The Eric Metaxas Show - Dr. Marty Makary and John Zmirak

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

Via internet hookup, Dr. Marty Makary joins the show to keep us up-to-date on Corona-virus developments; then, John Zmirak from Stream.org takes a look at the political side of this whole viral mess.

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I tell all my relatives to take it. relief factor.com. People tell me that since I'm the announcer, it's not about me, Todd Wilkerson. They say that my job is to serve the host of the show, Eric Mataxis. What nonsense. I've known Eric for years, and you can take it for me.

You just can't depend on him. Mark my words. One day you'll blink and he'll be gone. Off to fleece the next group of suckers. But I'll always be here. No matter what, right here for you. Put your feet up and tell me all about it. Oh, yeah.

And now your host. If he's even still showing up. Eric Mataxis. Thank you, Todd. What a sweetheart. Hey, folks, it's the bunker video version of the Erkmataxis show. We're on lockdown. I'm in my personal bunker with my family. The Gebel's family is here, and we all have cyanide pills in case this thing goes south.

But basically, we're talking to, we've got Chris Reims here. We have Albin. We have our engineer, James. And we have our favorite guests, Dr. John Zemirak. Dr. John. John, we want to talk to you about a lot of things. You've obviously continued to write articles for the stream, stream.org. There are a couple I want to talk to you about.

What do you want to talk about first? Well, first, I'd like to sound really crass and talk about the politics of this. And just I know it seems wrong to be talking about politics. when we're worried about Americans' lives. But I would just like to remind people, we didn't cancel elections for the civil war. You know, election still took place in 1864, and there was still campaigning,

and there was still ordinary political life. We're going to have an election in November. It's going to happen. What are the stakes of that election? The Democrats have just declared themselves to be the party of death by kicking out Dan Lipinski, a terrific pro-life Democrat in Illinois, lost his primary when the Democrat establishment united against him. There is no place for anyone who opposes publicly funded infanticide in the Democrat Party.

So he was the last pro-life Democrat and he is now out. He's now out. Now, the next step, we need to get rid of all the remaining pro-choice Republicans. and then the choice will be beautifully starkly clear. I give you two paths. Choose life or choose death. This is amazing. So what are you saying with regard to the election in November?

I mean, what's the article who wrote at the stream? What's the name of that article? It's called, do Americans wish that Sleepy Joe Biden were president right now? How comfortable would you be with a man who, isn't sure what state or city he's in at any given moment, who trails off ignoring questions into vague, puzzling anecdotes from 30 years ago, who interacts with voters in a haughty, dishonest, insulting way, sometimes crowding those interactions with bizarre challenges to push up contests

or fights out in the parking lot. How about a president who can't remember or is too embarrassed to recite the key phrase to the Declaration of Independence? and who in a time of social distancing is probably going to keep grabbing women and girls and sniffing their hair and their ears. Is that really the guy you would want to be president right now in this pandemic? Actually, I don't think so. What I find funny, and I don't know, Chris and Albin, if you feel like commenting on this, but what I find funny is that as a result of the primary,

the Democrats have put themselves in this wildly uncomfortable position of having to unite behind Joe Biden. There's something just magnificently absurd about the idea that they're forced to unite behind someone who is, if not a corpse, a husk. He's barely there. And I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just saying when you look at him, you just think this is not the kind of a guy who inspires confidence. he's probably a nice guy in many ways, but that's not the guy that's going to give you confidence that's going to lead the country.

He wasn't a good politician when he was young and healthy. He was an unprincipled, slippery, corrupt, glad-handing, backroom dealing, schmoozing, old-style, big city, crooked Democrat. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Well, I mean, before they all became the party of infanticide, you could deal with. with people like that.

But now that he's decided to outflank Bernie Sanders to the left, except on Cuba. On the one issue of Cuba, he's to the right of Bernie Sanders. Otherwise, he has completely joined the Ocasio-Cortez-Ilan-Omar squad positions on open borders, zero deportations, zero border enforcement, abortion up through birth. it's staggering how left wing Joe Biden has become but then he never had any principles in the first place

if the Democrat Party were what it used to be which was the party of the Clu Clarks clan I'm sure Joe Biden would be for that too well the thing is Joe Biden is not he keeps doing things that are so funny and so weird it's actually it's a lot like Trump like when Trump came on the scene he would say something like Daisy

cutter blast shocking. And then we would just move on. And he would say another Daisy cutter blast shocking thing. And it became the new normal that almost every day he would say something that in any previous era would disqualify someone from public life. But he just kept going, it became the new normal. I feel the same way with Biden that most of the gaffes that he's committed are the kinds of gaffes

that would disqualify someone. But he has... The difference is. Eric. What's that? The difference, Eric. Trump said outrageous things. So he violated protocol.

Biden is giving serious evidence of brain decay, brain decline. No, no, no. I don't mean to compare them in that sense. All I'm saying is, the parallel that I'm drawing is that when something becomes the new normal,

in other words, Trump's new normal I'm mostly in favor of. Biden's new normal whether he's actually experiencing you know, mental issues or is not. And I'm not prepared to comment on that to be perfectly honest. I don't know. But what I have noticed, though, is that he has done things and said things

that are so funny and insane that in any previous time, a Democrat, they would be gone. When he asked the guy in the wheelchair to please stand up, when he called the guy that he didn't like fat, he called him, he said, hey, fat. Anything like that would disqualify somebody, but it seems like every other day, Biden is doing something like that. And I almost want to speculate, I don't know if Chris or Albin have any ideas, but what he might do in the future. Like, I'm trying to think, what could he do that's weirder than the things that he's already done? Well, I think any debates with Trump are liable to be catastrophic for Biden.

I think political appearances are going to be difficult. And Democrats are going to try to use the virus as an excuse for not having Biden out in Biden, sort of hiding him away where nobody can see it. But I just don't think this is a time when Americans want a mentally impaired president. And when would we want a mentally impaired president? Can you think of a time when we would? Well, you know, when we had budget surpluses in the late 90s and the Russians had basically collapsed, we could kind of relax. It was a barking spider. We need to put an end to that.

Yeah. Can I go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, I just want to jump. If you take a break, I can get you something about that. They're going to start using the word classic. That's classic, Joe. Like classic Coke.

You know, that's a great thing. Right. But what I was going to say to Chris and to ask you. Albin wearing his, Albin, you look like a Hershey's kiss. What I was going to say was that I remember when Biden's eyes started bleeding in the middle of the debate.

And I thought, what could be weirder than this? Like, there are things like that that you wouldn't make it up. It's an S&L stick. And I'm just wondering what's going to happen in the future. Biden's going to do something like that. Like he'll bite the ear off of Donald Trump,

something like that. that. We're going to go to a break. We'll be back with John Smirak. Don't go away. Folks, welcome back. As we know, Albin and Chris, Imes, and James. We're hanging out at spring break, having a good time in Florida. And all the brass at Salem, they keep saying there's some kind of pandemic going on that we should get serious and whatever that means. We thought we would have a doctor friend on, Marty McCarrie. Marty McCary is a world-renowned expert generally, and we thought we would have a amount to talk about the virus. Marty, welcome.

Great to be with you, Eric. And you know what? I don't mean to disrespect you by wearing my spring break glasses. Excuse me, I'll put on something more professional because I feel badly about that. But anyway, we're just hanging out. What's going on with this virus? Well, I think what we're about to witness, Eric, is a Hurricane Katrina. That's 100 times more deadly. that's about to hit our shores. And unfortunately, everybody's got a different opinion as to whether or not this thing is going to be real or not. I think the data is clear.

I think we need to listen to facts from Italy. We need to look at the scientific projections. And right now, I'm concerned we've got millions of different political opinions out there and not enough medical opinions. This is not fantasy football. This is real. This is so serious that I'm going to tell you. take off the sunglasses. Okay, Marty, seriously, we're friends, so you know, I joke around, but obviously we've been talking about this for days. These are like we're doing bunker

videos. We're all at home. But we really did want to talk to an expert, that's you, about the details of this. What you just said sounds even more serious than what I've been hearing on the news. What do you mean it's about to hit? A lot of us have been led to believe that it's way out. So the good news is, Eric, that this virus generally, runs its course in three months. That's what we're seeing from the early data from Wuhan province in China. And historically, pandemics last about three months. That was the Spanish flu of 1918. That was SARS. That was MERS. That's a piece of good news. Another piece of good news, it is hard for this virus to really hurt somebody very young and healthy. Okay, so that's

some good information, but the problem is young healthy folks feel resilient. They look around and say, hey, I don't see people dying. I don't know what the big deal is. is, and they are the community transmitters to our society's most vulnerable, those with organ transplants and on chemo, and those who are old. The older you get, the weaker your immune system is, and those with pre-existing conditions like lung disease. So that's where we've got to be careful, because this is one of those rare things where what you do affects the health of somebody you've never met before. Well, when you say we have something like Hurricane Katrina about to hit times 100. I guess a lot of us who are isolating, you know, people aren't one of their jobs,

nobody's going to restaurants, you get the impression that this thing would taper off more quickly. Well, look, I don't like it. Okay. I don't like these numbers, but let's just look purely at those numbers. We know the numbers from China and Iran have not been accurate. But Italy has been totally transparent, and they are reporting 450 deaths per day the last two days, on average. That is the equivalent, if you translate it to the U.S. population in our age, that is the equivalent of 2,000 Americans dying per day at this stage of the infection, which is three to four weeks before its peak. Okay, but hang on. The reason we're different from Italy, we know that tons of people from China flew to Italy.

They have a very strong economic connection. So I don't think we can compare ourselves to them simply because of that. We have the same thing going on in Iran. The reason those numbers have spiked in Iran is for the exact same reason they've spiked in Italy. Similarly, it is my understanding that in Italy, because of socialized medicine, they are not treating elderly. If you are 80 years old and you have this, they're writing you off. Is that completely untrue?

Well, there's definitely some important differences between the U.S. and Italy, but they go in both directions. Remember, Italy launched a martial law quarantine early. We did not. So you could argue our transmission may be higher. Also, when this virus cedes somewhere, when it is seeded, it will blossom, and it blossoms in a certain time course that we're seeing in every country in the world that is transparent. We're seeing it in Spain. We're seeing it all over the country, all over the world.

We're seeing it in Italy. So this virus, what's that? What is that period? Well, we know that generally speaking, there is a month and a half ramp up time up until the peak. That's what we saw in China. And the reason we know that is because in talking to doctors in China, they're saying that they increasingly got overwhelmed and their health care system got burdened to the point where they rationed care. We are now seeing rationing of care in Italy, and based on the numbers, we don't have enough ventilators to accommodate the models of how many people could come into the hospitals needing respiratory support in the U.S.

So we need field hospitals. We need to expand. We need more health care workers. We need to reassign health care workers. Look, I'd rather look back and say we were over-prepared, and it wasn't quite as bad as the projections suggest. but let's look at the numbers in Italy. It is not that different than the United States. And I'm using very conservative estimates.

They're a country of 60 million. We're a country of 350 plus million. They had 450 deaths. They're about a week to a week and a half ahead of us. We are now starting to see that influx and we're starting to see these cases in our ICU's at the same rate of growth. This is very confusing.

I have to admit, because what I've been picking up from the news doesn't seem, hasn't led me to the view that you're sharing right now. I still have heard enough to make me think that Italy is very badly hit because of the way they have not handled this, because of the way they mishandled this. Am I wrong? You said that they did things a while ago. Yeah, look, I believe in American exceptionalism. But the reality is in the northern province of Italy, those are great hospitals and they are great doctors. Now, they may have other issues with their health care system. They may be taxing the heck out of their people to pay for it in a way that's unsustainable.

But those doctors are good, and they're sending us messages and videos saying that they're completely overrun. And remember, we have one of the tightest numbers of beds per population in the world. We have in the modern developed world. We rank 32nd in beds per capita in the United States. So I just, I don't think our immune systems participate in American exceptionalism. That is my concern. This virus knows no borders or political party. And it's, it has a course that we can study and watch.

And it doesn't, it does not look promising. Dr. Marty, could I ask a question real quick? This is Albin. Do you, don't they smoke a lot more over there? Isn't that part of their culture, a lot of smoking? And this is a lung-related virus, right? Wouldn't that contribute? Yes, I think it does contribute.

We think vaping may even contribute for some reason. But look, I'd rather, you know, not rely on a theory and be over-prepared than look back and say, we missed the boat on this and we had to ration care. So, you know. I mean, that smoking is huge, huge in Italy and in Greece. And that has to be a big part of it. But you said vaping also. There's a lot of that going on.

I'm sure handed tattoos have nothing to do with this. Let me ask you about the connection between China and Italy. I keep hearing. I just want to understand this, that they had very strong economic ties. and that they flew tons of Chinese nationals over to Italy for some reason. I guess they have some businesses there when they ought not to have done that. And that's really what contributed to this explosion. Am I missing that?

Well, look, we definitely did a great job shutting down some of that exposure from Chinese travelers early on. That was a great move and that spared us, you know, a lot of deaths that gave us the time to study this and build up our systems. That was a great move by the Trump administration. But I think the idea that it's contained needs to be abandoned. This is in the community. And once it is in the community, it runs its course. Testing and tracing is useful early on. But at a certain point, we move out of that testing phase where testing is critical to trace and isolate. And it is, you can presume everyone you talk to or touches has it. I mean, there are. projections that 20 to 60% of the U.S. population could get this, which is not that far off

from seasonal flu, which could affect it. But the point is if that happens based on the death rate, we're going to have much of our elderly population dying. That's what it sounds like you're saying. Yeah, there are, look, half of the folks in these ICUs are under 65. The notion that this is a disease of 80-year-olds is something we need to really abandon. The case, fatality rate has been the source of a lot of arguing early on, but we have the Diamond Princess cruise ship where 705 people got it and seven died. That's about 1%. That's roughly what we can bank on. We know it's the most vulnerable that have the higher. Okay. We're at a time in this segment. Marty, can you hang on for another quick segment or do you have to go? Yes, sure. Okay.

Hey, folks, welcome back. As you know, we're doing a serious segment. We know, we know that. We know that that there's a serious thing happening. We wanted to get a friend of ours, Dr. Martin McCary, to comment on it. Marty, we're talking about some things that are news to most of us, to Chris and Albin and James and to me. Let me ask you another question. How long, like let's say I had it right now, how long would it be roughly before I would exhibit any symptoms? Five days is the average time period. It can be as early as one or two and as late as seven days, or there's even been cases that don't present until 14 days, which is why that quarantine number has come out there. Okay, but so isn't that the point, though, if people are isolating, as most of us are doing

right now, wouldn't it seem that we would know within another few days who has it and who doesn't? It doesn't seem to me that so many people could have it because if we're effectively isolating, we will know within a week who does have it and whether we are through the worst of it. Yeah, 75% of cases will manifest within seven days. So you can think of that number. But remember, most people have no symptoms or mild symptoms. And our concern is if you have mild symptoms or things. that you're blowing off and you don't really think you have it, like the dry cough or a low-grade fever, you may be contagious. We don't think there's a lot of contagiousness to not having symptoms. The idea that there's totally silent carriers out there is true, but it's just a rare phenomenon. Okay, but what you are saying is if you have very mild symptoms, you are nonetheless

a carrier. Absolutely. Any cough, any droplet transmission, any common content, those are things where people need to be really cautious. They need to watch out for their phones as a mode of transmission, touching common surfaces, and, you know, obviously any physical contact. Hey, Marty, I have a question. What's the latest on availability of tests? I know there were some bottlenecks and delays.

They seem to be making a lot now. Any word on that? Yes. So the U.S. picked a testing system that ended up not being a very good system. And they basically recalled them all and started back from scratch. Now that they've got the right systems, they're out there. And it's funny, people criticize the president for that. I'm sure he was not looking at the two different systems in some small division of the CDC picking which of the two systems to go with. But that's what

happened deep in the CDC a long time ago back in January. They picked the wrong system. Once enough high-level people figured out what was happening. They got this new system, did everything possible, and put the entire might of the government behind disseminating it. And so in terms of whether or not you should get tested, realize it doesn't change our management as a doctor. I'm not going to treat you differently. If I know you test positive or negative, we treat you the same. We treat you based on symptoms and your need for respiratory support. The testing is useful for isolating and for tracing who you've been exposed to and containing those individuals. I'm wondering about the economy. It's an extraordinary thing to think that restaurants have

shut down. I know this morning there was an extremely unprecedentedly draconian issue from Governor Newsom in California that people are to stay in their houses. We do seem to be taking pretty extraordinary measures right now. I have been generally speaking courage. I guess I'm hearing a lot of noise. I don't see that is. Oh, what? There's a dog.

There's a dog out there. See, this is guerrilla. This is a gorilla. So people who are not exhibiting symptoms right now, you're saying, again, five to seven days, we will kind of know whether we have it or not. But I still don't understand why you think that it's going to hit in the way it's hitting in Italy and it has in Iran and other places. So there's simply no scientific basis to think that in the United States, our immune systems are better than that of the Italians. And once it is at large, once it's at large, it has a mode of spread that's well characterized for every one person that gets it.

they give it on average to two to four people. They have had a total martial law lockdown. Now, you raised a good point. Maybe our case fatality rate is lower because we have fewer smokers. We have a slightly younger population. Our average age in the U.S. is 38. In Italy, it's 45. But remember, they're almost a sixth the size. And if they're seeing 450 deaths in one day, three weeks ahead of its peak, that is a message that we should get prepared. I'd much rather it be not as severe as the projections. I do worry about businesses. Look, I mean, people whose entire life business is shuddering right now is tragic. And I, you know, there's theories that maybe the economic impact may be as deadly as the health impact. That is, what if we had, you know,

mass depression and social unrest? and people breaking into buildings and that kind of stuff. I do worry about that. But governments are pulling every lever they have right now. They're pulling restrictions and spending and everything they can do. What about this possible treatment that we've heard about? We just got seconds left, but that there's a treatment that's out there. You know, it's frustrating.

The FDA is so bureaucratic, even after the announcement recently, to try to undo some of those barriers. I know in scientists with great ideas, new medications, and they're being sent to websites and being told they'll get a call back through the standard bureaucracy. Can we keep you on for another three minutes, Marty, or you have to go? I'm good. Okay.

We'll be right back. Hey there, folks. It's the Air Quattaxis show. We're doing our bunker videos. It's an amazing thing. We're all in our places of our home. homes and we're talking to Dr. Marty McKeery just a few more minutes. Marty, you were talking about how we have a lot of red tape in this country. Now, look, you are a genuine medical expert.

And if you're frustrated, so many of us have heard that there are cures out there for this and for that, much less the COVID virus and that people can't get it because it hasn't gone through enough trials and stuff. What's your sense of this? Does the president have the authority to do something to speed these kinds of things up? I thought we're talking about stuff that's treating malaria, it's already out there. Why would there be red tape with regard to this? Well, it's the deep state, if you will. It's the giant bureaucracy of the government. And you can tell from on high workers in the government to do something, but in the end, you can't force them to. And if they drag their feet, which they can do, and right now they're doing it based on these legacy

ideas that we have to have the most sophisticated trials to establish, you know, excellent safety. Well, guess what? That's for peace time. We're at war. We're in a battle right now. And what's wrong with the right to try? What's wrong with using a medication that's already been shown to be relatively safe in other settings? What's wrong with compassionate use? If somebody is circling the drain in the ICU and we know they're going to die and they want to try something,

I mean, we've got to get through so many of these barriers. So you're literally telling me that the deep state, as we call it, is fine with people dying so that they can continue with their protocols. I mean, this is an amazing thing to hear from you because you're not a nobody. You understand these things. You've worked with the government. That there are people out there who don't care about this and that even the President of the United States doesn't have any ability to override them. So the president has done everything he humanly can, and he made the announcement.

And I think the people at the FDA are good people. They're just in the mindset of this peacetime approval of drugs. at a time of war, and we need to change that mentality. I mean, when I hear a scientist tell me he is a drug, which he believes can rescue people who are in the ICU because of COVID-19, and the logic makes total perfect sense, and we know they're safe, we know the drug is safe, why is he getting the runaround from the FDA? Why is he not getting a video meeting within two hours, right?

these are top scientists. I mean, it's just so frustrating. If my relative is dying of something like this, I will go on the black market in a nanosecond and get this stuff for them. You don't think people are going to do that? You know they're going to do that. Well, in China, in China, if you look at what actually happened, there was a market, it was probably even legal, of selling drugs and donating drugs and sharing them by delivery

of family members. These were antiretrovirals. These were HIV meds, which probably helped. with COVID-19. So, I mean, why not throw everything at this if we know these drugs are not poisonous? They're safe drugs. Well, I have to believe that the president has his team talking about this very thing right now, and they're thinking about what can be done. You know, I've certainly made calls into the White House and said, look, here are some scientists, listen to them. Pay attention. I've heard their explanations. These are good opportunities, good options.

and they could be very promising. And right now they're hitting the wall of the FDA. So I hope something changes. Well, this is amazing. Marty McCary, really grateful to you. You've really helped us all understand this in ways that I guarantee you. We didn't before we began talking to you. So thank you very much.

We will bother you for updates in the weeks ahead. And once again, thank you so much. My pleasure. Good to be with you. Albin, Chris, James, this amazing stuff. I guess if we have our friend John Smirak on the line, John Smirak, can you hear me? Yes, Eric, how you know it?

You're in your own bunker with the Beagles, the Beagle Bunker. We've just been having a really serious conversation with my friend, Marty McCarrie, Dr. Marty McCarrie, who seems to think that what we had to expect from this pandemic here in the United States is actually worse than what a lot of us, us meaning me and Albin and James and Chris, what we've been thinking. He seemed to think that there is a good chance that it's really going to explode in a way that we're not prepared for.

So I don't know. What are your thoughts on that before we get goof? Yeah. Well, I've been taking this seriously for a while. I got all my necessary stuff for like a month about two weeks ago. And my girlfriend is immunocompromised. So I have to be as careful as if I were. So really, I'm not seeing anyone or interacting with anyone except picking up takeout and occasional careful trip to the store when it's mostly empty,

wiping everything down with hand sanitizers. And I've ordered chloroquine from a source. in Africa, and I'm waiting to get that stocked up. Wait a minute. We were just talking about that with Marty McCary. Chloroquine, C-H-L-O-R-O-Q-U-I-N-E, chloroquine. Is that an anti-malarial drug? Yeah, that's why they have it in Africa.

Well, why would you have to order it from Africa? It seems to me that we would have plenty of that here. I heard that you could get it here. Yeah, my doctors aren't prepared to prescribe it to me because they're nervous, so I just sort of went around the back door. See, this is what I was just talking to Marty about. I said to myself, if doctors in the United States are going to be weird about this and legalistic about this, people are dying. People are going to go on the black market. I mean, you know, you should order a ton of it from Africa and then sell it at cheap prices to people who want it because they can't get it from doctors. This is a real level of madness. We've not seen anything like this in America in many, many, many decades.

If this stuff really is effective at treating people who are coming down with it, I think it would be good for everybody to have it in their home. And if you start to get sick, maybe it would be a good idea to take it because apparently you can't get tested. There's not going to be room in hospitals. It's going to be like two weeks before your doctor can get you a test. But the disease runs its course in that time. How long does, oh, you know, we're at a time.

John, hang on. We'll have you for the next couple of segments. Folks, you're listening to the Eric Mataxas show. Hey, folks, welcome back. This is the bunker video series of the Erkmataxis show. We're talking to John Zmirak. Perhaps you've heard of him. John, you are talking us from your bunker in Dallas,

Texas with the Beagles. We're talking about some serious stuff. You brought up this anti-malarial drug. It's chloroquine. There's also another form called hydroxychloroquine. Now, I'm not a doctor. I'm not that up to speed. So ask other authorities about which of them is safer or more effective. But I'll just say as a pundit that we should be, our government should be doing whatever is necessary to get this into drug stores and get doctors ready to prescribe it to. people so they can have it on hand in case they start to get the symptoms of this because apparently you can't get tested and there's not going to be room in hospitals. So chloroquine or hydrochloroquine, was that? Hydroxychloroquine. Hydroxychloroquium. Hydrox cookies. It's apparently a more mild form of

the drug that has fewer side effects because chloroquine has nasty side effects. My friend who's in the Army said he saw people like have mental episodes because of the the side effects of this drug. It's not a joke drug. Chloroquine is a strong drug. So hydroxychloroquine is the milder version you're saying? Apparently, again, I'm totally a layman talking from my Terolian hat here. Yeah. Well, the, I guess you said you ordered it from Africa.

You mind my asking you, how does it freak genius like you figure out how to order something like this from Africa? I'm just stunned that you even sit. For friends who have friends who run medical missions in Africa. Unbelievable. You kind of wonder where the most of this stuff exists in the world. I mean that, you know, is where do they have malaria besides Africa? South America. I'm just fascinated.

Any tropical climate will have an endemic. Yeah. So I bet they have this in Guatemala. I really hope they have a lot of in Mexico because the Mexican health system is absolutely unprepared for this. The Philippines, maybe too? The Philippines, yes.

And, you know, thankfully, the climate in the Philippines will probably somewhat suppress the spread of it. Why is that? I thought that it would be... Because it doesn't... No, this virus does not... not like heat and humidity. Interesting.

I guess that does make sense, right. It's kind of like the flu. It prefers cold, dry cold. Unbelievable. Wow, John, so you're in your bunker there, and you are pretty much, you're totally isolated. I mean, I'll pick up takeout food, and I'm going to go to the liquor store later tonight

when it's empty and stay away from people and just get a few more weeks of bourbon. A few more weeks of bourbon. As an antiseptic? This is a Walker Percy moment. You could call it that, Albin. No, no, bourbon is not antiseptic. And something has to be more than 70% alcohol to be antiseptic.

So you'd have to get like white lightning or Everclear or Poir-William, which is the only good thing that's that alcoholic that I can think of. Grain alcohol punch. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We're all back to freshman year college. Yeah. That's why they still have spring break because we're at the end of hour one.

John, we're going to hold you on into the beginning of hour two. We hope you don't mind. Please don't go anywhere. Folks, don't go anywhere. Important stuff happening.