Been sort of an uptick in Some of the respiratory pathogens that infect little kids that were rising rates you know in in may and june if you're talking strictly about influenza you're right the rates last year almost non existent. I mean one child died in the united states from flew in the twenty. Twenty one Flu season which is just extraordinary You know often. It's somewhere between one hundred thirty in two hundred children a year who died from flu in the us But you know going forward. It's not clear if if this coming season will be a severe flu season. Normally the northern hemisphere watches the southern hemisphere to see what's happening there to try to gauge What might be coming at us and it flew is still transmitting at extremely low rates in the southern hemisphere. Where it is now you know winter and would normally beef flu season so you know it. It could be that this coming. Winter won't be the big bad flu season that people are expecting. It may take a little bit longer for flew to rebound but people are worried that there will be a bad flu season coming in the not too distant future. Well how an ito as at mentioned at the top we look to you as a barometer. For how worried we should be until. I'm wondering if you don't mind if i ask you personally. How are you like going out into the world. these days Are you still wearing a mask inside. You eat endorse at restaurants. Are you comfortable seeing colleagues working at your desk in are these fears around delta making you Reconsider any of the sort of more freedoms you might have taken Before we start worrying. Helen and i are having dinner next week. Chalice insider outside. I think it's going to be inside. Yes i didn't In a restaurant indoors over the weekend and it was the first time that i had I'm not wearing a mask when i'm on my bike or walking around. I do put them on when i go into stores. It's kind of more of a courtesy thing you know. I'm not feeling like super anxious at this point of it'll be interesting to see we're going back into the office starting next week It'll be great to see everybody but it'd be weird to look for. I look for sure. I'm thinking about making banana bread but You know asked me that question. In september when things start to get cooler and we see what happened over the summer with rates. And let's see what i answer them and our listeners should know that helen is amazing. So i look forward to eating that next week. When i see you see you you coming in debut. I had planned on it. And then i realized that it's next week and i didn't get my act together so soon though could be great to see you allen. Thanks for your time once again. Thanks for having me wanted to interrupt the podcast for one moment. Let listeners know about a very cool staff event. That is coming up soon. It's called the breakthrough science summit and as its name implies. We will be exploring breakthroughs in technology and procedures that have remade. The world health and medicine with our keynote speakers will take you inside these innovations examining how developed adopted and paid for. Also take a look at the breakthroughs at having it hit the market but have the potential to redefine health and medicine in the years to come. The list of speakers is long and distinguished but among them. Are jim allison. The nobel prize winning immunologist and godfather of cancer immunotherapy francis collins director of the nih and catherine jansen the pfizer vaccine scientists. Who helped of course create its covert nineteen vaccine. This is a virtual event running over two days next week july thirteenth and fourteenth listeners of this podcast can get a discount on registration. Go to stat. News dot com slash summit and use discount code p od all lower case. We've talked a lot about how the cove nineteen pandemic has led to unprecedented investor interest in biotech but the world of digital health fueled by a boom in virtual care has arguably fared better with previously obscure companies reaching billion dollar valuations through a breathless series of deals this week stat rounded up some of the most intriguing digital health transactions of the first half of twenty twenty one and joining us to discuss a few them is health tech correspondent. Mario aguilar mario. Welcome back to the podcast. It's script to be back. So one of the big trends to share has been technology targeting mental health We've seen massive amounts of money flowing into companies like lira. Health modern health and ginger. So mario what exactly do these firms do and halloween know whether they're worth their valuations. Were you're right that these firms have raised gigantic sums liras put together two rounds totaling nearly four hundred million at evaluation of nearly five billion modern health ginger beside over one billion fine rounds i mean what investors see here is a potentially huge market That needs a service that they can't get fundamentally. There's a shortage of supply therapists and a excessive demand for what they offer So the companies that can figure out how to use tech to increase the reach of the therapists are potentially winners so nearly the market. We talked about talks face heads face which were consumer facing apps the former sort of connects to a therapist via chat and maybe via video or audio The ladder is like meditation and other exercises. Now what we're seeing now is sort of evolution of those kinds of products lira. Modern health those products target employers who want to provide health benefits to their employees. And if you want to move. The needle in the role of healthcare quickly import benefits. Plans are very good way to do it up until now you know. Companies have commonly offered employee assistance plans which are basically a phone number that you call trying to get helper counseling. And i don't wanna say that they are worthless but in my personal experience. They're their substandard. So with these companies do is basically offer a better pe- as to whether these companies are worth the money ender huge valuations. I mean i think in talking to investors. It's really clear that there's gonna be a couple of huge winners in the space. There's just too much opportunity. But there's also like a lot of complexity in the market so like companies target all sorts of different buyers right health plans..