Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Today on The James Altucher Show. Our species has never been united globally against one threat. And it's incredible to see from my perspective, we've got scientists who used to fight with each other, or who never talk to each other, coming together on panels, on phone calls, to try and solve this. And that's why I'm optimistic that even though this is gonna be bad over the next, say, 6 months, we're gonna have these scientific breakthroughs, and hopefully never let a pandemic like this happen again. For anyone who's stressed out, about this, it's understandable. I wanna go back to what I said earlier, James, is that humanity has never, in its history of going back, you know, 500000 years or more, been united against one problem. And when we do that, we solve everything. So we can conquer this. We just need time, and that's why we need to spread the rate of infection out until we can come up with more of these treatments and eventually a cure. And, James, I wanna thank you while we're on, talk about social media. I'm following you all the time, and I think you and your guests are an invaluable resource. Thanks. Keep doing what you're doing. Oh, thanks. Thanks, David. I really appreciate it. I ever since this started, I've been kind of being in touch with immunologists and doctors and economists on the economic side and just trying to look at both sides of the issue to counter the media hysteria. Because even if there is a worst case scenario, you you kinda don't wanna have a hysterical scenario is my point of view. Because I'm always afraid of hysterical eventually turning into historical, and I don't want that to happen. Well, exactly. Well, there's no reason to panic, as long as we just do what we're all being told to do. It's one of those times where, obeying orders is a good thing for everybody. So I hope that everyone listening, and if you have friends, family who are not, staying home, or if they can, please, please encourage them to do so. It is out there. It's on surfaces. It's in public places. It's on elevator buttons. It's not the end of the world, yet. I don't think that that's gonna be the case, and it will have an end. But the question is, how long are we gonna have this around? And I think that it could be around for longer than people think. So, David, what I was saying was when you showed when you showed us where you're staying, you're obviously staying in a really, you know, beautiful nature area. You're right by the ocean. I feel like with New York City, I my wife and I were debating leaving New York City and, because New York City is, like, almost like ground 0 for the anxiety of this whole situation. Like, you feel it minute by minute. And, also, I think when you when you're out there in nature, you're a little disconnected in a good way from kind of the nonstop news and, stresses of of being in an urban area. Yeah. For sure. That's what we like. Plus, we've got 3 kids t who are teenagers, so we now need the space between us. You can kick them out of the house, and they can go for a walk. But, yeah, it's it's the hot zone right now in New York. Hope you guys are gonna be okay. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're we're we're totally quarantining. But let me ask you, and, you know, we don't have to include this in the podcast, but you mentioned your daughter's having a music lesson. Do you feel, that goes counter to the social distancing recommendation? Oh, it's done via the Internet. It's a Zoom. Oh, cool. Yeah. Everything is gonna start to I feel like the entire after this all settles down, the entire world you know, there's always gonna be a new normal. Like, there was a new normal after 911. There was a new normal after the financial crisis. There's gonna be a new normal after this, and I think it's gonna involve a lot more Zoom, a lot less travel, probably and sadly a lot less, storefronts, but, you know, it'll be interesting to see. I mean, it's hard to it's just speculation now, so it's and and it's kind of in the future a little bit, but it'll be interesting to see. But but I'm seeing a change already, and I think it's gonna have lasting effects, like you say, that my kids are having, gym lessons, bass guitar, language. They're doing this all on computers. And it's the world that I think they were dreaming of, actually, and we we're just catching up with them. Yeah. That's funny. Like, they like staying in their rooms and just, do you think you know and, obviously so let me just say I have, doctor David Sinclair on here. David was on the podcast a few months ago for his really excellent book. And, David, I I can't stop recommending this book to people. Lifespan, it's it's the best book I've read on the science of aging and your your view that aging should be treated as not an inevitability, but as an illness that could be treated. And you really have met you you kind of discuss the cutting edge of treatment and aging, plus very specific recommendations of what we can do right now to to help with our own issues with aging. And and so, again, thank you for coming on the podcast that time, and thanks for coming back to talk about immunity and the coronavirus. And I guess I just wanna ask, first off, how are things going for you? Oh, we're we're totally fine. We have hold up here up in Cape Cod with the family. The only downside is that that I have 3 we have 3 teenage kids. So it's one of the reasons for being here on Cape Cod is to give us all a bit of space. But we're fine, but my heart goes out, and I'm sure we're all thinking of the, people on the front lines here because it's it's not good. And, but we, you know, we try to do what we can here from our homes as we, practice this new new world of social distancing. Yeah. And let's so I wanna discuss, you know, what you're specifically doing for to to boost your own immunity and what you're recommending. But when you I'm also just curious in general. What's your what's your view of the state of the world? And any positives, of course, would be helpful, but if there's none, that's that's real that that, you know, facts are facts. So where where where when you say things are are are not good, just what's your what's your view of where things are at right now? Well, so let me just start with what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. So I'm not I'm not an MD, so nothing I'm gonna say today is medical advice. That said, I have a PhD in microbiology, molecular genetics. I have a company that's that's making, right now, kits to detect viruses, so I have a lot of friends who are experts. And I wrote about this coming pandemic in my book, Lifespan, because I don't just work on aging. I work on, as you know, James, the body's inbuilt defenses against diseases, and that includes infectious diseases. And, so what I what I've been doing just for the past, few weeks and even more intensely since my lab was forced to, essentially shutter probably for the next few months, if not longer, at Harvard Medical School, is to, use my skills. My skills are that I have a massive network of scientists and doctors that I get information from. I can read scientific papers very quickly and and figure out what's true and what's not and try and synthesize all of those. So that's what I've been doing as my contribution to this. So what have I learned? Well, there's good and bad And and, David, sorry, just to just to interrupt. I would say that, you know, a again, I would stress that you did write about pandemics in lifespan. And, also, part of antiaging is boosting an immune system for these types of events and being and the body being able to withstand, this type of of, you know, event happening to it, like a virus like this. So I would say they're not that you're gonna write prescriptions, but that you're very familiar with the immune system and and how important it is for, you know, decreasing the effects of aging? I'm certainly qualified that way. I I gather a lot of information from the molecular level all the way to economics. That's how wide I am in, I guess, you know, interest, and and collation of of information. But, yeah, you're you're right that the the parts that that I see I see come together are that the age of the individual, not just the birthday candles, but the biological age of an individual is far more important. And what we've figured out in my field and in my lab is how to measure biological age. And we can do that pretty readily. I could take your blood, James, and tell you pretty accurately within a few percent error how old you are biologically, how how healthy you are essentially, and when you're gonna die. What's the difference between biological age and physical age? And we discussed this on the prior podcast, but I just wanna repeat it here. Alright. Well, because we had nothing else, we used to just count number of times the Earth had gone around the sun. It's not very accurate measure of your health. Right? So what we now do is we can measure what's called the DNA methylation clock. It's just a fancy word for measuring chemicals that change, as they're added and and subtracted off our genome, our DNA molecules. And by reading that code, we can plot that on a graph and say, if I if I took your blood, James, I might say, wow. You're, 5 years younger than the average human that I measure at your age or or or vice versa. And what we typically see is that animals and humans that have led a an unhealthy lifestyle, obesity, smoking, these kind of things, will put you above the line, meaning that you're you have more DNA methylation age than an average person, who has the same birthday. And there and there does seem to be I mean, not I there there it's not just seem to be. It's very it's very clear and very obvious that this virus is negatively skewing towards the older population, meaning the older pop I don't know if more of the elderly are getting it versus the younger, but, if the elderly get it, it seems the the mortality rate is higher than if you get it when you're younger. Oh, for sure. For sure. And and one of the the big changes as we get older, is our ability to deal with with major insults to the body, and that includes infections. And and what we biologists are trying to do right now is to figure out exactly what it is that makes the elderly more susceptible. Now, you know, obviously, if you ask a ask a doctor, you'll they'll just say, well, the patients are more frail, and they succumb earlier. But that doesn't explain exactly why. Why does a diabetic more likely succumb to COVID 19? We don't know that. And I've been pouring through data, and I've been talking about this on social media, that there are some clues actually to what happens during aging that makes us more susceptible. I'll get into that, James, but I haven't answered your main question, which was what's is there any good news? And there is some good news. The good news is that as far as I can tell in human history, and I'd be curious, James, if you know of any exception, our species has never been united globally against one threat. And it's incredible to see from my perspective. We've got scientists who used to fight with each other, or who never talk to each other, coming together on panels, on phone calls to try and solve this. And I that's why I'm optimistic that even though this is gonna be bad over the next, say, 6 months, we're gonna have these scientific breakthroughs and hopefully never let a pandemic like this happen again. Yeah. It's very interesting, that you bring this up because, on the one hand, it it doesn't it doesn't seem to help us moment by moment right now. I mean, for everybody who's suffering, for everyone who's losing a job, for everyone who's sick, it's not clear that society coming together is is this net positive, but I think in the future, it will be seen that way. Just like 911, I think, at least for a a while, seemed to have this community effect at least in the US. It brought both sides of the part of both parties together, and and, you know, a lot of countries, issued support for us. I think the financial crisis, while it did affect the globe, it wasn't the same sort of thing. It was just so focused around money and and fear. But this is a real, very real world catastrophe that that is in one way or the other affecting every single person on the planet. I mean, every country essentially has cases now of this. And so, yeah, I've never seen anything like this. I do think there's dangers of an us versus 2 possible us versus thems out of this, which is, you know, people you know, there could be people pointing the finger at China and saying, they did this to me. I lost my job because they did this. So I'm I'm a little nervous about that, and I also see a a little bit of and this is kind of a a continuing of the discussion that was happening in the election, but there's a little bit of rich versus poor. You know, I see that kind of argument happening, and I hope that doesn't continue. But but in general, I I do think you're right because now you see, you know, people in 19 different countries are working on vaccines and cures. You have people all over the you know, you have you have leaders of every country talking to each other. I mean, even today, there was news that Trump offered help to, the leader of North Korea, and, you know, who knows how many of these discussions are for PR purposes and how much is real, but that does seem to be good news. Yeah. Well, what I've been amazed by is the the generosity of the Chinese scientists. We've got a new world where nations are sharing their science very rapidly within weeks, if not days. And China's been extremely generous with a lot of their data. They're very transparent, which was not a given that this would be true. And, of course, they're they're sharing as much equipment as they can. A lot of our test kits that we have in the US, and equipment on the way is coming from China. So anyone who is listening or knows somebody who's got some xenophobia, remind them that the Chinese couldn't be more helpful right now. And I've been sharing a a really massive doc document that they put together over there from their hospitals about their experience and what they've learned that we've that they didn't have to share with us, but they are sharing freely. David, let me ask you about this because and we sort of veered into this. But when I ever when whenever I mentioned data from China, an an inevitable response is, oh, why are you believing the data from China? And so so for instance, right now, there's something like 32 100 or 33100 reported deaths from China. There's also obviously, there was a day a a a day or 2 ago where there were no new reported cases in, Wuhan. And everyone says, oh, don't believe the data from China. And and the the spectrum of, you know, possible theories that people have or conspiracy theories is that there's up to 8,000,000 deaths in China from coronavirus. And so I'll I'll ask you the way people are asking me. What what data do you feel confident in and and why? And, you know, there's this rumor that, you know, 8,000,000 cell phones are are no longer active on the Chinese phone network, and that's how they're coming up with a you know, some people are coming up with 8,000,000 possible deaths. I don't wanna spread false news or conspiracy theories, but I'm constantly being asked this because I tend to believe the data in China simply because at this point, the US is there. Like, we're talking to them. You know, Apple has reopened their stores. I I doubt these things would be happening if there's 8,000,000 deaths. Exactly. I I think there's a lot of rumors going around. It makes it worse that we're all at home. A lot of us are are at home, under stress, and just hammering away at our computers. I don't believe those stories at all. I think that mostly what what we should be doing is listening to experts, listening to scientists. And those are these are times when we shouldn't be focusing on hearsay. So, James, I don't think you should put a lot of stock in in those kind of things. It's similar to how the rumor went around that this virus was made by Wuhan, which is complete BS. You know, I'm a geneticist. I can read DNA. I can read RNA, which is the the genetic material of the of the virus. This is a naturally occurring sublife form. This is not man made. It would have fingerprints all over it, and I don't see any. Yeah. No. I I agree with you, and, I think, I'm I'm gonna look for the link that shows that a lot of test kits are coming from China, and I'm I'm interested in that document that you're sharing from from China because that's that's good, good examples of why we should start believing believing China. And so so okay. So, a, I wanna talk about immunity, and then, b, I wanna talk about data. But, like, what are you personally doing? So you're doing social distancing by going you left Boston, I guess, and you're you're you're, in a more secluded area. What what are you doing in terms of, either food or supplements or medicines and things like that? Mhmm. Well, first of all, I wanna say, because if if you're a doctor, you might roll your eyes, that that there's nothing I know of that you can eat or you can take as a supplement that's gonna prevent you getting COVID 19. That said, we wanna be in the best physical shape we can be when any threat to our survival comes along. And this is this is a severe threat, especially to those of us who are over 50 and increasingly so as you get older. So what am I doing? I'm doing my best to keep myself and my family healthy and get even healthier. So I used to work out once a week because I was mostly on the road and, typing. But now that I've got a bit more spare time because I'm not on the road, I'm working out at least 3 times a week. Working out means going for long, well, lifting weights and also doing a bit of aerobic exercise. High intensity interval training is good. If you're stuck in an apartment or a house that's a little different, of course, here at Cape Cod, I can go for long walks, which is is is very is a blessing. But I think anything that gets your heart rate up and gets your lungs moving, even doing star jumps in your house is gonna help. You want your lungs to be in tip top condition because one way to die from COVID 19 or at least make your life very uncomfortable, is not to have enough lung function. So get get the red blood cells, up in number and, get your blood your circulation going. And, actually, what you can do, even if you, you know, hold your breath a little bit sometimes, that's one thing that nobody else seems to be mentioning, or doing exercise or both, or your body will be tricked into making more blood vessels around the lungs, around your muscles, within your muscles. Is it is that true about holding your breath? Like, if you hold your breath, your your your body makes more red blood cells around the lungs? That's my understanding. It's actually based on some science, which is that, I haven't seen people hold their breath during a workout, but I have seen people, use a tourniquet to lower the amount of blood supply in a muscle. And when you do weights under those conditions, you build stronger muscles and and the muscles have more endurance afterwards. So, you know, to to be fair, good question, James, I I don't know of proof that that's true. I mean, you could try the tourniquet method or look it up on the Internet, but that was what I was thinking may actually help. Okay. And then in terms of, like, for instance, since our podcast on, antiaging, I've been taking, n NMN, Nancy, Mary, Nancy, on on you know, it was mentioned in your book and resveratrol and and, you know, you also you also mentioned metformin. I haven't been taking metformin, but I was curious what you thought of, berberine, as a as a replacement for metformin. Yep. Well, so berberine is is considered, and I use air quotes right now, poor man's, metformin. And and what people mean by that when they say it is that metformin is a prescription medicine, for type 2 diabetics to bring your blood sugar levels down, and what's called HbA1c, which is glycated hemoglobin, a measure of sugar in your bloodstream. Berberine, we've studied it in the lab, so I can speak with some authority on this, at least in mice. It does seem to work very similar to Metformin. It increases the number and activity of mitochondria, and does improve overall metabolic health. We've also I've also looked at clinical studies, which at least there are at least a couple that I've seen that, are done well. And so I do believe that berberine may have, effects. You do need to take high doses. I could look this up, but by memory, I think you have to take about a gram or more for it to actually lower your blood sugar levels if that's your goal. And and and in terms of, like, boosting immune system, NMN, and these other things, is there anything like, does it work for kind of, if not preventative, at least kind of keeps you strong in in the advent you might get well, actually, is it preventative? Things like NMN and boosting the immune system with these, drugs or supplements? Well, so we don't know yet. There's been very little work done, actually, on these longevity pathways that we work on and immunity. Part of the reason that it's difficult, in defense of my field and my lab is we typically work with mice, and those mice are are held in germ free environments. But what can I say? I can say that resveratrol is inhibitory of many different viruses, including SARS and MERS. That's in the dish. Hasn't been tested in people yet. And quercetin, which is a related molecule to resveratrol, also seems to inhibit, relatives of of the, COVID 2 virus. What what's quercetin? Is that, like, is that a drug, or how do you spell that? Quercetin, quercetin. You find it in apples and and onions, but in such small amounts, you you typically would have to take it as a supplement if it's gonna have any physiological effect. But it's a if you if you look at its structure, which is, you know, those ball and stick structures, it look it overlays with resveratrol. And we showed in 2003 that quercetin or quercetin and resveratrol both activate the SIRT 1 defensive enzyme. SIRT 1 is one of these longevity genes that you can read about in my book. These enzymes, there are 7 in the body, and they respond to fasting and exercise, and they make the body more robust. It it basically, these are the defense forces of the body. Now whether or not it helps to take NMN and resveratrol or quercetin for immunity, we we literally don't know, so I'm not gonna encourage it. I don't think there's any major harm in taking it, though I will give one caveat, James, because I'm a scientist, and it's important everyone has information to decide on their own. A study of resveratrol in mice showed that it upregulated the ACE 2 receptor. Why is that important? Because the ACE 2 protein, actually, it's an enzyme, is in the lungs, in the heart, and that is how the virus, COVID, coronavirus number 2, gains entry into cells. So that was in mice. We're not mice, of course. But just in an abundance of caution, if you're being exposed on the front lines to people who have infection, if it was me, I probably wouldn't be taking resveratrol just to be sure. So so Okay. Oh, well, so what are what are you personally taking? Well, I'm still on my daily regimen, which is on page 304 of lifespan. It's, a gram of resveratrol with, probiotic yogurt that I get from a company called Bravo. No connection to me. Mhmm. And then, then I I take NMN, typically 750 milligrams or a gram, depending on how tired I feel and how much boost I need. I get a caffeine like effect from it. I'm doing the the usual stuff, which is keeping up my vitamin d, which is very important for lung function. And Rhonda Patrick, who's a a former aging researcher now, I guess, a a health care pundit slash expert, talks about this. So check her out. And is is vitamin d, now obviously, you get it from being in the sun, but, do supplements work in terms of getting vitamin d? Like, if if someone takes supplements for a week, will and their blood is tested, will they have more vitamin d in them? I can tell you from personal experience, absolutely, yes. It's the way I keep my vitamin d levels in what is called the optimal range. And how much vitamin d do you take? I'd have to check the bottle. I think it is 2,000 units a day. The the way I know this, James, is that and this this is a a disclosure I need to make. I'm scientific adviser chief scientific adviser of a company called InsideTracker, and I've made a small investment in that company about 12, 13 years ago. And they do blood testing, and so I've been on the front lines of this company. And 13 years ago, it was crazy. It was considered crazy by many to have blood tests to optimize your body. Now it's considered, especially by athletes, as something you you would do normally. And I've been doing this on myself for about 11, 12 years. So I've got a whole range of over 30 different blood biomarkers, one of which is vitamin d. And so whenever my vitamin d levels were dropping low, and they do typically in winter for most people, I was able to bring that back up. But my point is it's kind of a segue into saying, unless you measure yourself, you don't know what's working or hurting you. And often when people say, well, David, you're taking all these things. How do you know it's working? It could just be placebo. True. But unlike most people, I'm monitoring myself, and I can see things change in my blood, and blood doesn't lie. Well, so this is interesting. This relates to what we were talking about earlier about biological age versus physical age. Do you think if we were to like, right now, everybody's mapping, the mortality rate onto different age groups. So, okay, ages 0 to 19 look like this, 20 to 35 look like this, and so on. And and and, again, we see, in the elderly, the mortality rate is much higher. Do you think if we were to do the same kind of correlation on biological age, it would even be a stronger correlation towards people who have higher biological age have a higher mortality rate? Yeah. That's that's actually the case. And so, like, so, like, someone who's 40 who might have a biological age of, like, 65 because of underlying conditions or whatever or or lack of vitamin d or lack of vitamin c or whatever it is you're measuring, you know, it might clean more even more cleanly fit this theory. Yeah. That's that's the case. So InsideTracker has their own biological age estimate based on, those blood biomarkers, but even that's not as accurate as these new clocks, the DNA methylation clocks I mentioned earlier. Those are very accurate. They can tell you within a year of when you're gonna die if you don't change your lifestyle. Really? And it's and that's pretty accurate? Like, can you use that it almost seems like you can use that to, figure out when insurance companies are making incorrect incorrect assumptions about lifespans. Well, I I believe that insurance companies already are, working on this and starting to team up with people who measure these clocks. Now, of course, you know, I need to caveat this. It doesn't mean you're gonna die on that date. You could get hit by a bus. You could get unsuspecting cancer. But, you know, it's the point is that it's highly, highly accurate, and this is the best predictor of your longevity. But the reason that I like the clock, even though it could be scary if you get a number that says you're older, is that we've learned that aging the rate of aging in this clock is malleable. And you can do things to actually change that date. And so your your biological age is not your destiny. That's very important. And if you wait too long till you're, in your eighties, it's we think and from studying animals, we think it's too late to largely change that trajectory. The longer you wait, the harder it is. So so okay. So you're doing the NMN. You're doing the resveratrol, quercetin, probiotic yogurt, vitamin d. What else? Yeah. The exercise. I'm also eating healthy as much as I can. The hard part that we all face now is that we've got this pantry. Probably most of us have a lot of, either frozen food or cans of food. That's not as healthy, of course. So if you have access to fresh food, please have it. Please eat it. We are eating as much fresh food as we can. The reason is that the molecules in fresh food, of course, there's vitamins and minerals. But the the other thing that fresh food has is that it has what are called xenoharmatic molecules, which are molecules that turn on your body's own defenses. Those sirtuin enzymes that I was describing, they're turned on by molecules that plants make when those plants are stressed. So, of course, I think everyone would say eat fresh and healthy as you much as you can, especially when you could be under threat from an infection like the one that's, ravaging the cities. And and, in terms of you know, there's there's a lot of theories, and and it seems to be this is a big unknown, but a lot of the virus seems to have flourished in climates, you know, with with weather similar to what the US is going through right now, particularly the northern US, similar to the temperatures that were in Wuhan a few months ago, similar to temperatures that are in northern Italy right now. What do you think about this in terms of preventing you know, trying to get out of a climate that is exactly like these climates where the virus flourished? Yeah. Sure. The so I was reading a lot about this recently, and now it's it's a huge debate. Some people believe the temperature changes things. Some people don't. And if you look at Australia, where they have warmer temperatures than we do right now, they're in their spring. No. They're they're going into fall. Sorry. They are still experiencing an exponential growth in in cases. So, clearly, it's not a cure. It's not gonna mean that the virus will go away as we enter into summer. That said, there was a a pretty good Chinese study that looked at the correlation between temperature and humidity. Now we know from studies in animals and epidemiology that temperature and humidity make a big difference in the spread of the flu. Right? So the hotter it is and the more humid it is, the better it is for us. And one of the reasons for high humidity, is actually that it's it seems to help your lungs, form that protective barrier. So it may be better actually to be in Florida than up here in, New England or in New York. That said, that study that I mentioned from China said that it only brings the infectious rate down relatively slightly. So I think, all in all, I think it's better to, wherever you are, just practice these, social distancing measures. That's gonna be 99% of your protection. And, you know, here here's the question I have about so so my family's been practicing social distancing, for the past, I guess, almost 2 weeks now when it's it's amazing, by the way, how fast this has changed the entire world. Like, 2 weeks ago today or no yeah. 2 weeks ago today, I was in the Netherlands, giving talks, you know, traveling around. And then and everybody was aware of coronavirus, and peep everybody was talking about it, and people were certainly scared about it or wondering if they should be scared about it. And now here we are 2 weeks later, and, essentially, it's like lockdown everywhere, all over the world right now or else. And and it's become kind of a kind of a scary world. But then when you look at, like, South Korea, which is sort of this you know, South Korea or even Singapore, which is sort are are sort of these case studies in how to avoid widespread death and widespread infection. They didn't have they had social distancing, but the restaurants remained open. You know, business continued to to to happen. And and, obviously, the difference is they had massive testing, so they were able to to more accurately pinpoint who was affected and who could be affected through their tracing. But, is is that the difference? Is it either kind of one extreme or the other, like test everybody or lock everybody down? It seems so. There are other rumors such as genetic differences or the number of smokers, the number of elderly. But by far, the biggest factor is how quickly you shut the communities down and stop people from touching each other or coming in contact with surfaces or breathing on each other. And you're right. The countries that did the best and look at China. They were as bad as Italy is now and got it under control relatively quickly in a matter of, about 6 weeks from this point. It's doable. But the problem has been, in Western countries that we the governments just don't typically, and are hesitant so far to have draconian measures. There are still people in New York, in Boston who are going out as though nothing was any any different. And that's a pretty selfish attitude in my view. We all need to be in this together. We can spread this for 4 days without even having symptoms, and bring it back to families. I mean, if you're responsible for killing your parents or your grandparents, how are you gonna feel? Yeah. No. And I I saw this video from I think it was from LA yesterday where it's just basically a bunch of, like, 20 or 30, you know, young adults were were playing basketball, and they're they're actually in a total lockdown. They're they're the most restrictive lockdown of any state, I think, right now. New York's gonna be there as well. But, it's amazing to me how much people are not paying attention to this. I guess young people feel like, oh, they're not gonna get it, so they don't care. That was the whole spring break Florida thing, but that got shut down. And, you know, what what I wonder is if you if we all just stayed indoors for 4 weeks, wouldn't that automatically end the virus? Because it stays around on surfaces for just a few days, tops, and it stays in the human body for, let's say, 3 or 4 weeks, tops. So if everybody just kind of avoided everybody else for 4 weeks, wouldn't the entire virus be dead? Maybe that's a naive question, but it's not It it's a great question. If we could do that, it would work, For sure. How can we do that? People will be people, and, also, we need to maintain these cities. Buildings don't large buildings don't run by themselves. So it's it's impossible to do what you're suggesting, but in theory, that would work. But in the meantime, if we practice what is called social distancing, it's probably better called physical distancing, what that does is it's slowing down the spread. There there's no way we can wipe this thing off the planet anytime soon without a vaccine. That's the bottom line. This is not going away probably for the next 18 months, even for 2 years potentially. But what we don't wanna do, is to overwhelm the health care system as we've seen in Italy. The reason that Italy most likely has these great numbers of deaths versus number of infections is largely because they've run out of ventilators. And then then you're screwed. Then you've got, you know, 70, 80 year olds who are just lying in beds dying, and you don't know what to do. There's even hospitals in Boston, one of the best places in the world to get sick usually, that have actually had to double up on ventilators. You use them for 1 person usually. Now there's 2 people. And it's only gonna get worse. I mean, I know this sounds like a doomsday thing, but this is a fact that we're already at a point where hospitals are reaching their maximum capacity. The health care workers are getting sick. So the doctors are are gonna have to stay hop stay in intensive care, and nurses are gonna get sick too. That's when things go bad for a country, and that's when things could really escalate out of control. We've got to stop that. We've got to slow that down. What that does, though, is it it means that the period that the virus is that's gonna be around is gonna be for longer. And but hopefully, we can extend it out long enough that we get a vaccine or at least a treatment that prevents these, the high fight high, rate of fat fatality. But please, anyone who's listening, who's young and thinks I'm Superman or Superwoman, if you don't stay indoors, you're still gonna spread it. And it's it's just as bad as you saying, I don't give a damn, as the older generation saying I don't give a damn about climate change. Right. Let's stop to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So so but let me ask you this. Like, everyone always says, oh oh, flattening the curve, which is what happens with social distancing. Flattening the curve makes the, pandemic last longer. Why is that? Because, again, if if if most of us avoid getting it and then we all and then the cases decline to 0 like they have in, you know, Wuhan or South Korea, and then we start going to work, why would we all of a sudden start getting it again? Right. Well, very few people are projecting beyond a few months, but but let me do that at the risk of being wrong. I'm I'm fine with being wrong. We cannot stay under lockdown, or we're gonna be, you know, crushed as as as as a country or or as a planet? Fortunately so China, because they were able to lock everything down for a short time, have slowly gone back to some semblance of a quote, unquote, normal life. But it's it's let's make no mistake. Life is not going back to normal anytime soon, even in China. They're not all just partying anymore. They have to keep practicing social distancing. And I'm seeing images out of Asia, I think some from China, where just to enter a large building, you need to be prescreened for temperature. So it's gonna be like post 9 11 where we have to go back to work just to keep the world running at this country running, But there'll be still a relatively low level of coronavirus going around. The only way these things gets extinguished is either a vaccine comes, which some people say is still 18 months away. I hope it's not. And I think that it may be sooner if the Chinese current trials will succeed. But that that slow burn in our communities could could spike again if we don't continue to be, careful. And, you know, it it could come back to China as well. This isn't going away off the planet until at least a third, possibly 75 percent of us have contracted the disease or have been vaccinated. So so there okay. So there's a lot of different, this could spawn off several different directions of questions. But the first is, what about the idea that maybe the pandemic or or you know, just like SARS sort of just drifted away, sometimes these pandemics just end. So there was, like, the the Asian flu in 1957 had a a 3 month period, and then it just ended. And then there was a second wave about 6 months later, but, you know, isn't there a normal lifespan to these pandemics? There there definitely is. And so SARS and MERS, they killed themselves because they were so, so fatal, and the symptoms were so strong. One of the big problems with this disease is it's got a double whammy. It is fatal, especially to older populations, but, also, it's got a slow burn. So you can be infectious for 4, days or more without being terribly sick. And that's what makes it so dangerous. Now I was optimistic that it may be able to kill itself the way flu and these other diseases had. And one of the reasons that these viruses end up killing themselves or dying out is that they're they're always mutating, and these mutations actually hurt the virus. And, actually, if you ever wanna be, a little bit disturbed, you can go to nextstrain.org, nextstrain.org. And they're doing a fantastic, job of tracking the various mutations and variants, we call them, the strains that are going across the world in real time. And it turns out the variants that we have in the US are few mutations different than the ones in Korea, what that tells us is that the virus is mutating. And, hopefully, and in most in most cases with these RNA viruses, they mutate themselves to death, And I'm hopeful that that's what's gonna happen. Worst case scenario, though, is that it's gonna mutate and become even more lethal. And that's why I'm closely tracking the mutations and what they're potentially going to do to the pathology of this virus. And what are you seeing so far in the in the direction that it's going? Nothing of main concern. There are a couple of proteins that are predicted to attack red blood cells and kick the iron out of red blood cells, which, by the way, means you if you're low in iron, you should definitely try to keep your iron levels normal. The those genes are mutating. Now it could be that one mutation pops up that makes the virus more easily able to to attack red blood cells. And that would be, of course, the worst thing possible because if the lungs are have pneumonia and sticking together and you can't get enough oxygen and then you can't get enough red blood cells as well, you know, that that would make the lethality worse, but or higher. But I don't yet see anything to be of concern just now. But what can also happen is that these viruses mutate, particularly on this spike protein that surrounds the surface of the virus. If that changes too much, the vaccines may not work. Right. So so there's some question, and I think this has been a question since the beginning, which is, what is what what what is the immunity? Like, if you get the, this coronavirus and then you you go through all the symptoms and finally you're you're free and clear, you're feeling better, and you no longer have it, are you not immune because it's mutating so fast? Are you largely immune? Like, what's the immunity issue after you get it? Well, I was concerned for the first few weeks of this pandemic here in the US that we might be reinfected. There was some hearsay out of China. I I'm not worried anymore. I think that that's the least of our worries right now because there was a a very good study in monkeys, which are very good surrogates for us, showing that monkeys who have recovered from COVID 19 infection or COVID 9 19 disease do not get reinfected. Even eve even if it gets, even if it mutates a little? Well, the yeah. Let let's see, James. I hope that that's not the case. If it is the case, what it could be is that this disease hangs around like flu and and keeps recirculating across the globe. I don't think that that's likely to happen. There's very little instances of that happening. I think more likely it's gonna die out, or we'll be or we'll have what's called herd immunity. The problem with this virus is that we haven't seen anything like it in our bodies before, so we have no natural immunity to it. And that's why all of us will catch it, if we come in contact with it. So that's that's the issue. The other thing that that makes it particularly dangerous is that this spike protein binds very tightly to the surface of our cells, unlike SARS and MERS, which were the first two major coronaviruses that were lethal. I should mention that coronaviruses have been with us for a long time. About a third of the common colds that we get are coronaviruses. But this particular one is pretty bad because this spike protein on the outside, it binds very tightly to a protein called ACE 2, which is angiotensin converting enzyme. And that makes it very difficult to actually block that interaction. If we were trying to block that interaction with an antibody or a small molecule, it's gonna be very differ difficult. You can't see my hands, but I'm I'm grabbing my fist with one hand. And MERS and SARs were grabbing with their fingertips. This particular virus grabs, the entire fist. What's the what's the ace makes it very easy. What's the ace 2 enzyme do? Like, can we just get rid of it and and move on? Well, mice do quite well without it. It's been one of the problems of studying this this new strain is that when coronavices viruses in general. So you can do well without it if you're a mouse. I'm not sure about a human. There are inhibitors of ACE 2 which people take to lower their blood pressure because this enzyme family is involved in blood pressure. But I don't know the answer if we can live without it. But the the idea is to try and bring those levels down or block its activity so that you can slow down the infection and perhaps even have a prophylactic. Well, which which which starts again to the question of, you know, what about this research on, you know, at first, people were talking about Chloroquine. Now they're talking about hydroxychloroquine mixed with a a z pack, and and there's this kind of, I guess, study in in France that's I don't know if it's a full fledged statistically significant study, but there was a study in France where they tried the combination of these two things, this enhanced chloroquine with, a z Pak, and it seems to have cured a 100% of the people that in in the in the study group. Right. So it's interesting world we're living in where we're all focused on this information, and we're getting different, people saying different things. I've looked at the data out of China that looked at the chloroquine and the hydroxychloroquine studies. To me, they look really promising. These are small studies. I think one had 9 people only, and they're not placebo controlled. So you can either be a glass half full or glass half full a glass half empty half full scientist. If typically, doctors, I find, are glass half empty. You wanna be super, super cautious. You can see the federal government is saying, don't do this until we have absolute proof. I'm the other kind of scientist. I say, if it's unlikely to hurt you and the risk is massive that you're gonna die or have lasting damage to your organs. What's the downside? Come on. Let's let's preserve life here, doctors. And so my view is that if if you've got no other choice in a hospital or if people on the front lines are coming down with this illness and we need them to work to save lives, I don't see any major harm. I I know this there are side effects of chloroquine long term. But in the short term, it's relatively safe. And I think that if if people wanted to try it in hospitals, in my view, as a scientist, not a doctor, it's worthwhile trying. Then again, you know, there's always risks with everything, but let's look at what's coming instead if we don't do anything. Now to quickly jump to the French story, it seems as though, the US is now not in favor of what the French were saying, which was that Ibuprofen was not recommended. I think that that a good solution for all of us is acetaminophen is fine as long as you don't take massive doses or have it with alcohol, which can damage your liver. Acetaminophen is not an anti inflammatory. So let let's quickly talk about anti inflammatories because it's actually really important. One of the reasons the elderly and even middle aged people die, even when they're looking like they're gonna recover, is that you get what's called the cytokine storm. Cytokines are little proteins that cause the immune system to get hyperactivated. And there's a particular one, a couple of them, called IL-six, interleukin 6, and interleukin 1. What a couple of studies have shown is that you can reduce the rate of death when you get this cytokine storm, by interfering with those signaling pathways. And there are some drugs that are on the market that do that. And in China, there's a drug that's called Actemra, which is approved for treating COVID 19. And in Britain, at least, I know from friends who are doctors, they're using it over there. And that's really important because what happens to these patients is even though they're they're recovering and the viral load is coming down or not not increasing, the body just goes haywire and starts attacking everything that they that that they that shouldn't be attacked, including lung lung cells, which leads to, the death of these patients. So if you want to, suppress the immune system, you do it at the late stage. But before in infection, you definitely don't wanna be lowering your immunity. So wait. So so they're using Actemra to, for people who have the virus, but then, you know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I don't I don't understand what happened. Oh, okay. So the the a typical or a common cause of the disease is that people will have trouble breathing, Say they're in a nursing home, this happened in Washington state, that these elderly were were you know, they didn't seem like they were gonna die any moment, but they did. Within a couple of hours, people can just crash and burn and die. And the reason for that is believed is that the body's overreacting to the virus and attacking the body itself. And so the drug that's now, recommended in China or at least approved and being used in at least UK is this Actemra, which slows down the body's, auto attack, of its own cells. And so it's thought that that could help save some patients that are crashing that way. So now we're seeing Actemra. We're seeing Chloroquine, and, I guess I don't know the difference between Chloroquine and high I don't know how to say hydroxylquine or whatever. But why aren't we you know, like, Bayer, just donated 3,000,000 tablets of Chloroquine for for medical use for this. Why aren't we just, like, actively giving this to everybody who's up in in an ICU bed right now? Or why isn't everybody just taking this for preventative? Well, there are short supplies. I don't think you can even get it in the US easily, especially if you're not sick yet. CVS, I'm told, is is is no longer it's no longer available. In the in the hospitals, they're they're making sure that they save it for emergencies, I is my understanding. And in both Germany and Australia, the government has stopped the sale of of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which is also known as plaque, Neil, like plaque on your teeth, Neil. So why aren't people using it? Well, I think it's short supply. It's gotta be reserved for those critically ill patients. I don't actually know if it's being used on the front lines. If anybody does, you know, please, let us know. I mean, I think the the problem Sorry. But 2 days ago, like, Bayer announced they were gonna donate, chloroquine to the US, to 3,000,000 tablets to the US. Great. Great. I think it's it it it should be used. But then again, we've got, folks from the CDC saying it's not proven to work yet. And so it's hard to know what to do. But as I said, my opinion as a PhD and a scientist is if you've got, you know, no other mechanism to help these patients, it's worth a shot. But I think you're right that it makes sense to give it prophylactically to the people who we need to ambulance and workers and, the nurses and the doctors. And I put that actually I tweeted that, and I asked for people's opinion. It makes sense, but I think the problem is it's in it's in short supply. But you know what? If Bayer donates that much, it's a cheap, relatively safe drug. That's what I would do. If I was the head of a state or or in you know, he's head of the CDC, I would say that, hospitals should consider this. Yeah. Now there's a actually, there's a new story from yesterday. Novartis, Mylan, and Teva to supply tens of millions of Chloroquine tablets. So Right. Who who knows? Maybe this is, I mean, what I'm looking at for is I see the worst case scenario, and I'm trying to understand it. I mean, I I've always kind of thought that these pandemics have a a lifespan, a beginning, a middle, and end, but like we saw in China, like we've seen in South Korea. And you're sort of suggesting that that might not be the case. I mean, what what are the odds that that's not the case in your mind? Well, it'll definitely have an end. I I would say that 2022 is gonna be a an incredibly good year for us, similar to 1918 versus the Roaring Twenties or the aftermath of World War 2 2, where production in 2 years was back to prewar levels. So it's not the end of the world, yet. I don't think that that's gonna be the case, and it will have an end. But the question is, how long are we gonna have this around? And I think that it could be around for longer than people think. So you're saying you're saying, like, there could be second, 3rd, 4th waves, but it'll have maybe a short term end at some point? Well, that's the $1,000,000,000 question. Actually, it's the $1,000,000,000,000 question. Now there are scientists, modelers out of, University, College London that are making predictions that this could continue to to rise in number of cases and deaths until July of this year in the US, which would be and and Britain. That would be particularly scary, right, because we're seeing a doubling of cases now in the US. No. So actually, doubling of deaths in the US every 3 days. If you do the numbers, that's that's a lot of people who are gonna die, by July. I hope that that's not true. I hope that what we're doing now in term of in terms of staying home and stopping school is going to work. But it we're not doing the same as what China and South Korea did or Singapore. So we cannot expect the same results. We're more like Italy. And if if you're brave enough to look at the hard statistics on Italy, it's not good at all. And we're only I think it's a week or 10 days behind Italy. Right. But Italy, it's it's much more skewed towards the elderly. There's a lot more smokers. There's been a lot more social interaction between people. So I'm wondering if if the comparison with Italy is fair. Our demographics oddly look a little bit more like South Korea. I hope you're right, but we'll see in the next few days. If you look at the numbers of people who are coming down with the disease, it's it's dead on to almost to the exact numbers. How many people are gonna die? You know, we we could speculate. Is it half a1000000, a1000000, 5000000? We don't know yet. But all I know is if this ramps up as fast as it did in Italy, and it looks like it is, our hospitals will be overwhelmed. There's no question this is gonna happen in the next week or 2. Right. So so, you know, you take a look at, like, China or or South Korea where there's you know, China has 2,000,000,000 people, And and, yes, they started doing, very serious lockdowns towards the end of January, early February in the Hubei province. Shanghai was shut down. Chengdu was shut down. But, ultimately, out of 2,000,000,000 people, 3,000 people died, a much smaller percentage. And, yes, it's because they were able to do this lockdown, but some parts of China didn't lockdown. And, you know, and in South Korea, they had a completely different strategy, which was the massive testing strategy. So they didn't really lock they did they did social distancing, but they didn't really do any kind of lockdown and same with Singapore. So we've seen 2 different strategies work, and I'm wondering if actually neither strategy worked. And what simply happened was after 3 months you know, after 2 months, the pandemic sort of peaked, and after 3 or 4 months, it ended. Like, in Italy right now, they're doing a complete lockdown for the whole country, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down the number of cases. Yeah. That's that's what's troubling, though. I suspect that people are still gathering, in Italy. In in China, you can basically have the military go down the streets and make sure people don't leave their house. You can't do that easily in Italy, though I I hear that increasingly they they are. Yesterday, there was some disturbing numbers out of South Korea that the numbers have are spiking up again. So let's we should pay close attention to that because if it's true and those numbers continue to go up, then it means that even draconian measures are not effective, unless they're extreme. Yeah. I'm I'm looking at, daily new cases in Korea right now. And, yes, there were there there were new deaths, but, again, the numbers are so small. It's hard to really say. So, like, March 20th, there were 3 deaths, and March 21st, there were 8 deaths. So, you know, I just wonder if if if these numbers signify, you know, a whole new uprise in deaths, or it's just these numbers are so small versus a population of 40,000,000 that it doesn't it's meaningless. Yeah. That's fair. But but we'll keep an eye on it because like you say, James, though, we could be in a world where this this dies down, and we look back and think, well, it wasn't, the Armageddon. But it could be what's more likely is that there will be waves of these diseases and that life will not return to normal for at least 18 months, possibly a couple of years. One thing I wanna mention, though, is that that these countries, their population is much more obedient. When they're told to do something, they they actually do it. And one other thing I saw from from Singapore is so they've been preparing for this for over a decade now. They had SARS in the early 2000, and they have ample supplies for hospitals. They had coordinated practices. They had fire drills for their population. And I saw just recently, someone showed me that they have an app on their phones that is by Bluetooth, they can see who they've become who they've come close to, even strangers. And then if somebody gets sick, they'll get an anonymous alert, which is fantastic. Right? Why why didn't we in the US prepare? We knew that this was coming. I wrote about it in my book. Bill Gates has been on the TED stage saying this. This is should not have come as a surprise. So, personally, I'm really disappointed that our country wasn't more prepared. I I wanna I wanna add to that, prestigious group that you just mentioned of you and Bill Gates, but I wrote a book in 2011, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing for the Apocalypse. Chapter the first chapter after the intro was pandemic. So it's like everybody kind of knew. I mean, I I just read an article the other day that the CDC was aware of Chloroquine and SARS and its effect on SARS. Back in 2005, they were studying this, and here we are 15 years later questioning whether this is a good pill or not. But but I kinda wanna I kinda wanna summarize some of the extremes on both the good and the bad. So one is this could mutate its way out of existence, and, you know, hopefully, it has a lifespan like it did in China and in South Korea and so on regardless of strategy. And and the other thing is that perhaps in warmer weather, you know, it does seem that it kinda flourished in colder, drier weather. And as you mentioned, maybe in hotter, humid weather, it might not flourish. We don't know yet for sure. The other is that, you know, there might be the the Chloroquine, which might be a good, useful, either, preventative or or medicine for it, and now these pharma companies are are gonna, you know, deliver 10,000,000 tablets of it. And then there's potential treatments that that seem to be working in studies, whether it's Actemra or this study that came out of France. And so there does seem like some potential for for hope, and we also have seen now in several countries that there's been either little to no deaths or from a point where they had a high number of cases per day, they they got much lower, like South Korea and and Wuhan being two examples. And then on the other side is the fact that we're not doing the the heavy quarantining even though we're trying, and we're not doing the heavy testing even though we're trying. And so it potentially could be that the US is the worst, and we'll really see what happens in a country that ignores these extremes, and and that's sort of the worst case scenario. And that it doesn't just die away. It kind of just keeps spreading in this exponential fashion. Yeah. That that's a good summary. But, for for for anyone who's stressed out, about this, it's understandable. I wanna go back to what I said earlier, James, is that humanity has never, in its history of going back, you know, 500000 years or more, been united against one problem. And when we do that, we solve everything. So we can conquer this. We just need time. And that's why we need to spread the rate of infection out until we can come up with more of these treatments and eventually a cure. Yeah. And then, also, I I wanna mention some things that you've you've tweeted about. So you you mentioned that perhaps, drinking hot liquids is good as a preventative. Like, you know, the the the virus doesn't like hot liquids, so having teas or soup or whatever could could help you? Yeah. So I I do drink hot, tea throughout the day. The virus is pretty easy to kill, actually. It's one of the the good things about it. It's enveloped in a in a a membrane, which you can destroy with a bit of soap, a bit of detergent, or high temperature, or some alcohol. If you have pure alcohol, you can spray it. It'll just disintegrate that way. And so drinking hot teas is a way to to ensure that what you're drinking isn't contaminated, but also, potentially, it could, kill any virus that has landed. I'm not sure about that, but that's the thought. Plus, if I drink hot drinks during the day, I'm actually quite happy skipping breakfast and even having a tiny lunch or no lunch at all. And as we talked about before, James, intermittent fasting or restricted time feeding is actually helpful to boost the body's defenses against, long term diseases, chronic diseases, and I think as well as infections like what may be coming for us. Now if you were if you were to predict and I know I know, again, you're a scientist, so you can't fully predict. So so maybe maybe I can throw up a scenario that you could give me some odds of. But, you know, given that Chloroquine seems to have been looked at for 20 or so years in this area and that China's had some studies, France has had some studies, apparently, 10,000,000 tablets or more are being donated to the US. Also, given the fact that we've seen in other countries, regardless of their strategy, they we've seen ultimately, at least in this wave, a decline in cases. It it seems like there's a reasonable chance we could beat this, particularly since even though the US isn't fully complying in the way that, let's say, Wuhan did, on social distancing, when I walked out when I see, you know, video of Times Square right now, it's empty. So on a weekend in New York City, Times Square is empty. So there's some degree of social dis and every restaurant and store is closed down in New York, California, and many other states. There is some degree of social distancing that's happening that must have some effect. And so given all these things, it seems like that's good news versus the worst case scenario. Oh, for sure. If we hadn't done anything, it it's scary to even do the calculations what what could have happened. So we've done a lot of good. Is it enough to prevent the hospitals getting overwhelmed, which is really the question here? I'm not sure. We're we're at capacity now in major cities, so we're on a very fine line. And that's why every day I look at the numbers, and I have experts send me graphs to see whether the rate of increase is still going up exponentially or if it's starting to taper off, which would be the first good sign. There is some good news out of Lombardi. Just today, though it could be noise in the data, looks like the rate of increase, is not as high as the day before. If that continues, then Lombardi and Italy may have peaked, and that bodes well for us because they're a model for what's gonna happen here. And, so okay. So what, you know, finally, what what data do you look at? Because it's not it's not really helpful to look at the number of new cases because as testing strategies change, that's gonna affect the number of new cases. But I I don't know. I'm what data would you look at on a daily basis to kind of see what's happening? Well, it's it's all a little bit fuzzy, like you say, because it's dependent on the number of kits that they have available, and the death rate depends on, a number of different factors that may be different between countries. I'm looking at the same kind of numbers that everyone else is looking at, which is number of deaths, number of new cases per day, cases, over deaths. These numbers are good. What, I'm also looking at, which others may not be, is, the careful modeling of epidemiology That UCL group that I mentioned in London are the world's experts in this, so I pay attention to what they say. And then also, there's an interesting mode of gathering data. So Doctor. Peter Attia, attia, is conducting social media surveys and using back calculations. He thinks that he'll be able to calculate more accurately the spread of the virus around the the US. So I've been retweeting his surveys about, in various cities and across the country, how many of us know someone who has COVID 19. And put putting all of that together, if you synthesize all of that, you get some sense for what's happening in the US and across the planet. But, of course, it's not perfect for the reasons you stated earlier. Yeah. And, also, testing hasn't been perfect. Like so I I posed a similar question that Peter posed, and I got hundreds of responses. And a lot of people think they know somebody or think that they themselves either have it or had it, but 0 of these or maybe one out of the 100 said they were tested positive for it. And even then, it's kind of always unclear. Yeah. It it's a mess. The number of people who have it is probably 20 up to 50 times more than the the number of diagnoses at this point. I've unwittingly become a distributor for for equipment and and COVID, coronavirus 2 tests. So what I can tell you in that position is that the US many companies and hospitals are desperate. They are running low, almost out of these tests. They're rationing them. So we're we're not like South Korea. We're not like Singapore. We're not like the UAE, where anybody who needs a test gets tested, even if that's what you're hearing on the news. We are way short on tests. Now we are building up supplies. In fact, China is sending, millions of tests to the US right now. You know, thank China again for that. But that means that the US numbers, in number of cases, is a huge underestimate. And and how many, cases do you think what percentage of cases do you think are totally asymptomatic? So we'll never test them, and we don't really know, but that actually is has a big effect on the mortality rate. Yeah. I don't know those numbers, those hard numbers. I'm aware that some people, particularly very young kids, don't have a lot of symptoms. But I just don't know what percent have zero symptoms. I think more likely, people have a scratchy sore sore throat and a hacking dry cough, and maybe that's considered not having symptoms. I'm not sure. All right. So and then I guess if you were to have Chloroquine in your medicine cabinet, would you take it every day right now? Not every day. I'd save it for if I I came down with, the virus, especially at the first sign of the disease, which, as I said, starts with a dry hacking cough. And it has to be dry. If it's wet, it's probably, just a common cold. Right. But, yeah, if it's also, if it's a runny nose, if you got a runny nose, don't panic. That's almost certainly just regular cold. But if I got that hacking cough, if I was finding it hard to breathe, if I had a fever, then I'd definitely start taking it and immediately consult it. And what about are there so Chloroquine's prescription, are there, like, I don't know how to pronounce it, quinine? Is there are there herbal or over the counter supplements that act a little bit like Chloroquine? Well, I'm unaware of anything. I would love if somebody could inform us about that. I've got a lot of, information about herbal teas, herbal teas from China, from, doctors, actually, who are using them and claiming that there are benefits. But because it's herbal teas and it's not from someone that I know well, I'm not posting that information. I don't wanna contaminate, you know, the Internet with information that's not verified. And I think that's an important point on a side, which is if you're not an expert and you haven't verified something, it's better not to spread that information. And then and then, finally, David, I don't wanna take up too much of your time. But in terms of the data you're looking at, what numbers specifically? Like, which country and what numbers and what dataset are you would make you feel a little better about what's going on, and what would make you feel a lot worse if you saw? Like, just, like, what specifically right now today are you looking at? Like, you mentioned the the the number of deaths in Italy. You mentioned number of deaths in South Korea. Yeah. I'm monitoring all all of those, actually. And, so I've got, as I mentioned, a a, an expert who's running those numbers every day. I wake up to these graphs, and I look at them. There there are a whole variety. I'm just now looking at my email for what kind of things he's showing. These are typically, the the rates of hospitalizations, the rates of death, and the the number of new cases. Those are the main those main numbers, actually. And the last subject line that I got from my analyst, he said, quote, not the best set of graphs I've sent, to put it mildly. Mhmm. And that was his analysis of the state of the world today. He does a lot of calculations. So for instance, he plots graphs of the number of tests performed on people versus the number of positive cases, to give an you an idea of the spread. He's got other graphs that are the number of hospitalized versus the numbers in ICU versus the number of deceased. And that gives us more of an idea of the ability of the hospitals to cope with the problem. And all of those curves, unfortunately, are still going up higher and higher every day, with the exception of the number of new cases, which seems to have slightly dipped just for this last 24 hours. And in terms of, like, number of tests versus number of cases, is there, like, what's that percentage look like? So people who go in with symptoms and then they test negative, is that high? Is that low? That's data I don't I haven't seen. So based on yesterday's numbers, we're looking at, an exponential increase. The number of, total positive cases in Lombardy, Italy were roughly 25,000, and the number of tests performed were 67,000. So it's like, a little more than a it's like a it's like a little more than a 3rd are are are coming up. If if you have symptoms that seem like this and you get tested, it's it's like 40% get it. Right. But it could also mean that only people who have severe symptoms are being tested too. Right. Alright. Well, okay. Sorry. I have one more question, which is the the test developing a test for this. I know they're doing a lot of stuff with the swabs and things like that, but what about blood tests where you take you you take a sample of the blood and you look for the antibodies? Because won't antibodies develop right away if someone has the even asymptomatic the the disease? That's true. Not right away, but it takes a few days for the the b cells to go crazy. So that's there are 3 types of tests, actually. The one that everyone is talking about, the one that the CDC screwed up, terribly. By the way, any graduate student, I think, could have done a better job. Sorry to be angry with the CDC. I know that they're important, but that was frustrating for us scientists to see that. So there's the PCR test, which stands for polymerase chain reaction test. That's essentially a DNA amplification test. Even a high schooler could do that test, assuming the kits work. And that what that does is it tests for the presence of the RNA in your system, whether it's in your blood or your sputum. That is the yes or no test, that's typically used. There's another test which is much well, that test, that last test, that PCR test takes a few hours because the PCR has to go through 20 or 30 cycles, which takes a while. So you got a few hours. The the immediate tests that work in 15 minutes are more like a, a pregnancy test, where you put a drop of blood in a little device, and you get this bar that shows up in color. I know those kits, just by chance, I happen to have one here at home. The those are detecting the antibodies that are produced in the bloodstream. Those are not always accurate. Actually, when I looked at these tests, they were about 90% sensitive. So it doesn't prove that you don't have it, but a positive is typically a firm positive. And then the third type of test, which is the most, informative but the slowest, is to sequence all of the DNA in the blood or the sputum to look for all of the pathogens that you might have. That will tell you, first of all, if you have a coinfection, if you have pneumonia or the flu or a common cold as well, which is probably gives you a worse prognosis. But it also tells you the variant, the strain of the virus that you have. And that's important for tracking the virus, and it's gonna be especially important for correlating the strain that you have or the strains that exist and the symptoms, and to be seeing if there's new, more virulent strains emerging in the community. And that's what the company that I cofounded is actually doing. Another disclosure. I I started a company that detects these things. It's called ArcBio. It's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and they do this DNA sequencing test that tells you all of the infections in the body with one simple test. Well and, also, I'm gonna encourage people just for continued information. You have a newsletter, your lifespan newsletter, where you've been kind of, focusing a lot more lately on the coronavirus and, people who what what's the people could sign up for that at lifespanbook.com, or how do people best sign up for that? Yeah. Folks can sign up for the newsletter. I'm putting out fairly regular newsletters about the virus and what I'm learning on the front lines. And from my analysts. It's at lifespanbook.com. You can also get my previous newsletter that went out a few days ago, which is still relevant. I'm also on Twitter at davidasinclair and Instagram at David Sinclair PhD. And, James, I wanna thank you while we're on, talking about social media. I'm following you all the time, and I think you and your guests are an invaluable resource. Thanks. Keep doing what you're doing. Oh, thanks thanks, David. I really appreciate it. I ever since ever since this started, I've been kind of being in touch with immunologists and doctors and economists on the economic side and just trying to look at both sides of the issue to counter the media hysteria. Because even if there is a worst case scenario, you you kinda don't wanna have a hysterical scenario is my point of view. Because I'm always afraid of hysterical eventually turning into historical, and I don't want that to happen. Well, exactly. Well, there's no reason to panic, as long as we just do what we're all being told to do. It's one of those times where, obeying orders is is a good thing for everybody. So I hope that everyone listening, and if you have friends, family who are not, staying home or if they can, please, please encourage them to do so. It it is out there. It's on surfaces. It's in public places. It's on elevator buttons. Try, if you can convince your family not to congregate. If you need to go out there, by the way, please do use caution. You can use your knuckle, use your elbow, cover your hands when you're touching things. Those are the best ways to avoid catching it. And, of course, as we all know, try to avoid touching your face. One of the things that, I use as a trick is if I'm not kneading my hands and I'm in a public space, I clasp them clasp them together, and that stops me from, inadvertently rubbing my face for some reason. Yeah. I keep I keep my hands firmly in my pockets, and it's weird how much of this we'll we'll see in whether it's 4 months or a year or whatever, how many these things will become permanent habits for people, but we'll see. And and just for people listening, obviously, we didn't talk about the the business economic side, which so many people are concerned about. I will cover that in a, another episode, but thanks for listening. And once again, doctor David Sinclair, author of Lifespan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's I always just I I feel like my IQ goes up when I talk with you, so I hope you come on again and and we can go over this data again maybe, in a few months when when the data takes a different direction, and thanks once again. I'd be happy to come back on. Thanks, James, for having me. Thank you.
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