A pleasant good morning everyone and welcome to the press conference on Dengue. As we all know, we are in outbreak mode for Dengue fever. And with us today, the panel, we have Dr. Michelle Faswa, who is the National Epidemiologist. We have Dr. Glensford Joseph, Medical Officer of Health and also Mr. Parker Ragnan and Chief Environmental Health Officer. First we will have Dr. Michelle Faswa, who will give us a brief overview as it relates to epidemiology. As many of you know, Dengue fever is caused by a virus. It is spread through the bites of a mosquito, the Aedes aegypti. Dengue fever has been with us for decades and it is considered endemic to St. Lucia, which means that we have recorded cases throughout the year with certain peaks during certain periods which coincide with our rainy season. There are four distinct types of Dengue, four serotypes of Dengue virus, they are type one, two, three and four. When you get one type of Dengue, you automatically get immunity for life to that particular serotype. However, you have short-term immunity to the other serotypes. If you get Dengue fever a second time, you are more predisposed to what is called severe Dengue, which is a more severe form of the Dengue itself, which my colleague will go into shortly. In Epi Week 29, which corresponds to mid-July, the epidemiology unit noticed increases in the reported cases of persons presented with fever. This coincided also with the number of Dengue cases which started to increase. What we did, we issued alerts to the public as well as to the medical fraternity in an effort to address these increases. In August of 2020, the Ministry of Health officially declared an outbreak of Dengue fever in St. Lucia. As of September, there have been 503 confirmed cases of Dengue fever. These are persons who have been tested at a lab and have come back positive for Dengue fever. This by no means represents a total number of cases, because as we have seen in previous outbreaks, Dengue, Chikungunya, and even Zika, not everybody chooses to seek medical attention and not everybody gets tested. In addition, almost three-quarter of the cases of Dengue fever are asymptomatic or they present with a very, very mild clinical picture, so not everybody goes in and would be recorded. 49% of the confirmed cases have occurred during the month of August, with the highest numbers being recorded during the last week of that month. The mean age of the confirmed cases is 19 years, however, the ages have ranged from three weeks to 84 years. The age group 5 to 14 has accounted for approximately 39% of the cases, followed by the age group 5 to 24 years. So we see our younger persons are being infected and, of course, that is something that we have concerns about. The hospitalization among cases has been recorded at 25%. So 25% of these confirmed cases have been hospitalized either at our private or our public hospitals. Although both serotypes 3 and 2 have been recorded in St. Lucia, serotype 3 has accounted for the majority of cases. And the fact that we have two serotypes in circulation is also of concern because, as I indicated, during an outbreak, an individual can get dengue twice and having been infected with one type, you are more predisposed to other severe form. So we are quite worried and monitoring our cases of severe dengue and what is happening on the ground. While all health regions have reported cases of dengue fever, the highest number of cases continue to occur in the northern part of the island. Castries, grocery and babo, babo no sorry. View photos accounted for 13% of the cases followed by dengery, 10% and Miku, 6%. To date, there has been one dengue related death. The case is a male adult 65 in the age group 65 plus who resided in the north of the island. The gentleman also, he came in with signs and symptoms of dengue. However, he had several underlying medical illnesses which predisposed him to a more severe form. So as we note with many other infectious diseases, the very young, the extremes, the very young and the older age groups are more predisposed to a more severe form as well as individuals with underlying medical illnesses. So this gentleman having presented with his age and underlying medical illnesses was more predisposed to develop a more severe form of the illness. The Ministry of Health however remains very alert. We continue to work with the public in an effort to address the dengue situation and my colleagues here will speak about the measures that we have put in place and what we have been doing on the ground to address the dengue situation in St. Lucia. Dr. Glensford Joseph, who will give us some information as well. Good morning. Thank you, Ms. Neptune. Thank you, Dr. Fossoir, for the situation update. As pointed out, 75% of persons infected with dengue virus do not show symptoms. That is, they are asymptomatic. And of this, 25% have mild to severe form of the disease. In one class, which we call the dengue without warning signs, patients have fever, which lasts about two to seven days, and two or more of the following. They may have nausea, vomiting, or a rash, headache, what we call retroorbital eye pain, that is pain to the back of the eyes, muscle, and joint pain among other symptoms. In another group, dengue with warning signs, patients develop intense abdominal pain, tenderness, as well as persistent vomiting. They have fluid retention, mucosal bleed, that is, in places in the eyes, the lining of the mouth, and in the gut, you can have bleeding. They tend to become restless, and fall in their blood pressure, as well as liver enlargement, and progressive increase in something called hematocrit, or the thickening of the blood, because of a loss of fluid. We do have the third group, severe dengue, where the patient experience significant fluid loss, a significant fall in their blood pressure, which we call shock. They tend to develop respiratory distress, and severe bleeding with severe organ involvement, that is, multiple organ failure. Infected persons have, overall, a 1% chance of dying from dengue. However, with the severe form of the disease, this increases to 2% to 5%, and if left untreated, severe dengue can result in a 50% chance of dying. All are at risk for the development of dengue. As pointed out, while each and every one are at risk, we find that persons in the lower age group, children, those over 65, persons who have underlying conditions like diabetes, cancers, respiratory illnesses, among others, pregnant women are at higher risk for the development of complication of dengue. As pointed out, we have currently type 2 and 3 circulating, and if you have had infection with one serotype of dengue, and subsequently develop infection with a second type, you are at greater risk for the severe form of dengue. Over the years, we have had all four strains circulating in synclutia, but as pointed out, currently, we have identified serotype 2 and 3. So it is important that if you think you have signs and symptoms consistent with dengue, is that you see your health care provider who will evaluate you to determine whether you have dengue and whether you are a candidate or a person who could be managed at home with follow-up care or you need hospitalization. Persons with symptoms tend to attempt to manage their symptoms, for instance, the fever or the pain. And from the Ministry of Health and Wellness, we encourage persons that if you are going to take medication to manage your fever and pain, to use a paracetamol and to avoid the use of medication like ibuprofen, aspirin, and other drugs within this class, what we call non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, because these medications tend to cause bleeding or can worsen bleeding in a person with dengue. The Ministry of Health and Wellness would have developed and continue to implement several strategies to control and prevent the spread of dengue. The Vector Control Committee will continue to update its response in the context of COVID-19. The Ministry launched its 2020 Vector Awareness Week in July the 31st under the theme, our actions, our community, our health, to promote greater community mobilization and participation in reducing and eliminating mosquito breeding. Through the Bureau of Health Education and Promotion and the Communication Unit, the Ministry will continue to use available communication channels to provide the general public with the relevant information. That is, we are going to use the mass media, social media, print media along with community engagement. The Ministry will also continue to collaborate with national stakeholders along with regional and international agencies to ensure that we continue to manage the dengue situation. Through the surveillance unit, the Ministry continues to work with private and public health care providers and the laboratories to collect, analyze, and provide us with the information necessary to guide our intervention. Human can transmit and we do transmit the virus to the mosquitoes. And this can occur two days before the onset of symptoms, during symptoms, especially with the fever, or two days after the fever would have subsided. In addition, infected persons who do not have symptoms are also and can transmit the virus to mosquitoes. The Ministry encourages all to take protective measures to limit the risk of mosquito bites. Such measures include the use of long clothing, insect repellent, among other interventions which will be highlighted. At this point, I yield to the Chief Environmental Health Officer for his intervention. Thank you. Now we will have Mr. Parker Ragnon who will talk about the measures that the Ministry of Health is actually putting in place. Thank you again to all and thanks for having me here this morning. We've heard about dengue fever and the prime culprit in the transmission of dengue fever is the mosquito. Now there are several species of mosquitoes that are prevalent in St. Lucia. However, there is one specific species, the Edis Egypti mosquito. And that is the mosquito that is responsible for transmitting the dengue virus. This mosquito is a mosquito that most if not all of us here have seen at some point. It is that mosquito that has the stripes, the white stripes on the wings and on the legs. When you try to catch them, they are a little faster than the others. This is the Edis Egypti mosquito. So we want to make it very clear it's not all the mosquitoes on the island that transmit dengue virus. It is restricted to the Edis Egypti mosquito. This mosquito is deemed to be a domesticated mosquito. That means it lives very close to human habitat. It also likes to breed in fresh stagnated water. So it's not the mosquito you're going to find in the dirty pools generally. But it enjoys the fresh, clean, stagnated water. That is why it lives around human habitat. We as human beings have a tendency to store water for various purposes. We understand that in many parts of the island there are intermittent supply of the water in distribution. And as a result, the auxiliary water that is stored on premises, either using buckets, drums, or barrels. And if these containers are not kept covered, then the adult mosquito has access to that water. And that is where it would lay the eggs. So there are some things to understand about the mosquito. Firstly, it is only the female Edis Egypti mosquito that bites. The reason why it bites is because it needs a blood mill in order to reproduce. And therefore, that is why we get bitten by this female adult mosquito who gets a blood mill and then would get into any water source, whether it's a water drum, a flower vase, a tire, a coconut shell, even a bottle cap that is left and water collects there. In places like our roof gut rings, that's not free flowing. And if they get into the septic tank, so they are a host of areas that we need to look for in and around our surroundings because they are potential breeding sites for the Edis Egypti mosquito. Once they get access to the water, that is where they would lay the eggs. The eggs are laid just above the waterline, not directly on top of the water. So the cycle of the mosquito really begins with an adult mosquito laying eggs. After a couple of days, the eggs mold into the lava. And the lava is the little worm-like thing we see wriggling in the water. That is the lava. And then about two days after, the lava changes further and becomes a pupa.  This is called a pupa. So it's getting closer to becoming an adult. And the final stage in the development of that cycle is the pupa becomes an adult. The whole process takes between five and seven days, depending on the condition. So we start with an egg, and in seven days we have a live mosquito. In order for us to be able to deal with a prevention or control of mosquito breeding, we must intervene at any one point of the life cycle. And that is why it's so important for us to understand the concept of integrated vector management. Because the application of chemicals alone is not enough to control the proliferation of mosquitoes. Throughout the years, we have tried using chemicals, whether it is on a national level where forking operations have taken place. And you would have seen the forking activities, particularly in the evening towards the early night. Why is that so? Because the Edis Egypti mosquito, they come out to feed at dawn and at dusk. They are not the mosquitoes at midnight that sings in your ears, musical tunes. But rather they come out at about 5, 6, and early in the morning at the same time. And that is why when you do forging, it has to be a targeted time. You cannot go forging at 10 o'clock in the morning. These mosquitoes are in hiding. And so when you are doing a forging operation, it's really targeted only at the adults. So forging only targets the adult mosquito, not the eggs, not the larva, not the pupa. So we can continue to forg the island of St. Lucia. But what would happen is after two or three days of forging, the pupa that is in the drum would become an adult. And therefore what you have is the cycle continues. And you are finding it very challenging to continuously knock down the adult population. And hence the reason why we're speaking about an integrated approach. So the integrated approach means that every single householder in this country must learn to do a proper examination of the yard. What are we examining for? We are inspecting to see whether there are containers that are holding water to allow for mosquito breeding. And the simple things that can be done, for example, in areas where there is indiscriminate dumping of garbage, there are times we have all appliances that we keep outside. They're not working, but instead of discarding them, we keep them somewhere in the corner. Sometimes you have a spare tire that you're keeping there and water is collected in it. The inspection of the household should look for potential breeding areas for the Edis-Egypti mosquito. So we're spoken about the drums, the flower vases, and we encourage our people to please replace water in your flower vases. Use sand, use soil, use something else. Because water standing there for two days or three days would allow for the mosquito to come in and lay their eggs in there. So we have to do a thorough inspection of our premises to determine whether there are potential sources for breeding for mosquitoes to breed. And when we find these sources, we need to be able to either control them or remove them. What we mean by control? So we won't ask you to take away your water drum, but we are asking you to put a wire mesh over that drum to prevent mosquitoes from accessing into that water supply. There may be other containers, bottles and coconut shells, empty cans that you would have to collect and remove and put in the garbage. There may be little environmental modification you have to do, for example, turn in over a container. So this is all part of the control activities that one has to do. And therefore, we recognize in order to break the cycle, every single solution must play their part. It's not just about the ministry doing the fogging activities, or you have the inspectors coming to your home. And we do that very regularly. We come and we apply a lavish side. A lavish side is really a chemical that is put in the water, targeted at killing the lover. Because what science has taught us is that two prime stages for dealing with the mosquito and killing them is at the level stage and at the adult stage. So you would find that the health officer would come and they would be put in chemical in a drum, in a container to kill the little riglers, the lovers in there. But that too is not sustainable. Because in periods where we have high rainfall, as we have had in the earlier part of this week, date last week, what you find happening is that when the drum would overflow because of the high rainfall and the water comes out of the gut ring, the chemical would also wash out. So it's a difficult task administering chemicals to control mosquitoes. There must be the entire environmental modification. And that is looking for breeding sites and removing them. And every single one of us must play our part. Mosquitoes has a fairly long flight range. It can go beyond a mile. So think of a community. And think of you taking responsibility for your own yard, your own premises. And your neighbors does the same. But 10 houses away from you, somebody's negligent and is not doing it. What is happening is my yard is taken care of, it's clean. But the person's yard, a few houses away from me where mosquito is breeding would also allow the mosquitoes to get to my house. And so it must be a sustained, integrated community effort that is needed. We all must have our hands on board. We all have our part to play. It's important because mosquitoes has a fairly long flight range. The other thing about it is Egypt in mosquito. And Dr. Joseph spoke about the mosquito and how it gets infected. A mosquito is not infected. Once it bites somebody who has dengue fever, it becomes infected. The scientific term that is used, it becomes infective. That means it is now harboring the virus in its system, the dengue virus. And one of that mosquito, if it bites 10 people in one house, all 10 people will come down with a dengue fever. So one mosquito can transmit the disease to more than one person. So hence the reason why it is important for us to understand the mosquito, the cycle of the mosquito, and what it is that we must do to be able to control the breeding and the proliferation of the Aedesis-Egypti mosquito. As a Ministry of Health, there are a number of initiatives that we have undertaken. And we continue and will continue to undertake. We've done extensive fogging operations throughout St. Lucia. At different times, the majority of the schools on the islands have been fogged. But fogging is a very taxing activity because you have a short window to fog. It's between five and eight. And then it makes no sense to fog after. The other thing about fogging is that the individuals, when they see the officers are doing fogging, they close the windows on the doors. And so they're not allowing the chemical to work. And so there are limitations with fogging. And I must say that any chemical you use would have impact on the environment. But we continue to do fogging operations. And more and more, there is an appeal to fog. And the Ministry will continue its best in doing fogging throughout St. Lucia. We continue to do our premises inspections, do what is known as the entomological surveillance. That is to go out and to meet with householders, to examine water containers, to see whether there is breeding on a premise, and to give basic information as to how to deal with the breeding, and also administer treatment for the breeding. We respond to complaints. Mosquito related complaints. We have targeted hotspots for breeding. For example, tire shops and the storage of used tires, because we know tires readily collect water. And that mosquito likes a little back place. So the tire creates that nice ambient environment for them. So we target the tire shops. We continue to work with other government and non-governmental agencies. Again, that brings us to the point of the integrated approach that must be taken. And so we've worked with the St. Lucia Solid Waste Management Authority. We've worked with local government through Ministry of Social Transformation. We've had discussions with the Department of Infrastructure. And there are a number of community groups and organizations that we have worked with. There have been some community cleanup activities that have been taking place at different locations on the island. And this is an area where we are looking at stepping up the efforts. Having community work together in terms of doing cleanup and removing bulk waste and waste that would allow for storage of water on premises. It requires a community effort. And so we've started doing our source reduction cleanup campaigns with the communities. We've gone to a number of the schools as part of our education process and a number of community organizations giving information. We've developed PSAs that are now on some media houses. And all of that is in a quest to empower the householder to employ the citizen of this country, to empower the citizen of this country in understanding the mosquito and the things that can be done to control mosquito breathing. We continue to work with agencies in terms of looking at some modification that can be done. And right now we are exploring additional possibilities as to other means that we can employ in St. Lucia to be able to control mosquitoes and the Adiz-Egypti mosquito specifically. But there is so much that a ministry, a department can do. The question now is, what can you do? What can every St. Lucia do? And so we've spoken about the protective measures that you can take. I've already mentioned about playing your part, removing breathing sites for mosquitoes. But we also need to be responsible. And that responsibility means that we must take personal responsibility for our health and our well-being and that of our family. Knowing the times of the day that the mosquito come out, we need to be vigilant that at these hours, if you are going to apply a repellent, do so. Wear long-sleeve clothing. What you're doing is reducing the chances of getting bitten by a mosquito. You need to do that. So if you have to wear socks and wear long pants, do that. We also encourage the use of bed nets. Some people find it difficult to sleep in a enclosed environment, but the nets have proven to be quite effective in keeping the mosquitoes at bay. We continue to encourage persons to get involved. That's the only way we can stem the spread of dengue fever by every sentlusion getting involved. It's a matter that we must take seriously. We've heard already that the mosquito can transmit dengue fever, and dengue fever can be fatal, deadly. And therefore, it's not a matter that we need to treat lightly. It's something that is serious. The outbreak that is before us is an unprecedented outbreak. And therefore, all of us as sentlosions must put our heads together in order to break that transmission and to reduce the spread of dengue fever. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Ragnanan. Right now, we will take a few questions from the media. We're asking that persons raise their hands before asking the question and also state your name and your organization. DBS Television, it's a two-part question. One is, what is the ministry doing in terms of working with organizations such as the Castries Constituencies Council in cutting down on the stagnant water in the city that can give rise to the breeding of mosquitoes? And also, when it comes to the use of chemicals, isn't it a vicious cycle where you have chemicals being sprayed in the home and then you're inhaling those chemicals? Isn't that another type of health hazard that you're creating there? I did say that we are working with local government. And that would include the councils. As a matter of fact, we have done extensive training for a number of officers at the different councils from Rhode Island. And therefore, we are looking at strengthening our partnership with them in working together to looking at how they can assist, not just in looking at stagnated water, but other measures that can be implemented to reduce the spread of mosquitoes. The second question you ask, it's a nice question. When you have outbreaks, you need to look at the mediums that are at your disposal that is available to you that you can use. Throughout the world, we recognize that chemicals, they have adverse effects on humans as well as all the flora and fauna in the environment. However, you need to do what is called a cost-benefit analysis. If you decide you're not going to use chemicals at all, then you need to be prepared to deal with the outcome of the spread of a disease. So many times, you're very challenged in terms of what you can use to be able to tackle the situation. And hence the reason why we have to use chemicals, but it has to be used in a very sustainable way. And any overuse of chemical, one would cause resistance. And we've seen that at the household level and in many communities. Because many times, you had a complaint that I'm using this chemical at home, this insecticide, and it's not effective. It causes this cockroach or this mosquito to become dizzy using it on the floor. And then after a while, it gets back to full strength. One of the things that has happened is using a prolonged type of insecticide can cause resistance. And so we have been doing resistant testing in many parts of St. Lucia for the mosquitoes. And we know what chemicals they have developed resistant to some level. That is why ever so often, we would change the type of chemical that is used, especially in forging for the adult mosquitoes because of resistance that they have developed. But I agree with you that we have to be very careful in the application and the administration of chemicals because it can cause harm. And therefore, that is why it must be used in a very responsible and sustainable manner. Sheffield Gillard looks in Lucia News. Piggy marking on the question, one of the questions, don't ask. Recently, the president of the Medical and Mental Association expressed concern that the forging is hazardous to human beings. Can you all clarify whether that is the case? And also, is this the first death caused by dengue? And if not, what is the numbers to date over the last five years? Or so if you allow those figures. And at what point did the Ministry of Health decided that, OK, we have a dengue outbreak in St. Lucia? OK, thank you for that multiple questions. I will address the force component of it as it relates to the impact on health. As pointed out, for every chemical that is being used, there is always a potential for some adverse effect on life, including human. With the material being used or chemical being used for forging, and this can be striking from the expertise from the environmental health, is that the concentration and the duration of exposure with intermittent use has not been proven to be hazardous to human. This being said, we do acknowledge that there are persons who have certain respiratory illnesses like asthma, chronic obstructive A-ray disease, among others, in whom with exposure to such chemicals can trigger a crisis, an asthmatic crisis. And as such, measures are being put in place when there is time for the application of such agent to notify the community so that these persons can take the necessary steps if it includes removing themselves from the area to allow for the intervention. As pointed out, yes, we acknowledge the limited impact, especially for persons with certain underlying illnesses. But when you look at the cost-benefit ratio of using these substances when needed, let's say here in the midst of an outbreak and not using them at all, the impact on life, the economic loss would be significant much more than we are experiencing. And for this reason, Foggin, while it's one of the measures we have in place to address the adult mosquito is not the primary measure to control the mosquito's population. And for this reason, it is important that each one of us play our part in reducing the mosquito breeding site. And if we can do justice, whereby we inspect our environment regularly, as pointed out by the Chief Environmental Health Officer, empty standing water, try to avoid having standing water for a long time. Because as pointed out, the span from having the eggs to the adult is just about seven days. So if we can play our part, it would reduce the need for the authorities to use these chemicals. And I think that is how best at this point such could be answered. As it relates to the other components, I yield to the national epidemiologists to provide some answers. Thank you for your question. What we do at the epidemiology unit is monitor trends. So one of the things that we monitor every single week from the public and private sector is what we call undifferentiated fever. So a person presenting to any health care facility with fever plus headache or fever plus eye pain or whatever it is, we monitor that. And we have developed our trend so that we know at certain points of the year, it normally goes up. And that, as I said, normally coincides with our dengue numbers or in previous years with our chicken gunia or Zika at the time. What we noticed through the beginning of the year, the numbers were exactly where we expected them to be within normal range. However, in July, we noticed that the undifferentiated fever started to go up. And when we looked at our dengue cases, we noticed that it coincided with that as is usually the case. So it started to go up in about July. Now, we knew previously that our regional, our neighbors were experiencing outbreaks. We know, although there was not open borders and we didn't have the level of travel that we had previously due to COVID, but there was still movement from one island to the other. So that, of course, in itself, if our neighboring islands have something, then more than likely we tend to get it. So it was in July that we noticed the increases. We continued monitoring. We issued alerts so that persons would be aware of what was happening and put the measures that Mr. Ragnanan and Dr. Joseph spoke about, measures in place to restrict breeding of mosquitoes in and around the homes. We declared the outbreak in August after we noticed that the numbers had surpassed what we expected for that time and period. And we confirmed our first dengue death. That has been the only death to date. I cannot give you off the top of my head for the past five years. I know definitely there were no deaths last year either, but today we have only recorded one dengue-related death. And it was, as I said, an elderly, well, not elderly, but an older gentleman with underlying medical illnesses which predisposed him to the more severe form of dengue. As you know, NBC Prime, the evidence and data, if you will, is there in terms of when these mosquitoes breed and the information you have already confirmed to know when the peak times are for breeding for these mosquitoes. So is it a case that the ministry or the officials don't have the capacity to deal with the breeding? And what would you attribute the prevalence of this mosquito to given the fact that you know the evidence, you know when the peak times are, why are we at an outbreak level today? You'll take part in it, Parker. Well, as I indicated, we monitor it. And I think Dr. Joseph also alluded to it at a certain period, we start mobilizing, we start sensitization to the general public of ways and means of reducing breeding in and around the home. So it was not something that we reacted after the fact, it is something that we do on an annual basis. We have had for this year several interruptions in our water supply. And while we understand the need of persons to store, what we have noticed is that we had a lot more storage due to these interruptions this particular year. In addition, as I pointed out, St. Lucia is not the only island experiencing an outbreak, but what happens in one island usually influences what happens in the other islands because of travel. So it's not a matter of not preparing adequately. The preparations are done yearly, but it is more of a collaborative effort. And that is what we have been trying to communicate to the public that the Ministry of Health and Wellness, while we do go out and we do the fogging and we do the lavish siding and we do the necessary, persons need to exercise their responsibility as citizens in and around their homes to monitor what is happening, monitor the breeding sites and eliminate these breeding sites in order for us to manage this dengue situation. If we do not have a mosquito, we do not have transmission of dengue and that is a fact. So if we can eliminate these breeding sites, it will go a long way, but it is not the Ministry of Health alone who can do this. One follow-up and it's in relation to the sensitization efforts, Bureau of Health, Ministry of Health, every week we have, every year we have Vector Awareness Week and we have PR campaigns, yet still we are here with an outbreak. Is it a case where the messaging from the Health Ministry is not as effective? Or what would you attribute where we are today in terms of your messaging? Thank you for such an interesting question. And as you rightfully pointed out that the Ministry would have had Vector Awareness Week and also with several activities to raise or heighten awareness to vector breeding. And here we are talking about the mosquito. This year, the Ministry of Health and Wellness would have launched its 2020 Vector Awareness Week on July the 31st. And that are those activities were heightened during the third to the 8th of August. Even prior to launching the Vector Awareness Week, the Ministry in collaboration with other agencies would have had media appearances trying to alert the general public of the need to strengthen their activities in and around their homes, dwelling places, business places in an attempt to limit the mosquito prevalence. And that was even before the Vector Awareness. During that time, we have had and I must say, continue to have several media appearances to not only share the information as it relates to the denger situation, but also to get persons to understand the need for a change of behavior, to mobilize the community so that they can become actively involved in reducing the vector breeding. So yes, we have been doing a lot as it relates to the media. One of the things we need to understand, and even though that's not the focus of our discussion at this time, is just to highlight that while we have had challenges with water supply through the tap with persons, storing water and that could be one of the factors contributing to the increase in the mosquito indices is that we all know this whole concept of physical distancing in the new era of COVID-19. And as such, while the environmental health officers are going out there to conduct inspection, one of the challenge is that some persons would have some reluctance in persons entering their, what they call, private space, even though, yes, they would have been successful in doing so on many occasions. But also, when you think about the community engagement, we've had to make modification toward intervention. So while we address the garbage and the community cleanup, which have started, it's to really limit the number of persons you want to congregate in close proximity. So all those factors, that can be responsible for this current outbreak. That being said, the ministry is doing all in its power to ensure that we work with other government agencies, the private sector, and more importantly, the family and individual, because you recognize is that while you apply the various chemicals, while you get to the communities to assist with the cleanup in the open spaces, a lot of the breading takes place in the house and around the homes, around dwelling places. And if we can get persons to really take on this fight in and around their homes collectively through our theme, our actions, our community, our health, we'll be able to turn the tide of this day and day outbreak. Thank you. For the odd, I don't think the issue so much is with the message that goes out. What we are seeing is really how serious are we taking that message? It would seem to us that a mosquito is generally deemed to be harmless.  But we've seen consistently over the years that it is that same mosquito species that is responsible for transmitting so many diseases. So the same Edis-Egypti mosquito transmits, was responsible for transmitting chicken gunia. It was the same Edis-Egypti mosquito that was responsible for transmitting Zika that we had in 2016. It is the same Edis-Egypti mosquito responsible for transmitting dengue virus. And the messages have been going out year by year consistently. This is what we need to do to reduce breeding spaces and breeding grounds and so forth. But are we adhering to these messages? Are we taking them seriously? Unfortunately, now we have a death. And so the question is, would now seen that one of owners died, would we take that message seriously? We need to be able to understand the situation we're dealing with is a serious situation. And so we've spoken about the outbreak. Dengue is endemic to St. Lucia. So every year we get cases. This year there is an outbreak, an unusual number of cases. And we've seen, not making excuses, but there are several other sistering countries, north and south of us, who are similar situations. What we saw is we had a water emergency for many months. And that led to persons storing water because many places for days on no water. Then we had a sudden onset of the rainy season. Remember, we had a long dry spell. All of a sudden we had an onset of the rainy season. And these containers continue to remain. The mosquitoes began to proliferate. And that is why we started seeing the increase towards the end of July. And that is just one analysis. We have not been able to conduct a thorough analysis as to exactly what is responsible for the transmission. But again, there are several things we can draw from. So hence the reason why we need to take this outbreak very seriously and to do our part because we cannot sit back and continue to ask for fogging. When are they coming to fog my area? That is just one little intervention. Am I going to sit back and wait for fogging to happen? Then three days after fogging mosquitoes start back again because the breeding grounds are there at my home in my yard. So the adults are killed and then the pupil becomes adult into two, three days, more mosquitoes again. We need to take these things seriously and to do our part and put in our intervention measures in place. And every single inclusion has to take that responsibility. Because this dengue outbreak is a serious outbreak. It is not restricted to any one location. From what we are seeing from the data, it's throughout the island. There are some areas that have a higher number of cases, but it is spread throughout the island and every one of us must get on board and play our part. Jaffa Wooding, Hot7 News. How strenuous has it been on the health sector dealing with a pandemic and an outbreak at the same time? Not only just on the health sector, but in terms of getting members of the public to not only adhere to COVID-19 protocols, but then also take steps to help mitigate the dengue situation. And also, are there any concerns, given that in the onset of both diseases, they have similar symptoms? So members of the public might self-diagnose and just go take some paracetamol when they should be going out and getting tested for COVID. The first component of your question, how strenuous it is on the health sector, it is clear that St. Lucia and not just the health sector is managing the COVID-19 pandemic, which is unprecedented. We have seen the impact in terms of the economic, the psychological, and the overall toll on human life. The health sector is no different. However, within the Ministry of Health and Wellness, we are prepared and we'll always be ready, irrespective of the circumstances, to manage these situations, because that's what the Ministry of Health and Wellness is there for, to ensure the health and safety of the nation. So when you think about the strenuous nature, yes, because of a limited human resource, among other things, but we are prepared to manage. Well, as pointed out, while we work from this level to manage the pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, the dengue outbreak, and all other health issues, it is important that the community, the individual, get on board, play their part, and this will, no doubt, reduce the need for the application of chemicals, for the human resource to be more out in the field. Yes, they're going to continue with their inspection and everything else, but you would be able to redeploy your human services for other activities. So the community is very important in playing their part. The other question as it relates to the coexistence of COVID-19 and dengue, even though as we make a comparison, as you pointed out, there is some similarity, but yet differences in the two diseases. First, the mode of transmission is different. Dengue, by the mosquitoes, the infected, female, ADs, Egypti, while COVID, it's respiratory airborne. So you find that your mechanism of protection would be different. While they both may present with fever, the fever patterns are different. You find that dengue presents with, as pointed out, 75% of the cases or infected persons do not have symptoms. 25%, yes, they do. And within those, many do not go to a health facility because it's mild. So while we see the numbers out there and we are concerned, it is important to know that that's just the iceberg. And for this reason, we need to act as individuals. Dengue, you have headaches, eye pain, especially with movement of the eyes. I'm not going to likely to find out with COVID. You're going to have more muscle aches, joint aches, even though the pattern of muscle pain and joint pain are going to be different. And here you have the clinical, personnel, the physicians, the nurses, and other health care professionals, sorry, who are going to be able to separate those two. And as such, because you may not be aware as to which one you have, it is important that you present yourself to a health care personnel to assist you with such assessment and also to wear your mask because you are not sure which one you're having. And after assessment, then the health care professional would determine which way to go in terms of your management. So I just heard HDS. I have two questions. The first one is, we saw an incredible amount of resources being pumped into the control and the prevention of COVID-19 in St. Lucia, where no deaths were recorded. How would the ministry respond to the criticism that the ball was dropped in the fight against Dengue, given that we have recorded one death? We must admit that every disease has its own presentation. As pointed out for and well-established Dengue, there is a 1% case fatality overall. However, for those who may have progressed through the severe form of the illness, have a 2% to 5% case fatality rate that is likely of dying. And if you wait too late to present for medical evaluation or you do not present at all, then the chances of you dying increases as far as 50%. That being said, and one of the things I'm going to take this opportunity to do is that we have seen country-wide aggressive adherence to the many protocols the Ministry of Health and Wellness would have implemented to reduce and prevent the spread of COVID-19. We know COVID-19 is a new disease. We have seen how easily and really it can transcend across borders. And this disease is still evolving. We do not know all about it. And hence, probably this is one of the reason why the general public would have adhered to many of the policies, programs, protocols implemented, hence reducing the risk of transmission and also deaths. However, we have seen mosquitoes being around for ages. Globally, they were turning in the 1960s, having control. However, since in the early 1970s, mosquito population continues to grow. The rate of dengue continues to increase when you look at the data globally within the tropics and subtropics. And one of the reasons is it's mode of transmission and human behavior. Organization, people living in close proximity, not having the appropriate environment to limit the spread or proliferation of the disease. And as such, we need to turn the tide in terms of our behavior because dengue control really resides in reducing that factor that is responsible for the spread. And it's a mosquito. So if we can turn the tide with our behavior in our homes, in our communities, our business places, collectively, we'll be able to reduce the mosquito population, reduce dengue, and the chances of dengue deaths. Thank you. Specific what type of the ADZG climate mosquito is attracted to or is that a myth? There has been a lot said about type AB that persons with type AB tend to, there has been a lot said about the type AB. I don't think there has been anything concrete that has come out saying that this specific group, the mosquitoes, are more prone to it. But there has been a lot said about the blood group types, but nothing concrete. Mr. Ragnanen, given that castries, Babuno and Grossly are the hot pockets area of the dengue outbreak, is there any immediate plans for concentrated preventative measures in these areas? Well, we have already began to work with these areas. We have done a number of interventions, including fogging operations. We continue to do the entomological surveillance and go into the household and doing the labisiding. We have worked with community groups. And unfortunately, last Saturday, for example, we were supposed to have a cleanup campaign with one community. But because of the inclement weather, it didn't come through. So we are looking at rescheduling for that. However, I want to assure you that we have been working with these communities. And we continue to work with them. We have gone to every school within these areas because we've seen the need to target the schools especially because what we are seeing from the data is that our children, the age range between 5 and 15, are the highest infected age group. And so we continue to work with all the schools. And having said so, we have also done a number of sensitization programs, especially with the schools and with community organizations in these areas. But not just these areas alone. We have done extensive work throughout the length and breadth of St. Lucia because we recognize that we have concerns in Danry, in Maycud, in Viewfort as well in terms of the spread. I think we have no more questions. So with that being said, we have come to the end of the press conference. I want to thank you so much for taking part. Thank you.


So earlier we showed that the real numbers are uncountably infinite. We also have a theorem that says that the rational numbers are countably infinite. First, we'll give the standard proof. Actually, it's kind of boring and you can Google the standard proof yourself. Now as we saw with the integers, if we can prove that the positive rational numbers are countably infinite, then we can also prove that all rational numbers are countably infinite. And so let's try to prove that the positive rational numbers are countably infinite. Remember, one of the ways to study proof and mathematics in general is to find another proof. So let's find a different proof that the rational numbers are countably infinite. So here's one way we might approach this. Since the numerators and denominators of positive rational numbers are natural numbers, let's see if we can generate them from the set of natural numbers. So let's set down our first rational number, zero, once. Shall we play a game? And so let's play this game. If you increase the numerator by one, take a step to the left. And if you increase the denominator by one, take a step to the right. So if we increase our numerator by one to get one once, we'll put that to the left. And if we increase our denominator by one to get zero, twoths, we'll put that to the right. And if we increase our numerator by one to get two over one, or increase our denominator by one to get one half, and notice that could have also been obtained by increasing our numerator of zero halves, and we can also increase our denominator of zero halves to get zero thirds. And we can produce other rational numbers in this way. And this gives us a way to list our rational numbers by working our way through this triangle, starting with zero once, then one once, zero halves. The next row gives us two once, one half, zero thirds. The next row gives us three once, two halves, one third, zero fourths, and so on. And again, because we can list the rational numbers in some sort of order, this means that the set of positive rational numbers is countably infinite. And again, a basic principle in life is always ask, can we do better? And a potentially objectionable feature about this method of listing the positive rational numbers is that it includes all rational numbers even when they might be reduced to simpler forms. So again, let's try another proof. And we might proceed as follows. Let PQ'th be a rational number reduced to lowest terms. And remember, we can write its value in words. Five eighths, twenty three forty ninths, and so on. And once we can write something, we can organize them by length and then alphabetize them within the lengths. Now this does actually require us to be able to spell out these rational numbers. And let's put in one further restriction. Let's list the non-integer positive rational numbers. That makes our spelling challenge a little bit easier. Now, since no number word is shorter than three letters, and we have to specify both the numerator and the denominator, then words for fractions have to have at least six letters. Well, none of them do. But we have seven letter fraction words, or at least we have one, one half. And so that will be our first positive rational number. We have a bunch of eight letter fraction words. And we can put them in alphabetical order. They all start with one. So the second word is going to determine what the order is. And the next one is going to be one fifth, then one fourth, and so on. There are nine letter fraction words. And we note that we're going to omit words like two fourths or six ninths because they aren't reduced. And putting these in alphabetical order, and so on. And again, we can now have a list of our positive reduced rational numbers in order, which means that the set is countably infinite. Now, since the set of rational numbers is countably infinite, but the set of real numbers is uncountably infinite, it follows that there must be some real numbers that are not rational. Now, we already know one irrational number, square root of two, and so the natural question is, how many irrational numbers are there? And in fact, the number of irrational numbers is uncountably infinite and we should be able to prove that. We'll leave that for the viewer. We don't want to do all of your homework. But here's a hint by way of analogy. The set of integers is countably infinite and it consists of a countably infinite set, the positive integers, a second countably infinite set, the negative integers, and a finite set, zero. So when we put together two countably infinite sets, we get a countably infinite set.


The drives of deforestation are mostly outside the forests. The drives of degradation, they are usually linked to the forest, but for deforestation, they're mostly outside the forest because mostly it's agriculture, but it's also mining infrastructure, for example. So if you want to change behavior, right, to do less impacts of agriculture on the forest, or of mining, you have to work with the agriculture people and the mining people to change that. And so basically you have to work outside the forests to actually address them. And so basically what the landscape approach suggests is to think a bit more holistic about it, right, to think a bit about what's not about the forest, but it's the interaction of forests in our land uses and other things that are happening within an area which, you know, a landscape is a good synonym of something integrated that happens on the land, that affects forests, but also other things. And so you think about it broader, you think about forests and agriculture forests and mining forests and land use, think about stakeholders, people involved to track, you know, how that plus which incentivizes carbon improvement in the forest, right, but then has also effects outside the forest, not only drives driven by things outside the forest, but also has effects outside the forest that, okay, thinking about it holistically does make a lot of sense. And that's where I think the landscape approach is the right thinking, although I think it's not very specific at this point, right? But it's the right thinking to try to capture the complexity of the issue. That's a good question. And but basically, I mean, we just did this study where we looked at how countries have taken up understanding of drivers into the planning direct plus interventions. And for the countries where they did not develop a very good link between what the drivers are and what their interventions are, they tend to focus on forest related things, forest management, plantations, afforestation, reforestation, rehabilitation, that kind of thing. The ones who take drivers on board in terms of trying to think, okay, this is the driver and based on the driver planning this intervention as merit plus activity, then you start to see that a lot of things are much happening outside the forest. And that was quite an interesting understanding of if countries do consider drivers well, in their interventions, their readiness plans and their merit plus interventions plans look quite different than from those that haven't done it. And that's a very important thing that I mean, these thinking is to start to emerge within countries. And some countries have basically perhaps a bit more catch up to do now that there's a subset decision that should, that in particular, you could encourage them to address drivers of deforestation. So that's that's an important result. And as I said, that basically means think broader than forests. And it also means monitor broader than forests. So that's the other thing. And then you think about that from a very red plus perspective, basically, you will end up in something integrated landscape kind of setting, think broader, and perhaps think more integrated, think more landscape. One of the things for the landscape scale thing, I mean, that there is a because of thinking beyond forests, thinking more holistic, think about also, you know, socioeconomic dimension, governance dimensions and all that kinds of usually that does a tendency that this all comes more complex, right? And that's also what science does sometimes or oftentimes it makes things more complex, right? On the other hand, we are now things that are supposed to work in the real world that they have a tendency that they should be simple, because otherwise they don't work. And so there will be, there can be many things what landscape and also red plus performing on the landscape scale can mean. But one of the key things is to figure out the what indicators, what things you can, what few things you can actually try to assess, you can efficiently assess to really track the most important dimensions and impact chains of red bus on the landscape scale. So landscapes, it can be everything and a lot, but there will also have to be some kind of narrowing down process if you say, okay, we want to know, well, operationally or consistently or sustainably assess the effects of red plus in an landscape context. And that's part of the research in fact that should happen now is to look so what are these things, what impact that red plus has on the landscape scale.


Higaru, congratulations. Were you ever in any moment of doubt throughout the tie break? I wouldn't say I was in doubt, really. Perhaps there were a couple of moments where I was uncomfortable in the first game against Anton. But overall, I don't think I was ever in any real danger of not winning. So it was quite nice to win again. Right. We had Anton here earlier. And in fact, we felt when we were seeing the tie breaks that he was doing pretty well, actually, in his games with the white pieces, he seemed to be in a good position, even with black. What do you think happened then? Yeah, I mean, I think overall throughout the tournament, he played quite well with white. Just look at the results. I mean, I think with the white, he beat Boris in a fantastic work-and-pun end game. I mean, I think he played it about as perfectly as you could. I mean, it was just textbooks. So he played quite well with white throughout the tournament. And then, of course, in the first game, he had a little bit of pressure. But he was a little bit too passive, I felt, at the critical moment. But once that moment passed, I don't think he ever really had a chance again to do anything, maybe even claim an advantage. So he had a very slight window in the first game. In the second game, it was very tense, obviously. But after he allowed this B4 move around move 25, I think it was, he was just struggling. And I mean, he didn't really have chances after that. Right. Now, when you qualified for the tie breaks by winning your last round, how confident were you of the overall victory? Well, I thought I was the favorite, certainly. But I mean, based on the tie break that I played against you and the millionaire chess, which was, I think, I was quite lucky not to lose, I knew it would be. It wouldn't be as simple as everyone thought. So obviously, beating you was the first step. And then, in the final, fortunately, I didn't have to play any blitz because, I mean, already I think I'd played a lot of games. And playing more would not have been to my advantage, I don't think. Right. Now, as a tie break system, do you favor the playoff? Or do you prefer the other ways of deciding who's the champion? What do you think is better for chess? You know, I think certainly, if you look at it from a sporting standpoint, it's better to have one champion. You know, you can make an argument for both results. I mean, I think Anton played the best tournament by far in a way. I don't think that's in dispute. But when you have such formats, that's how it goes. I mean, you look at the candidates, for example, Kariak, and OK, he won the last game. But if Fabiano wasn't suffering in the tie break, probably he wouldn't have gone crazy trying to win. So there are pluses and minuses to both. But it's been this way here in Gibraltar for many years now. So it seems quite good for me. And I've been able to win a few times now. Right. In fact, just talking about that, too, this is your third time in a row. How is this different from the first two? And how is it special for you? Well, I think there's a big difference. The first one that I won, or not first one, but the first of the three in 2015, I guess it was, that one was very smooth. I mean, no tournament that you're playing in should really ever be that smooth. I mean, I think I started off something like 7-0. I was just winning games out of the opening. And so that was very smooth. And last year, I was kind of in the middle of the pack. And then I won a couple of critical games at the end when I had to. So last year and this year were pretty similar in that I was slightly behind. But I had a chance. And I won at the end when I absolutely had to. So I came through one in the critical moments. And that's really the most important thing, I think. Right. And I mean, the fact that you also had Fabiano playing here, who is US number one, does that make it even more special in a way that you were able to prove that you're a better player in the open, maybe? Well, I mean, I think Fabiano did better than me in the Isle of Man tournament like a few months ago. So I don't think it's based on any one result. Obviously, Fabiano had a rough tournament here. Even in the last round, for example, he only drew. So I don't think Fabiano played his best chess. But still, yeah, it's always nice to finish ahead of the top seeds, Fabiano or Maxime. So yeah, this term, I played better than them. But there's always next tournament. We'll see what happens, because I'll be playing both of them a lot of times this year. Yes, you will. And while starting off on a high note, what are your future plans for this year? Well, I've started off, well, I think the last three years. I mean, I've won this tournament, and then I won Zurich. I've won Zurich two years in a row also. So I'll just try to play well throughout the year. The last couple of years, I've started off very well. And then somewhere around August, September, it's all fallen to pieces for me. So I'll just try to be consistent throughout the year. Just coming back to the tiebreak, Hikaru, what is your strategy in a moment like that when you know you've got fast games? How do you prepare yourself, and how do you go into it? I mean, I just try to be solid with black. Basically, be solid in the rapids, and then go for broken the Blitz, if I absolutely had to. But do you absolutely aim for the Blitz, then? I wouldn't say I aim for it. I try to be solid with black, and try to win with white and rapid. If that's not good enough, then the fun begins. Congratulations on your big win, and good luck for the rest of the year. Thank you. Thank you, Hikaru.


When you get defensive and you have to defend your record of supporting virtually every horrific trade agreement, you say things that are just not quite correct. Last night, Secretary Clinton went out of her way to mischaracterize my history as it relates to the 2008 auto industry bailout. So let me be as clear as I can. There was one vote in the United States Senate on whether or not to support the auto bailout and protect jobs in Michigan and around this country. I voted for the auto bailout.


Welcome back team.  Should I go to college? What do I learn? What do I start? I'm going to give you the resources right here right now that will help you learn to code And I'm not talking about any boot camps. I'm not talking about any classes I'm talking about real-world people self-taught who started from the bottom and one day They discovered computers and computer science and code and software and programming and they went out and they started Applying for jobs and they started learning stuff and they just they just kept going non-stop team and then one day they decided hey It's time to cut the cord. It's time to unplug from the matrix It's time to free my mind and they went out and they started their own things Some were working as freelancers. Some have worked as freelancers. We got authors in here. We've got course creators These are the channels that will give you the knowledge you need to help you free your mind and learn to code for fun and profit So let's get into a team now. These are coming at you in no particular order So I don't want you to think that you know one is better than the other They all have something different to offer. They all have a very unique perspective a very unique skill set unique personalities But combined these powers are immense team. So first up we've got traversy media Created by Brad traversy and Brad started putting videos on YouTube a long time ago right now He's at eight hundred and eighty eight thousand subscribers team and he's growing every day and Brad is constantly putting out Fresh content. I personally own a couple of his courses and They are phenomenal es6 is a phenomenal course if you want to learn about JavaScript He has that over on Udemy. He has it on his website as well You can find all of that information over on this channel at traversy media Com and as you can see if you look at his channel. He is just constantly producing Fire content. He's got absolute beginner HTML crash course absolute beginner CSS crash course absolute beginner JavaScript crash course absolute beginner react view angular and it goes on and on and on and then Brad comes on And he tells us his story He talks about when he first got started when he first got into web development Talks about his first job and stuff like that team and I don't know how he has all this stuff organized per se in particular But as you can see he has a lot of stuff And Brad is just he's just the beast at creating and he does as far as I know He does all the stuff himself. He does the cover art He does all the tutorials and everything. He has a video where he goes through his his desk setup He talks about workflow creating new web development projects all that stuff Brad is just delivering an immense value He is the Bob Ross of code.  Can I change the color of this? Can I change the layout of that? Can I do this a little different and you and you try to to to build your own thing and then you're trying to explain to yourself and In like the the super skill is hey, can I go out and explain this to somebody else? That's gonna help you understand even more but Brad has the courses to get you where you want to go team This is this is one of the that one of the greats one of the greats out here in the YouTube Web development community next up we have the real tough candy and she is quirky. She is funny She's got personality, but she is a beast. She's published multiple books. You can find those over on Amazon She's got courses on you Demi. She's got courses on how to how to grow a tiny YouTube channel And she is no joke when when I started out she had You know a third of the subscribers that I have and now she's crushing me She's got twice as many subscribers. I went off down the road. I got the I got the big corporate job I'm making the big corporate money. I'm living the big corporate life and and she was just out there grinding and hustling doing doing Working for different companies doing freelance projects working as a contractor writing books It's all kinds of stuff and she puts a lot of work into her content into her videos And she's very introspective about what it means to be a web developer And and what it's out here what it's like out here when you're trying to when you're trying to come up And she just shares her story in this really super unique way and she puts out some pretty some pretty funny content But at the same time she can be very serious at times, but she's always delivering value And she has a very unique perspective on things and she's just she's just fun to watch and Team the real tough candy. She will she will expand your mind in a different kind of way next up. We have Coding phase by my man Joe Santos Garcia and I've been following I've been following a lot of these guys for a long time when I started following Braddy It's probably like 400,000 subscribers Coding phase was he had twice as many as subscribers as me when I discovered him So he was at like 4,000 and I was at I was at 2,000 but now he's at 47,000 and Joe brings the fire too And Joe's story is unique in the sense That he was working jobs and and at one point he was like, hey man I got to set my goals far beyond this and he was like yo my goal is to get out here to build my own stuff to Build my own niche websites. I'm gonna put together my own course I'm gonna do my own thing and I'm gonna put that out to the world and I'm gonna write my own ticket in this world And that's what Joe's doing right now team. He's out there and he's doing it And he puts up he puts up fire content But then he also does live feeds where you can go on and you can actually ask Joe questions about what it is He's doing how he's doing it. Why he's doing it and Joe's very open man. He'll tell you what's up, right? As far as I know, I mean, there's a there's some things that he may not want to share But from what I've seen right? He's always been very open about what he's doing He just wants to help people reach the next level and he wants to help people free their minds and Help them understand that you don't necessarily need the job But hey man, there's things that we want to do there's places we want to go There's places we want to work and if you set your goals on those things you can get their team And he has a website coding phase calm where you can actually get a membership and you can go in and he Shows you all kinds of stuff man. He teaches you how to use react in In a way like no other man, and he's got people building fresh I mean like super fresh websites inside of inside of coding phase calm and when you come out You got these websites. They look really really good, man And I mean they let they go perfect in a portfolio But what you got to do and Joe will tell you man He's like hey, man, you got to put your own sauce on it You got a you got a sprinkle of dust on it and like Joe talks like that. I'm mimicking Joe right now Gotta so you got to you got to put your own sauce on it.  He's got a fantastic website I had a membership over at coding phase and I'm gonna get another membership again Just just to see what cool stuff he's got going on in there He's got courses on how to do eat HTML emails.  I watched this video the other day Somebody who went through his course and they went off and they got a job at Texas Instruments I watched the interview the other day of another guy who had been through coding phase calm and He went out and he got a job and he was like when I got there man I didn't know what was going on like it, you know I had studied all this stuff on how to make these websites and I'm taking PDFs And I'm turning them into HTML webpages and I get there and they're like yo react you have learned react But this guy just just from just from going through coding phases courses, right? He had the knowledge, right? He's like yo, right? I can figure this out, right? He had the confidence. He's like I can go learn this I can go, you know, I can make this a success and this guy a he's going strong man He's in the job. He's doing his thing and he's making good money And he's learning a ton of stuff and and then he's coming out and I can't remember his channel Exactly where I saw him But he's got a YouTube video out there where he's talking about this stuff and he's just he's just keeping it straight up But if you follow Joe over at coding phase long enough, right? You'll come across these names and Joe will introduce you to these people and he'll tell you about their stories man And they're all they're all stories of people who were like I didn't think I can do it But then I did it and Joe will tell you he was one of those people, right? He didn't think he could do it and then he did it right one day. He was like, hey, man This is the this is the life I want to live this is the person I want to be This is what I want to do on them and make my own schedule I don't want to be working for somebody else and I'm a guy here and I'm a get it and that's what he's doing man He's got the course. He's got the knit sights and he gives you a real education on how to take these skills That is web development software development software engineering and and being able to apply them in the real world And being able to turn them into into income and grow them to an income that surpasses your job We're really you can make your own you you can you can you can write your own ticket you can do Whatever it is you want to do next up team We got Joshua fluke over at grind real and Joshua his story is unique too, right? He was working on he went to school got a degree in engineering He's working at this engineering job and some stuff went down I don't remember the exact story, but Joshua was like hey, man I got to do something else so he enrolled in a coding boot camp and he straight up about it man He's like hey, you know I rolled in this coding boot camp and I didn't even study before I went to the boot camp I got into the boot camp and then I was procrastinating on all kinds of stuff and he's like, you know one day I realized like man. I can I can write my own ticket I just got a I just got to have a plan and I got to have a determination And I got I got to be willing to grind and he started grinding and now he's got the grind real team And he comes and he keeps it real and he tells you what it's what's up. He's going out there, right? He's going through the boot camp. He got the job I think he was teaching at the boot camp for a while. He's done some he's done some freelance work some contract work And I think he's had like another um, like like some other corporate jobs that he's worked to as well But again, I'm not here to tell that story. I'm just the messenger. I'm here to I'm here to show you The people that are out here that are gonna give it to you team And you may have come across some of these channels already and if you haven't right I'm here to shine some light on them for you team. So Joshua he He's very he's very harsh on the the corporate community because Because they lie to you, right?  Maybe they're lying on purpose Maybe they're not I don't know. I don't know the agenda It doesn't really matter because at the end of the day a business is a business and a business hires people to help them grow as a business and The business has to make money it has to make money in order to pay the people that are working there and you know sometimes right business Got to let you go and no matter how much a part of the family You think you are if you aren't contributing to that bottom line team you gots to go Right if you if you if you become sort of some sort of detriment or hindrance to what it is They're trying to accomplish you gots to go and and you know, some people they're sad about it when they got to go They're like, hey man, you know and they get down on themselves And they feel like imposters and they feel like they can't do it They feel like they can't get it But a lot of the times it's probably not a strike against you as a person is just the way it is team It's just the way the business works. He talks about going out and finding jobs You're looking at these different job sites and they're talking about hey, man You need five years of experience for for in some sort of technology that's only existed for two years You know just crazy stuff like that and Josh is like hey man apply for them jobs.  He tells you like hey, this is how you this is how you get around those job sites So you can get your resume right to the inbox of the person you need to contact in order to get an interview He talks about uh, he has this series called corporate cringe where he's talking about different corporations and the different things they do when it comes to hiring Software developers coders engineers and all that stuff and then how they treat them things like that man So he's very critical, but he keeps it real man. He's a very honest guy. He seems to be very transparent again I don't know. I don't know him personally. We're not we're not, you know friends or anything But I feel I mean I just I get this feeling from this energy that that that hey, man Like he's just being real and he's telling telling you what it's about And Josh another developer who's gone out and now he's doing his own thing team. He's got his YouTube channel He's got his niche sites. He's got a membership site and he's out there doing all this stuff You can find all of that stuff over at his channel right now Josh fluke is over as that a hundred and sixty four thousand subscribers team and he just keeps it real he just put he just puts out he just puts out the content and He's just a fire just a just a fire dude Just a just a good guy who's out here trying to help other people who are in in the situation He's in where he's like I mean and you got to check out Josh. She'll tell you the story, right? He's talking about family issues and things that he was going through and You can really see how he developed that mindset team and like I said, like he'll tell you It's no easy. It's no easy walk and they'll all tell you, you know Josh Joe Brad Real tough candy, they'll all tell you it's not an easy journey team But when you're on that journey for you it makes it better Because when you wake up in the morning, you're not just doing it for some company somewhere You're doing it for yourself. It's like hey, I'm a going here. I'm a grind it out. I'm a focus on my work I'm not here to socialize. I'm not here to make friends I'm here to provide the best possible service and most importantly I'm here to learn as much as I possibly can so I can apply this to my life and I can create the life I want to live so I can do the things I want to do and I can be the person that I want to be and that's Josh's Whole message next up we have Coding tech and what coding tech is gonna do is They just consolidate these talks from all these different conferences that go on all around the world And it's it's this is the power of the internet team This is why I come up to transmission depth and I broadcast my private signal to the world via YouTube team Is because you can you one day you can be in Norway learning about learning about quantum computing in the next day You can be in Arizona learning about tips for clean code and those aren't really the places but I mean these conferences are from all over the world team and People are paying money hundreds of dollars to fly all over the place to go to these things and to sit and listen to these people talk about their philosophy on code and software development and I think maybe maybe ever so often you run across somebody who's talking about their story Hey, man, like look I was I was I Was working this job. I didn't like and then I went and did this other thing and this other thing And now here I am on stage talking to you about this particular technology and these videos are just fire And we're not going here to watch these to learn anything to Master some sort of some sort of programming language or concept We're there for the ideas for the knowledge that's gonna be conveyed to us and to immerse ourselves in an environment where we're we're we're we're hearing we're hearing different terms used in different sort of context and And it helps us expand our understanding of what this thing is that software development web development Computing all this stuff because this stuff is brand new team. This is brand new stuff, right? It's only been 30 years and we got a whole long way to go team and so this is a great way to immerse yourself in that knowledge base in the experience of You know hundreds of different people with diverse backgrounds and diverse You know diverse thinking and ideas around what it means to develop software and to Essentially be building the future the world that we're gonna live in and the things we're gonna do and I just talks in here on on AI and all kinds of stuff team So it's a fantastic channel next up we have Crash course and there's a bunch of stuff here in crash course. They talk about there's there's AI and history all kinds of things but What I'm focused on is the computer science side of it crash course has this this series called crash course computer science Let's see if I can find it in here and if we just go out to YouTube into a straight up search for crash course computer science You'll get this playlist right at the top. We'll click on that crash course computer science And this will take you right into the I think I hit play off. So let's go back So you head right over into that playlist and this is gonna if you do it the way I did it's gonna start playing automatically But here they got a humongous playlist is like 41 videos that walk you through Computer science from the very beginning all the way up into the current age where we are right now team and this will give you a foundational understanding of computer science and computers and And help you to understand how all of this stuff works and goes together. They talk about Operating systems and memory and how processors work how hard drives work everything you want to know about computers They talk about it in here now This isn't of course is gonna make you a computer science expert or anything, but it will give you the knowledge To be able to go out and and piece together things in order to build your own stuff team So this in conjunction with everything else is a very real rounded education in in software development for the self-taught person and When you're starting out right and I mean we can all start from different places But right if you want to be able to build stuff right away and see how it works, right? You start with HTML then you move into CSS and then you go in a JavaScript and you go off into other stuff like PHP Maybe even some nodes stuff like that team but the start the start is HTML and And then CSS and I might as well just say HTML 5 HTML 5 is just HTML CSS and JavaScript three different languages that come together to make it possible for us to produce stuff that We can put on the internet and other people can use and interact with and computer crash course computer science is an Excellent way to get an understanding of computers if you if you don't know or or you feel like maybe There's some some missing knowledge that you don't understand crash course computer science will take you there And they even get into the basics core fundamentals of programming and this is super cool Because the things that they talk about in here like programming languages statements and functions algorithms stuff like that These are things that can be applied with any programming language one thing I see as new developers coming out here and they're like, yo, man What's the best language to learn? What's what language that I learned in 2019 and there is no best language to learn It's just computer languages are just tools to do things you want to do if you want to build stuff for the web You need some HTML. You need some CSS. You need some JavaScript. That's just the way it goes That's your front end if you want to build stuff on a server then hey, you can use anything you want You can use PHP. You can use C sharp. You can use Python You can use whatever but at some point if you want to show this stuff to somebody You're gonna have to produce some HTML and maybe you use Python on the server to generate some HTML pages It's served back to people so they can see it But all this stuff that I've shown you up into this point that that stuff when all put together Hey, the courses and the methodologies and ideas and the thought processes These are the this is this is what all everybody had to go through all of us out here We had to go through this through this process of awakening and learning and wrapping our head around this stuff team So that is a crash ghost computer science is a fantastic resource next up We have so Crattica and so Crattica's got a bunch of they they got a bunch of different stuff in here Speed reading and then I think there's some algebra. There may be some stuff in here about history all kinds of stuff But we're here. We're talking we're focused on the the Python course. It's a fantastic course And I think it's Olga. I'm not positive. I think her name is Olga But her Python course is fire team. It is it is produced like no other course I've ever seen they've got animations and she's she's got clothes that match Which he's talking about is just it's wild team and she walks you Completely through Python and what's so cool about this is because the stuff that she's talking about in Python If you can internalize it and really understand it again It's stuff that's used in every programming language and I didn't understand this until later on right? I was out here trying to learn Ruby in JavaScript and you know C sharp and like all these different things and one day I woke up and I realized like hey, man, it's the same stuff in every language. We're talking about types We're talking about variables. We're talking about integers and booleans and floats in every language all the same stuff Now each language has different functions. They have different syntax How we write things and stuff like that But the concepts are all the same and when you understand the concepts That makes it possible for you to go out and build anything you want and it gives you the confidence to know Hey, I can go learn this language. You may take me a day. You may take me to if you're slow like me It may take a week may take a month, but you know, you can learn it. You know, you can do a team in this Crack I mean not crash course, but this Over at Socratic a the learn Python is fantastic and right now they are working on putting together a new course advanced Python I don't know if it's done yet. This video came out six days ago I haven't you know, I don't know exactly what's going on, but they're running a Kickstarter right now And hey when that course comes out. I'm in it. I'm getting it Because it's just entertaining man. It's just as good as watching something on Netflix.  So you get alerts whenever I produce new content in our release new videos team And if you want to support the channel you can check out the code 365 startup lab links in the description below You can also buy your merch you can get some hats you get some shirts you get some stickers You can get those all over at right code drink coffee dot com again links in the description below Also information about this rig that I got going on here if you want to go out and you know Learn about the kind of computer setup that you see here in the background with all these RGB lights and stuff team But here I'm gonna give you some bonus information and in this information It's helped me and I believe it's helped a lot of these other Channels out here or the the youtubers that I talked about in the beginning not necessarily, you know crash course or Socratica or coding tech, but hey team right start applying for jobs right now before you know anything If you don't know nothing right just go out to whatever job site indeed monster I don't even know them all right you just google job sites Just go out fill out your information and just go through them and on in I think it's I think it's indeed I might be wrong But one of these sites they have like this sort of this this deal where they ask you a bunch of questions And you end up with a resume so you got like this resume template team But um, but yeah those like just apply Apply to all the jobs right say hey go on do a search html and hey apply to all the jobs and just set a number And just apply every day and eventually you'll get phone calls and people there'll be it'll it'll mostly be from recruiters Who are recruiting for other tech companies? They're gonna ask you about your skill set and all this stuff team But just remember this right no matter what your resume looks like right now and I mean you got to make it look good I'm not here to tell you you know how to do you how to do your resume per se Plenty of videos out there on that maybe I'll have one in the future or something So you got to subscribe to the channel if you want to get that But you put your resume out there and when someone calls you on your resume Just remember they called you they read your resume and there's something on there that says hey this person may be a fit So hey Right pick up the phone answer the questions that they have and eventually you'll you'll land an interview I don't know when it may take three days. It may take three months. I don't know Right it's all different.  Maybe you got a family.  You can check out coding phase You can go over to Udemy. There's all different kinds of things you can do team But you just got to start and when you start when you're taking the tutorials This is bonus information when you're taking these tutorials be thinking about how can I use this? How can I build this? What can I do with this stuff? Why am I learning this? Why am I learning this particular thing? What am I going to do? And how is how is this going to help me become the person I want to become so I can live the life I want to live and do the things I want to do another bonus tip team Is to have yourself a notebook or a piece of software or something that you can use to to take down your ideas I have um, I have a couple pieces of software that I use A simple note and there's another one called called notion and I may forget But I'll try to put the the those links to those in the in the notes below as well team And what I do is I in one of these applications I have what's called a spark file and it's just ideas ideas for for different businesses different applications different websites different niche websites And I just put them all in there So I know they're there and I have a place where I can go back when I need inspiration Or I need ideas or maybe there's a project I want to work on or something team And I'll just go and I'll just look at that list and I'm like, okay This is cool. Maybe I'll build that thing and what's amazing team is I've been writing this stuff forever And a lot of this stuff has come to pass without me even going back to look at that list like this youtube channel For instance was on that list in 2012 and I didn't start the channel into 2014 and I didn't start the channel And it's like two years after I bought this microphone that I'm talking on now And then it took me another two years to get to four thousand subscribers And then I really came back and I started hitting it hard and now I'm now I'm closing in on six fairly quickly team But that's that's how it goes team. You got to have a schedule. You got to have a plan You got to set your goals beyond Where it is you think you can be not too high because then your subconscious mind is going to be like Oh, no, right?  You'll get the job I guarantee it, right? If you if you set that goal and you work at it and you're doing what I'm saying You're working every day and you're working in earnest and and you're focused You're going to get to that job team. But Right, it's going to be hard to to to read to recalibrate yourself once you're there Unless you unless you're really thinking about it like hey, right my goal right now get to this job You get to that job and then once you get to you're like, hey, right? This is what I'm going to do with this job This is what I'm going to do with the knowledge that I learned from this thing I'm going to take this to the next level my ultimate goal is to is to work for myself and build my own thing Maybe grow a community grow a following whatever it is team But that's what you got to do team and another thing you got to do is that when you're going through these books You're going through these courses. You're going through these projects. You're learning new stuff You got to build stuff You got to build the stuff that they talk about in the book. You got to write the code You got to study the code. You got to understand the code. That's the number one understand what's going on Understand the architecture understand how it's put together That's the goal because if you can understand that you can go out and you can build anything And if you're writing and you're keeping notes on a regular basis You're using your imagination And when imagination is a is a precursor to to life's coming attractions team, right?  You're the supporting character. You're all that stuff team And and that's how you do it team, right?  That's your goal, right?  You got to go out there. You got to work You got to grind you got to build a project team. I'm your biggest fan The real castadero team and again if you want to support the channel you can check out the real castadero dot com There's links off to uh, right code drink coffee so you can buy your merch There's links off to uh, the code 365 startup lab In in case you really want to support the channel by buying a membership I've got some courses in there. You can follow how to get clients and then um And then I only focus on the core technologies html css javascript and then we get into some php to show people You know the server side and all that stuff team But again, I'm your biggest fan the real castadero the biggest thing you can do to support this channel is leave a thumbs up And subscribe hit that subscribe button But if you don't want to subscribe this cool just hit the thumbs up and leave a comment below say hey man Thanks. Thanks for uh, thanks for putting this video out or if you have any questions Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? You know in in in the community the community will come in and they'll surround you man And they'll answer those questions and stuff like that team But that is it. I'm your biggest fan the real castadero. It is time for me to terminate my transmission here and go back down