 Yeah, we're back. We're live three o'clock. This is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. We're going to talk about the virus today. We're going to have a report on the virus from Rupemade Kandekar, who actually has written a book about it. And I can't wait to look at that book. It's just coming out today. Welcome to the show, Rupemade. So nice to see your smiling face. Good afternoon, Jay. And very nice. It's always a pleasure to meet you again. So let's talk about your book. Title of the book, we can see it there, Raging COVID-19 Pandemic, The Wuhan Conspiracy. Oh, very provocative question mark. Can you talk about your book? Can you talk about the essence of your book? This book is like, like you all can see the pandemic is still raging two years on since we met it. So this book is about going back to the roots and finding out whether the origin was zoonotic or was it lab. So it's a comprehensive book and unless, maybe we may never find the zero patient, but we can, this trail can lead us to an investigation about how we can prevent future pandemics. So it's kind of a little bit of a peek into the past to find out if we can do anything to prevent something like this again happening in the future. So it's a nice book, I hope. I have to look at it. I really do. Because, you know, we've all been thinking about it and it's a book whose time has certainly come. We need to know more about this because this is defining the human race now. You know, in the past I, let me ask you this one biochemical question. Is this the first time that humanity has been faced with a virus like this? The SARS-1 virus, which was before this, it had a higher fatality rate than this virus, but the disruption, the death and the distress that this virus has caused has made this virus more visible. SARS-1, the countries were just understanding what is a pandemic. We had an Ebola, but it was concentrated. Something like this, which came as the shock, we can compare it to directly the 1918 Spanish flu, which wiped off 50 million people. So it was in that time that the world was scared. And I think this is the second time that actually the world is thinking, where can I go? What can I do? How can I stop this? So that kind of fear, like you said earlier, it's the fear that is conquering us. And now, instead of thinking that the virus is the enemy, now there are blame games starting. You're thinking this government did this, this public figure is not doing it properly. This should have been done. This should not have been done. People forget it's a personal battle between you and the virus. It is not anybody else. The virus is going to affect you, but the blame games are on higher levels. It goes on the local, the district, the state, the national government. So these blame games are going to continue throughout, but nobody has to forget that the enemy is still and will remain the virus till we find a good vaccine for it. Well, there's so many questions I want to ask you. We should take about six hours here. So people say it has been said for the past year that this is ultimately going to settle down into an endemic where it'll be like the seasonal flu, and we'll have, you know, decent vaccines and so forth. By the way, I just took my booster shot two hours ago. I'm feeling stronger already. We'll all settle down into sort of an endemic and hopefully we can put a lid on it so it doesn't, it's not as threatening and scary as it has been. Do you feel that's going to happen or is this the kind of thing like in the Spanish flu? It sort of goes away. You know, it's like a mystery. It stops. It just stops of its own. And then, you know, decades later we find some other kind of virus is happening. Is that the way it's going to be or is it just going to be, you know, a contained constant level of new viruses that we will always have to cope with? I hope so optimistically that it finishes fast, but the immunity that we are thinking of the vaccines have not been that effective to stop the virus. And the virus is such that within two days it finishes you from a healthy person to a finished person. So, I mean, it is scary. People want to believe that it will phase out, which usually happens in viruses. If you do social distancing, if you contain yourself, you know, the quarantine measures are not that effective. People want to come out of the lockdown. People think that the virus is the pandemic is not over. If you think it's over, it has to be over in the world. So they have to follow rules. They have to follow personal rules. They have to follow social rules. They have to follow rules in the society in the nation. You can't go for shopping and say, let's let's let's tomorrow the pandemic. So it's not that you have to have complete faith in this concept of social distancing in the mask, taking the vaccines which are available and helping the governments. Do you agree with me? I don't know if you're covered in the book, but do you agree with me that this is a test of humankind? We have to collaborate. We have to work together. We all have to follow some fundamental rules. And if we don't do that, there'll be, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of deaths that didn't have to happen. I mean, such as what's happening in the American South right now. And so far, you know, in some ways, we are collaborating in other ways we are failing to collaborate. But in any event, we're involved in this kind of biblical test of an existential threat. What are your thoughts? It's true, true Jay, like, we are so interconnected. We are so apart at the same time, you have to help each other to come together. And you know, the crisis are not stopping. Like you said, it's not stopping one comes the other goes. Now, if there's a crisis like we talk about, do people think about the pandemic people forget about the pandemic in this time, but the pandemic is still continuing its course. If you if you have an event, we think, let's go for it but you forget that there's a pandemic raging still. So you have to understand that it has to be really about coming together about this and global solidarity like we saw in any case, when India last time we had this program, when India was in a troublesome position, we had oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators flown in from Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UK, Austria, everybody came to help. It is, you know, your global obligation that makes you act together. So that help went a long way in bringing out India from this time. Is India, is India okay now. Much better than last time we spoke about, like the numbers the active cases have come down to around 1.14% of the population. And I'm just 380 active, like, affected people right now lower since March 2020. Very interesting. So it's not, it's not a crisis at the same level that it was. No. The oxygen supplies have increased to such an extent that they have been stocking up. You know, before the before the pandemic hit India was just producing around 4000 tons of oxygen, including industrial oxygen. But the way the government has ramped up the oxygen production has been phenomenal, because we have, we had industries which came in and were asked to provide their infrastructure to produce oxygen for medical purposes. If you see in the WHO the medical oxygen is given second priority. The thing is, just just rolling my tapes back on the last year and a half in this country in the news cable news. We hear about ventilators for extreme cases for, you know, fatality type cases. We don't hear that much about oxygen is is oxygen in addition to the ventilators. Is it part of the ventilators, or is it separate. I know some, you know, some graphics from, you know, the hard times in India, a few months ago, where people were just, you know, breathing off an oxygen tank. Is oxygen something else that we should consider as a way to survive. Yeah, because if the virus when it hits your lungs and it impacts your lungs to find difficulty in breathing. So you need, there are beds, the COVID beds where you're just quarantine. There are secondly there are oxygen beds where you're just given a supply of oxygen where you're just breathing in your edges to come out of it. And third is when you're unable to breathe and you need a ventilator to support your breathing. That is like a three stage phase out of the treatment for the pandemic. So one of those stages is just to take oxygen by itself without necessarily having a ventilator. Yes, you need oxygen to survive. And you see the overwhelming population of India. When so many people who affected we did not have enough oxygen to be supplied to these people. The health infrastructure showed a collapse, but when they started these facilities in sports playgrounds in race courses in in wedding halls, they started facilities to take care of these patients. We had wards built in in these facilities which segregated these patients. And now at today's date, currently in this month, India has a central government has supplied 26,000 ventilators to the state governments to keep in case the third wave hits. So we have an excess stock of supplies to deal with the fact the lessons have been learned very well by this government. What about ICU beds as India surplus of ICU beds. We do have ICU beds but these ventilator beds are known as ICU beds. Same thing. Yeah. Okay, I want to go I want to go back to this, this whole notion about cooperation and collaboration between, you know, groups that may not otherwise collaborate about things. In this country, almost unbelievable division, a political division I think of people who are quote unquote hesitant about taking the vaccine. And that is, we know, scientific point of view that's very dangerous. That's how you spread it that's how you develop your variance. So my question is, do you do you understand that from a psychological sociological point of view, why people would take action that undermines their very ability to survive. The vaccines have always been a part of society. They're pessimistic about the vaccines. And if you take statistics in India, 58 million or 58 cores of people have been vaccinated. And the government plans to vaccinate the entire population by 2024 that is the broad framework. Okay, now they are supplying vaccines free of cost to the state governments and the union territories to keep, and to give as and when the population needs it Now the vaccination drives have been so intense, but they cannot afford to miss these people who refuse to take the vaccines. They, they feel that it's not safe. If you see one person dying because of the side effect of a vaccine, you will say, I may not take it I should not take it, my family should not take it. It's not go through it there's a fear that keeps on playing. It's what do you say accentuated there, when you see the side effects of the vaccine if you feel if you've taken the vaccine, and you feel a bit of pain you say oh, it is that side effect of the vaccine, you will tell your friend he will say hey, I will not take the vaccine. I'm fine. I'm pretty fine without it. So, kind of why should I take it. So, the anti waxes are a minority, but in this pandemic with such a large, such a large heavy rate of transmissibility, we can't afford to miss these people. We need them to come and say, yes, let's vaccinate let's develop a hard immunity and like you said, let's take it to progress to just being a flu, a seasonal flu. And once that happens, we are, we are back to normal. So, would you would money would you create a vaccine mandate in a given jurisdiction and say you will take the vaccine, unless you are excused by a medical, you know, professional, you must take the vaccine. And if you don't take the vaccine, we're going to do bad things to you. Would you have a vaccine mandate. What about the fundamental rights Jake, everybody has the right to say they cannot they want, they do not know that comes in all the time, you can say you have to do this, my what about my personal freedom, they will be, you know, rolling down tears by if the government needs to do this we need somebody to say everybody has to take the vaccine. This is a must if you want to stop this because this is going to rage for two years, it can rage on for 12 years. So, if you want to come out of it, the anti waxes the psychological blockage that you have for not having this vaccine has to be left out. And, and it's, it's, it's a thing that you do not only for yourself, you do it for your community you do it for your nation, you do it for the world. The anti waxes sitting in a plane, and then infected people who will go around the society and then spreading it again, because you can the danger in this is because this virus, you can catch it again multiple times. It's not that if you catch it once, it will stop. You can catch it multiple times, even if you have had the life. So, you have to be a tad bit more careful than you were in the previous pandemic. We talked about the monoclonal antibodies that Trump took when he tested positive when he had the disease and Greg Abbott in Texas, the governor he apparently took that to day or two ago, when he tested positive. Would you endorse, you know, expanding that program to cover everybody who tests positive. The innovative treatments are so widespread we had something like this in India known as the plasma therapy where they were replacing your plasma. We had some I heard something about a lung transplant being happening. You have to go into complicating things. Keep it simple. You have to keep life simple and this buy treatment for this virus very simple. You can come in, come with more complications, you know, you're giving the medical community guinea pigs. Yes, absolutely. I think there'll be better vaccines going forward. I assume, you know, the stakes are high from a profit point of view, they'll be, they'll be looking into every possibility. But I want to I want to go to another area that you and I talked briefly about before we started the show and that is the economic side of things. We have had an acceleration in the infectious quality of the virus and we've also had an acceleration in the fear about the virus through social media and other media. And, you know, if anything happens, including side effects in one out of, you know, millions of millions of vaccine cases. And then, you know, people take that out of proportion and, and they get us afraid. And so they become, you know, hesitant. But the other side of the fear is people are afraid to have children. They were afraid to start businesses. They were afraid to go out and afraid to spend money to acquire things they don't see your future. But you think the future is very short term. A lot of people and that's very rational as far as I'm concerned. So, so then you have a predictable reduction in the in the in the gross national gross domestic product in a given country and if you add all the countries up. You have a reduction of a visible and continuing reduction in the gross global product. Wow, that is saying something. And I don't think that it's rack and pinion. What I mean is it doesn't happen today with a given number of new infections. Over time. And so you really can't get a handle on it right away. You have to sort of look back and see how did things change in the economy, just because we have more jobs right now. That may be that may not be a good metric. So I want to know your thoughts about that I want to know your thoughts about how all of this and the fear affects the economy. Not only today but going forward, not only in a given jurisdiction, but in in a global analysis. Like you rightly said, it's the will to thrive the the the zest to strive for success has just imploded people want to just cocoon themselves and say now why should I do this, and what will I get through this, and your long term stock options, and your savings are not now 10 years life agendas have been trashed. And you think that now let's just think about next week and next month and I should have immediate medical care money available with me, and I should not think of how I should get that promotion and how I should you know that that zest is reduced in nations as well. They're thinking now, instead of importing exporting they're thinking of how can I now do domestic production. In India, something like this is known as at money. Okay, so that means self reliance within your country. You can stay now let's go for exports imports let's let's make this country the biggest possible. What is that player in the international system. Let's just keep it to a lower level. And let's like you said it's just going from one stage to a lower stage to a lower stage to a lower they're not able to come out of it, because more than psychological it is like what should I do this for if the virus hits me tomorrow what should I do. I'm helpless against the virus. So why should I go out and thrive, or why should I go out and strive rather than try. So that affects productivity to such an extent that that you know you have to depend you feel like depending on somebody else for your daily needs. You feel okay fine I can get like the Indian program has fed around 80 million people for two years on relations, the government is providing them basic food. If a person is getting this, you will think let me survive this pandemic to this. I'm not going to go out for work. That brings down the productivity that brings down the domestic indulgement of the labor force. So people have to come out of this and come out and work, put your put your mask on and start work normal life has to resume. It's it's such a blockage. There is a virus. There is a psychological blockage. There is, there is a, and there is a whole cloak of fear surrounding this. So it will require too much of internal strength to come out of it. Yeah. Well you know it's interesting, because last year, and Trump was part of this he kept talking about a reopening, even after the virus had not peaked. He was talking about a reopening. He, he hadn't taken any affirmative steps to stop it. And he was talking about reopening and, and people, you know, they take the message of the leader and they started reopening everything. Okay, and it was of sorts a reopening about about a year ago. There was a false reopening in my opinion, because you know it was the wrong time for it. And you can say that there were more jobs you can say that the you know domestic product was doing a little better because people were going back to work, at least for a time trying to get on the reopening bandwagon. But then we've had, we've had serious surges since then. And now people are really questioning that raising the questions you just mentioned, more and more and more. And my own personal theory, I want to bounce it off you, is that people are not going to have the same level of reopening optimism that they did a year ago. Now they're going to really think twice before they rush back into a sort of an artificial normal normalcy to agree. Yes, yes, so correct, so correct. It's true isn't it Jay, the government tells you lockdown, and you close up, and then they say open, it's open lockdown over and then you want to come out and then again this hey, hey, hey, go back. You have New Zealand with one case of Delta virus closing down the country. I think everywhere else every household has one Delta variant person safely sleeping on the bed somewhere but this kind of panic. Is not called for you have to live with it Jay it's not going to go away because we are living in such a interconnected world when it starts from one goes to billion, 8 billion, you have to understand that it's going to be part of your life. You catch it, you treat it, you catch it, you treat it. It's that, and you try to survive that will to survive has to be implicated mentally, rather than physically, and when you make it a part of life like just brushing your teeth. It's okay, you have to just make it part of your life, and say, Okay, it's like you initially said, like a seasonal flu. I catch it, I catch it. Yeah, philosophical kind of philosophical building into your worldview, you know, and that that is for everybody in the world. On the other hand, we have to see how that affects the economy because I think countries and economies are going to have to build it into that they're going to have to find a way to evaluate their economy or motivate your or manage their economy with due regard for the fact that people are not going to be quite as vital, you know, you know, eager to participate in the economy because you can you can tell me this route body and I'll do it I'll listen to you. But not everybody will. You know, some people are just going to be to use the term depressed, like depression. They're going to be depressed and not going to go back. And so, you know, the demographics are not perfect. And so we have to see how this all plays out. And really, ultimately, I think what you said will take place. It's just a question of time. We have to look forward and we have to build that into the question of time. So, let me but let me ask you about your book now because this is very interesting stuff about the conspiracy over the origin. I think it's a bit exotic or maybe laboratory developed, you know, virus this is scary. And just just as you've written your book, think tech does finish the documentary about the, the, the, the, well we call it the spiral in crisis, the alarming convergence of climate change and and pandemics, because we believe that there are we and our scientists believe they're a fundamental, you know, common denominators that create both. And so the question relates to the other and if we didn't have such a problem in climate change, we wouldn't have such a problem in in pandemics arguably. But my question is and in that, you know, examination that we made, of course, the issue came up about what happened in Wuhan. So let me ask you, what happened in Wuhan. Yes, because we need to get to this zero patient who was the zero patient and why did the research is that there are so many, you know, it's it's fun to take it as a conspiracy theory, then just take it as zoonotic origin because there are so many supporting sequences to state that it is lab created the genome sequences, the scientists disappearing the whistleblower is being crashed, and the creator is being rewarded. If you if you want to find out read about the bat woman of Wuhan. So, these things are more interesting in the sense and not just speaking China is not allowing the WHO to enter for a second time. The first visit was a chaperone visit. It was in such high security. And the statement was so bleak, saying that it was just, we don't know what it is and you know you can't give such a statement the whole world is suffering we need some answers. These answers need to be concrete and they can be, they can be absurd, they can be like maybe it was and maybe it is in a bad cave and maybe it came in the fish market, it can be like this, it has disrupted economies it has disrupted businesses, it has destroyed lives, it has taken destroyed families. So people need, they are accountable for answers. Aside from accountability group Marty, the other thing strikes me and I wonder what your thought would be about it. Let's let's I think it's fair to assume that the scientists in Wuhan, the virology Institute of Wuhan, we're working with this virus, I mean it got out of that that laboratory it was in that laboratory before it got out, and they were working with it. And in working with it they were learning at, you know, at a microscopic level. How, and at a DNA level how, how, how it worked what what is what is this virus how does this virus conduct itself. What are its mechanisms. And I guess, you know when you're talking about a virus they're not all the same there are millions and zillions of them. They're different, and they were studying the character, my guess is, they were studying the characteristics of this one virus, which may have come to them from a zoonotic, you know, origin but they were looking at all the details now, could it be group Marty that they know about the things about the characteristics of this virus, the mechanisms and behaviors of this virus that they have not yet shared things that would help the world deal with this virus. And therefore it's not just a question of accountability. It's a question of trying to get a better handle on the virus. Am I, is there anything in what I've said. So the sequence was shared six days after six days six days is a long time for the virus to start spreading. If the sequence was shared immediately and when they shared the sequence, they said this virus does not transmit. It does not affect humans at all is just one isolated case. So that six days allowing six weeks for residents of Wuhan to travel outside of Wuhan. And as you know, we have a large number of workers from Wuhan working in Italy. Which employs workers directly from Wuhan. That's how we had the pandemic. It's so hard in Italy first through which it's spread in Europe. So when you have these things being allowed. If they had this one case if they had these 100 cases they could have shut down Wuhan, but six weeks was a huge amount of time for the virus to allow a spread its wings rather. And as we know it's so interconnected it just it just burst in on to the global stage. Back in the early days, there was this thing about tracing and tracking and trying to find people who would get on a telephone, try to find software that would recognize risky engagements that you might have in your life, as to those who might be shedding their tears. But that has seemed to left the stage. And although my understanding is why he still has a very reduced team of tracers. Fact is we're not tracing. Would you agree with me if I said this thing has gone way beyond tracing. And there's very little we can do to trace these cases or is there something we can do. But this tracing is now outdated isn't it we can't find out these people from their homes, or we, you know, there's a digital platform in, in, what is that, in India, known as they have this, I hope that they, they track you on your mobile they show you how many people around you are affected. And I think that is, that is a far better option, because mobile phones mobile devices are with everyone. We have to develop these apps, the little bit of innovation is required to be able to track each and every person, though it may not be feasible. We have to try and we have to innovate because the transmissibility once it is restricted or other the mutations will cease to happen because this which is raging right now is the delta virus delta delta variant. Yeah. Well, there'll be more. Right, right. So that's why when it mutates and we get another alpha is that beta and which one now gamma isn't it. So now we're waiting for that to happen. Yeah, what's happening. Okay, you know, it strikes me that, let me let me say this, I, I believe, as with some of these other existential crises, for example, climate change that COVID has changed the world order. It's not only that it has changed our individual lives and the lives of our community. It has changed the world order we focus on different things. We spend time on it, which we could be spending on other things the priorities in our lives and in our governments, and in our engagements with other governments. The priorities have been changed. There's very little. There's very little news you hear on a given day that does not involve COVID. So my question to you is, is how profound is that change. I'll give you this. I'll explain this to you through an example, Jay. See, India, India is such a huge population, population country and we would have had to depend on the world for our vaccine production. As soon as our lockdown started in March 2050 2020. In April, we moved to focusing on production of vaccines production of vaccines for this billion plus people was more possible to cover our public know but no country would be ready to cover our population. Would it have been possible? No, they would have taken care of their domestic, their international exports and then looked at us. This domestic production that started in India helped us to have self-sufficiency in vaccine production. And then, once we have the self-sufficiency, we have international obligations, which we have to take care of. So the priority of focusing on so many industries were asked to focus on oxygen production on vaccine production remdesivir medicines were given to other industries saying like let's come together by your technology. You have these business houses who come together these charity organizations who helping. Let's take these vaccine to the most underprivileged people. You have so many networks working just to provide COVID protection. This export import of manufacturing products, everything has changed. And like you say, the global world order has changed in such a way that you are thinking that how can I make my population safe first. And then let's think about the other things. So when you have this COVID crisis going on, everything has taken a back stage. Everything. You have solidarity in production of vaccines. You have solidarity in playing blame games too. Yes, yes, we do. So let's target somebody and let's not leave this one. It's going on a long time now. A biblical test, I tell you. Well, we're, we're out of time with money. I just want to thank you from my heart for this discussion as the last, and I hope we can circle back and do it again and I hope things are better. The next time we do it. Now on your book can we flash a picture of your book one more time. Now can you tell us how we can now we can get the book. Raging COVID-19 pandemic, the Wuhan conspiracy question mark. So how can, how can, how can we get that book? Now it's going to be on Amazon. It's just printing, you know, it's just printing right now. And I'm so happy about it. So I'm going to look forward to this book and send you a copy ASAP. Okay. Thank you. Of course, and I'll send you our movie. Take care till the next time. Aloha.