WEBVTT 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:04.000 It's amazing because I have mosquito you think of a mosquito 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.200 is just as annoying insect that hovers around you. 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:08.400 We've all seen them so many times. 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:10.100 We don't even look at them closely. 00:00:10.100 --> 00:00:12.600 But in fact, they are creatures that are exquisitely 00:00:12.600 --> 00:00:16.300 engineer for one purpose to find you and drink your blood. 00:00:20.900 --> 00:00:25.000 I am just Adele it contributing editor Rolling Stone or so. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.500 I've been all over the world. 00:00:28.500 --> 00:00:33.800 Would you want to go to Alaska with President Obama and we're 00:00:33.800 --> 00:00:37.000 at the Harris County Public Health Department at the mosquito 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:39.000 and vector control program. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:45.500 The reason I'm here is because I'm looking at it something 00:00:45.500 --> 00:00:48.600 that not a lot of people thought about until covid-19 to and 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:51.300 all of a sudden we understand of course the implications 00:00:51.300 --> 00:00:54.100 of a pandemic and of disease and how vulnerable we really 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:57.300 are dependent because the result of how we live in the world 00:00:57.300 --> 00:01:00.400 and it is a result of a lot of the factors that drive climate 00:01:00.400 --> 00:01:03.500 change Anthony fauci has talked about how we're moving into 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:05.900 what he calls a new pandemic Kira. 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:09.200 We are going to see emergence of new disease. 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:13.500 We're going to see spilling over from animals into other animals 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:16.300 and into humans like the tsar's Covey to virus. 00:01:16.300 --> 00:01:19.900 Did Bill Russell going to see new viruses emerge that are carried 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:20.500 by water called. 00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:24.000 Here's what your other animals that Harbor those diseases. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:25.500 Then transmit them to humans. 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:29.100 Houston is one of the epicenters of mosquito-borne 00:01:29.100 --> 00:01:34.000 disease in this country as our world warms up. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.900 How is that going to change disease pattern in one of the best 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:38.900 places to begin to explore that is here in Houston. 00:01:40.800 --> 00:01:47.100 Hey Max, we're outside now. 00:01:47.100 --> 00:01:48.300 I think you would safety. 00:01:48.300 --> 00:01:48.700 Are you all right? 00:01:48.700 --> 00:01:53.300 If we remove our Master just for this conversation for a program 00:01:53.300 --> 00:01:57.000 at Harris County Mosquito Control is basically an environmental 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:01.200 stimulus must have better control similar to what we do is serving 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:06.700 environment to collect samples to the lab and test it for a viruses. 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:13.300 Dengue Chikungunya zika West Nile Virus in St. 00:02:13.300 --> 00:02:20.200 Louis Encephalitis. One of the tracks is Birds St. 00:02:20.200 --> 00:02:23.600 Louis Encephalitis to mosquitoes and then transmitted 00:02:23.600 --> 00:02:26.900 to humans monitoring the blood if you see birds can potentially 00:02:26.900 --> 00:02:27.700 prevent an outbreak. 00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:31.200 pocket soap 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:36.700 and that's how you get rid of missing it and I got another 00:02:36.700 --> 00:02:45.900 problem. That's right. 00:02:45.900 --> 00:02:48.700 Quite often will let him go and look at you again month or two 00:02:48.700 --> 00:02:50.400 later and still be perfectly fine. 00:02:50.400 --> 00:03:00.100 St. Louis Encephalitis, eastern and western equine Encephalitis. 00:03:00.100 --> 00:03:05.900 What's going on Within These hosts reservoirs we can maybe 00:03:05.900 --> 00:03:08.100 predict where we're going to start seeing disease activity. 00:03:08.100 --> 00:03:11.400 Hopefully before people start getting these viruses transmitted 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:14.200 to them cuz it's not that a bird will give it to you directly. 00:03:14.200 --> 00:03:17.100 It's been a mosquito has got to bite infected bird and then 00:03:17.100 --> 00:03:19.500 by the Cuban when I get back to the lab will centrifuge 00:03:19.500 --> 00:03:22.400 it so that we can separate the red blood cells from the plasma 00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:26.400 then test the plasma for the antibodies to some of these mosquito 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:34.000 Vector diseases for diseases is it T-Mobile, 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:38.600 right. I mean birds fly obviously, but they not only fly a neighbor. 00:03:38.600 --> 00:03:42.300 They migrate they move around to their key propagators 00:03:42.300 --> 00:03:46.800 and of the spread of these diseases the habitat so much that 00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:49.800 bee species that might normally not be coming into contact 00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:51.700 with people are coming into contact with people. 00:03:51.700 --> 00:03:55.800 That's what both your hands in a cup and put her on your hands 00:03:55.800 --> 00:04:00.000 off. She goes 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:04.900 Max's operation drops hundreds of mosquito traps in neighborhoods 00:04:04.900 --> 00:04:08.100 around Houston in order to capture them and test them for six 00:04:08.100 --> 00:04:11.500 different pathogens, including the viruses that cause Dengue 00:04:11.500 --> 00:04:15.200 fever and zika as the world warms making more of the planet 00:04:15.200 --> 00:04:18.600 habitable for mosquitoes that carry the virus has the mosquitoes 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:23.100 range will expand northward and a higher altitudes by 2080 one 00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:27.400 recent study estimated more than six billion people or 60% of 00:04:27.400 --> 00:04:30.300 the world's projected population will be at risk for Dengue 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:40.200 collecting sites for trapping will try to look at the environmental 00:04:40.200 --> 00:04:45.200 conditions mosquitoes like particular environment to keep on breathing 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:51.300 all over this environment provides us because we have the trees 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:53.500 shrubs. We have bushes. 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:55.100 We are uncapped property. 00:04:55.100 --> 00:04:57.900 We have debris from drainage. 00:05:01.400 --> 00:05:04.000 Hey mosquitoes, come breed. 00:05:07.200 --> 00:05:12.500 Play iPhone over 35 different species of mosquitoes in the stumps 00:05:12.500 --> 00:05:16.100 were because the water stays stagnant are the mosquitoes 00:05:16.100 --> 00:05:19.300 can breed and get back out to the environment around know. 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:22.700 There's nothing happening because everybody is down here hanging 00:05:22.700 --> 00:05:25.400 out to see what happened a little later so they can you merge 00:05:27.400 --> 00:05:32.200 How much does a manhole cover way. 00:05:32.200 --> 00:05:42.600 Should be somebody breathing CO2 out for me cuz that's what 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:48.600 humans breathe. So they come sublimation CO2 thinking that this 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:49.800 is a house disability. 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:52.900 Somebody does light become free of the gate and to get sucked 00:05:52.900 --> 00:05:57.000 into the one that I know I find it so they can't go back 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:05.700 up to collect mosquitoes mosquitoes are really think they can 00:06:05.700 --> 00:06:08.200 sense CO2 from a long way away. 00:06:08.200 --> 00:06:11.700 And that's how they feel they find you. 00:06:11.700 --> 00:06:14.400 So that means if you're like a mosquito infested area best thing 00:06:14.400 --> 00:06:15.300 to do is hold your breath. 00:06:19.500 --> 00:06:21.000 This is a lower-income neighborhoods. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:25.100 You have houses that are not as well built as they are in River 00:06:25.100 --> 00:06:28.200 Oaks Houston and rich neighborhoods people here are much more 00:06:28.200 --> 00:06:32.600 vulnerable, right? This is a great example of how the sort of 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:36.500 impacts of our warming climate of more disease or more mosquitoes 00:06:36.500 --> 00:06:39.200 is born more heavily in the neighborhood. 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:49.000 Like this is on the population to suffer from those are the emerging 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:56.000 infectious disease or endemic disease is more likely Desmond 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:58.000 move around as things happened. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.800 This mosquitoes have to be able to adapt to environmental 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:04.800 conditions. I've continued to propagate and continue to spread 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:10.200 of viruses that is really important thinking about you know, 00:07:10.200 --> 00:07:12.500 climate change and disease is this question disease surveillance 00:07:12.500 --> 00:07:15.800 and understanding where things first emerge we saw that was covered 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:18.900 understanding of the first coming out in Wuhan China and 00:07:19.500 --> 00:07:24.300 Seeing an early on this isn't a way a kind of disease surveillance 00:07:24.300 --> 00:07:33.900 program you have going here to the 60th operational areas around 00:07:33.900 --> 00:07:37.400 Harris County who said 412 chapter week in what we do is test 00:07:37.400 --> 00:07:40.500 all of this in the biology lab to determine whether we have 00:07:40.500 --> 00:07:41.500 zika Dengue chikungunya. 00:07:48.100 --> 00:07:52.400 What you are doing here is unusual for US cities you have one of 00:07:52.400 --> 00:07:55.700 the best disease surveillance systems in the country here. 00:07:55.700 --> 00:07:56.700 Is that right? I 00:07:56.700 --> 00:07:58.800 mean, how does what you're doing here compared to what's 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:03.200 happening. And in many other parts of the country districts 00:08:03.200 --> 00:08:07.300 collect whiskey samples send the samples somewhere else to not 00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:11.300 allowed to get tested and get the results later or program 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:16.400 allows to collect a mosquito samples identify them start them 00:08:16.400 --> 00:08:20.600 identify them test them bring them in the lab test them and get 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:23.700 results the following day Harris County Mosquito Control 00:08:23.700 --> 00:08:28.200 hazaron virology lab to test the mosquitoes in house. 00:08:28.200 --> 00:08:32.900 It's like the difference between a lab and having to wait 3 days 00:08:32.900 --> 00:08:36.800 to find out if you test positive or getting results from right 00:08:36.800 --> 00:08:37.100 on the spot. 00:08:40.100 --> 00:08:43.300 Is it going to try to take everything out and we have these? 00:08:44.700 --> 00:08:45.600 Let's go to the lab. 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:50.100 So I'm going to do is identify the species that we collected. 00:08:50.100 --> 00:08:53.200 So I separate them out musically from just looking at them like 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:55.900 until they are all clinics 24 Caesars. 00:08:59.800 --> 00:09:12.900 Explain why their of Interest has proposed this is what most 00:09:12.900 --> 00:09:14.900 people would think of as the sort of stinger. 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:21.300 Can you explain how that for biscuits works because I think 00:09:21.300 --> 00:09:24.000 it's really important do to kind of grasp. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:28.500 What kind of incredible killing machines mosquitoes Army. 00:09:28.500 --> 00:09:32.600 There are exquisitely designed to figure out where the blood is 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:37.600 at on your body and enter probe into your body in a way 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:40.600 that allows them to be very quickly. 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:42.800 They have a risk assessment. 00:09:42.800 --> 00:09:45.300 They have to go there cuz they they Linger on your too long. 00:09:45.300 --> 00:09:49.200 They're going to get swatted right Beto's already programmed. 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:55.000 I didn't know where they were going to find somewhere some loose 00:09:55.000 --> 00:10:00.400 soft tissue to get a blood meal inside of this little tiny Speck 00:10:00.400 --> 00:10:04.400 you seen on this mosquito is a rod in the world has seen it 00:10:04.400 --> 00:10:09.300 is like a Caesars part of the actually insert open up cut through 00:10:09.300 --> 00:10:17.000 the tissue inside on a Law & Order. 00:10:18.100 --> 00:10:22.100 From from inside of the promises to get in on to stop that blunt 00:10:22.100 --> 00:10:23.800 before they do that though. 00:10:23.800 --> 00:10:29.600 They going to regurgitate whatever they have stomach and back 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:31.600 up again from the human being. 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:43.600 So if you can't get into your bloodstream, 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:50.000 whoever else is there. 00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:02.600 You're supposed to be the whiskey do they really are the mosquitoes 00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:09.500 that are best adapted to living with human being you are like 00:11:09.500 --> 00:11:11.600 Labrador Retrievers. You can get there like specifically 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:13.200 designed to live around humans. 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:34.700 Right did don't tell you anything different Micah yellow fever 00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:37.800 when you collect a bunch of mosquitoes and you sort through 00:11:37.800 --> 00:11:45.600 them and you find 80's you're not happy with me. 00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:47.200 These are negative. 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:48.700 What is a positive for viruses? 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:50.300 I don't know. 00:11:53.100 --> 00:11:57.200 So you're responsible for 5 million people in a huge area. 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:01.900 Just detect these emerging viruses and as many people have committed 00:12:01.900 --> 00:12:06.300 to me since I've gotten to know you have the perfect name for 00:12:06.300 --> 00:12:08.800 that. Yes. My name is Maximus. 00:12:08.800 --> 00:12:20.300 I'm paying attention to what's going to end up in the right 00:12:20.300 --> 00:12:22.900 field of Public Health the name suits McCarthy. 00:12:23.900 --> 00:12:27.000 Obviously, this is a swamp with this city that built in the swamp 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:32.600 by that's what I was feeling right now and disease are nothing 00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:36.900 new here. I mean the capital of Texas was moved from Houston 00:12:36.900 --> 00:12:40.500 to Austin when the early 19th century to get away from the mosquitoes. 00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:43.000 They were causing malaria and other problems here. 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:45.600 So there's nothing new but something is new, 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:46.400 which is it. 00:12:46.400 --> 00:12:49.800 We are changing our climate right in our climate is warming up. 00:12:49.800 --> 00:12:55.200 How is have you seen changes in the Houston area temperature 00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:01.700 for anything else in January? 00:13:01.700 --> 00:13:06.500 Right? That's a long way from January 2020 or 2018 when it was 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:10.500 cold last couple years to collect mosquitoes and have numbers 00:13:10.500 --> 00:13:13.300 in January because of climatic conditions. 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:18.000 Does climate conditions continue to fluctuate wildly in February? 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.300 2020 Texas was hit by an Arctic blast of snow and ice the knocked 00:13:22.300 --> 00:13:25.600 out the electric grid and brought the entire state to its knees 00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:30.900 and in 2017 hurricane Harvey drop 19 trillion tons of water 00:13:30.900 --> 00:13:33.000 on the Gulf Coast in just five days. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:36.500 It was the biggest climate catastrophe Houston has experience 00:13:36.500 --> 00:13:40.400 but likely won't be the last it's both tragic and ironic the 00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:43.300 Houston the headquarters of the fossil fuel industry in America 00:13:43.300 --> 00:13:46.600 is particularly vulnerable to The Climate crisis, 00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:50.300 which will increasingly reveal itself dangerous and unpredictable 00:13:50.300 --> 00:13:55.100 ways animals, like humans move at the climate changes during 00:13:55.100 --> 00:13:59.400 new diseases with them where the next pandemic emerges is impossible 00:13:59.400 --> 00:14:02.900 to say, but it's no surprise that Houston was the first US city 00:14:02.900 --> 00:14:07.000 to record every major Varian the coronavirus for the Dengue 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:09.500 fever and West Nile Virus drive here. 00:14:09.500 --> 00:14:12.600 The Gulf Coast is always been an epicenter of infectious 00:14:12.600 --> 00:14:13.100 disease. 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:18.300 Prices escalate the risk that some unexpected pathogen emerges 00:14:18.300 --> 00:14:21.700 here will grow Houston is a big modern city, 00:14:21.700 --> 00:14:25.600 but as the coven pandemic has shown us even a big modern city 00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:29.500 is no match for a tiny invisible and deadly virus.