255: Dr. MJC on Vaccine Trial Updates and Post-Election Pivots

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Hello, my friends. Welcome back. I am so excited to be here with Dr. Michael J. Consuelos, aka Dr. MJC, for our Sweet 16th podcast together in the pandemic. Pandemic.

That's okay. It's 2020, so you can make up your own words. Jenny Blake, go ahead.

Oh my gosh. That's a new word. Like pandemicing or just pandemic.

Pandemic. I've been pandemic a long time.

Pandemic.

You know, that's what I have, a real pandemic.

Oh my gosh. So, yes, it's our Pivoting Around a Pandemic series. Wow. Who knew that was such a mouthful? And we happen to be recording today on 1111. It is almost 1111 and it is also Veterans Day. So before we go any further, thank you, Dr. Michael J. Consuelos, for your service and for your continued service to this country.

Oh, thank you. That means a lot to me. Yeah, it's been, it's been a, it's been a wild ride and I'm looking forward to today's conversation. And when we booked this, the 1111, 1111 was, you know, in our mind. So we'll have to take a pause and, and reflect a little bit. But yeah, I'm really happy to be here today with you. It's been a wild and crazy ride and I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

Likewise. For those who don't know you well, you have 15 other episodes you can check out. But a quick reminder that Dr. MJC provides consulting and advisory services to organizations in the healthcare sector. He's had several leadership roles in emergency preparedness and pandemic response since 1997. He's a former pediatrician and he's a current participant in the Pfizer vaccine trial. So that's your latest greatest badge claim to fame. You're already being interviewed by journalists abroad about that.

Yeah, that's been a really strange thing. It just, I was responding to a Twitter kind of conversation with Andy Slavitt who by the way has another great podcast like it's in the bubble. It's a kind of interesting perspective. He is worked in the Obama administration in for cms, I believe, and he's got some great contacts. But anyway, so he literally within minutes when I saw it was announced for some reason I had Twitter open. I responded to him, you know, saying it's as a participant I'm overjoyed with the results that Pfizer just announced a couple days ago. And at that time it was just within minutes. And then I sort of said, but as someone who does this work, there's still a lot of work to be done, right? We can't declare victory right away. And then within a few hours I get this email from a person in Japan that is the, I guess the Japanese news network, which is the Tokyo Broadcasting System, because I saw TBS on the email, like what was Turner Broadcasting System, you know, no different people. And they did an interview which was, which I can talk about here at some point, but was a very interesting experience.

That's so interesting that they found you and then reached out. I know you've been doing quite a lot of spontaneous calls, coaching and consulting this year. Before we move on to talking about post election life in the U.S. tell me about the interview.

There was an interpreter who was basically asking me questions and then they would interpret what I said. Then the show's director, it was for the morning show in Tokyo, basically their morning news show. So there was probably what ended up being just a few minutes probably on their station took like 45 minutes to make, which was just because it's just a lot of time going back and forth. But the most interesting question they asked me at the end was what is your message to the Japanese people?

Wow.

Yeah, I totally did not expect that pressure. Yeah. And I said, well, can you clarify what, like what, like what do you mean? He goes, well, what are your hopes about this? Because basically the questions were really genuine around as a number one, as a physician participating in a vaccine trial and the vaccine news and they want to know about symptoms and they asked a lot of just really, I think good questions and, and some background about myself, about me and. But that end Kind of threw me off. So I said, well, what do you mean by. What does it mean for the Japanese people? Said, well, you're, you know, we're reading about this, we're hearing about this, and this is happening in the United States and you're participating about this. But we want to know, like, what does this mean for everyone else? Like, for us.

For me, I'm personally overjoyed as someone who participated in the trial. And, you know, I had symptoms. I had arm swelling and pain. And in fact, I couldn't move my arm for a couple days. I don't want to. Like, you know, didn't. I mean, I could move it, but it was pretty painful. I don't want to stress people out, but it's clearly, I didn't get the placebo right because the placebo is just saline and salt water. Usually you have a little bit of pain at the injection site, but you're not going to be, you know, have a lot of swelling and that kind of stuff. And then within a day or so, I felt kind of just fatigued a little bit under the weather. So I felt that I had the vaccine. Right. So I was saying, well, for someone who's participated and think that they've gotten the vaccine, I feel overjoyed that I was able to participate and somehow add to science and add to the progress. And I really kind of fumbled the rest of it. And they said, well, it was really interesting. They said, well, no, yeah, we get that this is good for you and the people who are going to get this vaccine, but what does this overall mean to. To the Japanese people? And I finally, it clicked, which is.

I'm J.C. your answer?

Yeah, I'm like. I'm like, nothing to do with the.

Japanese people so far.

Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I'm trying to, because I'm. Well, I said, you know, I think this should be a sign of hope. Right. And a promise that there'll be a better tomorrow. That, you know, obviously the vaccine has. Having such great results initially. We need to kind of make sure that's. We do all the right things going forward. But people in Japan should be hopeful that there's a vaccine that looks like it's successful and that they have an opportunity to also get vaccinated. And I think they wanted me to give them a message from me which was pretty sure I got the vaccine, I'm doing well, and the Japanese people should be. Should feel like this is a safe vaccine if it comes out, and it should be able to, according to the science so far should protect them. And they're like, you know, thank you. That's, that's like the message we want to hear.

And it was like, just keep going until you tell us what we want to hear. Yeah, it was really, I love that you said a sign of hope, a promise there will be a better tomorrow.

Yeah. And they sort of said, yeah, but like, but, but then they were like, okay, well first of all you were talking about yourself and then you're talking about like too much grandeur kind of stuff and like, but what does it mean, like the end individual person. Right. I'm like, I get it. They want to know that this thing is safe and that it probably it's going to work. Right.

So let me, let me ask you about that because I hear a lot, even stateside in my day to day meetings with potential clients, people saying when there's a vaccine. Well, when there's a vaccine. And there seems to be a slightly fantasy world utopian vision happening of when there's a vaccine. Almost like I picture that when people say this, it's as if we just turn on the Pleasantville switch and it's oh, and there's a vaccine. It all goes back to normal or you know, leaps forward into the new normal. And my personal sense, take it for the 0.05 sense that it is worth, is that it's not going to be quite so neat and tidy and that in fact people will start to get more comfortable leaving the house and doing normal activities. I mean, who knows when anyone will want to just go sit in a movie theater together. I know a lot of people here in New York, gyms are open. Michael and I have been going to Jiu Jitsu. They have immaculate practices in place. But this notion that, oh, when there's a vaccine, everyone's going to just suddenly drop their fear, drop their precautions, it just doesn't, I don't think it's going to be so cut and dry like that.

I agree, I completely agree. So there's also a slow ramp up to that point to that nirvana that we expect. Right. So.

The Pfizer vaccine and I believe the Moderna vaccines, there are two MRNA vaccines that need to be stored at -94 Fahrenheit or -70 Celsius. Right? So that's about 40 or 50 degrees colder than anything that we currently mass immunize with. I think we usually things are like minus 30 or 40 or something like that. So, so the cold chain, what we call the cold chain, which is the keeping the vaccine at the right temperature so it doesn't go bad and then gets into your arm. Okay, that itself is going to be a little bit of a logistical to do, right. And so that needs to be all worked out. So normal freezers that most hospitals or doctors offices have do not have that type of temperature, that low of a temperature. So there's going to have to be dry ice. So. So it's going to take a while. So then you have to get two shots for it to work. So they're about three weeks apart. So imagine hundreds of millions of people that you have to get this special medication into their arm using a very specific cold chain to make sure it doesn't go bad. And then they get their first shot and then they have to come back three weeks later and get the second shot. And then usually within a couple weeks of that, that's usually when we say that most of the immune system is responsive. So imagine how long that's gonna take. Right? So even though we have it, to your point, even though we have it in the market, it's gonna take a while before there is gonna be enough people out there who have the vaccine. Now, what we don't know, what's still not known, is how long does that immunity last. So right now, what Pfizer sent out this week was based on about 90 cases of COVID in both the controls and, and give us details. But at least. So if you do like just straight math, there was probably 90 cases and only nine of those cases sort of in the matched experimental group. That's just very early results. We don't know if the rest of us who got the vaccine, how long it's going to last. So it could be that it lasts three months, six months, a year, it lasts forever. We don't know the answer to those questions. So it's premature for us to declare victory once we have this immunization, this vaccine in place. But the other thing, go back to the conversation about the folks in Japan. I think the other thing that maybe as I reflect on their question, is this is all happening an ocean away from them, and I don't know what's happening in their own labs or their own pharmaceutical companies. But the question is, how is the rest of the world going to get vaccinated too? I mean, we ended up having this pandemic in the United States because it originated a novel virus, originated in another country, international travel, and it came to our shores both from on the west coast and the East Coast. If you think about it, that way, you don't just need to vaccinate the United States, you need to vaccinate the world.

Exactly. And all of these questions and next steps that you've just laid out so beautifully, that's just the sort of functional rollout of this. There's also the social, political, economic, there's all these other slices. You know, we talked about how many different viruses had been running rampant in the year 2020. And so it strikes me that even if functionally speaking and logistically speaking, it's still an enormous challenge to roll out a vaccine so broadly, you still have a lot of the trust issues that we talked about last time, social issues. And even I know you had mentioned that it's. It was trickier to get people of color signed up for the vaccine trials and that understandably so, given the history of different weirdo things that the CIA has done, et cetera, that when someone comes knocking on somebody's door and says, hey, do you want to participate in this trial? They're like, no, thank you.

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. So I want to.

It's going to be really interesting to see how cooperative, varying degrees of cooperation and then what's the herd immunity or, you know, herd vaccination level or tipping point. And then again, I think there's going to be a psychological piece to all this. I think we all have some amount of personal safety trauma that's happening this year where we will never feel quite the same sitting in a restaurant the way we felt pre covet or pre2020. It's like, who's going to be brave enough to just go sit in a restaurant and depending on the capacity and not have that thought, could I get sick? And like I said, we've been, Michael and I take the subway twice a week. It's not too much. We don't touch anything. But you're still sitting there looking around at people. And instead of kind of smiling and being delightful, which happens too, it's kind of like, okay, who has their mask, who's wearing it as a collar, who's sneezing, who's coughing, who's touching what? Like there's just such a different calculus that is happening at least where I live in a more densely packed area.

No, and what you just said reminds me of the post 9 11America. Right? So what's the post Covid America going to look like? Or the world? So people travel differently now because of 9 11, or they look at certain countries differently or they sort of see something, say something. Right. That didn't mean Anything that's true.

Before 911 shoes off at TSA.

Yeah, right, right, exactly.

And so bring your toothpaste.

Yeah, exactly. Right now it's like okay, can this fit all in a quart size bag? You know, can all my. Right, exactly.

So and to your point, so then there'll be some really silly things that carry over that are just totally psychological to give the impression of we've got this under control and then there will be some things like washing our hands that are going to be just this is a good practice for you and you get home from somewhere no matter what.

Yeah, absolutely. Like for example, now a lot of restaurants that I visited or were sitting outside, you, you know, you scan you, you scan the code, right. And then the, the menu pops up onto your phone. I mean that's not a bad thing. So but I guess if you're the menu maker company, that's not a good thing.

I've been impressed by how restaurants are adjusting. Yeah, I think, you know, you're right, that's less touches. Although putting it on nice parchment paper or something could work.

But yeah. The other thing that you mentioned that triggered some thinking was around acceptance of the vaccine. The one hopeful thing that I had and I discussed with the folks from Japan was the fact that at least the initial results are that it's 90% effective. That is huge because I think a lot of vaccine, not anti vaccine but I mean maybe vaccine hesitancy is for example influenza where people say well if it's only 50 or 60% effective, why am I going to take this vaccine? But if you hear someone says this is 90% effective, then if you're kind of got a foot in each canoe, you kind of say well maybe because it's 90% then the odds are that it's going to work for me if it's 50 or 60% then the people who are hesitant, not anti vaxxer, people who are completely against vaccines, I mean, but people who are kind of just like you're describing, well maybe because of safety issues, whatever else, it's going to be easier for them to say no. One of the important things that maybe is not talked about enough is because of its, at least at this point in the study, its high efficacy, there is hope in the medical community that it's going to convert people who maybe thinking about not getting the vaccine that is this going to just be a switch for them? Okay, you know what? 90%, I can't not not get the vaccine.

Well that's fantastic to hear that there's such positive feedback and positive sentiment among the medical community. I didn't mention in the introduction, but your other new claim to fame is that your home state is Pennsylvania, which, as we now know, the 2020 election came down to Pennsylvania. And I, I remember texting you saying, okay, mjc, just if you could just do your part for us. Let's, let's close this thing out. We're all waiting in limbo. Actually, before we talk about that, I just want to play a snippet from New York City once the news was announced. And I'm sure those of you listening have seen this on social media, but here's a quick clip from right outside my.

So that was the sentiment here in New York City on the particular block that I live on. I have to say, Michael and I took Ryder to Central park later that day and it was 75 degrees out. Oh, people just seemed so relieved. Of course, New York and New York City is a very liberal state and city, so people were, I have to say, delighted. They were, in fact, dancing in the streets. But there was also this huge sigh of relief that we had an answer, that after a week of waiting in limbo, we had an answer. And this, we're recording this the week after that on 1111, actually just a couple days later. It hasn't even been a full week. And I remember in the months leading up to this, I kept telling those of us in the momentum community, I said, block off election week. Do not schedule anything. You're going to be tired or you want to get, you're going to want to give yourself emotional space to process whatever is happening. And then even bonus, block off the following week to election week. I did not properly take my own advice. I tried to block it off, but with end of year stuff and trying to close things out, I ended up scheduling. And I have to say, mjc, I'm curious how you're feeling. I am so tired. It's like sighing the exhale of relief. I feel that as a country having gone not just through four years of sort of constant tension among political parties and president and the news media and what's truthful, what's, what's not at fact checking and then the election, it's like at least here in the US we should have a week off after the election to just decompress. How is everyone not, how is, how are our, our body systems not completely fried after a week of anticipation and anxiety, not to mention four years of navigating such divisive waters? So I'm just curious. That's my feeling as we record this. Today is. Holy cow, I'm more tired than usual.

How about you? Oh, yes, exactly. I mean, that's how Kelly and I. Kelly, my wife and I felt the same way. I mean, so she and I are interested in different places. I'm in a little bit more in the cool and relaxed kind of, finally, we're here. She's still stressing about all of the fake voting fraud. So unfortunately. So I'm like, okay, everything's fine. But, yeah, I completely agree with you. It's been draining. It's been ups and downs, ups and downs. And I actually was out on a bike ride with one of our good. So Kelly and I were with one of our friends on a. On a bicycle ride. On a gravel ride. We always take pictures because you've been out here to Pennsylvania, it's picturesque. So we're taking some pictures and all of a sudden our phones are blowing up. You were mentioning we weren't in the city. We were literally in middle of nowhere, actually taking pictures on a bridge that was closed. We were taking pictures of our bikes up against these signs saying road closed. But we're like, hey, we can get through these roads. So we're actually celebrating. Three of us are celebrating on a basically closed bridge in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday with the sun shining. It was completely surreal. And then I started getting what from my son, who also lives in New York City. He's sending us these audio video clips of this, of just the madness going on in the streets. It was. It was strange because we were like celebrating. The three of us are hugging and kind of like crying and. And we're all by ourselves. It was really kind of, you know, an interesting experience. And I share. I did share this with you. Shortly after or during that day, the first text that came across my phone was from my father, who's 82 years old, Navy veteran. So here we go. Veterans Day, right? So a man who's committed his life to the Navy and he worked for the Department of Defense Special Operations Command for many years. His first text to me was not the news of who won, but it was first woman vice president.

I love that with an exclamation mark.

I mean, I still bring tears to my eyes, right? Because a man who raised me basically in a very kind of, I would say conservative, relatively strict military, not in a bad way, but an organized lifestyle, I guess I would put. And it still chokes me up thinking about this is his response was not the man who won.

But that women won.

That's so beautiful. I think I speak for so many women. Obviously not all, because there are many women that didn't vote for that ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. But it was so powerful to experience this first. And I feel so delighted and overjoyed to know that we have our first female vice president, first person of color, first person of, you know, all. The first that Kamala brings to the office. And just seeing the sparkle in her eyes and Joe Biden's eyes on the. During the acceptance speeches, I thought was really refreshing. Like, here are two people that have really dedicated their careers to so much service. It's just beautiful to see how dedicated they are and committed. And, of course, any acceptance speech is going to have a lot of this language that we need to come together. But I found it just particularly refreshing and, yes, so exciting. I mean, I think for so many women and girls. Oh, to see, finally somebody. It's not the head honcho, you know, it's not potus, but second to it, and to finally see. And I think it's particularly special that it's not just a woman. It's a woman of color to finally reflect the actual makeup of America.

Immigrant, Right, Right. Basically from an immigrant family. You're absolutely correct. And I think so. So I bring that up because when I feel drained about this whole thing or I sort of, you know, I'm kind of feeling a little bit anxious about maybe some of the news stories or what's happening, you know, kind of trying to think about, like, why aren't. Why is this going in a direction where there isn't concession speech or there isn't a good transitioning happening. I think about this. I think about my. The text my father sent me. The world has shifted. It has changed. You can't undo that. I guess you can try, but I.

Was working with a consultant named Stefan. He said you can't unscramble the eggs.

Yeah, exactly.

Here's the whole thing. I feel that. I mean, it depends. Here's what I find so fascinating about this time, is that. And there's been, of course, innumerable think pieces on this, that half the country feels that this is immeasurable progress, this is so important. This is consciousness elevated, et cetera, et cetera. And then half the country does not feel that this is progress, is not so proud. It's not texting each other with glee. And that so many people, I think, in the days leading up to having the election called were just shocked, just it is shocking to see just how divided we are in terms of votes, not the Electoral College. That's kind of. It doesn't quite represent things. I mean, it's not black and white, it's red and blue. But it's. So.

I think it's more interesting to look at the different categories within rather than looking at the Electoral College. So whether you slice by region, by population, by gender, there are interesting ways to look at the data of who voted how. But nonetheless, it was pretty close there for a while on the popular vote.

70.

And you're in Pennsylvania, which is, by the way, when Michael and I, we had a great visit to MJC's farm. And while we were driving up, I mean, there were tons of Trump sign, which we don't see here in New York City. But you live in an area that's not just so clearly one way or the other compared to where I live here in New York City.

Yeah. And these are my neighbors, people who, you know, when I go to the store or I interact with. And I'm hopeful that the awareness of what people who didn't vote for Trump went through for the past four years and that we take some reflection on how, you know, what that felt like. And can we be the better of ourselves? I forget what it's saying. Right. Can we better ourselves in a way. Can we try to act in a way where we reach out across the political divide and think about how we can work through this together? Because otherwise we're going to have this constant pendulum swing. So one side's going to win, the other side's going to lose. It's going to be a zero sum game. If the ball is now in your court or the responsibilities on your shoulders now.

How do you reach across that divide and find the common ground? I'm hopeful that president like Biden, in his words, everything he's saying is that he's not the president of the blue states, he's the President of the United States. So I'm hoping that the administration will do the same thing. And I'm also hoping that there'll be Republicans in his Cabinet. I mean, I think we've, we've had a history of some presidents, both Republican and Democratic Democrats, who've had people from the opposite party in their cabinet or positions of influence in the White House because they need, they felt like they needed to bring the other side closer, but also to hear their voice. And if we shut out the other voice completely, it. We become deaf.

What is it? There's a phrase I think maybe the one you were thinking is the better angels of our nature there.

Thank you. Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of. Right.

And then there's one that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason.

Right, right.

That we could do twice as much listening than talking. Speaking of the Cabinet, I got so excited to consider that it also might not be the most white male cabinet that we've had.

Wouldn't that be a nice change?

Yeah, I mean, I know we've had female Secretary of State, but wouldn't it be amazing to see a truly diverse cabinet like that just excites me so much, the possibility of that and that I look forward to that. I hope that it is really diverse and again, not, not so that we stack it to either side of the horseshoe that we talked about last time, but so that it represents this friggin country.

Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, I think one of the lessons that I think we can get from both President Obama and President Trump has been that both of them did use executive powers in ways that their predecessors had not. And then what happens is the next person just says, well, you know, if basically, if it's a presidential signature, I'm the president, I'm just going to undo what you just did instead of going through the legislative process or some other process where you actually put in lasting change. Now obviously if you don't agree with that change, you're not happy about it. But I hate to get really wonky kind of political wonkiness is that I hope that we move towards less sort of one sided presidential dominance.

In how we govern ourselves and really have a true balance of power and checks and balances where we do legislate that we get both parties to agree what can be done for the country so that it is more cast in stone, rather on paper that could just be ripped up and the next person just writes their name over on top of it. So I think we're going to see is we're going to see lots of the Trump executive orders reversed very quickly and then we'll be back to where we were four years ago. But at the same time, I'm hopeful that some of those things get moved into legislative action so that things around, you know, again, controversial things such as immigration and the dreamers and health care and other things that the environment that are, I think dear to many of us are now a, you know, put into law or put in such a way where it's going to be a lot harder for future Presidents just to take a stroke of the pen and erase them completely.

Absolutely. And you're speaking of something important too, which is that here's been my thing all along, which is I'm not the type. I'm not going to just judge somebody based on the color of their political party and hate them for no reason. Okay? That said so when I have talked about President 45among friends and family and why I personally did not vote for him, it is not just because, oh, you're Republican. I think there's a certain fundamental level of respect for the government institutions that we have set up that hasn't been present. And that's what I want. Like I kind of similar to what you're saying. I just want to restore democracy and integrity and truth and reconciliation and some of these values that I feel like were not upheld in the last four years. And so for me it's less. Oh yeah, exactly. As you're saying, as soon as the other party's out, let's just move in and get the most extreme stuff past that we can. It's not like that. But let's at least have somebody who's acting in the best interests of as many as possible for the highest good for as many people as possible and not self serving interests. Which I think is pretty clear. It's just pretty clear if you look at any language from any speech, you know, not to go into all that, but for me, part of what I was cheering for and the way Michael and I found out was that we heard all this noise coming from both sides of the house and I thought he was watching something. I almost wanted to be like, hey, can you turn that down? You know, I asked him, I asked him, are you watching something? And I was trying to read. I was like reading the newspaper. And then we realized, oh my God, they called it. We opened our windows and that's how we knew because we didn't have the TV on anymore. My relief was just feeling that I wouldn't have voted for Joe Biden in the primaries, let's say as the pick for the Democratic nominee. I understand why he made it to the point that he did. And I'm happy. I said to Michael, I think of him as like Grandpa Joe. He's like America's grandpa now. I mean, not everyone's going to accept him as such, but he has these bright eyes and he means well. And that was so refreshing, like just so refreshing to see that bright energy, which is something I'd be paying attention to no matter who's up on the tv, whether it's a newscaster or someone in the cabinet or somebody representing the White House. I'm always looking at what's the quality of their energy and the brightness of their eyes. And there are these clues. The eyes are the window to the soul. And Biden talks about restoring the soul of America. And I hope that that healing can happen. And like, look at the picture of Kamala from the acceptance speech. It's just the brightest eyes.

Yeah.

And no one's perfect. No one's perfect. Like, I hear so much about memes or clips from these people's long careers that's, you know, pointing out why they're actually a terrible person after all. And here's the thing. No one is perfect. I doubt any one of us would last for a second under the scrutiny of how Many million people, 330 million people, looking for any one 30 second clip of a time or one decision that wasn't on the right side of history even.

I think there is anybody who has been brave and courageous in their life who haven't made a misstep. I think that whether it's ill guided, misguided, however you want to say it, or truly with their heart, we've all made mistakes. And I think that, you know, again, I think that maybe also the, the, the lens that we put on for folks who may not agree with, with the, with this current election is saying, you know, at this point in time, this is, they're, they're making a mistake, but we can't just hold it against them forever. They, we need to come together. I think as you're describing it, for me, as a physician, and, you know, the reason that you and I started this kind of podcasting, the pivoting around the pandemic has been our response to the pandemic. And honestly, I am so relieved that hopefully we can restore the standing of the CDC and the NIH and we can put back together the committees that had been basically taken away for our response to the pandemic, and we can restore ourselves because the threat is still. Just because we have one virus, who's, who's circulating the world and the country today doesn't mean there isn't another one that's happening in some cave or in some jungle or in some city or backyard that isn't going to do the same thing to us. And we can't just decide that it's not going to happen. So as a physician and as someone who's working in this space, having a more unified, supportive message to move our country forward and help us get through this is also important to me and.

The international relations to do that work globally.

But what about small countries, third world countries in other parts of the world? What are they going to be doing? What does it mean for them?

I think that's vitally important. But let me just say, by no means are we a paragon of exemplary. Anything for people to look to. Like, even if the vaccine trial is happening here, I think there are so many other countries who have done very interesting things with their response and handled it so much better. So I think we've lost a lot of respect from how our country has handled Covid. There are countries that have been quite cooperative. There were government leaders in other countries who were more sort of measured and consistent and deferential to the scientists who were advising them. And then their population was clear on what to do. And that just has not been the case here. So, vaccine or no vaccine, I don't think we have much to say or offer, really, on how to respond gracefully. I don't think our country. I don't think that seems to be our strength. Our strength, as we talked about, is independence. So at least here, everyone has the right to kind of, like, have their own opinion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, and. And again, I've been reflecting on that question that they asked me on this interview, because I sort of felt like I don't. What do they want to hear from me? Maybe it's not a question that we can answer for ourselves. All we can do is offer up hope and promise. And in this case, I think they wanted to hear that it was safe and that someone who's gotten the vaccine is doing well and is productive. Right. You know, take that away from them. But I don't know. I still don't know what they're. What they're asking. And I think that we need to have some humility in all of this.

That's it. Because I just heard this great quote the other day. Gina Bianchini, who founded Mighty Networks, she said, advice shuts the conversation down.

Yeah.

And who has advice right now? That's been the point of this. These podcasts you and I have done is actually less telling people what to do or that we know anything anyone else doesn't. It's just to have a dialogue around it. And so her thing is advice shuts conversations down, whereas sharing your stories, your experiences and your ideas, those are generative, those open doors. So even in the case of your interview, the humble and zooming out Response is to say, I wish I could tell you something definitively, or I wish I could say something that would make you all feel safe or feel hopeful or optimistic. Here's what I do know. My personal experience was this and that. The sentiment. I love how you shared that with us here as well, that the sentiment among the medical community that you're in touch with is hopeful. That's already something.

Yeah. And look, right now, every day that goes by, the news is worse. So, I mean, every time, you know, every morning, like, I get the different Covid reports, and every day the death count is climbing. I mean, I remember the conversation you and I had when Italy was in a really bad way and they had 700 deaths. And I kind of said to you that that's like two or three jumbo liners.

Is there consistency across the country or across. Even within hospitals of. For example, if someone has cancer and they get Covid and then they pass, what does go on the death certificate? Is it. Can both causes of death go, or are doctors being able to put one or the other? How does that work?

Yeah, usually. Yeah, usually the. So there's usually multiple causes of, like. Unfortunately, I've had to fill these out. So. Right. So you kind of have to choose, like, the reason. And then there's other diagnoses you put in there, because they want to obviously collect all the data there. So, you know, is there some. A little bit of subjectivity, what you put at the top? I mean, there is a little bit. But for example, you know, the most extreme example is a gunshot wound. They exsanguinate. They lose their blood. Well, they didn't die because they lost all their blood. They lost because they're shot with a gun. Well, they were shot with a gun. They had low blood pressures. Their kidneys failed over a period of time, and they died of, quote, unquote, kidney failure. You know, kidney failure is on the list, but the reason they died was the inciting event, which was the gunshot wound. You know, there's no hard and fast rules. We usually put the thing that caused the death first, and we. And there is some. Some judgment there, but we list all those things with that in mind. I don't think that, you know, the numbers that we're seeing now are, you know, getting close to whatever the number is now.250,000. It's over a thousand deaths per day. I think we could probably kind of argue maybe in the tens of people, but not in the hundreds of people where we think that maybe Covid wasn't The answer, right. I mean, I think there's always going.

To be like, well, are there still just as many where people are like perfectly healthy? They get Covid and they pass.

Yeah. Yes, there is. I mean, there's people of all ages. There's people of all ages. You know, when we watch the news once in a while we'll have the news on and all of a sudden a lot of the major news stations will highlight a couple of people who've died that were healthy. Like so. And so is a 25 year old who was recently married or so. And so is a 40 year old police officer who died. And she like, she's like, I hate it because I feel like I'm in the Hunger Games. Almost like weird, surrealistic. This is who they were. If you've seen the Hunger Games, which is there, or read the books, right? At the end of the day, they have like the person's picture and where they were from and they died that day in the Hunger Games. She's like, this is not the Hunger Games. It's like, it's really, we got to stop doing it that way. We should talk about it in a way that's, I don't know, she sort of feels like, are they doing it because they're truly, truly trying to honor somebody or they're honoring the game or they're honoring what's happening?

Right. It's sensational. It's shocking. Same journalism, you know, that does get more eyeballs or more shock because if they can, it does. I mean, that is how so much of the media works now is if they can make you afraid, then you're more likely to stay tuned in and keep hitting refresh. Yeah, I am. I'm curious about one thing before we close out from this conversation you had mentioned. It's a great point that we need to be prepared not just for COVID 19, but any future possible epidemic or pandemic. There's been a lot of talk about, wow, a pandemic happens every hundred years. And the last one was exactly a hundred years ago, the Spanish flu. What's your take on that? Or your research on this? I mean, obviously nobody can predict the future, but do you see? Oh yeah, it'll be another hundred years. Or is it kind of the case as with global warming and these crazy weather events and fires that are happening where we get it could be accelerating the level of or frequency of pandemics. And with global travel and all that.

I think we have a short memory for the bullets that missed us. Mers And SARS and the bird flu and Ebola. I mean, I can keep going on the list, right, where we had international travel causing infections in other countries or people from other countries visiting those countries. In the case of Ebola. So we have a very short memory. Any of those could have been a pandemic for various biological reasons that we think we've discussed in previous shows. Either they're so fatal that you die before you get a chance to spread it to many more people, or we got to handle it, whatever it may be. So it's happening. It's constantly happening. There's constant little blips of near misses. It's just that that virus gets the right mixture of characteristics that allows it to find the right host and then move quickly through the population. It's a matter of chance. So does it happen every 100 years? I guess that's the cycle. But I think we may forget all the near misses that we had with H1N1, with, I guess in MERS, SARS, all this different three and four letter abbreviations or acronyms of these other diseases, Jenny, that we've had near misses. I think that constant readiness and preparedness is what we need to have. And the things that were dismantled over this current administration was that line of defense for us and internationally. Our presence, the CDC presence in China is critical because we know that that is a hotbed where you have human beings being very close with different species of animals who tend to create these viruses. We need to be on the ground and making sure that we're surveilling that right. So it also takes international cooperation.

That's helpful, and it's a great reminder. And speaking of preparedness, nationally, globally, but also personally, I think people have learned quite a lot this year how to stock your house and have emergency preparedness and medical kits handy. So 30 seconds. Michael, what do you have to say to the Pivot podcast listeners?

Yeah, so this is. This is. So minutes before we started this recording, I got a email from a client who said, I get it. Second wave of COVID or the second surge of COVID I think that's what he's. What this person said. How should I be? What. What things do I need to be doing differently than I did, you know, during the first search? Then he also said, what other. What other opportunities are there for my business? To the folks listening to this is. We've. We've all, I think, learned. Let's look back and see, you know, if there's things that we. We said we were going to do that we haven't done yet. Right? There's like, oh, yeah, if I would have known this was going to happen, this is what I would have put in place. Dust off that list and say, yep, you know, I should have done. I never got around to doing whatever. Xyz. And I think there's also opportunities. I think there's also opportunities for us to. It's not a binary kind of decision. There's, there's always like that third opportunity, that third door of saying, gee, I, you know, I did it this way, I tried that, and what other, what other things have I not tried? So I It's an optimistic point of view, but I do think people need to prepare for another surge this winter.

Optimistic pragmatism with a twist.

Exactly. Shaken but not stirred.

Shaken but not Stirred. MJC makes the world's greatest cocktails. It's so impressive. I think he's a bartender. Shadows. Bartender. Moonlights. Moonlights as a bartender in another way. Thank you so much Dr. MJC. It's just always an honor to co host these with you. I really appreciate it.

Awesome time, Jenny. Looking forward to the next one.

Likewise.

Yep.

Bye everybody. Thanks for listening.

Bye everybody.

Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.