Losing the War on COVID

and is happening. We had doctor Fauci on a couple of weeks ago who said, you know, it's drizzling right now, so we don't need the same type of protections that we had at the height of surges, and that we can assume some level of normal. I want to read you this thread that came out from NPR Politics yesterday that should be setting off alarm bells and I kind of want to dig into. So here it is from

NPR Politics. They're thread from yesterday. The White House is warning it will have to wind down a program that pays to test, treat, and vaccinate unensured people for COVID nineteen because the administration has run out of money for the program, which Congress fail to include in funding legislation. Second tweet. Another immediate impact will be an end to federal funding for monoclonal antibodies, a treatment that had been

provided free of charge, Starting next week. The White House said it will cut allocations to states by more than thirty percent to try and stretch its existing applies. Number three tweet. The government cannot buy more oral anti viral treatments like packs void beyond the twenty million treatments already secured and needs to scale back plan purchases of preventative treatments for immuno and compromised people. The White House said,

excuse me, immunocompromise people. Number four. Research into next generation COVID vaccines will be curbed, and some surveillance for new variants will also be stopped, the White House said. The administration said it also will need to limit its pushed to help poorer countries vaccinate people. Number five. The White House had asked for twenty two point five billion in funding for these items and more, but was denied as

a part of a broader funding package. Democrats are expected to proceed with the standalone OW COVID funding bill, which is expected to pass the House but unlikely to pass the Senate. Folks, what the fuck right? So I want us to be very clear, right that the government has more money than it actually knows what to do with, more of our money than it knows what to do with, so much so that it just released, oh, I don't know, over thirteen billion dollars to aid Ukraine to fight back

against the Russian insurrection, right, the Russian invasion. So we have over thirteen billion dollars to be able to give to the Ukraine so that they can fight against authoritarian rule, But we don't have twenty two billion dollars to be able to allocate for people in this country to ensure that the spike which we know is coming, which I will talk about shortly, to ensure that both immuno and compromise people people who are uninsured, that you're receiving the

care that you need, that your states are able to provide for you the care that you need, because we are in what a global fucking health pandemic. So how is it that you can stand up at the State of the fucking Union, spend half the time talking about the Ukraine, not mention the insurrection, barely talk about fucking COVID, and then turn around and then say so basically, I'll let them eat COVID, right, because we don't have the resources.

It is bullshit, and it's the continual fucking lie that I am so exhausted by when I tell you how fucking done I am these days with this current administration, and I'll tell you why, because you see, I didn't

expect shit from Donald Trump, Right. I didn't expect anything because we knew exactly where we stood with the Trump administration as it pertained to public health, as it pertained to public safety, so long as they are funding police so that they can beat the shit out of regular citizens, right, Like,

I had no expectations. But when you come in as a Biden Harris administration and tell us that we need to vote for you so that adults are back in the room and that adults are back in charge, right, and that we're going to have vaccines and roll them out and we're going to take care of these issues, and that you're telling me that how you stand next to the other guy is a very clear distinction of

I am due for the people. And then you want to turn around now after a shitty fucking vaccine rollout, Right, It had a lot of bumps folks before vaccines actually got to where they needed to go. Right And again, this administration was given a lot of room because we

knew what they were walking into. But explain to me how you can dip into a pocket to provide money for the Ukraine to defend itself, but you don't have the same ability to have America defend itself from a virus that is killed close to a million people that now you want to tell us is all but done

so everyone can go back to work. Oh just in time for gas to be through the fucking roof, and oh just in time as cities around China are fucking closing down again, as the Netherlands and Germany and the UK all who rolled back mask mandates and indoor masking and all social distancing and all of these things that they have gotten rid of because you know, the world was over. COVID are now back into a zone where they are surging in places in China are surging above

twenty twenty levels. And that the new variant BA point two, which is the subvariant of omicron, spreads thirty percent faster than omicron, which took over delta in a matter of fucking weeks there were reports coming out right, particularly here in New York, which he uses the sewage system to be able to see or anticipate when another surge is coming. And guess what the sewage system is showing us, Oh, the numbers of people getting COVID in New York City

are on the rise. Again. It's as if we're standing on the tracks we think that the light ahead is the tunnel the exit on the other side, and not realizing that it's an oncoming train. And I'm just wondering, how many times do we have to walk down the same dark tunnel for us to realize that the light that we are seeing is not the light at the end of the tunnel, it is the next fucking COVID search.

So now we have a situation where those that are uninsured are not going to be able to access treatment, right because in New York City, regardless of your insurance status, you were able to get tested, you were able to get boosted and get vaccinated in all of these things. And so what this NPR tweet thread and report is is like, oh, well, the United States has run out of money, We've run out of resources, so pretty much

you're on your fucking own. And if you don't have the ability to test yourself at home, and you don't have the ability to remote learn, and you don't have the ability to do these things for yourself, you are essentially going to be fucked because this administration does not have the bandwidth, nor the resources, or the strategy to deal with the oncoming train that we know is coming

in a few weeks. The conversation that I will have with Jonathan will outline how the United States is different than China, why China is experiencing the kind of surge that they are, but how the countries that we are actually more demographically aligned with, meaning that with the last wave of omicron infected forty five percent of the US population, damn near half those people, according to the late reports, will be better set up with antibodies to help them

navigate a potential surge of BA point two. What has happened in China is that because they have had a zero COVID policy, meaning that they are quick to shut things down, they are quick to put people back in their homes, they are quick to go back to essential businesses. Only in operation, they don't have the same level of quote unquote herd immunity that we have gotten in other countries have gotten. But get this, what we are seeing is that there are people who are vaccinated who are

still getting reinfected. And so now we're setting up a situation where not only can folks get reinfected, because we know that what the vaccines and the boosters do is stop certain death and hospitalization, it does not stop the spread of COVID. I don't know how many times that that needs to be said, because I still receive stupid fucking tweets from people that are like, oh, you know, Fauci was wrong and Biden is dumb and vaccines don't work. No,

you're not dead. So the fact that by virtue you're able to tweet me back some stupid hot shit means that the vaccine, if you in fact got it, worked But this, folks, this what is being outlined here. But then we want to turn around and again our tax dollars to go to help the people of Ukraine, but our tax dollars not being used to help people in this country. We're first of all, we're not using our

tax dollars to secure our own fucking democracy. We're not using it to create guardrails against what we know will be consistent surges of COVID nineteen because unlike the fantasy world that Republicans are living in, no, it is not going to be endemic any fucking time soon. Because the more virus that is in the air, the more infected people become, the more avenues it has to continue to mutate,

and the more variants that will come through. And what the last three variants have shown us from Alpha is that with each turn at the fucking wheel, COVID nineteen becomes more and more contagious. So for those people who are unvaccinated, unboosted, you will most likely end up in the hospital and or dead. The Fiser CEO recently came out and again this was a blip on everybody's radar when he said, yeah, so your booster shots pretty much Wayne, if not just drop at five months, definitely at six

and that everyone is going to need a fourth shot. Well, how is everybody going to receive a fourth shot? If the US government, if the Biden administration is telling us they don't got no more our money for it, So then what is that going to look like? How much is it going to cost us to be able to walk into, said CBS Duane read whatever place to get your shot, and now because the government is no longer going to be funding that, but everyone is saying that

we need it. What is that going to look like? And if it sounds to you like it sounds to me, which is an incredible money making scheme by big pharma that is no longer going to be supported by the US government. And you can't force private companies, you know, to do the right thing, and we know that they sure as fuck do not. Sounds to me like we

are screwed. And I'm just like, I'm at a point with this administration and with the Democrats in general, that it is no longer enough for you to tell me who you are not instead of telling me who you are. It is not enough to want to finger wag and say, well, if you don't vote for me, you're going to be stuck with DeSantis or Trump or whomever. When again, I'm stuck with you right now, and I can't tell you

what has been passed in my favor. So the Senate just passed what daylight savings this week so that we don't have to continue to fall back or spring ahead. Wonderful oh, you passed legislation that finally made lynching a fucking hate crime after multiple decades of unarmed black people being lynched, right, the most recent being Ahmad Aubrey and

fucking George Floyd. Folks. I'm just like, it is really difficult to continue to tell people to have faith and hope when every day I'm staring this administration in the face and I'm like, oh, you all are not only going to lose midterms, right, which was inevitable because of how America votes, but you are damn sure setting up

a fucking loss in twenty twenty four. Because I just don't know what this administration is going to point to as their success because if COVID continues to rage, which it will, because now we have lost money and the ability to test and to treat and to vaccinate all people, right then what do we think is going to happen? Folks?

Coming up next, my conversation with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, to go on a deeper dive into where China stands right now and what we are hearing about outbreaks in Israel, the Netherlands and Germany, and what it is that we all need to be paying attention to that is coming up next. Friends, you know that when it is a Wednesday, I am always so happy an honor to be joined by our in

house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Jonathan, it seems like it's been sometime since we have done a deep dive into COVID, and frankly, I feel like we may be the only ones left right now in the United States that are interested in doing anybody's deep dive into COVID, because there has been seemingly a concerted effort by the CDC, the Biden administration, Network Television to just move on and go back to normal and pretend as if the last two

years have not happened. But I woke up at four am because of daylight savings that has hit me later and started going through articles, an array of them about China, about the net lens, about Germany, and be a point two, which is the omicron subvariant. Jonathan, what's happening globally right now with regard to COVID and where the rest of the world is versus where you see us in the

United States right now? COVID the name sounds from sounds familiar. Yeah, Okay, it's somebody from the nineties, right from Back to the Future or something like that. You know, it's funny because I'm here in Tennessee, and believe it or not, people are wearing a lot of masks here in Tennessee, At least in my world right now, I think there's a fair bit of nervousness in the air. I think for the most part, people feel like, oh my gosh, we're over it. And also the weather's getting nicer. We can

be outside all these kind of things. But there's some pretty serious shit happening in the rest of the world right now that I think we want to pay attention to, and not that the United States. I mean, the good thing about the United States, if the is an omicron subvariant, which it is, is that we don't exactly know what's going to happen in the United States because we rushed out and embraced omicron the first time there is concerning data. Germany is in a kind of crisis situation as of

this morning. Israel, which is kind of the canary in the coal mine for us a lot of times, is seeing a pretty big spike also, and that's a place where a lot of people are vaccinated and a lot

of people got omicron. And I also have heard, you know, I've been reading all this stuff also that there are studies in southern California where they're seeing in plant water and things like that that there's rise in this subvariant also, and so there's a probably another wave that's got about to happen in the United States, to be honest, I mean, and the thing is, people are worried because this BA two sounds a little bit more severe, a little bit

more harsh than the first omicron that came through, and it's also thirty percent more infectious. And so, believe it or not, if we just could take politics out of this, which we can't, right we would say we would say, everybody play it safe right now, because you know that a time when a spike is about to happen is the time where, if you can help it, you don't want to get sick because there's going to be a

lot of other people's sick at that time. So, believe it or not, we're in a moment right now which is kind of a calm before the storm kind of moment. But at the same time, I can't get my relatives to take this stuff seriously. I can't get most people. I'm playing in a faculty basketball game after we speak today, and I'm the only dude in the game who wears a mask, and so I just, you know, I think

that people feel like they're over it. But as we've seen, the virus sets the narrative, and so a lot of places that also also thought they were over it. The minute people start getting sick, all of a sudden, they change their tune. And so I just think the long and the short of it is, don't throw away your masks, play it safe for the next couple weeks at least to see how this thing plays out in the United States. And I don't know. I mean, it's hard. Everybody's so exhausted,

and honestly, yeah, go ahead. No. I was going to say, so a couple of things. One in New York City, as I'm assuming in a lot of other cities and places, the way that they have been tracking whether or not we're headed towards another surge has been in the sewage.

Right you mentioned the plant water in southern California. I read a report about, you know, how we predict what is happening in New York and it's based on the sewage and the fact that what they are seeing right now is that there is a spike in the BA point to sub variant, which was first discovered in I think it was November of twenty twenty one, and that this is an early indicator of where we will be

right now. There are several cities within China that because China has a zero COVID policy, so as soon as things start to ramp up there in any type of way, they shut shit down. They have gone back to remote learning in a number of cities. They have they're only having essential businesses open in a number of cities, which is really affecting our tech creation right and product development

in this country because we use factories in China. So Apple's products opened down at the beginning of this week because of the news coming out of China, and they are saying that they haven't seen a surge like the one that they are currently experiencing since the beginning of the pandemic of March twenty twenty. We are seeing the same thing happen in Germany. The Netherlands numbers are super

high as well. What's being said, Jonathan is that forty five percent of the United States population got omicron right like, And that why we are seeing this spread so fast around China is because there isn't built in immunity in the way that there is some built in immunity here, because forty five almost half of the population got omicron at the you know, in the winter of twenty twenty one.

Can you speak to that and what like? You talk about Israel as the canary in the coal mine, but in many ways, most of Europe has been the canary in the coal mine. We have been lagging, I would say over the past two years, roughly three weeks to six weeks behind where things are in Europe. So can you speak to the differences that you are seeing with regard to China and there's zero COVID policy versus the United States, and then again with Europe in the countries

I mentioned and with the US right now. I mean, the main issue with China is that it's an older population. Very often, who are the people who are getting getting it? They've they've been so super safe that a lot of people haven't had any exposure to COVID. And the other part, of course is that they've got the Sputnik vaccine a lot of people. The Russian vaccine are different, I mean

the vaccine. They're using our different technology often for a lot of people than the technology we have here, and those vaccines just don't work quite as well. And so there's a couple of reasons why China is more vulnerable right now. But I also think that this is kind of what we do when things start to ramp up again, is that we tell our human narrative like, oh, it must be Italy because they only write organic pasta, and it must be whatever, like we you know, every time

this happens, we tell some story that makes it makes sense. Oh, that's why that is, and that's why they're at risk. But we're not at risk. But the honest answer is, if anybody tells you that we're not at risk, they don't know what they're talking about. We don't know for at risk right now. And I would say that there's some there's some concerning warning signs of places that have

comparable and China is not super comparable to us. But think about the irony of that, right, China, in many ways, they did everything right, like a total public health state, and it's making them more vulnerable now, whereas for us or you know, theoretically we could be more protected because of all these honkeys who went out and got it, you know, and so and so and so. You know, who knows who knows that what's going to happen. I'm

not advocating for. I mean, the folly of herd immunity is that the virus keeps changing and people I mean I know people who have gotten it like five times already, and so and so. We don't know, But I would say that China is a warning sign of a bad vaccine, but also of a complete lockdown without encourage encountering any pathogens. Now that being said, I know a lot of people

in New York. I was on the phone before this with a friend of mine in Israel, and they're getting it and they've been super safe all along, So there's something going on now. The other thing in Israel is they've had a polio outbreak, which is freaking everybody the hell out because polio is unheard of. But people are not getting vaccines, like kids aren't going to the doctor and stuff like that, And so COVID is not our only issue right now in terms of the infectious disease front.

It's also all these people not getting vaccines for other stuff, and so it's a it's a moment. I mean, I would say, if you're at home and you want to know what to do just to feel safe, take drugs,

pat shut up or the words. But how but how are we so if China, because of their different vaccine roll out, their different protocols, is not quite a parallel or a model, what can we learn right now from Germany for instance, from Germany and the UK that are experiencing Again, folks are saying at least being reported higher numbers right now in twenty twenty two then in twenty twenty when this originated. Yeah, it's it's Germany and UK

are really scary because they're relatively comparable to US. I mean UK. It was basically like we're done with the virus, which we always say we're done with the virus, right. I love that. You know, we need somebody working with the virus who would say that they're done with us, and that's not happening. So so yeah, again, this is a time where a lot of people who were I mean, the minute President Obama gets it, I'm paying attention because

I'm like, man, something is something. People who are being careful, we're all letting our guard down. I went into a restaurant without a ask in Brooklyn the other day and it was weird, but I thought, oh, this is what I do. I go into a restaurant night dinner. And then I looked out the window. I was in the restaurant.

It was kind of a cool night over the weekend, and there was an outdoor dining area and there was one poor guy on a date and they were outside aiding, and I thought, those poor suckers, you know, like, look at me inside or something. So the minute you kind of switch over to the other side, it's kind of it's kind of hard to go back, right, And so I think what Germany is seeing is that in UK also, they had basically said the pandemic is over for us, and so putting that genie back in the bottle is

pretty hard for societies. And you understand that just from psychological terms also, So are they right now? Then? In your I mean again, I don't understand, Jonathan, And I know that you're saying it's human nature and it's the

narratives that we tell ourselves. But I don't understand how we continue to say we're done with COVID and then every time that we do that, And I would say that this round in the United States, with the rollback of pretty much every single mandate that was put in place, um with them now all being erased, and we're watching what is happening in Europe, how is it not? How how is it that we're locked into this belief still that it's not going to affect us like we have

we've stopped. I mean, I you know, tried to not watch as much cable news as I used to. I like, I, you know, for my own sanity and emotional protection, I try to just dip in for like a little bit.

But I have noticed and my mother, you know, I was home with her over the weekend, and my parents and they're like, nobody talks about COVID anymore, like at all, you know, not the numbers, not the infection rates, not the deaths, nothing, And so like, how is it that we're back into this place of believing that we can will this virus away and it's showing up aggressively again in another place that we know we're behind three to six weeks. Yeah, I mean again, the three, the three

main points to pay attention to right now. Number one, cases are spiking seriously in places that have been precursors to the United States and have demographically and infectiously similar profiles in a way, And so number one, it's happening other places. Number Two, there's a new variant, and we don't know how bad it is, right we haven't done the data yet. Again, I keep waiting for happy COVID that grows hair on your head, gives you a four hour erection, but it hasn't happened yet. But so we

don't know how bad this thing is. And honestly, it could be bad. We honestly don't know. I will say that in a lot of other places they're they're building overflow intensive care units and things like that. So a lot of other places think it's bad. And number three, we're not paying attention. So that's that's a luxury we have at this moment. The question is two three weeks from now, how are we going to feel about that? And I honestly don't know. I don't know the answer.

So um, you know, it could be it could be that it's not a big deal. But I'm I mean The hard part is I'm going to try to keep playing it safe, especially for the next two weeks. I'm going to think about think about, you know, when was my last booster, and think about maybe thinking about another booster. If I'm at the six month mark or the five month mark, I'm going to figure out, you know, just kind of put it in my mind, because it's I don't know, we don't we don't know where we're going

to be in two weeks. And of course we're all distracted by the rest of the world imploding and Chernobyl and everything. We're just living. We're living like we're honestly, we're living the eighties all over again, with like Chernobyl and Van Drago and everything like that and so um and so there's a lot going on right now. But I would say that two weeks from now, if this thing turns out to be as bad here as it is in other places, people are gonna want to wit.

People are gonna wish that they that they took this thing a little bit more seriously now. So I say now is the time to be cautious, which, of course, of course it's hard to do whenever when it's freezing outside, and everybody's eating inside. I thought, fuck it, I'm eating inside, you know, yeah, I mean I'm gonna I'm I have done the same thing, right, like I have. I have

done the same thing. The thing that I am most nervous about, and I want to get your thoughts on, is, to date, I have not tested positive for COVID either. But I'm really now concerned because in one of the articles that I was reading, it's saying, well, for for half the population that got omicron that they're going to be better off with this sub variant, then the rest of us who are boosted vaccinated but didn't get it, and so and then and here's the other thing too,

because you just brought it up my booster, right. So the third shot was in November, Viser CEO came out and again I found this like just a little thread in the Twitter because once again was not being talked about on cable news. Visor CEO came out and said, so pretty sure y'all need a fourth shot, right, He's like, he's like, you need a fourth shot. We're working on a long term vaccine that will you know, be be working for at least a year, but we're not there.

So if you're if you are waning to that side, like I am five months, six months, you need to get a fourth shot. And I'm like, are we even allowed to get fourth shots right now? Is that is that a thing? Yeah? Well then I'm going to get one. Yeah, yeah, don't. I mean there's a great strategy for doing that. It's called lying um and and I recommend you do it. I mean, the problem is the formulation of the vaccine

that's still out there is still the delta formulation. There is an omicron specific vaccine that they've been testing, and I don't see why they're not like rolling that thing out like yesterday. Um. So it's still the older formulation of the vaccine. So it's it's good you want to have high antibodies at a time like this. Um. But yeah, no, I would just say, lyeing, go get this shot. I mean I think that that's that that that that's one

reasonable strategy. UM. Don't don't quote me on that, don't put me on television about that or anything like that. But um but um, but no, I think that right now is the time to right now is the time to um to be a little defensive. And I do I think you're right that if it's it's an overcron subvariant. People who did I mean I didn't. I haven't gotten it either, And so I asked my friend this morning, is there a place I can rush out and get the old omicron? You know? But you know, I don't know.

I think you're still better off having not had it, because there are plenty people who are having long COVID symptoms now from right, which again you know again people are not and by people, I mean the administration, I mean the CDC, I mean folks that have been going on television for the past two years to talk about COVID are not talking about long COVID and what I'm hearing And there was a report in the New York Times, Oh, we think that long COVID really affects your brain, right,

like that it's not just people having to work back up to the respiratory levels that they had pre COVID, but that they're having brain issues, right, They're having memory loss, they're having focus issues, they're having migrains and all of these things. Jonathan, do you think that this administration is going to be caught flat footed in the next couple of weeks because of the push to go back to work, go back to normal, go back to the way that things were. This is what has been coming out of

this administration for the last three weeks. We had doctor Fauci on a couple of weeks ago who said, you know, when it's pouring, you wear galoshes in a raincoat. It's drizzling now, so you can take off, you know, you can take off some layers. What's happening in China and Europe and Israel is actually stating otherwise that it's it's not drizzling actually right, that the storm is in a different location right now, but it is actually you can see it in the horizon. Yeah, I mean, I think

I think that's right. The hard thing from my perspective right now is that it's not like they are very smart scientists and public health researchers in the administration. It's just the the pandemic became political for everyone, right. It became an untenable political response for the Democrats to be saying we need to stay cautious. That was actually that was going to cost them the midterms. It was going to cost them everything, and so health became political for

the Democrats. Also, is a reaction to it becoming so political for the Republicans. And so it's not like the Democrats are being driven by sound science right now. They're trying to basically say, oh, mandates, no, no, that that's that's you know, that's somebody must be somebody else mandates, that's not us. And so in a way, nobody's making decisions that are about health right now. And it's true

on both sides. I mean, Eric Adams, you know, it's easy to become mayor of New York two months ago, when the cases are falling and everybody's vaccinated, you can say, you know whatever, go everybody go to a strip club, you know whatever. M But but but in a month when things are going crazy, what's the Eric Adams position

to be. I mean, that's when things get hard. Like he can be all chummy with Kyrie Irving now, but if things start to get serious again, is he is he can be able to turn the corner and say, look, we got to take this seriously again. That's that's really the hard question, because you know, nobody I think I just think they realized that from a population science level,

that it became unmanageable. And and again it's it's hard because I mean there's so much anger, frustration, beer in the world, and then the weather starts getting nice and the many you take off your mask for the first time. I mean I totally understand that. For me, I thought, man, I can go back to my life of just waking up in a different hotel room every morning and not knowing where I am or how I got that's the life you had, good doctor, Yeah, who is Like who

is who is this person? And how did I get here? And sneaking out with my clothes and like I missed that life that you missed that life, but like clearly the nineteen seventy Yeah, but but but and so it's hard because like the minute you have a touch of normal normalcy, you recognize kind of oh we lost that's what we lost. Um but but but but again, you

know again it's just resilience. Unfortunately, I don't know. It's like all these things I was thinking the other day, like COVID and putin are exactly the same, Like this thing you kind of stopped paying attention to and then they come back and show you like with a vengeance. Yeah yeah, yeah, So you know the last question that I have for you, Jonathan today, is we have seen these spikes happen at different seasons, right like we have We have noticed notably, you know, the late fall winter

has been really bad in the United States. Spring and summer. However, even though Delta was this covered in the summer of what twenty twenty or twenty twenty one, I don't remember. Is it better if there is a surge that happens, that it happens for us in the springtime because we're able to be outside, because you're not going to be lowered into you know, the indoor dining or indoor things, and there is such a desire particularly here, you know, on the East Coast, that things start to get warmer.

Is that is that a better scenario for us rather than a fall a late fall winter? I mean absolutely. If it's an airborne virus, you want to be outside, and that's always going to be true. The thing is, we had never seen a virus during the pandemic spread as quickly as the Big Oh last December, and we thought,

oh my god, how could it spread that fast? And now this new variant spreads thirty times faster than that, and so the virus is always going to try to find our patterns and then subvert right the whole goal of the of the viruses to be more infectious than the one that came before. And so this new variant is going to have some new rules and and and the other thing we haven't even spoken about is we're defunding COVID research right now in a pretty significant way.

And so there are real implications for just our health apparatus, our healthcare, all these kind of things. And so we're you know, the risk is a knowledge vacuum in a particular way. Well, Jonathan, we here at least unwoke af We'll continue to keep our eyes open and have conversations about COVID even if the mainstream and the rest of the world has moved on. I wouldn't say the rest of the world. I'll say the United States has moved

on and think that we're past it. I'll tell folks that are listening to stay vigilant, to read up on what is what is happening, because you're not going to see it on cable news until it gets to a fever pitch. And we don't need things to reach yet another fever pitch when we know exactly what it is that we need to do, which is wear masks and be really thoughtful about how we gather and where we gather. So, folks, this is your first warning as we learn more about

the omicron subvariant. Jonathan, as always, thank you so much for making the time to walk us through the latest. That is it for me, dear friends today on woke a app. As always, Power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.