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- Let me ask you something,if they lift these quarantines

how many of you aregonna take your children

and go to the movies?

Huh, how many of you aregonna go out for a nice dinner

at some restaurant?

A lot of people are gonnasay, "Not yet, not yet."

And how will you know thatthe people sitting next to you

don't have that COVID-19?

Maybe they don't showoutward sign or symptoms

but they're carriers.

How will you know those things?

I mean this is going to beserious and the question

is what kind of testing isneeded to guarantee the safety

of the people?

Well we have now neurologistand best-selling author

Dr. David Perlmutter, he'shere to talk about that

and other concerns ahead.

And Dr. once again we welcome you.

Let me ask you that question,if we open up how will people

know that the folks sittingnext to them in a restaurant,

or next to them in a theater,or next to them at a concert

are free of this COVID-19?

How will we know about them?

- Well we're not going toknow and that's really what

this comes down to.

We know that it maybe that as many as 50%

of individuals infectedand therefore infectious,

with respect to theCOVID-19 virus, may have

no symptoms whatsoever.

Think about that.

When we are screening peoplefor example who are going into

a grocery store, or comingoff a plane, by taking their

temperature we're at leastmissing 50% of people

because they don't have symptoms.

And I think the whole issuereally comes down to the ability

that we have to test people.

That's really front and centerin the entire conversation

today about getting,relaxing the quarantine

and allowing people to getback to work which is really

important but, you know, there seems to be

this great divide.

Do we keep people in lockdownor do we open up the economy

and let things resume?

And I don't think thatthese are necessarily

mutually exclusive.

We can do both provided wecan test people aggressively

and determine who may beimmune and therefore able

to go back to work or whomay have just picked up

the virus and therefore could transmit it.

That would obviously besomebody who you wouldn't want

to bring back to the meatpacking plant.

- Well what tests are available?

- Basically Pat there aretwo types of tests available.

We call them molecular and serological.

The first is a test thatactually looks for the genetics

of the virus, telling you ifyou have that in your system

right now and that'sthe typical throat swab,

nasopharyngeal swab thatyou're seeing around the world.

The next test that is becomingvery popular is a measurement

in your blood of the antibodies.

In other words has your bodynow mounted an immune response

against COVID-19 and areyou likely now immune

and therefore not able tocontract the virus again?

Now both of these kindsof tests are not 100%

and that is unfortunate.

The latter, that tests theantibodies, we know can be

what we call false positive,can indicate that you have

antibodies but these maybe antibodies to other

coronaviruses that we may havebeen exposed to years ago.

I mean the history of coronavirusdates back to the 1960's,

that's when we firstwere able to identify it.

So there are a lot ofpeople going around who

have antibodies to acoronavirus that may cross-react

with many of these new testsand therefore give people

a sense that they've beenexposed this time around

when they may not have been.

- Well Dr. how do you scale this stuff?

I mean you're talkingabout a limited number

of people who you can test butI mean we've got 300 million

people in America.

How do we get tests to all of them?

- And we need to scale it.

Until it is scaled, youknow, to a much higher level,

we're testing about150,000 Americans each day

and Harvard Research indicatesthat in order to be effective

in terms of screening whohas it and who doesn't,

or who has immunity versusthose who do not, we need

to be doing three times thatamount or around 500,000

tests each day.

In an ideal world, and I canonly imagine this could happen

with our scientists beingable to figure this out,

we should be able to embracethe idea that we could screen

and test much like people doat home blood sugar testing,

people who are diabetic.

If we could develop some kindof test along those lines

people could test frequentlyand know if they're negative

and when they convert to being positive

and at that point would thenbe able to isolate themselves,

let their people at their employment know

that suddenly they've turned positive.

Nobody wants anyone to goto work in any capacity

who suddenly is carrying the virus.

They stay home until they'rebetter and then go back to work

hopefully having now become immune.

That's the program thatcan satisfy both sides

of this debate, you know,those who wanna isolate us

and those who want us to go back to work.

- What about that experimentaldrug called Remdesivir?

Has that, are you pleasedwith any of the tests of that?

- Hard to say.

The report that came outof Chicago several days ago

actually wasn't a report itwas actually leaked information

where the individuals involvedin the testing were extremely

positive in terms ofwhat they had observed.

So we're gonna have to waitto see what the exact science

looks like in terms of themetrics that they measured.

We do feel though thatRemdesivir will likely be very,

very important in termsof treating symptoms.

Recognize this isn't animmunization but this is a way

of treating people who havemoderate symptoms, or who

are hospitalized withsevere symptoms, as a way

of shortening for exampletheir hospital stay.

Don't yet have all the information

on that but it looks very promising.

- Dr. one last question.

You understand, or at leastwe understand, this virus may

actually effect a person's brain.

What are the implications of this?

- Those implications areprofound and one study published

several days ago, in the "NewEngland Journal of Medicine,"

noted that more than half ofpeople admitted to the hospital

have confusion but I thinkwhat was more compelling

was that about a third ofthe individuals discharged

from the hospital haveresidual neurologic issues.

For example, problems with whatwe call executive function,

planning purposefulactivities, doing things,

taking care of things,

troubles with inattentionand so we don't know how much

of those residual problemswill be persistent

in the long run.

But if this infection leavespeople with brain issues,

with cognitive issues,it is a different story

that we're going to have tobe telling moving forward

and really raises ourconcern and clearly focuses

on our efforts to move forwardwith ways of keeping people

from getting this virusin the first place.

I.e. trying to find someform of immunization

and really being a lotmore stringent in terms

of isolating people who are carriers

and could be transmitting this virus.

So, you know, we now see thatwhen we talk about who should

be tested that confusionhas been added to the list

of things like fever and a drycough and pain in the chest.

Now there are some neurologicalsymptoms that would qualify

somebody for being tested.

So, you know, things areevolving with our understanding

of how this virus presents itself.

- Dr. you're talking aboutsomething like Alzheimer's,

now that becomes terrifying.

It's one thing to have afever and you get over a cough

but there's somethingelse to have your brain,

is that gonna be a permanentdisability you think?

- Don't know the answer to that.

I mean to be sure there hasbeen a lot written in the past

several years about thepossible infectious causes,

or what we call ideology,of Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi atHarvard has been really

at the forefront of reallyexploring how viruses

and other infectiousagents, even some forms

of bacteria like chlamydia,may be involved in creating

a scenario that leadsto Alzheimer's disease.

The prospect that COVID-19 couldleave people with some form

of cognitive impairmentis daunting in terms

of what that might doglobally to brain function

again on a global basis, platform.

So we don't know yet.

I would say this preliminarystudy involved very few

individuals, 40 individuals,that's not a large number

as we look at medical research.

But nonetheless published in

the "New England Journal ofMedicine" which is arguably one

of the most respected medicaljournals on the planet

and they raise this questionthat we need to follow people

who have recovered afterhospitalization very closely

and get some sense as towhat their residual brain

compromise might be.

But having said that if in factthat turns out to be reality

it really causes us to thinkabout how we should step up

our efforts to preventthis in the first place.

In other words look at whatyou and I have talked about

over the past several weeks.

Ideas of for example givingthe plasma of somebody who has

recovered to a person evenas a preventive to keep them

from even contracting thisvirus in the first place.

- Well Dr. thank youfor your brave analysis.

Ladies and gentleman Dr.Perlmutter's book is called

"Brain Wash: Detox YourMind, Clearer Thinking."

He's got one called "Grain Brain."

You really need to getthese books for yourself.

They're available wherever books are sold

and Dr. Perlmutter is a veryhonored guest on this program.

I think his insightfulanalysis of what's going on

is as good as anything on television.