WHOOP Podcast - WHOOP members fighting COVID-19

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

This week, we’re highlighting how WHOOP members are fighting the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve put together a compilation of interviews with people from across the country who’ve either been inflicted with COVID-19, or are working on the front lines to keep everyone safe. Navy SEAL and combat medic Steve Viola discusses working at a field hospital in New York City (3:40), why this pandemic reminds him of his time at war (4:08), how workers converted a 92,000 square-foot facility into a hospital in less than a week (6:57), and how WHOOP is helping medical personnel stay safe while treating patients (9:48). Grocery store worker and dietitian Scott Brown has seen a major shift in his data working on the front lines. He has reported a significant spike in day strain (15:55), calories (18:42), and his recovery (19:34). Brian Eisenberg was the first known WHOOP member with coronavirus. He discusses his illness (23:03), how his recovery and HRV plummeted (25:47), and his spike in respiratory rate before symptoms materialized (28:50). David Frankel came down with COVID-19 in early-March. He shares how widespread his exposure was (31:27), what his crash looked like on WHOOP (36:21), and how the first day of symptoms marked his worst WHOOP data ever (37:36). New York City law student Peter Machtiger lost his sense of smell and taste due to coronavirus (42:32). He also reported a significant jump in resting heart rate (43:33) and respiratory rate (44:00).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, the founder and CEO of WOOP, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. We build technology across hardware and software and analytics that's designed to understand the human body. If you've never signed up for WOOP or you're interested in our technology, you can now get on WOOP for 15% off using code Will Ahmed. That's W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D. We've got a fascinating episode for you today. It's been fascinating for me. We've gotten to interview a number of different WOOP members fighting COVID-19. What does that mean? So we're looking at individuals on the front lines. We're looking at people working at grocery stores. And then we have three different WOOP members who actually

got COVID-19 and we talk about all their WOOP data and what changed before, during and after COVID-19. We at WOOP have gotten an enormous number of questions from our WOOP members about how their data can evolve if they have COVID-19 or believe they have COVID-19. We're still doing an enormous amount of research on that. We're working with Cleveland Clinic and CQU to further investigate that and publish our findings. I hope that you can find some of these conversations, especially the three cases of WOOP members with COVID-19, helpful as you think about looking at your data every day. Our first conversation is with Steve Viola, a former Navy SEAL and the safety officer at the Ryan Larkin Field Hospital in New York. The Columbia University Athletics Fieldhouse

has been converted into a hospital to treat COVID-19 patients to ease the burden on. Manhattan hospitals took workers literally a week to get this facility up and running. So that's pretty amazing. And a number of military volunteers have staffed the center to help patients. Many of these volunteers are wearing whoop to track their well-being as they treat those in need. I'm honored to see these people wearing whoop and to see whoop contribute. And without further ado, here's Steve. Steve, welcome to the Whoop podcast. Hey, glad to be here. Long time user, first time podcaster. Well, we appreciate having you on. So give

your background. So I did 30 years in the Navy, 28 is a Navy SEAL. 26 is a combat medic, and I'm a nationally registered paramedic. Wow. Well, thank you for your service, first of all. Let's talk for a second about what you are doing at the Ryan Larkin Field Hospital. They didn't have a command master chief or sergeant major type, so they put me in charge of safety. and safety touches everything, so I onboarded, learned the policies and procedures here, and I kind of the safety guy, I do the in-doc, and I just make sure that everybody's compliance with what we're trying to accomplish here. Amazing.

So explain just, I guess, in simple terms, what's the role of a field hospital? So, you know, interestingly enough, they have FSTs, which is fleet surgical teams that fly around. They put up these like GP mediums. It's probably like a two-car, maybe three-car garage type tents. And it's a field surgical hospital, and they go out and do stuff. Well, this field hospital, it's different in that it was a pre-existing structure. It's here in Columbia, and we just repurposed it.

So this field hospital is helping the 10 hospital system that are feeling the strain to relieve some of that pressure. Because they turned in their lounges, their cafeterias, their ORs, just turned all into COVID bed. So they stopped doing hospital stuff, and it was just taking in a whole bunch of, bunch of folks and putting them in bed. So we're here to relieve that system and allow them to get back to doing hospital stuff. I mean, it's amazing. I mean, you've obviously served in the wartime environment. How much does this feel like the times you've been at war? I mean, obviously it's a different enemy, but, you know, is there, does it have the same feeling to it, you know, setting up a field hospital like this? Yes. So my wife texted me when I got here after three. And she's

How's it going? I go, I'm in my element. It's fundamentally the same. It's fundamentally the same. It's just nobody's shooting at you here, right? And you got plenty of oxygen. So you're doing good, and those regards. But yeah, man, it's an endeavor.

This has never been done as far as I know. They took a skill set that is often underutilized and overlooked, which is guys like me. I mean, I was called doctor on three continents, just not this one. And I get here and they say, hey, we recognize that you could be an RN or a PA. We want to put you in these positions. So guys and guys like me, 18 deltas, recon corpsmen, Marsock corpsmen, are all here. And they're one down from a nurse and one up from a paramedic.

So they're kind of filling that role. And it's just getting it together. And what's interesting is coalescing the 80% of the military background that most people have here and 20% of the EMS-type folks that are here as well. So it's, that's, it's an interesting challenge, but it's awesome. And what kind of precautions are you taking for yourself and for the people around you? I mean, obviously you guys are used to taking on risk to serve others. But what are you doing in this environment?

So every night I take an airborne gummy before I go to bed for my immune system. That's the start of the day for me as the night before. That's awesome. Yeah, one and done, right? So, you know, we give them a proper end doc, and, you know, we've had some holes in our education and training, but we've since fixed it. I'll tell you, we do the PPE, which is the donning of the little bunny suits and the masks and the gloves. And what's interesting, this is a positive pressure environment. So when you walk in there, your ears pop.

So you're already uncomfortable in this bunny suit, these goggles and a mask, two masks on, and you're like, okay, and then you walk in your ears pop. And all you can see is this is like looking through binos. And it's uncomfortable. But most people in the military have done the hazmat type training and the CBRN training where they're in these chem bio suits. And they just get used to it. So it's kind of easy to operate in. So that's the precautions from that external.

And one of the things that we look at is the mental health. We've got a really good mental health lady here who checks in on them. I check in on them as well, making sure that they're, They're not coming off the rail. So it's a self-check, buddy check, and then check the patience. I mean, it's amazing, too, just how quickly this has gotten set up. You know, we're talking about a 92,000 square foot site. And my understanding is it got set up in about a week.

Is that right? Yeah, so it was incredible. And I can send you guys the link how the time lapse photography went in there, putting the floor down, then putting the piping in. We set up a hospital and manned it in less than a week. And we took our first patient about, what's today, Friday, so just over a week ago. And we've been fluctuating between 50 and 20. To be clear, we're not taking any ICU types.

We're taking the ones that, like I said, from the hospital. So it's a matter of just having a, and they're not ER types either. So they're on the mend, so to speak. And if they start to crash, we put them back in the hospital. And what type of patients are you seeing? So they're all COVID positive. It's ravaged by people with diabetes. We're seeing a lot of diabetic patients in here,

so they have a pre-existing condition for they come in. Yeah. And Hispanic, Chinese are the main, and then English is like the third language that they speak. So a big demographic of folks that are in here. So you're saying the majority, I just want to make sure I understand this, the majority of people that are seeing English

isn't actually their first language. Correct. Yeah. Wow. And they're older. They're considerably older. I'd say like anywhere from the late 60s or mid-60s on up. So it's named after Ryan Larkin and Frank Larkin.

His dad was here yesterday on the third anniversary of Ryan's passing. And we put a bell in. So what happens now is when the patient leaves, we ring the bell. So they can go out and join the world. our three tenants here to reduce the suffering, decrease the mortality, and increase the recovery and survival rate for these folks. And it's been really good. Are the majority of the folks coming in recovering, or what are you seeing from a fatality rate? So the fatality rate's very small. I think we've only, like I said, at max that we had in and around 50, but there's

It's been like maybe two that had needed palliative care and move on. But the majority of them have been discharged vertically. That's great. And how many people have you seen? The total number of beds saved is how we look at it, saving the hospital beds. Dally, 57, 52. You know, the intent is to get at least 100. The comfort was here, and they had about 75 folks, and they're getting ready to leave.

They've obviously not leaving with the patients. But now that they're gone, we'll probably pick up some of the slack. that they were that they were carrying and my understanding is whoop is now being worn by a bunch of a bunch of you guys helping on the front lines i see you got your whoop on yes sir yeah that they're incredible my own brief story if i may digress for a moment as i got one of these from from uh the seal future foundation oh yeah we love the seal future foundation yeah they're phenomenal they sent me one about october of last year and i never really paid attention to it until like january and the minute I started paying attention, I dropped 25 pounds.

Wow. Yeah, well, and it's, you know, it's sad that I had 25 pounds to lose, but it definitely aided in that because my whole thing as a seal, I just push, push, push, and the whooped has helped me say, okay, not right now, you're going to peek, but just pay attention. What's going on with that? And so here, y'all were very gracious to give us a bunch to the health care providers and hand them out.

It's showing some marked improvement on a lot of people. people's recovery time and ability to be cogent at work and allow them to be optimal performers, even though we're pushing them really hard. Well, look, that's music to my ears. We wanted to donate as many as we could in New York to help you guys and help everyone working on the front lines. And I'm so glad that it sounds like it's helping on some folks recover. It's funny, you Navy SEALs, that's really the key thing that you're getting out of

whoop. We're helping you guys relax for a second. Yeah, take a step back rather than go, go, go, go all the time. Yeah, it's just like you're going to kill yourself. And this thing's like, okay, you can kill yourself just not just yet. Yeah, just don't do it today. Yeah, right. And I'll tell you what I like that since you all upgraded it was the little journal thing.

Oh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, so I could see how I was losing weight. I put it in my weight and come down, what I ate, what I didn't like. Oh, cool. It's cool. I love it. And it's funny. So, you know, we're in a COVID, uh,

positive tent. So everyone in there has COVID. It's not like, if you see them, you will see them. And so anything you have on has to be cleaned very well. So some of the paramedics, like, I'm not putting it on my wrist because I don't want to get exposed. So they're putting it on their ankles. And I was like, well, I don't know. It's supposed to do that. But, you know, we'll see how it goes. Well, you can wear it on your bicep. Yeah, I just saw that before you guys logged on. I was. And we've had a lot of surgeons wear it on their bicep okay so that might be the right feedback for them yeah i'll let them know and uh but they love it and people are excited about it and i don't liken it to another product i liken it to uh you know

the product which will remain unnamed here uh in that it's it's better than that but on steroids and that it gives you time now uh resting heart rate values you know recovery values and it's great and i refer it you know part of what i do when i'm not doing this stuff is I'm an advisor to different medical groups. Oh, yeah. And when they want to capture real-time data that they can use and digest, I always mention your product. Oh, well, I appreciate that, man. Look, I feel incredibly fortunate to have people like you wearing whoop.

And look, I just want to reiterate, I think what you guys have stood up in New York with the Ryan Larkin Field Hospital is truly amazing. I mean, this thing got stood up overnight, practically, and people like yourself coming in from around the world to help out and volunteer. It's heroic. Well, thanks. It just comes natural. It's all in our DNA.

I think being wired that way you can't help it. Well, good for you, man. Thank you again for all that you're doing for this country. And thank you for being on whoop. Right on. Thanks for having me. And I'll continue to use it. Hospital workers aren't the only ones on the front line.

So many people are doing their part every single day to make sure our pharmacies and grocery stores are stocked with the essential items that we need. Whoop member Scott Brown works at a grocery store in Kansas City, and he has seen some fascinating insights in his Whoop data as he's adapted to taking care of this store. Scott, thanks for coming on the Whoop podcast. Hey, well, thanks for having me. Why don't you give your background, Scott?

Yeah, so I am a registered dietitian at a large Midwestern grocery retail chain. here in the Kansas City area called High V. I've got a background in nutrition science. I work one-on-one with our customers trying to help educate them on healthy eating choices, healthy options that we have in the store. I run a couple of different health initiatives in our store, and then I work to kind of make sure that all of our associates and employees are healthy and, you know, make sure that they know some of the different things about the products and nutrition content of the foods so they can educate our customers. And then I also,

I work part-time as a health coach for a tech company called Noom. And so my background is really just in, you know, working to help educate individuals on healthy eating and, you know, making sure that they're taking care of themselves. How long have you been on WOOP? So I've been on WOOP for a little over a year and a half. We sort of got into it. My wife and I were sort of looking for ways to kind of enhance our training.

We both training at CrossFit. And we sort of stumbled across the Woop app and we're like, okay, this might be something that might be kind of cool for us to check out. And so we both decided to get the straps and then we started working with them kind of experimenting, you know, with the technology, learn more about HRV and kind of how all of those things impact our recovery, impact our training. And I mean, we've been loyal members ever since. It's a pretty cool thing that we're allowed to be part of. Oh, well, thank you for being being on WOOP for so long and we're lucky to have you as part of the community. So how have you

seen your data evolve, and like, what's it just been like working on the front lines during this crazy pandemic? What I've started to see, if you go back to maybe like the beginning half, early part of March, sort of when everything kind of started to really pick up steam in the U.S., I've seen first and foremost activity and strain has kind of gone through the roof. I really haven't needed to, you know, train in the traditional sense in the gym as far as, like, you know, weightlifting, exercising to really get those higher day strains and to get, you know, my calorie burning those things going up. Day to day in the store, you know, because I am so active and because I am doing so many different things, I've really, really noticed that my strain is all-time highest. I mean, we're looking at before I was kind of balanced in between like a 14 and a 17 on some of those high. higher days and now I think my average is it's like 182 or 184 yesterday I had a day that was

like a 196 today before I had a 20.6 so really it's just like the from the whoop standpoint my day strains and everything are much much higher and to be clear before you would have like a 14 to a 17 strain and you would also work out on those days right yeah now we're talking about you're you're doing north of that even without doing your normal workouts, which I think probably just shows like the crazy stress level that you're dealing with at a grocery store. Right. Absolutely. I've cut down training to maybe like one to two days a week just because of how active I am at the store. I mean, I'm sure you guys read the news and kind of see all the different things that are going on with grocery right now. And everyone's working at capacity as hard as you can.

to ensure that we're kind of meeting the demand that people have right now, especially for like online grocery. You know, we're doing our best to make sure that we are getting people the things that they need so they can, you know, make sure that we've got healthy food for people. But on the back end of that comes the actual physical work of, you know, all the associates who have to go out, shop the orders, package everything, make sure that it's getting correctly from point A to point B, while also, you know, making sure that we're dealing with food temperatures and things,

keeping the food safe for uh for the customers that are going to be coming and picking them up and so it's um it's very much kind of like an assembly line where you know you're just going going going and uh you know it's really been reflected in in my app how many hours are you spending at the store a day anywhere from eight to 10 um and it kind of just depends on what i'm doing for the day so the days where i am a lot more active where i'm doing a lot of like lifting i can handle about eight, you know, until I kind of start to run out of smoke. And then, you know, I'll go home. But the days where I'm, you know, maybe, maybe not doing as much lifting or carrying things around, it's probably a little bit closer, closer to 10. Now, you shared your data with us and I'm looking

at it here. I mean, the other thing that's pretty fascinating is your calorie burn has gone way up. So it used to be, it used to be like 2,600 to 3,500, which would still be a little bit high for like on a daily basis but you also are a guy who exercises a lot and now you're averaging it looks like between 3,800 and 4,700 calories burned per day. Yeah and and you know even even just like the last maybe like five or six days I was kind of looking back at some of the data and it's um there's been a couple days where I've broken 5,000 and I mean that's without exercising from the massive amount of activity that I've picked up at work. And so I think that that's probably one of the coolest things to see is to just see

like how much more energy I'm expending when I am working compared to before. And then looking at your recovery here, you've actually been getting fitter it looks like because your HRV is now, yeah, your HRV is now averaging, you know, in the 90s. And it was about, it was about 80 before COVID. Right, right. So all that high strain seems to be paying off. And it looks like you're able to better recover from some of these high strain days. Is that right?

Yeah. You know, that was one of the things that has really surprised me the most is that my recovery has still been, you know, like north of 65 percent on most of the days when, you know, in the past, it might be a little bit harder for me to recover from some of those more strenuous days. So that's honestly been probably my favorite thing about the whole, the whole being able to apply some of the app information to kind of what I'm doing. Yeah, I mean, it does look like you have a few one-on. off red days. Yeah, yeah. But all of those days, it also looks like came after extremely high

strain. Right. Yeah, usually like two or three days after. I mean, I might have a day where my recovery really dips. Have you changed anything about your behavior or your diet, given that you're taking so much strain on on a daily basis? The biggest thing I've changed with behavior is I'm just getting to bed earlier. You know, I really have made that a priority. I mean, in the past, I know, like, you get kind of a, you get the alert that tells you, hey, you know, if you want to peak tomorrow, you know, shoot for this many hours of sleep. And I, I, initially when I first got the app, I would kind of brush that off. Um, but now I'm actually paying a lot more attention to that. And I'm actually, you know, doing my best to follow the recommendation. That's been paying off huge. And then as far as like, uh, diet goes, you know, I'm just making sure that I'm getting enough calories period, like really, really making sure that I'm, you know, eating a few meals a day to, to, to make sure that I'm able to, uh, to get out there and perform. Look, makes a lot of sense. And I know that the citizens of Kansas City are grateful to have you here on the front line. So thanks for everything that you're doing right now. And thank you for being on Whoop. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, yeah, thank you guys again for having me. I mean, it really, it really is a cool, cool piece of technology. It's been especially helpful in my life. So definitely appreciate you guys for that. Of course, Woop data is going to change a lot when you have COVID-19. And one of our first indications that COVID-19,

could have this effect came from Brian Eisenberg, a New York City whoop member and father of three. He came down with COVID-19 in early March and posted his initial data on Reddit. From there, we began researching how this disease can significantly alter respiratory rate. Brian's case supports the idea that respiratory rate can be elevated two or three days even before feeling symptoms, because that was what happened to Brian. Brian, welcome to the WOOP podcast. Thanks, well. Thanks for having me.

I'm sorry that you've got COVID-19, and I'm wishing you a speedy recovery. Give people just your quick background. Yep, I live in Manhattan in a way too small apartment, especially for self-quarantine. But, yep, I'm with my wife and three boys, three boys under six. You know, we live a very active lifestyle here in the city. So it's been a little challenging for us, you know, to kind of stay coop. up, but I traveled for work every day, a little bit out of the city, tries to active work out a few times a week, was really feeling good. I know as we talked about before, the previous

few weeks, so I think it certainly came as a shock to everyone. Why don't you just take us through the process of first finding out that you had been exposed, whatever day that was, and then go forwards from there? Actually, the day that I found out that I was exposed was also the day that I kind of came down with symptoms, you know, Tuesday morning, I'd gone to the gym, just kind of my regular routine. I go, you know, Monday through Friday is early in the morning. And, you know, I just was kind of, you know, a little more fatigued than usual, but, you know, I didn't really chalk it up to anything. I cut my workout short, which I usually never do. I just, you know, felt a bit tired. Went to work that day. You know, it felt pretty good. I had actually

an earlier engagement. So I came home a little bit early as I was driving home about five, 10 minutes from home, just got very, very fatigued. By the time I got home just about 15 minutes after that, after the initial symptoms, I just could barely move. My fever started climbing up subsequent to that night. I received an email from a synagogue that I attend to that someone that passed Saturday, where actually I was in attendance,

had tested positive for the virus. And then subsequent to that, found out about another member who was sitting right next to me. It also tested positive. So by Wednesday morning, my fever was at 103. I just could not get out of bed. Obviously, went to get tested, which in itself was kind of a difficult process

because even with 103 fever and direct exposure to someone, they were basically turning me away from the urgent care that I went to. So I was actually there for about almost two hours. I made them full supervisors and whatnot. I was just really ill. And they eventually tested me. And I got back to the result two days later. I want to ask you for a second about your whoop data over the course of this time period.

We actually discovered your data because you posted on Reddit that you had COVID-19 and did a screenshot of your recovery, which is how we got to know you in this process and you've given us permission to look at your data for this, which frankly is pretty fascinating. Now, if I look at it here and feel free to jump in as I describe some of this and as you experienced it, so on Saturday the 7th, which is when you mentioned going to the synagogue, you had a green recovery. And in fact, for about like three weeks prior to being exposed, your data looks great. Like, it actually looks like you were kind of going through a period of high level of fitness. Yeah, that's definitely accurate. I was feeling very good.

So then looking at your recovery just from Sunday through, let's call it, Friday, March 13th, you're yellow, yellow, yellow, and then you plummet and it's red, red, red. And it also sounds like that's when you first felt symptoms. It was sometime during that red period. Yeah, that Tuesday night, I would say Wednesday morning, I guess, was I guess my recovery probably updated, you know, based on how I was feeling Tuesday night. And I believe that was at 7%. And I felt like garbage before. And I think the lowest I ever got was like 25% or so. So, you know, the number certainly correlated to how it was feeling for sure.

And your heart rate variability during this time period really drops. You had like a pretty good HRV trend going from like mid-February to early March. And it really seems like COVID betrayed you in that regard. Because I think you had one of your high HRVs. Like on let's see, like the six or the seventh of March, it looks like you were like around 120 HRV, which is pretty epic. To put in perspective, what a cliff you fell off with COVID, come Wednesday, your HRV was at 35. And come Thursday, March 12th, so that was the day that you tested positive, it looks like it's low 30s, HRV. So you're as high as 120 just a week earlier. And then you're in the 30s, which explains how you ended up with such a low recovery. Yeah, I think falling off a cliff is a,

it's a perfect way to describe it. I think the data really showed to exactly where I was holding in my resting heart rate, which is also, you know, pretty well, I think that Wednesday was something like, that's usually in about the mid-hopper-40s. I think we're somewhere in the 80s. Yeah, so this was actually one of the most statistically significant deviations. Your resting heart rate as a general average is like around 49 on whoop, the morning of your fever. You had a resting heart rate of 80. It was 65% above your baseline, which is a profound outlier. And then even since, you know, we generally see like if you're if you're above 10% over your baseline, something could be going on. And you've been averaging like, you know, in the mid 60s, then it looks like you get into the mid 50s.

But again, that's all still significantly higher than your baseline. At least the one stat that seems to be trending upward for me is my sleep performance. Yeah, well, we're glad to see you're getting more sleep during all this. That's going to help you come back, Brian. Now, the other thing that my team flagged for me is your respiratory rate. So this is really interesting, and this might be the closest thing to being something predictive before you actually felt any symptoms. Your respiratory rate was meaningfully higher.

So respiratory rate is the number of breaths per minute. it looks like your average is around 14 or 15 breaths per minute, and this is calculated while you're sleeping. And on Woop, it was steadily rising after that Saturday. So on Sunday, it was higher. And then Monday, Tuesday, all of a sudden it jumps up to 18. And then through the week, your respiratory rate was meaningfully elevated. And then the other thing that is pretty interesting that you alluded to was you're on Tuesday trying to exercise and not being able to complete your workout because we know that exercise intolerance is a non-specific symptom, but it's clear that it can be the cause of pulmonary, cardiovascular, or even neuromuscular disease. And so it's consistent with

early stages of a COVID infection, is not being able to finish your workout. Yeah, I mean, in hindsight, That's obviously what was going on there, but it's just, you know, I guess important for people to know and just talking with a lot of friends and colleagues now that, you know, you don't have to have these respiratory symptoms per se, just fatigue. These are just things, you know, you know, to be on the lookout for it just to be smart about it. Well, look, man, we're grateful to have you on Woop. And I want you to know the whole team here is wishing you a speedy recovery from this.

And, you know, also very grateful for you to be willing to talk about your experience and share your data. Hopefully it's helpful to other WOOP members during this tough time. Yep, absolutely. And I appreciate you guys. And I think some just the insights that I'm, you know, able to glean from the data is very helpful to me as well. And, you know, looking forward to continue working with you guys in the future. Boston area venture capitalist David Frankel came down with COVID around the same time as Brian. We spoke with him as he was on the mend and he found that his Woop data cratered when he became symptomatic with COVID.

I'm David Frankel. I'm a partner at a Seed Stage venture firm Founder Collective. I was a symptomatic, first symptomatic of COVID-19 on Sunday. And David, you live in Boston, yeah? Yeah, absolutely. I live in, I'm speaking here from home in Brookline, Massachusetts. And so describe when you feel like you were first exposed to COVID-19, if you can trace it back? Judging by a cohort that felt simultaneously symptomatic on Sunday morning the 8th of March,

I think that we were all exposed to it at an event on Thursday night, the 5th of March. There were just, there were more than 20 people who ultimately tested positive and looking back, everybody seemed to show the same, you know, similar symptoms on Sunday, so Sunday the 8th. Isn't that amazing? And it was just a close, you know, cocktail party or something like that? Oh, it was a birthday party. It was close and small. It was a close family and closest friends, maybe about 50 people in total. And literally all 15 now have gotten COVID-19. I don't think it's all 50. So I think it's tens of people. I don't know what the exact number is, but I think it could be up to 40 people, you know, who one way or another, trace it back to there.

And five people were hospitalized. wow with pneumonia or double pneumonia wow well we're so glad that that you're feeling better and up for for telling us a little bit about your experience so you started to feel symptoms on sunday march 8th what was that like what kind of symptoms were you feel my symptoms were just was just like a kind of exhaustion first right so just the way i described it to my wife was she said what are you feeling i said i just feel incredibly depleted And it's interesting. I had been, I was training for Boston, for the Boston Marathon, and I'd been running,

trying to increase the amount of my running, so roughly running at least 35 miles a week. And I had been, on the Friday, I'd done kind of 15 mile run on the Thursday before I'd done a time trial. And on the Saturday, so I think it was the Saturday, the seventh, I did a, you know, I did like a recovery ride on a, a peloton. And it's funny, on Sunday, I just woke up thinking to myself, you know, I've been doing a lot of exercise for a long time. But quickly, it was like a different kind of depleted. So it started with that. Then, you know, a lot of the symptoms that generally are described, dry cough, sore throat, fever for about four or five nights in a row. I needed to change my shirt and shorts three times night. So a lot of night sweats. And

And then, you know, interestingly, by kind of, I don't know, Thursday of that week, so I was functional. I was trying to participate in video conferences with my team. And so there was no point where I was like completely laid up. And I was functional, but then would be exhausted in the like late afternoon evening. I remember on the Friday at the end of that week being on a conference call with our CFO and my partners and then at like finishing that at about 5.30 and my study is adjacent to to my bedroom and just lying down on the floor like lying down on the car. Yeah. Wow. This was like a week

off the symptoms and then sleeping for two hours till seven. So the interesting thing about this was by Friday, Saturday, so like six days in, I was feeling much better. And then by that Sunday one week afterwards, I couldn't get out of bed. And then I really started to feel much better. but you know others around me were far more symptomatic than that yeah right what kind of symptoms were they experiencing so others i would say uh you know just just felt what i felt but in a much much harder core way like i felt almost guilty that i was feeling better sooner um you know others around me particularly a lot a lot of women that i know uh you know felt two x more to than I was, had sore throats, nausea, yeah. Just, just, you know, a lot more. I was never,

I was never nauseous. You know, I didn't have much of a headache. And then others around me just were much more headache. Well, that's been one recurring theme that we've picked up on and talking to different whoop members who've had COVID-19 is just that the symptoms seem a little inconsistent and varying degrees of severe, as you just illustrated. Now, you graciously, shared your whoop data with us, which I'm looking at right now, which tells a pretty interesting story over the course of this time period. So, you know, to your point, days like March 6th, Friday, Saturday, March 7th, you had high recoveries, very green. You know, you're like 95% the day before you start feeling symptoms. So fascinating. Like I don't have the data in front of me, but

the Saturday before, so the Sunday, the 8th was my word. worst whoop score ever right yeah you've got you've got some horrible data on the eighth right it was I woke up with 15 right 15% red recovery yeah um you're right or was insanely good right like it was like a surge before it looks like your body just fell off a cliff look right and then you'll see on this the next Sunday I'm back at like incredibly incredibly low so so what I found was that it was very you know, it like corroborated how I felt, right? So, so it was, it was less predictive in many respects, right?

Like, it's hard and, you know, you may get to the bottom of that, right? And actually say, look, there is, I'm hoping, like algorithmically something that feels effective of this. But certainly what I would say was it felt at the very least that it corroborated how I felt very highly. Yeah, like your data is a little less predictive than others. others that we've seen, but it's highly correlated with the symptoms that you describe. So, like, on the day that you report feeling your first symptoms, March 8th, you've got a 15%

recovery, and your resting heart rate is the highest it's ever been in the mid-50s. And to your credit, you have a very low resting heart rate. It looks like it averages around 40. So for you to be, you know, in the mid-50s is actually outrageously high. and over the course of the week, your resting heart rate actually maps very closely to what you describe as improving symptoms. So you literally go from mid-50s to 50s to low 40s to all of a sudden you're back in the 30s come Friday the 13th. So you've, you know, it's interesting just to look at that graph. Your heart rate variability tells a similar story where you have your

lowest heart rate variability again on on the eighth when you first had that fever right and it's funny you know exactly to your point on the friday i was on the phone with my partners and i said like i feel like i'm over this right like i feel like i'm through this and then that sat that sunday like just felt like i got hit again yeah and you can see it in the data you've got another red recovery on that sunday and again you're you're resting heart rates back up in the 50s despite You have a ridiculously low resting heart rate, David. Your resting heart rate looks like today it's in the neighborhood of like 37 or 38. Does that sound right?

Yeah, and I'm feeling great today. Yeah. This morning. Respiratory rate throughout this, which has been quite predictive for other Woop members, it looks relatively flat. It looks like, you know, respiratory rate being the number of breaths per minute while you're sleeping. We've seen for other people that increase dramatically in the days leading up to symptoms and for you it was relatively flat looks like it's a little elevated

before your first symptoms on the eighth and I would say again highly you know that that correlates well in that I was using a my wife's a physician and I was using a pulse oxymeter as well sure and she you know her symptoms were worse than mine so we had the pulse oxymeter for her but and I was kind of double-checking myself. And at all time, you know, pretty much my oxygen saturation was good. My stats was good, and there was no time where I felt like I was having respiratory problems at all. And again, what I'd say is the loop data, you know, correlates well with it. So now that you've come out of it and you're back on your feet, do you feel like this new restored look on life?

You know, well, I was asked that question earlier today. someone said to me, how do you feel? And I said, I said, I feel guilty using this phrase, but I feel euphoric. Yeah, I bet. I feel healthy and well. My wife's through the quarantine and, you know, more importantly, extended family and friends, even those who are in hospital are all reporting, you know, well. I don't feel euphoric about the state of the world at all, and I'm very, very concerned about how we have here in the U.S. But answering that very personally, literally me only, certainly euphoric. Well, look, we're super happy that you're back on your feet and that your family's okay.

And I'm very grateful that you came on the podcast today. Thank you, David. I'm wearing my wimp as we speak. We've learned over the last few weeks and months that coronavirus symptoms can be tricky to track whoop member Peter McTiger. Didn't exhibit some of the week. the most common symptoms of COVID-19 while he was sick, but we still saw enormous changes in his WOOP data. Peter and I discuss that. Peter, welcome to WOOP podcast. Thanks for having

new all. So tell us just your background quickly. I was an early Woop intern many years ago, and now I'm a law student in New York City. Amazing. Well, deeply grateful to have had you as an intern and also to get to reconnect for this podcast. So tell me, when did you first feel symptoms for COVID-19? So my first symptoms were like midnight from March 11th to March 12th. And back then, before there was a lot of information about kind of the different strains or symptoms different people were experiencing, I just thought it was food. poisoning. I woke up in the middle of the night, vomited, felt, you know, a very high fever

come on very quickly. And that fever sustained for about 48 hours. And then I had two more days of symptoms that really felt like food poisoning. And then it wasn't until a week after that where I lost my sense of smell just completely and taste. That's amazing. about 12 to 14 days so you're still like you're still at a loss a little bit for taste i'd say i'm back up to like 80 percent but i didn't get anything back until uh like four days ago that's crazy isn't it very bizarre and has that ever happened to you at any other point in your life no um and it wasn't even like you know sometimes you get diminished smell or taste because of congestion during a head cold. I had no congestion at all. It just kind of hit the delete button

on sensitive smell and taste. Wow. Let's talk about your data for a second. You've shared your data with us and it's pretty consistent with what we've seen in other individual cases. So like it looks like on March 10th, your heart rate variability or your resting heart rate spikes. So you have a resting heart rate around 45, and all of a sudden it's at 70. I mean, that's pretty startling. And then it slowly declines from there. So that seems consistent with when you said you had your fever, which we've also now seen with a number of other data cases. And the smoking gun, again, is respiratory rate. So what day did you say you first felt symptoms? So it was midnight from March 11th to March 12th, so the March 12th data is where you see that huge spike.

Yeah, your respiratory rate is at 18, 17 and then 18, and then it slowly makes its way down over the next five days. And your baseline respiratory rate is between 14 and 15. I mean, jumping to 17 and 18, that's a huge jump. I'm still seeing in the past week in terms of heart rate, variability and resting heart rate, pretty bad numbers. I don't know if that's just deconditioning from working out less trying to recover or if that's a tail end immune system response. It's probably both, I would think. But it's fascinating just looking at your respiratory rate.

And you've got something similar, which we saw in David Frankel's data, which is like your respiratory rate went up, it came back down. And then it even spikes back. up again. It looks like this virus has a bit of a second wind, no pun intended, of, you know, the respiratory tract infection. And that kind of tracks with it taking a week after the fever symptoms left for the lack of smell to her eyes. Yeah. That could be the second little bump. Well, we're glad you're feeling better now. Is there anything else you noticed in your in your whoop data? No.

I mean, besides this fairly long tail end, even after physically feeling good and back to normal, still seeing the poor numbers. And were you able to track who you were exposed to and you got this? So I have two roommates that both

had exposures three or four days before my symptoms arose. Got it. Like most of us, it's possible. I was exposed before that and just had no idea. Well, look, man, we're glad you're feeling better. And thank you for helping us with our research on this. Of course.

Keep up the good work. Stay healthy. Thank you to all our WOOP members and these five guests for being so forthcoming during this crazy time and helping us fight COVID-19. I continue to wish all of our listeners, you at home, the best of health to you and your families. In a second here, I'm going to do some Q&A, but first I'll remind you to subscribe to the WOOP podcast. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and elsewhere at WOOP, and I am at Will Ahmed. Okay, we are now turning to the Q&A section. Thank you to all

the members who reach out with your questions. At Nolan Bilstrom asks, what is the best way to record the impact of food on performance and recovery with the Whoop Journal. It's a great question. So the Whoop Journal obviously allows you to input about 40 or 50 different behaviors that you can track against. And then obviously the value of doing that is that you can see how these different behaviors affect your Whoop data. One thing that I think is critical with all of this is having as accurate data as possible. So whatever you're going to track, just make sure you're religiously tracking it every day. That way you can really see what the true effects are. When it comes to food, we have a number of diets that are already preloaded into the Whoop Journal. So I would suggest

looking at those as a starting point. You should be able to find them as you scan through. If you don't, you can reach out to us and request that we add a specific type of food or diet to track against. Separately, the Whoop Journal also has a free text area where you can actually just write in anything that you'd like. So if there's very specific things that you want to include or write about, that would be the place to do it. Thank you, Nolan. Okay, at Issy Watson asks, why do I already have day strain when I wake up? Great question. So the reality is that when you're sleeping, you may actually be accumulating strain. You may not necessarily have a 0.0 while you're sleeping. And when you got out of bed and move around a little bit, that all of a sudden will move

your day strain up. Again, Woop is measuring strain in the form of heart rate as a percentage of your maximum heart rate over time. So the more elevated your heart rate may be at any given time and the longer it's elevated for, that's going to start increasing your day strain. Now, The difference of a four and a five strain on whoop is actually very little. It's an exponential strain, so it gets exponentially hard to go up that scale. So the difference between an 18 and a 19 strain is a lot, lot more than the difference between a 4 and a 5. I hope that answers your question. Issy.

Okay, well, that's it, folks. Thank you for listening. Again, wishing you and your loved ones, the best of health, stay green. Thank you. Thank you.