Ep. 443 - Sifting Through The Myths And Facts About The Coronavirus
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Summary
Today on the show, we re talking about the coronavirus, the panic, the fear, the confusion, the myths, and everything in between. I m no expert, so I can t speak with any expertise, but I can tell you at least what some experts are saying, and we ll try to figure out what our approach should be and our response should be to all this. Also, Canada is trying to ban so-called conversion therapy, and I ll explain why I think it s a bad idea.
Transcript
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Today on the show, we're going to talk about the coronavirus. And I'm probably like you. I don't
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know what exactly to think about all of this. It's overwhelming. It's confusing. It is pretty
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scary. And so we're going to try to talk it out, sift through the facts and the fictions and the
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myths and everything surrounding this. I'll tell you what some of the experts are saying.
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I'm not an expert, so I can't speak with any expertise, but I can tell you at least what
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some of them are saying. And we'll try to figure out what our approach should be and our response
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should be to all this. So that's coming up. Also, five headlines, including Canada trying to ban
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so-called conversion therapy. Is that a good idea? I think it is definitely not, and I'll explain why.
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And in your daily cancellation, remember the woman who made the hilarious math mistake on MSNBC
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a few days ago? Well, she got a lot of grief for that. People making fun of her.
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Which is going to happen in the internet age. But she's not happy about it, and she's come back,
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and you'll never guess. You'll never guess what direction she decided to take it. She says
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that you're racist if you made fun of her for it. And so we're going to talk about that as well.
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All of that and more on the way. But first, as I said, I want to talk about the coronavirus
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and try to sift through this. There's been a lot of focus on the panic, the mass hysteria. And I've
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talked about that too. But I'm beginning to think that we're worried about panic. Are we getting to
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the point where actually mass denial is more the problem? Have we been so focused on stopping people
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from panicking that we have been maybe unintentionally encouraging denial? And is that becoming the
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bigger issue? My thinking on this has shifted. I will fully admit that. And it's hard for me to say
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that my thinking has changed completely because, or to say that I've changed my mind completely,
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because I'm in the same boat as a lot of you. I don't know exactly what to think. There's a lot
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of information. A lot of people screaming from every side of this thing. A lot of people trying
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to exploit it for political reasons or for ratings or for whatever else. There are many pundits and
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commentators like myself who are very desperate to have the best take on the issue. So I just want
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to, as I said, talk through some of this. And I do that with the disclaimer, again, repeated,
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that I am no expert at all on this. Not that you'd be tempted to take me as one, hopefully,
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but just to be clear, what I'm doing right now, this is like the conversation that you're having
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in your living room with your family and friends about this, the conversations I've had
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with people about this. I'm not sitting here teaching you about the virus. Let me teach you
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about how pandemics work. No. What the hell do I know? We're just, as I said, talking through it and
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seeing if we can't find a little bit of clarity, just a bit amid the confusion.
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Now, to begin with, let's get some updates on this thing, starting with President Trump giving
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an address from the Oval Office last night, announcing some rather dramatic steps,
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justified steps, I think, including a travel ban from Europe.
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After consulting with our top government health professionals, I have decided to take several
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strong but necessary actions to protect the health and well-being of all Americans.
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To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe
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to the United States for the next 30 days. The new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight.
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These restrictions will be adjusted subject to conditions on the ground.
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There will be exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings and these
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prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things
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as we get approval. Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing.
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These restrictions will also not apply to the United Kingdom. At the same time, we are monitoring
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the situation in China and the South Korea. And as their situation improves, we will re-evaluate
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the restrictions and warnings that are currently in place for a possible early opening.
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Of course, Trump is being attacked by the Democrats for this, yada yada. I'm not really interested
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in getting into the politics of it. Yeah, the Democrats are trying to make this in. They were complaining
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Trump's not doing enough, and now they're complaining that he's doing too much. It's too draconian
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and strict to restrict travel from Europe. They're obviously wrong about that, but I don't want to
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make that the focus. I think that's a mistake to make that the focus, to try to use the coronavirus.
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Let's talk about how the Democrats are wrong about the coronavirus. I mean, they are wrong,
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but a lot of other people are wrong too. And that's not really the point. That's not what's going to
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keep us safe. And that's not the most important thing to us and our families, I don't think, in this.
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So that's not what we're going to discuss. I think the measure makes sense. It's good. This is what
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we need to do. But there are two things in response to it or reaction to it that I want to say. One is
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that it's too late, of course, to keep the virus out of our country completely. It's good to prevent
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more sources of it from entering. So that's why I think this is a good thing to do. But it's here
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already, obviously. So our primary focus would seem, it would seem that it needs to be on measures
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that we can take within our country to fight it. Trump did not address or focus on that very much
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in his speech. He focused on it a little bit, but not nearly enough. I was hoping to hear a lot more
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about it, including testing. Because right now, one of the biggest problems we have is that not very
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many people have been tested for it. And it's difficult to get a test if you think you need one.
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We should be testing everyone who might even remotely have come in contact with it. That's
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what South Korea did. And we'll get back to South Korea in a moment. Meanwhile, the NBA has chosen to
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suspend its season. Another drastic step that will result in massive losses of income, not just for
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the wealthy basketball players and the officials and the owners, but think about the working class
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people that work at the stadiums, the concession stand, they work at the gift shop, even the
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restaurants around the arenas in these cities. Many of them rely on that foot traffic on game day
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to stay afloat. How many of them are going to go under because of things like this?
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Lots of lost money, lots of lost jobs. And this is just the start of it. Also, it was reported
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yesterday that Tom Hanks and his wife have coronavirus. They were shooting a movie in
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Australia, I believe. And now they have it. They're reportedly doing well, though. And Dr. Fauci,
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director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This is all stuff that
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happened yesterday with coronavirus. That's why I'm going through all of it now.
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Dr. Fauci, by all accounts, very reliable, non-political person, was talking to a congressional
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committee yesterday about the disease. And this is how he tried to explain the lethality of it,
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Dr. Fauci, can you, by way of comparison, briefly explain how does COVID-19 compare to other previous
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health situations, SARS, H1N1, things like that?
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Sure, sir. Thank you for the question. Well, SARS was also a coronavirus in 2002.
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It infected 8,000 people, and it killed about 775. It had a mortality of about 9 to 10 percent.
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So that's only 8,000 people in about a year. In the two and a half months that we've had this
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coronavirus, as you know, we now have multiple, multiples of that. So it clearly is not as lethal,
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and I'll get to the lethality in a moment, but it certainly spreads better. Probably for the
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practical understanding of the American people, the seasonal flu that we deal with every year
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has a mortality of 0.1 percent. The stated mortality overall of this, when you look at all the data,
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including China, is about 3 percent. It first started off as 2 and now 3. I think if you count
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all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings
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the mortality rate down to somewhere around 1 percent, which means it is 10 times more lethal than the
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seasonal flu. So the good news is that the mortality rate isn't as high as has been reported,
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the 2 or 3 percent, probably not that high. The bad news is, according to him and most other medical
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experts that I've read, it's at least still 10 times deadlier than the flu. And the flu is,
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all these comparisons to the flu and people saying, and I've said this too, that at least early on,
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I was using this comparison, which I've come to see is not exactly legitimate, or at least not very
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helpful. But this comparison to the flu, you know, it's just the flu. The flu is already a serious
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illness. I just had the flu. It's not a walk in the park by any means. And if you've actually
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gotten the flu, you know, when you have it, you could kind of tell how people die from this.
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I'm not saying that I was on my deathbed. I wasn't. But you get very sick, high fever. You could have
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some difficulty breathing. You're up coughing. You feel like you can't breathe, things like that.
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And you can see how, if somebody's elderly or if they're young, they got an underlying medical
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condition, you could see how this might result in some very serious issues for them. So the flu is
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a serious illness to begin with. Now, if you're saying that it's 10 times deadlier than the flu,
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which is what Dr. Fauci just said, that should really make our ears perk up. I'm not saying it
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should make us panic, but that's something we need to pay attention to. When you got a man like Dr.
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Fauci telling you that about a disease that's just entered this country and is spreading exponentially
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as we speak, that's something I, you can't just waltz past that. I don't think.
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And we hear 1%, well, one, maybe the death rate is 1%. And we think that's not so bad. But first of all,
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the 1% translated to, you know, if we're talking about potentially many thousands or even millions
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of cases, 1% of that is quite a lot. And it's growing exponentially. We're at 1,300 cases right
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now, reported cases. That's without much testing. But it was only two weeks ago that Donald Trump did
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a press conference, you might recall, and said, said it was, I think it was exactly two weeks ago
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or two Wednesdays ago. He said 15 cases and we're expecting soon there'll be no cases.
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Fast forward 14, 15 days, we have 1,500 reported cases. But on this issue of the mortality rate,
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just because you survive an illness doesn't mean that it was a mild case necessarily and that you
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came out unscathed. So let me read a little bit of an article by James Hamblin, who's a doctor and
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lecturer at Yale School of Public Health. I think you need to hear what he has to say. And the whole
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article is worth reading. I'll read you a little bit of it. We'll get to that in just a second.
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enter Walsh. Okay, back to this article. This is from Dr. James Hamblin. He says,
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COVID-19 is not the flu. We have a vaccine for the flu. We have antiviral medications designed to
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treat the flu. We have a sense of what to expect when we catch the flu and when it's necessary to seek
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medical attention. Doctors have experience treating the flu and tests to help diagnose the flu right
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there in the office while you wait. Against the new disease, we have none of this. This coronavirus
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is unknown to our species. Once it breaks into one of our cells, the extent of its spread through the
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body seems to vary significantly. The experience can slowly progress from the familiar cough-congestion
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fever to a life-threatening inflammatory response as the virus spreads down into the lungs, filling the
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airways with fluid. Survivors can have permanent scarring in the lungs. The virus can also spread
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into other organs, causing liver damage or gastrointestinal disease. These effects can play
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out over longer periods than in the flu, sometimes waxing and waning. Some patients have begun to feel
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better than falling critically ill. The disease can be fatal despite receiving optimal medical care.
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Okay, I think that's an important reference point, important context for this.
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Is it scary? Yeah, but I don't think we can just ignore it on that basis or on the basis that it's
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going to make people panic. Another article in The Atlantic by a Johns Hopkins professor provides
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more details. He says, the first fact is that, at least in the initial stages, documented cases of
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COVID-19 seem to increase in exponential fashion. On the 23rd of January, China's Hubei province,
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which contains the city of Wuhan, had 444 confirmed COVID-19 cases a week later. It had 4,903. Another
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week later, by the 6th, it had 22,112. The same story is now playing out in other countries around
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the world. Italy had 62 cases on the 22nd of February. It had 888 cases by the 29th, 4,636 by the
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6th of February. Because the United States has been extremely sluggish in testing patients for the
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coronavirus, the official tally of 604 likely represents a fraction of the real caseload.
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But even if we take this number at face value, it suggests that we should prepare to have it up to
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10 times as many cases a week from today, and up to 100 times as many cases two weeks from today.
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The second fact is this disease is deadlier than the flu, to which the honestly ill-informed and the
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irresponsible insist on comparing it. Early guesstimate made before data were widely available
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suggests that the fatality rate for the coronavirus might wind up being about 1%. If that proves true,
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it's 10 times as deadly as the flu. But there is reason to fear that the fatality rate could be
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much higher. According to the World Health Organization, the current case fatality rate,
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a common measure of what portion of confirmed patients die from a particular disease, stands
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at 3.4%. That figure could be an overstatement because mild cases of the disease are less likely to
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be diagnosed, or it could be an understatement because many patients have already been diagnosed with the
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virus, but have not yet recovered and may still die. So more facts and context there. Michael
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Osterholm, who's an epidemiologist, was interviewed on Joe Rogan's show the other day. It's about an
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hour and a half interview. I'd recommend watching the whole thing I did. And I would also recommend
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reading the entirety of both of the articles I just read pieces of. You can find both of them in
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the Atlantic. But let me play just about a minute of Ulsterholm. Again, an epidemiologist. He's an
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expert and this is what he does for a living. This is him talking about the coronavirus and what kind
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of threat it does or does not pose to us. How serious is this? Is this something that we need
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to be terrified of or is this overblown or how do you stand on this? Well, first of all, you have to
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understand the timing of it in the sense that it's just beginning. And so in terms of what hurt, pain,
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suffering, death has happened so far is really just beginning. This is going to unfold for months to
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come yet. And that's, I think, what people don't quite yet understand. What we saw in China, I'm convinced
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as are many of my colleagues, as soon as they release all of these social distances, these mandated stay in
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homes, haven't left your home in weeks and weeks kind of thing, when they go back to work, they're on
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planes, trains, subways, buses, crowded spaces, manufacturing plants, even China is going to come
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back again. And so this really is acting like an influenza virus, something that transmits very,
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very easily through the air. We now have data to show that you're infectious before you even get
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sick. And in some cases, quite highly infectious, just breathing is all that you need to do.
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So from this perspective, I can understand why people would say, well, wait a minute, flu kills a lot
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more itself every year than this does. And I remind people this just was beginning.
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Probably the best guesstimate we have right now on what limited data we have would say,
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this is going to be at least 10 to 15 times worse than the worst seasonal flu year we see.
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And there have been many articles and interviews and so on with doctors, epidemiologists,
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people who do this for a living, people who know the science, not pundits, not talk radio hosts,
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not podcast hosts like myself, but people who actually know how this works. And most of them,
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from what I have seen, with a few exceptions, are saying things like this. They're not screaming it.
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They're not saying, oh my God, we're all going to die. But they're saying, this is serious. This is a
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big problem. And this is a serious illness. And it is worse than the flu. And it just is. I'm sorry,
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but it is. So I look at this and I listen to it. And I look at the fact that governments have been
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quarantining whole populations, shutting down events, taking drastic steps, costly steps,
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absorbing massive hits to their economy in order to stop this. I look at companies like the NBA,
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willingly losing millions, if not billions of dollars. I look at the numbers, the numbers as
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they stand right now, exponential growth in the United States, Italy in such bad shape that they're
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having to decide which patients to treat and which to let die. And if you think that could never
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happen here, we'll also keep in mind that we're being warned by healthcare professionals
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that if there's a massive influx of people who need medical treatment because of this,
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and I think the hospitalization rate right now is about 10%, which is high. If there's a massive
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influx, we don't have the capacity to treat all those people right now. We don't have enough
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ventilators. We don't have enough hospital beds. We don't have it. And we already know we don't have
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enough tests. So you look at all that. And then South Korea. There are people who point to South Korea
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for encouragement. I was doing that myself. I was looking at South Korea while they're containing this.
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That's encouraging. Maybe, you know, maybe Italy's an outlier. Who knows? But South Korea took very
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dramatic steps. We have to keep that in mind, decisive and quick steps, including they opened
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up drive-throughs where you could drive through and get a test. Easy as that. Don't even get out of
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your car. They were testing everybody. They're doing about 15,000 tests a day. We're doing,
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we have done total less than 7,000. So they do more. We do half. We've done half total of what
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they do in a day, just to put that in perspective. They shut down big events. They practice very
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disciplined social distancing. They even, according to a Washington Post article I just read,
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they put GPS trackers on the infected people anonymously so that other people, and then that
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information was available online. You could go and find out where the infected people are and then
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avoid them. Now, I'm not saying that we should do that. I think there's serious privacy concerns
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there. Very serious. I am saying that before you feel too good about South Korea, realize they did
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things to stop this that we are not doing, some of which we should do, like mass testing.
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I have a friend who came here just this week, flew here from Israel, and he has cold symptoms.
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No fever. He's probably fine. Probably just a cold. And he has, you know, he's got a runny nose
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and things like that. And that's, as far as I understand, is not really a symptom that is typical
00:21:32.940
of COVID-19. But even so, he's an international traveler with, you know, flu-like symptoms. He
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should be able to get tested. He called up, though. They told him, you know, you don't need to get
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tested. Call us back if you have a fever. Maybe we'll help you out then. That's not the way it should
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be. In South Korea, he's getting tested. Here, doesn't get tested. So I look at all this, and I
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begin to suspect that my initial take was wrong, as much as I hate being wrong. Initially, I thought
00:22:08.720
that this was media hype. Going back a month ago, when we first started hearing all these reports,
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there was warnings of global pandemics. And I said, my reaction was, yeah, well, here we go again. The
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media is always hyping up some doomsday scenario, some new apocalypse, some vehicle of doom and
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destruction they're always talking about. And then it always fizzles out. Whether it's a pandemic or
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a hurricane, I mean, how many times have we seen this? The Boy Who Cried Wolf, right? But the point
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of the Boy Who Cried Wolf story is that the wolf actually shows up one day. Is this our wolf? Has the
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wolf come? I don't know. Should we panic? Obviously not. But I don't think the, I'm not sure if the
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don't panic takes are really helpful at this point. And I have shared those takes as well. I even wrote
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an article about, oh, we shouldn't panic. Well, yeah, of course we shouldn't panic. Everybody already
00:23:09.680
knows that. Everybody knows in theory that you shouldn't panic. It's not like anybody is suggesting
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actual panic as a strategy, or it's not like anyone ever panics. No one ever makes the decision. You
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know what? I think I should panic right now. Yeah, that seems like the right approach. And then they
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start panicking. That's not the way it works. So saying don't panic already is, is pretty useless.
00:23:33.400
Everybody knows that. It's like saying to someone, don't have road rage. Nope. Don't have it.
00:23:41.240
You shouldn't have road rage. Well, yeah, of course. Nobody thinks road rage is a good strategy. No one
00:23:47.380
thinks, no one is pro road rage. It happens because their emotions get the best of them.
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And it's, and I doubt that someone in the midst of, they're about to explode in a road rage event.
00:24:00.000
I don't think they're going to stop and say, you know what? Why did I hear someone tell me once about
00:24:03.340
how I shouldn't have road rage? Oh yeah, they did tell us. Okay. So I think I won't.
00:24:06.660
Yeah, you shouldn't panic. Fine. But you also shouldn't panic. Even if you're in a really dire
00:24:13.900
situation, if you're, if you're drowning in shark infested waters, you shouldn't panic then either.
00:24:19.780
Panic's not going to be helpful, but that doesn't mean that you're not in a dire situation. And if
00:24:23.660
somebody's shouting from the shore, don't panic, that's not going to be a lot of help. It's a fat
00:24:29.600
lot of good that's going to do for you. And in any case, it doesn't negate or minimize the fact
00:24:36.480
that you really are in a, in a, in a, in a tough spot. Zombie apocalypse, don't panic.
00:24:43.960
Yeah, sure. But it's still a zombie apocalypse. Now I'm not saying that this is tantamount to us
00:24:49.440
all drowning in shark infested waters. I'm not saying it's a zombie apocalypse. But I don't know
00:24:55.860
if the, if the, if, if we really need to keep telling people not to panic. And besides, are people
00:25:00.380
actually panicking over this? Some people are panicking that they might run out of toilet paper.
00:25:05.480
We've seen a few videos of people fighting over toilet paper. I think that's not really
00:25:09.040
panic over the disease. That's more panic that they're going to need toilet paper and not have
00:25:12.960
it. I understand that panic. Well, in fact, I've, we, we have all in our lives had panicky moments
00:25:18.660
where you need some toilet paper and can't find it. So that I can almost understand. Other than that,
00:25:23.980
I don't see people running through the streets with their hair on fire.
00:25:26.900
I don't see it. I think some people are concerned, very concerned. I I'm in that camp now. I'm
00:25:33.100
officially there. The facts on the ground as they stand right now, I think justify serious concern.
00:25:39.100
And, um, now what I'm starting to worry is that the issue is less panic and more denial
00:25:45.700
from what, this is all anecdotal, but the people talking about panic, it's anecdotal for them too.
00:25:51.900
So anecdotally, what I have seen denial is at this point, far more common than panic.
00:26:01.680
I haven't actually seen or talked to anyone who's legitimately panicking. So I haven't met that
00:26:07.000
person. I have met people and talked to people who are in straight up denial about this.
00:26:12.340
And then you have to also think what if, if we are in a pandemic situation, which the World Health
00:26:19.380
Organization officially declared a pandemic, we, what is, what is more dangerous? Do you think
00:26:24.660
what's more dangerous to panic or to be in complete denial, to take too many precautions or to take none?
00:26:32.160
Um, what I've, what I've seen online, especially a lot of people saying, this is all a media hoax.
00:26:45.400
That's a real point of view that a not insignificant portion of people seem to have that. This is either
00:26:52.300
completely invented by the media or they are hyping it up to kingdom come. And it's really not a big,
00:26:58.360
big deal. It's just a cold and they're trying to take down Trump with it. It may be true that
00:27:03.440
they're hyping it up and they want to take down Trump, but it's also true. This is a serious issue.
00:27:08.400
And that's why you don't need to listen to Don Lemon or Anderson Cooper about this or Chris Cuomo.
00:27:15.000
Okay. Um, listen to the epidemiologists and the doctors, unless they're going to say that all of
00:27:21.760
them are also engaged in a conspiracy to take down Trump.
00:27:25.360
And I think we see that there is cause for concern. And I've, I've, I have seen someone just yesterday,
00:27:33.700
I was talking to someone online on Twitter and they said, uh, they said, you know, I'm not worried
00:27:38.980
about it because for everybody 40 and under it's harmless. That was the word they use harmless,
00:27:44.600
harmless for people 40 and under. That is not true. It's true that it hasn't killed any children.
00:27:51.880
Thank God. There are certain diseases that for whatever reason don't really affect kids. Although
00:27:57.080
kids are still carriers of the disease and they're going to bring it to people who it will affect,
00:28:01.540
but it gets, it gets worse and worse. It seems as you get older. So if you're in your thirties and
00:28:09.080
you get this, you're probably not going to die, but you could. And, and there is a, and, and, uh,
00:28:15.940
it's, it's, you, you could have, even if you don't die, a very serious response to it.
00:28:22.040
Harmless. But it seems like there are those who are inventing comforting facts about this
00:28:28.760
to make themselves feel better. This is someone who just is telling themselves,
00:28:33.020
Oh, it's harmless. If you're under 40, it just made that up. No doctor has said that.
00:28:37.440
No epidemiologist, no expert, no health organization has said that it's harmless for
00:28:40.880
people under 40. That's just someone who's made it up. And I ask you, what is, what is a greater
00:28:46.080
danger and threat to your health to be someone who thinks it's harmless or to be someone who's
00:28:51.020
too freaked out about it? Um, I think we'd all do well to heed the warning of trying to pull up this
00:29:01.040
article. Uh, there was an article in Newsweek written by a doctor in Western Europe
00:29:07.840
and, uh, a little bit of what he says. He says, I'm a doctor in a major hospital in Western Europe
00:29:13.820
watching you Americans and you Brits in these still early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
00:29:18.740
It's like watching a familiar horror movie where the protagonists yet again split into pairs or
00:29:24.220
decide to take a tour of a dark basement. The real life version of this behavior is pretending this is
00:29:29.240
just a flu, keeping schools open, following through with your holiday travel plans, going into the
00:29:34.140
office daily. This is what we did in Italy. We were so complacent that even when people with
00:29:38.320
coronavirus symptoms started turning up, we wrote each off as a nasty case of the flu.
00:29:42.540
We kept the economy going, pointed fingers at China, urged tourists to keep traveling.
00:29:46.620
And the majority of us told it, told ourselves and each other, this isn't so bad. We're young,
00:29:51.360
we're fit. We'll be fine. Even if we catch it fast forward two months and we are drowning.
00:29:55.880
Statistically speaking, judging by the curve in China, we are not even at the peak yet,
00:29:59.520
but our fatality rate is at over 6%, double the known global average. Put aside statistics,
00:30:05.860
here's how it looks in practice. Most of my childhood friends are now doctors working in
00:30:09.400
North Italy. In Milan, they are having to choose between intubating a 40-year-old with two kids,
00:30:15.860
a 40-year-old who is fit and healthy with no comorbidities, and a 60-year-old with high blood
00:30:20.380
pressure because they don't have enough beds. In the hallway, meanwhile, there are another 15 people
00:30:25.020
waiting who are hardly breathing and need oxygen. And he continues from there.
00:30:30.860
The problem, I think, and so you listen to people in Italy and they look at the denial that we're in
00:30:37.240
right now, some of us, and they're saying, snap out of it right now because this is coming for you.
00:30:44.740
Yeah, it's a different kind of healthcare system. Yes, Italy is an older country,
00:30:47.940
but we're not immortal, right? We're not superheroes. We are humans. We're mortal just like them. We're
00:30:55.460
not impervious to disease. And viruses don't discriminate. They don't care that it's America
00:31:03.560
and we're different. I don't think a virus recognizes that. The problem, I think, and I know
00:31:07.760
this is my issue even now, part of my issue, well, part of my hesitation in taking this as seriously
00:31:15.520
as I probably should, is not knowing who to trust. And I think that's a big issue. It's a crisis of
00:31:22.780
trust. There's so much information out there. We know there are a lot of people lying, a lot of
00:31:28.140
people with agendas, and there's just so much of it. There's such an influx of information for us now
00:31:32.680
from so many different sources. What do you trust? Well, I feel fairly safe trusting epidemiologists
00:31:38.220
and doctors and health organizations on the topic of infectious diseases and pandemics,
00:31:42.140
even the CDC and the World Health Organization. Now, I'm not going to trust these organizations or
00:31:47.440
these people implicitly on every topic, but on the issue of infectious diseases, pandemics, how viruses
00:31:55.840
work, well, if I don't trust them, then who do I put above them? Who am I going to trust instead of
00:32:02.300
them? I'm not an expert on it. I'm not going out there into the field to do research. I'm not getting
00:32:08.120
my microscope out and studying this thing myself. I'm sure you're not either. So you got to trust
00:32:12.220
somebody. You have to get your information from somewhere. If you're not going to get it from these
00:32:15.860
people, who are you getting it from? Cable news hosts? Talk radio hosts? But the other issue is that
00:32:23.900
it just doesn't feel real, does it, for us right now? Right now, for me, I mean, I hear what they're
00:32:30.080
saying in Italy. I saw China on the news. I hear about the measures they took in South Korea. I read the
00:32:35.780
stories of quarantine, people getting sick and dying, even in this country, even young, healthy
00:32:40.040
people. I read it. I hear it. I understand it. But it doesn't feel real because in my life, things
00:32:47.560
look normal. And there's still this thought in the back of my head that, no, no, this kind of stuff
00:32:54.960
doesn't happen anymore. Not here. Not in the middle of my comfortable life. Pandemics? What is this? The
00:33:00.980
Middle Ages? That's not going to happen. It's 2020. Don't be ridiculous. Now, I don't think that to
00:33:07.960
myself explicitly. I don't literally think that it couldn't happen here because for some reason,
00:33:14.560
we've grown past it in modern society. But that's the attitude in the back of my mind.
00:33:20.060
Maybe you can relate. In fact, I know that a lot of people can relate based on the demeanor of so many
00:33:24.680
people and based on the people who are still, in spite of all the facts on the ground and everything
00:33:28.720
we're hearing from experts on the subject, still they insist that this is nothing to worry about.
00:33:33.740
Based on what? On what basis do they wave all this stuff off? I think it's on the basis of arrogance,
00:33:39.880
denial, and a misplaced belief and confidence that the normalcy and comfort of our modern life
00:33:44.520
will continue indefinitely. I know that because I feel it too, and it's hard to resist.
00:33:52.960
So have I changed my tune on this? Yes, absolutely. Do I think the world is coming to an end? No,
00:33:56.780
I do not. Do I think we should panic? No, nobody does. Do I think that the more dire predictions
00:34:02.280
of millions of people being infected and many, many dying, do I think that will come true? I don't
00:34:07.200
know. I really don't. I'm not sure. But I will go out on not much of a limb and say that there is
00:34:15.360
reason for serious concern for us and reason to make some adjustments to our lives and the way that
00:34:21.360
we conduct ourselves to protect ourselves and our loved ones. That's where I am right now.
00:34:27.440
If it all sounds kind of confused and contradictory and unhelpful, well, then I guess good, because I
00:34:32.160
don't want you coming to me for help on this. I'm not the guy for that. No show host is. You
00:34:38.320
shouldn't be going to anybody. None of us should be going to someone who gives opinions for a living
00:34:43.620
for advice on something like this. All we can do is listen to what the doctors and epidemiologists
00:34:50.960
are saying, not just your local pediatrician who isn't necessarily an expert on viral pandemics,
00:34:55.380
though he certainly knows more than I do and you do, but the men and women who do this work for a
00:35:00.080
living, we listen to them, look at how governments and powerful institutions across the world are
00:35:06.160
handling this at great cost. And then we make up our minds about how we should treat it. And that's
00:35:13.640
the best I think that we can do at this point. Let's move on to some news headlines. Number one,
00:35:22.440
Bernie Sanders called a press conference yesterday and most people thought he was going to drop out.
00:35:27.340
But those people forgot that Bernie Sanders is an old man obsessed with power and the sound of his
00:35:31.700
own voice. So they forgot about that and thought he would drop out. He didn't. Instead,
00:35:35.840
he did this. We are winning the generational debate. While Joe Biden continues to do very well
00:35:44.640
with older Americans, especially those people over 65, our campaign continues to win the vast majority
00:35:55.980
of the votes of younger people. And I am talking about people not just in their 20s, but in their 30s,
00:36:05.620
and their 40s, the younger generations of this country continue in very strong numbers to support
00:36:15.180
So Bernie's staying in this thing. He's not going anywhere. He's not going to win. He really can't
00:36:20.420
win. And his continued presence is only going to hurt the eventual nominee, Joe Biden, who, by the way,
00:36:25.720
is a guy who could really use a break at this point. He could really use some time off his feet,
00:36:30.180
as it were. But instead of giving that to him, Bernie is going to keep harassing him and forcing him to
00:36:36.700
stay in it and keep arguing, which as a conservative, I'm a big fan of. I love the approach. If I were a
00:36:43.220
Democrat, I'd be pretty, pretty upset. But remember, as I always say, it requires an immense amount of
00:36:49.100
ego and self-delusion to run for president in the first place. I mean, just thinking to yourself,
00:36:56.680
imagine thinking to yourself, seriously, I should be president, and I can actually win.
00:37:02.800
I should be in charge of the whole country. I am the guy. And I can, and I could really win too.
00:37:09.900
Imagine thinking, imagine the narcissism required to have that thought in your head.
00:37:16.940
And, and the near psychotic level of delusion you have to have to think that you could actually win.
00:37:22.680
Now, of course, it does end up being true. One of those deluded narcissists will really win. And so
00:37:28.500
maybe in the end, they weren't so deluded, though they're still narcissistic.
00:37:32.800
But that's why this, when we understand that, it becomes less mysterious why a guy like Bernie
00:37:38.280
Sanders stays in the race, acting like a deluded narcissist to the very end. Well, because that's
00:37:43.340
what he is. And that's why he got in. And that's what's been, that's been the animating force behind
00:37:47.800
his run this entire time. Number two, Harvey Weinstein, as you probably heard, is going to jail
00:37:54.400
for 23 years, convicted of rape. He's also going to be, I imagine, in solitary confinement,
00:38:00.600
essentially, his, for his whole time in prison. I would think that, although I did, I did recently
00:38:05.660
read that they moved Bill Cosby out of protective custody and put him in the general population,
00:38:09.840
which is kind of surprising. It seems unlikely they would do that with Weinstein. I don't know.
00:38:15.740
Either way, an astounding turn of events for Harvey Weinstein. Not astounding at this point.
00:38:20.760
The fact that he's going to jail, if you, if you're looking at the last three years,
00:38:23.380
the fact that he's going to jail for rape is not very astounding. But if you go back five years,
00:38:26.440
10 years, he was one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, wined and dined by the world's elites.
00:38:33.600
Now he's going to prison as a rapist, and he'll die there in a cell. Of course, this should have
00:38:38.860
happened much sooner. And those elites who are wining and dining him, a lot of them should be
00:38:42.940
in jail with him. But the point is, evil doesn't look so glamorous anymore when it's hobbling into a
00:38:51.120
jail cell as an old, fat, broken man to sit there for the rest of his life and then eventually die.
00:38:58.120
Forgotten and scorned. That's what evil gets you. Number three, a bill in Canada, speaking of evil,
00:39:03.920
would criminalize so-called conversion therapy. Here's the language of the bill.
00:39:09.040
Any practice, treatment, or service designed to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender
00:39:13.980
identity or to eliminate or reduce sexual attraction or sexual behavior between persons of
00:39:18.260
the same sex. For greater certainty, this definition does not include a surgical sex change or any
00:39:24.480
related service. So that's how they describe conversion therapy, and the bill would ban that.
00:39:35.220
Now, in a pretty powerful testimony against this bill, a woman who used to live as a man
00:39:39.560
recorded a video that was going to be presented to the lawmakers in Canada urging them to vote against
00:39:45.920
the bill, because she's someone who relied upon so-called conversion therapy to come to a point
00:39:52.540
where she's happy and satisfied in her own body as the person that God made her. Here's some of what
00:39:56.880
she had to say. Senators of Canada, I would encourage you to vote no on S202. Without the help of
00:40:03.840
discipleship ministries and counseling, I could not be living in my biological sex healthy and whole.
00:40:10.560
Giving those who struggle with gender confusion hormone is only treating the symptom and not treating the
00:40:15.900
real underlying issues. In voting no, you would allow hope to continue for those like me who are
00:40:22.920
seeking help from counseling or from a ministry or help through their church. These places are offering
00:40:28.820
healing and restoration to those who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction, homosexuality,
00:40:34.660
or gender confusion, not conversion therapy. Now let's think about this. Think about a bill
00:40:39.600
that criminalizes so-called conversion therapy. First of all, what happened to being pro-choice?
00:40:46.120
If someone wants to seek this counseling, why shouldn't they have the choice to do it? What
00:40:50.560
you're really saying with a bill like this is that a person in the LGBT community should not be able to
00:40:55.980
find and receive and choose to receive this sort of counseling, even if they want it. How is that not
00:41:02.560
infantilizing, patronizing, controlling? Also, let's focus on the transgender piece of this because
00:41:10.880
this is where it's really, really evil, in my opinion. What the bill seems to be saying is that if
00:41:17.100
somebody, if a man, let's say, thinks he's a woman, it should be against the law to help him accept his
00:41:24.180
natural biological sex, to try to relieve him of this delusion that is destroying his life
00:41:32.520
and causing him despair, and which he is seeking. He has gone to a counselor, seeking to be rid of it.
00:41:40.020
What Canada is saying is, no, it should be illegal. You can't treat that. You can't give him what he
00:41:44.600
wants. You can't help him. If he thinks he's a woman and he's unhappy with that delusion and wants
00:41:50.840
to be free of it, you, sorry, you can't help him. But it's not illegal. It's explicitly not illegal
00:41:57.620
to castrate him. So that's what you're allowed to do. He comes to you, thinks he's a woman, he's
00:42:02.720
in despair. You can castrate him. You can't give him psychological treatment. Castration is going to
00:42:09.320
be the only acceptable treatment option, one of the only acceptable treatment options for someone with
00:42:13.400
gender dysphoria. Canada has completely lost its mind in conclusion. But actually, wait a second here,
00:42:18.380
because let's think about this. If a gay man wants to be a woman, becomes a woman, quote unquote,
00:42:26.300
and is still attracted to men, then if his new gender is legitimate, and if we're told he's a
00:42:33.920
woman now, that's what he is, well, hasn't he just gone from gay to straight, according to you?
00:42:39.920
Now he's a woman attracted to men. He's a straight woman. Went from gay man to straight woman. He went
00:42:44.000
from gay to straight, right? So isn't that conversion therapy then? Haven't you effectively
00:42:49.620
changed his sexual orientation, which you've told us is impossible to do? Well, you just did it.
00:42:57.760
So you're telling me it's illegal to change someone's sexual orientation unless you do it
00:43:01.980
by castration, in which case, you're good to go.
00:43:05.780
Four, Sarah Palin was on the show The Masked Singer. That's the one where celebrities or former
00:43:14.440
celebrities come out in masks and sing, as the name would suggest. This show is somehow very popular.
00:43:21.280
Sarah Palin showed up, and I'll show you the clip. I'm not really sure the context because I don't
00:43:24.760
watch the show because I have an IQ over 82. So I don't know the context. She's singing, but she
00:43:30.960
doesn't have a mask on. So I don't know what, I thought she's supposed to have a mask on.
00:43:33.420
So here she is singing, or rapping, actually. And, well, here it is. Watch.
00:43:39.780
The artist formerly known as The Bear. Y'all make some noise for Governor Sarah Palin.
00:43:54.320
When a girl walks in and is a ditty-ditty racing around, speaking in your face.
00:44:09.280
My homegirl tried to warn me, but I thought you got me so.
00:44:30.080
Five, a bit of a disturbing tweet, I thought, from the Chicago Transit Authority.
00:44:37.060
Our crews continue to work all hours of the day to ensure trains, buses, and stations are cleaned and disinfected daily.
00:44:43.000
And there's footage of CTA crews cleaning and scrubbing down the trains very diligently, which is good.
00:44:51.260
The disturbing part is the apparent insinuation that they don't do this every day anyway, regardless of a virus.
00:44:58.180
In fact, I've become sort of uncomfortable with that.
00:45:00.460
But all of the wash your hands stuff, even tutorials you find, the media, newspapers publishing these how-tos on how to wash your hands.
00:45:19.080
Who's the person who saw a tutorial on washing your hands in the newspaper and said,
00:45:24.380
And I see people on social media saying, Man, I'm washing my hands so much now.
00:45:31.800
Okay, but what were you doing before is my question.
00:45:35.820
Because you should be washing your hands frequently throughout the day anyway.
00:45:39.380
Not just when you go to the bathroom, but like throughout the day you should wash your hands.
00:45:48.200
My point is I hope that this becomes a habit that outlasts the virus,
00:46:05.700
but one of the key parts to preventing transmission is washing your hands and not touching your face.
00:46:27.420
Now, I want to be a little sympathetic because we've, I think many of us have been in a spot before
00:46:33.400
where we use a certain word and then somebody corrects us and tells us that we mispronounced it.
00:46:38.640
And then we think back and we think, oh, oh my goodness.
00:46:41.280
I, I had been saying this word wrong my entire life.
00:46:44.640
This is a word I use a lot and I, no one has ever told me I'm pronouncing it.
00:46:50.320
And they thought to themselves, what an idiot and never told me anything.
00:46:53.080
It's kind of like if you're, you know, it's like 6 p.m.
00:46:58.380
And you went to the bathroom six hours ago and somebody says, hey, your fly's unzipped.
00:47:02.460
And you think, you're the first person to tell me that.
00:47:05.560
I had that experience recently when I went to go to a food truck to order a gyro.
00:47:10.820
And I noticed, for the first time, I noticed that the guy behind the counter referred to
00:47:23.220
And then I looked it up and I went, no, that, okay, that's actually what I'm supposed to
00:47:28.900
And that's a problem because I love gyros and I eat them all the time.
00:47:32.500
So how many times have I gone up and said, can I have one gyro, please?
00:47:36.920
And the person thought, what a dumb American and never bothered to tell me.
00:47:44.560
Although I'm sticking with gyro because I think you were just sounds weird.
00:47:53.100
Now, finally, we'll go to our daily cancellation.
00:47:55.540
We're not going to have time for the emails today, but we had a couple of good why I'm
00:48:00.580
Remember, you can become a member, Daily Wire member and send emails to the mailbag.
00:48:05.880
Today, we have a rare double cancellation to end with.
00:48:12.040
But in this case, it's a person being canceled twice for basically the same infraction or
00:48:19.380
And here we have Mara Gay, who earns this distinct honor of the rare double cancellation.
00:48:26.780
She was the woman, well, I'll just play it for you to remind you.
00:48:29.480
She was the woman involved in this famous, rather infamous exchange.
00:48:36.060
If he wants to spend a billion bucks beating this guy, he could do it.
00:48:42.160
Somebody tweeted recently that actually with the money he spent, he could have given every
00:48:50.000
When I read it tonight on social media, it kind of all became clear.
00:49:00.380
Don't tell us if you're ahead of us on the math.
00:49:02.380
He could have given each American one million dollars and have had lunch money left over.
00:49:15.020
It does suggest, you know, what we're talking about here, which is there's too much money
00:49:22.000
They were both off by a factor of about a million.
00:49:25.280
500 million divided by 327 million gives each person a buck and a half, not a million dollars.
00:49:30.800
And that woman, Mara Gay, as well as Brian Williams, both came in for some criticism, a
00:49:37.440
lot of criticism, because this is the internet age and this is what happens.
00:49:40.340
When you say something stupid, you're going to have 10 million people calling you stupid.
00:49:44.320
It's going to last for about three or four days, probably, maybe a little bit longer
00:50:10.600
She didn't want to take this in stride or play along or be self-deprecating about it.
00:50:20.580
What narrative did she try to construct to explain the criticism?
00:50:28.100
She wrote a piece in the New York Times with the title,
00:50:31.520
My people have been through worse than a Twitter mob.
00:50:34.400
When you're a black woman in America with a public voice, a trivial math error can lead to
00:50:49.600
And here I am making fun of Alexandria Ocasio-Curtiz.
00:50:54.520
And she goes on from there to talk about the racist attacks that she's suffered,
00:50:57.880
all the horrible racism, the racist mob that came after.
00:51:01.240
She doesn't, never mind the fact that Brian Williams, again, is a white man,
00:51:04.880
and he came in for the same criticism, same exact amount, probably more.
00:51:11.760
People were criticizing a black woman, so obviously it has to be racist and sexist, too.
00:51:19.040
And the moral of the story, according to her, is that she's a hero.
00:51:29.240
All the people on the internet calling her stupid for making a math error.
00:51:45.300
They would have reacted the same if you were a white man saying it, and we know that because
00:51:50.200
a white man said it, too, and he got the exact same reaction, and that's it.
00:51:57.200
You might be able to sift through the thousands of tweets that came at you, laughing at you,
00:52:03.020
and find a couple that had a racist tinge to them, and that's bad.
00:52:13.080
If there are 10 million people making fun of you, and three of them make it into a racial
00:52:18.400
thing, you can't say that the entire 10 million are racist.
00:52:21.440
If you want to call them a bunch of jerks, a bunch of petty jerks who are laughing at you,
00:52:27.420
And I'm one of the petty jerks who laughed at you.
00:52:34.300
We're going to leave it there, and I hope you guys all have a great day.
00:52:39.480
Remember your social distancing, and we'll talk tomorrow.
00:52:45.860
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, and if you want to help spread
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We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, we're there.
00:52:57.540
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show,
00:53:01.100
Michael Knowles Show, and The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:53:04.100
The Matt Walsh Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring,
00:53:08.600
supervising producer Mathis Glover, supervising producer Robert Sterling, technical producer
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Austin Stevens, editor Danny D'Amico, audio mixer Robin Fenderson.
00:53:18.420
The Matt Walsh Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.
00:53:23.300
Hey everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:53:26.300
Stuff is getting real in the Wu Flu crisis, but at least Bernie Sanders is still living in
00:53:31.860
We'll talk about a lot of news coming up on The Andrew Klavan Show.