Hi everyone, Sophia Bush here, Welcome to Work in Progress, where I talk to people who inspire me about how they got to where they are and where they think they're still going. Hi everyone, welcome to another special episode of Work in Progress, where we'll be continuing our new video series Need to Know as I sit down each week with experts to get the answers to your most pressing questions about life right now. I am so excited about my guest today brings with her so much incredible insight and information about our current health crisis and more that you need to know. The brilliant Jessica Mulatty Rivera. Jessica is a microbiologist, epidemiologist, and science communicator that has dedicated the last fifty years of her career to infectious disease epidemiology and public health policy and vaccine advocacy. So yes, this is going to be a really good conversation to share with anyone in your life who might be suspicious of vaccines or who's read very dangerous disinformation about them. She's currently serving as the science communication lead for the COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic, in addition to remaining an active member of the COVID nineteen dispersed volunteer Research Network and an expert contributor for NBC in the Bay Area and CNN. Jessica has a special gift for being able to translate complex scientific concepts into impactful, effective, and judgment free information. She makes really complex topics accessible to a wide audience. And in addition to the work that she does professionally, Jessica is a white if Anna mom raising two young children under the age of five, so she gets the science of COVID and of the life complexities that it can cause. In my conversation with Jessica, we discuss how she became interested in epidemiology, her life changing internship with a human rights firm, and how that led her to be even more committed to science, racial disparities in public health, the current pandemic, and how her and her family are coping with it, plus the danger of misinformation, how science actually disproves conspiracies, and so much more. Enjoy Hi, my smartest friend. Hi. That is a high compliment because we we weirdly have a pretty brilliant friend group. But I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today because you are hands down one of the most brilliant women that I know, and I also feel unbearably fortunate, in the midst of a global pandemic to be able to text a scientists in either a panic or for clarity at any time of day or night. You are a saintly human because you always respond to me, and I can't wait to ask you all of the questions that I ask you in private in this forum so that everyone else can benefit from your expertise as well. Oh thank you, You're so sweet. Um, this is my joy. I really love doing this and I honestly couldn't have ever predicted that this is the kind of way that I can utilize my education, but I'm happy to do it well, and your education I'm going to run through and perhaps make you blush a bit. But here we go. For all of our listeners today, I'm interviewing Jess A because she is a wonderful friend and b because she is a brilliant scientist. I really loved actually having to prep a podcast with you, because I was like, this, is this weird that I'm researching my own friend, Um, But it it feels like such an important moment to let people know many of your arenas of expertise. You started actually at USC, at the University of Southern California, where you earned a Bachelor of Science. Your field of study was health promotion and disease prevention studies, and you got dual minors because of course you did in natural science and Spanish. You graduated magna cum laude, no worries, you were on the Dean's list. You directed research at the QECH School of Medicine, and then you went onto Georgetown you got a Master of Science in bio Hazardous threat Agents and Emerging infectious Diseases, and you graduated sumac mative because of course you did so. When when COVID was first making its point of entry into the country tree and we were watching what was happening overseas. Uh, you and I, well, you really were so kind to grace me with your presence on multiple Instagram lives. We were answering people's questions and those were still very early days. And so it feels like now six plus months into a global pandemic making itself very at home in the United States and unfortunately US doing the worst really of any country on Earth. Um, it feels like there's a lot of questions that we need to get to and a lot of information that you, as one of the leading scientists of the COVID tracking project, can offer to everyone who's listening to this episode. And I want to ask you all of those questions, but before we get into pandemics and what they mean, and if we're going to be wearing masks forever, and will anything ever feel normal again? And what was normal? Anyway? I want to go backwards, and I like to do this with everyone who comes on the show. You are such impressive human and I want to know how you ended up being like this. Were you? Were you just a wildly smart and inquisitive little girl. Were you always into science in school? Like? Who was Jessica at eight or ten? Where did you grow up? What was your family? Like? Give us, give us the lay of the land. Yeah, so you know, I grew up in an immigrant house. My parents moved here from Egypt and I was born a year later. And my mom stands out is probably my biggest inspiration for my curious mind. She is an agricultural engineer by training UM and she actually put aside her career to become a mom, which is a sacrifice that now as I'm a mom, I you know, deeply respect and know how difficult it was for her to make that choice. Um. But for as long as I can remember, my mom always was sitting next to me while I did homework, and and she enjoyed it. She enjoyed explaining things to me. She you know, I remember the like very silly songs she made to help me memorize the state capitals and multiplication tables and like, you know, even kind of mixing the type of way she learned math and science and Arabic and teaching me kind of another way to reinforce the message in English. Um. Yeah, it was just a really special kind of experience as a as a learner growing up in this country because my mom was so educated from Egypt and she came in and it was just like I'm gonna learn how we do it here and I'm going to like reinforce it at home. So homework was always a big priority, and it was the first thing I did when I went home. And you know, I very much grew up in that stereotypical kind of first generation American home where academics were the number one thing, and I am grateful for it. I benefited from it. Um. I remember one time doing like a really strange, you know, self motivated experiment on our fish and our fish tank. Can you know it just was endlessly curious, endlessly wanting to know how things work and why, and um, you know very much looked to my parents as an inspiration for that. And you know, they said I wanted to be a doctor from very young and always loved math and science, always excelled in math and science, and um, you know, it took a while for me to realize like what that actually meant, because you know, I went to USC and I intended on being premed I studied HP health Promotion and disease prevention. It was in the School of Medicine. It had a science and public health emphasis, and I loved it. But it also had this really wonderful intersection of other disciplines like human rights and sociology and anthropology, and I remember it distinctly. I was preparing to study for the MCATs in my senior year and I took a class called health and Human Rights and it wrecked me. I remember thinking like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can commit to the next you know, ten to fifteen years and five to seven dred thousand dollars, you know, to become an m D. I I feel like I want to explore this more, this like social connection to medicine and to my parents extreme dismay. I decided not to apply to med school and instead I took an internship in Washington, d C. Unpaid and even writes firm. My parents were devastated, as you can imagine, I had, you know, everything was. I went to school at USC because I grew up in l A. That was my option to be in l A. And so the first chance I could leave, I took it, and I moved to d C. And I really didn't look back. It was intended to be a four month internship. That internship turned into a job, and I had this unique job of using my science background to help. I traveled to fifteen countries in like three years, basically training our offices on things like public health and water sanitation and you know, how to take care in like emergency situations and natural disasters, and an experience that no person right out of college would expect. But it was just so formative for me, and I was I did that for a few years and a good friend of mine who was working at Georgetown recruited me to be part of this really neat project called Project Argus. And this is kind of like where the rest of my life can kind of point back to um. Project Argus was a It was in the Division of Integrated Biodefense and they essentially, we're a team of analysts that tracked indicators and warnings of emerging threats and that were you know, biological chemical related to animals, plants, and humans. And they needed people who spoke different languages to essentially read news from all over the world, translate it and create these like you know, situation reports that were then fed to the US government, and the US government used this data to help predict emerging threats, emerging pandemics, and you know it's you know now looking back and I see all these articles like, oh, we should have a weather channel for emerging diseases. We had one. We had one. This is like one of the main things that kills me about what's going on right now is this, you know, the fallout from devaluing and defunding public health. We had an amazing system and we had about forty something languages spoken in our analyst floor. Our team was one of the first people to identify the emergence of the two nine one and one pandemic in Mexico. UM it was incredible. I loved that work. And while I was there, I studied at Georgetown School of Medicine and that's what I got my degree in emerging infectious diseases. So can I ask you a clarification question, because one of the things that I've learned a lot about from you is the value of science, communication and translation, and for better or worse, my natural inquisitive mind and refusal to give up on something until I understand it means that I often wind up translating pretty complex data for my audiences. And when you're talking about this network, when you're talking about Project Arguess, what I'm hearing you say is that you worked on a huge floor of analysts. Over forty languages were spoken. And what I'm hearing is that the reason you were reading news from around the world was let's say that this team had still existed as it should have at the end of twenty nineteen, someone on that team who spoke Chinese would have known what was happening in Wuhan. Much earlier, and we would have been able to mobilize the pandemic response network at the CDC and across all the levels of the United States government and public health. But because okay, so that's really interesting to me that it required both language expertise and scientific expertise on a team to look at what was happening around the world. And when you talk about the era in which you were working at that project UM in the last administration, and you talk about your team seeing H one N one hit Mexico and knowing it was there before it was on the news in the US, what did that mean? Can you walk us through what the action items are when you see an emerging pandemic as health response network worker? What does the network then do? What does the ARGUS team do in two thousand nine when you I D H one N one, Because I think it would be helpful to know what we're supposed to do or what we used to do, so that we can understand the current failures and the opportunities that were missed to corral this and to control it. Yeah, that's a great question. So we were divided into teams based on our language expertise and our Latin America team was the one that found it. And what was essentially happening is and we were looking for things that you may not even expect. We were looking for, you know, uh, school closures or hospital hospitals being full, or an uptick and demand in ventilators, or an uptick in the diagnosis of respiratory illnesses. And those respiratory illnesses could be like undifferentiated, they could be like flu like or just pneumonia. All of these things were pieces of a puzzle that as they grew in size and speed, we were able to then kind of categorize what was happening in stages and we would say this is a stage one event, and it would kind of have increasingly stages of severity. And then when we saw something alarming where we were seeing like an uptick and at least a few of these things, we would flag it. We would write a report and we would say there's an increase in cases of respiratory illness and increased demand and ventilator schools are shutting down, infrastructure collapse, infrastructure strain, whatever it was, and we would basically sound the alarms. So that's really interesting because it's important for us I think as lay people myself included those of us who don't have scientific degrees, but I am a little bit of a nerd for science, so I like, I like to get in there. It's important for us to understand that what you were identifying in two thousand nine in Mexico, for example, wasn't we have a pandemic hitting You were identifying the markers, the red flags that signal the outbreak of something potentially devastating. Yes. And it's interesting too, is that, like there was a connection to a farm, right, So we were following things in animal populations and among farmers. If farmers are starting to report a number of their chickens dying, that's a red flag that maybe H five and one Avian influenza is happening. If there are animals that are you know, pigs for instance, and then it was called swine flu because we were noticing a trend in pigs at a pig farm. Those are all connected and so they're following to make sure that they're seeing, Oh are these two things correlated? And something that's really important when you're talking about following the connection as a scientist and as a science team, not only with what's happening to a human population nation but an animal one. We're discussing the outbreak of zoonotic viruses, coronaviruses, of which COVID nineteen is one and an incredibly scary one. Are that type of virus? Correct? Can can you walk people through what that means? Yeah? So, I mean I would say I think now the number is over half of the diseases that humans experience have some sort of zootic origin, meaning it came from an animal, which is not something that should terrify people. It's kind of what happens as different ecosystems interact with each other. But it's increasing in speed and it's increasing in severity because we're interacting with more ecosystems at a rate that we shouldn't be and that has everything to do with the amount of travel that we do, with the amount of deforestation that's happening, the influence that humans have on our climate. That's causing different ecosystems to essentially crash into each other instead of kind of friendly engagement from a distance. Um, can you can you explain a little bit more about that? Because I would wager that there's folks listening who are going Wait a minute, I didn't realize that zoonotic viruses had to do with climate change in deforestation. Can can you walk us through what you're talking about? Yeah, totally. So. You know, one of my favorite subjects that we studied in graduate school was something called the one health paradigm, and that is essentially the relationship that humans and our environment and our plant and plants and animals have with each other when with regard to one health, and that's the health of the planet, that's the health of animal systems, that the health of human systems, and when those systems are in in conflict with each other or just crashing into each other, Like I said previously, there are their spillover risk. There is a risk of things that weren't previously in our community that cross over into ours. And that happens from my mutations over time. Um, and it's you know, the origin of things like ebola, it's the origin of things like avian influenza and a lot of coronaviruses. And there are a certain species like That's for instance, that are perfect reservoirs for certain viruses. But because of how we are interacting with them through deforestation, through burning, down of forests. Um, you know, from for reasons that are inexplicable and for reasons that are sometimes necessary. Um. You know, you are seeing and encountering animal species that have viruses that we have no natural immunity too, So it's it creates that vulnerability for us. You know, there are a number of things that you can see right now happening in our climate that are linked to our health. Beyond things like smoke because of fires, we can say that there is no question that the the uptick in respiratory illnesses that have an animal origin are because of how we are treating our planet. Wow, the uptick in respiratory illnesses that have an animal origin is because of how we're treating the planet. Yeah, it feels like an important thing to sit with because, in my opinion anyway, for far too long there has been an un natural disconnection between us and the planet. And when you talk about the one health model, we we are one ecosystem. And I think, especially for a lot of folks who live in cities, it can feel really easy to be disconnected from the natural world. But if the planet is sick, we're sick. You know, you and I are having this conversation. And I'm sure my my folks out there at home who listen to a lot of these episodes are wondering if I'm sick. I'm not actually sick. I'm not suffering from a cold, but I sound like this and I'm congested like this because of the intensity of the smoke in California. The entire West Coast is burning, and all of us are having respiratory problems and allergies, and we can't go outside of our homes. Neither can you. Up in San Francisco. We literally can't be outdoors because the air quality is so bad. And there's no part of me that thinks any of this is a good thing. But the thing I'm hoping is that seeing the devastation through all of California, through Oregon, through Washington, I'm hoping that that this can be a rude awakening for a lot of people who have been tricked into thinking that science is partisan. Science doesn't care how you vote. The climate doesn't care who you support or what your personal politics are. And I am, for one, furious and disheartened by how trivials true science has become, by by how some folks have tried to make everything from climate change response to the coronavirus response political when this is about humanity and the planet, and by the way, not just our country. This is a global crisis. We're seeing the climate crisis affect everyone in Brazil. We're seeing what has happened to folks with coronavirus everywhere from the US to South America to Europe to China. People are suffering. And and my hope is that listeners and by extension, whomever they speak to in their families or or circles, will be able to take some true science data, some some clear communication into their social circles and and really like ring the alarm, like we we've got to We've got to come back to a moral core here. And it's part of the reason that I'm so excited that we're having this conversation, because facts should not be up for debate, and human health and public health and the health of the planet shouldn't be a casualty of anyone's sort of political ambition. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, I mean, I would argue that pandemics are inherently political in that they are global, right, and they affect different countries, and the diseases themselves don't care about national borders, they don't care about state borders, and that creates a connection between us and every other human here. We are all vulnerable because we're all human and we live in a very heterogeneous world. No two bodies are the same, no two immune systems are the same, and that should create a sense of empathy for one another. That should create a sense of altruism that we do things for the sake of others and ourselves because we're all connected and we all have the same vulnerabilities. So because of that science and you know, I would say the accelerated politicization of science because of this pandemic has been destructive. It does require our governments and global leaders to be thinking right about science. It requires them to be listening to science and to make informed decisions with people who are experts in this field with their counsel, and not based on opinions or gut feelings or just a lack of interest. Um. You know, it's an incredibly frustrating time as a scientist and a science communicator, and as somebody who worked with the government to help prepare us for things like this, to be seeing this devaluation of public health and to make it into something that is a talking point that is read or a talking point that is blue. It's it's truly assinine. It must be so frustrating. I remember really feeling for you reading an article recently where you were talking about what it's like to have studied and become an expert on emerging infectious diseases and then actually live through a global pandemic. How how surreal it feels for you. Do you think part of the reason that it feels so surreal is because those precautions, that respect for science at a government level, the actual pandemic Response Network was disbanded. Does it just does it make you feel crazy? Because to me, when I think about that series of events, it feels nuts to me. Oh yeah, I mean it's it's in a way kind of gas lighting, right because we you know, I've reconnected with a lot of my former colleagues back at Georgetown and we you should see your text threads. I mean, it's just like all caps like this could have been prevented. We could have done something, you know, that didn't have to be like this. And it's so hard because you know, I remember ten twelve years ago talking to my friends and they would say like, you know, what are you most afraid of? And I would say respiratory illness of pandemic proportions every time without fail. I remember specific moments having those conversations and people being like, it's fine, it's fine, and here we are, and I'm like hello, Like it's he said this was going to happen. It was just a matter of time. And I think we also need to be careful too, because I think people here, oh, we said this was going to happen, or this was bound to happen as some sort of like plot that to make it happen. This is an unfortunate byproduct of what we're doing to our planet. It is not some synthetic man made in a lab situation to cause you know that that conspiracy theory is so laughably wrong, especially because so that's what I want to I want to get into with you, the conspiracy theories, because when you say that ten or twelve years ago, as a scientist, you were able to look at global trends of deforestation, of human populations crashing into animal populations, of what was happening with other respiratory illnesses that were essentially laying the train track for a respiratory pandemic. You're talking about reasonable scientific predictions. Some people hear that to your point as someone tried to make this. I've seen the conspiracy theories. I've got people trying to get in my d M saying that Bill Gates made this virus, that he owns a patent on the coronavirus, that this was all this was created in a lab, that this is biological warfare. And the thing is, the conspiracy theories are taking hold. They've been dubbed a domestic terror threat by our own FBI. Can you help me walk through some of them and why to you as a scientist, they're laughable and all so just factually untrue. Can you give us the goods there so that everyone who's listening can take some notes and then have the receipts when they have to argue with their uncle who's like on a conspiracy thread, which I'm not going to mention by name, but y'all know what I'm talking about. I'm not giving them any of my airtime. How can we take some of these things apart? You know, it's it's amazing because nobody cares about war and potential biological threat agents and chemical and nuclear threat agents more than our government. If this was anything close to that, we would have jumped on it in a very particular way. But because the science doesn't defend that, because science has presented the receipts, it's very laughable that people continue to perpetuate this conspiracy theory. And what I mean by the receipts is when a virus is infected. If person is infected with a virus, we can determine the genetic sequence of that virus and it's ventially it's kind of like a family treat. You can trace it back to its origin because very early on into the pandemic, we got the full genome for stars Kobe two, which is the virus that causes COVID nineteen, and we can see what kind of difference is very slight. I don't want to feed into the other conspiracy that it's mutating out of control of the mutations are extremely slow and very benign. But you can see which virus you know this person had, and which virus that person had, and you can kind of trace it back to its origin. Because we can do that, we can trace it back to the origin of the virus, which is exactly what we determined or the Chinese government determined back in Luhan. So there's no defensible explanation for it emerging from a lab because we can trace it back to patient one. You know what it looked like, and it was outside of the lab, you know it was there was just no lab involved. Um. So it's the thing about infectious diseases is that one of the most horrible byproducts of an outbreak or any epidemic is the infodemic that follows. It's just hand in hand. I mean, it's been happening since smallpox. When the smallpox UH disease emerged and the vaccine was being developed, there were people that were spreading rumors that if you've got the smallpox vaccine, you would turn into a cow because the small pox vaccine was derived from cowpox I mean vaccines. Actually, the etymology of the word vodka is how we have the word of vaccine because of the discovery of the smallpox vaccine, and people thought that the inoculation of a very similar virus, which was a genius idea, the cow pox vaccine, to protect you into a from a similar disease, the smallpox disease would somehow mutate you, and that continues to turn into something as people completely misunderstand what we're talking about when it comes to genetic codes and nucleic acid and the all frightening m R and a vaccine. I mean, people are so convinced that there is some way that some you know, plans to alter humans, that they're creating sci fi stories out of the headlines. And I would say that there are a few problems here that are perpetuating this. Number one the natural byproduct of infandemics, and number two, I really think the media is blowing it and making our jobs harder. The media is misrepresenting headlines. They are jumping the gun on preprint papers. They are jumping the gun on press releases. I mean, preprints are something that really only people in the science community we're reading. Can you tell us what that means, because there's certainly some people going, what's she talking about? What's a preprint? Yeah? So it's a preprint. Is part of the process in publicating publications in science journalism, science writing, and academia that before a journal actually publishes something, scientists can submit their paper to a preprint server and basically it's like an open call for other scientists to read it, tear it apart, analyze it, provide feedback before it is peer reviewed. So it's it's essentially step one of a peer review. Yeah, but it's not part of the official peer review. It's kind of a public opportunity for review. That's why it's on a public service. And the preprint servers have very you know, decently large disclaimers on top this is not published, this is in pre print. Um. It was very niche. It was intended for the science community to kind of see like what's in the pipeline, what papers are actually might be coming, because a preprint paper may not actually be published if it's bad. But that kind of discernment is lacking, That kind of science literacy is lacking. And so between the media and between you know, lay people just jumping on these links and sharing them and only reading headlines, we're getting inundated with news that is wildly misinterpreted, wildly miss misrepresented. Well, for example, when the data came out from the c d C on all of the COVID deaths in America and they stated that between six and nine percent of people who died of COVID had no no co morbidities. You saw a whole bunch of infodemic nonsense happened where people said only six to nine of two hundred thousand deaths were caused by COVID, and that's not true. As a lay person who has the luxury of calling a scientist, let me explain this in in lay language, and then you tell me if I'm doing it right. All right, a little experiment for the listeners. So when that report comes out and says six to two hundred thousand deaths have been caused by COVID with no co morbidity, that means COVID is so fatal that even if you are one of the wildly healthy people in the United States who does not have a co morbidity like hypertension, high blood pressure, asthma, allergies, anything which is pretty rare, COVID will still kill you. And what it means for the other two ton of deaths, it means that a person with asthma, which is perfectly managed and which would never have been fatal because they got COVID, they died. It means that a person who had their diabetes under control got COVID, and COVID killed them, and they died. It means that someone who had a heart arrhythmia which was controlled with medication and got COVID and COVID killed them. Covid is the killer. COVID is the fatal disease. Here. What what that information about come morbidities means is not for us to try to detract from COVID deaths. It's for doctors to understand that even if their patients are perfectly under control with any other health issue they have, COVID can take that health issue and make it natal. Yeah. Is that accurate? It is? I mean, I think one of the most frustrating misinterpretations of this. I mean, that's a great summary. Sophia looked like really great. Um. I think that what's missing is even just the history of when COVID first emerged. What was one of the first things scientists were saying, you're at high risk if you have co morbidities, high risk of what high risk of acute illness and possibly death. Now, back then, people weren't saying, oh, well, it's not going to be the COVID that kills you, is gonna be those other things. Back then they were saying, oh, let's just shelter the sick and shelter the vulnerable and shelter the old because they knew that the outcomes where those people would be bad, which is, you know, very contradictory because now we're seeing those deaths. Yes, are definitely the disproportionate majority, but also look at the six percent that should be very troubling data. Now, the other part of this, like lack of science literacy and even just like lack of internet literacy, is amazing to me because so many times are trying to say, oh, the CDC like secretly snuck it in while you were sleeping, when like just some basic slew thing could determine that that's not true. You know, just a simple website archive look up can show you that language has been on the website four months and that language, while at you know, first glance may seem confusing, the nuance and the science communication that could have been a little bit better on the website was missing. And really, if you're if you're being like literal, what this is telling you is one of these deaths are caused by COVID. Only six percent of them had one thing list on the death certificate. And I've talked to a few doctors who have said in their lifetime of practice, very rarely do you just have one thing on a death certificate, because very rarely somebody just has one thing going on, I mean, And those other things don't even have to be acute, like you said. They could be managed diabetes, it could be managed hypertension, it could be out of control diabetes and out of controlled hypertension. Either way, if the person didn't have COVID, they likely would be alive. And that's the story. Mm hmm. It feels so so important. Something I would like to ask you about in this conversation, because we did talk about it in our very early Instagram live back in March, is what does a coronavirus really mean? Because stars COVID two causes COVID nineteen, COVID nineteen is a coronavirus, we have encountered other coronaviruses. And because we've encountered other coronaviruses, and again, these are some receipts to fight some of the misinformation. That's why coronaviruses are being studied at labs all around the world, because scientists have seen the explosion and inversions of coronaviruses and people in your science community have known that these were going to pose a major threat to humans, So they've been being studied for years. But when we hear in the news COVID nineteen is a novel virus, that means it's a brand new type of a coronavirus. And that's why it's so dangerous because a novel virus is something we don't have knowledge of, our expertise around. We have to learn in real time. But can you kind of walk us through what's been being studied in that family of viruses? I think a lot of people are like, is it new? Is it old? What does it mean? I don't understand how could we be, you know, researching for vaccines, but then it's brand new and that's leading to vaccine misinformation. So can we just kind of clear up um almost from that inception point, what's going on with this virus and in this family and viruses. Yeah, So to clarify, stars Kobe two is the virus that causes the disease COVID nineteen and stars Kobe two is a novel virus, and novel means we don't have natural immunity to it. Our bodies have not encountered this virus before, so nobody in our population has any protection to it against it, and everybody is susceptible. That's what I meant by like a shared vulnerability because nobody's had it before. Now the two tells us that it's genetically similar to stars kvie one, which is the virus that caused STARS the outbreak that happened in East Asia. And they're genetically similar, but they're different. And the coronavirus family, you know, is something that we are actually very familiar with it. In fact, every person has experienced to coronavirus because coronavirus, at least four of them are the cause of the common cold. You know. Between those four coronaviruses that are very frequently circulating during cold and flu season, UM, and even rhinoviruses, which is the common cause for common cold. Uh. You know, everybody has had a coronavirus in the past, and kids are especially you know, prolific it spreading those you know, common cold coronaviruses. UM. But we those viruses are different, and the immunity for those last very short periods of time and they're not acute. The three that have been acute have been stars Immerce and now COVID nineteen. And since the emergence of those two other severe coronaviruses, we have had researchers at NIH and several labs across the country focused on the family of coronavirus. Is because we have noticed that, like I mentioned earlier, bats are a very perfect reservoir for that family of viruses, and bats don't even succumb to the disease. They just carry it and because they fly, they spread it even more so they're you know, the likelihood of this happening was pretty high based on the data, like mosquitoes do with malaria. Right, So mosquitoes do it because they're a vector and they're spreading it to you with the bite. Right. The way that uh, that could transfer the virus could be a few ways. It could be from touching a person. It could be from their fecal droppings. It could be if somebody you know, was handling them in a in a market. Um. You know, I also want to just dispel that myth that somebody ate a bat as the origin of COVID nineteen. That was not true. That was a terribly racist and xenophobic, uh fake story that came out. Um, nobody was eating a bat, you know. So you know that said coronaviruses have had extensive research and they started vaccine research after Stars and merce um, and that research was eventually stopped because those two diseases eventually faded out. They didn't actually have a very likely chance of being a repeated threat. Both both diseases actually died out. That didn't stop the research, but it slowed down quite a bit. But because the research started, it also meant that we're not starting from scratch in our COVID nineteen research. We had a really pretty good runway to where we are right now, and now we're able to do different technology research, different types of technology in vaccine research like the m RNA vaccine um to see how we can potentially protect against COVID nineteen and maybe even other coronaviruses. Can you talk to us a little bit about mRNA because well, actually, let me go back. It's really helpful to have a clarification. First of all, as you said, nobody ate a bat. That's an incredibly inappropriate racist trope that deserves no circulation time on the internet. So there's a receipt on that everybody Also, it's really helpful to understand that these are similar families of viruses in the way that you're explaining them when you talk about the kind of influences that kids spread versus something like a Stars, Mirrors or COVID nineteen. In my mind, and again, tell me if I'm thinking about this correctly, we're almost talking about a spectrum and and you know, the common cold sort of sits over here and it is not really a big deal. And then we're talking about these viruses that are super on the other end of incredibly serious, dangerous, and COVID nineteen clearly goes so much farther even than a Stars or a Mirs because it's not dying out. I heard a scientist on an on an MPR podcast recently referred to it as a very smart virus because it figured out how to be so easily transmissible being airborne, uh, working in the way that it does. And that feels like a moment where I should draw a little asterisk um if we were to transcribe this and say, we now have the tapes of President Trump and his administration by extension knowing that this was a fully airborne disease in February, while misleading the American public um and while continuing to not fund a pandemic response. So I would just like to be very clear that they knew that this would be deadly. Uh. He's also on on the Woodword tapes saying how deadly this is, that if you're the wrong person, you're a goner, and that this is essentially like the plague. So that feels like incredibly important information because misleading the American public with what has proven to be by far, the most deadly outbreak of a respiratory pandemic that we've seen in our lifetimes, UM, to me is beyond the pale. And I want us to be really and I don't mean us just as you and I just I mean I mean us as everyone who's with us for this conversation today. I want us to not downplay the reality of of what that means of every person who has died of this disease, who didn't have to. And I don't want to gloss over that human toll. And I want to make sure that we have moments to really honor um the folks we've lost, you know, our our first responders and doctors and E. M. T. S and um family members, and you know, it's it's a really devastating thing that's happened. And more than ever, I'm so grateful to you and everyone in the science community who has not been bullied into silence, and each of you who are choosing to be so clear about what a threat this is and and to continue to do the work, to do the work trying to find us a vaccine, to to use the research that was done on the first two iterations of this coronavirus and to apply it to the novel COVID nineteen and and to try to get us out of this. You know, when you refer to and mRNA vaccine, when you refer to all of this, all of this lab research, how are we looking forward? And and another asterisk? Can you talk to us about what mr NA is, because I think a lot of us are hearing the term and we don't really know. But I'm curious, you know, how hopeful with your expertise you're feeling. Yeah, you know, I always try to remind people that everything we do today affects the data tomorrow and affects the data in the weeks to come. And I know a lot of us have seen a number of epidemiological models that have predictions about how many people are going to die. And you know, I don't feel comfortable saying, you know, I believe it's going to be x number of deaths because I try to remind people like epidemiology is you know, one of the most common phrases that we say is it depends, and it depends because so much of this is about human behavior. So if you say a model is going to say that X number of people are going to die, but you have ways to mitigate that, you would assume, well, what's assumed there is that human behavior could essentially alter that prediction. So knowing that that any kind of model is wrong but is a helpful possibility and not a prediction, can help us calibrate our behavior. Right, if we see that this is looking like it's going to be really bad, but we have the tools in our toolkits who lessen that problem, we should do that, right, We should try to mitigate the predicted outcomes and say, Okay, we're not gonna let it get that bad. So, and a lot of this is dependent on this perfect cocktail of mitigation efforts. You know, I think a lot of people are looking at the vaccine as though it's going to be a silver bullet, and it's just not going to be. It's gonna be one of the many tools in our tool kit to help mitigate this disease, and we really need to rein it in before we even get there, because if the disease is out of control, the pandemic is continuing to grow at you know, very rapid rates in hotspots all over the country, a vaccine campaign is going to be very altered by that distribute in the vaccine and even getting the majority of people to get vaccinated, it's going to be really difficult, period. But if it's if that's on top of an unchecked, out of control pandemic, that's a really big problem, which is why we need to be lettering up to it. Mask wearing, physical distancing, avoiding crowds, avoiding indoor gatherings. Doing all those things consistently has actually been modeled to reduce depths by a significant number. To eliminate the duration or at least shorten the duration of this whole thing. People are desperate for me to say, when is it going to end? How long we'll be wearing masks? It all depends on everybody's choice today, It all depends on everybody's behavior next week, and it really all depends on the data for the vaccine, you know, the vaccine. If we see a safe and effective vaccine, and what I mean by that is it's safe and that it doesn't cause harm, and it's effective and that it actually reduces risk of getting the disease, and that is at least fifty per the FDA guidelines for approval, then we need to get at least at the very least of the population vaccinated, hopefully the majority of the population vaccinated to get anywhere near herd immunity. So I'm really curious you referred to the misinformation that came out when smallpox was a thing, which thankfully now is not because of vaccines. When we think about things that vaccines have beaten, polio, the measles, you know, all of these preventable illnesses, why do you think from those early days where people thought the smallpox vaccine would turn humans into cows. I can't, I can't even say it with a straight face, Like what where where does that distrust of science come from? And why do you think we've seen a frightening percentage of Americans backlash against hervaccines, say that vaccines aren't safe. Where where does that come from? And what would you say to any parent out there who's you know, read some blog where some woman says, I don't vaccinate my children. How do we beat the misinformation there? Because it's exactly that kind of medical innovation that means kids get to live healthy lives and grow up and be healthy adults. Why don't we trust it? Yeah? You know, I think there are a couple of things that are happening here. One is, Americans are a very individualistic type of person, right, you know, Individualism is a theme here, and a lot of Americans have for the you know, excuse the generalization, but um have a visceral reaction to being told what to do with their bodies, when to do it, and why. And I think that what's lacking is kind of what I mentioned earlier, that altruism. The looking at vaccines is not something that's just done for you as an individual, but it's something that you do for your neighbors. It's something you do for your communities that are filled with people who cannot get vaccinated themselves. And I'm talking and you know, compromise kids, kids who are born prematurely, people with a weakened immune systems and chronic illnesses and cancer going through chemotherapy. I mean, there's so many people around us that rely on others doing the right thing, and that is lacking in our society. On top of the fact that I do think that are the way that our country has you know, created a you know, unmanaged profit situation for pharmaceutical companies. Makes people really angry, and I can I can sympathize with that. I can sympathize with what seems to be an out of control, growing, you know, financially motivated system of pharmaceutical companies and people who are very disconnected to that just being told what to do and when to do it. But there's also data to connect that, right, there's data, and there's so many, um, you know, groups of people that are that are just as interested in protecting their children too, who have done extensive research to prove the safety and efficacy of vaccines. I think one thing that I always try to remind people is that we all want the same thing. We all want to protect our children, to do the best for our children, make the most informed decisions for our children, and nobody here um and when I say here, in the science community is intending to harm as far as it goes with vaccines. But we live in an era where regardless of the disease, regardless of the politics, there's always going to be a snake oil salesperson slinging some crazy remedy or some crazy alternative reality. Um about what can create false hope and what can actually you know, essentially create more fear and harm. Um. You know, And we have systems in place that enable that behavior. And that system, I think right now is social media. Our social media platforms go virtually unchecked and basically allow for a propagation of not just misinformation, but disinformation, and disinformation is unique. Disinformation intends to deceive, intends to cause, you know, discord in society. We saw that in our political intervention that happened or you know, manipulation that happened, and we're also seeing it in science. And that kind of stirring the pot, creating distrust and fear and paranoia has created a subculture of people who have become so anti science. It's bigger than just anti vaccine. It's anti science that engaging with that type of group is extremely difficult because it gets very personal very quickly. You're not dealing with the like earnest parents who wants to make a really good choice for their kids. You're dealing with somebody who who is threatening and who wants to cause, you know, incite violence, and who wants to intimidate public health officials. I mean, I've lost count with how many public health officials have had to resign or even get personal security because people are so anti science. I mean, it's it's it's a trend that is mind boggling um. And I think that for as long as we have you know, algorithms in place that thrive off of viral content, and this stuff is so viral, it's going to be really, really difficult to get this under control. When we think about the spreading of disinformation and how actually dangerous that is, how dangerous that is for all of us, for everyone's kids, for everyone's future. Where do you think compassion comes in? Because you've talked a lot about how there needs to be a place for compassion and science, and and it strikes me as we talk about how anti science a lot of people have become, is that people need to have compassion for scientists, and also a reality check on the fact that human history exists, innovation exists, the globe, the global economy, travel, every single thing that we participate in and enjoy about our lives exists because of science, because of innovation, because of progress, and to discredit it, to me feels like discrediting humanity. How do we how do we bring compassion in and what kind of compassion do you think we need? Yeah, I mean, I believe with my whole heart that science communication without compassion and empathy is empty. It just doesn't. It doesn't change anything. It's just, you know, you can't outscience somebody, you can't aut fact somebody who was a conspiracy theorist. There's just I mean, there's data to even prove that too. Um. And so what's been encouraging is seeing what you know, COVID nineteen has created this, you know, unprecedented hunger for science and science understanding. And that's the opportunity that I'm seizing right now. That's when I'm doing the breakdown to things that while it may seem simple to me because I've studied it for fifteen years, a lot of people didn't and I can't presume my expertise or even kind of you know, simple understanding of things on the public. I can't laugh at the questions that I get. I have to look at it and like, wow, this is not common knowledge and break it down to judgment free, accessible information so that when people hear it, they feel empowered and not intimidating, and they feel like they can make choices and not like want to hide in fear. And I'm seeing those results happening on my Instagram and it's blowing my mind. I am seeing people have those light bulb moments of I always thought this, and now I'm understanding that it's actually that. And you know, to see these small changes, even if it's just in a few individuals, with people who are seeking understanding and who have been led astray by sensationalist and emotionally manipulative propaganda, it's really incredible. And I think that you know, to get on a you know, social platform and just scream at people and and and you know, name call and be judgmental is not going to win anybody anything. It's just going to create more division in an already divided world. Mm hmmmm. I really respect that, and I think You're using your expertise to welcome people to the table, to begin to understand how to translate science to to be their science communicator. Is so just incredible of you. It's it's something that really deserves to be lauded. And as one of the people who's following along, I'm really grateful you. You talk about welcoming people to the table and how everyone wants the same thing really at the end of the day, which is a healthy future for their children, their friends children. You are a parent to two young children. How as a mom are you balancing everything right now? You know? How are you leading for other moms? And how are you managing to do all of this scientific work while we're all working from home. What what's the experience like for you? You know, it's crazy, There's no other way to describate. It's crazy. I have my daughter is almost four and my son just turned to so we have our handsful. Um. I'm very, very fortunate to have an amazing partner in Joshua. We we take team, we take we tag team our schedules and we make sure that we can kind of make you know, the day as manageable as possible for the both of us. But you know, uh, to have an extremely precocious and curious almost four year old is wonderful and exhausting because she wants to talk and ask questions and she's extremely curious. And you know, we made the really difficult decision not to send our kids to preschool this year. They were enrolled and they had spot. We were, you know, preparing to send them back this fall, and you know, just after a lot of careful decision, we decided not to, which doesn't make our life any easier. It makes it that much more difficult because my work is definitely not slowing down, and their needs are growing. But I think one thing that we have tried to do as a family is to make choices to stop working, to make choices to be device free. And for me, that's really difficult, because you know, my job is to doom scroll. My job is to get all the bad news and synthesize it and analyze it and create charts and figure out how what the trends are. And but I also know that if I continue to do that, I am missing out on joy, I am missing out on time with my children, whose lives are so wonderfully simple that it's enviable, you know, Like I look at my kids who are delighting in magnet tiles, and I'm like, all I want to think about is making a castle right now with my daughter, and like the extent of my stress would be, how do we make sure that it's ten feet tall? You know. So it's it's choices of making boundaries, it's choices of you know, delighting in the simplicity of our kids lives. Um, it's also engaging our kids a little bit on the topic. You know, my my daughter is still too young to really understand the concept of a global pandemic, but she knows things that like, you know, we're wearing masks to care for our neighbors, and that we are not going to playgrounds and going to restaurants because there's some people that are sick outside and we want to make sure that we're protecting everybody. And those are ways that I think you can implant empathy in young minds, and we're trying really, really hard to do that. That's really amazing when you think about how you talk to your kids about this and and how you make determinations for them. I'd love to ask some questions that I think a lot of parents out there have because people are wondering, can my kids go to school or not? What's safe? You know, you've said that each family needs to determine what risks they're comfortable with and come up with a plan that works for their household. And I'm really struck by that advice because again, it seems to harken back to what you were saying about science, which is it depends, It depends on the circumstance, It depends on where you are. I know that some friends of mine live in a very small town in Tennessee and are not experiencing an outbreak, and so their kids just went back to school. They're the teachers, are wearing masks, everyone gets their temperatures taken every day. You know, there are precautions in place there. That's so far for the last five weeks have been working for them. But they're not working in you know, a high school in Georgia, and they're not working in so many cities around the country that are still experiencing outbreaks. Policy isn't working across the board when we're experiencing a nine eleven every forty eight hours in the US. So when you talk about making those determinations. Is there a list of questions that come to mind right away that you would say households need to sit down and ask and answer for themselves and and in whatever specific way, in whatever specific community they're in, they can determine based on those questions and answers, what to do going forward. Yeah, I mean, I think one thing too, I always try to remind people is that there's you know, no wrong answer for a family if they've done, you know, the due diligence that they've done, and determine what works for them. You know, we are dealing with a another confounding factor of equity here. No nobody was really prepared for a pandemic, but some people are better able to respond because of the financial means. And so I think there's a lot of judgment on the table here with what people can afford when it comes to help and what people are forced to rely on, like other people's help and sending their kids back because they have to be outside at the home to work. The privilege of working from home should not be unmentioned. Uh, you know, we, my husband and I are both very fortunate to have jobs. You know, we are actually going to relocate for the next year to be closer to family, and my husband's job was like, yeah, come back whenever you feel like it's safe. And that is a privilege. And I think that, you know, I never want to speak with the assumption that everybody has that UM and I'm very very aware of that um. You know. There are some questions though, that you know, just for basic risk mitigation, I like to encourage people to think about, and that is, you know, can you avoid circumstances on the table, And if that circumstances sending the kids to school, can you do it? If you can, that's going to be your safest option if you can't. I'm looking for answers to questions like what is the mass protocol at the school? Is it masks for teachers, masks for students for both? Are people substituting with faith shields, because that's happening in some places. Are they physically distancing tables? Are they podding in classes? Are how bigger classrooms? I mean, those are all the questions that I want to see specific answers too. On top of the fact that schools don't exist in a bubble or in a vacuum, rather they are part of our community. And there are people that are in and out of schools, whether it's teachers, administrators, students that live and experience multigenerational communities, and they have multigenerational homes, and they have other jobs, and they have different places that they visit for social reasons or medical reasons, and so there cannot exist a impenetrable bubble when it comes to sending kids back to school. Uh And and that's why it needs to involve very regular checkens about the circumstance because if it starts to break, if the systems are starting to break, if the bubbles are starting to pop and things are happening, stop if you can stop. And that's kind of like the advice that our pediatrian gave us, Like, at any point if you feel uncomfortable, pull the kids out of school. If at any point it's not sustainable, transition something. And that's kind of like what we're trying to encourage people to understand that the fall in winter is a big question mark. Between the combination of COVID nineteen and flu season and then all these other group activities that are happening between sports and school, there are a lot of unknowns, and so we need to kind of take it day by day, week by week before we can make these conclusions that back to school is safe or you know, back to work is safe. When we talk about flu season coming, how strongly would you recommend the everyone get a flu shot this year? Very strongly recommend that everybody get a flu shot. And there's a very specific reason. If you get the flu, you are immunocompromised. You are more vulnerable to getting COVID nineteen and that would be terrible. A flu vaccine is not going to make you more at risk for flu, and a flu vaccine is not going to give you the flu. Just to kind of get some misconceptions out of the way, but if flu vaccine can help protect you against another competing respiratory illness that is circulating in our community. It is not a perfect vaccine and that it doesn't have effective protection, but if you can reduce your chance by anything, it's a good idea. On top of the fact that even if you get the flu, having been vaccinated with the flu vaccine, you can reduce the severity of the illness. And that's huge and that's really helpful to know too, because I've I've definitely heard some people say, well, you know, I got a flu shot and then I got the flu anyway, and so it's it's a really important reminder that if you are one of those people who gets a flu vaccine and then gets the flu anyway, it will be much less severe. That's that's helpful to know. Thank you for that now. I know it's hard to talk about timelines because they depend they depend on how well we respond to this. They depend on us taking measures to stop the spread of the virus, which are hard because we don't have federal leadership on this. We don't have federal mandates, so we don't have a nationwide plan, which I imagine as a scientist who used to work on national planning, is pretty frustrating. What are the things if you could pick three things that right now you think people need to know, three things you would like to ask people to do to double down on, what would they be? I'd go back to what I said earlier and say that pandemics are political, and that the politicians and the politics we choose can directly impact how we prepare and respond and prevent future public health emergencies, and we need to vote. We need to vote in November in a way that is pro science. We need to vote in a way that is thinking about the future of our planet and the future of our health and the future of our kids health because right now, working a government that works against the science community is just not productive. It's counterproductive, and it is dangerous, and it is in our country's best interest to prioritize health promotion and disease prevention. And it feels almost silly to say something as obvious as that. Um. You know, in many ways, the normal that we had pre COVID is how we got here because we defunded public health, we devalued it, and we made health care access to health care really difficult and dependent on income and employment. So we need some fundamental changes to our normal to move forward. So that's one UM. Number two, to check your sources, to be really to be an informed individual, and to be your own scientists. Do the extra search, pause before re sharing, and think critically before you do UM. And Third, you know, empathy. We all need empathy right now. Think about the implications of what you talk about, especially when it comes to COVID nineteen comparing it to each one and one for instance, and remember that there are two hundred thousand families right now who are devastated, two thousand families that likely had to lose their families over the phone because they weren't allowed to be next to them in the hospital as they died. So let's think about the heartbreak here, Let's think about the compassion that we can be having towards others, and let's act accordingly. Right, And it's incredibly important when you talk about what was normal before YEAH got us here, When we talk about the two people we've lost, those deaths were preventable. We we knew how to stop an outbreak like this. We did it with H one N one, We did it with a bowla we we have stopped these things from coming and harming our communities. And when we think about how to move forward, I really think it's important to remember the three things you've just highlighted, and also to understand that we have to look at the disparities that this pandemic has highlighted for us. Something I don't want to miss discussing with you is the disparities that have happened for people of color with COVID because you and the scientists at the COVID Tracking Project. For everyone who's listening from home, when we talk about checking sources, follow the COVID Tracking Project from the Alantic. It is an incredible resource and Jessica is one of the scientists working on it and communicating all of this information to us. One of the things that you all have done through the COVID Tracking Project is published the data on the racial disparities of COVID, and data has shown that COVID nineteen is affecting black, Indigenous and Latin X people and other people of color. Most nationwide, black people are dying at two and a half times the rate that white people are dying, which is a devastating statistic and and as you said, yet not entirely surprising considering the cycles of systemic racism that have led to bipop communities facing worse health outcomes. And when I when I read that, I was really shaken by your words, because whether we're looking at economic justice, environmental justice, gender based justice, we have seen disparities that put these oppressed communities at risk in all of those verticals. And I've heard a lot of people say they're they're aware of these statistics. They've they've heard a little bit that COVID nineteen is impacting people of color disproportionately, but they don't really understand why or how. And I'm wondering if you can offer some insight as to why this is happening and and any thoughts as a scientist, as a as a public health expert as to what we need to change in the future going forward, in addition obviously to healthcare not simply being based on employment, but health care being a human right. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, in public health, zip code is one of the biggest indicators for a community's health. You can search any zip code and you can see trends of disease, diseases having prevalence, of chronic illnesses having prevalence, and those things have so much to do with how we set up those communities to have access to health. There have been a number of reports that have come out during this pandemic that have showed that even access to testing is not equitable. That when there's an opportunity to put a testing facility in an area, it's most likely going to go to a white dominant neighborhood over a black dominant neighborhood. And you know, you can see that in how our health care systems are funded. You're seeing hospitals and clinics in more affluent areas have the resources that they need to manage an influx of cases, where you see hospitals in rural or more impoverished areas that have disproportionately high populations of people of color underfunded, overwhelmed, and not able to manage the burden of a pandemic. And so, you know, there are so many ways that we have disenfranchised people of color, not even set them up for the basic resources in health care so that they could even respond to this appropriately. And you know, I think a lot of people love to speculate about health, you know, as a India, as race as an indicator of health, and that's not what's happening here. We're talking about social systems. We're talking about structural and systemic racism that is perpetuating this and that existed pre COVID. You're dealing with the quality of air in certain neighborhoods that has resulted in chronic asthma, chronic respiratory illnesses in communities of color, and that has a direct impact on those co morbidities that we talked about in those populations and having worse outcomes with COVID nineteen infection there. I mean, it's all there, It's all there, and so um, you know, I think that it's part of the reason why I say the pre COVID normal was so broken and how we got here because we haven't taken care of our communities of color. We haven't invested in health care access to everybody in this country. We haven't invested in making sure that all health care systems have the right doctors and ventilators and ppe and all the things necessary to go to the hospital and actually survive in the hospital. Not to mention the fact that, you know, there's a lot of distrust in healthcare because of how people of color are treated. Women are treated. Black women, in particular, Latino women are treated terribly when it comes to prenatal care, when it comes to coming in with issues of pain management. And so if you have a system that already feels like it's against you, how on earth is that going to be like a safe place for those people to go in in such an emergency like this. Right, So, as we move for word, what do you think we can all do to demand change? Because obviously checking sources following the COVID tracking project, for example, knowing that you're sharing trusted science is a way to immediately affect your personal platform. Whether it's five people, fifty people, or five hundred people, you can become a trusted resource of real science. And that feels like an imperative as a citizen, re right out the gate. But what also feels imperative to me is talking about not going back to that version of normal post pandemic, if there is such a thing as a post pandemic. Ever, we need a new normal, We need a new system. And when I think about ways that I try to spend you know, my privilege as a white woman, for example, and make sure that all of the emotional labor of talking about issues of women of color doesn't fall solely on the shoulders of women of color. I think about how we as a society have a duty to our neighbors, how we as a citizen we need to say, if we're the richest country in the world, we need to be investing in public health more than we invest in war. What are we doing? What are our priorities? So I'm curious what you think the sort of average person who's sitting at home, myself included by the way, going how do I make a dent in this? Are are there actions that you, again as a public health expert, would tell us to take. Should we be calling our senators, should we be writing emails to the mayor? What what do we need to do to make some noise about access and equity in health care? So I will say to that, you know, nobody's sacrifice that they've made for COVID nineteen, but Asian is in vain. So I want to encourage people that the choices that they're making to not hang out with friends, to not go out, to wear a mask, to wash their hands, all these things are not for nothing, and to keep doing those things because those things have measurable impact on our public health, measurable and we should be thanking people for those things. And as depressing and as frustrating as the season is, like, truly truly commendable sacrifices and they're not in vain. So I just want to start with saying that the second thing would be, like I said earlier, to vote, to absolutely not sit on the opportunity to go out in November, and to vote for people who are going to promote science, to refund public health, to ensure that our science leader, that our leaders are trusting the science and speaking correctly about the science. And three to see if there are ways that you can participate in things like contact tracing or in volunteering even as a poll worker um or you know, doing all the things in our community that seem maybe high risk or part of COVID response. There are donate blood, donate plasma, like all those things have a tangible effect on how we can get our community back to normal. And I do want to say this pandemic is going to end. We will live in a post COVID world. We just don't know when it's gonna happen. It's probably gonna be a while. But you know, all of this is helping. And I think the more people that we can get on board with getting excited about supporting this as a team effort and not thinking about this individualistically, the faster we can get out of it. You know, we need to be thinking about this like a group and not as people. Thank you for that. That that reminds me to just not to not get tired, you know, to not get to not slip into less vigilance. It it's nice to be reminded that all of our actions really matter. I wonder we've we've run the gamut of you know, public health emergencies to hope for the future, and and in this moment, I'm curious, especially what your answer to this question will be. It's my favorite thing to ask everyone who comes on the show. This is a work in progress. And what feels like a work in progress in your life right now? Oh my gosh, this is the epitome of work in progress. Truly. Um, you know, in my life, I would say the work of science, and I am. I posted this on my Instagram the other day. The science is not finished until it's communicated, and so my job as a science communicator is not over and it's going to continue. It's going to get more complicated, it's going to get more nuanced, it's going to get more exhausting. And I'm excited about that. I'm excited because science is working. Science is a process. Science changes and evolves. It doesn't you know, does so it doesn't change so wildly that it causes you know, confusion. It's it's growing. It's like a living organism. And to watch that and to be able to invite people in that process so that it's not just sitting in a lab behind closed doors. UM is an honor, and I look forward to the future science that's coming out of vaccine research, of COVID nineteen research. I am thrilled to be a part of that translation and to be a part of inviting people into the process of science. M hmm. I love that. I like being invited to that table. Thank you for doing that with my joy. This show is executive produced by me Sophia Bush and sim Sarna. Our associate producer is Caitlyn Lee. Our editor is Josh Wendish, and our music was written by Jack Garrett and produced by Mark Foster. This show is brought to you by Grillian Anatomy m h