Coronavirus Conversations - Day 22: COVID-19 Symptoms and Reinfection Potential

Well, hello everyone. Dr. David Perlmutter here, and yes, it's update number 21, Coronavirus Update 21. What a day it has been. Globally, over a million cases now, and the death rate is high, and it's climbing at rates that are really quite disturbing. And we're going to talk in just a little bit about the latest information in terms of where this came from. I mean, it's some surprising news, I think, for everyone in terms of where this virus had its origin. I'll be revealing that in just a little bit, so stay tuned. I want to start off today by letting you all know that it looks as if there are, you know, you hear on the news about the development of a new testing kit, one that might take 15 minutes to develop and then you'll have your results. Some take a few days. Looking at various types of things that are measured to determine if you do have it or you don't have it. This is really important technology which will be game changers if the information can be put into play. In other words, when people test positive, they can be isolated. That would be game-changing. In light of the fact that many people, as many as 40 to 50%, can be carriers and transmit the virus without having any symptoms is very, very worrisome. We did not see that with SARS. We did not see that with MERS. like we're seeing it now. And having said that, testing people who have been exposed but have no symptoms would be really, really powerful in terms of allowing us finally to, as they say, flatten the curve. What I'm going to post in the comments first is a link to some very interesting information that will allow you to see and review all of the new ideas, the names of the companies, that are developing various types of tests and get a sense as to where we are with that. Now, moving forward, what I'd like to do is— many of you have seen, and there have been a lot of comments today on the symptom tracker that I posted earlier. And that is— I'm going to post to you right now that link as well, and I'll start to take questions in a little bit, and then I'm going to reveal to you something very, very Very compelling. And let's first look at the idea of a symptom tracker. And there was an image that I posted earlier today on Facebook, and we're going to look at what that image was all about. It's comparing severe COVID-19 with non-severe COVID-19 and The importance of this is, you know, severe means hospital, non-severe, mild, if you will, means non-hospitalization. Across the board, people have fever more than 80% of the time. Cough with severe is 71%, whereas not as much with the non-severe. Pretty much these symptoms, fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, sputum production, that's interesting. are pretty well equal between severe and non-severe, but sputum production, the ability to spread the virus through sputum, is at 38% for severe and only 28% for non-severe. So shortness of breath is far more dramatic in severe, as you might expect. Interestingly, headache is more common in people with less severe COVID-19. So go to the, go to the link that I just said, that'd be the second link that you see there, and learn about these issues because I think they're really important. I'd like to tell everybody that we are doing a live presentation for free, of course, tonight at biohacking, and I'm going to send you the link to that now. You have to register, but we have a wonderful presentation that was created by Dr. Austin Perlmutter. I'll be joining, offering up some commentary, but it's an incredibly important presentation at 7 PM Eastern tonight, and I'm going to give you that link right now. You'll also find it in the, in the introduction where it says Coronavirus Update 21. You'll find it there as well. But here comes the that link now. So take a look at that tonight. It's a really nice PowerPoint presentation explaining our decision-making, explaining what threatens good decision-making, especially during these troubled times. And I think you'll enjoy it. Now, there's been a lot of talk, and rightfully so, about If I get this virus, am I— when I get through it and I no longer test positive, am I now at risk for getting it again? That's a heck of a question to want the answer for, right? We all want to know that. Many people are moving through it. I was out working in the yard and somebody, a friend, drove by on his bike and spoke to my wife and said, hey, we went through it, wasn't a huge deal. The question is, are you now immune? Do you need to go through the whole routine of gloves and masks and all that to keep yourself safe? And there's not a lot of information out there, but we're going to look at this in just a moment. I am going to send you a link to a study that I posted on drperlmutter.com that indicates that once you have this particular coronavirus, it may be that you are immune. Isn't that some good news? I'm going to tell you that this is a study with primates. Macaque monkeys were used for this study, but it showed that once infected with this particular strain of coronavirus, they did develop immunity. Really important for us to know. Is that going to be the case with humans? Don't know, but that sure would be great. I'm hoping that we will see a study in humans very soon. Having said that, however, understand that like the influenza virus, this virus can mutate. And if we see another round of coronavirus next season, it might mean that those who are immune at this time might again be susceptible. So I think we have to keep that in mind. It's the reason why every year there's, for example, a new flu immunization, a new flu shot, if you will. Because it does change every year. But this is a bit of good news, and I'd like you to take a look at that study that I just posted. It is in the coronavirus section of drperlmutter.com. And again, I want to remind everybody, go look at the intro today. We're doing that presentation tonight at 7 PM Eastern. Now I want to go through just some characterizations of this virus and recognize that the party line has told us that it appeared in China in December of 2019, hence the name COVID-19. But there's been a lot of talk recently about the idea that maybe it started or it was developed somewhere else and therefore— and there's a lot of discussion about that. I'm going to tell you what I have learned, and I want you to think about this. And that is that I think the virus was actually developed by the man in the moon. Now, does that help us to know that it was developed by the man in the moon? It does not. We have this situation, and I think it really is not going to be supportive if we try to figure out who may have developed this and was it made A bioterrorism weapon. I just can't imagine how that's going to help us move the ball down the field. So if that's interesting to you, there are certainly plenty of places to go to visit with that information. I personally choose not to visit with that information. Instead, do my best to vet what we know and give you tools to help yourselves. So We— I want to just mention, you know, we talk about SARS, we talk about MERS, and there's some very intriguing differences as it relates to this virus. We know that SARS and MERS do not become infectious until around the 5th or 6th day of illness. COVID-19 can be infectious much earlier and certainly can be transmitted from From people who are asymptomatic, and that is certainly worrisome. Typically, symptoms appear at about 5.5 days, but they can occur within 1 day and they can occur as far out as 14 days. The average is about 5.5 days, meaning 50% before and 50% after. There's no magic and somebody says, well, I'm after 5 days, I'm— I'm fine. Cool, I'll come into your house now. No, you really want to wait the 14 days. That's about a 96% likelihood that they are not infected. The other thing is there's been a lot of discussion about this virus going away because it's getting warm outside. We don't know that's going to happen or not. It would be great if it did, but I want to remind you that MERS, This Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome did very well in Abu Dhabi when it was 100 degrees. So keep that in mind as we ponder how long this is going to be around. We have heard from experts that once about 60 or 70% of people are affected, that's a threshold after which It's less able to be transmitted. And at that point, we expect the virus infection rate to go down. But that doesn't mean that necessarily then we can all cash in and go right back to work and public gatherings, etc., because as we've seen in countries that have kind of relaxed those rules, they get a second wave. And we don't— the first wave is plenty bad, so we don't need a second wave. It's hard to imagine that we're going to be able to lock down until such time as there is a vaccine. So just something to think about. We need to do, though, what we can right now to flatten the curve and allow this to give scientists enough time to develop meaningful treatments in the short run and certainly a vaccine in the longer run. I want you to look at the link that I sent you to the study in macaque monkeys. Best we got, what can I tell you? That showed that this time around, once they had the infection, they were no longer able to get it a second time. The take-home message is the virus may mutate, in which case people who've already had it the first time around may get it the second time around, but it seems likely that the second go around would be less intense. So where do we stand in terms of right now the case fatality rate? It looks like the case fatality rate is somewhere around 0.75 to 1%. We know that the rate is— could be lower because, you know, you look at the number of people who die versus the number of people who are diagnosed. Clearly, the bottom number is a lot larger because how many people have been tested and proven to have this. So that would make the total number of fatalities lower. On the other hand, people around the world are dying from this at home and those statistics don't make it into the development of this case fatality rate. So something to think about. Another thing to think about is it looks like one of the most powerful risk factors for bad outcome is age and also obesity. And with all due respect, that doesn't necessarily bode well for the United States because of our high obesity rates, as was described in a recent New York Times op-ed by my good friend Dr. David Ludwig at Harvard. And also, we know that the United States has a very large elderly population, and certainly in retirement areas like where I live, South Florida, average age is really quite significantly up there. People come here to retire. So what do we have to do in the short run? We've got to vet these Therapies that are being looked at, the hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax that we talked about. Understand that those are not necessarily a panacea. They are not a free ride. We know that hydroxychloroquine can induce a heart issue that can be severe. We know that the virus can induce myocarditis or inflammation of the heart muscle itself. So giving that hydroxychloroquine to an individual who now is at risk for myocarditis may jeopardize that person's life. We know that visual loss can occur with hydroxychloroquine that is permanent. That doesn't go away once you stop taking the medication and then you're through the coronavirus infection. So again, we have to temper ourselves in looking at these new developments. Not only with the hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax idea, but, you know, the antivirals as well, the remdesivir that's getting a lot of good press, and other antivirals that are being looked at. So moving forward, as it relates to some of these complications of coronavirus infection, we don't know, for example, with The people who are going to survive with— who experienced heart muscle inflammation in the hospital, myocarditis, will that be permanent? Will the people who have lung damage experience permanent lung issues? There is some suggestion that that may in fact happen. Probably like many of you, I have thought, maybe I could just go out and get this thing and get it over with. I want to make sure I don't do that. I'm 65 and there is the suggestion that there can be long-term, if not permanent, issues as a consequence of this infection. This is not the flu. If you want to say it's like the flu, if you're talking about maybe the Spanish flu from 1918 in terms of severity, maybe I'll go with you on that one. So So we do know that there's not been a whole lot of research done on the survivors, and there needs to be. We need to do 2 things. We need to look at them, measure metrics with them to see if they've got heart damage, lung damage, what is the competence of their immune systems. I'm going to talk about that in just a moment. But also, we need to look at them in terms of testing them for plasma or blood-related antibodies because that may be a valuable therapy, taking antibodies from people who have fully recovered and administering them to people who are sick. That's not new technology. A variation of that technology was used in 1918. Here we are, you know, a long way from there in terms of technology, so I think we should be exploring that and we know that that I've quoted several studies that are ongoing looking at that. We know that Israel is really moving that ahead quite rapidly. So we have to really get our arms around the transmissibility issues. We are learning, yes, of course, that it can be transmitted from asymptomatic or presymptomatic people, people who are going to show symptoms. The other thing to recognize is it's become even more clear, something we talked about 2 weeks ago, and that is the possibility of transmitting this virus by breathing the air that somebody has exhaled who is suffering from this infection. Not that they coughed, not that they sneezed, but they breathed near you. That is new research that Really makes us want to double down on our social distancing. That the virus can remain airborne for hours at a time makes us want to think about elevators and other areas that are closed in. And also, vis-à-vis our conversation yesterday, makes me really very much support the idea of wearing a mask at at all times when we are out where there are other people. The only downside I can think of in terms of a mask is if it compromises healthcare providers' ability to get hold of a mask, but I am in favor of mask wearing. We looked at a very compelling graphic just yesterday that indicates how those countries that are really all in on mask wearing have much lower rates increase, but they're doing other things as well, and I am willing to admit that. Now, are the projections right or wrong? Of course, only time will tell. I do note that the projections have gone from 100,000— between 100,000 to 200,000— now to minimum 240,000 up to 1.2 million. And, you know, so they're really all over the place. And my hope is that the projections may in fact come down. We know that the CDC indicated with the Ebola outbreak in 2014-2015 that we would— we should expect globally 1 million cases. And in fact, there were only— it was only 20,000. Only, I mean, that's still a big number. But so the projections were wrong. And so the projections can go either way. So let me do this. I'm going to take some questions. I don't know why it is, but this is by far and away the largest number of participants we've ever had, and I'm grateful that everyone's listening and hoping that you find this information very, very helpful. For those of you who are new, and there must be a lot of you, I would encourage you to look back. We've banked all these episodes on YouTube, on my Facebook channel, and also if you go to Dr. Perlmutter, drperlmutter.com, all of the peer-reviewed references that I use to produce these programs are found there for you to look through. All right, let's go through these questions. And again, for those of you who are new, some of these questions are all over the place and that's okay. I mean, one of the missions here I think is to vet some of this information and give my spin on it and there you go. Okay, let's just look through. Yeah, I'm wondering about what part of anything I've said is shaming. I'm not sure. Okay. Is it true those who received something about the flu vaccine, does it offer any protection? Probably not, but in this circumstance, having the flu shot may not be the worst idea. Why? Because look, if you get a bad flu, you can reduce your rate of getting a bad flu, that might just reduce your rate, your risk rather, of ending up in a hospital where you might then catch this infection. So in that regard, it may indeed make sense. Okay, it's airborne. That is correct in terms of the current science. Where I work, masks are scarce. That's, you know, there are, there is some indication that even bandanas can be somewhat helpful. The one of the most important things about mask wearing And the reason I'm so— one of the 3 reasons I'm so in favor of it is, yes, it keeps you from touching your face. That's a big issue. Touch your face with contaminated hands and that is a powerful vector for transmitting that. Why did the medical community advise against wearing a mask? I don't know why that was Initially, it might have come our way because of the scarcity of masks, and a public messaging happened in order to liberate masks for healthcare practitioners. And I, you know, that's certainly something we have to think about. Okay, let me look through some of these. Keep phone away when sleeping. I would keep the phone out of the room when sleeping. Get a good night's sleep. One of the most powerful things that you can do—we're going to actually talk about that at seven o'clock today. Go to the intro there; you'll see the link. Talk about how powerful sleep is for restructuring your brain, for being able to make good decisions, which we all need to do during these times, and certainly for empowering your defense. Play D here. You've got to play defense because we don't yet. Have an offense hasn't our offense hasn't showed up to the to the field as yet. No sugar for 19 days, Mary Donnelly. Ah, way to go! Don't buy anything with sugar before isolating. No snacking. Very very important. I am all in as it relates to sugar. I think okay. Thank you for time. Love hearing you on Rob Wolf's podcast. Good. Mostly looking for questions here. I appreciate the Made our own hand sanitizer with aloe leaf, vodka, and essential oils. Beverly, I would say the following. The vodka that I found in the liquor store— yes, I went to the liquor store— was 80 proof. That's 40% alcohol. I don't know, I've not seen data indicating that 40% alcohol is enough, but what I did find in the liquor store was a 70-proof vodka. liquor store was 151 overproof. That is by definition 75% alcohol. So I bought that and along with it I was able to find some rubbing alcohol and there you go. And if a drug that treats malaria is effective, would more natural treatments for malaria be effective like wormwood? Don't know the answer to that. We know that this hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine both act in 2 different channels in terms of targeting this virus, both in its ability to replicate and its ability to even make its way within the cell. This medication chloroquine is derived from— originally, it is— it's not that it's a natural product now, but it came from the cinchona tree, the bark of the cinchona tree. cinchona tree, and that was used back in 1820 to treat fevers. So there's been kind of a long experience with this type of treatment, and more recently with these derivatives, as it were. How important are our sirtuin levels? I don't know necessarily that looking at our sirtuin levels would be ideal at this But the things that influence sirtuin levels are actually very, very valuable. The activation of the sirtuin pathways happens when we are calorie restricted or that we have fasted for a period of time. That also activates the immune system by helping our bodies purge old or senescent immune cells and allows newer immune cells to then populate. Maybe giving us an edge, an advantage in terms of our immune system. It's all about immunity here, folks. It's, it's not about a latest greatest drug. That will come. It isn't there yet. So right now we've got to just bide our time, take a deep breath. We're going to talk about this at length tonight at 7 o'clock. And, and, you know, get back to doing some things if you can that will reconnect you to other people and reconnect you to nature and stay with your exercise. Okay, here we go. Let me— where can I find relevant research regarding— I lost it already— regarding it. These are going by so quickly I can't see, I can't read them. Anyway, I would say that if you want relevant research, go to drperlmutter.com. We are collecting Collecting the most valuable articles from Lancet, from BMJ, from the New England Journal of Medicine, from all the places that I think are valuable. Blood type O versus A original data did indicate higher risk with blood type A, and I'm glad that you brought that up because we do know that it is now appearing that certain people are genetically predisposed to have a better versus. Worse outcome. And these are as directed by something called HLA, human lymphocyte antigens, which can be characterized. It's interesting to know from maybe a therapy development perspective, we can't change our genetics, our HLA, but it is good because we see that there is some development looking at that in terms of treating patients who are quite ill. Okay, I'm going to look through a couple more of these questions. I have to get ready to go live in a little bit with our presentation for tonight. Do you know if Hydrogen Prostate definitely works when diluted to 0.5%? I would say probably not. The data that I read indicates full strength is what works, so I don't think I would dilute that. I do, however, believe that That the datament— the data indicating that you can dilute bleach is certainly sound. You can dilute bleach with 5 parts water, 1 part bleach, and then it's got to be in a sealed container. If it's open to the air, then it may not be effective the following day. It will outgas. Bleach will outgas. No flu vaccine. Okay. A lot of discussion about that. And again, I would tell you that I don't see data indicating that the flu vaccine is specifically helpful as it relates to dealing with coronavirus. On the other hand, maybe now it's not the best time to get the flu. How effective is it? No one really knows any year how effective the flu vaccine really is. A lot of people are asking about vitamin C, D, and zinc. I think all good ideas. I'm taking 50 milligrams of zinc picolinate a day, 5,000 IU of vitamin D3, and about 1,000 milligrams of zinc. Okay, so there's a lot of talk about liposomal vitamin C. I think being water soluble, a good vitamin C supplement should suffice. Dr. Fauci says 10 times worse. probably referring to the flu, and that is absolutely in line with the data that we are reporting as well. Facebook and internet have multiple ways, some— I'm not sure what that's all about. Okay, vitamin C turns into— oh, we're going to take a pass on that one. Play or pass? Does Advil exacerbate the virus symptoms? That is an excellent question, thank you for asking it. Results from information coming out of France indicate that it does. There was a study, or rather an editorial in BMJ indicating that that was not the observation. My vote is to avoid ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories because they are aggressively able to change your gut bacteria, and that is our first line of defense. The gut bacteria, the microbiome, dramatically regulates immune function and inflammation, and those 2 things need attention, and we want to cater to our gut microbes. Having said that, it's why we want to be eating fiber-rich foods right now and think twice about medications like over-the-counter acid-blocking drugs. Interestingly, Zantac was taken off the market yesterday for other reasons related to the potential of cancer-causing agent. But that and also nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, we've talked about this many times over the past couple of years, how NSAIDs are threatening to the gut bacteria. So I did a video that you might all want to watch on YouTube about the gut bacteria and COVID-19. I don't have the link for it right here in front of me. Maybe somebody can post it, but if you go to YouTube, put in Perlmutter microbiome coronavirus, then it will come up. I'll take a couple more questions and then I have to go. Thanks for all the positive comments. Pneumonia vaccine, good question, and I would say yes. If you have underlying lung disease, That would be a good idea. Or if you really are suffering from any chronic medical condition, probably a good idea. Now would not be the time to get community-acquired pneumonia, end up in an emergency room where there are plenty of people with coronavirus. That would add insult to injury. Okay, everybody, so many questions. I would like to answer them all, but Jess Guns brings up a point, avoid steroid medications as well if sick with coronavirus. I would say that there is some data that is supportive of what you are saying in terms of outcome, and I will tell you that it's being— it is anecdotal. It's information that I received from an emergency room, but calling for doctors not not to put people on steroids who have bronchitis or other problems in the community because if they do ultimately come down with coronavirus, their outcomes may actually be worse. And are people with diabetes or Parkinson's at higher risk of contracting it? I don't know the answer to that, but I will say that their outcomes, both Parkinson's as well as type 2 diabetes, and interestingly type 1 diabetes as well, the outcomes are overall worse by having those underlying conditions. So you've got to do your best to stay healthy, and you know, this is going to go on for months, and so now is a terrific time to double down on all of your efforts to regain your health. And we're going to talk about that tonight, 7 o'clock. The link is in the introduction there at the very top of the page. And I'm very grateful for everyone who watches. And okay, I was— one last question. I thought taking a baby taking aspirin, we wouldn't want that to happen. We wouldn't want babies to take aspirin because of risk of Reye's syndrome, R-E-Y-E-S I'm going to say bye for now and hope to talk to everybody tomorrow. Thanks for listening.