All language subtitles for The.Covid.Story.2022.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NaB_Track03

BILL GATES: Is that we have invested
a huge amount in nuclear deterrence,

but we've actually invested very
little in a system to stop an epidemic.

We're not ready for the next epidemic.

You can have a virus where
people feel well enough

while they're infectious that they
get on a plane or they go to a market.

The source of the virus could be a natural

epidemic like Ebola or
it could be bioterrorism.

So this is a serious problem.
We should be concerned.

Germ games not war games so
that we see where the holes are.

The last time a germ game was done
in the United States was back in 2001

and it didn't go so well so far
the score is germs one people zero.

SIRENS AND OXYGEN TANK NOISE

CHARLES HOLZNER: Tank of oxygen
that only had 30 minutes of oxygen in it

and I go well, how am I going to get home?

Can you give me a bigger
canister or fill this one up more?

No, we can't.

LAUGH

You mean so I got a race home?

With only 30 minutes of oxygen? LAUGH

JEFF TIPTON: What if
it's a bad traffic day, right?

Yeah. I mean the house
was normally 45 minutes away.

So I said well, I'll kind
of take my chances

and on the way home. I just had my head

out the window getting
trying to get oxygen that way.

LAUGH

It's already by the time I got
there was already out of oxygen and

my wife read the instructions really
fast and got the thing working and got me

on the oxygen concentrator.

JEFF TIPTON: When I
asked them and they were

closing. They wouldn't
even give me the test.

I headed back to the pharmacy waiting
for them to open and so begins my saga.

Try to get a Covid test
so that I can fly home.

Coming to France required no test at
all but to go back to my own country.

They require that I have a test
done within 24 hours of flight.

ROGER DETELS: I think what what
one of the major problems was that?

There was too much
information going around.

Some of it was correct and some of missing

information and some
of it was deliberately.

Meant to complicate the situation.

ANGEAL MARSDEN: I'm losing everything

everything I own is
being taken away from me

we need to do something about this.

JEFF TIPTON: Welcome to Public
Health Perspectives The Covid Story.

My name is Dr. Jeffrey
Tipton. I'm a board-certified

preventive medicine and
Public Health Physician.

In this documentary we
will be covering the public

health response to
covid in the United States.

We will look into how we
succeeded handling covid

how we fail how other
countries handle covid,

did they do a better job than us? We have
all been impacted by covid, economically.

We've had family, friends
who've gotten sick and die, even

the people who have covid
and recovered are still dealing

with the after effects of covid.

It's hard to say we're covid will
land but I can assure you we'll have

another epidemic in the future and
we can do better job handling epidemics.

Hopefully at the end of this documentary,
you'll have a better understanding of how

our public health system
works of how epidemics

go how the public health system reacts.

So when the next one comes around
perhaps you can get involved and

make the whole process go much better.

So what is public health?

According to the American
Public Health Association

Public Health promotes and protects the

health the people and the communities
where they live vlearn work and play.

Our public health system is

supposed to be there to
give communities, states and

the nation the capacity
to prevent disease promote

health and prepare for respond to

both acute threats and
chronic challenges to health.

Every state has a public health department.

There are over 2,800 local

Health departments in the US

and of course, there's the good old CDC.

Some of the public health
system responsibilities are

diagnosing and
investigating health problems

and health hazards in the
community informing educating

and empowering people about health issues,

mobilizing Community
Partnerships, and enforcing

laws and regulations that
protect health and ensure safety.

Such as clean water and air.

And public health departments
are expected to take the lead

when a new infectious
agent comes on the scene and

come up with the plan to make
sure that this new infectious agent

doesn't get everyone
sick or kills everyone.

ROGER DETELS: Public Health Systems have

responsibility in terms
of infectious disease.

First of all for recognizing

the occurrence of a new

outbreak or repeat of

old outbreak so that

they had the responsibility to monitor.

Not only for existing
infectious agents like flu,

but monitoring for new agents

that they didn't know about

before and of course, we have two

we had HIV and Ebola and

now we have SARS Cov 2,

and it's ultimately it's

responsibility of Public
Health to control the epidemic.

But in order to do that they got

a responsibility to inform the public.

They also have responsibility
to inform the political system

because in the end much of Public

Health intervention is politics.

Because it requires changing a behavior.

LIGHT PIANO BACKGROUND MUSIC JEFF
TIPTON: And there are many complaints and

concerns that are public health
system does not get enough funding.

In 2020, the CDC budget was seven billion.

The Department of Defense
budget was 700 billion,

but it is estimated

that around 90 billion is spent annually on

public health in the United States.

So there's plenty of money to take
care of things but money oftentimes

isn't the main problem

when things don't go well. The healthcare
system in the United States is complicated.

There are Doctors, Hospitals,
insurance and drug companies.

It's hard to navigate all the moving
parts of the healthcare system

and public health is part
of that system as well.

Our Healthcare System is
split into different sectors.

There's a private, a
public, and voluntary sectors

Private and public sectors supply
insurance and care to most Americans.

In the private sector people get insurance

through their work on the public side

we have programs such as
Medicare which covers elderly

Americans and Medicaid which covers

Americans below certain poverty threshold.

The government also provides
Healthcare through things like the VA

and the Bureau of Indian Affairs

and takes care of people in prison as well.

The voluntary sector includes charitable
organizations that do health research and

provide free or low-cost
Health Care Services, like

the American Cancer
Society or the March of Dimes.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

provides billions of
dollars worth of aid to

many Healthcare
non-governmental organizations.

Close to a trillion dollars is
spent on Health Care in the

United States every year,
but that doesn't make it good.

The US spends more of
its gross domestic product

on Healthcare than any other high income

country yet ranks last in access to

care, administrative efficiency,
equity and healthcare outcomes.

The federal government has the biggest

role and stake in protecting and
maintaining the health of the country.

They set the tone.

They have the money.
Covid-19 quickly became a federal

issue when the federal government
learned of the outbreak in China.

So let's try to cover a few thousand years
of public health history in a few minutes.

Humans have been on this planet for
around a hundred thousand years and

during this time people have
lived and people have died.

Certainly in the early years when someone

died the cause of death was
often unknown, of course,

unless somebody was getting hit in the
head with the rock then it was very clear

very clear how they died,

but certainly in early human civilization.

These causes of death were
a mystery to most people.

The ancient Greeks got
the whole public health thing

going by being into
fitness, health, nutrition.

They came up with the Olympics. They
saw that oftentimes disease or illness

was caused by the environment
that was around somebody.

Hippocrates was an ancient Greek.

He's considered by many to be the
father of Western or modern medicine.

He came up with the term epidemic which

means on the people and he had the

Hippocratic oath. The Hippocratic
oath is basically a rule or guide for

physicians that if
you're treating a patient,

if you don't know how to help
them certainly don't hurt them.

Next we had the Romans and they believed

in a lot of the things that the
Greeks did: healthy living etc,

but you know, they
were engineers. They were

major engineers. They
constructed aqueducts

to move the water around
and sewage systems.

They were into
Administration. When they came

to a place they took it over
and kind of took control of it.

Next we had the Middle
Ages or the Dark Ages.

These were bad years for public
health; black plague came around

and you know wiped out a
big chunk of the population.

That's a disease where rats were spreading
a bacteria to humans and killing them.

During this time too, religion kind of
trumped science and basically people

began to believe that ill people

were getting sick or dying
because they had offended God

in some way and so
scientists were pushed out.

There were some advancements such as

quarantine and isolation
of disease patients,

but overall, it was a pretty bad time.

Next was the Renaissance which certainly
was much better than the Dark Ages,

but during that time people
sailed around the world from Europe

and they brought with them all kinds
of diseases, smallpox, STDs tuberculosis

and basically they wiped out most of the
indigenous populations where they landed.

Then we had the Age of Enlightenment
and that brought further advances in

medicine and science during that
time. Dr. Edward Jenner developed the

smallpox vaccine after doing
a very studied analysis of how

people were contracting this disease
and the microscope was invented.

During the early 1800s Dr. Snow
arrived. He's considered to be

the father of epidemiology
and help develop a

lot of the principles and
practices of epidemiology.

He helped determine the cause of a
particular cholera outbreak in London

and using his methods ended that
cholera outbreak saving thousands.

He developed guidelines for
handling epidemics. One is determine

what the disease is, look for possible

causes of the disease, look for potential

sources of that disease, if you have a

treatment begin treating
people then go back and look at

that source and make sure
that's being controlled, stop the

spread by doing things like
quarantine and isolation and

then come back around again and make

sure that this disease
does not come up again.

Then we had Louis Pasteur.
We've all heard of pasteurized milk.

That's the guy, that's the Pasteur.

He developed an understanding that

microorganisms were the
cause of many diseases.

He also developed a rabies vaccine.

Along with him, we had Robert Koch

and he was very good at
identifying microorganisms again.

This is where the
microscopes came into play.

He identified the vibrio cholera

bacterium and also the
tuberculosis bacterium.

Once all this knowledge
started to come together, there

was a bit of a sanitation revolution led by

public health departments. Public
Health departments and other government

entities made sure that the water
was safe to drink, inspected food

and continued to promote personal

hygiene developed treatments
for various diseases vaccines etc,

made sure the garbage
was being collected, tried to

control rodents and
other sources of infection.

And again, most of this was
led by public health departments.

Public Health departments took the
lead in controlling communicable diseases.

So what are viruses?
Living creatures? Not really.

Viruses are microscopic particles
that exist almost everywhere on Earth.

They are present in animals,
plants and other living organisms.

And sometimes they can
cause some serious diseases.

Viruses are biological entities that
can only thrive and multiply in a host,

that host is a living organism,

and a virus may affect one organism in
one way but a different one in another.

For example a virus may get a cat sick,
but the same virus won't get a human sick.

Viruses consist of genetic material
with the code of protein around them.

Once they get into a host, they
replicate. What's their game plan?

Nobody knows they don't
talk so you can't ask them.

Smallpox was one of the first virus
says to impact humans and it was

a biggie; three out of
10 people who got it died.

And those who lived were
left with horrible scars.

It is estimated that smallpox killed around

one hundred million people during its time.

In the 1800s Dr. Edward
Jenner developed the first

smallpox vaccine and that was the
beginning of the end for that virus.

In 1959 the World Health
Organization decided to put

an end to smallpox and by
1977. It was over it was gone.

So see people can get together and get rid
of viruses. The first good understanding of

viruses began in the 1890s Russian
botanist Ivanovsky experimented with

the tobacco mosaic
virus and discovered that

the sap from a sick tobacco plant

can make another plant sick. Then Dutch

scientists by Beijering proved
that the agent causing the

tobacco leaf infection was not

a bacterium and called the causative agent

of virus, a Latin word
meaning slimy poisonous liquid.

In the early 1900s, Dr. Walter
Reed got involved in the virus game.

His exploration of the causes
of yellow fever, a viral disease

that also killed millions. He
discovered that mosquitoes

were responsible for spreading the disease.

In 1908 Ellerman and Bang demonstrated that
leukemia IN chickens was caused by a virus.

And then in 1918, we had
the missed named Spanish flu.

No, Spain was not the
country of origin for that flu.

That flu killed close to 1 million
people in the United States,

mostly people between
the ages of 20 and 40.

At that time, the population of
the United States was 100 million.

It is estimated that that flu killed
around 30 million people worldwide.

Flu comes from the Italian word
influenza, which means to have an influence

and boy did it ever. Back in those days.

They had masks, but there
were still people who thought that

wearing a mask was an affront to their

liberty and they had isolation
and quarantine, but just like

today people got tired of that and then

soon attended events together and those

events became super spreader events.

In 1931, the German
engineers Ruska and Knoll

created the first electron
microscope and that

microscope allowed
them to see viruses for the

first time. In 1935 urologist Wendell
Stanley examined the tobacco mosaic

virus and found it to be
made mostly of protein.

In 1932, the first flu vaccine was created.

In 1952, Hershey and Chase
showed that it was the nucleic acid

portion of the virus that was
responsible for its infectivity.

In 1953 Jonas Salk
developed the polio vaccine.

In 1954, Watson and Crick
found the exact structure of DNA.

Then in the 80s, the HIV virus came

around and that was a tough
one to figure out unfortunately,

it killed millions and still kills people
before an effective treatment was found.

We still do not have an HIV
vaccine. in 2002, we had our

first experience with the SARS virus.

That virus had a very high
case fatality rate of around 10%

It started in China and
then soon spread across

the world, but really
was held in check by public

health measures. The world really came
together to knock down this SARS virus.

ROGER DETELS: Those of us
are working infections disease

sort of call on our experience
with other infections.

There's certain general rules about
how infectious diseases behave.

Well SARS Cov 2 hadn't read the
book. And so we were confronted

with the disease that was behaving in
ways that we had not seen before and

so we had to struggle with how
to cope with that information.

And this also then complicated
the situation with the public.

Because they're used to Public Health
officials being able to say this is it,

this is right, this is correct,
as we do with influenza,

we've got lots of experience with influenza

so we know what to say, we know how
to communicate and that sort of thing.

With SARS Cov 2, we never
seen an epidemic quite like it.

There had been two
prior epidemics caused by

coronavirus but both of
fizzled out on their own.

And it was pretty clear that Cov 2
wasn't going to fizzle out on its own.

And we're learning, that it mutates and

we're used to the situation where
you get in fact it with an infectious

disease agent and if you survive.

You get immunity

and so you're protected
against reinfection.

Well, that's not true for SARS Cov 2.

And the degree to which one
can be reinfected. What are

the predictors about
whether you're going to

be reinfected, we haven't
resolved completely.

JEFF TIPTON: So what is
covid-19? Covid-19 is a coronavirus.

Prior to SARS, coronaviruses were
known to be the cause of the common cold.

They are called coronaviruses because

under an electron microscope
their outer shell looks like a crown.

They became lethal viruses

when they mutated and became
responsible for the first SARS epidemic.

SARS is severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Coronaviruses infect birds and mammals

bats are often the host
of many coronaviruses,

but bats don't get sick from these viruses.

People infected by covid-19 can have
a variety of symptoms and some people

have no symptoms at all. Some of
the symptoms are respiratory with

cough, sputum, shortness of breath

and fever, there are
musculoskeletal symptoms with muscle

and joint pain, headache
and fatigue and people

get digestive symptoms
with covid things such as

abdominal pain vomiting and diarrhea

Loss of smell is a cardinal sign
and around 88% of symptomatic

people lose their sense of smell. Covid-19
gets in your body attaches to a receptor

on the cells for an enzyme called
Angiotensin converting enzyme,

once attached to the cell
covid-19 shoots its RNA into the cell.

Then the cell starts
making copies of the virus.

Those copies head out
into the circulation then

attach to more cells and then cycle
gets repeated over and over and over.

The respiratory tract is
most impacted by covid

but covid attacks other types of cells and

organ systems as well. It does work its way

into the brain and destroys
brain tissue while there.

This is why some covid
patients end up with memory loss

and other cognitive dysfunction.

It does directly damage
heart tissue and causes

other problems with the
circulatory system resulting in clots.

Covid is transmitted when people breathe

in air contaminated by
droplets and aerosols

in small airborne
particles contain the virus.

Infected people exhale those particles as
they breathe, talk, cough, sneeze or sing.

Transmission is more likely
when people are physically close

however, those particles can travel

as much as 20 feet and be
suspended in the air for hours.

Unfortunately infected people can
spread covid even before the symptomatic.

Once symptoms begin, then people are

highly infectious. But
still can be infectious even

after 20 days after symptom onset.

You can theoretically
contract covid by touching a

surface contaminated by covid
but such transmissions are rare.

One person infected with covid
will infect around three others.

There are several ways to
test for covid. One of them is

the antigen test. That's the
type of test that you might get in

a doctor's office or the kind that you
pick up at CVS, these home test kits.

Those tests look for a portion
of the capsule of the covid virus.

The other type of test is the PCR

test that we hear about. Those
tests. look for the covid RNA virus.

Such samples are sent to a lab
where they undergo a technique called

polymerase chain reaction to amplify
the amount of RNA virus that is there.

PCR tests will often show positive a
couple days before an antigen test will.

We will discuss the
sensitivity and specificity

of such tests later on in this documentary.

There are also blood tests
that are used and those show

your antibody level or whether
or not your body has made

antibodies to the covid virus.
So covid-19 is a cold virus

that went a little crazy.
When it gets into the body it

causes a lot of damage
especially to the lungs.

SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome.

JEFF TIPTON: Here's a brief history
of covid. There's a lot of history there.

So it's not all that brief.

On December 12, 2019 a
cluster patients in Wuhan China

began to experience
shortness of breath and fever.

On December 31st 2019 the World Health

Organization is informed
of a number of cases of

pneumonia of Unknown Origin
detected in Wuhan, the cases has seem to

be connected to a seafood
wholesale market there.

China had already begun their
lockdown a couple weeks before that.

On January 25th, 2020 the CDC activates a

center level response for novel
pneumonia of unknown etiology.

On January 7th, 2020,
Chinese authorities identify in

isolate a novel coronavirus as the
causative agent of the outbreak.

January 10th, the CDC publishes
information about this virus,

January 15, Japan has
its first case of covid.

January 17th, the CDC begins screening
passengers on flights coming from Wuhan

at San Francisco New York and LA airports.

Of note, my friends wife was in Wuhan China
during that time and she came back to LAX

on January the 20th and she
was not screened for covid,

but he knew about covid so he
had her put up in a hotel for 10 days.

On January 17th, we
have our first covid case in

the United States in
the state of Washington.

January 21st, the CDC activates
its emergency response system.

January 22nd, the WHO confirms
human to human spread of the coronavirus.

January 22nd, the World Health Organization
convenes a big meeting to discuss

the coronavirus and decides
to not do anything at that time.

Just wait 10 days to rediscuss.

On January 31st, the US Secretary
of Health and Human Services

Alex Azar declares a covid emergency
and at the same time a travel ban

to the US from most European
countries and from China.

US citizen in China were allowed to
return, as we're permanent residents.

So not a total ban.

On January 31st, the World Health

Organization, finally
declares covid outbreak

a Public Health Emergency.

On February 11th, the World
Health Organization decides to

call this Corona virus Covid-19.

On February 8. The CDC sends
test kits to laboratory in Manhattan,

but the test end up being unreliable.

On February 23rd, Italy is in a lockdown.

On March 11th, The WHO
declares a covid-19 pandemic.

March the 13th, President Trump
declares a nationwide emergency.

On March 15, various

places in the United States begin
to shut down including Public Schools.

March 17th, a human trial with
the Moderna vaccine begins.

March the 26th, the CARES Act is
approved providing two trillion in aid

to hospitals businesses and
state and local government.

March of 28th, the FDA issues an
emergency use authorization for Hydroxy

Chloroquine, a drug that
was never proven to work.

April 3rd, the CDC recommends that
all people wear masks outside the home.

By April 13th, covid had spread
across the entire United States.

April 24th, Georgia, Alaska,
Oklahoma decided that

they're going to partially
reopen their states.

April 30th, president Trump
launches operation warp speed,

to get vaccine out quickly.

On May the first, the FDA
issues an emergency use

authorization for Remdesivir.

In the subsequent 18 months
Remdesivir is determined not to work.

On May the ninth, the
US unemployment rate is

14.7% the worst rate
since the great depression.

By May the 28th, the covid
death toll had surpassed 100,000.

By September 22nd, the death
toll had surpassed 200,000.

On October the second, President
Trump tested positive for Coronavirus.

On October 7, New Zealand
declares itself virus free.

In December of 2020, the Pfizer

and Moderna vaccines are rolled
out and people start to get them.

January 18th, 2021 400,000
people had died from covid.

March the 8 2021, the CDC
announces that fully vaccinated

people can gather indoors without masks.

March 19th, the CDC says kids can

socially distance from three feet instead
of six feet. By June 2021 the Delta variant

had showed up and a new wave of
hospitalizations and deaths occurred.

In July of 2021. we started
to see breakthrough infections,

which meant that the vaccine wasn't working

as well as people thought
it was going to work.

By October booster shots
were being recommended

and in November of 2021 Omicron showed up.

ROGER DETELS: The
SARS Cov 2 epidemic, really

illustrates the problem on
the need for communication.

JEFF TIPTON: So what was our response
to covid? And what should it have been.

Responses to infectious disease
outbreaks can be broken down into three

main categories: organization,
science and communication.

More simply. What is it?

How do we know what it is? What does it do?

How prepared are we to respond?
Who does it hurt? Can we stop it?

How do we stop it? Can
we prevent it once here?

How do we measure cases?
How do we know who has it?

How lethal is it? How do we prevent it

from infecting others? We have a vaccine?

Who gets a vaccine? What about masks?

Who gets the masks? Should
we shut the country down?

Lastly, who is in charge?
How much power do they have?

Who's communicating all this
information and are they trustworthy?

Early on in the epidemic the CDC
determined what a positive covid case is.

There were probable
cases, those were people who

had all the symptoms, signs of covid yet

did not yet have a positive covid test

and there were confirmed
cases. Those are people who had

a positive covid test, both
of those scenarios counted

as a positive covid case.

So the analytical study of this
covid outbreak is epidemiology.

Epidemiology is a study and

analysis of distribution patterns and

determinants of health
in disease conditions

in defined populations.

Most public health departments
have epidemiologists.

An epidemiologic investigation
involves a collection and analysis of facts

or data to determine the cause of illness
and Implement control measures to prevent

additional illness. Being
prepared is essential to

success and responding to
an infectious disease outbreak.

So were we prepared? Well, we
had a very significant written plan for

dealing with covid like
emergencies. We even

did a six month long
training exercise at the

federal state and municipal level in

2019, called Operation Crimson Contagion.
An exercise that ironically simulated a

US response to a
fictitious respiratory virus

that began in China and
quickly spread around the world.

Here are some of the
findings from that simulation:

the Department of Health
and Human Services at the

end of the training determined the
US is underprepared underfunded,

and under coordinated to
fight and influenza like pandemic.

LIGHT GUITAR BACKGROUND MUSIC The exercise

highlighted the lack of
PPE preparedness in the

event of a global pandemic and problems

in the supply chain for medical equipment,

including ventilators
and other ancillary medical

supplies. In this fictional pandemic as a
virus spread quickly across the US the CDC

issued guidelines for
social distancing and many

employees were told to
work from home but federal

and state officials
struggled to identify which

employees were essential and what equipment

was needed to effectively work from home.

There was also confusion over
how to handle school children, the

CDC recommended that states delay school

openings, but some
school districts decided to go

ahead with the start of
school, while others followed the

federal advice causing the same types of
confusion and discrepancies that mark the

response to the coronavirus.
The organizers quickly

realized that the US did not have
the means to quickly manufacture

more essential medical equipment,

supplies or medicines
including antiviral medication

needles, syringes, n95 respirators
and ventilators. That exercise ended in

October of 2019 and nothing

was done. A few months later covid hit.

This exercise also showed
that we are country of

50 states with more than
50 ways of doing things.

If the federal government
says shut your state

down then many of the states answer back:

Who are you again? ROGER
DETELS: The public health officer

In public health system actually
has power to lock people up

and enforce regulations for public
health in the interests of the public.

Arizona and several of the
other conservative states

have now passed laws
that said no, not anymore.

That's going to be
determined by the governor.

So, I mean that's a frightening
thought, the governor

is going to determine Public Health policy.

It's particularly important to to get
the political leadership behind you.

I would again underscore
it. If you can't get the political

leaders behind you in terms of what
needs to be done to control an epidemic,

then it's not going to happen.

LIGHT HORNS BACKGROUND
MUSIC JEFF TIPTON: We are a country

of tremendous resources,
especially at the federal level.

It's not a big deal for us to
make and store billions of pieces of

PPE, but we did not act on this opportunity

to do so and when the pandemic hit,

it was impossible to play catch
up as noted. Unfortunately

China was not forthcoming with the extent

of the epidemic there, the exact cause, the

lethalness, no info to us or the World

Health Organization for
a month. Sure, we should

have been prepared but this
made things much worse and while

they locked down people
leaving Wuhan they did not

stop potentially infected
people from traveling to

other parts of the
world. In January of 2020

a man traveled from
Wuhan to his home in Seattle

and he became the first recorded case.

Many of the first cases
in the US were people who

traveled from Wuhan. As previously noted,
on average covid infected patients will

infect three others. Once it
started it was very hard. to stop it.

So once it was clear our country had some

cases and the people who
had covid were pretty darn sick,

we turned to what are
we going to do about it?

One of our first moves was
to develop a test for covid

and the CDC took the lead
on that and they screwed it up.

ROGER DETELS: The CDC. didn't
respond effectively as they could have.

I think in retrospect there are somethings
they could have done, but didn't do.

JEFF TIPTON: Speed was critical
in this earlier response to covid, so

important to identify those early cases.

The World Health Organization,
China, Britain, South

Korea even Russia all
had functional tests before

we did. The roll out of the CDC design

test kit to state and
local labs quickly became

a fiasco because it
contained a faulty reagent

Presently we have antigen tests and
PCR tests or nucleic acid amplification

tests from mostly private manufacturer.

The tests are pretty good, but
they're far from perfect. There are

those false positives and false
negative. People often ask,

how good is this test? How accurate is it?

LIGHT SYNTHESIZER BACKGROUND MUSIC
A test is considered to be accurate if it

compares well to a gold
standard. In the case

of covid, it's a PCR test. In the world of

testing there are true
positives, false positives

true negatives, and false
negatives. Those values

determine the sensitivity
and specificity of a test.

Sensitivity means if you have covid and
the test is positive then it is sensitive.

It's a true positive.
Specificity means that

if you take a test for
covid and it's negative and

you don't have covid
infection then it is specific.

PCR tests are very accurate or they're

good tests as long as they don't do a
lot of amplifications to get to the result.

Antigen tests are pretty accurate.

As long as you do the
test twice. For example,

you take a test and
It's negative, you should

take it again two days later if
you're symptomatic. So how many

people have been infected
with covid in the United States?

We don't actually know
because somebody can be

infected with covid and not take
a test. And then we never knew

that they were infected.

In June of 2022 we have
around a hundred million positive

covid cases in the United
States and around a

million people have
died as a result of covid.

So on the organization
front we did poorly aside from

the bungled communications.
It was clear there was

poor planning, infrastructure
and cooperation among agencies.

Also if we had a better
relationship with China

at the time of their
outbreak, maybe they would

have given us a heads
up on what's going on.

We could have gotten ahead of the Curve.

It took us months and months
and months to get ahead on testing.

South Korea on the other
hand. Well, they kicked our butts.

It got so bad that we were actually
turning to them for tests. in 2020

South Korean officials had
a plan, they decided that

they needed to test as
many people as possible

as quickly as possible to figure out how

bad the outbreak was.
Then they had to find out

who might have come in
contact with the infected people.

They decided that they
needed all those people

both infected and potentially exposed to

isolate themselves to prevent the

virus from spreading any
further. They mobilized

and had widespread testing, isolation and

quarantine while we
were still in our pajamas.

They had a three-step protocol:
test, trace, and isolate and they

tracked test results through
a nationalized system.

No, South Korea is
not a dictatorship. It's

a democracy just like
us. Their entertainment

and automotive Industries are
also very strong. Well, except

for Kpop, of course. Their population is

50 million. We have around 330 million

On March 1st, 2020 South Korea
at about 3,700 confirmed cases.

Italy the first hot spot in Europe
had 1700 and the US had just 32 cases.

I know, it doesn't make any sense. We only
had 32 cases because we didn't have any

testing going on. By the end of
April, Italy had 200,000 cases, the US

finally had a true number,
we were above a million.

South Korea still had
fewer than 11,000 cases.

South Korea's first wave of
coronavirus cases was about one tenth as

big as that in the
United States. It did very

aggressive case identification
and contact tracing.

Sometimes to beat an epidemic you have

to give up some personal
liberties. More recently South

Korea got slammed by Omicron, but because

it has such a high
vaccine rate, it has one of

the lowest case fatality
rates in the world and they

never really did a lockdown.
While diagnostic testing

is an important tool
for helping to reduce the

spread of covid, there
have been challenges in

scaling up testing in the US throughout the

pandemic and we have
done a horrible job of scaling

up rapid-home tests. Rapid home tests have

been identified as an
important Public Health

intervention for controlling covid. It
took us over 18 months to make such

tests available. In order
to Break the Chain of

Infection, you have to
identify the infected people

and you can't do that
without tests. We have

all dealt with the difficulty
of trying to find a test

and sometimes we often have to
pay high amounts just to get one.

So we took an early stumble on tests
and then we started on treatment and

things went more wrong.

TRUMP: Maybe than anybody, but I'm a
big fan. We'll see what happens and we all

understand what the doctor said
is a hundred percent correct. It's

early, but we've you know, I've seen

things that are impressive.
We'll see we're going to know soon

we're gonna know soon and
including safety, but you know

when you get that safety, this has
been prescribed for many years for people.

To combat malaria, which was

a big problem and it's very effective.
It's a strong. It's a strong drug.

So we'll see. Is it effective against SARS?

It was a very, it was,
as I understand that.

Is that a correct statement? It
was fairly effective with SARS.

DR FAUCI: John you've got to be
careful when you say fairly effective,

it was never done in the clinical
trial, they compared it to anything,

it was given to individuals
and felt that maybe it worked.

That's the point. Whenever you
do a clinical trial you do standard of

care versus standard of care
plus the agent you're evaluating.

That's the reason why we showed back in
Ebola why particular interventions worked.

REPORTER: About the possible
therapies, yesterday Mr. President, you

said that they were for ready
for immediate delivery immediate.

TRUMP: Yes, we have millions
of units ordered. Bayer is

one of the companies,
as you know, big company

very big very great
company millions of units are

ordered and we're going to see what
happens. We're going to be talking to

the governors about it. And the FDA is

working on that right
now. The advantages that

it has been prescribed for
totally different problem, but it

has been described for many
years and everybody knows the

levels of of the negatives

and the positives, but I will say that I am

a man that comes from a
very positive school when it

comes to in particular one
of these drugs and we'll

see how it works out Peter. I'm not
I'm not saying it will but I I think that

people may be surprised. By the way,

that would be a game changer, but
we're going to know very soon. But but we

have ordered millions of units. It's being

ordered but from Bayer and there is another
couple of companies also that that do it.

REPORTER: Fauci said there is no
magic drug for Coronavirus right?

Now, which you would
agree I guess on this issue...

TRUMP: I disagree. Maybe
and maybe not maybe

there is maybe there isn't we have to see

we're gonna know. REPORTER:
Is it possible, is it possible that your

impulse to put a positive
spin on things maybe giving

Americans a false sense.
TRUMP: No, I don't think so.

God. Yeah not yet approved drugs. Such

a lovely question. Look it
may work and it may not work.

And I agree with the doctor what
he said, may work may not work.

I feel good about it.

It is just a feeling, you
know, smart guy. I feel good

about it. And we're going to see
you're gonna see soon enough and

we have certainly some
very big samples of people.

If you look at the people, we
have a lot of people that are in big

trouble. JEFF TIPTON: These scenes
played out constantly during their

early stages of the epidemic.
Trump would introduce

a treatment development.

Fauci would come to the podium
and throw ice on it. Then Trump would

try to warm the idea up
again. Hydroxychloroquine got

early FDA emergency use
authorization in March of 2020. No studies

to support it. And when it was study for

treatment for covid, it was determined.

It doesn't work. Remdesivir, the first

FDA approved covid-19 drug, was

approved for emergency use in May of 2020
without any significant studies to show

efficacy or safety. Remdesivir was a
shelved Ebola drug that wasn't effective.

It is manufactured by the
multi-billion dollar Bay Area

pharmaceutical giant Gilead. Here's a
problem. It doesn't decrease mortality

nor does it shorten hospital
stays, put simply it doesn't work.

But Gilead has made nearly six
billion dollars off the drug so far.

We also tried monoclonal antibodies.

Monoclonal antibodies
are antibodies created in a

lab that target the antigen of interest in

this case the covid spike protein.

They are very expensive at around $3,000

per treatment and their results are mixed.

If given very early to high risk
patients. They may reduce hospitalization.

But if you are already sick with covid,
they don't do much and don't save lives.

They were thought to be a game
changer but not so much and they don't

do squat against Omicron.

One of the companies,
Regeneron, that makes the antibody

cocktail has made billions.

The Sars Cov 2 pandemic
was the speed with which

we were able to identify
what the causative agent was.

The Chinese recognized
the epidemic but probably

were aware of it or as early as October,

but they didn't really recognize
it until the end of December and

by the end of December
and the beginning of

January of 2020, they
actually identified the agent

and by identifying the

agent they then opened the
door for development of a vaccine.

So ultimately vaccines are one of the
great advances of the 20th century,

but the development of
a vaccine is not enough.

You've got to know how to use it.

The operation was a
success, but the patient died.

Yes operation warp speed though the

Biden Administration has banned the use of

that descriptor, did help develop several
somewhat successful covid vaccines in 2020.

Starting in May of 2020,
operation warp speed

provided billions in
research, manufacturing

and distribution support

towards the cause of making
300 million vaccines available to the

public by the end of 2020. That pretty
much worked out. And yes, these vaccines

have reduced hospitalizations and

deaths. Basically the people dying from

covid in 2021 were the unvaccinated.

While there has been much skepticism and

concern about the vaccines,
they have been relatively

safe and very effective.

Have there been side
effects? Well all vaccines have

side effects and for some the side

effects have been pretty
severe: blood clots hard

inflammation. These vaccines use
mRNA and DNA technology to get

your cells to make covid proteins, which

then Inspire your immune system to make

antibodies against these
proteins. They're supposed

to go in do their job and get out.

That's the idea but we haven't had
enough time to study their full effects.

But other countries did their
version of warp speed as well.

China Russia Germany and
Britain developed vaccines in 2020

Bio in Tech, a Pfizer
partner, is a German company.

Moderna is a US company with a
long history of government support.

The technology and components

they use in their vaccine
really wasn't developed by them.

Most of it comes from research that

was supported by you, us, and
some of it comes from other companies

which is why they are
getting sued. Moderna, Pfizer

and others will make billions
and billions off of these vaccine.

The NIH funds billions on
research annually and yes the

NIH and often their university partners

hold patents to many of the
technologies used in the covid vaccine.

There is a public private partnership
per se but the public partner

shows up in a Kia and the private
partner drives away in a Bentley.

Katalin Karicko, senior
vice president at Bio N Tech.

And consider to be the
mother of the MRNA vaccine,

grew up in Hungary, daughter of a butcher.

At a young age she decided she wanted to

be a scientist, but she had never met one.

She moved to the US in her 20s to find

a science job, but for decades
never found a permanent position.

She clung to the fringes of Academia barely
making a living working as a researcher at

various universities
in the US for 30 years.

She ultimately landed a job as senior
vice president at Biontech in 2013.

And the rest is history.

She was one of the first people to
receive the vaccine she developed.

So we have a few approved vaccines yet

one out of three
Americans has been infected

with covid, around a
million people have died

and many others will
suffer lifelong disability.

The vaccines were supposed to prevent
infection yet many people get infected.

One of those people is Dr. Fauci who
has been vaccinated and boosted twice.

This has led to further
skepticism about these vaccines.

The operation was a
success, but the patient died.

There were tremendous problems rolling
out the vaccines. The MRNA vaccines

were problematic because they must be

kept frozen and in a way we ran out of ice.

There were a myriad
of other rollout problems,

so our Public Health System had to
subcontract to get needles into arms.

The government also
tried mandating the vaccine

for some and that blew up and made

even more people
angrier about the vaccines.

But the biggest problem was
that many people had become

skeptical of the vaccine because they had

heard frankly a lot of nonsense from the

CDC and also from Trump and then

from Biden. They no longer trusted the

messenger and you don't get a
second chance at a first impression.

ROGER DETELS: In China they've
opted for the lockdown situation,

zero tolerance with disease and
they've been reasonably successful.

I mean they have
sporadic outbreaks including

in their biggest cities
Shanghai and Beijing.

Recently, but it's been at a tremendous
cost. It's affected their GDP and it's gone

down there. They're
having an economic problem

because of lockdown
and supply chain, etc, etc.

And they've got tremendous
psychologic problems.

We see those psychologic
problems in this country.

And while we did to some extent use the

original Public Health intervention of

isolation and quarantine,
we didn't implement it

with the ferocity which Xi

Jinping implemented it and
so I I have colleagues in China.

What I'm trying to suggest to them is
that they've got to come to some sort of.

Balanced approach.

Where they don't destroy the country.

JEFF TIPTON: Another
intervention we tried was lockdowns.

While theoretically not
a bad idea, they have

some serious consequences to them and maybe

just maybe actually don't ultimately
control the spread of covid and

related mortality. And lockdowns have

been especially cruel
to children, the least

likely to become ill or die from covid.

Teen suicide rates
have hit an all-time high.

Scientists and economists have found
that voluntary behavioral changes are

10 times as important as mandatory measures
in limiting the growth of a pandemic.

When people feel they are at risk

of something they change
their behavior, people for the

most part are intelligent and ironically

those who stayed at home ended
up with higher infection rates.

Maybe spending time outdoors
would have been better.

But oh, yeah, they closed
the parks and beaches.

Florida was an open state and California

and New York were lock down states.

They ended up with similar
mortality rates. Lockdowns did

not make a difference. While lockdowns have

little to no public health
benefit, they impose enormous

economic and social costs.

Job losses in the United States in March

and April of 2020
exceeded 22 million and we

have not fully recovered from that.

We also made arbitrary distinctions between
essential and non-essential workers.

Essential workers, often
lower income, took on greater

risk of covid infection.
And so did their families

to maintain some financial stability.
And designating one business as essential

and another is not
essential, shifted consumer

activity to favor those
categorized as essential.

Wiping out many businesses and
those businesses have not come back.

ANGELA MARSDEN: I'm losing everything.

Everything I own is being
taken away from me and they

set up a movie company right next to my

outdoor patio, which is right over here.

And people wonder why I'm protesting and

why I have had enough.

They have not given us money
and they have shut us down.

We cannot survive, my staff cannot survive.

Look at this.

Tell me that this is dangerous.

But right next to me as a slap in my face.

That's safe. This is safe.

50 feet away.

This is dangerous.
Mayor Garcetti and Gavin

Newsom is responsible
for every single person

that doesn't have unemployment, that says

not have a job and all the businesses
that are going under and we need your help.

We need somebody to
do something about this.

MAYOR GARCETTI: We need to make
sure that everybody continues to let us

know where those folks are.
If you've observed recurring

violations of the safer at home order,

please continue to let us know coronavirus

dot LA City dot org
slash business violation.

You know the old expression about snitches.
Well in this case snitches get rewards.

We want to thank you for turning
folks in and making sure we are all safe.

MAYOR LIGHTFOOT: We will
shut you down. We will cite you

and if we need to we will arrest you and

we will take you to jail period.

MAYOR DEBLASIO: We start
with the fundamental notion.

The NYPD is here to
protect lives to save lives.

And where we see the greatest
danger to lives in terms of the coronavirus

and the area where we can enforce is around

gatherings, particularly large gatherings.

JEFF TIPTON: Because of lockdown
children lost years of educational and

social development that will
affect them for the rest of their life.

Psychological problems have
soared throughout society.

And Johns Hopkins researchers
have concluded that lockdowns

should be rejected as a public
policy practice for pandemics.

ROGER DETELS: In the
initial phases of the epidemic

Sweden said we're going to let people
go for a natural immunity and they failed.

It did not stop the epidemic.

JEFF TIPTON: Sweden tried a no
lockdown policy when covid first hit

that ultimately did not
work when they were hit

with the Delta wave, but
overall their mortality rates

have not different much from the UK
where they employed sporadic lockdown.

ROGER DETELS: Gonna be interesting
to see what happens with New Zealand.

I think, which basically shut it borders

and although it did not go into lock
down like China did they now opened up

and so it'll be interesting
see what happens with the

men they have I believe they
have a high vaccination rate as well.

JEFF TIPTON: Yeah, New
Zealand has handled covid

quite well, they were kind
of a locked down country,

but there are also very serious
about testing in contact tracing.

They also restricted travel and employed
quarantines for returning New Zealanders.

By January 2021, the country

of five million people had only 2,200
confirmed cases and only 25 deaths.

New Zealand's efforts to combat
the spread were orchestrated using

an all-of-government approach.

While their approach has been
restrictive, they were able to

secure popular support for their efforts.

New Zealand took a hit
financially, but I suppose or

hope people dying is a much worse
outcome than an economic downturn.

And we tried masks.

Oh gosh, where do I even start with that?

Let's start with Fauci's own words:

DR FAUCI: There's a lot of confusion among

people and misinformation
surrounding face masks.

REPORTER: Can you discuss that?

The masks are important

for someone who's infected to prevent
them from infecting someone else.

Now when you see people and look
at the films and China and South Korea,

whatever, everybody's wearing a mask,

right now in the United States people
should not be walking around with masks.

REPORTER: You're sure of it because people
are listening really closely to this.

DR FAUCI: Right now people
should not be what there's no reason

to be walking around with the mask.

When you're in the middle
of an outbreak wearing a mask

might make people
feel a little bit better and

it might even block a droplet but

it's not providing the
perfect protection that

people think that it is and often there
are unintended consequences, people keep

fiddling with the mask and they keep
touching their face. REPORTER: and can

you get some Schmutz
sort of staying inside there?

DR FAUCI: Of course, of
course, but when you think mask

you should think of Health Care Providers
needing them and people who are ill.

The people who when you

look at the films of foreign
countries, and you see 85% of the

people wearing masks,
that's fine. That's fine.

I'm not against it if you want
to do it, that's fine, but it can

lead to a shortage. That's the
problem because it could lead

to a shortage of masks for
the people who really need it.

JEFF TIPTON: And then he said: DR
FAUCI: People who are vaccinated when

they are in an indoor setting that they

should wear a mask. JEFF
TIPTON: And then he said:

DR FAUCI: In fact if you are vaccinated

you are protected and you do not
need to wear a mask outdoors or indoor.

That even if you are vaccinated

you need to wear a mask
in indoor public settings.

That we were thinking we would run out of

masks and other things for them.

So the recommendation was

not to wear a mask because of the
shortage of it. Two things happened, one,

It became clear that we
had enough of the equipment.

When the children go out
into the community you want

them to continue to wear masks
that children outside particularly when

they with the family of walking down

the street playing a game or what
have you, don't have to wear a mask

at the Academy of
pediatric actually makes that

recommendation that children should
be wearing masks from two years old.

REPORTER: I mean, I think
I've got this right one mask

is better than zero masks. Two masks

is better than one mask,
but you don't have to have

double masks. Is that right? DR
FAUCI: Make sure you wear a mask.

So you wear a mask, then you want

it to fit better so one of
the ways you could do it if

would like to is put a cloth mask
over which actually, here and here

and here where you could get leakage in

is much better contained.

That's all they're saying. One
mask at least but if you want to

really be sure get a tighter
fit with the second mask.

REPORTER: Are you a double
master doctor Fauci? Look like you are.

DR FAUCI: Let me show
you. See this. This is what I do.

You have it on you go like this Bingo and

you're okay. Then you go
like this then bingo it's up.

BYSTANDER: She got a kid with her.

CHARLES HOLZNER: It was hard to
find 95 masks that fit right the face masks

were hard to find, and and the gowns

were hard getting harder and harder
because there was so many admissions.

So there just wasn't
enough. They were under

prepared with the masks,
under prepared with the PPE.

When you wear these equipment
working in in a closed area.

I wore glasses, my glasses would fog up,

so I couldn't see anything
right? So I have to

pull my mask down to
clear my eyes and maybe

that's how I got the covid because in in

in the emergency room, everybody had covid.

It was a lot of misinformation and

because you know, they kept giving
contradictory information themselves,

you know, like Fauci would
say one thing one day another

thing in the next day,
you know, I just started

not believing anything...
JEFF TIPTON: trust begins

with truth and ends with truth.
CHARLES HOLZNER: Yeah, and I think

it's credibility was really, you know

compromised, when it found
out that under his leadership,

the NIH had been giving
millions of dollars to the Wuhan

lab to develop a gain of function
virus. I mean all that. smell rotten.

JEFF TIPTON: And the fact no proper
investigation of that lab, right and

we lost our relationship with the
World Health Organization because

they seem to be taking
a China side on this.

CHARLES HOLNER: Right, right.
They they seem to be saying the

Chinese Communist
party, you know is correct.

It didn't start in the lab.

Well you know, what's the
saying? It looks like a duck, walks like

a duck, it's probably a duck and they

were getting millions of dollars
from Fauci's NIH to do this research.

I don't think it was, you
know, let out deliberately,

but it got let out and you know, and
then the Chinese hiding it from everybody.

JEFF TIPTON: There's a saying trust begins
with the truth and ends with the truth.

Nobody could figure out what to believe
about masks and respirators because the

CDC told so many stories.

Fauci was the anointed
Public Health doctor in the

United States. And then
those questions about his

role in the Wuhan
laboratory began surfacing

on social media and then he was lost

to at least half of the
people in the United States.

So people started going their own ways.

Only properly fitted n95
respirators truly protect you from

getting covid or passing it and those

are really difficult to
wear when worn properly,

they tax your lungs as do other

types of masks. Air easily escapes and

enters from the edges of most masks..

Cloth masks are a joke yet they

were promoted by the CDC.
We're gonna try a cloth mask.

REPORTER: Remember we
want to stop this moisture that's

coming out of our mouth
because that's what covid rides on.

There's one. Here's two.

Next we're going to try
an n95 with a cloth mask.

There's one.

Here's cloth mask on the n95.

Now we're gonna try 2 95.

JEFF TIPTON: We started
the epidemic with the

shortage of PPE
especially n95 respirators.

And when we got the needed PPE,

we couldn't figure out
who was supposed to use it.

And let's not forget that China
made billions selling us PPE.

Yeah the place where covid started.

LIGHT HORNS BACKGROUND MUSIC We drove
people away from each other, put people

in masks and yet somehow we still ended up

with a hundred million covid cases and

1 million deaths.

Organization? We stunk.

Science? so so

Communication?

Just awful.

They end up being kind
of random or arbitrary.

Maybe they believe that
they're trying to help people.

But the reality is for the

most part at his stage
they're just hurting people.

REPORTER: If you travel abroad
soon, you won't need a covid test

to get back into the
US. CDC is dropping the

requirement for all incoming
air Travelers on Sunday.

Puts an end to one of the last
travel restrictions of the pandemic.

REPORTER: And the chief
medical advisor to President Biden

who leads the administration's covid
response, has tested positive himself.

The NIH announced today that Dr. Anthony
Fauci tested positive for covid-19 on a

rapid antigen test. 81
year old director of the

National Institute of allergy and
infectious diseases is fully vaccinated

and has been boosted twice.
REPORTER: More than 1.6 million

cases of reinfection have
been reported across 24 States,

and those numbers are still climbing.

JEFF TIPTON: So, how do we do a better
job when the next epidemic comes around?

And like I said, we will
have another epidemic.

As I noted earlier, the response to these

infectious disease events
involves organization,

science and communication.
What is that saying?

An ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure.

To best respond you have to prepare
then over prepare then over over prepare.

We ran an exercise operation,
Crimson contagion, that had

some major findings, but we did not act on

those findings, the people in charge were

not in charge. So the public, you and

me, have to get involved because
we are the ones ultimately impacted.

We have to ask our officials now.
What is the plan for the next epidemic?

Are we prepared? Do we have enough
PPE? It's like sometimes the kids have to

tell the parents how to do things.

The CDC and other government agencies
have to get involved in the science.

And lastly, what did Hippocrates say?

First do no harm. If you don't know what

you're talking about.
If you're not rooted in

the science, if you
don't have clinical trials

to provide evidence that something works.

Then you can't say anything about

it until you have that proof.
Throwing out half information in the

middle of a epidemic, middle of a pandemic,

did so much harm. And we also have to
have better cooperation among countries.

Whether it's through the
World Health Organization

or otherwise we have to figure out where

these infectious disease
outbreaks are occurring

so we can get ahead of these outbreaks.

We had and have a bad
relationship with China

and that relationship
definitely impacted us.

ROGER DETELS: The recent Sars Cov
2 epidemic really illustrates the problem.

The need for communication.

JEFF TIPTON: We have to communicate.

Communication is the key.