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there is a lot going on in the world
today today is today is the Wednesday of
the show when we have we've now been in
lockdown for a lot a lot of businesses
have now been shut down or significantly
impacted people have been quarantined
elderly people are kind of in in you
know the most risky group with this
coronavirus or kovat 19mm Wuhan flu some
tweets have even called it the Chinese
virus who knows what we call including
those commander and just slide that in
without any challenge but no such luck
yeah believe he's calling it that like
politics aside and I I will say I will
say and this is this is gonna be kind of
a freewheeling show so we might as well
just get into this that I I've been
reluctantly impressed with how he's been
handling things I am like kind of
surprised that the at the the just the
all-hands-on-deck sort of response and
the and the reasonableness with which
it's being addressed at the top so I
will just set that out there and I you
know most people who listen to the show
can already know or could certainly
infer that I didn't vote for him but I
have been impressed so there we go well
well so speaking of the pandemic and the
coronavirus egg what tell give us a
doubt give us a dug download and a
doctor hawk
you know perspective on this well the
primary mansplain ER riff on that so
I've heard I've heard a preview of some
of his findings and he has a lot to say
so just everybody sit back for about 45
minutes because you're about to get
schooled
well the I don't know obviously I have
several several comments to make about
the whole the whole wide ranging process
and then I have more more narrowly
focused on our own personal best
interests and and what we think the
future will hold bed and the first thing
that I would say
is that that based on the original alarm
coming from the data in China I think
that that essentially the right moves
have been made the the in my judgment in
other words the right move is to
overreact when you don't know what
what's coming so this is this is
actually been remarkable it's been a
worldwide phenomenon and I'm super
impressed by by actually the the heads
of state all over the world are are not
sort of putting their heads in the sand
they're reacting very quickly and really
in an unprecedented fashion so you you
can thank the the the modern world with
the extraordinary communication
capacities that we have now so that so
what we're seeing is a is a huge
reaction the the only question in
retrospect will be was it enough and was
it soon enough because you're battling
something that is is but you know put
out of you're very much out of your
control so the so my first comment would
be I'm pretty amazed at how the people
around the world in all different places
are are quickly and peacefully
essentially changing their behavior in a
radical way as we have the world attuned
to to a major problem now the the second
thing that I will say is that the the
problem that you have here is my
favorite word that Jen's gonna general
crack-up whether you see it or not this
is all about parameters so many
parameters there's she knows that I like
nothing better than to analyze
parameters in fact there really isn't
anything better in life other than life
which I absolutely agree with I think
it's just a question of what parameters
you're analyzing some parameters are
inherently much more satisfying and
interesting than others and dr. Lisle
and I do not always agree on what
parameters are at any given time yeah
anyway so back to prison
wandering with the definition of a
parameter very interesting parameters
well he'll be happy to man-slaying that
to you right now I'm sir
well parameter is a variable of a
problem and so what we what we're trying
to figure out is we're actually trying
to figure out what what is the nature of
the problem that we're facing and in
terms of sheer numbers and human
suffering and cost that's what we want
to know and so obviously had there been
a break out of a flu in China and they
would have had 80,000 people infected
and 57 people had died this would not be
an issue that you would not have the
worldwide response it wouldn't even be
close it's the fact that they reported
about five percent of their people dying
that's what freaked everybody out so
it's that's a parameter had this
literally been instead of had it been
five hundred people or four hundred
people instead of four thousand people
you would not be seeing the response
that you're seeing today so this is
nothing other than a parametric problem
so the so that that certainly got my
attention and it certainly has
everybody's attention everybody that's
trying to get their hands around this
problem and figure out what to do is
staring at these parameters and
certainly the world has known about the
possibility of some really nasty virus
getting a loose and going wholesale and
wiping out the human race particularly
it's something that could be
artificially manufactured or messed with
somehow so you know everybody that's old
enough did to chew gum and walk has
heard about Ebola virus and should be
appropriately terrified the but it but
we haven't had anything that was widely
communicable that had any big-time power
other than pretty much where you see
these these nasty variants of some kind
of a flu come along every once in a
while and the one that visits the United
States every year these things are are
killing you know thirty forty thousand
people and that we shrug our shoulders
and the reason why we spread our
shoulders is
vast majority those people are our
elderly and sick and so they're they're
compromised and we don't know too many
of those people because there's only
40,000 of them and so they're so it
doesn't it doesn't feel intimidating and
it doesn't feel intimidating if you're
an epidemiologist and it's also the case
that in those forty thousand probably
you would save a good chunk of them if
everybody would immunize which people
don't and it's their own their own
choice to do so but I don't but it's not
because I'm worried about dying from the
flu it's about whether or not you you
know you think you're going to get the
flu and suffer the the the issue there
is that generally you're very most
vulnerable people late in life ends in
somehow significantly compromised you
know you've got a small percentage of
people very small percentage of people
will die as a result of a flu now this
looks different because it's not a tiny
percentage this percentage ultimately
start out at five percent which shook
the world and grab the world's attention
and then then you have Italy coming in
second and the numbers look similar
now finally so I've been staring at
those numbers and everybody I've talked
to has been saying look if it's three or
four percent we're in for we're in for a
serious serious problem a tremendous
problem the in the final analysis the
Chinese data looks like it wound up
about 2.4 percent or something like that
which is still astronomical the however
so I was staring at that as is everybody
with a brain that's actually working on
the problem and but when the South
Koreans started testing extensively
their data now looks like it's about one
percent now one percent is still huge so
this is nothing like the flu which is
you know a tenth of a percent so it's
basically ten times deadlier than the
flu which is you know tremendous
tremendously dangerous so you're going
to wind up with potentially in principle
three million Americans
if everybody was infected
and again this year then you would this
would result in you know probably three
million deaths whether or not they would
be additional deaths in other words a
certain percentage of those people would
have been dying this year anyway the
question yeah that's a big question we
don't know
my guess is quite a few of the people
that would have been dying anyway
would be the people where this would
kick them over that's an important
consideration when we try to grapple
with the magnitude of what this problem
really looks like now mmm
one thing that we also are seeing in the
evidence is that we're seeing a
significant difference in males and
females as victims there's a reason for
this and that is that in in China and in
South Korea there is a huge difference
in the amount of smoking that men do
versus women
so in those cultures they average 25% or
so people smoking but about 50% of men
smoke and about 5% of women smoke this
is an extraordinary difference in
behavior and so this this is a an
interesting parameter to investigate
because it's going to turn out the bat
that's going to lead us the clues as to
why the men are dying at a significantly
higher rate than the women so this is
going to tell us that an eyeball
estimate is going to give us probably at
least a 3 to 1 factor that if you're a
smoker you're probably three times as
likely to die from this disease now the
next thing up so there's basically two
main effects that we're looking at are
you smoking and how old are you so if
you're under 60 and you're not smoking
your odds of dying from this disease are
effectively zero there they're so close
to zero I mean we're not even sure what
they are there's not enough data to tell
us but we know that it's really low at
least it looks like so right now it's
going to be on the order of note
probably similar to the the flu and if
you're not terrified about the flu I
wouldn't be terrified about this thing
so the the action is really going to
start when you're about 50 if you're a
smoker
so if you're 50 and a smoker or your
very unhealthy at that age now you're
gonna start to see some some evidence so
I think it the numbers are gonna roughly
look about like this you know trust me
nobody knows but it's probably a percent
and a half of people in their 50s would
die from this if they were infected
however remember that actually if it's a
percent and a half about mm-hmm
that's that effect size is doubled by
the existence of smokers in the pool so
it's actually probably three quarters of
a percent for a nonsmoker
now before you we panic over that number
you have to understand that
three-quarters of a percent or whatever
that is one every 130 people or so that
would die of this thing that that's a
that's a scary-looking phenomenon except
that those people that one out of 130 is
not a random individual out of the
population one out of 130 people in
their 50s is pretty damn sick even if
they're not a smoker so if you look down
the chart and you look at who is it's
dying of this thing you're gonna find 64
year old woman complications of diabetes
okay you're gonna find that they're
they're a very sick bunch of people it's
not always going to be true just as with
the flu sometimes if someone gets a you
know for whatever reasons that we don't
know once in a blue moon anybody me you
Nathan you know somebody could she could
take a shot out of left field but it's
very extremely uncommon and it isn't
something that we walk around worry
about the however this blue or this this
thing whatever it is I mean whatever you
want to call it this thing is is is
going to be significantly tougher but
once again we're going to find the track
marks and the snow are going to be two
things age and cigarette smoking and /
general health in your 60s it's going to
be probably 3% and again the base rate
is going to be probably one and a half
percent for non-smokers
and three times that or probably four
and a half or five percent for smokers
so if you're if it's in your 70s it's
going to be one notch higher probably
you know four or five percent and then
in your 80s it's probably going to be
seven or eight percent so just - its
we're probably going to find that that
non-smokers in their 80s are probably
going to be four percent and you might
say well wow that that's a terrifying
number and if I'm at the CDC and I'm
looking at that you know we've got I
don't know how many people that age that
we have maybe 20 million and so if we do
and we're looking at four person
actually altogether it might be eight
percent so if everybody was infected
that might be a million six and they
would be coming in other words the vast
majority of the tragedies are going to
be taking place people over 75 years old
and so we might look at this and we
might say wow that's you know that's a
tidal wave of deaths that's a tremendous
amount of people of five or six percent
of our elderly people are wiped out in a
year the and it would be and I mean it
would be a horrific thing and it might
even happen just despite our best
efforts however yeah when we actually
look inside the parameters at what it is
that we're seeing there and you start to
see what the the amount of loss of life
is that the life expectancy of an 80
year old might be five years maybe six
years something in that nature I haven't
checked the charts but it's it's in that
general range and so if you have six or
seven percent of those people
additionally over you know six or seven
percent of them die of this virus we
have to remember that ten or fifteen
percent of them were probably going to
pass away in this next year anyway and
of those people that we're going to pass
away it's going to be there's going to
be an overlap with the six percent so
the question is how many additional
people and so it's going to be less than
the reported deaths that you're going to
be seeing except as we start to count
that hey this is a tough way to go and
maybe you went six months early
maybe you went to year early but what
we're not going to find is we're not
going to find the kind of tragedy that I
think Pete is around people's heads and
when you think about two or three
million people dying it's completely
different phenomenon if 1% of Americans
died 3 million people died and the
average age is the average age of the
population ie 40 years old that means 3
million people left 40 years of life on
the table that is a that is an
incredible tragedy it is a it is quite a
bit different if three million people
leave two or three years of life on the
table it's it's you know 5% of the
tragedy now it's bad it's it's believe
me I hope that the geniuses and all the
efforts that we go to do everything
possible to see to it that that doesn't
happen but the the level of the the
anxiety that people have a great deal of
that anxiety is about the notion that we
could all be victims and that we could
all be taken down and that this whole
thing is a is I heard people talk about
how I heard politicians talking about
how this is akin to world war two this
isn't even remotely similar to World War
two it's not even close in the same
order of magnitude okay in World War two
you had people of all ages you know
catching disaster and dying and leaving
their entire lives on the table this is
not what we're seeing okay
so that this is my way of looking at it
I hope it doesn't sound heartless I hope
it sounds essentially realistic and I
think that that what we're gonna find in
the months to come
incidentally my estimates here are are
admittedly not not particularly crystal
clear because I'm going on the existing
evidence of the time I think that
evidence is starting to look pretty good
so it's starting to look like a very
very dangerous nasty virus if you are
elderly and ill
okay particularly nasty if you if you're
a cigarette smoker so I don't mean to
blame the victim but the truth of the
matter is is that the most important
thing public health thing that could
happen that would more than mitigate the
effects of the losses from this virus
would be if you had a 10 or 15 percent
reduction in cigarette smoking that
would that would more than make up for
the effectiveness
so right now 14% of Americans smoked if
it that turned to 12 percent in the next
three months that would save more lives
then the coronavirus could take so
amazingly you know if life is precious
it's actually already bigger than this
problem the solution is actually already
in people's hands the incidentally that
includes people right now that are at
risk if you're in your 50s and you're a
cigarette smoker and you're listening to
this which I doubt we have very many of
on this podcast but if that is true you
are at considerably elevated risk and
the biggest thing that you can do is to
not wash your hands or worry about
exposure because there's a good chance
you're going to get exposed the biggest
thing that you can do is stop the smokes
immediately and in in a matter of days
in a few weeks your lungs can recover
enough it might be the difference
between life and death might be the most
important move you ever made okay so
anyway I think what's going to happen
and Jen Jen can talk about this I'm sure
at wider wider length but I think that
we're going to find that as the truth
seeps in on people in the next 90 days
as we start to see that it is not a
worldwide phenomenon killing people
everywhere it's actually a targeted
phenomenon that is that is you know
picking on our very weakest elderly and
sick as people and that it's it's taking
a little bit of life away from these
people not it's not taking life away
from an average healthy 60 year old and
then suddenly he's sacrificing 25 years
of his life that's not happening it's
not if
that happens it's going to be
extraordinarily rare and so that being
the case I think the truth about this is
going to start dawning on people and
they're going to start to push back
relative to the sacrifices that they're
being estimated make I think those
sacrifices are extremely reasonable in
the present while we don't know the
parameters but I think it's the
parameters emerge and I think as they
look maybe something like I believe they
look I think that pretty soon people are
going to say well you know good luck to
everybody and remember this doesn't mean
I'm sacrificing an eighty three-year-old
the truth is if you're a non-smoking 83
year old there's probably a 97% chance
that you would not die after contracting
this disease and if you did die remember
you are undoubtedly you are one of the
weakest non-smoking individuals that's
83 you're in the bottom three percentile
so what did we really think about your
life expectancy at that point if you're
a third percentile non-smoking healthy
eighty three-year-old what do what does
that actually mean for your life
expectancy it isn't the five years
that's the statistical average it's not
even close
so the this is a obviously no one wants
to see life truncated by any means.the
however I think it's going to dawn on
this culture and the world that the
greatest fear that people have had of a
ebola derivative type of thing some
incredible pandemic crisis that could
have the power to do phenomenal damage
that I think we're going to discover no
that's not that's probably not what this
is and so as a result I think the
ultimately the the actions will become
muted and essentially we will care and
we will spend money and we'll make
investments and we will do scientific
research and we'll probably come up with
a with a hopefully a vaccine so that a
lot of future generations of elderly
people will be better protected but
ultimately I think life's going to
return to no
you know my guess is in three or four
months that's as this truth Dawn's so
that's my they are see it wasn't 45
minutes Jen no that was that was very
nicely contained quarantined even the
quarantine well you're right all right
well dr. Huck we still got 20 more
minutes so dr. Lao you can you can keep
yeah yeah dr. Huck tell us tell us your
take on this yeah well I don't think I
can add anything to the parameterization
I think that's well well established
well very well done and dr. Laos thought
a lot more about those hard numbers than
I have I I'm a you know a political
scientist and a social scientist in
general and I'm most fascinated by the
social dynamics of this whole thing and
just watching you know people's
cost-benefit analyses move around in
real time relative to their the
stability of their personalities so this
is a common theme that we talk about all
the time on the podcast and this is this
is very just inherently satisfying as a
social scientist to sort of watch the
natural experiment of this unfold on
social media and in the communities
around us and it's it's just fascinating
and unprecedented and I think what what
Doug's getting at with the as people are
running better better refined
cost-benefit analyses as we move forward
into this we're right now we're in this
period of great uncertainty and people
are feeling a lot of fear and a lot of
anxiety and the the stories of
exceptions to the rule so that the young
healthy people that have been stricken
down those are those are going to get
more play in social media they're gonna
get repeated more they're gonna get
elevated to the top of the discussion
and that's that's part of what is also
distorting people's perception of what
this is about and how deadly it is
because those you know this goes back to
what we were talking about last week
with if if it bleeds it leads that was
always the mantra of my
my journalist parents and they were
chasing some big story this is this is
what drives headlines and it also drives
eyeballs on social media so the the
exceptions to the rule you're not going
to see the stories about the very the
the you know the person with
complications from diabetes who's 67
who's getting taken down by this you're
gonna see the story about some some
forty one-year-old with absolutely no
symptoms who had a little cough one day
and then it just rapidly escalates and
and turns into this terrible situation
there's also a lot of uncertainty about
the you know we haven't didn't talk
explicitly about this whole flatten the
curve idea and the concept that it's not
just that people have anxiety about the
about the fatality rate and about being
taken out themselves or somebody that
they care about being taken out it's the
it's the sort of opportunity cost in the
in the the uncertainty and the worry
about hospitals being overwhelmed and
too many people getting sick at the same
time and the shortage of ventilators and
all these other things that we've been
discussing and and I think people look
at that situation and that leads to a
little bit of an estimate of their own
own vulnerability even if it's not to
the virus itself it's just the general
vulnerability that they would have that
something bad might happen to them at
any time that might send them to the
hospital and now they're competing with
this wave of of people who are who are
overwhelming the ICU so that's that's a
lot of what's going on - so I think as
we get into it into this process and and
the data starts coming in and we start
getting better calibrated as to what it
what it actually looks like whether
people are paying attention to the
actual numbers or not they're going to
be running revised CDs as they they
don't know anybody personally who's been
hospitalized they they do know people
who were testing positive but who got
through it okay
they themselves were tested positive and
got through it okay you know I there
there's a new story every day about some
new celebrity who tests positive so Tom
Hanks you know half the NBA seems to
have it
Idris Elba lots of people lots of lots
of well-known people are testing
positive Trudeau's wife this is just a
short list as of today that we're
talking about and and so I am you know
the it's it's amazing to watch every
time we hear of a new celebrity who's
testing positive because this seems to
be used as fuel for the fire - oh my god
this is terrifying we need to lock down
even more and I see this and I'm I'm
heartened and encouraged because it's
telling me that there are this thing
this thing's everywhere that it's it's
all over the place people are testing
positive everywhere and that increase
that basically dilutes the fatality
number it's not like we're we are
unaware of people who are getting taken
out by this we're paying very close
attention to who's dying from it and so
if you if there are more people exposed
than we thought there were that that
reduces that fatality percentage with
every documented case and when we see
that many celebrities who are you know
you're recognizing a bunch of names that
are testing positive that's telling us
that it's it's really much more
ubiquitous than we thought it was so
rather than cause for an increased
public alarm I just I find myself very
encouraged by by all of that
so with things like that with things
like personal experience and then also
as you as you just run people's
personalities through the through the
ringer of
a difficult period of time like this
they are going to reach the threshold of
their abilities to sort of self-regulate
the the extremes of their personalities
and so they're gonna be like oh my god
I've been cooped up long enough it's
it's time to you know go enjoy ourselves
and there's there's no harm and we'll
just you know be careful but it'll be
fine and that's going to creep the whole
thing back to an equilibrium that looks
much more like normal life and a and a
lessened greatly lessened tolerance for
the the very docile obedient behavior
you're seeing across the population
right now because it's very afraid and
it doesn't know and it hasn't run the
parameters so I yeah this is all it's
all very interesting I totally totally
agree that it is absolutely the right
thing to do to to overreact if in fact
this isn't over
we we don't know but we certainly want
to err on the side of extreme caution
and it's it's not as if these you know
social distancing and and self
quarantine procedures are really that
that arduous you know it's not it's not
really doing that much damage to
anybody's overall existence at least in
the relatively short term so I
completely were on the same page where I
think you know this is going to look
much more like normal life in a couple
of months mm-hmm and I think Tom Hanks
and his wife Rita Wilson they they were
released from the hospital maybe a
couple of days ago yeah saying that
they're feeling better
so yeah this is what it seems to be like
it's that we don't have any any major
celebrity deaths coming out of this it's
people who feel a little they feel a
little bad after some big international
trip and they they happen to take a test
and lo and behold they're positive and
they holed up in a hotel for a week or
two and it's all fine so so the more
stories we hear like that the more we
observe that in our own lives and on the
news that's it's it's going to people
are not going to remain you know at the
at the sort of barrel of a gun of an
altered CB we're going to see the
resurgence of the baseline of
personality which is that you know at
any given time you can expect about half
the population to be roughly sort of
compliant with this kind of situation
and half of them not to be half of them
to be really um you know gonna gonna do
what they want and they're not gonna not
gonna hide from anybody in there they're
just gonna look out for number one and
that's what it's gonna look like and
that half of the bell curve right now
those those people who were lower in
conscientiousness and who are extremely
extroverted and there's no way they're
gonna stay home and you know in some
capacity just really distorted in terms
of their personality that half is being
artificially suppressed by by the power
of the state essentially and and the
overall fear that is running the show
and so that's that's a fragile condition
to put on those forces of personality
and and they are going
to reassert themselves as the full half
of the bell curve that they are as we
move forward in this process such a
delicate way of putting it I love it hey
Nathan
you probably got a computer in front of
you or something could you look up look
up the cost of one of a ventilator cost
of a ventilator yeah really a lot higher
now but no but I'm curious about what
typically you know are they in $2,000
for $10,000 20 be cost between 25 and 50
thousand okay yeah just just the FYI the
daily cost by the way is four thousand
the daily cost oh yeah that's um that's
that's an insurance scam that's you know
yeah so one machine is 25 to 50 rise
we're going to talk about the real
situation okay so the real situation is
the the worst literally at this moment
the worst-possible-case scenario in the
United States would be if the the 1%
that we see in Korea now holds and that
that would be that would result in about
3 million American deaths over the next
year so if that were true and if it took
and we're gonna assume that the the
virus is not seasonal that yet even with
our best efforts you know it eventually
works its way through the entire
population and we're gonna assume that
nobody's sort of naturally immune and
that you know unlike unlike almost
anything else that literally it is able
to get to and nailed 100 percent of the
population in a year if that were true
and we had three million deaths
I guess people people and probably the
most acute phases where they're fighting
for their lives might be as much as I
don't know a month on a ventilator
probably not probably a couple of weeks
okay
so that would be 3 million people
250,000 of them a month would actually
be passing away and of those we let's
suppose we had another we had a factor
of five that we had three
our triage that were in trouble and that
you know we were trying to save somebody
as a result of that so you can see the
possibility where that you could have
call it a million people at any time on
a ventilator now so you need a million
ventilators and right now we've got
about 125,000 so if you needed to an
additional million ventilators and they
cost about $35,000 that's 35 billion
dollars and let me tell you something
that's a drop in the bucket so I'm
really not very impressed by every but
what you're what you're hearing around
bouncing around is scarcity panic yes
look at the shelves at the grocery store
it's it's a bank run in them in the
depression and this is what it this is
absolutely scarcity panic feeding upon
or scarcity panic yeah the scarcity
panic I think includes people in the
medical profession it's like they're
thinking oh my god we're not gonna have
enough ventilators and my thinking is
how hard is it to build a million
ventilators
it's just can't be that hard the your
your your manufacturing cars for God's
sakes if they can make six hundred forty
five thousand Mustangs in a year how
come they can't make a million
ventilators and you've got the entire
country in the entire United States
government behind a process of getting
to a manufacturing problem that can't
possibly be any more difficult than than
building a Camry
it's so not difficult there's the story
out of Italy with the hospital that ran
out of the valves and and you know local
entrepreneurs with a 3d printer were
able to print up hundreds of the valves
for a couple of bucks each on their 3d
printers so you you open it to market
process yes you know god forbid and you
solve this problem pretty quickly at a
fraction of the cost that's being
predicted so the the capacity fears and
the scarcity panic and all of them it's
it sells it bleeds it leads
and it
it lends itself to to great status on
social media to represent these this
kind of fear-mongering and this kind of
you know there's always we've talked
about this before with issues like
climate change and and others where the
the the advantage evolutionarily if
always to be the advanced messager you
always there's always utility in being
the one who has the the warning before
anyone else and is leading the charge
and saying that things are going to be
very bad there's there's much more
advantage socially and status wise
associated with that than there is with
saying oh everybody just calm down it's
gonna be fine I mean how many parables
exist throughout human history across
cultures to sort of reflect this truism
so the the we're working against a major
force in human nature that wants to be
the keeper of the advanced wisdom and
the advance warning and it's being
amplified on social media in a very
major way when really these are not
intractable problems they can be they
can be solved pretty easily and pretty
rapidly in with with local action and
market processes and certainly with the
big stimulus spending that we're seeing
coming from the top right now to yeah so
you get those of you that are worried
that you might you or your grandmother
might be gasping for breath and that
there's no ventilator and that that's
why you know we all have to jump in
right now I it's not true you're not
going to be you're not going to have a
ventilator shortage there's no way the
remember the only people that are going
to be in serious trouble
in this are going to be the elderly and
the sick then the old and sick and the
very old and so all of the able-bodied
human beings that are capable of running
a factory that can do their little part
of the widget to make sure that we get a
ventilator built those people aren't
going to have any trouble at all so the
the capabilities I mean this country in
world war two back in the ancient days
before I was born before they had
computers for God's sakes this country
built a warship a day that that's what
happened
so when you're in trouble when you're
talking about a real war for God's sakes
we're not going to get a little problem
of a million ventilator standing between
us and victory not a chance in hell so
anyway that's a that was a a reasonable
thought for somebody up there in charge
thinking this thing through and saying
wait a minute if we get hit really hard
really fast we could actually be in
trouble okay we could have a bottleneck
and they could have and so I'm glad that
they are they're doing you know that
they essentially did what they did it's
completely reasonable while we get a
very better much better estimate of the
parameters and find out you know I'm
just taking wild guesses here that
somebody would need to be on a
ventilator for a month by it's probably
not true it's probably two weeks so it's
probably half a million ventilators yeah
it's a pretty common number that I've
seen bandied about yeah and the triaging
you know hopefully we'd be good enough
that if you've been late 5:00 you you
saved everybody that could be saved you
know if you had one death now maybe it's
ten so I heard originally that it was
ten but it's probably not it's probably
you know there's probably much better
ability to triage that problem so yeah I
don't what do I know but the point is is
that I know one thing that I wouldn't I
wouldn't let a little problem a Bening
some metal at a factory floor with
machine tools and the industrial
capacity of the world triangulated on
the problem that we're gonna have a
little problem of making basically a
million cars for crying out loud that I
can't even remotely be a problem so do
you that is that's strip strictly a
matter of small ball money that is not
big money relative to the financial
issues that are involved in this problem
so that scarcity is a false alarm at
this point and and so now we'll go from
here while we stare at the the you know
the problem of you know what are the
real numbers and hopefully they are
somewhat better than we're seeing I
don't know if I said this or not but
because of the because America smokes
considerably less than
riah or china the korean data of that
looks like one percent would be
mitigated by my estimates by probably 20
percent in other words it would take us
from 1 percent down to point 8 just as a
result of a lower degree of smoking in
the culture so and even though we'd be
even lower for non-smokers because
that's the way oh absolutely
in other words the the degree for
non-smokers then would take you down to
0.4 so this is not the this is not the
the threat is you know is considerably
less I think then obviously the the
reasonable quote worst fears of the
people that are in charge because the
people in charge are you know reasonably
terrified of the worst-case scenario and
they the last thing you want to do
facing something like this is undershoot
it but now I'm trying because I'm not in
charge having to make the calls I'm able
to sit back and actually look at the the
numerical evidence and look at what I
think is probably going to happen and
what I think is probably going to happen
is is bad I think you're looking at
essentially maybe you know a really bad
flu season that may take out a quarter
of a million elderly people whereas
normally it might be thirty or forty
thousand and so you know that that's
going to be you know a significant bump
in I think the annual death rate of the
United States is 2.8 million it may bump
up to three million this year and and so
you know that that that's the kind of a
magnitude we're looking at rather than
the the terrifying worst-case scenario
of you know three million elderly people
so I think it's yeah yeah even that that
worst-case scenario is is not accounting
for the fact that we're moving into
springtime in summer and that there may
be a profound mitigating effect with
warmth and sunlight on the thing and
that it's not flu season you know
so-called flu season and we don't again
have data on that yet we don't know how
responsive it is but there's
a lot of good reasons to to infer that
that's going to bring down that number
even more and by the time that we would
be going into flu season with the return
of cold and darkness that we were closer
to having a vaccine at that point if we
don't have one already so yeah right and
certainly not being in a resource
management panic
so we will we will have the entire
country will understand the parameters
that they're dealing with much better
and everybody will be prepared so yeah
I'm hoping you know that that's one
that's one of the big question marks
that that keeps the the leaders of this
problem up at night is that they don't
know we're going to get that seasonal
break so what you're going to do it's
huge
most flu like viruses do respond and are
mitigated profoundly by it but yeah we
don't know because we haven't corrected
yet so sure amateurs rameters I'm
telling you there's nothing better than
analyzing a parameter we're easily
amused here at the beat your jeans not
going yeah it doesn't take much we're
very happy sheltering in place and just
adjusting parameters yes well one thing
one thing our listeners may appreciate
is dr. Hawk wrote an article a couple of
days ago called of personalities and
pandemics and I really like this article
who's great dr. Hawk went over you went
over the the different personality
traits in the big five and and how they
how you anticipate each of them would
react to this news and how they would be
posting on Facebook so yeah it's how
they would and how they are it's you
know these are sort of ready-made
scripts that certain personalities are
just gonna pick up because they're
they're automatically comfortable with
them and because they're inferring that
that narrative and that use of their
time and energy is the most optimal for
their genetic survival because that's
the kind of personality that they have
so there I've talked to a lot of clients
I have I have good friends and members
of my family who are extremely
conscientious and very introverted and
they are just vexed as hell by these
people who are flouting the rules and
out there socializing and you know not
not doing what they're supposed to be
doing which is that they're supposed to
be following the following the rules and
staying inside and
not endangering others and as
sympathetic as I am to them as a fairly
conscientious and introverted person
myself it's like you can't this this is
a central point on the podcast like you
cannot expect other people to interpret
reality in the same way that you were
interpret interpreting reality because
they are filtering it through their
personality bias and nothing reveals
extreme personality distortion like a
crisis and the way that people are
coping with it in this in this kind of
moment is is going to be a real
challenge for for people in ur
personally and socially as they come up
against people with radically different
cost-benefit analyses on a common
problem for which they're they have very
different solutions which are emerging
from those personality distortions so
this is just a big magnifying glass on
all the ways in which we we try to solve
problems differently because we perceive
that the way that we want to solve the
problem is the is the way that it is
most optimal for our genetic survival
when somebody that we may be
cohabitating with or forced to shelter
in place with does not see the world
that way and it's it's already on day
two leading to a lot of conflicts and a
lot of trouble and people really failing
to understand each other and imagining
that there's there's some big conspiracy
and that other people are out to get
them and all these all these different
things when really it's just it's just
personalities being personalities mm-hmm
now dr. law dr. hawk do you think
there's going to be a little baby boom
in the next nine months or so yeah no
cute cute names and memes associated
with that well I know if people are
gonna entertaining entertain themselves
if they're stuck inside that's a pretty
predictable way that people entertain
themselves so there could be four sir
low conscientious people aren't inside
that's exactly true so that it will
cancel it out actually no you've got a
lot of high conscientious people that
are that are indoors must be very
responsible about it yes go ahead doctor
allowed do you think do you
that potentially you know I just let me
let me rephrase here so mmm I have
caught up with some friends over the
phone or over video chat over the last
you know week or so and a recurring joke
is that oh now we're actually going to
have to face to face the spouse or the
live in you know girlfriend or boyfriend
and so so do you think that do you
predict that there may be any
revaluations as far as life priorities
work whatever it is as people now they
don't have as many pressures of you know
having a go go go go go every minute
they don't think I can't stop and think
about what they really want or or do you
think people just can become more
socially more addicted to social media
and everything that everything else know
what I don't know I'm not I'm not quite
sure what you're saying Nathan try it
again
alright one more time I I think he's
what I hear him saying is that he's you
know as people are forced to cohabitate
are they gonna reevaluate their
relationships which yeah of course they
are they've been in a they've been in a
situation where you know the the
environmental equilibrium that they were
that they were in you know had a certain
level of face-to-face interaction if
that environmental equilibrium changes
your assessment of somebody that your
cohabitating with could absolutely
change but and not for the better but it
could change also for the better you
might realize like oh I I didn't I've
been under valuing this person they're
very useful in a crisis so that that
could happen as well so but well people
seek sort of escape mechanisms like more
social media or other ways to avoid
people that they don't want to spend
time with yeah of course they will if
those if those things are available to
them and it's it is going to generate
interpersonal conflict that has always
been there submarine under the surface
that kept in check by environmental
constraints like like schedules and
separate lives
mmm-hmm all right what else we get all
right yeah that's a no that's that
answers my question dr. Hawk thank you
yeah dr. liya I was mostly yeah I was I
was think
exactly what dr. Hawk said in the sense
that I guess you know I I maybe my
underlying assumption is that people who
may not be optimally happy with each
other are that that that's being masked
by the fact that they are competing
together often times but maybe not
really that into each other so know that
they're quarantined right the other
words they've got they've got a lot of
distractions that and that their life
goes from an overlap of sixteen percent
to thirty six percent and and that yeah
sure
that that that's going to undoubtedly
destabilize the commitment of a lot of
people but but I think this is all my
guess is most of the drama is over in
ninety days and you know that the I
think the world will will essentially
absorb these parameters they'll they'll
get a real feel for it and hopefully
life is back to normal with not too much
of a you know not too much of a disaster
you know by July so and so I'm actually
like with Jen and I'm sure everybody
else is hoping that we get a big
seasonal break that would be huge and
and it would be very nice if if the
geniuses of biochemistry could figure
out a vaccine that could actually you
know cut to cut this thing in half if
they could pull off something like that
you know before essentially three
hundred and thirty million Americans and
billions of other people are exposed
then then you have a situation where the
the net total cost of this disaster
behind such an innovation could be
actually pretty done substantial
so there's worldwide acclaim a Nobel
Prize and an incredible celebrity and
and legitimate esteem and self esteem
out there in the waiting for any and all
people that are working feverishly on
that problem and and so hey not too
feverishly
Oh fair enough we don't want anyone to
die for their work that's right you got
it
so anyway that that's you know I think
that life life a year from now is gonna
look an awful lot like it does now I
mean like it did before it ever but
before this ever happened so let's let's
hope and and expect that that such a
thing will probably be the case
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