Radiolab - A Terrible Covid Christmas Special

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

This year was the worst. And as our staff tried to figure out what to do for our last episode of 2020, co-host Latif Nasser thought, what if we stare straight into the darkness … and make a damn Christmas special about it. Latif begins with a story about Santa, and a back-room deal he made with the Trump administration to jump to the front of the vaccine line, a tale that travels from an absurd quid-pro-quo to a deep question: who really is an essential worker?  From there, we take a whistle-stop tour through the numbers that scientists say you need to know as you wind your way (or preferably, don’t wind your way) through our COVID-infested world. Producer Sarah Qari brings us her version of the Christmas classic nobody ever dreamt they’d want to hear: The Twelve Numbers of COVID. You can check out Martin Bazant’s COVID “calculator” here. This episode was reported by Latif Nasser and Sarah Qari, and was produced by Matt Kielty, Sarah Qari, and Pat Walters. Special thanks to Anna Weggel and Brant Miller, Catherine, Rohan, and Finn Munro, Noam Osband, Amber D’Souza, Chris Zangmeister, John Volckens, Joshua Santarpia, Laurel Bristow, Michael Mina,  Mohammad Sajadi, James V. Grimaldi, Stephanie Armour, Joshuah Bearman, Brendan Nyhan And for more on the proposed Santa vaccine deal, see Julie Wernau and her colleagues' reporting at the Wall Street Journal here. Original art for this episode by Zara Stasi. Check out her work at:  www.goodforthebees.com.  Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.    

Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC. Okay, a lot of us is our first time doing the thing together. Yeah, wow. In this spirit of turning over the old and bringing on the new, hey, I'm Chad Ibu Murad. I'm Latif Nasr. This is Radio Lab. And before we get started today, just a quick warning, this episode contains some strong language and fact-based discussions of a certain bearded man in a red suit.

What could it be? discussions of a certain bearded man in a red suit. Hmm. Who could it be? Anyway, this is our final episode of the year, which we should just get out ahead of and say, this year has been awful. Yeah, just really sucked. It sucked hard. Not gonna rehash it all, obviously,

but, and I hate to use this phrase, but these are unprecedented times. Like every day, we're seeing new COVID numbers, total cases, hospitalizations, deaths, Daggering milestone deaths 300,000 confirmed coronavirus related deaths in less than a year It's terrible So eventually we were just like you know what 2020? Fuck you. Oh, they're home with both of us. We're gonna do a goddamn Christmas special We're gonna have fun whether we like it or not. We're gonna have some fun. So today to put a cap on this God for Saken year,

we have two different stories related to the pandemic, both Christmas themed stories. And we're gonna start with me, you with you. I just wanna know, is it irony? I'm not sure if it's irony, that currently we have two different people talking about two different aspects of Christmas and they're both Muslim and don't solve very Christmas. I love it.

I love it. I was not only talking about, not only talking about, I was last night, it was a midnight, I was texting Santa. I'm deep in this story, I'm deep. Okay, so I know we're talking about Santa, but that's really all I know. Okay, well, I think the important place to start is of course, as always, with Dr. Fauci.

Dr. Anthony Fauci reassuring kids around the world, Santa is gonna be okay. Who said to a couple of USA Today reporters that Santa Claus is exempt from COVID-19? He was just trying to get kids not to worry about Santa Claus say that he's going to be fine. So here's the thing, Santa is not immune to COVID-19. In fact, it's the opposite. If you can get it, and he's very vulnerable. And frankly, he's worried about it.

And that's what I was texting about with him last night. Like he's worried, he's gonna get it. He's worried he might be, he might spread it to somebody else. Wow. So let me first say, I learned about this story about Santa and COVID from another journalist named Julie. I'm Julie Werner.

I'm a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. What, how did this even happen? What do you actually usually normally cover? I'm guessing not Christmas related things. No, I mean, that's my whole beat whole beat right I just cover Santa Claus and mall Santa's. No, I actually read about the restaurant industry and I was working on a story about winter coming and the fact that people you know we're going to have to figure out how to sit outside in winter. And as a lot of people have seen, now there's egg lues and all sorts of things and heat lamps.

And I thought to myself, what else happens in winter? Christmas. What are the santa's doing? And you know, just as what it is to be a reporter, right? You have like a germ of an idea, then you just go down a rabbit hole and you get paid to do that. So... And that rabbit hole eventually led her to this. Our next speaker is back in August. Santa actually gave a speech to the CDC. Mr. Irwin. Thank you. Not since the depth of the Great Depression or the darkest hours of World War II have so many sane and sober adults wondered allowed. Whether America may be facing a year without Christmas. This is Santa Rick Irwin.

He's the leader of a group of over 500 Santas called the fraternal order of real bearded Santas. the fraternal order of real bearded Santas. Which is exactly what you expected to be. It's men who look like Santa Claus and have real beards. It's a nonprofit trade group of Santa performers with real beards, as opposed to the Santa performers that are, as they say, theatrically bearded or faux bearded or designer bearded. So Santa Rick basically gets this slot to talk by Zoom to a group of the CDC called ACIP. They're the people who basically decide who gets

the vaccine first. This year, Christmas will be more important to the American psyche than ever before. Our country is enduring an historic disaster trifecta, and nearly all Americans endure unparalleled suffering. But promising vaccines are in face-retesting already and remaining social restrictions may be easing by Christmas. We're asking that professional scientists and other frontline seasonal workers be granted early access to the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as

practical after tier one released. It almost feels like it's out of a Disney movie like it's like CDC. We need to save Christmas and and to do that Santas need to be bumped up in line for the vaccine. Americans are going to want Santa to be at Christmas 2020.

I await your questions or comments. Thank you. On behalf of the voting members of the ACIP Santas, in America, we want to thank you for your comments and really enjoyed hearing from you. Thank you again. Thank you. And the response, kind of like a pleasant

chuckle. And that was kind of where he left it. But the next day he got a call. This is Santa Rick Irwin from a fairly high ranking official in the Trump administration. Like a reporter who is Secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Well hello to both of you and just for the record. You're both on the nice list this year. Not nobody. Comments great. I'm sorry.

I'm talking about it. Saying we want to work with you. My perspective is... ...is... ...is... ...and then it to you? Yeah, I mean, he basically said that they knew that the vaccines were coming.

They're talking about having Santa clauses that stationed in sites all over the country. Out to the paper, but all three. And that they're going to help get the word out and get people the vaccine. And in exchange, they'll have early access to the vaccine. You go to your calling for in the different cities where we're having a best and have them come and when the vaccine is available, in fact stay in first.

You set up a station in Southern California and I'll put 50 Sanchez in full costume in front of the cameras and you let me know what other cities You're operating in and I'll send Sanchez there I'm in I'm 100% and he was you know, you can hear in his voice How excited he is I live to serve your holiness. Thank you very much. This is a big deal Like he's gotten through to the most powerful administration in the country. Yeah, now on the call, Rick is super enthusiastic. But then when I talked to him later about it, when he specifically invoked the phrase Operation Warp Speed, and warped speed. He told me he was actually just being nice

on the phone to kind of cover up for deep down these misgivings that he had. He said he felt like he was kind of like, almost like ice skating on a knife's edge because he's just not a Trump guy. This is the greatest match causatively event since World War II and it's responsible to one team of individuals, the clown car in the White House,

but there was a conditional that I would dance with the devil by the pale moon light if it would save a single Santa or a single American citizen. So it's kind of a hard position that he's in, but he says yes. And then he gets a second phone call. Yes, how are you, Mr. Secretary? I'm fine.

I'm fine. This time, you know, it's a few days later, he's even more enthusiastic. They're talking about specifics. Well, how about one Santa at each in an aculation? You know, how many Santa's? Caputo is like, I cannot wait to tell the president, he's gonna love this. Oh, yeah.

You got one. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh to his Facebook page and informed all the other Santa clauses that they had gotten a deal, you know, they would be getting early access to the vaccine. Like, this is actually happening. He's thinking, we're gonna save Christmas. No, no, no, no. Shut the music down. This feels like a conspiracy. And how is Santa an essential worker?

That doesn't make sense to me at all. And it's very not Christmassy in spirit. At first glance, right? I mean, it's ridiculous. Julie, we're now from the Wall Street Journal again. Santa Claus is a make-believe character that lives in the North Pole, but I actually thought that Santa Rick's arguments made a lot of sense.

Julie was like, okay, let's take their argument seriously for a second. For one thing, she says. The Santa clauses and Mrs. clauses are by and large in this vulnerable population. A lot of these Santas are old, overweight. Lots of them have diabetes, heart conditions. And I think that the argument that the Santas we're trying to make is, look, we're really important, especially this year,

for people's happiness, that we are essential, and we have really direct contact with the public. And so, is it really that ridiculous to think that a Santa Claus is of America or essential? I kind of think it is. Kind of ridiculous. To sort that out, let's ask, like, technically, what is an essential worker? Well, that word is tricky all by itself. Who among us wants to feel they're not essential?

So we called up this woman named Kelly Moore. Associate Director for Immunization Education at the Immunization Action Coalition. She used to serve on that CDC board that decides who gets the vaccines first. And she basically was like, look, the essence of it is who must be exposed to the public or to others in order to do their jobs,

and their jobs involve the life, health, or safety of our other fellow citizens? So firefighters, police officers, teachers, you know, the people you would expect, but that definition also includes all of these sort of edge cases, like a server to fancy restaurant, or I saw a quote from a carpenter in the near times

who was deemed essential, who said, quote, I'm essential to the pocketbooks of rich contractors and essential for spreading the virus, but that's about it. Or there was a case a a Baskin Robbins employee who was dressed up, like, like, as the mascot, like, dressed up like an ice cream cone, and the person was taking a selfie in the mirror and was like, why, why an essential worker? Like, it's a fuzzy line. So we like having actually these broader categories. If you try to get just the right person vaccinated with each precious dose

You'll end up vaccinating people so slowly that many people will die needlessly waiting for you to figure out who the perfect recipient is So the essential worker box is big and if the ice cream cone guy is in there, why not Santa? and if the ice cream cone guy is in there, why not Santa? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So the Baskin Robbins ice cream scooper is an essential worker? Depends on the state, but yeah, potentially yes. But when you call someone an essential worker, you mean they are essential to society, right?

Or to a neighborhood? Well, actually. Kelly says not necessarily. Part of this is also about people who don't have choices about exposing themselves to others in the way they make their living. That Basque and Robbins worker may not feel essential, but if Basque and Robbins says she needs to be at work and she has to face a line of customers every day, she could be exposed

to the virus. She could also have the virus in expose people in the workplace. Oh, that's interesting. So it's essential in both directions. Like I am essential to people and me seeing people is essential to me. And so therefore I am an essential worker. Right. And according to Julie from the Wall Street Journal, that's what a lot of Santas are looking at this year. There are places all over the country that have deemed Christmas to still be essential. They want the Santas to be working.

They want them out at the malls. They want them at the holiday parades. They want them at private events. They want them to be out talking to kids and parents and who knows what. Some of these Santas that is their livelihood, they need these parties that only come once a year. And if they miss it, they're gonna be in trouble for the next 12 months.

And for some of these Santas. Had a little bit of a gig earlier tonight. Or for one of them I talk to anyway. Just veggie now. Now. That sense of need goes even deeper. It's a calling. We are called to it.

It's, but it's, it's one of the most heartwarming and also heartbreaking things you could ever do. This is a long time Santa. This is my 38th year named Santa Robert. He told me that a lot of the work he does is pro bono. The Ronald McDonald House is a charity. We go to assisted living homes, churches. But this is also his job.

Yes. And it pays quite well. So is this you can make bank as a Santa. And Santa Robert told me even though business is down this year, some families want nothing to do with it because of COVID. He's still getting a lot of gigs. A lot of them are outdoors. They want to do it in a day time.

Instead of the nighttime party, they're doing it in a day time. They're doing it outdoors. Yeah, but I mean, I'm still able to do it. I'm still able to be Santa, but it's kind of hard. Because when the mask I wear is a red mask, and it covers most of the face. A lot of people who ask if I could take pictures without the mask, they're not posting pictures on social media, which is fine with me because we could all get into trouble theoretically.

Oh, like they're coming up to you and they're saying, can I take a picture without a mask? And what do you say to that? I usually say, yeah, if they want to get one without a mask, I try to be as accommodating to people as I can. Okay, and they are all... Is it without a mask or just you're without a mask? Yeah, they take off the mask as well. Oh, wow. Does that feel scary?

Does that feel dangerous? No. Okay. I know, this is, and yes, I understand this is a virus. The virus is out there. I should add a few days ago at a Christmas parade in Georgia. A Santa It's kind of hard to put it into words. This is Christmas. You know? And everybody wants it to be normal. Everybody's been devastated by what's been going on all year long with the lockdowns, with work, with school.

People are losing their jobs or maybe having cutback hours and they got to wear a mask eight hours a day. Everybody wants a normal Christmas. I just, I bring in that sense of normalcy of, hey, it's all right, let's do what we always do. We're gonna have a party, Santa is gonna be here, it's just gonna be like old times and they can kind of relax, they can kind of get back into it,

they can forget their troubles for a half hour or whatever. And that's, I think, very comforting to a lot of people. It's, but it's, it's like, it's a funny thing to argue for, like, and I get the, I get the craving for it. And yet at the same time, like these are extremely abnormal times. And kind of dangerous and scary times where like right now, and I'm just saying LA, because I know we both live not so far from like in LA.

Like I just saw an article this morning that said, literally one person is dying in L.A. Every hour in L.A. County every 20 minutes of COVID. What is the thing that feels so? I don't know that for you, it like makes you say, okay, this is the scary thing that is out there. But I'm still going to do this anyway. I think, well, part of it is that I need that sense of normalcy too.

But, you know, there's a lot of things in life that have happened to people. And yes, sometimes you can take as many precautions as you can, something bad may still happen to you. But, like, but this is so clearly dangerous. Like, I don't know. I was trying to work place shooting, so. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Oh, cause you worked at the post office? Yes, the last big shooting they had there, the Galita Post on shooting. Oh my God. And yeah, that kind of probably has something to do with my kind of somewhat, Kathleen or attitude, I guess you can say, because having to deal with having six-year co-workers getting their brains blown out,

another former co-worker who went off the rails, and yes, I knew her. And the world doesn't stop. The world ain't going to stop because this is happening. It's still gonna go on. What if there was like the governor like expressly forbade it? Would you keep going out and trying and and chanting? Yeah. Yes, I would. My take is a lot of people who are gonna follow these rules, are gonna regret it. But what about the flip? If these parties, God forbid, happen to become one of these super spreader

events, like, like what would happen? That wouldn't just affect the people at the party. That would affect so many more people. That would ripple way further out. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. You know, you're making me think a lot,

and you're making me think, maybe I am nuts. Ha ha ha. No, I, it's like, like, like, this is, this is, this is, uh, people need Santa. That's the only way I can, I can think to put it. Is people need Santa? And I guess I need to be Santa. and it's not going to stop with this. Damn, that is a committed and I got to say kind of scary Santa.

Yeah, and now I should say that I talk to multiple Santa's for this story and most of them are doing, Santeying Online. Okay. You know, over Zoom and there are all kinds of new websites, like Ringle Jingle or whatever. There's a lot of innovating, but there's also a lot of traditional Santas,

like Robert, who are still doing what they do in person. And I don't know, I think maybe we should vaccinate them. What? No, they can't bad behave themselves into being categorized as essential. No, give some of those doses to the nurses, the teachers, those are the people who should be getting vaccinated, not the Santas who shouldn't even be out anyways.

Yeah, I mean, I hear you, I hear you, but those Santas are still going out anyway. Whatever happened to the whole Santa backroom deal with the Trump administration anyways. Well, okay, so Santa Rick had these calls with Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary from HHS, everything looked like it was falling into place, and then all of a sudden, nothing. The Trump administration stopped responding. Julie, we're now from the Wall Street Journal again. They've ghosted the Santas. What soon becomes clear,

is that that guy, Assistant Secretary Caputo at HHS, went on Facebook Live and just went on a rant. The partisan Democrats, the conjugal media, and the scientists, the deep state scientists, want America sick through November. He predicted a violent conclusion of the presidential election. If you carry guns, by ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it's going to be hard to get. And civil war. this is war. It later came out that he had just gotten diagnosed

with cancer, so it's unclear exactly what was happening with him, but they put him on medical leave. So ultimately, it was left to us to find out what happened. You know, the Santas thought they had a deal, do they still have a deal? And then, you know, the word back from the government was, no, they don't. And that was how Santa learned that there weren't going to be any vaccines for Christmas this year.

The real person, San Santa, that is. But... Elmo's back wore something else that I think is on a lot of kids' minds. And a weird twist that is keeping with our 2020 world where often fantasy feels more powerful than facts. Elmo's friend has a question about Santa Claus. Santa Santa? Well, the imaginary Santa. So what I hit a little while ago, I took a trip up there to the North Pole.

According to Anthony Fauci. I went there and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself. That Santa, he got the vaccine. He is good to go. Everything I say is true. When you come on Christmas Eve, the building will be so warm. We will be back with another COVID Christmas story after the break. Even freezing,

cold and freezing. See the children funnel up and make this door ready with snow. All because of this is back of the moon. This is the time to be back! Hi, this is Emily and I'm calling from Toronto, Canada. Radio Lab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.

More information about Sloan at www.Sloan.org. Thanks. Science reporting on Radio Lab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simon's Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. JAD LATIF, Radio Lab. Back with part two of our COVID Christmas show. And for this part we're bringing in... Hello, hello.

Hey, Saracari, producer Saracari. How's it going? It's going well. How are you? As you'll hear in a second, my brain is like utterly spinning with numbers. So just to set things up back in April, as we sort of switched to doing all these dispatches, Sarra did a story about the six feet rule, explaining the science behind this new number that it had suddenly taken over all of our lives and created these bubbles that we were living inside of. But since then, scientists have learned so much more about this virus than all of these other numbers that started to emerge. Yeah, it's like we were literally looking at one dimension of it. And since then, like our understanding of the disease and managing the pandemic has exploded in all of these different directions.

So we asked Zara for an update. Yep, but okay, we're gonna do it Christmas style. So not the 12 days of Christmas, but the 12 numbers of COVID. And you know what, I'm not sure we're gonna make it to 12, but it's a global pandemic. Dad just roll with it. Okay. All right. Hit me. Okay. So maybe the place to start is three to six air changes per hour for ventilation. Three to six air changes per hour for ventilation. Okay.

power for ventilation. Okay. What does that mean? Basically that means how often in an hour does most, so more than 50% of the air in a space completely change out for fresh air. Oh, like if the air is a circulatory system it needs to completely sort of filter in and filter around and out three to six times the re-hour.

Yes, exactly. I'm suddenly looking around my house and thinking, how often does the air in this house change? Yeah, like most homes, the number of air changes per hour that are currently happening is less than one. Yeah, which I did not realize and made me feel very gross all of a sudden. So you just have to like open a window?

Yeah, basically. What happens if, well, let's say I'm in my house in Brooklyn and I open a window. Just about six inches, like crack at six inches. How long would it take for the wind coming in through this six inch gap to completely turn over the air in my apartment? Well, so this one study of average houses from 2011,

this scientist named Shelley Miller told me about this, showed that opening even just one window those six inches would make air changes happen about 30% faster. So, you know, going from like one and a half hour to one hour and the more windows you open and the wider you open them, the better. Interesting. This has got interesting. Let's see. What else do I need to say on this? Oh, so to give you some context, like I found out that on the New York City subway,

there's 18 air changes per hour, which is pretty good. That's cool. Plains have like 20 air changes, which is kind of crazy. Wow. That's really interesting. I find this air change thing interesting. You know what you need, Saurikari? What? You need to get some carolers for this. On the...

You're so right. Great. On the first step, Christmas, COVID, give you need. Three to six air changes per hour. For ventilation. Oh my god. All right, so that's day one. OK, day two.

OK, and the second day of COVID, I feel like you're living it to me. So COVID gave to me. Now you do the number. So it's a uh a CO2 levels of six hundred to eight hundred parts per million. Perfect. Okay. Go. Cool.

So what does that mean? So I called up Lindsey Mar. Professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech. She was in our six feet episode. And she told me that when it comes to this ventilation aerocycling stuff. Yeah, it's almost impossible for the average person to know what the ventilation rate is. Like, you can't just look at the air and say,

oh, it's a new air. So that's why we've also talked about the carbon dioxide level. Because we're all breathing out carbon dioxide. And so if there's a ton of carbon dioxide in the air, then you can tell that okay, ventilation is probably not very good because all this air that we're exhaling is not leaving. Lindsey told me that the reason this number might be better is because

you can take a sensor with you in these costs, maybe $100 to $200. And then you're looking for a target number that indicates that the ventilation is poor and I was like I am outside. It is a windy day Maybe I should get one of these. Do you have one of these sensors? Yes, I have one and I've been carrying it around with me Trustee carbon dioxide detector What should I be looking for? I think if you see a number of 600 parts per million or lower that's great Does that mean 600 parts of CO2 per million parts of all everything? Yes, so outdoors is gonna be 400 parts per million 80

Yeah, have you gone a lot of places with it? Yeah, I've taken it to the gym try walking into planet Fitness That's 635 parts per million. I've taken it to the gym. I'm trying to walk into Planet Fitness. That's 635 parts per hour. I've taken it in our car. I'm going to run. Ooh, it is going up. Okay, 970, 980, 990. We got up to maybe a thousand parts per million. Oh, shhh, holy smoke.

But if we open the windows. I'm packing the windows. And sure enough, it's gone down. We're back. I haven't spent time in any restaurant, so I haven't looked there. After our driving's not happening in New York right now, so we're going to go inside of Odega, and covering by the pasta sauce around 600 and 15 parts

for a million. Not that I've looked at Odega. See, this is the problem with our new pandemic reality. It's just so many more things to measure. I know. It's like both empowering in a way if you choose to be empowered, but it's also incredibly crazy making. Crazy making.

Like, I bought a pulse oxymeter and I get that thing on my thumb for like every six, like every couple hours for the last six months. Well, if you want, you could just buy an air purifier. That is one thing that multiple scientists that I talked to recommended. They're like just buy an air purifier. Wow. That's interesting. I've always thought those things are a little bit like gimmicky kind of. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No. Apparently they really help. Huh. Are we on to the next indeed. Indeed. I have Christmas. Wait. This one actually hold on. Oh, okay. Okay. yes. So on the third day of Christmas, COVID gave to me.

Three layers of math. Wait, do you already know that one? Yeah. Okay, so we continue the gallop. Okay. On the next day of Christmas, let me prove it to me. COVID gave to me. Right, sorry.

Okay, you know what? I'm not even going to front. This gave to me. Right, sorry. OK, you know what? I'm not even going to front. This one just fell apart in fact, checking. OK. So we're just going to move right along to the next one. OK, day five. This one, oh, this one is kind of hard to do. I'm just going to let the carolers do it.

I was Kobe gave to me. Maybe Driveways Bringer, just not speaking so often. Okay, another factor in all of this in protecting yourself, it turns out is volume, like how loudly are you talking can affect the number of aerosols that come out of your mouth. So this comes from a 2019 study and in order to tell you about it, I'm going to take out my little decibel meter app. So I'm about one meter away. It's a perfect tape measure.

So let's say I am whispering. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes, you can hear me. Okay. Okay. So right now I'm whispering at like 45 decibels. This right here is just 45 decibels.

45 decibels, yes. It feels in my heart like it's a 10, but wow, 45, okay. Yeah, but 45 is. So right now, when I say good morning, there's a ton of aerosols that are flying out of my mouth. Okay. But then, okay, I started at 45 and now I'm going to go up to, I'm like an average 50 right now. So this right here is 50? Yeah, or like 50, actually 51, let's say.

So there's a six decibel difference. Okay, 45 to 51. And suddenly, the number of aerosols that are flying out of my mouth are twice as many in number than they were just six decibels ago. Really? So if you just go from a whisper to barely decibels ago. Really? So if you just go from a whisper to barely, yeah. A whisper, you're doubling the amount of aerosols. Yeah. Dang. Let's say I go up another six decibels, 57, yeah, 57, which is right around here, I think. Then I'm again doubling. Oh my god. So every six decibels of loudness, doubles the amount of aerosolized particles. Yeah, and then let's say I keep going. And I go all the way up to 80, which is like me shouting at you.

I don't know how to shout neutral in a neutral voice, but I'm shouting. As we've gone up every six decibels, we've doubled. And by the time you get to 80, I'm expelling 50 times more aerosols and droplets than I would be if I was whispering. Isn't that crazy? That's crazy. I'm a little scared. You've never yelled at me before.

I know, I'm so sorry. That's wild. Wow. The lesson here, I guess, is we just need to... All of us need to turn it down. We just need to whisper. Yes. Yes, exactly.

So, okay, so the scientist William Riston part that I was talking to you about this, he said it's not just volume, though. It's also how much you're talking. Obviously, if you talk more, then you're putting out more aerosols into the air. And so, it's not just, just like speak more quietly, but also like just less, just do less. Just less, just quiet, just less, just less, and do less, and okay, less things to say. So yeah.

You see, one more time, I'll do the last one. Okay, I have just a few more. Just a sum up really quick. So far we've got 3-6 air-sharing disparate hour, 600-800 parts per million of CO2, 3 layers of masks, then we had that number that was fake news, whispering, not talking, that's not really a number, but whatever, 50 times. And number 6 is 40-. Relative humidity. Okay. So humidity turns out it's very important. So one is that dryer air actually, actually, I'm going to pause because there's a very loud

ambulance. Yeah, this is the... Can you hear it? The soundtrack of the second wave. The soundtrack of New York City in the second wave. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, okay, so the idea is, let's say you, I don't know,

you're standing a few feet away from your wife, and you open your mouth or new your kids and you open your mouth to say good morning, right? Good morning. Yeah. Children. Like just to imagine for a second like let's slow that down. So you're like you open your mouth and you're like, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, You know, airy little aerosols that kind of can just like float out like as if you were breathing out smoke. And what happens is when the air is dry, there's no moisture in the air. There's no water molecules to like slow these aerosols down. So they're not running into any challenges. They're just like floating out into the air, whee, coasting out of your mouth, you're like, shoo, mooh, you know. And another thing that happens is that

the larger droplets that are like sort of flying out of your mouth like catapulting almost and sometimes thinking, because the air is so dry, the moisture in those droplets evaporates, and those droplets then suddenly transform into lighter aerosols that can also go farther. I see. Interesting. So, let a little missiles coming in my mouth are just going, zipping through the air, basically. Yeah, exactly.

But now, imagine you're in a room. You can hear the more traditional way. Let's say it's your kitchen. you're in a room. Let's say it's your kitchen. You're doing some cooking. Make it some eggs. There's a little bit of steam in the air and the humidities just at that sweet spot of 40 to 60%. And let's say you go up to your kids. Good.

They're like that. Why are you talking to me? All these particles fly out of your mouth. Let's say you have COVID, which, you know what COVID looks like. The ball with the spikey ball. Yeah, spikey ball. Yeah. So that shoots out into the air. Boop, boop, boop, boop.

And slowly, like, or actually very quickly, becomes like enveloped in like a thin coating of water from the air. So the humidity almost like surrounds the virus particle and causes it to like literally fall apart. Oh, that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me because I mean, that's kind of one of the principles of hand washing.

Is it? Yeah. So water rips up, rips open the membrane. So I wonder if it's getting like, it's a little bit like a pre wash, a prehand wash. True, we keep going. Yes. Quick to add.

On the seventh day of Christmas, COVID gave to me. Sara? 15 minutes of close contact. You let him over 24 hours. OK, what is that? So throughout the pandemic, the CDC was saying, two contact tracers, you should consider someone

a close contact when they've been within six feet of someone who is infected for 15 minutes consecutively. I see. But they've changed it to, as long as it adds up to 15 minutes, cumulatively over 24 hours, then you're considered a close contact. And the reason that they changed it is kind of interesting. It's basically based on one person getting COVID, are you there? I am. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Hi, this is Sarah from Radio Lab. It's so nice to meet you. I'm a big fan of the show. This is not the person you're talking about. No, this is Julia. Julia Pringle, and I'm an epidemiologist. So Julia told me that last summer, there was a group of inmates out of Vermont prison

that tested positive for COVID. So that's when my team at the health department got involved. And it was her job to track down anybody that they might have infected at the prison. Video surveillance footage, talk to staff. And it turned out there was this one correctional officer that appeared to have gotten COVID around the same time as the inmates. But this person didn't appear to have had close contact with them according to the CDC definition.

Didn't have 15 minutes within six feet in a row. And this was confusing because that was the rule. 15 consecutive minutes of contact means that you are at risk. Correct. And so what they do is they go back to the surveillance footage. And one thing we kept noticing was this correctional officer over the course of their shift, there were multiple brief encounters. There'd be a couple of minutes where they'd bring food

to the inmates or they'd see somewhere else in the tape, like a few minutes spent giving the inmates their medication. And Julia said that when they added up all these little encounters, collectively, they approximated about 15 minutes of exposure. Whoa. And so they published a paper about this and based on that one paper and that one correctional

officer, the CDC ended up changing their contact tracing definition for the entire country. Wow. Okay. Okay. So those are just more numbers. Yeah. I think that's it. I think those are all the numbers I have.

Okay. I guess there's just one last thing that I want to tell you about. We were saying before, these numbers obviously can be super helpful in certain ways. However, they are also extremely paralyzing and could potentially be really debilitating. Yeah. And so one person I talked to, this guy named Martin Besant at MIT, who's like a professor in the engineering department, I believe, he actually made an online calculator essentially, which I thought was really cool.

I talked to him about it. And it's this, basically, yeah, this website you can go to, where a lot of these factors that we've talked about, you can plug in different variables for whatever room you expect to find yourself in. Plug in the humidity levels, plug in, will you be wearing a mask or not, what kind of mask are you going to be wearing, ventilation, are you going to be talking or exercising, how big is the room, you can plug all of that in and it'll give you a recommendation. And so it'll tell you then how many people can safely be in that room for how long.

So, for example, I was like in the interview with him and I plugged in, let's say you're in the average classroom and everyone is sitting and wearing masks and talking Okay, and and it it spits out this number that is basically like okay 50 people can be safely be in this room for seven hours Which is like a very surprising finding right? Oh surprising. Wait, is that a real number that you just said? Yeah, yeah That's a real number. Yeah. Oh, shoot. Wait, is that a real number? Is that you just said? Yeah, yeah, that's a real number. Oh, shoot. That's very heartening to hear. Right. And it's sort of this, you know, he finds himself in this interesting spot where

on the one hand, he's like, you know, receiving backlash because it's like, okay, you're enabling people to then, you know, then go do stuff and maybe be unsafe. But his whole argument is like, well, I don't know. If there's a way to navigate all of these variables, and to move beyond just like, don't see anyone indoors ever. If there's a way to account for all of these different factors in a way that makes Like if there's a way to like account for all of these different factors in a way that makes us safer in a way that helps us keep classrooms open in a way that helps us,

you know, keep other facets of our lives going, then like why wouldn't you wanna do that? And so he was telling me he's like heard from people, like people emailing him that have used the online tool and have been like, I was able to keep my dance studio open because I like plugged in the numbers and like, it seemed to make sense and so I had this many people in and we were really safe and yeah. Wow, that's that's cool. Pretty me, right? Yeah, you know, it's funny. It's like, that's I mean, you know what I find myself wondering about, which I don't know

if it's a helpful argument I'm having in my head, but I mean, I just, I find that way of thinking very liberating because it, I mean, what we all have to do right now is we kind of have to be poker players. We have to sort of understand the odds and the risks involved and make decisions in the face of those risks, which is what a poker player does. They make a bet when they don't know what's going to happen. But they can't not bet, right? So we have to sort of do that ourselves in the way we behave and where we choose to go

and whether we choose to put our kids in school and all those things. They're all kind of bets. And it's sort of like, it's sort of like right now we're all playing poker with like a really poor understanding of how probability works. Right. Yes. And like, and like the question is, do we educate ourselves on probability and then perhaps maybe become riskier poker players or do we just keep playing with like our really crude understanding, you know?

Right. And then there's a sort of a public messaging layer on top of that, which is, can we afford nuance right now? Maybe we just need to say to people where a mask and stand or is and don't see anybody. Yeah. Go slightly crazy and have some serious mental health blowback, but you'll be safe that way. We could say that to people, which I think is probably more effective, but it also creates this whole politicization thing which we won't even get into.

But I like the online tool. I suddenly want it to be like a little drone that's flying over my head. And it just watches me as I walk in and out of spaces and then it gives me a risk rating for every- This is like magic device that we're slowly creating through all these numbers. That is a killer gift right there. Well, thank you, Sarah Carrey.

You're welcome. And I should say thank you to my carolers. Sue Nelson, Elizabeth and Sandy LaPrell, and Noah and Brian Dolphin. On the 12th day of Christmas, the comment day to me The long awaited Pfizer vaccine Yay! One big plastic face, you Make me try, we'll spring her just not there Alright, well, I guess this is us

Trying to slip out the door Slip out of the year Yep, oh, special thanks to Akiko Yusaki, Martin Bessant, Julia Pringle, Lindsay Mar, Shelley Miller, William Risenpart, Bill Nye, USA Today, the fraternal order of real bearded Santas, and the international brotherhood of real bearded Santas. I'm Chad Abumrod, I'm Lethifnasa, hope you have happy, healthy, emphasis on the healthy holidays of New Year, and yeah, we'll, emphasis on the healthy holidays of New Year.

And yeah, we'll check you on the other side. Thanks for listening. This is Damon, calling from Hoga, Tasmania. Radio Lab was created by Jad Abumrat and is edited by Saren Wheeler. Lulu Mila and Lateef NASA are our co-hosts. Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Susie Lacktonberg is our executive producer. Her stars includes Simon Attler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bresler, Rachel Kusek, David Gable,

Matt Kilti, Tobin Lowe, Annie McEwan, Sarah Curry, Ariane Wack, Atwaltz, and Molly Webster, with help from Shima Oliai, Sarah Sandback, and Johnny Mowins. A fact checker is Michelle Harris. you