#1451 - Dr. Peter Hotez

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Dr. Hotez, how are you, sir?

Peter Hotez (0:03)

It's great to see you again, Joe. I feel a lot better seeing you now.

Joe Rogan (0:06)

I feel a lot better seeing you too, especially with the bow tie, as we talked about before, your signature touch.

Peter Hotez (0:12)

Yes, I was saying, when I tried to start wearing a regular tie for a while, it was like when Dylan started switching to electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival, and there were just cries of outrage, so I had to.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

What kind of cries of outrage are you getting about your bow tie? Especially in these trying times.

Peter Hotez (0:28)

No, they like the bow tie. The point was I tried to switch to regular tie for a while, and they said that there's no way that can happen.

Joe Rogan (0:35)

Yeah, that's what I meant. I screwed it up. But I meant, who's getting upset at you wearing a regular tie?

Those people need to get a life.

Peter Hotez (0:42)

I think it was meant in a good-natured way.

Joe Rogan (0:45)

I'm sure.

So we don't do very many of these Skype ones, but because they're odd. So I don't know if you've done too many of these. Sometimes people talk over each other. It's very strange.

Peter Hotez (0:57)

Yeah, I guess it's the epidemic, right? Otherwise, I'd be on a plane and come to see you in LA.

Joe Rogan (1:04)

Yeah, we'll do that again sometime.

So let's get going. So taking it from the top, let's discuss, give us your take on how we got here, because it's been very strange. Obviously, the president completely miscalculated what was going to happen and the way he was explaining it to the news. He was kind of saying that it was just a few cases and they'll be gone. And now obviously, New York City shut down, the entire country is separated from each other, everybody is isolating at home. Give us your take on how we got here.

Peter Hotez (1:39)

Well, you know, the truth is, we knew this was coming or something like it. We had a heads up and even a heads up before last year, because this is now our third major coronavirus disaster of the 21st century. We had what's called SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, in 2003 That started in China and caused a terrible epidemic in Toronto. It actually took the Rolling Stones to do a concert to bring the economy back to Toronto in 2003 And then it was Mayer's coronavirus infection in 2012, and this is the third one.

So we actually realized that coronaviruses were going to become a new thing, and we embarked on a big coronavirus vaccine program a decade ago.

And each time they've caused devastating hospital epidemics, they've affected health care workers. So the point is this, unfortunately, has become a new normal for the globe, is terrible coronavirus epidemics. And we saw this one coming up at the end of 2019 in China, and I knew we were in for trouble because that's what coronaviruses do.

Joe Rogan (2:52)

So you knew that we were going to be in trouble because there was no way they can contain it and keep it in China?

Peter Hotez (2:58)

Well, the difference with this one compared to the other two was this, the other two SARS and MERS, now we call this new one SARS 2 So there was SARS 1, then MERS, then SARS 2 So both SARS 1 and MERS made you so sick and had such a high case fatality rate, that anybody who got it was almost immediately hospitalized and basically out of the community. The difference with this one, ironically, is it's pretty lethal. It's about five to ten times more lethal than regular flu, seasonal flu.

But also there's a big group of people who don't get very sick at all.

And so you have this sort of perfect mix where it's not the most lethal infection we've ever seen, it's not the most transmissible infection we've ever seen, but it's high enough in both categories that it combines in this very toxic way. So what you have is you have a group of people who are getting very sick or in the intensive care unit, like older people, those with diabetes and hypertension, even a group of younger people who are getting it very sick, and then a larger group who are only getting mildly sick who can still walk around the community and be out and about in stores and restaurants and infecting everybody. And so this is what's caused the problem. It's a highly transmissible and there's a big group of people walking around spreading it and a smaller subset but a big subset were getting very sick and even dying in intensive care units. So that's what's playing out in New York City right now, for instance.