RadixJournal - Coronavirus Gets Personal

00:00:00.000 It's Monday, October 5th, 2020, and welcome back to The McSpencer Group.

00:00:06.500 I'm joined today by Edward Dutton.

00:00:09.380 Main topic, coronavirus gets personal.

00:00:13.460 The president has tested positive, along with much of his White House staff.

00:00:18.620 As of today, Donald Trump seems to be in recovery,

00:00:21.420 and this program wishes him and everyone else affected all the best.

00:00:25.480 But we'd be remiss not to examine the political fallout of Trump's response and messaging

00:00:30.940 when the virus first came to American shores.

00:00:33.920 Absolutely, this president will always put America first.

00:00:36.540 He will always protect American citizens.

00:00:38.300 We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here.

00:00:40.920 We will not see...

00:00:41.800 In the second half of the show, Ed and I turn to the prickly subject of disparate impact.

00:00:48.000 Many are afraid to ask,

00:00:49.880 is coronavirus not just deadly, but worse, racist?

00:00:55.480 Ed, how are you?

00:00:59.160 I'm okay, yes.

00:01:00.980 Yes, I've had a...

00:01:02.680 I went on a long bicycle ride today.

00:01:05.860 That's good.

00:01:06.800 I rode from here to the local airport,

00:01:11.020 which is about an hour's bike ride away.

00:01:14.280 Okay.

00:01:14.480 It was the first up-front encapsulation of the chaos that Corona has caused.

00:01:21.240 You know, everything was shut.

00:01:23.180 All of the shops at the airport were shut.

00:01:24.980 All of the car rental places shut.

00:01:28.200 Hardly any taxis.

00:01:29.940 Hardly any flights.

00:01:31.860 So it was an eye-opener.

00:01:34.220 Yeah.

00:01:35.440 I have not really been in a big city for quite some time.

00:01:41.200 I mean, due to this virus.

00:01:42.980 I was in Chicago just for a little bit,

00:01:45.200 and I didn't really go downtown out of fear that I might be kidnapped by Antifa and tortured for my sins.

00:01:57.760 But yeah, I don't really know how we're going to ever come out of this.

00:02:03.960 I mean, I just saw a headline this morning that movie theaters are just closed.

00:02:09.440 And I mean, that might not be that important to everyone, but no movies are being released.

00:02:17.080 These theaters are, you know, on the verge of bankruptcy.

00:02:20.860 Many of them are.

00:02:22.540 And there is this kind of question of, like, what is life going to be like once this virus does go away?

00:02:30.620 And it will go away.

00:02:32.840 And I don't know.

00:02:35.120 I mean, there are these huge questions.

00:02:37.120 Although, it seems to be this kind of thing in the back of people's minds.

00:02:43.840 I don't think people are really contemplating what's happening.

00:02:47.780 But yeah, I don't know how these small businesses are surviving.

00:02:52.340 I mean, I definitely feel for them.

00:02:54.740 It's so much worse in almost everywhere than Northern Finland.

00:02:58.520 So whatever it is I'm seeing in Northern Finland, where we can go to pubs till midnight,

00:03:02.040 where very few people even wear masks, where there's certainly no law mandating wearing masks,

00:03:07.120 much, much worse in the South of Finland, and in turn, much, much worse in somewhere like England or built-up America.

00:03:14.320 So it must be so much worse.

00:03:15.680 All of these jobs are reliant, basically, on people leading a decadent, materialistic lifestyle.

00:03:23.100 And if they're a Cornish pasty salesman in the City of London, for example,

00:03:27.540 and people aren't going into the City of London and buying their Cornish pasty rather than having a packed lunch.

00:03:34.360 And so the Cornish pasty, it just goes on.

00:03:36.300 But to see it at the airport like that, and in Finland, there's no law saying you have to wear masks.

00:03:43.820 So the most they can do is sort of a polite notice asking you to wear masks.

00:03:48.080 And I was the only person in the airport which was practically deserted.

00:03:51.140 There must have been over 20 people in the whole airport.

00:03:55.240 Yeah, I can imagine.

00:03:56.740 It was extraordinary.

00:03:57.900 It was just no one there.

00:04:00.280 Anyway, yes.

00:04:01.720 The masks are the solution, not the problem, though.

00:04:04.300 I mean, I think a lot of conservatives unite in their mind lockdowns and masks.

00:04:10.680 But I mean, again, the whole point of a mask is that you can live your life relatively safely.

00:04:17.600 You're not being locked down.

00:04:19.220 You're wearing a mask instead.

00:04:20.560 But anyway, I think before we're going to talk about coronavirus, we haven't revisited this in a little while.

00:04:27.480 And we were on this early.

00:04:31.080 We took it seriously early.

00:04:32.740 And while other people were either oblivious or in denial, and I feel like we kind of won the argument.

00:04:43.000 And now I don't know if there's that much more to say.

00:04:45.880 I mean, I think it is what it is.

00:04:47.860 It is a global pandemic.

00:04:49.640 We've seen this before throughout human history.

00:04:53.220 And this one's going to be a little bit different.

00:04:55.640 Obviously, we're in a different time.

00:04:57.040 But these things are predictable.

00:04:59.120 But at the same time, it's not going to kill half the population or all of the population or whatever some people or some wild people were suggesting.

00:05:09.160 It just is what it is.

00:05:10.360 It's something that can be faced.

00:05:11.720 But I think a good place to start would be in the political realm and something – I mean, this 2020 election – I mean, I thought 2016 was pretty wild.

00:05:27.180 But FBI Director Comey releasing a report on Hillary or so on, these seem like little minor passing scandals du jour.

00:05:43.320 And it seems like in this one, just every three days, we get something that everyone freaks out about.

00:05:50.380 And there was, of course, the really civil and high-minded presidential debate that we witnessed.

00:06:00.660 And just 24 hours later, I guess, or 48 hours later, Trump came down with coronavirus.

00:06:10.900 I have to say, it did seem to be only a matter of time before these kinds of things were occurring.

00:06:17.980 Apparently, the virus was spread at this Amy Comey Barrett announcement celebration where there were a number of people in the Rose Garden.

00:06:31.280 They were – the Republicans were writing, hi, we're going to get our conservative justice put in.

00:06:36.120 And very few people were wearing masks.

00:06:39.160 And it was just – yeah, I mean, looking back at it, it looks almost inevitable.

00:06:43.000 But the president getting this virus, I think, is interesting on a couple of different levels.

00:06:52.240 I mean, there's no way that it can't affect the campaign.

00:06:55.020 And it also brings coronavirus right back to the fore.

00:06:58.780 And I think people were kind of forgetting about it.

00:07:01.500 We've gotten used to this thing.

00:07:04.140 And now that the president has it, you just can't avoid it.

00:07:09.400 It is the major subject.

00:07:10.500 And then it also brings up a question just about him personally, which is that the man is 74 years old.

00:07:18.780 He is clearly overweight, although he does seem to be relatively healthy.

00:07:25.340 There was a health scare, I think, about two years ago that they were hushed up.

00:07:31.360 But he seems to be a relatively healthy man.

00:07:34.000 But he is older and he is overweight.

00:07:36.100 And, you know, it raises the prospect of the president dying right in the middle of a campaign.

00:07:46.600 I mean, again, I don't think that's going to happen.

00:07:48.840 But it does certainly raise that prospect.

00:07:51.420 So this opens up a number of different doors.

00:07:55.180 I could roll on this, but do you have anything to say on Trump and just how this will affect things kind of either politically?

00:08:05.440 Well, I suppose you were saying about how we've been here before.

00:08:11.780 I mean, in 1963, in Britain or across Europe, I think, perhaps, there was a flu pandemic.

00:08:18.660 And it was in late 63, like November, October, about 663.

00:08:23.320 I think my great grandmother, I think, died of pneumonia as part of age 69, probably as part of this pandemic because she died in November 1963.

00:08:32.180 And the people were just used to this.

00:08:35.960 This was just the way it worked.

00:08:37.220 There would be these pandemics every so often, a flu or whatever, and old people in those days, 69 was old, would die.

00:08:45.080 And we were slightly more used to death.

00:08:48.640 People that were elderly in those days, people like her who had been born in 1893, have been brought up in a society where child mortality was 10 percent.

00:08:57.240 And where far more people would die younger, would die, certainly men would die in their 50s.

00:09:03.580 And that was perfectly normal.

00:09:05.060 And so they were just used to death.

00:09:07.140 And I find that with Finland, because they were so much poorer than other Western European countries for so much longer,

00:09:14.680 there's this attitude towards death that is much more morbid and they're much more open about death.

00:09:19.680 And they even take photographs of funerals looking sad and things like this.

00:09:24.580 And you never take a photograph of a funeral in Britain.

00:09:28.240 And so they're just much more kind of connected to death.

00:09:31.540 Yeah, death happens, noni, elema on.

00:09:34.420 And it's just fine.

00:09:36.280 And we've moved so far away from that to death being something that never happens.

00:09:41.340 And if it does happen, it happens in hospitals.

00:09:44.020 Most people probably have never seen a dead body, whereas it was quite normal in this country until quite recently.

00:09:50.120 The body would be laid out in the sauna until it was taken away by the undertaker.

00:09:55.380 So everyone's seen a dead body.

00:09:56.640 We have such strong individualistic values and there's no belief in, no public belief in things like an afterlife, particularly in Europe, in an afterlife or whatever.

00:10:06.900 And so there's no kind of idea, well, you know, God will look after us.

00:10:09.740 God will look after his own or anything like that.

00:10:12.220 It's just this is it.

00:10:13.560 This is life.

00:10:14.060 This is now.

00:10:14.620 And if I die, that's it.

00:10:16.020 And so consequently, this is the idea of herd immunity.

00:10:19.240 That was interesting when they rolled that out at the beginning.

00:10:21.380 And that was that was appealing to these kind of group values.

00:10:24.500 It was almost like saying, you know, let's have some deaths.

00:10:27.780 It was implicitly saying let's sacrifice some people.

00:10:30.660 Let's have some deaths to make the herd immune. 1.00

00:10:33.580 And that would have been a perfectly reasonable argument 100 years ago.

00:10:36.800 People would have thought in terms of the good of the herd and the good of the community and whatever.

00:10:40.200 Now they just think in terms of their own, the good of the individual.

00:10:43.540 And so there's no conception of doing something for the good of the group.

00:10:46.620 The herd immunity is what you want with something like this.

00:10:49.120 But that implies a kind of group orientation.

00:10:51.560 So I was thinking about that.

00:10:52.960 And it raises questions.

00:10:53.660 I think that's what we're going to get, whether we want it or not, as well.

00:10:58.660 We're slowing down the achievement of herd immunity.

00:11:01.740 And then it raises the questions as well about the competence of government.

00:11:04.740 And that's interesting in terms of this Peter Turkin model that I've talked about before,

00:11:08.560 about the decline, about the collapse of governmental order and the flip between right and left and back again.

00:11:18.120 And it's when governmental competence is seriously in question,

00:11:21.760 like it was in the 70s in the UK with all the trade unions or whatever,

00:11:25.080 or in the 60s in America with all the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King and whatever.

00:11:30.280 When the government seems out of control, then you get, as you've got perhaps with Reagan,

00:11:35.040 a sort of right-wing backlash.

00:11:37.700 And this is an interesting thing here, that you have this sense of incompetence,

00:11:42.100 this sense that they just don't know how to handle this.

00:11:44.260 They don't know what to do.

00:11:46.440 Well, I would jump on this and amplify it.

00:11:50.880 I mean, I think you're using a Turkin model.

00:11:53.140 I'm using the Robert Prechter model of social mood theory.

00:11:58.780 But I think they actually come out in the same way.

00:12:02.760 But what he is basically saying, it's not so much a right-wing backlash,

00:12:07.220 although that is a common characteristic,

00:12:11.200 but it is a throw-the-bums-out backlash.

00:12:14.660 So basically, the people who are associated, whether they caused it or whether they should be blamed for it or not,

00:12:21.240 the people who are associated with some kind of trauma or sign of incompetency will be thrown out of office.

00:12:28.380 And so basically, stock market crashes, which in the Prechter model are a sign of social mood,

00:12:34.680 not necessarily the economy.

00:12:36.120 The economy will follow these things,

00:12:37.680 are basically a sign that there's going to be a major tumult.

00:12:42.100 And we saw this very recently with the Republicans getting tossed out in favor of Obama,

00:12:47.400 and that being this huge, you know, all-but-landslide election,

00:12:51.940 as landslidey as you can get in the age of polarization.

00:12:56.000 But I would say this, though,

00:12:57.840 and I would say this very strongly,

00:13:01.660 I do think that there is some basic incompetence and just a lack of strategic vision in the sense of,

00:13:08.880 what are we doing here?

00:13:10.240 Is this just the flu?

00:13:11.880 Is this actually a serious thing?

00:13:14.100 Are we trying to achieve herd immunity in a moderated fashion?

00:13:18.780 Like, we'll take care of people who are most vulnerable,

00:13:21.740 but we actually will achieve this herd immunity?

00:13:24.560 Or are we locking down totally like China, 0.95

00:13:27.660 and we're just going to have, you know, six weeks of hell,

00:13:30.620 but then will the virus will be eradicated?

00:13:32.760 There was no actual strategic vision.

00:13:35.380 And that goes back, if I may,

00:13:38.280 that goes back in some ways to the Turkin model,

00:13:40.500 because we are so polarized that it's very difficult to agree on something.

00:13:44.640 Whereas if you go back to the period of World War II,

00:13:46.780 although there was polarization in the 30s,

00:13:49.720 it was, if you follow Turkin's models,

00:13:51.700 society was nowhere near as polarized as it is now.

00:13:53.900 Society has not been this polarized for a very, very long time,

00:13:57.840 since the 1860s, he suggests.

00:13:59.920 And so that means all of these divergent opinions.

00:14:03.520 And you've also had, since then,

00:14:04.880 increasing genetic diversity because of the lack of selection pressure.

00:14:08.420 And that means more divergent opinions, more people that are...

00:14:11.160 So you're not...

00:14:11.860 In a time where we have to do something decisive

00:14:14.340 and agree on something and agree that this is the strategy

00:14:17.360 we're all going to do and this is how it works,

00:14:19.360 like in a time of World War II or whatever,

00:14:21.860 we can't do that because there's such a divergent...

00:14:25.020 No one trusts anybody else.

00:14:27.420 People don't trust the motives of other people.

00:14:30.400 And there's any way such divergence of opinion

00:14:33.080 between those that are individualists,

00:14:35.020 which makes up those people,

00:14:36.480 and those that are more group-oriented and whatever.

00:14:38.760 And so you can't do anything without causing a fight.

00:14:41.400 And everything becomes political.

00:14:44.680 So you see this among both left and right, in fact.

00:14:49.460 I mean, look, I am not a physician.

00:14:52.080 I should say this once we get started.

00:14:55.460 I am an amateur in the best sense of the word

00:14:58.440 when it comes to thinking about these things,

00:15:00.740 like pandemics and disease.

00:15:02.740 But I do know something about it.

00:15:04.260 I can express opinion.

00:15:05.640 I'm not just shooting from the hip.

00:15:06.880 But, you know, there is evidence that hydroxychloroquine,

00:15:13.760 which was actually still used for lupus,

00:15:18.020 it was a malarial therapy,

00:15:22.060 actually can be useful in many cases.

00:15:25.720 But the fact is, Donald Trump came out for it

00:15:28.440 and he promoted it as a miracle drug.

00:15:30.720 And his supporters were like,

00:15:31.780 oh, this is it.

00:15:32.560 You know, we've solved this thing.

00:15:33.680 And then the liberals basically claimed

00:15:36.300 that you're just going to die if you take it 0.98

00:15:38.420 and it's useless and so on. 0.93

00:15:40.560 Everyone was kind of wrong.

00:15:43.280 Everything becomes politicized.

00:15:45.140 Wearing a mask becomes politicized.

00:15:47.080 Oh, there's liberals wearing a mask.

00:15:48.760 Whereas wearing a mask, I mean, look,

00:15:50.400 I wear a mask when I can.

00:15:52.700 It's just a way of working together

00:15:56.540 to lessen this disease.

00:15:58.840 Like, let's do this.

00:15:59.900 It's not that much of a burden.

00:16:01.520 But again, that becomes,

00:16:03.660 you must be a liberal if you're doing that.

00:16:05.400 And Trump plays up on this

00:16:06.560 and the liberals play up on it.

00:16:07.860 It's like using the veil. 0.92

00:16:10.740 It's like Islamic, Muslims in Turkey 1.00

00:16:12.880 using the veil or not using the veil.

00:16:15.820 You wear a mask.

00:16:17.380 You are making a very conspicuous,

00:16:19.360 symbolic statement about your attitude

00:16:21.260 towards the government,

00:16:23.800 towards the governmental authorities,

00:16:25.740 whatever.

00:16:26.160 You're making a statement of commitment

00:16:27.940 to what the, basically,

00:16:29.880 the powers that be

00:16:33.680 are telling you to do.

00:16:35.740 And you're signaling that strongly.

00:16:38.400 So I think it's inevitable

00:16:39.300 that something that's as black and white

00:16:41.400 as are you wearing a mask or not?

00:16:42.720 It's like, are you wearing the veil or not?

00:16:44.780 It's a commitment.

00:16:45.240 I agree, but it doesn't,

00:16:46.320 I mean, people,

00:16:47.500 there was major mask wearing

00:16:49.100 during the flu pandemic,

00:16:51.940 the Spanish flu pandemic

00:16:53.000 of 100 years ago.

00:16:54.500 I mean, there's some actually

00:16:55.340 striking photos of theaters

00:16:59.960 and buses where people are wearing

00:17:02.220 these kind of handmade cloth masks.

00:17:03.840 So, I mean, it doesn't have,

00:17:05.500 I mean, I guess it is a sign

00:17:06.860 in any way that you are conforming

00:17:09.380 and we're in this together.

00:17:10.460 We're going to work on this.

00:17:11.700 But now it becomes a, yeah,

00:17:14.860 it does become a sign

00:17:15.840 of political affiliation.

00:17:17.440 I mean, I think it's rather sad.

00:17:19.800 I want to be group oriented.

00:17:21.420 I want us to just get on board

00:17:23.620 and solve this thing.

00:17:26.120 But I guess what I was going back to before

00:17:28.380 when I was mentioning social mood,

00:17:31.380 even though I think Donald Trump

00:17:34.080 would always struggle with this virus

00:17:37.180 because basically his administration

00:17:39.560 was associated with a trauma,

00:17:41.240 whether it's an economic collapse

00:17:43.460 or a pandemic

00:17:44.800 or a loss of a war overseas

00:17:47.100 or whatever.

00:17:48.360 I think he would always be associated

00:17:50.200 with a trauma

00:17:50.860 and that's never good

00:17:52.240 when you're trying to run for re-election.

00:17:55.200 That being said,

00:17:56.640 I can easily imagine

00:17:58.780 a parallel universe

00:18:00.340 in which he really did

00:18:03.440 the right thing on this

00:18:04.700 and jumped on it

00:18:06.000 and owned it

00:18:07.120 and became the coronavirus president.

00:18:10.100 And in fact,

00:18:11.080 it kind of feeds into the energy

00:18:13.580 that he was expressing

00:18:14.780 in 2015 and 2016.

00:18:16.960 If this flu or this coronavirus

00:18:19.920 happened to occur during Obama,

00:18:23.140 I can guarantee you

00:18:24.600 that Trump would be out there saying, 1.00

00:18:27.100 these incompetent buffoons 1.00

00:18:28.340 don't know how to handle it. 1.00

00:18:29.900 I'm a businessman

00:18:32.460 and a brass tacks kind of guy.

00:18:35.720 This is what we got to do.

00:18:36.880 We've got to shut things down for a month

00:18:38.760 and eradicate this virus

00:18:40.020 and get a vaccine.

00:18:40.800 I can see him saying those things 0.72

00:18:42.980 in 2015 and 2016.

00:18:44.560 And I could imagine

00:18:45.500 if he had better advisors

00:18:46.700 and better instincts.

00:18:47.680 I think there's interesting parallels

00:18:49.860 actually between him

00:18:50.920 and Boris Johnson.

00:18:52.820 Both of them seem to be

00:18:54.280 that they,

00:18:54.800 well, with Boris Johnson,

00:18:55.960 he wanted this position

00:18:58.260 because he likes being popular.

00:19:01.160 He likes being the centre of attention.

00:19:02.760 He's a showman.

00:19:05.180 He was editor of The Spectator

00:19:07.580 and he decided to become an MP

00:19:08.880 because in his words,

00:19:09.780 they don't put up statues

00:19:11.160 to the critics.

00:19:12.380 So he obviously just wanted

00:19:13.340 to be remembered and whatever.

00:19:15.160 And he goes in

00:19:16.320 and he does all this

00:19:17.120 and he becomes leader.

00:19:18.380 He's just a big baby.

00:19:20.140 He's a big baby, yeah.

00:19:21.380 And he's driving.

00:19:22.380 And then he wins the election

00:19:23.700 with a landslide victory over Labour,

00:19:25.740 dispatches the left,

00:19:28.040 takes Britain out of the EU.

00:19:29.860 And then what?

00:19:31.500 Like, what else does he really want to do?

00:19:33.400 I don't think he's really got

00:19:34.260 any idea what he wants to do.

00:19:35.580 And I get the impression

00:19:36.340 he's just kind of exhausted.

00:19:38.420 And there's now speculation.

00:19:40.120 I mean, when this speculation

00:19:41.260 comes into the newspapers,

00:19:42.480 when people are whispering

00:19:43.300 behind the scenes,

00:19:43.980 you know there's something to it.

00:19:44.960 People are talking about,

00:19:45.960 you know, removing him.

00:19:46.840 People are talking about

00:19:47.640 how the real Boris has gone.

00:19:50.280 And I get, you know,

00:19:51.080 where's Boris gone?

00:19:52.180 When's Boris coming back?

00:19:53.180 And that he hasn't been himself

00:19:54.200 since he got Corona.

00:19:56.640 And that he's sort of lost it, really.

00:19:59.100 He's just sort of lost his mojo.

00:20:00.900 He's lost his drive.

00:20:02.260 He's not really in it anymore.

00:20:04.760 Do you think he's been

00:20:05.320 physically impaired by it?

00:20:06.740 Physically, yeah.

00:20:07.440 Physically problems.

00:20:08.220 I think I get the impression

00:20:09.260 that there's this idea

00:20:11.680 of the long COVID

00:20:12.800 that you get over it,

00:20:14.060 but you've got kind of fatigue.

00:20:15.500 And he's been asked about this.

00:20:17.440 He said, oh, it's born natural.

00:20:18.820 But I think it may be the case.

00:20:21.000 And I think with Trump,

00:20:21.820 I get the impression

00:20:22.360 he didn't think he'd win.

00:20:24.980 He didn't.

00:20:26.200 In 2016.

00:20:27.460 I know.

00:20:28.340 And he gets it

00:20:30.200 and it's extremely hard work.

00:20:31.760 And then on top of that,

00:20:33.080 now, God, this, for goodness sake.

00:20:35.340 This.

00:20:36.180 And OK, you can,

00:20:37.860 if you're the president of America,

00:20:39.080 you can delegate

00:20:40.160 to a much greater extent

00:20:41.420 than if you're

00:20:42.320 the prime minister of Britain.

00:20:43.280 I mean, if you're

00:20:43.560 the prime minister of Britain,

00:20:44.300 that's a bit like

00:20:44.640 being the governor of a state

00:20:45.800 in America.

00:20:46.760 It's much more hands-on.

00:20:48.420 But even so,

00:20:50.100 I get the impression

00:20:50.720 he's kind of had enough.

00:20:53.240 Right.

00:20:53.800 Both of them have kind of,

00:20:54.820 this is really hard work

00:20:56.560 to be in charge

00:20:58.060 during a crisis like this.

00:20:59.480 And this is too much.

00:21:01.760 Right.

00:21:02.740 I would stress this, though,

00:21:05.020 is that, you know,

00:21:06.520 when you hear the right-wing

00:21:08.040 commentary on the lockdowns

00:21:11.520 and the mask wearing

00:21:12.680 and everything,

00:21:14.220 what are they saying?

00:21:15.800 This is totalitarianism.

00:21:17.240 This is fascism.

00:21:18.680 And in some ways,

00:21:20.620 they're right.

00:21:21.440 Like this,

00:21:21.960 this is a moment

00:21:23.300 when the state

00:21:25.080 asserts its authority

00:21:27.420 and says,

00:21:28.160 we are group-oriented.

00:21:29.840 We are going to solve

00:21:31.940 this problem.

00:21:32.780 Only we can solve

00:21:34.240 this problem.

00:21:34.820 Because in fact,

00:21:35.920 in order to solve

00:21:37.460 the problem

00:21:37.940 of a contagious disease,

00:21:39.120 you are going to have

00:21:39.820 to force people

00:21:40.840 to do things

00:21:41.640 that they otherwise

00:21:42.900 wouldn't do.

00:21:44.540 And again,

00:21:45.820 this is nothing new.

00:21:47.360 The idea of quarantines,

00:21:49.420 shutting down borders,

00:21:50.380 shutting down ports,

00:21:51.740 this Black Death, 0.97

00:21:53.220 Spanish flu,

00:21:54.180 there are more examples

00:21:56.080 than you would ever need.

00:21:58.760 And so if Trump

00:21:59.960 had simply owned it,

00:22:01.500 and I remember this photo

00:22:02.820 when he first wore a mask

00:22:04.180 and they had him out,

00:22:05.820 they had a picture of him

00:22:06.920 being surrounded by bodyguards

00:22:08.480 wearing a mask.

00:22:09.860 It was badass.

00:22:11.880 He looked like Bain.

00:22:13.860 Like if he had,

00:22:15.800 I'm just saying that,

00:22:17.840 and all of his supporters

00:22:18.900 would have gotten into it

00:22:20.100 because as we've said,

00:22:21.020 it's all kind of

00:22:21.900 political symbology.

00:22:23.020 He should have brought a mask

00:22:25.920 with the American flag on it.

00:22:28.440 It's something, yes.

00:22:30.060 Yeah, exactly.

00:22:31.200 Make America safe again

00:22:33.880 or some slogan,

00:22:35.420 make America great again

00:22:36.240 on the mask.

00:22:37.580 If I were advising him 0.77

00:22:39.200 and not these nincompoops,

00:22:41.100 this is what we would have done.

00:22:42.920 And it would have been

00:22:43.800 better health-wise,

00:22:45.900 but it would have been

00:22:46.440 better politically.

00:22:47.460 He should have just

00:22:48.160 owned the crisis

00:22:49.300 and said,

00:22:50.760 get in line.

00:22:52.300 Like, this is what we're doing.

00:22:54.000 We're solving this thing.

00:22:55.160 This is a national trauma.

00:22:56.960 We're going to do this together.

00:22:58.080 But instead,

00:22:58.840 it was about the stock market

00:23:00.180 and it was the liberals

00:23:02.340 to a fault

00:23:03.940 kind of defer

00:23:04.840 to so-called experts.

00:23:06.860 And so he was just

00:23:07.820 getting into these

00:23:08.960 kind of conspiracy theories,

00:23:10.380 to be honest,

00:23:10.960 about it's going to go away.

00:23:12.380 It's not real.

00:23:13.760 It's a hoax.

00:23:14.500 It's a game.

00:23:16.000 And it wasn't.

00:23:16.880 It is real.

00:23:17.860 It's not as bad

00:23:19.000 as some doomsayers said.

00:23:22.120 Granted,

00:23:22.720 but it is not a hoax.

00:23:24.060 It's not a joke.

00:23:24.940 It's a real thing.

00:23:25.760 These things can happen.

00:23:26.900 And he should have just

00:23:27.880 owned the fascism,

00:23:29.320 to be honest,

00:23:29.840 just played into the stereotype.

00:23:31.820 And I think he would have been

00:23:33.560 in a much better position.

00:23:35.860 But he just...

00:23:37.780 Yeah.

00:23:38.860 COVID masks

00:23:40.020 with the United States flags on

00:23:41.460 would have been...

00:23:42.800 And the left wouldn't dare...

00:23:44.120 would then be forced into...

00:23:46.240 And it would be him

00:23:46.780 that would be directing it.

00:23:49.060 Yeah.

00:23:49.560 And it wouldn't have been

00:23:50.580 a conspiracy theorist.

00:23:51.680 They'd be like,

00:23:52.240 it's a Republican hoax.

00:23:53.700 This is how fascism

00:23:54.780 happens in America.

00:23:57.480 That's the problem.

00:23:58.400 At first,

00:23:59.180 we didn't know it was real.

00:24:00.900 And a lot of the stuff

00:24:01.620 that comes out of the media

00:24:03.380 and left-wing,

00:24:04.060 lies,

00:24:05.400 fake news.

00:24:06.620 And so consequently,

00:24:07.800 you can see why

00:24:08.800 you would end up

00:24:09.460 erring on the side of caution

00:24:10.820 and thinking that,

00:24:12.060 oh, well,

00:24:12.280 it could go away.

00:24:13.160 It could be nonsense.

00:24:14.620 And also,

00:24:15.260 the fact that there was

00:24:16.020 this dimension of it

00:24:17.500 of sort of shutting down

00:24:18.460 capitalism

00:24:19.160 and promoting the fact

00:24:21.100 that the Venice

00:24:22.620 has never been so clean,

00:24:23.680 the skies have never been so...

00:24:25.080 The air has never been so pure.

00:24:26.440 All of these dimensions to it.

00:24:27.960 So you can see why

00:24:29.140 he made that decision.

00:24:30.440 But that's the decision

00:24:31.300 that he made.

00:24:32.200 I mean,

00:24:32.420 Biden is now 14 points ahead

00:24:34.540 of Trump.

00:24:37.540 Yeah, initially, yeah.

00:24:39.880 Which is a lot.

00:24:41.380 I don't know.

00:24:42.040 What was Hillary? 1.00

00:24:42.660 How far was Hillary 1.00

00:24:43.500 ahead of Trump

00:24:44.040 at this stage?

00:24:44.900 Not that high.

00:24:45.780 It was a consistent

00:24:47.240 like six-point edge.

00:24:49.600 And then, you know,

00:24:50.960 again,

00:24:51.340 it's about these states

00:24:52.720 because most of the states

00:24:54.080 are pretty,

00:24:54.680 very stable,

00:24:55.580 but it's about these

00:24:56.320 so-called battleground states

00:24:58.080 and he's losing

00:24:58.760 in those battleground states.

00:25:00.120 Even Ohio,

00:25:01.120 which was kind of

00:25:01.660 becoming a red state,

00:25:03.740 he's now like

00:25:05.020 neck and neck

00:25:05.660 or tied.

00:25:07.020 Texas is fairly close,

00:25:08.340 but in terms of

00:25:08.940 Wisconsin, Michigan,

00:25:10.020 and these places

00:25:11.840 he's losing.

00:25:12.400 In terms of Arizona,

00:25:13.740 he's losing.

00:25:14.640 That's a fairly shocking one

00:25:17.540 if you look back

00:25:18.280 just in terms of history.

00:25:21.740 So, yeah,

00:25:22.140 it does not look good.

00:25:24.120 And I don't know.

00:25:24.960 I mean,

00:25:25.120 you could say

00:25:25.680 like a sympathy vote

00:25:26.720 for Trump,

00:25:27.780 but I don't know.

00:25:29.220 I just think

00:25:29.880 we're so mean 0.95

00:25:31.220 and nasty

00:25:31.780 these days.

00:25:32.860 I don't,

00:25:33.480 I think it's almost

00:25:34.040 the reverse.

00:25:34.840 Yeah,

00:25:35.240 so nasty 1.00

00:25:35.920 wishing him dead. 0.99

00:25:37.680 The idea of wishing 0.99

00:25:38.220 someone dead

00:25:40.100 like that,

00:25:40.700 not that they've done

00:25:41.920 something awful

00:25:42.500 or something

00:25:42.880 like murder

00:25:43.460 of a child,

00:25:44.180 but just because

00:25:45.420 you don't like

00:25:45.900 their political opinions.

00:25:47.520 And that's how

00:25:48.120 appalling it is

00:25:49.500 to wish him

00:25:50.780 to wallow

00:25:51.560 in the suffering

00:25:52.300 of this person

00:25:53.080 who say what

00:25:54.280 you like about him.

00:25:55.080 He's got a wife,

00:25:56.040 he's got children,

00:25:57.580 he's got a young child

00:25:59.180 in one case,

00:25:59.820 teenage boy.

00:26:01.160 So it's an appalling

00:26:03.220 thing to do,

00:26:03.900 but that's what

00:26:04.400 they're like.

00:26:04.960 You know,

00:26:05.120 that's how nasty

00:26:06.220 and polarised

00:26:06.940 it's become.

00:26:08.200 So I think that,

00:26:09.220 I don't know,

00:26:09.840 I'm still,

00:26:10.760 I know you're convinced

00:26:11.880 that Biden's going to win

00:26:12.960 and indeed you're going

00:26:13.540 to vote for him.

00:26:14.980 But I'm,

00:26:16.880 as you know,

00:26:18.360 I'm trying to win.

00:26:19.460 So I'll just jump on

00:26:20.520 anything.

00:26:21.420 I can't see anything

00:26:22.580 positive out of this

00:26:23.540 because the lifeblood

00:26:24.520 of the Donald Trump

00:26:25.180 campaign is these rallies

00:26:26.420 where he says

00:26:27.520 controversial things

00:26:28.660 and then people

00:26:29.360 working class

00:26:30.420 Americans think, 0.87

00:26:31.280 yeah,

00:26:31.420 he's like me,

00:26:32.560 he's one of my,

00:26:33.240 you know,

00:26:33.520 and they bond with him

00:26:35.720 and they're inclined

00:26:36.300 to vote for him

00:26:36.900 and the people

00:26:37.340 of Ohio

00:26:37.860 and the people

00:26:38.400 of Pennsylvania

00:26:39.260 and Wisconsin

00:26:39.860 who were factory

00:26:41.720 workers or whatever

00:26:42.560 are inspired

00:26:44.640 by these campaigns,

00:26:46.500 by the no-nonsense

00:26:47.700 Trump rally.

00:26:49.860 But presumably,

00:26:51.300 he's A,

00:26:52.840 going to be social

00:26:53.840 distancing or something

00:26:55.300 for a couple of weeks

00:26:56.220 so he won't be able

00:26:58.020 to do...

00:26:58.460 I don't think he'll be

00:26:59.080 out of the hospital

00:26:59.780 for at least another

00:27:00.660 10 days.

00:27:01.500 I mean,

00:27:01.700 I...

00:27:01.900 The rallies are going

00:27:03.040 to...

00:27:03.440 And then there's going

00:27:04.100 to be...

00:27:04.400 10 days,

00:27:05.060 that's a long time.

00:27:07.160 In a campaign...

00:27:07.480 We're going to run

00:27:07.820 a month out of the election.

00:27:09.000 Yeah.

00:27:09.560 What, a month?

00:27:11.360 How long is that?

00:27:12.680 It's a month, isn't it?

00:27:13.480 A month left.

00:27:14.860 Yes, one month left.

00:27:16.020 Yeah.

00:27:16.580 Right.

00:27:17.060 So you're knocking out

00:27:18.640 a couple of weeks

00:27:19.300 in the middle of the campaign

00:27:20.300 and then even when

00:27:21.080 the campaign gets

00:27:22.240 back on track,

00:27:23.980 then Biden...

00:27:25.580 I mean,

00:27:25.820 Biden's not suspending

00:27:26.820 his campaign,

00:27:27.640 is he?

00:27:27.860 Biden's just suspending

00:27:28.820 the negative advertising.

00:27:31.420 Supposedly.

00:27:32.520 He's still doing

00:27:33.680 negative advertising

00:27:34.620 on Facebook.

00:27:35.480 I saw that.

00:27:37.300 So, yeah.

00:27:38.660 So maybe that was

00:27:39.560 built in or something.

00:27:41.180 It gives him

00:27:43.380 a tremendous advantage.

00:27:44.460 But then, God,

00:27:44.920 I mean, what next?

00:27:45.500 What if Biden

00:27:46.060 catches this flu?

00:27:47.300 I know.

00:27:48.360 I know.

00:27:49.180 I mean,

00:27:49.860 that's quite possible.

00:27:52.760 Yeah.

00:27:52.860 And then he's even older.

00:27:55.500 And, okay,

00:27:56.440 he's not a thief,

00:27:57.440 but he's older.

00:27:59.240 And it's just...

00:28:02.060 God, it's just almost...

00:28:03.220 It's just...

00:28:04.540 It's quite a year.

00:28:05.960 It's a...

00:28:06.360 Yeah, this is quite a year.

00:28:07.680 If you said to me...

00:28:08.360 Just a write-off, basically.

00:28:09.780 It's a write-off of a year.

00:28:11.140 It's literally...

00:28:11.760 I've managed to do nothing

00:28:12.800 since about March.

00:28:14.160 I haven't been...

00:28:14.920 I haven't left the country.

00:28:16.960 I don't know.

00:28:17.320 I left...

00:28:17.580 I did go to Latvia briefly.

00:28:19.060 That's what it can.

00:28:20.640 I haven't been to England.

00:28:22.440 I haven't...

00:28:23.360 It's just a write-off

00:28:24.860 of a year.

00:28:25.500 I don't know how...

00:28:26.260 What other years have been this...

00:28:28.180 I mean,

00:28:28.440 this is meant to be

00:28:29.100 the year of Terrorhawks.

00:28:30.800 Remember Terrorhawks 0.99

00:28:31.820 in the 80s?

00:28:33.400 The year is 2020.

00:28:35.260 And it was...

00:28:35.740 It was about these people

00:28:37.660 fighting Zelda,

00:28:38.780 the evil alien space woman. 0.56

00:28:41.840 Terrorhawks.

00:28:42.240 It was 2020.

00:28:42.980 And I was a child thinking,

00:28:44.120 God, what will it be like

00:28:44.880 in 2020?

00:28:45.680 Terrorhawks.

00:28:46.120 You don't have Terrorhawks 1.00

00:28:46.880 in America?

00:28:47.360 No, okay.

00:28:48.040 Well, so yeah,

00:28:49.360 it's...

00:28:49.800 I don't think it could possibly

00:28:51.100 do his campaign any good

00:28:53.060 that he can't do rap.

00:28:54.380 It's not good.

00:28:55.680 So this could be

00:28:56.960 a turning point,

00:28:57.660 I wonder.

00:28:58.980 Yeah.

00:28:59.740 Well, let's talk a little bit

00:29:01.820 about the disease itself

00:29:03.920 because I think there's some...

00:29:06.000 You know,

00:29:06.480 there's some interesting things

00:29:08.020 that the mainstream media

00:29:10.460 is talking about.

00:29:12.560 And I'll focus on this line

00:29:14.740 that you hear from politicians

00:29:16.880 and celebrities

00:29:18.020 and advertisements

00:29:19.400 and so on.

00:29:20.160 We're all in this together.

00:29:22.320 And that, of course,

00:29:23.720 is correct

00:29:24.700 in the sense that

00:29:26.380 it's a, you know,

00:29:27.500 it's a contagious disease

00:29:28.680 and you can affect

00:29:30.740 its outcome

00:29:32.360 even if you don't suffer from it

00:29:34.400 and it doesn't discriminate

00:29:36.980 and all that kind of stuff.

00:29:38.340 That's obviously all true.

00:29:40.060 But it's not exactly true

00:29:43.360 when it comes to the people

00:29:44.360 who suffer from it.

00:29:46.420 So I have a couple things here.

00:29:48.540 I'll just start sharing my screen.

00:29:49.980 The first thing

00:29:50.980 that I wanted to talk about

00:29:52.940 was just

00:29:54.300 excessive mortality

00:29:57.220 and

00:29:58.260 this idea of herd immunity.

00:30:03.540 So this is just a graph

00:30:05.920 that I ginned up

00:30:08.040 on Our World and Data,

00:30:10.020 which is a really good website.

00:30:12.980 But I don't, you know,

00:30:15.160 I don't quite want to sound

00:30:17.320 like one of these

00:30:18.460 anti-lockdown people,

00:30:19.900 but I've been looking

00:30:22.240 at the data

00:30:23.160 and I've almost just become one

00:30:25.300 because I'm not going

00:30:27.320 to lie to anyone.

00:30:28.980 And so this is the data

00:30:31.420 of Sweden, Germany,

00:30:33.900 the United States.

00:30:34.620 Germany has actually

00:30:35.580 fared quite well.

00:30:38.840 And, you know,

00:30:39.700 the good news

00:30:40.500 about all this stuff

00:30:41.480 is that these are

00:30:42.500 excessive mortality.

00:30:43.980 So this is

00:30:44.500 people who are dying

00:30:46.120 in excess of where

00:30:47.040 they were last year

00:30:48.100 and the year before,

00:30:49.340 et cetera.

00:30:50.520 And this also demonstrates

00:30:52.240 that this is not

00:30:53.400 a hoax.

00:30:55.500 People are,

00:30:56.420 particularly during

00:30:57.440 March through June

00:30:59.860 or so,

00:31:00.240 people were driving

00:31:01.200 quite, you know,

00:31:02.060 much less

00:31:02.920 than they would otherwise.

00:31:03.840 so there was,

00:31:05.600 you know,

00:31:05.900 a huge fall

00:31:07.380 in car accident deaths

00:31:10.100 and also just due

00:31:11.360 to the lockdown,

00:31:12.020 there was also

00:31:12.800 just less deaths

00:31:13.680 of, say,

00:31:14.300 standard flu

00:31:15.180 and so on,

00:31:15.680 which usually kills

00:31:16.460 30,000 to 60,000

00:31:18.520 a year in the United States

00:31:19.860 and a similar percentage

00:31:21.400 in other countries.

00:31:22.680 But I guess...

00:31:23.680 That's interesting,

00:31:24.880 though, isn't it?

00:31:25.300 So the way

00:31:26.660 that Sweden works,

00:31:28.540 Sweden's curve

00:31:29.840 is quite similar

00:31:32.160 to America's.

00:31:33.800 So you've got

00:31:34.220 this massive mortality

00:31:35.480 in March to April.

00:31:38.420 But then Sweden

00:31:39.620 has done this

00:31:40.680 and has essentially

00:31:41.660 achieved herd immunity.

00:31:43.020 It's not what it looked like.

00:31:44.020 I don't think anyone's

00:31:45.060 achieved herd immunity.

00:31:46.280 I mean...

00:31:46.640 Anyway,

00:31:47.420 they're not having

00:31:48.080 another peak.

00:31:48.220 We've ended up

00:31:48.940 in the same place,

00:31:49.940 I think is what

00:31:50.800 the graph demonstrates

00:31:52.240 to me.

00:31:53.320 And, you know,

00:31:54.940 I say this,

00:31:56.960 I'm just simply

00:31:57.940 being honest.

00:31:58.640 I mean,

00:31:58.860 when it first hit,

00:32:00.520 I was definitely

00:32:01.340 in support of the lockdown.

00:32:02.640 We didn't know

00:32:03.500 what was happening

00:32:04.340 and so on.

00:32:05.260 And I am in support

00:32:06.080 of mask wearing.

00:32:06.820 I wear masks

00:32:07.500 to whenever I'm out

00:32:09.520 in public places

00:32:10.420 and so on.

00:32:12.680 Sometimes when I'm

00:32:13.860 outside,

00:32:14.720 like at things

00:32:15.420 less so

00:32:16.460 because it's simply safer.

00:32:19.040 I mean,

00:32:19.240 I support these things.

00:32:21.040 I want to go along

00:32:22.060 with, you know,

00:32:24.220 what health experts

00:32:25.560 are telling us.

00:32:26.360 I'm not a science denier,

00:32:28.220 et cetera,

00:32:28.680 but I just,

00:32:29.400 I'm also not a data denier

00:32:30.640 and we all ended up

00:32:31.720 in the same place.

00:32:33.380 And so the Swedish model 0.84

00:32:34.780 was not entirely laissez-faire,

00:32:37.360 but they were doing work

00:32:40.460 with, you know,

00:32:41.700 particularly vulnerable people

00:32:43.080 and people just simply

00:32:44.420 weren't going out as much

00:32:46.280 due to just natural fear.

00:32:48.600 And I think that's going

00:32:49.380 to happen across

00:32:50.080 the Western world

00:32:51.000 for the next two to three years,

00:32:52.780 to be honest.

00:32:53.860 But the fact is

00:32:54.740 we all ended up

00:32:55.780 in the same place

00:32:56.740 and it does raise

00:33:00.760 questions about the lockdown.

00:33:03.900 I don't think we're reaching

00:33:05.060 herd immunity

00:33:05.760 in the sense of

00:33:06.400 mathematically speaking,

00:33:07.840 herd immunity

00:33:08.320 is about 60%

00:33:10.120 have been exposed.

00:33:12.020 But I've actually heard

00:33:13.480 that some have suggested

00:33:14.420 that herd immunity

00:33:15.540 is lower than that

00:33:17.680 in effect.

00:33:18.560 but the fact is

00:33:20.100 I don't think

00:33:20.660 we're close to it

00:33:21.460 but we seem to have

00:33:22.280 just simply ended up

00:33:23.200 in the best place.

00:33:24.840 Hospitals have gotten

00:33:25.560 better at treating this,

00:33:27.380 which you would hope.

00:33:29.160 The ventilators,

00:33:30.780 that seemed to be

00:33:31.540 kind of a wrong path

00:33:32.820 that we went down.

00:33:34.100 We're not using that.

00:33:36.360 We're figuring out

00:33:37.260 better techniques

00:33:37.920 of treating these deaths.

00:33:39.200 A lot of the low-hanging fruit

00:33:40.500 have been picked

00:33:41.740 in the sense of people

00:33:42.700 who are really vulnerable

00:33:43.840 to this disease

00:33:44.820 for whatever reason

00:33:45.660 have died of it

00:33:46.840 and things are going down.

00:33:49.520 But this does,

00:33:51.700 you know,

00:33:52.200 charts like this

00:33:52.860 do raise questions

00:33:53.960 about the efficacy

00:33:56.940 of a lockdown

00:33:57.720 to be honest.

00:33:59.640 Yes, yes.

00:34:01.260 Because you see,

00:34:02.740 clearly,

00:34:03.600 it's very interesting

00:34:04.700 to see that actually.

00:34:05.460 I hadn't seen that

00:34:06.080 painted so starkly.

00:34:07.740 Yeah.

00:34:08.400 It's very interesting.

00:34:09.440 So it was Sweden

00:34:11.700 didn't close schools,

00:34:14.360 didn't do all this stuff

00:34:15.620 and it's just ended up

00:34:17.140 in the...

00:34:17.520 I mean,

00:34:17.760 there were more deaths

00:34:19.020 per capita in Sweden

00:34:20.120 than Finland.

00:34:23.360 But...

00:34:23.660 Yes.

00:34:25.320 It's paralleling.

00:34:26.500 It's an American kind of rate.

00:34:29.100 Yes.

00:34:30.320 Yes.

00:34:30.740 As we have done

00:34:31.460 these lockdowns.

00:34:33.540 So this is interesting.

00:34:36.320 Let me try to

00:34:38.100 blow this up

00:34:40.480 a little bit.

00:34:41.840 So this...

00:34:43.360 So in terms of

00:34:44.520 herd immunity

00:34:46.100 and so on,

00:34:46.820 I think we're just all

00:34:47.780 kind of headed

00:34:48.680 towards the same place,

00:34:49.840 whether we like it or not.

00:34:51.280 And also just,

00:34:52.300 we don't have

00:34:53.260 the discipline

00:34:54.740 that the Chinese have, 0.99

00:34:57.600 both in terms of the state

00:34:59.080 and the people,

00:35:00.880 in terms of just

00:35:01.600 obeying orders

00:35:02.560 and the state

00:35:03.640 being willing to,

00:35:04.980 you know,

00:35:06.220 use effectively

00:35:08.200 totalitarian methods

00:35:09.400 in order to fight this.

00:35:10.900 We just simply

00:35:11.460 don't have that type

00:35:12.340 of discipline.

00:35:14.200 And so even though

00:35:15.760 we had a lockdown,

00:35:16.800 even though mask wearing

00:35:17.780 is ubiquitous,

00:35:20.280 you know,

00:35:21.000 it's still going to

00:35:22.480 get out there

00:35:23.080 and we're just going to

00:35:23.800 end up in the same place,

00:35:25.140 whichever technique we use.

00:35:26.720 This is kind of interesting.

00:35:28.000 This is CDC data.

00:35:29.880 So it's government statistics

00:35:32.440 and their websites

00:35:33.880 aren't as nice

00:35:35.020 as the private sphere,

00:35:37.720 like our world and data.

00:35:38.880 But basically,

00:35:41.240 we are seeing

00:35:42.680 really stark disparities

00:35:45.280 in terms of race.

00:35:47.960 So this is a chart

00:35:50.880 that is adjusted

00:35:52.780 and for percentage

00:35:55.640 of the population.

00:35:56.600 And that gray bar

00:35:58.640 is non-Hispanic whites.

00:36:01.820 The light purple

00:36:03.420 is Hispanics.

00:36:05.840 And the darker purple

00:36:08.600 is non-Hispanic American Indians.

00:36:11.660 And then that green,

00:36:13.880 that dark green

00:36:14.700 is African Americans

00:36:17.020 or non-Hispanic black.

00:36:18.980 And this basically shows

00:36:21.280 the death rates

00:36:22.860 as a proportion

00:36:24.260 of the population.

00:36:25.260 And again,

00:36:25.820 if we were all

00:36:26.840 in this together,

00:36:27.760 then it would be

00:36:30.040 totally random.

00:36:31.080 But no,

00:36:31.920 we know about age disparities.

00:36:33.800 I mean,

00:36:34.380 the silver lining of this

00:36:35.480 is that children

00:36:36.580 are not dying.

00:36:38.100 I think that would have

00:36:40.180 changed things dramatically

00:36:42.080 if that were the case.

00:36:43.040 If middle-aged people

00:36:44.340 were surviving

00:36:44.940 and kids were being

00:36:46.180 most affected,

00:36:46.900 I think people would have

00:36:47.840 rightfully freaked out.

00:36:49.900 That was what was happening

00:36:51.500 with the Spanish flu.

00:36:52.480 We're not kids,

00:36:53.000 but it was younger.

00:36:55.780 It was the older people 1.00

00:36:57.660 that were over 40

00:36:58.760 or something.

00:36:59.360 They were all right.

00:37:00.680 Yeah,

00:37:01.120 it's interesting

00:37:02.700 because there was

00:37:04.020 a pandemic that,

00:37:05.220 a lesser-known pandemic

00:37:06.560 that came before

00:37:07.680 the Spanish flu

00:37:08.380 called the Russian flu.

00:37:10.300 And some have speculated

00:37:12.080 that the older generations

00:37:13.840 that had lived through that

00:37:15.420 had built up

00:37:16.240 some immunity to this.

00:37:18.440 But yeah,

00:37:19.160 it was a very different situation

00:37:21.000 where younger people

00:37:22.680 in their 20s and 30s

00:37:24.260 were dying

00:37:26.560 and older people

00:37:27.640 were less affected.

00:37:28.840 And yeah,

00:37:30.660 I mean,

00:37:30.960 that is,

00:37:31.880 I mean,

00:37:32.280 I don't want to be cruel,

00:37:34.160 but that is,

00:37:35.900 this is better than that.

00:37:38.860 I mean,

00:37:39.100 you know,

00:37:40.020 there is a difference

00:37:41.400 between someone

00:37:41.960 who's 85 dying

00:37:43.100 and someone who's 25 dying.

00:37:44.640 Let's be honest.

00:37:46.820 But I think

00:37:48.180 what is showing up here,

00:37:50.500 and this has not been discussed

00:37:52.360 in the media

00:37:53.560 to the degree

00:37:54.360 that I thought it would be,

00:37:55.740 but we're seeing

00:37:57.720 serious disparities

00:37:59.140 in terms of race.

00:38:00.840 And I think

00:38:01.780 a lot of these

00:38:02.660 maybe can be explained

00:38:05.520 in terms of economics

00:38:07.560 in the sense of,

00:38:09.640 you know,

00:38:11.200 whites just being 0.97

00:38:12.540 better off

00:38:13.740 and getting better access

00:38:15.900 to healthcare,

00:38:16.500 just being healthier

00:38:17.260 because they're better off

00:38:18.340 being,

00:38:18.740 you know,

00:38:19.040 exercising more,

00:38:20.220 eating better,

00:38:20.980 and so on.

00:38:22.020 Also,

00:38:23.300 if they're more intelligent

00:38:25.060 as well,

00:38:25.580 then people that are intelligent

00:38:26.500 independent of how rich

00:38:27.900 they are tend to make

00:38:28.620 better health decisions.

00:38:30.100 Right.

00:38:30.320 And they're more

00:38:30.660 future-oriented.

00:38:32.100 Yes.

00:38:33.280 So,

00:38:34.320 a lot of that

00:38:35.660 can be explained

00:38:36.940 that way,

00:38:38.000 but I can't imagine

00:38:39.740 that all of it

00:38:40.760 can be explained

00:38:41.700 that way.

00:38:42.340 Well,

00:38:42.480 no,

00:38:42.600 we know in Britain

00:38:43.520 that if you look

00:38:44.820 at NHS workers

00:38:46.340 in Britain

00:38:46.960 and doctors

00:38:48.040 and things like that,

00:38:49.060 then South Asian doctors

00:38:51.200 are disproportionately

00:38:52.060 dying of this

00:38:53.680 or having serious

00:38:54.560 complications

00:38:55.100 compared to white doctors

00:38:56.440 and you're very

00:38:57.440 substantially controlling

00:38:58.620 for socioeconomic status

00:39:00.180 if you're just looking

00:39:00.880 at doctors

00:39:01.440 or looking at doctors

00:39:02.320 and nurses 0.99

00:39:02.860 and so it implies

00:39:05.000 that there is a,

00:39:06.180 and then a genetic component

00:39:07.560 and then there was a study

00:39:08.500 in the Lancet,

00:39:09.240 I think it was,

00:39:10.340 which showed

00:39:11.160 the British Medical Journal

00:39:12.380 which found that

00:39:13.620 this is hugely

00:39:14.880 disproportionately

00:39:15.480 influencing Somalis 1.00

00:39:16.940 in Sweden

00:39:18.580 and Finland

00:39:19.140 and that they have

00:39:20.780 to have,

00:39:21.800 they're vitamin D deficient

00:39:23.260 and that they have

00:39:23.940 to have double

00:39:24.620 the vitamin D dosage

00:39:25.860 that a white has to have 1.00

00:39:26.940 in order not to be

00:39:27.720 vitamin D deficient

00:39:28.840 and so,

00:39:30.180 and vitamin D deficiency

00:39:31.220 seems to be something

00:39:32.040 that would cause these,

00:39:33.960 would contribute

00:39:34.860 to these disparities.

00:39:36.820 So,

00:39:37.420 yeah,

00:39:38.360 probably part of it

00:39:39.760 is bound to be 0.98

00:39:40.380 that if you're black, 0.99

00:39:41.740 you're poor 0.99

00:39:42.160 and you're exposed

00:39:43.280 to it more

00:39:44.340 through living,

00:39:45.320 cramped conditions

00:39:46.080 and whatever

00:39:46.540 and you have 0.96

00:39:48.420 low average IQ

00:39:49.220 and so you're going

00:39:49.900 to make bad health choices

00:39:51.040 and be more likely

00:39:51.960 to be unhealthy anyway,

00:39:52.960 more likely to have

00:39:53.580 things like diabetes

00:39:54.540 and high blood pressure

00:39:57.460 and other underlying

00:39:58.040 health conditions.

00:39:59.380 But similarly,

00:40:00.260 I mean,

00:40:01.160 the health level

00:40:02.160 of the African,

00:40:03.100 of the Native Americans

00:40:03.960 is extremely poor 0.95

00:40:05.240 and worse 1.00

00:40:07.680 than that of blacks. 0.99

00:40:08.980 Okay,

00:40:09.140 they live in

00:40:09.780 sparsely populated areas

00:40:12.060 on the whole.

00:40:13.180 If you've been

00:40:13.580 to the Navajo Nation

00:40:14.480 as I have,

00:40:15.040 it's very sparse

00:40:15.660 in population.

00:40:17.400 But what would make sense

00:40:18.620 of that would be 0.97

00:40:19.620 that the blacks 0.99

00:40:21.780 are so high 1.00

00:40:22.760 because of vitamin D deficiency

00:40:24.480 that they're unhealthy

00:40:25.520 for that reason as well.

00:40:27.320 And so,

00:40:27.780 because in Africa itself,

00:40:29.180 okay,

00:40:29.520 the data is not,

00:40:30.440 how can we be sure

00:40:31.340 what's going on in Africa?

00:40:32.380 The data is not good,

00:40:33.240 but it doesn't appear

00:40:34.000 to have very badly

00:40:34.980 impacted Africa.

00:40:35.980 It's not cutting a swathe

00:40:37.120 through even South Africa,

00:40:39.440 which is quite densely populated

00:40:41.540 and that will be consistent

00:40:42.720 with the fact,

00:40:43.160 well,

00:40:43.240 they're not vitamin D deficient there.

00:40:44.620 They're living in the environment

00:40:45.540 to which they're adapted.

00:40:47.000 Right.

00:40:47.500 And so,

00:40:48.120 if the illness comes,

00:40:50.320 they're fighting it off

00:40:51.200 and you do get flu in Africa

00:40:52.760 because it's wet.

00:40:53.760 It's a hot,

00:40:54.320 wet climate

00:40:54.800 and it's wet.

00:40:55.800 It's the wet

00:40:56.420 that allows flu to breathe.

00:40:59.620 So,

00:40:59.920 I think it's partly,

00:41:01.300 yeah,

00:41:01.540 it's partly,

00:41:02.280 I think people are gradually

00:41:03.260 kind of having to breathe

00:41:04.040 and they don't want to accept it

00:41:05.220 because,

00:41:05.560 you know,

00:41:05.640 the sort of Angela Sany nonsense

00:41:07.080 about how there's no such thing

00:41:08.240 as race

00:41:08.680 and race differences

00:41:09.740 are only in superficial things

00:41:11.020 like skin and colour.

00:41:11.820 Well,

00:41:12.620 A,

00:41:13.420 they're not only in superficial things,

00:41:16.120 they're all kinds of things,

00:41:17.140 that's the nature of race,

00:41:18.300 they're genetic clusters,

00:41:19.280 then all kinds of things,

00:41:20.640 earwax composition,

00:41:21.820 numerous things,

00:41:22.420 as I will show you

00:41:23.140 in my forthcoming book.

00:41:24.840 But B,

00:41:25.660 of course,

00:41:26.400 skin is not a superficial thing.

00:41:28.520 Skin is an adaptation 0.96

00:41:29.680 to a specific environment

00:41:31.700 and if you or I were to go

00:41:33.320 to Northern Australia,

00:41:34.740 we'd be more likely

00:41:35.440 to get cancer,

00:41:37.080 skin cancer,

00:41:37.980 as a consequence

00:41:38.520 of our skin

00:41:39.520 is not adapted

00:41:40.340 to high levels of sunlight

00:41:42.140 all the time

00:41:43.020 and similarly,

00:41:44.020 therefore,

00:41:44.300 if you get it with dark skin, 0.57

00:41:45.820 somewhere that's cold

00:41:46.520 and dark in the winter,

00:41:47.800 then you're more likely

00:41:48.500 to be vitamin D deficient

00:41:49.660 and therefore more likely

00:41:50.820 to develop certain kinds

00:41:52.420 of illnesses,

00:41:53.640 including flu.

00:41:55.160 And so,

00:41:56.080 there's nothing superficial

00:41:58.900 about skin

00:41:59.900 except in the literal sense

00:42:01.460 that it is on top of it.

00:42:02.800 It is on the surface.

00:42:05.160 So,

00:42:05.700 I think that it raises

00:42:06.520 that problem

00:42:07.060 and they really don't want

00:42:07.940 to have to accept that,

00:42:09.160 but they're going to have to,

00:42:10.180 really.

00:42:10.440 I mean,

00:42:10.600 we know it from organ trans,

00:42:11.980 this schizophrenic attitude,

00:42:14.080 but we know it from

00:42:14.660 organ transplants

00:42:16.080 that you're more likely

00:42:18.120 to reject an organ

00:42:19.300 if the person is

00:42:20.080 from a different race

00:42:21.020 from you.

00:42:21.480 Of course you are

00:42:22.020 because you'll be less similar

00:42:23.140 to them

00:42:23.500 than they would be

00:42:24.040 if they were the same race.

00:42:25.220 And there's a lack

00:42:25.920 of South Asian donor organs

00:42:27.820 in Britain.

00:42:28.820 So,

00:42:28.960 there's all these South Asians 0.98

00:42:29.840 that need donor organs

00:42:30.920 and there's no pool of them.

00:42:33.580 The people,

00:42:33.900 they don't donate.

00:42:34.800 They don't want to have

00:42:35.260 their bodies cut up.

00:42:36.200 They have religious reasons

00:42:37.640 for objecting.

00:42:39.460 Right.

00:42:40.240 And so,

00:42:41.380 it's just in line

00:42:42.400 with that,

00:42:42.860 really.

00:42:43.220 So,

00:42:43.580 yeah,

00:42:43.740 I think that's what's going on

00:42:44.720 with the,

00:42:45.420 it's a perfect storm

00:42:46.880 of problems

00:42:47.440 which is going to impact 0.94

00:42:48.240 blacks more. 0.98

00:42:49.380 To a lesser extent, 0.51

00:42:50.300 it will impact Native Americans

00:42:51.540 more,

00:42:53.040 perhaps because

00:42:53.720 that's just,

00:42:54.700 I mean,

00:42:54.960 they're living in the environment

00:42:55.740 to which they're adapted

00:42:56.560 but then they have another problem

00:42:58.460 which is that they're less adapted

00:42:59.520 to dealing with flu

00:43:00.400 because when we came to America

00:43:02.900 and in many cases

00:43:03.740 until the 19th century,

00:43:04.940 they were herders

00:43:05.620 which meant they didn't have

00:43:06.820 that much animals

00:43:07.860 as agriculturalists do

00:43:08.880 which means they were less

00:43:09.740 riven by things like flu

00:43:10.920 which means they're less adapted

00:43:11.980 to flu

00:43:12.460 which means they're less likely

00:43:13.420 to be able to deal properly

00:43:15.140 with flu

00:43:15.640 whereas we've co-evolved

00:43:16.900 with flu

00:43:17.400 over we whites 0.87

00:43:18.740 over the last

00:43:19.900 you know,

00:43:21.300 10,000 years

00:43:22.720 so

00:43:23.640 that,

00:43:25.360 or a bit less than that

00:43:26.200 but

00:43:26.440 whatever,

00:43:27.600 5,000 years

00:43:28.240 but the point is

00:43:28.920 that a lot of them

00:43:29.440 were supposed to flu

00:43:30.700 until the white man

00:43:31.560 came into their territories

00:43:33.000 in many cases

00:43:34.020 in the 1800s

00:43:35.140 right

00:43:35.940 so

00:43:36.240 that's what's going on

00:43:38.140 Yeah

00:43:38.980 and I mean

00:43:39.940 obviously

00:43:40.360 there are huge

00:43:40.940 age disparities

00:43:41.960 this was just something

00:43:43.940 I was reminding myself of

00:43:45.440 but

00:43:45.700 of

00:43:46.520 but the

00:43:47.140 58

00:43:48.120 is actually

00:43:48.940 the most common age

00:43:50.680 among whites

00:43:51.520 whereas

00:43:52.440 among

00:43:53.080 Hispanics

00:43:54.420 the most common age

00:43:55.640 is 11

00:43:56.220 among blacks

00:43:57.320 is 27

00:43:58.100 among Asians

00:43:58.840 is 29

00:43:59.540 so I mean

00:44:00.200 white people

00:44:01.320 are 1.00

00:44:01.860 just seriously

00:44:03.480 older

00:44:04.320 as a group

00:44:05.420 than

00:44:06.180 other races

00:44:06.980 and

00:44:07.640 clearly

00:44:08.900 this is affecting

00:44:10.020 the elderly

00:44:11.900 more than it's affecting

00:44:12.720 young people

00:44:13.180 and the elderly

00:44:13.680 just by the nature

00:44:15.020 of being old

00:44:15.620 they're going to have

00:44:16.100 more comorbidities

00:44:18.120 etc

00:44:19.340 but

00:44:20.620 it does seem

00:44:22.080 again

00:44:22.420 from the data

00:44:23.500 that we have

00:44:24.280 it's worth raising

00:44:25.680 as well

00:44:26.220 that 0.81

00:44:26.920 black people 0.99

00:44:28.180 age more quickly 0.99

00:44:29.540 than white people

00:44:30.520 as again

00:44:32.180 I'm trying to

00:44:32.800 look

00:44:32.940 they have a faster

00:44:33.740 life history strategy

00:44:34.860 so the average

00:44:35.580 they go through

00:44:36.880 the menopause

00:44:37.520 for example

00:44:38.000 a couple of years

00:44:38.680 younger than white people

00:44:39.700 age

00:44:40.620 they're literally

00:44:42.120 older

00:44:42.920 for their age

00:44:45.180 which would be

00:44:46.020 the problem

00:44:46.400 as well

00:44:46.720 they're age

00:44:47.920 they're just more elderly 0.97

00:44:48.780 than white people

00:44:49.920 a 70 year old

00:44:51.320 black person 0.59

00:44:51.940 is physically 0.75

00:44:52.580 older

00:44:53.220 than a 70 year old

00:44:54.180 white person

00:44:54.780 so that would

00:44:55.460 as well

00:44:56.180 but again

00:44:59.520 it does seem

00:45:00.540 to be

00:45:01.160 that

00:45:01.780 this

00:45:02.340 just

00:45:02.620 basic

00:45:03.420 vitamin D

00:45:04.400 which is

00:45:04.860 I mean

00:45:05.140 I know

00:45:05.580 that

00:45:05.920 when I got

00:45:07.140 I got really sick

00:45:08.300 in 2016

00:45:09.180 I had something

00:45:10.360 I don't know

00:45:10.780 I had a sinus infection

00:45:11.960 or flu

00:45:12.660 or some combination

00:45:13.740 of things

00:45:14.060 I was finally

00:45:14.720 put on antibiotics

00:45:15.760 but I

00:45:16.180 I kind of had

00:45:16.900 a whole month

00:45:17.740 where I was

00:45:18.440 had flu-like

00:45:20.060 symptoms

00:45:20.460 and

00:45:21.100 the doctor

00:45:22.460 said that

00:45:22.900 it was a vitamin D

00:45:23.800 deficiency

00:45:24.360 that I was getting

00:45:26.240 just because

00:45:26.680 I was in

00:45:27.240 from Montana

00:45:28.300 during that long period

00:45:29.340 and

00:45:29.920 there's not enough

00:45:31.540 sunlight

00:45:31.880 out here

00:45:32.840 so I mean

00:45:33.340 vitamin D

00:45:34.140 is just a key

00:45:34.960 component

00:45:35.480 of a healthy

00:45:36.020 immune system

00:45:36.700 and

00:45:37.260 you know

00:45:39.000 in this case

00:45:39.860 in terms of race

00:45:40.740 and skin color

00:45:41.680 in particular

00:45:42.260 this is

00:45:42.980 there's just

00:45:43.760 an evolutionary

00:45:44.320 mismatch

00:45:45.060 of people

00:45:45.700 not

00:45:46.060 getting the vitamin D

00:45:47.880 they need

00:45:48.280 from the sun

00:45:48.840 yep

00:45:49.940 but there

00:45:51.700 it is

00:45:52.400 okay

00:45:54.900 let's

00:45:55.920 put a bookmark

00:45:56.760 in it

00:45:57.080 but

00:45:57.440 good discussion

00:45:58.940 and

00:46:00.320 we will see

00:46:01.720 everyone

00:46:02.320 in

00:46:02.900 three or four

00:46:03.780 days

00:46:04.020 of the next

00:46:04.380 show

00:46:04.640 thank you

00:46:05.540 bye-bye

00:46:19.940 bye-bye

00:46:21.080 bye-bye

00:46:22.640 love you

00:46:22.780 peace

00:46:23.480 bye bye

00:46:24.340 bye

00:46:25.480 We'll be right back.

00:46:55.480 We'll be right back.

RadixJournal - October 05, 2020

Coronavirus Gets Personal

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