Lex Fridman Podcast

#146 – Michael Mina: Rapid Testing, Viruses, and the Engineering Mindset

Dec 19, 2020

02:19:17

Creator website

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

What Elon Musk Thinks About Rapid Testing?

02:01

Detecting Novel Coronavirus in New York City in 2020

02:25

Is There a Greater Accuracy to PCR Testing?

02:02

Introduction

1min

Brave Browser - A Fast Privacy Preserving Browser

4min

ExpressVPN - The Number One Finance App in the App Store

2min

Is Measles Really a Trojan Horse?

3min

Influenza and Flu Predisposes to Serious Bacterial Infections

2min

Does This Pandemic Really Fascinat You or Terrify You?

2min

The Evolution of the Virus

3min

How Do We Stop the Spread of COVID-19 by Christmas?

5min

Is There a Solution to the Pandemic?

4min

10.

The Pandemic Isn't a Solution, but It's a Problem

2min

11.

Is a Rapid Test Too Expensive?

4min

12.

Vaccine Herd Immunization

2min

13.

Do You Have a Lot of Tests in Front of You?

2min

14.

Vaccines - Is There a Bottleneck in Manufacturing?

2min

15.

Antigen Tests - What Are They?

4min

16.

Is There a Greater Accuracy to PCR Testing?

2min

17.

Is the PCR Test Really Good at Detecting Contagiousness?

4min

18.

What Are the Lessons We Draw From This Pandemic?

2min

19.

The Swab From the Abbot Test.

2min

20.

Antigen Tests Can Get False Positive Results

3min

21.

Is This a Good Antigen Test?

2min

22.

What Elon Musk Thinks of Rapid Testing

2min

23.

Is There a Duality in Antigen Tests?

2min

24.

What Elon Musk Thinks About Rapid Testing?

2min

25.

The Engineering Solution to Pandemics

5min

26.

Lockdowns Aren't a Public Health Solution

3min

27.

Is There Any Intuition?

3min

28.

Is the FDA the End All Be All?

4min

29.

MIT and Public Health Engineering - What's Next?

4min

30.

Is There a Way Forward to Get Plasma Samples From Donors?

4min

31.

Is There a Way to Capture Big Data?

3min

32.

Is There Enough Uniqueness to Match the Blood Samples?

2min

33.

Why Do You Need It?

2min

34.

Detecting Novel Coronavirus in New York City in 2020

2min

35.

Is There a Future Natural Virus That Will Kill All Humans?

5min

36.

Is the Natural Pandemic the Worst Concern?

6min

37.

The Role of Machine Learning in AI in Developing Viruses

4min

38.

We're Already Developing Defense Mechanisms

2min

39.

Is There a Better Place to Scale Up Testing?

3min

40.

The Broad Is the Highest Throughput Laboratory in the Country

5min

41.

What Attracted You to Buddhism?

4min

42.

Meditation

3min

43.

What's Waiting Beyond the Stage of Just Quieting the Mind?

3min

44.

How to Experience Life in a Much Richer Way

5min

45.

What Is the Meaning of Life?

3min

46.

The Evolution of Consciousness

2min

47.

The Man Who Succeeds

2min

Michael Mina is an immunologist, epidemiologist, and physician at Harvard. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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– Cash App: https://cash.app/ and use code LexPodcast to get $10

EPISODE LINKS:
Michael’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab
Michael’s Time article: https://time.com/5912705/covid-19-stop-spread-christmas/
Rapid Tests: https://www.rapidtests.org/

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:28) – Interacting between viruses and bacteria
(11:42) – Deadlier viruses
(15:13) – Will COVID-19 mutate?
(16:47) – Rapid testing
(34:11) – PCR vs rapid antigen tests
(43:55) – Medical industrial complex
(47:47) – Lex takes COVID test
(54:32) – FDA and cheap tests
(57:17) – Explanation of Elon Musk’s positive COVID tests
(1:04:25) – Role of testing during vaccine deployment
(1:07:54) – Public health policy
(1:17:34) – A weather system for viruses
(1:34:26) – Can a virus kill all humans?
(1:40:05) – Engineering a deadly virus
(1:44:47) – AlphaFold 2 and viruses
(1:50:42) – Advice for young people
(1:58:50) – Time as a Buddhist monk
(2:04:54) – Meditation
(2:12:32) – Meaning of life