hello and welcome you are watching
lockdown TV this is the pop up news and
discussion program from unheard and
during these strange and concerning
lockdown weeks we have been trying to
bring interesting and brilliant brains
to you from around the world to give
alternative perspectives on what is
actually happening you've spoken to
scientists thinkers political people and
today I am delighted that we have a very
brilliant person called professor
Michael let it by way of introduction
and you are a professor of computer
science and structural biology at the
University of Stanford based at the
Medical School and you were winner of
the 2013 Nobel Prize for chemistry for
work on computer models for complex
chemical interactions and since January
you have been taking a close interest in
the corona virus pandemic so let's just
dive straight in basically so what well
the rest of the world and many of us
hadn't even really noticed the corona
virus issue
you were already following the numbers
very closely coming out of China tell us
about that so basically my wife is
actually a curator of Chinese art and as
a result we spend quite a lot of time in
China we had been there until the end of
November last year and we have lots of
friends there when the outbreak started
today in Wuhan I think I first heard
about a number 20th of January which was
just a form of the Chinese Spring
Festival or new year we were very
concerned for our friends we wrote them
a kind of consoling message in the
Chinese equivalent of Facebook and
what's up called WeChat wishing and
basically they were very excited to get
some news from out of the world so I
then decided that maybe I should use my
skills with numbers to look at the
numbers I first compared when this is
probably 25th or 22
of January by that time we had a but I
would guess a few thousand cases already
maybe a hundred or so deaths and solid
initially just to compare coronavirus to
to the society which were already scared
about and it was clear that coronavirus
was growing much much fossil and the
very first thing I noticed even before I
started looking at the numbers China
actually had two separate outbreaks in
those days we looked at the numbers from
Chinese websites I can't be Chinese but
numbers are fine and what we saw is that
the outbreak in Hebei Province was had a
much much higher death rate and the
outbreak everywhere else in China by
about a factor of 15 so that was scary
most of our friends were not included
they were in Shanghai in Beijing and so
on so the first thing I taught it out is
not the death rate in goodbay was about
four or five percent whereas outside who
Bay was one tenth or even 115 to that
when I started to get more into the
numbers and on the second of February I
had been playing with itself and look at
the numbers and saw that the rate of
increase of digits were slowing down
this is a very easy thing to do if you
take the number of deaths today the
total number let's that's basically a 25
percent increase between 80 and 100 but
if the day afterwards the increase is no
longer 25% let's say 22% in the day are
18 percent you start to feel knees break
break to run on bogus pre exponential
growth the number should be the same
every day it should be 15 percent 15
percent 15 percent or were an even
number it's growing out so the slowdown
of the ratio of today divided by
yesterday either for cases or for deaths
indicates slowing on the Twitter on the
2nd of February I noticed that there
were four days in a row when they being
steady linear decrease in the ratio of
yesterday and
basically wrote a reach cap message like
my wife potential the same people our
friends saying that things looked like
it was slowing down we then got on a
plane and flew from Israel to New York
City and when I learned all these emails
from me saying are you the Michael
Edwards who posted this message in
Chinese saying that everything is
slowing down and what had happened is
that somebody I don't even know who had
taken the two pages of PDF that I'd sent
them had it translated into Chinese and
actually posted it on the Facebook
equivalent or the Twitter equivalent in
China in English and there were already
two million views of it see you then so
there's paying attention every single
day thereafter so each day the total
number of cases is always increasing but
the number of new cases increases and
then gets to a maximum
it gets to a maximum and then decreases
at the same rate now the epidemics both
in China in today in China a star Thuban
I didn't I kept on looking at them
separately those behaves very well they
basically got to their maximum started
slowing down so it was relatively easy
maybe by the 15th of February to predict
the total discounts for the epidemic
inside the bay as well as the outside
could be it was about 3,000 inside Hubei
and about 120 outside who Bay so that
was basically how things were but so so
you noticed that the curve was less of a
sort of exponential curve than we might
have feared in those early days some
ways there was never any exponential
growth from the minute I looked at it
there were never any two days that had
exactly the same growth rate and they
were getting slow of course you could
have non exponential growth where every
single day they're getting more than
exponential but the growth was always
subjects financial so that's the first
step
so because we talk of at least over here
we talk endlessly about the our rate the
reproduction rate and apparently that
began very high maybe as high as 3 and
now is down we've got it down below 1 in
the UK intuitively if there's a high
reproduction rate you should see that
exponential curve just going up and up
well no wait okay so let's just see this
the r0 which is very popular is it is a
summers I think a faulted number let me
explain why the rate of growth dust it
depends on R 0 it depends on R 0 and the
time you infectious so if you have twice
as long infectious and half the R 0
you'll get exactly the same growth rate
and this is sort of intuitive but it's
not explained and therefore it seems to
me that I I would say at the present
time in a lot of I think i 0 became so
important a lot of movies it was very
popular talked about R 0
didn't the other just talk about us
but looking at all the mathematics you
have to specify the time infectious at
the same time to have any meaning and
the other problem is is that r0
decreases we don't know why our zero
decreases it could be social distancing
it could be prior to immunity it could
be in cases that you've been observing
the shapes of these curves and how the
our number tends to come down and the
curve tends to flatten in some kind of
natural way regardless of intervention
is that what you observe
we don't know I think the big test is
going to be Sweden Sweden is practicing
a level of social distancing that is
keeping children in schools you can
people at work they are obviously having
more deaths in countries like Israel or
Austria that are practicing very very
strict social distancing but I think it
is not a crazy policy the reason I felt
that social distancing was unimportant
is that I had two examples in China to
start with and then we had the
additional examples the first one was
Korea yeah and it's the beginning of all
the epidemics sure the slowing down and
it was very hard for me to believe there
those three countries could be social
distancing as well as China China was
amazing especially outside who Bay in
that they had no additional outbreaks
people left who they were very carefully
tracked had to wear face masks all the
time
had to take their temperatures all the
time and it was no further outbreaks so
this did not happen in either in South
Korea or in Italy or mini run now two
months later something else suggest that
social distancing might not be important
and that is that the total number of
just we're seeing in New York City in
parts of England in parts of France
in northern Italy all seem to stop at
about the same direction of the
population so are they all practicing
equally good social distancing I don't
think so
the problem I think is outbreaks
occurring in different regions I think
social distance thing that stops people
moving from London to Manchester is
probably a really good idea my feeling
is is that in London
and in New York City all the people who
got infected or got infected before
anybody noticed there's no way that the
infection grew so quickly in New York
City without the infection spreading
very quickly so one of the key things is
to stop people know that they're sick
exactly others and here again
China has three very very important
advantages that are not high-tech that
don't involve security tracking of
telephones what they involve is number
one the tradition in China four years of
wearing a face mask when you're sick as
soon as the coronavirus started
everybody wore a face mask it doesn't
have to be hygienic face mask it just
has to be face covering that stops you
spraying saliva micro droplets of
survivor saliva and somebody who talked
to you the second thing in China is that
because the SARS epidemic they were so
scared of it in most airports stations
will you pay tolls etc there are
thermometers infrared thermometers that
measure your temperature so having your
temperature measured at every single
store entrance either with a handheld
thermometer or with something about her
in the wall is something completely
standard in China and the third thing is
is that almost all payments in China are
made not using a credit card so in some
senses it is very very much easier there
to practice the social distancing of
course in in addition they know where
people are what's your view of the
lockdown policy
European countries and states in America
have introduced I think it is the huge
mistake I think we need smart lockdown
if we were to do this again we would
probably insist on face masks hand
sanitizers and some kind of payment that
did not involve touching right from the
very beginning this would slow down new
outbreaks and I think the for example
they found as I understand that children
even if they're infected never in adults
so why do we not have children at school
why do we not have people working
England is reaching England France Italy
Sweden Belgium Holland are all reaching
levels of saturation to be very very
close to her immunity so basically I
think that's a good thing I think the
policy good immunity is the right policy
I think Britain was on exactly the right
track before they were fed wrong numbers
and they made a huge mistake I see the
standard winners as Germany and Sweden
they didn't practice too much lock down
they got enough people sick to get some
hood immunity the standard losers are
countries like Austria Australia Israel
that actually had very very strict
lockdown but didn't have many cases so
they have damaged their economies caused
massive social damage damage the
educational year of their children but
not obtain any herd immunity I think in
many ways the European countries are
fine they didn't need to have lockdown
but they have will have all reached a
high enough level of infection not to
have to worry about further future
attacks of coronagraph the United States
seems to be heading that way there
certainly that way in New York City but
they still have a long way to go what
you're saying is that you believe
success
as we are currently measuring it which
is as few cases as possible and a
smaller spread of the virus as possible
is actually failure I think if you
really control your your epidemic for
example California it's now had locked
down for six weeks and once another four
weeks they have so far less than a
hundred deaths that means they don't
have more let's say a hundred thousand
in people that is not enough to give
them a significant herd immunity they
didn't need to do all that
lock down the lock down I think is
particularly hurtful in countries that
don't have good social infrastructure
countries like the United States in
Israel many many people have been really
really hurt especially young people you
know I think that everybody panicked
they were fed incorrect numbers by
epidemiologists and you know this I
think led to a situation there's no
doubt in my mind when we come to look
back on this the damage done by knock
down will exceed any saving of glides by
a huge factor one very easy way to see
this is that and again I'm getting it a
sensitive territory here but economists
economists have a very simple way of
looking at death they don't count people
they come to the conclusion that if
you're 20 and you die
that's a greater loss and if you're 85
and you die and it's a hard issue but in
some ways you know are we evaluating the
potential of future like of the 20 year
old are we valuing the loss of senior p
person now by what's called da ly
disability-adjusted life years well
basically if somebody is in the 80s
health has Alzheimer's disease and then
dies from pneumonia perhaps due to
corona that is less of a loss and if a
15 year old is riding his motorcycle but
his bike and gets run
so this is an important way of looking
at the death it's also you know right
now we know that's the number of excess
deaths in Europe is around a hundred and
thirty thousand up to yesterday this is
for all of Europe this is for a
population of around 330 million people
so in excess of a hundred thousand for
this whole year is actually not that
much in some of the worst flu epidemics
we get so those kinds of numbers
sometimes it's a bit more sometimes a
little bit less now I'm not saying flu
is like coronavirus I'm just simply
saying that the burden of death of flu
is like coronavirus especially when we
correct for the fact that people who die
from coronavirus are older on average
than people who died from flu flu kills
young people it kills two or three times
more people under 65 than does
coronavirus if we put those facts into
the situation we find that the burden of
death from coronavirus and Phillip Shaw
will in Europe where we have good
numbers in less than that of a very very
flu another factor which has not been
considered Oh cancer patients or ants
being treated or all the hot cardiology
patients who aren't being treated
I've got estimates of tens of thousands
of people who are basically going to be
dying because of lack of that treatment
and generally again the age group who
die of cancer are younger than the age
group who died of coronavirus and
there's one very easy way to sort of
summarize coronavirus I put an article
in the medium in response to an article
by the pretty famous British
statistician Sir David Spiegel Hotel
Cambridge and he had said that the
numbers coming from Ferguson suggested
that we had to lose about one year of
people turns out in fact that I
immediately wrote an article in the same
medium and reply to him saying that in
fact the answer was actually one month
not one year so basically my feeling is
it's being supported by the numbers that
the amount of excess death you need to
reach saturation I'm not gonna call it
herd immunity where the virus bites off
stock is on the order of four weeks of
excess to give you some idea in the
European area where there is good
monitoring by a website called Euro mama
run out of Denmark it covers about 300
million people every week in Europe in
that area there's around 50,000 natural
dense so full weeks will be about
200,000 extra deaths in that year and it
looks like coronavirus in Europe where
it's no doubt that it's the most
severely hit area in all the world we'll
probably reach around 200,000 or 4 weeks
worth so what happens if what you're
saying is there's a sort of them there
seems to be a statistical observation
which is around four weeks of excess
death and then the the pandemic seems to
peter out will begin to flap now what
does that mean policy-wise for these
European countries then so if we could
protect the old people perfectly then
the death rates would be very very low
say for example in Europe I said there
were about a hundred and forty thousand
excess deaths in the last I think nine
weeks the number of those excess deaths
who are younger than 65 is about 10%
so basically 13,000 of 130,000 deaths or
actually under 65 years old so and if we
had simply been able to protect or
elderly people then the death rate would
have been much much less but the key
thing is is to have as much infection
for as little possible death and also do
whatever you can to keep the hospitals
full brada overflowing it's a difficult
calculation it's one which accounts me
like Sweden can do where essentially
there's no political concerns the
trouble is is that in Israel that I know
well in the United States the everything
is political and therefore nobody could
say something like this they would say
ah but you're not valuing depth of the
thing that should have been done is for
the media to stress the people that
everyday somebody dies and these people
are essentially in the same age band
because I'm from Corona have other
comorbidities they have other diseases I
I've become a huge fan of Twitter I'd
never used twitter before and for me
Twitter is the best discussion forum I
had seen since I was a student at the
cameras Laboratory of natural biology
which is that 26 Nobel Prize winning lab
the best lab in the world the Twitter
discussion is phenomenal and I'm getting
documents from Italy showing that many
of the Cova deaths were either dead
before they were tested or else they
ahead up to three other conditions so
this is nothing wrong with this people
die for all sorts of reasons but the
news should be stressing this and maybe
they should be counting it as a point
one code that their countries seem to be
racing have as many koga the distance
they could and this is a huge mistake in
the flu season no one cares about these
people I mean the the total number of
deaths in Europe will be very similar to
a severe flu season and you know this is
serious flu is a serious disease maybe
we should just shut down the economy
during the flu season I mean we need
people people should have been made to
understand it unfortunately I think in
Britain they started out wanting to go
for herd immunity without too much
lockdown there was then a scary paper
which is likely to be retracted which
improves Italy as well where basically
it was claimed they were could we just
spend a moment on that paper professor I
know you you had some specific queries
about Neil Ferguson's paper we had him
repeat on the show last week so what
what did you think he got wrong in those
models and predictions so
so his work was on modeling in the paper
that I saw and of course these are pre
prints initially he found I was
following China very carefully and
around the 10th of February he had his
first paper that I saw and in there he
was getting a case fatality ratio of
around 15% whereas all my observations
were saying that it was around 3 or 4
percent so I was suspicious I looked at
the paper very carefully and in a
footnote to a table it said assuming
exponential growth for six days at
fifteen percent a day now I had looked
at China and never ever seen exponential
growth that wasn't decaying rapidly sara
is suspicious my numbers were about 10
percent less milk 1/10 not it was 10
percent of the numbers that Ferguson had
obtained I basically pointed this out in
reply in the medium which was in out
there it's clear nobody has ever seen it
but it's there and I didn't hide it it
just didn't get any likes and this said
that it was much more like one month
than one year and have an exchange both
in Spiegel hota and Ferguson where I try
to show my case basically saying but all
I was doing was just simple
proportionality using exactly the same
profile of different ages have different
death rates so there's a profile saying
that people over 80 have a certain
fraction of the disk people between 7
1980 have a different fraction just
using that data from almost anywhere it
could be South Korea
it could be walkin could be anywhere and
just simply saying we want the number of
deaths that occurred on the german
princess to be the same number that we
found which was 708 if you do that and
then you apply that proportionality to
britain in the USA you find that for
britain the half a million drops to
about 50,000 and in the united states
the two million drops to 200,000
essentially a year dropping two a month
and so the the argument that is made
here is that whether you believe
the infection fatality rate is nour
point three percent or whether you
believe it's nor point eight percent
there is still a big chunk of the
population the majority population who
hasn't had been exposed to the disease
or hasn't had it and therefore if we
just let it rip there will be many many
tens possibly even further hundreds
according to Professor Fergusson
of thousands of deaths and that's why
it's politically totally not an option
to be at do anything other than follow
this ultra cautious approach I mean what
do you say what I say is is that the
World Health Organization and I think
demolishes in general can only go wrong
if they get smaller if I said it's going
to be 1 billion deaths from coronavirus
and it's oh sorry you guys have done
what I've said there's only gonna be a
hundred thousands that is considered
good policy be they overestimated bird
flu by a factor of a hundred or ten
thousand paper in The Guardian The
Guardian wrote about this Ebola was
overestimated by a factor of 100 I think
they say their role as scaring the
people into doing something I can
understand that and there's something to
be said for it if you could practice
lock down with zero economic cost and
zero social cost let's do it
but the problem is is that those costs
are huge we're gonna have fatality some
hostel hospitals being closed down we're
going to have additional children in
trauma we're going to have businesses
damaged maybe less so in the UK because
of the compensation policy but certainly
massive economic damage in the USA and
in Israel and in other countries so you
need to balance both of these things and
you know I it seems to me that you know
that's what I don't think is responsible
in my work if I say a number is too
small and I'm wrong or a number is too
big and I'm wrong both of those errors
are the same if I'm 10 percent too high
or 10 percent too low that is okay it
seems
being a factor of a thousand - hi is
perfectly okay in epidemiology but being
effective three too low is too low I'm
trying to think about what this means
for the UK and for these countries that
are trying to work out what to do next
is your view then having looked at the
numbers that if we had not implemented
lockdown
we would have seen a fall off anyway is
that is that a fair summary we could
have had smart lockdown Sweden for
example doesn't allow gatherings of more
than 50 people I think a football game
would be a really bad idea right now
because people shot and therefore spray
saliva on everyone around them and they
could infect a lot of people but you
know Sweden is doing fine and their
deaths again are very localized to
nursing homes like they are in England
it's the same profile I think that you
know again it's Sweden so all the
evidence suggests that so my
contradiction is the following Britain
if they had done nothing would have had
reported deaths not remember there's a
difference of reported death my numbers
are all reported this would have four
weeks of additional reported death when
the numbers actually came in from what
were the real axis death my guess is
they would be less than that so it would
not have been double it wasn't in the
month but maybe one and three quarters
or so on so that is my feeling we're
seeing this in Europe we will know the
answer in three or four weeks time we
will know for all of Europe exactly what
the existed of coronavirus wants right
now it's a hundred and thirty seven
thousand do you find when you've been
making these points on medium or in the
media that you received a lot of
backlash do you think there's a lot of
political pressure and as an academic
you know they're one of your colleagues
in Stanford dr. Yeoh nudie ass has also
put out studies that seem to become
skeptical
and has received a lot of political
blowback I just wonder whether you've
experienced any of that I went on CNN
once when he was CNN Vicky Anderson out
of London I appeared on Fox News a
couple of times basically said this is
all just common sense because I appeared
on Fox News CNN wouldn't have me anymore
so basically I have had very clear of
things I had one article in the National
Los Angeles Times which did great but
since I was not saying things that were
too extreme
none of the East Coast newspapers wanted
me they quoted me but they wouldn't have
me what disconcerting is a few of my
academic colleagues even relatives we're
very upset with me because in my earlier
writings I published a report that was
when was the media report from the 22nd
of March but in a 14 to 13 3rd March I
distributed a 1980 rapport with three
academics got very upset with me I think
they were totally panicked and they felt
that if anyone thought this was truth
they wouldn't lock down as tightly as
they should and in fact friends with all
the people again no hard feelings
let me leave you with one final question
what do you what's your prognosis what
do you think is now gonna happen with
this and you do you think we're now what
happens that there will be a reckoning
maybe countries will start to see that
they need governments that are not pop
not necessarily great in rhetoric but
actually thinking and doing these I
often go back and think about what
Socrates said 2,400 years ago used your
common sense instead of listening to the
rhetoric of leaders and we keep County
very influenced by that I think also
what should happen and this is gonna
sound very strange to you I think this
is another fella on the part of the baby
boomers I am a real baby boomer I was
born in 1947 I'm almost seventy-three
years old but I think we've really
screwed up we cause pollution we allowed
the world's population that we increase
threefold in my
lifetime even more we've caused the
problems of global warming and now even
left your your generation with a real
mess in order to say a really small
number of very old people if I was the
young person now I would say now you
guys are gonna pay for this this is a we
have my family what's up and very early
on I said this is a virus being designed
to get rid of the baby boomers you know
I don't know I think my wife thinks this
is gonna be a sea change and we're gonna
have they're gonna be young people on
the street saying you guys have really
screwed up it's time to go and I always
joke with her and saying well at least
I've made lots of friends among the
young people I'll be okay but quite
frankly you know I've had a great life
and I'd muster all this t-yong faces in
front of me I have a grandson who's 17
I'd much rather have young people then
live for a very long time
they said I do have a mother who's a
hundred and five years old living in
London with my brother she's in lockdown
and I took to her by whatsapp every
single day on FaceTime and she's fine
she still uses her phone and so on so
you know these differences but you guys
should get out there and do something
don't accept this anymore
we screwed up too much professor thank
you so very much for your time Mike no
Jack that was Professor Michael Leavitt
of the University of Stanford and thanks
to him and also his 105 year old mother
we sincerely hope she is doing well here
in London and he is the professor of
structural biology and computer science
at Stanford he was the recipient of the
2013 Nobel Prize for chemistry and he
was sharing their some of his views
looking at things in it from a bit of a
different angle more of a numbers angle
than a straightforward epidemiology
angle and here on herd we want to get
these different opinions and try and
allow you to make your own mind up so
thank you to him we will be back next
with professor Heinrich streak of the
University of Bonn who has just
completed the first fully Deaton
study of seroprevalence or that is
immunity to the coronavirus and he will
be sharing the findings with us on
Monday so we look forward to that