We bring you this special interview as part of our Christmas edition of Pandemic Weekly. What a year it's been! We thought it would be useful to check in again with our guest expert on all things Covid, Dr William Shyter. Bill, whose PhD in Applied Culinary Ergonomics (In A Tiny House Setting) gives him a unique perspective, has been our go-to guy all year and here he addresses all those pre-holiday anxieties! Full disclosure; Bill has no conflicts of interest, his only sponsor being Modazer JJ, a charity devoted to global population control. Without further ado, here's the transcript of the call Bill and I shared this week.
Me: “Hi, Bill? How's it going?”
WSPhD: “Hello, dear, I'm fine, thanks. And your good self?”
Me: “All good this end, Bill. Thanks for agreeing to this interview. We at Pandemic Weekly feel that we have an obligation to the real science on Covid and not to unnecessarily scare people with click-bait titles and overwrought narratives and if it's settled science we're after, it's you we call as Tony F has been a little busy of late. We have a few questions we hope you can help us with.”
WSPhD: “My pleasure. Always good to talk to a serious publication like yours. Fire away.”
Me: “Thanks, Bill. First question; why is the idea of asymptomatic spread so important?”
WSPhD: “Well, without it, we wouldn't be able to justify locking people down, would we? You see, it's our description of the unintentional spread of Covid that is the primary driver of fear. Well, that and the pictures of the Chinese dropping down dead in the street. If people thought that they could only infect other people when they actually had symptoms, they wouldn't be as scared and they'd just stay home when they felt ill, rather like they are doing, and there would be no way to sustain the impression that the pandemic was still a thing. Fortunately, because we had the foresight to label Covid a 'novel' coronavirus, nobody has realized that asymptomatic spread has never happened with any other virus. Anyway, we know in our heart of hearts that the lock-downs were crucial, so we feel okay about that little white lie. You see, this is where pandemic response has always gone wrong in the past. All this talk of herd immunity is dangerous piffle. The only way to deal with Covid is to entirely eradicate it, just like we've done with the flu.”
Me: “Good point, Bill! One of our readers asks “What's the science behind curfews?””
WSPhD: “I'm glad you asked me that, as a lot of people don't seem to be able to get to grips with it, which is probably due to their inability to think logically. Just kidding! What happens is that the virus is floating about in the air all day long, coming out of people's mouths and noses and, by the evening, there is so much of it hanging there that the only responsible thing to do is to send people home, where they are safe in a closed environment. The actual timing of the restrictions is the result of fine tuning and oodles of research on air density and other scientific stuff that you wouldn't understand, but sometimes it means that the curfew is 7pm, or 10pm, or maybe even midnight if we want to push the envelope. We're aware that these curfews disproportionately effect places of entertainment, bars and such, which is really unfortunate as the last thing we would want to do is make it difficult for people to get together, talk to each other and have a good time but, in times of maximum crisis like now, it's beholden upon all of us to make sacrifices for the greater good. That curfew also includes preventing you from buying alcohol from gas stations to drink at home, because it does.”
Me: “And thank God for that! Another reader asks “There are many online studies which show that mask wearing has almost no effect on the transmission of Covid. Why then are mask mandates important?””
WSPhD: “These studies are accessible online? Can you get back to your reader and find out what they are? I don't know how that happened. Anyway, to answer your question....I think you'll find that these studies are conducted by independent researchers. But there are also one or two authoritative studies which show that, once you have structured the clinical trials in the correct way, the results are in fact inconclusive. What's more, these studies are financed by the drug companies and mask manufacturing companies themselves. Now, who would you rather believe? Researchers with no contacts in the pharmaceutical industry or researchers who are only a phone call away from somebody in Big Pharma who can set them straight? I know where my money is.
And, let's be fair. I think calling them mandates is a little strong. I mean no-one is actually forcing you to miss your child's Nativity Play, are they? Or preventing you from going grocery shopping. All you have to do is comply and we'll let you do both of those things, for now.”
Me: “Makes sense to me, Bill! Now, there's been a big focus on combating misinformation, although there has been a lot of confusion about identifying what it actually is. Can you clear this up for our readers?”
WSPhD: “Be glad to, although I would caution you that we are not in a static environment. It's something of a moveable feast, as we kitchen designers like to say! To make it easier for people, we've come up with a general rule of thumb, which is that something is misinformation if we say it is. It's better this way, or else the public might have to evaluate evidence and compare competing narratives for themselves and we wanted to spare them that. Who knows where that would end! No, seriously, care needs to be exercised. For instance, some things that are true are also misinformation. Some things that were misinformation yesterday are information today and vice versa. It depends on what we want to get across to the public at any given time. That's where the fact checkers do an invaluable job … which reminds me. Big shout out to Google for making sure the public knows what it needs to know! It's so important and without them and others like them, the information that we don't like would be much more accessible.”
Me: “That's right, Bill. Nobody needs to get all confused and have to make their mind up themselves! Another popular question; is the PCR test the best way to identify a case?”
WSPhD: “ Two sugars please, Mum. And some of those chocolate fingers I love. Sorry. PCR tests. Yes. Absolutely! The beauty of it is, there is absolutely no chance of us missing a case, especially if we dial the cycle rate up to 45. Sorry, technical term. ‘Cycle rate’ refers to the number of times we have to magnify the gunk from your nose in order to detect a fragment of either the flu virus, the common cold or maybe just human DNA, alive or dead, infectious or not. Or Covid, of course. It's amazing! We can also vary the number of cycles, which we have started to do in hospital testing. The vaccinated get a test set at 28 cycles and the unvaccinated get one set at 40 or 45. It's a great way to make sure there are lots of unvaccinated people testing positive, because then people pay less attention to the vaccinated ones. And this is a prime example of why we try and keep things simple for the public. We don't want to breed any complacency, which there would certainly be if they knew that the vast majority of these positives are asymptomatic, so it's much better to call them cases instead. And it's a good example of science moving on. Originally, the PCR test was a secondary tool, only to be used to confirm a doctor's diagnosis, but we've found that it's much better to test as widely as possible, all over the place, in fact. Why should doctors have all the fun, eh?! And, after all, around 3% of the positive tests may actually have Covid and we're happy with that degree of accuracy.”
Me: “Absolutely! Thanks, Bill. The last couple of questions bring us fully up to date. Vaccine passports have been in the news a lot lately. Why are they so controversial?”
WSPhD: “You know, it's a puzzler to me too. It seems like such a no-brainer. Maybe that's why the public are struggling with it? Just kidding! It seems to me that the problems seem to revolve around people's perception that they possess rights by some God given technique (I'm not too sure about the details), when everybody ought to know by now that it is us that gives them their rights. When I say 'us', I mean the state, of course. I'm not the state – well, not yet! No, seriously, experts like me are the state these days, which just shows how far our political system has evolved. Anyway, vaccine passports are vitally important because they allow us to keep tabs on those who are likely to give us trouble in the future. No, not the ones who have the passports. The ones that don't. I know we say passports are necessary because they help us to slow the spread of the virus, but I think the cat's out of the bag on that one. You'd have to be a complete numpty to still believe that. On second thoughts, maybe there is some mileage left in it! Only joking!”
Me: “Ha, ha! Nice one, Bill! Another controversial one, I'm afraid. Some people have been spreading misinformation about early treatment options and they talk about a couple of drugs in particular – ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. They say that these drugs would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if they'd been allowed. What say you?”
WSPhD: “Oh, God. Not the horse dewormer and Trump's Tonic again? I thought we were past this by now. We were completely transparent with people all along and still we get this! We need comprehensive clinical trials on ivermectin, for a start. Not like the ones for the vaccines. Proper ones. I know it was approved for general use decades ago and it won the Nobel Prize too, but we had to revoke its approval for Covid use because people were using it off their own bat and we couldn't control it through the doctor network. It was getting to be really dangerous; not the ivermectin per se, as you'd have to take a kilo a day to get a mild case of diarrhoea. No, it was self prescription that was the issue. We couldn't, in all conscience, allow that. As for hydroxychloroquine... well, Trump says it works, so it obviously doesn't. Case closed! No, seriously, we did some trials to see if we could replicate the excellent results that doctors were reporting when they treated outpatients with around 800mg a day. So, we tried it on late stage, hospitalized Covid sufferers at three times that dose and it was absolutely useless. Over 100 people died. So that was that. We really helped the public dodge a bullet there.”
Me: “That does sound like a close shave, Bill! One last query. Booster shots are very much on the tip of everyone's tongue at the moment. The cynics, of course, are saying that it's just a third dose of something that's failed twice already...?”
WSPhD: Third? Fourth or fifth too! And, no, the booster goes in the arm too. Really, this is just abject nonsense. The science is showing us that vaccine induced immunity, whilst it's powerful and it overwhelms the natural immune system, does tend to wane a bit as time goes by. By 'a bit', I mean totally and, because natural immunity no longer works properly, a booster shot is the only real option or you'll be worse off than if you'd never had the vaccine. And we wouldn't want that to happen, as we really care about you. I don't understand why people have a problem with it.”
Me: “Me neither, Bill! Well, thanks a lot. That's been really helpful in clearing up any lingering doubts and reassuring people that you guys know exactly what you're doing. Compliments of the season, Bill!”
WSPhD: “You, too. And don't forget the flu shot, folks. It's a particularly strong one this year, because...well, because. Happy Christmas!”