Forced Back to Normal

doctor Jonathan Metzel. There's a new variant. There's a new sub variant um that some doctors are referring to as omicron two. In New York, they are referring to it as BA dot two b A two, which is a center a variant that was discovered back in November that has some of the same properties in making of amicron, but spreads thirty percent faster than the original amicron. It is right now multiplying itself every two weeks, and currently one in ten cases that are being identified in New

York are of this strain. Why do I bring this up at a time when folks really clearly everyone and it isn't just by party or affiliation. It is really through fatigue that people are done. They are done with this virus, They are done with living in the ways that they have for the last two years, and they

want to move on. And what this showed me when I saw it and I am reading other news about what is happening around the globe, is this just because we are exhausted and tired with this virus, Just because we would like to go out and party again, which people are doing, doesn't mean that we can let our guards down. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't still be vigilant and thoughtful about how often we engage and in the situations that we're in, you know, making sure that we

are still being safe. And I think that just because cable news has taken down their ticker of COVID, just because we are now have our attention on another crisis, right which is the crisis in Ukraine and the potential of a World War three and who's overtaken a fucking nuclear facility and all of these different things. Just because our attention is moving from one crisis to the other, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't think about how these

two things are colliding. So in my conversation with Jonathan, he will bring up the fact that when we are at war, when wars have broken out, there is also contamination and health issues that go along with that. Because you're talking about now, right in two weeks time, two million people have now fled the Ukraine for bordering nations, right, two million people in two weeks time, and with them

they are bringing a whole host of health needs. In an interview that I will do, that I had that will be posted soon with our friend Danielle Campamore, she talks about the needs of Ukrainian people with regard to abortion, right, And we're talking about how this war condenses, right, all of these other things that now you're no longer able to do because you have basically your entire livelihood, right, whatever you could grab from your home is on your back.

So we're talking about doctor's appointments, we're talking about mass we're talking about abortion, we're talking about COVID, we're talking about all kind of different diseases that will now be called mingling because there's a mass exodus from one country to a multitude of nations. And I think that what gets lost, right, because you know in news what bleeds leads, and so for years now it has been COVID, COVID, COVID well, now, COVID fatigue. Now it's Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,

World War three, World War three, World War three. But we're not thinking about how these situations are colliding with one another and what damage that's going to incur. So here's the other thing. Apparently, right now there are outbreaks

of COVID happening around the world. And what we know with regard to the patterns that we have seen over the last two years is that we are roughly about a month to two months behind areas like China, a month behind areas like Western Europe, and right now in China, again not really being reported in with any significant amount of coverage, because again there is a collective push and desire to move past this pandemic, whether or not it is done with us. There have been outbreaks. There was

a rash of outbreaks that happened in Hong Kong. There have been outbreaks that have surpassed twenty twenty levels according to the Gothamist that is here in New York. And then I pulled it up and I started looking, and I said, oh shit, Wall Street journalists covering this. Okay, wait, New York Times is covering this, but we're not seeing it on cable news because cable news is focused on

the Ukraine. And what's unfortunate is that, what do we know to be true, most people don't fucking read right. And so what I want to alert us to is that, Look, we have reached a point in this pandemic where governors, mayors, the President of the United States is basically saying, take your health into your own hands. We're no longer going to dictate to people what they can and cannot do, because clearly it has not worked. Right. We never came together as a nation to fight against a virus. We

came to fight against each other. And that is thanks to the MAGA faction, right and Donald Trump. But beyond that, you know, you have to take your personal health and safety seriously without having to be dictated to. So, if you are going to be traveling, you're going to be on public transport, whether it's a plane, train, or automobile, wear a mask. If you are going into crowded situations, right, that are going to be indoors, whether that is a

restaurant or not. Right, we're getting into warmer weather here on the East coast, So you know, God willing, we can all just go back to eating outdoors. And if this variant, if this subvariant of omicron does spike and burst, at least we will be in a season that allows us to handle it better than we did in the winter with omicron one. So all I say all of that to say that the personal responsibility right that we have now is we have all of the tools vaccinations, boosters, masks.

That's it, right, And so you don't need your governor, or your mayor or your president anymore to tell you how to wear a mask, when to wear one, and what to do if by some miracle you have been able to stay COVID free this entire time. Knock on wood, right, then you know what to do. If you've gotten COVID, then you know, God willing, you have antibodies. But what I'm saying is this, I take everything that comes out of the CDC these days with a grain of salt.

I take everything that comes out of the Administration these days with a grain of salt. I do not believe that the decisions that are being made right now are solely about our public health I believe that they are being made because of politics. I believe that they are being made because of capitalism. And so at the end of the day, I know what I need to do in order to keep myself safe, and that is what

I'm going to continue to do. And so we will get into that conversation with our friend Jonathan Metzol in just a moment. The other thing that I do want to address today that I think is of no right, and I mentioned this yesterday. There is w NBA player Brittany Griner, who we have learned over the weekend is being detained by Russian authorities on suspicion of marijuana cartridges

being found in her luggage. Folks, this is what I want to say, right, and no one should be made an example of or be used as some type of political pawn, which is what Russia does when they detain Americans. You know. I feel for her family, I feel for her wife, I feel for her family, her friends, her teammates, because who knows where this is headed and whether or not she will at some point in the near future

be released. There are people that have been being held in Russia for a year, right and without some type of international outcry or act of government, and right now our government is not speaking to the Kremlin. Right, so Brittney Griner is caught in the middle. Why do I bring this up? Because folks, people are traveling, We will all be traveling again. Folks are going to take you know, summer vacations and whatnot. You may be passing through various areas.

Here's what I'm going to offer. Do not travel with anything that is not legal in said country and said place that you are going to. Do not make assumptions that because you have broken things up or you know, hidden them in different compartments of your luggage, that like

you're going to be good. I think that we are living in wild fucking times and you should, you know, try travel like a girl scout right, make sure that all your eyes are dotted, all your teaser crossed, and that everything is together, because who knows when things will go left? Who knows how they will go left. I'll tell you that one time. And this is obviously this

is before the pandemic. In twenty eighteen, I was traveling to Germany to Berlin with a friend and on the way back I was like physically accosted by TSA in Austria. I had never been like physically groped my hair, pulled, my breast, touched like. It was so jarring to me. And as I'm looking around, I was like, one, I think that I was targeted because of my race, right, But as I was looking around, you know, people are like yelling, right, don't touch me, don't do this, don't

do that. Because I was unfamiliar with what the customs were as we were passing through said place. And what I'm saying right now, as the world is back open and people love to pretend that COVID does not exist. As you were traveling, and if you're going to be traveling, take an extra few minutes to make sure that you understand the rules of where you are going, make sure that you are taking good care of yourself and whoever it is that you are traveling with. Again, we don't

know where the situation in Ukraine will go. We don't know if it will spill over into the rest of Europe. We don't know if Americans will start to be targeted in different areas that may be sympathizing with Putin. We have no idea. But what we do know is that it is important for us to take responsibility for ourselves, for our own safety and well being. So that is my little PSA as I continue to follow the Brittany Grinder case and hope that at some point we have

good news to report, because I cannot imagine. I can't imagine the pain. I can't imagine the suffering. And for those of us that would love to judge and say, well, you shouldn't have done x Y and c, well, people do worse, right, people, people have done worse And many people have traveled with cartridges and vape pens and this, that and the other thing, and it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal in our country. It is

a big deal in other places. And those are things that I want us to just keep in the forefront in this ever changing, ever shifting landscape that we are living in. It is about personal responsibility and the responsibility of those around you, folks. Coming up next is my

wonderful local Wednesday convo with our dear friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that I'm always excited when it is Wednesday and we have our friend house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel with us to discuss the latest and of course not the greatest news, but we love you, Jonathan, and one

day we will do a podcast just on puppies. So let me tell you what news broke before we came on, and news that I think is important given that right now, according to the CDC, according to every single governor, according to President Biden, we can all just go back to normal. That there is nothing more to be worried about. Don't look over here, folks. COVID is done well, according to the Gothamist, and omicron sub variant is doubling in New York just as mandates lift. This is known as be

A point two. And this virus is an offshoot or sub lineage of the omicron variant that just swept through New York State. It's kind of like they said, the kid's sister, and some experts even call it amicron two, and it spreads thirty percent faster than it's sibling, which seems about right, because if I remember, Jonathan, omicron spread double at the rate that delta did. Delta spread double

off of what alpha did. So talk to us about where we are and what you think about the COVID mandate lifting, right, And we had doctor Fauci on the show last week. He said, you know, when it's raining, if it's a downpour, you have galoshes and boots and a raincoat and an umbrella on. When it's drizzling, you don't need all of that gear. Right now, we're in a drizzle phase. But that doesn't mean that you should throw out your rain gear. I said to doctor Fauci,

interesting analogy, But people don't usually protest the rain. So what are you thinking about where we are right now? Well, you know, it's pretty good my analogy. It just shows like the altimists and the pessimists, like what I think of I think about it, like do you want to walk across the highway when there are three cars coming at you or when there are like fifty cars coming

at you? And so I'm like, you know, if I'm gonna get run over by a truck, I'd rather do it, you know, like you have to be careful or you know, you recognize when you have to be careful. So I like his analogy a lot better. I'd rather get red than get n over by a truck. Um. But um, But you know, it's it's an interesting time, right because on one hand, there is a sense there's a kind of there's a sense that many people are at the end of their rope, right and and that's not just

about the biology of the disease. It's also politically like it like it became it became untenable for blue states to keep trying to, you know, have mass mandates when there's a convoy of truckers headed your way, who's going to protest and all these kind of things, And so in a way, it just became a political liability. And I've I do feel like this decision was made in many ways out of politics, but also just to be fair, out of kind of human exhaustion in a certain kind

of way. And so I think that in a way that the sense that people felt like, okay, you know, the big O came through. It was a new version of COVID that didn't kill most people, and therefore it's something we can live with. I think it was a calculus that people made relatively carefully. But again, it wasn't just a medical decision. It was also an emotional and biological decision. Now that being said, and you probably have this too, man, I know an awful lot of people

with COVID right now. Like I'm in New York and I've got a lot of friends who have COVID, and if this thing is like literally like nobody's got it and nobody's getting it, then I'm just like, man, I must just have a very very select sample of people. You know, my neighbor's got up, my friends have it,

you know, that kind of thing. And so it's not surprising to me, you know, and I us the danger is going to be if some new wave comes about, which it will and we're not prepared or exhausted or some things like that, and so you know, I just think, yeah, yeah, I want to talk about the waves for a minute, right, because you and I have been doing this now, been in conversation, you know, once a week for two years.

And what we have seen over the past two years, right, is that we've seen now three different variants, right, three different major variants that have that have engulfed the world, the alpha, the delta, and omicron right in two years, meaning that roughly every six to eight months or so, there is in fact a new variant that is worse than the initial one. So I want to understand and again, yes, it is fatigue. I'm fucking tired, right Like I I too am done and want to go back outside and

do all of these things. But what do you think that that the thinking is honestly behind understanding that omicron took us by storm. But we saw this, But do you use Fauci's analogy. We saw that storm coming from the UK, coming from uh South Africa, coming from all of these places a month prior to it landing in

the United States. Well and again, so you know that that's an issue now, right Because again, I mean it's funny because I was at the airport and somebody in front of me in line said, putin is the new COVID, Like, I mean, that's fair, And I thought, man, that's true. Man, Like you know, it's like we needed some we needed some we did some humanoid villain or something. Um. But I do think that the warning signs on this on

this horizon are still pretty considerable right now. Um. Like part of it is that there's a massive wave in other parts of the country and for the part of the world. UM, China usually get stuff a month or two before US. China is going bonkers right now with with COVID infections, and this is with a bunch of people who had already had the big go and so what's happening in China I think is concerning um and so yeah, I think that's true. I just think it's true.

I think that, Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I is this administration in your in your opinion, making a miscalculus right now? Are we? And not even just this administration, you know the CDC, the who like, are we making a miscalculation because we're doing so from our emotional exhaustion and politics as opposed from a place of science, which Fauci and others tell me that they're being led by. Again,

I think the issue is it became politically unmanageable. I think that's really what happened, is it became politically unmanageable and there was nothing that we could do in terms of mandates. I think that for people like me and you, issue is still the same, which is get vaccinated, where masks be as safe as you can. So I don't

think that our daily practice really changes. I just think that getting wide swaths of people to do the same thing is not It's just you know, I think that Biden called it like living with the virus, and I don't think it's so much living with the virus. It's like our political system was not able to live any other way. And so I guess the take home, which what you and I are both hesitating of saying right now, is there's a lot of COVID in our future. And

also there's things happening. I mean, what's happening in Ukraine right now is a humanitarian disaster of an epic scale. But when you have two million people moving with no health infrastructure or whatsoever, it's also going to be a pandemic disaster quite possibly. And so that and what's happening in China. It's just like, I just don't think this thing is done with us. But I would again also say that I think that the political possibility of you know,

it's hard, right. I mean I went into a restaurant their day without a mask on and I and it felt really good. It's felt like, oh man, this is just like going back into a restaurant, like I want that so badly. But I also know then I thought, man, I'm just gonna wait and see what offense. I don't know, Like I'd read that study that COVID changes the brain, it has brain effects that they're finding. COVID cancross your brain for the rest of your life, and that's not surprising.

I mean, it crosses the blood brain barrier. So I don't know, I'm kind of rambling to me, but you know, I just there's no answer what I mean, Jonathan, this is what I do every day. But like you know, the fact, the fact is that I've talked to friends who either they themselves or they're someone in their family has long COVID. And and what we know right now about long COVID is that it materializes in a couple

of different ways. There is consistent fatigue, meaning that you know, walking down the street of maybe walking down a flight of steps is now really difficult to do. There is brain fog, so long periods of time of being able to concentrate, i e. You know, work is very very taxing, right There is so, There is pulmonary there is heart, there is mind. There are all of these things. And I think that the trouble here is that I don't even think that this administration has even talked about long

COVID in any serious way. Any time that I have interviewed one of the doctors that are part of the COVID Task Force. You know, they're they're talking about masks, ands and vaccinations. All of those things are important, but they're not reminding us that just because you get it and it goes and you didn't die, doesn't mean that you're not going to be impacted and have some type of disability moving forward. As you know, I just got off a plane. I've just rushed here to speak to everybody.

But I just flew in from Denver and and the guy sitting next to me was one of these right wing weasel zippers. I think apparently he worked for the lou Dobbs show as like doing Twitter for or something like that, and he was doing this kind of whole fake mask thing with like his nose out and all that kind of stuff, And I thought, like, I don't care, you know? You do? You do you? I had my double mask on. One of my masks was an INN ninety five, and I just didn't really take it off

during the flight. And so I think that's kind of where it's going to be, is like I, I honestly I have no desire to control the guy next to me anymore, because I think it's a losing proposition all I can do is like stay on top of the information, talk to you about it, do thing. But but again it's hard because it's not just like, oh, I'm going to go to the matt because I love wearing a mask all the time. I hate wearing a mask. But I also think that now is maybe not a great

time to get COVID. I mean, it's never a good time to get COVID, especially not right now, because if there is going to be another big surge like this, you don't want to be sick when everybody else is also. So it's a tough one. But I think again, the best you can do right now is educate yourself and do what's best for yourself, and also pay attention to these bigger stories. I mean, again, what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening in China? Can you explain more about what

is like, what is happening in China and where? Well, it's just it's just that, you know, just they are facing a very major COVID surge across different parts of China, and I haven't seen any sequencing. I don't know what it is, but I keep thinking, like, man, people in China, if nothing else, they know how to not get COVID

like they've been practicing it for two years. So the minute people start doing the same thing but having a different outcome, that's when I start thinking, like, man, something else must be going on here. And so I'm not surprised. I mean, the news about the new sub variant. I've been kind of following this on Twitter a little bit

along with the whole rest of the world collapsing. Um. But but but, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what ends up happening in China, is that this this new infectious form is what is what's causing that also and if we so let's just you know, play Devil's advocate for a moment. If you know, if this new variant right is similar to omicron, meaning that it spreads really fast, Um, everyone will get it, but then the symptoms are not as bad, and you know you're not

hospitalized in death. Isn't hanging over us? Um? Do you think that then Republicans were right all of along, and that we should have we should have just you know, we should have all just gone through the herd immunity and you know, those who were going to die, we're going to die anyway, and you know, why do we need to keep paying attention into this. It's just going

to turn into the flu. And so their initial you know, they're not scientific, So they didn't say endemic and they didn't say those things, but they said things like herd immunity and things like, you know, we can build up to it. Yeah, so they're winning talking point, but it's their winning talking point. Well, you know, I loved what happened with the trucker convoy this week, which is that they were going to have like ten million trucks come

to come to DC and like whatever. And then and then it turned out like everything they were protesting had already been overturned anyway, and so they just drove down the highway. But then they just merged into traffic, and so everybody nobody even knew as a convoy. They just looked like a bunch of cars on that road. And so I just think, you know, I don't I don't think we're in the business of having to tell people what to do anymore. But I don't think there's no

role for public health. I really don't. I think that it's important for prob health to educate people and for better or worse. You know, no matter what side of this you're on, you've got two years of experience with this thing right now. And so I think that that information, especially when everybody's not doing the same thing, that information is more important than ever in a way. And so I like this. I like this system of you know, the color coding at or high risk, low risk or

things like that. That's super important. You want to know if there's if there's a surge in your area. I think that's super super important. Um, but I do think we're heading toward a kind of people take the information and then they make their own best decision. Now that being said, I cannot stand the argument of conservatives were right along. They weren't. That we've had like but this is what they'll say. No, I know what I'm saying. Like, what that pace is is that we've had like seven

different phases of the pandemic. And so in the beginning phase, nobody had any immunity whatsoever, it was important to take drastic measures. And then the second round, even before the vaccine came out, like, there was a much more lethal form of the virus and that might be coming back, and so people act who do that act like the virus and the pandemic is all one thing, and that's not the case. It's changed, and so there are different phases of it. So it's just this idea of kind

of Monday morning quarterbacking, which is what they do. I think is it's completely disingenuous. It's a it's a political point. It's not a it's not a um it's it's not based in reality. If people know that, but it's just, you know, they want to protest something. So we take off our goloshes, our rain quote, put down the umbrella,

right did he did? He said? I love that. We we we we take off all of this, all of this uh heavy duty equipment, and then um, we're out in the street and the storm approaches and it rolls in fast and we're caught out. What what do you think the probability is that we don't all get just caught out in the rain, caught out in the shower. Like, what do we roll back into, Oh, now you have to wear masks on the train, and now we're you have to wear masks at school and all of these things.

Do we easily slide back into that? We're responding to the virus and so right now, because people feel like the threat level is low, doing all those kind of things doesn't make sense. And people are also of course itching to get out and the way, you know, in some semblance of normal. But I would say that if we're facing a situation where all of a sudden people start getting really sick the way they did in the beginning, people, I think will change pretty quick. So I think we're responding.

I think we're responding again to the virus itself, and I just think, you know, I would just urge people to pay attention to their own threat assessment in a way. And you know, again it's the risk is probably going to go up in New York. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the cases. But yeah, but I would I would just say if the virus itself comes back in a major way, itself will change behavior in

a way. I mean, think about how quickly. I mean, just think about the last two weeks, Like the entire world is different than it was two weeks ago. And so I just think that really being resilient and being flexible is probably the most important thing right now. I think if you're stuck in some dogmatic position and the virus changes, and you're stuck on some side of this or the other, you're going to get screwed. So I

don't think it's like everybody's going to get wet. I think the people who are going to be in the best shape are the people who can adapt as quickly

as they can. I do think to your earlier point that I want to circle back to as we close out today, is about the kind of double pandemic that is happening with the Ukraine right, which is that we are watching all of these terrible attacks on civilians and we're watching I mean picture is looking like they are straight out of World War Two at these train stations

and at bus depots. What we are not talking about when we're seeing these masses of people waiting to get out of Putin's literal crossfire is we're not talking about COVID and we're not talking about two million people potentially with you know, significance amounts of COVID then rushing the

borders of neighboring countries. Do you think that that should be a part of the conversation or much in the same way that we I wanted to talk about the discrimination and anti blackness that African immigrants are facing in the country. People are telling me, oh, now is not the time, Now is not the time. Do you feel that that is something that is being missed in mainstream media? Well, I don't know. I mean, I've certainly read articles about

the anti blackness that's been happening. I think there's a story that really urgently needs to be told there. I just don't know what that story is because I've only seen two stories, and so I don't think there's ever not a time to talk about that. I just I don't know what that story. I don't know what the story is. It would not surprise me. And I'm sure there's some horrible things happening to African immigrants in the Ukraine and other things like that. I just I don't

know enough detail to talk about it. But I do know that the way pandemics and infectious illness often work in an sort of the first part is that they follow political fissures as well as structural fissures. And so there's a huge history called humanity of viruses and infections being spread by political conflicts, and so we've seen this across sub Saharan Africa and now now it's happening a lot closer to home in a way. And so the fact that political unrest leads to the spread of infectious

illness is not a new story. It's just it's just one that makes a lot more sense to us right now because all of a sudden, we're living in the middle of all this. And so I would say that it's not just about people who have COVID moving around. It's also people with no access to treatment, people who get sick but there's nothing they can do about it. And then all the other infectious ill says that have been really saved humanity because of health infrastructure, things like polio,

for example, or smallpox or things like that. When you have two million people on the move with no access to healthcare, these are people who aren't also going to get vaccinated against things that we have overcome but still are always consistent threats. Oh, Jonathan, another day, and we didn't we didn't even talk. We didn't even talk about Congress. Next week, I'll tell you about Congress. That was quite but yeah, I know, And I'm like, yeah, we had you know, we have war that popped up. I don't

know who new variant. Yeah, as always, Jonathan, thank you so much for making the time to join us on wik app and walk through you know the Apocalypse with us. You're a good partner one week at a time, Guys, we're doing the Apocalypse when we get a time. Appreciate you and now friends for your woke moment of wellness. You know, I'm talking to a lot of people who are really on the fence about going back into work, going back into an office after having worked remotely for

the last two years. And one of the questions that I said to a client of mine, and I want to offer it to all of you, is to really ask questions of your managers, of your employers who are saying you need to return for one day, two days, three days, four days, or back for the entire week.

Talk to them about nimbleness and flexibility. The world has changed, how we work has changed so much so that even the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City have said that they think that five day work days right are a thing of the past, and that we are moving into a space of three and a half or four days or just providing people with more flexibility to be able to live their lives and

work at the same time. And I think that it's important for us to really not just you know, lay down and be given back a life that didn't actually work for any of us. Right. And so there is an opportunity to build community with your colleagues, right, to talk about with management, with your employers about what makes the most sense, about how we go back and what this new way of working looks like, so that people

actually feel whole. Because I'll tell you this, I have never done more work in an actual office than the work is that I do at home. And it's because I'm able to break when I want. It's because I'm able to go for a walk, I'm able to cook dinner. Then I'm able to rest my mind and then go back to the task at hand. Our office culture, right, if you're outside of the tech industry, our office culture

is not conducive to creativity and innovation, right. And the commuting exhausts us so that by the time that we get home, if you have kids, you're short with them, You barely have the time and the energy to make dinner. We have to find a better way to live, right, and that is the key word here is how are we living? We focus so much on how we are working, but we don't really talk about what is actually working for us to live our best lives in the best

way possible. And so I challenge you that if you are in leadership positions in the jobs that you have, in the places that you work, to really challenge them to think outside of the box. Because many people are losing their employees who are saying, yeah, I'm not doing this, so I'm going to go to the place that allows me to have flexibility so that I can be a whole person in my job and not just a working robot. So I offer that as a way to say, don't

just go back to quote unquote normal. It doesn't exist. And we can find and we have learned of better ways to be in this thing called life and in this thing called work without having to contort ourselves into somebody's idea and version of who they think we should be. That, my dear friends, is your woke moment of wellness. Stay woke and stay well. That is it for me today, hear friends on woke A app as always power to the people and to all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck,