Transcripts For CSPAN2 Washington Journal Dr. Michael Saag 20240712

Dr. Michael saag. It is the at the university of alabama Birmingham School of medicine. Thank you for being here doctor period. Dr. Michael saag thank you for having me. Host is look at the reopening that is happening in many states across the country. What are you looking for as possible potential early indications of the spikes and states reopen, as that summer in singles and fall begins. Dr. Michael saag will he think that we are all concerned about, is this expansion of cases that happens over time. If we opened up too soon, then it will be an increase in cases that we will see and they will engage with us in a way that is going to choke spikes in cases. What im expecting to see over the next couple of weeks and months, is that wepl are going o have a slow climb. I dont think we will see a spike. But like in alabama, what we have seen since weve reopen at the beginning, we had say may 1st, we had about hundred and 80 cases a day. On average. As of june 1st, we had 520 new cases a day. So you can see the reopening, probably was associated with an increase of cases but, we were also testing a lot more. So you could ask the question, was just more testing for new cases. I think it was both. Host then was there internet yavailability of about the risig of cases no matter when the reopening happened . Dr. Michael saag in my opinion, yes. It makes sense to me. We have a virus that nobody have seen before. That means the majority of the population is susceptible that they get exposed or will be infected and dont have any natural immunity. They will get infected and a lot of them will get sick. So if we do the mitigation like we have withio a stay at home orders and the shut down at home sheltering at home, then people arent intermingling. When you relax that, people start coming back together again,ll you will see some case. The question that still remains. One, doesnt summertime lead to a reduction ofto cases on its o. That is been seen with other coronavirus is, is been seen rick seasonal flu. Ive that happen. Well perhaps because people are spread out more, they are outside more and not in indoor locations very much. I dont think the virus has changed but maybe the way that we interacth with each other. But in this case because we are sheltering at home, we release and we go back to interacting, i think were not going to see a decrease in cases necessarily or we might see a leveling off. Or maybe like a slow prize that will happen over the next several months. Then the question is what happens in the fall. I think what we are all concerned about his that is when we might see a spike in cases again. Host just for appointive reference of where things stand. Numbers from john hopkins university, total numbers of cases in the u. S. , nearly 1. 9 million, the deaths in the u. S. , 108,211. Worldwide cases, are over 6 billion. Youre the director of Infectious Disease division thereof uap medical. What is your division focusing on particularly with covid19. Dr. Michael saag g small correction. Ivm a member of the division am a former director. We are addressing the epidemic not only here in birmingham, but engaging with our state Health Department and working statewide. We would like to do, have widespread testing throughout our state, there are hotspots like in most states run around the country where there seem to be more cases than in other areas. By identifying those hotspots, we can go and do some case contactt tracing which basically means you find the person who is infected, you put them under quarantine and then you test the people they been in close contact with over the last several days. Because what we do know, and this is important. The peak time ofrt transmission from one person toim another, is in that 24 hour time before symptoms develop. That is a very important. So the person is fine, they said restaurant or at a sporting event or their out of the beach. For the summer. And they are around other people, they could be spreading the virus to other people even though they are not sick. They might get sick the next day. So having case Contact Tracing atvi the point where these hotspots are, we are hoping we will start to mitigate the epidemic in our local environment throughout our state. Host because were such a mobile society, is a t way Contact Tracing can be done, but just in a state like alabama but especially in the summers people travel, grantedan less this sumr but people still will be traveling. Dr. Michael saag its a really good question. The oldfashioned sort of then to working out case Contact Tracing as you interview the person and say, who have you been around and try to find this folks. There are some technologies can help us in todays world. There is a debate that we can get into if you like where you use a cell a phone. And with permission, the cell phone can have a program or an app that will identify anyone who is within a 6foot radius roughly when that individual, over the last two three days and can identify those individuals even if they have as you suggested, traveled and they can bey tested. It is a little bit new. People are concerned about the privacy issues but if it is left to be and often, i am concerned about this. Imco okay and with people monitoring my phone. If others like was a real going to that thatt can be an importat tool to help us with case Contact Tracing. Host university of alabama, Birmingham Medical School professor there as well, dr. Michael saag. We welcome you to our conversation. 2024 and 2000. And your medical profession 2,027,488,002. We will get to your calls momentarily. The chief testified before a House Committee yesterday. The headline that she fears message about the virus. Does it not resonating with the public. Dr. Michael saag i want to play you some of the comments that doctor renfield made. I think those individuals, that have partaken in these peaceful protests or have been out protesting, and in metropolitan areas have not really control thehe outbreak, minneapolis happens to be one still having significant transmission in dc is another one british we really want those individuals to highly considered being evaluated and getva teste. And obviously go from there. Because do think there is a potential unfortunately for this to be a seating event. In the way to minimize that is have each individual to recognize that is to the advantage of them to protect their loved ones. Say hey, i need to go get tested. In three or five or seven days. And make sure that i am not infected. Host doctor renfield, is thinking about the proximity of the protesters. What do you think you might see in the weeks ahead. Dr. Michael saag i think the concern is very real that some of thee protesters who are in close proximity of one another, marching especially if they were not wearing a mask. They could well have picked up the virus in the activity. But is not restricted simply to the protesters. It is about the relaxation ofre all of the stay at home and a lot of the locations. Cento going to a restaurant by definition, you cannot beat with a mask on. Sue going to be an enclosed area, often times indoors. You will be talking and laughing and that type of thing. That is what is going to lead it to transmission. So doctor read field is correct. Therern is a concern about the protesters coming together. But we sure that concern not just for protesters but for everyone. I think that is the message that is getting muddled over time. Were not hearing unfortunately a consistent message about what people shouldd do. Everyone sees the impact on the economy. Its profound. We have since that but we may not be seeing in our neighborhood, someoneno who has covid19. Wait a little while, that will change us because weng are now relaxing and getting back. The main pause for a minute. You hear about mask lot. And then i think that is a key point. Masks, what we have learned about them over the last couple of months is the following. I mentioned earlier that people transmitting the virus 24 hours before the involved systems. With the mask does as it protects the people around to you. You have the infection, youre wearing a mask that mask is goingg to block to a large degre the amount ofru virus that is coming out into the environment around you. So the lessme likelihood of your friends and neighbors, families picking it up if you happen to be infected. In the image that i like to use this going back toag the peanuts cartoon again, the character of the clutter on him all the time. Thats what its like was a buddy has the infection. In the spreading it. The mask helps protect that. So the punchlinene here is durig a mask, which are communicating is i care about you. I care about the people around me because im going to wear a mask and protect you from getting infected in case i have this. Host we have calls waiting for dr. Michael saag. Barbara. Morning to guest good morning doctor. A couple of weeks ago, the raised the possibility of adding a prophylactic to knock down the in the back of the throat. By doing deep throat gargling and he did not suggest any particular thing he used but i went on to the internet and found a fascinating study. If your team could write this down cspan, june 8, 2018 issue of the journal Infectious Diseases and therapy pages 249 259. As a group of german scientists who studied the use of the mouthwash called pdi, i for iodine. To 7 percent mouthwash. It was an in vitro study. In in vitro, killed the virus at the level of 99. 99 percent. I really would appreciate it if you would look into this because what is really fascinating was that these german scientists present in this work in a japanese conference. With this kind of mouth wash, iodine containingg mouthwash, is apparently use on a regular basis. Host have you heard of this dr. Michaelav saag. Dr. Michael saag lets deconstruct this just a little bit. This is an antiseptic. It could be iodine, but it could be any one of the number things including mouthwash is that half safe 70 percent alcohol. I could going to the lab and show roughly the same impact in vitro, so it is a meeting. In the test tube innocence tpretty not inside of a human, not inside of an animal. And you can show that you can disable the virus, kill the virus in essence in that setting. And theres lots of solvents. Lots of things that we come into contact with everyday. Just plain old everyday mouthwash might work. But lets take a pot of hot. Does that mean it will work. In my opinion no unfortunately barbara. But that would be doing is perhaps misuse the world sterilizing the back of the throatat or wherever this mouthwash can go. The receptors to pick up this virus are throughout the entire respiratory tract, not just the back of the throat. So then enclose the nose in the back of the nose and trust me, im not advising anyone to take any kind of solvent and put it in your. That would be dangerous. But then there is also have the deep airways. These receptors are called a cd to. So they say to receptors over the virus bind us. So you might sterilize the back of the throat with mouthwash, than the air that youre breathing in and again going back to pigpen, if you breathe in the air, some of it might get disinfected on the way down or something but its going to make it into the lungs and thus are persons going to get infected. I encourage all of us to do this type of research in the labs and what not. But i caution against using any kind of solvent or material is a gargle with the hopes or the mission that youre going to prevent the infection. Im sorry do you be the bad news but i dont think its going to work. Host good morning. Guest a couple of questions for you. You just said, you talked about the masks. It was all over the internet that the who said masks do not help. So why are people still promoting it and governors still pushing it. It is ridiculous to me. I am 80 years old. I live through the h1 and one. And i dont remember any issues after the wind sock, 600,000 young people were there. Shoulder to shoulder for days and days. Did we ever hear of anything after that. Nope. Absolutely not. There were no illnesses, no masks a brace. So to me, this is going on now long enough and i think a lot of it is bogus. That the governors are telling you you have to do thi this is e of a control virus than anything in my aspect. Dr. Michael saag thank you for your question i think the feelings thank you just expresses a lot of people in the country are killing exactly right now. People are tired of this. They been bombarded with the information. It is just exhaustion at some point. Here is the problem though pretty just for the numbers from John Johns Hopkins at the top of the show. Theyre about about a thousand people dying every day. Of this virus. Were now up to about 109,000 almost, people in our country who have died of this prettiness much more than seasonal flu and much more than h1 and one that you referenced. Stopping. We have to do something to medicate this in my opinion. So lets go back to the mask. I think what the who was saying in a have to look at the exact references where you mask myself, does not necessarily protect you. From bringing in a virus. But the realng purpose of wearig a mask is to prevent transmission from a person who has the virus to somebody else. So when you are a mask, what youre saying to your friends, neighbors and family, i care about you. Because if i had this virus, a much is likely to spread it to you and if i was not wearing a mask. So think about it this way. When a surgeon goes into an operating room, they were mask. Do they wearve a mask from keepg the patient to give something to them. No. Its migh it works. The same concept is true here. Money opinion is, if we are for masks when were out in public, we will protect our friends and neighbors from getting this and that will bring down the number of new cases along with keeping social distance, six eight peter part as well as washing our hands frequently. Host i want him of the retraction about two studies on covid19. And to reset for our viewers and listeners the reporting the newr york times to major covid19 studies. Retracted from faulty data. In the alter the course of research into this coronavirus pandemic were attracted thursday by renowned at scientific journal becauseow the authors dd not verify the data on which the results depended. One study undercuts residents trumps claim that certain anti malariaa drugs, illness caused y the virus, including the medications and facts were dangerous to patients. The other than the some Blood Pressure drugs did not increase the risk of covid19 and might even be protective. The studies were led by a professor at harvard and most depended on Huge National databases of patient rent medical recordsse that few expes heard of it. They may breathe new life into the antimalarial drugs. Relentlessly promoted by mr. Trump as a remedy. Despite a lack of evidence. On wednesday after the two journals, the new england journal of medicine and the lancet noted that concerns about the studies, the World Health Organization announced that it would resume trials of the medications. When you think all of this happened it with those studies in the retraction of the studies. Dr. Michael saag really glad u. S. Questions because one of the Silver Linings of this horrible cloud of coronavirus is that the public isti getting to learn, looking to the scores a little bit about how science happens because it is happening so fast. When this giant time of discovery which is unreliable exciting and another level. Confusing. These two studies, electronic records, very valuable i can get information quickly. When another potential benefit is that you can collect data. He can pull it off of the information on individual patients, strip the identity away of that person and just use the outcome. Heres the problem. Those data are often times an error. And you said yourself, how the world could ad patients medicl record fbn error. Maybe sometimes a data is entered wrong or diagnoses put down what isi a roulette meetig the person or the doctor think they may have that but its ultimately proven to be incorrect. And it failed to take that diagnostic off of the problem list. As was the date it gets transferred to the sergeant centers as indicates of these two studies, and people analyze them. And were talking about tens of thousands of asian experiences, up to 96000. Anything health could that be wrong. And with the overall numbers overwhelm any errors that might be there. The problem is no. Larger numbers of data that are not pristine, not wellpr validated,s give you a bigger answer that happens to be wrong. So in the case of the hydroxy study, what it showed was comparing one group of people that got it based the analysis of these medical record data, versus those who did not that actually the people who didnt not get it, did better. And so i think the problems are twofold. One as i mentioned, and having the data may not be accurate. I think that is why they were attracted but the second thing t is something called selection bias. The doctor saw the patient, mightve thought this patients a little sicker than the other enng going to give them the intervention. But the person who did not get it, do not look as sick. And so that is why sometimes these observational studies show that one intervention doesnt work as well is no intervention at all because of that selection bias. The final point, thats what we need randomized studies and take everybody in this randomly assignment of hydroxy or placebo in this case, we have not had those types of trials yet. At least not ince large numbers. Host lets get wayne in georgia. Guest good morning. Question regarding vitamin c. Forty. They may actually help the immune system. From getting the coronavirus in an extreme case. Typically among africanamericans, the tend toam lead to severe cases. Some wondering just vitamin d, is it significant. In terms ofic suppressing severe cases. Dr. Michael saag thank you. I think that vitamin d is an important vitamin. It is that we all need. And there are a lot of people who have vitamin dha deficiencis however, there has been a lot of studies of trying to do replacement vitamin d. Get the levels back up somewhat but its kind of hard to get those levels up. I dont think the vitamin d alone is going to be sufficient to improve an immune system response either to this fires or others. One of the things we have to be careful of is to make this caution out there for folks is that if you think your vitamin d levels are low, just go to the store and buy a bunch of vitamin d and start taking it, theres downside to be a that in terms of calcium read and calcium levels can cope very high if youou overdo the vitamid thing. So when you do, go to your provider have them check the levels. If it is very low, then they can do replacement and monitor you. Host good morning. This is dean ohio. Guest the problem that i have with all of this, we had the diseases this line and ebola i think another 12. And when mr. Obama was in, some of these, i think people were accepting when you and the people and what they can happen and things to do to take care of yourself. And then everybody should wear a mask print is really not true. And alsos having some buddy in the medical field birds sunken be harmful to people actually mean, its a nasty thing to put on and breathe then. Intention a lot of people dont even know how to carefully work with a mask. They eat and the tension they do that. And actually, theyre trying to wreath anyway. So that is not the real way. And another thing, as a constitutional, people have choices. If you want to wear a mask print for one. It will protect you. If another person chooses not to do it, just, you, we are going to leave but we should be careful in life. It does mean you plenty likely to like the idea of what you did and everything. I think im not blaming the present, i am letting everybody. This will send me a panic. It i dont want put you down and say anything and do not judge people but i believe this man doing things. Some of youso want to lead us anyone uses five using certain things and saying this is horrible. This is just a virus. We are to have them from here on out. Host let me ask you dr. Michael saag. Ryou have studied a nasty disease. Is this anything like you have seen study. It. Dr. Michael saag now, it is a virus for sure but nothing like i have ever seen before rated a lotn of us when we were in school, we studied the hypothetical of a major pandemic. We have never seen Something Like this. You mentioned the boiler. For example, those were pockets and minor epidemics. Major for the people effective course. It was not transmitted readily through the air from one person to another like this virus. We talked about influenza, somebody mentioned in the earlier epidemics of that. It also burned itself out. In terms of being able to be stopped within the community the reason for that is that enough people had exposure to other influenza viruses that allowed the majority of people of their immune systems they knocked down. But the problem here is this is a virus its never been seen by humans before. It means that everybody is susceptible. The second problem is bigger print is transmitted through the air. Some somebody gets infected, and i start breathing even in the virus goes out into the environment. If they are talking, it goes further out into the environment. They are yelling, or singing, and goes even further. And there was a case and a study in washington state, when there was a choir practice. There were about 50 60 people and are of for two and half hours singing together. One of the people in the room was infected. Fiftytwo people got infected from the oh one choir practice. Two people died. And so the point is, this is a very contagious virus that spreads easily through the year. And it can be fatal. So i hear you better rights to make our own choices. Youre exactly right. And you have a choice about whether you want to mask and everything youin pointed out is correct for it is not easy to wear a mask pretty is hard. But that mask is not going to protect you as much, as much as it will protect people around you. If you happen to have the virus. So i said. Earlier, you have a choice, you can wear mess and if you do, to me what you are communicating to the people in the world around you, is that i care about you. I am wearing this mess because i dont know if i have this virus or not, and it can be spreading it to other people including you. So i will wear that out of respect to you pretty does not mean you have to do its pretty you dont have to. But to me thats what are you mask is all about. Host you mentioned other viruses burning itself out. Any indication of this burning itself out pretty. Dr. Michael saag no but i really hope it does. Lets explore it just a second. How might it burn itself out. We have seen the other coronavirus, sars one are middle easternrn buyers, they dd burn themselves out. 100 percent sure how that happened. Intended to fbn hotter months, like the summertime. It although and im not sure exactly what mitigated that. Otwe are hoping that happens wih this. No evidence that it will happen just yet. And your question at the top of the hour was what will we expect to see over the next several months. And i expected to stay flat. Not as far as numbers, we will continue to seein spread but im really worried about the fall when people start congregating back inside. If we see a surge of cases, it will be a mess because of the coronavirus, seasonal influenza will start coming in with that pretty we will have a problem distinguishing between the two. In the clinics in the hospitals. Host a question fro for you frm ivy. It how many people over the age of 60 aret asymptomatic. Dr. Michael saag is a good question i dont know the answer the reason we dont know the answer just yet is number one we have not done nearly enough widespread surveillance testing because the tests are available but they are being dedicated to the people who have symptoms right now because of the relative short supply. Were getting much better but were not there yet. So we dont have the data and hopefully we will get Something Like that in the next couple of months. Host we will hear from newport news next. Welcome my rent. Reporter the question of the mask or wearing the mask in public, it seems to become a cultural issue. I kind of understand what people feelel like about the rights. It goes back to maybe being in the home of the brave and the land of the free. It just seems to go against their cultural beliefs of what rights they have and they dont have. Ive been trying to figure out how you reachch that cultural belief and i know that my beliefs are to look out for the others read as i look out for myself. And to be concerned about the other person. But for some, that doesnt seem to override that the grief that they feel against wearing the mask. I think it would be at this point, if we can, in summer is in the fall it will help wearing a mask with flu. And with other contagious viruses out there. During the common cold. I hope people will come to realize that we are all in this together. If we can help one another, nothing is permanent. We just want to get through this time until we can have many vaccine or some kind of antiviral medication that would help us. I pray that as people think about this, they make these decisions that we will all come together and Work Together in this. Host i appreciate that my rent. Pres. Trump we should celebrate our diversity. Where a very wide and diverse nation. I think thats what makes us great. Let people have different opinions pretty think in this particular setting because were dealing with very aggressive virus that is easily transmitted come i think we need to try to pull together. Unfortunately, and this is the part that is been frustrating for me personally is that a lot of the science has become embroiled in politics. The people taking aside about one particular intervention or another. There is this for that. Thats why think that is what is pulling us apart i of it because some of our political thoughts are interfering to degree with how we are interpreting science and the facts. But im trying to do is just lay the facts out there as i see them from my perspective as a scientist as a clinician and thats what i think we need to do. Focus on the facts the truth come through and then people will decide if they want to wear a mask or not wear a mask created what im hoping its just like we came together for world war ii to do what we had to do to defeat an enemy overseas, and to come together as you said, to fight this fire is because its also a threat. It is an enemy. This is a silent enemy in terms of the spread from person to person. In this with the big threat is. If. Host the color mention wearing the mask the return of the flu season in the fall. On neglect to the testimony of doctor Robert Redfield in the Washington Times and they say the next were safe the dual threat the second coronavirus wave and flu season could be difficult to manage. And he said only 4047 percent to avail themselves of the flu shot under ordinary circumstances. Everyone needs to do the part 20 antidote is available pretty he said in his testimony, the single actual save lives. Marla helping the American Public was even the flu vaccine is one major way they can help this nation get through this fall. Dr. Michael saag i couldnt agree more. More people that get the flu vaccine, the more chance we have something called herd immunity. It means that people have immunity against the flu virus for this coming season. And if people have immunity against the unit of 70 guess that flu, there is less people around them that they can in fact and p get sick to transmit the virus to others. So if we get much more than 47 percent of people getting the flu vaccine, then i think he is exactly right we have a much better chance of mitigating flu thisee coming fall and into the winter. The other thing is, i sound like a broken right record but i think learn or wearing a mask that setting will also decrease flu transmission to integrate because this also spreads to the rest of predatory route. Host catherine, thanks for waiting and gogo ahead. Guest yes doctor and thank you for taking my question. In your time. Five minutes ago you were talking about doing more, another study in the hydroxy i thought but i heard you assured on frequent occasions, so are they the same things. Dr. Michael saag my mistake. Thank you for calling that out pretty one is a drug that was used in hiv this were my background is. So i misspoke. Hydroxy is exactly what it meant to say thank you for bringing that up. Isnt quote drug that is been around for quite a long time. Its also known that from another name. Is been used in malaria is also used for fun people with other diseases for example, lupus, number of people are on what is called that. So they have a lot of experience with it but we just dont know how to reset yet whether it does or doesnt work for sure. I guess the coronavirus and thank you very much for pointing that out. Mistake on my part. If. Host do you think is appropriateat that people take t in a prophylactic manner. In a preventative manner. Dr. Michael saag up until this past week, we did not know the answer to that. But as of yesterday or the day before, the paper washe publishd again in internal medicine with a randomized trial comparing the drug versus a placebo in preventing the coronavirus with us on whats that there were no statistical difference between the two. So for this particular population, people at risk for acquiring coronavirus, taking thisvi route, did not prevent tm from getting infected. Guest doctor, i agree with your statement that this disease an there being politicized. In particular, i think the media came down on his drug because of president suggested it. He said that he used it. I suggested it could be useful. My question is this british media stated the people were dying everywhere from Heart Disease because of this drug. My understanding one, is a Prescription Drug so consequently, some doctor summer and think it was good. In order to have patients using it. And secondly, if the patient is sick enough to take this drug, the doctors would be overseeing it very closely. They would know and the cardio problem. It would not use it in that situation read what is your thinking on that. Dr. Michael saag the big question is against that to the heart of two things. Natural sides a effect of this drug. One of the things that he can do, this is known, can interfere with the heart rhythm. And getting into the technical reasons but a very small fraction of people will be put at risk and arrhythmia which means an abnormal heart rhythm that can be fatal. It does not mean it is but it canha be and that was a heart problem that people were talking about. It is a rare complication and perhaps was overblown but heres rhthe problem. In the coasts of coronavirus, doesnt matter if youre taking this drug or not, this virus is pretty evil. When somebody gives the infection in the month and lisa, this virus distributes the entire body in the blood system and organs with the heart for the kidney of the brain can damage can get damaged byda the sand so there are a lot of heart complications just from the coronavirus itself. And there can be heart attacks or other types of heart problems are not working or pumping eventually efficiently so if some one is taking hydroxychloroquine on top of whatever the virus is doing, you will hear reports that this person was on hydroxychloroquine and this person had a heart problem. When the two related, and not necessarily. Passive and try to think that is what has been blown up in the course of this, this is what is nice about this particular program situation today. We can go into the details a lot more than a 32nd soundbites. So that is what is happened. We need a comparative study, we need to look at hydroxychloroquine against a placebo, blinded four means that the patient and the provider do not know what they are getting and see what happens. Did it work and whether cardiac publications more in the hydroxychloroquine group than in the placebo. In my opinion, dont think were going to see a huge difference in the heart abnormalities as you are suggesting. I think we will see the both groups. Whether or not hydroxychloroquine works remains to be seen and i think that is an open question. Host this is paul in indianapolis is asked, what is the effective ace inhibitors on covid19 infections. Dr. Michael saag great question. Back to one of our earlier answers about gargling, he said those were something called a stupid inhibitors. Sense foreignkes there are different types obviously theres needs one in each two. These one is looking at the hypersensitive work, does not have any impact on a stoop directly. Soyp theres unlikely in my opinion, to be protection necessarily solely from taking the high Blood Pressure drug. Whats not known is by blocking that ace one, doesnt have any impact on the expression of ace toto predict and of the worst is taking a high Blood Pressure drug, increase the number of ace two receptors are potentially even decrease the number making someone potentially more susceptible to the virus or less. That answer is not known. Some i know we dont have the answer. Lets fullback to 40000 feet report. This virus was not even described until december of last year, and 2019. We are now four months into an epidemic. These questions are spot on but theres no way we can have answers in that short amount of time. Host americans, we as americans we expect packages to be delivered overnight. Does it frustrate you a little bit as a doctor that we want results from medical studies as quickly as we wander packages amazon delivered. Dr. Michael saag absolutely and not only that, i got used to the fact that if we have something wrong with this, we can go to our provider and we can get some sort of remedy. Maybe physical therapy. For looking for something. I can tell you i have this disease, i had covid19 back in march. Dante and the hardest thing was sitting up at night, not knowing my symptoms were going to get worse that would have to go to the hospital and the most frightening thing was there was no treatment yet. And that is a scary thought. So i wanted to treatment is much as anyone. Just have not not had the time to develop it yet. Weve been very much conditioned on immediate stuff buried in the Remote Control to change the channel. It amazon whatever packages to us, get treatments because of years of research. Not months. In this been going on for most of her medical ailments. There is no substitution for time. Host was your view on how soon a vaccine may be available. Dr. Michael saag that is the trillion dollar question almost literally. If that will be a way out for us for sure. If we have an effective vaccine, lets go back to the influenza question. In the vaccine. If we give enough people that vaccine, then we change the game dramatically because as i said earlier, the reason this virus is of dangerous to us is that most of us, all of us have never seen this virus before. So we are all susceptible. If we get a vaccine that works, you will create the situation that all of us for all of us to get the vaccine, will not be detected. Our immune systems will be primed to fight the vaccine so that even if we get exposed and transcendently affected, our immune system will knock it out. Thats it but we are hoping for. So your question, how. Soon and how quick. Dontt know but missing Vaccine Development at a speed that we had never seen before. And i was talking to doctor felty not to long ago and told the story when the virus was describedd out of china, and jul sequence. January 10th. When the published sequence on january 10th, the scientists andon nih lucky cars of the virs from its genome genetic structure and created vaccines within two days. After that sequence was published. That is amazing and those have fun on several them, to created vaccines and run trial right now. And they earliest in my opinion that we will see results from thosee studies, your list would be the endni of this year. Some people say earlier we will see. It is earlier. But we dont know if it will work and we dont know if it will be safe. That is what we need large numbers of people to volunteer for the study and see in the vaccine works. If it does, game changer. Host heres jerry from new jersey. Your on with dr. Michaeler saag. Guest hi doc. A lot of amount of europe is using this. 2 million doses for africa. The cdc stop trials on the research for the transect brain why would this topic. Has there ever been research on the hydroxychloroquine. For allas other athletic reason. Do they still die from its. They can involve ahe case of a depraved in winter who were sick, did you take that drug. Our retired nurse i know for a fact for many of us in his field that are taking it so why would now all of a sudden the cdc whichever it was, stop doing trials on it. Im shocked the no one seemed to think that hydroxychloroquine. Now i was told that the red blood cells, there is a thing that attaches with the virus but if you take the hydroxychloroquine, then the hydroxy attaches to it in your red blood cell. Host we will get an answer thank you for your call. Dr. Michael saag one to my knowledge, studies have not been stopped in fact we are doing our study right now in our institution that is sponsored by the institution of health that is comparing hydroxychloroquine with another drug versus placebo in this study is ongoing. So im not aware, is randomized, couple thousand patients. I think we anxiously await the results. You may be right, there could be some others but the one i am familiar with have not been stopped. Nor should they be at this moment in my opinion. In the second question is about people who are already on these drugs as are taking it for lupus etc. Answer iser not fully known. Theres been one brief report that suggested there not being protected against the coronavirus. But whether there is a degree oo protection has not been teased out yet. So that question is a known final question about me. My particular situation is a mention, pretty harrowing. This was the first part of march when i was sick. On the sixth day of my illnesses was when the french study came out. With 23 people that was all. But it showed that it worked. So i got a hold of hydroxychloroquine and i took it for five days. It didnt help me. I dont know. Im here. And did not die. So perhaps it did. I cannot tell you that i felt any better when i took it. But maybe i did something. In the final point is the actual mechanism of how this drug might work is not known. I dont think is so much related to the reded blood cells. I think it has to do with the process of when thehe virus invades the actual respiratory cells through that ace to inhibitor the dimension five times now i think. As it goes into the cell. The reported mechanism is that it disrupts the ability of the virus toth infect. But that is not 100 percent froms vignettes. I have that was helpful. Host what was the first symptom you have an that you mightve had to get hospitalized for. Dr. Michael saag there were several they were mild. Thats the thing is difference between the flow in the stillness. For a lot of people. So i first started feeling a little achy. I gotot what he called fuzzy thinking i cannot focus on my computer screen. I had a headache and body aches and cough and a fever. That went on for several days. Like five or six days and then i thought indeed it and it. That it was i was done with it. About day six is one the horror story started pretty never night, i would have fever, chills, headaches and fuzzy thinking. Worsening cough and my oxygen levels in a measured home, we dropping, not to critical levels. And moment to moment wondering of is this the moment where im going to need to go to the hospital. That was part of the o horror story. And then it would be gone for us for the morning. Anna come roaring back. Sort of like groundhog day. I neveral had to go to the hospital. After 40 days, and mercifully went away. Mr. Took another two three weeks for all of the symptoms clear. Host john from wisconsin. Guest question about the connection with the laboratory inin wuhan, i still investigatig that and they found anything else about whether or not its something that escaped from a laboratory. Because it started wuhan and the other question i had if you have covid19, a thing as public pcr test pretty has that been used for other viruses or influenza rated thats it. Dr. Michael saag u. Thanks for e question. Lets take the first question. Wuhan is a huge city. Things up to 10 million people. It also of that city that has been for a long time, and were state entered Research Laboratory that has done work coronavirus is going back to the original sars epidemic in 2000. So there is a lot of Research Going on there. In the u. S. Had scientists working with him. So there was a lot of and there is a lot of research on coronavirus is going on there for a long time. And so were suspicions or thoughts that perhaps the virus escaped from that laboratory and it went into the community. Thats how the epidemic started. Im not looked into the records of the wilpon laboratory but what i do know, is that looking at the genetic structure that i mentioned earlier that was released and now was being used for Vaccine Development, is pretty clear looking at that virus the genetic structure that it was a natural evolution. Another highly related matt coronavirus they just happen it to mutate in the way the became infectious for humans to wear was not before. Time, about the lebanon dont think theres any evidence at this point there was a plot to release virus any kind of evildoing by this laboratory. Rather there is a very clear biological acclamation. In this happens all of the time. Where ain virus inside of an animal mutate and await the becomes infectious for humans. Hiv is a virus like that. So its going to that collection part for an absolutely. Pcr is used all of the time. Since the mid 1980s and in fact, the viral test, for hiv is a pcr test. And we can quantify how much viruses there. The test is being used for coronavirus right now, is a test that amplifies a price, doesnt necessarily quantify it. It means how much is there is harder to do. If you dont need to quantify right now were just looking to see if it viruses there. Soe. Yes pcr is used all of the time in large amounts. Host carl in mexico. Guest i have multiple symptoms in my lungs. Asthma, and other things and pneumonia and bronchitis that i have been on infusion treatment with ultraviolet light. And the doctor has given to me said it could affect, it does kill virus. What i want to know is how effective is this. Its ultraviolent and giving me an infusion with bicarbonate and vitamin c. What i want to know is how effective that is because it is helping my asthma. In the rest of it i dont know. Dr. Michael saag i dont know either to be honest with you. I think that if you were to take a virus just like we talked about earlier with iodine, if you take that virus in a laboratory and you radiate it, you would give it high amounts of ultraviolet light, new connecticutam and activate the virus. Does that translate into taking blood and radiating it. My guess would g be no. I dont see how taking blood and using an antiviral in this case, ultraviolet light would have any impact on what is going on in the lung were the respiratory lining, the lining of the lungs were really where the action is pretty in terms of how this viruses getting into the body and what it is doing once the viruses there. Im not familiar with the approach of treatment for your blood treatment and i am very confident that that is not going to be evaluated with coronavirus. In a long way away. I dont think theres great possibility that that would work for coronavirus. Host a question from jack in pennsylvania, yes is dying with covid19, the same as dying from covid19. Dr. Michael saag that is a really good question. Lets dissect it. Dying with something just means youve got an illness in a by the way, this other thing is present. And it is not causal. It is present. And he did not cause the death. It dying from something means that you probably almost certainly would not have died but for that agent being present. In my opinion in most cases, the people who are dying with a coronavirus present, they are dying from the coronavirus itself and the damage that it is doing to the body, there are some people though im sure are dying height Heart Disease or Something Else that they might also happen to have t coronavirs on board. This asymmetry is in a car accident, the Car Accidents led to the fatality, led to the death. In the new testament salable, he also had coronavirus. And didnt cause the accident, bubbling up but that would be dying with coronavirus from Something Else. Almost all of the cases and i will say all but i would say the vast majority of people who are dying and they have coronavirus, they are dying from a the coronavirus. In walking through the words for going to the icu, it is Crystal Clear that these people would not be the hospital but for their illness with coronavirus. So i would say that the death tolls that youto are seeing are most definitely a result of somebody dying from the coronavirus. Or they would not have been in the hospital otherwise. Guest i juster wanted to thank you doctor for your expertise in a very respectful way in which you are both providing information and dispelling misinformation. Earlier in the interview, it was the issue brought up the possibly having an often system where people could possibly be tracked, often to be tracked they were around someone with coronavirus. My first question would be what would need to happen for that to take place and who would be responsible for b putting like that in place. The people making those decisions like you look through the names of the people and what their position is and whos making decisions to open the state of an they are all economic people and there is not a representation on science unmet decisionmaking committee. The question is, what can be done about that . Htand what your thoughts are on that . Let me start with the heseco question because its something we havent talked about yet. That is how our decisions being made. In a pure scientific way we should wait for the caseloads to be coming down and phase in the y. Opening up and monitor carefully. I think what has happened in our country is i think most People Living here are tired of coronavirus. Theyre tired of thinking about it theyre tired of talking about it they felt the Economic Impact in a major way and whits profound the number of people who have either lost jobs or been furloughed the amount of income people are making. The remarkable things the stock market is holding steady. I cant quite ask. But good. But people are tired of it. The elected officials are getting enormous pressure to reopen because they see that theres been a decrease in cases but the cost for our the economy is too much. They are opening up. I think the general public by my read of peoples attitudes and talking to a lot of people is its almost boiling down to, im willing to take the risk im willing to take my chance on getting coronavirus and were just gonna go forward and reopen and i think thats where we are. Dont think thats gonna change. What i do agree can do and we should do is take it on ourselves regardless of what the policy is at the state level all over our local community, we can be responsible, we can do the right thing for ourselves and our neighbors, we can avoid large crowds. We can wear a mask, as we talked about a lot. We can cikeep social distance. What is that mean . It means at least 6 to 10 feet apart t because thats about th distance that when we are talking when we are yelling the virus if its in us is going to go out to about that distance. The further you are away the less likely even if youre not if that person is not wearing a mask that you can pick it up. Crowding together with no mask all it takes is one person, especially if its indoors and you can get widespread throughout the community. Dr. Michael saag at the university of alabama Birmingham Medical School. Thanks for joining us for this hour. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed my time with you. Having lived through a loss of confidence in our institutions, a wave of cynicism that left us unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert, it becomes very difficult for us to rise to a challenge like this. Our first reaction is to say, no, theyre lying to us there only in it in it for themselves. A lot of our National Institutions have to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us that theyre here for the country. Today at noon eastern on indepth, a live conversation with author and American Enterprise Institute Scholar you of all who live in, his most recent book is a time to build other titles include the great debate the fractured republic join the conversation with your phone calls, tweets, text, and facebook messages. Watch indepth with eval you been on booktv on cspan2. The same accent returns monday and plan to spend the week on the Great American outdoors act legislation to establish a fund for maintenance of National Parks and other public lands. The senate meets at 3 00 p. M. Eastern you can watch live gavel to gavel coverage on cspan2. This week former president jimmy carter, bill clinton, george w. Bush and barack obama made statements concerning the events surrounding the killing of george floyd in minneapolis. Heres what they had to say, from president carter dehumanizing people debases us all, humanity is beautifully and almost infinitely diverse. The bonds of our common humanity must overcome the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. President clinton remarked 57 years ago doctor can dreamed of a day is for little children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Today that dream seems even more out of reach and will never reach it if we keep treating people of color with the unspoken assumption that they are less human. President bush said this tragedy in a long series of similar tragedies raises a long overdue question, how do we end systemic racism in our society . , the only way to see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of america. Or how it becomes a better place. President obama who delivered his message on social media said but it falls on all of us, regardless of our race or station including the majority of men and women in Law Enforcement who take pride in doing their tough job the right way. Every day. To Work Together to create a new normal in which the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts. You can read the entire statements from the former president s online. At