do it, Tim said, day a day, okay, And it wasn't just about vaccine, and then they won't post about things like cancer research, like cancer prevention, how to take care of your pregnancy, yeah, like childhood, childhood conditions, all kinds of tu health disease. It wasn't like anything super controversial.
So they were trying to keep their citizen healthy that were given them the information that they needed to take care of themselves to prevent them from getting sick, you know, before they got sick, so you know how to go
to the doctor in the first place. And so the problem here is that won the communication to the funding cuts to like the actual institutions performing in the research to then give the information to the public, Like, if you're not able to perform your research, if you're not able to look at what is causing these diseases, how to prevent them, how to treat them once you have them, then you got nothing. You got nothing to communicate.
Right.
So yeah, so even if there is an effort to keep us healthy, it's like being hamstrung from the beginning. Right They're they're working in the dark, and they're working with a muzzle on, and they're working with their hands tied behind. I mean, I'm running out of uh, you know, metaphors here. I mean, it's it's hard to imagine how things are work. Jason, what are your thoughts on that?
I mean, your blood pressure can be great, but if people break your leg every five years, you know, I mean, it's I agree with you, It's it's I don't want to I don't want to sound able lists at all, you know, like having you know, difficulties or having anything is anything like that. But it's I feel like it's more traumatized than anything. We have a system that fucking exploits us every step of the way. It from the moment we're born. We're getting exploited before we're born. We're
getting exploited. I mean, bird, the birthing industry is one of the most exploitive industries in the fucking world. It's insane what they do to people who give birth and debate, it's so insane. And then from the yeah, so I don't know, I mean, yeah, we're we're getting exploited every step of the way. And all we're seeing is just an increase of exploitation. So I don't expect it to get anymore. I mean you're asking them all, yeah, you're talking to a fatalist. I don't expect anything to get
any better. We're just what if you One of my favorite books is The Temptation to Exist, And what we're seeing right now is a dying we're seeing a It's a very typical thing that we see the dying throws of a nation that was once great, and this is what we're descending into. It's typical. It's like a fucking narcissist who is discarding their former supply, and that's what's happening. You just you become a moral You eventually see what happens.
People just like stop giving a fuck, they stop hiding. I mean, if you think a rod Contra was fucked. I mean, wait until you see what's happened here in the.
Next four years.
It's so blatant that like nobody cares like shit that nobody would say twenty years ago. They're just you know, laughing about in public and people just suck it up. So I don't expect anything to get better. Everything's going to be mishandled from here on out. Just get the fuck out of this country, you know, that's the thing we could do.
Well.
I hope that I share many of those feelings, Jason. And the thing I keep saying to myself is I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. And you know, I have some friends that are that are more optimistic about the situation, and you know, I when I talk to them, that's all I can say is I hope you're right.
I hope you're right. I don't know age any last words before we wrap up here.
Yeah, no, I feel that deeply, but one that came from another country, and and you know, over twenty years ago, I came here because there was more hope here than what we had in my country, and I still keep that hope. So yeah, that's that's why I stick around and I don't.
That's got to be so terrifying. Yay, dude, that's good because twenty years ago there was so much reform going on, and then this hard swing has got to be so fucking like, I'm terrified with my kid and what I'm Yeah, it's terrifying, especially where we live. Dude. It's yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, and what I've been dealing with in real time as of hours ago, you know, I mean, it's it's no thank you. I I'm fucking terrified for my kid. I'm terrified for my partner. I'm terrified. I
just don't. I don't like it. It scares the fuck out of me. And I'm already dealing with it, and I don't want to deal with this ship anymore. Go somewhere where it's If I'm gonna deal with it, it needs to be less. The outright bigotry is just exhausting at this point.
Yeah, it's exhausting. That's a good way of saying.
It's just emotionally, mentally, physically, just exhausting in every way societally, and so you know, I'll just repeat what I said, you know, I.
I I hope we're wrong. I hope the I hope the optimists are are are right here.
I mean, we're it seems like we're on a precipice at this point. You know, we can we can make positive steps, we can make negative steps, but something you know, any step is gonna is going to change the situation.
And so I suppose we.
Can we can hope and and uh, you know, hope that. I almost said we can hope and pray, but you.
Can hope and pray that. I think I'm on the wrong show.
Let's do let's pray it anyway.
Anyway.
I think that would be a good place to a good a good spot for us to end the conversation. I want to thank you both for uh for sharing some uh you know, deeply felt uh emotional responses, and so thank you for that.
I want to thank all of you for listening.