- Hey guys, today's date is March 24th, 2020.
I want you to know that because all the information
I'm sharing makes sense up until this date.
The situation is evolving rapidly,
so know that things do change.
That being said, one of my main goals on this channel
is to beat up on misinformation.
And I've done a "Doctor Fact Checks Media" video already.
You loved that.
Now I'm doing a "Doctor Fact Checks Politicians"
because I've seen some politicians make statements
that are at best, negligent,
and at times, purposefully inaccurate.
But before we start, I wanna make a comment
about ending social distancing.
This week, the story has moved to how long
should we be doing the social distancing?
Is it worth the economic impact
of closing of small businesses,
people losing their jobs,
the stock market taking a tumble?
And it's actually a good question.
We should be asking it.
And doctors like myself should really be providing answers
in a time of unknowns.
I just watched a panel on FOX News of President Trump,
Vice President Pence, a few others,
talking about this exact issue.
President Trump made a statement
where he says, "We should be getting back to work
"around April 12th," which is Easter time.
Now many people are asking, "Is that the wise move to do?"
We don't know.
We don't know if that's the right move to do yet.
We need to conduct more tests.
We need to get doctors on the front lines,
their equipment that we need to treat patients,
and we need see what's happening,
how the situation is evolving.
Making any kind of prediction now for April 12th
is a full-on guess.
We don't have all the numbers.
We don't know how the situation's gonna evolve.
So I think we need to pump the breaks a little bit.
At this very moment, the reason why I say
the economic losses are still worth it
because of the worry of run on hospitals.
This isn't a theoretical problem.
Italy's having it right now.
And if we have it here in the United States,
people are gonna suffer, not just those who are over
the age of 70.
Everyone's gonna pay a toll for this.
What I'd like to see happen over the next few weeks,
hospitals get more prepared,
we transform civilian buildings
like Jacob Javits Center right around the corner,
hotel rooms in order to act as impromptu hospitals.
We get personal protective equipment
and ventilators to hospitals.
See how many people are sick with proper testing kits.
And only once we have all this in place
in the next two weeks
can we then start talking about estimates.
Right now, no place for it.
During this Fox News White House panel,
they had three doctors on.
Dr. Sapphire, Dr. Siegel, and Dr. Oz,
each asking a question of Vice President Pence
and President Trump.
Unfortunately, none of them asked if our politicians
are afraid of a run on hospitals.
The simple question remains
what do we do and how do we prepare for when millions
of people simultaneously catch this novel coronavirus?
And even if 1% need ventilator support,
which is probably more than that,
how can we manage with not enough equipment?
How do we manage with not enough protection
where health providers are gonna get sick
and they have to stay home?
We need to think about us on the front lines
and really get President Trump, Pence,
and everyone in the political sphere
to think about us and how we need to manage the situation.
All right, let's fact check some politicians
making statements about the novel coronavirus
that may not be accurate,
and some that are really dangerous.
- The World Health Organization offered,
offered the testing kits that they have available
and to give it to us now.
We refused them.
- Were testing kits available that were perfectly fine?
Yes, however, these tests are largely reserved
for low-income countries
that don't have the testing capacity,
don't have the ability to make their own tests.
In fact, many countries were making their own tests
and not taking them because they have the economy
to do so.
How would it look if an economic superpower
like the US started claiming these kits for themselves?
Just pretty bad.
I think what really slowed down our response time
was that the initial test the CDC sent out were faulty.
And second, it took forever to commercialize
these tests for private labs to do this sort of testing.
Now that that's happening, where BioReference, LabCorp
are able to do them,
we can get more tests done.
- We have a drug called chloroquine.
A derivation would be hydroxychloroquine.
We think it has very serious, very good impact
on what we're talking about with respect to the virus.
So you'll take a look at that,
then you can coordinate with us.
But I think to me, that's a game changer.
First and foremost, it's not a game changer yet, yet.
We like to be optimistic in the medical community,
but first and foremost, we have to be healthy skeptics.
That does not mean we disbelieve everything we hear.
It means that we have to take everything
with a grain of salt,
especially basing it on limited research.
The research that we have presented
thus far is mainly anecdotal research,
meaning stories or certain compassionate uses
where we're just using that medication
in an experimental form.
In fact, there was a recent research study
that came out combining hydroxychloroquine,
this anti-malaria medication with azithromycin
which is an antibiotic medication.
And it found that it decreased the amount of the virus
that's present in the nasopharyngeal swabs
that we use to test for it.
Now this is a very small study.
It wasn't randomized.
The people that got both drugs were only six.
That's a very small number.
So until we do a proper clinical trial,
and understand exactly what it means
to have less virus in your nose,
because what good is it if you have less virus
in your nose, but you're still showing horrible symptoms
and still having the same outcomes?
We need more info, that's what I'm saying.
We need to do more research before we start calling
it a miracle drug, a game changer.
Because what happens?
People start taking it unnecessarily
and get side effects.
All medications have side effects.
In fact, there was a couple that ended up taking
some kind of form of chloroquine,
I think it was to clean their aquarium or fish tank
and ended up dying.
Well, the husband died and now the wife
is in an intensive care unit.
So we need to be very careful with our language here.
Another issue that I'm sure the President
didn't think about when he made these statements,
now it's nearly impossible for my patients
who have been taking hydroxychloroquine,
brand name Plaquenil, for lupus or different types
of autoimmune conditions to get it
because of this rush on pharmacies
because people think it cures
or treats the novel coronavirus.
I think at a time like this,
we have to look to the major organizations
to give us guidance.
Dr. Fauci cleared up some of the fact checking there.
The FDA came out and said they have not FDA approved
hydroxychloroquine to be a treatment.
Are we using it some compassionate use cases?
Yes, but we have to understand this is experimental use
only at this time.
- This disease could take your life,
but that's not the scariest thing to you.
There's something that would be worse than dying.
- Yeah.
And look, I'm gonna do everything I can to live,
but you know, if you said,
"Are you willing to take a chance?"
You know, and if I get sick,
I'll go and try to get better,
but if I don't, I don't.
And I'm not trying to think
in any kind of morbid way, Tucker.
But I'm just saying that we got a choice here.
And we're gonna be in a total collapse,
recession, depression, collapse on our society
if this goes on another several months.
There won't be any jobs to come back to for many people.
- The entire interview sets up a false dichotomy.
We're okay, putting at risk those above the age of 70,
or we have the economic collapse of this country.
This is a purely false dichotomy.
It's not that simple.
There are many choices to be made.
And it's not about saying this is gonna take nine months,
or six months, or three months, or two weeks
because we don't know.
It's an evolving situation
that we constantly have to monitor
and make changes when appropriate.
Now the reason I bring up the false dichotomy
is because we need to understand
that it's not just about those
over the age of 70.
If we open the country back up too early,
the risk isn't just to them.
It's to all of us.
Not only are 30-year-olds, 20-year-olds, 50-year-olds
still gonna get sick, some of them severely,
there's still a death rate in those people,
but it's gonna happen so quickly
that hospitals like my own,
like the ones in New York City
are gonna get overrun,
and doctor are not gonna be able to provide care,
not only to coronavirus patients, but to everyone.
You're gonna be a 20-year-old involved in a car accident.
Those happen all the time.
Guess what?
ICU's full of corona patients.
Where are you gonna go?
If you're diagnosed with cancer and you need an infusion,
we don't have anymore IV supplies because we're using them
on the coronavirus patients.
Where are you gonna go?
This is not just about those who are over the age of 70.
I encourage Lieutenant Governor to come to New York City,
take a look at the hospitals.
They're already, here, overcrowded.
The ICUs are nearly working at capacity.
We're going through 40 to 70,000 N95 masks a day,
and that's with the economy shutdown.
Imagine we open it up
and everybody gets sick at the same time.
Who's gonna take care of these people?
I have no idea.
Because I'll tell you exactly what happens if we do that,
we're gonna run out of equipment, first and foremost.
Doctors are gonna be facing decisions on who intubate.
The 20-year-old who has no medical problems?
The 30-year-old who has two kids?
The 50-year-old who has a family, but smokes,
or the 70-year-old who has many health problems,
but has been paying into Social Security and Medicare
their entire lives.
How do you make that decision?
Healthcare providers are still gonna be there
on the front lines 'cause that's what we do.
We're gonna get sick.
We're gonna start losing our lives.
We're gonna start showing up to work.
And who's gonna be there to take care of the patients
who need help that are not coronavirus patients?
I don't have an answer to that.
So it's not as simple as, "Let's open up the country
"to save jobs."
We all want that.
We don't want the economy to collapse as doctors.
In fact, something Trump said earlier
on another press conference is,
"If doctors just had their way,
"they'd shut down the entire country
"for a period of time."
Yeah, maybe in an experiment form,
but not in real life.
We don't wanna destroy the economy.
We wanna make sure that we lose
the least amount of lives possible,
we keep hospitals up and running,
and we're able to take care of as many people
while maintaining a proper economy.
Now can we open up the country in a few weeks time?
It's very possible.
But we need to wait.
We need to get more testing kits done.
We need to get providers the protection
we need on the front lines,
and then make evaluations as they come.
There's no need to go on national television
and say something dramatic,
that you're willing to lay down your life
for the novel coronavirus to save the economy.
'Cause it's a false dichotomy
and an inaccurate statement.
- He's defunded Centers for Disease Control.
- They've cut the funding for the CDC.
- The reality of the matter
is that neither of these statements are true.
In 2019, Trump proposed a cut of $1.36 billion to the CDC.
He proposed this cut.
Congress wouldn't let him have.
Instead, they increased the CDC budget by $261.6 million.
For 2020, Trump proposed cutting
the CDC budget by $750 million, bad idea.
Congress wouldn't let him do it.
Instead, they signed a 420 million increase
to the CDC budget.
So while yes, Trump has proposed cuts to the CDC,
he's tried cutting their budget.
He's never tried to fully defund it,
and he's never successfully cut the budget.
In fact, over the last two years,
that budget has gone up.
Please, politicians, when you're making
statements like this, tell the full story.
- [Bryant] The nasal passages,
and the nasal membranes are the coolest part of the body.
That's why the virus tends to go there
until it then becomes healthy enough to go into the lungs.
This sounds really goofy and it did to me too,
but it works.
Once the the temperature reaches 136 degrees fahrenheit,
the virus falls apart and just disintegrates, okay?
And I said, "Well, how would you get the temperature
"up to 132 degrees?"
The answer was, "You use a blow dryer,"
because it's capable of doing that.
So you hold a blow dryer in front of your face
and you inhale with your nose,
and it kills all the viruses in your nose.
- This is the prime example of misinformation,
where it sounds like something's totally feasible
and reasonable to do to protect yourself
from the novel coronavirus
that has zero scientific backing,
and it has 100% potential to harm you.
So if you're gonna have a blow dryer,
first of all, most blow dryers, I just looked this up,
don't get nearly as hot as 140 degrees fahrenheit.
They get somewhere around 110, 120.
Some of the higher end ones can.
But even if they do, they're gonna burn you!
What this county council member is suggesting
is that we blow dry our noses
which will, A, dry up our nasal mucus membranes,
making us more susceptible to a virus
by causing cracks in the skin.
Two, it's gonna burn our faces.
Especially if we're doing this in the elderly population
that have more sensitive skin.
So no, 140 degrees directly to the face
will cause first-degree burns.
Please do not do this.
Just to update you on the N95 mask situation.
In my last video, I donate $27,000 worth of masks.
It was a tough time as you probably have seen.
People have reached out.
And some people have been trying to make a dollar on me
by selling me more masks.
Not doing that anymore.
But then there's many of you that have offered donations
and I wanna thank you for those who have.
One of the biggest donations thus far
has been coppercompression.com
they donated 18,000 reusable KN95 masks.
These are gonna make a world of a difference
to us on the front lines.
Huge thank you to them.
I'm dropping their link down below.
Check out their other products that are copper infused.
I put together a playlist for you
of some of my favorite videos here.
And if you haven't seen me haggle and negotiate
for life-saving equipment for the tune of $50,000,
click here while staying happy and healthy.
(upbeat music)