Today we are now in the 6th episode where we will discuss the vaccine. Let us continue with the episode title is, "To vaccinate or not to vaccinate."

There are bodily reactions that a vaccine can cause to some people. As they say, there are pro-vaccine people, and others are the so-called anti-vaxxers, lol. I always have the annual flu shot, for it has been tried and tested. But this new vaccine is a bit shady for me. I got to be honest that I do have the same anxiety if I will get the vaccine. The worst fear is that if the vaccine is mandatory for all of us, we will be against our freedom to be deprived of mobility if we do not have the vaccine. People have said that the COVID stands for coronavirus vaccine ID (identification card). So, if there are people who don't get the vaccine, then they will not be given an ID pass? It is a huge politics that some people are debating this time. However, we have to be vigilant of what the media tells us also, and we have to do our research on this vaccine coming our way.

We all have the same dilemma in the upcoming new vaccine if they will be effective individually. In my capstone paper, I discussed precision medicine, a specific treatment tailored to certain diseases. I believed that it is difficult to tailor this vaccine as a one size fits all. People have a different immune system, and we do not know how this vaccine will affect our bodies.The race for the vaccine has different motivations. I grew up learning in the Philippines from my elementary and high school teachers as they shared their beliefs in us in our young minds, that the USA and Russia are always competing for world power. The vaccine's race is controversial, especially when Russia declared to the world they already have the vaccine. However, I don't believe that it is safe, for I thought it was too early to release it to the general public. How can they declare a vaccine without compromising clinical trials? There are rules on experimental studies before they can reach that level of efficacy. Rushing to have the vaccine is also a political strategy that they have advanced technology than other countries. Plus, it is an implication that they have better scientific researchers in the vaccine. The truth is, I created a part one of this podcast on the origin of the different vaccines. Until this time, I made this part two episode on how I will conclude the podcast episode title, "To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?". In part one of this podcast episode, I mentioned the history of self-experimentation among scientists in the olden days up to the present times. Also, the scientist who can create the first effective vaccine can have a potential Nobel Prize Award, so some go to self-experimentation extremes. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, funding is a huge issue to create a vaccine. As a result, the NIH grants to some scientists to help the big laboratory companies with full financial support to make this all possible. The funding is enormous, and the stakes are high. The scientific world rattled as they question how come this virus's strain created this pandemic? Several articles that have been released in the media are timely for politics embedded with this pandemic and the various government healthcare policy. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/us/politics/vaccines-coronavirus-research.html
The Situation rooms There are conflicting motives between national leaders and the research scientists (medical doctors) in this vaccine race. Scientists' concern is to find an effective vaccine worldwide while every country's leaders wanted to immunize their people to prevent the viral spread of this pandemic. In the case of President Donald Trump, he is in charge o

This is a special episode since I am sharing a virtual event that happened today, August 18, 2021. I chose not to edit this and give it to all of you verbatim so that I will not lose the essence of the discussion among these scientists. It is because I am not a scientist to have the credibility to edit this in my own words. Enjoy listening to this special episode.
Thank you.

Artificial intelligence is proving a potent weapon against the pandemic, enabling researchers to comb through massive data sets to understand the virus and how to combat it. From drug development to immune response, STAT’s Casey Ross will talk to researchers and AI experts about how AI is accelerating a worldwide effort to crack Covid-19’s molecular code.

Featured Speakers:

• Sponsor Introduction: Julie Rubinstein, president, Adaptive Biotechnologies 
• Karen Akinsanya, Ph.D., executive vice president, chief biomedical scientist, head of discovery R&D, Schrödinger
• Peter Lee, corporate vice president, Microsoft Research & Incubations
• Matthew Might, Ph.D., director, Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute, University of Alabama of Birmingham 

Casey Ross, national technology correspondent, STAT (moderator) 

https://www.statnews.com/staff/casey-ross/

Casey Ross - National Technology Correspondent – from Cleveland, OH. Casey covers the companies disrupting biopharma and health care. He is the co-author of the newsletter "STAT Health Tech."Casey Ross – Twitter page - @caseymross. National health tech writer for @statnews--- covering science and ethics of #AI and #digitalhealth. 

Farmer and former @GlobeBiz, @GlobeSpotlight, @ThePlainDealer. 

Thank you.

Hi, I am Marmee Regine, your host in Pandemic Podcast Coronavirus. 
Today we are now in the 5th episode where we will discuss the most anticipated vaccine. That is why the episode title is, "To vaccinate or not to vaccinate." There is always a dilemma that humans like us are facing every day. It is a reflection of the famous lines in literature, "To be or not to be." It is a question on which path to take when you are on the crossroads of life. "To be, or not to be" is the opening phrase by Prince Hamlet in Act 3, scene 1 of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It is all about life and death: "To be or not to be" has a meaning about life and death. "To live or not to live," which means "To live or die." Hamlet discusses how painful and miserable to live a life back then and how death, such as suicide, is the solution to end such misery. And fast forward to today, many people living in these uncertain times of the pandemic are having difficult times; that is why those who tested positive in China committed suicide. I mentioned that in passing from my previous podcast episode #2 on viral load. Isn't it ironic that history repeats itself even after several centuries?
Moving on, this is the first part of my podcast episode on the topic of vaccines. In this episode, let us start this discussion on the historical notes that researchers did in the past until the present, which is the so-called self-experimentation of their study drug or vaccine along with some of their volunteer friends. An article regarding this matter was published entitled, Self-Experimentation in the Time of COVID-19. It was published in the online magazine, The Scientist which was well researched by the writer, Amanda Heidt, who is in her second master's in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Link: https://www.the-scientist.com/author/amanda-heidt-4941

I will share the link on my Patreon page. Let us go into a brief flashback in time. In the olden days, an infectious disease expert in the US Public Health Service, by the name of Joseph Goldberger, was given the responsibility in 1914 to study the pellagra's causation. Pellagra is a skin disease with classic symptoms of dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia, and death. Most of the scientist believed those times believed that it was due to a germ. However, Goldberger's theory is that pellagra was due to a nutritional deficiency. Did you know that Joseph Goldberger, his wife, and some volunteers joined them to inject themselves the blood of pellagra victims and an intake of a pill form containing the feces and urine of patients? Ewww, a human guinea pig? Goldberger repeated this experimentation in other cities, and before he died of cancer in 1929, his research work landed him four Nobel Prize nominations. Wow, the saying here is applicable, "You reap what you sow."
In other famous examples, a virologist from the University of Pittsburgh named Jonas Salk, who initially tested the polio vaccine to himself and his children in the year 1952 before giving it to other volunteer subjects.  You heard it right that Jonas Salk tested his original polio vaccine on both himself and his children ahead of widespread trials. Another example was from a married Russian couple, Marina Voroshilova and Mikhail Chumakov, who were considered polio experts. They also self-administered in 1959 a potential vaccine before letting their three sons have an intake of those sugar cubes laced instilled with a weakened poliovirus. After a lengthy argument in what form of drug administration to give patients, they agreed on the oral intake of the vaccine using live poliovirus. Later on, in 1994, the World Health Organization declared polio disease eradicated in the Western Hemisphere.

Podcast Episode #4: Politics and Pandemic 

 Hi, it's me, Marmee Regine. We are now in the fourth episode. In this episode, we will discuss a little bit of how politics affects the pandemic of coronavirus. I read an article on how a researcher conducted by Wharton management professor Mauro Guillen. He studied the effects of government resources, economic capacity, and the type of government ruling.
The title of the study, "The Politics of Pandemics: Democracy, State Capacity, and Economic Inequality. Guillen's paper assessed the epidemic outbreaks since 1995 in approximately more than 140 countries. Three highlights of our discussion are about the type of government, government resources, and the inequality of income by the population, which will determine how successful it is in coping effectively with a pandemic like COVID-19.
He investigated if the form of government, whether it is a democratic country or an authoritarian state, has effects on how a country will recover in a pandemic. Furthermore, he investigated that the capacity of a nation in terms of its abundant resources helps a lot to cope up with the crisis of an epidemic or pandemic. So, the resources here are the number of government programs available to serve the general public. The resources he refers to is more on the economic capacity of a specific country. Isn't it that is how the world works in reality? The rich countries who got more resources can cope better than those who are in the category of third world countries with less financial resources to consume in terms of preventive measures. Let us take the example of my mother country, the Philippines, where the poor people who got less financial resources lack access to nutritious foods to boost their immune system and require access to health care; that is why they are more prone to get bacterial and viral infections.
So, let us look at the economic capacity of a country and the economic inequality among the population. Guillen's research paper states that the inequality increases the frequency and scale of an epidemic, and it undermines people's compliance with the epidemic containment policies such as social distancing and complying quarantine rules because people at the low end of the socioeconomic scale cannot afford to stay at home—they must go to work. But stable state and government structures could help offset most of these shortcomings. I believed that in this statement, it is similar to the stimulus check that the U.S. government gave all of us in the first wave of the pandemic. Guillen's observation was written in his paper states," State capacity is a bulwark against the occurrence and ill effects of crises and emergencies, while economic inequality exacerbates them."

Types of Government
Guillen added in his paper, "In democracies, greater transparency, accountability, and public trust reduce the frequency and lethality of epidemics, shorten response time, and enhance people's compliance with public health measures." In another insight, he thinks that democracy has no effects on the likelihood and lethality of epidemics". So, from this statement, the type of government has nothing to do with an increasing number of the affected cases in the population. And in a democratic country, people have more freedom of choice and may also develop distrust by the government that they can protest the prolonged social distancing. Look at what is happening in Florida right now that several people visited the beach this summertime that led to the rise of Covid-19 cases. The disobedience on the idea of social distancing walking on the beach contributed to those case fatalities. It means democracy has no way of controlling the movement of people, too. Hmnn, it makes me wonder if that was the reason why China, being a communist

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Episode #3: Epidemiology & Prevention
Hi, it’s me, Marmee Regine. We are now in the third episode. In this episode, we will discuss a bit of epidemiology and some preventive measures on how to avoid this coronavirus, especially during the second wave of the Fall. I recently saw a video where Bill Gates mentioned the second wave of the pandemic in the Fall would be worse than the recent first wave.
*EPIDEMIOLOGY
What is epidemiology? By online google definition, epidemiology is the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health. So, what do we mean by this is that it gives an overview of the current prevalence of the existing disease within a population and locating exact areas where they can be found. In my previous episode podcast on viral load, I referred to it as the hot spot where there is a cluster of COVID cases that can be found. Alongside this definition, epidemiology also covers the preventive measures in cases of an epidemic and circumstances when it is a pandemic such as the current coronavirus disease around the world today. I recently finished my Pre-Calculus summer class, where Professor Kacy Wiggins taught us the computation of exponential growth of bacteria that epidemiologists calculate in the simplest form to predict how the bacteria will behave soon. Such math calculations will estimate if there will be an increase or decrease in the growth of bacteria within specific populations. Of course, there are more complex mathematical tools that they use in technical research on epidemiological studies. However, exponential growth is a vital tool during an epidemic or pandemic outbreak of bacteria in a population.
I found an article below about what a Harvard epidemiologist thinks about COVID-19.
Harvard epidemiologist: Beware COVID-19’s second wave this Fall https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/harvard-epidemiologist-beware-covid-19-s-second-wave-fall (via @AmerMedicalAssn).
The article gives a tone of prediction on the pandemic's possible outcome in the second wave in the coming Fall season. Len Strazewski, the contributing news writer, published the article last May 8, 2020, stating how a Harvard epidemiologist describes the current COVID-19 pandemic. The report says if the weather is a reliable parameter on how the summer conditions will affect the virus's behavior. And for the general public, how will they deal with the continuous habit of wearing a face mask, social distancing, and the new normal of a quarantined lifestyle.  Summertime did prove a semi-reopening of the public businesses, yet the article believes it is just a short time basis for the Fall to bring the second wave of the virus. Like the Philippines, where I was born and raised in some tropical countries, the summer heat did slow down the viral spread. Still, it does not mean it completely halted the spread of the virus'  So, the immunity in the first wavBauchner'se guaranteed in the second wave in the coming Fall season.
Along that article is a YouTube page which is also a conversation of Dr. Bauchner’s podcast as he interviewed, Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist from Harvard University. It may be JAMA who released it, but there is a given YouTube link.
Coronavirus'  Q&A: Predicting Pandemics https://yoworld'sgo9IXOT9e9c via @YouTube 
Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University stated his predictions in the percentage of around 50-70% of the world’s adult group are likely to be infected with Covid-19. Like the exponential growth model, I mentioned earlier from my Pre-Calculus class Dr. Marc Lipsitch added that some prediction models are not accurately used to predict coronavirus behavior in Fall 2020. In the first 27 minutes of the Q&A interview of Dr. Bauchn

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Hi, this is Marmee Regine. This second episode will talk about viral load and my personal experience when my viral load increased when COVID-19 was declared in the USA. Let us start around mid-February when I was riding the Q train of the New York subway while I was on my way to Hunter College. Did all of you know that a Chinese woman sneezed towards me on the Q train? I remembered we were all standing close to each other, and without covering her mouth, she sneezed at everyone, including me. Worse was I was standing in front of her. The next day, I developed a painful sore throat. I rushed to an Urgent Care clinic and was given antibiotics for ten days. After ten days, I still have a mild sore throat. Since that time, there are no COVID-19 testing kits yet here in the US, and I suspected to be presumptive positive for I got symptoms of dry cough and the sore throat. A day after I finished my ten days antibiotics, the news came out that Coronavirus is in the US. So, I tried my best to boost my immune system only. 
During those days, NY became the number one state with lots of COVID-19 cases because we are thickly populated here in NYC. I stayed at home, so I will not be contagious to others by doing them a good favor not to pass this to innocent people. It is a nasty virus that before you die, the alveoli will BLEED to the point the dying patient will release PINK FROTHY bubbles out of the mouth. Worse was the lung fibrosis because even if they recover, they already got weak lungs. I reached about 70% on being presumptive positive in my estimate of my symptoms before becoming a full-blown 100% Coronavirus positive signs. 
On March 12, 2020, the CUNY schools and other schools got canceled. If they did not cancel it, my condition could've gotten worse.! I never experienced such body weakness even I had pneumonia 2X before compared to what I experienced lately. OMG! The sore throat was so painful, ugh. Please, be very careful, especially with your nasal passages and all the point of body entry. Try to hydrate all the time, and I took 1-2,000 vitamin C daily, and once in a while, I take it till 3,000 mg because I needed it; that's why I will take ANTACID. Yes, it is only now I am sharing this because I was scared, but now I am feeling much better.
So, the nasal passages should always be warm since the virus likes in the nose because it's a cool place. I had to heal the sore throat immediately by taking raw ginger to detoxify my lungs. Yes, gingers are good for lung detoxification. One has to prevent the virus from going to the alveoli because I don't want to have acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) later on. Damage control is the key. You can do it heat boiling water at home and breathe on the hot steam before you go to sleep, alright.                            
Wow, I was almost there, and I felt terrible, so how about those who had the 100% positive Coronavirus? Some Chinese people commit suicide in China, and those who are sick feel worse, so we need to boost our immune system every day as daily for prevention. I gradually recover, but I have to be careful not to be exposed to it anymore. I continued to boost my immunity. The VIRUS is fighting HARD to the extremes. I am swallowing ginger; even it's hot and spicy daily. I drink hot tea with honey several times a day. I took the supplements daily to protect myself. I drank a lot of water that controlled the low-grade fever, and I did not even take Tylenol or related drugs for fever and body weakness because, in Italy, they died due to ibuprofen's intake. I drink water and increased my vitamin C daily doses. Get ginger today to stock up and chew it like a candy. The virus likes the cold nose and sinuses. So when I go for hot showers, I breathe on the steam to come into my nose to clear my nasal airways.  Seri

Hi, I am Marmee Regine. Happy Mother's Day to all. Today, I am starting my first ever podcasting series during this pandemic time of coronavirus. How did I come up with the name? You heard about PPE daily, and people will ask, what is it? PPE is personal protective equipment. I named my podcast series PPC which stands for Pandemic Podcast Coronavirus. When I was writing my capstone paper last year I noticed most of the peer-reviewed journals use abbreviations such as AI which stands for Artificial Intelligence. So, I am here to share with all of you my current and updated understanding regarding the crisis of the pandemic worldwide. This episode is just my introduction. In the next episode, I will share with you my story way back in February how I became a presumptive positive on coronavirus. Since that time there was no testing yet, I have to do my own research on how to boost my immunity. In the next episode, I will describe to you my symptoms and my antibiotic resistance to penicillin. Keep on listening here, folks. In every tragedy of another person we cannot laugh at them but we have to learn from their mistakes. As the saying goes, "Comedy is a tragedy," and vice versa. Stay tuned to my next episode here in my PPC podcast series. Thank you.