Index case

So it's just awful.

Sometime after Gaetan's death, this new theory appears about how HIV arrived in North America, this idea of patient zero.

You know, what was that idea and where did it come from?

I mentioned briefly about these sociologists who were kind of working in the United States in 1981, 82, to find out what's causing gay cancer, right, as it was known at the time.

It's designed to be outside, which is...

A great thing to do to our northern neighbors is just call them all outsiders.

So he's the center of this, from a scientific perspective, is this masterwork, right? Because then all of a sudden, because newspapers reproduce this chart from the CDC, and right in the middle of this kind of hub and spoke network of all these gay men that are having sex with each other is this one in the middle named Zero, right? Or O, right? And it takes on a life of its own, this patient O or this patient zero, because the way that the chart reads, it kind of looks like this guy started it all.

If you were to take a superficial look at these charts, it does look like Gaetan Dugar is the genesis of this deadly epidemic.

So you've probably already seen the headlines.

Patient Zero is back.

People are dying in Russia from a mysterious pneumonia, supposedly.

But according to my guest today, those headlines are just the surface of a much bigger story.

a

researcher at a lab in siberia died of a mysterious illness

So he's playing this patient zero song from Taylor Swift, which recently came out right now.

How was this discussion of patient patient zero? You have the news saying everyone's saying they're dying of mysterious illness.

But not sarcastically, let's learn about this together.

So the CDC reported that they are aware, as of October 6th, of and closely monitoring reports of a suspected case, it's a single case, of pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region of Russia, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, Irkutsk, that resulted in a death.

We are working across the US government to assess developments and additional information becomes, or as additional information becomes available.

So it's a pneumonic plague.

We don't panic and freak out.

Now, if you wanna panic and freak out about something, I have something for you to panic and freak out about.

It is the fact that 1,600 to 2,000 Americans die every single day needlessly from poor lifestyle decisions that result in heart problems, that results in death.

That's the real plague, the real pandemic, is obesity.

What is kind of stunning, though, is that on September 25th, when this story first got out into the news that there was some potential pneumonic plague outbreak in Russia...

Taylor Swift, like I brought up, had her single, Patient Zero.

Well, Patient Zero is usually in reference to the first individual that comes down with some kind of virus, plague, whatever, and then subsequently dies or spreads it around.

So we've got Patient Zero coming out on the same day.

that we have a pneumonic plague outbreak.

And then, oh, one more little tidbit.

And this September 25th in 2026 is 666 days after the first lockdown in the United States for COVID.

You cannot get... any more numerologically significant because this whole thing smells of a cultic ritual.

But let's talk about Life of a Show Girl Encore.

She released four new songs, and how I'm tying this back to public health is not only that, but her song is called Patient Zero, and she just did a music video with some guy whose name I don't know, and Dakota Johnson.

I'm, I think he's important.

I cannot remember his name off the top of my head.

But just did a musi- music video with them, and so Patient Zero is kind of like a, a term for like the index case.

And so I've just been kind of making these little jokes to myself every time I listen to it.

I'm like, "Index case." [laughs] It's been really entertaining as a public health professional.

Figuring out the surprise was so rewarding to me as it was getting the surprise, you know? I am on figuring out a puzzle, so this is like right up my alley.