Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

On this episode, Kate and Oliver speak with Dr. Vivek Murthy, who served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States under President Obama. Ahead of next week's episode with his sister Dr. Rashmi Murthy, Dr. Vivek Murthy shares his insight and advice on the coronavirus pandemic. They also discuss how it relates to the topic of his new book, "Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World." (This episode was taped on 04/01/20)Executive Producers: Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson, and Sim SarnaProduced by Allison BresnickEditor: Josh WindischMusic by Mark HudsonThis show is brought to you by Cloud10 and powered by Simplecast.This episode is sponsored by Coors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Apple Books is the official audio book and ebook home for Reese's Book Club. Visit apple.co-forward slash Reese Apple Books to find out more. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson. We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship. And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling rivalry. No, no.

Sibling reverie. Don't do that with your mouth. Sibling rivalry. That's good. We had the opportunity to talk to a brother and sister, which I just love. And it's Dr. Vivek Murthy and his sister, Dr. Rashmi-Murthy. Vivek, he was the Surgeon General under President Obama. We had a really interesting conversation about a lot of things.

It's sort of centered around his book that I think is absolutely brilliant. Incredible. Yeah. And it's called together. It's about loneliness being a real epidemic. While we were interviewing him, we of course talked about the coronavirus. It was right before it started to get, you know, ramped up. But I thought that before we aired the episode with him and his sister, we wanted to get him back remotely. He is clearly spending a lot of time on the news and talking to people. He's someone in the know. I felt like we should. discuss his point of view on what's going on and what it is that he knows. And also how it pertains to his book that's coming out right now, which is something Oliver that you and I keep talking about, which is loneliness and people feeling lonely right now. Right. Well, it all goes hand in hand, you know, because we are quarantined. You know, there are a lot of people who are not with anybody who are alone. So this loneliness actually is playing into what's happening right now with this

epidemic with this coronavirus. So his book is actually very timely. It's really amazing because you think that, you know, loneliness is just simple. You know, it's a word and you're lonely and that's that. But what it can actually lead to is pretty crazy. I love this book. I think it's important for everyone to see why Dr. Murthy is focused on this as the great epidemic of our generation. So here is part one of our conversation with Dr. Vivek-Murkey. It's so great to have you on now. I'm glad we get to reconnect, you know, because when we first, or when you had mom and Kate anyway first had your conversations, we were just right at the beginning of it.

And the coronavirus, honestly, was an almost an afterthought to the interview, you know. So I'm glad that we have you back on. And I have to say that now watching these briefings, And seeing the surgeon general standing behind the president, I'm like, oh, man, I used to know, I knew the guy who used to stand behind there. I'm going to just start immediately. Do you believe that if you were in office, if it was a different office, that this would have been handled differently? Well, Kate, you know, you always hope that you can do things better than the way they're being done. a couple things I'd say about this, so every administration that walks into a pandemic

or a major outbreak, they've got to learn about the virus and they've got to also respond at the same time and sometimes that can be tricky. I think in this particular administration, there were some stumbles in the beginning. I think our response was slower than it should have been. And I continue to worry a bit about communication,

about how we're communicating and about some of the, I should say, contradictions, I think that come out of the administration. But I think that, you know, what we really need to do now is, like, what I learned when I was in government and what, you know, I've learned from other people who have managed pandemics is that there really are few core principles that you have to, have to have to observe during these pandemics. Like, number one, you've got to lead with science in your decision making and with scientists as your communicators. You've got to put them out front. The second big thing is you have to be really

transparent with what you're telling people, both about what's going well, but also about what's not going well. You know, when you step up to that, to the mic in that briefing room in the White House, when you stand in front of the cameras, there's tremendous pressure to put a positive spin on everything and to tell people things are going to be just fine. And you've got to resist that urge because you're not being level with people and you've got to respect them enough to tell them the truth and then to come up with a plan for how we're going to handle the truth if it's not quite so rosy. But the last thing, and this is the part that worries me in particular, is that the third goal has to be getting resources to the people on the front lines.

And right now the front lines are being staffed by doctors and nurses and health care workers. It's departments of public health, you know, in local communities. These are the folks on the front lines. And, you know, it just pains me and kills me that so many doctors and nurses are going to work without the masks that they need to protect themselves. I mean, these are a lot of my friends, my own family, my dad and my sister are primary care doctors here in Miami, and they're having a really hard time ordering masks. You know, they want to see patients. These are patients they've cared for in some cases for 30 years. But all of the friends and family that I have are talking about the struggles that they and their hospitals and clinics are having, getting the tools

they need to support themselves. You know, we would never think it was okay to send soldiers into war without the armor they needed to protect themselves. Yet we're asking, we're asking, asking doctors and nurses to go on the front lines, to put their lives on the line without giving them the tools to protect themselves. And that to me is just, it's so wrong. And that's why you have to pull out at this point all the stops to produce these masks and gowns and gloves to get the ventilators produced that we need to help people who are struggling now with COVID-19.

And it worries me when I hear that, you know, we're getting a lot done and we've got more that we can do if we need to in the future. the future is now. We needed these materials weeks and weeks ago. And so that's a big part of what worries me right now about that. But is this a systemic problem, though? Has this been a problem for years and years and years that we haven't taken this idea of a pandemic seriously enough? You know, I mean, I had a interesting conversation with someone who's a quite high government level who was saying that during the Clinton administration, he had actually started the stockpiling. And, Obama as well, and then I guess they just cut, they cut a lot of that. You know, in every administration, you know, hopefully learns a bit about what we should do better the next time around. And the idea of having a solid pandemic response plan is not a new idea, because every few years, we have a major outbreak, whether it's H1N1, or whether it's a swine flu, or, you know, we dealt with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. We had Zika virus.

You know, these are all, these are, these are, what, it's not predictable when exactly. they'll happen, but you can predict with certainty that they will happen every few years. And so, you know, there have been plans that have been developed. In fact, after the experience with Ebola and with Zika, in the Obama administration, they worked with Congress to put together a package to really focus on global health security. There was a office set up in the National Security Council to focus specifically on pandemic preparedness. There were plans drawn up for what we needed to do, funding allocated by Congress for preparing the country for these pandemics. And really importantly, there was a leadership that was being provided by the United States

to work with countries around the world, recognizing that if health care systems are falling apart in another country, that actually affects our health here because a disease can spread quickly there and then it can quickly make its way to the United States. This was the thinking that had gone on in the Obama administration among Republicans and Democrats in Congress, recognizing that our collective security depends on pandemic preparedness. And it was disappointing, I think, to many of us that the funding was really not sort of continued in terms of continuing to support that kind of agenda that the Office of the National Security Council was effectively dismantled. And I worry that if we don't take these

pandemic seriously, if we don't think not just about tomorrow, about about next week, next month, next year, that we're not going to be able to prepare ourselves for fending off the next pandemic. Because we can't control if they come, we can control how prepared we are. Since we spoke in New York, have you learned any more about the virus that you could share with all of us? I know everybody's sort of glued to their televisions and we're all learning as much as we can. But, you know, lately there's, you know, Dr. Fauci's been saying that there might be a second wave. And do you have any insight on that for us? Well, yeah, gosh, it feels like we're learning about this virus every day.

And, you know, one thing that I will say is reaffirms. reassuring about this and inspiring is to see just people from all, you know, sort of all walks of life, you know, whether they're, you know, people in medicine and health or people who are not, whether they're Republicans or Democrats or the older young, come together and try to ask the question, what can I do to be helpful during this time? And there are some great stories, which I be happy to tell you about that I've been coming across. But in terms of the virus itself, some things that we have learned and in some cases reaffirmed over the last couple months. So one is that this is a very contagious virus. It's more contagious than the flu. So in the way we sort of

know that, a quantity that is through a number called the R not value. So this tells you basically if you have the virus, what is the average number of people that you might give it to? So in the case of the flu, the R not values about 1.3. It means on average, you know, 1.3 people will get the virus, you know, from every person who has it. Now, in the case of the current virus we're dealing with COVID-19, the R&OT value seems to be somewhere between 2 and 2.5. So it's significantly higher. And so we think that this is a more contagious virus. Now, side note, there are things that we can do to actually reduce the R&OT value, like some of the behavioral changes we're asking people to do now. But be it as it may, when you compare apples to apples, it seems like

this is more contagious. The second thing we know is that this is a much more deadly virus in terms of the number of people it kills, but also in terms of how severely it affects people to the point of hospitalization. So people are trying to figure out right now what is something called a CFR, which is the case fatality rate, a fancy term for just saying how many people die who actually have the virus? And the numbers aren't 100% clear right now because we think that there are a lot of people who are out there who have the virus but don't have symptoms or have really mild symptoms. So they're not getting identified. They're getting missed. And so we don't really know the full pool of people who have this virus, but the guess is that the fatality rate

here is probably somewhere around 1%, maybe somewhere between 1 to 2%, but probably closer to 1%. And just to put that in context, the case fatality rate for the flu is 0.1%. So we're looking at something that's probably 10 times more deadly, possibly more than the flu. And even if you look at the people who get hospitalized, it's somewhere around 15 to 20% of people who get the virus, at least according to Chinese data, that we're getting hospitalized. And we're seeing huge portions of people here in the United States also hospitalized who have the virus. And so putting this all together, what it tells us is that this virus is not the flu. It's more easily spread. It's more dangerous in terms of the number of people who die. And it also seems

to lead more people to be hospitalized. Some other things that we've learned about this, which is interesting is we've come to realize in the last several weeks in particular that a large number of people who have the virus don't have any symptoms. And it may be as high as 25% according to the CDC as of this morning. And never will have symptoms? They're totally going to be asymptomatic? Many of them will never have symptoms. Some may develop mild symptoms that they may not even think are that significant. But the key is that many of these people may be capable of spreading the virus to other people. And just to put this in context also,

you may remember some years ago we dealt with SARS, which was another respiratory virus that people were really worried about, a very deadly virus. But with that virus, we got lucky because people were generally contagious after they had symptoms. So it made it easier to identify people

and quarantine them quickly. If you're in an environment where even asymptomatic people are spreading it and a large number of people who have the virus are asymptomatic, then you've got to look around you and realize that you have to, especially at this stage, when we're still accelerating in the number of cases we have in the U.S.,

you have to behave as if everyone around you could have the virus. And that's why you're hearing public health officials be so emphatic in their request that everybody washed their hands, that they avoid hugging and touching other people, you know, unless they're part of the family that you're living with at home. That's why you're hearing people say that we shouldn't get together in crowds anymore, that we should move to telework, that we should stop schools, because we're a lot of people out there who may have the virus and who may easily transmit it and just not know it. And it's suspected that's

probably why it is spread so fiercely as it has in New York City. And now we're starting to see other states in the United States like Louisiana and like Florida and others experience an upsurge and infections. And I'm assuming we don't know why some people may be asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms and then why others have more severe symptoms. I'm not talking about the predisposed or sort of the preconditioned or the elderly. Someone who's healthy, one might have very mild and one might not. Do we have any idea why yet? What we do know, what seems to be the case based on the sort of overall population statistics are that people who are older and who have other illnesses like diabetes or heart disease or illnesses that may compromise your immune system,

they seem to have more severe infections when they do get COVID-19. But the truth is we've had any stories now of younger people in their 40s, for example, who are getting the virus, who are having severe experiences with illness, and in many cases passing away, particularly among health care workers. And so, you know, the truth is there are no sort of clean lines with this There's nobody who can say, oh, for sure, I'm not at risk, and I don't need to worry. And this is part of the challenge of dealing with the virus that we're still trying to understand while it's clear that we've got to put up a massive response to it. Are there genetics in play at all with this?

I mean, I know we don't know, but could that be a possibility? I heard something about blood types. You know, it's certainly a possibility that your genetics impact, you know, how you react to this virus. It'll take us years to really think deeply understand, you know, who is most susceptible. who's the most efficient, if you will, carrier of this virus and transmitter of this virus. And right now, just because we don't know the answers to this question, you're seeing very broad, very aggressive strategies taken. And here's a tricky thing about these public health

strategies is when you do them right, when you act early and you're aggressive, people think you overreacted because nothing happens. And they say, well, look, nothing happened. Well, nothing happened because we were aggressive. And if you act too late, then it's very hard to contain these viruses. So I think about certain states that have been reluctant, for example, to issue stay-at-home orders. Yeah, Florida, my home state, Florida was one of them up until this morning, in fact. But I understand where it's coming from. We don't want to shut everything down unless we really have to. People are right now really struggling. Economically, folks are losing their jobs. They're trying to figure out how to get food on the table now.

I mean, there are real consequences to telling people not to go out, to closing things down. But the calculus here is that the price of not doing so is a massive loss of life. And that is even worse for the economy. When you have continued spread, when you prolong the experience of this disease in the country, that just strikes fear into people's heart and extends the amount of time that we have to keep things shut. So it turns out that there's this false choice that we're being told that we have to make between the economy and our health. The reality is that there's a singular choice, which is that if we want to optimize both our health and the economy, we have to get the virus under control. And that's why we've got to be aggressive with these stay-at-home measures.

And it's why also we've got to use the time that people are giving us by staying home, because they're buying us time, right? They're reducing the peak number of infections so that we can build hospital capacity and get set up so that if infections do spike again, we can jump on them quickly and keep them down. But we've got to use that time to build up our hospital systems, our testing capacity, to make sure we've got the public health infrastructure to be able to trace people's contacts and quarantine them if we need to. If we don't have that in place, then all of this time that we ask people to biased by sacrificing and by staying home that we will have squandered some of that. So that's why what we do right now in terms of preparation is really critical. And you think this is going to be a while. You know, I mean, it's going to be a minute, obviously. And then as far as a vaccine goes, how long, I mean, are they saying sort of 12 months to 18 months, but even once that is FDA approved and ready to go, I mean, what does that exactly mean?

Is this a vaccine, like the flu vaccine, where you don't know whether you're going to hit it or not? Or would this be a really specific vaccine? Well, the hope is it'll be highly effective. I mean, the flu vaccine can vary in how. effective it is anywhere from 30% to 60% depending on the year and the strain of the virus. So, you know, is it the perfect virus? You know, vaccine, no. Is it better than nothing?

Usually yes. And actually, one thing about that flu vaccine is sometimes people think, if I got the flu vaccine and I get the flu, that means it didn't work. But it turns out that if you get the flu vaccine, even if you get the flu, you often will have a less intense flu, a less severe illness. And so it can sometimes help not just in preventing the flu, but in really. reducing the severity of the flu. But the hope is that this will be a more effective vaccine and really time will tell. And the hard part about vaccine trials is that they take some time because

you're running them, you know, first you're doing safety studies and you have to run them in in human trials. It's often easier to develop a medication, especially if you're trying to repurpose a medicine that might already be on the market that you think could be used for people with an illness like COVID-19. So that's why you hear some news about certain medicines that are being tested out there, like hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir and chloroquine itself. We don't know if these work. Everyone's hoping that they will.

A friend of mine had a friend who had it really bad, went to had to go to the hospital, and they gave him such a... Was it septriaxum? Yes. Huh. Hmm. The doctor doesn't like that.

He's like, hmm. Not sure about that one. So Cephtriaxone is a strong antibiotic that is sometimes given for people who have certain types of pneumonia in the hospital. It's on medicine that we know works for COVID-19. COVID-19 is a virus, and Cephtriaxone is an antibiotic that's usually used for bacteria. So one of the reasons it's so important that we like study these medicines, like, the hydroxychloroquine and others, is because sometimes even in very small trials or in individual patients, when it seems like a medicine works, when you actually try it on a large group of people,

it might become more clear whether it does or doesn't. And the side effects also become more clear. Because even though we've had some of these medicines around for a while, like hydroxychloroquine, we've never really treated people who have COVID-19 with them. So we don't really know how the medicine is going to interact in their system. So, you know, it's important to study these. It's important also, though, to be cautious about how much you hype the medicines because you don't want people to think that, hey, we have a cure. You also don't want them to start hoarding the medication. And interestingly, what happened after people started talking about hydroxychloroquine was the people started writing prescriptions for this trying to get that medicine just in case

they or their patients had COVID-19 infection. And it turns out the people who had illnesses like lupus who needed the hydroxychloroquine for their routine illness were actually starting to have a hard time getting the medicines. So all of these things have sort of side effects. And that's why when you're in government, you're communicating about this, you've got to be really careful to walk that line where you're being upfront with people. You're being honest. You're telling them what we know. You're providing them with sources of hope and reasons to be optimistic based on the plans you have. But you're not sort of over-promising or putting information out there that could ultimately lead to more harm than good. On a personal level, is there a part of you that

wishes you were in the trenches again that you were standing behind that podium? Or are you reserve relief where you're like, okay, I mean, I'm going to do my own private thing here, private practice, but I thank God I'm not involved in this right now. You know, it's interesting. There are a number of us on the outside, you know, who used to be working in the administration and who talked about exactly that question, you know. And look, I think there are two things that say. One is that most of us look at what's happening, right? now. And even though, you know, there are certain things that we think are going great and other things that we think could be better, we all know that you've got to, like, approach this with a lot

of humility because it's hard to be in the, in the middle of it, trying to figure out a thousand things, you know, at the same time while you're still learning about this virus. So, you know, I think we give the folks who are in the building who are like in the middle of the fire, we give them, you know, a lot of credit and some slack, you know, we needed. But I think that a lot of us do wish that we were there, not because we necessarily want to replace everyone who's there. Because keep in mind, there are a lot of really good people there. You know, people like Tony Fauci and people like Debbie Burks and others who are career civil servants who have been there for decades. I mean, these people are extraordinarily talented and we need them actually to stick

around and just still be there for future pandemics. But I think, you know, a lot of us in the outside having experienced what it's like to be able to help and to make a difference, you know, at a high level. Like we want to be in the trenches again, you know, helping when the country's hurting, you know, and I feel that way clinically as well. You know, I think about the hospital I used to work at up in Boston, Brigham Women's Hospital. I think about my friends and colleagues who are in the front lines there. And there are days where I wish I was there with them, you know, fighting alongside them, you know, working to treat patients and, and helping to keep each other, hopefully safe. So, yeah, I do think about it, you know, often. I'm glad that we've got

good folks, career civil servants and others who are in government. But, you know, if I had the chance to serve the country again in some capacity, I would certainly seriously consider it because I think it's, when you have the opportunity to do that, you can really help people at a scale that is large. And you hope in those moments that you can do something positive that will impact people's lives in a good way. Is there anything right now that you're not seeing that if you were in that position, that you would be adamant about moving forward? Well, you know, with a caveat that it's easy to be the armchair commentator and as opposed to it in the middle of the madness, you know, there are a couple of things I think I would want to see perhaps more, you know, the government be more aggressive on or perhaps a slightly differently. You know, one is I would definitely be much more aggressive about pulling out the stops to produce the personal protective equipment that our healthcare workers need. And if that involves invoking the different. Defense Production Act or the DPA, which allows the government to really go in and utilize

that production capacity in private industry to make what the country needs, then I would do that. And frankly, it would have been that weeks and weeks ago because that need was there a while ago. And it's only getting worse. And even though things are revving up in terms of domestic production and acquisition from outside, we're still trying to catch up and we just don't have that time to be going in a slow pace. We really have to pull out the stops. And if we end up having excess supply, then so be it. We put that in our national stockpile. We use that for the next pandemic. But we need to really pull out this off. So that's one thing. I mean, the second thing I would probably lean into more is on being more concrete with the data and the

numbers that I'm giving, the American public. So, for example, when people are, right now, a lot of people are scared because they're hearing that we have needs that aren't being met. They're hearing that hospitals are running out of ventilators. They're hearing that hospitals are going We run out of beds soon if they don't get extra capacity. And what people want to know is not just how many beds are being set up in New York. They want to know that in context. They want to know how many do we actually need? So if I tell you that I'm going to send 1,000 beds to New York,

but it turns out New York needs 10,000 beds, that's a very different proposition than if all New York needed was 1,000 beds. And so when we don't provide that kind of context to people, this is true in testing as well, where we're ramping the amount of tests that we need. this moment, we're doing slightly over 100,000 tests a day in the United States. But the truth is, and that sounds good if you think, wow, 100,000 is a lot, until you realize that where we really need to be is probably closer to 1 million tests a day that we're doing. And so giving people context and being open with them about how far we are from the goal, that's not an easy

thing to do because it opens you up for criticism if you haven't met that goal or made it up progress. But that's really important to be transparent like that, because that's how you build trust. And it's also how you create accountability. And in a pandemic response, if you're the government, the most important asset that you have is public trust. Because when people start to lose faith in what you're saying, and even when you're telling them the right thing to do, they may not listen to you. They may have doubts. And that can be catastrophic in terms of their health. So those are a couple of areas, I think, where I would perhaps lean in more. And perhaps last of all, I would say I would be a little bit more aggressive on some of the guidelines coming out

about personal precautions that we should take. For example, I actually think that we should all be wearing masks. And then let me be very clear about this. I think the priority should be going to healthcare workers. I don't think that people right now, given the shortages that we have of masks in this country, should be going out and getting medical-grade masks

and using them or hoarding them. But we can make cloth masks, cotton masks, from clothing that we have in our home, for material that we could much more easily procure, And we can use that to cover our nose and our mouth. Now, why is this important? It's important because we already know that a large number of people who have this virus are asymptomatic. We know that people can spread the virus before they have symptoms.

So if that's the case, it makes sense that we would want to protect people by having folks cover their nose and mouth so that they are not spreading it unintentionally to other people. And now, as we're looking back on the data, it's sort of becoming increasingly worrisome that maybe this asymptomatic spread has been a big part of what's been driving. how rapidly the diseases spread. So I would call for that right now. I would have probably called for like a week ago. And if we look at other countries as well, we see that many of them have implemented measures like this, where people do wear masks in public. And they've had, I think, a better success rate at controlling the virus than we have. I just learned how to make a homemade mask

out of a handkerchief. Oh, great. I was actually going to do it on Instagram. Well, maybe you should put that up on Instagram, Kate. Because the thing is, look, If we want people to wear masks, we've got to teach them how to make them, number one. And we also have to teach people how to use it properly. So, for example, you wouldn't want to be using the same mask day after day. You wouldn't want to be, like, putting your hands all over it, even when you're outside, touching other surfaces, contaminating your mask even more and then contaminating yourself. You want to be judicious in how you use that mask.

So you want to put it on and you want to not touch your face when you're out and about and you have it on. And then when you come home, you want to take it off and put it in the wash. So, you know, we have to both tell people how do you make these masks? use them in a safe and hygienic way. But I actually, I suspect that that's where we're going to be going. I think that you'll see the CDC probably come out with guidance to that effect. I think it's the right thing to do. And I think the sooner we do it, the better.

All of the stuff, because you hear like, oh, it sits on carbon boxes for 24 hours, on plastic up to three hours. Like, is that all, is it overkill to go that far as to, like, leave things in your garage for two days before opening them or? Yeah. Yeah, no, these are good. questions. Look, I think a lot of these people just don't know the answers to 100%. I mean, yeah, we know it lives on metal surfaces for hours at a time and that can survive on fabric for some

hours as well. And so, look, we've got to be cautious. And I think if you, you know, if you find yourself wiping out boxes, you know, and washing your hands after you handle boxes that come from the outside, I don't think that that's crazy. You know, I think that that's a reasonable thing to do given that we're still learning and understanding about this virus. With that said, you know, If you find that you can't wipe down every box, as long as you're not touching your face while you're handling the box and as long as you're washing your hands immediately afterwards for at least 20 seconds, then you should be able to get rid of the virus as well. So there's a spectrum of ways that we can approach this and still be safe.

But really the key comes down to not letting your hands touch your face because the main way the virus gets in often is through your nose and your mouth, you know, in your eyes. So if you can do that and make sure you're washing regularly, then you can usually keep yourself pretty safe. The problem is, is this, there's, I didn't even know what if I can call it misinformation. There's just almost so much information that I don't know what to sort of believe or not. You know, I mean, as far as news goes today, who knows, you know, everyone has their ideas about the polarization of these, you know, these news channels, right? as far as our president getting out and sort of saying the things that he does

and then you've got Fauci and these other and Burtz who are like sort of maybe contradicting him or having to sort of walk the line a little bit I just never I just don't know really you know what to believe so I'm going off of pure instinct which is just stay home

you know yeah and Dr. Fauci is great you know I worked with him when I was in the administration he's he's a first class scientist He's a great clinician, and he's a straight shooter when it comes to telling us what's going on. So I think it's really good that he has been part of the briefings. I'm glad that the administration is giving him a voice,

and I think it's really important that people hear what he has to say. You know, if you listen to what he's been saying, though, he's been cautious in what he's telling people in giving a caveat that, look, things could change. We're telling you this today, but we're learning every day, And we may tell you something slightly different tomorrow. So the guidance, for example, that, you know, if you were, let's say that you didn't have to worry if you didn't have symptoms, you know, in terms of getting tested, now that we're learning that a lot of people don't have symptoms, but still carry the virus and could shed the virus. Now, you know, we've got to rethink that. So, you know, this is the tricky thing about this, is that some of the guidance will change.

And so I think if you find yourself erring on the side of caution, that's not a bad thing. You know, because this is, keep in mind, this is different, this coronavirus than H1N1, you know, or the swine flu or some of the other viruses that we've seen before in that it's more dangerous. You know, so swine, you know, H1N1, which is a virus that popped up about 10 years ago and spread around the world. You know, that affected over 60 million people in the United States. But it had a mortality rate that was only 20% of that of the flu. So keep in mind, this one is probably at least 10 times greater than the flu. So it was about 50 times greater in terms of its mortality than H1N1.

So look, because it's deadlier and more dangerous, I think it's not wrong to be cautious. And I think that at the end of the day, everyone wants to be safe. They want to keep their family safe. They don't want to put other people at risk, especially people who are older. And so these, okay, so what about these bats for a second? All right. These bats are like assholes, it feels like. And correct me if I'm wrong.

wrong, but the bats immune system is like hyper, hyperimmune, they have hyper immunity, right? So these viruses are then able to live in these bats for long periods of time. Am I right about that or am I totally off base? Yeah, no, so they can harbor these viruses without, you know, enduring the same kind of lethal effect that humans have. And, you know, they're, I wouldn't necessarily say their immune systems are superior to ours because they're just different and they're probably more susceptible to some things that we may not be susceptible to and vice versa. But they have been a reservoir for viruses that have ultimately ended up jumping to humans over time. And this seems to be the latest

example of that. So basically we just got to get rid of the bats. Yeah, this is not good for the bats to the public image. That's for sure. It's terrible PR for the bats. So I just want to actually give a little disclaimer right now. You know, we're going to get to our ads. And, you know, even though these are strange and very uncertain times, our sponsors are still coming through for not just for us, but, you know, for the people who work for them. And we want to support them as much as we can. Well, and also support the people that work inside of our business and this podcast as well.

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. There are many amazing people who make this show and a lot of other shows that you listen to run. And there's a lot of jobs at stake as well. And these sponsors help with all of that, with keeping everyone's lights on. So, all right. And go. Tab the Rockies, Core's Light right now. So it's a mix of cores and then the Beatles. No one's done that before. Oh, God. Because they'll get sued. I don't think, I don't think we use enough bars. I think I'm, I think I'm okay. I don't even think the bars. I don't even think you're in the right key.

Anyway, Cores Light, it's the beer. It's not only, it's, it's not only the beer of the Rockies, it's the beer of the Hudson's in my estimation. I've been drinking Coors Light since I was 21 years old. Yeah, it was born in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in 1978, which is really close to my birthday and my sister's birthday. Yeah, it's right in between us. Really big, it's big news.

We're all the same age. Yeah, exactly. Where's as old as Core's like? Only 102 calories. Which is good for me. I like the sound of that. But the mountains on the bottle and the cans, they turn blue and your beer's cold, which is one of my favorite things about it. You always know when it's time to chill. So when you want to reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Coors Light. Get your chill on. Celerate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. There's the Fear Fet. factor of just walking outside these days, right? Which is, I just feel like when I'm breathing the

air, I am contracting coronavirus, but that's all sort of, you know, fear-based. But what is the truth about sort of the airborne nature of this virus? How long can it actually last from a sneeze from a cough? Well, it's a good question. And, you know, again, some of these questions are hard to say with 100% certainty since we're so learning about the virus. But it does seem to be that the virus primarily seems to travel through respiratory particles when we cough, sneeze, and perhaps even when we are speaking, which might be how people who are asymptomatic, who don't have any fever or cough, seem to spread it.

You know, if it's coming out when you're speaking as well, when you're infected, and then some of that gets on your hands, and then you touch a surface, and the surface is infected, and someone else touches it you can get infected. But I don't think that there's anyone in the public health community right now, you know, at least not significant numbers of people who believe that just going out and taking a walk is at all dangerous. In fact, we want people to go out and to take walks. We don't want them to do it in crowds. And if you're going to do it with somebody else, you've got to keep some distance from them, you know, at least six feet, if not more. But getting out in nature and, you know, walking around, getting exercise, this is actually very important for not just your physical health, but for your mental health as well. Yeah. And again, we still don't know. We still don't know, I guess. But if you get it once, can you get it again? So, you know, there have been a few, you know, case reports, you know, from other countries where people have said that individuals who were infected and then recovered got infected again.

But these are in really small numbers. And there's a lot we still need to understand about those limited number of people. Like, did they actually fully clear the infection? Did they have normal immune systems? We do know, though, that there are other viruses that you can get and then get again. So, for example, we get the common cold. and even though there are different strains of the cold, we likely don't develop lifelong immunity

to a particular strain of cold once we get it. We may be immune for a short period of time, then it wears off. With the flu as well, we can get the flu one year and then get it the next year. Now it may be a different strain the next year. But again, it's thought that the immunity we get

from having the flu probably doesn't last for a lifetime. So with this virus as well, it's likely that many people will develop some immunity to it. What's less clear is how many people will that be and how long will that immunity last? And that's one of the reasons it's so important for us to not just study this, but also work really hard on the vaccine and on a medication because it weren't a situation where this virus is hanging around for a long period of time or where if it's cyclic and it comes back every year during the wintertime, and we need to

be able to ensure that we've got a way to treat it. But even if it does that, I just want to tell people that the hope is that it won't be nearly as bad, you know, hopefully, you know, as it was this time around if we do our work, which is to, again, work on these therapies, take these measures to make sure we can test really broadly and see where, you know, it crops up so we can stamp it out quickly. But we've got to work really hard to make sure that these, that we've got the infrastructure in place to respond and respond aggressively to this virus if it does crop up again. Hey, but can I tell you, can I tell you one thing, though? Like, I feel like everything we've talked about has been very dark and gloomy, because this is pretty serious situation.

But, you know, I got to say there's a lot of amazing stuff happening. Like, that's just not only giving me a hope that we can overcome COVID-19, but it's, you know, it's strengthen my faith in humanity, frankly, because, you know, at a time like this, when, like, you know, sometimes you walk around in life and you wonder, am I just the only one having a bad day? Am I the only one feeling insecure? Am I the only one feeling lost? But it's pretty safe to assume that in this day and age, when every, you know,

is trying to figure out how to make sense of a life turned upside down, that everyone is feeling kind of lost. And I'm seeing like more and more people reach out and help each other. You know, seeing health care workers, like friends who are doctors and nurses say that neighbors are just coming and leaving care packages at their door because they know that they're going and putting themselves on the line every day. I'm hearing from people who are going to check on neighbors just to make sure that they're okay because they know they're older, they have other illnesses and they might be a greater risk and they can't go out as much. So I feel like, you know, whether it's that or whether it's people sharing lessons plans with each other so they can help each other homeschool their kids or bosses who are stepping up to actually forget about work for a moment and just focus on people's mental health and emotional well-being, I feel like more and more people are starting to step up and realize that, yes, we're all in this together. Yes, we need government to do its job. But we also all need to be there for each other. We need to step up and take care of each other. And I think that is the basic bargain.

that has made America work. It's that we need the government to be there to support the people's needs and we need people to step up and take care of each other. Yeah, I'm noticing that as well. It's sort of this collective, more connective experience

that everybody's having because we're all feeling the same thing. One of the things we talked about was loneliness because that's what your book's about. And you wonder, you know, is this epidemic of loneliness going to rise or is this a time when people are actually going to, like you said,

sort of out of this, connect to people differently. I think you're hitting on, I think what a lot of people are struggling with, which is a question of how do you manage your day? How do you find time to think and reflect? How do you make sense of a lot of the thoughts that are popping into your head? And also this question about where is this going to lead us in the long term?

This is an extraordinary moment of upheaval. And one thing that is certain is we will not come out the same. on the other side, that this will leave an indelible imprint on all of our minds and our psyches, and we will remember this moment for the rest of our lives. And there's a question of what kind of transformation will be brought from this whole experience. And I think that if we are intentional about thinking about our social lives and how that has been impacted, if we're intentional about thinking about our relationships and what priority they have in our lives, I think that there is something really interesting here that can

happen. Because, you know, there is a gap, I think, between, for many of us, myself included, between our stated priorities and our live priorities. You know, if I asked you guys, like, what your top priority was in life. But let me ask you, what is your top priority in life? I mean, my family. Well, my health and wellness first, because if that's not there, then clearly I won't be able to take care of my children, but my kids. Yeah. And what about you, Oliver? my family my children you know um making sure they're happy or not making sure but just giving them the hopefully giving them the tools to be happy and confident you know um and you know resilient i think that's probably my my number one priority in my life for sure over my career over anything

else it's definitely my family what about you vevec and i i would I would say the same thing. I mean, for me, Kate, you know, it's my family. It's my wife, my kids, my mom, my dad, my sister, my grandmother. And, you know, in the, it's so clear to me that those are more important to me than my employer. But when I think about, like, where I spend the bulk of my time and attention, where I have, you know, over the last five, ten years of my life, I regret to say, and I say this with

some embarrassment that even though I put people at the top of my priority list, I'm not sure that they have functionally been at the top. I think I've spent more time focused on things like career and other things than I really want to. And I think this is an opportunity for us to step back and ask if we have a gap between our stated priorities and our live priorities and to ask, like, where do people really fit in? You know, many people are now having the experience of not having the contact with other people that they want. And that's really painful. And for me, one of the things that's made me realize

is just how much I depend on other people and on relationships in my life. And so I think as we go through this struggle, we have a choice here of thinking, you know, number one, if we recognize how powerful and central relationships are, how do we actually want to live our life? What does it mean to live a people-centered life?

And to me, a people-centered life is what it means that we prioritize people when it comes to where we put our time and attention. It means that when my friend calls, that I pick up the phone, even if I just have 10 seconds to say, hey, I can't talk to you right now, I'll call you later. But I prioritize, like answering, it means that if I've got to choose between work and my family, whenever I can, and it's not always possible, whenever I can, I actually remember that I want to put family first. It also means that when I'm talking to someone, when I'm with the people that I love, that I give them one of the greatest gifts that any of us can give each other, which is a gift of our full attention, that I don't allow myself to be distracted by my phone or by TV or something when I'm talking to them. And even if I talk to them for less time, let it be good time, let it be high quality time. So to me, like, these are some of the things I think that all of us are starting to grapple with. And if we come out of this time, this time of great, like, upheaval, if we come out of this with a greater commitment to focusing on our relationships

and to prioritizing people in our life, then I think it will not just change our day-to-day experience and our fulfillment, which I think it will. I don't think it'll just improve our health, which I'm sure it will. But I think it will also have spillover impacts on how society is designed. Because imagine this, if you're a boss and you come out with a, a renewed focus on relationships and understand how central they are in life, then you can start to think about how to design a workplace that focuses on strengthening connection. If you're a

principal or a teacher or an educator in a different form, you can start to think how we design schools that don't just teach kids how to read and write and do arithmetic, but also give them the foundation for healthy relationships going forward. And you can ultimately realize, and it's to say this knowing that this is an election year, when many people are thinking about who they want to represent them, that when we think about the polarization that we're experiencing in this country and really around the world, I think a lot of it comes down to the lack of relationship that we have with each other, with the fact that we've in many ways taken our community relationships for granted, and they've deteriorated over time, not because we don't care about people, but more out

of just neglect and not prioritizing them. And so my hope is that we will come out of this long struggle with COVID-19 with a different sense of how important people are and relationships are and that we will use that to change not in our lives, but how we design the institutions we work and learn in and how we think about our politics and society more broadly. Yeah, I mean, I think that that is definitely the dream. I mean, we are coming from such a divided place right now. And this is the time to sort of come together. We're seeing what it's like when people have no choice but to sort of be together and i guess my concern is is we live in such a fast-paced world that it's always on to the next we're always on to the next so what is going to

prevent this moment in time which could bring us together actually from going back to just the norm to status quo to consumerism you know to just you know me me me because what i love what's happening right now too is we're learning about conservation whether we want to or not. You know, whether we believe in climate change or whether we don't, we are learning to conserve because we have no choice. And it's kind of a great thing. It's really nice to actually eat everything on your plate, not throw away so much food. One of my biggest pet peeves is food waste. It's unbelievable the amount of food that we waste, even from my family. And we are so conscious of that now and it feels very good i just fear that you know this is a moment in time that's

just going to pass us by we have an opportunity now and i hope that we take this opportunity but i fear that we'll just get right back to business as usual you know or not you know just looking at your employees and thinking about the time that you want them to spend with their family and the things that they prioritize for their personal life and um you know you know, it'd be nice if that is the domino effect. But has this changed any course of direction for you? Yeah, no, it's had an impact on me as well. And, you know, I certainly never imagined when I wrote the book that it would be, you know, as timely and relevant as it is today. I knew that we were dealing with a lot of loneliness in society, but I had no idea that we

would be, you know, that we would be dealing with a whole new risk, you know, of exacerbating that loneliness. But look, you know, for me, it's changed things for me as well. Because I, I think, it's hard to experience like this profound life change that we've gone through without being affected. And, you know, where I am right now is I'm actually physically in Miami, Florida. I'm here with my parents who live here with my sister and my brother-in-law and my grandmother. This is where I grew up, and so my family has stayed here. But one of the things that has happened, and the reason that we came down here is because my grandmother had fractured her hip. And she was, you know, she had a rough time getting better. And my family was,

having a rough time caring for her. And so we'd already planned that we were going to come down and help out. The day of the night before we got on the flight, Alice and I looked at each other, and we knew what was coming. We knew that this was getting worse and worse. And we said, there's a chance that we may not be able to come back in a week, which is what we had planned. And so we had to decide, do we cancel the trip or do we go down?

And so that was one of the first major decisions we had to make where we had to, in a sense, choose, and we chose family at that point. We said, let's go down. There's some risk of traveling, yes. But it's more important if we're all going to be shut down, that we're together. And so we went down and we've been here for several weeks now. We anticipate we may be here for several months. And I'll tell you that it's hard as it is to be pulled out of our routine, to not have the usual supports that we have in terms of child care in DC. There are all these extraordinary gifts that we feel like we're being given here. I'm seeing my dad. I'm seeing my dad. dad and my mom gets such joy at being with our three-year-old son and our two-year-old daughter.

We're getting to see them all snuggle in the bed together. I'm watching my dad sit in the big bathtub and give both of them a bath at the same time and walk them both around the garden and pick tamarind from the trees and pick starfruit and look at all the mangoes that are starting to come on the trees and talk about picking them in another month when they get ripe. And these are such beautiful moments. And in the past, you know, I had experienced them for a few days or at a time and we would come down to the visit. But now I look at this, these beautiful experiences that my children are being given, that we're all being given.

And I think to myself, why don't we spend more time together? Why don't we live closer together? And so in that way, like this experience is sort of pushing me to evaluate my own life choices in a deeper way. and ask the question, what does it really look like to design a life that's centered around people and relationships? It means making some hard choices and some sacrifices, but it's more clear now than ever before that look really worth it. That's so great. You did the right thing. I mean, I think you probably had a little foresight, too. I mean, you might have seen this thing coming from further out than a lot of people, I would assume. Now that you can't really go and do any of these shows and

what are we going to be doing about your book? I wanted to host something here. I was all excited about that in Los Angeles. So how are you going to go out and promote it? Are you going to do it via Zoom? It's a great question. You know, what's been unexpected and interesting in this moment is that more people are actually asking about the book because they know this is a time where people are struggling with isolation and with loneliness. So it's become, I think, even more relevant than perhaps it was perceived to be before. But, you know, I do want to be. want to connect with people about this and have this larger conversation just because of what you said earlier kate and oliver that there's a real opportunity here if we really focus on

strengthening human connections to come out of this whole saga with covid 19 stronger than we did before to maybe even reorient our priorities and the life that we live after this is all over and so we're looking at a few different ways of doing that we're doing more podcasts now we're doing Zoom conversations. I want to do more of them because I really enjoyed them. I was just on a Zoom conversation with about 300 young people, college grad students and recent graduates talking about what to expect with COVID-19. But we're looking to do more things like that.

And I'm also open to sort of doing sort of virtual dinner parties as well and other small group things with people who are interested in this. Because I think, look, we're all getting used to a new way of just being together. and it's a virtual in this sense. But I actually feel that rather than just putting the book out into the ether, being able to have conversations about it is really important now. And I want to have those, even if they're virtual. Before we go, I want to just touch on mental health for a second

during the COVID-19, during this virus, because I think it hasn't really been talked about that much. You know, there is another aspect to this, you know, that is not necessarily physical health, but mental health, not just people not being able to get medication. I'm just talking about the idea of being alone that might exacerbate some mental health issues. Is this a real, can this become a real problem? Like sort of the, you know, the secret, you know, the secret danger of all of this? Well, that's a great question, Oliver. And I think you're exactly right to spotlight that as an issue that we haven't talked about nearly as much

in society in the last couple months. But I think you're right. Look, whenever there's major change and we see this after major disasters like hurricanes or tornadoes, the mental stress that people endure and the episodes and instances of mental illness actually do increase. And they don't just increase in like the week, you know, of the tragedy. But we can see a spike that lasts for weeks and months, you know, afterward. And so I think it's, especially because this is a prolonged period of change, it's an prolonged crisis, I think we do have to be mindful that we may see anxiety levels rise, that we may see depression worsen. I'm particularly worried about suicides and recognizing that there are many people who live with severe depression and who are, you know,

on the edge, so to speak, of being suicidal. And I worry about them, especially if they're alone and don't have, you know, a close friend that they can see or somebody they can engage with. And that's why I think at times like this, it's especially important that we recognize that we're all vulnerable in some way to greater sadness, to greater stress and potentially to a worsening of mental illness. And it's important that we reach out to each other. You know, we might think that five minutes spent on the phone with a friend isn't really, you know, going to add much to their lives. But you'd be surprised if you've been dealing with severe depression and isolation and you get a call from somebody you trust and you love, that five minutes can be a lifeline.

And so I think we have to assume that everybody is struggling in some way and that we can serve them and serve ourselves ultimately as well by reaching out to them and connecting with them. And that connection at a point of need can be so powerful and so healing. So I think this is a moment for us to think of ourselves as healers, all of us. You know, you don't need a medical degree or a nursing degree to be able to help people in a moment like this. All you need is the willingness to step up and reach out to others, the compassion to be there for them and to listen deeply. And the willingness to open up your own heart and to be transparent with them about what you're experiencing and what you're going through. And by doing so, you often will

give them permission to open up more as well. yeah hopefully this will create an epidemic of vulnerability you know because i think that we need that and this might bring that on because essentially you have to feel that vulnerability to reach out to people and feel that compassion you know it's an important thing and i do think it has not been touched upon enough so make a phone call do a Skype you know i mean why not there are like people that have organizations where they call people, right? They schedule calls. Yeah, there's an organization in the United Kingdom called the Silver Line, which provides a phone service, and senior citizens will call in,

and often just to say good night or to say hello or to hear someone's voice. You know, we evolved as human beings to be very sensitive to the sound of someone's voice, the look of their facial expressions and their body language, as well as to the content of what they say. And this is one of the reasons it's so powerful when you video conference with somebody, even if it's just for two minutes, seeing you, hearing your voice, as well as knowing what it is that you have to say, can be just so rich and so healing for other people.

So, yeah, that human contact, I'll tell you, it's rich, it's healing, it's one of the most important medicines that we have. And I think this is a time where we need to use it. Oh, God. Okay. One last question. You look so dapper. Are you wearing shorts? Or do you just have this awesome suit up top and you're wearing like Bermuda shorts? Well, close. Close. What I'm actually wearing are scrub pants. Yeah. Do you want to see? Yeah, yeah. All right. All right. So I'm going to stand up here against my better judgment. All right here. So you see I'm wearing scrub pants.

Oh, my God. That is amazing. I knew it. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. This has been amazing to reconnect with you during this time. Oh, it's so good to speak with both you again and just see you, too, and to hear your voices. And tell your sister, I say hello, too. I will.

Sibling Rivlery is executive produced by Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson, and Sim Sarnah. Supervising producer is Alison Bresnick. Editor is Josh Windish. Music by Mark Hudson, a.k.a. Uncle Mark. Do you want to hear the secrets of psychopaths, murderers, sex offenders? In this episode, I offer tips from them. I'm Dr. Leslie, forensic psychologist. This is a podcast where I cut through the noise with real talk.

When you were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like snooze. We ended up talking for hours. And I was like, this girl is my best friend. Let's talk about safety and strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones. Listen to intentionally disturbing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmark.

by Rees's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Books is the official audio book and ebook home for Reese's Book. Club. Visit apple.co. forward slash Reese Apple Books to find out more.

Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. tune in on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an IHeart podcast.