S02_E21 - COVID-19 - It's Been a Minute...

Speaker 1: 0:00

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Speaker 2: 0:04

Welcome to the Healthy Matters podcast with Dr. David Hilden , primary care physician and acute care hospitalist at Hennepin Healthcare in downtown Minneapolis, where we cover the latest in health, healthcare and what matters to you. And now here's our host, Dr. David Hilden .

Speaker 3: 0:20

Hi everybody, it's Dr. David Hilden , and welcome to episode 21 of the Healthy Matters podcast c Ovid 19. It's been a while since we've talked about it. So today we thought we'd give an update on the State of the Pandemic. Is it still with us? And what you can expect going forward to help me out today. John Lucas, the producer of the podcast, is gonna join me on the show. And we're gonna flip the script a little bit today. Hey John . Hey, doc.

Speaker 4: 0:43

Good to be here.

Speaker 3: 0:44

So you are gonna ask the questions, I'm gonna do the answers. We're gonna try to get some up-to-date information on the state of c Ovid 19 and the pandemic, take it away.

Speaker 4: 0:53

Excellent. So yeah, the hope today is just to get some information and get us up to speed on the current state with Covid . Uh, obviously we've been through a lot over the last couple of years, so today what I wanted to do was just basically get us down to a baseline as to where we are with things. There are a lot of places you can get information. Some are better than others. A good one is probably to start with a physician. So where are we? What's going on these days? Well,

Speaker 3: 1:16

Despite what people might think, covid did not go away. The disease is still with us. Some people are still getting it, but it's at a low level. And very fortunately, the, the severity of the illness isn't as bad as it used to be. The transmission of it isn't what it used to be. And so, although we're, it's still with us, it is now in the background. And it's not something that fortunately is on the front of our minds each and every day of our lives. Fall is typically when these respiratory viruses get worse, and that might happen with c o d just like it has in past years. But most of what I'm hearing is fairly optimistic that this is something we can manage.

Speaker 4: 1:58

Okay, good. Because yeah, you do hear of some flareups here and there across the country or across the planet, but uh, by and large it does seem like it's plateauing, at least. What are the current strains these days? Uh, we've all heard of Omicron and all the Greek letters. Uh, what do the laypeople call them these days?

Speaker 3: 2:12

Right, it is, they're called strains and omicron is almost all of it right now. Okay. Almost all of it. But there're strains and then there's strains within the omicron strain, and that's simply a Greek letter. We just started naming them by Greek letters. Sure. And , uh, within the omicron strain, there's 20 or 30 variants. They're called variants. And the current one is, believe it or not, the fancy name, EG five . That's the one that's been out since midsummer. Before that it was, it was something else. It was the K or X B B variant. That doesn't matter so much. What people need to know is that it's omicron and there's lots of variants, and there will be more going forward. This is expected , uh, because the virus is continually mutating. Right . That's expected. The good news is though, our our preventive efforts, our treatments, our vaccines are working just fine.

Speaker 4: 3:02

So speaking of vaccines, there was a new one that was approved recently. Uh, could you speak on that a bit? Where , where , where are we going with that one?

Speaker 3: 3:08

The science is quite clear on this one. The number one thing you can do relative to anything C O V I D is to get the vaccine. It was just approved this month, the month of September for use in all people over age six months. The guideline is fairly clear. Everybody over age six months, as long as a couple months have passed before you got the last one. But for most of us, for most of us, we got the last vaccine last year. Right . Or longer. And this is a new vaccine that is , uh, quite effective against the current strains, which are again, the omicron strains and all its sub variants . People always wondered, well, do these things really work? And, you know, all the vaccine stuff we used to hear , it didn't prevent C O V I D and people weren't being truthful with us. The honest to goodness truth is the science supports this unequivocally. Okay. The best thing for covid is the vaccine. It will prevent many people from getting seriously ill. It will prevent many people from dying of covid . That much is quite clear. Will it prevent you from getting c ovid 19? Maybe, maybe not. I don't wanna oversell it for that. But that's not the point. The point of a vaccine is to prevent you from dying. And it does that quite well. And , um, the, the risk factors for people who did not get vaccinated are very long. And we can talk about those later. But , um, the number one thing you can do is the vaccine. The current one is for all people over age six months. You can get it now.

Speaker 4: 4:38

Gotcha. And is it m an mRNA vaccine?

Speaker 3: 4:41

Yes. Now mRNA is, is simply, think of it like a recipe. It is injected into your arm and that recipe sits there. Your body very, very quickly recognizes this little recipe and it starts following the directions. Okay. And it makes antibodies and it, it gets your immune system going. The recipe is basically tricking your body's immune system into thinking there's a covid in you. There is not. It is simply the recipe for making covid and your body fights that that recipe goes away, goes away quickly. Mr . R n a stands for messenger. R n a does not stay in your body. It goes away. People have wondered about that, right? They think, you know, well , I don't, don't mess with my gene . It's not messing with your genes . It sits in your body for just long enough for your immune system to follow the recipe, make your protections against covid . I the mRNA goes away and then your body is protected. Um , a great deal in the future. So that's what these new vaccines are .

Speaker 4: 5:39

Sounds like much of my college experience, just you learn it and it goes ,

Speaker 3: 5:43

It went away . Exactly . That's about, that's not a bad actually metaphor, John . You know, your body's , uh, learned it and then what it , the book went away. Yep .

Speaker 4: 5:52

Exactly. Exactly. So what are our current numbers versus like the peak when it was wild? 'cause obviously we have flattened things out a bit.

Speaker 3: 5:58

Fortunately, the numbers most across the country of the United States are quite low. What we do now is we measure , uh, hospital admissions for C O V I D as one measure of severity of the illness in your community. And currently the county in which we're sitting Hennepin County, where downtown Minneapolis is , is low. In other words, hospitals have a few people. Okay . Uh, not hundreds not , and people aren't dying by the dozens every day now. Uh, it's very low. And so that is a really good sign. In other words, the wildfire is not widespread. What you're gonna see is little pockets of outbreaks. You might see one in one community somewhere in the country, or one, one facility where people are gathering one school. You're gonna see little outbreaks, like little wildfires everywhere, but not widespread. So currently throughout much of the country, there's probably some areas that have little hotspots, but the , the transmissibility right now is low and those who are getting it aren't getting quite as ill, all of which is terrific news. Right. The interesting thing about cases is that we don't know the exact number of cases because I think most people can, this might resonate with them. Where do most people get tested for covid in your living room or your kitchen, right ? You're getting these test kits. The vast majority of those don't get reported. So we're not exactly sure they test wastewater. We look at hospital admissions, all are reassuringly low right now.

Speaker 4: 7:26

Excellent. That's great news. So are the old strains still around, or what's the word?

Speaker 3: 7:31

To some degree? Uh, some of those early alpha ones and beta ones, they're essentially gone, although, you know it , it's probably not zero, but something like 99% of the cases are omicron and one of its dozens of sub variants . The latest one, for instance, was , um, first discovered not too long ago in the last few months , um, in Denmark and Israel. And that's where it was first discovered. It doesn't mean that's where it started, it's just means that's where it was first identified. And probably next month or six months from now, we'll be identifying another one from some other place. It's just where some lab happened to find it. That will continue to happen. Most of those early strains now are just a small, small, small fraction of the total cases, if they're around at all.

Speaker 4: 8:15

Gotcha. And so is it still our biggest concern? I mean, going to the fall, I mean, obviously it sounds like the symptoms and kind of the actual severity of the sickness has kind of waned a little bit, but compared to the flu and things like that, or where would you put it?

Speaker 3: 8:27

We have three viruses you need to worry about or you should be aware of, maybe not worry about. Okay. Worry is not necessarily a useful thing. Sure. But to be aware of Covid 19 is one of them. And for a small number of people, it will be a very serious thing. You don't wanna get it. It is not like a cold. Although some of the symptoms might resemble a cold. Maybe it's only as mild as a cold. But the long-term consequences of covid are worse. And plus the risk of something awful are a lot higher with Covid than a cold. For the vast majority of us though, it's gonna be a minor illness. So Covid 19 is one thing to worry about. Second thing to worry about is flu. Flu is going to be probably equally bad is Covid this year. Or maybe equally not so bad. We can ever predict exactly how the season's gonna go. And the third thing is of course, R S V R S V is a virus that's been around forever. It's not a new virus. We've known about it for a long time. It's a severe respiratory illness in babies and toddlers and preschoolers and in older adults. So if you are an older adult or you're a baby or a toddler, you should get an R S V vaccine. I don't care who you are, if you're over than six months old, you should get a covid vaccine, you should get a flu vaccine. And those are the things that can protect you the best. I do understand that people are at different places. Our messaging has to be clear to respect what people are thinking about vaccines. I get it. Not everybody's comfortable with that. And we need to hear people out and try to allay their fears and tell the truth about what these are. They are safe vaccines. You should get them for the protection of you and your family. But if you're uncomfortable with that, talk to somebody about that and, and don't feel bad about being uncomfortable about it, but talk to somebody and maybe you couldn't get to the point of feeling good about it. Those are the three viruses to worry about this winter. So

Speaker 4: 10:13

Moving on a little bit, I wanted to talk a little bit about the historical kind of aspect of this. Like what have we learned so far? I mean, this was obviously, it kind of ambushed us and it caught us off guard and we had to learn a lot really quickly. What are our takeaways? So

Speaker 3: 10:27

Our takeaways are that the human population is vulnerable to emerging infections. I remember an old thing , um, about, I don't know if it was 20, 30, 40, 60 years ago where people said , uh, infectious diseases as a specialty is gonna go away. 'cause we got penicillin, we got antibiotics, and we have all these vaccines, it's gonna go away. That didn't pan out. What we have learned is that the microbiotic world , um, is always one step ahead of us. And c ovid 19 is simply an example of that. It is highly likely, I would say it's not a guarantee, but highly likely, way more likely than not, that at some point in the future there'll be another one. There'll be another virus that's , um, mutated and the human population is gonna be like a sit and duck. There's a 7 billion people that have never been exposed to it. That's what happened with Covid. Mm-hmm . And it caught the human immune system off guard . So that's what we have learned is that we need to stay vigilant about our public health measures. We need to care for the vulnerable in our communities. And I would say not even in our communities, we need to care for the vulnerable in the world. Right? What happens to someone in Sub-Saharan Africa or in Thailand or in Russia or in Indiana, it doesn't matter. We need to care for the global human family because these viruses couldn't give a a , a hoot about our national boundaries, right? They couldn't care about any of that. Um, we are a global family, so that's one of the things we've learned is that we are still still vulnerable , uh, to emerging illnesses. And the second thing we've learned is that our, our big brains didn't always work so well during this one. We were caught flatfooted in many regards. Our politics got in the way. Our tribalism got in the way where we only wanted to believe people who were on the same side of some political aisle as us that proved to be catastrophic.

Speaker 4: 12:15

Turns out medicine doesn't work that way,

Speaker 3: 12:17

Right ? Medicine doesn't work that way. And a million people in this country alone died for that. The , this was the first time since the 19, since World War I , where life expectancy in the United States went down. Wow. And it was because of this.

Speaker 4: 12:31

Wow. So effective treatments. Now obviously we did the best we could at the time with the knowledge we had, and we kinda just advanced as quickly as we could to keep up. But are there any new treatments available to us now that are effective? There

Speaker 3: 12:44

Are some decent treatments for covid . I d and you're right about some of the things we initially did. We did based on the, on the knowledge of the time. There's a a saying that I really like, that science is not truth. Science is the seeking of truth, right? Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and it evolves all the time. So what we knew in March of 2020 was that this thing spreads from person to person very easily. That's basically what we knew. And so we did everything we possibly could given that knowledge to prevent person to person transmission, because we had nothing else in our, no more arrows in our quiver, right? So we made people stand six feet apart. We we told 'em not to avoid indoor places. We told 'em to wear masks because to wash their vegetables and wash their vegetables. That's what we knew at the time. Yeah . And it turns out that , um, in the grand scheme of things, those things are probably marginally helpful. They're not the be all end all . They're not the all you should do. And so I would tell people that to this day, you should do a variety of things , um, to treat this thing or to prevent it to , so you asked about new treatments. The first thing I have to say is that prevention is the best treatment. It's better not to get this thing. Whatever you can do to not get it is better than getting it. Okay ? And I know that that is not what everybody believes, but it's the, it's the medical truth. It's better to not get it. And you do that by number one, getting vaccinated. Number two, if you're sick, stay away from other people. You know? Number three , um, if you can be in a well ventilated area, when you're in a crowded space, that's better than being in a not well ventilated area. So you do what you can. And if you're a vulnerable person or you're in living in a community where cases are high, I do recommend putting on a mask. And I do recommend some social distancing. But those are episodic, they're situational. They're for certain people in a certain place. I haven't worn a mask routinely now for longer than I can remember. I was gonna ask you

Speaker 4: 14:37

A personal question. Do you , would you wear a mask on a plane?

Speaker 3: 14:39

So for I, I fly a lot, okay . For work. And , um, until recently I was, and I have now taken a , some flights without. And so the answer is no, I don't. Okay? Uh , and I don't , uh, uh, but if I see somebody wearing one, I accept that and I let it go. Right ? If you are bothered by someone else wearing a mask, it would ask you to look inward a little bit. They're not affect , they're not affecting you. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 15:01

I don't think that's our biggest concern.

Speaker 3: 15:02

Yeah. Let it go. Um , maybe that person has cancer. Yeah . Maybe that person's on a drug that makes their immune system , um, uh, not everything it should be. Or maybe that person is feeling ill and is doing you a favor by wearing that mask. That's so let that go. That's it . So those are all the preventive techniques, but you asked about treatments and there are some, there's Pax Ovid that is a oral medication you take for five days. And if you are , um, an at at-risk person, not everybody, but an at-risk person to get very ill, older adults , uh, are in that group, people with chronic illnesses, then Pax Ovid has been shown to make things better for you. Okay? There are some treatments for, in the hospital, you will get, probably get rem dessi vir still, if you're in the hospital, you'll probably get steroids. That was proven to be helpful. And so there are actually decent treatments both in the hospital and , um, for people living in the community if you get sick or you are at risk of getting sick. But again, prevention is the best strategy.

Speaker 4: 16:01

So we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna talk about what remains a mystery, what the future might look like, and what might be some tips or advice we could use going forward. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Speaker 2: 16:13

You are listening to the Healthy Matters podcast with Dr. David Hilden. Got a question or comment for the doc, email us at Healthy matters@hcme.org or give us a call at six one two eight seven three talk. That's 6 1 2 8 7 3 8 2 5 5 . And now let's get back to more healthy conversation.

Speaker 4: 16:36

And we're back talking about Covid with Dr. David Hilden. Yeah. And again, we have reversed the role . So he is the guest today and I'm the host. I'm John . I'm the producer on the show. I

Speaker 3: 16:44

Kinda like this format, John .

Speaker 4: 16:45

It's a little different, you know, it's fun. Uh, it's nice to stir the pot every now and then. So before we move on, I wanted to ask about hand washing . If you ask a lot of people, I think a lot of people feel like they get sick less often, and some might attribute it to hand washing or using hand sanitizer. Are they equally effective? Still a good idea? Uh, could you speak on that a little bit?

Speaker 3: 17:04

It is a good idea to wash your hands either with soap and water or hand sanitizer within some reason. You have to use some common sense. What doesn't make sense is to be so obsessed with it, for instance, that you won't shake someone's hand, that you won't go out in public. That is probably unnecessary. The human species has evolved into handling things quite well in our communities. The problem is that Covid was not something that the human family has ever seen before. So that's why it was so bad. We do recommend some common sense , um, hygiene things. If you were to wash your hands with soap and water the way it's recommended, that's probably the best of all. Okay. But nobody does that,

Speaker 4: 17:43

Right? It's, it's , it's an ask. Yeah,

Speaker 3: 17:44

Exactly. The water should be comfortably warm, not scalding hot, but warm. You should do it for longer than you think, than the ABC's happy birthday , all that . Exactly . Saying a ABC or happy birthday a couple times. Nobody does that. But that's the best is washing your hands correctly. If not, use a , uh, an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. And those are good ideas to use within reason. As I said, you don't have to go off the deep end with that. Right.

Speaker 4: 18:07

And it's not just for covid, it's just for everything. A good, good preventative measure and good active hygiene. Progressive. Exactly.

Speaker 3: 18:13

As my allergist friends will tell you. A a challenged immune system is a good immune system. So you do, your body does need to see some of the invaders of the world around you. You can't live in a bubble. Um, you just don't want to bring covid or flu into your nose. But you know, it's okay to have some dirt on your hands. It's okay to , um, to go about your life. You don't have to run away from another person who wants to shake your hand .

Speaker 4: 18:35

Gotcha. So maybe we go back to saying Bless you after you see somebody sneeze rather than just running for the hills. Yeah,

Speaker 3: 18:40

Exactly. And, and you can help out the situation by whatever you do. Don't sneeze or cough into your hand. Every time I see that, that's the person I do not shake their hand. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 18:50

Sneeze. That was wrong before covid.

Speaker 3: 18:51

That was wrong before covid though. Plus it's just rude. Use a Kleenex, use a tissue. Use your inside of your elbow. Gotcha . That's what you should be doing in that situation.

Speaker 4: 18:59

Gotcha. Okay, cool. So moving on. Um, so I wanted to talk about what still remains a mystery around Covid . And one of the things that comes to mind right away is the origins. I mean, it seems like we're pretty hazy on where it might've come from. We all know where it went. Have there been any updates of what maybe just at large we could just ask the question, what still remains a mystery around all this? Yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:19

We don't know exactly where Covid originated. Uh, you're right, we know where it went. What is known is that it did come from , uh, Wuhan in China. And the information, let's just say was not particularly forthcoming around that time. We weren't exactly sure <laugh> , and it wasn't easy to get that given our geopolitical climate we all live in. Sure . So there was a lot of mystery. It is largely thought to be one of two things. It probably came from that , um, Huan , uh, wet seafood market in the city of Wuhan. There's this theory that it came from a laboratory in Wuhan. There is not a lot of evidence for that. And then there's the whole question was no matter where it came from, did it come from natural causes or an accident or a deliberate right ? Um , uh, dissemination. There's no evidence that anyone deliberately did this. Most of the evidence suggests that it came from animals, probably a dog or something in a seafood market. And the reason we know that is that that is clearly where all the cases started. Uh, it is not likely that it came from a laboratory. Um, but you know, we don't know. And here's the thing that's important. It's actually a good question. This is not about politics or anything. This is about public health. If we don't know our history, it's gonna happen again. Right? So it is a good idea to, to at least ask the questions about where it came from. That is not a , a , a bad thing to do. In fact, it's a good thing to do so that we can learn from that and see if we can be better prepared next time. Sure.

Speaker 4: 20:47

Yeah. It won't . So that's still a mystery. Won't unlock everything, but it's still a legitimate

Speaker 3: 20:51

Question. Exactly. The biggest mystery is where's the next one gonna come from? We simply don't know. It could come from anywhere on planet earth. Um, and , uh, we need to be prepared for it and okay . And that is something that our collective human family needs to work on. Gotcha.

Speaker 4: 21:05

So what about long haulers? Are, are we making any progress in what we know about that? I know a lot of people just don't know where to attribute some things and um, it seems like they kind of just put it under the blanket of long haulers. What remains a mystery? What do we know about , uh, you know, potential long lasting effects of anybody who's got infected? Yeah.

Speaker 3: 21:21

The, the epidemiology of where it came from aside, that's mystery one. Mystery two is clearly what's the deal with long covid ? Right? There is not a lot of clarity on that. What, so what long covid is it was a , it was a name sort of coined by patients, just by the public. That's where it came from. That didn't come from the scientific community, but it's sort of been adopted by that. It is not a specific diagnosis. Long covid is a broad range of things that keep happening after the active infection is gone. So it's defined as after four weeks, four weeks out from your covid illness, you still have some symptoms and they can range from a lot of things. Um, often people talk about just a malaise, exertional malaise, a post exertional malaise, even a mental exertion like you're having, you're getting exhausted doing activities that you used to be able to do with no problem. You might be a little short of breath. Your mood might not be everything it used to be. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you might have some numbness or tingling about you and you might have what a lot of people have called a brain fog.

Speaker 4: 22:24

Yeah, I've heard about that

Speaker 3: 22:25

For sure . I'm not as sharp as I used to be.

Speaker 4: 22:27

I'd love to blame Covid. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 22:28

And you can blame Covid. And we know a few things about long covid. We know who's at bigger risk. You are way more likely to get long covid if you are not vaccinated. We know that if you are vaccinated, your chances of long covid are less. It's one of the biggest reasons to get vaccinated. Yeah. You maybe got a cold like illness when you got covid, but talk to me three months from now when you have a brain fog, you should have got vaccinated. Right? Um, so that you're at higher risk. If you're unvaccinated, you're at higher risk. If you had pre-existing medical conditions, you're at higher risk if your covid illness was more severe. Although people who had almost no symptoms when they were sick with covid can still get long covid. So though that puts you at higher risk that we know, what we don't know is what causes it, what the heck what's going on. The theories are the top ones are that perhaps some of those covid little particles, virus particles are getting reactivated a month after your infection. Or maybe more likely, at least certainly quite possible. It's , it's an inflammatory reaction your body is got is in this hyper inflammatory state. And who knows what's happening in your nerves or your brain or your lungs. You've just got this chronic long-term inflammatory state that doesn't seem to get better. It just kind of cooks along at this low level for weeks, months, or even it's now thought years for some people. Wow. Um, so the long covid thing can be like, wow, you're fatigued with the brain fog and feeling crummy for months after your covid got better. Why? That is is gonna be one of the big questions to be answered over the next few years, actually .

Speaker 4: 24:02

Well , hopefully we'll learn a little bit more about that as we go. Now, are people testing negative while they're experiencing long covid symptoms? I mean, what's, what's the general kind of word on that? Yeah,

Speaker 3: 24:11

The , the testing , um, of the rapid ones you do at home are often negative. Okay. And sometimes they're positive, but they're often negative. They're pretty good, these tests. But the long covid people are not thought to have an active infection anymore. You're having the consequences, okay. Of a previously cleared infection with these inflammatory responses. As long as you brought up those tests, they're pretty good. If you are having symptoms, you should test it immediately. And if it's positive, you got it. That's the deal. If it's negative, you should repeat it in 48 hours. Uh, the , the tests are not perfect. They're quite a, quite a long ways from perfect, but they're a useful tool for many people, especially for how you're gonna act around others.

Speaker 4: 24:53

You wanna know if you have it. Yeah. Yeah . And it's like , and so the the false negatives are high, but, but still like, if it's positive, yeah . You just take their word for it. Yeah . Okay. Okay. So moving on then. What does the future look like? I mean, I guess, you know, thinking about like is there a possible comeback of covid in particular in your crystal ball <laugh> ? What does , uh, what might this look like?

Speaker 3: 25:12

I think there it is distinctly possible that we could have another big flare up of covid . I'm hopeful that not right . I don't certainly , um, think that that is uncertainty , but it's quite possible. This thing does mutate constantly. That's how nature works. It has a mutation that makes it more , uh, robust. But it is starting to show it to be more of something that we're all gonna live with for decades to come at this low level. That's what I'm hopeful. It is certainly possible that we get another strain next year, the year after five years and covid becomes a another big deal again. I think equally likely, or maybe even more likely is some new virus that we haven't yet identified is gonna do that. Wow.

Speaker 4: 25:50

Well, some of that could just very well be then the new normal that everybody's talking about. Uh , okay. So to wrap things up then, what are some of the things that we can do as individuals just to kinda take care of our health and maybe get us in a good fighting shape for this?

Speaker 3: 26:03

Stay connected to other people. Connectedness is linked to better mental health. Stay connected to people. Do your preventive healthcare things. Get your vaccines. I can't emphasize that enough. Get your covid , your flu, your R S V vaccines. They are probably the number one thing you can actively do. You can eat right, you can exercise , um, uh, modestly. You don't have to run a marathon, but exercise modestly. Okay . Um , you can certainly not smoke cigarettes , uh, or you other substances unhealthily. And I would put at the top of that alcohol, I would add sleeping. If you can get a good night's sleep, we don't sleep nearly enough. You do all those things and then go enjoy life. You know, know I used to give a talk many years ago, it was called How to Live to Be a hundred or Die Trying . But I always said , I quoted, I think it was , um, I'm listening a famous , uh, uh, uh, filmmaker who said, you can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. So I think it's really important that you do the things that you enjoy in life. Not everything is gonna be risk-free in life. Do those things I suggested for healthy living and then go enjoy your life and don't let something like a virus take over your life.

Speaker 4: 27:12

Excellent. Well, this is always a large conversation and one that is certainly not over yet. So thanks for your time today and thanks for the knowledge.

Speaker 3: 27:18

John . Thanks for doing this. My pleasure. And to all of you, thanks for listening to this episode. I hope you've learned some information that you can trust. I hope you'll join us for our next episode. And in the meantime, be healthy and be well.

Speaker 2: 27:31

Thanks for listening to the Healthy Matters podcast with Dr. David Hilden . To find out more about the Healthy Matters podcast or browse the archive, visit healthy matters.org. You got a question or a comment for the show? Email us at Healthy matters@hcme.org or call 6 1 2 8 7 3 talk. There's also a link in the show notes. And finally, if you enjoy the show, please leave us a review and share the show with others. The Healthy Matters Podcast is made possible by Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and engineered and produced by John Lucas At Highball Executive Producers are Jonathan, CTO and Christine Hill . Please remember, we can only give general medical advice during this program, and every case is unique. We urge you to consult with your physician if you have a more serious or pressing health concern. Until next time, be healthy and be well.