Episode 969 Scott Adams: I’m Here. Where Are You?

Date: 2020-05-12 | Duration: 53:15

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Me versus the medical experts Ahmaud Arbery 3 experts offer post-coronavirus expectations Maybe 90% of civilization is pre-internet design Ann Coulter’s compelling argument: it came from the wet market

If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

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## Transcript

[0:10]

[Music] well I saw the most fascinating thing today what I hear about it yeah I know you do that's why you're here you're gonna wind down get ready for a great night of sleep it's gonna be a good one not for everybody but for many of you yep
yep well we got stories let me tell you the story about my minibike yes when I was 13 and four years before that all I wanted to a stone a little minibike tiny little tiny little bike that was motor to the size of a lawn mower but man I wanted one I I mowed lawns and I shoveled snow and I worked in my uncle's farm and finally I'd save it enough to buy a minibike there's one of the best days of my life except my mini bikes chain fell off but no problem I don't bicycles before how hard could it be so

[1:12]

bicycles before how hard could it be so I put it back on what a little longer Jane felt off again and I could go up to a hundred yards before that chain would fall off again and for the entire time I owned that minibike I never actually got it to work more than million or so and so I remind you of the story I told you that forms one of these stories of my personality and one of the stories of my personality that I talked about in a prior periscope was that if you dropped me on the island of prisoners I'd have a tough first week but eventually if he came back in the year I would be running the island of prisoners so because that that sort of fantasy movie script that I wrote in my head is so baked into my personality intentionally I intentionally you know baked that part of my code

[2:13]

of my code that when I saw a picture I was just randomly looking through something I saw a picture of myself at 13 on that minibike and I realized yeah I've been telling Christina for a while then I want a minibike and I'm pretty sure she doesn't she doesn't think that I mean it now I don't have really the situation where it would make sense to have one but I'm gonna get a minibike I might be 75 when it happens might be 95 but when you come back to the island in a year I'm gonna be on that minibike because I don't even know if I could stop myself from getting it eventually it's like it's like just built into my code I'm gonna have to make that happen someday I'd like to compare my my medical recommendations to the medical community I think this is fair do you

[3:16]

community I think this is fair do you because my qualifications for medical advice are nothing and of course the medical community is highly highly competent so there was me calling for an immediate end to flights from China that was on January 24th a week before the president called for it and before any of the medical experts called for it so let's score that one for Scott because turns out my medical advice on virus transmission was pretty good now again I'm not saying that that makes me qualified nothing like that I'm still an idiot I don't know anything about these medical scientific things but that's why we're scoring it okay I got lucky on one all right so all right like I lucky on one then it was when I was calling for

[4:17]

one then it was when I was calling for masks when all of the medical community were saying now it'll just make it worse you don't need no mess and I'm pretty sure I was the first public person to say I'm sorry I can't possibly be true I base that on my large reservoir of no medical knowledge whatsoever on top of my gigantic foundation of no scientific knowledge whatsoever okay I got lucky on that one everybody now agrees maths are pretty important so all right so I was you know it's 2-2 for me zero for the experts but there's some things that were sort of a tie meaning that they said them but I did probably say them first for example when the when the virus stuff was first emerging those of you who have been

[5:19]

emerging those of you who have been watching me on periscope you know I was probably the first person in the country at least you know sort of in the public view who said make sure you get outside and get some Sun from vitamin too you will be good for you now I'm not saying that I invented that idea indeed it came from the experts but have you ever heard so many people telling you to get outside and get in the Sun since then I'm not saying I started it I'm saying it's a tie because the experts say it's a good idea I say it's a good idea I said it first I'm pretty sure I beat almost everybody there which doesn't make me smarter clearly I'm not but I you know I'm three for three then there's a question of the hydroxychloroquine and here you know here it's no fair at all because I think you'd really have to have some serious medical knowledge to make a good recommendation about hydroxychloroquine

[6:21]

recommendation about hydroxychloroquine but I made one anyway which was that given that we all knew had been prescribed for many years for several different causes was well understood the risk of getting this Cova thing especially for some types of people was devastating so from a risk to management perspective given that we had some anecdotal information I said we should at least make it an option should be a good thing to try just from a risk management perspective not from a medical perspective because it's really the medical is just part of a larger question because remember you could have been saving the economy as well so you had you had two upsides saving people but also saving the entire economy which would save more people so since there was an enormous potential gain if it worked or even if it worked some of the time because the stakes were so high it

[7:21]

time because the stakes were so high it would be worth the risk there was a known risk somewhere in the well you know you can have this if you've got some arthritis or we'll give this to you for lupus so what did the experts say well early on they said it's gonna kill you stuff and just kill you now you could argue that if someone else were scoring this one they might give it to the experts they might say Scott the experts are right they do not have reliable double-blind large-scale studies they would show that this is both safe and efficacious Scott don't you know how science works to which I would say I don't think you know how decision-making works because I know all that stuff all that stuff you told me I knew all that do you know how decisions are made

[8:21]

do you know how decisions are made because decisions are made taking all that and combining it with all the other stuff and then you weigh the odds and make your decision so I'm gonna score that one for me from now from a medical perspective because of course what do I know about anything medical but from a risk management perspective and from the fact that we can see a number of other countries are obviously doing exactly this so we don't know if it works great yet that's a separate question I I'm never I'll never be the one that tells you it works great how would I know I don't believe any of the studies but there's certainly enough to make you think you might that certainly a number of other countries are going at it hard so I'm for for for that you've got the the ventilator situation all right now my understanding of the

[9:22]

right now my understanding of the ventilator situation is there's a little bit of a question here a little bit of a question oh yeah I feel one more after this that whether the ventilators are helping people are killing them in the specific case of The Cove aid patients now you've probably seen you've probably seen on the Internet at least if not in the news I'm not even sure if the mainstream news has covered these stories but maybe they have that maybe the ventilators are making things worse not better you've seen that right what was my recommendation about ventilators well I didn't know anything about ventilators until I started seeing these reports of you know maybe the ventilators or worse but do you think that people stopped using ventilators the moment people started raising the alarm possibly what I saw was that

[10:25]

alarm possibly what I saw was that people were getting better results maybe with these nose cannulas or whatever they are basically just regular oxygen in a more in less aggressive way so I've seen those reports I don't know what's true how would I know how would I know if I'd known as cannula is better than a ventilator and in what situations but
if it's true and I would need a fact check on this that hospitals can bill insurance companies a god-awful amount if that ventilator goes down the throat and far far less if it doesn't and hospitals are hurting for money right now if all of those things are true what does that create a situation which you've heard be described before there's a huge upside potential for if somebody

[11:29]

a huge upside potential for if somebody wanted to act badly huge upside potential low opportunity to be caught why because my understanding is that they only use the ventilator in very prescriptive situations I need a fact check on that too so you should ignore everything I'm saying in this segment because I'm probably just spreading spreading conspiracy theories but my understanding is that they use it in a very specific case so that they don't get sued so that if I'm just guessing is something like your oxygen levels plus something else so if you if you hit the checklist the ventilator goes down now even if they were suspected that the ventilator was killing people in this specific situation of kovat and I don't know that that's true but if they did suspect that would they be influenced by the fact that there would be a gigantic financial

[12:30]

that there would be a gigantic financial incentive as well as probably lower risk to follow the checklist to do what you do when the oxygen is this and the other signs are this even if you thought it was killing them if you don't know I mean you don't know but you know one pays you a lot so they might die either way you don't really know do you you don't know because that's the whole point if I think if the doctors knew it was killing people like if they actually knew I can imagine you know except the in the rarest case I can't imagine a doctor actually killing somebody intentionally if they knew I was gonna kill them but what if they just thought it was a toss-up what if they thought for themselves I don't really know but I do know that the checklist says I should be doing it and that's the checklist that keeps me from getting sued because at least I'll say well I had a suspicion but like I didn't

[13:32]

well I had a suspicion but like I didn't have any proof that it was killing people because do that I would have to have some kind of a study and I'm not in the study I'm in a hospital so it would be easy for me to imagine that the ventilators or maybe a little over years I'm just I am that's something we're going to look at but I wouldn't want to I don't want to suggest that that's true because this is this is so much the kind of situation where it turns out the whole things just BS meaning that maybe hospitals don't don't make more if the ventilator is used you know some basic part of the story it's just untrue so be on guard that there might be like a basic part of that story that's just isn't true so that's what happens when you play you put together everything you've heard on the Internet all right so all I'm saying is you should always

[14:36]

so all I'm saying is you should always listen to the experts I think I made my case all right here are some weird things that are happening because the simulation is speaking to us have you noticed now that you're starting to see the world more clearly it does it feel like 2020 is a year when there's some kind of veil that's being lifted on reality or at least on what you understood about how as civilization was put together there are a lot of assumptions falling away right and isn't it weird that the simulation would pick this year to make us see things clearly what year is this 2020 the simulation is letting us see clearly in 2020 2020 eye sight how cool is that

[15:37]

how cool is that and I tweeted I found a picture I had I tweeted this a long time ago but it got funnier over time I had purchased for gardening there's a little thing called a TDS meter now it just says actually TDS meter on it which was funny which is why I tweeted it but I didn't realize the first time I tweeted it how much more meaningful would be because right next to it it said made in China so it was a TDS meter made in China that I just happened to run into today but what are the odds the simulation delivers here is the weirdest thing about the tragic situation of a mood are burry who was slain by the two guys who recklessly brought that gun to to confront him here's the weird thing about this story are you ready for it I'm gonna give you the the take on the story that nobody's given you do you think that's possible is there any way because you're probably

[16:39]

is there any way because you're probably sick of the freaking story by now right it's a tragedy what could you do you know you talk about it all day long it's not gonna help the family but here's my take on it nobody disagrees it's the weirdest kind of a kind of a conversation because nobody really disagreed is if you actually and people are acting like they're arguing without disagreeing have you noticed that because have you seen or heard one person who said yeah it was a good shoot yeah that's that's exactly what they should have been out there doing no have you seen one person who thought that the guys who who were you know chasing the Moses name I moved the guys does anybody think that the guys who chased them were using good judgment nobody literally nobody thinks

[17:42]

judgment nobody literally nobody thinks they were using good judgment all the way through does anybody think that walking around in somebody's house is gonna raise suspicion does anybody think it's the worst thing in the world if you wouldn't if you weren't right down the line nobody disagrees on any part of it there was it was people who made what turned out to be bad decisions at the time and what really the big problem was that all the bad decisions happened in the same place if you take three people who make bad decisions once in a while you know we don't know that they only made bad decisions right I wouldn't wouldn't allege that but if you take somebody who sometimes makes bad decisions and you put them in a field all by themselves probably no problem if you take two people who sometimes make decisions that are bad and put them in a field next to each other well a little

[18:45]

field next to each other well a little more a little more opportunity for something to go wrong but if you add that third person who has a tendency to make bad decisions you are two of them you've got a bad situation now is it is it racism well that's what everybody wants to talk about but if you have a situation where you could easily imagining you happen no matter which races any of them were where do you get that information unless you are yourself a racist so this is where the parody begins what would make people think that the two white guys were racists well it would be the what would be the interpretation that says yeah this is obviously it's because they're a racist it's not because they're white isn't because that's the only evidence I see I don't see now if it turns out they have some body of work and wish

[19:45]

some body of work and wish they've said things that would be appalling I will immediately change my opinion but as far as I know as far as I know it's just who they are that makes you assume that they're racist is that not true and if you're assuming somebody's a racist because of who they are not what they did because again it would be easy to imagine that situation where you could just mix up all the ethnicities ages and genders if everybody involved still gets them something like that same outcome it'd just be easy you know you could you could recast that a million times and you put three people who made bad decisions in the past I'm guessing and maybe they made them that night they just happen to happen at the same time so it was you know a terrible tragedy but to imagine therefore that you can read minds or that there that they were racist because they're white I would say it's not in evidence should it become an evidence later I would reconsider so that's my

[20:49]

later I would reconsider so that's my take on it and people are acting like they're disagreeing but I don't think they are I don't think there's a thing I just said that anybody would disagree with if you actually you know could you talk to them one on one there's now one thing I just said anybody would disagree with I don't think right just a tragedy here's a it's really interesting well you can decide if it's interesting takes on what what's going to happen after the coronavirus situation is passed now bla Srinivasan you might think of him as more of a this is the fun part because it's from three different personalities so you might think of him as a you know a tech you have very he's hard to describe she's such a Renaissance kind of personality but somebody whose future minded technology minded you know Science and Technology kind of a brain and so he says one

[21:52]

kind of a brain and so he says one possible good future after the coronavirus stuff is that people would move out to rural areas work remotely James changed jobs more easily in a truly global labor market fewer but longer drives with autonomous cars 24/7 delivery drones socialize online and in virtual reality physical social distancing was a digital social networking question mark so those are just sort of some you know thoughts about how things might be different now those come from may remember technology futurists tended for personality and then retweeting that with his own comment is nate silver now Nate would be most famous for his statistical analytical abilities so so his take on it goes another possible future there's a vaccine in 12 to 18 months people mostly go back to how they were living before but with greater awareness of pandemic risk in other words everything

[22:53]

pandemic risk in other words everything just reversed of the mean yeah it'll be just like before because things revert to the mean so the the technologist is seeing all these technology opportunities and and the market you know the market meeting those opportunities and sort of building the future the the guy who knows the most about statistics says quite reasonably by the way I'm not I'm not giving you an opinion which is the you know the more likely one it's just going from two different personalities so it's from Nate's filter yeah we get a vaccine go back to the way we were mostly and then the last one the last assumption or the last prediction is for me so I thought well now we've heard from two different personalities let's see what I can add to this so I said yet another possible future the flaws of our ancient assumptions and Rusted systems have now

[23:54]

assumptions and Rusted systems have now been cruelly revealed making them easy prey for our geniuses and engineers who will lead civilization to the golden age that's my bet so nobody of course knows what's going to happen I would say that this is bigger than all of us so anybody who says they can predict what's gonna happen after the coronavirus I think that's that's a stretch you know you know I've had some good predictions but they were narrow little areas you know but predicting how everything goes that's that's a lot to ask but there are some things that I could say with some confidence one is that and see a few agree with me in the comments here one is that this is caused us to completely rethink everything all of our assumptions all of our systems why do we drive to work you know what why do you some why are some things physical or our entire civilization if you think about it
it well not entire about let's say 90% of

[24:57]

well not entire about let's say 90% of our civilization is a pre-internet design think about that I mean that that's sort of the kill shot right there and I have to go on 90% of civilization is preeminent pre-internet design I'm just making up that not purpose something like that what happened with the coronavirus situation everybody just took a step back and said okay I should I just continue running as hard as I can in the same direction forever you know now that I've got a I got a pull back what do I see you know what what has been revealed what do I know now because of this the lockdown and everything else what do I know now that I didn't know before and the answer is a lot a lot we really found out a lot about where all the weaknesses are in our systems we know where our food systems are bad we know what kind of people are gonna need help and what kind where we'll probably learn something about printing trillions

[25:57]

learn something about printing trillions of dollars weirdly it looks like we can just print money if we want to I don't know if there's going to be a penalty for this but it looks like there might not be in this weird situation where inflation is largely impossible so almost everything from you know you might not have a post office I think all the newspapers are likely to disappears the
the the date the nature of news itself is going to change because an entire industry is just going to you know likely going to disappear along with with my job and you know that's just a fraction and I think even stuff like health care they're likely to be gigantic lasting changes for example one of the things happen during the lockdown was that and I was part of this process I was suggested to the task force through some excellent help Thank You Jonah Shumate I suggested to the task

[26:59]

Jonah Shumate I suggested to the task force the idea of letting doctors who are doing tela-health practice across state lines because the emergency you couldn't do that before I think that'll probably last what kind of a what kind of a permanent change would that have on the cost structure and just the very assumptions about how a new health care now add that to the fact that we learned how to rapidly build all of these these testing devices so manufacturing is going to come back to the United States so now add the fact that we're going to start manufacturing tons of you know medical devices probably around more locally add to the fact that you'll be able to get your doctor on the phone how hard will it be to get a test from any at least you know place locally it could be your CVS your Walmart because they will be doing this stuff you go in you get a test you know send it on your app to your telehealth doctor I mean you could see you could

[28:00]

doctor I mean you could see you could see universal health care happening at a lower cost than current health care very easily and it could it could be a direct outcome of the coronaviruses stuff so that's just one example but I I think everything from education to the way we commute live recreational be rethought from scratch and the result will be a little thing we call the Golden Age here in the middle of act three act 3 is when you get really whacked hard and it doesn't look like you could come back that's just about where we're at but we humans don't really lose in the end if you noticed we do have a hundred thousand year on broken record of kicking the ass of every microbe virus mammal bird and fish that gets in our way so we are gonna climb on top of this or just a bad at the top of the the

[29:04]

this or just a bad at the top of the the hump head over feel good about it so a weird thing happened on the internet today I don't know if you've ever seen this happened that I I swear I'm not making this up this is a real thing that happened to me I promise cross my heart I'm not making this up I changed my mind on something I know I know I think you don't believe it because you've never seen it right nobody's ever changed their mind about anything in politics or on the internet but damn Ann Coulter wrote an opinion piece about the the virus and whether came from the lab or it came from the web Marcus didn't you kind of expect the Ann Coulter would write that it came from the lab wouldn't you what do you have expected that well what I wouldn't have seen coming is that

[30:04]

what I wouldn't have seen coming is that you know she's anti neocon anti war for no reason and why not yeah nothing wrong with that and she makes a compelling lawyerly argument but not like a lawyer she's one of the best writers in the country she makes a compelling argument that it probably came from the web market and I thought that myself damn it damn it Ann Coulter yeah I'll try to give you her argument quickly and those there was a fact that I kind of knew but somehow I hadn't put it in place the way she had and I thought all makes sense now and here's the way she she puts it in context first of all who was like who would like the United States to get into some kind of a military confrontation with anybody it would be the neocons so if you believe there are these people called neo cons you know these ultra you know right right-wing people in the

[31:07]

know right right-wing people in the government and the wheels of Industry in the military-industrial complex and that these neo cons are always itching for a war or at the very least a buildup of military equipment because presumably they all make money on on the military industrial complex so it would move them to make us think that we need to build up our military because China's a threat so if you were to ask yourself is there anybody who would be capable of this is my spend not not ants is there anybody who would be capable of creating a rumor that it came from the lab which would be the worst-case scenario who would be capable and have the motive and if there are such things as neo cons well okay there you have the motive and you have the opportunity because the opportunity part is easy right it's pretty easy to start a rumor who can do that and so there's a huge potential website right

[32:09]

there's a huge potential website right odds of getting caught and going to jail for starting a rumor zero potential upside if it causes a military buildup because it's part of what makes us get antagonistic toward China profit incalculable gigantic so in a situation like that who do you expect people to start a rumor that would benefit them in incalculable ways and they couldn't get caught not in any serious way yeah yeah we live in a world where that's a ripe situation for that doesn't mean it happened but it's the righteous of situations and then and makes this case you know I guess a lot was made of the fact that it was a bat virus but there were no bats in the wet market you all heard that right so it couldn't have come from bats because they didn't have any bats in the

[33:10]

because they didn't have any bats in the wet markets anywhere near there but as an explains and I kind of knew this but somehow I missed the significance because I mean idiots it we know that the virus didn't go from bat to human it went through some middle species which appeared this panic win or whatever the hell it is some kind of animal or bird yeah Pangolin I don't know what that is but some kind of a creature which apparently they are at the markets so the argument that it couldn't have been at the wet work it doesn't make sense just of course it could so once you throw in the fact that there's somebody who has a motive to tell you the wrong story and it's easy to do and you throw in the fact that the most ordinary way this happens is through the the wet markets and then you throw in the fact that any any virus lab in the world would probably have safety violations which is what and also said I thought

[34:11]

which is what and also said I thought that myself oh that's that's a good point I'll bet you could randomly pick you know any top-level secret facility and say alright we're gonna do an audit what are they gonna find well they don't find nothing because the people who do the audit are paid to find stuff if you pay somebody to do an audit and look for safety violations they'll find them 100% of the time otherwise you know why are you gonna buy them the next time so so here's the thing before I read and argument I would have said 80% chance it came from the lab just like our intelligence agencies are saying our intelligence agencies right just like what they're saying and that you know China is lying about that and everything else and I want to say to 80% chance it was the lab not intentional does that just never made sense to me but maybe an accident I would now revise that to 5050

[35:17]

I would now revise that to 5050 I want to go 6040 Webb market I'm gonna go 55% likely that the Ann Coulter argument is right 55% that it was the Webb market don''t somebody says that pangolins are faint news I'm willing to be persuaded you saw me be persuaded once anyway the point is this is the kind of news that you just can't be sure of anything anymore right you just can't be sure of anything I don't think you'd rule out the fact that it was engineered I do not think you can rule out engineered no not not even a little bit but you also can't rule out the wet market and I thought it was a little bit easier to rule out the wet market but if you can't rule it out and it is the most common way that other viruses have started you kind of have to

[36:19]

viruses have started you kind of have to play the odds don't you if it usually starts in this way and this way is the same way it's always been and it usually starts that way what makes this the one time has started the other way good good or s or as a jack for Sabich said on twitter here's where do you think the guys from the lab go to eat what do you think they go to lunch and I don't know how would you score that you know what would the score be if if the guy from the lab went over it got it on his shoe and then he braids he brought the deadly virus into the lab would you score that as a lab accident if it then got out of the lab I don't know all right that's probably all I wanted to say on that anybody want to ask me a question I'm gonna take some questions gonna catch somebody off guard get ready get

[37:23]

catch somebody off guard get ready get on your game a question answering will begun will begin alright we'll see if Jeff is awake Jeff are you awake hey do you have a question for me I I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that tonight you'd asked me to come on online tonight it's weird I'm a physician I'm a hospitalist I work in critical care medicine I've had the unfortunate pleasure of treating this virus and yeah it's kind of a scary virus and okay can you can you tell us what part of the country or you want to keep that I'll tell you I'm in Oklahoma southwest Oklahoma I'm in a fairly rural area medium sized hospital most of my patients have come out of a federal prison actually yeah so let me ask you this of the so this is anecdotal how many how many patients

[38:24]

anecdotal how many how many patients have you seen roughly a lot of you uh I would say in the hospital in as a primary as a hospital it's probably a dozen and then I've consulted with a lot of people all across the United States that couldn't get hydroxychloroquine friends of friends that would call me and I did some telemedicine with them maybe another dozen so two dozen maybe so you know I know that it's impossible to do a controlled study or anything but is there any observation just anecdotally that you would say people need to know X that something works or something doesn't work it's raised anything this that that is in your mind as my god I think we're looking at this wrong any-anything stick out no I think in general we're looking at this correctly I think the social distancing the flattening curve has helped at least it has in my part of the country so far but what about the meds the meds yeah so hydroxychloroquine anecdotally I've talked to many doctors that have used it we're kind of in the red

[39:24]

we're kind of in the red Belt here and so you know this drugs been politicized obviously but a lot of us are using it and we seem to be having good effects if it's used early if you wait until you're on the ventilator forget it you know you're in a different different part or phase of the disease where not much it's gonna help I think so have you seen anybody yourself who got on hydroxychloroquine early who did not have let's say well whether or not they had other comorbidities or not who went on to not make it no I have not but and I've only had one patient died of this and and he was in very poor health and and quite frankly we didn't put him on on the drug because at first we didn't think he had it he presented differently he didn't appear to be a coronavirus patient so so no I wanted to address one thing that you said earlier or you're talking about when it comes to putting patients on ventilators and

[40:25]

putting patients on ventilators and reimbursement so there's two areas of reimbursement that occur in a hospitalized patient you have what they call E&M coding which is the physicians fee and that is a very small variance and it absolutely has nothing to do with whether or not we intubate a patient what you're addressing is the hospital fee which is based on what they call a DRG or icd-9 coding or 10:00 coding now and yes that he goes up dramatically but the physician does not participate in that reimbursement at least not most areas there may be some models where doctors get a kickback but in most places that's illegal so and when you put a patient on a ventilator it probably costs the hospital more money than they're getting reimbursed had they avoided it to begin with so yes there is what I think it's about three times the dollar amount that with the hospital gets but you're probably spending more than three times that well

[41:25]

spending more than three times that well let me ask you this do you have a sort of a checklist that says when you can and cannot use a ventilator to keep you out of trouble in other words if you do it if you do it according to these criteria you're always gonna be okay even if things go wrong yeah anything like that yeah I would say I mean it's not a exact checklist but yes the idea the way you're thinking about it is correct so well hold on let me finish the thought that so if that's if that's correct then a doctor who suspected then maybe the ventilator might not be helping as much as is hurting would still be it would be an easier path for them to follow the checklist if it's a close call wouldn't you say yeah I think so but this is evolving so rapidly there's a guy by the name of Scott weingartz at Stony Brook Hospital that's really on the cutting edge of this and and what we're finding out is what you're saying earlier that it appears that when we put people on dental aiders it tends to accelerate the

[42:26]

dental aiders it tends to accelerate the process you want to delay that as long as possible and that knowledge is just now kind of getting to circulate around you know most of what you know guys like me in rural communities you know the the the old way of thinking was if you come in your SATs are low you look like crap you put them on the tube have you tried the nose cannulas for the oxygen yes yeah we call high flow oxygen and that's what we use primarily now in fact we have actually prone to patients without being on a ventilator we used to only prone patients once they went on to tell tell people to tell people what that means to prone them to put them on their stomach so most of the volume of your lung is on the backside of your lung and if you're laying on your back that part fills up with fluid and you don't get good oxygen transfer by flipping you're over the dynamics of the lung become such that you get better oxygenation and we only used to do that when a patient was like far gone on the tube last-ditch effort we turned them

[43:27]

tube last-ditch effort we turned them over in the bed it's a real pain in the butt now we're literally pruning people when they're not on a ventilator they're just on nasal prong cannula and and we're having dramatic responses to that they actually improved quickly it's it's the weird thing to see a patient wing on their belly and the I see here without a tube down their throat but we're seeing that more and more dude do you think that baby because it does seem that the the death rate is dropping quite nicely at least I think it was maybe it's going to go up again because the the lockdown slowly ending but do you think there was anything that the doctor that the doctors were collectively doing better that made the death rate go down in other words they change a procedure and medication learn something they didn't know is this this whole prone thing turned it was a pretty big deal I understand but I'm wondering if you think there was any one thing or things yes which like dramatically changed the death rate well I may be early say but if I had to surmise yes

[44:28]

early say but if I had to surmise yes and it would be that delaying intubation and putting a person on the ventilator it seems to be the best choice but and it's probably saving more lives so meaning and we've always known that putting a person on a ventilator across-the-board increases mortality but in this particular way wait but they can't increase mortality in general or a wouldn't be used well it depends on how you compare the patient so you know you know statistics are but wait wait is this a cause and effect thing because you were you only put the ventilator into people or you know it's just a long shot anyway right you're correct but there's some studies out there that suggests that if you could minimize the time on a ventilator or delay going on to it in some cases mortality decreases got it okay but with this virus it seems to be that you know you only want to put somebody on the ventilator when you have absolutely no other option and even those patients do pretty poorly but it

[45:30]

those patients do pretty poorly but it seems to accelerate death what we're seeing if you put them on early like we used to for other conditions you might actually make things worse and so I think that maybe saving lives the knowledge that's getting out there now a lot from what Scott weingartz are doing in Stony Brook is really getting around the nation and we start to follow it so so I've got to ask you about vitamin D when we know for example they're all yeah after watch out for confirmation versus actually makes sense so my confirmation bias I'll just put it looks like this that we know vitamin DS you know good for your immune system so it makes sense that could have some some effect and if we observe that old people are having a bad time well that makes sense because they're old but they also don't get out as much probably don't get as much Sun we've heard that the african-american community is getting hit hard they have more trouble processing vitamin D is I as I understand that kids are doing well they're you know they probably get more Sun than anybody we're less sunscreen

[46:33]

Sun than anybody we're less sunscreen even though they shouldn't maybe so so there seems to be this almost perfect correlation and and then the places that you think wouldn't be getting much such as the skin to Navion countries they know they don't get enough so the reading cotton oil and fish and stuff so there's an almost it's allege there's an almost perfect correlation between how much vitamin D you're getting and how much trouble you're getting but confirmation bias we're getting to the same place right so it doesn't mean it's true it just means that's the way it looks tell me what you think well I think it's very important to understand from the onset that correlation does not equal causation and sure so you can't say with any certainty from what we're seeing with this type of studies that are out there now that having a good vitamin D level is protective versus you know the opposite for precisely that it is it's just a correlation there could be a thousand other factors involved alright so agree on that the but could

[47:36]

alright so agree on that the but could you make use of it this way if you found that the correlation held and you wouldn't know which way it went could be the the low vitamin D as a marker for having a bad immunity to begin with so suppose you could easily test for vitamin D could you then say look you folks who have boosted your vitamin D you're probably going to be in better shape now if you couldn't buy if he couldn't boost your vitamin D would mean you're probably in such bad shape that you shouldn't go anywhere well let me just tell you what I'm doing and maybe this will answer your question I am recommending people get on a reasonable dose of vitamin D if they're not taking it whether or not they know their levels are higher low because it's harmless to begin with it's cheap and a lot of people are deficient anyways and it's been proven that there's a multitude of other conditions that that you improve with improving your vitamin D levels so I think that you know it's

[48:37]

D levels so I think that you know it's one of these there may not be a study but like you alluded to earlier it's a decision making process and it just makes sense to take vitamin D so that's where I'm at with it maybe I'm wrong maybe people criticize me for that but I'm telling people to take about 10,000 units a day and and you know go on with life at the camp so all right this sounds like a good risk reward it is possible to overdose oh I'm invited right absolutely yeah don't eat polar bear liver that's the best advice I've had today no no no polar bear liver and when you talk to your doctor friends and you know you're nobody's watching so you can say anything you want what what meds do they think are the killers yeah if if they all got together the doctors you talked to and made a bet and they can only pick one Sara punic or it could be a vaccine if you know something there which one would they bet on doesn't mean they're right but where do you think they would bet on current medicine has

[49:38]

they would bet on current medicine has nothing to do with coronavirus no the question is what medicine would they bet on that would be the most effective if anything against coronavirus in other words would they go with hydrogen plus quran REM is bigger or whatever well so in rem des aveer i think as you're aware the way they powered that study didn't really look at mortality it looked at time to cure so it's the cures way out on that yeah well what about the monoclonal x' interesting I understand DARPA is going to be doing some work with it and you know we're all excited to hear what's going to happen with that but there's just we have know you know the average guy on the on the street like me all we do is read about it we no experience with it so so here's the question I don't know that you would answer this but I just for the audience it seems to be that if you can find

[50:40]

it seems to be that if you can find somebody who's you know already got the antibodies that the hard way to get enough of them is to take them from each individual who can give you a pint of blood that seems like hard to scale that up but if you if you could clone it you could scale it faster except I don't think we have enough cloning resources we know how to clone but it's not something that scales that easily so the question I have is who makes those cloning devices who makes them who makes the lab equipment they could if if the if the federal government said look guys there's one thing that we're pretty sure it's gonna work because well you would you back me on this following statement but tell me if this is too strong it can't be wrong to put antibodies into people is that too strong I don't think it's too terribly strong I mean there's gonna be a couple cases obviously outliers but I think in general it's probably a good idea so so so if we could just put a let's say a Manhattan

[51:43]

could just put a let's say a Manhattan Project on whatever this lab equipment is so we can scale up enough just think the hardiest antibody as we can and just start making this stuff now would have to be injected or would it be a pill intervenors IVIG it would have to so it can't it can't so that doesn't scale that well either you can't just knock you late everybody or using practically the doctors within fusion centers with me making the killing yeah well you could but you know that's another thing you could scale up right there must be all you need is a nurse or a phlebotomist right well this this was a great call thank you so much I'm watching the audience comments and they're really happy thanks for that you are one of my heroes and the reason I say that is is that I know that what you do has come

[52:44]

is that I know that what you do has come to a personal cost to you and I think that you're doing it for the betterment of humanity I believe that and I believe you taking a personal cost in and and kudos to you for that I really appreciate that thank you I appreciate that very much and yeah I do take your personally all right thank you thank you Scott bye all right
I believe that's off enough for today and I will talk to you in the morning