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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 Boettger and I'm joined with my two good friends: Dr. Stephen Kissler, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Right now it's hard not to look at him and just smile because we have really big news and Dr. Mark Kissler, who is a doctor at the University of Colorado Hospital. Hey, you guys, how is it doing?
Mark Kissler:Doing pretty well. Good though. I can't can't quite get past Stephen's appearance.
Stephen Kissler:You were going to introduce it.
Matt Boettger:Yeah, that would have been awesome. So for those of you right now, who don't support pandemic in any way, this is the time to get off because you get a live stream of the nuances and changes of facial dimensions and hair on these guys. So Stephen what's going on? What
Mark Kissler:does that even count as the best cut back
Stephen Kissler:now?
Matt Boettger:I'm not sure.
Stephen Kissler:Which is Yeti is the one that Mark's been growing as
Matt Boettger:well. I know now you guys are definitely brothers in a whole new level. Yup. That's right. Oh my gosh.
Stephen Kissler:He's an inspiration in more ways than one,
Matt Boettger:man.
Mark Kissler:What sparked, what sparked the change? What's what's the, what's the
Stephen Kissler:yesterday evening Mark's kids took part in this wonderful Christmas pageant. There were a lot of remarkable things about it. Probably top of the list was like visibility to read and then. Maggie's, you know, they, they really participated really beautifully, but probably the next most impressive thing about this was Mark's new mustache, which I hadn't seen in awhile. And so it had been a little while since I shaved it. So I figured I could probably in the spirit of brotherly competition, come through the podcast today with my own, with my own spots
Matt Boettger:that is priceless. You guys, this is best, like I really need to do a snapshot right now. Just, just, just this. Just get the stashes right. There
Mark Kissler:we go. It's pretty bad. That's going to go to bed.
Matt Boettger:I know that like in a podcast you can actually do individual album work per episode. And I think I'm just going to do that screenshot for this particular episode. So this is a really big day guys. Not only does Stephen have a mustache, which is almost on par with this next big news, this is like almost, I mean, just literally a mustache hair away of the facts that the vaccine is out and available. In the U S right. Great news.
Mark Kissler:Yeah. Huge news, super, super exciting. we just got an email over the weekend that, our hospital got a big ship into the vaccine. I know it's getting distributed all across the country. and just in terms of the next step in our, you know, I think we still have a long road. Yeah, of course. And I think there's still a lot of things that we've got to, you know, gotta do and prepare for. And, we're definitely not out of the woods yet, but what a huge step. Oh
Matt Boettger:gosh, this has been great. I'm excited. I wish this is the one time. I wish I was really old. So I could get a vaccine right away. but I'll wait, I'll wait. My turn patiently. I I'm an early adopter. I'm super excited for this. Mark, I think will be our first Guinea pig on the shoe show. Does that, does that, is that kind of right?
Mark Kissler:Yeah, I think, in terms of my risk profile and the way that the state of Colorado is allocating vaccines, I'm in either the first or the second tier, because of my contact with COVID patients in the hospital. And so I expect to find out, actually later on today and, and then there's a process for signing up, through employee health about. You know, going into a clinic visit, of course, it's a two, two shot series. we've got the Pfizer one coming in right now and then there's the Madrona vaccine I think, is also going to be supplied, but who knows, you know, I don't know exactly the timing for that, but it could be. I mean, I think for me, the, the amazing thing is it could be as soon as, Yeah, it could be before Christmas that I have a vaccine. and not only just me, but a lot of the people that I work with in the hospital system. and I think just in terms of, you know, everybody's safety and the safety of the community is we're working with COVID patients. That's great. So I'm hopeful that, our first responders, our fire paramedics, police, all those folks who are out in the community, working with. Folks. we'll get one soon as well. Cause I think that's, that's just another high-risk. And as somebody who works in the hospital, I'm so, so grateful to everybody who's out there bringing patients into us, going into homes, seeing people, you know, in unknown circumstances and like tough stuff on the street, you know, sometimes and in people's houses. So, hopefully this just another step towards getting those people safe. Also
Matt Boettger:what's, I'm curious before we get into some of the intro stuff, and we're going to talk more about the vaccine and just because I know there's a lot of questions going out, coming our way, texts, email, but what's the general consensus of the hospital. And I'm assuming right now, you guys are pretty, pretty psyched out about this. Right. But he's pretty, pretty stoked.
Mark Kissler:Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think there's a general sense, at least amongst the people that I've talked to, of excitement and optimism, you know, the preliminary data looks really good. it's you know, that you guys have talked, it's an interesting kind of new vaccine mechanism. The other thing. That we've been thinking about and talking about a little bit is, is what this is going to do to vaccination in general and our ability to kind of rapid cycle vaccines for other pathogens. and it's interesting because some of the infrastructure that's needed for an MRN vaccine, like the big freezers for, you know, the super cold temperatures they have to be kept at. It got accelerated. Because of this pandemic because of this process. So, yeah, it'll be just interesting to see, you know, after this pandemic is under better control and after we've kind of. Adjusted to yet another new normal with COVID, what this does to other infectious disease, you know, and I'm sure, I don't know. Stephen, have you guys been talking about that at all?
Stephen Kissler:Writing a research proposal and exactly that
Matt Boettger:topic right now.
Stephen Kissler:Of course you are.
Matt Boettger:Of course you are. Yeah.
Stephen Kissler:That's good to hear that
Mark Kissler:you guys are talking about it too. Like, it'd
Stephen Kissler:be great to hear more about like the things that you're excited about.
Mark Kissler:Yeah. You know, I think that's, I think that, that's a big thing and really in terms of just. yeah. since I, I've been thinking a little bit about the arc of this pandemic too, and, I've been feeling a lot, like we're starting to approach a year, you know, this is it for, for here. And it's definitely right now, you know, December 14th, I think wasn't it around December 15th or something that the first cases are reported, In
Stephen Kissler:China? I think it was, I mean, the first reports came, I think it was like December 29th, but we think the first, like actual cases were backdated to right around now. It's been almost exactly a year.
Matt Boettger:Wow.
Mark Kissler:Yeah. And I think so I think that's worth kind of marking, in time, you know, and, just thinking about sort of all the changes in our lives, although particular losses of this year, you know, that we've had. And, and also I think, W while leaving space for that, you know, thinking about the ways that we've been able to come together as communities and, you know, talked a lot about sort of the, the sense of mission in the sense of, focus that has come up through my group at the hospital and, you know, the providers here and, and between scientists and clinicians and community members and sort of that solidarity. And I think there's. there are some things that are, that are good and worth reflecting on, you know, over the course of this year as well. but it's pretty wild. It's pretty wild that it's been a year. You know, we've been living with this for a year, and to now have sort of a new chapter opening up potentially I think is a really, Inspiring kind of next
Matt Boettger:step. I am totally excited. And we'll talk more about this, a few things I want to chat about just again, before we get going leave reviews, we love them. We haven't had one in about a month. It's been a record, so we'd love to get one on the, on the dockets. they inspire us and they keep us going. patriotic, you wanna support us patrion.com/pandemic podcast. With the$5 a month goes a long way. One time gift PayPal, Venmo all in the show notes. So. The first thing I want to start with with a question because our listeners are great. they're. They engage us quite well. we have a series of questions, forgot the gentleman's name. Brian, is his name. So thank you for listening and I thank you for the questions he has had. Quite the ordeal. His daughter has been infected twice now with COVID. This is not, this is pretty rare, back, I think she was in Berkeley, back in, in March or maybe early on when the, when the outbreak was happening or April. And then again, just recently. So, and then they got it, their whole family. Got it. And see, as a series of questions, I wanna propose to you guys to figure out what, you know, how to deal with this. The first one was this. I think this is kind of a common question on some of the leases with more cases of repeat COVID-19 like his daughter, right. Being reported. Why should the world expect the immunities from the various vaccines? Be any longer than Latin, the six to eight months in the natural one, Stephen, I'm gonna throw it to you and like, how, how do, can we really have hope in the vaccine? Or we can just be in this endless eight months cycle for the rest of our lives?
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. So, it's a great question. we, and we won't know the answer to it for sure until we've had the vaccine for long enough to really measure. How long that immunity lasts. so it's absolutely a concern, right? If natural infection causes or doesn't induce immunity that lasts for longer than that period of time, it raises the question of whether the vaccine will or not. that said it is possible for vaccines to induce longer lasting immunity than natural infection does. And they do that in. In two ways that I'm aware of probably more. but one of them is that the vaccines that have been developed are targeting a specific part of the virus surface. That is, what we call the most immunogenic. It's really, it's like the most sticky Audi part, if you will. It's the thing that your immune system sort of best responds to. So they've already been optimized to generate sort of the maximum immune response you can get, Whereas when you have a natural infection, your body sort of undergoes this really random process where it targets all sorts of different parts of the virus. And some of those are well-targeted and some of them are poorly targeted. And because of that, you end up with this really big diversity of immune responses that a person gets and that immunity can decline over time, because they're just not really optimized for the specific part of the virus that is really sort of like the telltale signal of a. SARS cov two infection. So that's one thing is that, that the vaccine has been engineered to target really the most optimal part of the virus surface. and then the second thing is that with the vaccine, the, the RNA vaccines that we're thinking about using right now, Come in two doses. And so that also allows you to get the second type of optimization where you sort of prime your immune system first, and then you give it this boost, which in many other cases of vaccines that we know about that boost is really the thing that gives you this very long-term immunity, because they're timed just right for your immune system, to really generate that long-term response. Whereas. Again, if you wait for natural infection, you might not get that boost at the right time for it to induce that long-lasting immunity. So I think there's a lot of hope for the vaccine to give us a longer lasting immunity than natural infection does. But, you know, the, the proof will only come when we've been able to measure it. Great.
Matt Boettger:And then I think I have this recollection, Stephen, that it's also complicated that w that, that it's not just the endless cycle of this, that as, I think you were talking about this, that even in the midst of a six-month cycle, it won't be the same. A year and two or three years from now, as it is now, just by the sheer fact of its general transmission, as, as it continues to grow kind of like the flu, is that right?
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. So exactly. I mean, I anticipate that even if, you know, on average immunity lasts six to eight months to natural infection, there's going to be a whole distribution around that. So some of the people who have been infected recently, their immunity is going to carry over the next year, which will help sort of slow down some of the spread as we move forward. the, the, the precise sort of. Numbers there really do matter an awful lot in terms of how much spread we get and whether it's every year, every other year, or if it completely dies out. and again, that's, that's still something we don't have a very good handle on, but, but I, it's almost certainly not going to look like the widespread sort of pandemic level catastrophic spread that we're seeing right now.
Matt Boettger:That's good news. Now he has a few more questions. I'm going to lump them into one Mark on a, throw it to you as well on this one. You mentioned about how he got it back in, I think March as well. So he's been suffering from chest pain and also he mentioned he's a cyclist. So that for eight months, he, like, I think it's about eight months after getting COVID. He couldn't quite get his heart rate beyond one 35 without chest pains. I mean, for a long period of time, kind of long holder syndrome. So this brought about a number of concerns. Number one is chest pain part and parcel with, with C 19, you know, symptoms and. Well, did exercise actually make it worse for him and make his lungs worse? he mentioned this context of could I have created Korea, increase my viral load and create more damage to my lungs. So don't mean to lump those all into one, but just to kind of simplify this.
Mark Kissler:Yeah. so a couple things first off, this is a good point in the show as always to remind everybody that, we don't want to give specific medical advice, because of the there's a certain, yeah, I would just not want to put anybody at risk. If I was giving specific medical advice about somebody that I wasn't able to examine or get more information. And, and any time I hear about somebody who has chest pain with exertion, that's something that raises big red flags. and I think that. that is something that should be checked out by a local physician, you know, soon. And, I'm I know that by our correspondence that, you know, that our listener has been well plugged in with healthcare and, you know, has, has been getting that, that kind of support, but just for, you know, for everybody else, who's listening. I think it's really important. you know, chest pain is one of those symptoms. There's a few symptoms that we just never ignore, you know, in medicine. And I wouldn't say it wouldn't chalk it up to a less acute cause if there's a chance that it could be a more acute cause, you know, more, something more serious. and so that's not necessarily going to take that and comment. I do think that there are certain things, and severe complications of COVID including blood clots, that can cause chest pain. and so blood clots that moved to the lungs, pulmonary embolism can cause chest pain. and there's also just a concern for the amount of blood clots that, you know, it's very approach. Thrombotics, it's a, it's a very, disease process that makes your body want to make clots. It also sounds like, you know, what our, what our listener was describing in his email to us was more a sense of, of kind of this lung lingering, difficulty with exertion. Cause he's a pretty high performing athlete to begin with and just felt like his lung function. Wasn't back to where. He, he, it had been prior and that's definitely something that I've heard described. and, you know, I don't, I can look, I don't off the top of my head. No, and I'm not sure if we have any great data about the prevalence of long-term pulmonary symptoms. but it does seem to be enough that it's, it's not something that I'm surprised to hear. it's something that anecdotally I've heard from quite a few people who've had COVID that they just have this lingering sense. the exercise restrictions related to COVID it's worth going over that again. in brief. So in the past often when people had cold symptoms, the doctors would say, it's okay to exercise through your symptoms. Sorta to tolerance. and that with COVID, we've started to move away from that a little bit. And that's largely because of the cardiac complications a little bit more so than the lung complications, though. It all runs together. there is a concern that COVID can create a myocarditis or create arrhythmias, you know, because of the way that it affects the heart muscle itself, that then if you're exercising in the midst of an infection and active infection, you could put yourself at higher risk for an adverse. Event. so something happening to your heart while you're exercising. So the recommendations now have been, walked back and to not exercise while you're having active symptoms of something that might be COVID or while you have an active COVID infection. and then to wait, you know, a period of time, after, you know, after Rez full resolution to slowly start, to resume activity again, I don't think necessarily the exercise itself will increase the viral load within the body. and so he got,
Matt Boettger:we got cut off there for a second. So can you finish,
Mark Kissler:finish your thought? Sorry about that. Sure. Oh, that's all that. and that being said that there could be other mechanisms, you know, if there's, if there's other kinds of lung inflammation going on or something else, you know, is there a chance that exercise is exacerbating the, you know, or adding onto the inflammatory process that is already happening? Maybe it's a little bit. Tough to tease out exactly what the physiology is going on there. so I think globally, you know, in terms of what do we do about it? I think that not exercising, strenuously, not exercising at all while you're having symptoms, slow, graded, return to activity after your symptoms have fully resolved, is still, still the recommendation. Great.
Matt Boettger:And is it fall? Cause this is a related to vaccine. Stephen, you talked about this last week, but going back to you, Mark this idea of the heart. anomalies as well as the lung anomalies in the context of COVID going into long haulers, are we seeing any sign that this is a permanent potential reality for the heart or the lung, or is this simply at this point in time? It just seems to be happening during the time you have COVID and not a lot of signs of something following you after. Covet is, is finishing your on pinger inner system.
Mark Kissler:I'm not sure we have enough data yet longitudinally, because I think the question is if somebody has, you know, some fibrosis in the lungs or some kind of a lung damage that is causing clinically evident symptoms, you know, the longest time point we have at this point is still less than a year. and so we're not a hundred percent sure how that's necessarily gonna progress it over time. Yeah.
Matt Boettger:Great. Well, let's get into fewer things. We don't, we're on a short cycle because Mark has a family of amazing little kiddos who need to be educated versus a streaming connection. We have 15 minutes before they get kicked on and take our bandwidth. So let's, let's hit a couple of things. Let's go relatively quickly, but yet let's not sacrifice quality. First one. just like the top one. Yep. That's a tall order. Literally. That was perfect. Just like, do you nailed it, Stephen? It's that stash? It's like totally. It's really making it. Just,
Mark Kissler:I just raised the shirt some wit.
Matt Boettger:Sure. I think that blade you do not use on your mustache. Okay. All right. Back to back to some really important. I hear some things in the news that we're seeing first signs of the Thanksgiving COVID wave emerge. Now, is that true? I'm not quite seeing that in my end, but again, I'm not looking at all the data I look at for two minutes. So I gonna first start with you, Steve, are we seeing this first wave?
Stephen Kissler:Or no. I mean, it's, it's kind of a complex landscape out there because, Dr. Fowchee was quoted just before Thanksgiving saying that there is this risk of a surge within a surge. Right. but in some places, especially like the upper Midwest, and I think in Colorado too, you all were already sort of cresting your cases and were on the way down. So there's sort of a surge within a decline there, and that's a lot harder to figure out what's going on. certainly in places up in the Northeast, after Thanksgiving, we've seen a real spike in cases. No, that could be due to just people not wanting to get tested over Thanksgiving. Cause they wanted to spend the holiday with their family and then get tested afterward. but we've seen also a spike in hospitalizations as well. And that tends to be a more stable metric of what's going on. So I, I do think some parts of the country have seen these surges that look like they at least coincided with the Thanksgiving holiday. You can't detect that everywhere. People probably behaved differently in different places. So it's really hard to sort of disentangle, but I think there's something there.
Mark Kissler:Okay.
Matt Boettger:And Mark, going back to you, I see you've already kind of mentioned this. W I saw in Colorado, like no sign of this. I just see that we're going down. the deaths are going down. It's great news. Do you have any sense of the contribution? Is that just, we're just waiting for our spike to happen or are you aware on your end? I
Mark Kissler:can go on, you know, the, the weather was really good over Thanksgiving. I think it was really easy to be outside in Colorado over that week. I think that, similarly to I th I just bear in mind with all of this kind of micro forecasting and micro reporting, the ways that the. Just it's a little bit harder to directly correlate our immediate actions with the immediate response. You know, we've seen communities where they w we've seen communities where they just laughing that's Matt's cell phone. It's like total
Matt Boettger:totally is grabbed and put it on, do not disturb Holly Ricky poo.
Mark Kissler:The podcast producer here is like, I
Matt Boettger:feel totally sorry about that, everyone.
Mark Kissler:anyway, there is, I think from a, from a standpoint of, you know, a person in the midst of the pandemic, it makes a ton of sense to be asking these questions. This is the same thing that Stephen said. I think early in the pandemic is really it's variations on the theme of where are we like what's going on and where are we? How can we orient ourselves and sort of the bigger picture of the scope of the pandemic. But that being said, I think it's just really, really hard to draw in specific geographic locations, even with specific events like Thanksgiving, the constellation of things and that cause and effect it's, it's much easier to look at it retrospectively over broad populations. I think, and we, I, I suspect, I hope, I think we're doing a lot better job in the general community with mass squaring. Distancing avoiding large, super spreader, potential events, and those sorts of things matter so much and continue to matter and will continue to matter. Even as we have the vaccine rolling.
Matt Boettger:No, I got confused for a second, Mark. I don't know if we were talking about covet or financial planning, because like it's, it's, it's like the person who checks their stocks every day and their 401k it's like, like, yeah, like you, no, you can't know your financial security over a one day period of time. It's the longevity of it.
Mark Kissler:Right, right. Right. You're playing a long game and it's helpful to have a sense, you know, and I understand the impulse that being said it's limited utility.
Matt Boettger:Okay. Let's go. Some, some vaccine stuff I'm excited about the first SIG. Well, we thought we mentioned that the troop land on literally Mark mentioned long Island beach this morning, the truth is getting into vaccine. the first one was administered live streaming to a critical care nurse. this is really great news. So Mark just talks about. Colorado. We heard about landing in California and Washington. I'm sure. Everywhere who has the plan. One of the things I want to start with is of course, people are worried. People are concerned. If you think that's going to affect your DNA or change your DNA, go to the last week's episode or two weeks ago with Steve. And he helped understand that it's an RNA and DNA. I get more emails about this. We're not going to revisit that right now. Well, the one thing I do want to talk about is the UK, issuing an anaphylaxis warning on Pfizer. can you speak into this Stephen or Mark or whatever? Which one you want to go first?
Mark Kissler:Yeah, maybe I'll start a little bit from the clinical side and then see when you can talk about vaccine concerns and what this means for rollout. But, and just to, you know, do you have a sense. Matt kind of what anaphylaxis means or what that, that looks like. Cause I think that's helpful too, just in terms of,
Matt Boettger:I know about anaphylaxis shock, but that's about all I know. So you can make it, help me understand the details.
Mark Kissler:Yeah. I mean, just, the, the big idea is that it's sort of an overwhelming body response to, an agent, that causes an allergic reaction. And it causes a whole lot of systemic issues and shock, like you said, is one of them. So that being a low blood pressure, difficulty, you know, getting blood to the parts of the body that need it because, because of the way that your body releases all sorts of factors, that. Dilate your blood vessels. and so individuals, anything, one of the most common, allergens that we think of are things like, you know, peanuts or tree nuts can cause anaphylaxis. and people who have that will carry, an auto-injector of epinephrin often with them just in case they get exposed. Because if you act within that early period of time, you can reverse some of those. Changes that happen in the body that lower the blood pressure and make you very, very sick. and it sounds like there were two cases of anaphylaxis in the UK. in my understanding is that both of those patients, it seems likely had prior episodes of anaphylaxis or at least severe allergies because both of the patients, had. Epic epinephrin auto injectors on hand, already prior to, the administration of the vaccine, which I think is an important detail as we're gleaning a little bit of anecdotal evidence here. but also I think it's important to remember that any, any drug, any substance, can cause an allergic reaction. It's something that we. Anytime I administer a new medication. it's something on the list. You know, it could be something very, very benign and common, but PR causes an allergic reaction in someone. And so I, from a clinical standpoint, I, I find it not surprising at all that as we're starting a mass vaccination program, we're going to start to have, some allergic reactions just because that's very, very, very, common with any drug. I don't know, Stephen, have you heard anything about, the, the incidents of this or what kind of, what we expect in terms of numbers, of a severe allergic reaction?
Stephen Kissler:No, I mean, but again, we've, we've heard these two reports and we know that the UK was very forthcoming with those details. and to my knowledge, we didn't observe. Any of these kinds of reactions in the trials themselves. and so, so that suggests that it's probably a pretty rare phenomenon. And like Mark said, these were also people who had previous histories of allergic reactions to various things. So,
Mark Kissler:Yeah, I was looking just, in the wall street journal, there was an article, that quoted the U S vaccine reporting system saying that anaphylaxis after vaccination occurs in about 1.3 cases per million. So that's prior to this COVID vaccine, but, so it does happen with vaccination, but it's quite rare. but again, if you know, if you're vaccinating millions of people, At the same time and really scrutinizing, you know, the vaccine rollout that you're almost guaranteed to start to see some cases.
Matt Boettger:anything else on that one?
Mark Kissler:yeah, the only, yeah, another thing I think is if you have a history of severe allergies, it's worth talking to a doctor and just touching base with them. you know, if you're in line to get the, if your number's drawn or whatever, and it's getting close to time to get the vaccine, I think that it's a good idea. To touch base about the particularities of your allergies. and now I don't mean necessarily seasonal allergies or like if you have, you know, you get things you're, you're kind of like allergic to the environment or you have these mild, I'm saying more, if you have a history of anaphylaxis or a history of severe. Reactions or have history of any true allergic reaction to a prior vaccine. it's just worth kind of having a doctor who can really understand your personal history and make some recommendations about the safety of receiving this particular vaccine.
Matt Boettger:Is there anything on your, like on the radar for potential since last week of side-effects or anything this is to share with the group that is surfaced or so far? Do we still see Pfizer and Madrona being an incredibly safe. Vaccine to take right away.
Stephen Kissler:Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the things that I've, Heard and looking at the trial data is that yes, the vaccines, appear to be very safe and very effective. that doesn't mean that you won't feel it when you get it. and I think that that's just really important to, to really reiterate that, like when you do get the vaccine, you can, you know, you can develop the chills. You can even develop a low grade fever. these kinds of things like that, and that's your body working and doing its job. but, yeah, I think that's just really worth reiterating is that you will likely feel it when you get it. but that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing
Matt Boettger:that also reminds me of an article. I read Jessica with years ago of a critical care nurse who was on the trials. Right. For, I think it was Medina. the, the vaccine and seen that she didn't know what she, the placebo, but the second, the second round that she got, she got 104.3 fever that night. And so now she wasn't concerned, she was a nurse. She knew what to expect and everything was fine and actually took some Tylenol and went to bed next day, woke up totally legit, fine back to normal. And again, Stephen, you mentioned before, and Mark, I just had, this is a normal response to the immune system, revving up its system.
Mark Kissler:It's just helpful to know that, you know, anytime you so that, so that you don't get worried, you know, if you have symptoms like that, and then they resolve spontaneously that that's, that's a good thing. I'm also trying, I've been working really hard to try and get a SIM to set the stage, to get a lot of sympathy for after I get the vaccine. so chicken soup and like. You know, that sort of thing. And, it's, we're, we're having mixed success at home about how sympathetic, Katie is feeling willing to be after he gets the vaccine. So we'll see. We'll see, I'll keep you up. Good on that.
Matt Boettger:And we apologize. We apologize as well. We're having a lot of breakup on the, on our end. It's kinda going out, Mark just left us by accident. He did not mean to leave us. He didn't just. Stonewall us. We're, we're constantly, for some reason, been having streaming problems the past couple of weeks. but I'm letting him come right back in right now. So now he's, he's back on now, you're back in Mark. I appreciate it. Sorry about that. We apologize for the difficulties. We'll figure it out at some point in time. a few things just before we wrap up. I think that's a really important one. Just talking about yep. You get the vaccine. It's going to be it's it's expected. No, we, we talked before you didn't actually get COVID. It's like the people who believe that if you get a fever, we, the flu vaccine that somehow, somehow gave you the flu and that it actually is statistically relevant, or somehow you can actually get the flu from the vaccine. I think that's a totally overblown and not real reality. Right guys, that's just good old folklore. So a few other questions that I want to talk before we end. if you already had got COVID Stephen and Mark, just like that girl who got a twice is should you still get the vaccine or be open to it?
Stephen Kissler:Yeah, I mean, I think, again, that in those cases, the vaccine is likely to be able to boost your immunity, sort of like a second vaccine, boosts your immunity from the first one. So all of the recommendations suggest that even people who have gotten COVID already are eligible and should in fact get the vaccine as well.
Matt Boettger:Yeah. Great. And if you, if you are the type of person who loves options, right. I think it's probably the first time in history that we can, you, you, you can actually have a menu, not right now. but like you could choose which vaccine you want. Clearly right now, you're going to get whatever's given to you, but maybe six months, seven months a year from now, you might be actually, it might. I mean, that's the beauty of this, where we might be able to fine tune the vaccine to have certain vaccines for certain demographics, certain type of people that work more effectively. this is just, again, I think the way I imagine. Is this part of the research Stephen, like in the sense of like, not only have actually been having a menu, so to speak, to having different variations for different types of people for a vaccine, or is that already exist?
Stephen Kissler:And I mean, and we see that with other vaccines that we have available too. I mean, there, there are different vaccines against pneumococcal pneumonia that you get if you're, older versus if you're younger, things like that. So, absolutely it's really helpful to have a number of different options that might work better in certain people than others.
Matt Boettger:Okay, great. The last question I want to ask totally unrelated vaccine. We have more stuff coming down the line. We are hopefully having it. No worry for sure. Next week, we're having someone who specializes on vaccine hesitancy to talk about that, do a deep dive or hoping to get an immunologist on the scene to chat about this. We want to make you we'll do our best to help you feel safe, to take the vaccine. Cause this is a real, really important next step, for, for COVID and the pandemic. We do everything we can to make it feel you're you're, you're equipped to make the right decision. Before we end this, I got asked this question, Steve, and this was now two or three weeks ago. I failed to ask you. I saw it. Here's the headline. Binus select Rochelle while Lynskey my best guests with that name to lead the CDC. I saw she's at Harvard, your roommate, just joking. She's not, but I basically, I just make everything a small world in Harvard. If they're from Harvard, you guys have tea every morning. That's how it goes in Harvard. virtually of course, virtually. So what's the deal is this, this is personal legit. Are we excited?
Stephen Kissler:Yeah, I, I'm very excited. So, I've met Dr. Lewin's doctor will then ski a couple of times. and, and, and she's wonderful. so she's, actually I have a bit of a personal connection because so Allie's PhD program, their program supervisor is her husband, and he's also a professor here at Harvard. And so they have like, you know, they w I've I've interacted with him a couple of times and so know her, Vaguely personally, but also really have been inspired by her professional work, which has been absolutely top notch over the course of the pandemic. she's really addressed, social inequities in COVID transmission and UN outcomes. she's been a really big advocate for rapid testing, and has been looking at a lot of the vaccine trials. she's really been just like one of the forefront researchers during the pandemic. but also has done a ton of really useful. Potential research on infectious diseases more generally. she leads the infectious disease division at Massachusetts general hospital. I can't imagine somebody who's more qualified and also who I personally just trust more to take on this role and to really bring the CDC forward into this next era of their growth. So I'm really excited about it.
Matt Boettger:I'm stoked. I'm really happy. I mean, in light of the C I know C's have been done great, but in light of the challenge of the past year, excited to see what this next year comes and, how we grow from this last question went through your way again for Biden lays out three part plan for the first a hundred days you see at Stephen Stephen Hall for the first hundred day. Is that something that you've seen? Like, it seemed like a pretty good,
Stephen Kissler:yeah. I mean, I think that that's it. Makes a lot of sense. so, and it's going to continue to be refined over time, but I think that the, the thing that I'm. Appreciate about it most is just that there's, there's communication happening and happening early. And so people are able to start getting ready for what's coming up next. So I think that in, in public health that, communication and preparation really is, as important as the things themselves that are being done in many cases. So, that's what I'm really excited about is just like the clear and open communication that's happening.
Matt Boettger:Absolutely. Great. We're gonna end this episode, Mark. Any last words before you go and get vaccinated? I wish we could. I wish we could stream you live doing it right? The podcast as part of her benefits,
Mark Kissler:maybe I can do an audio recording just
Matt Boettger:yeah. Just say out or something. So we know what happened. Yeah.
Mark Kissler:Okay. Sounds good. I'll let you know. We'll see. We'll see what happens is as they roll it out, but I, hopefully we'll have some news for you in the next week or two.
Matt Boettger:Well, thank you all. He's great to see you guys. Good to have you all back on once again. Thank you all for listening. If you can leave a review review, please do you can do that on Apple podcasts, support us patrion.com/pendleton podcast. Or check the show notes for a one-time donation and we will see you all next week. Take care and
bye-bye.