“Science, of course, does not give you the instant satisfaction answers the public wants.“
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC, an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. In January 2020, he was recognized in the media as one of the first to alert the public on the pandemic risk of COVID-19.
“Holy mother of God, the new coronavirus is a 3.8!” Not only did the United States fail to act aggressively to combat the spread of COVID-19, it failed to act at all. With the last global pandemic a century ago, the public had no institutional memory of what to expect. People needed to see the consequences to believe it, but panic scares the market.
On mitigation, “It’s not about how much you test. It’s about how early you test and how well you contact trace.” COVID-19 carries an infection fatality rate (not case fatality rate) 10-20 times higher than that of the seasonal flu. Plus, most people have some degree of immunity to the flu, whereas very few have active immunity to the novel coronavirus.
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding
Senior Fellow
Federation of American Scientists
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:07)
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darsie. I'm the Managing Director of SALT, which is a global thought leadership forum at the intersection of finance, technology and public policy. At SALK Talks, are a series of digital interviews we've been hosting with leading investors, creators and thinkers.
John Darsie: (00:25)
What we're really trying to do with the SALT Talk series, is replicate the type of experience that we provide at our SALT conference series, where we try to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as to provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future.
John Darsie: (00:39)
We're very excited today, to bring a very topical and relevant SALT Talk to you with Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding. Dr. Feigl-Ding is an Epidemiologist, who was one of the earliest forecasters of trends that we saw explode relating to COVID-19.
John Darsie: (00:53)
He's also a Health Economist and a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC, and is the Chief Health Economist for Microclinic International. In January of 2020, Dr. Feigl-Ding was recognized in the media, as one of the first to alert the public on the pandemic risk of COVID-19.
John Darsie: (01:12)
He's part of a FAS' work to stop COVID misinformation and communication, lead communication with the lay public regarding the virus. He was previously a faculty member and a Researcher at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical School, between 2004 and 2020.
John Darsie: (01:31)
Dr. Feigl-Ding's work focuses on the intersection of public health and public policy. He also currently works on behavioral interventions for prevention, medicare costs, quality improvements, drug safety, diabetes, and obesity prevention and public health programs in the United States.
John Darsie: (01:47)
He has further expertise in designing and conducting randomized trials, systematic reviews, public health programs, public policy implementation and leveraging big data for improving health systems.
John Darsie: (01:59)
He was noted in his role as a whistleblower, and a leader of a key two-year long investigation into the controversial drug safety and risk data of Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra, that drew FDA and national attention.
John Darsie: (02:12)
Highlighted and expressed, published in JAMA, as corresponding joint first author, he was also recognized for his role in the New York Times and in the book, Poison Pills, The Untold Story of the Vioxx Drug Scandal.
John Darsie: (02:25)
A reminder, if you have any talks or any questions for Dr. Feigl-Ding during today's SALT Talk, you can enter them in the Q&A box at the bottom of your video screen. I imagine today will be one where people have a lot of questions about what the future holds for COVID-19, as well as sort of an examination on the original outbreak.
John Darsie: (02:42)
Hosting today's interview, is going to be Anthony Scaramucci, who is the Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital, a global alternative investment firm. Anthony is also the Chairman of SALT. With that, I'll turn it over to Anthony for the interview.
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:55)
See doc, we have so much respect for you, that we dressed up like billionaires. See, I'm wearing my Mark Zuckerberg hoodie, but it's a source of frustration for me. My only suit out here, my wife has it in the dry cleaner, so I apologize for the way I'm dressed.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (03:13)
No worries.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:13)
Thank you for coming on. I think it's always an important and central question, particularly for the younger people that are listening to our SALT Talks. How did you go in this direction with your career? What was the driving factor? Was it an Asian tiger mom who was like, "My son is his own internal tiger mom."
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (03:34)
Thanks.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:34)
"He just graduated from Stanford Business School. He's like a self-cleaning tiger mom?"
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (03:38)
Yes.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:38)
What was it about you and your family that turned you into this illustrious direction?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (03:43)
Well, I was a normal video game playing kid, who in high school, played way too much video games until I was 18. I had this big tumor when I was 17, the size of a tennis ball, baseball. They said, "You have a five-year diagnosis with this kind of tumor right here." I thought I was going to die.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (04:10)
They luckily took out the tumor, and it wasn't that kind of cancer. It kind of woke me up, jolted me up. Life is short, it's about what you do in life, not the number of video games you can master on Legendary. That kind of took me off the-
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:28)
Hold on, I got to get my six-year-old kid in here. Who's was playing Fortnite right now, somewhere in the house. I got to get him down here to hear that. See, this is why I love asking this question. You had a traumatic event, a health scare. How old were you, 18?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (04:44)
I was 17. They took out the tumor when I was 17, yeah.
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:47)
Okay, and how long did it take you to heal from all of that?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (04:50)
Well, it was like an open chest... they cut your rib cage apart kind of thing. It took a while, but I could still run. I started running a month after the surgery. My mom was like scared pretty, living [inaudible 00:05:05] that I was going to fall and crack my rib cage apart again.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (05:10)
No, it was good. I recovered, but couldn't be an astronaut or anything like that, that I wanted to originally be. Then it sent me in a different direction. I was really keen on risk and prevention of things, and that took me to Hopkins.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (05:29)
I wanted to be a doctor, but then I realized... I think epidemiology, predicting risk... because I became obsessed with it, when I went to college after my health scare. From there on, epidemiology was where fell in love with. I went to medical school too, but then I dropped out.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (05:47)
I did a doctorate in epidemiology and another doctorate in nutrition. I like, "You know what? Life's about what you need to do, not collecting a third doctorate or something behind your name or anything like that." That's why I became an epidemiologist.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:02)
Okay, so I love the philosophy. I'm going to take you back to January 20th, 2020, which feels like it's 7 to 10 years ago now. You posted a thread on Twitter, which I think got a lot of fanfare.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:18)
At that time, people still really didn't know what was going on, myself included. It was a pre-publication of a paper on the novel coronavirus, where you said, "Holy mother of God, the new coronavirus is a 3.8." What did that mean? Was that the [crosstalk 00:06:36]?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (06:36)
Yeah, that was the R-naught.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:37)
R-naught.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (06:37)
That was the R-naught.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:38)
The R-naught, okay.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (06:40)
At first, [crosstalk 00:06:40].
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:40)
Let's tell people what the R-naught is. Some of our viewers may not know.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (06:44)
Yeah, the R-naught is basically the R-naught, that means the raw part. Means for every infected person, that person infects 3.8 additional people in an exponential manner.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:56)
Per day.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (06:58)
Per transmission.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:59)
Per transmission.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (07:00)
Not per day, per transmission. That person gives-
Anthony Scaramucci: (07:02)
Okay.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (07:02)
... another 3.8, gives another 3.8. You can see how this thing just cascades out of control exponentially. Whether it's two-
Anthony Scaramucci: (07:09)
Something like the Ebola virus, what was the R-naught on the Ebola virus?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (07:13)
Ebola, it's slightly lower. The thing is, it's not just the R-Naught. It's also for example, Ebola fizzles out. Ebola's R-naught is a little lower and it fizzles out, because it kills 50%, case mortality. A virus that grows... you have to spread fast, but not kill everyone along the way too quickly.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (07:35)
If you do that, then it fizzles out. This is why this coronavirus or COVID-19 is such a weird in between. It kills those who are susceptible, especially if you're obese and a heart disease, or underlying factors with very high rate, what hospitalizes them.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (07:55)
Then for some young people, it just passes asymptomatically. They don't even know they're sick, but they're making everyone around them sick. This is why it's so pernicious. It's like a double-edged... really light and spreads really fast.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (08:11)
Contagious silently, but then it kills and maims those elderly and have risk factors. It's spread, and attends to super spread. It either spreads... oftentimes just one or two people, and then other times 60 people at a wedding for example.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (08:30)
We know this kind of stuff happens. In January, when I saw it, with the R-naught, I knew this was bad, because it wasn't just the paper. I have relatives in China who've been sharing info with me.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (08:43)
They basically piece up together like, "This is bad." Most scientists... I don't work in academia anymore. Most scientists are too shy, too gun-shy to say, "Call it out in a manner that everyone can hear." I had nothing to lose. I was leaving Harvard anyways.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (09:05)
I just said, "You know what? I'm going to go all out and say, "It's thermonuclear level bad. It's going to be really, really bad." Back then, you might as well tell people about aliens, to be honest. People don't know what the hell it is.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:21)
Well, you called it out. Some people listened. A lot of people, frankly, they didn't listen. As an example, the next day, South Korea got its first infection.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:33)
It seemed like they listened, had the right culture to respond to the virus. The United States got its first infection on the same day, January 21st. What do you think went wrong in the United States?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (09:48)
Yeah, there's a whole boatload of things. Someday we're going to have a reckoning of everything, but I think it's a culmination of-
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:52)
Okay, almost like a 9/11 Commission, a Coronavirus-
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (09:58)
Yeah, I think there will be. There definitely will be.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:00)
Yeah, sure. I believe that.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (10:02)
Not under the Trump administration, but someday.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:03)
A responsible officer of government will need to do that at some point, so that we can learn from it and figure out what-
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (10:11)
Yeah. I think what went wrong is a series of... we didn't react. There's like, people have this tendency to, "Oh, don't overreact. Don't be alarmist." There is a pro-alarmism and anti-alarmism. This climate change, people have been sounding alarm for a long time, but people don't see it.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (10:29)
People need to see it to believe it. I think people don't want to cause panic, because again, they scare the markets. At the same time, people have a limit of imagination. We haven't seen a pandemic like this in over 100 years, and we don't have a good memory of history.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (10:49)
Again, people can't believe something that they haven't seen themselves. They don't take it seriously. When it comes to taking precautions, people basically, "No, we don't have to go that extreme. No, we don't have to. That's too much." It's just that gut reaction. That's just the first line kind of thing.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (11:10)
Also, obviously testing. We should have tested aggressively. It's not just about how much you test, but how early and you do it. You contact trace. America is just... we have some lab testing issues, but we also didn't contact trace.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (11:27)
We didn't do lockdowns fast enough. We didn't do mask wearing early enough. There're so many things that we went wrong at. At the very minimum, we did not soak in the reality fast enough.
Anthony Scaramucci: (11:44)
Actually, they seem to have done that in Europe. They seem to have done that in parts of Asia, and their economies seem to be more open than our economy. Is that fair to say?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (11:54)
They are now, but their lockdowns were a lot harsher. Italy lockdowns, you weren't even allowed to go the park or go outside. In China, Wuhan, the lockdowns were so harsh. You were not even allowed to go outside, to go grocery shopping.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (12:08)
They would bring the food to your neighborhood, little community cluster. They were like, tie the food to a pulley to pull it up to your third, fourth, sixth floor apartment. It was just that intense and no one was allowed out.
Anthony Scaramucci: (12:24)
[crosstalk 00:12:24].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (12:24)
They scanned their cell phone SIM cards, to make sure you weren't in the hotspot-
Anthony Scaramucci: (12:29)
Sure.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (12:29)
... because, "We don't believe if you haven't been to Wuhan. You show us your SIM card, has it touched a Wuhan SIM card tower?" We can't do that here. There is a degree of individuality and freedom. It's really difficult. Listening to big government, half the country is anti-big government.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (12:49)
This is what government's for. In times of crisis, coordinating all these kind of things. I think our society was just not prepared. We're just way too [inaudible 00:13:02]. If you actually look at some of your lockdown rules, it's half pages lockdowns, three pages of exemptions.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:08)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (13:10)
It's completely different, what we did.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:13)
Let's talk about the disease for a second, because we got a lot of information on this disease, some disinformation. I have friends of mine like Chris Cuomo that are long haulers.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:24)
They're having a hard time coming back from the disease 100%. What is the disease actually doing to the body? Is it a respiratory virus, or is it attacking other organs in the body? Contemporaneous to the respiratory area of our body.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (13:39)
Yeah.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:39)
Tell us about the disease and your observation, and what we're learning from the epidemiologists and from the autopsies frankly?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (13:47)
Yeah, I think it's already showing that it's clearly more than just respiratory. It has neurological effects. Actually for example, the classic symptom of you losing your smell, it's actually not because your sensors are dulled. It's actually neurological.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (14:09)
It's because of affecting your nervous system. That's actually why you lose your sense of smell. Not because your receptors are malfunctioning. Similarly, you have brain fog. There's a lot of people with brain fog, long-term. The most-
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:25)
What is brain fog? These words are-
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (14:31)
Brain fog is just cognitive memory problems. Not [crosstalk 00:14:31].
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:31)
Hard time doing math.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (14:32)
Short term recall-
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:35)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (14:35)
These kind of verbal [crosstalk 00:14:37].
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:36)
I can't remember the name or the place that I was at or something like that.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (14:40)
Yeah, exactly.
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:41)
Yeah.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (14:41)
Exactly. It's just that memory fog, which people generically call it but-
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:44)
Is this stuff reversible, doc?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (14:48)
I don't know, this is the stuff that we're finding out. We're in a fog of war, literally. Here's the other thing, the frustration is, normally science is behind the walls. We figured out, "Oh shit, okay. This is true. This is not true. Okay, here's the story. All right, now let's go tell the public."
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (15:06)
Now people were so hungry, that we don't know... there's a lot of conflicting stuff. There's a lot crazy people peddling dangerous theories too at hydroxychloroquine. Being one of them, this other bleach thing and I can go on.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (15:27)
I think reversibility, we'll figure it out. I think there's other things like heart... we already know heart disease, myocarditis and other inflammations, also clearly well known.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (15:41)
There's actually some new evidence. I hate to tell it, but it actually affects sperm quality for a short period of time at least. In fact, if anything, if you actually want to tell people to wear masks and obey social distancing.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (15:59)
Tell the fragile, ego sensitive men who don't want to wear a mask, they will actually hurt their sperm quality. Honestly, that would actually get people to wear masks and social distance, way more than telling them, "Oh, you'll help other people. Protect them."
John Darsie: (16:19)
I thought college football would be the motivator for people in the South, but that didn't work either. Now a lot of places in the country have no college football.
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:26)
Well, and just to let you know, doc, that worked for me. I'm masked up for the rest of the [crosstalk 00:16:31].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (16:30)
Masking up right now.
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:31)
Okay, even though I don't have anybody near me, I just don't want anything to happen to my sperm.
John Darsie: (16:36)
You're still going, Anthony, huh? You still want more.
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:39)
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:16:39].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (16:40)
Want more kids [crosstalk 00:16:41].
John Darsie: (16:41)
[crosstalk 00:16:41].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (16:41)
That's good. I only have-
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:42)
Yeah, I got a lot of kids. I may have a lot of kids coming. We'll just stick with the mask, I think until the end of this interview. Let's go to another question related to misinformation. The virus is just going to disappear. The virus is just like the flu.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (17:02)
Yeah.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:03)
I am going to take the mask off.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (17:04)
Yeah, that is-
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:05)
I thought that was very dramatic. I thought I was having a dramatic moment there.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (17:08)
No, dramatic is necessary to get people... I tell people, literally, you have to shout in a way people can understand and emotionally connect with. If you're just using scientific talk-
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:20)
You got me with the sperm.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (17:20)
I know.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:21)
I'll be wearing a hazmat suit next time I'm in the local supermarket. Let's go to this information, the flu and the disappearing. I mean-
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (17:32)
First of all, the flu is... people don't get the flu test normally. We impute it from some statistical algorithm. For this, there's also, people are confused. There's two statistics. One, there's case fatality rate, with death among those diagnosed. Then there's infection fatality rate.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (17:55)
Infection fatality rate, is anywhere from 10 to 20 times the mortality of the flu, if you actually compare it. It is so much higher. Some people say it's five times, but even if it's five times more than the flu, it's a serious problem. The other thing is, many of us have some background immunity to the flu.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (18:24)
Very few people have any background immunity to this. There is some argument that if you have the other common cold coronavirus, you have some small immunity, but that is nothing close to herd community.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (18:37)
I think the herd immunity misinformation right now, is one of the largest. They say, "Oh, we don't need to infect 50%, 60%. We just need to infect 20%." Still, 20% is... other than Manhattan, downtown Manhattan, most other places aren't even close to 20%. They're not even close to 10%.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (19:01)
Actually, the number of people being harmed and maimed is so dangerous. I think that is part of this... right now, Scott Atlas keeps saying "Herd immunity, herd immunity." It is so dangerous. Fauci is calling it out.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (19:15)
Sweden, that tried herd immunity, all their leading scientists basically say, "Don't do what we did. Doing herd is an example of how not to fight a deadly infectious disease." That misinformation... but it's being misused by those who want to reopen businesses and pretend everything is normal.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (19:38)
Look, we've had flares. If you look at Israel, Israel had a big peak and then smashed it down. They thought everything's okay. They reopen everything, and then everything went out of control. There was no herd immunity there, and it is just so, so dangerous. I think there's misinformation.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (19:57)
People just want to grasp anything. Now, you remind me of the movie, The American President, in which, Michael J. Fox says to President Shepherd, played by Michael Douglas, "People are so thirsty for leadership, that they will crawl to a Mirage. When they discover it's not there, they'll drink the sand."
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (20:21)
Michael Douglas, President Shepard replies, "No, people don't drink the sand, because they're thirsty. They drink the sand, because they don't know the difference." Right now, in the middle of the fog of war, there's so much information. People want to drink something, to know that they're going to be okay.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (20:44)
Oftentimes, there's quacks and snake oil salesmen just trying to peddle things that's a mirage, that's like sand. Science of course, doesn't give you the instant satisfaction answers. Long story short, people are just misled so easily, so easily right now about this coronavirus.
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:10)
You have a family. I have a family. John has a family. Kids are going back to school, Eric. What do you do there? Be our guru, be our therapist, be our epidemiologist, be our scientist.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (21:24)
Yeah. First of all, WHO says, "You should not reopen anything, schools included, until you have less than 5% positivity in your area for 14 consecutive days, consecutive days." I think that's even very kind of like generous. To be honest, we sure need to go for zero COVID.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (21:47)
In absence of that being a reality, I think A, there definitely should be a mandatory mask wearing. Yeah, the indoor distancing does not... it's not that important I think, in the grand scheme. We know there's aerosol transmission. Aerosol transmission, compared to droplets.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (22:09)
There's three kinds of transmission. There's fomite, which means surface contact, touch a dirty doorknob, touch your face. There is droplets, as in when you spit, the ballistic droplet falls down by gravity within six feet. That's where the six feet rule comes from.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (22:26)
Aerosols float in the air. They float literally throughout the whole room, however big the room is. There's evidence in Netherlands, it's gone through some air conditioning ducts that recycle the air. It can be there for 20 minutes or four hours. I think ventilation is so key, masking, ventilation.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (22:48)
If you can't ventilate, at least six exchanges per hour, which is once every 10 minutes. Not many places have that kind of ventilation. Then you need to use filtration. If you can't use filtration, you should also add UV and the HVAC system too. To kill the germs whenever you recycle the air.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (23:11)
A lot of our schools are outdated. They can't open the windows. Actually they can't open their windows and doors, because just schools' anti-shooting security system prevents it.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:23)
Sure.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (23:24)
Which is a very double sad, with all the gun violence. Some classrooms are interspersed. The thing is, most schools are poorly ventilated. It's one of those things where you have to demand as a PTA, buy HEPA and MERV 13 air filters, if you can't ventilate your classrooms.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (23:50)
Kids should definitely wear masks and maybe face shields too, to be extra conservative. It's all about your degree of risk acceptance. What's not acceptable, is just sending your kid without a mask. It's really frustrating. It's all depending on how much is the community spread?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (24:10)
Are the schools taking safeguards? Are they ventilating? If you don't ventilate, are you filtering the air or just sanitizing it in some way? To be honest, not many schools have that. Or funding from parents groups, who can fund all this kind of stuff.
Anthony Scaramucci: (24:28)
Are the planes safe? A little bit smaller than a school.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (24:31)
Planes have good air turnover. They do. I will say that. They have exchanges once every six minutes, eight minutes. The problem is you're super packed in there. You're like elbow to elbow. I'm like six foot. I've really wide shoulders. You're [crosstalk 00:24:50].
Anthony Scaramucci: (24:50)
Don't rub it in, Eric [inaudible 00:24:53].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (24:54)
All right. Sorry. Anyways, I [crosstalk 00:24:56].
Anthony Scaramucci: (24:58)
We're all the same height when we're sitting down. Everybody take it easy. [inaudible 00:25:01].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (25:01)
Yeah. Hey, Fauci is-
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:06)
Fauci is my man.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (25:07)
He's the man. He's not tall. Height is not the ultimate measure in this day and age. I'm just saying like, if you're packed in there, the... and people eat and drink. To Ted Cruz who has taken off his mask... many people do take off their masks, to eat and drink on airplanes.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (25:27)
There's actually an airplane... a documented case in a medical journal. Someone was wearing a mask, but he took his mask off to eat and got infected during that time, by people around him who were positive. He wasn't positive and didn't travel to any other places, but he took his mask off next to them. Boom, he got infected.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (25:51)
I think the airplanes... certain airlines actually blocked the middle seat. I really respect Southwest, and Delta and JetBlue, who actually blocked their middle seats. Or Southwest is selling only two thirds of total seats, which is the same. United American, they're not blocking the middle seat.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (26:10)
When you're jammed in there and you're snacking, you're going to spread. This virus, it spreads more if you shout. This virus will spread when you even breathe. That's the honest, scary thing. Just the act of breathing, gives out aerosols. Again, the mask, cloth masks are good for catching yours.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (26:34)
If other people are breathing out while eating, then you're going to get it, even if you're wearing a cloth mask. That's why you should also wear a premium mask. This is why also airplanes are... it's why the airlines are not booking the middle seats.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:48)
All right, this has been terrific. I'm going to ask you one more question, and I'm going to turn it over to John for outside questions or audience participation. Let's talk about the vaccine for a second. The stories about a vaccine coming in the fall, is that realistic or is that hype?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (27:10)
The vaccine, so we will get trial results of some phase threes that are finishing. What I'm worried is that, they're going to get an interim peak at the trial, halfway through, before they finish. You have to enroll enough people and follow them enough, in enough amount of time. They're going to get an interim peak, I bet.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (27:35)
My fear is they're going to emergency use authorize it way too early. If you want to truly know whether it's safe and effective, you need to have enough people studied, for long enough follow-up time.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (27:51)
My worry is that before the election, they're going to do this interim peak. Then they're going to approve it, based on some early data. You have to first of all, just aside from the safety efficacy, it needs to be at least 50% effective. You have to be sure enough, because every stat has a confidence interval.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (28:16)
You have to be 95% sure enough that it's not unaffected, and not like 30%, which is crap for a vaccine. You have to be sure enough, but I bet there's going to be a push to approve it. Just like hydroxychloroquine was approved. Convalescent plasma was approved.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (28:35)
Remdesivir was approved for wide use, even though their trial wasn't for a world wide-use. They're going to push it through. I think that's careless and callous. If anything, vaccines, you want to convince people to take it.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (28:51)
If you push it through it, you're going to actually scare more people and scare them off of using it, even when eventually you have all the data to say it's good. Communication's really important. If you do something too early, people get too scared. Even when you do it properly later, they don't trust you anymore.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (29:15)
That is my worry. We will get a vaccine, I'm sure. Hopefully in due time, after the phase three trials are done. My worry is, we're going to get it pre-approved, emergency approved before it's over and it's going to create a shit show.
Anthony Scaramucci: (29:31)
All right. Well, we really appreciate the clarity and the factual basis of all the information, Eric. Doctor, thank you. Let me it over to John Darsie.
John Darsie: (29:43)
I got a bunch of questions here, from emails and people posting in the chat. I think we'll pack our last 15 minutes here. Dr. Feigl-Ding, thanks again for joining us.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (29:52)
Sure.
John Darsie: (29:52)
This is very timely and our audience is enjoying it a lot. The first question is about the World Health Organization. Obviously, Donald Trump is not the first person to criticize the WHO.
John Darsie: (30:06)
Well, they got a few things wrong in the early part of the pandemic. There is a lot of people that have criticized their early response to the pandemic, but is pulling out of the WHO the answer.
John Darsie: (30:16)
In a post-WHO world, let's say Donald Trump wins again and serves another four years. Or we're trying to rebuild another super national organization, to help us combat global pandemics and other public health issues.
John Darsie: (30:31)
Were they right to question the WHO and pull out of the WHO? I think I know the answer to that question. What can we do globally to sort of create a cohesive plan for preventing this type of calamity again, that's had so much economic and social negative impact?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (30:45)
Yeah. First of all, I feel WHO is an organization that is completely built around trying to help global health. What people forget is, these viruses, they come from... Ebola comes from Africa, MERS came from the middle East. There's many viruses that could emerge from anywhere.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (31:09)
It's WHO that makes sure that they extinguish it, in the far nether reaches of where often times these outbreaks start. 9 to 10 times, you haven't heard of Guinea worms or many or polio... and they crop up every once in a while. WHO keeps them in check.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (31:33)
If they didn't keep it in check, they would be on your neighborhood door honestly. People don't see that. It's kind of like, if you build a crosswalk at this dangerous intersection and instead of 10 people dying a year, of being run over, no one dies. No one's grateful for the crosswalk being there. WHO is like that.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (31:55)
Of course, when they make them blunder, it's very visible. The 99% of time in which they actually make sure that Ebola doesn't reach your shores, and TB is not... you're not coughing up TB, is because they kept it in check, in the far nether reaches of Africa or India or South America.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (32:16)
That's why we don't have Zika brain damaged babies here in the US, when we could have easily had it a few years ago. I think WHO serves a great purpose. Their comms can definitely be improved. There is a working group to actually reform WHO. There's definitely going to be a reckoning.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (32:33)
Pulling out from it is so dumb, because if you want to change it... and this is a UN organization that is definitely staying around, it's not going to die out. You need a seat at the table.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (32:44)
This is why I'm saying, oftentimes even with people you disagree with, if you want to change them, you need to engage with them and have a seat at that table, with someone you disagree with. I think you US pulling out is stupid. Also, just yesterday, they pull out from WHO's COVAX, vaccine consortium.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (33:04)
WHO's working on a whole slew of another dozen or two vaccines. While the US is only committed to a couple, like half a dozen in Warp Speed. It's kind of like an insurance project. If you don't want to join the vaccine group organized by WHO, you're putting all our eggs on a limited number of vaccines.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (33:26)
It's a risk. During a pandemic, you want to actually get insurance. I think A, pulling out of WHO. B, refusing to join the WHO vaccine consortium, to share other resources of working vaccines is just stupid in the long run.
John Darsie: (33:43)
You alluded to this earlier, when you were talking about using the sperm example as a way to clearly communicate something visceral to an audience, that might not take the virus as seriously, as they would otherwise, if they heard an example like it reduces your sperm count or the quality of your sperm.
John Darsie: (33:58)
There seems to be a rise in misinformation, and anti-vax movements and things like that. I think there was a poll that I saw a couple of months ago, that nearly 30% of the population is at least vaccine skeptical, if not, anti-vax.
John Darsie: (34:13)
Why do you think that is creeping up as part of sort of American culture, where we're rejecting science at? How do we come up with an information campaign, to combat the misinformation that's causing public health issues frankly? You're seeing increase in diseases that were dormant for many years, because of anti-vax movements.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (34:32)
Yeah, the anti-vax movement is very tricky. It's a confluence of different things, like a study over the years. It's partly a distrust to big pharma, because pharma has jacked up the price of insulin.
John Darsie: (34:46)
You're familiar with that, of course. It's [crosstalk 00:34:48].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (34:48)
Yeah, of peddling dangerous drugs. Opioid epidemic, jacking up the price of EpiPens for kids with allergies. That either feeds into all this. They're all tied, because it's this distrust of big pharma. Secondly, the anti-vaxxer movement, it also feeds on this globalists, anti-globalist conspiracy.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (35:13)
AQ [inaudible 00:35:13] for example, there is a poll that came out, only 13% of Republicans don't believe in AQ [inaudible 00:35:20]. That's crazy. The fact that there's... 87% of Republicans believe in the AQ [inaudible 00:35:26] conspiracies, is just mind blowing.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (35:29)
It's just part of that same distrust of the machine, whatever they... even though science does not care. The virus does not care about your political beliefs or religious beliefs, but there is this movement to be anti-science, because for some reason, science is part of the establishment. I think that's very hurtful.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (35:52)
I think this vaccine will actually show us, if we do not get vaccination... because herd immunity does work if you vaccinate. Vaccine is the only safe way to get to herd immunity. Say the vaccine is only 60% or 70% effective, and then only two thirds of people take it, then you're going to drop below 50% potentially.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (36:17)
That's going to be really bad, because if many people don't take it, then this epidemic will just keep raging onwards and we're going to pay a way, way higher price. We need to extinguish it, before we can actually truly get back to normal.
John Darsie: (36:32)
What would you deaths in the United States have looked like, if we said, "You know what? We're going to take a full herd immunity approach. We're going to actively infect members of the population, so that we can reopen the economy." What would the death count have looked like in your estimation?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (36:44)
It would potentially be in the millions, honestly. In the millions, because here's the thing, elderly is a risk factor. I think another major risk factor is obesity. Especially among the severe morbidly obese. There's almost no one who gets hospitalized with morbidly obesity, and doesn't go on a ventilator.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (37:06)
That's just that scary. Tons of diabetes is a risk factor, a heart disease is a risk factor. Many kidney diseases are also risk factors, in addition to being immunocompromised. Then that's just deaths and hospitalization.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (37:26)
Then there's people, there's long COVID... or being maimed with long-term mental... the brain fog, mental scarring, as well as other diseases. It's not just mortality, but also long-term morbidity that's actually causing... that herd immunity, would be a extremely, extremely dangerous act.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (37:50)
This is why when Joni Ernst yesterday, she peddled two conspiracy theories in a row. One, about herd and then the 6% thing. The other thing about, doctors are over-billing just to make money from it. It's insane. By the way, the 6% thing is basically saying, "Only 6% of people who died, did not have any risk factors."
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (38:09)
That's kind of like saying, "Look, hey, there is a meteor that's going to drop on this town. 94% of this town has some sort of risk factors, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, et cetera." When the meteor crashes down, it wasn't the meteor that killed them. It was the risk factors. Only-
John Darsie: (38:31)
Right, only like 40% of Americans have two or more chronic diseases.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (38:34)
Oh, yeah.
John Darsie: (38:35)
Isn't that right?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (38:36)
Exactly, two thirds of Americans have major risk factors and that's excluding age. If you include age, you're getting close to 80, 90%. This is why it's so, so dangerous. Again, most cancer patients, 95% of cancer patients who are near death, have risk factors.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (38:59)
Does that mean that 95% of cancer deaths are fake, because they have other risk factors? No, it was the cancer. I think all the conspiracy theory is incredibly, incredibly dangerous. That we have sitting members of Congress like Iowa Senator, Joni Ernst peddling it, is just... it's ludicrous.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (39:16)
Iowa right now, by the way, is having one of the worst epidemics. Their mortality is soaring. Their cases per capita is one of the highest in the country. I think it's top three right now. This is why these conspiracy theories are dangerous, because it tells people to be complacent.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (39:35)
They're going to keep spreading it. Maybe a young person catches it at the beginning, or a kid at school. You know what? They're going to spread it to mommy and daddy, or grandparents. Again, 8 or 9 out of 10 people actually have risk factors. You can't quarantine a kid from the rest of the family. That just doesn't work.
John Darsie: (39:54)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (39:55)
That's why it's incredibly dangerous.
John Darsie: (39:57)
What about reinfection? It's still sort of a under dispute, about the idea of reinfection. There was a patient in Hong Kong, who showed asymptomatic reinfection. There was a Nevada who ended up in the hospital.
John Darsie: (40:11)
His first infection was far more mild. Are people getting reinfected? What's the early data on that? How does that impact what the long-term benefits of the vaccine will be?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (40:21)
Yeah, so these are good, two separate questions. First of all, about the reinfection, we've known about, it's possible for a while, but from anecdotal reports. To prove it, you needed to actually have this Hong Kong and Reno, Nevada example, in which they had a sample of the original virus and a sample of the new virus.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (40:40)
They compared the genome, the RNA of the virus. The viruses are completely different, so that we know that for example, that it's a different virus. As opposed to the virus just being [inaudible 00:40:52] in your body.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (40:54)
As you pointed out, in Hong Kong one was... the second infection was asymptomatic. This Reno one, the second time the guy got infected, he got hospitalized for quite a while. We don't know how common it is, because it's really hard to do this double virus, genome RNA test.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (41:15)
It's definitely possible, but I think it's probably not the case most of the time. Most of the time, most of the people do have some sort of immunity or crossover immunity. If you were previously infected by a common cold coronavirus type, you have partial immunity to this. It shows that it's not guaranteed.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (41:37)
I think for the vaccine though, it's not a likely worry, because the vaccine targets... there's different versions. This is why we need a pool of vaccines, because there's not just one single vaccine.
John Darsie: (41:52)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (41:52)
There's some that's attenuated or actually inactivated. Some, they put it into... the RNA, put it into another virus particle to carry it. Then basically, they want you to learn. It's a virus training program. That's what a vaccine is.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (42:11)
There's different training programs to train your body. I think this is why we need... even if one vaccine is less than perfect, say it's... the measles vaccine's great, 98%. Most vaccines oftentimes are less than 98%. Even if it's not perfect, we need to put our eggs in more baskets.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (42:31)
This reinfection thing just teaches us, this vaccine could be better short term. This vaccine could be better long term. This is why we... not WHO vaccine consortium, which has way more vaccines in their consortium than our Warp Speed program is kind of stupid.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (42:50)
We need to actually consider and try all the different vaccines, to see which one is the best long term. Hopefully, this virus is not a fast mutator. It's not like the flu.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (43:01)
The flu has this fast recombination system. This one has... it's a slow mutator. We're hopeful that it will have lasting effects, but we need to put our eggs in more baskets, as any investor would know.
John Darsie: (43:15)
I want to talk about Sweden for a minute, before we wrap up. We've had a few questions about that. There's been a lot of hand wringing over the Sweden approach, which is, to allow more free movement in the economy, keep the economy relatively open.
John Darsie: (43:28)
As you alluded to earlier, Sweden has suffered similar health problems, if not worse than neighboring countries and other countries around the world. They also have not been immune to the economic impacts of the virus, which sort of goes to show that the slump in the economy is not a matter of the economy being closed.
John Darsie: (43:45)
It's a matter of people not wanting to go out, and they could be potentially infected by a deadly disease. Could you talk more about the... exactly what the results are of that experiment... were in Sweden, and what we learned from that?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (43:58)
Yeah. Well, the Swedish experiment is not a scientific experiment. It's more like a social-
John Darsie: (44:03)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (44:03)
Hey, laissez-faire policy. Sweden, if you look at the curves, have enormous infection. Sweden used to be the same country as Norway, by the way, they split decades ago.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (44:16)
If you look at Swedish versus Finland to the East, Norway to the West, Denmark to the direct South on a bridge, all this Nordic Scandinavian neighbors did exponentially better, in terms of cases or mortality. Swedish mortality is finally going down a little bit.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (44:31)
It's been really, really bad and cumulative, much worse. Their economy is actually no better. Again, you're right, it's the demand. It's not the business closing per se, it's that people are scared. This is why the best analogy is Jurassic Park.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (44:52)
If you reopen Jurassic Park with the velociraptors still roaming around, people are not wanting to come back to Jurassic Park. Even if you say, "The park is open, we have tasers." No, just because you have tasers and we have distancing masks and shields, the people are not going to come to your park.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (45:11)
That's the underlying thing, until we get this under control, the demand is not going to come back. Demand is not just cash demand, in terms of cash on hand and the marginal propensity to consume on a macro scale.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (45:27)
It's the micro demand, because there's just... people are scared go out in here. In terms of Sweden, in terms of like herd immunity, I don't think it's truly reached herd immunity. You also can't compare Sweden to US. Sweden has universal healthcare.
John Darsie: (45:47)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (45:47)
You have any illness, you do not have to pay a cent basically. Yes, they have taxes, but in terms of on an everyday out-of-pocket cost, you pay almost nothing. They have perfect contact tracing, or they've a medical record system that's all linked. It's a complete [crosstalk 00:46:06].
John Darsie: (46:07)
Their ability to socialize the costs, the healthcare costs [crosstalk 00:46:11].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (46:11)
Here people are dying, because they can't afford a test. People-
John Darsie: (46:16)
It's been said that, Trump tries to say and others try to say that we're over counting the number of deaths from COVID. There is a lot of suggestion that we're actually severely under counting, because of home deaths. [crosstalk 00:46:28].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (46:27)
We're under counting by 10X.
John Darsie: (46:28)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (46:29)
All the studies show, the true infection is actually 10X higher than what our case count right now is. We just passed 6 million, just a couple of days ago. We're going to definitely pass 7 million this month.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (46:42)
We're definitely going to pass 8 million in October. By Election Day, we're going to have at least 8 million. I'm pretty sure about that. 8 million [crosstalk 00:46:49]
John Darsie: (46:49)
[crosstalk 00:46:49] US population.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (46:51)
Not just 8 million multiply by 10.
John Darsie: (46:53)
Yeah, if looking at the US population, you're thinking a quarter of the US population has probably been infected with the virus.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (47:03)
By end of the year, yes.
John Darsie: (47:04)
Yes.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (47:06)
Still, that's not quite herd immunity levels.
John Darsie: (47:11)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (47:12)
Again, it doesn't truly kick in, until you're way higher. Look, this there is no easy way out. People are trying to dream up danceable ways like Sweden, as a fancy of a way to get out of this. There is no magic bullet. It's the velociraptor Jurassic Park example.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (47:31)
Demand is not going to truly come back until all this is solved. Conferences, businesses are not going to hold these global in-person massive business conferences, where everyone's rubbing elbows and shaking hands, because the risk is too high.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (47:49)
That is what's the underlying problem. Until actually we feel the risk is low enough, all the normal businesses and exchanges, and business meetings are not going to happen. I think that is the ultimate lesson. This is why chasing zero COVID is the best way.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (48:09)
There's ways to do that without lockdowns now, by ventilation, mask wearing and premium mask. Cloth masks are good for catching your droplets, but the premium mask, like surgical, N95, KN95s are way better actually filtering out these.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (48:27)
Especially if a lot of people don't wear a mask. See, the less people wear masks, the more you need to wear premium masks. If you're surrounded by people who don't wear masks, because-
John Darsie: (48:35)
Put on your mask and things like that.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (48:37)
Yeah, only the premium mask protects you from them, if a lot of people around you don't wear a mask. We shouldn't have like a Defense Production Act for that months ago, but here we are, we don't.
John Darsie: (48:47)
Right. It just came out in the last, I think couple hours, that the CDC is asking states to speed approvals of their vaccine sites, so they're ready by November 1st. You think that's a politically driven decision, that it's not a coincidence that-?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (49:00)
It's not a coincidence.
John Darsie: (49:00)
.... it's two days before the election?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (49:02)
Look, we know the October surprise, is the least surprising of any Octobers. The surprise everyone talks about, is that basically Trump will force his FDA to emergency approve the... probably the [inaudible 00:49:22], or maybe one of the other ones.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (49:24)
They're going to force approve whichever one they have the most data for. They're going to hail its success, but no one's going to actually get an actual vaccine shot by then, because their productions on a ketchup.
John Darsie: (49:36)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (49:36)
They'll only go to healthcare workers at the beginning anyways. I don't think we're getting an actual vaccine, until spring of next year at the earliest. At the very beginning, there's going to be shortages.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (49:48)
This October surprise, it's coming and they're going to force the vaccine through. At's going to A, it's going to empower the anti-vaxxers, right?
John Darsie: (50:00)
Right, [crosstalk 00:50:00].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (50:00)
They're going to say, "Oh, we don't have all the data. We don't know if it's safe." The scientists will actually say, "We don't actually have all the data or that we need to fully evaluate it." It's going to empower anti-vaxxers. In the long run, we're actually going to hurt ourselves.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (50:17)
We're going to lose credibility. By we, I mean, as a country. CDC, FDA is going to lose credibility, whenever they ... or FDA emergency approves this. It's going to be a shit show.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (50:29)
This is what I'm really concerned, because this vaccine rollout, I guarantee you, we're not going to be talking about herd immunity or hydroxychloroquine when October, November comes. It's going to be this rushed vaccine. Again, it's only going to empower the conspiracy theorists.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (50:51)
I hate to say it, but unless we can stop it, we're... and can actually roll out the vaccine in a safe way, once all the data comes in... basically, until Fauci says, "It's okay," we're going to lose our credibility if we rush it ahead of Fauci.
John Darsie: (51:08)
What would Fauci do? I'm going to get the wristband printed up and sent out, or what would Dr. Feigl-Ding?
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (51:12)
What would Fauci do?
John Darsie: (51:14)
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:51:14].
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (51:15)
Yeah, we should have those shirts. Well, Fauci would wait for the phase three trial to run its course. Every trial's like posted on clinicaltrials.gov. Run its course, of however many people enroll. Do it for the entire amount of time that you're required, and make sure that we have enough confidence.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (51:34)
That the efficacy is high enough. That it's not just like, "Oh, we're 50%, but with 20 or 80% uncertainty." That were certain about the efficacy. We're certain that the safety signals clearly show that there's no increased risk. Then the Fauci would approve it. That data is not going to [inaudible 00:51:59] December or January.
John Darsie: (52:01)
Right.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding: (52:01)
The proper way, so that's-
John Darsie: (52:04)
All right. Well, fascinating stuff. Thanks for taking sort of an extra 10 minutes. We went over time, but we had a lot of important things to talk about. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule. I know you've been one of the leaders in combating the misinformation, it's been out there.
John Darsie: (52:17)
Your Twitter feed is an amazing resource in and of itself, for following the information on the pandemics. Thanks so much for everything you're doing. Anthony, do you have a final word for Dr. Feigl-Ding?
Anthony Scaramucci: (52:28)
No, just for our general population. In all seriousness, wear the mask, keep your family safe. Listen to the scientists and listen to the facts, and we'll all be safer and healthier.
Anthony Scaramucci: (52:40)
Doc, thanks so much. Hopefully, we can have you back at the end of the year, and talk a little more about where you think things are going to set up for 2021.
John Darsie: (52:50)
Sure, absolutely. Stay safe everyone
Anthony Scaramucci: (52:52)
Wish you all the best.