 Aloha and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm your host, Kayleigh Akina. Today is March 16th, 2020, and the reason I'm giving you the date is because time is moving very quickly, and events are happening at a rapid pace, especially concerning the outbreak of the coronavirus across the world. We are now in the midst of what the World Health Organization tells us is a global pandemic. I have with me today an interesting person who has many good perspectives to add to what's being said on the media. She is Dr. Mai Wang, a doctor of acupuncture and oriental medicine and an engineer. She's the CEO of RiverMap Research and Consulting LLC. Dr. Wang has a unique integrated background in computer engineering and traditional Chinese medicine, so she brings together both the East and the West. Dr. Wang started her research in pathogen genome analysis back in 2007. She invented the RiverMap DNA model and the novel pathogen DNA analysis software called Geneto, and that actually predicted the symptoms and health impacts of the H1N1 virus in 2009, and she's done the same for the COVID-19 now in 2020. Now, Dr. Wang was also the Professor of Materia Medical and School Clinic Director in the Clinical Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Institute in Hawaii from 2013 to 2018. She believes that the integration of modern DNA technology and traditional differential diagnosis will enable alternative medicine practitioners to better understand infectious diseases so they can really contribute in helping patients during pandemics. The only thing I would add at this point is a little bit of a disclaimer. We are not in any way going to provide medical advice nor policy advice. The reason I'm bringing Dr. Wang into our program today is because the media is filled with talk about the coronavirus and she has perspectives that you may not get from the United States. So please welcome to the program Dr. Mai Wang. Dr. Wang, thank you for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So you're all the way in Hong Kong now so it's actually tomorrow. And let me just jump right into it because we've got so much to cover. Tell me what's going on in Hong Kong in terms of the coronavirus outbreak and how are people responding? Are they panicking? Yeah. Let me give you an official number for today because I look it up this morning. For today. 155 confirmed cases and four deaths so far. This number was since we started looking at the coronavirus in January. So I think this is an okay number compared to many places in the world now. The situation seems to be under controlled. So the government actually allowed the schools to close for two months now and they are going to be closed until at the Easter and then we'll decide what to do after that. And government employees were allowed to work from home for one month and now, well, now they have to go back to work since March 2nd. I think this is a reason because the Hong Kong government have to follow the staffs of Beijing. That's one of the reasons. Let me ask you a question. In terms of the way that there has been a public response to the coronavirus spread in Hong Kong, do you think that it has been a good response? Do you think that it's effective and do you think that it's taking Hong Kong where it should be? Where are you talking about? In Hong Kong. In Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, I think there was still a panic in the beginning. Now it's a little better because people see that the numbers are not growing too fast. And also because people here in Asia, they have been through SARS and actually people talk about SARS only actually have been through many infectious disease attacks like the birth foods and H1N1, they got everything. So people are probably well educated how to handle a pandemic like this or actually better understanding. So they are alert but they're still actually a panic. So we started earlier. So in early February, I have already lined up with everyone to try to fight for food and toilet paper. You know, if you'll see things happening in U.S. and just because there's a delay, well, we started earlier. And so the same thing here. But actually since a little calmer right now, I think one of the key reasons why we can keep the numbers low. Also, same thing in Taiwan and also Korea, although they have a huge number for different reasons, but there are not that many people died. And also Japan is because the same reason we all been through SARS and wearing masks is one of the key. Wearing masks and wash hands. Well, at least I'm maintaining at least six feet distance from you right now. So we've got our health care practice. Let me ask you to share a little bit about your background, which is very interesting. You are a research scientist, but you're also a health care practitioner. And you have really many accomplishments in both fields, including in your work with H1N1. Can you tell us a little bit about how you, about your background, both in western science and traditional Chinese medicine? Yes, I started as a engineer. I worked in Silicon Valley for many years. Well, I had a very bad surgery in my 20s because the doctors when he was trying to do a thyroid surgery and somehow he cut my sympathetic nerve. So I have a lot of side effects and I need to live through, you know, many things and I went to see different doctors and it doesn't seem there was a solution for my problem. So I ended up trying to study Chinese medicine to help myself. And so one thing became another. So I ended up doing this for more than 10 years now, practicing and teaching Chinese medicine and also doing research at the same time. Because I was really interested in DNA because it was the blueprint or it is actually the blueprint of all life forms on earth. And you know, if you consider there are only five components and people said four because ATCG and but actually I considered the backbone as one too. So five things, four things and that actually contribute to all the creation of living things on earth. So I was really interested in that. So that's how I started my research. I'm just curious. Well, that's interesting. You're doing that and yeah, and you did give me a lot of things and, you know, taught me a lot of things during the research. And the reason that I was looking at pathogens, not human DNA pathogen DNA was because when I started I started in 2007. I can find pathogen DNA is online mostly really and plus the tools and everything was too expensive for me. You know, to look at human DNA says so pathogen DNA were perfect because I was testing my algorithms algorithm I created and the software I created trying to decode the thing and see, you know, and try to link the pathogen DNA with disease. And the symptoms they create inside human body. And so far, I have to say it was, it was successful. And I was very happy about it, especially in 2009 when I, you know, work on each one and one and actually see some real patients then the strategy worked that gave me a lot of confidence. Well, you've accomplished quite a bit, especially in terms of creating a computer model that helped to tell us what the impact and the growth of the H1N1 virus was all about. I've got another question for you. Can you explain to us in non scientific terms, exactly what the coronavirus is. How did it get started? What does it do to people? How do we contract it? Explain that in very simple terms. Okay, let me try. First of all, I want to say something really important is H1N1. The COVID-19, that's its name now, the COVID-19 is not a simple flu. Now, many people say it's just a flu. It is not. It's a lot more than just a flu. And it's more dangerous than a flu. It's more deadly than a flu because the fatality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4%. Well, the flu is generally 0.1%. It's like 40 times more. And it's very easy to transmit from person to person. There are different models that came out from different institutes. And some people create the RNOT number, which is how fast the disease can transmit, how many people one person can pass to other people. Some people said two and some people said six. So, you know, it's, but anyways, a lot faster. And initially, well, it was first discovered in Wuhan, China. That's why it was initially called the Wuhan Seafood Market Pneumonia virus has a very long name. But now, you know, it's called COVID-19. So it's a virus that will attack your lungs, create pneumonia. That's what first people saw. That's why you got its name. It's called pneumonia virus. And people believe that it's close to SARS. And now they know it's a lot more than just SARS. And actually, my research and actually has been confirmed by many reports now that it will attack many organs in your body. It will attack starting from your brain, your CNS system, your lungs, your heart, your liver, your kidney, your spleen. And also, you will definitely weaken your immune system. And it will also fluctuate your blood pressure. We only have a minute left right now before the break. So let me ask you real quickly. How does one catch the COVID-19? Right. There are many ways. They're like the major way is through the droplet in the air. So, you know, if we're sitting next to each other, we better wear masks because we don't know who actually carries that because many people who actually are the carriers of the virus, they do not have symptoms, but they're able to spread the disease. So that's why, you know, through cough, sneeze, you know, etc. And also, you know, by touching surfaces because this virus survived on metal, wood, fabric, cardboard for days. So if you touch those contaminated surfaces and then you touch your eyes, nose, and mouth, and then you're going to catch the virus. That's something, you know, we're going to take a quick break now. But when we come back, I want to ask you a bit about the research that you have done into what the coronavirus is all about and some things that some people may not know. And also, whether or not traditional Chinese medicine has an approach to handling it. My guest today is Dr. Mai Wong. She's both a healthcare practitioner and a research scientist who has worked on viruses in the past and is currently working on research on the coronavirus COVID-19 situation. I'm Kili Iakina on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. Don't go away. We're going to come right back. Aloha. I'm Daelyn Yanagita, one of our hosts of our Business in Hawaii talk show on the Think Tech Hawaii. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local businesses by local people. And our guests share with us their journey to building a successful business right here at home. We are streamed live on Think Tech weekly at 2pm on Thursdays. Thank you so much for watching our show. I am Daelyn Yanagita and we'll look forward to seeing you then. Everybody's talking about the spread of COVID-19 across the world and today we've had new announcements from the government here in Hawaii as to restrictions on behavior and activities. And in the midst of this, we need to have a deeper understanding. I'm going to go back to my guest today, Dr. Mai Wong, and ask her another question. Mai, you operate a scientific research group known as the River Map Research and Consulting Company, and you've examined pathogen DNA in relationship to the coronavirus. In fact, you discovered, I believe, that there are more than one strain of the COVID-19. Can you tell us about that and how you managed to come up about this discovery? Right. You know, there's a central pathogen DNA database managed by the government. The group that managed this database is NCBI. So when a pandemic happened like this, everybody get online to submit their sequences or the sequences from their region. So we can see the gathering of all the sequences all around the world. And what I did was I run through the software I developed because we predict symptoms. So I run through all the genome sequences of the COVID-19, and I discovered there are like three repeated patterns. And I first discovered that in early February, I released my report to CDCs and, you know, Hong Kong University and also the doctors in Wuhan. Until today, I have tested, I think, more than 90 sequences that was submitted to the same database because I track it every few days. And then I still see the same three patterns. They didn't go outside of those three patterns. And so I'm pretty confident that was right. So the three patterns tells me there are actually three strains, actually. Nobody mentions that because nobody really know that everybody think it's one virus. So it's one virus. But, you know, the thing is the three different viruses, they may create conflicting symptoms. And, you know, that's why, you know, a lot of doctors or researchers that you will hear that people mentioning that this virus is so sneaky and so tricky, because they have, like, they create fever or they do not create fever. Some people have, like, high fever, dry mouth, dry cough, and some people cough with a lot of plants and then have chills instead of fever, etc. So, I mean, different strains that work together, although I have to say there is one dominant strain. I call them S1, S2, S3, and then S1 is the dominant one. So you will see the range shows by maybe S1, S2 is like 5 to 1, or S3 is like 7 to 1. So this one definitely is the dominant one. And the main thing that we see in the West, however, you know, the other two do exist. That's why, and I started to, initially, I only saw the S1, S2 from the submissions from China. Now I started to see it outside of China. So what that means is you're going to see conflict and confusing symptoms. So whatever the criteria we gave to the people for diagnosis may not stand, may change, you know, from time to time. And also, you know, people who are developing vaccines and drugs need to be very careful because you might be helping one group. So your product works for one group of the patients, it might, you know, be harmful to the other group. So when I come up with, you know, a TCM solution to, you know, help people to prevent the disease, I will not say it will cure the disease. You know, it's trying to avoid things that will cause harm to any group of those people. Well, this doesn't make me feel very easy actually now realizing that there are three strains out there. And that confuses the whole process of diagnosis and development of treatment. So what is the implication of that for a potential cure or a potential treatment until we get a cure? Right. That's why it is not easy. And people are rushing to develop one solution to fit all. I think it's actually difficult and they're having a risk of developing one product. It does work for the most people because I said there's one dominant strain. But still, you know, you may have a danger or major side effect on other groups, maybe those are small minority groups who contract S2 and S3, but still it might be, you know, harmful to them. I think that people need to know that and need to be very careful about it. So even if we don't see the anticipated symptoms, we have to be careful anyway, because we could still be dealing with a strain of COVID-19 that we're unfamiliar with. Now, let me. Yes, and actually, you know what? Yes. A lot of people who has this disease do not show symptoms. Right. So they are asymptomatic, but they walk around and near you and they may still be able to pass the disease to you. That's why wearing masks is very important. And I have one story that people, I think it came out from like Korea or somewhere in Asia. The two people, they travel just by taking the same elevator and they're not wearing masks. They didn't even talk and the virus were transmitted from one person to another. It sounds like we have to be very cautious. Yes. Yes. I think I'm trying to get this message through that wearing a mask is important. It's not just for people who are sick, but in this case, you don't know who is sick because a lot of people don't even have symptoms. Now, how far away are we from finding a cure for this virus? Are we talking years from now? Are we talking months from now? What is your estimate of the science taking place? I don't have the details, but I know that the first vaccine started its clinical trial today. And then, but people said that's just clinical trial. So it might be a year away. And there is a drug, there are actually multiple drug products from, you know, developed from different parts of the world. But in the U.S., certainly one is making a lot of headlines is called Rendaxivir from Iulia. And I think the people have seen good results from these drugs, you know, by treating, you know, one-off, I would say S1 symptoms. But the only thing is we don't know its side effects. This is a drug that they were used to treat Ebola before. So it seems it has good results in controlling this disease. But I don't know how many months away. It should be at least months away because they're just having clinical trial right now. In addition to your training in Western science and engineering, you're also an expert in traditional Chinese medicine. You have a doctorate in acupuncture and Oriental Chinese medicine. Can you tell us what that is? Sometimes it's called TCM, Traditional Chinese Medicine. And what does it have to offer to this coronavirus situation? Right. You know, what China did is China, when they were trying the drugs from the West, they're also trying Chinese medicine at the same time. And they do see some success there. Although you might have some political reasons in there, but I do believe that they have some success. For me, understanding the disease is the most important thing. But once you understand it, then you can use herbs or dietary or acupuncture to control the disease. And I did release a record or approach. It's called, I think, a TCM approach to fight the 2019 coronavirus. And in there, I basically listed the herbal formulas and the, you know, the acupuncture points, the dietary approach, and also a lifestyle change and what you can do to prevent the disease. Sorry about my cat. And then, oh, the key thing there is because I said you need to understand the disease first, is because there's one good news about the disease is self-restraint. You know what it means is at the end, the thing will balance itself and the symptoms will just disappear by itself. But the thing is because it creates so many dramatic symptoms in between, many people cannot survive through the process, so they die in between. So if we can't, you know, we need to dance with this virus and treat the symptoms and boost our immunity so we can fight through the end and this thing will disappear. What is one or two things that people can do to protect themselves in addition to wearing a mask? Oh, besides wearing a mask, wash your hands. So I said, you know, all these, the virus will stay on all the surfaces I mentioned for days. So you make sure that you wash your hands after you touch things, especially after you're coming back. You do touch elevator buttons that even you, you know, carry a box, you know, the virus can stay on a box. So wash your hands is the second most important thing. And the third thing is avoid the crowd. I mean, stay at home is a good thing. I have been staying at home for the last month or so. So, I mean, mostly, mostly. So anyway, so these are the three most important things that people can follow. I mean, this disease really test the wisdom of the government and the discipline of the citizens. I mean, you need to be disciplined and to avoid, you know, the numbers from exploding because too many people get infected. The system will be overwhelmed. And then that's what happened in Italy. We've only got a minute left. You live in Hong Kong now, but you have lived many years in Hawaii and worked here. What would you say to your Hawaii friends and the people in our state that they can learn from the Hong Kong experience and something that would prepare. Right. Right. I will say in this whole process, actually, Taiwan did a better job. Taiwan did a much better job. They control their numbers way down. And because they know they have limited resources and so the government actually took a big step ahead of everything. They planned everything ahead. So the hospital facilities, a location of masks and, you know, controlling the waters, everything. I think Taiwan model can be used by Hawaii. And also, you know, Hawaii has a danger just like Italy because Hawaii has a huge population of elderly people. I think they need to be very careful. Very good. Thank you so much for being with us today. And before you go, if somebody wants to read some of your papers online, what is the website that they should go to? They can go to www.RiverMapSolution.com and I will send you the link to my papers. And so people can, you know, just easily get to it. Very good. Once again, that's RiverMapSolution.com. Yeah, RiverMapSolution.com. Very good. Well, thank you for being with us, Dr. Wong. I appreciate your spending time today and wish you the very best of health and safety as you continue in Hong Kong, and hope to see you back in Hawaii sometime soon. Thank you very much. Yes. Certainly. My guest today, Dr. Mai Wong, an expert in both Western science and traditional Chinese medicine, has a lot of good perspectives to add as we continue to discuss the coronavirus situation. I'm Kaylee Iakina for Think Tech Hawaii on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. Until next time, aloha.