COVID-19 Files: Ep. 4.5

Hey, what's up everybody? Here we are on our COVID files 4.5. That means a point five we have our recurring super smart guests, my friend and colleague, Dr. Stuart Ackerman. Dr. Ackerman, would you please introduce yourself?

Sure, Ken. Thanks for having me again. It's my name's Stuart Ackerman. I'm a gastroenterologist with digestive health associates of Texas. And we're glad that I'm here again to discuss more COVID type stuff.

So on Dr. Ackerman and I did a COVID 3.5 Episode three and a half episode where we looked into the role of COVID in the digestive tract. Today, we're going to look at some journals and discuss the role of COVID-19 testing specifically the role of antibodies, and you're going to be hearing a lot about this. And so a lot of the shows that we're doing, we're a little ahead of the media. So that's what I'm really happy about is that every time we do a show, and then later the media kind of catches up, so. The one thing I do want to address and if you're watching this on YouTube, Dr. Ackerman, you've changed your look a little bit. I mean, you had this very beautiful luscious beard, you know Wolverine like and it's a little different is that because you're getting all the notoriety from the show or what's going on?

Yeah, some sacrifices have to be made. So, as part of my practice, you know, although there's some restrictions because of COVID on doing procedures and seeing patients in person, I still I still have a significant number of emergency and urgent procedures that needs to be done and part of the protocol as recommended by all of our societies is that you've got to wear PPE these protective equipment and some of that is an N95 mask and an N95 mask when it goes over your your mouth and your nose, it doesn't fit to securely if you've got luscious locks like I did. So sacrifices needed to be made.

So Dr. Ackerman did this really cool video where he's basically explained the whole process of this, and how certain sacrifices have to be made. So I suggest everybody go to his website. What is your website?

It's www.stuartakermanmd.com Stuart Akerman dot com

You posted the video on your website, I hope.

Yeah, it's posted on my blog on the website.

That's awesome. I love the video. It's so cool. All right. So when you and I were discussing about doing this, and what I like is that you and I talk all the time. And we discuss journals and we do stuff and we kind of debate a little bit and we poke each other and you were you were discussing that, you know, hey, we should do a show on this. Do you want to do like a point counterpoint kind of thing where we should debate and I laughed because I immediately thought of airplane the movie from 1980 you're way too young for this but the airplane.

I've done I've googled it.

They were doing point CounterPoint. And you know, the whole point of the show is to be so obscenely on either end where the one guy so, a CRNA Jack Kerry that I'm not sure if you know him. Have you met jack? So jack would always laugh, he would use that quote whenever something would happen in the in our endoscopy center. If maybe the scopes weren't ready or a patient showed up late or something got off track, he would always say the same thing which I started thinking about about this. In the point counterpoint in airplane, the CounterPoint guy was like, they bought the ticket, they knew what they were getting into, I say, let him crash. This is not going to be quite like that. Because I think you and I will end up in the same spot ultimately when we're discussing this. So that's kind of where I thought where you and I were hoping to have a kind of a point CounterPoint. But I think we're gonna end up in the same spot. You kind of agree?

Yeah, I agree. I think that it's, it's good to sort of flush out both sides of the argument so that you're more well rounded in your discussion. And I think that's kind of how we approach it, you know, that, we're we're looking at the same data. We're drawing our own conclusions, and sort of coming out on both sides of the argument. I think that's, that's good for any kind of evidence based discussion.

Totally. And what we're going to talk about today is something that is super important, because it is how do we get the economy back on track? How do we use testing to do it? And we're going to take a look at the evidence based approach to this. And in fact, this is coming so fast that this morning I woke up, and I saw a couple different articles that that came out this morning. One of them was an article on a homeless shelter in Boston. And what they decided to do is do PCR testing on everyone in the homeless shelter, and what they found was that 36% of the people were positive at that moment, and we're gonna discuss what that moment means. So 33% were positive, but only 7.5% admitted to having a cough and only .7 even had a fever. The conclusion was in this article was holy cow, we need to do mass testing so that we can see who's really been infected. And then almost on cue, a New York Times article came out today, where it was a journalist that he opens with a with a classic Mark Moran. I'm a comedy fan Mark Moran line, where the the journalist says, "I know a guy. And because I know a guy and the connections I have, I was able to get my hands on a rapid antibody test. And I took the test, and I was negative. The problem is, I'm not sure it was a valid test." I'm like, this could not have been in a better time this guy did this. And that's what we're going to talk about today. You and I know guys.

Yeah, we know people and this is the national and international discussion. Now if you've at all been watching the news, or reading papers or going on Reddit, you know that Italy, Spain, the United States to some degree, they're all discussing this idea of how do we figure out who has immunity? Is there a way for us to figure out who can safely come out of their homes, go back to work, and sort of jumpstart the economy again and jumpstart life? And it sounds dystopian. It sounds like it could be a great idea, it could be a terrible idea and anything in between. But what we don't have is we don't we don't necessarily know the details yet. And I think that's, that's what gets everyone confused, because there's no shortage of media outlets touting this as you know, the next great idea, but is it? I don't know. 

Well, we're gonna we're gonna get into that I there was an article written by I don't remember who wrote this, but it was just this just happened in the last couple days about ending the lockdown. And they interviewed a Harvard epidemiologist, and he said, well any of the lockdowns are going to be an effort with trial and error. There is no scientific evidence to this, he's like the best I can say this is we're all in a life raft. I'm not sure how we get to shore yet. What we're going to talk about is possibly how to get to shore. Because if you think about it, governments around the world, they need to triangulate the health of the people, the freedom of the population, and there's no scientific consensus. So what I wanted to do today with you, because you're a super smart guy, much smarter than me, let's kick some science. Let's go over some articles, and then play the pros and cons of each side of it. So I'll throw it back in your court. Where do you want to start with this?

So I think, you know, we, we have a few articles that we definitely want to discuss as the basis for the arguments about immunity. I think before we jump into it, just to get a better sense for our viewers, we need to explain some of the terminology and the differences between the testing methods to understand what best to use to acutely diagnose someone with COVID-19 versus how do we tell that they're no longer infected, they're no longer sick and whether or not or at least to start that discussion...