Theology in the Raw - S8 Ep885: Vaccines, Lab Leak Theory, Covid Variants, and Masks: John C. Bivona

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Back by popular demand! John C. Bivona is an infectious disease expert and he gives us an update on all things pandemic related. The efficacy of vaccines, what we know and don’t know, should kids get vaccinated, are you immune if you’ve already had Covid, whether Covid was leaked from the Wuhan lab, what we know about the Delta variant (and other variants), vaccine hesitancy, and much more. John is a Senior Biosafety Officer for The University of Chicago – Howard T. Ricketts Laboratory, a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, as well as a Registered Biosafety Professional with ABSA International (American Biological Safety Association). John was a lead trainer with the Duke Infectious Disease Response Training (DIDRT) Program, funded through an NIEHS-NIH Grant, that was designed to prepare workers at risk of infectious disease exposure. Additionally, he is a certified HAZWOPER/HAZMAT Trainer. John has over 15 years’ experience working in high containment laboratories (BSL3) with high consequence pathogens (i.e. anthrax, plague, highly pathogenic avian influenza, Brucella abortus), with an effective history of training lab workers, clinical care workers, first responders, first receivers and custodial workers to safely work with and control high consequence pathogens such as MERS, SARS and Ebola. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today, back by popular demand, a lot of you have requested that I would have back on the show for I think the third or fourth time, the one and only John C. Bivona. If you don't remember, John is a senior biosafety officer for the University of Chicago. He has over 15 years of experience working in high containment laboratories with high consequence pathogens like anthrax, highly pathogenic avian influenza. He's got a history of training lab workers, clinical care workers, first responders, first receivers, custodial workers to safely work and control high consequence pathogens such as MERS, SARS, and Ebola.

In other words, John knows more about COVID than you do. And he knows a lot more about this than pretty much everybody you'll hear talk about it on TV. And I'm so excited to have him back on. We talk about the vaccine. We talk about variants. We talk about politics vaccine. We talk about variants. We talk about politics a little bit. We talk about herd immunity. We talk about the lab leak theory. That's not the right term. He gives a better term for it. And we talk about masks again. And we talk about all kinds of

other things related to COVID-19. And I'm very excited for you to engage this conversation because, again, John knows a ton about it. If you'd like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. Support the show for as little as five bucks a month. And a huge thank you to those of you who are supporting theology in the raw. All of the info is in the show notes. Please do consider leaving a review of the show so that others can find out about it. So without further ado, let's get to know the one and only,

once again, the John C. DeVoe. All right, welcome back to Theology in the Raw, John. I just told you offline that I think you are the most requested guest on Theology in the Raw. So thanks for coming back on and being willing to give us an update on what in the world is going on with COVID these days. Yeah, yeah. You're not going to get too much theology, but... Yeah, I almost said, well, they don't get that from me anyway, but... For those who don't know who you are, I already read your bio and everything, but just maybe in your own words, explain what's your nine-to-five job do you do? Sure. Yeah. So I, I'm a senior bio safety officer for the university of Chicago. Um, I work out at Argonne national lab in a high containment laboratory. It's called the Howard T. Ricketts laboratory. Uh, so there's 12 in the United

States. They're called regional bio containment labs. And I work in one of them. And our kind of mission is to come up with therapeutics and vaccines for emerging infectious disease. So obviously anthrax, plague, Ebola in the past, but obviously the one on stage now is COVID SARS-2. So that's what I do. I do a lot of training. I do a lot of training with personal protective equipment, risk assessment, kind of in the high containment world. So we have, it's been in the news a lot now with Wuhan, with high containment lab and how they were working with it. So you see a lot of the experts on TV with expertise in high containment, but there's only 12 in the United States, right, that are regional containment labs. There might be some small ones,

the United States, right, that are regional containment labs. There might be some small ones, a lab or two, but we were designed after 9-11 with the Anthrax Labs, 12 in the U.S., to do this high containment lab, high containment work, emerging infectious diseases with these high-risk pathogens. So high-risk pathogens, pathogens are usually rated, they call risk assess, you know, one through four. And we work two and three risk group pathogens. And we work with the BSL, so a biosafety level three. So you have pathogens that are rated one through four. That's how virulent or, you know, dangerous the pathogens are. And then you have biosafety levels where how do you manage those pathogens? And we're a high containment lab and we're a biosafety level three. So are you, what is your lab?

Is that similar to, and we can maybe just go to the lab leak stuff that is being in the news now, that the lab in Wuhan, is that basically a Wuhan version of what you do? Yeah, the only difference is, so they're a biosafety level four. So they do one through four. So biosafety level four would be something like, I don't know if for reference, maybe like the movie Contagion, where you wear level A suits with supplied air. So, but we're biosafety, the majority of high containment are biosafety level three and in the west galveston there's one u.s amrit has one there's one out in boston so there's not

a lot okay the majority of the regional biocontainment labs are biosafety level three but yes wuhan that's kind of in the news lately just with this you know now they're i think the most phrased verse is lab lake theory yeah can you explain that like what are your thoughts on that is it is that a legit theory is it likely is it a hoax or what are your thoughts yeah yeah so it's evolving a little bit now i think i mean if you remember the audience we talked to your your audiences, we said early on that, you know, the news were asking, excuse me, the wrong question when they were asking early on. And it got political with Trump. But they were asking, is it man-made?

So the governments, you know, the NIH and Fauci came out and said, no, it wasn't man-made. Which was really answering that question, it wasn't manmade, which was really at answering that question. Was it manmade? But we said, and because we do this research is, well, that's not really the right question. The right question was, was there gain of function research? Meaning you take a bug SARS and then you try, so there's gain of function and loss of function. So basically gain of function is you make a bug more virulent, you know, it's more transmissible, more dangerous, or you can do stuff where you can manipulate the genome where you make it less, right? Yeah. So that happens. We have huge oversight here in the U.S. In our RBLs, if we do that stuff,

we have, you know, local, state, federal, you know, where we have to go through committees and approval and training and documentation. We're in China. And we said this early on was it's not transparent. Right. They don't have an open society. So I was a little hesitant when the government came out early on and said, no, we know, we know, we know. We're getting information from China and it was it you know it's man-made or it was from the environment so now i think we're seeing is that it's possible i don't know preston if we're ever going to definitively absolutely know if it was gain of function research which was you take a bug and then you manipulate it you know for whatever reason and you know, for whatever reason. And, you know, on one side, you say, hey,

the Chinese are good players and they're doing it for good reasons. And then we call it dual use of research, right? Because there's pros, there's good and there's evil, right? You can go back to mankind with that. Mankind can be good and they can be evil. So we call it dual use research of concern, Dirk. Right. So we don't know where China was. And I'm not going to speculate because the United States has done good stuff with pathogens and we've done evil stuff with pathogens. That's why there's some sort of vaccine. That's why there is some vaccine hesitancy, because in the past, the United States government has done evil stuff with pathogens, with African-Americans, with Hispanics.

We'll get there maybe a little bit later. But I think the question is, yeah, it's possible that it was from the lab, gain of function, not man-made. But it's still possible it was from the environment. Remember, too, that China china has excuse me yeah yeah get it up china has you know um open markets right and they repurpose meat so they don't do that in the first world but in the third world that they have meat markets and some of the meat comes from nature but some of the meat comes from these labs where you infect the the animal with a pathogen let's just say theoretically

we're talking about SARS so they infect the animal with SARS they do the research and then in the United States we incinerate it you know when we do animal research I don't want to get into that but in other countries that's very valuable meat. So they'll let the disease go through and they're supposed to do proof of principle and testing just to confirm that there's no, you know, pathogen left in the animal. And then they repurpose. And get chicken or steak. You know, they repurpose meat. So's still that's in that's on the table too so so i would say everything's on okay so so would you say and we can move on from this

i'm sure um but is there more or less evidence that it came from the lab or the market or for from your perspective is it just like it could be either one equally? We just don't know. It's not like how would we end up knowing or like is there evidence more towards one theory or the other? I think right now it's trending that it was something that happened in the lab. OK. You know, that could have been, again, you know, good purposes, evil purposes. So what happens regularly in high containment? So you think about firemen,

you know, they get burnt and they get smoke inhalation. That's part of their job. When you work in high containment labs, you have needle sticks, right? You have animal bites. And then if you don't have a good occupational health program or a pro, you know, or you have transparency, like something happens in the lab reporting. So it's easy for something to get into the lab and then you get sick and then's easy for something to get into the lab and then you get sick and then you go outside and you go into a festival and there's thousands of people there and then you have patients zero on day one and 14 later 14 days later you have thousands so yeah so i think it's trending there i don't know if we'll ever know we would know if if china and i don't know but i guess speculate is that if they were very transparent and let, remember, they wouldn't let CDC in early on.

They wouldn't let WHO on early on because they wanted to get in to see some of the origins. What was going on in the lab? What were you doing? You know, there's even been reports that early on some of the scientists in Wuhan changed the sequencing of the virus that they sent us. So we could look at it to say, hey, was it in the environment or was it in a lab? So Fauci came out and said, based on this information, it looks like it came from natural origins. Well, that was based on information that we got from China.

So my personal feel is I don't think we'll ever know. Yeah. So my personal feel is I don't think we'll ever know. Yeah. No. It's not like the Chinese government's – the poster children for brute honesty, right? I mean I don't – I'm not a political scientist, but from what I've – Right, and that's very fair. But it wasn't 50 – it wasn't a generation ago where the United States was doing that, where they were –

Let me restate that. ago where the united states was doing that where they were let me let me restate that it's not it's not as if any government i shouldn't i shouldn't pick on chinese government like governments aren't known for being just super honest and uh fair and anyway and when do we find out when the government hasn't been transparent after the fact right what and what if matt like what if we found out for sure, yep, lab leak. Does that make any difference at this point? Yeah, at this point, maybe a lessons learned kind of thing. But in regards to the pandemic, like preventing it, stopping it, I guess, I don't know.

That's a good question. Just because there was a really good vaccine. Because if you knew the actual original, it might be easier to patch a vaccine or even therapies. That's really what we're really looking at is just therapies, drugs, chemicals that would would, you know, after you get disease. So so I don't know. It's a good question. Let's go to vaccines. Let's go to vaccines. I'm vaccinated. If you just even ask a question a certain way, people get really upset with the vaccine. So I'm vaccinated. I'm not anti-vax. But there is some vaccine hesitancy with this vaccine by people that aren't anti-vaxxers, right? Now, obviously, if you're anti-vaxxer, you're against the vaccine. But I've seen people who maybe even are vaccinated, but are still like, yeah, I'm just I am nervous about this.

Talk to us about the vaccine. Give us a quick A to Z. Is there any reason to be hesitant? Or why are people hesitant about this vaccine and not maybe other vaccines? Yeah. So there's three. They're not fully approved yet. So we'll get into that a little bit. But under emergency use authorization, there's the Moderna, Pfizer, which are mRNA. Talk a little bit. I don't want to get too much into the weeds. But then there's a Johnson and Johnson, which is more of a traditional. It's an adenovirus. So basically it's like an inactivated virus. OK. Where they take out the parts that are really hazardous and then they inoculate you for immune response.

So there's three. So the two big ones, the mRNA, Moderna and Pfizer, and we're probably talking, you know, hundreds of millions of people have been vaccinated with those in the United States, right? Now new technology, the efficacy and safety, um, with the 99, 95% is fantastic, right? Um, are just through the roof with safety, with efficacy, um, that, uh, have been really, really good. Um, there have been some minor issues with, you know, allergies with the people have had, which is consistent with other, with other, uh, um, vaccines. Um, and then the Johnson and Johnson, which, which they put on pause for a while, which is very debatable if they should have. My opinion is that they put that on pause, and then the vaccine hesitancy, if it was there, probably was greater because they did that.

That was because of blood clots, right? There's, I think think six people right now still the numbers of people had blood clots compared to the you know the um what's happening in you know in the general population didn't exceed that but they did that out of abundance of caution yeah but if you go on planes with pregnant women you know that risk would have been higher than jonathan and. So, so I get, I get the argument, Hey, we're in a pandemic. Um, we got to do something, but let me just say something in general about vaccines that, and I've been doing this for 15 years and I've trained people for 15 years. And point one that I have always trained people is it's risk benefit, right? What's your risk and what's the benefit, both to the bug and to the vaccine?

So if you are, you know, 50 plus, to me, it is a no-brainer to get vaccinated. If you are 70 or 65, you know, the older you get, it's just the risk benefit is, you know, quadrants would be in that corner where it, it's the benefit far, far, far outweighs, um, the risk, right. Um, that you should get the vaccine, but the, the, what we've always trained is that if there's very little risk and very little benefit and, you know, it's a, it's kind of a personal decision, right? Now, we're in a pandemic, so it's not just about you. It's about the people that you're around. So I think for the older population, to me, it's the data is there. The numbers have come down. We'll talk about variants maybe in a little bit, but for people that are, you know, if CDC has some great

information, they're not perfect, but they have some great information about hospitalization, severe sickness, hospitalization and death by age. And it's almost zero from like birth to 20. It's not zero. It's not absolute. But they're really the exception. Right. And then once you start hitting 30, 40, and I'm talking, you know, obviously, if there's comorbidities and stuff like that, that's all that's all in play. But once you get to that 60, 70, 80, I mean, the numbers just start, you know, exponentially going up. Right.

So that's why to me, if you are elderly, there was a thing that came out of Maryland Public Health that 100 people died in June and they were all unvaccinated and all elderly. And I'm thinking, why? We can talk about politics because I've seen that. I'm the people that I'm around outside. I mean, kind of two groups, a university, which is in general, a little more liberal Democrat. And then the people around church and Christian friends are a little more conservative Republican. Yeah. And I know people that are 70 plus and man, they just aren't getting it. And I'm like, what? No.

So so I'll just let me just stay focused. So but for that, to me, it's just a slam dunk home run to get it elderly. OK. Now, some issues that I've had recently is with kids. So I have just so, so I have, I have three, but they're, they're older. I have two that are, I have a 21 and a 20 year old daughter who are in nursing school. Okay. They both vaccinated because they, um, even though their risk would pretty be pretty low, they're, they're doing, um, they're, they're in hospitals all the, working with elderly people. So that was part of our risk

assessment, right? Was not only about you, but about the people that you work with. And I have a 17-year-old son, Charlie. So he technically has been approved for 17 and above, but we haven't vaccinated him just because his risk is low and he's not around elderly people that haven't been vaccinated. Grandma and grandpa have been vaccinated. I do have a question about that. So what you're saying makes perfect sense, like pre-vaccine. But now anybody who wants to get vaccinated can walk in to get vaccinated. If they don't, that's their choice.

So it's not about you. It's about other people now that the vaccine is totally available if somebody chooses not to they're saying hey i'm i'm willing to take that risk so now you know teenager affecting an old elderly person i don't think that that to me it doesn't seem as significant now the other person is choosing not to get the vaccine is that fair or no yeah i think so yeah it because the elderly have had ample time anybody that's high risk has had ample time to get a vaccine and you're not absolute but you're in the high 90 percent of of not getting hospitalization or severe sickness or death, right? So because we have

vaccinated and it's been out for almost a year, that someone that is much lower risk, I think that's a fair thing. Now, Joe Rogan got hammered, if you remember, hammered for saying that if you're young, you don't have to get vaccinated. And he got hammered by the media and Fauci came out. The only thing that Joe Rogan didn't say is if he is not around high risk populations. But if he would have said, if you are if you are 21 and you don't you the world that you live in doesn't include high risk people. Right. That is a very fair, objective, risk based, science based decision not to get vaccinated. Yeah, that's a very fair, objective, risk-based, science-based decision not to get vaccinated. Yeah, that seems fair to me. So just with the kids, you know, so full disclosure, so

I do some consulting on the side where we review protocols. So I reviewed one of the Moderna, you know, the child vaccination studies that was done locally. So I did that. But, you know, they approved it for, I think, 12 to 16 year olds, both of them. And I was looking at these studies and I was just a little concerned. I just wrote some numbers down. So right now, so WHO does not recommend kids get vaccinated 12 to 16. Now they have a little different prerogative where the United CDC is just the United States. WHO is looking at the whole world. So they're kind of their calculation as well. We can't waste a vaccine on a seven, 16 year old kid that's low risk. And we got some 80 year old person that's

not so their their calculation is a little bit different but the united states is recommending it you know for 12 to 17 and there's a real push to get it and when people ask me i say well let's look at the what the the data was so just let me just throw these out there. So Pfizer got an emergency approval and they did 2,200 kids, 1,100 were back, 1,100 got the vaccine and 1,100 were placebo, 1,100. That N is, is almost statistically zero. So they had a hundred efficacy for the vaccine. So 100% of the kids that had the vaccine did not get it. 98.5% of the people that got the placebo, which is saline, did not get it. Oh, wow. So 98.5%. So 16 kids got it. And in the report, Preston, they didn't even mention if it was severe sickness, hospitalization, or death.

So what if these 16 kids that got it were asymptomatic? Is that risk to getting a vaccine, even though it's very low to have side effects, there's still side effects for any vaccine. You know, in Moderna, the same thing. They had 1850 on both the placebo and on the vaccine, and four kids got it. So four in the placebo group got it, and that's 99% effective. So again, they didn't even report if they were symptomatic, asymptomatic, hospitalization, or death. Is that because for a person that age, their immune system is just naturally fighting the thing off? For some reason, and I haven't seen any kind of consensus on why kids aren't getting it. You know, like what is different between usually the most susceptible are young kids with underdeveloped immune systems and the elderly or immunocompromised.

But for some reason, kids, you know, as a Christian, I think, hey, God's, you know, got something to do with that. But, you know, that's that's that wouldn't fly in a science class. Right. But, you know, for some reason, kids aren't getting it. But in these the the push for these kids to get vaccinated based on now, there's probably a million couple million kids that I think I saw something that 25 percent of kids nationwide have gotten it, which is very low. But if someone were to ask my personal opinion and people do all the time, I say, Hey, check with your doctor. First of all, check with your doctor. What's, what's your kids, you know, status healthcare health wise, but based on both those studies, let's round numbers, 3000 kids, they tested, They made this decision on 3,000 kids. 16 got it in one and four got it in the other. That's

20 kids that had sugar stuck in the occupation dorm got it. To me, there's people that might be smarter than me, but to me, I don't understand that. And so the other side of the risk assessment is this is new technology. Obviously there's no long-term, we don't know in five years if, you know, it's probably fine, but it is, it is a little riskier than other vaccines that have been around forever. And we kind of know the results and everything. So, so I heard, I heard a journalist and he got hammered for this. And he's done a ton of research.

I forget his name. But he's done a ton of research on all the vaccines. And he kind of says pretty much what you're saying. He says, if you're at risk, I would get the vaccine. He said himself, he's like a healthy 40-year-old. He says, you know, I'm not against getting it, but I'm really healthy i'm gonna roll the dice a bit i don't i don't think i'm highly at risk but then he said i've

got children under 20 and he said over my dead body will they get this vaccine and he got hammered for that but i think and maybe he said it stronger than maybe he should have or maybe not i don't know but it's i i think he's exactly your point and also because you know yes they could be carrier monkeys to give it to grandma but he says grandma can get vaccinated if she's choosing not to if she watched too much q anon or whatever and i'm not getting then this is kind of her i mean she's it's kind of her choice too you know which is fine it's like hey that's what we're all making those kind of choices. Even a good question people ask me all the time is what about the long term effects? Very fair question.

Yeah. It's like there's we're seeing long term effects for covid. Right. So remember, we can't have one. You can't ask one without the other. Yeah. It's used with covid. And that's a year in.

So we'll see. It's only been a year. So nobody can say the vaccine is only going to be good for this amount of time or natural immunity will only be good for this amount of time because it's only been a year. Well, as time goes, those questions will be in light, you know, those will be answered. But that is a very fair question. The long-term effects of COVID are real. I mean, I have a brother-in- in law that is still having he was healthy. He still is, but he's still having some cognitive issues. It's just not right, he said. And that has been reported. You know, you're seeing more. I mean, that's kind of a consistent thing. Not with everybody. Yeah, that's in play. But a very fair question is what's the long term effects? OK, so if I'm 75 and I and COVID, I get the vaccine and it adds 10 more years and their side effects five years from now, 10 years from now. Hey, risk based. That was still a good question. Right. Or good decision. If I'm 17, 15, 12, you know, and the government's telling me you've got to do this to go to school.

And then 10 years later, 20 years later, 30 years later, you don't know. For anybody to say that they know definitively that there's going to be no long-term effects, I think is just, it's not right, you know. That's helpful. Yeah, thank you. Oh, shoot. What was I going to ask? Vaccines. not right you know well that's helpful yeah thank you um uh oh shoot what was i gonna ask vaccines well i want to talk about the delta variant but there was something else um well shoot oh oh herd immunity or natural immunity or whatever what's the correct is herd immunity the correct phrase or is that the pop phrase? Yeah. So, so that's another sticking point that I have a little issue with, with the media narrative is that herd immunity, historic, and I've been training this for 50, so it's not new,

is always been, um, the, uh, combination of vaccinated, vaccinated people and people who have had the disease. So herd immunity, the percentage is anywhere between 70% and 85%. So if you watch some of the narrative just about, well, we're not at herd immunity because only 160 million people have been vaccinated. But to me, that is not consistent with what we've always said. We've always trained that it's both vaccine and natural immunity. And there has been some fantastic studies out of Israel. It was the biggest ever that was done. And Nature just came out with natural immunity. So we'll kind of combine these two things, natural immunity and herd immunity but they both said that it's possible that if you've had a a um um an infection with it's been substantial not asymptomatic but if you've had you may have um um lifetime immunity okay you know like chicken pox that's in play

that is definitely in play that if someone has had a little more severe sickness, that they may have immunity for the rest of their life. Time will tell. But Israel did this study where they wanted to see – they wanted to compare the vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine, and they wanted natural immunity. And they saw that Pfizer was fantastic. They were like mid-90s on cases, hospitalization, severe sickness, and death. They were all like mid to high 90s. Natural immunity and all was either equal to that or a little bit higher. Oh, wow. And you don't hear that.

And you don't hear that. I don't understand why that narrative is just about herd immunity, is just about vaccination. Now, a variant could come and throw this all off, right, which we'll talk about in a second. But if you think about let's just throw general numbers out there. So we got 330 million Americans. We have 160 that have been fully vaccinated. So write this down. So 160 fully vaccinated. We have 35 million diagnosed cases. And CDC said we have five times more people undiagnosed. So that's 35 times five is what? people undiagnosed. So that's 35 times five is what? Yeah, yeah. 175. That's embarrassing. I hope I didn't butcher that. So 175, right. So if you add those numbers, those are actually greater than the population. Now, what is missing is that there's probably been millions and millions of people that have had, you know, were undiagnosed

or diagnosed and got the vaccine. So you're talking probably, I'll just throw a number, just say 50 million people have either diagnosed, undiagnosed, but then got the vaccine. So we're right about 75, 80, 85% of the population that's either been fully vaccinated or has had it, right? Yeah. And I've heard immunity number that is always, I hear about 75 to 85. We're right there, but that is consistent with, they call the wild type strain, the original strain, the OG strain the og right yeah so what so what what what's thrown in here what's what what just throws a monkey wrench is is variance right so very i want to i want to get there but real quick so i i've heard again i love you know i hear all this stuff and i have you on the fact check everything i've heard um i've heard some people say that, I mean, if you have had COVID,

you, and I think you just said it, like you are more protected from getting, like you're, that's in a sense slightly better than even having getting vaccinated. First of all, second of all, if you've already had it, there's scientifically, you don't need to get vaccinated now, practically, politically, whatever. Would that be correct? If you've already had it there's scientifically you don't need to get vaccinated now practically politically whatever would that be correct if you have already had it you recover maybe you're asymptomatic whatever just on a scientific level should you go get vaccinated yeah good question this would be like a md your personal personal physician but what they're seeing right now like the biggest study that was on was is that was done in israel was that it was as good but that is against as good if not better yeah natural

immunity both very high but that's with the original strain okay so okay the original strain is never going to come back and be like the prominent variant now. Now it's all the new stuff now. So the vaccine could add more protection against variants, whereas if you just had the original strain, you're not necessarily protected against variants? That's right. They both could be a little bit better or natural immunity, or we can get a variant that comes where your natural immunity is not working, is really decreased, your natural immunity. The one thing that might be a little bit different is the variant, because it's engineered in a lab, they try to, you know, it was designed to think about variants where your natural immunity just,

even though you might get some cross immunity there could be some variant that comes where natural immunity is just not doing anything it's unlikely that that would happen just because the covid they're saying it's not going to change too much um it's going to change a little bit with some of the you know with some of the variants and mutations and stuff like that but it if it changes too much, then it won't be as infectious. Oh, interesting. Okay. Well, let's go to variants then.

So maybe just explain what a variant even is. And then we had the Delta one that's kind of new. Was there one? I'm going to, yeah, fact check me, please, on this. There's the UK one, right? And then the South Africa. And then something is going on in India. I don't know if that's like a variant thing, but anyway, that's the extent of my knowledge on it. Well, so it can be confusing because there's different nomenclatures where WHO used stuff, CDC stuff used,

where it's COVID-19, all the different names and stuff like that. But basically, it's just a mutation. So what viruses do are kind of just wicked awesome, as they might say out east, is they just adapt and they evolve and they change. So I could have, you know, the original strain, I get infected, and then what comes out of me is something a little bit different, you know, and that what just because of the mutation that happens inside someone is that it can come out and it can affect somebody that might be a little bit more transmissible, transmissible, a little bit less, a little more lethal, a little less lethal. And that just just that's what happens just with viruses. So what you're seeing is you had the original and then you're seeing we're at Delta. There was another one that was Epsilon that's come out. And so you're just going

to, this is going to kind of ping pong from the developed to underdeveloped, where you're going to see this variant come from here and this variant go and then kind of go back and forth. But the main one that we're talking about is Delta, the Delta variant, which is much more transmissible than the original. And so basically what that does is if you think about, you know, like a fuse on a bomb, right? So you have a beginning of an outbreak and you had the original and you had a fuse that was 20 feet long before there was exponential growth in an outbreak. Well, what Delta will do, Delta, because it's more transmissible, it's going to shorten that fuse. Okay. So from the time it starts spreading,

until you start seeing exponential growth, it could start, it happened a lot quicker. I just now just yesterday, university of Chicago, which is very, very conservative when it comes to this, we're not masked. I don't have to mask anymore at work. But I just read that California is going back. They're going back to masking today, you know, so because of Delta, because Delta is really starting to increase. The numbers are still relatively low, but they're starting to it's starting to go from like zero to a thousand or something like that. So, yeah, so I don't know the answer of where it's going. We actually started doing some research on Delta, which is with some different chemicals and drugs and stuff like that. So, yeah, so I don't know the answer of where it's going. We actually started doing some research on Delta, which is with some, you know, different chemicals and drugs and stuff

like that. But we definitely know it's more transmissible in regards to if it's more lethal. We don't know that yet. But this is what's going to be kind of, I don't want to say cool, but what would be pretty cool to see is if you're going to see a huge difference between people that are vaccinated and unvaccinated. This is like a real-time science experiment right here. So we don't know if you've been vaccinated, does that guard against Delta? Or are you saying we just, we're not quite sure? We're not quite sure. In the lab, it looks like looks like yes right so they they'll call like you do lab studies but not until you see human subjects which we all are well do you really see you know the proof will be in the pudding right we have

most people think that if you've been vaccinated that uh with delta specifically that you're going to have some sort of protection okay what we don't know and what we'll find out too is natural immunity. We're going to find out if people that have had natural immunity, what happens with this Delta. But what I'm really going to be interested in is to see what, if the unvaccinated, because there's still millions of people, you know, that right now just don't want to get it for whatever reason. And we're going to start seeing if that what happened in Maryland, 100 deaths, 100 percent

unvaccinated, it will start happening, you know, nationwide, which will be really, really unfortunate because people in the third, they're really getting hit hard in Asia and Africa. And that's kind of a first world argument we have, right they don't have those over there in asian africa but i ain't getting no no no there's this in there and there's a little bit of this preservative or additive and meanwhile what's happening in the third world and we're arguing over yeah you know so uh yeah so time will tell with it and i think just because with the incubation period is usually about two weeks so we're gonna see it's starting to tick up we'll see in two weeks what what happens okay i guess my my guess would be it's not gonna we're never gonna be i won't say never i'd be it's it's unlikely that we're ever going to be at numbers

where we were um last, where, you know, I think 100,000 people were dying. I don't want to quote that, but a lot of people were dying, a lot of hospitalizations, just because the original strain in vaccine, it's, you know, we're at 70, 80%. So I don't think we'll ever get to the degree. I don't, you know, no absolutes with a variant that comes and just kicks our butt. So the Delta

variant, what was the UK and the South Africa? Are those different variants or the same thing? Yeah, I'm not sure if it was UK and they called it the Delta. I'm not really sure about the actual variants. OK, you know the name, but yet different ones. And they're going to ping pong back and forth. You're going to see that, you know, there's a lot of researchers that I know and that I respect that say the only way out of this is people vaccinated worldwide or else it's just going to just going to keep going.

just going to keep going. So even though the United States, it looks like we're kind of coming out of the tunnel, the rest of the world, it's interesting. Now that's another argument for everybody getting vaccinated, including kids, not just their kind of individual potential affection of other people, but just on a community level, we could stamp, is everybody's vaccinated. This thing would just end up fizzling out. So, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

I don't know if, I mean, I don't know what the vaccine rates are in some of us, you know, third world Asia, Africa, you know, Olympics are happening in Japan. I'm kind of shocked. They're really struggling again now and they're down in some places in Europe. They're really struggling again now, and they're on lockdown in some places in Europe. And so from – we're still – from a pandemic definition worldwide, we're still in the thick of it, even though I think the U.S. is – I think we're coming out of it. But we'll see. What happened in – what was going on in India?

Is it still – I mean, a lot of deaths, right? A huge uptick. Why was that? Is it still, I mean, a lot of deaths, right? A huge uptick. Why was that? Is it just people? Yeah, well, if you just think about some of the controls that, you know, with distancing and masking and, you know, they just can't do, you know, they can't. I mean, they're all living in general, you know, their living situations are much, much different than in the United States. Yeah. So, you know. You mentioned, well, offline that, well, I'll just ask the question.

Have you, since I had you on about a year ago, actually, I think it was like last fall. Have you changed over the last year on what you've seen based on your research, your evidence that you've been looking at? What are some things that you said maybe a year ago that you would not say now? Yeah, I was, you know, shocked early on how quick the vaccine rolled out. You know, I think everybody that I interviewed with or had me on, I said, wow, you know, Trump is really ahead of his skis on how quick he thinks he's going to get this vaccine. And he was the president and he got it done. I mean, he, whatever he did, if he didn't a lot or none, nothing, um, he, he, uh, um, provided a environment and culture to get it done quick. And, uh, that happened and I was rough on him with a lot of stuff, but he, he, he did a good job with that. You know, so that's what I was him with a lot of stuff. But he he he did a good job with that.

You know, so that's what I was surprised told a lot of people. Well, just because I'm in vaccine research and it takes years to get stuff, you know, through all the different governing agents and regulations. And, you know, so he cut a lot of the red tape, you know, with funding. And I saw that firsthand. So someone says, oh, he didn't do anything. You know, we saw the funding to come in really quick. So that's one thing. I'm surprised how, so I would kind of coin myself an evangelical Christian, but they're one of the people that that aren't getting vaccinated. It's blacks, Hispanics, and evangelical right-wing Christians for some reason. And I understand the black and Hispanic. My in-laws are Hispanic. My father-in-law is from Mexico. And he's seen some, you know, just government corruption when it comes to that. So I get why they're hesitant.

Is that why it's hesitant? Because of the history of people of color being? That's the lie. To me, that makes sense why African-Americans and Hispanics would be hesitant because of even Indians where they use those as human subjects or they told them they were given the medicine and they were given the infection. So we have a history of that. Right. So I understand that, even though when it came to your life, but usually when you're 60, 70, you're like you're you're dug in. the Christian community that there's an element that has become so right where it's just like a political Christian thing where, and I know some that are great Christians and they serve and

they're working in inner city and just doing the mission, but no, I'm not getting there. 70 plus. And, and it's a political thing to them where it's like it's almost where there's like an allegiance to this, you know, part of Christianity that is hard to find in the Bible. is anti-vaccine i mean i mean trump got vaccinated he's pretty on the right uh ben shapiro is pretty popular conservative he's very pro vaccine he's even pro mask i mean he's very libertarian do what you want but when when masks were a big deal he was out so who am i i mean i don't listen to a lot of commentators especially right-wing commentators, but is there somebody on the right that's like, no, I think it's the, it's the, um, kind of the government conspiracy and, uh, but there's an element into, in, in that, that we're, uh, don't tell them it's, it's my choice. You know, they always use the argument, you know, I'm pro-choice. Well, if you can say that about a woman's body, I can say that about, you know, me getting vaccinated. But it's almost sad, you know, especially when we talk about this risk-based thing, right?

Hey, you're 18. Okay, I get it. You're not around elderly people. I get it. But you're 70 plus, you know, maybe overweight, have compromised immune system, but you're just not getting it. maybe overweight, have compromised immune system, but you're just not getting it. I just don't, to me, it's just not a science-based, risk-based, you know, even a Christian ethic, you would probably be able to speak to that more with all the evidence that we have of why a 70-year-old just wouldn't want to get it.

Like, no, I'm good with that. Maybe that's okay if you want to die and you're not going to hurt anybody else and you just don't want to get it, I guess. Yeah. But it just I guess. Yeah. But it just kind of shocks me. It is. I mean, because everything's been so politicized and there's been a lot of just backtracking and changing of opinions. I can see where somebody would just say, I don't trust anybody anymore.

Like, I don't. it's like everything's – like, here's a thought experiment for you, John. Let's go back in time to March or April. Imagine a world where Donald Trump was very much pro-masking. What would that world look like in the wake of that? I'm going to predict that anybody who's on the left would be anti-mask. I would say, because right now it's very much a right-left thing, right? Like if you see someone with a mask, you know they're a Democrat nine times out of 10. If you see someone without a mask in a place where they should be masking nine times out of ten, they're going to be Republican. Why? Because it all comes down to it, right?

Because Trump was more anti-mask, especially early on, and everything's so polarized that either you're pro-Trump or anti-Trump. pro-Trump or anti-Trump. But even that alone, that thought experiment raises the question, how much of mask wearing or not mask wearing is even based on any kind of scientific convictions? And how much is based on political allegiance? I'm just going to maybe cynically say it's so much more of the latter on both sides. Well, I do know. So one of the things, and I don't want to get into a math debate, but one of the latter on both sides. Well, I do know. So one of the things, and I don't want to get into a math debate, but one of the things that I do, and not a lot of

people do that, but I certify filters. That's one of my position descriptions. I have a photometer. I have an aerosol generator. I can decrease and increase the size of aerosols. I can put a piece of material, and I can quantitatively tell you how much is getting through a filter. Yeah. Half the people that are on TV, they don't know crap. You know, excuse my language. They don't know anything about certifying filters or respirators, anything like that. They're just making a political statement or this is what I heard. That's what I do. That's one of the things I've told people, come to my lab, bring whatever mask you want and we'll see. We'll generate some aerosol

whatever type you want you want a big aerosol you want small you want a droplet we'll put that through your filter and you'll see a reduction so that that that just to me it's settled now it doesn't it's not wait summarize your point you're saying so wearing a mask does reduce the right yeah but what happened and we talked about this early not to retread it but we talked about on the left they said it's absolute you wear a mask and you're 100 protected and then the people on the right said masks they're not they don't they're political and Fauci changed his mind and he said this and then he said and I get all that and that's what all the confusion is but that's one of the things that I do on a daily basis. I certify filters.

Those are filters you could just as a material. A mask is a filter. But yeah, it's become politicized, and it's just people on both sides, they don't know what they're talking about now, and it's a political statement. And maybe I misremembered, but I thought you said before that masks reduce the spread of droplets, but they don't guard against aerosols? Or is it they still do reduce the spread of even aerosols? Or I don't know, maybe summarize your view on masks. Oh, you're right there. So droplets, masks reduce at least 50% of droplets.

When it comes to aerosols, much less effective, much, much less effective. But remember, we talk about dose too. So you get infected based on dose, like how much. So obviously the bigger the particle, the more dose of COVID you have. So a droplet is much bigger than an aerosol. Now aerosol might, it can get into your airways and affect different ways, but the main route still is droplets. Aerosol is, you know, it can get into your airways and affect different ways. But the main route still is droplets. Aerosol is still in play, no doubt about that. Mass are not nearly as effective, but it still reduces.

I can take an aerosol generator, really small, we'll get a little sciencey now. The most penetrating particle is the one that's 0.3 microns in size. I can take my aerosol generator and I can make it 0.3 microns, which is the most penetrating, and I can put it through a filter and have an instrument called a photometer, and I can measure it and it reduces. It's much less with aerosol. There's no doubt about that. People on the left in general said, oh, it protects you against everything. And that's not true either.

And when you walk around or maybe several months ago and see people wearing masks, are they on right? What about the cloth mask? What about bandanas? I remember I was at some Mexican food joint a while back, and there's some 20-something girl. I swear she had like a lingerie mask on. It's like, oh, she's covered. But it's like I could see her teeth. Like I could see.

Like does it depend on what kind of mask and how they're wearing it? And are you seeing people? Like, yeah, they're definitely as long as something's on your face? I mean, I'm in Indiana, so I don't see anybody mask anymore. But in Chicago, still people are. But yeah, that's all in play. Right. And masks are just one tool.

So when you take masks and then you do social distancing and you wash your hands, you know, when you do that, it's kind of a compound effect that decrease your risk. So masks just by themselves, if you are close to 100 people in itself is going to reduce it a little bit. But when you add these distance, mask, washing, you know, contact that all you take all that stuff, the compound effect is you're decreasing your risk substantially. Not zero. And you could still get it with aerosol. You're right.

Someone can cough aerosolized. You can breathe it in. What we still don't know is the dose. So we don't know how much it takes to get. And that would all, you know, once we, as they do more and more aerosol studies, that might be answered. But is the CDC correct when they said, hey, if you've been vaccinated, the masks, you don't need to wear a mask anymore? I don't know if they said it exactly like that.

Yeah, they just – your risk, if you've been vaccinated or natural immunity, your risk is really low, right? And wearing a mask wouldn't do zero, but, you know but I'm trying to give an analogy. It wouldn't do a lot. It would help a little bit, right? Especially if you were around someone that was symptomatic, or let's say I was symptomatic. Me wearing a mask would really prevent a spread of my droplets to someone that's vaccinated or not vaccinated. Now, the person that's been vaccinated is probably going to be, if they do get it, I know a lot of people that have been, not a lot, I know a handful of people that have been vaccinated that got it, but they were very, very asymptomatic with little symptoms or some with little symptoms.

So wearing a mask would prevent that, would prevent a big droplet coming, a big sneeze coming out and just someone just breathing it in. So it would help a little bit. Okay. Okay. Uh, where, where else have you changed your mind on anything or not change your mind, but like based on further study, is there anything else, um, that you. No, I think, um, um, vaccine, I was shocked in, but in regards to the science part of it, I think the origins was something that I've always been on the table,

that it could have been a lab leak or gain of function. Yeah, yeah. Other than that, I think, you know, what I've told the audience or other audiences has been pretty right on. But I do think it's because that's what I do. I work in a high containment lab. A lot of the people that are on TV don't work in high containment labs. You don't know what gain of function is. They don't know what a respirator and a mask is. They don't know how to test these things. So they just kind of spout that out. So I think one of the advantages is that this is what I, this is actually what I do. It's not something I know in theory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, in the fall, uh, is there any reason why schools shouldn't be fully back in school? I mean, is that, um, I think everybody's

going back to school in the fall, isn't it? Or you said California, they're going back, but they're going to require masks or. Yeah, I don't, I just heard that this morning. So that could change a little bit, but yeah, I, so my son was in high school and he was, he went, I had him go back a hundred percent. They had an option last year, but I think most schools around here are going back a hundred percent. The only caveat would be the union run city of Chicago schools that, that run the show there, which is kind of sad but um so interesting

to see what with something I might um yeah I'm gonna get into that but yeah so from a risk-based science-based um a kid should be going back even the the top people are saying hey the the um side effects of you know mental health all that for kids, they should be going back. I mean, in most cases, it should be with masks. Try to distance a little bit. The kids need to be in school. And that is just another slam dunk. Unless something changes where the infection rate of kids starts really climbing.

But kids need to be in school. That's the mental side effects. That's something I don't hear as much or unfortunately i feel like i only hear it on the right maybe that that kind of like what about all the other side effects that you know yet we have to mitigate of mental health and um because that's really i mean gosh uh i agree 100 and from from a political perspective, and I try to be really independent when I'm watching, is that I don't hear a lot of people on the left talking about mental health with kids.

And if you think about that high school age, probably the most vulnerable mental health time of your life is in high school. Now you're going to tell a kid to go on Zoom. I think the ghosting in the city of Chicago, CPS, of people not even going on Zoom, it was like 70 percent, Preston. You can't have kids, let alone in families that have mom and dad and just following up with them. But if you don't have any follow-up, way. I think if I was a kid, you know, my dad died young, so it was just my single mom who worked.

And if he told me to sit in front of a computer for eight hours to go to school, I'd be like, you're right. So kids need to be in school because the mental health is huge. We don't even know the long-term effects of that, right?

Right. Well, John, thank you so much for sticking We don't even know the long-term effects of that, right? Right. Yeah. Well, John, thank you so much for sticking your neck out there. I know probably everything you have said is debated and people might disagree or whatever. But I love having you on because, like you said, this is what you do. You're not just some person who's read some studies. You're doing the studies. So thanks for being willing to come on. I know you probably got a busy day out there in Chicago.

So yeah, best of luck to you. I'll probably call you in a couple months and say, John, something else flared up. I didn't have you back on. Let's do it. I appreciate your time. All right. Take care, man.