All right, well both to those live participants tuning in right now whether here or on YouTube and to posterity to whom we address ourselves presuming there is a posterity. We thought we would gather and talk about the state of the coven 19 pandemic and more specifically in what remains of this hour. And the state of testing in the United States, where it's at where it might be going and how to make it better. My name is Jonathan Citrin. I'm a co founder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. And I'm so pleased to be joined by Margaret Bordeaux Beth Cameron and KJ Song. We should introduce each of them and then dive right in so Dr Bordeaux please tell us how you found yourself. Thinking so hard and working so hard on the state of the pandemic. Great to be here. Right, so long story short, but I'm a physician by training I work at Brigham and women's hospital. And I am the research director for the program and global public policy at Harvard Medical School. And in my role there, I started working with all sorts of amazing people outside of health on policy issues around health security. And, lo and behold, I started that job about a year ago and lo and behold, the greatest health security emergency of our lifetimes and of many generations is upon us. So, I, I'm thrilled to be here and talking a bit about it. And I also work with the other colleagues that we have with us today. All right, well that's a good way to pass it over to Beth Cameron. Beth tell us how you came to be working on the pandemic, especially because your top line affiliation at the moment is with the nuclear threat initiative. And I realized that at some point everything is made of atoms but how did you specifically get into COVID. Thanks Jonathan and thanks for this opportunity so I am the Vice President for global biological policy and programs at the nuclear threat initiative, but the nuclear threat initiative was stood up in 2001. As an organization that focuses on nuclear and biological catastrophic risks. So, you know, pre pandemic, my organization and my team, we're working on preventing a future catastrophic biological risk including a pandemic like this one but also potentially a worse pandemic that could emerge naturally or as the result of an accidental pandemic like this is not a lab release or deliberate biological event. The future is becoming now and so my work has blended into working in a, in a variety of ways looking at what we need to be prepared for the next pandemic but also inevitably to be more prepared for the one that we're facing right now. I was working at NTI I was the senior director for global health security and bio defense on the National Security Council staff, and I helped stand up the office. That office and transition it into the Trump administration from the Obama administration in 2017 and so at the moment I'm looking at, you know what what our country has done with this pandemic and I'm frustrated that would be the word I would use to describe where we sit right now. And is that, is that the very office that Ambassador Bolton dismantled. It is. I ran that office and then I handed it over to rear admiral Tim Zimmer a very very capable expert in disaster management and public health. And then it was decommissioned disbanded closed whatever word you want to use a year later in May of 2018. Got it. That seems singularly poor timing in retrospect. And KJ song, the chief of strategy and policy at partners in health. Somebody I know has been working on multi drug resistant TB across the world. How did you find your way to coven. I am a doctor and started working at partners in health which is a nonprofit global health organization based in Boston. That was 20 years ago and have been working mostly on the implementation side of things. So, with a lot of infectious diseases like TB HIV. You know, I tend to be more, I still have that that viewpoint. So more somebody who actually is working within the program and maybe not so much seeing what the policy debates are about. Right now also within is a PI has has a project here in Massachusetts. It's focused mostly on contact tracing. So again, you know, I have that viewpoint. And involved in protocols workflows training of contact tracers and and seeing a lot of, you know, how the epidemic is unfolding here in our state. Got it. Okay, well to get us started, I would just love to canvas each of you and Beth sort of got to start it with a word frustrated I'd love if there's just three words you could use any combination and compound words count as a single word. That would describe your sense of the state either of testing specifically or our response to the pandemic as a country United States generally. What words would you choose. Dr son want to leave us off. About confusion confusion confusion. Three confusions I can guess what the fourth word would be. Dr Cameron. Well I said frustrated that describes me but I guess I'd say for the response frustrating fragmented. And maybe as someone who works on national issues and unified plans disenfranchised and it's not a surprise that all three of those things have an F in them. That's your grade so far as I'm inferring. Dr Bordeaux I don't know if you're going to continue with the alliteration but your three words. Okay, well I'll have a phrase and a word with respect to testing. We sometimes a medicine use a phrase about like how people say oh this is an acute on chronic problem that a patient is having this is a cute on acute problem. The testing crisis is hyper acute and the crisis overall is acute. Just medically speaking when you say acute, you mean have to deal with it now or quickly on set quick. Well, on set quickly and urgent urgent deterioration is usually what we rapid deterioration is what we mean in medicine. I'm sure I would describe for this kind of time in general is reckoning. You know what what we're seeing is really a reckoning on a number of fronts with issues that we haven't dealt with. In the past for a long time, including our public health system being really very feeble, poorly funded strafed of resources, and trying to cobble together some type of, you know, response with very underfunded resources and institutions, a reckoning because of the, this has really, you know, been a profound moment where we're realizing how unequal access to health and resources are in our country and start is being thrown into stark relief. Around our current governance and the fact that it is not going well and it is not capable of mounting a appropriate response to this threat. So, it would be great to describe as crisply as possible what you think an appropriate response would look like on earth prime where somehow the US is doing something differently. What is happening that isn't happening right now or what's not happening that shouldn't be happening. And what difference is it making. I mean that's a way of getting at how much is our current situation just sometimes, you know the cards fall a bad way and things are tough versus with the right planning this could be very different. And I don't know if he wants to start Margaret. Well actually I was going to have Beth start yeah because I think that Beth has spent a long time thinking about what this country's capabilities are should be with respect to a health crisis response. And then, you know, I think KJ also has got interesting perspectives around things we're seeing around the world going right that are not happening here. Got it. Alright well with that agenda, Beth. Well, I definitely don't want to take away from KJ's response but I was going to start by saying, on earth prime, we would be fully capable of doing what South Korea with Germany with New Zealand what other countries have done and it might not look exactly the same way we're a different country where we're a larger and more dispersed country but when you look at the EU the European Union taken in total, and you look at its current caseload and how it's dealing with the coronavirus crisis, the EU is drafting a recovery plan they've actually put it put out a recovery plan. I think that's a really important word because they're recovering they're viewing recovery from this crisis and we're still very much responding in the middle of it we're not even able to focus on recovery so on earth prime, we were are fully capable of doing what they have done and on earth prime I think you know way back in January, we would have been able to know that, you know, as soon as we knew there was an emerging pathogen with pandemic potential that it was already here, because we are so intensely connected to China to Europe to all the transit points that we should have known immediately that there were cases here, and we sort of we should have searched our public health response our community health workers are contact tracers, and ultimately our testing appropriately then, and prepared for a 12 to 24 month period of time where we need testing in a way that we still don't have it in this country so those are just the opening things I would say. So Beth was there always going to be a lockdown. Was there going to have to be given just the size of the country the porousness of the borders and the drama of a decision to shut everything down before you've got community spread how momentous a decision that would be where we pretty much headed for a lockdown period and it's just a question of getting out of it that we've messed up. I don't know the answer to that question I'm interested in hearing from Margaret and KG what they think and I've asked a few people this question and I haven't gotten one. I have I've heard a lot of different answers there. There are people who do believe it was inevitable to do a lockdown of at least a short period of time with the country is dispersed as ours to sort of level set get testing and tracing you know into place and then reopen slowly with those capabilities in place the way that many countries in Europe. But I'm not actually sure whether it was inevitable. I mean we fumbled this so badly in January, February and March that it's really hard to know whether we would have had to do a lockdown or a lockdown as dramatically as we ultimately had to do in March. So I'm interested in in Margaret and KJ's perspective on that from the clinical point of view and epidemiological point of view. So we should throw it over to KJ and get your impression on that question and also here. Is there something specific about testing as foundational to all of this that makes it at the moment, the room of the house that is burning most brightly and most requiring attention. I would just say that I don't know whether this is kind of an interesting first question, you know, it's kind of like a retrospective. I think this is maybe a difference between maybe, you know, a more policy aspect and then implement this aspect I mean, we had the lockdown so it doesn't really matter whether he was necessary. Your answer to that question is could a would a should I got a patient in an acute state right now, and I need to do something so it's fine to gently redirect us to that. I'll just say that I would just say that that there's a lot of, like I see a lot of in policy circles, I do see a lot of South Korea and deep. You know, like, wow, we could have been like, yes, we could have been like South Korea, but we're not. And the other thing though is that, you know, it's not really fair. I mean, they have they had experience right so I think a lot of the Asian countries around China, they had gone through SARS. South Korea had had completely bumbled mirrors and has rolled.  And this was years ago. So in some sense they had been, they've been preparing for COVID for over 10 years. And you cannot. You just can't. There's no way there's there's no without having that experience as a country. I just don't think that it's possible to plan this out and clearly, you know, in, in January and February, even in March here, we just thought that this was no big deal. That what South Korea do it was doing was what wasn't that complicated. So it's interesting to see if KJ and Beth are already disagreeing. It might just be a disagreement about historical empathy, and whether to disagree. We don't I don't disagree with you about the premise that we could have done what South Korea did. I absolutely believe that. But I, you know, we went through Ebola. It was not MERS. We had less cases. But we behaved in such a way and we were the American people were really worried about Ebola and we surged hospital capacity across the country. But even more to the point MERS was absolutely a crisis in South Korea, but we have so many deployed Americans and US forces Korea sitting with, you know, with soul working with soul on the Korean Peninsula, that that wasn't just a, you know, that wasn't only a South Korean crisis. That was a crisis for the United States and the United States government and potentially force readiness. So we should have learned a lesson from that too. And I think we did learn a few lessons from that that we just didn't act on. And so I'm really eager to get into the specifics, whether it's retrospectively in terms of preparation or prospectively with the acute patient in front of us right now. What are the specific things that would point the arrow in the right direction if I'm right am I right in assuming maybe I should take this baseline first from everybody is the arrow in a very bad direction right now or I mean if you're looking just for the record end of July 2020 about to hit August, otherwise known as March 115. And is your sense that things are sort of leveling off even in the hard hit states and if we just hold on everybody will be returning to New England New York status, or do we need some massive change to the way this country is doing things in order for this to attenuate. I don't know who wants to take that. Well, I'll just say a couple of things as somebody who had South Korea and envy, you know, and still do. You know, I think that the thing that I find remarkable and this is you know true anywhere I've worked in the world, you know, you're in a space where, where a public health system or health system just has a ton more assets, you know they're just more organized and yes they're. Maybe they try to deploy one asset it doesn't work you know okay fine you know they put it back on the shelf they get another strategy in place. And that's the thing that's been hard to communicate with people here is how few assets we have to work with. And I think I've you know I've learned a lot from working with kj and partners and health as they've tried to just roll out testing and you know to various communities in Massachusetts. And it's like okay so you know we have to design a testing system that you know people can access but they have to access it through their employer based health insurance to get them to pay for it and they have to schedule you know they have to medical home they have to go to their doctor and they have to go to the hospital. It's just like this tremendous amount of sort of administrative like maneuvering to try to do the simplest thing that other can just call on their community health workforce their public health workforce up deployed we don't have to think about where we're going to get them from there. You have another partnership with this other lab we can just get on that you know they just have a lot more assets that can deploy and we don't have that and we need to get smart really fast about building that. You're conveying so much frustration understandably that it's saturating your bandwidth it's actually sort of fading out a little bit, but I just I wanted to quickly ask to follow up. Is our trajectory one that is about to moderate whether regionally or nationally if we just sort of stay the course, it might be regrettable when you compare our curve to all those other curves of the other countries but basically this thing is going to attenuate of its own accord, or are we in need of some signal change in the way that we are handling this crisis do you have a sense of the answer to that question. This thing does not attenuate of its own accord. In fact, this is one of the most ridiculous errors that were made by the public health people at the beginning of this epidemic is that they saw the occurs attenuating in Wuhan or in South Korea, they say wow there's a natural peak in decline. There's nothing natural about that. That's that's a coordinated intense public health response that is suppressing the transmission of the virus. And you think there's a story in Texas there's a story in Arizona right now which are hot spots at the moment but appear to be leveling off that involves a local public health response there that's helping. So I think it's a confused public health response remember I said confusion confusion confusion. There is panic. There are people who are individually socially distancing and wearing masks and shutting down their their businesses. And this is all this is all part of the public health response. I don't think that you'll have a sharp decline, like you have had it that that is possible when you have a very coordinated public health response I think will be more like the Northeast, which was also very confused. And there are many many other states that are that is version in territory, where the virus is going to explode. So in fact, it's going to get worse. Yeah, I agree with our president is going to get worse before it gets better. And Jonathan you asked about an arrow and trajectory and I would just ask what what arrow like who's shooting the arrow what's the target. We don't have a national set of targets that have been communicated across states. We don't have a national plan or arrow going anywhere we have is a whole bunch of different targets and arrows and people are sort of shooting them around the country. And, and we're forgetting that we're a country where people are traveling in the middle of this and where, you know, not everybody is going to comply so we need to have you know a percentage of the population getting the message in a coordinated fashion so I would say it's chaotic and viruses thrive in chaotic environments and so we're feeding the virus right now with our chaotic response we're making it worse. There's a phrase a joke in medical school where you're learning how to do surgery and you're learning how to control bleeding. And they'll all the surgeons will tell you when you're learning how to control bleeding they'll say oh don't worry you know all bleeding stops eventually. So, right. That's the counterpart to the economists in the long run role that right. So yes, this this shoe shall pass it just sort of matters in terms of what we lose in the passing, whether it's lives with livelihoods. I mean really, the stakes are just tremendous here. I'm, you know, it's their economy the geopolitical stakes in my opinion are very very high. You know, I, there's, there's a lot to lose. And so we do need a major, major redirect, and it needs to happen. So, as absolutely seen as we as we can pull it off. And we, I think we see a lot of sort of yes KJ's mentioning oh well let's just muddle through there's a vaccine on the horizon you know something is coming to save us nothing is coming to save us. We already do have the tools to control this, we just need to implement. And I can kind of walk through, you know, what those tools are. Yeah, hit us up the most foundational tool.  So you have your population based interventions where you ask people to do things like wear masks and wash their hands and stay socially distant and not go to parties where they're, you know, close together so those are kind of what you ask the population to do. And you have the other leg of the stool is your environmental modifications so these are creating environments that where the virus is less likely to transmit so it's implementing ventilation standards and a lot of our buildings it's setting up our workplaces so that people are just automatically distance from each other. And the third leg of the stool is contact tracing and that's finding out who's been exposed to somebody who's been infected and helping them monitoring them to see if they do in fact become sick and keeping them separate from other people and supporting them in that process of remaining separate from others.  If we do those things, we will get control of this. We, and we can do it basically without locking down or any, you know, very draconian, you know, giving up a tremendous amount economically and socially. So if we do those things we can make it and we can certainly make it until we have better therapeutics and potentially a vaccine. And is that assuming a certain low prevalence in the environment where you want to deploy the three legs if it's running wild somewhere. Do you just need like a lockdown to cool it off before you start telling people they should eat outside instead of inside. I think that I think that if you don't have those three things in place, then you lose control of that you have to act with more and more severity and more, you know, and more, more quickly. So yes, I think there is a sense that you know lockdowns become inevitable when you don't have those three things in place and are unable to refine them. Yeah, I would say that I remember when we were above 2000 cases a day in Massachusetts and it was just a total. I mean, doing contact tracing is just crazy.  And now I'm thinking about, you know, 10,000 cases a day in Florida. So it's not, you know, there's nothing that's going on in terms of contact tracing, except for practice, you know, it's good practice, because you're going to get hopefully you're going to get to the point where practices in rehearsal. Well, practice is that you know, you're doing content tracing for the first time. So, you know, because you hired a lot of new people, you've got some some very, very experienced public health nurses, but then you had to hire a lot more people. They need to get trained up and they need to work. And the only way to really do this, learn how to do it correctly is to actually do it. So I think that's helpful. But, you know, yeah, when you've lost your lost control like that, then you just need to shut it down.  And, and then, and then once it's reset, then you can start over. I think there needs to be national agreement on when that reset happens, you know, there's been some discussion about what's the metric for that, you know, is it 25 cases per 100,000 that leads to, you know, the inability to control it even with the three legs of the stool in place. There's been an agreement across state lines that that's what's going to happen and so if New York does it that way but Florida doesn't. We end up in a situation where we just continually are perpetuating spread and so I do think there needs to be a reckoning to use Margaret's word on things like that on a, you know, a shared understanding of what it means to lose control of the virus and what needs to happen. And, and also a really fact based communication with the American people about what that means for how long it might be and what what the American what the government's going to do in the meantime to get back in control and we lost our chance to do that in March, April and May, but we still need to do it. And testing specifically again we just returned to that is the reason that testing is so important, because it's a predicate to contact tracing once I know I've been exposed a test will tell me whether I should stay quarantined, or not, or are there other reasons to be doing sort of sentinel testing or tell me, why is testing so important if we couldn't test would we how far up the creek would we be. I don't know who wants to know. Well, I'll just say, you know, testing is basically the one way we have to study where this virus who has it, and where and where it's spreading. I think it's more fundamental, a problem than losing your contact tracing capability you're losing your eyes on the epidemic.  You know, without a map, nothing else can happen. And that's the testing capabilities are map. That's what's giving us situational awareness. It's what's giving us what's leading planning. It's what's going to drive resource allocation hopefully. And so without that we're just dead in the water. That reminds me of the aviators creed of, I think it's aviate navigate communicate in times of trouble. Like, yeah, like, make sure the plane is not pointing down and then, unless you're trying to get out of stall anyway, and then figure out your map and where you're trying to go. Yeah.  And all of the, the Massachusetts universities are talking about doing surveillance testing. So surveillance testing is, okay, let's just test everybody in a certain population, even if they have, whether that not they have symptoms or not. So, for universities, they're going to have bring back thousands and thousands of college students, they're going to be tested regularly. Plans are have been there. There's a huge amount of activity. People are just running like crazy trying to figure out how this is going to be done. But there's a real commitment there on the part of universities. That is very, very, you know, that tells you what people are infected. It shows you where there are outbreaks. You can roll that into contact tracing. I think that the availability of testing is great for community education. You know, there's something that's very visceral about getting tested and then waiting for that result. If you've ever had any sort of test for infectious disease, it's, I still remember when I, when I, when I, when I stab myself, and I had to get an HIV test. And I remember those days, just for the longest days, when I was just waiting for that. And it makes you think a lot about the disease and how it affects your family and community. It's a great teaching moment for, you know, when we're talking to people. So, you know, it changes also the understanding within the community of how COVID is transmitted. You know, we've had multiple large clusters of largely asymptomatic young people. And those communities now are actually really fine because they know that this has happened before. So, you know, you get, you get a better understanding of that understanding of how the disease is transmitted is, like Margaret says, it's of course is important to policy makers was actually very, very useful for community members to understand. Well, thank you for broaching the question of the colleges reopening, which in mid summer is on a lot of people's minds, including people asking questions in our own q amp a q. I'm curious on that front, you're phrasing it as a really good thing because it's an example of a community being able to create the kind of map that Margaret's talking about. On the other hand, to the extent that you see a lot of testing going on, which I think is in effect privately managed even by a public university it's for a particular community. They're driving the demand for tests, and it sounds like it's not just one and done they're going to be testing students. You know, three times a week or something everybody on campus three times a lot of testing to keep that community to some level of comfort, when that feeds into a national testing system. How, how does it get decided when there's only so many tests that can be turned around in three or four days. Whether it goes to state you or whether it goes to a fish processing plant and their employees or whether it goes to a community at large. How does that get figured out. How does that get figured out in in our in the typical American fashion, which is that an auction, you know, well, you know, the person who pays for it gets it right. That's an ocean. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of the NBA, the NBA style, right. So I think that the NBA bubble, you know, their universities are trying to create this on campus and, you know, some are going to, there are some are going to succeed some are going to fail. The strategy is definitely one that is very much suited to American culture we're going to try to make a bubble, and we're going to try to keep keep the virus out. So no, I don't think that there's, there's, there's a rational distribution of a scarce resource.   It's kind of crazy. And Beth, as somebody who was at the center of national policy making and planning apparatus. Is it basically like it's called the American way, like, let there be supply and demand and, you know, may the best college get the tests and hope that the basketball team doesn't get them first. Is there some command and control kind of thing you want to do. There, there should be a unified plan, there should be, you know, a public health response that is led by the federal government, obviously states have a lot of control and universities have capabilities that they can bring to bear and they're privately owned. So what we're missing is a consolidated plan and prioritization and communicate honest communication about where we are in this movie and the fact that we do have this incredibly scarce resource of testing right now that we know that the two largest commercial communities for testing in America lab corn quest are not able to turn around tests quickly so we're talking about unless you're in the hospital or an essential, you know, healthcare worker you're talking about a seven day a week or longer to get a test result back, which basically means the test itself is interesting from a research perspective but it's useless in identifying where the disease is and how to control spread. How would you prioritize it? Well, how would you start to order it? Yeah, well first I would say we need to know where all the barriers to testing are I mean we know that we have a national crisis but we don't actually know from each state individually where the capabilities and gaps are. We know how each state is currently prioritizing tests. And there should be, you know, a reckoning amongst governors, ideally led by the federal government and the CDC to have that conversation. And we should have had a long time ago but if we vector in using KJ, KJ is good point we are where we are. We're jumping in right now into this movie. And if we're using the best science, is it pretty clear how you would reconcile that resource or is it so values laden as to who should get the benefit of a test or you know, is it pretty clear? It's pretty, well there may be differences of opinion on this webinar but I mean it's absolutely clear that people with symptoms and essential workers, so essential workers, people that have to be at work, healthcare workers, essential employees, people with symptoms. Why shouldn't people with symptoms not get the test but just assume they've got it? So the second thing I would say in Margaret Ray's supported isolation is that we don't have a really sophisticated, not even sophisticated, we don't have a clear way of telling people if you are close contact of someone who has it, or if you think that you have it, you need to be quarantined and this is what you should do and we are going to support you to do that if you can't do it yourself. And sounding then like KJ's point about one of the reasons to do a test is to drive home the seriousness of the issue to a person who ideally would be self quarantining, even if they're not sure they have it and you're just saying like the test would really help persuade them they should do it. I think the ideal situation is that we would have enough testing and supported isolation and not so much circulating disease that we would be able to use those things together. Where we are now is that we do have a scarce commodity so I think it is an important strategy in places like Arizona and Texas and Florida that supported isolation within the absence of a quick test should absolutely be the norm, because even if they're tested they're not getting the results quickly enough. So, but this shouldn't be a Texas only strategy there should be a plan for how we're dealing with this when you get to a certain case load. There's a lot to say, I mean, you know, there, we are, like I said, we're at an acute on acute moment, right. So, where a lot of things are happening to create sort of a perfect storm in terms of driving needs for testing. And one of them is that we're having rising case loads and uncontrolled community spread and some of the most populous states in the country. And so they are trying to, you know, map out who has the disease and who does not. And testing is an important part of that. You raise a nice point that you can actually, you know, kind of maybe sort of do things without real confirmation of testing which is kind of what New England did.  I just want to say by the way when you say oh you're sick stay home you're asking people to stay in a house, not go out ever for 14 days. So this is not like a little ask you know this is kind of a big ask you know for folks. So but anyway, you know you have these tests, the needs for testing these states are growing rapidly. And by on the other side of the seesaw, you have New England and places that want to open up and they want to be surveillance testing so they which is actually a pretty high demand I mean that's a pretty. You want to test large portions of your population twice a week that's like not a little deal that's a lot of testing. And so you have both of these, you know, situations demand growing, and it turns out that we aren't we don't live our lives. In one state it turns out that we are reliant on national and global supply chains and we're reliant on commercial laboratory companies that process. A lot of the states tests, even in New England, the same company quest or lab core processes test from Massachusetts, just like they do in Florida. So they are already prioritizing who is going to get their test and who's the test result going to go to. I think from the hope would be that we would be able to come up with a national consensus on who should get some access to that and to maximize our disease control efforts. And I think the first priority and I don't think it's that controversial to say is you want to be able to test so that you don't crash your health system and infect your health workforce. So that's usually the priority and it is the priority for quest and lab core. You know the second, you know, we can talk about who would be second in line my vote would be testing to break community be transmission lines of community transmission. That would be, you know, really your folks that you know have been exposed and folks that have. That's part of contact tracing. Somebody gets a note exposed. I mean you want test testing to try to break up community chains of community transmission would be the second in my book that would be where I would go. You know there is some debate or should you reserve the testing for folks that are living in congregate care situations and you are testing a long term care residents or people who are incarcerated. You know those those are some value judgments there. I think if we just had any you know sometimes any plan is better than no plan. And we need any plan, you know, because once we have a plan, however flawed it is, you know we can start throwing our weight towards solving for that part of the equation how do we make sure hospitals don't get overwhelmed. We can use PCR testing maybe we could get by with some other diagnostics in that setting. You know, how do we test, you know, folks that wanted to go to college campuses, could we use these antigen tests that have gotten a lot of play recently you know they're cheap and quick and maybe not as accurate as long as you just mentioned you got your PCR molecular testing which is usually when somebody says a test that's kind of what they've been meaning so far in the United States and that's the one that takes a bit of turnaround and where there's kind of bottlenecks on the reagents the chemicals you'd use. Then you mentioned antigen testing which is the strip of paper and in 10 minutes it gives you a kind of reliable answer. Testing why aren't those everywhere right now. Yeah, so I'm going to pivot a little bit to KJ and Beth you might have a better understanding but you know they just didn't have the kind of uptake in this country that that they should have. And I think that they are, you know, they're pretty cheap thing they were around back in January and February, I think people thought well we have a we have a better test which is the PCR test and our systems are kind of let's lean in on that. And so I think it it's sort of has become now like oh maybe this is a better better idea now that we are in such a crunch. Yeah, so should we ask KJ on the front lines and just to bracket it the third type is the serological testing to look for antibodies that somebody might have produced which maybe isn't as relevant and controlling things but KJ for the antigen testing where you're looking for like a little protein that the virus would be throwing off. And therefore could be detected but isn't always, even if somebody's got it. Why don't you have that in your arsenal right now. It exists, there are, there's a couple of FDA approved. I think there's two different ones now. There's actually I know a couple of facilities in in Massachusetts that are using them, but they've come out recently and they haven't been widely used yet, I think that they will be used more. I don't really, you know, just pivoting back to your original question. I don't really think that this is, you know, it's not really a capacity or a technology problem or issue. The problem is that we just have an explosion of COVID in this country. So, you know, you've got multiple states in the Sun Belt, they're just trying to diagnose people so they can put them in the right ward. They're not, they don't have any sort of testing capacity to do anything else, any sort of public health intervention.  So, you know, you can build up your testing capacity, but this is exponential growth. So you're going to have more, unless you actually do something about it.  But I don't think that the current problem right now can be solved until people actually get a handle on the epidemic. There's another question you asked, which is how do you, you know, part of the way to, to try to work towards a more equitable distribution of resources is, you know, it's kind of interesting policy guys, really take a top down view but, you know, we're a democracy. So if, you know, why is it that Brockton public health? Sorry, the Brockton school district, you know, they got 16,000 students there K312. How come they're not getting tested every three days like the Harvard students are. And is that really issued that, you know, I guess it'd be nice that policymakers are thinking about that but maybe community members maybe parents need to start, you know, raising their voices and asking these questions and demanding the same type of resources that our Harvard students are going to get, our BU students are going to get that NBA athletes get. Totally. I mean, a national plan doesn't mean that you don't, I mean, it doesn't mean that you don't set out priorities for kids going back to school and that the kids going back to school that should be the priority shouldn't be K through 12. I mean, I definitely think we should be talking about these issues we should be talking to the massive disparity in our country and where COVID is circulating among people who people of color in our in our society. Those are things that can't that tone does get set at the national level as well as the state and I think rightly a lot of people have put some some comments into the chat. It's not just states it's also you know cities and counties but you know we are a federated society, but the tone gets set from the top and what the tone is right now is that the states get to decide the county level everybody decides for themselves and we're not going to set out specific priorities and when that happens. The people at the top, the wealthiest people in our country are the ones who are going to win, or the ones who are that that's what's going to happen or it's more likely to happen I mean certainly there are states and local communities that are doing a great job. But we're leaving it to them and not setting the tone at the top so kg I take your point but I think policymakers job is to pay attention to those issues. Well this sounds like a little bit the story of the water system in Flint writ large and with something communicable. I guess there's a political or policy question to say, how does Flint get the resources, it needs that if that were to have happened in a different zip code. It would never have happened, but if it did it would be remediated much more quickly and is that somehow a local community thing, or is it trust the White House to fix it. I would say that you know the history of course of multi drug resistant tuberculosis and activism is very much set by the fact that or is very much influenced by the fact that it is a communicable disease issue. And one of the things well we have in our court. In our favor, maybe if you want to look at it as a silver lining is the fact that communicable diseases transmit to other people and to rich people and to people with resources, which is to say a viral injustice anywhere truly is an injustice everywhere if you wait long enough. It's going to be hard to buy your way out is what unless you just pursue such isolationism that you talk yourself into thinking that a problem somewhere else can be. It's hard to find the island and turns out this is going to be one of those stunning exercises and equity because it's not just like oh we're all connected and kind of a spiritual way. I mean we share a microbiome that is going to connect us and so my my thinking is that how this in general will play out is yes there will be a mad rush where the strongest will be able to elbow their, their way to scarce resources.  You know there's still Americans that have to answer to the via and are influenced by the status of the epidemic everywhere. And so, you know, I don't know if you take as a good thing or as a bad thing but I think that the cove it is not here to allow us, maybe to get away with this kind of this kind of lack of laws I fair or let's just see what happens approach. Now we've hit the top of the hour but of course we started a little late due to technical difficulties so if I can indulge a little bit past the hour. Maybe a kind of wrap up question for this installment at least of each of you. And it would be a reminder to those watching and listening about what the name of the game is here in very basic terms is it making sure the healthcare system isn't overtaxed as people inevitably get sick from this until we have some rabbit out of a hat like a vaccine that is then well distributed. Or is it something else like what's sort of the overall picture of where we're trying to go on that map we don't have yet. And this is maybe a different way of asking the question. What's the forward two years from now July of 2022. What's the picture and how much is it still different from July of 2019 I mean how much has the day to day of the life of various Americans been even two years from now will still be different can we if movie theaters are still around walking without a mask I'm curious even two years from now what your vision is on that front so either where are we going on the map or what's it going to look like in two years I'm curious what people think I don't know who wants to go first. I'll jump in. Look we're we're guesstimating here so nobody watching this for posterity can say any of us are well they will be able to say whether we're wrong or not in two years but they'll have historical empathy. They will. So I'll I'll say this I mean I think so first you asked you questions I think one was where do we want to go like what is that we know what is the optimal and endpoint or quasi endpoint here short of a vaccine and a safe effective equitably distributed vaccine and I think we want to be Germany we want to be South Korea I want to have controlled this disease such that it's not gone. There it's still transmitting there may still be hotspots we still have to be vigilant, but we don't have 1000 cases per day we don't have the massive community spread that we have in many states right now. And I think that's totally achievable but in order to achieve it we have to get the three legs of the stool that Margaret so well describes we have to use them and we have to use them in concert with other environment, testing and tracing those are the three legs. Yes, I think rough. Yes, contact tracing testing supported isolation. Yes, reverse testing tracing supported isolation. What am I missing Margaret sorry. Oh well I sort of envisioned those three, you know population environmental and then I just that's a very robust third leg of, you know, testing contact tracing supported isolation on that one leg. Sorry, we all have different legs of different styles analogies throughout this crisis. Thank you. Yes. But where are we going to be in two years. I mean, I hope that where we are in two years is that we have a safe and effective vaccine for this disease that's been distributed will covert 19 be gone in two years I don't think that it will be. I mean I think the history of vaccination programs around the world for other diseases tells us how hard it is to eradicate something so I think covert 19 is here to stay for the foreseeable future. I hope that it's a vaccination program that is not more rigorous than annually but we just don't know we don't know what what the vaccine is going to look like and that will drive whether we go into a movie theater, especially in the winter with or without a mask so I think that's on the table. I think it's on the table that movie theaters and shopping malls won't survive this crisis because of the economic downturn that we're all living in, but I think it's possible. And I think we should should prepare for the world where that that isn't what we what we end up with it if we want a different world, but right now we're not behaving like we do as a country. Okay, do you want to give your prediction. No, I mean I think that's, you know, I think when we have vaccines and therapeutics. By that time, it will make things a lot easier. And I think most people are confident that at that point, you know, you'll still have to do all of these things that we're doing. I don't think anybody in the public health sphere is predicting this is going to be around for years. But it's going to be a lot easier. We're going to have more tools. So we will, you know, I think at that point, we're pretty confident we'll be able to have much better control than we do now. I think the harder issue is in the next six to 12 months when we don't have these things or these things are not going probably more, you know, where we don't have access or enough of these, these tools. When we get to that point, like other countries have, can we have much better control? Can we have much stronger suppression? I think we can. You know, we're obviously failing right now. But, you know, the tool, the playbook is there, the public health tools. The countries are all very effective. And I think that once things get a little worse, then I think there was going to be more appetite to do things the right way. I like your flavor of optimism. I'll say that, like, just to say at the beginning of this crisis, I was really scared to say, like, make a prediction that was too dire. And now I'm a little scared to make a prediction that's too optimistic, but like, I don't want to, I don't know. I don't want to give up on eradication. I don't want to give up on elimination. And I think that if we can crack the governance nut right now, we can come together and have some leadership and a national plan and we execute on it. And with all of our resources and get behind it, I think we could do a really good job. And then I think we'll get a vaccine in here and we'll mop it up. I mean, often, vaccines fail because they have an animal reservoir. You know, that's, in general, that's why, and there's no evidence yet that that's the case here. An animal reservoir is a place where the virus is leading and then jumping over every so often. But we got, you know, I remember when, you know, Ebola was raging in West Africa and, you know, it was so crazy that Jim Kim and the head of the World Bank was like, we are driving it to zero. We're driving it to zero. Now they didn't eradicate Ebola, you know, absolutely. But like, that's where we're going to go. That's where we're driving the bus. Let's get to zero. And then you can tell me how naive I am in two years. Well, we can author a mask. Great way to end. We can check in perhaps in sooner than two years. Many other topics to cover, including complimenting centuries old public health techniques with ones that are months or mere years old or just around the corner like low energy Bluetooth and things like that. But thank you all so much for taking the time to share your thoughts and even to disagree a little with one another. And I look forward to the prospect of reconvening. Very good. And thanks all to those who tuned in. Alright, catch you soon. Thanks very much. Bye.


Bold venture, adventure, intrigue, mystery, romance, starring, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren McCall, together in the sultry setting of Tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean. Magic names of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren McCall, bold venture, and a tale of mystery and intrigue. Mr. Slate, I have... What's wrong, King? You came back empty-handed. And with my dignity bruised in two places. Where, King? Show us. Here and here. Ha-ha-ha-ha. I never lead with your dignity, King, unless you can make the wait. What's the matter? Couldn't you handle him? I think the seafaring man in Room 6 has run amok, Mr. Slate, beating on the doors of our hotel and screaming, I am alive! I am alive! In Haiti, we have an old saying for such. I'm sure you have. All right, King. What's the old saying? King goes so. Seafaring man who run amok in hotel, beating on doors, screaming, I am alive! I am alive! Don't mess with him. Well, that leaves it up to the management.  The seafaring man? Sure. I'll give him the old one and the two. Hasn't failed me yet. Well, you're too eager, Buster. I'd better come along. He's also very clever at throwing things. Remember to duck to the left, he... Don't forget, Slate, to the left. Jolly tie, Pa. Yeah, let's join the fun. Okay, mate, your happy time's up. Jolly day. You sure duck pictures good, Slate.  You clean up at a carnival. I asked you once, real polite, mate. Now, you... Put down that lamp, I said put it down. You did that keen, mate. Now, tell me what you're celebrating. You want to share it, huh? Well, don't get tough. Just come on in and join me in a loud laugh. First, we have to know the joke, mate. Then, if the wind's right, we'll laugh. Well, it's all here in this paper. Go ahead, read it for yourself. Send you a little abner. Well, I chuckled over this two days ago. Well, then half so funny is the obituary, where I'm pointing. Go ahead, read it. Joe Norman Seaman, victim of a hit-and-run accident, was buried today at sea, in accordance with his lifelong wishes of voyager of the oceans. He's survived by his wife, Ethel Norman, of Hibakawa, Cuba. Funny, huh? I'm Norman. I'm Joe Norman. And Ethel's my loving wife. I'm the man in the obituary. Then why aren't you buried? It's a puzzle, huh, mate? Well, look, I'll tell you about it. We're looking. Tell us. Well, four nights ago... Yeah, four nights. Uh, whenever whoever was supposed to be me was hit-and-runned, I was in Banjo's Turkish bath. Oh, you had a bath. So? So they stole my P-jacket and my wallet. It was rolled. But I was too smart for him. A sailor in a van with no money, no P-jacket, and tingling all over from a bath. Takes brains. Pretty brainy, huh, Slake? Brainy enough to take your hotel for a room, huh, mate? Yeah, we're sure impressed. Think a clever fellow like you could find his way home? Sure, but what's there for a man? Ten acres of avocado trees and a wife who's bubbly with joy that I'm dead. I like it here, mate. I like it just... just the way it is. He said him a course, Ele. Let's go see if a wife's got a lamp and a window for laughing Joe here. You like riding with me, Gil? Anything you do, Ethel. Anything you want. If it includes me, I like it.  Much practice, huh, Gil? I've had my share, you know that. Look, honey-dow, we're having a nice time counting your avocado trees. Don't whisper anything to spoil it, huh? Well, a woman wants to be sure.  She's made a mistake in judgment. No mistake, honey-dow. I'll make you the richest grower in Havocoa. I got away with avocados. Maybe I want more than that. Maybe I... Tell me again what you want, Ethel. I'll do my best. My motto? Aim to please a woman like you. Just don't get tired of me, Gil. You'll have to please me for the rest of your life. It's no chore, honey-dow. Ah, the shade. Soft wind off the coast. It's a good place to tell me again that everything's all right. Is there something I can do for you? Oh, would you mind if... Oh, please, please come in, you two. The sun hurts my eyes. Thanks. Well, this is quite a tidy place you have here. All this from avocados? Just thanks, Slade. Next time you pinch an avocado at the fruit market, you might be pinching one of Mrs. Norman's. But don't mind her, Mrs. Norman. A sailor comes in out of the sun. It takes her a while to get accustomed. Well, you're certainly welcome here, both of you. But who are you? I run a hotel in Havana, Slade Shannon. She, uh, her, uh, uh, the sailor de Val. How do you do, Mr. Val, Mr. Shannon? Uh, Mrs. Norman, when did you see your husband last? Oh, you've come to talk to me about Joe? About Joe. He's playing hob with Slade's hotel. Or is it Havoc Slade? Havoc. Havoc. I see. Gil, Gil, come in here a minute. This is Gil Lardner. He owns the next plantation down. Well, what have they wanted? It's about Joe. Joe is dead. Everybody knows that. Joe doesn't. He's a man who'd like to know. What are you talking about? We buried him two days ago. I'm sorry, Mrs. Norman, but how sure are you it was your husband who died? What? Oh, well, you mean because he was so badly smashed up in the accident? I knew him because it was his wallet they found on him. Joe's, and Joe's P-jacket. It could have been someone else. It wasn't. As soon as Joe would hit poor, he'd head for the banjo baths, Turkish baths. And the receipt from the baths was found in his pocket. Joe's dead. I saw him lying there. He was smashed and dead. Gil, wait, please, please, Gil. You heard it. You get fun out of teasing a widow? Get out of here. Leave her alone. Daniel Bueno. Hey. Hey, is that you? Brush this steam away from your face, Senor, whoever you are. It is I. Welcome to the hot baths of Senor Bueno. Grab yourself a hot rock and sit upon it, but gingerly. Tell me something, Bueno. Do you know a man named Joe Norman? Uh, he is chilly in here. A little more cold water on the hot rocks. Hi. Is it not pleasant? Hey, look, Chico, I got a girl outside in the waiting room. She gets panicky when I take too much steam. So talk to me about Joe Norman. Every time Senor Norman comes to port, he seeks my steam for his pores. Let me make a suggestion to you, Chico. Did you roll Joe Norman, steal his P-jacket? Senor. Did you? Would the Senor mind moving his arm again like he just did? Thank you. That is a large arm muscle the Senor has. From beating people over the head with hot rocks. You have guessed it, Senor. Waldo rolls Senor Norman. Waldo in person while Senor Norman was in his very room. Hi, Waldo. Who's Waldo? My partner. Only he has now since disappeared. I got news for you. Waldo is just liable to be dead. What are you saying? At Waldo put on the P-jacket, Tuck Norman's wallet in his pocket and went out and got himself killed in a hit-and-run accident. Buried under the name of Joe Norman. More water on the rocks, Senor. I am suddenly freezing to death. So you come to the police with this fantasy. You do this to warn the cockles and bulls of my heart, Senior Shannon? I do this, LaSalle, because there's something that isn't cricket going on among the avocado trees and hibacore. If it also warms the things you mentioned, I'm happy about the whole thing. Tell them about the Turkish bath slate, which reminds me, I've often wondered what goes on in the men's dorms in a Turkish bath. You sit on hot rocks, then what happens? Glad you put the question, Sailor. Then what happens is a man named Joe Norman gets rolled of his P-jacket and wallet by a poor steamer named Waldo who evaporates in the thin Havana air. These I have told you. The man Joe Norman is dead.  The man is dead. He was buried at sea. Correction, he's not dead. He threw a picture at me. Maybe it's Waldo the poor steamer who's dead. Maybe it's Waldo... Not Waldo. Joe Norman was buried at sea. His wife asked for permission to do so. We gave it. She identified the body to our satisfaction. You will go away now and stop tickling me with childish fairy tales. Correction, we go away now, but we bring you back, Joe Norman. Come on, Sailor. Coming. Bye, Losalzi. Stay open for another tickle. Come on, Sailor. Well, I don't know if I should. I just don't know, Sailor. What are you talking about? The places I've been today. An avocado farm, a Turkish bath, police headquarters. Is there a girl in all Havana who can say the same, Sailor? Golly, I'm lucky. Golly. Before we throw that guy in room six out into the street, how about telling me a thing? Certainly. Slave Shannon, I think you are kind, loyal, trustworthy, obedient. I'll cut it out with you. Just tell me who registered him. You are King Moses. Me. Get the register. Let's see how he signed his name. He signed it Admiral Perry. What? Only he didn't sign it. I did. He was laughing and happy and had his arms loaded with... Come on, old Perry. The one at Lake Champlain. Not the one who reached the North Pole. Aren't you going to knock? Hey, look, Cluster. Wake up. You're getting out of... Sailor. Let's have a look. I don't want to. Knife in his back. Dead. You got a bright remark for the occasion, Sailor? He's on laughing cause he wasn't dead. Fear knifing back pinned him to his bed. In Havana, this cause quite a sensation. Question, who is killer by avocation? And while Mr. Slade, he and such a big gither. Lady Sailor, as usual, her face say, Come hither. Yeah, why don't you, Slade? Why don't I want? Come hither. She said he wasn't her husband. What's he talking about, Lady Sailor? Who knows? He constructs his paragraphs very badly, King. Don't you understand what I'm saying? She said he wasn't her husband. Mrs. Norman did? That's right. I was at the morgue when LaSalle brought her in. She looked at the sailor who was stabbed in room six. All she did was shake her head, no. Well, that's what I would do if a man weren't my husband. Me too. And why not? The boy who owns the Turkish bed says he wasn't sure whether the man was Joe Norman or not. How can that be possible? Many things are possible, Mr. Slade, or impossible according to which team you're on, according to how you were feeling at the moment when a situation arises which could be possible or impossible according to... You tell him, big boy. You didn't let me finish. You finish, King. You too, Sailor.  You're going to do it again, Slade? You're going to try to figure this out in your mind? You heard what I said? Out. Stop it, Gil. I annoy you, don't I, Ethel? All right, all right.  Sitting on your veranda, rocking in your husband's rocker, sipping in the moonlight? You enjoy me, don't you?  Gil, you killed two men. That makes me twice as devilish, doesn't it? First a little nobody in Waldo. Darling, honey, I thought he was Joe. He was wearing Joe's PJ. And dressed like Joe came out of Bonyos. And when I saw Joe this afternoon, stabbed it, stretched out in that moor.  Lousy fruit. Don't you think an avocado is a lousy fruit, Ethel? What do you want, Gil? Let's sell out. You and me. You collect on Joe's insurance and we'll get out of here. What do you say, honey? I like that, Gil. Ethel? What?  I wish you would, Gil, please. Please sit beside me. Oh, I love you. Because I killed your husband? Sure. That's why, isn't it? You figured it, and you're going to let the cops handle it. And you're comfortable. Us late? That's an ifty idea you had, sailor. Bring the ironing board out to the patio so you can press my shirt in comfort. So I look dapper when I go calling on Mrs. Norman. You get one avocado stain on it, so help me, and I'll make salad out of you. Hey, watch the shirt front, sailor. You're burning it. St. Midriff, it's the latest thing. You'll be the doll of the... Sir, your slate channel? Hand me that shirt, sailor. Come off it, slate. The lady seemed gentleman and strapless T-shirts before. Haven't you, lady? You see, but never a gentleman with such skin you look with such shoulders. Good to business, my card. I've had the sun in my eyes. You read it to me, lady. It says Lolita Nueva, insurance investigator. Available at all hours. Hmm, says all that, huh? I don't carry much insurance, Lolita, but I bet I could dig up some for you to investigate. Hey, sailor, you're burning that collar. You're longer. She's local, no? She's crazy, no? Yeah, I get my work done cheaper that way. Let's go somewhere and investigate, hmm, Lolita? Ah, ah, you will investigate, Senor Shannon, alone. Let us say for 2% of $100,000.  That's $2,000, slate. Well, that's more... That's the fee my company would pay for a discrete investigation of Ethel Norman because of the $100,000 in insurance we paid to her on her husband's date. You, uh, accept big shoulders? Hand me the burnt rags, Ella, for 2 grand I'd investigate Congress with my slip showing. See you again, Shannon. Looking for a buy an avocado? I want to talk to Mrs. Norman, I... What about? You can tell me, I run things for her while she sleeps. That's a nice arrangement. I like it. She likes it. All the time, husband Joe was at sea, sending in the paychecks to buy the seeds for more avocado trees to retire on. All that time, I brought the sunshine into Ethel's life. Now, you know. Joe know about all this? Ethel and me? Well, we didn't want to worry him with it while he toiled. I was going to tell him, though, when he got back. Poor guy. Run over. Kill.  It's time for me to go wake Ethel.  I'll wait for her. No, you won't, long nose. The gun pointing at your collar button says you won't. Yeah. Mm-hmm, yeah, it sure says that all right. Bye, pal. Nice avocados you raised here. Taylor! Taylor, where are you? There's a draft. How did you make out of the avocado plantation? Put your shoes on, Taylor. We're going talking to LaSalle. Then we're going to the insurance company and collect $2,000. For that, I'll wear my high buttons.  Well, come on in, Mrs. Norman. You can take a walk with it. We were just going to see the police. Gil told me he wouldn't let you see me, Mr. Shannon. I came here to tell you why. I think she wants to tell us she killed her husband, Slade. It's cruel, the whole thing is cruel. That's a good word. Let's use it for the death of Waldo. Who? You know who? A petty thief who helped run a Turkish bath. Goes like this, Mrs. Norman. Waldo stole your husband's coat and wallet. In the dark, he was killed by a hit-and-run driver by someone who wanted your husband dead. By you. For his insurance. Oh, no. It wasn't like that. That's why I'm here. I'm frightened. That was your husband who was stabbed, wasn't it? Yes. Yes. Gil killed him. After he found out he'd made a mistake. After he found out he'd killed Waldo instead. Listen to me, will you? I'm frightened. Don't blame you, the police. Oh, none of them. None of them.  If I were you, I'd be scared of the police. It's Gil. He's a killer. He enjoys killing. He enjoys it and sometimes he looks at me. I need your help the way he looks at me. Let's go ask him what he sees. If you look up from that paper, Gil, you'll notice company. Oh, you too. Don't bite your lip, Gil. You're dreaming the whole thing. What's this all about, Ethel? Come on, honey. What are you trying to say? She's making an honest effort to say you're a killer. Oh, that's what, huh? That's right. You killed Waldo, mistake. Then you stabbed Joe Norman and my hotel. No mistake. Reason? A widow with avocados and a hundred grand. Did she tell you I didn't mind doing it either? Something like that? That's why I can't get dreaming about pointing this gun at you. You really don't have to do that. Slate's not finished. Rush me, Shannon.  Yeah. Yeah, exactly that. Ethel. Ethel. Crazy woman. Crazy. Gil. That's good. Gil's dead. It's good. He needed to be dead. Sure. Sure. Give me your gun, Mrs. Norman. Take it.  You know that, don't you? That's your version. I've got another one. Shouldn't we call the police and report this? Gil's dead, you know. He'll stay that way. Let's just talk about him for a while. About the promises you must have made him for killing your husband. Gil's share of your husband's plantation, your husband's insurance money, things like that. You're crazy. I just saved your life. What are you talking about? Gil told me he never saw your husband. He didn't. He never did. Of course he didn't. So you had to tell him how your husband dressed, where he would go so he could find him and kill him. Slade, watch her. Get away from that window. No, you don't. Did you think I was going to jump? Did you think that? Now let's go, Mrs. Norman. No, wait. Look at it. What was? Dawn. Isn't it beautiful? It's the beginning of a new day. It's time for wishing good things. Want to know my wish? Won't come true if you tell us. I know. Won't anyway. What is this? I wish there was some way, some way it would, it would make my new day a happy one.  Come on, Mrs. Norman. Let's go. $2,000, Salier. Look at it. Are we going to run barefoot through it, Slade? Uh-huh. We're just going to count it and count it and count it. That's why you made the insurance company pay off $1 bills, huh?  Take a handful, Salier. What do you need a bucket full for? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. I got the list right here. Let's see. $1,996. How many candlesticks did you buy? What are you screaming about? You've got $4 you've never had before. Go ahead, take the $4, too. I'm happier when I'm broke. Carefree, happy, devil may care. Vagrant is the trade wind. Come here, Vagrant. Did you like that? Spiffy and smooth. And how was that one, Vagrant? Vagrant, huh? Come here. Oh, I just found a home. And so our two stars, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, have brought to a close our latest bold venture story. Special music was composed and conducted by David Rose. May we invite you to listen again next week at this time for another exciting adventure starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, together in bold venture.


I'm listening to streams because their sound can tell us a lot about how stream ecosystems function. And this is important because streams provide a lot of ecosystem services to us humans. And many of these services are limited by how fast gases can exchange between air and water. For example, oxygen needs to end the streams in order to improve water quality, or greenhouse gases can evade and that would affect climate warming. Now the magnitude and controls of air with the gas exchange, they are poorly quantified, mainly because our methods we use today require a lot of labor and time. Now we developed a new method that is based on the sound of flowing water. So we record the sound of streams above and below the water surface. And this is based on the idea that the processes that drive air-water gas exchange, including turbulence and bubbles, are also the processes that characterize the specific sound of streams. With lab and field experiments in northern Sweden we were able to find a good relationship between air-water gas exchange velocities and characteristic sound signatures. And we were even able to start disentangling the different processes that drive air-water gas exchange. With this new method we will be able to collect a lot more data than previously and this will improve our understanding of stream ecosystem functioning.


Welcome to Digital Asset News to get top stories in crypto and a big amount of bite-sized pieces. So today it's all about Cardano and what is going on. So first up $30 billion worth of a Cardano has over 70% of the supply staked ahead of the major upgrade. The major upgrade that we're talking about is smart contracts. So we'll take a look at what is going on as top of how that actually compares to the other top cryptos that you can stake and earn yield. So we'll take a look at those types of things. And then we'll take a look at just how much is actually locked up as far as a theorem goes because that ETH 2.0 side is just one part of the story. And then I'm gonna go through real quick about how easy it is to actually stake Cardano. And to me, it perplexes me as to why people still haven't staked their Cardano because it makes it so simple. Never even leaves your wallet. There is no slashing rewards. You can delegate, undeligate. And I'm just gonna show you like in two minutes how easy it is. And then I'll also take a look at a bit of a charity, which is one of the promises that we have here at DNews. So we'll take a look at all those things, but first take a look at what's going on into the market. So today it is 5th of July. It's kind of like a mini holiday here in America. A lot of people are off, but I'm still working. That's just how it works, how it goes. And today the market's working as it gets a little pullback, a little dump, whatever you want to call it. And the market cap is at $1.4 trillion. So today's a red day. You know, usually it was the weekends and now it's migrated to Monday or Tuesday. And that's fine. I don't really care. The daily swings back and forth, not a big trader. So if we're at $1.4 trillion and things are in the red, whatever, it is what it is. So let's just do this and break into this story about how 70% of Cardano has actually staked. So this is a good one from CryptoGlobe. And it just pretty much lays it out very simply. It said, look, according to PoolTool, and a lot of different other information sites out there, almost 72% of ADA's circulating supply is now staked across 2,600 plus pools. DNews being two of them. A total of 672,000 addresses are staking their funds in Cardano. And it does fall up and say, look, even though there's a lot of things being staked as far as Cardano, because in my humble opinion, they really made it so simple to do. And I'm going to show you how easy it is. I just don't understand why that 70% is staked. Why isn't the rest of it staked? Because all this is just a couple of clicks of a button. Anyhow, a theory you have to remember, they're still trying to roll up the E2.0, the proof of stake work, maybe another year or so. But you can still stake it. It's just that you have to be made aware that it leaves your wallet. It's in these providers. And if they're not up and they're doing some kind of nefarious, you're going to get slashing rewards or you're going to get your rewards slashed, excuse me, which means they're going to actually be reduced or completely taken away. And it's a little bit cumbersome. And when I went through the whole rigmarole of that, I was like, nope, I'm not doing that. I just keep my Ethereum on either my ledger or on three or four different exchanges just kind of scattered around. That's how I do things. But there is $12 billion. Solana has $10 billion. And Polkadot just over $10 billion as well as far as like $10 billion worth. And I think this will actually increase as time moves forward and people can understand that, hey, I don't have to do all these like selling and trading and different things.  I can secure the network and I can stake it and make a lot of money. The amount staked on Cardano has been rising ahead of the long servers. Of course, in August, we're going to see some smart contracts. And this leads me to a couple of points. First of all, this is just a great website called Staking Rewards. You can take a look at this exact same statistics that we took a look at. You can also find this here as far as like, you know, let me pull this over so you can see it. The total staked section right here, you got 70% Cardano with theorems only five. Solana 67. That's pretty good. Really good. Polkadot. I'm waiting for Mike, the investor to make that video for me so I can figure out how to stake Solana. Algorans 51%. Binance Smart Chain 59. 70% for Cosmos. Holy smokes. And then Avalanche running at the top 10. But there's more if you want to view all the assets. I just don't have time. So, I mean, it's making a lot of sense is like, you know, why people want to stake because it's just, you know, it's just a multiple streaming revenue and pretty easy stuff. On top of that, the question then becomes, well, well, if it's only 10 billion that's locked up in the staking, what about the rest? Where is the other stuff? Well, you gotta remember though, is that Ethereum is crushing it as far as DeFi. Everything's built on Ethereum. All the developers are working on Ethereum, not all of them, but I mean a lot. And they're way ahead of everybody. So you have to look at the total value locked in DeFi is 54 billion. Then the question is, but these are different projects, Rob. Well, that's true. But you have to understand that I'm gonna blow this up again so you can see what I'm doing. See where the, for Ave, it's a multi chain. Curve is, the chain is Ethereum. Instadap, Ethereum Makers, Ethereum Compound, Ethereum Uniswap, Ethereum, all different chains are based on built on Ethereum. You can just, there's a lot. I mean, that's it. It's all Ethereum. So when people talk about, you know, these Ethereum killers, yeah, it'll take a lot to kill Ethereum because it's here. First move advantage, there's debates about that, but I still think it's going to do well. And that's why I hold Ethereum and Cardano. And I don't really care which one wins because, you know, I'm just, I'm just here to be the cheerleader and just to give you the news. That's the big thing. But people will say stuff like this. They'll say, well, Rob, why are you even in the Cardano? Because there's nothing on it. It's vaporware. It's a ghost chain. Nobody builds on it. And it doesn't do anything. Well, ghost chain is debatable and no one's built on it is untrue. We've seen a lot of different products being launched. One of my favorite ones, World Mobile Token and Meld coming out. So things are being built on it, but you understand Ethereum's like way ahead. That's why this is all speculation. All this stuff is speculation. So you just have to understand that, yes, this is what is going on. And yes, this is, you know, it's a long play in all honesty. So all these rewards that we're talking about really is just what you can actually get into it. So that's the whole part of it. I think around do well, especially with smart contracts coming up. So let's talk about this. How do we stake? How do we actually do this?  So here's my Daedalus wallet. So just so you know, you can use Daedalus, Yoroi or Adelite. Adelite and Yoroi, you don't have to download the whole entire blockchain, which takes a long time. But Daedalus, you do. I just like Daedalus because it's really easy to use. And I have my, my private keys. I do have to download the whole chain. It takes a little bit of time in the beginning. But once you start it up, it only takes a couple of minutes after, after that. So see on the left hand side right here, we got, that's my new wallet I made just for this video. And I put in 100 ADA. And then on the left, also the left hand side, you got these, there's like this little cube looking thing. Then you got a little voting icon there. If you click on that, you can vote on things. You have to download an app. And so, and then of course the settings right here. So what I'm going to do, let me minimize this just a little bit, is I want to show you the stake pool. So on the left hand side, if you want to delegate, this is how it is. You just download Daedalus and I will link that in the description. You just, you know, as you go to a specific website, IOHK Daedalus, very simple. Download it to your computer, PC Mac, whatever else. You open it up and then, you know, you can, you send over your ADA in very simple way. And then if you want to delegate, this is how easy it is. So see, we've got that, where is it here? On the left hand side, little cube looking thing. So let's search for a stake pool itself, right? Well, I'm very biased. So I'm going to look for DNews. There it is, DNews. And then we can click on that and we can, we can delegate. But let's just say, like, that is, that makes sense, right? DNews. But how about this? Let's go, let me look for Hash, like, like Hashoshi's stake pool. If I put in Hash, there's Hash, H4H, Quark, M Hash. Well, how do I know which one is actually Hashoshi's? Well, if I click on the Hash one here, it says the perfect visionary chrono stake pool Hash, I don't know what that is. That doesn't make sense. And then Hash 575. Okay, this one's the official Hashoshi stake pool as seen on YouTube series CryptoverCoffee. And then there's his website. So okay, I'm going to delegate to this pool. And it's going to ask me, okay, first you got to do your wallet, then you got to do the stake pool and delegation confirmation. Okay, continue. So I'm going to choose my wallet, click on that. And I'm going to click on continue. And then it says right here, you have selected H4SH to delegate to New Dan walks. I've got 100 whopping 8n there. And then it says you this, or select the stake pool from the list of all same votes. I don't want to do that. I've already picked the one. I don't know why it does that on a second time, but whatever. So I'm going to click on continue. And then there's a fee 0.16. There's a deposit fee of two eta. Just so you know, and I'm going to do my spending password, super secret key here, something like that. And I'm going to click confirm. Great. And the state from your wallet, Dan new wallet is now delegated to the Hashoshi stake pool, your new delegation preference. And I'll post it blah, blah, blah. I'm going to close that. So now as you can see, I'm delegating to three different state pools and different wallets. I delegate to my D news one, obviously. And I got hash and then meld, which we already talked about why that is. So yeah, on our side, we have our different wallets. Here's the summary. I got 107 eta. I already sent two over just a little bit ago. And let's see 180 was already put in. So yeah, so I've got that. I've also got a thousand and 12 tomato coins in here. Watch out. And then I can send it to anywhere I want to just paste an address, whatever criminal address that it is. If you want to receive all to get to do is just come over here to receive, you click on share. And then you click on copy the address. And then you put that into whether you had a Coinbase or Voyager or sell or wherever you have it. I don't know, you don't have on Celsius yet. Wherever you have it, then it'll actually be sent over to this wallet. This is send and receive. And then, of course, you just delegate like we just talked about. So super simple. And if you're looking at if you're looking at for something like like super duper easy, just to like, you know, talk about how this actually works, all you got to do is I got this great website. It's called danteachescrypto.com. And in all of my videos, like this one right here, if you scroll down, it'll say like, it'll say Dan Cardano Steak Pool right here. It's got this big blue diamonds. And there is a, you just click on that. That'll take you to my actual website.  It's about 20 minutes or so. And it'll go down to like how you stake the very basics, why it is, how it is, how we compare and everything else. And of course, all the different epics that are and how that all gets paid out over time. So check that out. And then lastly, I just want to make mention of we here at DNews, which we try to do is, is do charity because, you know, you want to do good, want to do well, right? Do well, then do good. So for Kiva, it's giving micro loans to different people throughout the globe to help them out. And what's great about that is that it's not just like charity where you don't know, like it's just a black hole and just disappears. They actually do payback. So over time, as we keep making these loans of people, we'll get bigger and bigger. And we'll keep making the loans and it'll just be a big snowball effect. So who knows what we'll be in like 10 years. Pretty cool. So if you sign up, we have a team, Digital Asset News team. Again, there is a link, let's see if I can find it here. It's a little bit too big, but help others through micro loans, why I recommend and give. And I talk about why I give to Kiva. And here's the link for the actual group or Dan group over there. And then when you go in through Kiva and you sign up, it's going to just, it's going to ask you like, well, how do you want to do this? And you can sign up for the Digital Asset News team. And we've got 120 bucks back. That's pretty good. And we've already, gosh, we've already given almost 1600 bucks. And then when you go through the loans, you can just pick who you want to give your loans to out. And then of course, they do a little micro loans back. So what I try to do is find the ones that are going to make the biggest impact. So I just scroll through. I go, I like these ones research loans with research backed impact.  And what it like, some people are like, Hey, we just need, you know, more seeds for a farm. And that's our industry. Okay, well, I can get behind that. Or we need more textiles for this small business that we have in our village. Great, I can give that on hand that. So today, I'm like four weeks behind, we try to give 100 ADA every single week. And so that would be like 600 bucks. So because that like eight is like $1.40. So what I did was I just went through and I just gave to these one, two, three, four, five, actually six for 100 bucks each. And there's the order confirmation and it goes to them. And again, I think over time, it'll do pretty good stuff. It's just just takes a little time to get the ball rolling. And then maybe if you want to do something like that, go right ahead. But if you donate to DNews or stake with DNews, that's what we do. So look, that is it. And I want to make mention, oh man, I forgot to do this. Last thing is grayscale. So yesterday in the video, we had talked about the grayscale Bitcoin trust that was going to be an unlocked schedule. I didn't explain myself the best way possible. So just so you know, for grayscale, grayscale never sells their Bitcoin ever. It is just it's like an ETF without being an ETF, which makes me wonder what's going to happen when an ETF actually gets approved, which I think it actually will be soon. So this unlocked period is where all the people that invested into Bitcoin, this trust, they're able to to unlock and then realize their gains and then sell off the shares of the Bitcoin trust. And that's really all it is. But it does create pressure. There's an arbitrage opportunity and all this great stuff. So sure. But to me, it's not, it's another one of those small time things that are just it's going to affect the market. Could be major, could be small, but in the grand scheme of things over the next five to 10 years, not a big deal. And you're going to see maximum amount around 18 through 20 July. And then once August hits, I think that's what we're going to see most of the fireworks. So that's it. Didn't explain it well enough. Sorry, but I try to get it right. And that's it for today. So look, if you made it all the way in, thanks. Appreciate it. Also look for all those links in the description. Give the video a like if you liked it. Consider subscribing. And that's all for today. Thanks so much. See you on the next one.


A man behind a great new book and it'd be a fantastic collection to have in any library because it celebrates the native woodland diversity of Donegal and what it does is it gives us an insight into the history of our woodlands and also recent conservation developments and it profiles our woodland trees and also 28 woodland locations and all within the book a very colourful, very informative and I'm delighted now that Sean O'Geehan joins me in the studio. Sean. Good to be here. Good to talk to you about what is a great book. I'll hold it up to the camera there just so we can see it online as well. This didn't come together in a few days. No it was probably something that I was kind of had as an idea for a long time and then luckily I have a good working relationship with Joe Gallagher, the heritage officer in the county and it was really out as a result of a conversation with him that we came up with the means to put something like this together so that's great. So it's a kind of a collaboration between National Parks and Wildlife Service who are my employers and Donegal County Council so you know National Parks and Wildlife Service they run Glenvay National Park. That's the big thing in Donegal I suppose. Okay is that when you say that you're employers your role is? I'm the head gardener at Glenvay Castle. Okay. Yeah so plants is my thing. Yes obviously. Well there's more than plants because you put together a great book here. Now it looks to me like it's a labour of love and it looks to me like it's a sort of book just couldn't be put together if you didn't have the funding because there's a lot of photographs in here and there's a lot of information in here but it's done in a very accessible way so you know even as a flick through it's accessible. Yeah good that's really what I wanted to try and produce and I have to give credit to Monica in Brown Printers in Lettercanny who I worked with on the layout so really it's you know Brown Printers were fantastic and Monica who was doing the layout on the book they really did a fantastic job with the whole production side of things I just told them what I'd like to have and they put it together so that's also is a very important thing so I managed to get the time to go and visit a lot of these different woodlands there's so there's the my main motivation was to really raise people's awareness like that Donegal actually has some of the most beautiful native woodlands in the country like that's just a fact when we think about trees we tend to think about no trees yes yeah yeah not necessarily Donegal yes it is a strange anomaly nearly yeah so what we do yeah there was a survey done of ancient woodlands in the country back in 2006 and they discovered they documented all these tiny tiny little patches of woodland all over the country and then the larger ones the more significant ones were highlighted particularly as what they called Candidate ancient woodlands and that would be where there's evidence like map evidence for example that these woodlands existed in the 1600s for example so they've been around for 400 years so Glen Bay the ancient woodlands in Glen Bay is an example of that so that is the reason why they're so important to conserve you know because they're the originals they're the original inhabitants of the landscape you could say they're a very precious part of our biodiversity and they're also one of the rarest kinds of biodiversity we have because unfortunately we've cleared our native woodlands for agriculture and we did that a long long time ago so we can't really even blame the English although the English get blamed for cutting down our trees and all that kind of stuff most of the deforestation that happened in Ireland happened in Bronze Age times so like pre-Christian so for agriculture yeah so what survived are these tiny little fragments in remote locations and it just so happens that Donegal has some of the finest examples it could have something to do with the kind of rough terrain the inaccessibility of some of the places in Donegal like Glen Bay and they just left the trees there and said listen they survived they're too difficult to cut down that's all it's in such an awkward place that they just couldn't get at them and like all the anywhere where the ground was level enough that they could make into a field they did so it's really only on the very rough steep slopes in a few remote places do you find these ancient woodlands so they are you know it's it's I suppose the other thing you could say that has what's happened in the last 20 30 years since the 1980s so that's nearly more than 40 years and there's a growing awareness of the important of the importance of the conservation of these woodlands so a number of these woodlands that were under different kinds of management were taken on by National Parks and Wildlife and now their nature reserves so you have a really beautiful example just out the road here from Leverkenny at Ballyar towards Milford and that's a beautiful native woodlands that a lot of Leverkenny people discovered during Covid especially when there was nowhere else to go except locally and it's an absolutely shining example of a really really high quality native oak woodland so I wanted to kind of give as much information as I could about the kind of history on the one hand but also the biodiversity that you would experience if you go into these places so taking lots of images of the woods at different times of the year and just I wanted kind of maybe people to see that maybe they could do this themselves it's a great way of actually learning is going and just looking and seeing what's there well if anything gives you appreciation for our woodlands it'll be this book because there's the overviews of many of these woodland areas there's then pictures of the trees that you write about and up close pictures as well of you know the flora and the fauna and the trees and even shrubs and edging and yeah it was actually brilliant going around and looking at some of these woodlands there are included in the in the profiles there's are a couple of places where the native woodland scheme which is a recent program run by the Forest Service to encourage landowners to do conservation work on their woodlands to protect the native woodlands so for example it might be fencing them or removing rhododendrons there's a lot of problems like that with invasive species so there's a fantastic example just outside of Rathmullen a place called Glenala where about 20 years ago they they did the native woodland scheme there and they completely cleared their woodlands of laurel and rhododendron and now there's this fantastic regeneration going on so you can actually see the woodland starting to heal itself and recover so that's an amazing example of an old woodland that has been rewilded you could say but also it's been kind of healed and helped restore itself and then there's another profile of a woodland over near Riffau of a new woodland planted by Rayford and Shepard who are very well known naturalists in the county they planted some of their farm really good east Donegal land with a whole load of native trees and now they have this beautiful native woodland 20 years later and that's very interesting to see how native woodlands develop you know in places where they would have been cleared a long long time ago so there's a combination of profiles in the book of existing nature reserves lots of woodlands that are actually in private hands that are important native woodlands that are you could say you know we we don't really know how well they're going to fare out because they're maybe not necessarily protected by any particular legislation or any particular scheme so actually the majority of the native woodlands in the county are not protected it's only a small amount and the good news is that the good examples like Glen Bay like Balear and there's another fantastic woodland in South Donegal and Loch Esk called Ardenamona that's an absolutely beautiful native woodland probably the finest of the native woodlands would rate in the top 10 in the country easily. Is that above the turnoff for Harvey's Point? It's just after Harvey's Point yeah on the lake there yeah just go on past Harvey's Point it's there and it's got amazing things going on there because the woodpecker has returned and the red squirrel has returned so there's actually really good news happening in our native woodlands where nature is starting to recover and bounce back and that's a combination of all the conservation work that's been done to date and also changes in landscape use as well so like probably for example around Loch Esk it's much more forested than it was 50 years ago a lot of those plantations are conifer plantations which are not necessarily fantastic for native woodland but they're really good cover for ecology so they're really good for squirrels and woodpeckers so they benefit yeah from more woodland. You say that some of our woodland areas are in private ownership but there's plenty where we can go and wander and you know appreciate the trees around us and maybe in one example but do you know others as well? Yeah so there are woodlands all over the county some of them managed and run by Quiltia so up on the Inichon Peninsula there's a beautiful woodland called Listen the Gra just outside Moff and it's only really local people seem to know about it but it's an absolutely beautiful uh high stand of beach and and scott's pine it's planted yeah it was planted probably 300 years ago but it's full of biodiversity so that's that's a fantastic location there's also another amazing native oak woodland just outside the town of Cairndonna called Croc Nequilidara which translates as the hill of the oak wood so and then you know down the east of the county it's a little bit more difficult to find somewhere to go walking but people do there's a place called Convoy Woods just outside of Convoy another Quiltia Woodland and it's particularly good for bluebells in May which is coming up quite soon and then there's Drumbow Woods which is right outside the town of Bali Buffet and it's also profiled in the book so I've tried to cover the whole county and give good information about the ones that are actually accessible for people to go walking in like quite a few of our woodlands are privately owned and the private ownership needs to be respectable where it's very clear that it's got public access then you know people are free to go to see these places and I think that's important just so it's more of us can have a full appreciation of our woodlands and our native woodlands yeah yeah and it was I also gave like I did profiles of the actual trees that are the native trees of Dunigal so I've given some new information about that and there so there are trees that we do have and there are also trees that we don't have so it's kind of interesting just to compare Dunigal to say Kerry so Kerry has a slightly different range of native trees than we do and we would have a better representation in certain species than they would and they would have a better representation in other species so there's regional differences between the north and south of Ireland so that's kind of interesting out at Glen Bay we have two kinds of native tree that are so rare practically nobody knows anything about them so we have this beautiful little tree called a rock whitebeam in in Gaelic its name is Feunkel Krega so the white hazel of the rocks and the Irish names are also an amazing way we can get a different kind of take and insight into the native trees and the place names also in the county give us a huge amount of a special access to understanding the significance of trees in our culture for example so there's huge amounts of townlands and place names that have trees associated with them so I have a I've done a list of that kind of stuff in the book as well and the second tree added to Glen Bay is it is it there's two kinds of juniper that grow in in in Dunigal there's a flat one that you'll get on the mountains and on the bogs and sometimes on the coast in sand dune systems so like out on Critch Island for example some of those rocky places have juniper like spreading out like a carpus like flat yeah so that's the prostate prostrace juniper yeah and then in Glen Bay we have one that grows upright yeah so and we have an a specimen in Glen Bay that was maybe 15 meters tall that's a huge tree for a juniper and that's unheard of right so their examples like a lot of the why we have some of these plants are interesting stories in themselves and sometimes they represent a much earlier a period in history so they're kind of like relics of an earlier flora that once existed so that's a place like Glen Bay has like a representation of the all the changes that have happened in the landscape over a very long period of time so literally in the biodiversity of the place in the trees and shrubs and flowers so that's kind of an interesting way of interpreting what's actually out there so it's you're not just looking at plants but you're looking at the living history of the place the living story of this landscape is expressed in the vegetation and out at Glen Bay it's it's well outlined and there's you know plenty of booklets and guides and you know maps and labels and all the rest of it and if you want to take it a step further and go beyond Glen Bay then there's this book and it could take you right the way around the county if you want to go to the bother if you want to just dip in and out while outlined in the book there a very colorful very informative native woodlands of county Donegal would be an asset in anyone's library Sean thank you very much great can we mention yes if the people can guess us in bookmark and letter Kenny and four masters in Donegal town and it's in all the libraries in the county as well okay and I presume that you could go online and get a copy of feeling that we might do that we might put it up on our website as a download yeah yeah and it's available at Glen Bay too yeah we're doing our launch actually next week the official launch is next week okay yeah so I'm ahead of the curve but it is available at Glen Bay as well yeah okay right best look with it thanks very much Sean