Episode 2 · The Ben Avery Era
Emergency Broadcast - Corona Call-Ins #2
Mar 20, 2020 · 38:47 · 42,000 views · 21 segments, 87 moments indexed
A respiratory therapist calls into the show to tell us what's happening in the hospitals, and how to treat this virus.
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- 1 min
Tim opens a caller segment with John, an old high school classmate now working as a respiratory therapist on Long Island, asking about the severity of the outbreak on the frontlines.
2moments
- Tim reunites with John, a high school classmate who is now a respiratory therapist
- John describes the severity of the current crisis at his hospital and his role on the frontlines
- 1 min
John explains what a ventilator is, how it breathes for a patient, and how it buys time for the lungs to heal, sometimes ending in death if the lungs don't recover.
3moments
- A ventilator is a machine that helps breathe for a patient when someone is too sick to breathe on their own.
- The ventilator gives a patient's body and immune system time to recover from infection, especially in the lungs.
- If lungs don't heal, a patient can remain on the ventilator until death.
- 3 min
John describes rising patient counts on his COVID floor, criteria for testing, and a severe shortage of N95 masks caused by supply chain issues with China.
4moments
- Hospital went from 3-4 COVID patients a couple days ago to 16 currently admitted.
- Testing criteria requires heavy sneezing and coughing, making it hard to distinguish from other illnesses.
- Severe mask shortage in hospital—N95 masks supposed to protect against droplet transmission are unavailable.
- Hospital is rationing masks so severely that staff are using inferior yellow masks instead of N95s.
- 2 min
John recounts his own mysterious illness that may have been COVID, and Tim brings up a friend's healthy 63-year-old father who died four days after contracting the virus.
3moments
- Tim got diagnosed with strep a week and a half ago after an urgent care test came back positive, though he thinks the cough wasn't actually a strep symptom.
- His cough gets worse when he drinks water or eats, which he finds odd and wonders why that happens.
- Tim says he's recovering now, sleeping better, and his temperature has dropped from 99.4 to 97.9 degrees.
- 3 min
They discuss confusion over how the virus spreads, whether it's airborne or droplet-based, and John predicts hospitals will be overwhelmed like in Italy.
5moments
- Tim's podcast producer sits next to him and hasn't gotten sick, raising questions about why some people contract the virus while others don't.
- His friend's father, a 63-year-old marathon runner from Seattle, died four days after contracting the virus despite having no underlying conditions.
- Confusion over whether transmission is airborne or droplet-based, with conflicting official guidance creating uncertainty about how the virus spreads.
- Hospitals are particularly vulnerable because sick patients are concentrated in close quarters sharing the same air.
- Tim predicts the situation will get significantly worse, with case numbers doubling every couple of days rather than improving.
- 3 min
John advises seeking medical help if symptomatic rather than waiting it out, describes escalating oxygen treatments up to intubation, and admits remdesivir's effectiveness is still unproven.
6moments
- Tim asks what people should do if they think they have coronavirus—go to a hospital or wait it out at home?
- His guest explains you need to go to the doctor and get medication; over-the-counter ibuprofen isn't sufficient.
- Tim asks what medications hospitals are actually giving coronavirus patients.
- Medical explanation of oxygen delivery methods used for COVID patients, from nasal cannula to intubation.
- Discussion of Remdesivir as an antiviral drug in human trials with uncertain effectiveness due to lack of data.
- Tim asks whether his guest believes coronavirus is actually worse than the media and news have portrayed it.
RemdesivirCOVID-19
- 2 min
John reveals a 27-year-old was intubated at a nearby hospital, undercutting the narrative that only the elderly are severely affected.
4moments
- Young people may not show symptoms but can still have the virus and spread it to elderly populations
- A 27-year-old patient was intubated and on a ventilator due to coronavirus
- Tim asks whether patients are conscious while on a ventilator and learns they're typically sedated
- Explanation of how ventilators work: positive pressure pushing breath into lungs, opposite of normal negative pressure breathing
- 2 min
John walks through how medical staff monitor a ventilated patient's blood gases, consider tracheostomies, and eventually have to make the grim call that a patient won't recover.
5moments
- Respiratory therapist explains how doctors monitor oxygen and CO2 levels to determine if a ventilated patient's body is healing
- Tracheostomy procedure: when extubation fails, doctors put a hole in the patient's neck to make breathing easier
- No fixed timeline for when to give up on a ventilator—the body's will to survive means each case varies
- How doctors tell patients and families they've exhausted all options and the disease is progressing beyond recovery
- Tim notes that people always compare COVID deaths to flu deaths, pointing out the comparison misses how different this crisis is
- 4 min
John predicts it will take about a year for a vaccine, doubts that reinfection immunity will hold, and dismisses the theory that warm weather will slow transmission.
8moments
- Tim predicts the pandemic will get worse and estimates vaccines are still at least a year away.
- Question of whether businesses stay closed forever or if people eventually have to go back out and develop immunity through exposure.
- Tim thinks people will get the coronavirus multiple times and it'll cycle like the flu, requiring annual shots.
- Being the first person to sign up for an experimental coronavirus vaccine—Tim admits he'd be a prime candidate.
- Whether warm weather will reduce virus transmission; Tim doubts it since the virus survives on surfaces and in air regardless of temperature.
- The virus might actually get worse in heat for all anyone knows—uncertainty is the scary part.
- Searching for good news, Tim notes people are coming together during the crisis and that most people who get infected won't die or need hospitalization.
- Tim claims he's on the front line seeing the sickest people and confirms that most cases aren't severe.
- 1 min
John notes staff shortages from workers afraid to come in, jokes about Tim applying to be a doctor, then discusses how smoking weed or vaping harms lung tissue just like cigarettes.
2moments
- Tim suggests he should apply to work at the hospital and do surgeries, having watched Chicago Hope, and imagines walking around in a coat to put people at ease.
- Everyone stopped smoking cigarettes and started smoking weed instead, which creates a problem for respiratory health.
- 2 min
John speculates on lasting lung damage from the virus and clarifies that a wet, phlegmy cough doesn't mean you're free of COVID.
5moments
- Smoking anything—weed, cigarettes, vaping—damages the lining of your lungs and the alveoli, the small air sacs.
- Tim asks what lasting effects people report after recovering from COVID.
- The virus causes trauma to your lungs, reducing functional residual capacity as white blood cells flood in to defend against the infection.
- A dry cough means nothing is there—no moisture in your lungs—while a wet cough produces phlegm.
- A wet cough doesn't mean you don't have COVID; you could be coughing up phlegm and still have the virus.
- 4 min
John describes nurses stealing N95 masks, healthcare workers potentially refusing to show up, and points to hazmat suits in Italy and China as proof this isn't just a flu.
7moments
- N95 masks were being stolen from hospitals on Long Island; healthcare workers had to lock them up.
- Healthcare workers won't go into work without proper protective equipment because they don't want to get sick.
- People working in hazmat suits in Italy and China prove this isn't the flu.
- Tim's guest predicts it could take a year for vaccinations to be developed and proven to work.
- We know far less about this virus than we're pretending to know.
- The guidance keeps changing—first it's droplet transmission, then you need an N95, then it's airborne.
- Tim's guest emphasizes he's seeing the situation firsthand on the front lines.
- 2 min
Tim thanks John for his frontline honesty, jokes about respiratory therapists having the second hardest job after podcasting, and they say goodbye.
3moments
- Tim recommends social distancing and says the virus is genuinely real, observable in hospitals daily.
- Hospital bed shortages are likely coming, and healthcare worker staffing will be a serious problem.
- Tim jokes that his job as a podcaster entertaining both healthy and sick people is the hardest in the country, ranking healthcare workers second.
healthcare workers
- 2 min
Reacting to the Call: 2020 Is Over
#Tim reflects on how honest and uncertain John sounded, declares 2020 is essentially cancelled, and predicts the damage will take years to recover from.
5moments
- A respiratory therapist on Long Island describes the pandemic with complete uncertainty about what the virus kills, when it will end, or if it will improve.
- Tim notes the therapist was honest about flying by the seat of their pants, and the only certainty offered was that the crisis would last about a year.
- Tim declares 2020 is legitimately over with nothing left to salvage, predicting the damage will take months and years to recover from.
- Asked if he's scared, Tim says he's fine, prompting the observation that his evangelical Christian upbringing has conditioned him to expect death.
- Tim's take: evangelical Christians are almost wishing for the end times whether they admit it or not.
- 1 min
Evangelicals Wanting the End Times, and Beverly Hills Elderly
#Tim riffs that evangelical Christians are basically eager for death and the apocalypse, then jokes about seeing too many elderly people out walking in Beverly Hills who've already lived full lives.
4moments
- Tim describes evangelicals as so ready for the end times they're basically preparing to die, finding it strange but oddly nice.
- He says at 70 he'd be terrified, and notes there are way too many elderly people out walking around.
- A lot of them in Beverly Hills have an attitude of 'f*** it' — they lived their whole life there, it worked out, so what else is there to want?
- Tim's point: you're 75, living in Beverly Hills, you won the game — what's next, an estate on the moon? It's over, you did it.
- 1 min
The 'It's Just the Flu' Crowd Was Wrong
#Tim mocks people and media figures who dismissed COVID as 'just the flu,' pointing to hazmat suits as proof it's far more dangerous.
3moments
- A respiratory therapist from a Long Island Hospital calls in about being overwhelmed by the crisis.
- Tim says the 'it's just the flu' crowd is going to go down in history as the stupidest.
- Tim wonders if authorities knew more than they were telling us and downplayed it to avoid a complete systemic collapse and panic.
Donald TrumpRhett
- 2 min
Climate, Humidity Maps, and a Mysterious COVID Theory
#Tim shares an unverified theory about a friend's map suggesting the virus is worse in certain humidity/temperature zones like DC, St. Louis, Seattle, Portland, and New York.
3moments
- COVID was never the flu, it's a vicious bug killing people in four to eight days.
- Tim's guest claimed the virus hits hardest at certain humidity levels and temperatures, predicting DC and St. Louis will get hit hard next based on a humidity map.
- Tim notes that at this point everything is a theory, and worries about COVID 20 mutating into something worse than the original.
- 1 min
Nuclear Arsenals Undone By a Microscopic Organism
#Tim muses that despite humanity's nuclear arsenals, a tiny virus is what's bringing everyone down, comparing it to historical plagues and diseases potentially locked in melting ice caps.
5moments
- The Rock fighting a microscopic organism versus nuclear arsenals.
- Tim notes humanity is armed with nuclear and hydrogen bombs, yet gets undone by a microscopic organism.
- Pandemics happened before—in 1916 and 1957—and this follows the historical pattern.
- When melting ice caps release ancient bacteria and diseases trapped for thousands of years.
- Humans are deforesting rainforests and contacting organisms we've never encountered before.
climate changeCOVID-19Black DeathThe Rock
- 2 min
The Wuhan Lab Leak and Bioweapon Theory
#Tim lays out a conspiracy theory that the virus escaped from a Wuhan animal-testing disease lab that was secretly selling animals to a wet market, and floats a friend's claim that it's a bioweapon.
6moments
- A Wuhan lab was experimenting on animals similar to facilities like Plum Island, where disease researchers test on animal subjects.
- Tim's theory: lab workers sold animals from the facility on the black market to the local wet market for cash.
- An oil consultant friend-of-a-friend—which Tim notes is just CIA speak—believes COVID is a bioweapon.
- Tim explains China's bioweapon research is based in Wuhan and they've been recruiting American scientists.
- A serious framework for discussing conspiracy: the virus could be a leaked bioweapon or escaped from an animal testing facility.
- Hungry people in Wuhan bought pangolin meat from the wet market without knowing the source.
Wuhan Institute of VirologyPlum Islandwet market
- 1 min
Pangolins, Armadillos, and Killing One with a Shotgun
#Tim riffs on exotic meat markets selling pangolins, jokes about Texans not eating armadillos due to leprosy risk, and tells a story about his dad shooting one in the backyard as a kid.
3moments
- Pangolins are sold in markets for their scales.
- Tim does an impression of an armadillo curling into a ball.
- Bernie's father shot an armadillo with a shotgun because it was digging holes in the backyard.
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- 1 min
Tim closes the emergency episode with a quick, dark thank-you to the audience.
1moment
- Tim closes the show with "we're all gonna die"