All Episodes
Previous Next
April 8, 2020 - Rudy Giuliani
43:03
Race For The Cure | Doctors Weigh In On Blood Plasma Therapy To Treat COVID-19 Patients
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
It's our purpose to bring to bear the principle of common sense and rational discussion to the issues of our day.
America was created at a time of great turmoil, tremendous disagreements, anger, hatred.
There was a book written in 1776 that guided much of the discipline of thinking that brought us to the discovery of our freedoms, of our God-given freedoms.
It was Thomas Paine's Common Sense, written in 1776, one of the first American bestsellers in which Thomas Paine explained by rational principles the reason why these small colonies felt the necessity to separate from the powerful Kingdom of England and the King of England.
He explained their inherent desire for liberty, freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and he explained it in ways that were understandable to the people, to all of the people.
A great deal of the reason for America's constant ability to self-improve is because we are able to reason, we're able to talk to each other, we're able to listen to each other, and we're able to analyze.
We are able to apply our God-given common sense.
So let's do it.
♪♪ Welcome to Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense.
Today, our episode is, of course, going to concern the national dilemma, the national catastrophe, the world catastrophe of coronavirus.
And we're going to talk to two leaders in the field with a company called BioAmerica and look at some of the cutting-edge things that are being done that give us hope that we can start to turn this around.
Because we need that hope.
Americans are home.
They've been home now for weeks.
I walk the streets of New York and it seems like a movie.
Bad movie.
And I know people need hope.
I know they need hope they can get out of this, they can get through it.
I compare it to September 11, which I helped to manage.
And with all of the catastrophes of September 11, I always had the ability pretty quickly to get people back into movie theaters, and to get people up to baseball games, and to get them to football games, and to get them to operas and plays.
We don't have that now.
So we're gonna need to Sure.
start moving it along pretty quickly. And I think Zach Arani and Dr. Jane Emerson, who
we're going to be talking to now, can give us some hope of that. So let me begin with Zach.
Zach is the CEO of a company called BioAmerica, BioAmerica, I believe is the right name of it.
And, Zach, if you just tell us very briefly a little of your background and a little background
of the company. Sure, thanks Mayor. So a little bit background about BioAmerica.
We're a diagnostic manufacturer.
We're based here in Irvine, California.
We also have a facility in Mexico.
And so our specialty is diagnostic manufacturing and specifically serology.
And we're going to talk to you a little bit about why serology is important in this pandemic and why it's going to give us hope to get everyone back to work.
And so we'll talk a little bit about what we're doing and the tests and what others are doing.
And then, you know, a little bit about my background.
I've been at BioAmerica for over 10 years now as the CEO of the company.
We're working in many different areas, with specific areas of digestive disease and inflammatory conditions.
And so we're right now in clinical studies for a new Diagnostic guided therapy for IBS and other GI diseases by actually detecting what foods are causing an immune response.
And by detecting the foods that are causing that immune response and eliminating those foods, then you would alleviate those GI symptoms or IBS symptoms.
And so we're in clinical studies at Harvard, Texas Medical Center through Methodist, Texas.
And also at University of Michigan for that.
And I think you'll see some of the other leading institutions in the country.
Our scientific advisory board for that project is the leading people in the world.
It's the the members on the board, the Rome Foundation board, as well as people who have affiliations with the AGA, the ACGA.
So it's really a charge to try to change how we do things in the United States as far as not just taking a pill, But actually looking at what foods are causing inflammation.
That's going to all come back to what we're doing with COVID and I'll explain that to you when we get there.
Well, now let's go to Jane for a moment so we get the idea.
Jane, you're a doctor, correct?
Yes.
Why don't you tell us your background and how you participate in the project?
Yes.
So my background, my education is in both physics and medicine, and I specialized in laboratory medicine or clinical pathology.
And I'm at the University of Southern California right now as chief of clinical pathology, which is basically functioning as directing all of the clinical labs.
I started working with Zach and BioAmerica over 10 years ago.
Our first project was a collaboration between the university I was working for in the clinical labs with BioAmerica for test development for some shared interests.
And I've continued to work with BioAmerica since that time.
I think it has been about 10 years.
And in my role at the University of Southern California, I am inundated with the issue of COVID testing.
Both for the acute disease and for establishing immune status and everything else.
So this is a very hot topic in my world right now.
So Dr. Wood, I imagine that that hot topic started only about two or three months ago, right?
That's right.
It hit us in probably Just over a month ago, because even the major national reference labs did not have a viable and validated test, a PCR test for COVID-19, until just over a month ago.
And everyone has been scrambling to increase their test capacity and make the testing more broadly available to the patients and the healthcare workers and anyone else who would need it.
So tell us, Zach, what it is that you've developed and that is now presently being tested that offers, I would say, some real hope.
Okay.
So I'm going to show you what this looks like.
This is a point of care test, which allows a simple finger prick with a little blood collection.
You place it in this device and 10 minutes later, it will tell you if that person has had an immune response.
to COVID-19 virus.
Okay.
So what does an immune response mean?
And Jane is going to be better at that than I am, but, but basically we know that they, their, and their immune system has reacted to the virus and has produced antibodies.
And that's what this test does.
It detects that the individual has produced antibodies to the COVID-19 virus.
Okay.
And simply put what that means is hopefully, That person now has immunity.
They're going to have some level of immunity to it, and that's the person who can get back on the front line, go back to work.
That's the one that's in the healthcare setting.
It's the doctor that you want to be putting in the front, dealing with all the COVID patients, because they've already been exposed to the virus.
Versus someone who has not been exposed to the virus.
The reason COVID-19 is called novel, it's a novel virus, is not just because it's new.
It's because it's never been inside of humans.
It's never been inside of us.
And so that's why it's novel to our bodies.
And that's what makes it so dangerous.
Because we don't have any antibodies or any response to it.
I don't know, Jane, if you want to add to that.
So basically, just for the person at home, this would entail putting out your finger, a little pinprick, get a little bit of blood, it goes into a little, like a tube, and then within a few... Yeah, it goes into a little reservoir, and then 10 minutes later, you get the result.
Now, we don't recommend, and we would not recommend this be done at home via patient.
It needs to be done by a professional.
Very quickly.
But it is very, very simple to use.
But it could be done very quickly.
Very quickly.
And for example, it could be done on an entire group of police officers who report for duty.
Exactly.
And you could determine which ones should be reporting for duty and which ones shouldn't
be reporting for duty.
Or maybe it's...
Or emergency workers or medical workers or doctors.
Right.
Which ones do you send out?
Police officers, do you send out in the field?
And which ones should stay in the office?
You know, work.
So it's kind of, how do you manage your resources?
Now you say, one word that you said was a little ambiguous.
You said, might be immune.
Is there a possibility that if you have these antibodies, to COVID-19 that you still are not immune.
So, Mayor, you're very astute on that level and catching that.
Yeah, so COVID is very new.
We don't know everything that we need to know about it.
Everyone is going as fast as they possibly can.
But just to make sure that we're safe, we want to just say they may be immune because we don't know everyone's going to be immune.
That brings us to another test, which is the test we're working on.
This is a microwell ELISA plate and that test is going to actually be able to quantitate and know how many, how much of the antibodies that person's making and what type.
And so that's going to give us some more information to allow us to know more details about really, you know, what level of immunity does that person have?
And I think, Jane, maybe you can step in on that.
Yes, I would say that the simple finger stick method that gives you a qualitative, yes, you have been exposed because you have some amount of antibodies to this virus, that tells you one thing.
But in terms of really sorting out what immune status you have, We're going to need to have a quantitative test that is standardized and can be deployed widely and characterized in our own population, not a foreign population, and then determine what level of what kind of antibodies
make a person protected from reinfection or even an initial infection.
I guess I lost you a teeny bit there.
So the laboratory test, if we can call it that, is an actual usual blood test that we're used to when we go for a blood test.
You draw blood and then you analyze the blood and you're able to actually isolate the antibodies and study them, correct?
That's right.
So, when you do study them, what does that tell you?
Does that give you more specificity as to whether, let's say, I'm immune?
Yes, that's right.
So, one is you want to know the concentration of the antibodies present.
Because at a certain level, you're likely to be immune, but under a certain level, you may not be.
And we have come to understand immune antibodies to a lot of infectious agents over the years.
But so, for example, we know typically that if you have a certain amount of antibodies against measles or mumps or chickenpox, then you are immune and you are not subject to reinfection.
What we need to do is determine the amount of antibodies to COVID that renders a person totally immune.
And there are three main classes of immune antibodies to study and they come up in the host, the patient, on a slightly different timeline.
There are the first ones that come up when you're first sick, but it may take a few days.
And then there are the ones that come up later that are considered the memory antibodies.
And then those are the ones that you carry around if you're lucky for life, as we do against some infectious agents.
And then there are others that you carry around for a little while.
And then there are some that really aren't good for long, like flu or cold viruses.
So we need to figure out what the host response to COVID is so that we can, well, there are three reasons that serology testing is very useful in managing this epidemic.
One is, it aids in the acute diagnosis because the PCR, which is being done right now, isn't perfect, of course.
So adding serology... What is the PCR?
A PCR is pretty much when people say the COVID test.
That's what they mean.
Okay.
That's right now that is being done everywhere with the nasals.
Right, right.
Basically.
That's the one that the president had in the And how accurate is that?
It's very good and very sensitive, and it's testing for the presence of the virus itself.
So you're actually seeing, is the virus here?
But it isn't perfect, because the virus does kind of migrate from the nasopharynx to down into the lungs, etc.
So taken together, The PCR test with the antibody test improves the diagnostic performance.
So that's for one reason.
So one is the diagnosis.
And then the next is determining immune status and clearing a health care worker to go back to work.
And so that's, you know, we want to be able to do that.
And then there's the reason that we need to understand this immunity very well.
Because vaccines are being developed.
There are some already in phase one clinical trials, and we need to understand the host's response to the virus in order to evaluate the efficacy of those vaccines.
So, the point of case test, if that comes back that you don't have COVID-19, Would that be enough to put the doctor, the nurse, the police officer back on duty?
Or would you have to do the follow-up laboratory test to be certain?
You would have to do the follow-up.
Yeah.
Okay, that's fair enough.
If this came back negative, Mayor, we don't know that that person's not infected currently.
Because the PCR test, the one that the president had in the news conference, That's going to be much more sensitive to tell you whether you have the virus right now in that patient.
And does the laboratory test tell you that?
No.
The laboratory test, again, serology has a different use.
It's going to be, like what Dr. Emerson said, it's going to be an adjunct and helpful in that diagnosis.
But what it doesn't do is it tells it doesn't tell you that you had the virus right now.
It tells you that your body has mounted an immune response and developed antibodies to the virus.
At that point, if it's positive, then you know that a that that patient has been exposed to the virus and has developed an immune response.
You don't know whether they're still infectious or not at that point.
So now you would need a third test to put them out on duty, which is the test that determines whether you actually have COVID-19, correct?
That or you would wait the prescribed amount of time, depending on whether the patient had symptoms.
Then you would wait for a resolution of symptoms past a certain amount of time.
But then if you see that they have antibodies, that helps sort out what their symptoms were due to.
So it's either that or repeat that PCR test or is the virus present to make sure
they're not still infectious to other people.
Yeah, so I think where you're going, Mayor, is really smart, which is, you know,
how do we get America back to work?
Oh, my goodness.
Yes, yes, yes.
That's why I mean, when we talked yesterday, you know, that's what I was most enthusiastic about.
Yeah, that's that's what we really want to do.
That's what our company that's why we're working 24 hours a day.
So I think what the way to do that is really let's take the example of a hospital.
We have so many hospitals calling us and saying, please, can we get the serology test?
Can we get them going?
Can we get our staff trained because we're flying blind?
And the way to do that is if they're positive on a serology test, either one, then what you need to do is confirm that they don't have the virus in them using a PCR test.
And at that point, I would, I would suspect that most doctors would say they would be cleared to go back into the game and have immunity so that they're not going to be subjecting themselves to harm by Coming in contact with patients, that's number one.
But they're not going to subject those patients to harm by spreading the virus.
So it's two things.
They're not going to come into harm at the front line of this, and they're not going to spread the virus.
And I think you see some European countries thinking about utilizing this strategy to give citizens kind of this certificate of, hey, I've been already immune to the virus, so I can go about my daily work and not going to affect people And they're not going to infect me.
Now, what about the difficulty in making sure that it's identified COVID-19 as the virus and not been confused by a somewhat similar coronavirus or other virus?
That's a really good question.
And luckily, the early studies that have come out have shown that the antibodies to this novel corona Do not cross react with our ordinary old coronavirus that causes the colds every year.
There are about four types of those, and they have not seen cross reactivity.
So it looks like it is specific to this coronavirus, the novel coronavirus.
And as a manufacturer, that's what we would do.
So we would be working with the leading institutions in the country today on the East Coast, doing the same thing on the West Coast, doing the same thing in the Midwest, getting those samples, ensuring, you know, we want to go hard and fast, but we want to ensure the quality.
And I think that's what you're saying, Mayor, is that let's make sure that we're doing both.
We can't just do one or the other.
Now, does this, particularly the laboratory test, does this give you any help with regard to developing a vaccine for COVID-19?
Yes, exactly.
How would it do that?
So, understanding what the concentration of those various antibodies are present in the serum, then that's how you can evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccine.
So it's a little bit of an iterative process, and that is that you see what kind of people in the population.
We would like to do widespread screening looking for antibodies to this virus to determine just how much of the population was exposed, and then get a feel for, well, what level of antibodies do you need to be immune?
And then we have to see, does the vaccine In most people give you that same level of antibodies that gives you immunity.
So each vaccine that is tried will have to be evaluated with respect to its ability to cause the host to make those antibodies and to make them in sufficient concentrations that they will be immune and that the antibodies will last long enough.
We want the antibodies to certainly last through the season, the year.
And we would hope that they would last for a few years.
And then, you know, as for some infectious agents, you can get lifelong immunity from some vaccines.
And all of those things are yet to be determined.
Doctor, and Zach, let me ask you this question because it amazes me.
That all of you, and now I include all your colleagues as well, have been working on this for about two months with any kind of specificity.
Maybe before that you had some general ideas coming out of the inaccurate reports from China.
And there are so many different types of remedies out there.
What you're talking about, which is really almost like a screening test, the various plans that are administered, the hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, the zinc, the remdesivir, the HIV remedies, and there are a couple of others that escape me right now.
How do we get so many of these things up and going so quickly?
I know most people are... Most people look at it and say, oh, this should have all been ready and it should have all... But we didn't know about this disease four months ago.
That's right.
Yeah, and not only did we not know about it, but in order to really develop a test, you need to be able to have specimens and samples to be able to run it and develop a test.
So how did you do it?
Test out of the air.
Yeah.
You know, so it's, you know, I think companies like ourselves and I think the medical, the whole medical community has been working day and night.
I mean, it is really.
Yeah, they have.
It's a great, great.
It's a great credit.
It reminds me, I know it's a totally different analogy, but it reminds me of the beginning of the Second World War when we were caught by surprise by Japan and we had demilitarized and we had very little Navy and very little Army.
And within one year, everybody in America was building a ship, building a tank, or doing something.
And the great industrial enterprise in part won the war.
I completely agree, Mayor.
And I think that's what's really nice to see is the companies coming together.
You get Tesla and the motor companies trying to build ventilators and getting that going.
I think I'd like to see more of that happen.
I think McDonald's, for example, every company in the United States has an expertise.
McDonald's has an expertise of how to distribute food in a way that's unbelievable.
They know how to distribute food and keep it fresh and the same all the time around the country.
It would be wonderful if they could get involved in distribution of food for people who need it in the areas that they need it.
I think there's many examples of how we could all come together.
and do this.
Coming together, you know, working with, you know, it's the one thing that this has done, this virus has done, is it's brought everyone together.
I mean, we work with medical institutions in record time and everyone is trying to help each other to try to get something out there that's helpful.
Yes, sharing know-how that typically used to be sort of held close to the vest is now happening.
I think just as you observed right after 9-11, One thing about Americans is they are enterprising and they all do pull together in an emergency.
Oh, they sure do.
They sure do.
And that's happening right now.
And there are many hopeful signs about this epidemic.
One is the lessons learned.
We're learning so much every day about this that can be generalizable to future threats like this.
The next virus won't exactly be COVID-2.
It will be something different, but we all have learned so much about how to manage this.
For example, some of the therapeutics that are targeting the host response that is actually kind of the downside of this infection, the runaway host response that causes that acute respiratory distress, some of the therapeutics designed at treating those aspects Would be applicable to any kind of viral respiratory infection.
And so I think we are not only responding just as fast as possible right now, but for the next one we're going to be so much better at this.
Where are you in the in the FDA process right now so that this can be available to be used?
So so we are.
We have submitted through the emergency use authorization.
We're just waiting for the FDA.
The FDA has been very helpful to the company in many different facets.
I think that we are very close to being able to be able to do that.
We will have to apply for another EUA for the laboratory version of the product, which we intend to do as soon as we have that validated in a way.
And again, our idea with that product is let's make sure we use it in With American samples.
This product is going to be completely 100% American made.
We're not going to rely on any other supply chain.
Part of the problem that we've been having with all our production is we rely on supply chains from other countries.
And they're unreliable right now.
So this plastic cassette right here that comes into this product comes from India.
Well, India shut down.
So how do we get plastic?
So how do we get those those pieces?
How do we get things done?
Even when we're trying to get simple things like a label, some of the label manufacturers not done.
So we got to find them.
It's a difficult time to be manufacturing, but it's a lot easier if you do it in the United States.
So we've basically, as a company, said this product will be completely 100% supply chain to the United States.
Everything about it will be made in the United States.
And how capable are you of scaling up since Gosh, just trying to count how many you'd need.
We're talking about the multiple millions that you would need over the course of the next three, four months, right?
Yes.
So that's a really good question, Mayor.
And so our facility today has the ability to do over a million tests per month.
Yeah, that's not going to be enough.
So we will reach out to our other, I will reach out to other CEOs and other colleagues, and we'll actually teach them how to make the test and how to do this thing so we can get more tests out there.
Our goal is not, as a company, to try to, you know, to have all the demand come to us.
That's not what our goal is.
Our goal would be to try to get this out to everyone so that there's enough demand for us already.
We don't need any more demand.
We need to get this technology out so that everyone is doing it and everyone is helping America get back to work and back to normalization.
So speaking from a lab medicine perspective, the general good laboratory practices, there are kind of three things to keep in mind.
One is that standardization is everything.
That helps preserve the quality of the test itself, and then importantly, the interpretation of it.
And as we've been talking about, it's the interpretation of these antibodies and what they mean and what levels confer what kind of immunity that are critically important.
So one is standardization, getting everyone to do it the right way.
And then number two is, yes, every laboratory test we validate, we always have to validate within our own patient population.
And so what Zach is saying about we need to be doing this on patients in the United States and geographically from the West Coast, the Midwest, the East, et cetera.
So we need to coordinate that.
And then the third thing is what helps us roll it out and deploy it in the most meaningful way is that it is manufactured in a system that is an open system.
that almost any lab in any hospital could have access to exactly the same test.
So it's not the one that requires that you have x analyzer or y analyzer in your lab.
Everyone could do this and and I have seen problems with this in the past.
I lived through the non-uniformity of PSA measurements back in the 90s and that caused so much In the way of confusion about how to interpret the levels and what clinical actions you should take at what point.
So I think right now since we do want to develop this very rapid fire, we have to hang on to the uniformity at the very outset.
Let me ask one final question on a somewhat related subject because it's had so much controversy.
These other treatments that are being put out there very quickly that can't go through the usual rigorous FDA testing, Because we don't have the time.
We have people dying, and it would seem to me, with a certain degree of prudence, obviously, we have to try what we can.
How do you... Are you familiar with the hydroxy... Chloroquine, yeah.
Chloroquine... Zithromycin strategy?
Yeah.
As well as the remdesivir?
Right.
And can you tell us how they operate and how they distinguish themselves?
Oh, um, so I'm certainly not a qualified expert to talk about the therapeutics.
I would more talk about the analogy with, uh, developing lab tests and the validations and everything that the regulations that surround those.
So for the drug trials, um, you know, there are many people with a lot more expertise who could discuss that and, and what, um, What regulations can be relaxed a little to ensure reasonable cost benefit as you do these trials?
I can speak to that for lab testing, since that's my life, and unfortunately, lab testing is almost worse, because if you let go of the lab standards, then you are basically handing a route, a road map to someone that has wrong turns on it.
That's worse than not telling them where to go at all.
You know, so because the lab test result being wrong, that's kind of invisible to the clinician who's going to take action on it.
So even though lab testing is less invasive and risky than drugs, If the lab test result isn't trustable, then you have really misled your doctors that are trying to decide what to do with their patients.
Have you seen the literature on this?
The limited literature out of France and a few other places on hydroxy?
Yes.
I read the France publication.
And I think while there is some promise out there, I think, you know, what I was concerned about was some of the endpoints that they used to determine whether it was working or not, were probably not the endpoints that, again, we're not a drug development company, so I just want to, it's probably not the endpoints that some drug manufacturers would use.
But I think that there's a lot of other studies that are going, the good news, I think, and that's the key here, is there's a lot of other studies that are using I think more compatible endpoints to determine... What do you mean by endpoints?
That's whether you... So, for example, you can look at the drug and say, well, is the effect on the patient that the viral load in the patient is going down?
That would be one endpoint that you'd say, well, this drug is doing a good job because we're not measuring as much of the virus in the patient anymore.
But someone else would say, well, the better endpoint is How did it affect the outcome on the patient?
Like what did it do to the percent of patients who died?
Aren't we at the stage with the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of cases that we have that a really good end point is that the person doesn't die?
That's exactly the end point that should be used.
Aren't we without the luxury right now of You know, pushing it too much further without fear that we're going to hold back medicines that may cure people.
I'll tell you why, both of you.
Over this last weekend, I worked really hard to get remdesivir for a doctor who they thought was about five, six hours from death.
And thank God he's still alive.
And a similar situation with someone at an earlier stage with hydroxychloroquine.
And in both cases, I don't think the doctors, who are very fine doctors who helped push it, know if they've cured the disease.
But what they do know is they have lessened the symptoms, kept them off the respirator, That's a big victory.
Or ventilator.
And in some cases, gotten him out of a hospital bed.
So, Rudy... In the war we're fighting, I'm just afraid when I hear the FDA talk about, you know, blind studies and da-da-da-da-da... Gosh, you know, that's... A lot of people are going to be dead before those blind studies get even started.
So one thing, I have probably one of the highest risk patients with my mom.
She's already on a ventilator.
So we have her on a ventilator at night and everything else.
I'm sorry.
God bless her.
Yeah, thank you.
And so my take on this is, you know, this is compassionate use.
At that point, that medical doctor should be able to look at this situation and say, if we don't do anything, We're going to lose this patient, and at that point, they should have the ability to try new things, because at the end of the day, if we're going to lose the patient anyways, what are we doing waiting?
Right.
FDA does make provisions for doing both compassionate use and last-ditch efforts, and that is a very expedited process to get new drugs into the compassionate use.
That's good.
Yeah.
That's good.
And I hope this moves along at record speed.
Because frankly, if it takes too long, it's not going to do us too much good.
That's right.
Absolutely.
Or at least maybe what I should say is, every day we lose thousands of people.
Yes.
We don't have the luxury to do it perfectly.
No, we don't have the luxury of time.
Yeah, there's a balance.
So the reason we chose to make this an open system, as Dr. Emerson was saying, is because we don't have the luxury of time.
Open system means that you can use it in almost any New York City hospital should have a way to do this.
And it's It's going to be the idea of standardizing it and making it
the same across the country so that you're getting the same result whether you're doing
it in New York City or whether you're doing it in San Francisco or whether you're doing it
in Minnesota.
Wherever you're using it, it's the same.
And I think that's critical and that's why we're racing to do it right.
But we're also racing to do it very fast.
Well, thank you very, very much.
You've been both absolutely generous with your time.
I know you must be exhausted because you are racing the clock.
I made that statement as if maybe you needed that encouragement.
I know you don't.
We do.
Thank you.
We do.
No, thank you.
No, no.
What you need is our congratulations and our admiration for pushing forward something That could be a game changer if it works out right because it could be the thing that tells us that these people can go back to work right away and then we can follow up with another group and another group and another group and eventually we can get America, you know, where it has to be.
Right.
Yeah.
And honestly, I think everyone owes you a thanks too for your leadership and your concern
and putting this out there and the information out there.
It's important that people understand that.
I just want them to, I just want the doctors to have the options because I'm a big believer that doctor, patient,
that's the, that's the key.
That's the key place where these decisions get made.
Yes.
Particularly in these situations that get out of hand.
So, I know you want that with your mother.
You want that option with your mother.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, I wish you the very best.
Pray for you.
And I am very, very hopeful this is going to work.
It sounds very promising.
Thank you.
No, thank you.
And congratulations.
Thank you.
God bless America.
We need it at this time.
And we'll check back.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Well, that was a fascinating interview.
I saw the two of them for Pharmaceutical Executive and a very, very skilled learned doctor explained it in English That I could understand and hopefully you could understand.
I think we got the point that they're working on two tests.
One test is a simple pinprick.
The simple pinprick is going to tell you COVID or not.
It's going to tell you whether you developed antibodies.
I took a test like this a week ago.
Which they have examined and they say is a valid test.
But all it told me was that I hadn't had the disease as of 10 days to two weeks ago.
Because I had no antigens.
Didn't tell me do I have it right now.
The laboratory test then goes into much more detail and shows you just how strong the immunity is.
So that if it's strong enough to withstand your going back into the workforce, disease is just not going to come back.
If you've got that, now you're really one of those people that can return to the hospital, return to the police station, return to the firehouse, return to the school.
We get a significant number of those and we can get America to start moving again, but it's also going to have to be accompanied by a test to determine whether you have the illness.
I know this all sounds a little strange, but if you think back on what they said, The test they are developing is a retroactive test.
It takes you back 10 days to 2 weeks.
And because the antigens take 10 days to 2 weeks to develop.
So if you have the disease on the day you're taking the test and you just got it, no antigens are gonna show.
It shows you the antigens from the past.
So...
Very valuable because it can line up cohorts of people who can work in critical industry.
And very, very valuable because it can give us a leg up on a vaccine.
Because these people are immunized, we now have an idea of the substances we need to immunize people.
It's extraordinary this amount of work has been done in this short period of time.
And that should give all Americans hope.
That we have the medical genius, the scientific expertise, and most importantly, that American willingness to be able to overcome anything.
▲
Export Selection