Episode 904 Scott Adams: Today I Blow Your Mind. Goes Well With Coffee

Date: 2020-04-10 | Duration: 54:44

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Population density and herd immunity A gigantic range of uncertainty and models Differences between states The status of hydroxychloroquine testing?

If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays

> [!note] Rough Transcript
> 
> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:16]

hey everybody come on in yeah it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams and the simultaneous it then you came to the right place because if you'd like to enjoy the simultaneous if all you need is a cup of margaret glass a tanker channel sir stein the canteen jerker flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure that you dopamine it of the day the thing that makes everything better including pandemics it's called the simultaneous up go mm-hmm extra good little extra did today well let's talk about stuff number one how in the world is our government going to reopen the economy in any kind of a rational way without telling overweight people to stay home how does that work exactly

[1:18]

stay home how does that work exactly because it would be easy if the government said hey if you have one of these health conditions you know you're let's say you have diabetes or asthma you should stay home for a few months and I would be in that category and I would say okay that's that's pretty objective it seems fair based on data I think I'll stay home but what happens if the government says if you're fat you ought to stay home you can't go to work I mean you could but it'd be bad for the country if you did because your weight would make you extra likely to end up in the ICU which would be a problem for our healthcare system so please if you're overweight don't go to work it's a real question I'm not saying this to be funny I don't know how a country tells people to stay home if they're overweight and if they don't if whatever

[2:20]

overweight and if they don't if whatever you know guidelines command of the next phase I'm assuming that the guidelines for going back to work whenever that happens will be some kind of a filtered system where it's not everybody it's the people who are safe how are you - tell fat people not to go to work I mean seriously how are you gonna do that I'm not joking I'm not making fun of anybody for their weight I don't do that I'm just saying how do you do that just from a policy practical perspective I don't know how that's gonna work all right let's talk about the models everybody wants to talk about the models that are so darn wrong so let me ask you this do a little math what percentage of the total population of the country is New York City well I have the answer it's about 2.6 percent of the whole country now I'm just talking about raw population so of the whole country in New York City is 2.6 percent of all the

[3:22]

New York City is 2.6 percent of all the people so what would happen if the rest of the country experienced infection rates like New York City now I'll get to the point where you say there's a different density in the rest of the country is different so I'll address that but just let's do the math first and then we'll address adjust it so if the rest of the country got infections let's say in the same ratio as New York City I'm not saying they will I'm just bear with me until I make my larger point but if they did how many people would die in the whole country if the whole country became similar to New York City and I know you think that's not a good comparison and I'll get to that just hold the hold that complain for a moment so just there in the math if New York City has over 7,000 deaths as of today and they are 138th of the whole

[4:22]

today and they are 138th of the whole country then if the whole country went away New York City is gone how many people would die and the answer is 38 times a little over 7,000 people and that would look like a national death rate of 269 thousand people so if the rest of the country goes away New York City goes I'm not saying it well just this is just for sizing things all right I'll get to the point it would be over a quarter million people would die you would call that a big problem right now I know you the next thing you're gonna say is but Scott Scott Scott New York City has more travel as more density they got a later start so let's calculate that all in what I'd like to compare is a mitigation the mitigation strategy versus none now New York City is interesting because they are fully mitigated or close to it but they got

[5:23]

mitigated or close to it but they got kind of a late start so you can't say that New York City is fully mitigated you could say it's it got a late start but then it did a good job so it's maybe partially mitigated half half mitigated something like that so the 7,000 s if they had not mitigated we all agree would be much higher right but we don't know how much higher would it be double would it be 10,000 let's say it was double let's say the problem in New York City would be double twice as many people dying if they did no mitigation is that fair would you say double because the mitigation is pretty extreme it's like cutting out the whole economy basically so I would say double seems reasonable and we're just sizing things right I'm not saying that's accurate just the size things so if the rest of the country went like New York City and if unlike New York City they had not mitigated what would it look like and I

[6:25]

mitigated what would it look like and I think the numbers coming out of New York City suggest that it would be about half a million people or more would die if we didn't mitigate and look a lot like New York City but then you're saying okay but now you get to the good part Scott where you say the rest of the city is the rest of the country is not at all like New York City so first of all there's no density doesn't matter it doesn't matter do you get why it doesn't matter that New York City is dense and the other ones don't even though the density of course makes a big difference in how many people will spread it right here's why because the time if you're not mitigating the rest of the country has time to get just as infected as the people in the elevators in New York City in theory if nobody mitigated it would go like this New York City would very quickly get infected because they're more density and travel and elevators

[7:26]

more density and travel and elevators and all that stuff Subway's so New York City would quickly get to let's say 60% infection at which point a little bit of herd immunity would start kicking in and then the the virus would start slowing down because so many people had been infected that you couldn't necessarily spread it as easily you'd be running into people who already had immunity so New York City would rather quickly get to hurt immunity but at the cost of you know tens of thousands of deaths a smaller place with less with less density would still get to 60% it just would take longer but remember in both cases there's no mitigation happening so the undead's place will still get to 60% it just may take a month instead of a week so if you're comparing New York City's outcome to in less dense place I would say the only difference is how long it takes to get to hurt immunity

[8:27]

long it takes to get to hurt immunity but they were both getting there would just be a difference of weeks so that's the first thing so I think that you could say based on how many people have died in New York City that the risk of not mitigating was probably somewhere in the half a million range half a million people dead now the people are saying that this is still you know flu-like levels of death how do you explain the fact that they're doing mass burials and in the park in New York City have we ever had to do mass burials in the park because of the flu are you still not ready to admit there's something different about this one it's a little extra deadly I gave this example last night but I'd like to do it again which is there are two ways that if that virus can get you one is if it's extra deadly but the other is if it's extra viral because if it's extra viral but

[9:29]

viral because if it's extra viral but not especially deadly it's still going to kill a lot of people because so many people get it that even if a low-percentage died somebody people have it that it's still a lot of people dying compared to one that's really extra deadly but it doesn't travel very far because the the host dies so quickly well you can still get up to a lot of deaths because they die as soon as they get it so there are two ways extra viral or extra deadly and those are your your really bad situations but there's one that's worse than all of them what happens if it's extra viral and extra deadly what do you do well that's at least a possibility that was presented early on when when our experts were looking at China correct me if I'm wrong but when we were first looking at China and we didn't have a good data and we're just sort of observing and not believing what they're telling us did it not look like this might be the blackest of all

[10:31]

like this might be the blackest of all black swans and the one that would be extra viral and extra deadly now I don't think it's going to turn out that way as more information comes in I think it's going to be extra viral but not extra deadly it's still very dangerous but probably lots of people didn't get a problem with it so if the experts were looking into this fog of war and thought we can't yet rule out that this the worst of the worst kind extra viral and extra deadly because it's sort of looking like it you know we're watching them what they're doing in Wuhan and that's not normal they're not acting like it's some kind of normal thing so was it reasonable for our experts to say you know shut down the country because we don't know yet but whatever is happening in China that might be extra viral and extra deadly and we've never seen one of those that could be like the big one so I don't blame the

[11:33]

like the big one so I don't blame the experts for being extra cautious if that's if it turns out that that's what happened they were extra cautious because there were unknowns and certainly there was at least reason to believe that this was the big one even if it turns out it's not but even if it's not the big one let's say the big one would have killed tens of millions of people I think this one would be without mitigation maybe half a million people and that's just multiplying New York City's population by the rest of the country and making the assumption that New York City would get it faster but if you didn't do any mitigation eventually you know the whole country would have the same rate of infection eventually so what about the complaints that the models are completely broken and corrupt and wrong and we made all the wrong decisions because the models were so flawed one of the people getting a lot of attention for that point of

[12:34]

a lot of attention for that point of view is X New York Times writer Alex Berenson a number of you had been asking me what about that guy the he's saying and he's saying that you know we've made this drastic change to shut down the economy but it's based on modeling that doesn't line up with the realities so he's saying that the models are not are not showing to be correct and therefore it was a giant mistake to use the models to make decisions but here's what Alex Berenson and almost all of the rest of the public does not unless they watched me last night in my periscope prediction models are not designed to predict anything if you thought they were you would agree with Alex Berenson and you would agree with all of the people who said hey you predicted it would be this it's way off and you've already changed your / you've

[13:35]

and you've already changed your / you've changed your prediction from a hundred thousand worst case than 60 thousand and those are not really that close so therefore your model was always wrong and you've proved it by by changing us so much all the way down to sixty thousand deaths obvious right if you set a hundred thousand but now you're revised it to 60 well clearly the hundred thousand was totally wrong right because 60,000 and a hundred thousand are not really very close common-sense right wrong and that watch me blow your mind it's a little thing called context so when we saw the original estimates there was one curve the said if you do no mitigation maybe a million at one point there was some model that said two million but I think we fairly quickly got to a million people dying at the high end in the United States the low number with

[14:35]

United States the low number with mitigation was a hundred thousand originally not originally but for a while and then more recently it dropped to 60,000 here's the context you're missing if you consider the gigantic range of uncertainty is 60,000 and a hundred thousand really different it really isn't they're practically the same number if you consider the wide range now I get that both of these are with mitigation but do you think there's anybody in the world who knows how to model mitigation in the United States it's never been done how could you possibly model mitigation you don't know how well people are going to do it you know now you know if it's different in different places you don't know if there's a cultural problem you don't know if people keep with it you don't know if they're washing their hands - I mean how could you possibly model this I mean seriously if you could get this

[15:37]

mean seriously if you could get this close with mitigation and say look we said it'd be a hundred thousand but you came out as sixty thousand is that is that a mistake no if you've done modeling for a living as I have and by the way ask anybody else who has ever done modeling for a living if this were the outcome you had predicted a hundred at the low-end but we did good mitigation and it came in at sixty would you tell your boss that you missed it you were completely wrong and you and you know I quit because it's so embarrassing I was so far off no you would go in and tell your boss you needed a raise because out of all these possibilities you said with mitigation we're gonna be about here and you got pretty darn close you got pretty close I call that a home run that is as good as a model can be here's here's the the kill shot on my

[16:41]

here's here's the the kill shot on my point nobody in the world can predict the future with a complicated model with lots of variables during the fog of war now you can sometimes predict how things will go if the thing that's going to happen is very very similar to a thing that happened before and the thing that happened before and before so I've used the example let's say you're a home builder and you build one home you say ah it cost me this much per square foot then you build a second one it's a different home but the square footage comes out about the same cost and then you build the third one do you think you could make a good estimate of your square footage cost for the third one the answer is probably yeah you'd have you'd have comparable things you could look at so yeah it's a lot like those other ones so I'll use the same yeah you can get pretty close but if you're in the fog of war let's say the

[17:43]

you're in the fog of war let's say the first week of the Iraq war in the first week of the Iraq war were there any modelers who could put in their variables and tell you how it was all going to come out of course that of course that in the fog of war you can't make any kind of a model that predicts the future that's not a thing nobody has ever been able to do that there's no model that can do that there's no model that will ever be able to do that it's not logically possible and if you're still wondering if there are some people who can make models and predict the future and a chaos you think those people exist here's how you could spot them if they exist they would be living on their trillion dollar yachts if anybody could build a model to accurately or even more accurate than randomness predict the future based on the the chaos of the fog of war of any situation whether it's this one or some other if anybody could do that they

[18:44]

other if anybody could do that they would be a trillionaire because it isn't something that can be done so if you say Scott your prediction model was wrong because it was not accurate that I say to you hey you apparently you don't know what a prediction model is because you thought it was for predicting it isn't the reason it's not designed to predict is because it can't it's not a thing it's just not a thing you can't do what's not a thing by analogy because I know you like analogies I do this sometimes just to annoy if you got a bicycle and your bicycle could not fly it could only you could only pedal on the ground would you say that that bicycle is broken that bicycle is a piece of garbage because it can't fly no you're not you would say all that doesn't make sense you're not evaluating it as an airplane

[19:45]

you're not evaluating it as an airplane the bicycle is intended to paddle on a road so let's evaluate it for pedaling on a road okay it looks pretty good if you look at it that way so if you're looking at these models the virus models and you say to yourself hey these models are all broken and defective because they did not predict the future accurately then you don't understand what a model knows because they're not designed to predict the future they can't it's not a thing nobody would try to design a model to predict the future because you know in advance it's not a thing it's not a thing so you're so you're wondering well why is everybody acting like it is a thing I mean literally everybody is acting like the model should have told us what the future looks like and they didn't some who something's wrong right no models are

[20:45]

something's wrong right no models are not intended to predict the future here's what they're for persuasion and rough sizing of a problem did the models roughly size the problem and and here the size can be very approximate because all you're trying to do is persuade people to act differently to get that number lower so did it size the problem as a big ol problem that you should treat as a special problem I'd say yes the New York City numbers seem to indicate that the degree of panic about this was probably well warranted because even with mitigation they lost 7,000 people and if you extended that to the whole country and imagined no mitigation it could be half a million people just based on what we do know so it was it appropriate to use prediction models to persuade us to act differently and also

[21:48]

persuade us to act differently and also sized it as a big old problem that we don't know if it's a million or a hundred thousand but let me tell you it's a big old problem if you don't do anything about it I would say the models not only were useful and good but some of the best of all time because missing the bottom number by that little when you did mitigation is pretty darn good and if it did what it was supposed to do which is persuade a stack differently did it do that yeah yeah those models persuaded me I'll better persuaded most of you to and did it size the general size I think yes now your your critics will say no that that's exactly the problem it did not size the problem correctly it missed the size of the problem by a mile didn't did it because that doesn't look like a mile to me that looks like of all the possibilities and of course that's

[22:50]

the possibilities and of course that's mitigation no medication in person mitigation but if you could come back close with this level of uncertainty I'm pretty impressed I'm totally oppressed this would be a world class if it turns out that safety is a real number I actually think it's going to be lower if it goes down to 30 then I'm gonna join the chorus of people saying these models maybe not as helpful as they could have been but at 60 it's sort of a rounding error
somebody says wrong obviously you're new here what happens when people just use the one word wrong that's what happens that's one way to learn learning it the hard way somebody says there's no proof that any lives were saved alright so I'm for the so let's take that point I think that point agrees with a lot of people because the point is can you demonstrate

[23:54]

because the point is can you demonstrate that what we did actually save lies like how would you know well here's what I would look to I would look to Priory every year before in New York City can you list for me the number of years that they had to do mass outdoor burials because they had too many corpses can somebody a historian tell me when was the last time we had so many corpses in New York City that they had to use bulldozers to make a trench to temporarily bury them in the park if that's never happened before would you agree with me something different is happening in New York because if you don't get that part nothing else makes sense then in New York City because they got a little they're a little late on the mitigation that they're they're burying people in mass graves that doesn't look like there's a big problem so anybody who says that the models are

[24:58]

so anybody who says that the models are are out of whack with what we're actually observing that's not what I see to me I see the the model said there's a really big problem and we want to persuade you to act differently if you're burying people in mass graves in just the the first state there was a little late on the mitigation I feel like they were right that was a big big potential problem that we may have done heroic good job at decreasing and I think you know I've always been on the side that says the human ingenuity once we're all focused on the same problem as we are it's hard to predict and it's also one reason that prediction models are useless because the human ingenuity can't be predicted you just know it's going to be probably surprisingly good but you don't know how and somebody says still hasn't happened well has it happened they're burying people in the

[25:59]

happened they're burying people in the park right now they have pictures of it alright so he says I saw a trench not sure they're really going to borrow bury bodies there I saw the bodies in the trench in containers but did I see it did I see a fake picture of an Italian Hospital or something but this morning I did see a aerial picture of the trench with what looked to be temporary caskets of it you know sort of pine box is sort of thing somebody says that is not fully correct that is where they have done the unclaimed body burials for years well I don't think we're talking about unclaimed bodies all right if if that were the case I'm sure Scott Scott Scott big cities have mass graves regularly every morgue is full of unclaimed bodies it would your point being that New York City is not experiencing an unusual number of

[27:01]

not experiencing an unusual number of deaths because that's something that you and I could just check right do you think that the the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York don't know but you do but you know it but the governor of the state and the mayor of New York City they don't know that the number of deaths is just the normal number is that your point of view that the mayor hasn't noticed yeah and he just thinks there's a lot of deaths but it's he just is counting it wrong really really is that what you think somebody says it's a fake picture could it be a fake picture so let me say this so there's some people are doubting the number of deaths those of you who are doubting the number deaths do you believe that there are 7,000 deaths that although they had comorbidities in many cases they probably wouldn't have been dying this week you know were these weeks just

[28:03]

week you know were these weeks just because they had diabetes not many of them were gonna die this week so so let's put it on the facts all right let's say that we you and I don't have to decide right now whether New York City is experiencing an unusual number of deaths let's just let's just look it up look it up if it turns out if it turns out that New York City has is experiencing a normal amount of deaths for this period well then I'd say you're probably quite right you're quite right but if it turns out that they're experiencing an unusual number of deaths even after we're not getting any deaths from traffic accidents and even after all the normal sporting accidents and things that normally would fill your hospital even after you take them out if we still have to bury people in mass graves and

[29:03]

to bury people in mass graves and refrigerated trucks in New York City that's telling us something right right okay so we're also looking at the differences between states and there's so many variables that seem to go into determining whether there's a high death rate or not or a high infection rate but there are a few that I haven't seen talked about as much and so let me mention them now of course California has probably lower density so that might make a difference with New York City we're a very international state but probably nothing is as international as New York City I would guess so as as connected to the rest of the world as California is probably there's nothing like New York City so that would be one difference and of course fewer elevators and people are people are commuting in cars by themselves and stuff so there a lot of

[30:04]

themselves and stuff so there a lot of difference in California but somebody who said oh then but I also wanted to add this to the mix I think California has the one of the lowest rates of obesity and cigarette smoking I think we're in the top 10% of thinnest people so if all you did is compare in New York City to California would there be a difference in average weight New York City's actually kind of a thin thin City so I don't know if that would hold up but if you looked at the country in general Californians are way thinner I mean a lot thinner if you've ever traveled from let's say you're taking a flight and you have a layover in Dallas and you're walking around in the airport looking at the people and then you land in Los Angeles LAX and then you walk around and look at the people they don't look the same in LA you'd have to look pretty hard to find

[31:05]

you'd have to look pretty hard to find anybody who's overweight it's actually kind of rare at the airport because that's the airport is higher income people you know the the lower income people have a little more weight problem but if you go to Dallas and you walk out in the airport it's seventy five percent of the people are overweight so we should look at that the weight of different states that should be a factor and smoking rates that should be a factor and somebody pointed out on Twitter that Colorado also has they're having some problems and so it might not just be wait because Colorado Colorado wins people in Colorado or all are also not overweight but they are having a high problem with infections and deaths and so I looked up their humidity that turns out that Colorado has very low humidity which is one of the variables that would cause you to have more infections so California has relatively higher humidity than Colorado so I'm

[32:07]

higher humidity than Colorado so I'm wondering if we're coming to the point where we can identify I don't know seven different variables that are the the most important ones and it would explain everything we're seeing in the different death rates so we've got you know age and comorbidities and living in the same households and you know density humidity weight rates of smoking all those things all right
Europeans are so here's a question I asked yesterday I still don't have an answer somebody suggested Sweden but in the same way that I'm saying that New York City might tell us a little bit about you know what the rest of the country could have looked like if we acted differently there must be some country that would make a good reference point for us so I'd be looking for a country that did everything that we did except for mitigation so if you could find

[33:08]

for mitigation so if you could find something that that on all the other variables they were sort is similar to us but they did no mitigation whatsoever I mean no yeah no mitigation so no masks and no social isolation and then you let that run for a while so that you you know because they're getting infected at different timing but yeah but at the end of the run could we look at our own Sweden for example and say okay Sweden is the model for if we are not mitigated that's it would look like whatever happens in Sweden can somebody can somebody give me an example of what country we should agree today will be in the future the point we with the one we compare ourselves to can somebody do that somebody says zero deaths on Maui well now he's a special case you know half the people in Maui are just there for the two weeks so they go home to die I

[34:11]

the two weeks so they go home to die I think New York City Mayor says Park burials is fake news / CNN all right so which is easy to believe by the way it would be easy for me to believe that the park burials is fake news I don't know if that's true but it doesn't change anything I said because the raw number of dead is the only one that matters it doesn't matter where you put them if there were a lot of them there are a lot of them no matter where they go so so some people are saying Sweden some people are saying Norway I don't know did Sweden do mitigation did they do masks I don't know somebody says the average weight of a female in New York is 150 but in LA it's more 156 interesting that's an average the obesity level though for California is actually love recent report marijuana

[35:16]

actually love recent report marijuana causes bronchitis inflammation and that's the worst case with the virus could be somebody says was really yeah it didn't Australia do some mitigation
something like that New York is analogous to Italy well I don't know if it is because Italy had some seriously unhealthy people I don't know what the obesity rate is for Italy well why don't we find out hey Siri Google obesity rate for Italy let's see
how the obesity rate in Italy looks it's considered mild compared to its neighbors due to Europe o European

[36:18]

neighbors due to Europe o European obesity is one of the highest I didn't know that so Italy Italy is not appreciably worse than other European countries but apparently the European countries are over a third of them are obese in childhood Sweden as low density 40% working home anyway yeah
leaders are making it worse yeah somebody's saying in the comments the ventilators are making it worse I don't know that that's true but I did see a was it a video or an article by a doctor who put people on ventilators and the doctor was speculating that if we've slightly misdiagnosed the problem and that maybe the problem happens in the blood not the lungs and the lungs are more the the the result of the blood not

[37:20]

more the the the result of the blood not doing its job which would have implications for how you treat it one of the implications is that if the problem is in the lungs then a ventilator makes sense but if the problem was in the blood the blood failed to be able to carry enough oxygen because of the virus then putting the ventilator in the lungs and treating it as though it's a lung problem would cause you to set the ventilator settings at the wrong setting because you had misdiagnosed what's going on and then the ventilator would cause more problems than it would help or at least it would cause damage even if it was helping so there's at least some speculation from a doctor who does ventilators and has a theory but it's still speculation at this point that the ventilators might actually be making it worse now I saw I heard a statistic that needs to be checked so yesterday somebody said something about maybe it was just New York City that 40% of the ventilator patients are coming off the

[38:22]

ventilator patients are coming off the ventilator which seemed high to me so I need a fact check on this because my understanding was that once you've got on a ventilator it didn't matter what the reason was that by the time you get on a ventilator your odds of ever getting off it and improving and just having a full recovery I thought it was love like in the 10% range but that I heard that the New York City experience I think was New York City I need a fact check on that was something like 40% of people getting off enta liters now could it be that one of the things that the emergency healthcare people are learning is that they have to adjust the ventilator settings differently so it could be that on day one people were not doing so well on ventilators because maybe they have the settings wrong there are a lot of a lot of different ways you can set them for how much pressure it puts so it could be that they figured out how to fine-tune the ventilators to

[39:23]

out how to fine-tune the ventilators to get the benefits without were they having too much pressure and causing its own problems dr. Shiva says a high dosage of vitamin C triplet may not require intubation is that the thing you wanted me to comment on because I can't really comment on a medical claim so if the claim is that a vitamin C drip can do that I would hope somebody's looking into that right now but I don't have a comment about whether that's true or false how can i somebody asked me why does they India seems to have relatively low infections I can think of two reasons one they don't know who's infected how hard is it to find out if somebody has corona virus if they're in some small village in India I mean what's the what's the health care look like outside of the metro areas so I don't I don't know if anybody knows what

[40:24]

don't I don't know if anybody knows what the infection rate or even the death rate is in India because I don't know how well they can report that stuff given the size of their size and and the the level of poverty and everything else but there's also speculation via CNN the comments speculation that India being a major producer of hydroxychloroquine I think they're our number one producer or the number one source for the United States for that drunk there's thought that these the citizens are either many of them are already on it because of malaria or it could easily get it and that maybe that's part of the reason that it doesn't look like it's as big a problem there
ventilators can't be used if the lungs are too filled with fluid somebody says well I don't know all I could say for sure is that there seems to be there's some reason to believe that if you don't have the ventilator at the right settings it could do more harm than good so maybe we just got smarter about the

[41:25]

so maybe we just got smarter about the settings that would make sense somebody says if I didn't see is not a cure fools well I certainly would not be saying vitamin C is a cure and I doubt that doctor Shiva is saying it's a cure if if the claim that I saw in the comments is correct it's a very limited claim that it could keep you off the ventilator I don't know if there's any studies to show that I have no idea why does Russia have a low infection rate well I wouldn't trust any numbers at a Russia would you same thing
schrum said we have ventilators but not enough qualified people yeah that that is a problem I did hear from a ventilator expert once Twitter so it's

[42:26]

ventilator expert once Twitter so it's you know take that with a grain of salt and the ventilator guy said that if you wanted to go to school to be a ventilator operator technician or whatever they called it might take a few years of school but if you wanted to quickly train let's say somebody who is already a nurse so they had some background and you know in health so if you took a nurse and tried to say okay it's an emergency I'm gonna try to train you as quickly as possible just for these just for this one type of machine that you used in your hospital and just for a coronavirus patients and so the one person who is an expert in it said okay if you limit it to that and you start with a nurse who's got some general background and you stick with one machine and you tell them just how to use it for this one problem you could probably train people up pretty quickly I don't know if it's being it's happening vitamin D is more importance as someone I think we're all

[43:27]

importance as someone I think we're all in the same boat these are all claims which have some yeah they have some reason to think you'd want to know more about it but we don't you know saying that something is not a cure because it doesn't cure a hundred percent is loser think that is that is well true except for the word cure does does imply that it works this does sound like a very similar condition to high-altitude edema and would it be a coincidence that the high-altitude places like Colorado have problems I know there are some low all to do places have problems to is mixed at Mexico City making mass graves or nah I don't know anything about that
somebody says their wife isn't trained for the ventilators but has you made use

[44:28]

for the ventilators but has you made use of them yeah I think that would be common yes I'm seeing many of you commenting and the thing I just mentioned so there were there is some thought that's unproven that the problem happens in the blood and that's why the hydroxychloroquine works because the way it works against malaria is that it it works in the blood not lungs I thought the need for ventilators is down that is correct by a hypothesis is that the need for ventilators is down because hydroxychloroquine or maybe something else is working that is my hypothesis we'll find out later
yeah Mexico City has 9 million people more than New York City so you have to be careful about the timing of stuff because if you're if Mexico City is just

[45:31]

because if you're if Mexico City is just starting to get infected we'll see because there I would think Mexico City is in the worst possible situation right it's dense it's polluted healthcare is probably not as good as it could be why don't we have solid data on hydroxychloroquine treatment yet that's a really good question and I don't understand that either because correct me if I'm wrong the whole point of hydroxychloroquine is that you would see a big difference after five days of using it or it doesn't work isn't that the claim the claim is that you'll see a difference in five days or it doesn't work how many five day periods have passed since we first started the hydroxychloroquine might might be worth looking into quite a few right how long does it take to put together a study I don't know I think the problem is trying to put

[46:33]

think the problem is trying to put together a study in which you have a good control group because you have to take people who willingly don't or at least take the chance that they get to placebo when they have a strong suspicion that the hydroxychloroquine might work that's how do you get so many people to take the placebo or at least take a 50% chance of getting a placebo if they don't have to maybe it's just hard to make a study but do you need to study or could you just say alright my hospital treated 400 people two of them 200 of them got hydroxychloroquine and you know none of them got an inventor's but the other group even though it's not a controlled study there were 200 of them and eight of them ended up on ventilators what do you feel like that would tell you a lot you know don't you feel like if you saw the results of 400 people in the hospital settings

[47:34]

people in the hospital settings and you knew that 200 of them were treated kind of early with hydroxychloroquine and the other 200 never got it well don't you think that would tell you because if you can't tell with if you can't tell the difference we're just you know 200 or 400 people it's probably not working yeah and if it didn't work it would not be validating the claims that you see anecdotally in other words the the claims that people are making just you know first person hey I took this drunk and I got better the claim they all make is that it's obvious it made a difference it was fast it was obvious and the people saying it are quite convinced it wasn't going to happen on his own because taking the drug sort of marked it was too conveniently marked the time that their improvements started after worsening for 10 days in a row but that doesn't mean the right could be that the people who don't get better don't go on TV and make

[48:36]

don't get better don't go on TV and make social media posts so we just don't hear from them don't rule that out somebody says they think dr. drew said the only way to get hydroxychloroquine was to enroll in the study that's what they try to make you do I believe that they try to get you into a study if you ask for it or you're a candidate for it but you don't have to be in the study and you can make a case that you're not a good candidate for the study for example I have asthma so I would say to my doctor yes thank you for offering me the study but I have asthma and if there's any chance that the hydroxychloroquine works I don't want to get into a study where I have a 50% chance of getting a placebo so in my case doctor you and I as we say here in this room together and calculate the odds don't you think you should just give it to me because I've got asthma

[49:36]

give it to me because I've got asthma and you don't want to walk me to get it and not have access to the drugs so you can talk your doctor into it but you got to be able to make your case and your case has to include there's a reason I should not be in the study no part of the reason could be you can't comply with the study you know you're too busy you got kids I don't know you've probably coped and lots of reasons you couldn't be in the study so there is a way to get it all right I think that's just about somebody says look for Trump to announce that some study results today you know until we have the study results that are an actual controlled study with a group that didn't get it at all and are scientifically selected to be you know representative and all that until we have that we're not going to know but the smaller studies that don't have a proper control group I think if the drug works it's just going to be obvious and

[50:37]

works it's just going to be obvious and if it doesn't work probably that would be obvious - yeah there's financial disinterest in the pharma companies because it's not patented but I would still think that the companies that make it are pretty darn happy this year they're selling a lot of it how did they ask you to be in the study if you're on a ventilator I don't think they ask those people I would not want to be Scott's doctor oh you're so right you're so right in in my lifetime I can tell you that I have I have overridden the advice of my doctor quite a few times but in conversation with them not not just by myself went home and ignored my doctor but there have been quite a few times if you look at my entire lifetime where a doctor said Triax

[51:38]

doctor said Triax and I would say well I hear what you're saying but considering why is he MQ maybe we could try something else and I can tell you that I've talked to my doctor into say a number of times and to saying yeah you know when you put it that way all things considered yeah let's let's give it a try your way in fact I just that just recently dealing with my sinuses there were two paths my ent said let's take this one and I said you know there's one other thing we haven't tried that is low risk probably won't work but we haven't tried it yet and it's easier than surgery and my ent said you know good point I don't think this new thing will work you know 90% chance they won't but you're right if there's a 10% chance that it could avoid surgery yeah go ahead and try it if you're willing to

[52:38]

ahead and try it if you're willing to take a few more months and try it go ahead that's that's a good risk reward then that's a perfect example of where working with my doctor and really just talking about the odds and also what I'm willing to do which is the part the doctor can't know the doctor doesn't know what's in your hand and that matters too right so yes I'm quite a number of times including recently I have over I have overridden my doctor's recommendation and then my doctor agreed with me you know once I made my case it's a very normal thing likewise with lawyers IV I've dealt with a lot of lawyers in my life trust me being a cartoonist means a lot of lawyers for every different element of work and how often if I let's say objected to the advice of the lawyer and said I hear what you're saying but have you considered this argument and then I talked my lawyer out of whatever the original recommendation was how

[53:39]

the original recommendation was how often does that happen a lot I don't even know how many times it's actually common it's quite common sometimes you just have some insight about how you respond to things that a lawyer can't have sometimes your priorities are different your risk reward ratio is different your tolerance for risk your intuition about something your social preference for something so yeah I talked my lawyers out of stuff all the time has it ever been me in the ass not once I talk about doctors and stuff all the time is it forbidden meme yes not once because I always get the lawyer of the doctor to agree before I do it you know I always make sure that I've tested my argument I don't just go out go rogue and say ah screw you I'll make my own decisions but yeah you can talk your professionals and stuff if you have a good argument it's common very common all right that's all for now and I will talk to you tonight

[54:41]

for now and I will talk to you tonight you know where to find me