That's the fact that Jimbo had a short one 8 6 6 5 O Jimbo But 866-505-4626 with professor Gigi quick grand ball and a mythologist senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins center for health security and an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg school of public health and one thing that I've heard frequently on this program is people saying that well these new vaccines the Pfizer the Moderna the Johnson & Johnson are mRNA They're not really vaccines as such Your thoughts about the notion that they aren't really vaccines What do people think they are Of course they're vaccines They're general line of thinking is that while it wasn't made the old fashioned way so it can't possibly be good I see Well so they are vaccines in that they help prepare your immune system to face the virus that the vaccine was designed for So there are there are so many vaccines that have been developed around the world that in response to this virus And these are some of the best So this technology has been under development for decades But it's definitely this is it's time to shine We are very lucky that the technology was available when we were hit with this devastating virus So it's hard to argue with success and it's done a really great job of preventing many thousands of deaths 26.650 Jimbo one 8 6 6 5 O 5 four 6 two 6 In terms of the preventive measures let's say a 6 foot distancing hand sanitizer the wearing of masks are these all things that could be roughly put under the category of when in doubt be careful or are these things that we know are helpful Well now that we're heading into the winter months things are changing a little bit People are much more compared to last year around this time People are doing many more of the things that they were doing several years ago There's a lot more mixing of different households you're getting together People are going out They're doing things So other diseases exist flu is picking up RSV is picking up and there are a lot of other diseases that are transmitted by not washing your hands So hand sanitizer is not really not going to help you so much with COVID but it will help you with that With that a lot of other diseases that will get you sick When it comes to flu RSV and COVID those are all transmitted through the air And so anything that can be done to improve your air quality like in your house turning if you have electronic HVAC system turning it from auto to on when you have people over so that the air is continuously circulating and putting it a good merv 13 or better filter in your furnace These are things that you can do to improve the air quality and that should help with not only COVID but flu RSV anything that's transmitted through the air And that goes for all the variants too Variants are not magic These are versions of the virus and they're all transmitted through the air and we so any measure that you can take to breathe clean air or to prevent that virus from getting into your nose or mouth that's a good thing I've actually had people tell me well I got the flu vaccine so I'm covered I don't have to worry about all this COVID stuff It's all the same thing Yeah these are very different viruses And I mean flu is no joke I don't want to diminish it at all People should get the flu shot It's not as awesome as the COVID vaccines It will in general not prevent as much disease But it's definitely better than not having a flu shot And it could keep you out of the hospital So I definitely recommend that and it's because people think oh it's just a flu I think when people say that I think they're really referring to a bad cold because flu can really put you out of work for weeks on end I had the flu once and then I got bacteria pneumonia that followed the flu that landed me in the hospital for a couple of days and so it's not no fun to be sick no fun to have the months of recovery afterwards So just do what you can to not be sick I've looked at the flu a situation of course we accept every year The fact okay well the darn things changed again I got a flu shot last year Need to get another one this year We pretty much accept that This of course is merely a carryover from the last major pandemic which was after all a century ago is that where we're headed with COVID that every year you're going to have to get a slightly adjusted COVID shot Maybe it'll be part of the flu vaccine regimen You may even get everything in one shot or is that a concern But in other words it's not going away but it will become something that is manageable And of course although people die every year from the flu but it's sort of like those 30,000 people who died car wrecks We accept that If nothing new and therefore we don't get panicky Okay well people die from the flu People die from all kinds of things People die from jaywalking We accept that but with this latest pandemic we haven't reached the point of saying well it's a part of our lives like it or not Yeah I mean it's true that we have all these deaths from flu and from other diseases every year It might be the case that we do need a shot every year that is a booster Maybe it's tailored to the virus at that moment It's really hard to say right now I hope that the booster once people get the booster that will be a longer protection than that But we'll have to see we can't it's really hard to project But you are absolutely right that this virus is not going away One of the biggest clues of that is that this virus is what they call a generalist virus It's able to infect lots of different animals And so it's already in the deer population that's been found in mink Different zoos have had problems that I saw something today that some snow leopards died of COVID So it's able to infect lots of animals probably a lot of domestic companion animals as well And so it's going to go it's going to be around We're not eradicating this More to come one 8 6 6 5 O Jimbo when 866-505-4626 and we'll be back in just a moment.