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Things Discussed on Episode:
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Thank you to all of you who helped us reach our goal to pay off our equipment for this podcast! If you would like to still financially support us for the monthly upkeep and to help hand off some of the editing responsibilities, you can give a one-time donation or become a Patreon member for as little as $5 a month. See the links below. Thank you!
Things Discussed on Episode:
You're listening to the pandemic podcast. We equip you to live the most real life possible in the face of these crises. My name is Matt Boetger I'm joined with my good friend, Dr. Stephen Kissler an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. I haven't had enough coffee this morning and dark. Dr. Mark Kissler is not here. He is in the hospital. Dr. Kissler, how are you doing there, buddy?
Stephen Kissler:I am doing all right, man. How are you?
Matt Boettger:Ah, doing well. It's been, a good weekend and I. Which say, I wish I could feel rested. but. I'm not quite that rested. I just don't feel that way, but I'm sure that's your way, your feeling too, right?
Stephen Kissler:That's right. Yeah. It's yeah. More and more time off seems to give less and less.
Matt Boettger:I know, I feel the same way. Like I'm, I'm staying inside now or we're kind of self isolating so we can have the opportunity to see my mother-in-law and Christmas. We've been doing that for over a week now. And as the days and weeks get closer to closer to Christmas, the more and more we fear people. So, because we just want to stay, stay, as far as way. So we'll, you can feel like we have a free, conscious, conscience when we go into scene. our mother-in-law, so we're here, I'm hunkered down and obviously it's the reverse of what you think is going to be like, Oh, I'll just stay home. I don't have to travel. And just the more you don't move, the more tired and exhausted you become. So, Oh, and by the way, I blew my back last week, Steven. So. I don't know how it happened. I don't think I mentioned you guys or maybe we did. I cut down our own tree from the forest a couple weeks ago. Right. I think I tweaked it. Then I'm really feeling the 42 year old symptoms. This is like, come on, like I'm trying to get out of bed and I'm rolling over like a, like a worm trying to attend to stand up. I'm like, Oh my gosh. So that's, that's aiding to my exhaustion, but it's getting better. It's getting better. Well, we've got lots to talk about. First of all, Mark Steven's brother. Let me know that, Steven, I guess apparently you're on all these like local news stations a lot, but apparently this one took off a little bit when all over the place Mark saw it here in Denver, send it to me. I'll put in the show notes. It was pretty awesome. Steven, you did an exceptional job. It was so good. You had a virtual background.
Stephen Kissler:That's great. You all, you all get the pleasure of actually seeing me inside of this down here, we get the,
Matt Boettger:we get the vulnerability of Steven, but the public does
Stephen Kissler:not.
Matt Boettger:Yeah. I can tell you had to have been on multiple reasons, a green screen because those trees were blossoming and I'm pretty sure there no blossoms right now. And, near Harvard, that, that was an exceptional. segment. So we'll put in the show notes. We're gonna talk about that probably in about 10 to 15 minutes. just to some of the stuff you mentioned about it was just phenomenal, Steven, and there are a lot of things on my mind that, you know, we're gearing up right now towards the vaccine. I think I just saw last week, 46,700, you know, basically doses of the vaccine coming to Colorado, or at least ordered soon. They're going to start being divvied out. I know very well. I am not on the first tier by any means of these, these vaccines. So, as I begin to prepare and when I'm available, like when should I take it? How should I take it? What are really the risks? I know Steven, you mentioned it before, but I think it's good to spend maybe this week. And I think next week, if we can get somebody on who particularly has a study in this of just why. Why, why are we hesitant? you know, there was a poll, there was a Gallup poll mentioning that I think 58 or 56%, are willing to take it. but that leaves the rest of us. Not really willing or hesitant to take it. And we're gonna talk about how that actually could cause a little bit of a problem and a delay, when it coming to herd immunity. So before we get going in that just want to make a few announcements, right? The usual thing. Please leave a review. It'd be awesome. we haven't had one in a few weeks. I know we've had a week off, so if you've got a moment, give us whatever you think is fair. And if you have an extra one minute, go ahead and leave some comment about what you appreciate about it. So we can have this raise to rise up and allow more people to live it over the holidays. And as we begin to gear up for the vaccine and hopefully to the end of this coronavirus at some point in time soon, As well as if you'd like to support us patrion.com/pandemic podcasts, little$5 a month can go a long way or just a one-time small gift through PayPal or Venmo all in the show notes. I think that's all the big stuff going on right now. So let's get to it. Steven. Just. Going back to the same stuff. I see tons of this in the news, right? the virus begins to spread cases are increasing. Now I'm seeing this up and down kind of, I'm just using Stephen, the John Hopkins one, I think you've mentioned. That was probably a go-to one. So I've now defaulted to that were, I was checking like three or four. I'm like, Ugh. This is I think sufficient just to check that. So I'm seeing it kind of go up and down, up and down when it comes to the positive cases and, the mortality rate kind of going up and down. But with consensus, it seems to be the, the continuous response on media is that the hospitals are nearing being overwhelmed and hitting capacity. the last one I saw here from the Atlantic, I don't know which day this was Steven, but it said, you know, record a hundred thousand hospitalizations. So we're seeing this a lot in the hospital. Can you break this down for me, for us about just generally, what does that mean? Is that I'm guessing that still means locally that th that, that there's a lot of hospitals reaching capacity, but are we seeing this more and more on like a, just a widespread from sea to shining sea, like level all over the country or it still just pockets?
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. So, It's we've definitely seeing hospitalizations increase in many places. So it's, as you say, it's so tricky to explain what's happening with this pandemic and one or two words, because it does. Differ, from place to place and has, you know, from, from the very beginning. So, one of the things that we've been seeing recently is that many, locations in the Midwest, for example, where cases have really been spiking a lot, have started to come down actually somewhat, but those, those gains have been, sort of counterbalanced by, substantial rises in cases, especially on the coasts, which of course are very densely populated. And so, yeah. One of the issues is that even while in some parts of the country, hospitalizations are even starting to come down a little bit overall aggregated across the country. We are seeing hospitalizations rise and we're basically hitting a new record every day in terms of number of hospitalizations. So, Well earlier this year, I mean, for example, when, when the outbreak was really particularly centered in the Northeast, we were talking about hospitals reaching capacity. but most hospitals across the rest of the country, we're not really hitting anywhere close to capacity. When we were talking about that, it was really sort of concentrated up here in the Northeast. and particularly in New York city. now. So then, then I think we could rightly think about it as pockets now. It's, not everywhere, but definitely bigger than pockets. So there, we're sort of seeing this diffusion of the virus sort of through, throughout different parts of the country. and again, while many hospitals are not quite at capacity, the state of California, I know, I think has just, Announced that they will be imposing a statewide stay at home order again. and that's in response to the, critical care capacity. The ICU's filling up, to whatever percentage they used as their cutoff. I think it was like 85% or something like that. And again, that's an average across the state. There's some variation. but what that means is that some places are lower than that. Some places are much higher too. and that's why, that's why they're, they're putting in place. These orders again. Because again, hospitalizations will continue to increase for awhile even after these measures come into place because of the people who have already been infected. So it's important to do it. even when it seems like we might be approaching capacity really in any place. so it's, it's really difficult, but it is definitely true that while, reaching hospital capacity is not happening everywhere, it is much more widespread than it was earlier this year.
Matt Boettger:Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I've been seeing this all over and talking about, yeah, it's spreading more in the context of it's all the more dangerous of we're just coming off the heels of Thanksgiving, right? So, oops, sorry. It's putting the wrong one there. We're coming to Thanksgiving. So we had a two to three week gap by which normally there's going to be expectation of a rise and I'm, it makes me nervous obviously, because this two to three week delay. It comes from Thanksgiving. So I, yeah, 85% or whatever it is, whatever load that they are. I would imagine it's going to be a decent spike in the coming weeks. And, I, I talking to my sister who's in California and this is tough. I mean, she's all for it. She's, she's like us, she's kind of on the, on the side of COVID is a real deal, but nonetheless, doesn't change the fact that, you know, we're just totally other utterly exhausted. And to hear another round of state home, It's just a blow to the spirit and to the stomach, just like, man, will this end and we're gonna get into the vaccine. And just a second about like, you know, I think there's a lot of, or at least in my mental world, I think I put a lot of hype into the vaccine of like, yeah, this is here and it's going to end. And I think it's just not going to be the case where it's going to be ending like that quickly once the vaccine comes out. But I want to bookmark that for a second, because this is kind of related. I saw this article COVID-19 when are you most infectious? And I really enjoyed this article. Cause again, It put on a new it put on a nuance that I wasn't quite, educated in and about why the coronavirus is just so different than I want you to talk about this a little bit. How basically it said it looks as though, you know, a few days before, right? Like you've always said. And then up to five days, basically after symptoms are like the most contagious time of the credit virus, which. By itself can be alarming, but what they do is they juxtapose that with SARS, cov two and mergers, and just showing the difference between this and why COVID is just so radically more aggressive in his transmission, especially now, only by itself, but the context of our testing returns and that kind of stuff. Can you split this up a little bit and help show the difference between how SARS COVID two murders and its peak transmission period and COVID and how that, how that differentiates.
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. So, you're absolutely right. I mean, the thing that has made this, this pandemic a nightmare to control is the, the fact that you reach your peak infectiousness oftentimes before you start showing symptoms, or sometimes immediately as you show symptoms and for a little while afterward. but, Very consistently. you know, what we see is that people who do start showing symptoms, there are lots of studies on this. and the way that we measure this is by looking at viral concentrations, like basically when you take a swab and you do your PCR test, normally we just get a positive or negative result, but actually from that, you can get a rough sense of actually how much virus there is there. And so. Oftentimes people are who, who are sequentially tested like day after day after first developing symptoms. their viral concentrations are just coming down after they start developing symptoms, which means that if you extrapolate backwards, it means that they would have been up and they would have reached their peak either at or below for showing symptoms. and that's something that we saw in some of the studies. the study that we most recently did using some of the data from the NBA, So it's, it's pretty well established now that, that, yeah, that you're often maximally infectious, before, or right when you're beginning to show symptoms. Now that's different from SARS, the original SARS. and murders, which is another coronavirus, which usually you begin to show symptoms before you're really infectious. And so that makes it very easy to self isolate. And that's part of the reason why we got control of SARS, back in 2003, because there was, there was still this propensity for these super spreading events that we see with SARS cov two, but. Those usually only happened after the person was already in the hospital because their symptoms were already very severe. And that, that makes it a much easier dr. Control. this is why we've been, you know, jumping up and down and shouting until we're blue in the face about this need for rapid frequent testing, because that's the only way to know. I mean, oftentimes with these other viruses, we can. Rely on how we feel to guide our behavior, but we can't do that. So we need a tool and, as it stands, the PCR tests that we're taking, if you only take the test after you've shown symptoms, that's already too late. And then by the time you get the result back, you're probably no longer infectious. Yeah. Now I want to be very careful about that. If you do get back a positive test, still follow the guidelines, self isolate for as long as it's recommended, because there's a lot of variation around how long individual people are infectious. And so to stay on the safe side, it is still a really important to self isolate, but that said, usually you are after that maximally infectious period, which means that the tests for guiding your personal behavior become a lot less valuable. So that's where we really need these, these much more rapid tests to be a lot more widespread than they are. Yeah.
Matt Boettger:Yeah, this is, I think this is an important, I think distinction, which may be, I mean, I'm sure Stephen, you've been talking about this for months and there's just so information that comes my way and I'm not the expert. And then I lose sight of. The reason why there's so many more measures being taken right with COVID than murders in the first SARS. And this is for me when I read this was just a clear, easy way to sell it to myself and others as a clear distinction, right. It said here, SARS was 10 to 14 days after symptoms before you reached maximal transmission or, and then seven to 10 days for MERS. And we're saying. Two to three days before and up to five days. So it's just such a radically different game that yeah. Mask up six feet because you're not at the hospital, you're actually at the gym playing beep ball with your buddies. Right. And you got COVID. Right, right. So it's just such a different world. And so I just love this and I just, so I hope people can help. I know that we've been drumming this drum for like ever being this drum. And for me, this was a nice way. It's easy to show why. It requires so much more seriousness on our level on a public health initiative, just because of this one reason. And it affects so many more people. Well, let's get in, let's get into this vaccine because man, I loved, I love this segment again. If you have, you have to watch it, there'll be at the top of the show notes, in, after this episode. But, so this was all about the segment was about the vaccine and the, you know, for me, I'm like, gosh, I'm just, can't wait for this. I want to do it right away. My wife's hesitant in an effort, wait a couple months maybe. And, and we're all send it to her. What's how we do this. Everybody has their different opinion. I want to talk about this, this, this idea of reaching her immunity because we have been all over the map. Between, well, generally saying 60 to 70% is kinda where we need to be for her to immunity just in general. And then I think way like months, months ago, there was like some random article of, you said it was by only one study and hadn't been like peer reviewed that maybe as little as 20% or whatever it wouldn't be to herd immunity. And now after watching this segment, I think Fowchee and part of the segment saying, man, in light of the vaccine, we need 80 to 92% of people to take this vaccine to reach herd immunity. And the latest Gallup poll said there's about, I don't know what it was. 56, 58% are willing to take it. So we're not even close. So I want you to kind of talk a little bit about like, how is this vaccine going to help? And is it really true that we need 80 to 90% or something like that to get herd immunity? And why is that exactly?
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. So there's some really interesting points here. at the beginning of that segment that you mentioned, they were interviewing Dr. Fowchee and, and rightly he said that, there are two ways to develop immunity to SARS cov two. And one of them is by natural infection and one is by vaccination. now of course, Vaccination is preferable, because there's, there are far fewer risks, of severe outcomes from vaccination relative to getting natural infection, as well as no chance of spreading it on to anyone else. So the downstream effects are much less as well. Of course. so, so that's an important point, but you know, you're right. There's, there's, it's, it's confusing to get these different. Numbers, like, why are we saying like 60 to 70 and then 70 to 90 and then 20 to 30? Like, where is all of this coming from? And like, why is it all different? So, really what it comes down to is how the immunity is acquired. So we're still talking about the herd immunity threshold, but, There's a really important difference between, herd immunity. That's acquired through natural infection and herd immunity. That's acquired through vaccination. Now, natural infection is really, the, the, the key point for that. And the reason why some of the herd immunity estimates are lower than the 60 to 70%, is because. Natural infection. We think probably tends to preferentially infect the people who are most likely to spread the disease early. And so it sort of like naturally seeks out and finds the people who are going to be the super spreaders in some sense, because the same things that give you that make you high risk of spreading the disease also make you at higher risk of acquiring the disease. Now I think that the 20% is really way a low ball estimate. I think that, so for a disease that's as infectious as SARS, cov two. And this is something that I talked about in the new segment, and we think that an average person who's infected with COVID, Going about their normal lives. This is without lockdowns or preventative measures or masking or whatever, but in sort of normal ish circumstances, a person who's infected will go on to infect three others. Now to get control of the epidemic, we need to make sure that on average, you infect fewer than one other person and then cases will start to fall. So that means that two out of those three people need to be protected from infection. And so you get this vaccination rate of two thirds. Okay. Now, because. Natural infection, letting the disease sort of spread sort of preferentially identifies the people in the population who are most likely to spread the illness that can bring it down a little bit. And the more reliable estimates that I've seen are like maybe 55 to 60%. It gives you a little bit more, but not, not, not down to 20. vaccination on the other hand is different for a couple of reasons as well. because vaccination is done. At random, roughly. Right? So you're not actually preferentially identifying the people who are most likely to spread. In fact, you might be preferentially identifying the people who are least likely to spread exactly. Right. Those are right. Those of us who have been working from home and things like this, like we might actually be the ones who are most likely to get the vaccine. And so that means you have to. Actually counterbalance the other way and vaccinate even more people to get that immunity, plus the vaccine isn't a hundred percent effective. And so that sort of increases it to that 70 to 90% range that you need to acquire immunity through vaccination. So that's where these different numbers are coming from. and why they're all consistent, even though they sound like they conflict with each other.
Matt Boettger:Yeah. That makes sense. That's really helpful. So, okay. So let's go a little bit deeper now. I know our goal. Is when it brings to me on next week, who's been researching vaccine hesitancy for a while. Now that can offer a different voice, but I want to throw it to you, Steven. And I know this is some of these areas are areas you haven't quite researched all the way yet, but you want to, but just, there's a lot of hesitancy. Now we see is 56% of people wanting to take it. There's a big chunk of people who don't want to take it yet. I think we're all feeling the pinch. Right. I mean, there's no other greater pinch, in history in this lifetime than COVID. And at that, even this, this enormous, I mean, pinches saying it way too lightly, but whatever, whatever it is, but yet we're still having almost half, you know, people not wanting to take it even in the midst of this difficult time, which means they're just hesitant tenancy, like crazy about taking this vaccine. Can you just talk a little bit, what's going on among talking with your colleagues and whether you're shooting a breeze or just doing the research? Like, why is this? I know we've talked about before, but I just want to know how can we help people get over this and what, what are the real, real reasons why we would hesitate? Are there any, and how can we help people see how safe it is?
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. So it's a really complex issue and something that a lot of people are beginning to dedicate their entire careers to studying it's. but I think that, maybe just sort of set the stage for a larger conversation that we can have on this. another week, the, there are a number of issues here, Part of it is historical. that there's sort of, the groundwork has been primed over the last decades, I guess. To develop this sort of increasing sense of vaccine hesitancy. a lot of which, have been rooted in these now, repeatedly debunked claims that vaccines can contribute to autism. various other things like that, that sort of, identify with vaccines, bad outcomes that, for the research has shown. Doesn't really seem to pan out. So, so there's part of it. That's, that's based on really just misinformation and fear and concern about these things, that, that we're putting into our bodies. and you know, that, that kind of makes sense to be a little bit fearful about something, you know, injecting something into your body, like. I get that. Like I, and I also just don't particularly like getting stuck with a needle either. Like that's how to find it. Like I don't like it. so, but there's, there's also another element that I think, often doesn't receive enough attention. This isn't so much with respect to COVID now, but I think it can begin to map a little bit. So. It has to do with sort of evaluations of personal risk. Now, for many of the vaccines that we have available, like the measles vaccine, for example, they've done an incredible job at reducing cases of measles, various other illnesses as well, to the point where we don't really see them anymore. Right. And so, a person can. Contemplate getting a measles vaccine or giving their child a measles vaccine and weigh the risk and benefit. And given that they're living in a community where the prevalence of measles is essentially nil. Then a parent might say, well, my child is actually at higher risk of some very rare, severe outcome from this vaccine than they are from actually acquiring measles because the rest of the community is so protected that they're essentially insulated from it. And of course, the problem with that is that if everyone then makes that decision, then you get outbreaks of measles. Like we've seen over the past couple of years, it's a completely vaccine preventable illness, but we've seen these epidemics, In, in, in various community. And so it's sort of this, this, it gets a much more complex issue. It's, it's more than just, you know, like, are these people are like denying science and not, you know, not paying attention to like the facts it's like, you're actually making this complex risk benefit analysis. and. In some ways people are doing that calculus rightly from the point of their own decision, but there's, there's this sort of tragedy of the commons issue that then arises where if everyone makes that same decision, then no one is protected and then the risk really increases. So that's one of the issues. But I think that that too has sort of led to this increase in this, Palatability of vaccine hesitancy, making it more acceptable to be vaccine hesitant in a way. And I think that that is sort of set the stage then for people to be, to, to use those same sort of types of logic or even just sort of emotional decisions. And I'm not being disparaging towards emotional decisions. I mean, ultimately the decisions we make are emotional, at least on some level. and, And, and sort of mapping that onto COVID, sort of saying like my, my own personal risk is not that high I'll take my chances, all, whatever. and so we're going to really difficult position because that means that COVID then can continue to spread.
Matt Boettger:In the U S I think for better and for worse, the cultural kind of American pride badge revolves around radical independence. And, and you know, this, you know, taking really technical terms, you know, it's like this competing value system of like the principle of subsidiarity and the principle of a solidarity, that individual rights and the common good. And it's a really tricky ground to ride both of these because. One makes claim to a sacrifice or the other. And so you have to constantly have this wiggle room. And I think we're seeing, you know, people feeling as if already back in March, their rights have been taken away. And here we are at a time where the vaccination is here, the Calvary is here and, there's, there might be as part of many other great. Maybe an understandable reasons and not to take it also a reaction of dang it. I'm just sick of this. I'm a people imposing things on me and I'm taking, you know, this doesn't hurt me. My risk is at my demographic is below that of the flu. Right a year from your twenties or thirties. Mine in the forties might be about the same as the flu. I'm not sure. And so I'm not going to do it. I don't take the flu vaccine, so I'm not going to do the COVID vaccine, but I think it's there. For the sake of the common good. There needs to be some kind of mind shift that, like you said, early on, like, I didn't think about this until you brought to my attention and like, it's one, because this is, this is how clearly I have a little bit of a selfish tendency, in many areas by just thinking to myself like, well, you don't take it necessarily just because for yourself, it's for protecting those. As we, as we learned earlier that you told us when you taught us that. The older demographics, oftentimes don't have the right response to the vaccine as, as great, you know, as, as younger people do so people in my time could actually help tremendously curb, you know, the, the, the, the, the trends by just taking it on for the sake of people around us, which again, I didn't even have that mindset. and, I, I consider myself a decent dude. I mean the realm of the middle ground, maybe. and I didn't have that. Right. So that's, that's just hard and realize I'm sure many people are thinking through the same lens, but is there anything, like, I know you probably do more research on this, but what is there, what credible, I mean, for example, if I just take the first day. and it's open now. Here's like a, maybe a 10 tangential question for me, 42 years old, realistically, when would even be available for me to even try to like to take, I mean, I'm guessing January and February. I'm not even on the docket probably. Right. I mean, this decision is not mine until. When you think late spring or summer?
Stephen Kissler:Well, I would imagine. And before then, but you're right. You're you're far, far from first in line. I had to break it to you. so it's, it's going to go to, healthcare workers and, people in long-term care facilities. First, and then once everybody who is in those settings is vaccinated, then I think it's two essential workers. and then, and then from there sort of just vaccinating down by age group. So prioritizing people who are over 65 and then. Just sort of checking down. So actually the, you can, the New York times has a it's it's rudimentary, but there's a way where you can sort of put in your demographics, your occupation, like your age and the County you live in, and you can get a rough sense of like where in the vaccine line you are in a sense. I way down there. So, you know, like I I'm working from home and, yeah. I, I am an epidemiologist, but I am not considered essential. And so, yeah, so, so you can sort of see where you're at. And, but I th I think that, yeah, things are going to start moving really quickly. Like there are vast amounts of vaccine that are being produced right now and distributed, I would guess that we, you and I, Matt, we'll probably have to start thinking about, getting a vaccine or at least have the option of getting the vaccine. I would hope by mid February. great. So yeah, it's February, March. and with, with the anticipation of hopefully having essentially vaccination available to anyone who wants it by like the end of April, And so that's, that's my hope, but that's just, again, just based on sort of conversations I've overheard. So don't, don't take that as God's truth, but
Matt Boettger:you know, that'd be awesome. Let me tell you totally random, but like March 11th is my birthday. March 11th is the day by which COVID. Went crazy in the U S it was literally that day on my birthday. Boy, we're all talking about, it's gonna be shiny now, like man alive, that'd be really get my birthday. We're too anxious. So if I could get my vaccine on my birthday as like this, like symbolic gesture of like, man, this is like,
Stephen Kissler:right. Happy birthday to you.
Matt Boettger:It'd be the best gift ever again. I'm an early adopter, but one thing I wanted to bring back to you, I think you mentioned this in the, in the segment, but then there's another level of benefit in my mind towards, the vaccine. Is by taking it right. That the other people see you take it. And that again, has this trickle effect that if I, you know, I, Matt take it and I have friends, I say, Hey, took it. And it was great. And it was, and I feel so much better that this is going to help it too. It's like its own propaganda, you know, so, right.
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. Totally. I mean, I think that it, again, we make so many of our decisions based on what the people around us are doing. Right. Like what I read the music I listened to like. I can read a thousand different reviews from different people online, but you know, if my buddies from college aren't listening, you know, like that's, that's where I get my best sort of like, cues on what to do now. Of course the vaccine is a very different thing than like just picking up a book to read or something like that. But nevertheless, I think that it just makes it more acceptable. and just people are more likely to do it. It's like, Oh, well, you know, I know this person who got it and they're okay. And they're, you know, and maybe it's okay for me to, there's an important role for, for cultural. Influencers here too. There's a really famous picture of Elvis Presley getting the polio vaccine. And prior to that, many young people were really hesitant to get the polio vaccine, but after that picture came out in the news at like rocketed, like 80%
Matt Boettger:and everybody
Stephen Kissler:wanted to be like Elvis. and so, so things like that are really important. Like they, they sort of have an outsized importance too. so I think, you know, for anybody who's. Listening. Who has any sort of influence in their local communities or amongst certain groups or anything like that, recognize that you also have this, maybe more of an influence than you realize. And that being open about the fact that like, Hey, I got the COVID vaccine, you know, like this is, and just, just communicating that can, can really. Play an important role in protecting your communities.
Matt Boettger:Great. And I will, I will take it and take it publicly and, and, and I'll help with my title wave of 500.
Stephen Kissler:Hey, that's five more people.
Matt Boettger:Yeah, absolutely. no, that's, you know, and just to end on this, and I know this may be going beyond and we'll, we'll close it. I didn't have to, you have a bunch of other things going on today. again, is there any reason your mind right now? That is remotely threatening, not to take it at least with, with Pfizer, you know, the two ones were at Pfizer and Madonna was talking about those two, who knows what the other ones. Right. Is there anything in the, in your circles of talk that really show any moment of hesitancy?
Stephen Kissler:There's really not. everything that I've seen, all of the conversations that I've been a part of really suggest that these vaccines are, Frankly revolutionary, there, in terms of their effectiveness, their safety, their tolerability across different age groups, things like that. it's, I, and I've, I've, I've done quite a bit into the primary literature on RNA vaccines and tried to understand exactly what's going on in the body and like how they work and what sort of all the precedents of researches and safety profiles of things that have been injected into animals and humans for different sort of things. Everything that I've seen suggests that they're, safe and now very clearly seemed to be effective. so, I, you know, again, I think I said this on the last podcast too, but like this, this was like right on the edge of my wildest optimism 12 months ago. And here we are. So,
Matt Boettger:What a gift. Yeah. Yeah. And so I encourage everyone listening. If you, if you are open to it, please, I'll be as, as quickly as I can to be on board with it. just for all those reasons, for my own sake, for the well-being of those around me, just to be, to be a role model for those. And there is nothing propaganda about it. There's nothing political about it. It's not going to sterilize you pre pregnancy, all these random things. I'm hearing. It's a vaccine to help protect us and to get back to the new normal and protect those in need. All right, we're gonna end it there. I hope you guys have a wonderful week and, we will see you again. If you leave a review, please do an Apple podcast. If you can support the show pen, patron.com/pandemic podcast, and we will hopefully see you guys all next week on Monday. Take care. Bye-bye.