On this week’s episode of the Secure Retirement Podcast, we speak with my good friend, Bill Landing, a retired professor from Florida State University who is currently studying environmental chemistry and chemical oceanography. Bill has over 50 years of experience as a scientist and joins us to talk about the facts and fictions surrounding the pandemic.
“The training that you get to be a scientist gives you qualities like skepticism. You look at data and interpretations of data, you look for alternatives, you look for possibilities, testing hypotheses all the time, coming up with explanations for the things that you observe, always considering alternative explanations. Ultimately, I think what drew me to science in the first place is that there are truths. There are things that are, in fact, knowable, that are real truths. That's probably why I was drawn to it in the first place,” says Bill.
We chat about the virus and confirmation bias, as well as:
The accuracy of numbers derived from testing
What other countries have done to successfully slow the virus’ spread that the US has not done
Comparing mandatory mask-wearing to banning indoor smoking in public places
What world leaders could be doing to help life return to normal
And more
Listen now…
Transcript
John Curry: Hi folks, this is John Curry Welcome to another episode of the Secure Retirement Podcast. I'm excited about today's topic and the title is Coronavirus, facts and fiction. Today I will be having a conversation with my good friend, Bill Landing. Bill, say hello and tell people a bit about who you are.
Bill Landing: Hi, John. Good morning. I'm a retired professor from Florida State University. I've been living in Tallahassee for 35 years. And well, I enjoyed, I had a great career. Still not over yet. But I'm studying environmental chemistry and chemical oceanography all over the world.
John: And you have had a fascinating career and yes, you won't be done until the day that you take your last breath, I suspect. Bill this topic, Coronavirus has become a very, very serious topic, as we all know, because of the number of people that are getting sick and dying, but also it is really challenging our system in lots of ways. It's become very divisive. You see friends arguing over it, family members arguing over it. So I'm happy with the topic you have here, facts and fiction.
And we'll get to that in a moment. You know, some people will be asking, okay, who is Bill Landing? What makes him qualified to talk about this? So would you just take a few minutes and share with our listeners what you've told me? And folks, the reason this is happening is because of the conversation I had with Bill last week. I was fascinated by his breadth of knowledge and it's clear to me, Bill, you've done a lot of homework and research on this. But please, just tell us why we should listen to you and why you're qualified to talk about this.
Bill: Sure. Well, first off, I would say I'm not trained as a medical doctor. I'm not a virologist or an epidemiologist. And in fact, the people that really need to be listened to are the experts who have those credentials like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Burks. The people that are advising the Coronavirus Task Force. What I do have is training as a scientist. I've been a scientist for, you know, 50 years studying chemistry, studying science mathematics.
And, you know, the training that you get to be a scientist gives you qualities like, you know, skepticism. You look at data, you look at interpretations of data, you look for alternatives, you look for possible, you know, testing hypotheses all the time coming up with, you know, explanations for the things that you observe. And also, always considering alternative explanations. That there's, but ultimately there is, I think what drew me to science in the first place, is that there are truths. There are things that are, in fact knowable, that are real truths. and that's probably why I was drawn to it in the first place.
John: Very good. And what I'm gonna do in a minute, folks, I'm going to ask Bill some questions and then let him expand on it. But, Bill, I got one more thing I want you to explain because we had this conversation also, the concept of confirmation bias. Some people will know exactly what we're talking about. Others may not be familiar or may have forgotten it. Would you share with our audience what you were sharing with me earlier?
Bill: Yeah. It's a problem that, you know, everyone has some degree of this what we call confirmation bias. And that is that you tend to believe or accept things that support either your preconceived notions or things that you already believe. And so you look for support for the things that you believe might be true. And that the danger there is that you're not being, you're not exposing yourself to alternative possibilities or alternative explanations for what's happening in your life or the things that you're observing.
So that is something we always have to be aware of. You have to be skeptical. You have to, you know, do fact-checking and you can't just accept blindly what anyone says about anything really, unless they have the credential. Even though, you know, credentialed scientists, you'll see plenty of scientists who make mistakes. So you have to be skeptical and you have to be willing to consider alternative points of view.
John: The way I like to explain it is this, and I'll use myself as an example. I have friends who will talk about what news media they're consuming. I'll just give you a quick example. I was talking to a friend. We both like to watch Fox News, but also watch CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and he was critical of me for doing that. He said well, why are you listening to these other viewpoints? I said, Well, because I want to hear what other people have to say.
And then I will listen to both presentations and then I'll decide, I don't want people spoon-feeding me everything they think I should know. You know, I want to know for myself, so I do a lot of reading and studying. And but I haven't read anywhere near or studied anywhere near like you have about Coronavirus, and this impacts everybody in the world. So this is a timely topic. And I want to thank you again for being willing to do this. So let's go to work. So the very first thing that you hear, the travel bands from China and Europe have saved lives in the US. Talk about that.
Bill: Well, it's probably true that keeping infected people out of your country was an important thing to do. And countries that did it very early on, like New Zealand and Vietnam, they basically closed their borders completely in January and were able to get the virus under control because they kept infected people out of their country.
By the time that we imposed travel bans in the United States, both from China and from Europe, the virus was already here. It had already, especially come in from Europe, the outbreaks that we saw in New York and New Jersey early on were triggered by visitors from Europe. And so it was already here. The bans helped, I'm sure, but the virus was already here.
John: When you send that last week when we were talking, especially that it came from Europe. So my mindset was I was thinking that it came from people who came here from China, you know, or who had visited China. So the concept of it coming primarily from Europe was fascinating.
Bill: There's a great, an article that was written very early on by a reporter who studied airline routes and traffic, air traffic patterns. And I was surprised to realize, I never heard of Wu Han before this. These are, you know, it's a moderately sized city in China of only you know, what, 10 million or something. It's, you know, that to us is gigantic, but in China that's moderate. They have direct flights all over the world, including to the United States, but also to Europe.
And so, by the time, you know, the virus probably was spreading already in December, flights were going back and forth, people were going to Europe. And it was essentially, you know, going under the radar. It was spreading out across the world before people even realized how serious it could become. So most of the infections that we got, or most of the spread that we got in on along the east coast, in fact, they have shown had come from infections in Europe. But of course, those came from China.
John: Right. Right, because people who had been visiting there. Here's another one, so let's talk about this one. If we did less testing, we would have fewer cases. Fact or fiction?
Testing Does NOT Create Cases
Bill: Yeah, that's, well, it's totally false. I mean, testing reveals who's infected. If you don't test people, then you don't know who's infected. That doesn't change the fact that they're infected. And they're still there. So, you know, doing less testing simply, yes, it means that your confirmed cases would be a smaller number, but the total cases would still be there, you just wouldn't know about it. And you wouldn't be controlling them in any way and so the spread of the virus would be less well-controlled if you did less testing.
What we know is that there are a lot of people who are infected but don't have very severe symptoms. They may respond to the virus like they might respond to the flu virus or to the cold virus. So they, we call them a sip, asymptomatic. There are people who are infected who can spread the virus who don't feel sick. And this is, of course, one of the problems that if you don't think you're sick, then you go about your daily life and you go about your daily business without any precautions and you could be spreading the virus without knowing it.
John: And that's the scary part, isn't it? Because I'm not sick. I don't think I have it. So if I don't wear a mask and do the things necessary, which we'll get into in a few minutes, then I could be unknowingly impacting other people and making them sick.
Bill: Exactly right.
John: That's scary. You made a comment and in prepping for this call, you shared some information that you said that it's been estimated that the total number of infections is five to 10 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. When I saw that I gasped. I went Are you kidding me? It's amazing.
Bill: No, it's because people who, you know, who are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms don't go get tested. That's, of course, a big problem. We don't have the testing capacity that we really need. If you could test everyone frequently, then you'd know who had the virus and you'd be able to control the spread. But right now, you know, getting a test in Leon County, sometimes you have to wait a week before you get your results.
Well, you know, first of all, if you don't feel sick, you're not going to go get tested and you could be spreading the virus. If you do feel a little bit sick and you go get tested but you don't get your results for a week, you could be spreading the virus for a whole week before you finally get a result. It's, we needed, rapid turnaround and much more widespread testing.
That's the only way to get it under control is to figure out who's got it, get them to self, you know, to isolate or to self-quarantine. But if you don't know who's got it, you're stuck. How many people are actually been exposed or actually have the virus versus how many have actually been tested? That, you know, that's for this, I've seen a number of estimates between five and 10 times as many confirmed cases, that there could be five to 10 times as many people who actually have the virus or have had it and just never knew it.
John: Right? I was, as you were saying, if it takes a week to get my results, I may not have it when I go in to get the test, by the time I get my results back, I could have been exposed and have it. So how do we solve that? I mean, it's not practical to go back every week and get tested.
Bill: Well, you know, we had an opportunity back in February and March to mobilize the resources of our country to develop and deploy on a massive scale the kind of testing that we need. I mean, we need to be testing millions of people per day. And right now, we're doing a fraction of that.
John: Yes. And I hope we'll get into a conversation in a few minutes about vaccines and things like that coming down the road. But I'm intrigued by another one, statement here. So, again, fact efficient. Our thought fatality rate is the lowest in the world.
Bill: Yeah, there's two components to this. There's what they call the case fatality ratio, which is total number of deaths from the disease divided by the number of infections or how many cases there were. Problem is we don't know how many cases there actually have been. All we know is how many positive tests have been reported. But in fact, there could be five to 10 times as many people that actually had the disease or have the disease.
What we do know, so if you take the total number of deaths and divide it by the number of cases, that gives you the case fatality ratio. We don't know what that is. Nobody knows what that is anywhere in the world because we don't know how many people actually are infected, or have been infected. Nobody knows that anywhere. We know how many people are dying, the data on that is a lot easier to get and it's more reliable.
But so if you talk about the case fatality ratio, you just, we don't know what that is. It's probably going to be pretty low, probably less than half a percent. So, you know, that sounds good but when you have 331 million people, if 1% of the people died, if everyone got infected and 1% of them died, right, that would be 3 million deaths. So the numbers are, you know, scary. We've got right now I think 170,000 deaths from this disease in 180 days that we've known about it.
The average is about 1000 a day, that would be the equivalent of having 10 airplanes with 100 people each crashing every day and then everyone dying. If that were going on, we'd be, our country would be in uproar over that. And, you know, why can't we stop this? Why can't we get that under control? Well, we're getting, you know, we're losing 1000 people a day to something which was in fact, mostly preventable. So, the, again, pointing out that we keep pretty good track of the number of deaths, we think it's about 170,000.
It could be higher than that because some people die that what we call excess deaths. If you look at how many deaths occur over a week's period or a month period or a season, compare that to the number of people that die, you know, during say the spring or the summer of a normal year. And we're higher. We're well above normal. And the estimate is that we're about probably more like 200,000 people have died from this. The official count is 170,000.
John: I have a question there. I personally know the situation where a lady, 96 years old died last week. They said that she died of the virus. And I heard her son say, Well, she had the virus but let's be honest, she was already very ill and we knew she was going to die. Yes, she contracted the virus. But how much of that, Bill, do you think is being reported in the way of where it kind of skewers the numbers? There's no way to measure that, is there?
Bill: That's where the excess death statistic is more useful because again, you go back and you look at, you know, any period you want. So, in this case, you would look at since the virus really got here, pretty much at the end of February.
So if you looked in spring, March, April, May, and summer, June, July, August, you take that six month period, you look at how many people have died in this country in the last six months and you compare that to that same period the year before and the year before, and you go back maybe five years, and you average how many people normally in this country die every, during the spring and summer. And we're, right now, we're about 200,000 higher than normal. And we know that, you know, again, the testing and the hospitals where they've attributed the cause of death, 170,000 and the excess deaths is 200,000.
Those numbers aren't very different. You know, it's, they're in the same ballpark. And that tells us, that gives us confidence that, in fact, it is this disease, that so this 94-year-old woman, last year, she was 93 and she might have passed away last year under normal conditions. And she would have been part of the normal death rate for the spring and summer of a normal year. What we're seeing now is a very abnormal year with 200,000 excess deaths. And what's different? Well, we have a virus going around that kills people.
John: So, when you explain it that way, it makes sense. But see, for someone who is not a scientist and you don't think that way, that would never cross your mind. You and again, it comes back to we are overwhelmed with information but yet, how good is the information? But let me jump into another one.
Bill: They talk about comorbidity, these people who have, people who are dying often have underlying health conditions which makes them more vulnerable. So this virus basically pushes them over the edge. They are, you know, they're overweight, they have high blood pressure, they, you know, they have many underlying conditions. And, but that, you those deaths occur in a normal year. And what we see now with the excess deaths being so high and being, as I say, being relatively consistent with what the hospitals are reporting for coronavirus deaths.
Those numbers are not that different. So that gives us confidence that the reason these people are dying is because the virus is, you know, in some cases, yes, it's the virus. It infects their lungs, they can't breathe, inflames their heart, they have, you know, they die from the virus. But many, many of these deaths are people who were not in the best of health and the virus just pushed them over the edge. But then you still have to count the virus as the cause.
John: Right. Got it. That's helpful. I appreciate that. Okay, I want to go to the next statement here because this one is intriguing to me and I want to hear your views on this one. We all learned about this new virus at the same time. So what did other countries do that we had not done in the US?
Masks are not Infallible, but They Work
Bill: Right. Well, the two countries that really stand out are New Zealand and Vietnam. They basically closed their borders. They started testing and started isolating people who were positive. They adopted 100% mask wearing because they had, we have seen in previous respiratory viruses like the SARS virus that came out. And, of course, you can go back 100 years to the Spanish Flu epidemic when mask wearing was adopted in this country as well. But those countries went, you know, really hard lockdown. Vietnam locked down for 100 days. They just shut down everything. Everyone wore a mask.
Everyone was self-isolating. And they got their cases down to, you know, essentially zero. And under those conditions, then when the virus is so rare, then people can actually start behaving normally again because the virus just isn't out there in the public. It's not spreading in what they call community spread. Now what, there are countries that did things that immediately, you know, kind of, you know, some European countries did more or less lockdown than others. Italy got hit really hard early on, the UK has been hit really hard.
And if you look at what they did early, they didn't do enough. What they did later helped and you saw in this country when the first big wave hit in New York and New Jersey and hospitalizations were going crazy and Governor Cuomo was asking for ventilators. And then they locked things down. And their case counts came back down and they've remained quite low ever since then.
And they're just now starting to reopen the economy up there. What you saw, you know, in states like Florida and Arizona and Texas, things were coming down and so they started to reopen the economy when the virus was still out there. It was too prevalent in the community. And as soon as you open the bars and as soon as you open the restaurants, then people get out there congregating and they spread it.
Now, what we have seen is that mask wearing, while it's not perfect, has a big effect, a big positive effect on keeping the virus contained. So that comes back to this whole idea that an asymptomatic person could go out there infecting people without having any idea that they're doing that. If they had a mask on, the chances they would infect other people would be much lower. And if I've got a mask on, the chances that you'll infect me go down.
John: Right. We were talking last week about this. It really, that stood out to me so much. And so I want you to expand on that. So you gave an example, that demanding that people wear a mask. And I'm going to say this up front, I'm going to freely admit this. When they first started talking about wearing masks, I was against it.
I'm like, I don't, I'm not convinced that's going to be effective early on. I'm not so sure I'm gonna do that. Then as I started listening and learning more, and then last week, especially, we were talking about it, you made a point about comparing demanding that people wear a mask to prohibiting indoor smoking. Would you take a few minutes to talk about that? That was very profound for me.
Bill: Well, you know, people are arguing or claiming that if you, the government, demands that I wear a mask, you're infringing on my rights, my personal rights and my freedom.
John: And I said that in front. I admit that. I said that.
Bill: Well, the same thing happened, you know, goes back now, it started, what, 20 years ago, probably and it took about 10 years where we banned indoor smoking because there was more and more evidence that people who are exposed to secondhand smoke could get sick. So we basically violated everyone's personal rights and we told everyone you cannot smoke indoors in public buildings and restaurants and bars because when you exhale, that's, your exhalation poses a health risk to the people around you. And, you know, not every smoker is going to infect everyone.
Not everyone's going to get cancer from breathing a little secondhand smoke. But we banned indoor smoking out of what I call an abundance of caution. We want to protect everyone against the harmful exhalations of people who are smoking indoors. Well, if you are, have this virus and you don't, you may be asymptomatic, and you go and you're breathing and you're talking and you're singing and doing all the things you might do in public, you are posing a health risk to the people around you.
And you do not have the right to make other people sick. You never have that right. And so demanding that people wear masks out of abundance, and again out of an abundance of caution, is not a violation of your personal rights. Well, it's a violation that we should accept because we do not have the right to make other people sick.
John: And just so everybody would know, Bill and I both enjoy our cigars, but we make sure we smoke them outside, right Bill?
Bill: No, that's right. It was, but, you know, a there was, you know, you if, you lived through the indoor smoking ban. Getting that implemented, there was a lot of argument about it. And a lot of oh, especially bars that, you know, didn't want to enforce it. And now it's pretty much accepted. You know, it took a while, but everyone, you know, nobody smokes indoors anymore because we realized that it was, you know, potentially dangerous to the health of the people around you. So
John: Well, that's a good segue to another question. So here's a question for you. What can we do, we, everyday citizens, to get things under control? And what should, and I'm gonna ask this question because you're not in politics, you're not running for any office, you're not running for mayor, city commissioner, county commission, you're not running for state office or federal office.
So what should we, as citizens, and what should our leaders be doing to help get things under control to where, at some point, we hopefully go back to a normal life? Which frankly, I don't think we'll ever go back to real normal. But your thoughts on that based on your studying and scientifics.
What We Need to Do to Get This Under Control
Bill: Well, you know, there was a, you know, a lot of discussion early on about flattening the curve. And that was, you know, that was a good thing. That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to reduce the rate of infection, stop the spread. And there's, you know, again, some countries went really hard. They locked down completely, and they locked down for months. Other countries decided, like Sweden decided that they weren't going to do that. And they have a death rate, which is, you know, the per capita death rate in Sweden is very high.
It's much higher than ours, although ours is pretty high. So those are things that, you know, we can see what we did. Some people did, some countries did the right thing or did something that helped and other countries did things that didn't help. So we could take a lesson from that. It may be that if everyone wore a mask all the time whenever they're outdoors, I'm sorry, whenever they're around other people, if you're outdoors, it's, you know, the chances of spreading it to someone else are much, much lower.
So, yeah, you know, you can go to the beach probably and not have to wear a mask when you're down in the breeze, you know, with the breeze blowing off the ocean. But if we had mandatory masks nationwide, that would, that might be enough to reduce the spread to the point where we can get the infection rate down and, you know, get things going back to normal. We could lock down for about a month.
If we locked down everything again, if we shut down the country for a month, that's about how long it would take because the incubation period is a week or so, a week to 10 days, maybe two weeks. And so, you know, you get people, you get through two rounds of infection, perhaps, in a month or six weeks. That would be extreme and we probably won't do that. But it might be that wearing masks is enough. And, you know, that would help if we had that leadership.
Again, the countries that did well, and New Zealand's the greatest example, they had a very strong Prime Minister who came out right on the top, right at the beginning and she said, Everyone has to wear a mask. Now, we don't have that sort of structure in this country. We do have a federal government and we have leaders at the top who could send that message. But the mandate would have to be enforced or imposed at the state or local level. The states should all, you know, if it's the President of the United States said Everyone needs to wear a mask and then the governor is all said.
Okay, we're going to put in a mask mandate in every state, then that would help. They talk about large gatherings. Well, if everyone wore a mask, maybe those large gatherings wouldn't be such a problem. There's no evidence, for example, during the Black Lives Matter rallies that occurred back in June, a lot of those people were wearing masks. And there's, people are looking. Did those rallies trigger a massive explosion in coronavirus cases? And it doesn't appear that they did. So being outdoors is good.
Wearing a mask is good. But, you know, crowded bars and restaurants, no, that's not a good thing. And, you know, large gatherings where people are not wearing masks. Well, that's happening now. We've seen it happen in some examples with weddings or funerals where, or choirs, the church choir that, you know, one person is infected and suddenly half the choir's infected. That's so, you know, we have to avoid those things for you know, a month, six weeks. That would do it.
John: On our, I like to call it the call before the call, you were making an observation. What university was it? North Carolina University, right? They just closed down, they open then and they closed back down.
Bill: Yeah, well, they opened up, they didn't, they had mask recommendation but not mask mandate, and they had, you know, if you remember when you were in college, I do, and there were, you know, there's people get together and there's a lot of partying going on and not a lot of mask wearing. And so there were several outbreaks at UNC Chapel Hill and they've now gone back to no in-person classes for, well, we'll see how long. But they're, you know, starting immediately now they're closing down all their in-person instruction and going to online instruction only. We're going to see that happen.
Florida's, most of the public schools in Florida are dude open next week. We'll see what happens. If masks are not being worn all the time, these kids will be exposed. They will take it home to their families, take it home to their parents and their grandparents, their aunts and their uncles. It's potentially that we, it may be that we don't get it. Everyone's always hoping for the best. And it may be that if everyone wore a mask whenever they're around other people, that might be enough. But we'll see.
John: What's interesting, Again, we were prepping for this, one of the things that you shared with me was the kids, maybe they don't get very sick. But as you just said, they could and probably would spread it if they got it. Maybe they don't get sick, but they can make especially the grandparents sick. I'm thinking about my grandson. I have great-grandchildren even and I'm thinking, wow, you know, I didn't think about that before.
But who were they around? I mean, they could have it and we don't even know it. They can make me sick. I'm a, I guess I'm a higher risk than normal. I'm 67, I'll be 68 in December. I've had open heart surgery in 2008. I had surgery on both legs last year, February and July respectively. So that would make me a higher risk, correct?
Risk Factors to be Aware of
Bill: Oh, yeah. I think, you know, not as bad as the, you know, the people with, who already have respiratory issues, you know, COPD or high blood pressure or diabetes or overweight. You know, those are all the things that people talk about is, you know, comorbidities that make you more vulnerable to more serious outcomes from the virus. But you think about, you know, the kids, if you're, especially, it's hard to get, we think it's going to be hard to get really young kids to keep their masks on in school and how to keep them socially distant.
They like to hug each other, they like to hug the teachers, they're social, you know, we're social creatures. So we don't like to sit around and be isolated all the time. So you think about, you know, a kid goes to, your kid goes to a school and maybe based on what's going to happen in Leon County, about half the elementary school children have opted for not coming to school. They'll do distance learning. About half of the kids say they want to come.
Of course, a lot of that's because their parents need to put their kids somewhere so they can go back to work. But that kid is going to be exposed to 50, 100 other kids who are in turn exposed to their families, their friends. This, you know, your child is essentially being exposed to hundreds of other people every day they go to school. And it doesn't, you know, you can imagine that if a few in that group are carrying the virus and spreading it, there's a chance that your child will get it, they'll bring it home, they'll, you know, you'll be exposed to it.
You might not know it, especially for a week or so, you might not know it. And then so the chance for rapid widespread is high. There was a fellow interviewed on television this morning, arguing that he thinks that opening schools is going to result in a burst of infections bigger than we saw in June and July where we actually exceeded the number of cases that had initially swamped New York and New Jersey. We exceeded that by a factor of three or four. He's thinking that's it's going to be even worse. And you know, I hope not, but we're gonna get to do, we'll do the test and we'll see.
John: Right. Well, let's talk about testing. Another thing I've heard you say is the only way we're going to really know is if we had the ability to test more people, test them on a more regular basis and maybe more than once to find out for sure. And let's talk about that. And let's also, as we begin to wrap up a little bit here, think in terms and share with us your thoughts about testing and also about a virus vaccine virus, for the virus, because it goes back to, I know when I was a kid, we were very worried about measles and smallpox and polio.
It was a big deal. And as a Rotarian, I know that we have been fighting polio and it's pretty much eradicated around the world now. But that when I was a kid, measles and smallpox was a big scare. And I remember all the concern about it in the schools, family, everywhere. So talk a little bit about testing, the importance of it. And then also vaccine. Your thoughts on that. Where we are and where we're headed.
Bill: Yeah, I think we've, well, again with testing, we don't have enough of it and the turnaround time is too long. We need rapid, you know, basically point of use testing, where you get the results within a few hours. And we're just now starting to see that. The FDA, I think is has approved or is about to approve a test that is a saliva-based test that you could do at home and you could get results within a few hours. Now, here we are six months into this and that's just now coming online. We could have, six months ago, used the Defense Production Act, which was invoked to make ventilators because it looked like we were going to run out of ventilators.
Well, if you looked at today's paper, nationally, we have now a surplus of ventilators. We have more ventilators than we need. The Defense Production Act was invoked. Ford, a couple of other companies jumped on it and started making ventilators. Well, that should have been done for testing as well. We should have used the full power of our government to get companies to develop and get these tests out there as broadly as possible.
But at the same time, you heard from our leadership that, well, maybe we're doing too much testing. And maybe if we didn't do some much testing, we wouldn't have so many cases. And we've already talked about that. So that was a mistake, I think, that was made early on not to emphasize testing. And we need more testing. You should be, if I were sending my child to school, I'd want to be tested, I would want that kid to be tested every day. We're not anywhere close to that. We're nowhere close to that, right?
John: It would be awesome if we had the ability to do that, wouldn't it?
Bill: Right. Well, other countries have done this. You know, we didn't, but other countries did. And again, once you get the caseload, the number of cases and the positivity rate, you know, for every test how many, what percentage turns out to be positive, right? They, right now in Florida, it's been as high as 20% of the test coming back were positive. Now it's down below 10 and they're arguing, the experts argue if you can get it below about 5%, that tells you that you're, you know, things are getting to be under control.
But you don't know that if you don't do enough testing. So getting the cases down to a really low level is one way to reduce the impact. The other way, well, there's three ways you can do it. That's one way. The other way is what they call herd immunity where you just let it go and you just hope that after, what, 70, 75% of the population has been exposed, has gone through the course of the virus, then there's no one left for the virus to infect and so it dies out as a result of that.
Well, that would mean several million people dying and hundreds of thousands of people with lifelong lung and organ damage as a result of this virus. So we don't want that. The other way, the last way, is with a vaccine. And people are pushing the vaccine development faster than it's ever been done before. Usually, it takes years. Now they're trying to do it in months.
And we will see vaccines hopefully available, you know, within a few months, perhaps in early next year. And I'm just hoping that first of all, that they're effective and that they're safe and that people will get vaccinated because we see a rising, what we call the Anti-Vax Movement. People who are somehow fearful of vaccines. They think, for a variety of reasons. You've probably seen the, I don't know what to call it, that Bill Gates is going to put a microchip in the vaccine so he can follow everyone around.
It's like, that's absurd. You know, that's, first of all, he doesn't have that kind of power. Secondly, everyone with an iPhone, they're already following you around, right? They already know where you are all the time. They don't need to put a microchip in your vaccine to follow you around. That's just absurd. He's, you know, that's never going to happen. That's a ridiculous thing to even suggest. There are people who argue that well, vaccines gave my kid autism. Well, that's been debunked over and over.
There are some people who respond badly to a vaccine. Yes, there are some people who actually get the disease that the vaccine is designed to stop. It's a tiny percentage. And yes, it's horrible when it happens. But we're talking about, you know, potentially protecting a, you know, a couple hundred million, 300 million Americans and of course, globally, billions of people. And yes, there is going to be, someone will react negatively to the vaccine. But right now, you know, we're seeing a lot of people react really badly to this virus to the tune of 170,000 deaths.
You would never see anywhere close to that, the number of negative responses to a vaccine. It would be in the 10s or hundreds perhaps, but never in the hundred thousands. So I'm hoping that the vaccine will come sooner rather than later and that once everyone's vaccinated, basically we can go back to work. You know, I grew up with getting the polio vaccine because it was such a devastating disease and everyone got it and there was, there wasn't any, there was no question about it.
You did it because you didn't want to get this debilitating disease. People who are, you know, it's getting to the point now where people don't want to get their kids vaccinated. Well, if you don't, and measles is a great example because babies cannot, they're too young to be vaccinated, right? So that if you say, Well, my five-year-old is old enough or my four-year-old is old enough to be vaccinated, but I don't want to do it because I'm worried that they'll get autism.
Alright, so that kid gets measles and then he exposes an infant who's too young to be vaccinated to measles. And that's potentially deadly to the infant. So the people who are, who don't want to get vaccinated are actually, it's a very selfish position to take. There are some people who, you know, legitimate reasons, that's fine. Maybe even religious reasons, that's fine. But in many cases, it's, if you look at it carefully, it's a very selfish attitude to take that you're willing to carry this disease and expose other people to it because you don't want to get vaccinated.
John: Right and the things you just said, it may be fine, but it's still endangering other people. Let's do this, Bill. I would like for you please, by way of a wrap-up, just walk us through the things that, based on this discussion today, okay, about the virus facts and fiction. What would you say each of us that's listening to this, either today, if somebody were to hear it today or even a month from now, what are the things that you think we as individuals should be doing right now to protect ourselves and the people that we love and care about?
Take the Proper Steps to Care for Your Fellow Human
Bill: Number one, wear a mask and don't complain to the workers at Walmart or Publix or wherever you go shopping when that, you know, they ask you to wear a mask when you come in. They're having to fight with people who don't want to wear their masks. Cover your nose and your mouth. Don't put the mask below your nose.
Yes, it'll fog up your glasses. You know, deal with it. It's just not that big a deal. It's not that uncomfortable. Even a simple cloth mask is better than no mask. And if, I think if everyone did that and limited their, these large social gatherings, you know, the bars, if the bars reopen, there's, you know, because nobody's, you got to take your mask down to drink your beer so that's a risk. Stay home as much as you can. And when you're out and when you're in public places with other people, wear a mask.
You don't have to wear it in your car. You don't have to wear it at home. You don't have to wear it when you're walking around the block to get exercise. But wear it when you go to the store, wear it when you're, you know, with other, around other people in an enclosed space. And limit the exposure, limit the number of times you do that. Those are the simple, it's so simple. We can get this under control, I think, very quickly.
John: I have been impressed with some things that I have seen personally. I went to a funeral, tomorrow it'll be four weeks ago to be exact, and I was impressed with the way that it was handled. Everyone in the room, everyone at this chapel, was wearing a mask. No one had to come over and be prodded to wear it, nobody had to be told to keep some distance. In fact, I'm to the point now when I see someone that I know very well that normally I would give a big ole hug, I just wait, I stop, I say, Okay, what are we doing? Are we bowing, hugging, kissing, handshake, elbow bump, ankle bump, what are we doing?
And, you know, many times now I'm just, I see people, you know, I served in the military when I was in Okinawa in Thailand, a lot of bowing, so we just bow. And we make light of it and have some fun with it because the damn thing is such a serious topic that you gotta bring some levity to it. If not, you go insane. But I was impressed with that at the funeral. And then I went to a function, had dinner, and I was cautious about going. I said well, I'm gonna go and if I'm worried, I'll get up and leave.
And again, people who came as a couple, you were at a table by yourself, no one else around you. Tables are like 10 feet apart. It was really strange looking actually, because they had to take up more space than they normally would. But I was impressed. And no one was acting out as kids would do as they call it. Everyone wore the mask. They took it off to have their dinner. And then when they went to the bar to get another drink, it was impressive to see him put it back on while walking up there. And I thought, Wow, what a great example of the things we should be doing. And I haven't been to other events.
Bill: No, I agree. I agree. I think again, it's a, you know, it's, if you care about your fellow man, your fellow, you know, the humans that you live around, this is the, they're all the words. It's the humane thing to do. It's the intelligent thing to do. It's even the patriotic thing to do. If you want to protect, you know, our country is going through a real tough time right now. We have massive unemployment. We have people losing their jobs, businesses closing.
You know, this virus is causing, taking a huge toll on our economy, on our country, our social structure. It's the patriotic thing to do to help get it under control. And wearing a mask is so simple. In the early days, I understood, they said don't wear masks because we need to keep them for the health care workers and the first responders.
That's still true. N95, these high-efficiency N95 masks should be, you know, the general public doesn't need those. Health care workers need them. But a simple cloth mask, these surgical masks, hey look like paper, the blue ones that you see hook around your ears, those all are, they all are better than nothing, right? Any mask is better than no mask. And wear it whenever you're around other people outside of your, the people you live with.
And when I would hope, I think that would have a, again, the countries that did this, we can't separate the effect, right? The countries that locked down and went to mask wearing, Taiwan did that. Universal masks, they locked down their country. If we had done what Taiwan had done, based on our population compared to theirs, we would have had 100 deaths from this virus instead of 170,000. That's the difference between total control with strong leadership and society willing to go along with the message that they get, the leadership that they're getting. We could have saved 165,000 people. It's not too late.
John: Well, while that's true, right. It's not too late. I was gonna say while it's true, there's nothing we can do about that. But here's what we can do and the only thing we can do is take personal responsibility and the first obligation, just like on an airplane, they tell you, okay, there's a problem, oxygen mask falls down, put it on yourself first. There's a reason for that. So you're able to help other people.
So first, take personal responsibility, folks, and take care of yourself. Take care of the people around you love and care about and be respectful of other people. And, Bill, I just want to say thank you so much. This, I knew this will be good, but it was better than I anticipated. And I just want to thank you for sharing the knowledge you have gained by letting the scientists and you do the exploring and the heavy lifting for us. I just thank you so much for taking the time to share this information on our podcast.
Bill: Well, it's been a pleasure to do it and I would, closing thought would be if you have questions about this sort of stuff, you know, turn to the experts. Turn to the biologists and the epidemiologists, the Dr. Faucis of the world because they are the ones who are, who really understand this and are going to give you the best advice on what to do going forward. You know, the talking head you might see on one of the, you know, afternoon TV shows is not an expert in this field. So talk to the expert, listen to the expert.
John: Nor are the politicians that are arguing and fussing about stuff either, you know, as we get closer to elections. But my friend, I just looked at the time, we've been going for over 55 minutes, and it seems like it's been five minutes. Thank you so much for sharing. And, again, every time I'm around you, I learn something new. So thank you so much, Bill.
Bill: Well, thanks, John. It's been a pleasure.
John: And folks, I hope you've enjoyed this and please expand your knowledge and understand more. And Bill, we'll catch up later my friend. Thanks again.
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