Hello, the internet.
I'm Gavin.
Welcome to this slightly different episode
of the Slow Mo Guys
where I'm going to be visualizing
why it's important to wear a mask in public
during a pandemic, such as this one.
We're quite visual creatures as humans,
I feel like and when dealing with an invisible virus,
it's often
hard to get your head around all the mechanics
of how everything works.
So I'm going to be using two methods today
to help visualize the situation.
One, slow motion footage
two, I'm going to make it look really gross.
Using the rather simple technique
of harshly backlighting my mouth
and filming what comes out of it with the Phantom,
we should get some
disgustingly clear footage
of how many particles can leak out of someone's face.
It's not the same as schlieren
you won't necessarily see the airflow
and the change in density in the air.
But if you do want to see a good video involving schlieren
make sure you check out Johansen's video
which I'll put in the card thing up there.
Then we're gonna watch the footage back
with a special guest.
Okey Dokey,
we're filming 1000 frames a second in 4Ok
with a 90 degree shutter
just to sharpen up some of the motion blur
on the speedy globs of gauze.
I'm going to shine the backlight straight into the lens
and basically block it with my head.
I'll do a little demonstration for you on this one.
I turn off these lights and turn on this bright one.
You see that when i when i get in the way
it really highlights all the particles.
Target Ah, oh, disgusting.
One. Okay,
so you weren't see the white in the Phantom shot
just because the ambient light of the woods
is not nearly bright enough to sharpen the Phantom
so it should be a nice backlit black background.
So now I'm going to reposition this
and do on the phantom.
We'll start with a cough.
And then I'll do a just a bit of talking
maybe just count to five or something.
Okay, let's do it.
Okay, now frames for the Phantom the backlight
even though it's not for you
is now completely eclipsing the Phantom lens.
So here we go. Oh, God.
feel strange just to just cough
into the air without covering it.
Okay, we'll save that.
All right, rolling again.
I'm just gonna count to 4,
one, two, three, four,
just really showing off the dust in this room.
I just glanced the footage.
This is actually quite interesting.
I'm surprised that
I'm surprised at what I'm seeing.
And I'm going to do a test with a mask,
repeat the experiment.
Do the same again.
Okay.
Sorry, if I seem distracted,
I'm looking up a monitor
where I can free myself up on the Phantom.
The beard at the bottom is not a good look.
Okay, repeating the talking test,
one, two, three, four,
Wow, not saying anything now.
Get more pepper.
oh, this string of strings my nose.
Okay, so now I've got the footage I want.
I've got some good comparisons between wearing a mask
and not wearing a mask.
So why don't we watch the footage back,
have a little chat with Dr. Fauci.
Hello. Hi there.
Nice to meet you Dr. Fauci.
Same here.
Good to be with you, thank you for having me.
My name is Gavin.
I run a channel on YouTube
that specializes in super slow motion footage.
And I've actually shot something
for you so we can watch it together
if you've got the clip ready?
Yes.
Did you want us to play it now?
Yeah, I think it'd be a good jumping off point.
And then if you have time,
I can ask you a few more questions maybe.
So this is footage I shot is 1000 frames a second,
which is roughly 40 times
slower than how it appeared in real time.
And I just counted from one to four.
Those are the numbers you can see
at the bottom of the screen
and I was blown away.
At the amount of particles
that came out of my mouth,
not only from the spit,
sort of the beginning of each word,
but after I'm done with the word,
particularly the word four,
you can see like a fine mist
come out of my mouth.
And that was actually really surprising.
I could see that with,
with the naked eye,
the particles that are so light that they don't fall,
and I wasn't even shouting that loud.
That was like a medium volume
of talking that.
Yeah, I think what you've just shown is, is a,
you know, graphically
beautiful
demonstration of the importance
of wearing masks and face coverings,
because as the, as the film shows now,
you're saying the same thing one, two three four.
Right,
And very little is coming out from the mask.
So, you know,
we say,
and I think graphic demonstrations,
like you've just shown now,
really solidify that.
One of the reasons why it's so important
to wear a face covering
is that we know now that
about 40 to 45% of the people who are infected,
don't have any symptoms,
and yet, they have virus in their nasal pharynx.
And we know that
a substantial proportion of infections are transmitted
from someone who doesn't have any symptoms.
So people have an understandable
but incorrect interpretation,
that the only time you transmit infection
is when you're coughing and sneezing all over someone.
What they don't appreciate,
is that if you are speaking,
even if you don't speak loudly,
and if you are singing, which is even worse,
than just speaking,
you have these particles that come out,
that can stay in the air for a period of time,
some of them dropped to the ground,
which is the reason why we say
keep six feet of distance,
but some of them are aerosolized
and can hang around the air for a period of time.
For that reason,
it's so important to wear face coverings,
particularly when you think you're in a situation
where well,
nobody's sneezing or coughing doesn't matter.
You prove that beautifully
by just saying one, two, three, four.
Well, thank you very much for your input on that footage.
I'm glad that
I'm glad I was able to show something worthwhile.
I do have some additional questions just about
COVID in general,
if you have time. Sure.
So my first question is with the vaccine on the way.
Will a large number of people refusing the vaccine
reduce the overall effectiveness of the vaccine.
Oh, absolutely.
And that's the reason why
when we conduct these clinical trials,
you want to do it in a scientifically sound
and ethically sound manner where you absolutely prove
definitively that a vaccine is safe and effective,
which is really the case with so many
of the life saving vaccines that
we've done similar types of tests on
because if you get only a small proportion
of the population vaccinated,
the vax the virus still has the capability
of spreading around
to those people who are not vaccinated.
No, you've heard about hard immunity,
which means if you get enough people
who are either infected and protected
or vaccinated and protected,
you have kind of a shield over the community.
But that's got to be a substantial proportion
of the of the population that's vaccinated.
In addition,
it also depends on the efficacy level of the vaccine.
Because if you have a vaccine,
that's only 70% effective,
you've got to have even more
of the population vaccinated.
So you need a highly effective vaccine.
And the overwhelming majority
of the population being vaccinated.
And is that percentage we can expect?
So 70 to 75% effectiveness?
You know, I hope so,
the trials are geared
two of them to detect a 60% efficacy
with a degree of certainty.
And one what I think is a 50%,
the ones that are out in front right now
are looking at it 60%.
I would hope
that we could get a 70 plus percent effective vaccine
because if we then vaccinate widely,
and combine that with continuation
of certain of the public health measures,
you don't necessarily need to be as stringent
but some of them like mask wearing
and avoiding crowds without a mask,
which is a sure-fire invitation to a problem.
And what would you say is the most important thing
that we know now
that we didn't necessarily know,
say in March or when, lockdown started.
You know, I think it's exactly what you said,
and there were a few things we didn't know,
we didn't know what percentage of people
were asymptomatic carriers of the virus.
We didn't know the extent to which they could spread.
And we didn't know the full spectrum of disease,
it was either well,
either you go to the hospital and you die
or you get better and you're fine.
We know now that there are some people,
maybe a significant number of lingering symptoms
that go on for weeks, if not months,
and maybe longer.
We know that children
can have a very unusual hyper inflammatory syndrome,
which is very similar to
a strange disease called Kawasaki disease,
where they get skin rashes and mucosal rashes.
They often go to an ICU,
they often have to be hospitalized.
That's something that we need to take seriously.
And would you say this quite a weird question,
not to put a positive spin on the pandemic?
But is this quite an interesting one,
from your medical point of view?
Well, it's interesting and perplexing.
You know, one of the things that people have asked me
I've been involved in, as I say,
chasing pandemic outbreaks for now over 36 years,
ever since the very early days
of the HIV AIDS pandemic.
And when people asked me, what's your
worst case scenario,
what's your worst nightmare,
I would always say
it would be a new infection
that jumps species from an animal reservoir,
and has two characteristics
one, that it spreads very, very efficiently
from human to human.
And two, it has a substantial degree of morbidity
and mortality,
either for the general population
or for a certain subgroup of individuals.
And we've had examples of outbreaks
that have had one or the other of those characteristics,
but not both of them together.
Right,
You know,
and when you have both of them together,
then you have a historic outbreak,
the likes of which we have not seen in 102 years,
since the 1918, famous
or infamous Spanish flu.
So this is something that as you know,
involves over 215 countries,
we now have,
you know, a considerable 10s of millions of infections
worldwide with close to a million deaths
in this our own country,
we have more than 6 million infections.
And now very close,
if not already at 200,000 deaths.
This is quite serious.
I actually watched the documentary about the 80s,
about a year ago,
and you feature heavily in the HIV episode.
So I felt in very good hands
when you're on the news for COVID.
Okay, I do have one final question.
What has been
personally for you the most frustrating thing
about this pandemic?
You know, what the most frustrating thing for me is,
is the lack of a of a uniform response.
among the states.
You know, one of the great things about our country
is we have federalism and the states have the power
to do what they want to do.
The only difficulty with that
is that often you have different viewpoints
and different issues that come up,
and states may do something different.
The other frustrating issue
is the lack of appreciation on the part of young people,
who for the most part,
do very well with this with some exceptions.
I mean, compared to the elderly,
and those with chronic conditions,
is their lack of appreciation,
that by getting infected
and not caring if they get infected,
like people you see at bars,
crowded no masks,
that they are actually propagating the outbreak.
So they are part
of the continuation of something
that we're trying to stop.
And although they innocently
and inadvertently get infected
and think they're in a vacuum,
that they're not gonna be harming anyone else.
What happens is that
they may be without symptoms,
but they'll transmit the infection to someone else
who might transmit it to someone who is vulnerable.
That could be someone's
father or grandfather,
or wife who's on chemotherapy for breast cancer
or a child is immunodeficient.
So I'm frustrated by the lack of appreciation
that we are all in this together
and we're gonna end it by ending it together
not having some people pay attention
to what they should be doing and other people not.
Yeah, absolutely.
It makes it extra frustrating
for those of us who have
hardly been out and you know,
wear masks all the time
when we do go out when you just
see people in the media doing absolutely nothing at all.
It makes it makes everything
that we've been doing seem a bit pointless.
Well, not pointless for yourself
but pointless for the outbreak
in other words pointless
to get control of the outbreak easily.
You make a very good point.
Well Dr. Fauci thank you very much
for being in this Slow Mo Guys video,
and thank you for everything you've done
for humans on this planet.
Well, thank you, I appreciate
you having me on your programme.
Thank you.
Thank you. Nice to be.
Well, there we have it
using a light and a high speed camera.
I feel like we've sufficiently
visualized the microscopic lighter
than air particles that just leak out of your face
when you're having a chat.
It's It's scary stuff.
Make sure you wear a mask when you're out in public.
Big thanks to Dr. Fauci
for agreeing to talk to me in this video,
and even bigger thanks to you for watching it,
make sure you check out the other videos on the channel.
They're not all as serious as this one.
And please subscribe
if you like what you've seen.
I'll see you in the next one.