Speaker 1: Welcome to the Nonprofits, the thrice weekly show that looks
Speaker 1: at news and current events through the lens of atheism
Speaker 1: and secular humanism. For our first segment this week, there's
Speaker 1: a new COVID in town. Jason Friedman, get us going
Speaker 1: on this story?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you guys, it's coming for us again.
Speaker 2: A new version of COVID, you know, seems to be
Speaker 2: looming on the horizon of the world stage. Well, it's
Speaker 2: named NB one eight one, and scientists are stating that
Speaker 2: his symptoms may seem the same, but new mutations in
Speaker 2: the strain that differ from the SARS cove two may
Speaker 2: prove to be a problem for us in the near future.
Speaker 2: Are we prepared to deal with this looming threat? Or
Speaker 2: will the United States drop the ball again? The story
Speaker 2: is from the huff Post UK and it's by Julia
Speaker 2: Reees I hope I said that properly, properly and it
Speaker 2: came out on May twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: All right, ominous, ominous stuff there, Jason, Why don't you
Speaker 1: start us out by telling us you mentioned that some
Speaker 1: of there were some similarities with previous variants of COVID.
Speaker 3: How is this one similar to what we've seen before.
Speaker 2: I mean pretty much, what they're saying is that symptom wise,
Speaker 2: it's the same shit, you know. I mean, we're really
Speaker 2: there's really no glaring differences between the symptoms. They first
Speaker 2: detected it in China this past January, actually, and it
Speaker 2: accounts for about ten percent of the stars Cove two
Speaker 2: sequences tested, and apparently that's been a significant jump from
Speaker 2: two point five percent about four weeks ago. The problem
Speaker 2: that they're saying is that there's certain mutations apparently that
Speaker 2: make it more transmissible. There's like a handful of new
Speaker 2: mutations and it's on the spike protein, and it may
Speaker 2: enhance its ability to bind to ourselves. And they're also
Speaker 2: saying that the variant may be skilled at dodging some
Speaker 2: of our immune deferences. Now, the thing is, they're saying
Speaker 2: there's no evidence suggesting that the variant is going to
Speaker 2: cause more severe diseases or an uptick in hospitalizations or deaths.
Speaker 2: And they're honestly just saying it's really too early to
Speaker 2: like know exactly how effective like shots are and everything,
Speaker 2: but scientists expect shots they're gonna hold up. So they
Speaker 2: don't really seem to be causing any type of public
Speaker 2: panic about it. But they're saying, hey, we should pay
Speaker 2: attention because you know, this is some new ship.
Speaker 1: So it's similar enough that they feel that they have
Speaker 1: a grip on things and that and that you know,
Speaker 1: you would expect if it if it's if the vaccine
Speaker 1: stopped working or something like that, then it would maybe
Speaker 1: be a much bigger news story or something like that.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, but what they're saying is that, I mean,
Speaker 2: there's just you know, I think they're kind of hinting
Speaker 2: at like, okay, so your immune system was kind of
Speaker 2: your first line of defense, but they're saying this thing
Speaker 2: might have ways to dodge that. But they just they
Speaker 2: just don't really know so right, you know, because because
Speaker 2: the kind of there was that old trope. Remember it's like,
Speaker 2: well I'm not immunocompromise, so I'll be okay. Right, So
Speaker 2: right here, they're being like, well, you know, maybe maybe
Speaker 2: you are healthy and pretty and strong, but you know
Speaker 2: that doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a j Let's jump over to
Speaker 3: you real quick here.
Speaker 1: Jason mentioned something about a spike protein and I know
Speaker 1: that you had a little bit more information than that.
Speaker 3: What what are the big added risk. What's the big
Speaker 3: difference here?
Speaker 1: How is it how is it going to evade our
Speaker 1: existing immuno systems and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, like Jason just explained, it seems like
Speaker 4: it has very similar symptoms. What they're saying is things
Speaker 4: like you know, you call natal congestion, fever, sort throat,
Speaker 4: all of that stuff. So you know, kind of all
Speaker 4: the same symptoms, take all the same over the counter
Speaker 4: of mitigations, and they use all treatment that you will
Speaker 4: typically get. But the difference is in the way that
Speaker 4: it transmits. They said that ten percent of the cases
Speaker 4: are this new strain right now, and it went up
Speaker 4: from two point five percent a month ago. So this
Speaker 4: is indicating that it is increasing at a more rapid
Speaker 4: weight than all of the other strains that are currently around.
Speaker 4: And so with this specific strain, what the scientist found
Speaker 4: was that the imitations to the spike protein, which means
Speaker 4: that it is there is a potential for making it
Speaker 4: easier to transmit. But they still don't know that for
Speaker 4: sure because it's such a new strain that you know,
Speaker 4: they are still testing what's going on with it. But
Speaker 4: you know, this this is what we do. This is
Speaker 4: what science. Does you know they can forecast the transmission
Speaker 4: rate based on what the mutations they are see, you know,
Speaker 4: on the spike proteins, and you know how fast it
Speaker 4: is moving across all of the population. You know, probably,
Speaker 4: so you could you.
Speaker 1: Could even say we're seeing evolution happening right in front
Speaker 1: of us. It's like this new you said that ten
Speaker 1: percent of the cases. It's not like there's been a
Speaker 1: big jump in cases. It's just that the balance of
Speaker 1: the different strains has shifted. So this new strain somehow,
Speaker 1: maybe it's because of this spike protein mutation or something,
Speaker 1: but somehow this new variation is outperforming and out competing
Speaker 1: the other covid variant out there.
Speaker 4: Exactly, yeah, it is causing mutations to the spike protein.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure that all of that. You know what
Speaker 4: we just say, it makes no sense to our listeners,
Speaker 4: and one day and you know what the focus of
Speaker 4: spiked protein anyways.
Speaker 1: Exactly, it sounds kind of it sounds kind of dangerous.
Speaker 3: Actually, no idea.
Speaker 4: So let me let me get a little bit nerdy
Speaker 4: over here and try to explain it in a way
Speaker 4: that might make it easier for people to understand. So
Speaker 4: when you have tiny organisms like bacteria or fungus. They
Speaker 4: can survive on their own. They can replicate without needing
Speaker 4: a host or something to help them reproduce. But viruses
Speaker 4: require hosts in order to make a copy of themselves.
Speaker 4: So what they do is like they find a way
Speaker 4: inside the host self. Now, the host can be any
Speaker 4: living organism, but in the case of covid, it is
Speaker 4: human self. So humans also are protected by an outer
Speaker 4: layer that keeps them, you know, contained within the cult
Speaker 4: and healthy. So this keeps all kinds of pathogens out,
Speaker 4: like bacteria and fungus and viruses. So viruses have these
Speaker 4: tiny little spikes. If you've ever seen like a graphic
Speaker 4: of what that's little cartoon viruses look like, the covid,
Speaker 4: it's like a little ball, right, and it has like
Speaker 4: color of these little things taken out of it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so like the.
Speaker 4: Little spikes or the spike protein. And so these spikes
Speaker 4: are what poke through the human cells to the outer
Speaker 4: layer of the human soul, right, And so when the
Speaker 4: virus comes with mutated by proteins, what this can mean
Speaker 4: is that those spikes are more effective at poking through
Speaker 4: our cells and therefore they make it easier to transmit
Speaker 4: from one person to another. So like, yeah, these are
Speaker 4: things that people need to learn about. When it comes
Speaker 4: to biology and trust in science. We don't blindly trust
Speaker 4: the authority of science, like we trust the consensus, which
Speaker 4: because many scientists have studied this, they have repeated, they
Speaker 4: have corroborated that this is correct, that this is what
Speaker 4: it's doing, that this is what it's going to do.
Speaker 4: So like, yeah, that's how we know. Thanks, that's how
Speaker 4: we can put it things in things things science.
Speaker 2: It's crazy you say that a jab. When I worked
Speaker 2: at REAL, when I worked in the research center, I
Speaker 2: worked at UTMB, I mean, god, I did so much
Speaker 2: shit and and it's people act like these things are
Speaker 2: like these weird conspiracies and these scientists like you would
Speaker 2: just go in and you do a surgery and it's
Speaker 2: on this heart study, and then we do another surgery
Speaker 2: and it's related to this, like antibiotic we're developing. Then
Speaker 2: I go stain in some slides and I look for
Speaker 2: different things and different whether it's blood or if it's feces,
Speaker 2: or if it's or yeah blah blah blah, so it's
Speaker 2: or it's just it's pretty fucking mundane. Honestly, you just
Speaker 2: end up finding this stuff and there's like, there's no conspiracy.
Speaker 2: I just think it's cool. Like I think it's cool
Speaker 2: that it looks like a little tiny fucking battle mace
Speaker 2: and it just jams into here. I mean, it's terrifying,
Speaker 2: but I think that's pretty awesome. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: just I just I just had to throw that in there.
Speaker 2: It made me think about that. It's cool when you
Speaker 2: find shit like that, like, oh, that's fucked up, that's
Speaker 2: a mass cell. That's wow, that's not good. It'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: maybe I shouldn't think it's that cool, but you know,
Speaker 2: but it's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I feel the same way about science. I fucking
Speaker 4: love science. I have my my microscope behind me like
Speaker 4: my kid, and I always like, look at shit, like
Speaker 4: I put my finger, well, look at blood.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: When we once got to see like the moving blood cells,
Speaker 4: and it's like that's the way you to curiosity of people.
Speaker 2: Yeahj So look, I've got this cauliflower ear from fighting
Speaker 2: right here. See we can see it. There's a little
Speaker 2: nugget right there. So so when I when I got
Speaker 2: like that, it was real like swollen one time and
Speaker 2: hanging over and I was at the research center. So
Speaker 2: I ab it with a syringe and sucked it out
Speaker 2: and then I stained it. It was beautiful because it
Speaker 2: was like all these little chunks and like different platelets,
Speaker 2: and it was beautiful and it looked like a galaxy.
Speaker 2: I thought it was really really neat, and it was
Speaker 2: like drained a couple of mills of blood out of
Speaker 2: my ear. It hurt, you know, But yeah, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I digress.
Speaker 1: No, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine. But I actually
Speaker 1: I want to stick with you for Jason, what's up?
Speaker 1: I want to before I do that, though, Aj, there's
Speaker 1: never too much. You can never be too nerdy, and
Speaker 1: at least not any show that I'm on. So just
Speaker 1: so keep bringing the nerd their nerdiness here. We love that, Jason.
Speaker 3: I wanted to.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about these variants constantly evolving, and of
Speaker 1: course there's always new viruses popping up all the time,
Speaker 1: it seems, and so how important is public awareness and
Speaker 1: readiness for this kind of thing? I mean, so we
Speaker 1: looked at the science thing, now let's look at the
Speaker 1: social aspect of it.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, especially with today's social climate,
Speaker 2: especially here in the States, and being in the state
Speaker 2: that I live in, living here in Texas, you know,
Speaker 2: it's you know, our track record isn't the best, right,
Speaker 2: especially when it's related to COVID and public health things
Speaker 2: like that. So and then we look at the people
Speaker 2: who were in charge of the first COVID thing and
Speaker 2: all that stuff, like they really dropped the ball, and
Speaker 2: a lot of those people are still overseeing those things,
Speaker 2: and their buddies are now overseeing other things that are
Speaker 2: related to all the things like health and safety and
Speaker 2: you know, disease and all that shit. So I'm just
Speaker 2: worried that, like we've seen recently, there's an increased amount
Speaker 2: of poor management. So I'm just worried that if we
Speaker 2: have something like this like last time, we had a
Speaker 2: lack of reaction and we saw what happened and there
Speaker 2: was some mere severe amount of like uncertainty and unnecessarily harm,
Speaker 2: and it could have been pretty easily mitigated because we
Speaker 2: saw that it was easily mitigated in a lot of
Speaker 2: other places with very similar social structures. Sadly, like whenever
Speaker 2: that first wave hit in New York that everybody remembers,
Speaker 2: my aunt was part of that, and she got COVID
Speaker 2: and she fucking died. They had no.
Speaker 3: Ability to deal with it.
Speaker 2: So look, if our resources have been properly utilized and
Speaker 2: we we actually quarantined people, you know, and liked the
Speaker 2: thing that we did, Like that's like you know called
Speaker 2: group cohesion and working together and pro social behavior, you know,
Speaker 2: and we like utilized it and actually gave a fuck
Speaker 2: about each other. Like countless people wouldn't have had to die.
Speaker 2: And like there's places that are like have a higher
Speaker 2: urban saturation than New York, which is wild that did
Speaker 2: much better than us, and people still had groceries, and
Speaker 2: people still had their power on and people still had
Speaker 2: healthcare too. But in the United States, the.
Speaker 1: People, so it wasn't a possible task, right, I Mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely within within within the realm of past stability here.
Speaker 2: Well, what's fucked is like if you take time off
Speaker 2: work here, especially like in Texas, like you're fucked. Like
Speaker 2: you can't take time off work. I oversee very important
Speaker 2: shit in the oil and gas industry. I have a
Speaker 2: lot of responsibility with my job. I cannot take time off.
Speaker 2: If I take time off, they just give my job
Speaker 2: to somebody else, I have very important medical procedures coming up,
Speaker 2: and I should. In other countries, i'd get four to
Speaker 2: six months off of work with pay. I'll be able
Speaker 2: to take two weeks off if I'm lucky, if I'm
Speaker 2: if I'm lucky, and it's disgusting, it's frustrating, is the
Speaker 2: nicest way of putting it. But yeah, you know, poor me, right,
Speaker 2: it's just so I'm an American and I'm lucky to
Speaker 2: be here, right, fucking lucky.
Speaker 3: America. That's the tagline, all right, So yeah, I just
Speaker 3: I just any.
Speaker 2: I've been rambling. But look, as far as I'm concerned
Speaker 2: right now, if something shitty is happening in these borders,
Speaker 2: then I just expect shitty response and then a way
Speaker 2: for somebody to capitalize on it and to make a whole
Speaker 2: lot of money. Like we saw with alcohol companies and
Speaker 2: all those other things. They made a lot of money
Speaker 2: off of our tragedy and sucked more money out of
Speaker 2: our economy and fucked us even deeper.
Speaker 1: So well, you know, Jason, a lot of people share
Speaker 1: your pessimism. In fact, I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 1: share a little bit of research here with you. Speaking
Speaker 1: of waxing a little bit nerdy here. So this is
Speaker 1: according to a recent poll by health policy research organization
Speaker 1: called KFF. They said less than half of the US
Speaker 1: public express confidence in government health agencies like the CDC
Speaker 1: and FDA to carry out many of their core responsibilities,
Speaker 1: including just three and ten or thirty two percent, who
Speaker 1: have confidence in them to act independently. And here's this
Speaker 1: is key here, act independently without interference from outside interests.
Speaker 1: Six and ten adults, including three and four Democrats and
Speaker 1: nearly half of Republicans, say these agencies are not paying
Speaker 1: enough attention to science when come to making decisions and
Speaker 1: recommendations about vaccines. In addition, at least three and ten
Speaker 1: say these agencies are paying too much attention quote unquote
Speaker 1: to the belief of officials running the agencies thirty four
Speaker 1: percent and the interests of pharmaceutical companies thirty percent when
Speaker 1: making vaccine related decisions. Now, before I ask this next question,
Speaker 1: which is going to come to AJ but before I
Speaker 1: ask that question, I do want to point out that
Speaker 1: these aggregate numbers that I was just reading off are
Speaker 1: not necessarily due to any recent changes. These numbers have
Speaker 1: stayed rather steady for the last several years, although there's
Speaker 1: been a kind of a partisan shift, and so the
Speaker 1: more recent studies show that the Democrats trust is decreasing
Speaker 1: while the Republicans trust is increasing. So, but this poll
Speaker 1: does not take into very recent changes into account, things
Speaker 1: like mass firings at these organizations and so forth. So,
Speaker 1: having said all that, and this is going to aja
Speaker 1: what does the lack of trust in critical government health
Speaker 1: and safety efforts tell us about how those areanizations fit
Speaker 1: into society. It seems like a silly question that when
Speaker 1: I ask it here, but should the government be in
Speaker 1: the business of keeping its citizens healthy? And assuming the
Speaker 1: answer there is yes, what can they do differently to
Speaker 1: change that attitude of Americans? So what we all agree
Speaker 1: that there's an issue here, that there's a problem with
Speaker 1: public trust in the government to really to have our
Speaker 1: best interest in mind?
Speaker 3: And so what what how can help can we change that?
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 1: Or is that something that can be changed? Is the
Speaker 1: is the is the system unfixable? And should it be
Speaker 1: chucked for maybe something else?
Speaker 4: That's a really heavy question on this loaded tall order.
Speaker 4: But you know what, I do think yes, the answer
Speaker 4: to that one specific question about whether the government should
Speaker 4: be keeping their citizens healthy. Yes, they should have part
Speaker 4: in that. There shouldn't be like all up in your
Speaker 4: personal business, okay. But one of the examples I can
Speaker 4: think of right away is the funding cuts to the CDC.
Speaker 4: We did an article on their nonprofits last week regarding
Speaker 4: how these cuts affected communication. The Facebook page for the
Speaker 4: CDC hasn't been updated since like March Jesus Chris.
Speaker 3: That's frustrating.
Speaker 4: So fucking first before that they would post two to
Speaker 4: do it, Tim said, day a day, okay, And it
Speaker 4: wasn't just about vaccine, and then they won't post about
Speaker 4: things like cancer research, like cancer prevention, how to take
Speaker 4: care of your pregnancy, yeah, like childhood, childhood conditions, all
Speaker 4: kinds of tu health disease. It wasn't like anything super controversial.
Speaker 4: So they were trying to keep their citizen healthy that
Speaker 4: were given them the information that they needed to take
Speaker 4: care of themselves to prevent them from getting sick, you know,
Speaker 4: before they got sick, so you know how to go
Speaker 4: to the doctor in the first place. And so the
Speaker 4: problem here is that won the communication to the funding
Speaker 4: cuts to like the actual institutions performing in the research
Speaker 4: to then give the information to the public, Like, if
Speaker 4: you're not able to perform your research, if you're not
Speaker 4: able to look at what is causing these diseases, how
Speaker 4: to prevent them, how to treat them once you have them,
Speaker 4: then you got nothing. You got nothing to communicate.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so even if there is an effort to
Speaker 1: keep us healthy, it's like being hamstrung from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Right They're they're working in the dark, and they're working
Speaker 1: with a muzzle on, and they're working with their hands
Speaker 1: tied behind. I mean, I'm running out of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: metaphors here. I mean, it's it's hard to imagine how
Speaker 1: things are work. Jason, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: I mean, your blood pressure can be great, but if
Speaker 2: people break your leg every five years, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's I agree with you, It's it's I don't want
Speaker 2: to I don't want to sound able lists at all,
Speaker 2: you know, like having you know, difficulties or having anything
Speaker 2: is anything like that. But it's I feel like it's
Speaker 2: more traumatized than anything. We have a system that fucking
Speaker 2: exploits us every step of the way. It from the
Speaker 2: moment we're born. We're getting exploited before we're born. We're
Speaker 2: getting exploited. I mean, bird, the birthing industry is one
Speaker 2: of the most exploitive industries in the fucking world. It's
Speaker 2: insane what they do to people who give birth and debate,
Speaker 2: it's so insane. And then from the yeah, so I
Speaker 2: don't know, I mean, yeah, we're we're getting exploited every
Speaker 2: step of the way. And all we're seeing is just
Speaker 2: an increase of exploitation. So I don't expect it to
Speaker 2: get anymore. I mean you're asking them all, yeah, you're
Speaker 2: talking to a fatalist. I don't expect anything to get
Speaker 2: any better. We're just what if you One of my
Speaker 2: favorite books is The Temptation to Exist, And what we're
Speaker 2: seeing right now is a dying we're seeing a It's
Speaker 2: a very typical thing that we see the dying throws
Speaker 2: of a nation that was once great, and this is
Speaker 2: what we're descending into. It's typical. It's like a fucking
Speaker 2: narcissist who is discarding their former supply, and that's what's happening.
Speaker 2: You just you become a moral You eventually see what happens.
Speaker 2: People just like stop giving a fuck, they stop hiding.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you think a rod Contra was fucked.
Speaker 2: I mean, wait until you see what's happened here in the.
Speaker 3: Next four years.
Speaker 2: It's so blatant that like nobody cares like shit that
Speaker 2: nobody would say twenty years ago. They're just you know,
Speaker 2: laughing about in public and people just suck it up.
Speaker 2: So I don't expect anything to get better. Everything's going
Speaker 2: to be mishandled from here on out. Just get the
Speaker 2: fuck out of this country, you know, that's the thing
Speaker 2: we could do.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I hope that I share many of those feelings, Jason.
Speaker 1: And the thing I keep saying to myself is I
Speaker 1: hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have some friends that are that are more optimistic
Speaker 1: about the situation, and you know, I when I talk
Speaker 1: to them, that's all I can say is I hope
Speaker 1: you're right.
Speaker 3: I hope you're right. I don't know age any last
Speaker 3: words before we wrap up here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I feel that deeply, but one that came
Speaker 4: from another country, and and you know, over twenty years ago,
Speaker 4: I came here because there was more hope here than
Speaker 4: what we had in my country, and I still keep
Speaker 4: that hope. So yeah, that's that's why I stick around
Speaker 4: and I don't.
Speaker 2: That's got to be so terrifying. Yay, dude, that's good
Speaker 2: because twenty years ago there was so much reform going on,
Speaker 2: and then this hard swing has got to be so
Speaker 2: fucking like, I'm terrified with my kid and what I'm Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's terrifying, especially where we live. Dude. It's yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean yeah, yeah, and what I've been dealing with in
Speaker 2: real time as of hours ago, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's no thank you. I I'm fucking terrified for
Speaker 2: my kid. I'm terrified for my partner. I'm terrified. I
Speaker 2: just don't. I don't like it. It scares the fuck
Speaker 2: out of me. And I'm already dealing with it, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to deal with this ship anymore. Go
Speaker 2: somewhere where it's If I'm gonna deal with it, it needs
Speaker 2: to be less. The outright bigotry is just exhausting at
Speaker 2: this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exhausting. That's a good way of saying.
Speaker 1: It's just emotionally, mentally, physically, just exhausting in every way societally,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I'll just repeat what I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I.
Speaker 3: I I hope we're wrong. I hope the I hope
Speaker 3: the optimists are are are right here.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're it seems like we're on a precipice
Speaker 1: at this point. You know, we can we can make
Speaker 1: positive steps, we can make negative steps, but something you know,
Speaker 1: any step is gonna is going to change the situation.
Speaker 3: And so I suppose we.
Speaker 1: Can we can hope and and uh, you know, hope that.
Speaker 1: I almost said we can hope and pray, but you.
Speaker 3: Can hope and pray that. I think I'm on the
Speaker 3: wrong show.
Speaker 2: Let's do let's pray it anyway.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 1: I think that would be a good place to a
Speaker 1: good a good spot for us to end the conversation.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you both for uh for sharing
Speaker 1: some uh you know, deeply felt uh emotional responses, and
Speaker 1: so thank you for that.
Speaker 3: I want to thank all of you for listening.