Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your fig tree, just waiting in the
Speaker 1: yard to see how many leaves it has to sprout
Speaker 1: and unfurl before you stop and say, oh, look, the
Speaker 1: fig tree has leaves. Ali Ward back with a bonus
Speaker 1: episode of ologies. Did I think I was making this
Speaker 1: episode two days ago?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, But sometimes you see a tweet and you say, boy, howdye,
Speaker 1: let's get this human on the horn, pass the mic
Speaker 1: and spread the word. So the March tenth Virology episode
Speaker 1: was recorded on March fifth. A lot has happened in
Speaker 1: the last few weeks. I don't know if you've noticed,
Speaker 1: so I added an update before the intro to that episode,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to read it here too. Virologist doctor
Speaker 1: Shannon Bennett wrote me on March seventeenth, and let me know, quote, daily,
Speaker 1: new confirmed cases are growing in number exponentially here in
Speaker 1: the US. And that is in light of one of
Speaker 1: the lowest per capita testing rates worldwide by country, twenty
Speaker 1: six tests per million people as of March tenth. That
Speaker 1: means that, even though we all recognize that confirmed cases
Speaker 1: are just the tip of the iceberg of the actual
Speaker 1: infections in the US, our iceberg is particularly submerged. In short,
Speaker 1: she said, it's time to take social distancing seriously and
Speaker 1: flatten the curve. So that was an update from doctor
Speaker 1: Shannon Bennett of the virology episode. So, in light of
Speaker 1: the lack of testing, especially comparatively, plenty of us here
Speaker 1: in Great Old America are asking where are the tests?
Speaker 1: How can we get the tests? So one guy, a
Speaker 1: neurobiologist and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Department of Stem Cell
Speaker 1: and Regenerative Biology and the Road Institute, said we'll shoot.
Speaker 1: We have so many ologists out there, let's just see
Speaker 1: who wants to help. I'm paraphrasing, and he put together
Speaker 1: a Google form just as a private citizen, working completely independently,
Speaker 1: not as an employee of Harvard or the broad and
Speaker 1: within hours had an army of scientists who are ready
Speaker 1: to combat SARS covy two, the virus that causes COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: which we covered in virology. In case that confuses you,
Speaker 1: I get it. So if only we can use the
Speaker 1: strengths we have and come together, will be in a
Speaker 1: much better place. So rather than just retweeting the URL
Speaker 1: to the Google form, I thought we'd make an episode
Speaker 1: out there for anyone who wants to help but just
Speaker 1: doesn't know what to do. And for anyone out there
Speaker 1: who could use some advice on taking care of their
Speaker 1: own mental health during this weird time, which we probably
Speaker 1: all could use. So, as disastrologist doctor Sam Montano said
Speaker 1: in her episode, people are much more pro social in
Speaker 1: a crisis than we expect them to be. That's great news,
Speaker 1: and in mister Rogers' words.
Speaker 2: Always look for the helpers.
Speaker 1: So let's chat with the dude with the Google form
Speaker 1: about how to get involved and hopefully signal boosting this
Speaker 1: will help get this database into the hands of government
Speaker 1: agencies that will use it and put it into action.
Speaker 1: So this is a bonus episode, so it's ad free,
Speaker 1: but a donation was still made to the LA Food Bank,
Speaker 1: and I would not be able to do those things
Speaker 1: or make the donations to causes each week without the
Speaker 1: folks at patreon dot com slash ologies, So while I
Speaker 1: was at it, I asked patrons how people have been
Speaker 1: helping them, how they are helping family and friends and
Speaker 1: maybe strangers, and for some of their self help suggestions,
Speaker 1: which I'm all heirs for and just a heads up.
Speaker 1: So this episode has fewer asides than usual, just for
Speaker 1: a much quicker turnaround, and it's more of a raw
Speaker 1: conversation than most episodes. Also, the first ten minutes or so,
Speaker 1: I asked this ologist a bunch of questions about his
Speaker 1: backstory because he's really amazing and relatable and inspiring and
Speaker 1: it's just really interesting. And I want us all to
Speaker 1: remember that scientists and neighbors and healthcare workers and grocery
Speaker 1: stockers are all people with these incredible stories. And the
Speaker 1: more we remember that, the less alone we feel. So
Speaker 1: if you need some updates on this illness and a
Speaker 1: healthy dose of hope, you have come to the right place.
Speaker 1: So hunker down, get cozy, and prepare to feel inspired
Speaker 1: by the folks out there who have our backs, including
Speaker 1: de facto community organizer working from an extra desk in
Speaker 1: his apartment, and professional neurobiologist doctor Michael F. Wells. So, Hi,
Speaker 1: thanks for talking to me.
Speaker 2: Sure, of course.
Speaker 1: You've had a busy couple of days.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've not slept much. I'm supposed to be doing
Speaker 2: other work as a scientist, but I've been focusing on
Speaker 2: this pretty much NonStop since Wednesday.
Speaker 1: And can you tell me a little bit about what
Speaker 1: your work at Harvard Entails.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm a post doctoral researcher, which means I
Speaker 2: already have my PhD, but I don't yet have my
Speaker 2: own lab. And so I work for a guy named
Speaker 2: Kevin Eggan at Harvard in the stem cell department. And
Speaker 2: so what I do is I take human stem cells
Speaker 2: and I convert them to human brain cells in a dish. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And if you might wonder where those stem cells came from,
Speaker 2: we can actually harvest or we can actually take cells,
Speaker 2: say from your blood or your hair. Some have started
Speaker 2: taking it from urine, and we can convert those cells
Speaker 2: into stem cells. And then we can take those cells
Speaker 2: and make them into many, many different cell types so
Speaker 2: that we can study diseases in these cell types that
Speaker 2: are actually impacted by that disease. And so the disease
Speaker 2: I've been studying for the past four years or so
Speaker 2: has been the xgovirus infections. So I take stem cells
Speaker 2: and I make them into fetal brain cells, or at
Speaker 2: least cells that resemble fetal brain cells.
Speaker 1: So Mike recently made a discovery about how one's genetic
Speaker 1: background influences your susceptibility to Z cut infection. Like, no
Speaker 1: big deal, just did that. I recently repotted a plant
Speaker 1: I've kept alive for a year or so. I get
Speaker 1: it to his work at Harvard. He got his bachelor's
Speaker 1: in biology a Notre Dame and his PhD from Duke
Speaker 1: in neurobiology working with mouse models studying the genetics of
Speaker 1: ADHD and autism. So we're all just a bunch of
Speaker 1: lumpy brains helping other lumpy brains. Sometimes be a mice,
Speaker 1: just like, what.
Speaker 2: Are the mechanisms from the gene that leads to the
Speaker 2: disordered behaviors? And you actually see some of these behaviors
Speaker 2: in a mouse. Of course, it's a mouse model. It's
Speaker 2: not perfect. And that's partially why when I moved to
Speaker 2: Harvard for my postoc in twenty fifteen, that I switched
Speaker 2: to studying human cells in a dish. I was much
Speaker 2: more interested in studying the human condition. And I also
Speaker 2: became quite severely allergic to mice over the course of
Speaker 2: the Yeah, so if you work with mice for eight
Speaker 2: hours a day for six years, you know they will
Speaker 2: get their revenge on you if you don't properly cover
Speaker 2: your mouth and make sure you're not inhaling all the
Speaker 2: irritants that they release taste it. So yeah, I can
Speaker 2: still work with my suges, has to be quite limited
Speaker 2: interaction with them.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Now did you have a microscope when
Speaker 1: you were a kid. When did you start getting into science?
Speaker 2: Uh, it's a very good question. There's a book, the
Speaker 2: first book on my bookshelf, top of the bookshelf, far left.
Speaker 2: It's called The Power of Believing in Yourself and it's
Speaker 2: written by a guy whose name I believe is Spencer Johnson.
Speaker 2: He wrote this book about Louis Pasture and I read
Speaker 2: this when I was It's the first book I remember
Speaker 2: ever reading. But it's about how Louise Pasture created the
Speaker 2: treatment for abies. So we now have if you get raby's,
Speaker 2: it's no longer death sentence because of Louis Pasture's discovery.
Speaker 2: And so I remember being five or six years old
Speaker 2: and just thinking like, oh wow, this one guy in
Speaker 2: a lab like dramatically changed the course of human history
Speaker 2: by eliminating this disease from the list of things I
Speaker 2: could wipe us out if it spreads. And so that
Speaker 2: influenced me at a pretty young age. You know, I
Speaker 2: didn't really come from a family that had a lot
Speaker 2: and so it was mainly through books that I developed
Speaker 2: this interest in science, and so by the time I
Speaker 2: was in high school, I was more interested in biology
Speaker 2: and trying to understand how the human body works. And
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to go to college to
Speaker 2: prepare for medical school. But I quickly realized that I
Speaker 2: can't see someone having their blood drawn, and even talking
Speaker 2: about it, you can hear my voice slowing down and
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to pass out. And I realized that
Speaker 2: if I can't see a blood trawl, yeah, I probably
Speaker 2: shouldn't go into a field in which that is something
Speaker 2: that you will see commonly. Even if you're not doing yourself,
Speaker 2: you will see it. So I remember I went home
Speaker 2: for thanksgaving break while as a sophomore at the university
Speaker 2: that are Dame, and this is kind of when I realized, like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to be a medical doctor. And so
Speaker 2: I went home and on my bed was a National
Speaker 2: Geographic magazine and the cover was a guy with all
Speaker 2: these electrodes on his head, and so I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll do that. I'll be a neuroscientist. And that's pretty
Speaker 2: much all the thought that I put into it. It
Speaker 2: was just something that I just I saw a picture.
Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, I'll do that. And so I think
Speaker 2: you're seeing a theme here that I'm easily influenced by media.
Speaker 1: So who knew that zycom could change minds in so
Speaker 1: few steps? Just from it is?
Speaker 2: It is a very very powerful medium. And I and
Speaker 2: stress enough how important it is for people growing up
Speaker 2: in low income houses like what I how I grew up.
Speaker 2: I didn't know as scientist until I got to college,
Speaker 2: and even then I don't quite understand what they were doing.
Speaker 2: A lot of people growing up the way I did
Speaker 2: or just not exposed to these things and don't even
Speaker 2: know one that it's an option, and two they don't
Speaker 2: know what the job entails. And if they did know
Speaker 2: those two things, they don't necessarily know the third factor,
Speaker 2: which just had to get into this system. You know,
Speaker 2: Academia is very competitive and there's a lot of internal
Speaker 2: challenges you have just feeling like you belong. I'm actually
Speaker 2: a Salvador in my mom's from Al Salvador, and I
Speaker 2: actually never felt like I mean, you could see in
Speaker 2: this skype, I'm not that dark skin to like all
Speaker 2: my family is much tanner than me. If I never
Speaker 2: felt like I was being held back because I was
Speaker 2: a minority. However, I did feel like I was being
Speaker 2: held back because I did not come from a house
Speaker 2: that had a lot a lot of money or power
Speaker 2: or whatever how you refer to it. And that becomes
Speaker 2: very challenging in academia because you are working with people
Speaker 2: whose parents were biochemists or you know, mathematicians, and you
Speaker 2: know they might come from from different from backgrounds that
Speaker 2: made it a little easier for them to get to
Speaker 2: where they are and to feel comfortable where they are.
Speaker 2: And I think that is you hear this term a
Speaker 2: lot imposter syndrome in academia, and it comes from people
Speaker 2: not feeling that they belong because they see what the
Speaker 2: backgrounds of those around them in academia. And I do
Speaker 2: think that the most powerful way of overcoming that and
Speaker 2: getting our field beyond that is through early science communication.
Speaker 1: That said, one kid science show I did for Netflix
Speaker 1: is called Brainchild, and they have free lesson plans in curricula.
Speaker 1: If anyone is homeschooling the kiddos now and need some resources,
Speaker 1: you can go to brainchildshow dot com to download them
Speaker 1: for free. I'll link that in the show notes in
Speaker 1: case it helps. Also, my science show Innovation Nation with
Speaker 1: Moroccos on Saturday morning on CBS. And my other show
Speaker 1: did I mentioned, Invention is on Saturdays on the CW.
Speaker 1: Also Mission Unstoppable another great science show for kids, particularly girls.
Speaker 1: I don't work on it, but it's very good. Also,
Speaker 1: my friend Emily Grassley makes great YouTube videos on her
Speaker 1: channel Brainscoop. Doctor Joe Hanson hosts It's Okay to Be
Speaker 1: Smart for PBS. I love his stuff. My friend Derek
Speaker 1: Muller hosts veritassium videos on YouTube. Lepidopterology guest Phil Torres
Speaker 1: has his Jungle Diaries YouTube series. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: a list of links in case you need kid friendly
Speaker 1: things to watch that don't have swear words, which I'm
Speaker 1: trying very hard to avoid in this episode, so that
Speaker 1: you pass it around to other people and we fix
Speaker 1: this problem. Okay, let's get back to Mike. So he
Speaker 1: has a manuscript he needs to be working on right now,
Speaker 1: but he's working from a small office at home to
Speaker 1: become this community organizer with this project. And he has
Speaker 1: a little experience in this, having worked on the Obama
Speaker 1: campaign in two thousand and eight. But he did have
Speaker 1: to cut the job short halfway through his six week stint,
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna let him explain.
Speaker 2: I mistakenly thought that I had an unlimited phone plan
Speaker 2: and I did it. Uh So, I remember I was
Speaker 2: in the field office and I got a call from
Speaker 2: my mom and she was just like, Mike, we just
Speaker 2: got a six hundred and fifty dollars bill from Verizon.
Speaker 2: Did you make X number of calls? And like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: but we shouldn't matter, right, She's like, no, we got
Speaker 2: rid of that option like six months ago. So I
Speaker 2: was trying to save up for grad school at the
Speaker 2: point at that point, so I had to quit and
Speaker 2: I ended up working in a daycare center for the
Speaker 2: rest of the summer, teaching kids science.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's I guess just consider that a
Speaker 1: donation to the campaign, right, yes?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, God, that's pretty rough.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about what you're organizing. Do
Speaker 1: you have a name for it yet?
Speaker 2: No? I mean the form is called COVID nineteen Pandemic
Speaker 2: Scientists volunteer for And essentially what I have done is
Speaker 2: this past Wednesday, So it was whatever that March eighteenth.
Speaker 2: March eighteenth, it was the last day that my lab
Speaker 2: was going to be open for the next two months.
Speaker 2: I again, I've been studying zecovirus for four years now,
Speaker 2: so I have all the skills necessary to perform the
Speaker 2: COVID nineteen testing, and so I was really hoping that
Speaker 2: at some point, as places start ramping up their testing capacities,
Speaker 2: that I would have the opportunity to start working at
Speaker 2: a facility to just help out, you know, in the efforts.
Speaker 2: And so I you know, I'm pretty active on Twitter,
Speaker 2: and I've seen that there were these sign up forms
Speaker 2: in Seattle and in the Bay area. I later learned
Speaker 2: there's one that was being widely distributed for the New
Speaker 2: York area. But what I hadn't seen yet was something
Speaker 2: for Boston. And I hadn't seen anything that was trying
Speaker 2: to aggregate all these different sources into one central location.
Speaker 2: And so essentially what I did was I created a
Speaker 2: form in which I'm asking for contact information from scientists,
Speaker 2: asking them if they have experience in certain techniques that
Speaker 2: are required for testing, and then asked them if they
Speaker 2: have any sort of reagents or kits or equipment that
Speaker 2: they can donate to these testing facilities.
Speaker 1: So now remember he just started this on Wednesday, and
Speaker 1: I talked to him yesterday, which was Friday evening.
Speaker 2: So that was about fifty hours ago. And we now
Speaker 2: have three thousand, three hundred and sixty eight respondents. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: So these scientists were very, very eager to help out,
Speaker 2: like we're we're doing our you know again, a lot
Speaker 2: of us are at home right now. We have the skills,
Speaker 2: we just need to be, you know, added to the team.
Speaker 2: And I do want to say something about how this
Speaker 2: spread so quickly. It's I need to give some credit
Speaker 2: to a few people. One is my friend Justin Bretta,
Speaker 2: who is in the band glitch Mob. They're like an
Speaker 2: EDM group. One is a musician based in la Her
Speaker 2: name is Eloheim. And another's my friend Michael Angelakis, who's
Speaker 2: the lead singer of the band Passion Pit. What I
Speaker 2: did was, after I created the form, I texted them
Speaker 2: and said, I'm about to post something on Twitter. Can
Speaker 2: you please retweet it? So it is their audience, and
Speaker 2: you know, they have thousands of thousands of followers. And
Speaker 2: then Justin actually then reached out to a man by
Speaker 2: the name of Tim Ferriss, who has one point six
Speaker 2: million followers. So once that happened, he retweeted it. Then
Speaker 2: Drew Carey, a comedian that I've adored since I was
Speaker 2: a child, he retweeted, so it reached a very very
Speaker 2: wide audience. And then you, of course retweeted my efforts
Speaker 2: a few hours later, So it reached a very wide
Speaker 2: audience and have been a very short period of time.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what really helped accelerate this because
Speaker 2: then once those scientists started filling out the form, they
Speaker 2: then send it to other scientists that they know.
Speaker 1: So essentially your viral form when viral also yes, which
Speaker 1: is like wonderful when it's something good, but also a
Speaker 1: terrifying display of how quickly something can spread quickly.
Speaker 2: I mean, as I'm watching this form being filled out
Speaker 2: in real time, you do see. I mean it's been
Speaker 2: exponentials in forty hours. You know, we went from thirty
Speaker 2: responses in the first twenty minutes to you know, I
Speaker 2: think by last night there's about fifteen hundred and now
Speaker 2: there's an additional two thousand today, so it is growing exponentially. Obviously,
Speaker 2: can hit a plateau once all the scientists do who
Speaker 2: do have these abilities are reached and they built the
Speaker 2: form of they're willing to so it will hit a
Speaker 2: plateau hopefully that hopefully doesn't happen in silicresta as wide
Speaker 2: an audience as possible.
Speaker 1: As of my recording these sides on Saturday night, he
Speaker 1: now has four seven hundred and sixty three scientists from
Speaker 1: forty nine states, Puerto Rico and Guam. And of course
Speaker 1: I asked him which state was lagging. I see you
Speaker 1: forty nine and I guessed Idaho. I'm sorry, Idaho, but no,
Speaker 1: you ready for this? It's Wyoming, Wyoming. Come on, someone
Speaker 1: from Wyoming. Just pull up the freaking caboose. The tiny
Speaker 1: url for the Google form, by the way, is TinyURL
Speaker 1: dot com slash COVID nineteen cy volunteers. And no, you
Speaker 1: do not have to write that down. It's linked in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Wyoming.
Speaker 2: Good luck. We're a counting on you.
Speaker 1: And now let's talk a little bit about how testing
Speaker 1: is done. I mean, you work with zica, so you're
Speaker 1: familiar with viruses that are zoonotic in origin. How do
Speaker 1: you even test for COVID nineteen and why isn't it happening?
Speaker 2: So those are two different issues in my opinion. So
Speaker 2: to answer your first question, how the basic tests for
Speaker 2: the presence of a virus is you get the sample,
Speaker 2: and that could be it could be these no swabs
Speaker 2: that you're seeing on TikTok that look extremely painful and
Speaker 2: put in that thing way back there. But what they're
Speaker 2: trying to do is they're trying to get a sample
Speaker 2: from your body that either does or does not have
Speaker 2: the virus. And these are areas that if you did
Speaker 2: have the virus, it's likely the virus be present in
Speaker 2: your spit. It's like to be present in the back
Speaker 2: of your knows. The reason for that is this virus,
Speaker 2: in particular, it tends to infect the respiratory system. We
Speaker 2: would take that sample and in this case it's RNA.
Speaker 2: This is an RNA virus. So you may be aware
Speaker 2: of what DNA is. I think most people know what
Speaker 2: DNA is, what RNA is, What the DNA becomes when
Speaker 2: you're trying to make a protein, you have this intermediate
Speaker 2: step of RNA. So this virus is just an RNA virus.
Speaker 2: That's pretty much what is being transferred for one person
Speaker 2: to another. It's a piece of RNA that is encapsulated
Speaker 2: by an envelope. And this is why when you wash
Speaker 2: your hands, you kill the virus because that envelope gets
Speaker 2: degraded by soap, and RNA not last a very long
Speaker 2: time without that envelope. So this is why it's so
Speaker 2: important to wash your hands. So essentially what happens is
Speaker 2: we then will take that sample extract the RNA. And
Speaker 2: that's a very key step that I'll get to in
Speaker 2: a second. We extract the RNA, we convert it back
Speaker 2: to DNA, and then we run what's called a plimerase
Speaker 2: chain reaction. So you might have heard a PCR. Someone
Speaker 2: won a Nobel Prize in nineteen ninety three, I believe,
Speaker 2: for creating this machine that amplifies DNA.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I wasn't going to look this up. This
Speaker 1: was supposed to be a minisode. But you know what,
Speaker 1: we're in this and frankly a lot of us have
Speaker 1: nowhere to be. So I googled who the winner of
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety three Nobel Prize in chemistry was, and
Speaker 1: turns out it was the best decision I've made so
Speaker 1: far in quarantine, since buying several tins of smoked trout.
Speaker 1: So according to his sadly recent twenty nineteen obituary in
Speaker 1: the La Times, Carrie B. Mullis was an LSD dropping
Speaker 1: climate change denying, astrology believing SURFA Nobel Prize winning chemist
Speaker 1: who was both widely respected and equally criticized for his
Speaker 1: controversial views. So what did he do? All right? His
Speaker 1: history changing process involves taking a segment of DNA and
Speaker 1: heating it until it unzips, and then looking for a
Speaker 1: specific segment of DNA and then zipping it back together
Speaker 1: via an enzyme or polymerase with free floating building blocks,
Speaker 1: the AGTC nucleotides, and then doing a chain reaction of
Speaker 1: that so that each copy makes two copies, and so
Speaker 1: on and so on, and you're able to replicate a
Speaker 1: ton of that segment, so a polymerase chain reaction PCR. Now,
Speaker 1: Mullis came up with the idea while driving down the highway.
Speaker 1: Just came up with this idea that changed the world.
Speaker 1: He once said, quote, I think really good science doesn't
Speaker 1: come from hard work. The striking advances come from the
Speaker 1: people on the fringes, being playful, he playfully said, from
Speaker 1: the fringes side. Note, he was drunk the morning he
Speaker 1: found out that he won the Nobel Prize alongside chemist
Speaker 1: Michael Smith, who was probably not drunk. Mollis then celebrated
Speaker 1: the win by going surfing. I am trying so hard
Speaker 1: not to swear during this episode. So hm, hot dog,
Speaker 1: what a life? Maybe let that be a lesson to
Speaker 1: just chill out while in isolation. Don't work so hard,
Speaker 1: play horseshoes, learn an Irish jig, just get high and
Speaker 1: eat some raw biscuit dough. Read a novel you don't
Speaker 1: think you deserve too. Either way, you're avoiding the virus.
Speaker 1: You might even end up winning a Nobel Price. Just
Speaker 1: don't surf drunk. I guess now, what if you're sick?
Speaker 1: How does the test work?
Speaker 2: So let's say you have the virus in your system.
Speaker 2: We take a spit sample. We then extract the RNA
Speaker 2: from your spit sample, and when we run the PCR,
Speaker 2: it'll tell us if that RNA was actually present in
Speaker 2: the spit. And the way it's usually done is with
Speaker 2: a machine that's more quantitative than just a standard ECR.
Speaker 2: And what this does is it incorporates a green dye
Speaker 2: into the DNA as it's being replicated, as is being
Speaker 2: amplified by this system. And then after every cycle that
Speaker 2: it runs, it will take a picture and it will
Speaker 2: measure the intensity of that die and you should use
Speaker 2: you as green so it will tell you how much
Speaker 2: green fluorescence is present in this system in your well.
Speaker 2: And then you can use that green readoubt as a
Speaker 2: way of measuring the amount of viral RNA present in
Speaker 2: the sample. So that is the basic testing system that
Speaker 2: is in play right now. It's looked at whether or
Speaker 2: not viral RNA is present in the sample. Having said that,
Speaker 2: as a result of the national emergency being declared, there
Speaker 2: are now loosened restrictions on the types of protocols you
Speaker 2: can use to test for COVID nineteen and so some
Speaker 2: universities have found ways that are much faster than the
Speaker 2: thing I just subscribe to you, and so they are
Speaker 2: in the process of getting approval through the FDA, through
Speaker 2: their state and local authorities to use that as a
Speaker 2: test in their community. And so I do anticipate that
Speaker 2: we're going to actually learn a lot about ways, different
Speaker 2: ways to test for these viruses, to make these tests
Speaker 2: more efficient, because the need is so clear right now
Speaker 2: for us to do this very quickly and safely and accurately.
Speaker 2: So that's what's going on right now with the testing.
Speaker 2: If you want to know why there are no tests
Speaker 2: going on. That's a million dollar questions. There are, but
Speaker 2: they're not where they need to be. That's primarily from
Speaker 2: what I've heard, an issue with the lack of reagents.
Speaker 2: So that are an a extraction step, which is for
Speaker 2: most calls, it's the first step. Those are usually made
Speaker 2: available through a kit, and the most commonly uses this
Speaker 2: kit from a company called Kyagen, which is based in Europe.
Speaker 2: There are very very few Coyagen kits available for these labs,
Speaker 2: and so one of the things we including the database
Speaker 2: was a question that we asked all these scientists, do
Speaker 2: you have RNA extraction kits that you're willing to donate
Speaker 2: from your lab to a facility that is currently testing
Speaker 2: and the need of those types of kits?
Speaker 1: Lawmakers Hall or are you in government? Could you use
Speaker 1: a list of scientists willing to chip in and help out. Well,
Speaker 1: here it is free for the taking. So let's be
Speaker 1: this business up, get some swabs up, some nassholes stat
Speaker 1: and why do some tests I'm hearing take like five
Speaker 1: days to get back right now? Is that because of
Speaker 1: the availability of the regents I think.
Speaker 2: Is available to the regents as well as the backlog
Speaker 2: of tests that need to be done. So I'm not
Speaker 2: actually working in these facilities, so I can't speak directly
Speaker 2: to that. But if you don't have enough kits or
Speaker 2: you don't have the capacity to do so, some of
Speaker 2: these places can only run, you know, anywhere from I'm
Speaker 2: seeing some that can only run twenty kits a day
Speaker 2: or twenty samples a day, and so if there are
Speaker 2: one hundred people in line, then it could take up
Speaker 2: to five days to get your results. And that's clearly
Speaker 2: not good. That is not going to be helpful. If
Speaker 2: you look at what happened in Yuhan and how they
Speaker 2: eventually got control over the virus to the point where
Speaker 2: they're now having very few new cases each day. Part
Speaker 2: of it was because of a very aggressive testing system
Speaker 2: they put in place in which they would actually go
Speaker 2: door to door and determine if someone is showing symptoms
Speaker 2: and if they were showing symptoms, they would administer a
Speaker 2: test right there and get them the results back as
Speaker 2: quickly as possible. We are nowhere near that in this country.
Speaker 2: And even with that aggressive approach that they took, which
Speaker 2: also included something called centralized quarantining, even with that aggressive approach.
Speaker 2: They still are not looking at a coronavirus free environment
Speaker 2: until mid May, and they had the outbreak start in January,
Speaker 2: so even then it's taking them five to get rid
Speaker 2: of this thing. We are all just now on the
Speaker 2: early stages of this and we are not being as
Speaker 2: aggressive as them, So it's likely this is going to
Speaker 2: last longer than what took place in China.
Speaker 1: And this is a stupid question, but why were they
Speaker 1: able to do those door to door tests? How did
Speaker 1: they have such an availability of kits? Is that partly
Speaker 1: from the sar's infrastructure from two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: It's possible, I don't know the exact answer of that question.
Speaker 2: They might not even have made that information available. I'm
Speaker 2: not entirely for sure. I know that for Luhan they
Speaker 2: had a lot of scientists and doctors from outside the
Speaker 2: Ruhan region aggregate into Huhan to help out with this.
Speaker 2: It's also possible they had their own manufacturing facilities to
Speaker 2: make the R and extraction kits. And it's not just
Speaker 2: Kayagen that makes these kids. There's a lot of them
Speaker 2: out there, which is something that kind of makes it
Speaker 2: a little more challenging as well, because different facilities in
Speaker 2: the United States are using different kids, are using different
Speaker 2: qPCR reagents, machines, all it's kind of all over the
Speaker 2: place right now. There's no real agreed upon protocol.
Speaker 1: And what types of scientists can help pitch in.
Speaker 2: So this is what's really nice about this, and this
Speaker 2: is why we have now three three hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: seven respondents, is the fact that these techniques are things
Speaker 2: that most life scientists learn very early on in their careers.
Speaker 2: Are an extraction is the first step of many, many
Speaker 2: different procedures you run any given time in a laboratory.
Speaker 2: PCR is a hallmark procedure for so many things we do.
Speaker 2: So for I mean, PCR was the first thing I
Speaker 2: learned in lab. When I'm doing a rotation at Duke University,
Speaker 2: the absolute first thing I learned was PCR. And so
Speaker 2: you know, this is not something where you need a
Speaker 2: PhD to do. There are technicians who show up, who
Speaker 2: are undergraduates at a university who immediately learn these things.
Speaker 2: I had a high school student in our lab two
Speaker 2: three years ago who was able to run qPCR, you know,
Speaker 2: in his first week.
Speaker 1: Let's say that we can go ahead and do this, like,
Speaker 1: let's go time, How do they make sure if they're
Speaker 1: voluntarily doing this, that they're not getting contaminated by samples
Speaker 1: or they're keeping their own health in check.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very important question, and that's why a
Speaker 2: lot of these facilities will from what I've been hearing,
Speaker 2: they're actually training these people. There are certain certifications you
Speaker 2: need to receive in order to work with potentially infectious samples,
Speaker 2: and so I've seen that in some place search during
Speaker 2: one or two day training sessions to get everybody up
Speaker 2: to speed so when they go in there, they're not,
Speaker 2: you know, putting themselves a risk. So that is something
Speaker 2: that each facility is presumably going to take care of.
Speaker 2: That is something that's heavily regulated for good reason. So
Speaker 2: if it's much more regulated, they are much more stringent
Speaker 2: with certain aspects of the procedures. And so you know,
Speaker 2: this is why again you don't want to just hire
Speaker 2: anybody off the street to do this. Ideally, pick someone
Speaker 2: from this three three and ninety two person who has
Speaker 2: experiencing these techniques and we'll be able to pick it
Speaker 2: up very very quickly.
Speaker 1: And now what about access to some labs in these
Speaker 1: kinds of extenuating circumstances. If you're working with very few
Speaker 1: individuals in a lab, you're keeping six and a half
Speaker 1: feet apart, nobody's slabburn on anyone. Is it okay to
Speaker 1: sneak back into your lab and do a little punk
Speaker 1: rock testing.
Speaker 2: So that's a good question to be clear. Not all
Speaker 2: labs are in the country closed. Harvard was one of
Speaker 2: the first. I think they've actually followed suit from University
Speaker 2: Washington and Stanfords the West Coast kind of started this
Speaker 2: idea of trying to de densify laboratory settings. The rest
Speaker 2: of the country that does have their labs shut down,
Speaker 2: including Harvard. What essentially we're doing is there is a
Speaker 2: very very small number of people who do have access
Speaker 2: to a lab, and it's very limited. So I was
Speaker 2: chosen from my lab to be that person. I'll be
Speaker 2: going in tomorrow. I can be there for three hours,
Speaker 2: I can feed this specific set of cells, and then
Speaker 2: I have to leave. And they regulate all this because
Speaker 2: most of these buildings have key cards, so they can
Speaker 2: toggle my access and I couldn't, for example, just walk
Speaker 2: in right now because I'm not authorized to go in
Speaker 2: on this date.
Speaker 1: So a lot of labs right now are authorizing certain
Speaker 1: people for specific times. That way they can avoid close
Speaker 1: contact or running into each other. Now Mike agrees with
Speaker 1: those tactics. He thinks we have to stamp the virus
Speaker 1: out as quickly as possible so it's not endemic or
Speaker 1: just kind of loitering around as part of a new
Speaker 1: way of life until there's a vaccine. And are there
Speaker 1: any vaccine researchers or scientists that have signed up to
Speaker 1: say like, put me in coach.
Speaker 2: So I did include on this form a option to
Speaker 2: select whether or not you have any experience in vaccine development.
Speaker 2: And the reason I've added that is because I didn't
Speaker 2: want this list to just be useful for near term testing.
Speaker 2: Wanted it to be available to anybody who may need
Speaker 2: it in, you know, six months from now, in order
Speaker 2: to identify people who might be able to help with
Speaker 2: later stages of fighting this virus. Having said that, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of companies and a lot of organizations
Speaker 2: building the infrastructure for vaccines, and I'm sure you're aware
Speaker 2: that earlier this week they've already started testing this in Seattle.
Speaker 2: One of the vaccines is available. Hopefully it works. I
Speaker 2: will say that vaccine development is very tricky. There are
Speaker 2: viruses out there that we still don't have good vaccines for.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's no vaccine for e. Zica, even
Speaker 2: though there's a lot of interest in developing that. And
Speaker 2: so when doctor Fauci says that we are twelve to
Speaker 2: eighteen months away from a vaccine, I think that's accurate
Speaker 2: because it's not just developing the vaccine, it's testing it,
Speaker 2: making sure it's safe and effective, and then it's mass
Speaker 2: producing it.
Speaker 1: Right, and you know, you work with mosquito born illness
Speaker 1: as you have in the past with zica. What is
Speaker 1: the hope with the anti malarial drugs virus?
Speaker 2: I know, so that cloroquin I think I've been hearing,
Speaker 2: so I don't really know. I mean, chloroquin seems to
Speaker 2: be one of those magic drugs that works on everything
Speaker 2: in the laboratory. You know, it works at killing everything
Speaker 2: in the laboratory. I have seen many different theories out there,
Speaker 2: and some that have more support than others experimentally about
Speaker 2: drugs that could work impact. A paper just got published
Speaker 2: while I was waiting for your call and sell and this,
Speaker 2: you know, sells a huge journal. And there's certain clinically
Speaker 2: approved protease that helps cleave parts of the viral envelope
Speaker 2: and then doing so prevents the attachment of the virus
Speaker 2: to lung cells. But you know, I could also list
Speaker 2: one hundred drugs that will probably work on ZECA. There
Speaker 2: is a bottlenecke from what we find in the laboratory
Speaker 2: and what actually makes it to patients, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of things that can stop that from happening. It
Speaker 2: could be that the drug you know, might work in
Speaker 2: a dish, but the second you put into a human
Speaker 2: being that goes through their liver, it stops working. It
Speaker 2: could be that it actually causes more harm than good.
Speaker 2: There are some things that we look at in addition
Speaker 2: and says, hey, this looks like this struggle reduce infection
Speaker 2: ends up makes you more prone to infection, or it
Speaker 2: makes you more susceptible to a bacteria or something. So
Speaker 2: there are all these different aspects of it that are
Speaker 2: very hard to predict. Clorkquin has been around for a
Speaker 2: long time. It'd be nice if it worked for this,
Speaker 2: but I still think, you know, before doctors in the
Speaker 2: United States start prescribing it, there's probably other hurdles that
Speaker 2: need to be passed before they can start doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Side note, I looked into this, and the President
Speaker 1: has been all caps tweeting about this anti malarial that's
Speaker 1: also used for rumatoidal and autoimmune conditions like lupus. But
Speaker 1: according to an article in Slate, in his tweet lavishing
Speaker 1: hope on this treatment, Trump cited a scientific journal that
Speaker 1: only studied twenty patients and was not a controlled clinical trial.
Speaker 1: But regardless, people are clamoring now to get this drug,
Speaker 1: with several reported accidental overd on it well, also leaving
Speaker 1: the patients who actually need it for autoimmune disorders not
Speaker 1: able to find it. What is my point, it's cooler jets.
Speaker 1: Let's all cooler jets on this. So far, it's in
Speaker 1: the flim flam bucket until there's some actual proof of efficacy.
Speaker 1: Right now, what people need is to isolate, not get
Speaker 1: or spread the virus. And for people who maybe carriers,
Speaker 1: access to actual testing. And now what if people have
Speaker 1: items that they can donate from their lab. What kind
Speaker 1: of things are you guys looking for?
Speaker 2: So, from what I've been hearing, is the most precious
Speaker 2: thing of these viral RNA extraction kits, and there's many
Speaker 2: on the market, but again there's very few that are
Speaker 2: currently available, so we are trying to make that available
Speaker 2: to people. By having access to the database, they can
Speaker 2: see which labs in their area actually have a kit
Speaker 2: available for them, and then they through the database, they
Speaker 2: can make direct contact with an individual and say, Okay,
Speaker 2: what kind of kit is it expired? Is it been unopened?
Speaker 2: So right now they really want unopened unexpired kits. That
Speaker 2: could change five months from now where they become more
Speaker 2: desperate for these kits. It could be that we don't
Speaker 2: care if it's been opened. We just really really need
Speaker 2: this kit right now. So I've anticipated that sort of need,
Speaker 2: which is why didn't ask people do you have an unopened,
Speaker 2: unexpired kit? I just had a sublanket question, do you
Speaker 2: have this kit that you're willing to donate?
Speaker 1: Mike says that in the other section of the Google form,
Speaker 1: people can say if they have PPE, which is not
Speaker 1: a disease, it means personal protective equipment that they can donate,
Speaker 1: so gloves, N ninety five masks, face shields. One physician,
Speaker 1: doctor Josh Lerner, posted an open letter on his Facebook
Speaker 1: page today that went viral or went epiddemiological I should
Speaker 1: say in response to the CDC loosening their guidelines for
Speaker 1: healthcare workers on the front lines. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: read part of his letter because it felt like getting
Speaker 1: kicked in the stomach by a horse. But it also
Speaker 1: woke me up a lot. So doctor Josh Learner said,
Speaker 1: please don't tell me that. And the richest country in
Speaker 1: the world in the twenty first century, I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: fashion my own face mask out of a cloth because
Speaker 1: other Americans hoard supplies for personal use, and so called
Speaker 1: leaders sit around in meetings hearing themselves talk. I ran
Speaker 1: to a bedside the other day to incubate a crashing
Speaker 1: likely COVID patient. Two respiratory therapists and two nurses were
Speaker 1: already at the bedside. That's five and ninety five masks,
Speaker 1: five gowns, five face shields, and ten gloves for one
Speaker 1: patient at one time. I probably saw fifteen to twenty
Speaker 1: patients that shift. If we're going to start rationing supplies,
Speaker 1: what percentage should I wear precautions for? Make no mistake,
Speaker 1: the CDC is loosening these guidelines because our country is
Speaker 1: not prepared sending healthcare workers to the front line asking
Speaker 1: them to cover their face with a bandana, is akin
Speaker 1: to sending a soldier to the front line in a
Speaker 1: T shirt and flip flops. I don't want talk, I
Speaker 1: don't want assurances. I want action. I want boxes of
Speaker 1: N ninety five's piling up donated from the people who
Speaker 1: hoarded them. I want billion dollar companies like three Am
Speaker 1: halting all production of any product that isn't PPE, to
Speaker 1: focus on PPE manufacturing. I want Procter and Gamble and
Speaker 1: the makers of other soaps and detergents stepping up to
Speaker 1: We need detergent to clean scrubs, hospital linens and gowns.
Speaker 1: We need disinfecting wipes to clean desk and computer services.
Speaker 1: What about plastics manufacturers? Plastic gowns aren't some high tech device.
Speaker 1: They are long shirts, smocks made out of plastic. Get
Speaker 1: on it, let's go money talks in this country, he says.
Speaker 1: Executive millionaires, why don't you spend a few bucks to
Speaker 1: buy back some of these masks from the hoarders and
Speaker 1: then drop them off of the nearest hospital. We need
Speaker 1: to divert viral culture media for COVID testing and research.
Speaker 1: Netflix and Chill, he says, is not enough. While my family,
Speaker 1: friends and colleagues are out there fighting. Our country won
Speaker 1: two World Wars because the entire country mobilized, we out produced,
Speaker 1: and we out manufactured while our soldiers out fought the enemy.
Speaker 1: We need to do that again because make no mistake,
Speaker 1: we are at war. Healthcare work are your soldiers, and
Speaker 1: the war has just begun. So that was a letter
Speaker 1: from doctor Josh Lerner, who is a pediatric er doctor.
Speaker 1: So the folks on the front lines need help, and
Speaker 1: we can help by sharing info and making some noise
Speaker 1: so our government takes action. What would be your dream
Speaker 1: in terms of who picks up the database, Like, what
Speaker 1: would be the best case scenario of where all this
Speaker 1: information that you have now collected over the course of
Speaker 1: fifty hours ago.
Speaker 2: I would love if this gotten to the hands of
Speaker 2: a federal agency that they can then distribute to health
Speaker 2: officials at the state level, at the county level, at
Speaker 2: the city level. I don't have that infrastructure. I do
Speaker 2: not know all these people throughout the country who you
Speaker 2: know may be in need of this right now. So
Speaker 2: ideally it would be something that comes from the top,
Speaker 2: and it's just because just trickles down to all these
Speaker 2: other agencies. In lieu of that, I am doing my
Speaker 2: best to contact state officials. Basically, it's cold emailing them
Speaker 2: and saying like, hey, I have this thing, you may
Speaker 2: need it in the future. I'm more than happy to
Speaker 2: give you access to it. I just need to know
Speaker 2: who to give it, who exactly needs it. So that's
Speaker 2: honestly been the hardest part so far. Obviously, the response
Speaker 2: from three four hundred and eleven people came very quickly,
Speaker 2: but so far I've only been able to share this
Speaker 2: database with health officials in Massachusetts and North Carolina. I'm
Speaker 2: also working with a group in New York who has
Speaker 2: been using it because they're setting up organizational groups in
Speaker 2: New York to help recruit these scientists. And I'm also
Speaker 2: working with an organization known as end Coronavirus, so the
Speaker 2: endcronavirus dot org, and we're trying to find ways to
Speaker 2: distribute these this database to others. We built this thing,
Speaker 2: I really wanted to be in the hands of people
Speaker 2: who can turn this database into action. But this is
Speaker 2: actually the first Google form I've ever made, so I'm
Speaker 2: kind of learning as I go along and how to
Speaker 2: run this thing.
Speaker 1: This is one hundred percent success on your Google forms,
Speaker 1: so when in doubt, I don't know make a Google form.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling inspired as hell to make some spreadsheet databases people.
Speaker 1: I also message my good friend and your favorite diabetic diabetologist,
Speaker 1: doctor Mike Natter, on how people could help, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: if people have boxes of N ninety five masks, that
Speaker 1: would be ideal. He said, if you see a healthcare
Speaker 1: worker in a coffee shop or bodega, offer to buy
Speaker 1: them something. He clearly is a New Yorker. Also, you
Speaker 1: can send electronic gift cards or food to hospital staffs.
Speaker 1: I did that today with doctor Natter's team, and he
Speaker 1: facetimed me from the nurses station saying thank you, which
Speaker 1: was completely unnecessary. But in the background, one of the
Speaker 1: nurses stepped into frame in full ppe mask, face shield gown,
Speaker 1: and it was so surreal. It just looked like a
Speaker 1: scene from a movie. And these people are literally risking
Speaker 1: their lives to save ours. So just like, buy them
Speaker 1: a frickin' panini, you know. But better stresses that you
Speaker 1: should not go to the hospital to drop anything off.
Speaker 1: Contact the hospital via phone or email first to ask
Speaker 1: what you can deliver and how. But yes, electronic gift
Speaker 1: cards for dinner clutch now I also asked y'all what
Speaker 1: you advised how to help in these times? And I
Speaker 1: put this up on my Patreon and just a deluge
Speaker 1: of great ideas came up. So I thought I would
Speaker 1: read some of them off because there are so many
Speaker 1: things I didn't even know or think about. So let's
Speaker 1: get right anyway. So, when it comes to donating something,
Speaker 1: what better resource than your own hot, squishy, sloshy bag
Speaker 1: of blood. So patrons Ashley Herbel, William Andrews, and Aubrey
Speaker 1: Lebert said, hospitals and the American Red Cross is in
Speaker 1: desperate need of blood donations, so they've had to cancel
Speaker 1: donating events and a good chunk of their regular donors
Speaker 1: are sixteen old or Aubrey said, So if you can
Speaker 1: and it's safe to do so, you can please donate
Speaker 1: to your local blood bank. You can call ahead and
Speaker 1: ask about their protocol if that's a concern. Now, if
Speaker 1: you are afraid of some needles but not other types
Speaker 1: of needles, so what and so masks a ton of patrons,
Speaker 1: including Joe Alexander, Shirley Dark, William Pence, Amanda Richards, Mary Kumro,
Speaker 1: Heather Orlans, Laura Shulty suggest grabbing some fabric, nice looking
Speaker 1: fabric and looking up patterns online and seeing if you
Speaker 1: can churn out some face masks. Now, are these cloth
Speaker 1: masks as effective as N ninety five's No, of course not,
Speaker 1: but they're better than literally nothing. Now, some healthcare workers
Speaker 1: are being asked to use one mask for days and
Speaker 1: days at a time in some hospitals, when usually they
Speaker 1: would be changed out after each patient, and Natalie Mastik says,
Speaker 1: adding onto this, my friend has been making masks for
Speaker 1: her husband and his colleagues in the er. There is
Speaker 1: definitely a need for them, and she recommends making some
Speaker 1: for some other hospitals, but checking on their needs prior
Speaker 1: to dropping anything off. Now, what if you don't sew,
Speaker 1: but you have a three D printer. Well, my cousin,
Speaker 1: Nate Bronick is a bit of a maker himself, and
Speaker 1: suggested looking into the maker community pages to see if
Speaker 1: there are any face shield needs locally that you can
Speaker 1: help fabricate. He says, there are several groups that are
Speaker 1: trying to three D print masks or face shields for
Speaker 1: local health care providers. So you can google that and
Speaker 1: I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But wait, what's that? What? You have? Actual real medical
Speaker 1: gear just lying around because you're really into some creepy
Speaker 1: cosplay or maybe you stockpiled and you feel bad now,
Speaker 1: don't feel ashamed. Zach Stricklin, a patron, wrote in and said,
Speaker 1: my mom is an RN and a director of clinics
Speaker 1: for our rural hospital system. If you have any PPE
Speaker 1: you could donate, gloves, masks, anything, contact your local clinic
Speaker 1: and see if they could use it. Masks do not
Speaker 1: have to be N ninety five to be of use
Speaker 1: to healthcare staff, Za says. Eric Polk also wrote in
Speaker 1: and says I'm an RN in an emergency room. Ah,
Speaker 1: thank you, Eric, and I can confirm the need for
Speaker 1: PPE is critical. Masks are normally used once per patient
Speaker 1: and then discarded, but due to the current shortage, he says,
Speaker 1: we are using the same mask for twelve hours countless.
Speaker 1: Pat So please, if you have PPE, contact your local hospital.
Speaker 1: It's a desperate need. What about those close to you,
Speaker 1: like in your community? Well, Patron Scott Sheldon says, I
Speaker 1: have several elderly or compromise individuals near me, and I'm
Speaker 1: heading to the store tomorrow morning to get what they need.
Speaker 1: Scott says this isn't a blizzard to prepare for, It's
Speaker 1: a winter or even longer, and patrons Kathleen Sachs, Julia Hayman,
Speaker 1: Rachel Lynn seconded this. Charmaine h wrote in Great Story
Speaker 1: said share your stuff, they said. I ordered from Who
Speaker 1: Gives a Crap at the beginning of the year and
Speaker 1: still had about thirty to forty toilet rolls left. So
Speaker 1: I have divided them up and given them to my
Speaker 1: family members as most of my family is classed as
Speaker 1: vulnerable and at risk of getting COVID nineteen and I'm disabled.
Speaker 1: So whilst there's not much I can do, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to find ways of helping them, and by giving them
Speaker 1: this toilet paper, it means they can now stay home.
Speaker 1: You can't spare three square. No, I don't have a
Speaker 1: square to spare. I can't spare a square. I'm down
Speaker 1: to three rolls, but I'll cross that bridge when I
Speaker 1: come to it. Others mentioned to keep an eye out
Speaker 1: for WICK items at the grocery store. WICK stands for women, infants,
Speaker 1: and children, and it's a program to make sure that
Speaker 1: food insecure kiddos and pregnant folks get the food they need.
Speaker 1: Adam Weaver said avoid buying things labeled Wick. We can
Speaker 1: switch to a different brand, but people that depend on
Speaker 1: Wick can't, so keep an eye out for that in
Speaker 1: the grocery shore when you're buying things. Speaking of victuals,
Speaker 1: if you can donate a little to a food bank,
Speaker 1: do so. I just found out today one hundred bucks
Speaker 1: makes four hundred meals, so just think a twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars donation to a food bank could get one hundred
Speaker 1: people dinner now. You can also check with your local
Speaker 1: ones to see if they're taking any items if you
Speaker 1: have extra stuff in your pantry. Tyler Q and Antonio olivera'z,
Speaker 1: Kaylas Simpson, Nadia Jackson, Chloe w All suggested this, and
Speaker 1: Adam Weaver simply said local food pantries are really hurting,
Speaker 1: please donate what you can. A bunch of patrons also
Speaker 1: suggested putting your money where your mouth isn't and shopping local,
Speaker 1: even if you're just getting gift cards or delivery from
Speaker 1: nearby restaurants, just to keep them in business. Heather mcnernan
Speaker 1: and kat Lindsay both said simply shop local. Chelsea is
Speaker 1: also doing this, and Dale Lamaster wrote in and said,
Speaker 1: being retired, my income is fixed, so I send checks
Speaker 1: to local small businesses for the amounts I would have
Speaker 1: been spending with them if not for social distancing. Dale
Speaker 1: also says keep calm and carry on loving and living.
Speaker 1: Now for a straight up direct deposit effect on people.
Speaker 1: A lot of folks are venmoing others who could use
Speaker 1: a little cash. Alreadie Laying is using venmo. Michael Paskira says,
Speaker 1: I suggest visiting go fundme to look for campaigns to
Speaker 1: help your local restaurant and hospitality workers who have lost
Speaker 1: their employment during this miserable epidemic. And Nadine Duke says,
Speaker 1: I'm a waitress or was before four days ago, and
Speaker 1: my fellow service folk and I have got a lot
Speaker 1: of GoFundMe pages and the like, and we're all being
Speaker 1: very good about sharing each other's stuff on Facebook and
Speaker 1: Instagram feeds. Not many of us can afford to donate
Speaker 1: to each other, but we'll be sharing the hell out
Speaker 1: of each other. We service folk seem like a bunch
Speaker 1: of degenerates, but damn do we have each other's back
Speaker 1: when the COVID hits the fan, Nadine says, Megan nance says, yes,
Speaker 1: I love this so much. And Rob Hover said that
Speaker 1: the people who provide support to those who work in
Speaker 1: office buildings likely need help too, Like the incredibly kind
Speaker 1: shoeshine man that works in our lobby our office took
Speaker 1: up a collection and with a lot of contributors, we
Speaker 1: were able to put together enough to at least help
Speaker 1: them scrape by for a week or so. And what
Speaker 1: if you're like Ward, I am not flush with cash.
Speaker 1: I'm freaking out about it. Get it, I get it
Speaker 1: one thousand percent. Now, if you want to volunteer your
Speaker 1: time for zero dollars, somehow, Chase Pennix and Michelle Kreb's
Speaker 1: started websites or Facebook groups where people can connect and
Speaker 1: share resources. You can also volunteer, like Chris Calderelli says,
Speaker 1: Meals on Wheels needs volunteers, and I checked with Meals
Speaker 1: on Wheels and right now they are really in need
Speaker 1: of food delivery drivers as well as people who can
Speaker 1: perform welfare checks on older folks. Now, if you would
Speaker 1: like to volunteer but not see or get near other
Speaker 1: human beings understood, Meals on Wheels said it could also
Speaker 1: use people willing to write cards or create gift boxes
Speaker 1: to show seniors currently in isolation that there are people
Speaker 1: who care. Oh, you can do that, just contact Meals
Speaker 1: on Wheels and patron Misha Kovalchuk says that if you're
Speaker 1: an ologist who wants to volunteer from AFAR ologists, they
Speaker 1: say share your expertise with some kiddos via video conference.
Speaker 1: Krista Avanpado, a patron, said, I'm chatting with a fourth
Speaker 1: grade class about biomimicry work. And also the nonprofit Skype
Speaker 1: of Scientist run by your favorite squid expert, toothologist Sarah
Speaker 1: McNulty is amazing at connecting brainiacs with kiddos. So look
Speaker 1: into Skype of Scientists too. Now consider your skills. What
Speaker 1: have you to offer others well? Patron Helen Babawash has
Speaker 1: a lot and says I volunteered to file income tax
Speaker 1: returns for low income Indigenous families. Although our government extended
Speaker 1: the tax filing deadline, Helen says, low income families still
Speaker 1: need to file to ensure that they continue receiving the
Speaker 1: most benefits they can get. So I'll file their tax
Speaker 1: return electronically and email them PDF copy of their text return.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Han pabawash that rules. Let's talk animals. Patron
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Cossi is doing whatever their dog wants to do.
Speaker 1: I second that I'm holding my dog right now as
Speaker 1: I record these assites. Ashley Curtin and Rob Hoover say
Speaker 1: that shelters are closing down and volunteers can't be there,
Speaker 1: So consider maybe fostering a pet for a while. Maybe
Speaker 1: you'll adopt it, maybe you won't, but froster it, just
Speaker 1: do it. Joni Waldrip says, if you know someone who's
Speaker 1: in a more precarious financial position than you are, who
Speaker 1: also has pets, consider maybe buying them some pet food
Speaker 1: or litter or whatever supplies they might need. What a
Speaker 1: treat help mister whiskers? Now, how can we make sure
Speaker 1: that the humans who take care of humans are taken
Speaker 1: care of?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 1: Thank your healthcare workers? Ariella two three says that their
Speaker 1: mom is a nurse near Seattle Oof and the nurses
Speaker 1: got a note recently written to them from a patient
Speaker 1: that was so heartfelt that her mom teared up. She said,
Speaker 1: it felt so good to be seen, so something so
Speaker 1: simple help them all keep going. So consider writing a
Speaker 1: note to your health care provider or fire department or
Speaker 1: favorite small business, Ariela says, and give them a I
Speaker 1: see you, You've got this. Megan Guthrie and Sephira echoed this,
Speaker 1: and Spira added, also, please remember that, in addition to
Speaker 1: doctors and nurses, healthcare is also leaning heavily on the
Speaker 1: less visible people who are equally important, like the dietary
Speaker 1: staff who feed our patients and the maintenance and housekeeping
Speaker 1: staff who are working around the clock to keep up
Speaker 1: with the requirements to keep everyone as safe as possible.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. Saphira also added, wash your hands
Speaker 1: another great point. So yes, take care of others and
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. Let's talk self care. I was like, patrons,
Speaker 1: what are we doing for self care? Let's talk about it,
Speaker 1: and patron Ester Cohen says, I think self care truly
Speaker 1: varies person to person. For some folks, it's sitting and
Speaker 1: watching Netflix all day. For some folks, it's structure and scheduling.
Speaker 1: For me, Esther says, setting a schedule with achievable tasks
Speaker 1: each day and walking walking, walking for hours on end
Speaker 1: has been soothing. Kelly King has been rearranging furniture and
Speaker 1: has plans to paint the living room, and yesterday, while
Speaker 1: walking the dog, they made a short video tour and
Speaker 1: shared it to a mental health group they belong to.
Speaker 1: Since they say, I know many people are unable to
Speaker 1: leave their homes a virtual walk if you will. Now
Speaker 1: in terms of hitting the pavement, other patrons are like
Speaker 1: heck ya. Mike Monikowski says, I've taken a page from
Speaker 1: how incarcerated people deal with being confined by working out
Speaker 1: at home, and I found that exercise actually does help
Speaker 1: with depression. It gives you something to do when you'd
Speaker 1: normally be doing something else, even without equipment. There are
Speaker 1: thousands of exercise plans and video lessons available online for
Speaker 1: every level of experience and preference, ranging from calming yoga
Speaker 1: to calisthenics screamed at you by a drill sergeant and
Speaker 1: side note, may I suggest you're at Sleeper's Quarantine klistenics.
Speaker 1: Every day at noon Pacific time, my wonderful man friend
Speaker 1: is leading a workout on Instagram Live. No equipment needed,
Speaker 1: and he is usually in short shorts, so if you
Speaker 1: tune in, you're going to get a good workout. You'll
Speaker 1: also see me in the background or me leaving saucy
Speaker 1: embarrassing comments as I work out in another room. So
Speaker 1: Jarrett underscore sleeper on Instagram Quarantine calisthenics every day Pacific
Speaker 1: at noon. On Saint Patrick's Day, he wore one of
Speaker 1: my green T shirts as a half shirt and then
Speaker 1: he gave orders at a leprechawn voice, get into it.
Speaker 1: It's a trying time. I love it now for a
Speaker 1: more mellow experience, Artie Lang says that they just get
Speaker 1: an early cup of coffee and go for a morning
Speaker 1: walk while no one's outside, and Kelly King says, I've
Speaker 1: been making sure to do yoga or ti chi daily
Speaker 1: for my mental health. Heather Densmore says that their yoga
Speaker 1: class moved to the beach so then they can stay
Speaker 1: at least six feet away from each other. That sounds
Speaker 1: amazing now if you're not near a beach, but you're
Speaker 1: near a screen, everyone says online parties have just been
Speaker 1: getting their extra version Itch scratched. Stephanie Birherdes, Sarah Michelle,
Speaker 1: Julie Barrt, Julie Brown, Angelus Cartusio, Artie Lang all say
Speaker 1: their video chatting the Google Chrome extension Netflix party, that's
Speaker 1: where all of your friends watch a Netflix thing at
Speaker 1: the same time and can comment on it. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like you're in a movie theater, only you're allowed
Speaker 1: to talk and if you throw popcorn you have to
Speaker 1: clean it up. There's also the Amazon Chime portal, or
Speaker 1: there's Zoom. You can always go old school and FaceTime.
Speaker 1: I've been doing that. What if you need to disconnect
Speaker 1: no screens, you say, write a letter, says em and
Speaker 1: Liz Ropekey says that they have been doing this too,
Speaker 1: because it's always nice to just get a letter in
Speaker 1: the mail, and this way you don't have to be
Speaker 1: on your phone to communicate if you don't want to be.
Speaker 1: Liz also adds anyone interested in an Ologi's pen pell group.
Speaker 1: If you're on the Facebook group the ologies podcast Facebook group,
Speaker 1: there is an address swap there. Y'all can write each
Speaker 1: other letters if you like. I love that idea. I
Speaker 1: think it's cute as hell. Now, Suzanne ca chimed in
Speaker 1: to say, I hope this is not too late. SUZANNEK No,
Speaker 1: it's not. Along the lines of self care, Suzanne says,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to a podcast called Mindful fifteen apps
Speaker 1: or podcasts that are guided to help with relaxing your
Speaker 1: body and ads, don't forget the beauty around you. That's
Speaker 1: a great idea of Suzanne k. Maybe write a poem
Speaker 1: about it where you could journal. Mariah Mchager says, I've
Speaker 1: been journaling to both help me sort out my feelings,
Speaker 1: but also in the aftertimes. First hand accounts will be
Speaker 1: helpful for future generations to understand the situation. Mariah says,
Speaker 1: whether you donate the journal to an archive in twenty
Speaker 1: years or just have something around to refresh your memory
Speaker 1: to tell stories to young ones, it's an important part
Speaker 1: of the historical record. Wow, what a time we're living in.
Speaker 1: Will we want to remember it? Probably once some time passes.
Speaker 1: Concetta Gibson says, I started journaling specifically to document what's
Speaker 1: going on locally and to sort through my thoughts. But
Speaker 1: it's done. Wonders for helping me keep track of what date,
Speaker 1: even it is. Other creative outlets, Conchetta says, helping too,
Speaker 1: like painting and Minecraft. You know what, Maybe it's Minecraft,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's getting lost. In comedies, Scott Sheldon says, it's
Speaker 1: okay to laugh. It's okay to laugh even at our
Speaker 1: current situation. Being able to uncontrollably. Cackle is a great
Speaker 1: medicine to boost your morale immune system. You know what
Speaker 1: else is sparkly lights. Ben mcnell says, there's a thing
Speaker 1: people are doing in my hometown in Canada putting up
Speaker 1: Christmas lights again so families can drive around without contact
Speaker 1: and enjoy family time. So as long as everyone's feeling
Speaker 1: lonely and no one will see you for several weeks,
Speaker 1: there's never been a better time to cut banks and
Speaker 1: text your crush. Grow out of mustache or your pit
Speaker 1: hair for fun, or shave the back of your head.
Speaker 1: Shave the front of your head will Pleawa says, I
Speaker 1: shaved off my beard so I can get fit tested
Speaker 1: for an N ninety five mask. I was an ICU
Speaker 1: nurse a few years back, so I'm going to be
Speaker 1: ready to get back in the trenches. It is a
Speaker 1: war and we'll win it by working together. And I
Speaker 1: salute you all. I also message with my good friend
Speaker 1: Colleen Flanagan. I've known we were twelve, and she's a
Speaker 1: nurse in northern California. She's currently home on sick leave
Speaker 1: with what she calls a beast of a lung infection,
Speaker 1: a fever and fatigue. She says it's worse than when
Speaker 1: she got this swine flu and pneumonia. So she's awaiting
Speaker 1: her COVID nineteen test results, but she's pretty sure she's
Speaker 1: got it. And I asked what people could do, and
Speaker 1: she sent me a link to a National Nurse's United
Speaker 1: petition urging Congress to help nurses get the protection they need.
Speaker 1: But Colleen also sent me this message, which was so
Speaker 1: beautiful and chilling. She said a little perspective for those
Speaker 1: who aren't sick and don't have to risk their lives
Speaker 1: and health at their job. Self care and societal care advice.
Speaker 1: If you're not sick, feel blessed for your wellness. Don't
Speaker 1: obsess or worry about if you become sick. Don't obsess
Speaker 1: about getting a test. If you're not sick. If you're
Speaker 1: sick of being indoors, feel blessed you're indoors and not homeless.
Speaker 1: If you're blessed enough to have a deck patio window,
Speaker 1: enjoy your private fresh air. If you're blas enough to
Speaker 1: be well, enjoy the extra time to do things you
Speaker 1: love and communicate with people you love. If you've ever
Speaker 1: wanted to try yoga, now is a good time, good
Speaker 1: for the body, mind, soul, and community. Thinking beyond ourselves
Speaker 1: is the key to getting through this in many ways.
Speaker 1: And what does an ologist want non ologists to do?
Speaker 1: Is there anything else any if someone is not a
Speaker 1: scientist and they can't run these tests, is there any
Speaker 1: other way that they can help or donate, or any
Speaker 1: kind of words of wisdom for people who are like
Speaker 1: I want to do something.
Speaker 2: Honestly, the best thing people can do is stay at home. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we really need to be vigilant with our social distancing.
Speaker 2: I know it's hard. I know it's terrible. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've been wearing the same sweatpants for three days. I
Speaker 2: have been showering, so there's that. But I know how
Speaker 2: difficult it is to be cooped up at home in
Speaker 2: this little dark room, just plug in away, and it
Speaker 2: feels awful. And you know, we're in it for much
Speaker 2: longer than three days, and we have the added anxiety
Speaker 2: of the fact that there's something going around killing people,
Speaker 2: potentially people you know, potentially people in your family. So
Speaker 2: I know it's tough, but the best thing you can
Speaker 2: do is just stay away from other people as much
Speaker 2: as you can. Because so many cases are asymptomatic. I
Speaker 2: think the estimate from China was between eighty and eighty
Speaker 2: five percent of the cases where asymptomatic. This is not
Speaker 2: like other viruses. This is something that you can be
Speaker 2: infected for two whole weeks and have no idea, but
Speaker 2: that whole time you can be spreading it to other people.
Speaker 2: We have never seen anything like this in the United States.
Speaker 2: It's my hope we never see anything like it again.
Speaker 2: So yeah, my advice that people was just stay home
Speaker 2: and you know wat you watch your show on Netflix.
Speaker 2: One hundred hundred Cubans just came out the other day.
Speaker 2: I just saw that. Congratulations all things.
Speaker 1: Ah, yes, me wearing a lab coat. I don't deserve
Speaker 1: to be in asking strangers on camera about their toilet habits.
Speaker 1: I'm the real hero here. Are people excited to receive
Speaker 1: word of my Nobel Peace Prize one morning between my
Speaker 1: breakfast margarita and my celebratory serve session. But really, other
Speaker 1: people can make a difference. You can make a difference.
Speaker 2: We're really hoping that this turns into something. It really
Speaker 2: would be a shame if we we did this level
Speaker 2: of organization and weren't actually able to turn into action.
Speaker 2: And so that's where I really need our nation's leaders,
Speaker 2: our local leaders to help out with at this at
Speaker 2: this point, and is.
Speaker 1: There any flimflam, any myth about testing that you'd like
Speaker 1: to debunk.
Speaker 2: I mean, there is something being spread by our federal
Speaker 2: leaders saying that testing is ongoing and there's no setbacks.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely false. We are not anywhere near the testing
Speaker 2: levels that we should be. So you know, there are
Speaker 2: some silver linings to this. There are already countries that
Speaker 2: have done a fairly good job of keeping this under
Speaker 2: control and reducing the spread. So you know, it's not
Speaker 2: all doom and gloom. We can get through this, But
Speaker 2: we really really need to start behaving differently. We all
Speaker 2: need to stay inside. You need to be constantly washing
Speaker 2: our hands. Whenever you go outside and come back. Keep
Speaker 2: your distance from people six feet at least. If you
Speaker 2: do have to go in public, try to keep that distance.
Speaker 2: I learned how to wash my hands as a result
Speaker 2: of this outbreak. I didn't know that my whole life.
Speaker 2: I've been doing it incorrectly, and now I know, like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, you should probably clean it with your fingernails
Speaker 2: by like scrape from them against your palm. And all those.
Speaker 1: Other thumbs who knew the thumbs you got to milk
Speaker 1: your thumbs?
Speaker 2: I exactly, I never knew that. I never knew I
Speaker 2: was supposed to be milking my thumbs this whole time.
Speaker 1: Milk your thumbs, milk em, milk them. And when you do,
Speaker 1: think of me standing right next to you, whispering milk
Speaker 1: those thumbs. Who needs a twenty second song?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Actually, speaking of a gritty little diddy, have you seen
Speaker 1: in all of this? Have you seen the John Lejoy?
Speaker 1: Thank God for the mother forirds wrap? No, Oh, I
Speaker 1: will send.
Speaker 2: It to you. I am a big fan of his
Speaker 2: from his time on the lead Lee. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: listen to some of his albums back then.
Speaker 1: Oh, you will love his new one. What are we
Speaker 1: talking about? You?
Speaker 2: God, it's right now.
Speaker 3: Thank God.
Speaker 1: I'm not a very smart person.
Speaker 2: I don't know much, especially viruses.
Speaker 1: Look it up, you'll find it and you'll say, wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is precious. Thank you so much, doctor, I really
Speaker 1: really appreciate your talking to me.
Speaker 2: No problem at all, Thanks for thanks for the time.
Speaker 1: So ask mother smart people's motherfucking stupid questions and let's
Speaker 1: get through this together. Scientists, the tiny url to the
Speaker 1: Google form is in the show notes. Please hop in it.
Speaker 1: If you can help at all, please do that. You
Speaker 1: can follow doctor Wells at MFLS five on Twitter. We
Speaker 1: are at Ologies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at ali
Speaker 1: Ward with one l on both, and I'll have a
Speaker 1: new episode on Tuesday. I'm just cranking these mothers out
Speaker 1: and that one will have no mention of COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: But if you are thirsty for more info on this pandemic,
Speaker 1: my virology episode with virologist doctor Shannon Bennett explains the
Speaker 1: basics of the disease and how it spreads, and she
Speaker 1: has a top notch backstory. Who really one of the
Speaker 1: best I've ever heard now. That transcript is also live
Speaker 1: on my website at aliwar dot com in the ologies
Speaker 1: extra page. Thank you Emily White and all the transcribers
Speaker 1: for getting that turned around. I love you so much. Also,
Speaker 1: my friends at this podcast will kill you. The Doctor's
Speaker 1: Aaron from the epidemiology episode, released a coronavirus episode and
Speaker 1: they're doing a shockingly amazing six pack of minisodes dropping
Speaker 1: on Monday, addressing all kinds of SARS COVID two issues.
Speaker 1: They are wonderful and they are the originators of the Quarantini,
Speaker 1: so you can check that out. Thank you Aaron Talbert
Speaker 1: for admitting the ologies Facebook group. There's a thread there
Speaker 1: where people are sharing links to people are causes who
Speaker 1: need help. Thank you Shannon Felts and Bonnie Dutch, who
Speaker 1: hosts the comedy podcast You Are That for managing merch
Speaker 1: at oligismerch dot com. Thank you Jared Sleeper of mind
Speaker 1: Jam Media and the mental health podcast Make Good Bad
Speaker 1: Brain for giving your whole day over to the production
Speaker 1: of this episode and standing right next to me as
Speaker 1: I'm recording these asides. And as always, thank you to
Speaker 1: the wonderful Stephen Ray Morris of the Dino podcast see
Speaker 1: Jurassic Right and the Kitty theme percast for scooting this
Speaker 1: to the top of the queue. He's staying up late
Speaker 1: tonight to upload it and to master it last minute
Speaker 1: for us and Nick Thorburn wrote and composed the theme music,
Speaker 1: and he's in a great band called Islands in case
Speaker 1: you need some new tunes to listen to in Isolation.
Speaker 1: In each episode I tell you a secret, and this
Speaker 1: week the secret is that I like to an embarrassing
Speaker 1: degree I can't stop listening to the new Grimes album
Speaker 1: mis Anthropoiscene. It's so good, so many good jams, such
Speaker 1: good just listening and driving around and walking around music.
Speaker 1: So listen to it. Maybe tweeted her boyfriend to start
Speaker 1: making some ventilators. I hear he's kind of a nerd.
Speaker 1: Her heard he's a little bit of a tinkerer. So
Speaker 1: get in the garage. Egghead's figure this out. Okay, Tuesday
Speaker 1: coming up, just a couple of days, new episode. I'll
Speaker 1: be swearing like usual, So stay inside. Let's kick this
Speaker 1: covid in the rump together apart by bye very proud
Speaker 1: of pacodermatology, abiology, hYP doo, zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, paratology, anthology, seriology, ethology.
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