spk_0:   0:00
Hello, everybody. Hello, everybody. It's a spice.

spk_1:   0:03
This is salty, and we're We're here in the beautiful downtown. Ah, bowed on by downtown If you saw the side of this town

spk_0:   0:13
rearing is close to downtown.

spk_1:   0:15
We're not in a vehicle. We're sitting at home, so they are big, comfy chairs. And, uh, if you do hears a noise in the background occasionally kicking on that's the heater kicking on. We're here to talk to you today about, uh, something that it comes up every year. And, uh, So I asked spice about it. They came into the into my office a couple days ago and asked me, Do you want to sign up for the office flu shot? And I, of course, said no because I never do. I never get the shot. And, um, so far it has not come back to haunt me. I've gotten the flu seriously once in the last 20 years, but it was a Noro virus was one of the best lesson influenza. Yeah, it wasn't it. Oh, boy, Nora. Viruses are horrible, but not the same thing. Yeah, she had one. She's had it twice, and I had it once. Um, but so I don't get it because I am. Well, I am very insular in my in my habits. And so what? We decided? I asked her, Hey, you know, maybe we should do a quick little story in podcast. Is it a good prep for Preppers in particular? Because we're in a propping? It is getting a flu shot. A prep or is it a waste of time? And what exactly is a flu shot? What does it do? Is it something that everybody should get? So I'm going to turn it over to the medico who is not a doctor, but she is in the disease field. She's disease, so she's in the field. She's a have something to do it so something or other. Let's just put that in there. There there is the word path. Oh, around our house. She does rookie crook. So I'm gonna turn overheard she gonna get spill the beans.

spk_0:   2:24
Influenza is viral disease that buy galley. It mutates like a demon. It is one of the most mutable types of viruses out there, and that's the big problem with it. So what? What happens with the flu is it's always mutating and Sadly enough, we share it with some other species. The influenza that we get is both pigs and waterfowl. Now you don't get flu from your dog, but you could get it from your pet pig and you could get it from your pet duck.

spk_1:   3:06
Well, my guys marketed by pet pig, we don't have no stinking pit. No. Anyway, I'm sorry,

spk_0:   3:13
but anyway, there are some other species that carry the virus and transmit the virus back and forth between them and humans pretty freely. And that's part of the problem, because there are lots and lots of pigs and waterfowl in the world, and they don't live in very clean conditions, and they live in extremely crowded conditions. And it is an absolutely lovely place to mutate yourself. Some new viruses

spk_1:   3:38
you want to get even to the next level whom the waterfall come in contact with the enclosed foul in a ah situation where you're getting closed like chickens or what

spk_0:   3:51
the migrating waterfowl stop and try and nab some food from the penned up ducks. They give the disease to the penned up ducks, and then the penned up ducks spread it much worse than the wild ducks ever did, because there are crammed in there together and unsanitary situations. Then they give it to people who take care of the ducks. Then the people who are taking care of the ducks go to the doctor in the city. In there you go. It's loose

spk_1:   4:17
an hour off,

spk_0:   4:19
so it's very mutable. So you never know exactly which strains are going to be making people sick in a given year. But you could make some educated guesses by going to. Actually, they usually use Australia because their winter season is a few months ahead of our winter season. They look and see which strains of flu or making people most sick. This year, they develop vaccine to that. They put in three or four of the worst versions this year, and that will be this year's flu shot. And that's the one the offer in the United States, for example.

spk_1:   4:57
So you're talking about 234 strains of flu in the flu shot?

spk_0:   5:02
Yeah, there are lots more strains out there on any given year, but there'll be three or four that are responsible for the majority of disease. So with flu shot, you don't get 100% protection from disease. People will typically get 60 to 80% reduced risk of getting the flu if they get Thea vaccination, depending on how much the sucker mutated after the vaccines were developed.

spk_1:   5:30
Okay, Now, first, let's let's stop. And we're gonna run through something that now if you already know the stuff they planned this pretty basic. But let's run through a few things about the flu and about vaccinations. Just so you really understand what we're talking about. What? What issue? This is a word that's been used, you know, way long time before my birth vaccination. What exactly is a vaccinations? I know once I get the flu, it's a virus. And there is nothing that will kill a virus that I could take. You know, antiviral iris really kills virus. They're called poisons. Yeah, well, yeah, that would the virus

spk_0:   6:13
that being the problem

spk_1:   6:14
till the rest of me too. Yeah. So what exactly are you talking about when you're talking about a vaccine?

spk_0:   6:20
So to make a vaccine, you take the organism that you wanna protect against, and you either kill it or you collect some proteins from it and you put those proteins or dead organisms is the heart of what's in the vaccine. That's the main ingredient in the vaccine. You give it to a person who's never before been exposed to this particular proteins on this particular microbe, and it triggers the very tiny number of immune cells you've got that you made that just randomly happened to match up with this guy. It triggers them to divide and divide and divide some, or until you got millions upon millions of white blood cells that are capable of defending against this one particular kind of organism or protein. And some of those cells that you made are going to stick around for a very long time, like perhaps as long as you live, certainly for years. So if you come into contact with Thelancet thing later, instead of having six cells in your whole body that can help defend against this thing you've got Oh, I've got 10 million cells left over from when I got the vaccination, and within a day or two, they just stomp all over that poor, innocent microbe and wipe it out before you even know you've been exposed.

spk_1:   7:51
Not even this micro evil group needed

spk_0:   7:55
what? It's just try to reproduce itself.

spk_1:   7:57
Your body. Basically, you're A few years ago they had that saying, Talk to the hand. Your body just talked to the head. So, yeah, that's what happened. So you should mention live vaccine.

spk_0:   8:11
Oh, you know what that reminds me of? River. A commercial for one of the handguns where a guy comes in to

spk_1:   8:19
rob the tighter the Glock commercial with the Sarge from From full metal jacket. I forget the guy's name. The Gunny. He's so hilarious. Yeah, you picked the wrong cafe to rob or what?

spk_0:   8:34
Yeah, a couple of robbers come in and try and hold up the diner late at night when there's a bunch of guys in there and it turns out it was a policeman's convention and he gets about 57 blocks pulled on him.

spk_1:   8:49
He was a great

spk_0:   8:50
he's just looking around. That's probably about how the virus feels when it enters the body. When the person has been vaccinated against that particular strain,

spk_1:   9:00
virus comes into the wrong room. Wrong room. But I choose me backing out here

spk_0:   9:06
without the vaccination. It's more like you got a mall cop there. Maybe a mocha.

spk_1:   9:13
But does he have? Does he? Yeah, the ninja. Does he have a trauma plea duct taped to his back? And anybody who knows what I'm talking about, you've earned extra points if you don't google dot mall cop duct tape, trauma plate and enjoy the story because it's getting so the noise you're hearing is our heater just kicked on because it's cold outside. Unfortunately, we don't know that we don't like cold, but we live in the Midwest, so there's that. Okay, so

spk_0:   9:48
that's what the vaccination is. You'll probably never get that strain of flu, but the fuel fluid mutate, and you might get a different strain of flu this year, next year or something like that.

spk_1:   9:59
Okay, Should a person get the shot?

spk_0:   10:03
If I did not work in a job where I came into contact with a whole lot of people, some of which were absolutely going to be sick with the flu, I probably would not get the vaccines. I get it because I'm what? What would be considered a node in epidemiology? I come in contact with a lot of people. Some of them are sick. If I get it. I could really make it a much worse epidemic.

spk_1:   10:30
I knowed you would notice.

spk_0:   10:34
Yeah. If if I wasn't contacting that many people, I wouldn't bother

spk_1:   10:38
because you're okay. To be fair, you're in the middle, the middle of the age group. So you got excellent. The immune system. Yeah, you've got, um um you're not elderly. You're not young. You have a condom. I compromised.

spk_0:   10:58
Thankfully, at this point in time, I'm not. I absolutely took it when I was on chemo, because that could have been bad. And it was a year when vaccines were hard to get. But I tell you what, they were not hard to get in the oncology office. No, it was a lolly pops at the dentist's office,

spk_1:   11:15
and it wasn't They weren't given the option. I guess you could have reviewed it. But you weren't given the option. It

spk_0:   11:21
would have been given the furry eyeball if you had refused the flu shot.

spk_1:   11:27
So but like for me, I work in a situation where I'm mostly by myself. Um, and what I do interact with co workers. I people, you know, they may think that I'm a little weird for many reasons, but one of the things I do is I am. I'm not a compulsive hand washer. But if I touch anybody else's stuff but touch their keyboard, if I touched their mouths, I touched anything they've been handling before. I do anything else. Even if I'm moving from one co worker's desk to another co worker's desk to a system in a project we're working on, I will stop go to the kitchen because I don't have to open any doors that way. Grab the hand soap and wash my hands in hot water. Every has single time.

spk_0:   12:21
That's the way most flu is transmitted

spk_1:   12:23
all the way up to the middle of my arms. My hands get raw in the wintertime from all the washing that I did. But that's how it gets transmitted. Even you know, if you're if you're in office person and you work with your co workers, you sit down at their desk, you start working on their keyboard. Congratulations. You're there. What are their most you've got? Everything they've got

spk_0:   12:45
are not transmitted by one person coughing and another person inhaling it. Although it can happen. Mostly, somebody coughs. Germs land on the surface. They can live for a number of hours. Somebody else touches the surface. Somebody else handles their food or rubs their nose or something like that. That's how most transmissions happen.

spk_1:   13:04
Homework assignment. For those of you who have not seen it, Mythbusters did an excellent episode on this where Adam taped a little, uh, tuba fluid to to his nose and invited people over for a party. A party? Sorry about that. Um, and, uh, he, uh his goal was to infect everybody. And he used a glow of fluid that glue glows under ultraviolet lights. Google that is on YouTube or use which ever Non tracking, uh, whatever whatever you could find. And you watch it. But what's that? It kind of really illuminating

spk_0:   13:47
how easy it is.

spk_1:   13:48
You will not believe some of the places he's able to, through just general casual contact. Get these people covered in his fake snot. It's not real. It's not. It's anyone. It's not related in any way, but it's simulant. Yeah, so very interesting. Very, very interesting.

spk_0:   14:09
Protecting your most people are not going to die from the flu if they get it. So what? Most people are risking is miserable nous and being a note to transmit it to other people. If it were something like a swine flu Ah, bird flu, a type of flu that is noon because what's called a cytokine storm, where your immune system just gets so riled up your immune system kills you. Those sorts of things. I would be shoving salty toward the vaccination spot. You would, too.

spk_1:   14:47
If that's what they were looking at, I would you wouldn't have to. Yeah, Now I'm going to tell you we've got we've got some information on the website already about the 1918 flu and stuff like that, uh, to me as a prepper. This is the kind of thing that I think is, ah, higher probability event that you might have to what he's really bad. I mean, it's it's happening very recent. It's happened throughout. Human history has happened up into modern times.

spk_0:   15:16
That was an influenza virus, too, but it wasn't a usual seasonal variety. It was one of the much rarer kinds of varieties which riles up the immune system and cause the cycle kind storms. We could easily have ah, pandemic of one of those guys those guys will kill. That was Guys will kill millions upon millions upon millions of people if we get a nasty one spread and I'm sure we will sometime. Well, that's

spk_1:   15:45
in our lifetime or not.

spk_0:   15:46
Yeah, I would give it a pretty good shot of being in our lifetime. Frankly, just because it's so easy to get these kinds of mutations.

spk_1:   15:54
Okay. Um, so again, we're gonna come back to what we've talked about before, and we're gonna talk about again. Did I know we've already recording a podcast that's going to air after this one. We'll talk about in that podcast. You. We need to start and learn about our sanitary procedures. We need to learn how soap and hot water we need to learn how to put on a mask. Not just on the person who is wandering around on anybody who has the flu. They need to be masked. They're the ones that are spreading it out all over everywhere. We need to understand how to care for people who are sick. Uh, these are these are perhaps we need to be doing today. They don't cost a lot of money. This is not This is not an expensive prep. Ah, box of mass while they're for easily Bill. Hi. Year in T. If we get into another scare, you're not gonna be able to pick your masks up. Do it now. They're not They're not gonna go bad over the years. You know, rubber grubs gloves will deteriorate, but flew masks are gonna be fine. Storm, you don't have to spend a lot of money. But this is something you should be working on now. We did. When the Ebola thing came out, it got me to thinking I wasn't worried about Ebola. Boll is a totally different thing, and it's not really transmissible very easily and got it out. But it got me to thinking about the flu. And as a historian, I'm very aware of what happened in 1919 and for many reasons, 1919 kind of hits home to us. And so that got me thinking about that. I realized how totally unprepared we were. That's not true anymore. We at least have the tools that we can use. So, uh, I definitely highly recommend you looking into it. They're not expensive. They don't take a hartley take hardly any space at all. And they're totally stole thing that you could do 56 bucks. And you're good.

spk_0:   17:56
Even more to the point. The habits of watching what you touch and washing off protect you from a whole lot of things, even for, you know, there's an epidemic out there that will do you more good than a box of isolation suits.

spk_1:   18:11
Well, a suit. Yeah, that might be able, but much, but masks. I still think it really should.

spk_0:   18:16
Yeah, well, we've got masks, that's why. Okay,

spk_1:   18:19
we're gonna wrap it here. I hope you got something out of the program. And, uh, we're gonna keep on keeping on on this subject because I don't want you

spk_0:   18:29
to die of it.

spk_1:   18:30
We don't want anybody crooked from it, so thank you, ID. Ah, have a good one.

spk_0:   18:34
Have a good day. Don't die of the flu.