Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Coronavirus

Episode Date: February 2, 2020

This week on Sawbones, we've got a no-panic-allowed history of coronavirus along with a guide to the current strain that has held the headlines in a stranglehold in the past weeks. Even if you don't listen to the episode, take heart: If you're outside of China, it's likely you're more scared than you need to be at the moment.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We saw through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around. Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones,, Maryland to Miss Guy at Medicine.

I'm your co-host Justin McRoy. And I'm Sydney McRoy. Sometimes an episode comes along and it takes us a long time to figure out what it's going to be. And there's a lot of different angles we look at and we question whether or not we should do it. And then sometimes an episode just kind of falls into your lap every single day, every hour of the day, on every channel constantly. That's true. As we as we mentioned last week, we are going to discuss coronavirus, not because it has

a huge medical history, it's supposed to be a medical history show. Sometimes I forget that because there's current things that are important to talk about. But there is a history I'll get into, but also because as with anything that is new and somewhat scary, you will get a lot of misinformation inside that fear and people with responses that aren't necessarily helpful or productive for anyone. Fair breeds a lot of misinformation.

Yes, and we've gotten, I can't thank everyone who recommended this topic because we've gotten dozens of emails, tweets, Facebook posts, and a lot of people are kind of echoing the same thing. Could you please explain what the heck this is and how scared I should be? Those seem to be the big questions. And what can I do? And I wanted to address it for that reason because if you like our show and you think that the things that I have to say are trustworthy, I hope you do, then maybe this will help

calm you down. Dispel some misinformation, calm some fears. I will address the how are you? I will address the how scared should I be part. Okay. I would say not scared at all. Because either you can impact the situation or you can't. This is philosophical. This is not medical. If you can impact the situation, then take that action. And then don't worry about it. If you can't impact the situation, there's no point in worrying about it. Either way, there's no need to be scared.

Well, that's very stoic. However, I will say this. I will start with this premise, and I will circle back to it by the end of the show, so you understand what I'm saying. Do not take it at faith value, but just heed these words. If you are worried about coronavirus, go get your flu shot. Okay. Okay. Again.

Let me do one. If you're worried about coronavirus, go buy the Salboans book available in fine bookstores ever. I thought we were just serving our own, you know, do you have an actual, there, there is a reason that I am recommending that. It is not obviously, uh, I should say at the top of the show in case you don't listen to the end, the flu vaccine does not prevent coronavirus, because that is a myth that's been out there. And so I do not want to mislead you into that idea.

But it is a very reasonable action to take in response to your fears. Okay. And I'll get to why. But let's start with where, what is coronavirus, where did this thing come from? So back in 1965, there were two researchers named Tyrell and Beno who discovered a new virus.

And this was kind of at a time where we were looking for viruses. We knew there were lots of them out there. They caused a lot of different things. Some of them severe, some of them not severe. We had just kind of the technology had evolved to a point where we could look at these things. Viruses are quite small. That's true.

It's not way smaller. Think of a small thing like a gummy bear or a bug. They're like even smaller than that. Well, we were able to look at bacteria before we could look at a virus because they're so much smaller. But we knew there was something else that caused disease. We figured out there were viruses. We found ways like electron microscopy to look at them.

And then we started the great hunt, right? Like let's find them all. Got to catch them all. You can't catch them all, there's so many. There's a lot. But these two researchers, we're looking at some respiratory secretions from a patient who had a cold. So like suctioned out some mucus

from the respiratory tract. It's a cool Saturday. Yeah, of a patient. And started looking through it. Basically, at this point, you gotta to imagine you know this person is sick. You know a germ of some sort, likely virus caused it. So you get those secretions and you just start making preparations and looking through for something that looks like it shouldn't be there.

And that's what you hope is the right thing. Now, they find a virus that they hadn't seen before. Now, if you think this virus causes colds because you found it in a person with a cold, how do you confirm that this virus causes a cold? Um, you have to give it to someone's if they get a cold. That's right. Wow. All right. I'm slightly unnerved that I'm starting to think like virologists. This is one of the principles of proving that this is the etiologist is the causative agent virologists. This is one of the principles of proving that this is the etiologist,

is the causative agent of a disease. This is one of the main principles in doing that. So you take, so take these viruses that they have found and they transfer them to the noses of volunteers. I don't know what the volunteers were promised in return for this. I don't know if they were paid, given free lunch. Let's hope.

I don't know. Something. But one way or another, they paid given free lunch. Let's hope. I don't know. But one way or another, they all got colds. Ta-da. You did it. Amazing. You got colds. We'll give you a cold. And with as with the many scientific discoveries, you kind of see these things happen in multiple places at the same time. So at the same time that these researchers are finding this little virus that seems to cause colds. There were other researchers, Humray and Proknau, who grew a similar virus from a bunch of

medical students that they were testing for colds. A bunch of medical students say, I don't think they gave them to them, but I don't know. When I was in medical school, the right teacher that I wanted an A from and said, I need to give you a cold. I need to test you with this cold virus we volunteer. I probably would have said I need to give you a cold. I need to test you with this cold virus where you volunteer. I probably would have said I volunteer to get extra credit. If I get extra credit, if I can get an A, I offer myself. But anyway, they grew a similar virus for a bunch of medical students. They named their viruses B814 and 2,290. You gotta love it. Because scientists are great at that.

Yeah. Over the next few years, there were some other viruses that were similar to these that were found, similar in appearance. So all these little viruses, they look sort of, you'll see them pictured as kind of like spherical, circular little things. They're not exactly, there's different shapes.

They're not perfect little round things. But you'll see them often drawn exactly, they're, there's different shapes. They're not perfect little round things, but you'll see them often drawn or, you know, they're sort of round-ish. And they have all these little projections sticking off of all the sides. Like these little balls with all these little, I don't want to say spiky things because they're like blunt club like things sticking off all the sides of them. You can look up a picture of a coronavirus if you're really curious. But because of all these little lumps sticking off all the sides of them. You can look up a picture of a coronavirus if you're really curious. But because of all these little lumps sticking off of them and the way that they're shaped,

a lot of people thought it looked like the things on the top of a crown. Oh, okay. Coronavirus. So the name coronavirus was eventually given to this new genus of viruses that had this similar appearance with all these little projections.

It also sort of looks like a solar corona, like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It also kind of looks like that, but crown is where it came from. And our initial understanding of them was really that they were kind of benign. They caused colds. That was really the thought.

Now, we knew they also existed in other animals. The thing that we saw in humans was mainly just what we would kind of call the common cold, which on a side note, I may have said this on the show before, but when we say you have a cold, have I said this, we don't know what virus we're talking about necessarily. That makes sense. The syndrome that we say is the common cold, the constellation of symptoms that we will refer to as the common cold could be any number of viruses

that cause upper respiratory symptoms. Well, they're all different too, right? Like, I got on, I got some head junk, and then some of the nose junk. Just some cough running nose. Or throat. Or throat. Yeah.

Or whatever. Yeah. Some sinus pain or pressure headache. Maybe some feverish or chills, some aches and pains. All these things can be caused by a variety of viruses. Most of the time you don't know because you don't get tested because you probably don't go to the doctor. You got a cold.

If you get really sick, you might go to the doctor and sometimes we might test you and come back and say, you have a rhino virus. You have an enterovirus. You have a cold. If you get really sick, you might go to the doctor and sometimes we might test you and come back and say, you have a rhino virus, you have an enterovirus, you have a coronavirus, I've diagnosed coronavirus many times, but it's usually just a cold. That's what we're saying. It might be a little more severe, especially if you're otherwise, you have otherwise some sort of respiratory illness, COPD, asthma, something like that. But as the time we just just call it a cold. So I say this because you may have had a coronavirus in your life.

You actually probably have, if you're an adult. So why is it a thing now? I'm not there yet. We're going to get there. Very rarely these coronaviruses we discovered were known to cause things like pneumonia or to flare up your chronic bronchitis or your pneumonia. Every once in a while, like I said, in patients with underlying lung disease,

my wife's the time just cold. In animals, they did a lot of stuff, right? In animals, they could do things because there are lots of coronaviruses and some of them infect humans and some of them infect animals. And as we're going to get to, some of them can like swing. Some of them party. Some of them party. So in animals they could cause hepatitis, they could cause encephalitis, gastroenteritis, parotonitis and cats.

They can infect chickens, turkeys, calves, dogs, rabbits, pigs, camels, bats, snakes. Animals. You can't just add all animals, and I would, they couldn't have come up with that many. Just all animals would be fine. They affect and do different things, lots of animals. But in humans, it seems like, well, great, great work, everybody. The 60s are over and we found some cold viruses.

Okay, what's the cure? We have no idea. We have no idea. It's just a cold, though, no big deal. Next, except 2002. Justin, do you remember 2002? Oh, fondly said, I was a young buck of 22 years old. I was in my swinging college years, living life, driving around the beautiful blue cutlass era and just just lapping it up. A lot of living to do. Yeah. Back in the day. Very conrad birdie. Yeah. So 2002, I don't know then since you were, you know, living it up.

Drinking moonbeams. You may not remember that a new respiratory illness started to appear in China. I might say, if I was in college when it happened, I can write the likelihood of me encountering any hard news at 0%. I remember this. I don't know these things. I was a doofus. So there was a new respiratory illness in China.

It would eventually spread from China to 29 countries throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. It was originally thought to have emerged from the Himalayan Palm Civit. Do you know what Civit is? I don't. I had to look up a picture of a Civit. It looks like they're like loosely wrote.

They look sort of cat-like to me, sort of like rodent slash cat-like, but they're big. I mean, they're big, like they're big, like, well not big, but you know, like cat-sized, they're not like teeny, teeny things. One of them was in a tree, so I think they're like, oh, I don't like it. You don't like them? Well, how would you describe it? How would I describe it? Like, they're cat-esque.

I would describe it as a long spotted raccoon. Or raccoon-esque, okay. I would say a long spotted raccoon. Or raccoon-esque, okay. I would say a long spotted raccoon. So you can look up a picture of a civet, if you like. No need, it's a long spotted raccoon. They are apparently hunted and eaten in some parts of China. We are only fairly certain that this is where, by the way, I'm saying this,

and for most people, whether or not this is 100% accurate, they're not going to get too bothered by it. We got it from an animal, it was the point. But I know there's some scientists out there who might go, well, technically, we're not certain. We're not 100% certain that it jumped from the civet to the human. That is the best operating theory we have. As we've done more research, we figured out that bats are probably where the coronavirus continues to evolve.

There's always like a species where like these viruses can really flourish and grow. We talk a lot about flu, pigs and birds. So, like, avian, pigs and birds. With coronavirus, you really talk a lot about bats. So it may have been that like at some point, bats gave humans coronavirus and then humans gave coronavirus back to civets and then later the civets handed it back off only different and worse. One way or another, civets may or may not have been involved

and now you know what a civet is. Although civets may or may not be involved is a statement you could make about literally any event in all of human history. So you've made us neither smarter nor dumber said. It's just that, by- Well, it's what it's- As in all things, there is a chance that the-

Civets were involved. Either civets were or were not involved. It's just funny to read about these things. But then the scientific community, there's so much, people get really upset. There's a lot of, there's a lot of iron over this. Like, but it was not civets or we never proved it or, nah, I think we, I think we're pretty sure we're losing it.

Most of those are just civets that learn how to hype. Either way, it seemed to be like, if you didn't completely cook the civet meat, it wasn't, it wasn't just like hanging out with a civet. Well, that's, it seemed to be like if you didn't completely cook the siivet meat, it wasn't just like hanging out with a siivet. Well, that's, it's gonna be strange. It's also gonna be stringy, which I hate that. So like, if you are someone who chooses to eat meat, cook it would be a good.

But anyway, so the virus, which we would eventually come to know and fear was called severe, acute respiratory syndrome, also known as SARS. You remember SARS now? This is clicking. I do remember SARS because there was a, the sears at the Huntington Mall,

when all that was happening, the sears at the Huntington Mall, the E on their side burnt out. Oh no. And it became a meme on the internet of the picture of this. I didn't start it, but a picture of this specific sign from the Huntington Mall, my home, way from home, became a meme. You know, comes to the softer side of SARS. That was that was early internet, too, 2002, early internet days. Early days. So anyway, so anyway, SARS, what is a human coronavirus.

It is. It's a coronavirus. We maybe got from civ, it's probably from bats somewhere in there, who knows. But obviously, we began to see that our concept of coronavirus is only causing these mostly harmless colds was not completely accurate because in case you don't remember, SARS was a coronavirus that caused again respiratory symptoms. However, some people got really sick. Some people got put in the hospital and some of those people did die.

How many? So there were about, there were over 8,000 cases. This is a total total by the way. Like even up to now, because I mean occasionally it's still seen, but up to now there've been over 8,000 cases and about 10, it's about 10% were fatal. That's legit. That's a big deal. That's a big percentage.

Yes, that's a huge percentage. So SARS scared everybody into studying coronaviruses more. And that led to a lot more understanding of exactly, like I said, all this stuff about bats and civets and animals and where this all came from, how it's transmitted, which sells it infects preferentially and how it infects them, and the various presentations, oh, we just thought it was a cold,

but obviously it could do much worse things. And this better understanding was good because then in 2012, a new coronavirus popped up, which you may not have heard quite as much about. It was mainly in Saudi Arabia and then parts of the Middle East, and it actually became known as Middle East respiratory syndrome, Merse. And it may have, again, we're guessing a little bit, but it may have made the leap to humans from camels, although again, the bat, it's probably originally from bats somewhere. It could also cause severe disease like SARS,

certainly was very dangerous, but it seemed to be less communicable. So that's probably why you didn't hear quite the panic around it that you did with SARS, is because it did not seem to pass as easily from human to human as it did from animal to human. So people were having direct contact with, we guess, we think maybe camels and getting sick, but as far as then being able to take it out into the world and give it to a bunch

of other people, the way that we fear a pandemic is going to start. It didn't, it just didn't do that. You know, every virus works a little differently. And if you, if you only infect certain cells in the lower respiratory tract, it just didn't do that. You know, every virus works a little differently, and if you, if you only infect certain cells in the lower respiratory tract, it's a lot harder to get enough of the virus into you to get sick. You really had to get a big dose of virus, so to speak.

So it wasn't like something that casual contact wouldn't necessarily have spread very easily. So since then, total, there have been about 2,468 cases, have been 851 deaths. So, it's a big proportion, it's very bad if you get it. Again, same kind of thing with severe respiratory symptoms, respiratory failure.

30% or? 34, I think, somewhere in that. But does not seem to spread quite as easily as SARS did. But either way, so these are the two coronaviruses but does not seem to spread quite as easily as SARS did. But either way, so these are the two coronaviruses that we know can be big bad actors so far up until now. So what's the one that's happening at this moment? Justine, I'm gonna tell you about it

right after we head to the billion department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God before the mouth. You say you got a dream kid, a big dream that you want to see up in glittering starlight up there in the Milky Way or dream-large for all the world to see kid.

I do have a dream in a May. That's your kid. Oh, I'm a kid. Yeah, like your real kid, Like a Mickey Ritty type. I do have a dream, sir. And it may or may not involve civets. Well, kid, no matter, dream is civet based or not, you're going to want to make that dream a reality at school. Airspace. It's a place that helps you make a beautiful website where you can blog or publish content, promote your physical or online or civet-based business,

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That's buyraycon.com slash solbons for 15% off Raycon wireless earbuds. Buyraycon.com slash solbons. So here we are, Sid. It's 2020. Everyone's flipping out. Yes, I have noticed this. Everyone seems to be very scared.

And I hope by now in the episode, you've at least realized that this coronavirus is not... I don't want to say it's not new. It is a new strain of coronavirus. But we're very familiar with coronavirus. We've known a lot about them, like I said since the 60s. This is not like this mysterious unknown thing that has caught the world by storm, okay.

It is currently being called the novel coronavirus. Hmm, that's literally because it's new. Yes, okay. I am, my guess is it'll have a name eventually. We could do better I think it's kind of miss I think it's actually going to create a lot of misinformation Because I feel like the vast vast vast majority of the population their first exposure to the word coronavirus is going to be in this exact scenario and I feel like it's going to create a lot of like fear about that that label in the future It's, I worry about that too. It's really weird for me because I'm so,

like coronavirus, I'm so familiar with it. It's easier though, right? Like for me, I'm not afraid of it because I see it pop up positive on viral screens all the time. It's not novel coronavirus. It's, you know, not as big deal strain, but we see it a lot.

But anyway, the novel coronavirus, as you probably know, not as big deal strain. But we see it a lot. But anyway, the novel coronavirus, as you probably know, originated in China in the Wuhan region this past December, is probably there slightly before December, but that's when we became aware of it. There are some things we know, and there are a lot of things we don't know. And it's important that I say that because all those gaps that we don't know yet, it's important that I say that because all those gaps that we don't know yet, because this is still in the early stages, are being filled in by a lot of guesses, misinformation, and then some straight up lies. Okay. So as to, if you're curious about which animal it came from, there's some people

out there, there's some scientists that are theorizing snakes. Everybody looks for somebody to blame. I don't know that that's necessarily true. Again, it looks similar to all these back corona viruses that we've talked about before, but exactly what animal did a human come in contact with? Because that's what's happening. There's a human somewhere who's coming in

close enough contact with an animal somewhere that it's getting this animal corona coronavirus and it spreads my humans. What can we say definitively, civets were or were not there? It's out there. We're not exactly sure what animal it came from. As of today, and there are, by the way, I've, I don't know what this says about me. I check the status update from the World Health Organization every day on this, just for my own information. And folks, she's all too happy to relay it out loud to anybody who happens to be in their

room with her. I think it comforts me to know that there are multiple global organizations, local and global organizations, monitoring the situation closely and taking steps to prevent it from getting anywhere, Senate RDS. But as of today, there have been 14,557 cases worldwide that's as of February 2nd, that is the current update. It's important to know that the vast majority, 14,441 of those cases are in China so far. Now obviously this is very serious for people who live in that region.

If you are someone though, like many of our listeners who live in the US, there have only so far been eight cases in the US. Only one of those cases on the 31st was shown to have been the result of human to human transmission. And that's important to, when we're talking about outbreaks like this, it's important to know the difference between, did someone, was there a person who was in China exposed to the illness, got on a plane, flew to the the US and was then diagnosed, which were the other seven cases, as opposed to this one person who was around one of those seven people and got it. Does that make sense? That distinction is really important because when you start to see it

spreading from person to person on large scale, that's when you start to need to take more action. But if all the cases in an area are just people who just came from the area where it's spreading, you're less concerned about the US in this case. There's only been one case where it's actually been transmitted within the US so far. Now overall, almost all but one of these cases were in China and one were in the Philippines, 305 people have died. So we know that this particular coronavirus is capable of causing severe illness.

And I think that's worth underlining that no matter what else we say about this, like anything that claims people's lives is serious. So this is in a way, like, you know, it's not a blow raspberry and you know, change the channel kind of thing. Like it's serious, like people die. Exactly. And I mean, if you, it's a thing to always keep in mind that I wish remind myself of my students and residents and medicine. It, 305 people, it sounds like a small number comparatively, but if you are the family or friends of one of those 305 people, then it's very meaningful and important. So never to undermine the, you know, the seriousness of it, but those are the numbers.

Those are the facts. That is what's happened so far. Obviously there, it is present in other countries outside of China in the US. You can find a whole list of them on either the CDC or the World Health Organization, but they're tracking them very closely everywhere that it is occurring right now. The CDC has guidelines for people, and especially for healthcare professionals, there's been some concern that healthcare professionals in particular, who are so far in China, who are taking care of these patients may be at risk.

And that's probably just because of the contact they're having. The way that this is spread is through what we call respiratory droplets. Coffee sneezing. Coffee sneezing, that kind of thing. And the other thing about that is not just somebody coughing and sneezing in your face. It's, did I cough or sneeze on this surface? And then you touched it or on this door handle? Did I cough into my hand or sneeze in my hand and

then touch something that you touched that kind of thing too? So this is part of why we're concerned is it's not just, and that's probably why healthcare professionals in particular, you know, are at risk. Right now, if there's someone who has a fever and signs of what we would think of as a lower respiratory infection, so not so much the runny nose or throat kind of thing, but cough, shortness of breath, that what you'd think like, oh, am I getting a pneumonia? That kind of thing, who have traveled to that part of China, or really at this point anywhere in China, or have had direct contact with somebody who was known to have this,

are the only ones that were really concerned about. So if you are at home and you have a coffin shortness of breath and you haven't been to China and nobody around you has coronavirus, novel coronavirus, you don't need to go get checked for coronavirus. Right. Does that make sense? Yes. We're really only focused on those people.

The other things we know, it so far, as far as when do you get symptoms after you're exposed, two to 14 days, so there's a wide range. And wide range. Some of this is still based on what we know about SARS. We're still like using that data because this is very new. We don't have a lot of data yet. So if you start seeing people quote mortality rates, I would ignore that data right now because you can't say what the mortality rate is at the beginning of an outbreak because who do we test? We test the people that get really sick and we didn't

expect them to. So you're going to have a disproportionate number of severe illness and death among the early positive tests because there were tons of people who were sitting at home with colds who never went to the hospital and got better and had coronavirus and nobody knew. Right. So the sheer number of people who got coronavirus and got better and had coronavirus and nobody knew. So the sheer number of people who got coronavirus and got better and never saw a doctor were missing a lot of those people still. Now, as it continues to spread, more people are gonna get scared

and go to the doctor and get tested, right? And we're gonna get a better idea of how dangerous it actually is. But in the beginning to like start quoting mortality rates, I mean, you're guessing it first, you know? It's still, it first. Right. You know, it's still, it's very vague. It, again, this seems to be a big issue in this region of China, the rest of the world,

not so much. Things you can do, if you are six day at home, this is true for anything. Take a day off, don't go to school, don't go to work. Don't go give people whatever you've got. Because if you're coughing, they're sneezing. No matter how hard you try to cough and sneeze in your elbow, which of course you should do, you can spread it to the feet. Yeah, I mean, it's hard.

I mean, it's not your fault. It's just hard to do that. You can't prevent getting some snot and some ucus out there. If you have traveled to one of these areas or had contact with someone who's been diagnosed with novel coronavirus, please go see a doctor. If you have symptoms, please go see a doctor. And if somebody else is sick, maybe it's not the best time to hang out with them. Maybe it's a...

Especially if you have little kids or something too, like don't go taking the kids over to hang out with sick people and yourself. I mean, everybody. Yeah. This, hey, when you're sick, it's good for some alone time. You know, you need people around to like, if you need something, they can run to the store for you, but like, take some alone time. Finally, watch the wire. You know, read some comic books.

Sure. Wash your hands, please wash your hands. That's vitally important. Wash your hands with soap and water after you have, especially if you're touching your face or your hands. That's vitally important. Wash your hands with soap and water after you have, especially if you're touching your face or your mouth. I mean, we do that a lot and don't think about it rubbing your nose or anything like that. Wash your hands before you eat. Wash your hands before you have contacts with other people. Wash your hands. And then again, get your flu shot. Okay, why is that? Because I gave you these numbers for coronavirus.

And it's very scary because the news is talking about it non-stop. Those are the actual numbers, but I know that there's a lot of fear out there. In comparison, this season, there have been 15 million cases of the flu and about 8,200 deaths so far. So that's more. That's more. And that's something you again can do is that concrete action you could take. It's that's I've seen I've heard this among my colleagues a lot is why is everybody so worried about coronavirus, but the same patients I'll say, Hey, do you want to get a flu shot?

And they'll say, I don't wanna, I don't worry about the flu. When the flu has been a big threat for a long time, and we have a vaccine for it, unfortunately, we do not for coronavirus, but we do for the flu. So, if the coronavirus represents the kind of thing that scares and unsettles you, go ahead and put the flu right next to it, and then go get your flu shot because you can actually do something about that. You can take action to prevent the flu and you cannot take that exact same action to

prevent coronavirus. That is the poor Larry. I'm trying to talk about it. I think it's hard to make something less scary by making something else scarier. No, I'm not trying to make the flu. If you should have a little bit of fear of the flu, that's useful for preservation of our species. Have enough fear to go get your flu vaccine, not to keep you up at night, not to prevent you from leaving your house, but to get your flu vaccine. Yeah, just enough fear to do that. There's a lot of myths out there. Some of them we've already kind of talked about,

but it is so far, well, it seems like most of the people who have had fatal cases of novel coronavirus seem to be maybe older and have had other chronic illnesses. And they have compromised, or something. It's something to that effect. It is, it does not appear to only infect those people. It does appear to be able to infect a wide range of ages and health statuses. Apparently, some people on Reddit are spreading the idea that this can be treated or cured

with MMS miracle mineral Mineral Solution, which we've talked about on the show before is bleach. It's bleach. Just bleach. This is not true. This is a lie. It is not true. As we've said before, it doesn't do anything good.

Don't use it. Don't take it. Don't drink it. Don't anything. Those people should be put in jail. I have a pneumonic device that I... For selling it. I have a pneumonic device that I used to help me remember

that Miracle Mineral Solution use to help me remember that Miracle Mineral. Mineral solution won't help me fix anything. It goes like this, right? It's bleach. It's bleach. That's the whole device. I just say it's bleach.

And that actually helps me remember all the different things that it is not good for. You remind me of a thing you do when you go, I quit. I quit. I quit. Yeah. It's bleached. It's bleached. It is not spread from pets. There was a, I guess there was a fear that like your cat or your dog was going to give you coronavirus. Your cat or your dog is not going to give you coronavirus. It's fine. Don't please, please take care of your pets. Do not do not turn them out on the streets for fear of coronavirus. There are no herbal meds or prescription meds or anything right now that

anybody is using to treat it, that is secret that you don't know about. Like I said, there's no vaccine yet. Their antibiotics will not help. Your doctor is not withholding out of meanness. They just don't help with coronavirus. That's just not how they work They work for bacteria. It has nothing to do. There are lots of weird conspiracy theories. One of these was was said to me just this week Somebody asked me this question is it something that is intentionally being spread From someone in China and And no, no. It was not leaked from a lab. It was not smuggled to Canada is one weird theory

and because Canada is trying to develop some sort of weapon. No, no, no. This is none of this is true. There have been lots of misinformation about how many people are actually sick. I guess a lot of this is being spread on like YouTube and TikTok and things like that like videos of people who supposedly are there at the site like in the midst of the outbreak and like what are trying to tell you the truth. All of this is false. No, I meant that seems like a very sweeping statement.

Well, no, what I mean is that there are lots of videos that are not in any way confirmed as being real or tell us why the Chinese government would be holding with some of this data that they would not be 100% accurate in their reporting worldwide. That's true, but the World Health Organization is also a really responsible global organization and they're reporting these numbers and they're reporting their confirmed cases and they're you know They're feet on the ground monitoring this situation. Sure and it does not behoove them to spread misinformation or lie to the global health community and if the World Health Organization feels confident so far in the numbers they're getting,

I feel confident in the numbers they're getting. You have to trust that there are organizations of good, hardworking, smart people who know what they're doing and have seen outbreaks before and know how to address them. And that is true. And don't let fear undermine the ability to know truth. There is a way to know the truth here. We are finding the truth. We're

figuring this out step by step. It's not unknowable. It's not this big mystery hole of scary pandemic stuff. It's a new virus and it's always scary at first. There was I guess some of the things that were a little more out there, there was this picture of a hospital that was supposedly built overnight in China in response. All that folks, that doesn't happen. No, the hospital was not built in 16 hours and it wasn't a hospital, it was an apartment building. There was also a TikTok from a teenager in Canada who claimed to be the first Canadian

case. This was not true, it was eventually removed from TikTok because it was spreading fear and misinformation. So again, I, if I would not, if you are living in the United States, and you have not traveled to that region of China, And you do not have close personal contact with someone who has been diagnosed with novel coronavirus. Please take a deep breath. You're okay. This is, I would not, this is not something

that we all need to be afraid of. Panic and fear does not help us respond. Take responsible, reasonable actions with your fear. Wash your hands, stay home when you're sick, cover your nose and mouth when you cough and sneeze, and get your flu shot. These are responsible, reasonable actions for us all to take because there is a real problem happening in China and there are lots of good good smart people who are working on it to contain the outbreak to help as many people as possible. And that certainly is, you know, I mean, forgot it's all smart of making about us.

Yeah, but it's not about us and our fear here in this country or in any other country, other than where this is actually happening. And a lot of, and again, a lot of this is also rooted in, if you see these myths, remember, some of this is rooted in racism. You know, some of this is rooted in this idea that we don't know what's happening over there and we don't really under,

we don't have a lot of contact with people who live in this region of the world, we don't really know them or understand them. And so when you see some of these myths spreading on the internet, you really, you need to reject that kind of, that kind of fear only leads to bad things. Panic, violence, dangerous responses, it does not help anyone.

Folks, that is gonna do it for us for this week. We provided you some measure of calm in these trying times. At least about this, this one specific thing. Thank you so much to the taxpayers for the use of medicine, this is the intro and outro of our program. Hey, we are going to be in Cincinnati here in just like a couple of weeks. Go to bit.ly4tslash20funny. You can find tickets to see us February 19th, opening for Membrother of Brother May at the Taff Theater in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can still get tickets. It will be more places in America.

And the world at large, who knows, I don't know, it would be cool though. I would just like that to happen, but definitely America to be announced this year. So thank you for that. We got a book, the Sawbugs book, you can find it at bookstores. Try and get it from an independent bookstore. That's nice, isn't it? Yeah, I like that.

I think it's nice to do. Anyway, that's gonna do it for us for this week. So, go get your flu shot. Go get your flu shot. Till next time, my name is just Mac Roy. I'm Sadie Mac Roy. And as always, don't throw a hole in your head. Maximumfun.org.

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