LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 70 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

New Virus Variants Discovered! Vaccines are the Best Protections against Variants! In this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss these topics and more, including Fraud in vaccines continue, Sequencing in Labs are happening quickly, UAE Continues Lead in Vaccination Efforts, and 200 million people have been infected with COVID-19. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more! The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 70 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Take advantage of the advanced video capabilities offered by Bosch to help reduce your shrink risk. Integrate video recordings with point-of-s sale data for visual verification of transactions and exception reporting. Use video analytics for immediate notification of important AP related events and leverage analytics metadata for fast forensic searches for evidence and to

improve merchandising and operations. Learn more about extending your video system beyond simple surveillance in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science the Podcast. This is the latest in our weekly update series from the LPRC. And I want to welcome as usual, our co-host and speakers, Tony D'Onofrio, Tom Meehan, and our producer, Diego Rodriguez. And of course, all of you all listening out there across the globe. We want to welcome you and do some quick updates to start this week out right. And we're looking at, of course, as we have been for over a year now, the COVID-19 situation around the world.

And we've seen and continue to study. We read the literature here, listen to podcasts. We ask questions of those on campus that are experts in the area and read their releases. So trying to all to keep our team and you all as a team up to date. And just looking at some of the effects of the virus, there's a lot of comparison in the scientific and medical fields between getting the COVID-19 or any virus or infection versus the treatment, the therapy, but in this case, also a vaccine to help better respond to it and

to keep the narratives correct and based on what the research shows rather than what a social media platform, somebody on there talking about it shows. So, you know, in this case with a vaccine, again, we've talked about it's designed to prepare our immune systems to pre-prepare them, to recognize very specific antigens. In this case, that spike protein that's unique to the coronavirus has spikes on it. That's why it's called a coronavirus. It's a little bit like the corona of the sun. through all the research has shown to the years way before the SARS-CoV-2 virus, coronavirus,

that spike plays a large role in attaching and transmitting and entering cells to start the infection process. And so if the body, if our adaptive immune system can be pre-trained to recognize that spike protein, then it's ready. can be pre-trained to recognize that spike protein, then it's ready. We've got antibody response launched specific to that antigen. We've got the helper T-cells and killer T-cells and B-cells and other things that are going on that are already now trained to recognize that. So if and when we receive a natural infection, that coronavirus, including its spike proteins, enter us, we're already ready. And so instead of our bodies responding and already recognizing that immediately, instead of learning about it through replication of the virus in our bodies, you can imagine the difference in outcome. So there are and can be very minor, there are, it can be other potential side effects of any vaccine or therapy as we're reading. But there are definitely side effects to the actual virus that our body's trying to fight

something that's rapidly replicating in our bodies and our cells and moving throughout. So that's why we see the leaky blood vessels and that's altering brain tissue evidently and resulting in change or loss in smell or in taste and some sort of memory issues, even hair loss reported now in research and just a myriad of very negative changes, especially within one to two weeks as it enters our lungs and so forth, the damage we see that happens there, both from the virus and from sometimes our body's over-response because it's not been trained to what's going on.

And so we get these storms and hyperinflation and inflammation and things like that going on. So another reason for us to consider or actually take one of the vaccines in earnest. And in fact, it's really, if you read some of the research that's going on and some of the anecdotal reports from some of the more reputable sources out there, the fact in areas where there's been dramatic spread of the Delta and Delta Plus and other variants out there. And by the way, these variants come about by sequencing by different labs. So different areas and labs have capability of sequencing what virus is involved pretty rapidly,

depending on where you are. And that particular place's capability or the capability to rapidly move samples to those labs from different medical facilities because people know how they know which variant it is. And they can sequence it pretty quickly. Now, you can imagine with the technology and all the data around this that are shared in real time between researchers, between pathologists in this case, and those treating physicians and so forth. So that's how they know. But with this, it's just evidently just extremely transmissible, not necessarily more harmful, but it's going to make more and more people sick. But we again know

that we're seeing here, I heard of some of the other day, two sub-30 people. One was sub-35, the other sub-30 years of age that both succumbed to coronavirus in a way that they did not think that they would. And they seemed otherwise very healthy and robust, non-vaccinated. And again, we keep seeing this is between 90 and 99% of those that are admitted to hospital or even where their fatalities were not vaccinated, their bodies were not ready, their immune systems for the for the virus. Overwhelmingly, people don't respond that way, but way too often we do. seen that in addition to that people are sneaking in and getting a third vaccine dose using some sort of deception or fraud or whatever, reading or understanding that maybe a boost, a booster will help. And the science is still, the researchers are out there trying to use science to understand what are those dynamics and so on. Now we understand Israel, all those 60 and above who got the Pfizer two shot series are now eligible. In fact, they're encouraging a third booster for them if it's been either five or six months since the last dose.

the last dose. And so many of us in the United States are probably anywhere in that two to six, seven month range right now. And so they're obviously carefully studying that and looking at how J&J, which was a one-shot dose, most studies are showing right now it's holding up pretty well to the Delta variant. And again, we've said this over and over based on what the readings are that, you know, that these are not designed to keep you from getting, ingesting, inhaling viral particles from another person, a viremic human, but rather pre-train our immune systems to provide a more rapid and effective and safer response to a potential infection. So that's just kind of keep your eyes open on that.

And so when we see people saying, well, those are vaccinated, now you need three. Well, there's a variant. And the variant came from those that were primarily non-vaccinated and it was allowed to replicate and change and alter itself because again, each and each and every human, much less across millions of humans, you can imagine the amount of replication going on. Replication leads to error, error leads to variance and so forth. So that's kind of what's going on. Looking now, we've got about four and a half billion humans globally have been vaccinated with at least one

dose. That's around 41 million per day continue to become vaccinated with at least one dose. That's around 41 million per day continue to become vaccinated with at least another dose, which is incredible. 353 or 4 million humans in the United States have now received at least one dose of one of the three approved vaccines. So we're continuing to go there. Roughly between three quarters of a million Americans a day are getting a vaccination dose, encouraging. And so you see, even in some areas where there's this sort of subtle pressure in different places. And by the way, we're seeing not just slight difference between political affiliation or philosophical, but between racial groups, or at least even in neighborhoods and family differences. So,

you know, a lot of things drive whether somebody's thinking about or knows or understands how vaccines work or what the safety and efficacy profiles of them are. So there's a lot of opportunity here to get more people vaccinated. But it looks like with close to or over three quarters of millions of Americans a day, we can get there a lot quicker. And with those that are sneaking out because they want to avoid some sort of taboo or just don't want to be ribbed by their family or friends, but they're sneaking and they're getting vaccinated. So pretty interesting dynamics happening out there. More therapies continue. That's been the most frustrating part of this SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic. It's just the idea of some therapies that could be given early on, particularly at home or given in the interim or upon hospital admission,

if it gets to that point. They're still on the three or four. We've heard about remdesivir and some anti-inflammatories and some molecules that are proving a little bit of effective, but it's been very frustrating. Some of what I read showed there were two components to that. One is very difficult transition in any research. And this has been learned through the years with cancer research and it's learned anywhere. It's like what we do at the LPRC. If we're researching something in the lab and then we move it outside and then we move it to a store or parking lot or a distribution center, if we move it to a group of stores or distribution centers, or even groups of different retailers, you start to see different effects come in.

And so you can get slightly or even dramatically different results in your research. So the same thing with these COVID-19 therapies that what works in the lab may not work all that well once you get to animal studies, or it may continue, but once you get into a human with all the complexities and the ecosystem of the human body, or that human body in an ecosystem of other humans, or that other environmental factors, you know, things are just different. So science is tough. Science is not what we know. It's a way to learn and to adjust and then relearn and continue. And I think that's another criticism you see out there about what we know or changing guidance. The changing guidance is maddening for all of us. But to those of us that do science, that work through research, we understand that it's iterative. It's something that builds on

each other, that you are, it should be self-correcting, that you and others critique what you did and how you did it. And that leads to the second problem that they have with the vaccine, but mostly the therapy research, is it's not just different findings once you move from lab to human or clinical trials, to human or clinical trials, but the carrying out clinical trials is very difficult, especially now with 353 or 4 million Americans, for example, in the United States that have been vaccinated with at least one dose. How do you find people? It's increasingly difficult that have not been vaccinated, you know, that in what there may be systematic differences between those that are or aren't, that are not related to. So anyway, difficult to transition from the lab to clinical, human clinical trials, and very difficult to carry out human clinical trials. Easier with those that have been hospitalized. But if you're just testing things on those that are hospitalized versus all Americans, you know, that's a different concept.

So stay tuned. Everybody's working away. I know here at the University of Florida, the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute, the EPI, has come out with some more therapies that they're looking at where they're combining different molecules, some new unique antivirals in this case to see how they can better affect. Moving over to the LPRC front, we've got a supply chain summit coming up. We've already successfully carried out. We're really excited about the product protection summit and the violent crime summit. And for LPRC members, those have been edited because we record all of these summits. And so those are be available and are available on the LPRCs via the app or on the website. If you remember, you can log in and go in and you'll be able to enjoy with your team, learn, share all about different ways that we conduct the research, but most importantly, what we're finding with different, in this case, theft prevention or violence prevention, what's going on there.

Additionally, under LPRC Innovates AI Solve for Artificial Intelligence, AI Solve, the second of a three-part series is now out and available. Stay tuned on that. series is now out and available. Stay tuned on that. Always lpresearch.org is a place to stop and go to find out more about what we're up to. That website is amazing. Diego does a super job of racing to keep it up to date and continue to adapt and adjust and improve the website, lpresearch.org. We've also got Impact coming up that first week in October, 4th, 5th, and 6th, given the amount of concern by major retail companies, corporations, and what they're asking their employees to and to not do or to think about as far as travel. we're like everybody else. We're planning fully virtual. We're planning fully physical. Safety is the main mainstay here. We want to provide a safe experience as well as amazing learning and interactive experience. So stay tuned. We're on both tracks right now,

but we will keep everybody posted on what happens. But the main driver, in addition to the safety profile, the concern for keeping people safe from an infectious virus is going to be what retailers can and cannot make the trip due to corporate travel policies, limitations or restrictions or things like that. So again, lpresearch.org. Also, we're always on all the social media platforms, so stay tuned like that. So again, lpresearch.org. Also, we're always on all the social media platforms, so stay tuned for that. But regardless, it's going to be an amazing experience. The amount of content, the type of content, the people delivering it, the lab tours,

everything's there. And again, we can do things virtually if need be, even including the lab tours with our Matterport 3D cameras. So with no further ado, let me head over to Tony D'Onofrio. Tony, if you can kind of light us up, let us know what's going on around the world. I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Reid. And again, a very active type of discussion in terms of what's happening around the world. And a lot of it is about COVID. around the world, and a lot of it is about COVID. And so building on what you actually covered,

Statista this week published as of August 4th, 2021, which countries are leading the race towards full vaccination. Number one is the United Arab Emirates or UAE, where 71% of the population are fully vaccinated. Number two is Bahrain at 65%. Number three is Israel at just over 62%. Number four is the United Kingdom at just over 57%. Germany is number five at 53%. U.S. is sixth and nearly 50%. France is at 49%. And Japan, where the Tokyo Olympics just concluded, they are at 32%. Also from Statista, last week, I did not know it, we celebrated a global grim milestone in terms of COVID. 17 months ago, 17 months after the World Health Organization

officially declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, the world surpassed a grim milestone last week. According to the Johns Hopkins University, global confirmed cases have now surpassed 200 million, with the actual number probably higher due to asymptomatic undetected cases and limited testing. Five countries account for more than half of the world's known cases. The U.S. and three are more than 10 million with the U.S. being at 35 million, India at nearly 32 million, and Brazil at 20 million. The other two countries with high cases are Russia and France. All this data that I've cited, both on the vaccination rates and also on the milestone in the countries with the highest cases, is of August 4th, 2021.

Also interesting this week is how is the pandemic impacting global trade? The World Economic Forum pointed to three major trends in terms of how it's being reshaped. Number one, the pandemic affected services trade more than goods trade. Services trade fell by more than 20% in 2020, almost four times the decline in goods trade. Second, the impact of COVID shock on trade was different across country. In particular, the fall in the Chinese trade was much smaller than in other regions. And the recovery for the Chinese trade was much smaller than in other regions.

And the recovery for the Chinese trade was actually much stronger, supported by global demand for goods and China's ability to reopen its domestic supply chain ahead of the other countries. And the third trend that they see, and we're seeing this in a lot of countries, the pandemic has had a significant impact on shipping costs, which have increased by around 350% since May 2020. Also interesting and a lighter note in terms of some data again from Statista in terms of how many websites do we actually have in the world in 2021? 30 years ago, and again, I did not know this, 30 years ago on August 6th, 1991, British scientist Tim Bernad Lee at CERN in Switzerland published the first website, which was called the World Wide Web, W3.

Fiddling the side was about the World Wide Web projects describing the web and how to use it. By the end of 1992, a year later, roughly there were 10 websites online. And in CERN, a year later, decided to make it all royalty free in 1993 and that's how things got started with the internet. By 1994, three years later, there were close to 3,000 sites and one of the first one that was fledging was Yahoo, which originally was called Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web, which started its online journey as a web directory. By the time Google arrived under the scene, there were 2 million websites. Can you guess, as an audience here, how many websites we have in 2021? The answer is a lot more than I thought when I looked at the number and actually was

pretty surprising. There are now 1.88 billion websites in the world today in 2021. And the growth curve that the chart that was presented by Statista shows that we're not stopping anytime soon. The combined annual growth rate is amazing. So expect a lot more websites to keep growing in the world. And finally, let me close with some data from invoca.com in terms of a few statistics that retail marketers need to know in 2021. 81% of retail shoppers conduct an online search before buying. 77% of shoppers use a mobile device to search for products. In 2021, retail marketers will spend over $23 billion on mobile ads. The average cost for a retail lead is $34.

on mobile ads. The average cost for a retail lead is $34. The average conversion rate for a retail lead is just 3%. The opportunity cost of not being omnichannel is 10% in lost revenue. 84% of consumers believe retailers should be doing more to integrate their online and offline channels. 80% of customers say the experience that a company provides is as important as its product and services. 65% of consumers have cut ties with a brand over a single customer service failure experience. And 40% of consumers purchase more from retailers that provide a personalized shopping experience across channels. So I just said there's 1.88 billion websites. A lot of those sell products to a lot of us.

I share this data to show you how important it is to keep improving that online experience and how important it is to link it to Omnichannel as a strategy, because that is the future of retail. And a lot of this, we actually test and learn here at the Loss Prevention Research Council. And with that, let me turn it over to Reed. All right. Well, thanks so much to you, Tony, for all the great content. We really appreciate it. A lot to think about always, but it's always good to hear the good. The not so good as we take it all in, process it, make the decisions. And we've been talking to people lately and say, well, LPRCs, you guys are the big ideas.

We're the big decision makers. We make the big decisions. So, okay, that's a good yin and yang there. And I appreciate the insight from both of you all on this. And so we encourage everybody, go to lpresearch.org, if you will. Keep posted on what's going on with our summits, our webinars, and, of course, our events, webinars, and of course our events, including the upcoming Supply Chain Protection Summit and the 2021 LPRC Impact version. They're going to be amazing experiences, both content, social and otherwise. Stay tuned on that. A ton of research going on here at the LPRC

outside at Safer Places Lab. We continue to add sensors. We're moving around. We've got LiveView and other technologies coming in to those spaces and places. Very shortly, we've got actually another corporation in the labs, as I am speaking right now, this Tuesday morning here. And so a lot happening at the LPRC, but all of it designed to support you all in those big decisions that you need to make all day, every day. So stay safe out there, stay in touch, and let us know. Keep us posted at operations at lpresearch.org. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast, presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security.

If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.