Pushing The Limits
Episode 142: How Contagious is the Corona Virus and all the facts you need to know
2020-03-20
Lisa interviews this week Dr. Mansoor Mohammed immunologist on what exactly makes the Covid-19 virus so dangerous, how it's transmitted, how it enters the body and what it does once it's there. He talks about who exactly fits in the high-risk group and how long the virus can live outside of its human host on various surfaces. They also discuss how containing it and taking drastic action will not stop the spread but slow the spread and therefore the lo...
Lisa interviews this week Dr. Mansoor Mohammed immunologist on what exactly makes the Covid-19 virus so dangerous, how it's transmitted, how it enters the body and what it does once it's there.
He talks about who exactly fits in the high-risk group and how long the virus can live outside of its human host on various surfaces.
They also discuss how containing it and taking drastic action will not stop the spread but slow the spread and therefore the load on the public health system so as not to collapse the system and to give those suffering severely the best chance at surviving.
He talks about the history of this strain and our past experiences with it and the long term implications.
He also brings to our attention the need to especially protect `our elderly population and the immune-compromised.
This is a time to consider other people and to avoid hysteria and panic but to take the risk seriously so as to avoid the worst possible scenario.
Dr. Mansoor also discusses the need to boost the immune system to lower stress levels and the need to continue exercising and staying fit and avoiding poor food choices.
These are unprecedented times but with good strategies, in place and coherence from the majority of people, we can and will be stronger as a community.
Dr. Mansoor is the founder and president of The DNA company who specializes in functional genomics and DNA testing. You can find out more about Dr. Mansoor at www.thednacompany.com
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Transcript of the Podcast
Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com
Speaker 2: (00:14)
Well, hi everybody. Welcome back to pushing the limits. This is Lisa Tamati again. And once again I have the fantastic doctor mental all the way from Canada who has sacrificed and I mean sacrifice in time to give you guys the, the rundown on what the Corona virus is all about from a scientist point of view, point of view from an immunologist point of view. Dr main soar is not only a leading functional genomic specialist and you heard him on the show just last week, but he is also a immunologist. So welcome to the show again, dr. Mansoor, it's, I'm so pleased to see you. I just,
Speaker 3: (00:50)
Well thank you so much for having me back
Speaker 2: (00:53)
Then. This no, it's fantastic. So Dr Mansoor, you've written a couple of articles that I've also had up on my blog and sharing it with my, my audience. It certainly gave me pause and it was very much the facts and not the hype. But still very, very concerning. Can you give us a rundown on the history of a coronavirus for staff and you know, how do we get,
Speaker 3: (01:21)
Well I think not to trivialize or make light of a serious situation, but to start off at a point that highlights something and that is the more of these podcasts and video custody I'm doing in the coming weeks. I am pretty much self isolate and not pretty much I am and I don't have access to a Barbara anymore. So as these videos go on, I'm looking grapher and you know, sort of scrub your, as each video goes on. So that's a good place to start that you know, we are taking this seriously, but to make something of, you know, to, to lighten the mood for the audience members yet this is what documents are, looks like, what he does not have access for the company.
Speaker 3: (02:10)
So coronaviruses the first thing I think as a community, we've got to understand, we've been exposed. So the SARS cough too, which causes, which causes the covered 19, this, this pandemic. So this pandemic is caused by a virus, by bacteria, by a virus, number one. Number two, the pandemic, the disease, the infection to the degree that someone gets it, it's called the covet 19 pandemic. The covered 19 disease as it might be infection and it's caused by the SARS called to a virus. Now, it's not by chance that the the agencies that had to come up with a name for this, they used that SARS as a prefix to that. This virus comes from the same species of the virus that we dealt with almost two decades ago. I saw ours acute respiratory syndrome, which of course at the end of the day, that will be likely the clinical concern for anyone who gets a clinically concerning infection.
Speaker 3: (03:18)
It typically is manifesting itself as acute respiratory syndrome. I E difficulty breathing up to an including needing to be hospitalized. We'll talk a little bit about that a bit later on. But the point of this then is this, this is a virus. It's a virus that we've seen the, the, the family of this virus, the Corona viruses, humans have been interacting. In fact to deal with infections for coronaviruses for several decades now. So to the population out there listening to this know that this is not some sort of, you know, came out of the blue monster virus. Have no ever, no one ever knew about? No, not at all. It's the same family of viruses that do tend to crop up. They tend to come from animals, specific animals that tend to, you know, they act as vectors. They act as carriers and ever so often these viruses that we're evolved to live or to reproduce an animals ever.
Speaker 3: (04:16)
So often as they mutate, they develop the ability to leave an animal host and come to human host. Okay, so this, this is what we're dealing with. We're also dealing, this is this virus, this thing that we've seen before. It's not actually that much more virulent. In other words, the, not to some too cold, but the mortality rate of this virus, the number of people that will ultimately die from this virus is actually, it is more than the common flu. The common flu tends to have a mortality rate of about a 1% give or take, depending on the ethnicity, the country's health factors and so on and so forth. SARS, for example, that virus that we dealt with a couple of decades ago had a mortality rate closer to 10% Merz, same family. The middle Eastern respiratory central virus had a mortality rate that was even higher than that.
Speaker 3: (05:13)
The current virus has what we, based on the current epidemiologic studies and the data, which is still young, we're still collecting data. It looks like the mortality rate is about three to 4%. So it's not something to Scott that, but in the big picture, it's not something that human beings haven't had to deal with in the past. Okay. Now on the note of that, mortality rates, so there's a virus that we can be infected by. We'll talk about some of the factors of infection that for the most part, and for many individuals, the symptomology, what they're going to deal with is going to be nothing more than the common fruit for the vast majority of individuals. But for that smaller percent individuals, it can and it will develop into something more serious. We've got to understand this. Three to 4% on percentages are averages. Okay?
Speaker 3: (06:07)
So we take a hundred people, we take a thousand people that we knew that were infected and then we follow the course of their disease. How many people didn't even know, they didn't even know they were infected, they went above luck and they will never know that they were infected because it just never got to the point where it was serious. And by the way, a large percentage of people will fall into that category, which is what is unique about this virus. And it creates a dichotomy. On the one hand, the virus for so many people, the symptoms are so mild, so as took for the person not even know they've got the virus or think that it's just another just passing flu. And on the other hand it can and will kill a small percentage of individuals. This duality is what makes this virus so concerning in reality, because what is happening is many, many people are asymptomatic, they're traveling.
Speaker 3: (07:01)
And of course until and unless the countries that's countries are now starting to seriously the spread rate. And this is what is concerning. The spread rate of this virus is higher than previous strains. So I'm going to start divvying up these points and we'll address each one of them with a little bit more care coming back to those. So we've got this virus, we've got this percent. I need individuals to understand that when we talk about percentages, there are averages. So the mortality rate on average is three to 4% but when we isolate the at risk group and who are the actress group individuals that are elder, okay so we say 65 70 years old and above that there's no hard line there. But basically those are the folks that we're seeing that can be at significantly greater risk. Individuals that are there does seem to be Lisa, a male preponderance and there are some, there's some reasons for that.
Speaker 3: (08:02)
We're still sorting through the data without getting into that, which we know without getting into that, which we're uncertain of and we have to be so careful in these times. So only represent what we know. Okay. So it is not absolutely clear when the data is all looked at, whether we will see a greater number of males versus females. Currently it seems that way and currently there does seem to be some indicators as to why that might be the case. Okay. Regardless, 65 17 older individuals with existing all motor, all form, all community cardiovascular disease, so hyper hypertension, bonafide beyond hypertension, bonafide cardiovascular disease, individuals who've had strokes before, individuals who've had cardiovascular events before. Okay. Second to that risk factor seems to be a diabetic individuals and again there's a reason why these things are clustering as such. So if we were to put the highest based on the thin data we have, we would say men above the age of 70 who are hypertensive, who who've had cardiovascular events in their life are at the highest risk.
Speaker 3: (09:20)
Then we would say like age men who may be diabetic. Then we would say like aged woman in either of the categories and then we fall into a broader category that seems to transcend age. So other than above 65 70 and that is anyone who has been a greater risk. And of course this now expands the population for asthma, bronchitis, people that may have had pneumonia in the past and they find themselves more susceptible to it, I. E. these are individuals that you know from the basis of their physiology, there are greater risk of what hyper inflow inflammatory responses in the respiratory track. And that's a no, that's independent of the age two genes independent of the race to gene if, and this is age a, this is not age limited, independent of age independent if the a sturgeon and very quickly for the audience, the ACE two gene is the gene that makes a enzyme receptor on the surface of your cells.
Speaker 3: (10:31)
And this receptor has been found to be the doorway. The thing, the door through which the saws called to virus enters the human cell and it's always important for viral ologists epidemiologists to know how the virus is getting into the human cell. Keep in mind that viruses, unlike most micro organisms or other living organisms, viruses can also exist independent of a host. So a virus needs to enter a cell and animal cell or human cells in order to survive. And what do they do? And, and I, I made reference to this to be, you know, if you actually looked at what happens when a virus enters a cell, it's something out of an alien movie. You know, literally the virus co-ops it, it sabotages the, the human cell. It hijacks all of the machinery of the human soul and directs it towards reproducing that virus.
Speaker 3: (11:33)
And then when the virus has basically usurped, it has basically used up all of the resources of the human cell. It releases itself from the human cell and now you have one human cell bringing forth from it, many, many copies of that virus. Okay, so the virulence of the virus, just how dangerous it can be are in pots. How easily kind of enter the human body. You know, is it something that you've got to go, you know, lick the floor before you get infected? Is that something that you just have to breathe it from a ma, you know, from meters away. So that's the first couple. The second component is often it enters the human body, which cells of the human body is the virus getting in six different viruses can enter an infect different cells and depending on the organ system of the body, you might imagine that a virus that is able to get across the blood brain barrier and affect the brain, the neural cells or virus that can get into, you know, the liver of ours.
Speaker 3: (12:38)
There are certain organs that depending on if those cells were being ruptured and being taken over, you can imagine correctly that the impact of the health impact on the human being is going to be more severe than other organs. Now, for the most part, the coronaviruses, when they infect the human being and they get it, they're entering into cells involved in the pulmonary cardiovascular system. They're basically infecting the lining of the lung and other cells. Mind you. Okay. Now. So the other components that makes up when we look at how dangerous are viruses, we want to see how easily can it be contracted when it gets sensitive body, which cells are going, are they going into, how quickly are they usurping? How quickly are they using up the resources of the cell? Okay. Compared to how quickly can the immune system of the body attack and get rid of the virus.
Speaker 3: (13:37)
Right. So there's a game being played here, awarded as being waged. The virus gets into ourselves using a PA cells to multiply. At the same time, our immune system is trying to respond and decorative those microorganisms from the body. Okay. And for the vast majority of people that come in contact with coronal viruses, including the SARS to our immune system is beautifully equipped to stop it from going beyond that, which is tolerable. Okay. No, any infection, it will be beneficial. And this is something that we might touch upon. Lisa. So many scientists, so many health professionals, we are looking at the immediacy as we should be the acute infection. But what we're not considering is this because of the ramifications of this infection. What do we see happening? People are having to stay indoors. People are stucking up in food. They're there. They're afraid to go out and shop, so we're stucking up a non-perishables which happen to be processed foods Laden with sugar Laden with salts.
Speaker 3: (14:48)
We're not getting the type of activity that keeps us healthy, that sleep cycles are disrupted. Our stress levels are up when we're stressed out because we've got to go and we've got a lineup for two hours in order to get, because of frankly hysterical buying patterns that should not be in our communities. We are doing a disservice to ourselves, to our loved ones, to the actress population. By that uncalled for hoarding and rushing out and buying. Why you creating stressful environments, these stressful environments elevates your cortisol levels. That elevated cortisol suppresses the immune system. Okay. Then we're going, what are we buying? Are we buying fresh fruits and vegetables and no, we're buying canned foods. We're buying pasta, we're buying processors because those are the non-perishables and then we're thinking of a journey where for the next four months or however long we're cooped up, think of what this is going to do to not just the immediacy effect on health of the infection but the longitudinal effect of people not exercising for months and then being cooped up eating horrible foods, stress levels up.
Speaker 2: (16:08)
Yup, and I mean this is one of like I'm an oil company, obviously we're a health and fitness company and we, we look at all the health suicides we are pivoting is you are with your company into providing online training programs online, you know, lives passes to people in their living room in, in making them think about lowering their stress levels, getting into meditation and deep breathing and all those things that are going to be great.
Speaker 3: (16:32)
I cannot stress enough from a scientific perspective, from a medical perspective and unfortunately our medical communities because we're swamped and having to deal with the immediacy of the acute care. Few people are speaking about the radically important component that you're dealing with, the service that you're providing. The, the lesions of individuals for whom they don't have to be worried, even if they were infected about it being an overly dangerous infection, it will be, they'll have a flu and there'll be down for the count for a few days. But what they're not looking at is the transients. And yes, it may be transient, but the, the, the impact on our cardiovascular system, the longitudinal impact on our immune system, the impact on our mood, mental behavior, wellbeing. Right. I just read an article just before coming onto this, onto this podcast that in one of the, in one of the provinces that here in Canada, their, their, their, their assault domestic abuse, sorry. So they're, they're domestic abuse hotlines are ringing off the clock now because what you're getting is this ripple effect. Now you're getting people having to be locked up in homes exacerbating latent behavioral, you know, misgivings and tendencies, these repercussions. Lisa, I'm going to have greater societal impacts than the repercussion of the virus.
Speaker 4: (18:05)
Okay.
Speaker 2: (18:07)
I'm so glad you brought that up. I mean, I know with myself like, you know we got some financial impacts from this for their business. Is you know, most people at this time and that is creating stress. You know, and this is just an, you know, not too much of we have people. And what, what I've been trying to put in, in, in my social media and in my videos and things is the importance of having honest, calm discussions with each other and being positive about finding the opportunities because every horrible, you know, cloud that comes upon us all side brings benefits and it's like, okay, what, what, what is the benefit of this? Instead of just looking at the threat and changing it into this is a challenge. This is an interesting time we're living we have a chance to pivot and you have a chance to have more time with our loved ones to reflect on our direction of our lives. And we have this world is going and the will be benefits and not to just go into a panic state. And it's very easy to do when you are losing your income and when you're stressed about your elderly loved ones
Speaker 3: (19:17)
And you know, God forbid and horrible and me to say that I can sit and be a pundit when you know, if I'm not entirely concerned about next months, you know, rental income over paying the bills and that there are individuals for whom because their store was closed or because their day job was affected and they can't. So please to the audience out there, I cannot, it would be utter hypocrisy of me to say that I can understand the stresses that that will bring. But what I can say is this, that regardless of what you're facing, no, that those stresses are in and of themselves further exacerbating your own health, number one. Number two, two, two, two, two do have in the, the sooner and the greater portion of the society that takes up a positive outlook of this is the sooner that the society is going to get back to the operationality that we need to get back to.
Speaker 3: (20:17)
And of course that that operationality we will find that there are different things. Ingenuity, often sprouts from times of hardship. And again, I'm not trying to publicize from a lofty position. I know that there are people out there, I can't imagine, I can't, I can only empathize the struggles some individuals are facing. But you know, the incredible thing of the human condition is that when we band together, when we, when we show the care that is needed, the and we step out of ourselves, that we suppress that narcissism and we watch out for the greater community, we will find that there will be things. When this is over, we will have inventions, we will have things, we will have a way of going about business that is now more resilient to the next thing that we will face. I will always face these things as human beings.
Speaker 3: (21:12)
So coming back to I, I really want to emphasize that yes, we must look out at the virulence level, the virus and the, the direct causation, all things we need to look at. But it is so important and Lisa, what you're doing. And in fact, where your business can grow with this, this is not the point of this podcast is to say people more and more individuals, the individuals that are reading books, because there's, what are you going to do? Your home, you're reading, educating yourself, picking something that you see. You know what? I know have some time. Let me use that time and, and let me pursue something that I otherwise didn't have because I was stuck in traffic two hours every day going back and forth. So in gender, that, and then nothing can be better purpose, nothing can be better positioned than in gender and helping individuals.
Speaker 3: (22:01)
Here's something that's going to happen, Lisa. So when this event has passed, a much greater percentage of our society will recognize, I need to take my health seriously. I need to, you know, I need to, I need to recognize that. You know, what if I were entirely dependent on my governmental institution that are doing amazing jobs on my medical institutions to take care of me, you know, I'm putting myself at some risk. Okay? So, so let me take the steps to improve my wellbeing. So here's the point. Absolutely. Regardless of whether it's Corona, viruses, SARS, Cabi two specifically. If we are healthier as human beings, just in all of the definitions of healthier, we are better equipped to deal with infections and that's a very generic statement but it's a very accurate statement. So now let's get into a little bit of more of the specifics and we can tie them back.
Speaker 3: (23:00)
We got to the point that when the virus, this particular sauce copy to enters the body, here's the two things that are making this virus. Three things that are making this virus a bit more despite the lower rates of mortality, a bit more concern. Before we get to those three things, let me finish the point on the percentages. As much as the average mortality percentage is about three to 4% that number significantly rises. When we look at the population, it's closer to eight to 10% of people in the actress elder population as we defined. And so of course at that point now we are getting to a number that is concerning our loved ones who yes, they're 70, but that, you know, they've got beautiful long lives. I've lived them, but certain factors can make them quite at risk for this virus. Now other than what we've mentioned in terms of age possible sex, dimorphism hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes of obviously we have to be super careful these smaller percentage of our population that are recipients of organ transplants and therefore they are immunosuppressive medications.
Speaker 3: (24:18)
These individuals, their caregivers, their families. We've got to be so concerned about making sure we do not expose this segment of the society patients that aren't chemotherapies. And therefore because of the, you know, the real pounding the chemotherapy does to the human body, cancer patients and patients on chemotherapy should also a need to also be added to that ultra protective part of the population. Okay. Now let's the, there there was, and so I would be hypocritical to say that the data is clear to the degree of making a final comment. It appears actually, and by God's grace, it appears that the youth are much less affected by the virus, much less effected. Okay. And, and what's that timeline is a toddlerhood our baby's back in the risk category. But, but then from two years to 15, we don't have those ages. But what we know is that when we look at the broad epidemiologic data, we're not seeing much comorbidities or mortalities in the youthful pay population with the exception of obviously any children, you know, gosh, that are dealing with cancers or that are dealing with you know, individual increased predispositions to asthma new pneumatic pneumo pneumonia.
Speaker 3: (25:52)
If you are that person, regardless of age, what are these symptoms? A person who when they get the cold or to get a flu, you know, we all tend to have different responses. You know, some of us will get a sore throat, we'll get a stiffly nose, we'll get a headache, we'll get maybe some achy joints. And that's it. And then there's some individuals, the first thing that happens is, you know, they'll say, it's my lungs. I, I get that. You know, I'm, I'm at risk for the upper respiratory bronc bronchial infections and I get the lung pump, okay. If you fall into that category, what it means is individually, physiologically, and actually very often genetically the lining of your, the alveoli, the little sacks, the little air sacks of your lung, the lining is at risk for what we'd the hyper inflammatory reaction. Okay.
Speaker 3: (26:48)
And so I, and, and this is where, this is where we have to be a bit more careful. Okay? So, so if you know, you fall into that category, then anything that causes inflammation of the lining, the luminal linage, which could be, for example, these individuals would have known never be the person locked in a close back through using harsh chemicals. That alone can bring on a really bad episode of shortness of breath and something worse than that. In the case of the virus. Well, of course this particular virus coming back to where we started, these viruses are entering these cells because this H2 gene happens to be expressed. The doorways, the cells with the doorways through which this virus enters happens to be expressed in the lower respiratory tract and it happens to be expressed in different parts of the cardiovascular system, which is why it's unsurprising that the deleterious symptoms of the virus are exactly in those parts of the body.
Speaker 3: (27:49)
Okay. Now let's come back to the virus. We said there are three things that are that are making these, this virus and this pandemic dangerous, not because of what you would think it to be, not because it's killing high percentages of individuals, but for the following reason. Number one, ironically, this virus is dangerous because when it does enter the human body and we said viruses have to enter the human body, co-opt the cells and then reproduce it can be so mild, Lisa, every governmental agency knows for a fact and it's not to create a steric hysteria. Many more people than are being tested positive, have the virus. Actually have it. Okay. But that's okay. In some ways they're not, they're not going to have any deleterious health outcome for themselves, but they are going to be the transmitters without knowing they're the transmitters. So this is where a degree of maturity and a degree of ownership and a degree of responsibility comes in where you've got to be able to say as far as humanly possible, did you travel recently?
Speaker 3: (29:04)
Do you fee how you know? And of course using how you feel only goes so far because you may be feeling Sosa really hold yourself to account. Have you been traveling while you in hot zones? And keep this in mind because the first of the three things that make this virus so dangerous is actually it is so mild, but mildness does not equal the the, just because you're mild does not mean you're not emitting the virus. Okay? So a person who can be asymptomatic next to a person in bed with a fever, with a sore throat, symptomatic and they both cough or they both just happen to Excel too much. The virus in the sputum, which of course is the saliva. And the mucus that comes out of the mouth of the nose. Both individuals can have as many viral particles. The person that is asymptomatic and the person that is symptomatic, so lumps is there in fact.
Speaker 3: (30:06)
So this is the first thing that makes this virus a bit more dangerous. And it's actually the thing that we're not even talking about, number one. Number two, the second thing that makes this virus quite dangerous is so one of virus enters the cell as we said, and it, it, it has, it hijacks that. So for its own, its own reproductive, you know and goal, we, there are these metrics, what these metrics are, we say for every one human cell that the virus enters, how many red, how many baby viruses, how many offspring viruses are leaving that, you know, when it's used up the human cell, this is where the saws Covey to virus is showing a little bit. If it's dangerous colors, again, not because it was causing really harmful symptoms, but it is emitting what appears to be, no, this is early data. Okay. But it's, it's emitting per ruptured per, per human cell that, that it tie jacks up to a thousand times more viral particles than, than previous. Coronaviruses
Speaker 2: (31:19)
That means in your Spotium when you're breathing, when you're coughing is
Speaker 3: (31:24)
Yeah, you have, it doesn't mean that it's any more serious of virus, but it means that it's transmitted ability. How many people? This is huge. Okay. And this is why we're seeing that classical exponential doubling. Now this is what we call the row of a virus R O. So for example, influence a row might be around, let's say about one also the row numbers, just a number is that estimates for every person that has the virus that has it and that is reproducing it and that is transmitting it. How many people do they stand to infect the current SaaS? Coby two seems to be about two to three times as much infect ability than the common flu, for example. Okay.
Speaker 2: (32:21)
Wow. So, so for Everage and I know get it early data, but so for one person who has a bar,
Speaker 3: (32:29)
Well of course that absolute number just has to do with how many people they're coming into contact with. But what the point is, is mano a mano, the person with the comes. So here's how you want to at it. The person who has the common flu versus the person who has the saws copy two virus, both of these individuals walk into a supermarket and they're going about their own daily business because they didn't think anything was also ultimately wrong. The saws Cabi two individual will infect almost three times as many people as the common flu person. Okay. That's the way you want to look at it. And again, these numbers may seem a three. No, you have to look at what this happens with doubling criteria. Exactly. So the other, it's 100% 100% all we need to look at is we need to look at the data that came out of Italy in one day, one day only.
Speaker 3: (33:26)
I think it was March 15th on March 15th alone. The number of infected people jumped by 50% 50% in other words on a document. And then we had 10,000 people infected and then on the next day we had 15,000 people that were infected within one day. Okay. When you take these factors, again, not fear mongering, keep in mind most of those people infected are not going to have any really, you know, trouble some health concerns. But we're getting there. Now the third thing that is concerning about this virus, so we spoke about the actually the fact that it's so asymptomatic but doesn't mean that you're not transmitting it, that you are transmitting are lot more viral particles than previous coronaviruses or other viruses. The third thing is this, that yes, because of the symptomology, and this is really now putting aside the ripple health effects that you and I addressed a little early in the conversation on the acute side, on the direct viral concerning side of things.
Speaker 3: (34:39)
Here is the thing that I highlighted in my first message because when you add up the transmitted bility of this virus as per what we've said, it's just a numbers game and I'll, I'll tell you how this plays in the U S we have X number of beds per per thousand individually per thousand population. So it means that at any given point in time in any healthcare system, your system in New Zealand at any given point in time, God forbid, X number of human beings can go to the hospital and receive care and we'll host the hospital to receive care from a broken limb because they fell off a bicycle to, you know, needing to give birth to a child, to something more serious than that at any given, all of these requirements in our hospital system are fixed. They're only X number of ventilators, X number of anesthesiologists, X number of respiratory and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3: (35:41)
Now when you take the rapidity of spread of this particular SARS COVID 2, and you take the percentage that will ultimately develop concerning enough breathing concerns concerning enough short breathlessness, not mortality, just enough. You know, and for anyone who's ever had an episode where you can't breathe, it's a horrible thing. It's a very visceral response. You need care. You need to be, when we look at the capacity of the healthcare system and we look at what these numbers, even if they're non life threatening going into the medical facilities, this is what is breaking the system. Okay. And that's what's, that's the part that I, that's the part that every intelligence scientist researcher, biologist, epidemiologist has said this is the concern, not the concern of ultimate Lee, the severity of the viral infection. Ultimately the percentage of the mortalities, but the ripple effect of when more and more people are infected.
Speaker 3: (36:50)
It just becomes a numbers game that more and more people will show up at hospital facilities requiring care. And of course at those facilities we have acute trauma care patients that are there. We have cancer patients that are receiving, we have expecting mothers that are giving birth. We have all of these things that our healthcare system on a daily basis has to handle. And this is exactly what Northern Italy experienced. It's what Spain is experiencing right now is what the British government has had to try to say, we know this is going to happen. So we just have to figure out, you know, and they, some of the press releases from the British government seemed very stock that they just said, look, we can tell you this is going to happen and we're going to tell you you're going to lose loved ones. And now it's a matter of mitigating as much of that as possible. Okay.
Speaker 5: (37:43)
Okay
Speaker 2: (37:43)
So the, the, the pandemic paradox, the the flattening of the curve as what we want to achieve. We know I watched a video from an epidemiologist who was saying if, if it all happens very quickly, we're going to hit this. We can have a long tail and, and the S. So that's why the self isolation and the that can containment nations as so important. The total number of people going to be infected is going to be similar. But it's from the right at which the heading, the hospitals and the
Speaker 3: (38:19)
That's that is the critical, that's the break points. And so the only way that we can do this with any degree of in the, and I'm going to say this carefully in the best case scenarios, which of course are often hard come about. You know, we, if you look at how Singapore has addressed this issue, it was a best case scenario. You know, and now mind you, that has a lot to do with the history. They were better prepared than most countries. They took the threat of it. The moment they heard rumblings from China before it even became a news, you know, they acted. Of course not every country has the control population that they do and the resources that they do. But what I'm trying to say is that we can learn from both what happens when the system was broken as well as from when the system works.
Speaker 3: (39:07)
And what we can draw from this is exactly what you pointed out. There has to be a balance. You know people who have been talking, and in fact I'm so sad that some people have been talking a bit uneducated about the concept of herd immunity for herd immunity to work. When you enter into the realm of saying that, okay, let's quote unquote that herd immunity take taking space. The first thing is you've got to know is you've got to be willing to lose a certain percent of your community. Okay? And you've got to make a value proposition of what is that percentage, number one. Number two, all right? Okay. All these things flippantly, if it doesn't impact you. Number two, for her to unity to work, and this is again from a core scientific perspective, there's several provinces that people are so uneducated, Lee, not talk, but one of the promises of herd immunity is it cannot be a transient population.
Speaker 3: (40:00)
A herd immunity has to be a closed population. If you've ever population where people actively coming and going, you don't have a herd. What you're doing is you. It's the opposite of a herd immunity number two and number three that you assume there's homogeneity in the response to the infection, but we know there isn't homogeneity in the response. We know that there is a relatively benign response in about 80 to 85% of the population. That's a good thing, but in that 15% there's the individuals with whom they are preexisting conditions and then there's that 10% 5% 7% that is a not really, really high risk category. Then the fourth component of herd immunity is those individuals are not somehow excluded from the herd. They're embedded in the herd. They're there. There are parents that are living in our homes. They are, you know, God forbid, but for the families that have to deal with patients that are dealing with organ transplants and cancer, our myths, so the parameters of herd immunity do not match in the way that people are talking about it.
Speaker 3: (41:17)
So ideally what you do want to have that curve flatten. You do want to the 85% of the population that can get the infection so that they are been immune after a period of time so that they're longer emitting the viruses. This is what matters so that we can have 85% of the population walking around going back into communal businesses and communal discourse, not emitting the viruses so that sooner rather than later that that that curve starts to flatten flat. But we do our best for the 15% of the population to shield them. They cannot be included or be thought to have the means safely to address the infection. So we need the infection to die off before they can. Again, I'm speaking here in utopia. I'm not saying this is easy, but the sooner we do this is the sooner that we can reintegrate this actress part of the population back to normal activity and not be concerned about them then being infected. And of course not having the means to successfully deal with this infection.
Speaker 2: (42:39)
So anybody who is in that at risk category, whether it be through having asthma or being elderly or having cardiovascular disease or diabetes or any of those talks of things
Speaker 3: (42:50)
As best as possible. But then being an absolute isolation is a very little value unless the community around them are taking the steps to flatten the curve. Right? So, so what we need this almost a dichotomous response to what needs to happen. We need to be one can even say a triad response. We need to ultra protect that actress population as best as we can. Recognizing that they will be the ones that if infected can quickly cascade into an unhealthy outcome or mortal outcome for the individuals that are, that are conclusively infected. We need to have, you know, proper isolation so that they can healthily, cause you know, they're not in that office, they'll go through their infection. It's just, you know, it's going to be a few days, sometimes very little, sometimes three to five days I prefer. And we allow them to get through without being properly isolated so that they're not passing it on.
Speaker 3: (43:57)
And of course then the other part of the society that will never come into contact or hope not comes into contact and as the viral load, think of the space that we're in as the sum total of where that viral load can be. And what we need to do is we need to keep reducing the viral load. How do you reduce the viral load by reusing that which is emitted? How do you reduce that which is emitted by reducing and secluding the individuals that need to deal with their infection and let it go away so that once you're, once you went to immune system has dealt with the virus that is in you. Then once you're over the infectious phase, what happens is once you go back out, you're not spewing it, number one and number two, even if you were exposed to it, you no longer go back into the cycle and then now we have to really a little careful here.
Speaker 3: (44:51)
We don't yet know the full immunity curve. We don't yet know the full immunity behavior to this virus. Okay? So we have to be careful there. Okay. And this brings up, wow. So, so you know, all things equal for the most, for the most part, when the human body, when the immune system both the, what we call the humoral and the innate. So both these for, for viral infections, we need both antibody response, but we also need our innate T cell response as well. We need, we need all aspects of the human immunity. When we deal with a viral infection for the most part, as we recover, we are immune to that virus such that, and here comes such that if the same virus we were exposed to it, we are now able to deal with the virus. Potter comes into the body, but we're all immune system snuffs it out before it starts to replicate. And before we become spewing engines again, right?
Speaker 3: (46:01)
We develop antibodies and we develop your immune system is not just for example in viral infections, IGA, one of the major subgroups that are involved in viral protection, but also innate. There are your T cells, there are natural killer cells. There are cells that bring about the inflammatory response. And here we speak of inflammation as a good thing. All right, so, so we were bringing about the, the, the, the alarm bell response to deal with the infection. Now not every virus has such a clean cycle in the human body. Some viruses, the, there are ripple effects, the immune system, we were able to get rid of the first wave and you know, you've got better, but you may not be completely immune to the virus such that if you are re exposed to it, you do, the virus can enter yourselves, can reproduce for a period of time, often shorter, often not as vigorously before we snuff it out again.
Speaker 3: (47:04)
So of course during that little period of time, again, you become a spewing engine, right? You're spewing out. So we've got gotta be careful about that, but there's something else we have to be careful about. And that is one of the things that is a little bit noxious about the coronaviruses is they have a fairly high rate of mutation. Okay? And so, so the evolution of the virus means that you may become immune to one virus, but then the second or third or fourth iteration of the virus is a beast. All F all on its own and your immune system is not equipped to handle that one. Okay.
Speaker 2: (47:47)
Nope. Is this like, why are we being exposed to these viruses? Is it, are bad animal husbandry processes? Has, is always affected humankind since time and Memorial. We just don't not aware of it. How are we going to see this happen?
Speaker 3: (48:04)
It's a question that I am not entirely equipped to answer. I know what, what I know where my strong points are and these are people far more intelligent than me and broader topics. But here's what I can add. Here's what I can give to that question. We've always been exposed to these things. Viruses are there viruses that fine as the original hosts, the animals that we either interact with through animal husband read through food sources. We've always, as a human species been exposed to these. But the one of the ways that it's controlled is, well, depending on the virulence of the virus and those that are affected die off much faster. All the populations were not as dense. And so these things leave animal sources, get into humans and then whittle out from the sharp curve and then they flatten. And then we move on several factors that as you does have to human population how much more we're interacting with animals and what is the context within which we're interacting with those animals from Dame that was simply wild game to now animals that are on them through animal husbandry closed through simply because of our expanding populations.
Speaker 3: (49:20)
We were encroaching into areas and interacting with the animals or the ripple effect of animals such as one of the major transmitters are carriers of the coronaviruses or bats for example. I mean, you know, there's very few societies do bats play a role of some active interaction with human life. And you know, we're not few societies, we're not eating it, we don't keep them as pets. We are not, you know, and so on and so forth. But as we do encroach upon areas, you know, we're going to start being in greater interaction with animals that we previously weren't as interacted with or we interacted with offshoots, whether it'd be the feces, if those animals, whether it be those animals infecting bats that are infecting the animals that we do live from and so on and so forth. So there is a bit of that going on.
Speaker 3: (50:12)
A radically important thing here and it's just our new world. We are much more mobile world than we've ever been, right? That's, that's, you know, we're a much more mobile world. On any given day you could have someone literally on one half of the globe and within 24 hours, that person's on the other half of the globe. And this is not to be hysterical or hysteria causing. This is just a reality of life. And it is something that we have to be cognizant of. Does this mean that we close our borders and definitely does this mean that we're suspicious? These viruses have no ethnic bias? None whatsoever. None whatsoever.
Speaker 2: (50:51)
Okay. This is the danger that I see too happening is as becoming fearful of people from other you know, from overseas or from other ethnicities and stuff. And I hope that the, the society is mature enough,
Speaker 3: (51:07)
Did not,
Speaker 2: (51:08)
You know develop developer are bias
Speaker 3: (51:11)
Any human being or simply a matter on it and really are their hygienists use that can contribute to this. Yes. But at the end of the day, hygiene or all the hygiene in the world, if you're in contact with you, if you, unfortunately, second, you know, through direct means or secondary means are in contact with this virus, especially viruses that can transmit at such alarming rates, you will be infected. Okay. And so coming now, let's, let's take all of this and package this into something that is, as I keep saying, moderated of the first of the things and if the first of the statements, our population, our societies, we need to look beyond the fear mongering and we need to recognize this is not in the big picture an overly deadly virus speaking in plain terms, just in plain terms. You know, it's kind of he or she had, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a violence money.
Speaker 3: (52:10)
Many more people than think they know have this virus already or have had this virus and they've gotten over it and they don't even know what they had. They thought they had the regular January flu. Okay. So, so number one, put that into perspective number two. Having said that, recognize that if this virus does make it two segments of the population that are at risk, it is a killer or it can be a killer. And then beyond the segments of the population for which it can have rapid unfortunate health outcomes, there is that buffer eight to 10% of the population that if they get this infection, it will not be a mortal infection, but it will be an infection that causes them to require hospital care. And eight to 10% of any society needing hospital care is more than the usual machinery of our healthcare system at any given point in time. Absolutely. Usually it'
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Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com
Speaker 2: (00:14)
Well, hi everybody. Welcome back to pushing the limits. This is Lisa Tamati again. And once again I have the fantastic doctor mental all the way from Canada who has sacrificed and I mean sacrifice in time to give you guys the, the rundown on what the Corona virus is all about from a scientist point of view, point of view from an immunologist point of view. Dr main soar is not only a leading functional genomic specialist and you heard him on the show just last week, but he is also a immunologist. So welcome to the show again, dr. Mansoor, it's, I'm so pleased to see you. I just,
Speaker 3: (00:50)
Well thank you so much for having me back
Speaker 2: (00:53)
Then. This no, it's fantastic. So Dr Mansoor, you've written a couple of articles that I've also had up on my blog and sharing it with my, my audience. It certainly gave me pause and it was very much the facts and not the hype. But still very, very concerning. Can you give us a rundown on the history of a coronavirus for staff and you know, how do we get,
Speaker 3: (01:21)
Well I think not to trivialize or make light of a serious situation, but to start off at a point that highlights something and that is the more of these podcasts and video custody I'm doing in the coming weeks. I am pretty much self isolate and not pretty much I am and I don't have access to a Barbara anymore. So as these videos go on, I'm looking grapher and you know, sort of scrub your, as each video goes on. So that's a good place to start that you know, we are taking this seriously, but to make something of, you know, to, to lighten the mood for the audience members yet this is what documents are, looks like, what he does not have access for the company.
Speaker 3: (02:10)
So coronaviruses the first thing I think as a community, we've got to understand, we've been exposed. So the SARS cough too, which causes, which causes the covered 19, this, this pandemic. So this pandemic is caused by a virus, by bacteria, by a virus, number one. Number two, the pandemic, the disease, the infection to the degree that someone gets it, it's called the covet 19 pandemic. The covered 19 disease as it might be infection and it's caused by the SARS called to a virus. Now, it's not by chance that the the agencies that had to come up with a name for this, they used that SARS as a prefix to that. This virus comes from the same species of the virus that we dealt with almost two decades ago. I saw ours acute respiratory syndrome, which of course at the end of the day, that will be likely the clinical concern for anyone who gets a clinically concerning infection.
Speaker 3: (03:18)
It typically is manifesting itself as acute respiratory syndrome. I E difficulty breathing up to an including needing to be hospitalized. We'll talk a little bit about that a bit later on. But the point of this then is this, this is a virus. It's a virus that we've seen the, the, the family of this virus, the Corona viruses, humans have been interacting. In fact to deal with infections for coronaviruses for several decades now. So to the population out there listening to this know that this is not some sort of, you know, came out of the blue monster virus. Have no ever, no one ever knew about? No, not at all. It's the same family of viruses that do tend to crop up. They tend to come from animals, specific animals that tend to, you know, they act as vectors. They act as carriers and ever so often these viruses that we're evolved to live or to reproduce an animals ever.
Speaker 3: (04:16)
So often as they mutate, they develop the ability to leave an animal host and come to human host. Okay, so this, this is what we're dealing with. We're also dealing, this is this virus, this thing that we've seen before. It's not actually that much more virulent. In other words, the, not to some too cold, but the mortality rate of this virus, the number of people that will ultimately die from this virus is actually, it is more than the common flu. The common flu tends to have a mortality rate of about a 1% give or take, depending on the ethnicity, the country's health factors and so on and so forth. SARS, for example, that virus that we dealt with a couple of decades ago had a mortality rate closer to 10% Merz, same family. The middle Eastern respiratory central virus had a mortality rate that was even higher than that.
Speaker 3: (05:13)
The current virus has what we, based on the current epidemiologic studies and the data, which is still young, we're still collecting data. It looks like the mortality rate is about three to 4%. So it's not something to Scott that, but in the big picture, it's not something that human beings haven't had to deal with in the past. Okay. Now on the note of that, mortality rates, so there's a virus that we can be infected by. We'll talk about some of the factors of infection that for the most part, and for many individuals, the symptomology, what they're going to deal with is going to be nothing more than the common fruit for the vast majority of individuals. But for that smaller percent individuals, it can and it will develop into something more serious. We've got to understand this. Three to 4% on percentages are averages. Okay?
Speaker 3: (06:07)
So we take a hundred people, we take a thousand people that we knew that were infected and then we follow the course of their disease. How many people didn't even know, they didn't even know they were infected, they went above luck and they will never know that they were infected because it just never got to the point where it was serious. And by the way, a large percentage of people will fall into that category, which is what is unique about this virus. And it creates a dichotomy. On the one hand, the virus for so many people, the symptoms are so mild, so as took for the person not even know they've got the virus or think that it's just another just passing flu. And on the other hand it can and will kill a small percentage of individuals. This duality is what makes this virus so concerning in reality, because what is happening is many, many people are asymptomatic, they're traveling.
Speaker 3: (07:01)
And of course until and unless the countries that's countries are now starting to seriously the spread rate. And this is what is concerning. The spread rate of this virus is higher than previous strains. So I'm going to start divvying up these points and we'll address each one of them with a little bit more care coming back to those. So we've got this virus, we've got this percent. I need individuals to understand that when we talk about percentages, there are averages. So the mortality rate on average is three to 4% but when we isolate the at risk group and who are the actress group individuals that are elder, okay so we say 65 70 years old and above that there's no hard line there. But basically those are the folks that we're seeing that can be at significantly greater risk. Individuals that are there does seem to be Lisa, a male preponderance and there are some, there's some reasons for that.
Speaker 3: (08:02)
We're still sorting through the data without getting into that, which we know without getting into that, which we're uncertain of and we have to be so careful in these times. So only represent what we know. Okay. So it is not absolutely clear when the data is all looked at, whether we will see a greater number of males versus females. Currently it seems that way and currently there does seem to be some indicators as to why that might be the case. Okay. Regardless, 65 17 older individuals with existing all motor, all form, all community cardiovascular disease, so hyper hypertension, bonafide beyond hypertension, bonafide cardiovascular disease, individuals who've had strokes before, individuals who've had cardiovascular events before. Okay. Second to that risk factor seems to be a diabetic individuals and again there's a reason why these things are clustering as such. So if we were to put the highest based on the thin data we have, we would say men above the age of 70 who are hypertensive, who who've had cardiovascular events in their life are at the highest risk.
Speaker 3: (09:20)
Then we would say like age men who may be diabetic. Then we would say like aged woman in either of the categories and then we fall into a broader category that seems to transcend age. So other than above 65 70 and that is anyone who has been a greater risk. And of course this now expands the population for asthma, bronchitis, people that may have had pneumonia in the past and they find themselves more susceptible to it, I. E. these are individuals that you know from the basis of their physiology, there are greater risk of what hyper inflow inflammatory responses in the respiratory track. And that's a no, that's independent of the age two genes independent of the race to gene if, and this is age a, this is not age limited, independent of age independent if the a sturgeon and very quickly for the audience, the ACE two gene is the gene that makes a enzyme receptor on the surface of your cells.
Speaker 3: (10:31)
And this receptor has been found to be the doorway. The thing, the door through which the saws called to virus enters the human cell and it's always important for viral ologists epidemiologists to know how the virus is getting into the human cell. Keep in mind that viruses, unlike most micro organisms or other living organisms, viruses can also exist independent of a host. So a virus needs to enter a cell and animal cell or human cells in order to survive. And what do they do? And, and I, I made reference to this to be, you know, if you actually looked at what happens when a virus enters a cell, it's something out of an alien movie. You know, literally the virus co-ops it, it sabotages the, the human cell. It hijacks all of the machinery of the human soul and directs it towards reproducing that virus.
Speaker 3: (11:33)
And then when the virus has basically usurped, it has basically used up all of the resources of the human cell. It releases itself from the human cell and now you have one human cell bringing forth from it, many, many copies of that virus. Okay, so the virulence of the virus, just how dangerous it can be are in pots. How easily kind of enter the human body. You know, is it something that you've got to go, you know, lick the floor before you get infected? Is that something that you just have to breathe it from a ma, you know, from meters away. So that's the first couple. The second component is often it enters the human body, which cells of the human body is the virus getting in six different viruses can enter an infect different cells and depending on the organ system of the body, you might imagine that a virus that is able to get across the blood brain barrier and affect the brain, the neural cells or virus that can get into, you know, the liver of ours.
Speaker 3: (12:38)
There are certain organs that depending on if those cells were being ruptured and being taken over, you can imagine correctly that the impact of the health impact on the human being is going to be more severe than other organs. Now, for the most part, the coronaviruses, when they infect the human being and they get it, they're entering into cells involved in the pulmonary cardiovascular system. They're basically infecting the lining of the lung and other cells. Mind you. Okay. Now. So the other components that makes up when we look at how dangerous are viruses, we want to see how easily can it be contracted when it gets sensitive body, which cells are going, are they going into, how quickly are they usurping? How quickly are they using up the resources of the cell? Okay. Compared to how quickly can the immune system of the body attack and get rid of the virus.
Speaker 3: (13:37)
Right. So there's a game being played here, awarded as being waged. The virus gets into ourselves using a PA cells to multiply. At the same time, our immune system is trying to respond and decorative those microorganisms from the body. Okay. And for the vast majority of people that come in contact with coronal viruses, including the SARS to our immune system is beautifully equipped to stop it from going beyond that, which is tolerable. Okay. No, any infection, it will be beneficial. And this is something that we might touch upon. Lisa. So many scientists, so many health professionals, we are looking at the immediacy as we should be the acute infection. But what we're not considering is this because of the ramifications of this infection. What do we see happening? People are having to stay indoors. People are stucking up in food. They're there. They're afraid to go out and shop, so we're stucking up a non-perishables which happen to be processed foods Laden with sugar Laden with salts.
Speaker 3: (14:48)
We're not getting the type of activity that keeps us healthy, that sleep cycles are disrupted. Our stress levels are up when we're stressed out because we've got to go and we've got a lineup for two hours in order to get, because of frankly hysterical buying patterns that should not be in our communities. We are doing a disservice to ourselves, to our loved ones, to the actress population. By that uncalled for hoarding and rushing out and buying. Why you creating stressful environments, these stressful environments elevates your cortisol levels. That elevated cortisol suppresses the immune system. Okay. Then we're going, what are we buying? Are we buying fresh fruits and vegetables and no, we're buying canned foods. We're buying pasta, we're buying processors because those are the non-perishables and then we're thinking of a journey where for the next four months or however long we're cooped up, think of what this is going to do to not just the immediacy effect on health of the infection but the longitudinal effect of people not exercising for months and then being cooped up eating horrible foods, stress levels up.
Speaker 2: (16:08)
Yup, and I mean this is one of like I'm an oil company, obviously we're a health and fitness company and we, we look at all the health suicides we are pivoting is you are with your company into providing online training programs online, you know, lives passes to people in their living room in, in making them think about lowering their stress levels, getting into meditation and deep breathing and all those things that are going to be great.
Speaker 3: (16:32)
I cannot stress enough from a scientific perspective, from a medical perspective and unfortunately our medical communities because we're swamped and having to deal with the immediacy of the acute care. Few people are speaking about the radically important component that you're dealing with, the service that you're providing. The, the lesions of individuals for whom they don't have to be worried, even if they were infected about it being an overly dangerous infection, it will be, they'll have a flu and there'll be down for the count for a few days. But what they're not looking at is the transients. And yes, it may be transient, but the, the, the impact on our cardiovascular system, the longitudinal impact on our immune system, the impact on our mood, mental behavior, wellbeing. Right. I just read an article just before coming onto this, onto this podcast that in one of the, in one of the provinces that here in Canada, their, their, their, their assault domestic abuse, sorry. So they're, they're domestic abuse hotlines are ringing off the clock now because what you're getting is this ripple effect. Now you're getting people having to be locked up in homes exacerbating latent behavioral, you know, misgivings and tendencies, these repercussions. Lisa, I'm going to have greater societal impacts than the repercussion of the virus.
Speaker 4: (18:05)
Okay.
Speaker 2: (18:07)
I'm so glad you brought that up. I mean, I know with myself like, you know we got some financial impacts from this for their business. Is you know, most people at this time and that is creating stress. You know, and this is just an, you know, not too much of we have people. And what, what I've been trying to put in, in, in my social media and in my videos and things is the importance of having honest, calm discussions with each other and being positive about finding the opportunities because every horrible, you know, cloud that comes upon us all side brings benefits and it's like, okay, what, what, what is the benefit of this? Instead of just looking at the threat and changing it into this is a challenge. This is an interesting time we're living we have a chance to pivot and you have a chance to have more time with our loved ones to reflect on our direction of our lives. And we have this world is going and the will be benefits and not to just go into a panic state. And it's very easy to do when you are losing your income and when you're stressed about your elderly loved ones
Speaker 3: (19:17)
And you know, God forbid and horrible and me to say that I can sit and be a pundit when you know, if I'm not entirely concerned about next months, you know, rental income over paying the bills and that there are individuals for whom because their store was closed or because their day job was affected and they can't. So please to the audience out there, I cannot, it would be utter hypocrisy of me to say that I can understand the stresses that that will bring. But what I can say is this, that regardless of what you're facing, no, that those stresses are in and of themselves further exacerbating your own health, number one. Number two, two, two, two, two do have in the, the sooner and the greater portion of the society that takes up a positive outlook of this is the sooner that the society is going to get back to the operationality that we need to get back to.
Speaker 3: (20:17)
And of course that that operationality we will find that there are different things. Ingenuity, often sprouts from times of hardship. And again, I'm not trying to publicize from a lofty position. I know that there are people out there, I can't imagine, I can't, I can only empathize the struggles some individuals are facing. But you know, the incredible thing of the human condition is that when we band together, when we, when we show the care that is needed, the and we step out of ourselves, that we suppress that narcissism and we watch out for the greater community, we will find that there will be things. When this is over, we will have inventions, we will have things, we will have a way of going about business that is now more resilient to the next thing that we will face. I will always face these things as human beings.
Speaker 3: (21:12)
So coming back to I, I really want to emphasize that yes, we must look out at the virulence level, the virus and the, the direct causation, all things we need to look at. But it is so important and Lisa, what you're doing. And in fact, where your business can grow with this, this is not the point of this podcast is to say people more and more individuals, the individuals that are reading books, because there's, what are you going to do? Your home, you're reading, educating yourself, picking something that you see. You know what? I know have some time. Let me use that time and, and let me pursue something that I otherwise didn't have because I was stuck in traffic two hours every day going back and forth. So in gender, that, and then nothing can be better purpose, nothing can be better positioned than in gender and helping individuals.
Speaker 3: (22:01)
Here's something that's going to happen, Lisa. So when this event has passed, a much greater percentage of our society will recognize, I need to take my health seriously. I need to, you know, I need to, I need to recognize that. You know, what if I were entirely dependent on my governmental institution that are doing amazing jobs on my medical institutions to take care of me, you know, I'm putting myself at some risk. Okay? So, so let me take the steps to improve my wellbeing. So here's the point. Absolutely. Regardless of whether it's Corona, viruses, SARS, Cabi two specifically. If we are healthier as human beings, just in all of the definitions of healthier, we are better equipped to deal with infections and that's a very generic statement but it's a very accurate statement. So now let's get into a little bit of more of the specifics and we can tie them back.
Speaker 3: (23:00)
We got to the point that when the virus, this particular sauce copy to enters the body, here's the two things that are making this virus. Three things that are making this virus a bit more despite the lower rates of mortality, a bit more concern. Before we get to those three things, let me finish the point on the percentages. As much as the average mortality percentage is about three to 4% that number significantly rises. When we look at the population, it's closer to eight to 10% of people in the actress elder population as we defined. And so of course at that point now we are getting to a number that is concerning our loved ones who yes, they're 70, but that, you know, they've got beautiful long lives. I've lived them, but certain factors can make them quite at risk for this virus. Now other than what we've mentioned in terms of age possible sex, dimorphism hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes of obviously we have to be super careful these smaller percentage of our population that are recipients of organ transplants and therefore they are immunosuppressive medications.
Speaker 3: (24:18)
These individuals, their caregivers, their families. We've got to be so concerned about making sure we do not expose this segment of the society patients that aren't chemotherapies. And therefore because of the, you know, the real pounding the chemotherapy does to the human body, cancer patients and patients on chemotherapy should also a need to also be added to that ultra protective part of the population. Okay. Now let's the, there there was, and so I would be hypocritical to say that the data is clear to the degree of making a final comment. It appears actually, and by God's grace, it appears that the youth are much less affected by the virus, much less effected. Okay. And, and what's that timeline is a toddlerhood our baby's back in the risk category. But, but then from two years to 15, we don't have those ages. But what we know is that when we look at the broad epidemiologic data, we're not seeing much comorbidities or mortalities in the youthful pay population with the exception of obviously any children, you know, gosh, that are dealing with cancers or that are dealing with you know, individual increased predispositions to asthma new pneumatic pneumo pneumonia.
Speaker 3: (25:52)
If you are that person, regardless of age, what are these symptoms? A person who when they get the cold or to get a flu, you know, we all tend to have different responses. You know, some of us will get a sore throat, we'll get a stiffly nose, we'll get a headache, we'll get maybe some achy joints. And that's it. And then there's some individuals, the first thing that happens is, you know, they'll say, it's my lungs. I, I get that. You know, I'm, I'm at risk for the upper respiratory bronc bronchial infections and I get the lung pump, okay. If you fall into that category, what it means is individually, physiologically, and actually very often genetically the lining of your, the alveoli, the little sacks, the little air sacks of your lung, the lining is at risk for what we'd the hyper inflammatory reaction. Okay.
Speaker 3: (26:48)
And so I, and, and this is where, this is where we have to be a bit more careful. Okay? So, so if you know, you fall into that category, then anything that causes inflammation of the lining, the luminal linage, which could be, for example, these individuals would have known never be the person locked in a close back through using harsh chemicals. That alone can bring on a really bad episode of shortness of breath and something worse than that. In the case of the virus. Well, of course this particular virus coming back to where we started, these viruses are entering these cells because this H2 gene happens to be expressed. The doorways, the cells with the doorways through which this virus enters happens to be expressed in the lower respiratory tract and it happens to be expressed in different parts of the cardiovascular system, which is why it's unsurprising that the deleterious symptoms of the virus are exactly in those parts of the body.
Speaker 3: (27:49)
Okay. Now let's come back to the virus. We said there are three things that are that are making these, this virus and this pandemic dangerous, not because of what you would think it to be, not because it's killing high percentages of individuals, but for the following reason. Number one, ironically, this virus is dangerous because when it does enter the human body and we said viruses have to enter the human body, co-opt the cells and then reproduce it can be so mild, Lisa, every governmental agency knows for a fact and it's not to create a steric hysteria. Many more people than are being tested positive, have the virus. Actually have it. Okay. But that's okay. In some ways they're not, they're not going to have any deleterious health outcome for themselves, but they are going to be the transmitters without knowing they're the transmitters. So this is where a degree of maturity and a degree of ownership and a degree of responsibility comes in where you've got to be able to say as far as humanly possible, did you travel recently?
Speaker 3: (29:04)
Do you fee how you know? And of course using how you feel only goes so far because you may be feeling Sosa really hold yourself to account. Have you been traveling while you in hot zones? And keep this in mind because the first of the three things that make this virus so dangerous is actually it is so mild, but mildness does not equal the the, just because you're mild does not mean you're not emitting the virus. Okay? So a person who can be asymptomatic next to a person in bed with a fever, with a sore throat, symptomatic and they both cough or they both just happen to Excel too much. The virus in the sputum, which of course is the saliva. And the mucus that comes out of the mouth of the nose. Both individuals can have as many viral particles. The person that is asymptomatic and the person that is symptomatic, so lumps is there in fact.
Speaker 3: (30:06)
So this is the first thing that makes this virus a bit more dangerous. And it's actually the thing that we're not even talking about, number one. Number two, the second thing that makes this virus quite dangerous is so one of virus enters the cell as we said, and it, it, it has, it hijacks that. So for its own, its own reproductive, you know and goal, we, there are these metrics, what these metrics are, we say for every one human cell that the virus enters, how many red, how many baby viruses, how many offspring viruses are leaving that, you know, when it's used up the human cell, this is where the saws Covey to virus is showing a little bit. If it's dangerous colors, again, not because it was causing really harmful symptoms, but it is emitting what appears to be, no, this is early data. Okay. But it's, it's emitting per ruptured per, per human cell that, that it tie jacks up to a thousand times more viral particles than, than previous. Coronaviruses
Speaker 2: (31:19)
That means in your Spotium when you're breathing, when you're coughing is
Speaker 3: (31:24)
Yeah, you have, it doesn't mean that it's any more serious of virus, but it means that it's transmitted ability. How many people? This is huge. Okay. And this is why we're seeing that classical exponential doubling. Now this is what we call the row of a virus R O. So for example, influence a row might be around, let's say about one also the row numbers, just a number is that estimates for every person that has the virus that has it and that is reproducing it and that is transmitting it. How many people do they stand to infect the current SaaS? Coby two seems to be about two to three times as much infect ability than the common flu, for example. Okay.
Speaker 2: (32:21)
Wow. So, so for Everage and I know get it early data, but so for one person who has a bar,
Speaker 3: (32:29)
Well of course that absolute number just has to do with how many people they're coming into contact with. But what the point is, is mano a mano, the person with the comes. So here's how you want to at it. The person who has the common flu versus the person who has the saws copy two virus, both of these individuals walk into a supermarket and they're going about their own daily business because they didn't think anything was also ultimately wrong. The saws Cabi two individual will infect almost three times as many people as the common flu person. Okay. That's the way you want to look at it. And again, these numbers may seem a three. No, you have to look at what this happens with doubling criteria. Exactly. So the other, it's 100% 100% all we need to look at is we need to look at the data that came out of Italy in one day, one day only.
Speaker 3: (33:26)
I think it was March 15th on March 15th alone. The number of infected people jumped by 50% 50% in other words on a document. And then we had 10,000 people infected and then on the next day we had 15,000 people that were infected within one day. Okay. When you take these factors, again, not fear mongering, keep in mind most of those people infected are not going to have any really, you know, trouble some health concerns. But we're getting there. Now the third thing that is concerning about this virus, so we spoke about the actually the fact that it's so asymptomatic but doesn't mean that you're not transmitting it, that you are transmitting are lot more viral particles than previous coronaviruses or other viruses. The third thing is this, that yes, because of the symptomology, and this is really now putting aside the ripple health effects that you and I addressed a little early in the conversation on the acute side, on the direct viral concerning side of things.
Speaker 3: (34:39)
Here is the thing that I highlighted in my first message because when you add up the transmitted bility of this virus as per what we've said, it's just a numbers game and I'll, I'll tell you how this plays in the U S we have X number of beds per per thousand individually per thousand population. So it means that at any given point in time in any healthcare system, your system in New Zealand at any given point in time, God forbid, X number of human beings can go to the hospital and receive care and we'll host the hospital to receive care from a broken limb because they fell off a bicycle to, you know, needing to give birth to a child, to something more serious than that at any given, all of these requirements in our hospital system are fixed. They're only X number of ventilators, X number of anesthesiologists, X number of respiratory and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3: (35:41)
Now when you take the rapidity of spread of this particular SARS COVID 2, and you take the percentage that will ultimately develop concerning enough breathing concerns concerning enough short breathlessness, not mortality, just enough. You know, and for anyone who's ever had an episode where you can't breathe, it's a horrible thing. It's a very visceral response. You need care. You need to be, when we look at the capacity of the healthcare system and we look at what these numbers, even if they're non life threatening going into the medical facilities, this is what is breaking the system. Okay. And that's what's, that's the part that I, that's the part that every intelligence scientist researcher, biologist, epidemiologist has said this is the concern, not the concern of ultimate Lee, the severity of the viral infection. Ultimately the percentage of the mortalities, but the ripple effect of when more and more people are infected.
Speaker 3: (36:50)
It just becomes a numbers game that more and more people will show up at hospital facilities requiring care. And of course at those facilities we have acute trauma care patients that are there. We have cancer patients that are receiving, we have expecting mothers that are giving birth. We have all of these things that our healthcare system on a daily basis has to handle. And this is exactly what Northern Italy experienced. It's what Spain is experiencing right now is what the British government has had to try to say, we know this is going to happen. So we just have to figure out, you know, and they, some of the press releases from the British government seemed very stock that they just said, look, we can tell you this is going to happen and we're going to tell you you're going to lose loved ones. And now it's a matter of mitigating as much of that as possible. Okay.
Speaker 5: (37:43)
Okay
Speaker 2: (37:43)
So the, the, the pandemic paradox, the the flattening of the curve as what we want to achieve. We know I watched a video from an epidemiologist who was saying if, if it all happens very quickly, we're going to hit this. We can have a long tail and, and the S. So that's why the self isolation and the that can containment nations as so important. The total number of people going to be infected is going to be similar. But it's from the right at which the heading, the hospitals and the
Speaker 3: (38:19)
That's that is the critical, that's the break points. And so the only way that we can do this with any degree of in the, and I'm going to say this carefully in the best case scenarios, which of course are often hard come about. You know, we, if you look at how Singapore has addressed this issue, it was a best case scenario. You know, and now mind you, that has a lot to do with the history. They were better prepared than most countries. They took the threat of it. The moment they heard rumblings from China before it even became a news, you know, they acted. Of course not every country has the control population that they do and the resources that they do. But what I'm trying to say is that we can learn from both what happens when the system was broken as well as from when the system works.
Speaker 3: (39:07)
And what we can draw from this is exactly what you pointed out. There has to be a balance. You know people who have been talking, and in fact I'm so sad that some people have been talking a bit uneducated about the concept of herd immunity for herd immunity to work. When you enter into the realm of saying that, okay, let's quote unquote that herd immunity take taking space. The first thing is you've got to know is you've got to be willing to lose a certain percent of your community. Okay? And you've got to make a value proposition of what is that percentage, number one. Number two, all right? Okay. All these things flippantly, if it doesn't impact you. Number two, for her to unity to work, and this is again from a core scientific perspective, there's several provinces that people are so uneducated, Lee, not talk, but one of the promises of herd immunity is it cannot be a transient population.
Speaker 3: (40:00)
A herd immunity has to be a closed population. If you've ever population where people actively coming and going, you don't have a herd. What you're doing is you. It's the opposite of a herd immunity number two and number three that you assume there's homogeneity in the response to the infection, but we know there isn't homogeneity in the response. We know that there is a relatively benign response in about 80 to 85% of the population. That's a good thing, but in that 15% there's the individuals with whom they are preexisting conditions and then there's that 10% 5% 7% that is a not really, really high risk category. Then the fourth component of herd immunity is those individuals are not somehow excluded from the herd. They're embedded in the herd. They're there. There are parents that are living in our homes. They are, you know, God forbid, but for the families that have to deal with patients that are dealing with organ transplants and cancer, our myths, so the parameters of herd immunity do not match in the way that people are talking about it.
Speaker 3: (41:17)
So ideally what you do want to have that curve flatten. You do want to the 85% of the population that can get the infection so that they are been immune after a period of time so that they're longer emitting the viruses. This is what matters so that we can have 85% of the population walking around going back into communal businesses and communal discourse, not emitting the viruses so that sooner rather than later that that that curve starts to flatten flat. But we do our best for the 15% of the population to shield them. They cannot be included or be thought to have the means safely to address the infection. So we need the infection to die off before they can. Again, I'm speaking here in utopia. I'm not saying this is easy, but the sooner we do this is the sooner that we can reintegrate this actress part of the population back to normal activity and not be concerned about them then being infected. And of course not having the means to successfully deal with this infection.
Speaker 2: (42:39)
So anybody who is in that at risk category, whether it be through having asthma or being elderly or having cardiovascular disease or diabetes or any of those talks of things
Speaker 3: (42:50)
As best as possible. But then being an absolute isolation is a very little value unless the community around them are taking the steps to flatten the curve. Right? So, so what we need this almost a dichotomous response to what needs to happen. We need to be one can even say a triad response. We need to ultra protect that actress population as best as we can. Recognizing that they will be the ones that if infected can quickly cascade into an unhealthy outcome or mortal outcome for the individuals that are, that are conclusively infected. We need to have, you know, proper isolation so that they can healthily, cause you know, they're not in that office, they'll go through their infection. It's just, you know, it's going to be a few days, sometimes very little, sometimes three to five days I prefer. And we allow them to get through without being properly isolated so that they're not passing it on.
Speaker 3: (43:57)
And of course then the other part of the society that will never come into contact or hope not comes into contact and as the viral load, think of the space that we're in as the sum total of where that viral load can be. And what we need to do is we need to keep reducing the viral load. How do you reduce the viral load by reusing that which is emitted? How do you reduce that which is emitted by reducing and secluding the individuals that need to deal with their infection and let it go away so that once you're, once you went to immune system has dealt with the virus that is in you. Then once you're over the infectious phase, what happens is once you go back out, you're not spewing it, number one and number two, even if you were exposed to it, you no longer go back into the cycle and then now we have to really a little careful here.
Speaker 3: (44:51)
We don't yet know the full immunity curve. We don't yet know the full immunity behavior to this virus. Okay? So we have to be careful there. Okay. And this brings up, wow. So, so you know, all things equal for the most, for the most part, when the human body, when the immune system both the, what we call the humoral and the innate. So both these for, for viral infections, we need both antibody response, but we also need our innate T cell response as well. We need, we need all aspects of the human immunity. When we deal with a viral infection for the most part, as we recover, we are immune to that virus such that, and here comes such that if the same virus we were exposed to it, we are now able to deal with the virus. Potter comes into the body, but we're all immune system snuffs it out before it starts to replicate. And before we become spewing engines again, right?
Speaker 3: (46:01)
We develop antibodies and we develop your immune system is not just for example in viral infections, IGA, one of the major subgroups that are involved in viral protection, but also innate. There are your T cells, there are natural killer cells. There are cells that bring about the inflammatory response. And here we speak of inflammation as a good thing. All right, so, so we were bringing about the, the, the, the alarm bell response to deal with the infection. Now not every virus has such a clean cycle in the human body. Some viruses, the, there are ripple effects, the immune system, we were able to get rid of the first wave and you know, you've got better, but you may not be completely immune to the virus such that if you are re exposed to it, you do, the virus can enter yourselves, can reproduce for a period of time, often shorter, often not as vigorously before we snuff it out again.
Speaker 3: (47:04)
So of course during that little period of time, again, you become a spewing engine, right? You're spewing out. So we've got gotta be careful about that, but there's something else we have to be careful about. And that is one of the things that is a little bit noxious about the coronaviruses is they have a fairly high rate of mutation. Okay? And so, so the evolution of the virus means that you may become immune to one virus, but then the second or third or fourth iteration of the virus is a beast. All F all on its own and your immune system is not equipped to handle that one. Okay.
Speaker 2: (47:47)
Nope. Is this like, why are we being exposed to these viruses? Is it, are bad animal husbandry processes? Has, is always affected humankind since time and Memorial. We just don't not aware of it. How are we going to see this happen?
Speaker 3: (48:04)
It's a question that I am not entirely equipped to answer. I know what, what I know where my strong points are and these are people far more intelligent than me and broader topics. But here's what I can add. Here's what I can give to that question. We've always been exposed to these things. Viruses are there viruses that fine as the original hosts, the animals that we either interact with through animal husband read through food sources. We've always, as a human species been exposed to these. But the one of the ways that it's controlled is, well, depending on the virulence of the virus and those that are affected die off much faster. All the populations were not as dense. And so these things leave animal sources, get into humans and then whittle out from the sharp curve and then they flatten. And then we move on several factors that as you does have to human population how much more we're interacting with animals and what is the context within which we're interacting with those animals from Dame that was simply wild game to now animals that are on them through animal husbandry closed through simply because of our expanding populations.
Speaker 3: (49:20)
We were encroaching into areas and interacting with the animals or the ripple effect of animals such as one of the major transmitters are carriers of the coronaviruses or bats for example. I mean, you know, there's very few societies do bats play a role of some active interaction with human life. And you know, we're not few societies, we're not eating it, we don't keep them as pets. We are not, you know, and so on and so forth. But as we do encroach upon areas, you know, we're going to start being in greater interaction with animals that we previously weren't as interacted with or we interacted with offshoots, whether it'd be the feces, if those animals, whether it be those animals infecting bats that are infecting the animals that we do live from and so on and so forth. So there is a bit of that going on.
Speaker 3: (50:12)
A radically important thing here and it's just our new world. We are much more mobile world than we've ever been, right? That's, that's, you know, we're a much more mobile world. On any given day you could have someone literally on one half of the globe and within 24 hours, that person's on the other half of the globe. And this is not to be hysterical or hysteria causing. This is just a reality of life. And it is something that we have to be cognizant of. Does this mean that we close our borders and definitely does this mean that we're suspicious? These viruses have no ethnic bias? None whatsoever. None whatsoever.
Speaker 2: (50:51)
Okay. This is the danger that I see too happening is as becoming fearful of people from other you know, from overseas or from other ethnicities and stuff. And I hope that the, the society is mature enough,
Speaker 3: (51:07)
Did not,
Speaker 2: (51:08)
You know develop developer are bias
Speaker 3: (51:11)
Any human being or simply a matter on it and really are their hygienists use that can contribute to this. Yes. But at the end of the day, hygiene or all the hygiene in the world, if you're in contact with you, if you, unfortunately, second, you know, through direct means or secondary means are in contact with this virus, especially viruses that can transmit at such alarming rates, you will be infected. Okay. And so coming now, let's, let's take all of this and package this into something that is, as I keep saying, moderated of the first of the things and if the first of the statements, our population, our societies, we need to look beyond the fear mongering and we need to recognize this is not in the big picture an overly deadly virus speaking in plain terms, just in plain terms. You know, it's kind of he or she had, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a violence money.
Speaker 3: (52:10)
Many more people than think they know have this virus already or have had this virus and they've gotten over it and they don't even know what they had. They thought they had the regular January flu. Okay. So, so number one, put that into perspective number two. Having said that, recognize that if this virus does make it two segments of the population that are at risk, it is a killer or it can be a killer. And then beyond the segments of the population for which it can have rapid unfortunate health outcomes, there is that buffer eight to 10% of the population that if they get this infection, it will not be a mortal infection, but it will be an infection that causes them to require hospital care. And eight to 10% of any society needing hospital care is more than the usual machinery of our healthcare system at any given point in time. Absolutely. Usually it'
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