Professor Dr. Michael Levitt: The Truth About Mortality Rates | COVID-19 Facts from the Frontline

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professor Michael Leavitt he is the
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winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for
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chemistry he’s developed complex models
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of chemical syntheses the professor of
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structural biology at Stanford School of
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Medicine and we’re gonna talk to him a
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little bit because he was the first kind
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of person I’ve seen the world of his
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caliber in a questioning our current
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approach to things he was the first one
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to raise his hand and say guys you know
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we don’t have enough information or
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making these decisions and then you know
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about prize-winner he has a pretty
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powerful voice fortunately professor
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lemon thank you so much for joining us
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how are you today
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thank you Tony it’s really great to be
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here things a manager so professionally
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by organization this is gonna be a great
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interview thank you
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oh thank you so much listen doc you were
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the first person that I saw that you
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know blew me away you talked about the
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morbidity numbers and the projections to
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the testing and you were trying to calm
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people down from having so much fear you
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know most of us the doctors all I know
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that you know you you get fear your body
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it reduces your immune system very you
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know this is an immune issue to start
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with so I like just to ask you what did
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you see almost two months ago and the
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very beginning of this that made you
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raise your hand and say wait a second
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there’s no need to panic we need to
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reduce the fear here and we need to
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relook at this because we’re making
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decisions that quite frankly we don’t
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have enough data for can you tell us
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what took you on the journey and made
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you speak up in this area basically I am
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NOT an epidemiologist I’m not an MD but
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I like numbers and I sort of got into
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this accidentally through connections my
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wife is a curator of Chinese art in
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China in November we have friends there
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in any case I had followed the outbreaks
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in China from the end of January just
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looking at the numbers making reports
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getting very involved so how much of
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medicines the people having somebody who
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cared my first concern about the overall
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death rate came when the Diamond
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Princess cruise ship was becoming known
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and I thought this would be a great
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experiment because almost everyone was
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infected we could try to work out what
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was the not the case this rate but the
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population death right because the
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trouble is if you can’t believe in the
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cases you need to know what fraction
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of a certain population will be will be
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suffering one problem I had over diamond
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princess was is that I didn’t actually
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know the age profile it turns out that
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more than half the people are over 65
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when you look at the death rate from the
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Diamond Princess you find that for a
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regular population or old people
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something like quite 1 percent 1 in 1000
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were dying on the Diamond Princess that
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is higher than flu but it’s not it’s
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maybe it’s factor 2 or 3 higher than flu
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so when I saw this I realized that maybe
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this was whistling flu but it wasn’t
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like SARS it wasn’t a 10% death rate
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since then just a few minutes ago I was
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looking at a paper from marine princess
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and I now realize that that situation
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could have provided everything we need
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to know for dealing with Krogen they’re
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not found many many asymptomatic cases
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on the ship they found a much much
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higher effective infection rate so that
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was the basic information that made me
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realize that it wasn’t much worse and
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true I should say though that all my
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colleagues at Stanford tell me flu is a
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very serious disease said you know don’t
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plate likely with flu yeah you’re so
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right I mean what’s crazy is you know we
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keep hearing the descriptions of the flu
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like it’s nothing but we all know that
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it kills elderly people and we have
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anywhere from thirty thousand eighty
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thousand people a year the die the flu
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in the US 650,000 in the world you bring
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up a really important point when we turn
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on the news the average person what do
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we believe we believe that we’ve been
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told we see some of the doctors doctor
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foul Chi and some people give us some
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info we watch the news and we have a red
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bar showing how many deaths have how
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many new cases that go on even during
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the commercials and it’s produced
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enormous fear but you made a point which
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is that the truth of the matter is we
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all have viruses in our bodies all the
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time on epstein-barr there’s you know
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220 million people in the u.s. that will
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have it at their time according to the
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CDC 90 percent of the population is
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gonna is expose those to it around the
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world yet we’re not experiencing
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epstein-barr most of us we have
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streptococcus in the back of the
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throat we don’t have strep thought we
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have cancer cells in our body we don’t
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have cancer it’s really a balance and so
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one of the things you brought up and I
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was really interested in it was seeing
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that these tests that we’re doing are
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finding the virus and people keep
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talking about the number of cases and
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the more we test as I understand it
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correct me if I’m wrong the more virus
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of course we’re going to find the more
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cases but what really matters is the
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death rate can you just address for us
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you know what does this really mean this
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so but the death rate in China it turned
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out that there were two very very
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different death rates inside who bear
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the death rate was almost 10 times
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higher than the deaths right out of
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school day and that didn’t make sense
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because it’s the same disease it also
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turns out that this is the first time a
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diseases be detected by looking for the
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DNA or the RNA of the virus so it isn’t
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diseases anomalies detected by
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physicians looking for symptoms and you
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know you don’t know how much virus is
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needed this ended up being I think cases
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became a big issue for political reasons
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unfortunately there’s a huge amount of
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politics in order of this everywhere
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I am very a political person I actually
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watch a sports game and I would either
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side to win I don’t really care I like
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the game is very unusual and you know I
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think that unfortunately science is
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difficult and you can’t be partisan and
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I think that it was a dynamic here and a
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dynamic which I found very anti
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scientific that let the decisions being
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made I think that the other thing that
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one has to remember and I again I’m
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shocked by this epidemiologist don’t
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mind being wrong on the high side so if
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they come into it’s you know and this
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meeting any other field you need to have
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a balanced era you know being 10 percent
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wrong on the low side is exactly the
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same as being 10 percent wrong on the
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high side if you learn it then we all
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adjust to be wrong a thousand times on
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the high side it’s much much better than
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being wrong by a factor of two on the
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low side so they tend to exaggerate the
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World Health Organization has a record
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of exaggerating and I think they do this
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deliberately because they feel that the
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public won’t pay attention unless
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they really exaggerate the trouble is as
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you said with huge collateral damage
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caused by the consequences of things
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like lock down of shutting down
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economies people during hungry people
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losing their savings which apparently is
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not part of the epidemiologists job to
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consider so what are these issues lead
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to an unbalanced situation
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scientifically now the you bring up the
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most important point the decisions that
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were made were made based on estimating
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China’s morbidity rates between three
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and a half and a four and a half percent
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and you still hear the media four and
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five percent broadcasts of morbidity and
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we now know that’s not true and yet it
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continues to be promoted but you could
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see why some would make a decision based
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on that and you know they they did their
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models you know when people talk about
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algorithms or models that most people
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are realizes you should put the word
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guesses next to that because they’re
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educated guesses by people’s opinions
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what they think it’s gonna be and you
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know the numbers that the CDC put out
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the NIH foot out doctor about you put
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out I wouldn’t want to be in their
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position by the way a pretty rough
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position but their numbers were anywhere
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I’m from two hundred thousand to two
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point two million if I which group you
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did two million was beside and that was
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with social distancing because some
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people are saying all we saved everybody
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with social distancing but those were
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numbers with social distancing with the
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projections and now it’s looking like in
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the US perhaps a hundred thousand people
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and any death is insane
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but as you know two years ago in 2018
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there eighty thousand people died the
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flu and you know they’re 39 to 57
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million people according to CDC that are
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infected right now with the flu and we
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have 1.2 million with koban with similar
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morbidity rates as you now pointed out
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so I guess the the real question is we
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have new data but we haven’t changed
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what we’re doing and we also have data
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from both countries and states that
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didn’t comply which are very few there’s
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only what do we have I think it’s four
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countries four countries in the world
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that did not shut down create
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emergencies and shut down their
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economies so let me take a quick look at
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these to give you an idea if you take a
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look at where the shutdown was the
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strongest and most extreme social
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distancing you can look in the US but if
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you look at New York and New Jersey you
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could see very quickly New York has you
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know stayed in York 19 million people
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and 25,000 deaths New Jersey is eight
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point eight with eight thousand five
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hundred forty nine deaths now
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go get lost in the numbers just take a
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look at this if you look at the top five
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countries you can see the deaths 400,000
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you can see what they are but you gotta
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just four population these are the four
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countries that did not shut down and
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they did not legally require any social
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distancing many people are talking about
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Sweden because there’s 10 million people
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in Sweden and there’s only 2900 deaths
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and if we went the city of New York it’s
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about 9 million people with about 18,000
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deaths
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so the percentage per capita for a
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hundred thousand is through the roof and
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in Sweden as you know Sweden has not
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shut down they’ve had their school’s
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their preschools and the great schools
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open the restaurants have been open
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people not forced to stand in line you
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know to get inside of a store and
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anything that major so no mandate you
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know they ask people to practice social
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distancing but interestingly enough some
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people said well Sweden does have more
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deaths in some Norwegian countries but
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when you compare them by a ratio to
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France or you take them to Italy or you
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take them to the top five countries
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their per capita is way lower and they
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didn’t do any of these things plus of
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the 2,900 deaths again as you pointed
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out earlier 80% of the Swedish faster
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Batool 65 65 plus and 40% are from 80 to
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90 years old
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Japan is mind boggling you know all four
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countries by the way did not have a
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major break out the ones that didn’t
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practice what we’ve been talking about
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I’m not telling people that are
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listening don’t practice with the
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government’s telling you don’t like the
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social distancing outside what I’m
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saying I just want to reduce the fear
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and have you addressed this Japan is 127
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so 7 million people they reported 558
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deaths and total it’s the slowest
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progression in the world they didn’t put
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their cities in lockdown in fact they
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had what he called dance places open her
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clubs open up until the two weeks ago
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they got so much negative feedback and
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of course you know some people say well
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New York you know look if the entire
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United States was Japan we’d have
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roughly 1500 deaths my population
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numbers somebody say yeah but New York
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is more compressed is not more
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compressed and Doug you if you ever try
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to get on a bus in Tokyo or our train
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and took you you know what I’m talking
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about so you talk about herd immunity
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the people in Sweden are saying we’re
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almost to herd immunity because we
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didn’t shut down tell me a little bit
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about herd immunity
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and tell me why are these countries that
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didn’t practice anything would teach
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these countries do not have giant
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breakouts the statistical differences
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even the Norwegian countries are you
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know statistically insignificant so and
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and its older people you pointed out so
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can you address the idea explain to
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people and herd immunity is howling nor
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we look at viruses and perhaps tell us
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why are these countries doing so well
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compared or else it can’t be population
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density when you bring Tokyo into this
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okay so herd immunity is when people
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become sufficiently immune so that the
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virus doesn’t spread but rather than
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getting to the immunological side of
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that we can just simply say what level
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of death justice tend to stop and you
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can look at places like northern Italy
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Spain France Belgium New York City that
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has been heavily hit the diamond
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princess and they all seem to stop and
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around one in a thousand deaths which is
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I think in New York it’s one point three
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in a thousand other places it’s less it
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seems to be this natural saturation
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limit you can call it herd immunity
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it may be herd immunity combined with
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built-in immunity but whatever happens
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it does seem to be a level that we
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cannot exceed I always thought that the
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diamond princess was a great experiment
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to try to inspect everybody and even
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there they didn’t manage to get
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everybody infected so I think that there
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is this saturation limit the saturation
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limits actually depends on the country
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the country of old people then they were
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more effectively the death curves the
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death profile for coronavirus is
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basically the same as old age or
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infirmity so for this reason you can
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actually say that when the number of
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deaths you need to reach the saturation
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point ie around one a thousand is about
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one month of normal death in Italy the
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death rate is 11% and you’d expect you
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know one one point of that other
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countries would have blower deaths rates
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a country like Ireland or Israel with a
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very young population will probably
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saturate at around a half
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to attend to thousands of people and New
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York is differently you were saying that
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the age profile is 80% above 65 it’s
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actually more than 90 percent above 65
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in all of Europe there were nine percent
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of the deaths below 65 from coronavirus
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and this doesn’t come from country
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reporting it comes from the reporting of
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excess deaths over all those countries
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and excess deaths you don’t have to say
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what the person died from you just look
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in a certain killer and it’s a big jump
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of deaths but in New York City from what
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I’m seeing there’s been a much greater
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number of younger people succumbing and
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my guess is is that due to different
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health systems and so on coronavirus is
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basically taking out people who are not
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very healthy either because of
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pre-existing conditions or of old age so
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New York right now has a 1.3 in a
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thousand deaths rates if you compare
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different boroughs of New York Manhattan
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is about half of the Bronx even 1/3 of
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the Bronx so again it’s depending on the
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level of privileges for people but still
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I think the same number of one or two
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months of additional death now this
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might sound like a huge amount but it’s
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not that different from from flu the
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total number of excess deaths reported
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by a website called euro mama up till
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today is a hundred and sixty thousand
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maybe a hundred and seventy thousand
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basically that’s about the same number
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of people who died in an excess way in
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the flu season of 2017-18 they only have
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records going back for years they don’t
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have the flu season of 2009 which was
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much more severe so basically my guess
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is it’s going to be maybe one half times
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more excess this X is just very
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important because if I if I’m very sick
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and that I’m labeled as a corona death
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that’s fine except I won’t die again
15:20
next month so basically if you look at
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the total deaths each person is only
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counted once whereas if you assume that
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everyone who dies of Corona is extra
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you’re over counting you
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interview and in it you talked about
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that people are being qualified ask Ovid
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19 or County if you die with Khurana 19
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we’re counting as you died of chrono 18
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and so yeah you were talking about
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looking at numbers and what they’re
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telling us we don’t have enough
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information you said the small amounts
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of others can be detected almost
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everyone can die no matter what the
15:52
cause and could be called coronavirus
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they killed you can you explain that
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okay great so my my my last point is
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that essentially the way the virus is
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detected is by a very beautiful
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exquisitely sensitive by the chemical
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method called polymerase chain reaction
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or PCR for short and what it does is it
16:11
takes a little piece of your DNA and it
16:14
keeps on making copies and it might make
16:16
40 copies each time growing up many many
16:19
millions for and in the end you say well
16:22
is this bit of interesting we copied
16:25
over time coming from the corona virus
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and it’s this is the first time a
16:30
disease has been detected this way and I
16:32
think we’re not yet calibrated on the
16:34
one hand we’re missing people were
16:36
asymptomatic on the other hand we have
16:38
marking people who have other conditions
16:41
so I don’t in any way belittle me the
16:45
the low this has been on the people that
16:46
have had to work or the health
16:47
professionals but it is possible I think
16:49
to die with corona virus and maybe one
16:53
so whatever reason I this I don’t
16:55
understand there’s been this race to the
16:57
top as you mentioned to try to maximize
16:59
death and you know it can economist use
17:02
something called years of life loss when
17:04
I mentioned this in Israel and was
17:06
almost thrown out of the country because
17:08
every death is a whole life in itself
17:10
and that’s true but you know if we if I
17:13
want I’m 73 if I wanted a heart
17:16
transplant now no one would give me one
17:18
if I wanted to get life insurance now no
17:20
one will give it to me so is it only the
17:23
insurance companies that know what life
17:24
really means I don’t know these are open
17:26
questions hi Mona thank you I have one
17:28
last question do one ask based on what
17:30
we’re seeing with both Sweden Japan a
17:33
Thailand and so forth that the numbers
17:35
are incredibly small and we have a
17:37
situation there where obviously you know
17:39
they’ve not done the social distancing
17:41
they’ve not shut down their economies
17:42
they not created emergencies we’re
17:45
hearing that social just
17:46
Tsing saved us and we’ve heard all this
17:48
discussion to flatten the curve flatten
17:49
the curve and I think most people being
17:50
flattened the curb means we’re gonna
17:51
have less deaths but statistically all
17:53
we’re doing is trying to spread them out
17:55
so it doesn’t overwhelm you know the
17:56
hospital system so the question is do we
17:59
know scientifically the social
18:01
distancing actually produces a result
18:02
that’s worthwhile right from the very
18:05
beginning the numbers about this virus
18:07
showed that it never grows exponentially
18:10
this virus is self-limiting
18:11
probably because of the asymmetry too
18:14
many cases will come back to that the
18:16
other thing is social distancing
18:19
lockdown is a very very crude form of
18:22
social distancing it probably goes back
18:24
to the Middle Ages probably not allowing
18:26
intercity travel because if a city is
18:29
Corona free and one way to reduce the
18:32
slow the growth is to keep the fires
18:35
burning in the places where they’re
18:37
burning and not spread to new areas
18:39
thank you for that but it’s Tony Robbins
18:42
listen if you’re watching this right now
18:44
I’m giving you a quick update because
18:45
dr. Michael Leavitt the Nobel Prize
18:47
winner who’s been a leader in this field
18:49
had just sent me an email with some
18:51
interesting facts I just want to give
18:52
them to you and we’ll put a link down
18:53
below for you as well because it’s
18:54
fascinating he says Tony and they had
18:56
patched attached PDF I showed for the
18:58
first time that Europe’s covered 19
19:00
excess deaths plateaued at 150 3006 15%
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more just 15% more than the 2017-2018
19:09
flu season were the same age raid counts
19:12
of morbidity in deaths
19:13
he said the similarity has been noted by
19:16
most nobly by dr. Anthony Fauci and
19:18
others in the New England Journal on
19:20
February 28th and he said mine is the
19:22
first large analysis with a well over a
19:24
hundred thousand deaths in each epidemic
19:26
using consistent and gives the euro Momo
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data that’s what they use their for the
19:32
same group of countries of the total
19:33
population of over 250 million people
19:35
meaning this is the largest scale test
19:37
like this and he said one of the most
19:39
interesting things is the age range that
19:42
come out of this of who actually
19:43
affected is truly surprising to some
19:46
just 8% is what I want you to get of all
19:49
the deaths in the entire world all the
19:51
deaths the United States now getting
19:53
close to hundred thousand the United
19:54
States just 8% of those people on
19:56
average are under the age of 65
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8% and then secondly 50% of all deaths
20:04
are over 85 years old Lee notices in
20:07
most countries the average age that
20:08
someone lives to a 78 so pretty
20:11
interesting to note and you’ll see it if
20:12
you’ll stay with this podcast and I
20:14
don’t know if you’ll see this separately
20:15
or you’ll see it with dr. michael evans
20:16
interview but you’ll also hear the head
20:18
of the cleveland clinic talking about
20:20
that half of the deaths you’re gonna see
20:22
in this country are people that are from
20:23
two states new york new jersey been hit
20:26
very hard but also almost half of those
20:28
across the country have come from people
20:30
in nursing homes and we need to focus on
20:32
taking care of them the other half
20:34
sixty-six percent are over the age of 80
20:36
if you’re under the age of 70 your
20:38
chances of having called it it’s not
20:40
getting it’s not cases remember cases
20:42
everybody talks about cases what matters
20:44
is not cases ninety eight percent of
20:46
people have no symptoms or mild symptoms
20:48
what matters is deaths and so this is
20:50
really encouraging news so I wanted you
20:52
have it and we’ll put links down there
20:53
so you can do your own research as well
20:55
thanks your time
21:03
you