It Could Happen Here - Coronavirus Check Up with Dr. Kaveh Hoda

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

Is our Healthcare system collapsing? How worried should you be about the virus right now? We sit down with Dr. Kaveh Hoda. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. This is It Could Happen Here, a podcast that i opened perfectly as a professional as a man who makes all of his money from podcasts uh no notes kaveh how's syphilis doing these days you don't

hear a lot from syphilis is it is it holding up okay yeah it's around it's fine thank you for asking good i'm glad to know that. It's not the same thread it used to be. It comes back in waves every now and then. It had a good run for a couple of years. It's kind of like Star Trek, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's a- Kind of comes in and out.

Well, I don't think there's new versions of it. I think it's like the same good old syphilis pretty much. I don't think it changes drastically. So it's like Star Trek on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, good to hear from syphilis pretty much. I don't think it changes drastically. So it's like Star Trek on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Well, good to hear from syphilis. This has been your syphilis update. That's going to do it for us this week. Until next week, I've been Robert Evans, Dr. Kabehota, and of course, Garrison Davis. All right.

Bye, everyone. Bye. No, that's not it. Is everyone gone? It would be pretty funny to just do that, Sophie, to just drop a one and a half minute episode on syphilis. But only if we put in 15 ads.

Yeah, we really, like every word, we have a full ad break in between. Yeah, then people would probably complain less about the 900 ads that are in our episodes right now. I can talk about syphilis. What are we doing right now? What is this episode about? Kaveh, what's going on?

I'm assuming you guys want to talk about the coronavirus. Or, I don't know, I could talk about whatever you want. But I think that's probably what you guys brought me on for. All right. What is this coronavirus? Is this a problem? It's a little problem. That's not good to hear.

It's not great. Sophie, why didn't you give me a heads up on this? That's me not giving you a heads up on the plague. I didn't hear anything about this. Is this why all the masks? This is the mask thing.

That's why you got those two jabs in your arms in that random parking lot. Oh, I thought that was heroin. Sorry to disappoint. First of all, can we talk about the use of the word jab? I don't love it. I mean, you're not James Bond. Let's not use jab. That's fair.

I prefer what i think is the proper medical term vein fucked yeah but it's not really your vein either it's really just intramuscular fucked oh right muscle fucked yeah yeah i mean what what are the cool kids calling it is it a poke what do we want yeah garrison what do the teens call it yeah yeah is it are they calling it the TikToks? Yeah, it's called the TikTok. I don't know. I've been working on a... All day today, I've been working

to find this proud boy who's pretending to take COVID vaccines, but it's actually steroids. And he calls them... Critical support. He calls them extracurriculars okay so that honestly rules that's extremely funny i'm hoping an article will be out by the time this podcast airs so uh who's the article for uh i'm not sure yet i'm talking with opossum press

oh okay cool well that's funny garrison what is today's episode about well we want to talk to we wanted to talk to kava about both what the current plague situation is because a lot of people seem to think it's over a lot of people seem to think it's not over um and then also how is covid and all the stuff still affecting our hospital and medical system? Is there supply shortages for medical supplies? What's going on in different areas? Staffing. Yeah, because all of that, all that kind of stuff. Got you.

Yes, is the answer. Yes, is the answer. It's the answer. Yeah, it's still a problem. I don't think, don't listen to anyone who tells you that it's not. Don't listen to anyone who gives you too sunny a forecast on it. But it, you know, it's different in different places is the long and the short of it. In places where the vaccinations are higher and where there's mandates and there's reasonable laws about things, the rates are going down.

Shout out California. California, but also like Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont. These are places with high vaccination rates. The rates of cases are going down in those places. Places like Mississippi, West Virginia, Idaho, Alabama. These are places where it's 40% to 49% vaccination rates, and the cases are going way up. You guys might have heard of a couple of things happening. There was that 46-year-old guy named Daniel Wilkinson.

He's a vet who developed something called gallstone pancreatitis, which I could talk to you guys about for hours. I won't. Don't worry. But I could. I'm just letting you know I could. I won't. And there's – I mean, in Idaho, they just declared it's not a total DNR, but anyone who has

cardiac arrest is on a DNR now in Idaho because they just don't have the resources to be... Well, that's not entirely... What did I get wrong there? That's not your fault that you got it wrong because there were doctors that were spreading that story about. Now, they are

in what's called the crisis standard of care. And part of that means that hospitals could go to putting everyone on DNR, which means do not resuscitate. Yeah, yeah. Which means if you have a cardiac arrest, they won't do anything about it. That's not what's actually happening. It could happen. When they institute this crisis standard of care, what it means is that if a hospital gets so short on their ventilators and they just don't have any more room, then they could implement that. I mean, I don't know.

I haven't heard of anyone. I was asking around to see if any doctors in Idaho could tell me of a hospital that's actually doing it. I haven't seen or heard of one that's actually doing it yet, but they could. The point is, it's that bad. That's a reasonable discussion where doctors have to discuss, kind of like they were back in the day in New York, where they have to be like, okay, does this person, do we put the young lady on the ventilator or the old guy? Then we have to decide, and they make those decisions. It's really awful. It's a position no doctor wants to be in and now that's becoming a reality it's brutal it's brutal out there and right and that's bleeding into other states nearby you know so is that what you mean by the wilkerson situation because his doctor like couldn't find uh an icu bed for him is that the

is that the story you're talking about that's the. So he's this guy who had a problem that can be fixed. I mean, it's a procedure called an ERCP that he can get done at specialty centers. And he didn't live far from Houston. Houston has plenty of those specialty centers that can do it. They have great gastroenterologists like myself. Not as good, but same sort of thing. And they could do it if they had the availability to get him in, but they didn't. And so he died to something that he shouldn't have. It's basically that example. And I'm sure there's more examples of that. And what really worries me is the examples that you're not hearing yet, like cases that are delayed now, cancer screening things that are being delayed now in these hospitals that we're

gonna be paying down the road that's that's the shit that really scares me great like just people not going in for things in general too yeah exactly yeah i have friends other than you who work in ers and stuff um nurses and a doctor um and bullshit it's up in the PNW but the shit they're saying is like in today's crap like like I they are working on like building capacity

and making sure they have things to like treat their friends because it's like the advice is do not go to the hospital like if at all possible like because there's just not capacity for you unless it's like literally an immediate life and death thing. It's it's almost not worth like trying because there's just nothing. There's no slack. The system is and it's it's it's starting to turn.

It looks like here in the Portland area. But like it's it's frightening like these are not people who would be bullshitting or or are are prone to panic you know they're er professionals but um it it's it's fucked up like it's it's sad it it's this thing where like the scary thing to me is not even necessarily where we are right now because it does like there is some kind of broadly positive news in a lot of areas about like where the pandemic is going it's just like this situation won't be fixed when case numbers go down it's it's it's going to be permanent damage has been done to the system and i guess what i'm wondering

first off like to from what you're seeing seeing, what is the extent of the permanent damage done to our emergency medical system in particular and our ability to even get care at the moment? Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't know. It kind of goes back to, I think, what Garrison wanted to talk about, which is the collapse of the medical system. I think we talk about it a lot in terms of we're on the edge of collapse, we're medical system. I think we talk about it a lot in terms of we're on the edge of collapse, we're near collapse. I think there are places in this country where it already has collapsed. I think that's pretty evident. It's not homogeneous in any way across this country. There are certainly places that are better than others, and there's

certainly places that have a lot more leeway and flexibility, but everywhere is strained right now. And in regards to your question about permanent damage, I'll answer that in regards to just the personnel. Because of the show that I have, The House of Pod, follow us on Twitter at The House of Pod, I talk to a lot of doctors and nurses from all over the country. I talk to them a lot, and it's bad. I mean, the stress that they're under, the PTSD that they're dealing with, the burnout, the level of burnout is just intense. It's intense.

I think we were talking about moral injury and burnout before all this started. And now it is to a point where I don't know what's going to happen to the medical system, just in terms of the personnel when this is all over. I would say out of just my immediate friend group, I can think of a couple offhand excellent doctors, really great ICU, ER doctors who are already planning their exit. And I don't know. I mean, in the next coming years, that's going to be a major issue, and I don't know how we're going to address that. And our nurses in the ICUs, man, the stuff they have to put up with is insane. You just see it in their eyes. Their eyes are broken. I volunteered on the wards a couple of weeks ago, and the doctors and nurses taking care of these COVID patients day in, day out, there's a little bit of their soul that's been broken. You can just see it in their eyes.

I was there for just a week, and it's terrifying. You're going into a room with a patient with COVID. It's scary. Even no matter how much PPE, protective equipment you have on, you're always a little scared. And I just think years of that, that weighs on a person in a way I don't – I mean, I am worried about it. I don't know how we're going to address that. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, and it's frustrating because from the perspective of people listening, the thing you want to ask is, well, how can I help? And it's like, well, you can't because you're already, if you're listening to this show, I assume you're masking.

I assume you've gotten vaccinated if you don't have a condition that renders you unable to get the vaccine. I think our listeners tend to be pretty responsible people. I think our listeners tend to be pretty responsible people. It's just not enough because 30 to 40% of the country decided to like Leroy Jenkins a plague. Garrison, do you know that reference? Yeah, do you get that reference, Garrison? I'm familiar with Leroy Jenkins. That's good.

Were you born when Leroy Jenkins became a thing? I don't know. You would have been like three. I would have been young. Yeah. Yeah. It was Deadpool that brought him to your attention, isn't it? No, no.

It came to my attention just doing general internet nonsense. Yeah, it was the first meme that you could show your parents pretty much. I guess there were Badger, Badger, Mushroom, a couple of others in that category. But like it was one of the first memes that wasn't a man's gaping asshole prolapsed. But I showed my parents that all the time. I don't know what you're talking about. There was a beautiful moment back in the day when somebody goat-seated a stadium. That's what brought you into medicine. This is what I saw at work.

They were so proud of me. They were like, look at our son. Look at our boy. Look at our boy. He can tell us exactly why that man's asshole looks that way. You have a weird job. Mm-hmm. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian.

Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban,

I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all

over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house.

So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our episode with actor, former Beverly Hills 90210 star,

and host of the podcast, I Choose Me, Jenny Garth. There have been so many times when I've been really lost. I say that because I'm on the other side of it. And the only way to get to the other side of something is to go through it, not around it, allow your body to feel the pain. And then you have to dig in sometimes and look within to learn from it because that's what all these obstacles are for, I guess. Ultimately, what other choice do you have? Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I guess one of my questions is, with the assumption that people are taking the actual plague-related steps they can to reduce

their burden to the medical system, what can people realistically do? I mean, I think part of that is, and this is, and I'm not going to have you to like explain how you can take care of your own medical treatments in an emergency on a podcast. That's not the time or the place. Although I do think it's probably a good idea for people to read up on first aid and basic life-saving emergency. It's always a good idea to have some training there. But yeah, I mean, do you have other advice? You know, you're exactly right. The people that are listening to this podcast are totally on board already, and they're super supportive. And we appreciate that appreciate that i mean that is not unnoticed

i mean um you know it's having people like uh outside the hospitals every now and then applauding doctors i know it's cheesy but it's great i'll take that over the blue angels flying overhead any day yeah you know so it's so that stuff is really important. And masking and taking care of themselves is great. You know, the real practical things that people can do, I think, is help contribute to sites that will help get the rest of the world vaccinated. I mean, we can definitely talk about that, the question of boosters here versus, you know, vaccines for the first time elsewhere. But that's the one thing I would recommend right now. If you want to help,

let's put our money into places where we can get vaccines to other places. And I think that every little bit of that helps in the long run. And that's the sort of thing that we could use. Other than that, I mean, I just hope that people are still going into medicine and in nursing. That's the only thing I can still hope, is that people who have an interest in it continue to do it. And for those people who are just, they're training those years, their formative years, or during this time, I just want to let them know, I swear it gets better. It's not always going to be like this. And if you make it through this, you're going to be an amazing clinician. You're going

to be an amazing nurse. You're going to be an amazing doctor. And I really want you guys to keep doing it. That's one thing I would say too. Yeah. I mean, and I'll certainly add that if you're someone who's contemplating a medical career, please. I mean, just from a there's a couple of things on that, like just from a perspective of what the world needs, it's what the world needs. But also, if you're listening to the stuff we're saying about the crumbles, about the possibility of the collapse, if you're someone who who foresees things getting potentially much more difficult in the future, not a lot of things more useful in a bad situation than somebody with medical training. I do count on that, getting me through the apocalypse. Yeah. I'm soft. I am so soft.

I went camping, and I couldn't handle it. A couple weeks ago, I went camping. It was awful. There was so much dust. It was an awful experience. But I just thought, if the apocalypse comes, I will hopefully get placed in a very nice tent because i'm a doctor so i i'm counting on that to get me through there are there are so many dumbass boogaloo type quote-unquote preppers who who focus on the guns and the gear and the the dried food but and the throwing knives and the shirt throwing knives but don't even have

an ifac an individual first aid kit or like a tourniquet. And like talk to, you talk to like, I mean, this is a little off topic, but like talk to combat Marines about like their favorite person. It's always the corpsman. It's the guy who knows or the lady who knows how to like patch a bullet wound and whatnot. Yeah. Like there's nothing more useful in any situation pretty much that that is dangerous than somebody who can do medicine so please if you're if you're studying to do medicine if you're contemplating becoming an emt or a paramedic or a nurse or whatever good god we

need you so badly yeah i agree yeah we've talked a little bit about just the medical system in general and then we can also kind of discuss more stuff related to how covid's impacting certain areas more than others and like let's say someone who's someone who's listening who's in one of these areas that has only 40 vaccinated you know not a lot of people are going around with masks on and you know schools starting back up maybe they have kids are going to their school system i know in texas they have you know child deaths are rising that sounds very frightening to be that kind of person who like you know would like like to see that stuff happen in their state but it's just not really possible and i don't know with so much of the rest of the world kind of slowly taking back restrictions i'm

sure it feels very jarring to be in a situation like that and kind of like there's really nothing you can do, right? Because you can talk to your family, you can talk to your friends, but overall it's hard to make a big impact in a state like Texas, Alabama, like Idaho, all the ones that you were mentioning before. Alabama, Idaho, all the ones that you were mentioning before. From a medical kind of perspective, is there any way people can kind of start to talk about those things with their family?

Because the way we've been trying to get people to take the vaccine with the marketing we've been doing has not been super successful in these demographics. Do you think there's other conversations that can get people to slowly kind of be more able to contemplate that? Yeah, that's a tough question. It's particularly tough if you're someone who believes in the importance of vaccines or the importance of masks and that sort of thing, and you're in a place where you're a minority, that is tough. The first thing I'll say is definitely know that the vaccine helps. You're in a much better

position because of the vaccine. When I was on the wards and I was looking at patients, they're almost all unvaccinated. Those are the people that end up in the hospital. You can still get hospitalized if you have the vaccine, but it's much less likely. Not that these people don't count, they count just as much, but if you don't have an underlying problem like a liver transplant or some immunosuppression, then you're less likely to have a really bad outcome with

COVID if you're vaccinated. So just know that it helps. You still might get it. It'll suck. But for the most part, you're going to stay out of the hospital. And that really, I think, is something to have a little comfort in. It really does seem to work. Outside of that, the schools thing is a real concern for me, and I'm going to feel a lot better. And we're going to be in a much better position once we are able to get kids vaccinated. Yeah. So there's two things. You guys probably heard that there was this committee that met to advise the FDA about booster shots.

That's one thing. So booster shots are going to go out to people who need them, 65 and older, people at high risk, people in high risk occupations. They're like frontline workers. So there's going to be booster shots coming out. And then the data is coming out now about 5 to 11 year olds. 5 to 11, yeah. Yeah.

And that's pretty promising. It looks like they're going to do okay with lower doses. So they use about one-third the dose of the vaccine that the adults get. And it seems to work. We haven't seen much other than the pre-press release from Pfizer. But if you really pick at it, it looks promising. So that's something that makes me hopeful. That's something I'm definitely clinging to.

I think there's no way we're getting out of this without vaccinating kids. That just has to happen. Yeah. I think once that starts rolling out, and hopefully it will soon. I mean, I don't want to put a date on it, but I'm hoping within the next couple months this starts happening. So, you know, once that starts happening, I'm going to feel a lot more comfortable. I think people in those situations are going to feel a lot more comfortable too. Yeah.

The booster thing is an interesting question to me. Yeah, from an ethical standpoint particularly. You know, I think it's not a fair narrative to say it has to be one or the other. And I think people are saying that. I think we can do it. I think we can produce enough vaccine here for people who haven't got it yet, and enough for the boosters, and start supplying more to the world. I mean, we can do more. Our government and Pfizer and Moderna definitely need to do more in that regards. They definitely need to do more in

terms of production. They haven't hit their goals in a lot of these places. But it's also not like they haven't done anything yet. They gave about 200 million doses are being donated just this week, I think. So they are doing things. It's happening. It's just we need more of it. We need more of it. We need to ramp up production. Yeah.

It's weird because you're right. We could produce enough vaccines for the places that don't have them and enough vaccines for boosters over here and all it would take is a couple of months of our afghanistan mad money but we're not going to do that and so it it probably will like i don't know contribute to an issue of fact there's a there's a chance that it will contribute to an issue of vaccine unavailability but also it's not like if we don't know, contribute to an issue of vaccine. There's a chance that it will contribute to an issue of vaccine unavailability. But also, it's not like if we don't get the boosters, those vaccines will be available because we're just not giving them out in the extent that we need.

So yeah, I don't know. I understand what you're saying. I'll get the booster if they decide to give out boosters because I like not having permanent damage due to covid or getting long covid yeah yeah that that seems great welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters

to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world

as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents.

Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our episode with actor, former Beverly Hills 90210 star and host of the podcast, I Choose Me, Jenny Garth.

There have been so many times when I've been really lost. I say that because I'm on the other side of it. And the only way to get to the other side of something is to go through it, not around it. Allow your body to feel the pain. And then you have to dig in sometimes and look within to learn from it because that's what all these obstacles are for, I guess. Ultimately, what other choice do you have? Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and a lot of the vaccine has been see kind of relies it tracks back to how we've been marketing it and i've i've been on the team that's like we should stop using fauci because every time

fauci goes on tv to talk about vaccines yeah more people are gonna do like a backfire effect you'll be like no i'm not gonna get it i don't trust fauci so there is a particular like marketing thing that i think we've failed on like america is very good at marketing when we can make money but when it's not related to getting gaining more profit i think the government's very bad at marketing these types of things um and on the kind of the marketing side of things i don't know things, this is kind of old news at this point, but the whole swollen testicles thing, which you have not talked about on this show about, but I'm sure you have thoughts

about how this thing has kind of ballooned, which is, that can be a fun part of the way. Like the testicles. Like the testicles, exactly. Because it's friend. So how the marketing and misinformation relates to this cool kind kind of current problem yeah yeah first of all that particular story i mean that's hilarious i mean like this i've never i've never seen someone's excuse for venereal disease

become such an international issue yeah contribute to the deaths probably of hundreds of people. Right. You know, the marketing thing is a really great question. And it's been driving me crazy. Because part of me at this point just wants to be like, get the fucking vaccine. What the fuck's wrong with you? Get the fucking vaccine. Pardon my language.

But then the part of me knows that that doesn't work. Right. I do believe doctors should be able to express their frustration. They need to be able to do that. If we can't do that right now, I mean, it's game over. They need to at least have that ability where doctors can voice their frustration with anti-vaxxers, but still give them the same high level of care that we're always going to give them no matter what when they show up in the hospital. But it's not working to do that.

We need other approaches. I don't entirely know what they are. There are some people, they're so far out there that we're just never going to reach. The people, the microchip people, there's like a level of deprogramming that will need to happen to those people that we just, it's too exhausting to do that. You really have to like,

you can't scale that in any meaningful way for the country i mean i i think yeah i don't know i think calling it the trump vaccine was the closest we got to having that be a possibility and that fucking i'm interested in your thoughts on the fucking breitbart article and if you're not aware because you're less online than us and god bless you if you are breitbart the which is i don't know, CNN for fascists, came out with an article blaming the Democrats for the fact that Republicans don't want to take the vaccine and saying it's a secret liberal plot to exterminate conservatives because conservatives refuse to take vaccines because they're fundamentally oppositional defiant. And like it's it's the fault of people who are telling them to take the vaccine that they're not taking the vaccine because obviously, why would you trust a liberal on anything? Reverse psychology.

But also they're trying to kill us and we're going to lose the election because we're all dying because we refuse to get vaccinated for a preventable disease. Anyway, how do you feel about that comment? I don't love it. I don't love it. I'm vaguely familiar with Breitbart. I don't know that exact article because I have enough pain in my life already. Fair enough. But, you know, I do wonder, it's like when they put out articles like this, when Tucker Carlson goes out and he does his thing questioning vaccines, just asking questions about vaccines that lead to vaccine hesitancy.

Like, what calculations are they doing? Are they doing calculations? Is this just him being callous and not giving a fuck and just doing it? Or is there some calculation that him and some sort of right-wing think tank are doing where they're like, hey, look, this sells to our audience. They love it. Let's keep doing it. Yes, we are going to lose X portion of our audience because of this, but we still have plenty of audience left. I wonder how that's happening. It is true. It is hurting them more than other people. It's hurting everyone. Everyone's getting affected by this, but it's those states that are being

affected, the people not getting vaccinated who are listening to people like Tucker Carlson. So I don't understand what their endgame is here. Like, this is their market. Why not protect it? And that I do not have a good answer for. I was hoping one of you guys would. You know, it's – there's a lot going on there. I think a decent chunk of it is the assumption that whatever they lose in terms of dead followers won't be worth more than continuing the cash bonanza that is owning the libs. Right. Because that's all they that's all that's the entirety of the right wing media. It's just owning the libs. It's just oppositional defiant. It's just hating anything Democrats do.

So you you kind of can't. You're a cuck if you tell people to receive basic medical care if Democrats are taking that basic medical care. Right. So it's a pride thing for a lot of them. Two things I love is when you when you use the word cuck or when you do ben shapiro's voice like those are like two of my favorite things that you do it's um you say it really well far beyond anything rational on the right um and it's it's difficult to like i, I think the calculation is just like, I think a lot of these guys is the same thing with climate change.

Like they're smart enough to know that they're contributing to an uninhabitable world, but they want to cash in first. They want to get as much as they can out before it falls apart. And I think that's all any of these people care about, because I think there are the true believers. The radio guys are true believers, right?

The radio guys who keep dying because they don't get vaccinated. Those guys did believe that it was some sort of weird conspiracy. It was the communists, whatever. Clearly, because they died. That's the mid-management level. Yeah. Mid-management level. They don't know all the stuff that they're being told from above, and they kind of believe

it enough to where they kill themselves for the company. I think for Tucker, it's more a matter of like hey i keep making money and i maintain my power if i if i continue to hold this line you you lose power you get weaker it's like when trump got booed for telling people to take the fucking vaccine you know yeah yeah um yeah crazy you can't go back with this shit. You just can't. And you certainly can't admit to ever having been wrong. Right.

Yeah. Oh, man. It's good shit. What a fun note to end the episode on. What a good society we've built. Love us. Oh, my God. Bravo.

Mm-hmm. Oh. Well, Kava, people can find you by looking up the house of pod yes slightly less depressing but not super uplifting either at this point follow us at the house

of pod at twitter and you can listen to our podcast pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts. We'll talk about medical type things, but not so deep into the woods that it's not entertaining, I hope. Yeah, fuck the woods. Yeah, fuck the woods. We have fun guests

ranging from the world's best medical experts to, you know, you guys. People like us. The world's best medical experts, yeah. You guys are right up there. Let me tell you, for medicine, right? There's no better medicine than just a big fat pile of cocaine. And the good thing about cocaine is it's a sterilizing agent.

So if you're worried about COVID getting in your nasal passages, just rail cocaine before you and after you go into the store. It's like getting a COVID test, but more fun. Legally, I have to tell you that's false. Well, we all have our opinions about how cocaine works. Well, you have your facts, and I have my facts. I have my facts. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go pick up a single item at the grocery store.

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