If I Were You - 427: Quarantine Chat

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

We are back with our microphones discussing the pros and cons of self-isolation, and our new schedule. Then we talk to a real-life doctor and ask her every question we have about COVID-19 (and phone sex, of course!)For more IF I WERE YOU check out Patreon.com/JASee omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

This is a headgum podcast. This is a headgum podcast. This is a headgum podcast. Hell of a cover. This guy doesn't give a shit about anything really. Who does? This guy, Jordan Holmes, writes in from Canada, does not mention coronavirus at all. He's just happy of himself.

It had to have been before the virus. No, this was pre-virus recording. Wow. Yeah. Canada is a different, it's a different world, brother. And we're living in a different world than we were last week, but thank you to Jordan Holmes for writing in that theme song. Indeed.

So, just a week ago, we did the first post-coronavirus episode where I called you. Audio was a little muffled because we didn't really know how to record since then. We've upgraded to... By the way, I knew how to record. I knew how to do it. I record remote all the time, so that's actually going to be a turdy on your ass. I had to do it so early in the corona days when we should all be banding together and looking out for one another, but you're going to get a turdy for lumping me in with you there.

Anywho, let's try to stay positive because it's all we got. Yeah. This one, this episode hopefully sounds better. I got a microphone. We're using Zencaster to figure out remote recording for me from my house. With that, I'm going to go into the office. Correct. And you're doing great so far.

How has your week been since the first few days where there was so much uncertainty, we just didn't know what the hell would happen now, a little more clarity. It might not be good news or bad news, but at least we have a little more clarity as to what situation we're in. Yeah. It's interesting that I don't feel more clarity. If anything, it feels more serious. It feels a little more dire, but it doesn't feel any more clear to me.

Interesting. Yeah. For me, the first few days, we're like, oh my God, this is a disaster. We're heading towards this iceberg and I don't know what it means, what the data will show, if quarantining will help, how much it will help. And now it's been a week of staying indoors and I guess the initial shock has worn off and now I'm just sort of hunkered down like a crazy person in a closet with a rifle waiting for the bad part to come.

Right. I guess that doesn't feel, does that feel like clarity to you? It feels like, I guess, maybe in its own weird way, but I feel like there's new things that we're unclear about. Yeah. There are definitely new things, but I guess the landscape is a little, it went, you know, when like porn used to, old photos used to like show you a blurry version and then the resolution would get sharper and sharper.

So I feel like the porn that we're seeing is the scary future and that vision is getting sharper and sharper. So you can, you're starting to be able to get off to it. Yeah. So I'm reading all the data about what situation is happening all around the world and I'm trying to nut to it. But isn't like all of the, all of the data that we're learning and all the, all of the expert opinions and stuff, it's like mostly they're guesses.

It's like, this is worst case, this is best case, we don't entirely know what, what we're headed for. Yeah. It's a lot of wait and see and a lot of the things that we're waiting and seeing on is happening right now and there's always a little delay. Like it takes a few days to get sick once you have it. So all these quarantines that have happened in the last seven days, we won't know the results until next week and we'll see how many people are in the hospital today versus

a week from today. Right. But until then we're self isolating and self quarantining. I assume you are too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm self isolating. I am social distancing.

I am sitting in my apartment and I'm slowly losing my mind or quickly losing my mind or I'm sort of like losing my mind and then recovering it multiple times a day. The highs and lows. Yeah. I think it's, it's not, it's definitely the highs and lows. And sometimes I'm like, oh, I mean, I'm never like this is good. But sometimes I'm like, all right, I think this is what I need. I need a regiment.

I need a schedule. I need to be a little more Zen. I need to do yoga. I need to do this. And then sometimes I'm just like laying on the couch, refreshing Twitter, being like, this is despicable. This is so bad. How will it ever get better?

You know? Yeah. Has your schedule been like that of a crazy person? Like are you waking up in the middle of the night? Are you going to bed super late? Are you like mostly the same midnight to eight AM? It's definitely not the same. One thing I stopped doing, which I think was like a little bit helpful to me was like setting

an alarm in the morning. I'm like waking up between eight and 10 and I'm just like not kind of the world sucks too much for me to like be tired or in a bad mood. So I just like I kind of wake up naturally and then he's into my day. That's a good tip even for the future. Yeah. And I've been doing things. It's like that I should have been doing all along like the my like morning stretches

and recovery exercises for my foot. I used to sort of rush through them if I had to get into the office or bring Jill to the ferry or something. And now I just wake up when I wake up and then I do my foot exercises. So it's my day starts off good every morning. That's nice. And then it then it goes downhill. How's your sleep qualities?

Would you say it's roughly the same? Yeah, I think it is roughly the same. That's nice. Maybe if anything, it's a little harder to fall asleep because I don't do as much during the day. Yeah. I haven't had a ton of trouble falling asleep, honestly, have you? I haven't had trouble falling asleep.

My issue is when I wake up at like, you know, you the pre wake up when it's like six fifty eight and you check your clock and you just go back to bed because you can. Mm hmm. I've been like, oh, six fifty eight. Let's see what's going on. Oh my God. Oh God. A senator has it.

Oh, shit. Look at the death toll in Italy. All right. It's seven and fifteen. I'm awake. I'll just wake up. Yeah. I mean, the problem with that is that you're not only just waking up slightly before you're

ready, you're waking up and and sort of being alert to the bad news. Yeah. You there's no keeping the phone in the other room and having an hour to myself every morning. It's more like the bad news rips me out of bed. Yeah. That's what you want. My caller throws me on the floor and starts yelling stats. That's your fix.

You start mainline and mainlining shitty Twitter as soon as you wake up. I'm I'm I find myself like almost addicted, craving the information, the facts, the stories. But as I send it to friends, I'm some of them give me pushback like, don't send me this shit. I don't want to know this shit. I want to like not stay off of it, get a day or two or even an hour or two away. Are you more like, don't tell me this stuff ignores his bliss or you're more like me where it's like, it makes me feel more comfortable in a way to know all this stuff.

It definitely doesn't make me feel more comfortable to know it, but I'm also not like, hey, don't tell me anything. I don't need to know. I'm trying to be happy while I'm quarantined. I'm sort of like, I know that like learning about it is like kind of useful, helpful, but also it definitely depresses me. There's also those like not really anything that I can personally do. So, so also like to an extent, I'm just like, you know what?

I don't need to look at this chart of everyone that has it in America right now. What good is that doing to all her wits here? Especially, especially because you're in the epicenter. Yeah. I mean, that has been, that's, it's been tough. Like, I don't know, it's there's everybody has this kind of like shelter in place, right? But like, I keep on fantasizing about just having a slightly bigger place and I have a nice apartment.

But I certainly wish I right now, I would not mind being in my house in LA. Right. A backyard that you could just sort of walk outside to and feel safe, but still outdoors. Yeah. I mean, like, couldn't you theoretically to just like, you could go to Griffith Park and go on a hike. Couldn't you? Yeah, except that's a big problem.

Now in LA, they've removed every type of recreational activities like you're not supposed to go to the suit, the mall, you're not supposed to go to a movie theater. I'm not supposed to play basketball. So now every hiking trail is like overcrowded and now it's getting to the point where they might have to shut those down because, you know, it's hard to be six feet apart when five million people are on the same hiking trail. I mean, that's what the parks look like in New York. And then I just like, I see my friends that still live in Connecticut, just like hiking

and sleeping giant. Like, oh, wow. Yeah, they can still do that. A lot of people are leaving the city. Yeah. I actually I'm leaving the city next week. Oh, really? For the foreseeable future?

I guess indefinitely, but it probably not that long. I got a place upstate. Whoa. Airbnb style? Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Just keep it open for me. Run the tab. So the the person who's hosted it, I contacted so many people on Airbnb because like some people are staying in their houses. Some people are not allowing people from New York City to stay in their houses. Of course. Some people are, you know, like they had somebody in there yesterday and I'm like, I don't want to stay there either.

So I contacted a whole bunch of places and this this person is like basically has an open the rest for like the next two months. So I'm going to if if it's like good for Jill and I just keep on extending. Wow. And just have your own. I mean, you don't have a dog. You don't have a baby. You can go anywhere.

Yeah. I'm I'm very much looking forward to getting out of the city. It's funny because like I think through this process, I've realized that like nature and the suburbs and space is in my DNA and New York City is in Jill's DNA. Like the idea of leaving the city is very comforting to me and scary for her. And vice versa. Yeah. When when things are going to shit, she's like, all right, we have to like hunker down

in New York City. I don't know. That's not my instinct. Yeah. In theory, you want to be around millions of people. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's it's just funny. That's why we're taking a sabbatical upstate and if it works, we'll stay forever.

So yeah, we'll never come back. Are you happy that you is there any place that you would rather be a like aside from your house or do you feel comfortable and safe there? No, I feel comfortable. This is like a good mix of suburbs and city. So like I have my own space and then I can also walk to a supermarket if necessary. That's great. Remember last week when I was talking to you and Marty and we're like, all right, let's

all guess when we'll be back in the office like normal again. And Marty said one week or two weeks, one week from now. That was very hopeful. What did I say? April 15th, I think that's starting to look unlike I said August 1st. Wow. I guess I definitely don't. I don't think I still don't think it's going to be August 1st.

You think before you use you mean back to the office or back to normal people working in offices again. I think that I think it'll happen in May. That's nice. It's nice to imagine, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, we're already sort of receding back to a slightly more normal life. I don't know if at the very least quarantining feels less uncertain and daunting to me.

I'm like, oh, now I have a new quarantine routine instead of going to work routine. I don't think I have that yet. What is your quarantining routine? I'm just less. It sounds like you wake up and you fresh horror Twitter. Yeah. I wake up in a black hole, but then I can go for a walk. Yeah.

Do you have any outdoor time? Yeah. I go on a bike ride every day. That's good. Yeah. That's helpful. My routine is basically a rotation of walk, social media, and now I got a new Nintendo switch.

So you're gaming? I'm officially a gamer now. Are you playing new games or you're playing your old games that you used to play? I'm playing, as of now, old games and then new versions of old games. So I'll play Tecmo Bowl, which is a football game on Nintendo in my bed, and it's sort of zen because I'm not on my phone. I'm playing an old football game. That's nice.

Then I'll play Tetris 99, which is a game, you know, Tetris we've all played before, but it throws you in a room with 98 other people all playing Tetris against each other. And as people get eliminated, you move up, so you're trying to get into the top 20. And then as soon as that ends, it just throws you in another room. There's so many people playing Tetris 99. That's cool. And then yesterday, I signed online and Bobby Lam, shout out to Bobby, our old DP from Lonely and Horny when people could hang out together.

Bobbans. He was on his Nintendo switch, so I was playing old Nintendo games against him. Oh, that's cool. It's nice to see a familiar face. I went, I had had a booked social calendar yesterday with Zoom parties. Like I had two birthday parties, and then Jill's friends just like got together for like a drink around 9 30. That's definitely happening.

Happening now. Like there's there's a new world order happening and Zoom parties are starting to lead lead the trail lead the zoom is taking and I didn't realize like I was in the Amanda Ferry Zoom party and there was like 30 people in there all video chatting. It worked relatively well. Oh, I was there. Yeah. I was there from like maybe nine to 10 East Coast time.

Oh, yeah. You said, wait, that's what, oh, I guess actually I left just before nine I had another party to get to. It's kind of, it's sad, of course, because everyone's at home fearing death, but it's also kind of like, you know, there, you can see that there are some advantages to a regular party. You don't have to get dressed. You don't have to shower.

You don't have to travel. You can drink in the comfort of your own home. If you want. Yeah, it's true. It's really, it's kind of grim, but that's like a perfectly acceptable future, isn't it? Yeah, it's a little dystopian, but at the same time, once we can all hang out with each other again in 18 months, once the vaccine has arrived, maybe a zoom party is not a bad

idea. Everyone. Yeah, it is kind of fun. If the only thing you that I think that it needs is like the ability to like, to like separate into some one-on-one combos. Well, there is a, there's private DMing features. Right. But that, you know, like in the old chat rooms, how you would like, you'd be in the public

chat and then you'd like some, you could like go private with someone if you needed to cyber. Yeah. Yeah. That's basically what I want zoom to be. I want to be able to be at like a 30 person zoom party and then like, you can like click on somebody. They could click on you and it's, it's almost like Tinder, right?

So then you can, you've been right-swiped to someone to go chat privately with them. That's cool. And you don't have to do like mutual masturbation, but you could if you wanted to and they wanted to. Yeah. I noticed when I arrived to the zoom party, everyone was still reeling from your suggestion that everyone starts mutually masturbating. I said if everyone wanted to and then I announced that I had wanted, yeah, right.

Exactly. Unfortunately. I'm going to try playing poker tonight against my friends virtually as well. So like apps are starting to develop or maybe they've already been here, but now that's like this is their time to shine where anything you would have done in the real world can be digitized and put online. Yeah. Which I think is good for humanity and we need it right now, but it is like there's,

there's a hint of sadness to all of it for me. Yeah. It's a black mirror episode. Yeah. The fact that we're doing all this like, Oh, you can like do this on Instagram live. We can and you know what? People should follow head gum on Instagram because we're doing cool shit like that. You picked a loaf of banana bread while I read you the recipe.

That's right. You and I went live together. Uh, you, you gave me the recipe. I made the banana bread. It was delicious by the way. Thank you. It was great. Um, so we're doing cool stuff like that, but there's, there's just like a tiny little

hole in my heart for, for like, you know, this stuff has to exist because, because like all of, uh, the joy of our old life has been taken away. That's right. And this is again, week one. Yeah. But it's, so it's necessary and good, but it's born of bad news. Um, yeah. Have you been?

That's all. You're not one to like drink by yourself, but have you been drunk since the apocalypse? Uh, yeah. I guess so. I'm trying to think. Yeah. In the zoom party, people were like drinking and, you know, hanging out. And I'm like, I don't want to drink by myself.

That's not me. Yeah. I don't think, I know some people that have like basically been like getting trashed and I don't have any interest in doing that, but I think that like having, uh, having a beer at the end of the day is a really nice feeling. Yeah. It's helped. Yeah.

Do you say you've led a healthier life since the quarantine or a less healthy life? Definitely healthier. Isn't that interesting? Would you say you led a less healthy or healthier? Maybe slightly healthier, especially in terms of like cooking at home, like a much more efficient, uh, where I'm like waking up, making breakfast, occasionally making lunch, making dinner. Of course I say making with a grain of salt because some of it is just frozen dinners,

but I'm definitely not like ordering fucking chipotle post made it. Yeah. I think that's, I mean, all of our food has been home cooked and like really delicious, good, good food. Yeah. We're definitely saving money. Yeah. It's definitely saving money.

Uh, of course the, um, like, uh, society's on the brink of collapse and like we might not have any money, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. But yeah. In terms of, uh, just like, yeah, what I'd usually spend on like a delivery fee. Right. I'm not doing that. That's nice.

Although I am, I'm not, I don't find myself, even though with all I have, like all this free time, I'm not consumed with being productive. I find it hard to like, not that I'm trying to, but like, I don't think right now I could hunker down and write a screenplay. Yeah. I think that's, this is one of the things I've been struggling with because like it feels like there's almost like a pressure on creative people in general to like, don't slow down. Like keep up with your output.

There's all these different avenues that are open to you now. Um, but I'm like, I don't have very much motivation because I'm a little sad. I'm mourning, I'm mourning the world as we knew it before this. Yeah. And thankfully I haven't even like had any tragedies in my life, like, you know, anybody that I, that I know having Corona or like being sick from it. I mean, it's sad how many people are struggling and dying and stuff. Um, but like it hasn't directly affected me aside from just like, I can't live my life

like I used to. Yeah. But still it makes, it makes it so I'm not like eager to work on that screenplay I have never had the time for. Yeah. I've got the time and not the heart. I'm not, I'm not carefree enough to create a ton of content yet. Yeah.

But I am, I've been thinking about like kind of like writing out a schedule and like trying to be as intentional as I possibly can about like my mood. I'm not, I don't know exactly how to fix it, but waiting for it to get better is, is not really effective. I'm, my like attention span is warped to the point where like I tried reading a book, not even a novel, but like short stories, George Saunders short stories that Abital was reading. I'm like every four sentences I'm thinking about Corona virus.

Like I'm not taking any of this in. Have you, you're exercising, right? Only the walks. I'm not like sprinting or doing pushups and stuff. I think that like physical exertion is definitely helps me a little bit. I mean, even doing something like yoga where you're like in a minute long plank or something, uh, that, that makes it so you can't really think about Corona virus. That's nice.

Yeah. And the video games help. But of course that's not physical. Yeah. You could get those. There's something called a ring fit, isn't there that it's like a video game fitness thing. Yeah.

Jeff was saying that there's like some video game way of staying active as well. Yeah. I think Caldwell's been using his. Um, all right. Why don't we take a break and maybe even answer some questions. Remember that? Sure. Shit.

I hope, I hope I remember how. Yeah. Let's think some sponsors and we'll be back right after these. Thank you to Aura Frames for sponsoring this headgum podcast. You know, Aura Frames is sponsoring not just this episode, but the entire headgum network, Jake. Wow. That's correct.

I mean, this might be the goat father's day gift. I think it actually is. Yeah. Not just father's day, but if for any not so tech, savvy family member that you need a gift for soon, these digital photo frames might be the best of all time. Yeah. For me personally, these things are perfect. I'll tell you why.

As you know, I am expecting. Yeah. Uh, my first child. Uh-huh. We got one for Jill's parents. Oh, wow. We got one for Jill's grandma. Holy smokes.

We got one for my parents. So there are three of these bad boys in our family right now, but they're, they're great. Really easy way to like stay in touch with your family. You can upload as many photos as you want directly into my parents kitchen. It's really nice. Oh, that's cool. So you take a photo of anything, perhaps a baby, and then it goes to their digital photo. Yeah.

Frame. This is actually how we, how we told Jill's grandma. She was pregnant. We got her the Aura frame. We plugged it in. Jill's grandma was pregnant. Really nice asshole. This was actually a really sweet moment for me and my wife and you're trying to make a

joke of it. I was just being goofy a little bit like, uh, this is how I told my grandma. She was pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like a, she misheard it or something like that. Or the way you said it was kind of like, could go either way. By the way, Jill's, Jill's grandma is pregnant.

Oh my God. Jill's grandma is 90 and pregnant. It's pretty cool. And you told me with a digital photo frame. Holy smokes. You let her know with an Aura. Yeah. Thank you.

The Aura announcement. Uh, so you can instantly frame photos from any device anywhere and invite the whole family in on the fun through the Aura app. Add me to your Aura app. I'd love to upload just a picture of me like at a pool or something. That could be funny. Yeah. Like your banana or your dog alongside pictures of my daughter.

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Right on. Thank you Aura. And now back to the HEADGUM podcast you were listening to. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Thank you, BetterHelp. If you're finding yourself in a difficult, anxious, stressful situation talking to a professional licensed therapist is the best way to navigate yourself out of that difficult place. And it's not necessarily easy to find a therapist, especially one in your area, but BetterHelp

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This is done entirely online, but you're still getting professional licensed help and it's extra affordable. That's betterhelp.com slash if I were you. Check them out. Thanks, BetterHelp. And we're back. Amir, do you remember when you and Ben said that I didn't know a doctor named Presley? Yeah.

Well, guess who's on the phone? We've got Dr. Presley. Hey, Jake. Hey, Doc. Oh, my God. That's right. It's a proof that I know a doctor and you, since, Amir, you're having more of a public freakout than I am.

I thought it might be helpful for you to talk to Dr. Presley about some of your concerns. Yeah. Is it okay if I ask you some questions, Dr. Presley? I'm not sure what your public freakout has been, but what are you scared of? Okay. I'm scared of two things. One, a loved one of mine getting sick. Yeah.

Two, so many people needing ventilators and New York City not having enough and then every hospitalization case after that tipping point becoming a catastrophe. I would say that I'm scared of those two things, too. Do you work in an ER? Do you know exactly how crowded things are getting over there? So I work in a children's hospital and when I work in an ER, it's a children's specific ER. So I can't speak to how crowded the adult hospitals are, but I know it's pretty overwhelming

to be an adult doctor right now. We're going to need those beds, Presley. Yeah, we are. Send the kids home. They actually are taking up a lot of the space in the children's hospital and turning them into adult ICU beds. Yeah. Are the beds themselves smaller?

Is that the difference? No. They have some cribs, but otherwise they're the same as hospital beds, for example. We're going to need the cribs. We're going to need the cribs, too. You're going to need that. Exactly how crowded does it feel there already? We have beds in the hallways.

Sorry. The hallways is in, like, you're walking down the hallway to get from room to room, but there are beds throughout it now. Oh, God. Yeah. Got it. See, okay, Presley, can I? I called you to help make us feel better, okay?

Let's cool it with the beds in the hallway stuff, all right? I need you to start lying to us. I'm going to hang up on you when you call back and tell me the exact opposite of what's happening. I don't think I'm going to make a mirror feel much better today. New York City is kind of the epicenter now of COVID positive test cases. Is it because it's actually that much further ahead than every city, or is New York City testing more people than ever before?

New York City has ramped up its testing in a big way over the course of the past two weeks. We now, I read something that we're now able to test about the same amount as South Korea has been testing, which is cool, phenomenal. Good news. It was where we were just testing 100 a day up until middle of last week, and that was not productive and did not really give us a sense of how many people were sick. And now I see within the last 24 hours, 5,000 positive test cases out of New York City in

one day. Yeah, and it's probably going to, it'll continue climbing as we are able to do more testing. It's going to be like worst case scenario. Worst case scenario is not enough beds, not enough ventilators, we're like sending people home to die, right? I don't, I don't think you have to go home to die. You just, you just can't stay here.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we're, I think we're close, I think we are close. And the numbers are still going up and up because, you know, the quarantine hasn't quite kicked in yet. Everything's on like a five to seven day delay, right? Yeah. Yeah.

The numbers are going to go up for a little bit from here. So you're going to advise against takeout? No, I got taken out yesterday. How was that safe? You don't, there's like an option now on Door Dash where you, they leave it outside the door, like they bring it inside, but inside the building, but leave it outside the door so you don't have any like FaceTime with that person. So there's no chance of like an exchange of droplets or even like touching each other

like an exchange of any kind of phone might. That's nice. Yeah. Do you guys know what a phone might is? Yeah, of course. I know. Oh, a mirror doesn't. Sorry.

Sorry about impressing. You tell him what a phone might is. A phone might is something that is like a surface, a necktie, something that is not living that can carry a disease. Right. So if somebody has Corona and is delivering food in a plastic bag that says have a nice day, that phone might is going to live on the plastic. The plastic would be the phone might.

Yeah. I see. So the virus lives on the phone might. Yeah. It lives on a phone might versus a hard surface. So the hard surface can be a phone might. Oh, I see. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, so you're saying that I'm the phone might and I can actually sneeze onto a tabletop

or a counter. Well, I got one more, one more medical question. I see basketball players and they're like, I don't have any symptoms yet. Yeah. Is it possible to go through the entire coronavirus experience without ever experiencing symptoms or they just haven't experienced it yet, but it's definitely coming. It is possible to have it without experiencing symptoms. Yeah.

The entire disease, soup to nuts, I had it, I lost it and I can't get it again. Yes. It is possible. No symptoms. It is more likely for that kind of disease course to happen in kids. Thank God. For me as a pediatrician, but I think there was a study out of Wuhan looking at the children, anyone who was less than 18 who was positive and 15, I think 15 to 18% of them were asymptomatic

throughout their course. So for testing, is it possible to take a test that says whether or not you had it before? Because that'd be kind of convenient, wouldn't it be? It would be. We don't have that right now. Is that a possibility? Could we ever have that? We could, but I don't know what the function of it would be except for that it would be

nice to know. Yeah. It'd be great for me to know and then I could go ahead. Although do we know if you can get it twice? You probably cannot get it twice. You probably, if you have an intact immune system, you develop a resistance to getting it again, this exact strain. Wow.

Do you expect COVID-20 to drop? I'm already over 19. Yeah. Oh, that's a good question, yeah. That new strain way. I hope there's not a COVID-20. If it is, it might be a must cop. What about that idea that young people could go out and get it so we can have it be done

with it, be immune, and then not worry? Yeah. It's just not, you're not really able to control it in that way. There's no way to give it to someone. It's also still not that smart because people have been getting pretty sick. 30 and 40-year-olds have been vaccinated and died. Even healthy people. If we were just like, it's okay for 20 to 30-year-olds to just go out and get it, they

could still then not go out and participate in normal society because those people have grandparents and those people have neighbors that are older than 65 or have cancer and are immunosuppressed, et cetera. It's still better for us to limit exposure for the greater good. How long do you think we're going to have to be social distancing and self-isolating? I'll throw out some things that you that I'm looking forward to and you tell me when do you think I'll be able to do that again. Let's start with hugging my mother.

Keep in mind, he's never hugged her before. If you self-isolated with your mother and both of you remained asymptomatic and didn't touch or interact with other people for two weeks, I'd say you could hug her all you wanted. All right, cool. A birthday party with 30 people in a room. I don't know. My husband, who is not a doctor, is waving four months with his fingers at me. Thanks, Pat.

This is how the price is right. Higher, lower, higher. Let's get Pat on the show. All right, a baseball game. 38,000 people at Yankee Stadium watching Derek Jeter at back. Guys, I don't know, but I'm horribly disappointed about this because we get free Yankee's tickets from my hospital and it's a real downer. Yeah.

Is there a world where that's not happened in the summer? Yeah. I've been reading about multiple curves. Yeah, we can slow down this curve, but it'll just come back again once everyone starts hanging out again. We want people to ramp back up in May, so by August, we got another curve. Everyone go back to your houses. Yeah. The Spanish flu of 1918 had this sort of biphasic epidemic where it was bad in the spring of 1918

and then bad again the next fall, winter, but it kind of had a period of time where it regressed. That could happen again, for sure. Did that be because of the Fomoids or what? You've forgotten what that word was already. Of course. This is a bad sign when Jake has to, I have to start homeschooling Jake today. This is a terrible sign. No, that's more like, it's because like a low level of people still have it and it like has a resurgence of like,

because that's why viruses in general have a spike in the winter when we all go inside and start hanging out with each other more inside. Yeah, I see that. Okay, we actually got an email from a listener that I thought maybe you can help us answer. Can I read this email? Ooh, yeah. Presley's going to have to give him a name. Yeah, a fake dude's name.

Sebastian, that's my cat's name. That's cool. Nice. Hey fellas, Sebastian here. My girlfriend and I are completely separated during the quarantining of COVID-19. She just told me she's worried she's going to lose interest in me and want to break up since we can't see each other indefinitely. What the fuck, am I right?

Wow. Is this all it takes to completely botch a relationship? We've been dating for over a year and things have been pretty good for the most part. Is this just an excuse she's using to get out of the relationship? What should I do? How can I see her again in a healthy way? Love y'all and stay safe. Sebastian.

This actually does feel like it's more in y'all's wheelhouse. It feels more that there's an issue with their relationship than a COVID problem. Imagine a couple just starts dating. At what point can they start hanging out again? Does it have to be like, all right, if we're hanging out again, we're living together and we can't ever go outside? I did. I told Jake this and he did not like it and he probably won't want me to say it on your podcast.

But I was reading like a Q&A from a medical ethicist and they said not to have sex or kiss your partner even if you're like a live in, even if it's a live in partner. Wow. I don't think that that's hugely realistic. Tell that to my wife. Yeah, sorry. It's not a problem for me. But if it's like a, if this is a casual partner, I mean, it doesn't sound like this is what

the question's issue is that truly sounds like he might have a separate issue. Yeah. I wouldn't even say that. Your girlfriend doesn't like you, Sebastian. Anyway, go on. But like, if you are in a relationship with someone who you haven't seen very much or you don't know very well or you don't live with, I think you have now's the time to like start, I don't know, having phone sex or like.

Whoa, talk. Really hot. Easy. But yeah, I don't think that this is, I don't think this is a good time to like come over for a casual hookup. Yeah. I bet booty calls are going down considerably. Yeah.

Where are they going up? Because people are irrationally horny and they're on bumble looking for their Corona hookup. I don't know. Not that that's a good thing to do, Presley. I'm not advising it, obviously. But you still can do like get on Zoom. Yeah. I imagine that's what Zoom is for, right?

Yeah, definitely. That's why they call it making Zoom Zoom. Jake, do you think she's just using this as an excuse? Yeah. I think not being able to, or it might also be like feeling vulnerable in their own way. Sometimes people say their, project their fears so you will alleviate them. So they'll say, I think I would lose interest in you because maybe she's thinking he might lose interest in me and she just wants to be reassured.

So that's a possibility. I would say this is a great excuse to get out of any like half relationship you're in. It's like, hey, I literally, the surgeon general says, I can't see you. I don't know what you want me to say, babe. Well, we can have Zoom sex. Dr. Presley said. What's the point? Yeah.

This epidemic is a great excuse to like force a relationship where you are on the fence or force you to break up with someone. Yeah. So you can use that as the, as the silver lining here for sure. Also, Presley, you've, you've repeatedly scolded me over text for sort of not using condoms and stuff. So if you'd want to make a public statement about safe sex, now's your chance. Yeah, I think that safe sex is hugely important.

You have, I imagine, I don't know, what is y'all's demographic? Do you have like numbers on the ages that listen to you? It's, yeah, it's, it's mostly 14 year old boys in Hebrew school. Yeah. I just, sometimes I've heard you guys like sort of imply that condom, that things can be better without condoms. You guys, you guys imply, I've said that, I've said it verbatim. No, yeah, you have.

And it's just not worth it. Like no one is, they're, you know, HIV is very much a live still and other diseases also are not fun, including syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea. And I would highly recommend condom use. I agree. I agree with the doctor. And I, and I will agree to disagree, but everyone obviously shouldn't listen to me listen to the doctor.

Okay, doctor, I got one last question for you. Yeah. Have you heard the theory of like, we might as well just fucking do what we're going to do to keep everything open. People will die, but that's better than the economy, like being crippled. Interesting. That sounds insane to me. Yeah.

That's like an ethical kind of like, how much do you value like human life? Yeah. I don't know. But this, you know, the economic impact also is huge on human life too. Like that's not, they're both, it's, it's horrible in so, so many ways. But the problem here is that hospitals are already operating in maximum capacity and that's going to affect people that have COVID-19 in addition to people who have any other medical problem that needs hospital functioning as well.

Yeah. I forgot about like actual shit. Like imagine going to a dermatologist right now. Like what if you had eczema? You are. Nobody's doing that. Well, they, they, they disallowed, or they like ended elective surgery in New York. Yeah.

I was also, I was chopping, I was chopping lettuce today and I like almost sliced my finger. And I was like, hmm, that would have been really bad. Yeah. Me going to an emergency room with a cut finger right now, that seems impossible. It really stings, Doc. I have a boo boo, Doc. This freaking kill. Yeah.

They're like, you know, they canceled like one of the big things in the children's hospital. They canceled like tonsillectomies. But they're still doing like other like kids are still coming in for chemo and kids with heart transplants are in the hospital. And it's, yeah, it's not a, it's, you don't want those kids to not have access to the care that they need. Yeah. They need the beds too.

Consider. Yeah, you need the beds. We're fucked. But there's a 1000 person ship coming our way. Every governor is pumping the numbers trying to get that ship. Yeah. The governor of California is like, yeah, 56% of California's might get it. So can we get the ship?

We want the boat. I want the cruise. The booze cruise. I will say if you guys, like if people are listening and wondering what they can do, I would donate to a food bank. Because like we were talking about with the economic implications, a lot of people need food more than they and have less access to it than they did previously. Yep.

And if you are healthy and you are able, I would donate blood products because there are no longer blood drives at schools and churches like there used to be. And we are at a critical shortage. How do I donate blood right now? Isn't that dangerous? You, you, there are clinics. You can Google. So there's the New York blood bank.

Hold on. Let me Google it really quick. Sorry. We're out of time. The New York blood center would be the place to look and you can put in your zip code. And if it's somewhere that's walking distance, I think it's still, I think that is something that is worthy to go out and love your house for. Very good.

Unsolicited advice. Indeed. Very nice. Sorry. I wanted to get it in. Mine was about wearing scarves. All right. One last silly question to end it on a funny note.

Sorry. Yeah. It's all your fault, Presley. I wanted to get coronavirus in the next 24 hours. Do you think I could? And how would you recommend I do it? I would go to any random adult emergency room. Okay.

Done. Definitely don't wear a mask. Nice. Don't wear protective eye gear. Done. Sit yourself next to the sickest looking person who's coughing and having difficulty breathing and get next to them while they're getting intubated. Will they let me do that on a week?

It would be tough. But if you were committed, that's what I would do. All right. Cool. Because I made a bet with Jake before you got on that I can get it in the next 24 hours. I was going to go find a Fomoid and just fucking lick it. What's that word again? Fomite.

It is Fomite. Yeah. Fomite. A non-living surface. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Presley, for coming on the show. Guys, thanks for listening to me.

I'm sorry I was a little bit of a downer. When this is all over, we're going to call you again and we'll just do sex and STD questions. But then we're going to be having Zoom sex and you don't even need to use a condom for that. Cool. So it's just going to be Zoom sex advice relationship questions. So it won't even be medical advice, actually. Nope.

Perfect. Can't fucking wait. The future is here. We got a closing theme song from Hunter McCoyd in Central Florida. So thanks to Hunter for your theme song. Thanks to God, I already forgot the name of the original theme song. Do you remember his name, Jake? No fucking clue, man.

Jordan Holmes. Nice. Jordan Holmes. And thanks to you guys for listening. We'll be back as soon as possible. We're making stuff on the Head Gum Instagram account, live streams and trying to keep people as entertained as possible while we quarantine ourselves. That's right.

Stay safe. Stay home. We'll be back soon. Use condoms, folks. Bye. Bye. That was a Head Gum podcast.