If you've noticed something weird happening with Covid this year, it's probably Joel Rindelaub.
A few weeks ago, Joel Rindelaub appeared on Newshub, where he was asked to comment on the video clip of people dry humping at the infamous and stupid North Shore lockdown party. Over the footage, he said, "Dry humping is not a Covid-friendly activity outside your bubble. I can say that with some certainty."
This was fine and within his field of expertise as a leader in the field of aerosols research, but then he went on to say that dry humping was not good practice for partying with or without Covid, which sounded more like an opinion than solid science, so when I spoke to him last week, I brought it up.
"Do you actually have evidence for that?" I asked.
"Well, let's break down that clip," he said. "They were dry humping on a broken table on the floor. Like, if you're going to dry hump, do it on a sweaty dance floor like everyone else."
I told him I hadn't been aware of the broken table.
"Well, this is my job," he said. "I have to notice these things."
Partly because of media-friendly and astute observations like those above, and partly because of his haircut, this has been a breakthrough year for Rindelaub and it might be about to get even better. He has written a rap about vaccination, which he is recording with leading New Zealand rapper Randa, that he anticipates releasing by the end of this month, with guest parts written for a number of people who should never be seen dead doing this kind of thing - and probably won't - including Ashley Bloomfield.
"Do you have time for this kind of thing?" I asked Rindelaub.
"No," he said.
"When are you doing it?"
"Well," he said, "last night I stayed up to 5am.
He said: "I tend to have a hard time saying no to people when it comes to anything science-related, just because that's my passion and that's what I want to do. Also, I have a real job. I'm not sure if you've heard, but I am a scientist at the University of Auckland."
I asked him to perform some of the rap for me, expecting him to say no, and when he said yes I expected to feel embarrassed for both of us, but his performance was truly great, and I say that as someone who doesn't know much about rap. It's hard to imagine there is a greater scientist/rapper working today. During one particularly strong rhyme ("The virus will loiter outside your home / Try to steal your breath and infect your dome") he threw his head right back, his mullet swinging free and wild, and you could see the flow had overtaken him, and was possibly inside him. It was, without doubt, the most beautiful thing to have come out of Covid.
And then there's verse two:
"I know what you're thinking, I'm young I'm healthy
The virus won't affect me, how can Pfizer help me?
Lasting effects? Not on this bod. On God, Delta will make your dick soft.
Inability to orgasm, damage to your lungs. That's a heavy price to pay, don't be f***in' dumb.
Be on the watch for misinformation
And trust the nerds deep in the situation."
I asked if he was optimistic: "Are we going to get out of this?" I said. "Are we going to be all right?"
"Out of what?" he asked.
"What do you think?" I said.
"Is humanity going to get over itself and work collectively towards a common goal? Like, ever?"
"Okay," I said, because, although that hadn't been what I meant, I know enough about interviewing to let people say what they want. "What's your answer to that?"
"Well, that's happened only once before, and that was with the Montreal Protocol that outlawed CFCs that destroyed the ozone layer. It's the only time the United Nations have got every single country to sign on to a law-abiding treaty."
"So that sounds like a no."
"You could take it like that."
I asked if he was really so pessimistic.
"No, no, no," he said. "Of course not. That's why we're out here, man. We're trying to better educate people. We're trying to help them and help us be more critical thinkers, to evaluate the world around us in a systematic fashion so we can all benefit collectively. That's the idea. You've got to try. And we will. And we will continue to try, and we'll continue to work to our last dying breath."
That sounded almost like an attempt at optimism, but he was talking broadly, existentially, and what I was really interested in was his take on the pandemic.
"Oh, we'll survive," he said. "Humans are really good at that, at least, very resourceful when they're up against the wall. We're a pretty durable species in that regard. But we also haven't been on this planet that long, relatively speaking. To your point, specifically, I think if we can get enough people vaccinated that we can take better control of the virus, take better control of our lives, and we can absolutely push forward."
"If we can get enough people vaccinated?"
"Yes, that's the caveat, isn't it?"
If Covid has been good for anyone besides the the angry misinformed, seeking gullible followers, it's Rindelaub. The word "aerosols", the area in which he is expert, has attracted more interest over the past few months than almost any other word in English. This is his moment, and he is ready for it, not just because he's one of the country's leading authorities on the subject but because he's the sort of person made for television and the covers of magazines: personable, funny, quirky and able to simply convey important but complex research regarding Covid and Covid-adjacent fields. He has good bone structure, great hair, a badly groomed moustache and an air of mystery. When you look at him, and even when you interview him, it's hard not to think maybe he's just a prank dreamed up by Jono and Ben.
He says he grew his first mullet in his early teens, living with his parents and two brothers in Minnesota, but has had this one permanently since 2013, when Patrick Kane, the best player on his favourite ice hockey team, the Chicago Blackhawks, grew a spectacular mullet on the way to helping his team win the sport's premier prize, the Stanley Cup.
By then, Rindelaub had already had the moustache for several years: "I just kind of got bored looking at myself in the mirror," he says, "and then I accidentally got used to it.
"In academia, there's a lot of weird cats," he says. "People kind of just do what they want, which is reflected in their research. So it's not that absurd to have a mullet and a moustache. That being said, I know zero other academics who currently sport this look."
He got good grades at high school and planned to go on to study mathematics at university: "To pursue the dream to become the biggest nerd I could possibly be," he says. "It turns out math is pretty theoretical, which I'm into, but if you solve a really hard proof in mathematics like you sit back and you pat yourself on the back: 'Great job!' But if you solve a really hard chemistry problem, well, then maybe you have a treatment for cancer." He says he's always felt driven to do good in the world. He describes this drive as "naive".
He leads a diverse life. Along with his PhD, he also has a Bachelor of Arts, including papers in religion and classics, has written and acted in his own play and has played ice hockey to a high level for a New Zealand-based scientist.
He says: "I'm still trying to do a lot of different things just to keep my brain occupied and distracted from the soul-crushing life of a scientist."
"Is it really soul-crushing?" I asked.
"It can be," he said. "It is not for the faint-of-heart, I will tell you that. You are constantly dealing with failure and rejection. For instance, even if you're in the chemistry lab and think you've got a great idea that's going to work, it's going to fail. When you're just starting, it could be 90 times, before the 91st one works. Obviously, as you progress as a scientist, that ratio definitely evolves more in your favour. But most of the stuff you try doesn't work. So that is, as I mentioned, soul-crushing. And then as you advance, you just get to fail at different things."
His Twitter bio reads: "Academic. Athlete. Author. Actor." When I asked him about the acting part, he said, "I mostly say that because it helps with the alliteration." But his acting, some of which can be seen on his own YouTube channel, is actually extremely good for a scientist juggling a lot of other balls. Last year, he produced and starred in a very funny three-minute short film for the Royal Society Te Apārangi's 180 Seconds of Fascination Early Career Researcher video competition, in which he played several roles: a scientist, a super-villain, and finally, thrillingly, science itself:
Woman, on the couch in her apartment: "How did you get in here?"
Rindelaub: "I'm science. I'm always here."
I asked how that video came about. He said: "One of the top judging metrics was creativity. I'm like, 'Well, s***, I can do this.' So I wrote that and then recruited my mates to help put it together. So, I forgot what your question was, but I didn't win."
He just seems to be naturally good at a lot of things. For example, he has been in New Zealand only four years but already he is a better New Zealander than at least everyone who went to that North Shore lockdown party. He fell in love with Marmite after his first bite of a mousetrap in a Christchurch cafe ("Like, give me citizenship"); he has appeared in an ad for the All Blacks, proficiently kicking a rugby ball while wearing an All Blacks uniform; he wore a Wellington Phoenix jacket on the day we spoke and said "Go 'Nix!"; he opened our conversation with a reasonably well-pronounced, for an American scientist, "Kia ora"; and he is comfortable and confident saying the word "mate", as evidenced by the opening line of his forthcoming rap: "Vaccines, just a little jab / Don't worry mate it's not that bad" and also by the opening line of verse three: "Yeah mate this all sounds great / I can't wait to make my community safe."
It's actually not that hard to get in the public eye if you're a scientist with something to say. The reason there are only a handful of scientists you know by name is that there's no correlation between the attributes required to be good at science and those required for being in the public eye.
Rindelaub has at least as many of those attributes as any other scientist currently on high media rotate. He's funny and knows how to create and manipulate phrases to generate maximum public impact: "Covid hole" and "face hole" are two of his more famous formulations, but his recent Twitter post, "Stop being crabby go get the jabby" was also quite good for a scientist.
"I want to spice up science," he says. "I want it to reach new audiences. I want to get the word out that this s*** is cool."
That sounds fair enough, if quite difficult, but the bigger problem is having the time and resources to do it. He says academic administrators especially see the type of science communication he and many others do as a distraction from their job and of no benefit to their universities. His job performance is assessed on things like how many papers he can write, how much grant money he can bring in and how many students he can graduate.
"And if you aren't doing X, Y and Z, then anything else is just not beneficial and some people might even look down on you for dumbing down science, in their view."
I said: "In that case, there doesn't seem like much upside. Why do you do it?"
"Because this is my life," he said. "This is my passion. This is what I care about: Getting science to people and helping the world make better-informed decisions for the benefit of all of us. So it's a philosophical thing for me rather than something that would actually benefit me."
"That's very altruistic," I said.
"Like I said, naive."
