[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Okay. Latif, is this our first time doing the thing together?

LATIF NASSER: Yeah!

JAD: Wow! In the spirit of turning over the old and bringing on the new, hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

LATIF: I'm Latif Nasser.

JAD: This is Radiolab.

LATIF: And before we get started today, just a quick warning: this episode contains some strong language and fact-based discussions of a certain bearded man in a red suit.

JAD: [laughs] Who could it be? Anyhow, this is our final episode of the year, which we should just get out ahead of and say, this year has been awful.

LATIF: Yeah, just—it really sucked. It sucked hard. Not gonna rehash it all, obviously, but—and I hate to use this phrase, but these are unprecedented times.

[NEWS CLIP: Several new unwanted records.]

LATIF: Like every day ...

[NEWS CLIP: Crossing the nine million mark.]

LATIF: ... we're seeing new COVID numbers.

[NEWS CLIP: Ten million.

[NEWS CLIP: ... to 11 million.]

LATIF: Total cases.

[NEWS CLIP: A hundred thousand people are in the hospital.]

LATIF: Hospitalizations.

[NEWS CLIP: A staggering milestone.]

LATIF: Deaths.

[NEWS CLIP: Three hundred thousand confirmed coronavirus-related deaths in less than a year.]

JAD: It's terrible. So eventually, we were just like, you know what, 2020? Fuck you.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [singing] Oh, deck the hall with boughs of holly.]

JAD: We're gonna do a goddamn Christmas special.

LATIF: We're gonna have fun whether we like it or not.

JAD: We're going to have some fun. [laughs]

LATIF: So today, to put a cap on this godforsaken year, we have two different stories related to the pandemic, both Christmas-themed stories.

JAD: And we're gonna start with ...

LATIF: With me.

JAD: With you. I just want to—I just want to note. Is it irony? I'm not sure if it's irony that currently we have two different people talking about two different aspects of Christmas, and they're both Muslim and don't celebrate Christmas. I love it. I love it.

LATIF: I was not only talking about—not only talking about, I was—last night, it was a midnight. I was texting Santas. I'm deep in this story. I'm deep.

JAD: Okay, so I know we're talking about Santa, but that's really all I know.

LATIF: Okay. Well, I think the important place to start is, of course, as always, with Dr. Fauci.

[NEWS CLIP: Dr. Anthony Fauci reassuring kids around the world Santa is gonna be okay.]

LATIF: Who said to a couple of USA Today reporters that Santa Claus is exempt from COVID-19.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Anthony Fauci: Because Santa, of all the good qualities, has a lot of good innate immunity. So Santa's not gonna be spreading any infections to anybody.]

LATIF: He was just trying to get kids not to worry about Santa Claus, say that he's gonna be fine. So here's the thing. Santa is not immune to COVID-19. In fact, it's the opposite. He can get it, and he's very vulnerable. And frankly, he's worried about it. And that's what I was texting about with him last night. Like, he's worried he's gonna get it. He's worried he might be—he might spread it to somebody else.

JAD: Wow!

LATIF: So let me first say I learned about this story about Santa and COVID from another journalist named Julie.

JULIE WERNAU: I'm Julie Wernau. I'm a reporter at The Wall Street Journal.

LATIF: What—how did this even happen? What do you actually usually normally cover? I'm guessing not Christmas-related things?

JULIE WERNAU: No, I mean, that's my whole beat, right? I just cover Santa Claus and ...

LATIF: [laughs]

JULIE WERNAU: ... mall Santas. No, I actually write about the restaurant industry. And I was working on a story about winter coming, and the fact that people, you know, are gonna have to figure out how to sit outside in winter. And as a lot of people have seen now, there's igloos and all sorts of things and heat lamps. And I thought to myself, what else happens in winter? Christmas. What are the Santas doing? And then, you know, it just is what it is to be a reporter, right? You have, like, a germ of an idea, then you just go down a rabbit hole, and you get paid to do that. So ...

LATIF: And that rabbit hole eventually led her ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We're skipping down. I'm sorry.]

LATIF: ... to this.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Our next speaker is ...]

LATIF: Back in August, Santa actually gave a speech to the CDC.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: ... Mr. Erwin.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: RIC ERWIN: Thank you. Not since the depths of the Great Depression or the darkest hours of World War II have so many sane and sober adults wondered aloud whether America may be facing a year without Christmas.]

LATIF: This is Santa Ric Erwin. He's the leader of a group of over 500 Santas called the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas.

JULIE WERNAU: Which is exactly what you expect it to be: it's men who look like Santa Claus and have real beards.

LATIF: It's a nonprofit trade group of, you know, Santa performers with real beards, as opposed to the Santa performers with—that are, as they say, theatrically bearded or faux bearded or designer bearded. [laughs] So Santa Ric basically gets this slot to talk via Zoom to this—to a group at the CDC called ACIP. They're the people who basically decide who gets the vaccine first.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: This year, Christmas will be more important to the American psyche than ever before. Our country is enduring an historic disaster trifecta, and nearly all Americans endure unparalleled suffering. But promising vaccines are in phase three testing already, and remaining social restrictions may be easing by Christmas. We're asking that professional Santas and other frontline seasonal workers be granted early access to the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as practical after tier-one release.]

LATIF: It almost feels like it's out of a Disney movie. Like, it's like, "CDC, we need to save Christmas. And to do that, Santas need to be bumped up in line for the vaccine."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: Americans are going to want Santa to be at Christmas, 2020. I await your questions or comments. Thank you.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: On behalf of the voting members of the ACIP, Santas in America, we want to thank you for your comments and really enjoyed hearing from you. Thank you again.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: Thank you.]

LATIF: And the response ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: And I really did believe in you all my life.]

LATIF: ... is kind of like a pleasant chuckle.

JULIE WERNAU: And that was kind of where he left it.

LATIF: But the next day ...

JULIE WERNAU: He got a call ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: This is Santa Ric Erwin.]

LATIF: From a fairly high-ranking official in the Trump administration.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: Well, hello to both of you. And just for the record, you're both on the nice list this year.]

LATIF: Not nobody.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: Oh, that's great. That's great.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: [laughs] Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!]

JULIE WERNAU: Saying we want to work with you.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: From my perspective, if—if you and your colleagues are not essential workers, I don't know what is.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! I love you!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: So here's what I'm envisioning. We're going to be doing a lot of regional events right around ...]

LATIF: And when Santa Ric, like, laid out the deal, can you kind of, like, lay it out as he told it to you?

JULIE WERNAU: Yeah. I mean, he basically said that they knew that the vaccines were coming. They're talking about having Santa Clauses stationed in sites all over the country. And that they're gonna help get the word out and get people the vaccine. And in exchange, they'll have early access to the vaccine.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: You go to your colleagues who are in the different cities where we're having events, and have them come. And when the vaccine is available, get vaccinated first.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: You set up a station in Southern California, and I'll put 50 Santas in full costume in front of the cameras. And you let me know what other cities you're operating in, and I'll send Santas there.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: All right. I'm in, Santa, if you're in.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: I'm in. I'm 100 percent in.]

JULIE WERNAU: And he was—you know, you can hear in his voice how excited he is.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: I live to serve Your Holiness. Thank you very much.]

JULIE WERNAU: This is a big deal. Like, he's gotten through to the most powerful administration in the country.

LATIF: Yeah. Now on the call, Ric is super enthusiastic. But then when I talk to him later about it ...

RIC ERWIN: When he specifically invoked the phrase Operation Warp Speed ...

LATIF: ... he told me he was actually just being nice on the phone to kind of cover up for, deep down, these misgivings that he had. He said he felt like he was kind of like, almost like, ice skating on a knife's edge because he's just not a Trump guy.

RIC ERWIN: This is the greatest mass casualty event since World War II, and it's responsible to one team of individuals: the clown car in the White House. But there was a conditional that I would dance with the devil by the pale moonlight if it would save a single Santa or a single American citizen.

LATIF: So it's kind of a—it's kind of a hard position that he's in. But he says yes. And then he gets a second phone call.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: Yes. How are you, Mr. Secretary?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: Pretty good. How you doing?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: I'm fine. I'm fine.]

LATIF: This time, you know, it's a few days later. Now he's even more enthusiastic. They're talking about specifics.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: Well, how about one Santa at each inoculation?]

LATIF: You know, how many Santas? Caputo is like, "I cannot wait to tell the president. He's gonna love this."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: He's going to just—he's gonna love this.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ric Erwin: Ho ho ho! All right, my friend.]

LATIF: So things are getting really real.

JULIE WERNAU: He took to his Facebook page and informed all the other Santa Clauses that they had gotten a deal. You know, they would be getting early access to vaccines.

LATIF: Like, this is actually happening. He's thinking, we're gonna save Christmas.

JAD: No, no, no, no. Shut the music down. This feels like a conspiracy. And how is Santa—how is Santa an essential worker? That doesn't make sense to me at all. And it's very not Christmas-y in spirit.

LATIF: [laughs]

JULIE WERNAU: At first glance, right? I mean, it's ridiculous.

LATIF: Julie Wernau from The Wall Street Journal again.

JULIE WERNAU: Santa Claus is a make-believe character that lives in the North Pole.

LATIF: [laughs]

JULIE WERNAU: But I actually thought that Santa Ric's arguments made a lot of sense.

LATIF: Julie was like, okay, let's take their argument seriously for a second. For one thing, she says ...

JULIE WERNAU: The Santa Clauses and Misses Clauses are, by and large, in this vulnerable population.

LATIF: A lot of these Santas are old, overweight. Lots of them have diabetes, heart conditions.

JULIE WERNAU: And I think that the argument that the Santas were trying to make is look, we're really important, especially this year, for people's happiness, that we are essential, and we have really direct contact with the public. And so is it really that ridiculous to think that the Santa Clauses of America are essential?

JAD: I kind of think it is kind of ridiculous.

LATIF: Well, to sort that out, let's ask. Like, technically, what is an essential worker?

KELLY MOORE: Well, that word is tricky all by itself. Who among us wants to feel they're not essential?

LATIF: So we called up this woman named Kelly Moore.

KELLY MOORE: Associate director for immunization education at the Immunization Action Coalition.

LATIF: She used to serve on that CDC board that decides who gets the vaccines first. And she basically was like, look, the essence of it is ...

KELLY MOORE: Who must be exposed to the public or to others in order to do their jobs, and their jobs involve the life, health or safety of our other fellow citizens?

LATIF: So firefighters, police officers, teachers, you know, the people you would expect. But that definition also includes all of these sort of edge cases, like a server at a fancy restaurant.

JAD: Hmm.

LATIF: Or I saw a quote from a carpenter in The New York Times who was deemed essential who said, quote, "I'm essential to the pocketbooks of rich contractors and essential for spreading the virus. But that's about it."

JAD: Hmm.

LATIF: Or there was a case, a Baskin Robbins employee who was dressed up, like, as the mascot, like, dressed up like an ice cream cone, and the person was taking a selfie in the mirror and was like, "Why am I an essential worker?" Like, it's a fuzzy line.

KELLY MOORE: So we like having, actually, these broader categories. If you try to get just the right person vaccinated with each precious dose, you'll end up vaccinating people so slowly that many people will die needlessly waiting for you to figure out who the perfect recipient is.

LATIF: So the essential worker box is big. And if the ice-cream cone guy is in there, why not Santa?

JAD: Wait a second. Wait a second. So Baskin Robbins'—the Baskin Robbins ice-cream scooper is an essential worker?

LATIF: Depends on the state, but yeah, potentially, yes.

JAD: But when you call someone an essential worker, you mean they are essential to society, right? Or to a neighborhood.

LATIF: Well ...

KELLY MOORE: Actually …

LATIF: ... Kelly says, not necessarily.

KELLY MOORE: Part of this is also about people who don't have choices about exposing themselves to others in the way they make their living. That Baskin Robbins worker may not feel essential, but if Baskin Robbins says she needs to be at work and she has to face a line of customers every day, she could be exposed to the virus. She could also have the virus and expose people in the workplace.

JAD: Oh, that's interesting! So it's essential in both directions. Like, I am essential to people, and me seeing people is essential to me, and so therefore I am an essential worker.

LATIF: Right. And according to Julie from The Wall Street Journal, that's what a lot of Santas are looking at this year.

JULIE WERNAU: There are places all over the country that have deemed Christmas to still be essential. They want the Santas to be working. They want them out at the malls. They want them at the holiday parades. They want them at private events. They want them to be out talking to kids and parents and who knows what.

LATIF: Some of these Santas, that is their livelihood. They need these parties that only come once a year, and if they miss it, they're gonna be in trouble for, you know, the next 12 months. And for some of these Santas ...

SANTA ROBERT: Had a little bit of a gig earlier tonight, and ...

LATIF: Or for one of them I talked to, anyway.

SANTA ROBERT: ... just vegging out now. [laughs]

LATIF: That sense of need goes even deeper.

SANTA ROBERT: It's a calling. We are called to it. It's—but it's one of the most heartwarming and also heartbreaking things you could ever do.

LATIF: This is a longtime Santa ...

SANTA ROBERT: This is my 38th year.

LATIF: ... named Santa Robert. He told me that a lot of the work he does is pro bono.

SANTA ROBERT: The Ronald McDonald House is a charity. We go to assisted living homes, churches.

LATIF: But this is also his job.

SANTA ROBERT: Yes. And it pays quite well. [laughs] You can ...

LATIF: So is this ...

SANTA ROBERT: You can make bank as a Santa.

LATIF: And Santa Robert told me even though business is down this year ...

SANTA ROBERT: Some families want nothing to do with it because of COVID.

LATIF: ... he's still getting a lot of gigs.

SANTA ROBERT: A lot of them are outdoors. They want to do it in the daytime. Instead of a nighttime party, they're doing it in the daytime. They're doing it outdoors.

LATIF: Yeah.

SANTA ROBERT: But, I mean, I'm still able to do it. I'm still able to be Santa—but it's kind of hard because when—the mask I wear is a red mask, and it covers most of the face. A lot of people will ask if I could take pictures without the mask. They're not posting pictures on social media, which is fine with me because we could all get into trouble, theoretically.

LATIF: Oh, like, they're coming up to you and they're saying, "Can I take a picture without a mask?" And what do you say to that?

SANTA ROBERT: I usually say yeah. If they want to get one without a mask, I try to be as accommodating to people as I can.

LATIF: Okay. And they are also without a mask or just you're without a mask?

SANTA ROBERT: Yeah, they take off the mask as well.

LATIF: Oh, wow! Does that feel scary? Does that feel dangerous?

SANTA ROBERT: No.

LATIF: Okay.

SANTA ROBERT: I know—this is—and yes, I understand this is a virus. The virus is out there.

LATIF: I should add, a few days ago at a Christmas parade in Georgia, a Santa potentially exposed dozens of kids to COVID. Santa Robert is not the only one who's doing this.

SANTA ROBERT: It's kind of hard to put it into words. This is Christmas, you know?

LATIF: Yeah.

SANTA ROBERT: And everybody wants it to be normal. Everybody's been devastated by what's been going on all year long with the lockdowns, with work, with school. People are losing their jobs or maybe having cut-back hours, and they gotta wear a mask eight hours a day. Everybody wants a normal Christmas. I just—I bring in that sense of normalcy of hey, it's all right. Let's do what we always do. We're gonna have a party. Santa's gonna be here. It's just gonna be like old times. And they can kind of relax. They can kind of get back into it. They can forget their troubles for a half hour or whatever. And that's, I think, very comforting to a lot of people.

LATIF: But it's like, it's a funny thing to argue for. And I get the craving for it, and yet at the same time, like, these are extremely abnormal times.

SANTA ROBERT: Yes.

LATIF: Like, and kind of dangerous and scary times, where, like, right now—and I'm just saying LA because I know we both live not so far from—like, in LA, like, I just saw an article this morning that said literally, one person is dying in LA every hour, in LA County every 20 minutes of COVID. What is the thing that feels so—I don't know, that for you it, like, makes you say, "Okay, this is the scary thing that is out there, but I'm still gonna do this anyway?"

SANTA ROBERT: I think—well, part of it is that I need that sense of normalcy, too. But, you know, there's a lot of things in life that have happened to people. And yeah, sometimes you can take as many precautions as you can, something bad may still happen to you.

LATIF: But, like—but this is so clearly dangerous. Like, I don't know ...

SANTA ROBERT: Well, I survived a workplace shooting, so ... [laughs]

LATIF: Oh, because you worked at the post office?

SANTA ROBERT: Yes. The last big shooting they had there, the Goleta postal shooting.

LATIF: Oh, my God!

SANTA ROBERT: And yeah, that kind of probably has something to do with my kind of somewhat cavalier attitude, I guess you can say, because having to deal with having six of your co-workers getting their brains blown out ...

LATIF: No way.

SANTA ROBERT: ... by another former co-worker who went off the rails. And yes, I knew her. And ...

LATIF: Oh, my God.

SANTA ROBERT: ... the world doesn't stop. The world ain't gonna stop because this is happening. It's still gonna go on.

LATIF: Huh. What if there was, like, the governor, like, expressly forbade it? Would you keep going out and trying—and Santa-ing?

SANTA ROBERT: Yeah. Yes, I would. My take is, a lot of people who are gonna follow these rules are gonna regret it. And ...

LATIF: But what about the flip? If these parties—God forbid—happened to become one of these superspreader events, like, what would happen? That wouldn't just affect the people at the party; that would affect so many more people. That would ripple way further out, you know what I mean?

SANTA ROBERT: Yeah. I don't know. You know, you're making me think a lot. You're making me think maybe I am nuts. [laughs] But ...

LATIF: No, I—like, this is ...

SANTA ROBERT: People need Santa. That's the only way I can think to put it is people need Santa, and I guess I need to be Santa. And it's not gonna stop with this.

JAD: Damn! That is a committed, and I gotta say, kind of scary Santa.

LATIF: Yeah. And now I should say that I talked to multiple Santas for this story, and most of them are doing Santa-ing online.

JAD: Okay.

LATIF: You know, over Zoom. And there are all kinds of new websites like Ringle Jingle or whatever. There's a lot of innovating. But there's also a lot of traditional Santas like Robert who are still doing what they do in person. And I don't know, like, I think maybe we should vaccinate them.

JAD: What? No, they can't bad-behave themselves into being categorized as essential. No, give some of those doses to the nurses, the teachers. Those are the people who should be getting vaccinated, not the Santas, who shouldn't even be out anyways.

LATIF: Yeah. I mean, I hear you. I hear you. But those Santas are still going out anyway.

JAD: Hmm. Hey, whatever happened to the whole Santa backroom deal with the Trump administration, anyways?

LATIF: Well, okay. So Santa Rick had these calls with Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary from HHS. Everything looked like it was falling into place, and then all of a sudden, nothing.

JULIE WERNAU: The Trump administration stopped responding.

LATIF: Julie Wernau from The Wall Street Journal again.

JULIE WERNAU: They ghosted the Santas.

LATIF: What soon becomes clear ...

[NEWS CLIP: The embattled head of communications for the agency ...]

LATIF: ... is that that guy, Assistant Secretary Caputo at HHS, went on Facebook Live and just went on a rant.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: The partisan Democrats, the conjugal media and the scientists, the deep state scientists, want America sick through November.]

[NEWS CLIP: He predicted a violent conclusion of the presidential election.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it's gonna be hard to get.]

[NEWS CLIP: And civil war.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Michael Caputo: This is war.]

LATIF: It later came out that he had just gotten diagnosed with cancer, so it's unclear exactly what was happening with him, but they put him on medical leave.

JULIE WERNAU: So ultimately, it was left to us to find out what happened, you know? The Santas thought they had a deal. Do they still have a deal? And then, you know, the word back from the government was no, they don't. And that was how Santa learned that there weren't going to be any vaccines for Christmas this year.

LATIF: The real-person Santas, that is. But ...

[NEWS CLIP: Elmo is back for something else that I think is on a lot of kids' minds.]

LATIF: ... in a weird twist that is keeping with our 2020 world, where often fantasy feels more powerful than facts ...

[NEWS CLIP: Elmo's friend has a question about Santa Claus.]

LATIF: ... Santa-Santa ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Anthony Fauci: Well ...]

LATIF: ... the imaginary Santa ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Anthony Fauci: ... so what I did a little while ago, I took a trip up there to the North Pole.]

LATIF: ... according to Anthony Fauci ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Anthony Fauci: I went there, and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself.]

LATIF: ... that Santa, he got the vaccine.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Anthony Fauci: He is good to go.]

LATIF: We will be back with another COVID Christmas story after the break.

[LISTENER: Hi. This is Emily, and I'm calling from Toronto, Canada. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. Thanks.]

[JAD: Science reporting on Radiolab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.]

JAD: Jad.

LATIF: Latif.

JAD: Radiolab.

LATIF: Back with part two of our COVID Christmas show. And for this part, we're bringing in ...

SARAH QARI: Hello, hello.

JAD: Hey, Sarah Qari. Producer Sarah Qari.

SARAH: How's it going?

JAD: It's going well. How are you?

SARAH: As you'll hear in a second, my brain is, like, utterly spinning with numbers.

JAD: So just to set things up, back in April, as we sort of switched to doing all these dispatches, Sarah did a story about the six-feet rule, explaining the science behind this new number that had suddenly taken over all of our lives and created these bubbles that we were living inside of. But since then, scientists have learned so much more about this virus, and all of these other numbers have started to emerge.

SARAH: Yeah. It's like we were literally looking at one dimension of it. And since then, like, our understanding of the disease and managing the pandemic has, like, exploded in all of these different directions.

JAD: So we asked Sarah for an update.

SARAH: Yup. But okay, we're gonna do it, like, Christmas style, so not the 12 Days of Christmas but the 12 Numbers of COVID.

JAD: [laughs] Okay.

SARAH: And you know what? I'm not sure we're gonna make it to 12, but it's a global pandemic, Jad. Just roll with it, 'kay?

JAD: All right. Hit me.

SARAH: Okay. So maybe the place to start is three to six air changes per hour for ventilation.

JAD: Three to six air changes per hour for ventilation. Okay, what does that mean?

SARAH: Basically, that means how often in an hour does most—so more than 50 percent—of the air in a space completely change out for fresh air?

JAD: Oh, like, if the air is a circulatory system, it needs to completely sort of filter in and filter around and out three to six times every hour?

SARAH: Yes. Exactly.

JAD: Huh. I'm suddenly looking around my house and thinking, how often does the air in this house change?

SARAH: Yeah. Like, most homes, the number of air changes per hour that are currently happening is less than one.

JAD: Huh!

SARAH: Yeah, which I did not realize, and made me feel very gross all of a sudden. [laughs]

JAD: Did you have to, like, open a window?

SARAH: Yeah, basically.

JAD: What happens if—well, let's say I'm in my house in Brooklyn and I open a window. Just about six inches, like, crack it six inches.

SARAH: Mm-hmm.

JAD: How long would it take for the wind coming in through this six-inch gap to completely turn over the air in my apartment?

SARAH: Well, so this one study of average houses from 2011, this—a scientist named Shelly Miller told me about this—showed that opening even just one window those six inches would make air changes happen about 30 percent faster. So, you know, going from, like, one-and-a-half hour to one hour. And the more windows you open and the wider you open them, the better.

JAD: Interesting. This is kind of interesting!

SARAH: Let's see. What else do I need to say on this? Oh, so to give you some context, like, I found out that on the New York City subway, there's 18 air changes per hour, which is pretty good.

JAD: Whoa! That's cool.

SARAH: Planes have, like, 20 air changes, which is kind of crazy.

JAD: Wow. That's really—this is really interesting. I find this air change thing interesting. You know what you need, Sarah Qari?

SARAH: What?

JAD: You need to get some carolers for this.

SARAH: [laughs] You're so right.

SINGERS: [singing] On the first day of Christmas, COVID gave to me ...

SINGER: [singing] Three to six air changes per hour.

SINGERS: [singing] ... for ventilation!

SARAH: [laughs] Oh my God. All right. So that's day one. Okay. Day two.

JAD: Okay. [singing] On the second day of COVID, my true love gave to me ...

SINGERS: [singing] ... COVID gave to me ...

JAD: Now you do the number.

SARAH: So it gave ...

SINGERS: [singing] Three to six air changes per hour for ventilation. And ...

SARAH: [singing] CO2 levels of 600 to 800 parts per million.

JAD: Perfect. Okay. Cool, cool. So what does that mean?

SARAH: So I called up Linsey Marr.

LINSEY MARR: Professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech.

SARAH: She was in our "Six Feet" episode. And she told me that when it comes to this ventilation, air recycling stuff ...

LINSEY MARR: You know, it's almost impossible for the average person to know what the ventilation rate is.

SARAH: Like, you can't just look at the air and say, "Oh, it's new air."

LINSEY MARR: So that's why we've also talked about the carbon dioxide level.

SARAH: Because we're all breathing out carbon dioxide. And so if there's a ton of carbon dioxide in the air, then you can tell that okay, ventilation's probably not very good because all this air that we're exhaling is not leaving.

JAD: Right.

SARAH: And Linsey told me that the reason this number might be better is because ...

LINSEY MARR: Because you can take a sensor with you—and these cost maybe $100 to $200. And then you're looking for a target number that indicates that the ventilation is poor.

SARAH: And I was like ...

SARAH: I am outside. It is a windy day.

SARAH: ... hmm, maybe I should get one of these.

SARAH: Do you have one of these sensors?

LINSEY MARR: Yes. I have one, and I've been carrying it around with me.

SARAH: Trusty carbon dioxide detector.

SARAH: What should I be looking for?

LINSEY MARR: I think if you see a number of 600 parts per million or lower, that's great.

JAD: Does that mean 600 parts of CO2 per million parts of everything?

SARAH: Yes.

LINSEY MARR: So outdoors is gonna be 400 parts per million.

SARAH: 480? Yeah, sounds about right.

SARAH: And have you gone a lot of places with it?

LINSEY MARR: Yeah, I've taken it to the gym.

SARAH: Let me try walking into Planet Fitness. That's 635 parts per million.

LINSEY MARR: I've taken it in our car.

SARAH: In the car. Ooh, it's going up. Okay, 970, 980, 990.

LINSEY MARR: We got up to maybe a thousand parts per million.

SARAH: Whoa. Holy smokes!

LINSEY MARR: But if we open the windows ...

SARAH: Cracking the window. And sure enough, it's gone down. We're back.

LINSEY MARR: I haven't spent time in any restaurant, so I haven't looked there.

SARAH: Outdoor driving's not happening in New York right now, so we're gonna go inside a bodega. I'm hovering by the pasta sauce. Around 615 parts per million. Not bad, local bodega.

JAD: See, this is the problem with our new pandemic reality. It's just so many more things to measure.

SARAH: I know. It's, like, both empowering in a way if you choose to be empowered, but it's also incredibly overwhelming.

JAD: Crazy making. Like, I bought a pulse oximeter, and I got that thing on my thumb for, like, every—like, every couple hours for the last six months.

SARAH: Well, if you want, you could just buy an air purifier. That is one thing that multiple scientists that I talked to recommended. They're like, "Just buy an air purifier."

JAD: Wow, that's interesting. I've always thought those things are a little bit, like ...

SARAH: Gimmicky?

JAD: Kind of.

SARAH: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, apparently they really help.

JAD: Huh. Are we onto the next ...

SARAH: Indeed. Indeed we are.

JAD: ... day of Christmas?

SARAH: So wait. Wait. This one actually - hold on. Okay, okay. Yeah, so [singing] on the third day of Christmas, COVID gave to me ...

SINGERS: [singing] Three layers of masks.

SARAH: Wait, do you already know that one?

JAD: Yeah.

SARAH: Okay, so continue the gallop. Okay.

JAD: [singing] On the next day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ...

SARAH: COVID gave to me.

JAD: Oh, right. Sorry.

SARAH: Okay, you know what? I'm not even gonna front. This one just fell apart in fact-checking.

JAD: [laughter] Okay.

SARAH: So we're just gonna move right along to the next one. Okay, day five. This one—oh, this one is kind of hard to do.

SINGERS: [singing] On the fifth day of Christmas ...

SARAH: I'm just gonna let the carolers do it.

SINGERS: [singing] ... COVID gave to me, maybe try whispering or just not speaking so often.

JAD: [laughs]

SARAH: Okay, another factor in all of this, in protecting yourself, it turns out, is volume. Like, how loudly are you talking can affect the number of aerosols that come out of your mouth.

JAD: Huh!

SARAH: So this comes from a 2019 study. And in order to tell you about it, I'm gonna take out my little decibel meter app. So I'm about one meter away. Okay, perfect.

JAD: Got the tape measure.

SARAH: Okay, so let's say I am whispering, okay? Can you hear me? Yes, you can hear me. Okay. Okay. So right now, I'm whispering at, like, 45 decibels.

JAD: This right here is just 45 decibels?

SARAH: Forty-five decibels, yes.

JAD: It feels in my heart like it's, like, 10. But wow, 45? Okay.

SARAH: Yeah, but 45 it is. So right now, when I say good morning, there's a ton of aerosols that are flying out of my mouth.

JAD: Okay.

SARAH: But then—okay, I started at 45, and now I'm gonna go up to—I'm, like, an average 50 right now.

JAD: So this right here is 50?

SARAH: Yeah. Or, like, 50—actually 51, let's say. So there's a six-decibel difference. Okay, 45 to 51. And suddenly the number of aerosols that are flying out of my mouth are twice as many in number than they were just six decibels ago.

JAD: Really? So if you just go from a whisper to barely ...

SARAH: Yeah.

JAD: ... a whisper, you're doubling the amount of aerosols?

SARAH: Yeah.

JAD: Dang!

SARAH: And let's say I go up another six decibels—57. Yeah, 57, which is right around here, I think, then I'm again doubling.

JAD: Oh my God! So every six decibels of loudness doubles the amount of aerosolized particles?

SARAH: Yeah. And then let's say I keep going, and I go all the way up to 80, which is like me shouting at you! I don't know how to shout neutral—in a neutral voice! [laughs] But I'm shouting! As we've gone up every six decibels, we've doubled, and by the time you get to 80, I'm expelling 50 times more aerosols and droplets than I would be if I was whispering. Isn't that crazy?

JAD: That's crazy. I'm a little scared. [laughs] You've never yelled at me before.

SARAH: I know. I'm so sorry!

JAD: [laughs] That's wild! Wow!

SARAH: Isn't it?

JAD: The lesson here, I guess, is we just need to—all of us need to turn it down. We just need to whisper.

SARAH: Yeah. Yes, exactly. So—okay, so the scientist William Ristenpart that I was talking to about this, he said it's not just volume, though. Like, it's also how much you're talking. You know, obviously if you talk more, then you're putting out more aerosols into the air. And so it's not just, like, speak more quietly, but also, like, just less. Just do less.

JAD: Talk less. Talk quiet. Talk less.

SARAH: Talk less. And do less, and have less things to say. So yeah.

DIRECTOR: So one more time, and then we'll do the last one.

SARAH: Okay, I have just a few more. Just to sum up really quick, so far we've got three to six air changes per hour, 600 to 800 parts per million of CO2, three layers of masks. Then we had that number that was fake news. Whispering, not talking—that's not really a number, but whatever—50 times. And number six is 40 to 60 percent

SINGERS: [singing] Relative humidity.

JAD: [laughs]

SARAH: Okay, so humidity it turns out, it's very important. So one is that drier air actually—actually, I'm gonna pause because there's a very loud ambulance.

JAD: Yeah, this is the ...

SARAH: Can you hear it?

JAD: ... the soundtrack of the second wave.

SARAH: Soundtrack of New York City in the second wave. Yeah, that's right.

JAD: Yeah.

SARAH: So—okay, so the idea is, let's say you, I don't know, you're standing a few feet away from your wife, and you open your mouth—or near your kids, and you open your mouth to say good morning, right?

JAD: Good morning, children.

SARAH: Yeah. [laughs] Like, just imagine for a second, like, let's slow that down. So you're like, you open your mouth, and you're like "Goooood Morrrrr," right?

JAD: [laughs] Okay.

SARAH: And as soon as you open your mouth, there's all of these particles that are flying out of your mouth.

JAD: Yeah. Yeah.

SARAH: Some of them are bigger droplets, wet from your own saliva. Some of them are these light, you know, airy little aerosols that kind of can just, like, float out, like, as if you were breathing out smoke.

JAD: Hmm.

SARAH: And what happens is when the air is dry, there's no moisture in the air. There's no water molecules to, like, slow these aerosols down. So they're not running into any challenges. They're just, like, floating out into ...

JAD: They're like ...

SARAH: ... the air.

JAD: ... whee!

SARAH: Coasting out of your mouth. You're like, "Moo, moo," you know?

JAD: [laughs]

SARAH: And another thing that happens is that the larger droplets that are, like, sort of flying out of your mouth, like, catapulting almost and sometimes sinking, because the air is so dry, the moisture in those droplets evaporates, and those droplets then suddenly transform into lighter aerosols that can also go farther.

JAD: I see. Interesting. So the little missiles coming out of my mouth are just going—are zipping through the air, basically.

SARAH: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But now imagine you're in a room. Let's say it's your kitchen.

JAD: [whistles]

SARAH: You're doing some cooking.

JAD: Making some eggs.

SARAH: There's a little bit of steam in the air, and the humidity is just at that sweet spot of 40 to 60 percent.

JAD: Mm-hmm.

SARAH: And let's say you go up to your kids. "Good morn ..."

JAD: They're like, "Dad, why are you talking to me?"

SARAH: All these particles fly out of your mouth. Let's say you have COVID, which you know what COVID looks like. The ball with the ...

JAD: Little spiky ball, yeah.

SARAH: Spiky ball, yeah. So that shoots out into the air.

JAD: Pew, pew, pew!

SARAH: And slowly, like—or actually, very quickly becomes, like, enveloped in, like, a thin coating of water from the air.

JAD: Ooh!

SARAH: So the humidity almost, like, surrounds the virus particle and causes it to, like, literally fall apart.

JAD: Oh, that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me because I mean, that's kind of one of the principles of handwashing is that ...

SARAH: Right. Yeah.

JAD: I mean, that plus soap, water rips open the membrane. So I wonder if it's getting, like—it's a little bit like a prewash, a pre-handwash.

SARAH: Yeah. [laughs] Should we keep going?

JAD: Yes.

SARAH: Quick duet?

JAD: Sure. [sings] On the seventh day of Christmas, COVID gave to me—Sarah?

SARAH: [sings] Fifteen minutes of close contact.

SINGERS: [singing] Cumulative over 24 hours.]

SARAH: [laughs]

JAD: [laughs] Okay. What does that mean?

SARAH: So throughout the pandemic, the CDC was saying to contact tracers, you should consider someone a close contact when they've been within six feet of someone who is infected for 15 minutes consecutively.

JAD: I see.

SARAH: But they changed it to: As long as it adds up to 15 minutes cumulatively over 24 hours, then you're considered a close contact. And the reason that they changed it is kind of interesting. It's basically based on one person getting COVID.

SARAH: Are you there?

JULIA PRINGLE: I am. Can you hear me?

SARAH: Yes, I can. Hi, this is Sarah from Radiolab.

JULIA PRINGLE: It's so nice to meet you. I'm a big fan of the show.

JAD: This is not the person you're talking about.

SARAH: No, this is Julia.

JULIA PRINGLE: Julia Pringle. And I'm an epidemiologist.

SARAH: So Julia told me that last summer, there was a group of inmates at a Vermont prison that tested positive for COVID.

JULIA PRINGLE: So that's when my team at the health department got involved.

SARAH: And it was her job to track down anybody that they might have infected at the prison.

JULIA PRINGLE: ... video surveillance footage, talked to staff.

SARAH: And it turned out there was this one correctional officer that appeared to have gotten COVID around the same time as the inmates. But this person didn't appear to have had close contact with them, according to the CDC definition.

JULIA PRINGLE: Didn't have 15 minutes within 6 feet in a row.

SARAH: And this was confusing because that was the rule: 15 consecutive minutes of contact means that you are at risk.

JULIA PRINGLE: Correct.

SARAH: And so what they do is they go back to the surveillance footage.

JULIA PRINGLE: And one thing we kept noticing was this correctional officer, over the course of their shift, there were multiple brief encounters.

SARAH: There'd be a couple of minutes where they'd bring food to the inmates, or they'd see somewhere else in the tape, like, a few minutes spent giving the inmates their medication. And Julia said that when they added up all these little encounters ...

JULIA PRINGLE: Collectively, they approximated about 15 minutes of exposure.

JAD: Whoa!

SARAH: And so they published a paper about this. And based on that one paper and that one correctional officer, the CDC ended up changing their contact tracing definition for the entire country.

JAD: Wow! Okay. Okay.

SARAH: So that's—those are just more numbers. [laughs]

JAD: Yeah.

SARAH: I think that's it. I think those are all the numbers I have.

JAD: Okay.

SARAH: But I guess there's just one last thing that I want to tell you about. You know, like we were saying before, these numbers obviously can be super helpful in certain ways. However, they are also extremely paralyzing, and could potentially be really debilitating.

JAD: Yeah. Yeah.

SARAH: And so one person I talked to, this guy named Martin Bazant at MIT, who's, like, a professor in the engineering department, I believe, he actually made, like, an online calculator, essentially, which I thought was really cool. I talked to him about it. And it's this—basically yeah, this website you can go to, where a lot of these factors that we've talked about, you can plug in different variables for, like, whatever room you expect to find yourself in, plug in the humidity levels, plug in ...

JAD: Wow.

SARAH: ... will you be wearing a mask or not? Will—what kind of mask are you gonna be wearing? You know, ventilation, are you gonna be talking? Are you gonna be exercising? You know, how big is the room? You can plug all of that in, and it'll give you a recommendation. And so it'll tell you then, how many people can safely be in that room for how long. So for example, I was, like, on—in the interview with him, and I plugged in, let's say you're in the average classroom.

JAD: Okay.

SARAH: And everyone is sitting and wearing masks and talking.

JAD: Okay.

SARAH: And it spits out this number that is basically like, okay, 50 people can safely be in this room for seven hours, which is, like, a very ...

JAD: Really?

SARAH: ... surprising finding, right? A surprising recommendation.

JAD: Wait, is that a real number that you just said?

SARAH: Yeah, yeah. That's a real number. Yeah.

JAD: Oh, shoot! That's ...

SARAH: Yeah.

JAD: ... very heartening to hear.

SARAH: Right. So—and it's sort of this, you know—he finds himself in this interesting spot where on the one hand, he's like, you know, receiving backlash because it's like, okay, you're enabling people to then, you know, go do stuff and, like, maybe be unsafe. But his ...

JAD: Yeah.

SARAH: ... whole argument is like, "Well, you know, like, I don't know. If there's a way to navigate all of these variables, you know, and to move beyond just the, like, don't see anyone indoors ever, you know? Like, if there's a way to, like, account for all of these different factors in a way that makes us safer, in a way that helps us keep classrooms open, in a way that helps us, you know, keep other facets of our lives going, then, like, why wouldn't you want to do that? And so he was ...

JAD: Yeah.

SARAH: ... telling me he's, like, heard from people, like people emailing him, that have used the online tool and have been like, "I was able to keep my dance studio open because I, like, plugged in the numbers and, like, it seemed to make sense."

JAD: Oh, wow!

SARAH: "And so I had this many people in, and we were really safe." And yeah.

JAD: Wow, that's—that's cool!

SARAH: Pretty neat, right?

JAD: Yeah. You know, it's funny. It's like, that's—I mean, you know what I find myself wondering about, which I don't know if it's a helpful argument I'm having in my head, but I mean, I just—I find that way of thinking very liberating.

SARAH: Yeah.

JAD: Because it—I mean, what we all have to do right now is we kind of have to be poker players. We have to sort of understand the odds and the risks involved, and make decisions in the face of those risks, which is what a poker player does. They make a bet when they don't know what's gonna happen. But they can't not bet, right? So we have to sort of do that ourselves in the way we behave and where we choose to go and whether we choose to put our kids in school and all those things.

SARAH: Right.

JAD: They're all kind of bets. And ...

SARAH: And it's sort of like—and it's sort of like, right now we're all playing poker with, like, a really poor understanding of how probability works, right?

JAD: Yes. Yes.

SARAH: And, like, the question is: Do we educate ourselves on probability and then perhaps maybe become riskier poker players? [laughs] Or do we ...

JAD: Right.

SARAH: ... just keep playing with, like, our really crude understanding, you know?

JAD: Right. And then there's this sort of a public messaging layer on top of that, which is: Can we afford nuance right now?

SARAH: Yes.

JAD: Maybe we just need to say to people, "Wear a mask and stay indoors and don't see anybody."

SARAH: Yeah.

JAD: And go slightly crazy and have some serious mental health blowback, but you'll be safe that way. I mean, we could say that to people, which I think is probably more effective, but it also creates this whole, like, politicization thing, which we won't even get into. But yeah, I like the online tool. I suddenly want it to be like a little drone that's flying over my head. And it just watches me as I walk in and out of spaces, and then it gives me ...

SARAH: [laughs]

JAD: It gives me, like, a risk rating for every ...

SARAH: This, like, magic device that we're slowly creating through all these numbers.

JAD: That is a killer gift right there.

SARAH: Yeah. [laughs]

JAD: Well, thank you, Sarah Qari!

SARAH: You're welcome. And I should say thank you to my carolers: Sue Nelson, Elizabeth and Sandy Laprelle and Noah and Brian Dauphin.

SINGERS: [singing] On the 12th day of Christmas, the COVID gave to me, the long-awaited Pfizer vaccine! Yay! One big plastic face shield, maybe try whispering or just not ...

JAD: All right. Well, I guess—I guess this is us trying to slip out the door, slip out of the year.

LATIF: Yep. Oh, special thanks to Akiko Iwasaki, Martin Bazant, Julia Pringle, Linsey Marr, Shelly Miller, William Ristenpart, Bill Nye, USA Today, The Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas and the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas.

JAD: I'm Jad Abumrad.

LATIF: I'm Latif Nasser. Hope you have happy, healthy—emphasis on the healthy ...

JAD: Yeah.

LATIF: ... holidays and New Year. And yeah, we'll check you on the other side.

JAD: Thanks for listening.

[LISTENER: This is Damon, calling from Hobart, Tasmania. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Suzie Lechtenberg is our executive producer. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Rachael Cusick, David Gebel, Matt Kielty, Tobin Low, Annie McEwen, Sarah Qari, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster, with help from Shima Oliaee, Sarah Sandbach and Johnny Moens. Our fact-checker is Michelle Harris.]

 

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