Understanding the Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice investigate what we currently know about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) with Dr. Irwin Redlener, Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. A Cosmic Queries special edition. Focusing on disaster preparedness. Got with me Chuck Nice, as always.

• 0:28Irwin Redlener?

  Boom, what's happening Neil?

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're always doing this in front of some befuddled guest.

• 0:32Irwin Redlener?

  Yes, he's like, why are these two reaching in front of me? To bump hands.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bump hands. I've got Dr. Erwin Redliner, who is the Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

• 0:45Irwin Redlener?

  Oh.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At Columbia University.

• 0:47Irwin Redlener?

  Excellent.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's a medical doctor by training. And he cut his teeth with the Children's Health Fund.

• 0:53Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly, with Paul Simon that we started these mobile units that took care of.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paul Simon, the performer.

• 0:58Irwin Redlener?

  Paul Simon, the singer-songwriter. And we started in 1987 taking care of homeless kids in New York. Now expanded across the country with.

• 1:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 1:06Irwin Redlener?

  53 mobile medical pediatric.

• 1:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, whoa.

• 1:10Irwin Redlener?

  Quite noble.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what a legacy to have that keep going.

• 1:14Irwin Redlener?

  Sure.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:15Irwin Redlener?

  I look forward to the day when it's no longer necessary. I've been looking forward to that for 33 years. Yes, exactly, yes.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so disaster preparedness, who would have thought that that's even a thing? Isn't it just, you know, get your go-bag? Isn't it just that?

• 1:30Irwin Redlener?

  Oh God, I wish it was, Neil. It just, it just.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go-bag, you know, you have your flashlight.

• 1:36Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, yeah. Radio.

• 1:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Radio and a knife or whatever.

• 1:38Irwin Redlener?

  First aid kit.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40Irwin Redlener?

  Sidearm. Ladies and gentlemen, I was just kidding. They know I was. Erwin is cheering him now.

• 1:48Chuck Nice?

  Erwin has a bit more dystopian view of disaster preparedness, I see.

• 1:52Irwin Redlener?

  They know I was kidding, right?

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Depends what state you're getting listened to.

• 1:57Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, so that's the individual thing, there's things that you can do, you look online, you go to the FEMA or the Red Cross website, they'll tell you all that. What we're concerned about that emergency management agency. But what we're, the much more important thing is society ready, is our government ready, is the country ready?

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our institutions ready.

• 2:14Irwin Redlener?

  Our institutions ready, is the, is there readiness on the level of real serious preparedness and pre-thought about what we actually need to do to manage things like a pandemic? You know, that's kind of.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know what to do, you just raid all the shelves of the grocery store, obviously.

• 2:32Irwin Redlener?

  Only if you look like you're in a panic, yes, but that's right, yes.

• 2:35Chuck Nice?

  You just buy all the, you just buy up all the masks that you can.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The mask and the Purell.

• 2:40Chuck Nice?

  And Purell.

• 2:41Irwin Redlener?

  And we're done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:42Chuck Nice?

  We're all safe.

• 2:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're prepared.

• 2:44Irwin Redlener?

  In fact, I'm looking around here, see if you got your stuff, I don't see anything, but okay, probably hidden, but, no, but I think really the big thing is, what does the country need to do? What kind of responsible leadership do we need to have in order to do it? And should the country feel anywhere near comfortable? Right now, for example, when we're dealing with this coronavirus or getting ready for any other kind of major disaster, a huge, you know, coastal storm like we saw with Katrina, or Hurricane Maria and so on, so there's lots of work for government to do.

• 3:15Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't leave out the asteroids.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  You know, we actually could.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta give them some love, too.

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  We could actually leave that out.

• 3:23Irwin Redlener?

  I hope we can leave that out.

• 3:24Chuck Nice?

  I hope we can leave that out.

• 3:27Irwin Redlener?

  Seriously, should we be worried about that?

• 3:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's another conversation.

• 3:30Irwin Redlener?

  Fine, okay.

• 3:31Chuck Nice?

  And the answer is yes.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can guarantee you that if the dinosaurs had a space program, they would have knocked that asteroid out of the way.

• 3:36Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right?

• 3:37Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 3:38Chuck Nice?

  So, but can I just for a second, just for, play every man here and ask you, uh, number one, what is COVID-19? What is a coronavirus?

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As a category.

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  As a category.

• 3:52Irwin Redlener?

  Right, it is, it is a category virus, as much like we had with SARS, something called MERS.

• 3:58Chuck Nice?

  MERS.

• 3:58Irwin Redlener?

  And.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are acronyms, right?

• 4:00Irwin Redlener?

  Those are, well, it's the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome, is MERS.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Didn't know that.

• 4:04Irwin Redlener?

  And, uh, and SARS is Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. So, yeah, so they're all acronyms, COVID also is, well, what COVID is, is. is a coronavirus disease.

• 4:16Chuck Nice?

  Coronavirus disease.

• 4:17Irwin Redlener?

  And nineteen, it's called covid nineteen, and the nineteen just refers to last year when it was first recognized.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was worried that there were eighteen others walking around.

• 4:24Chuck Nice?

  Thank god.

• 4:25Irwin Redlener?

  And six more to come. Covid twenty-five is a really.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the one you gotta watch out for.

• 4:31Chuck Nice?

  Right, so it's a category of virus.

• 4:33Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  And how does it differ, because, you know, people hear coronavirus.

• 4:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why is it getting different?

• 4:39Chuck Nice?

  Why is it getting all kinds of crazy, like, what is the, what's the big deal?

• 4:42Irwin Redlener?

  So, the thing about a virus like this, which makes it ultimately into a pandemic, which is what we're dealing with now, is that it's, first of all, it's a brand-new virus.

• 4:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:50Irwin Redlener?

  That we've not seen before. It is a virus that has jumped from animals, some animal source, to humans.

• 4:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:56Irwin Redlener?

  But more importantly, it is now able to be.

• 4:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you say jumped, it evolved.

• 5:00Irwin Redlener?

  Evolved, well, it, it's, somebody caught it initially from an animal.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:04Irwin Redlener?

  Plenty of viruses, dangerous ones that animals have that do not make their way to human beings. Correct. So this one has already made that leap, and it's now, uh, obviously, uh, infecting people. But the big, important point about this, it actually can be now transmitted from a person to another person. And, and, and secondly, it can be lethal. So it's a new virus, it's lethal, it's transmissible among person to person, from person to person. And, uh, is spread across, uh, international boundaries.

• 5:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:34Irwin Redlener?

  All those factors.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have airplanes.

• 5:36Irwin Redlener?

  Right, exactly.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. You know, it's not like, well, let's walk to the nearest town, you know, it's like, we, we have a level of mobility without precedent in this world.

• 5:45Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, so there's two very interesting things to note. One is, there was a, there was a massive, um, avian flu, uh, called the Spanish Flu in nineteen eighteen. And, as you will call, it's very limited air travel then, like, nothing. And, um, and at that point, we also had very little in the way of medical care.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:05Irwin Redlener?

  Uh, now we have much better medical care, even though we don't have a specific treatment for the covid virus. Uh, but we have an enormous amount of international travel by air. So the ability to transmit across international boundaries is very, very significant.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you really diabolically, you would say, viruses invented humans. To be smart enough to invent airplanes so that they could travel.

• 6:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so they could catch a ride. So they could catch a ride.

• 6:31Irwin Redlener?

  Well, they would never get through security otherwise.

• 6:33Chuck Nice?

  It's diabolical. It is, but and by the way, people, there you have it. So if you want to know your place in the universe, you're nothing more than an Uber for a virus.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, there you go.

• 6:42Irwin Redlener?

  Wow, okay.

• 6:46Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 6:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in 1918, of course, that was the end of the First World War, and this huge troop movement returning home.

• 6:52Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of ships, so that would be the means.

• 6:55Irwin Redlener?

  Right, the vector, the means, yeah, yeah. Right, so they brought a lot of the virus, in fact, they went home to wherever they're going, including the rest of Europe and back to the US. And that was probably a major factor here. And we lost about seven, almost 700,000 Americans, the Spanish flu, but between 50 and 100.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  700,000?

• 7:14Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We only lost, like, only, lost like 50 or 60,000.

• 7:19Chuck Nice?

  In the war?

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of Vietnam.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  And all, right.

• 7:21Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, it was 58,000 or something like that.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, 58,000 in Vietnam, and 700,000 Americans.

• 7:26Irwin Redlener?

  And the population then, of course, was way smaller than now.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What it is now, yeah, way less.

• 7:31Chuck Nice?

  Now, if, is this true, that the reason why that happened is because the government did not want to

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're talking about this man?

• 7:40Chuck Nice?

  The Spanish flu, we were talking about. The government did not want to acknowledge the transmission of the flu here in America and that that it was happening on a military basis.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, well. Because it could be a morale problem.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Is that true, I'm just?

• 7:54Irwin Redlener?

  No, I, you know, it was impossible to ignore. There were two, I had two great grandparents who died, who died from those. You couldn't ignore it, there were just people dying constantly, although they didn't know much about virus behavior or how it was transmitted. There was a lot unknown, and they certainly had nothing to treat it with, and there were no vaccines.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 8:10Irwin Redlener?

  So it was happening, it was bad, they knew it was being transmitted one way or another, and they're trying to do what they could, but it wasn't much in that era, yeah.

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now with COVID-19, it can travel. So, alright, so wouldn't that be true for any virus?

• 8:27Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What would, again, what distinguishes COVID-19 from any other virus that want to accomplish the same goal?

• 8:33Irwin Redlener?

  Right, so for one thing, it's lethal. The second thing is, we don't know enough about the behavior.

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rather, it can be lethal.

• 8:40Irwin Redlener?

  It can be lethal, of course. Yeah, in fact, the lethality rate is a big controversy right now because we don't know the denominator, always a problem when we're trying to figure out the percentage of something. So, right now, the World Health Organization, as of this morning, was saying it's got a 3.4%.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But to be clear, the denominator is the total number of people infected in any given moment.

• 8:58Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly.

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and then you know who dies because they're dead.

• 9:01Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you don't know everybody who has the disease.

• 9:03Irwin Redlener?

  We know a fraction, and we don't even know whether it's a big fraction, a small fraction, whatever it is. So, given the number of people that we know have the disease worldwide, which is around 100,000 at the moment, and the fatality rate, what we know about that, so you make that it's just a division, and you find out that we have a 3.4% fatality right now, which also means, by the way, and it's probably way less than 1%. But even if it was 3%, that means that 97% of people who get this virus will survive it. So this is not a, you know, it's not a death sentence if you get this.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not the zombie virus.

• 9:38Irwin Redlener?

  It's not the zombie virus, no.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. Notice, he didn't say, "There is no zombie virus." When I say that, you're supposed to say, "No!" You're supposed to deny.

• 9:48Irwin Redlener?

  I thought you knew there was a zombie virus. Of all people, you would know that, but apparently not.

• 9:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, we're gonna pick up more on this when we come back to a special edition of StarTalk Cosmic Queries: Disaster Preparedness Virus.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm Roy Hill Percival and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Bringing the universe down to earth. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk. Cosmic Aquarius. Disaster preparedness. There's one person in the universe who's... That's in his job title. Dr. Erwin Redliner. Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Put that on your business card. People get out of your way, right there.

• 10:59Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly. Either that or they're always calling and asking you to help get them prepared.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  How did you know that?

• 11:06Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah. That's gotta be annoying.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know, in any given moment, the seasonal flu...

• 11:14Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one is taking these kinds of precautions, COVID-19 precautions, to not get the seasonal flu. Why?

• 11:22Irwin Redlener?

  Well, 45% only of people actually get the flu shot every year, which is kinda crazy since we have between 35,000 and 50,000 deaths every single year from the seasonal flu.

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's 100 a day.

• 11:35Irwin Redlener?

  I will never understand it.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's 100 a day.

• 11:38Irwin Redlener?

  Okay.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So, why isn't all of this outcry that we are now getting with COVID-19 applied to the seasonal flu? Washing the hands and all those normal things would also protect you.

• 11:51Irwin Redlener?

  It would certainly protect you. You know, and I just, I can't explain it. Something about the fact that this is a new thing. It came from China, which is scaring people. It's like some other mysterious thing that came, you know, like the H1N1 and other kind of...

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And SARS, in fact. H1N1 was swine flu, right?

• 12:08Irwin Redlener?

  Swine flu. Yeah, exactly. So, this is actually a mystery, why people are so worked up about this. And I think it has to do with the fact that it is new, it's getting a lot of attention. We don't know quite what to do about it.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have we been able to track a virus? With this level of daily updates before today? Before this level of internet and social media access?

• 12:32Irwin Redlener?

  Well, it's not really, you know, there's a lot that, and by the way, there's a lot that we don't know about this.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hourly updates.

• 12:38Irwin Redlener?

  It's crazy. And part of it is that we just don't know a lot of key information. What's the incubation period of COVID-19? Yeah, so we're telling people it's two to 14 days. Probably three to four weeks, actually, for some people. So, um, you can be carrying this for a long time.

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And transmit it while you're carrying it?

• 12:55Irwin Redlener?

  Yes.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though you don't have symptoms?

• 12:56Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly.

• 12:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God, so asymptomatic transmission for three to four weeks?

• 13:00Irwin Redlener?

  It's possible.

• 13:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm sorry, you know what, I'm gonna calm down.

• 13:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Panic has begun.

• 13:06Irwin Redlener?

  I just wrote him a prescription. Yeah, no.

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, I can settle this. Don't panic.

• 13:12Irwin Redlener?

  Right, there you go.

• 13:15Irwin Redlener?

  He always knows the right thing to say.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you better now?

• 13:17Chuck Nice?

  I'm so much better now.

• 13:19Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, so, um...

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, under what conditions does anyone ever tell you, "Don't panic"?

• 13:24Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, like, all day long.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's when you have to panic.

• 13:26Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're right. No one ever walks into a room and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, the building is not on fire. Don't panic."

• 13:36Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, right, yeah. It's like, calm down, right?

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 13:40Irwin Redlener?

  So, uh, yeah, now, this is, this is really a problem. Now, I, I just wanna clarify something. You obviously spread more virus when you're coughing and sneezing.

• 13:47Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 13:47Irwin Redlener?

  But still, when you're asymptomatic, you're still able to transmit it, and that's something that people should be aware of.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now, again, compare it to a normal seasonal flu. Where all these same precautions would prevent that, but we're not undergoing those same precautions for the seasonal flu.

• 14:01Irwin Redlener?

  Correct.

• 14:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And seasonal flu has a death rate, whatever that is, but...

• 14:06Irwin Redlener?

  It's under 1%, like, about a 0.6.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fine, but if 100 times more people get a seasonal flu, it will kill more people than the COVID-19.

• 14:15Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More total people.

• 14:17Irwin Redlener?

  But the thing is, if the COVID-19 turns out to be as prevalent as seasonal flu, with that millions and millions of, uh, people getting it, uh, we still may have a slightly higher death rate, so it's still a serious issue. And by the way, once we get a vaccine for this, which is a, a year to a year and a half from now...

• 14:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, what, you know, I want it tomorrow. What's, what's, what's with, these are your people. Why, why does it take that long to make a vaccine?

• 14:41Irwin Redlener?

  There is a delay, you know, the thing is, when do we get started? Because it does take at least a year to a year and a half to make a vaccine because you have to figure out the right combination, understand the DNA of the virus, you have to make it, you have to do animal trials, you have to then do expanded human trials, then you have to manufacture and distribute it. However,

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the total overhead adds up?

• 15:03Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, it does. And if you add to that two or three months of inexplicable delays and screw ups, if I can use that on this podcast, by the federal government, you have a really, really bad situation.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you just worry whether you can say the word screw up?

• 15:18Irwin Redlener?

  I did.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, we gotta take them to the hood.

• 15:20Irwin Redlener?

  I appreciate it. I'm ready to go. I had to control myself, but okay.

• 15:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:26Irwin Redlener?

  I'm ready to go. That's awesome. But yeah, so, yeah, and I just, we've never seen the CDC this dysfunctional. For one thing, they've been underfunded. So now, with that in mind, let's just talk about, because there is, you know, mixed messaging happening at the highest levels of government, what can we do, knowing that a vaccine is like a year away?

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:51Irwin Redlener?

  What can we do without, as Neil told me, without panicking? Well, what we can do is, first of all, we can actually use the old tried and true, contact your representatives and your, you know, people in Congress, and tell them we want everything accelerated. We want enough money appropriated to deal with this. We want staff rehired at the CDC.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not gonna stop you from getting the disease.

• 16:18Irwin Redlener?

  No, no, I didn't, I misunderstood.

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's fine too. Oh, yeah, you mean what can you do? After he just told us the story about how dysfunctional it was.

• 16:26Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 16:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's what...

• 16:27Irwin Redlener?

  Well, no, I meant, what can we do to not get the disease? But I was liking this answer as well. Okay, fine. So, and then, basically, the thing is, while we're waiting for the vaccine, we're doing the things that Neil mentioned before, where a lot of frequent obsessive hand washing, we're using hand sanitizers, if you can even get it now, which you can't for about $500 a little bottle on Amazon.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I saw that, yeah, yeah. Your price gouging.

• 16:51Irwin Redlener?

  Oh, wow. You notice?

• 16:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 16:53Irwin Redlener?

  So, no, that's really unfortunate, but you take care of yourself, you make sure that if you're sick, if you've got respiratory symptoms, please don't go in public, stay home. We want businesses to really gear up. Including this one, for example, to be able to work remotely as much as possible if things really go to hell and we have lots of spread.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fortunately, remote working is is more real than ever in the history of the world.

• 17:19Irwin Redlener?

  Absolutely.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, for more people, not everyone, okay? You can't flip hamburgers remotely, but for a lot of other jobs you can.

• 17:26Irwin Redlener?

  You can, exactly right. And so people should be right now assessing their abilities to do that and making sure their staff know what to do and that they've got all the equipment they need to do this kind of remote working and teleconferencing and so on.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you do this until when?

• 17:39Irwin Redlener?

  Until, I don't know when, actually, I'm sorry to say, because we don't know how long this is going to last.

• 17:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The director of the National Center for Disaster Prevention, and I say, "What? How long do we do this?"

• 17:50Irwin Redlener?

  "I don't know, but don't panic." Well, how about this, when is the asteroid hitting us? I don't know.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, touche, touche.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, that's a snappy comeback.

• 18:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a snappy comeback, there you go.

• 18:02Irwin Redlener?

  Snappy, I don't know.

• 18:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's, is there a point where, this is not an unrealistic scenario, let me imagine that everyone does get the message. You don't go out if you have a little respiratory thing, if you're sneezy, you stay in, you wash your hands all the time, you clean surfaces. Is it possible that the COVID will just lightly wash over the country and then exit? And then we come out with a minimal damage? Is that possible?

• 18:31Irwin Redlener?

  It's not out of the question, and given the fact, this is the whole problem with these quote-unquote novel or new viruses, that we, so much we don't know about their behavior, what might happen, you could postulate almost any trajectory.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scenario.

• 18:46Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, and, you know, it's possible that it'll fade away, I don't know why it would particularly.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could have just become endemic.

• 18:53Irwin Redlener?

  It could become endemic.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Slowly, just always passing around?

• 18:57Irwin Redlener?

  And it could become seasonal, like a regular seasonal flu, in which case we'd incorporate the new vaccine for this into the regular, you know, flu vaccines you get every day.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:07Irwin Redlener?

  Then it becomes not really an issue. And the second thing is that we might actually develop an antiviral medication that's specific for this, and that would be good too. But right now, we don't really have those things, so we're trying to really do all the containment we possibly can.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would you say that the public has been overreacting based on everything you've seen?

• 19:25Irwin Redlener?

  Well, the po- it's hard to-

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Empty shelves in the grocery store.

• 19:29Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah. Well, that's, you know, this panic buying stuff is not a good idea. And plus, the general, um, hope is that people will get ready for disasters anyway. They'll have a certain amount of food and water at all times in case some other kind of thing happens. And, uh, of course, that, that hasn't really happened. No, there's been no penetration of that message particularly either. But maybe we'll, this will kind of stimulate people to do that. Uh, but we don't want to go crazy. But I'll tell you, there's a couple of key things that people, uh, need to be reminded about when they're stocking up in case they have to be self-quarantined. One is, if you have a pet, what's gonna happen? You're gonna be able to walk the dog, you gotta have, you have cat litter, do you have all the stuff you need for the pet? Secondly, your baby. Baby, uh, if it's, if you have a very young

• 20:12Irwin Redlener?

  baby who's being breastfed, that's fine. An older child who's on either formula or needs other food or baby food, make sure you have that. Make sure you have diapers and all that, all that stuff.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Supplies, normal supplies.

• 20:23Irwin Redlener?

  But the third thing, which is maybe most important, is that if you have a chronic illness and you're dependent on daily meds to, for life, you know, like you have diabetes or serious heart disease, make sure that you have enough stock of those medications to see you through whatever period of quarantine that we're getting ready for. Uh, that's the thing where the supply chain, by the way, can be most, uh, uh, problematic. Because if we can't get the stuff and you can't go to the drugstore-

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The transportation grid.

• 20:51Irwin Redlener?

  Right. Everything, everything is problematic about it. I'd rather have you have it in your medicine chest, you know, on a shelf someplace so that you have it, uh, available. The problem is, will the insurance companies-

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was about to say-

• 21:02Irwin Redlener?

  -allow you to get this, uh, ahead of time?

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 21:04Irwin Redlener?

  And what about all the uninsured people in general, by the way? Even getting a test is a problem.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a whole other, another, whole other, another.

• 21:10Irwin Redlener?

  Twelve, twelve million undocumented people who are really fearful, legitimately so, of even going to a doctor or hospital because they might get deported that afternoon. So, we have all sorts of social, economic problems that really keep us from being optimally prepared. That said, the majority of people need to do the kind of things we're just talking about.

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why don't, why don't we do what we did when I was a kid, where, when we were kids, we're, we're about the same age, where, you know, someone has the mumps, everyone brings their kids in to get the mumps, and then we're all immunized by our own-

• 21:43Irwin Redlener?

  Or chicken pox.

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or the chicken pox, yeah, so maybe not the mumps.

• 21:45Irwin Redlener?

  Covid party at my house!

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so- No, I'm asking. So, so there, there are some people who had only mild symptoms, and presumably when those symptoms go away, they have an immunity.

• 21:58Irwin Redlener?

  Well, that was the presumption.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 22:00Irwin Redlener?

  But here's the problem. As this virus mutates, uh, you may have been, uh, you know, resistant to getting it again today, but if it mutates enough so it, it, it doesn't really evoke the same immune response in your body.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your antibodies were ready for what it used to look like.

• 22:18Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yesterday, not what it looks like tomorrow.

• 22:20Irwin Redlener?

  So it does like a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible reveal? It was me, the coronavirus, all along. Ha ha! I fooled you, immune system?

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Well, okay. So, yeah, so the worst case is it's, um, it's endemic, it's seasonal, you get it, but you guys figure out a vaccine and we just live with it. Viral medication. And we just live with it.

• 22:46Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah. Which is really what we're doing with seasonal flu.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, when we come back, we're finally going to get to questions that we've solicited from our fanbase on disaster preparedness and the COVID-19 virus. When StarTalk returns.

• 23:12Chuck Nice?

  Hey, we'd like to offer a Patreon shout out to the following Patreon patrons. That's John Mack and Ivan Perez. Guys, thanks so much for helping us put StarTalk on the air. We couldn't do it without you. And for those of you listening who would like your very own Patreon shout out, go to patreon.com slash StarTalk Radio and support us.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic queries.

• 23:48Irwin Redlener?

  Yes.

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're talking about disaster preparedness and viruses, in particular, the COVID-19 virus. I've got Dr. Erwin Redliner. He's actually an old friend, Chuck. I don't know if you knew that.

• 23:59Irwin Redlener?

  I did not.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He goes way back.

• 24:00Irwin Redlener?

  I know it well.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know, he was a friend we had in common by the name of Carl Sagan.

• 24:05Irwin Redlener?

  Oh, wow.

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. He worked with Carl on some humanitarian projects, is that right?

• 24:11Irwin Redlener?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:12Irwin Redlener?

  In fact, he was on the board of the Children's Health Fund, my foundation.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, excellent, excellent. So, good to hear that. And you've been... He's just a good guy the whole time. What do we have to show for that?

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, let's get some questions out here from Patreon members.

• 24:28Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll start with them. Go for it.

• 24:29Irwin Redlener?

  This is Morgan Gillen from Patreon, of course. Do we really need to be so worried about this virus? That's killing less people than the common flu. It seems it's just hype by the media. So, two things kind of baked into that question there.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How much of this is clickbait?

• 24:47Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if I saw a news story that said, "Outbreak in a new place," I'm clicking on it.

• 24:51Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how much of it is just...

• 24:52Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not... I don't want to call it dishonest reporting, but just sensationalist reporting.

• 24:58Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, sort of over-the-top reporting. And, you know, it's really... It's gotten so muddled now in terms of this that it's really... It's hard to know. I would say that we need to be cautious. We need to make sure that the systems are being developed to allow us to prevent and treat this thing. And when there's serious outbreaks, we need to pay attention because we actually don't want to get this. Even though the fatality rate may not be, you know, great, it is a new virus that we can't really treat. And so, you want to do what is appropriate without panicking, as we were talking about before. So you want to stock up in case somebody... You've got to be quarantined. And by the way, that's no joke. If you're told to quarantine, there's actually police authority to enforce that.

• 25:42Irwin Redlener?

  So you want to be able to do that comfortably. But you, you know, we're going to take this sort of every day, every... One day at a time here. But the fact is that paying attention to this is not inappropriate. Going over the top and panicking is not appropriate.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How about domestic travel?

• 26:01Irwin Redlener?

  So domestic travel. I came back from Denver a few days ago with my wife and one of my granddaughters. And one row ahead of me on the other side of the aisle was two guys who were wearing face masks, which got my attention. And one of them starts coughing like crazy and sneezing, lifts up his face mask to blow his nose, blows his nose in a tissue, puts it in the seat pocket in front of him.

• 26:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 26:27Irwin Redlener?

  I, by the way, I, I get up and I go to the purser.

• 26:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you eject him from the emergency exit?

• 26:35Irwin Redlener?

  I said, excuse me, sir, but these guys, you know, and he said, listen, there's nothing we can do about it. I said, are they screened? The guys are walking on the airplane with face masks. Do we check their temperature? Do we get a, you know, were they just coming back from Wuhan and now going from, for some reason, from Denver to New York with us? We can't ask them. We don't know anything, blah, blah, blah. So what we're dealing with, but anyway, the question comes up to me 10 times a day from friends, relatives, family, colleagues. So I personally.

• 27:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get for having the title you do.

• 27:04Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly. I personally would go to most places. Would I go to Seattle? Eh, make a phone call and say.

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though there's only a few hundred cases and there's millions of people?

• 27:14Irwin Redlener?

  I'm just trying to be honest about human reactions. You know, it's like they closed the Louvre in Paris.

• 27:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 27:21Irwin Redlener?

  But that was because the union workers and everything didn't want the thing open. They're not really having a big outbreak there. My deputy, my friend.

• 27:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just looking at the numbers. I'm a numbers guy and I look at the numbers and I look at the, we have 330 million people in the country and all this reaction is to a few hundred cases.

• 27:39Irwin Redlener?

  Correct. And that is over the top. So I would basically go anywhere in the country. I'm just telling you, I'd be a little hesitant to go to Seattle, but, but I, you know, I wouldn't go to Milan, Italy. I would go to Paris. I would go to Madrid. I wouldn't go to, you know, South Korea. Well, Wuhan, we do have reservations, so I'm gonna have to go. No, I wouldn't go to Wuhan, of course. Wouldn't go to China, period. And I think travel restrictions from China are appropriate right now.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, next question. Go.

• 28:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. This is David Hemseth. And he says, I don't expect the following to be read on the upcoming show. It's too long and there's no question in it. And I just wanted to say, David, you're right. So, um, our next question.

• 28:24Irwin Redlener?

  That was cold. That was harsh.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, man.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn.

• 28:29Irwin Redlener?

  And he read the guy's name.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know the name.

• 28:31Irwin Redlener?

  Hey.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just called him out.

• 28:32Chuck Nice?

  What can we say? Uh, this is Matt Harefield who says, according to Dr. Redliner, what is the most important aspect of disaster preparedness when it comes to virus outbreaks? And what is the US currently the best or worst at affecting?

• 28:52Irwin Redlener?

  Ooh. Wow, good questions. And so first of all, let's just start with this. In general, it is always a good idea to be attentive to appropriate sanitation, I mean sanitary, uh, habits, you know, hand washing frequently, um, cleaning off surfaces on places like airplane trays and things like that.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How long does a virus last on a surface?

• 29:14Irwin Redlener?

  A few hours, we think.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:16Irwin Redlener?

  Now, are there some surfaces where it lasts longer than this? Yes, uh, if it's a very porous surface, less so than on a hard surface. But that's variable. But whatever it is, you get on an airplane, I would use some sort of Clorox, uh, infused wipe and I clean off the trays, I clean off the TV screen, I clean off the armrest.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause these are typically touchscreens.

• 29:35Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 29:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:36Irwin Redlener?

  So you don't wanna try not to put your hand in the pocket of seat.

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seat pocket in front of you. With a snot rag.

• 29:41Irwin Redlener?

  You might find a very, very unfortunate surprise, but yeah, I wouldn't put your hand in there.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a quick thing, uh, we have a generation where the gentleman always had a cloth handkerchief in their pocket and would offer it to other people.

• 29:54Chuck Nice?

  Ew.

• 29:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To blow their nose.

• 29:56Irwin Redlener?

  So nasty.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that completely nasty?

• 29:59Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, I would try not to do that.

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. No, no, you look at all movies, they would hand the kerchief.

• 30:07Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, you know, I wouldn't do that. Yeah, but, um, so the second part of the, tell me Chuck again, what?

• 30:11Chuck Nice?

  He said, what are we best at doing in terms of this country? So what, what should we do and?

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In China, they have drive-through, uh.

• 30:20Irwin Redlener?

  South Korea.

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, sorry, South Korea, they have drive-through testing.

• 30:23Irwin Redlener?

  Yes.

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how about us?

• 30:26Irwin Redlener?

  Well, let me put it this way, South Korea's done over a hundred thousand tests, so, tests so far.

• 30:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's good statistics, that's the denominator.

• 30:32Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, that's the denominator. In the US, we've done about 1,200 total. Since this thing began. Wow. So let's start with what we're not very good at, it seems, and I was, I'm surprised by this myself, which is we're not very good apparently at developing the technologies to start paying attention early enough. We completely missed the bone on this. I'm surprised, because this in some ways transcends whoever's in political power at the White House. This is, this is something that through all administrations, we depended upon, really world-class experts in the CDC and NIH and so on.

• 31:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Certain things should at all times transcend politics.

• 31:09Irwin Redlener?

  Probably most things should. Would that be fair to say? Yeah.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just trying to, you know.

• 31:15Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, I know you are, yeah.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But alright, alright, go.

• 31:18Irwin Redlener?

  But anyway, so here we are at a time that we were really, we're hoping for way, way, especially professionals in my field, public health in general, we expected much, much more from the NIH and the CDC and that, those, those parts of the permanent.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that incompetence or is that low budget?

• 31:37Irwin Redlener?

  I.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or both?

• 31:38Irwin Redlener?

  We, it's, I don't think it's incompetence, certainly not at the high levels.

• 31:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:42Irwin Redlener?

  But we may have kind of strangled the ability for the organizations to function as they usually do by, by, you know, by dropping staff or whatever, but, but I'm.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do we do best then? Give me some hope here.

• 31:55Irwin Redlener?

  You know, I was struggling for that.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's just the last time I'm inviting you on the show.

• 31:58Irwin Redlener?

  Alright, fine, fine, fine. Well, the show itself is a source of hope, isn't it?

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 32:03Irwin Redlener?

  There you go, think about that, yeah.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good comeback.

• 32:06Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, man.

• 32:07Irwin Redlener?

  Uh, I guess, what do we do best in terms of this, this kind of viral thing?

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:13Irwin Redlener?

  I guess we're pretty good at communications until we get to be over the top, which is where we're on the verge of right now.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:20Irwin Redlener?

  Uh, on the other hand, we don't know where, where the top is.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Irwin Redlener?

  We don't know that.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the top where the number, the cases stabilize or they drop? What is the top? Do you, will you know the top when you're there?

• 32:30Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, well, the top is when we start seeing spread and we start seeing a serious, uh, persistent diminishing of the number of cases, right?

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:38Irwin Redlener?

  But this morning, hours ago. As of this very date, Dr. Tedros, the head of the World Health Organization, said that, "Listen, no more games here. We got a really serious problem, and we gotta take this as something that is gonna get worse before it gets better."

• 32:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:54Irwin Redlener?

  It's not clear what's supposed to do with that message, but that was it.

• 32:57Chuck Nice?

  All right, so listen, this is Anthony Taylor, and he says, and I read this for a specific reason that I'll attach to the end, "How big or small is a virus compared to an atom or a molecule? With that, the reason why I ask this question, what is the efficacy of wearing a mask when it comes to staving off the transmission of the virus, whether you're transmitting it or receiving it?"

• 33:26Irwin Redlener?

  Right. So viruses are very, very tiny.

• 33:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:29Irwin Redlener?

  And they are much smaller than, say, bacteria.

• 33:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:33Irwin Redlener?

  Neil could probably tell you more about the...

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, we have an exhibit here

• 33:37Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  in the Hall of the Universe

• 33:39Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that has a physical model of a red blood cell.

• 33:45Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, on the next scale, you see the size of a virus, which is like miniscule.

• 33:51Irwin Redlener?

  You can barely see it.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, correct.

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 33:54Irwin Redlener?

  So masks, this has been, of course, controversial, and there's been a rush on masks. You can't even buy one now, but there's two basic kinds of masks. One is called the surgical mask. It is more porous than the other mask, which is what's called a respirator mask, or an N95. N95s are worn by people that are dealing with a lot of high-risk patients. They have to be changed every four to six hours, actually. And they are, they will stop a much smaller particle getting through, but they're also very hard to breathe through. You would have a lot of trouble wearing one of those all day long.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, an actual virus can fit through any mask.

• 34:32Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're talking about a virus that's part of a particle.

• 34:34Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A vapor particle.

• 34:37Irwin Redlener?

  It would have to attach itself to something else.

• 34:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A droplet, a water droplet. It stops the water droplet, and with the virus in it.

• 34:45Irwin Redlener?

  Right. But Neil's point is very important, because if the virus became really aerosolized on its own, it could get through any mask.

• 34:53Chuck Nice?

  Any mask, right.

• 34:54Irwin Redlener?

  So...

• 34:56Chuck Nice?

  So you're still kinda going back to the hygienic techniques that you talked about.

• 35:02Irwin Redlener?

  Right.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  For making sure, for being preventative, taking preventative measures.

• 35:06Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly.

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  You're still getting right back to that, even with the mask and all that.

• 35:08Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 35:09Chuck Nice?

  It really comes down to the obsessive hand washing and, you know, personal space and all these other things.

• 35:15Irwin Redlener?

  Really, don't shake hands with people.

• 35:16Chuck Nice?

  Don't shake hands, touching surfaces.

• 35:17Irwin Redlener?

  The elbow bumps and all that stuff, that's, that's exactly right.

• 35:19Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 35:20Irwin Redlener?

  But, you know, you see people.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why black people never used to get sick, because we always did the fist bump.

• 35:24Chuck Nice?

  That's right, fist bump, elbow bump, right.

• 35:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And ro-hug.

• 35:26Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, see?

• 35:27Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why.

• 35:28Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, that's why he's a known social commentator. Yeah, yeah.

• 35:35Irwin Redlener?

  So, yeah.

• 35:39Irwin Redlener?

  We, we should probably go deeper here, but I want to say something about.

• 35:42Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead, please, go ahead.

• 35:43Irwin Redlener?

  It is useless to walk around the street in a mask unless you have yourself respiratory symptoms. So in other words.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you, it's not to prevent you from getting it, it's to prevent other people from getting it from you.

• 35:54Irwin Redlener?

  Exactly right.

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:56Irwin Redlener?

  That's a, that's a, that's an important point, so don't wear a mask walking around the streets of New York or anywhere else. Um, and, uh, don't even bother trying to deal with a N95 mask. And then.

• 36:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you have on a mask and you want to sneeze, don't remove the mask and sneeze.

• 36:14Irwin Redlener?

  Thank you very much, sir.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neil Grasset, I said M.D., that is my advice.

• 36:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, that's hilarious.

• 36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I'll give you some hope before we wrap this up.

• 36:25Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah, so the hope is that we've now got our act together.

• 36:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think the message is out.

• 36:30Irwin Redlener?

  The message is out, we need to kind of depend on our true experts to tell us what to do. And we need to, you know, pay attention to what's developing. We can hope that, in fact, it will level out and we won't have a major, uh, global, uh, problem. And it'll end up having a fatality rate as low or lower than the seasonal flu. It'll become part of the regular flu vaccines that we get every year and then we'll go about our business. But, um, there is definitely hope, it's just that it's a new thing and people are, you know, obviously distressed about it. And it's a big news story, but, uh, you know, focus on the primaries, I think that's better.

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there you go. Electoral primary?

• 37:06Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, to summarize some of what you said, but put an extra little twist on it. Um, there was a day when we would elect. Politicians who were our leaders and if there was some kind of outbreak or some kind of disaster, you would say, I wonder what my leader says and I will do what the leader tells me. But we're at a time now where trust of politicians is not what it used to be. And so, but we do have access to institutions and expertise through the internet. And so, the politician no longer needs to be the conduit between us and the scientific results.

• 37:44Irwin Redlener?

  And by the way, a good leader, a good political leader can find that balance between complacency and panic and say truth and speak about, with transparency about what we know. Here's what we know. We don't think you should panic. Here's what we need to know and we're looking for it. But in the meantime, do what's precautionary, what's appropriate and, and, but you know, some leaders do that naturally and we can tell that and we elect them.

• 38:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, I think we gotta end it there. Erwin, thanks for coming. I haven't seen you in years. Don't be a stranger.

• 38:19Irwin Redlener?

  Can we fix that? No, no.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, we'll find another excuse to get you back on this show.

• 38:23Irwin Redlener?

  Sure.

• 38:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe for an update in a few months.

• 38:25Irwin Redlener?

  Sure.

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to see.

• 38:27Irwin Redlener?

  Anytime.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we, if it gets worse, we'll want more of you, but so will everyone else.

• 38:31Irwin Redlener?

  And if it gets worse, we'll do it via Skype. Yeah, just don't come over to my house, that's all.

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Dr. Erwin Redliner, the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia University. You're also with the medical school, is that correct?

• 38:46Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a double title there.

• 38:48Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. And Chuck, always good to have you here. Always a pleasure. We're gonna fist bump that, no shaking hands. Thank you. Here we go. All right, no COVID-19 there.

• 38:58Irwin Redlener?

  Yeah.

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been watching, possibly listening to StarTalk, Cosmic Queries Disaster Preparedness Edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.