Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On The U.S. Response To The

Because behind we go behindthescenes to talk about some of our latest reporting and writing. I will remind you that next month we are hosting our atlantic festival, this time digitally. It will have certain advantages, namely you do not have to get dressed up to go to the festival. Moree stay tuned for information and we will be delivering that you regularly. D yong. E will talk with e if you are watching, i assume you already know who he is. He is the preeminent pandemic reporter. He is certainly one of the most important reporters working in america today. His stories about the pandemic have not only told us what is going on, but they have helped us to orient around what we should think about what is going on. He has been on this subject for a while. His recent piece is on the cover of this months atlantic, the print edition of the atlantic. You can read it online at atlantic. Com. I know you have a lot of questions and i will incorporate asm into our conversation best as possible. Type them into the box at the bottom of the screen. Keep them short, not sweet but directed. Try to get to as many as possible and also let them guide my questions. Et me just bring him in are you with us . Mr. Yong i am. Jeffrey that he is with his air pods. What i want to do today, in the short time that we have is to talk about the past, present and future. Lets start in the past. Past. Ot mean the distant i need a couple years ago, we were talking, probably about three years ago. We had a shared interest in pandemics and in government response to crisis. We decided that you were going to go off and do a story about a theoretical problem. His the country ready for the next pandemic . We had written about the Obama Administration response to ebola lateeak in the administration of the obama late stage of the Obama Administration. I was curious to know what it would be like, what a Pandemic Response would be like under a different kind of president. World toll around the source, ando the you did a lot of reporting in washington and elsewhere. Your conclusions were complicated. He said in some ways, you are comforted by what you found out, but mainly, your anxiety level increased a bit. Talk about what you found out in 2018, and that will carry us to where we are now. Thatong the biggest thing , preparedness is this abstract, nebulous concept. People. Down to with a bunch of experts the right know how to deal with the pandemic, and it is also physical, tangible objects. Whether there are enough beds in a hospital, whether there is enough protective equipment or drugs, or manufacturing plants. Fauci,ber the time, tony who has become a household name it is like having a chain. One link and everybody everything breaks. The other amazing idea for the piece i went to the democratic republic of the congo that had experienced an ebola outbreak. People forget and become complacent. There is panic when an outbreak happens and neglect when it dissipates. Seem to be perpetually locked into this cycle of panic and neglect. That is why it is important for us to publish that piece in peace times, when there was no pandemic knocking down our door. This is the moment where we need to find the weak links and ensure that they are fixed. Sorry to sound pessimistic for a moment, but honesty requires me to say that ais an indication compelling piece that was highly lauded yet not heard. Mr. Yong that was frustrating. This pandemic happened, a lot of people asked me and there were many other reporters and Health Experts who warned about pandemics for years, if not decades. Do you feel any sort of vindication . No. There is only tragedy. Action thatlls for are unheard. Deeply introspective. For our society. There were things that i feel i missed out and did not discuss in that piece. Cover of ouron the current issue, to write some of those, to fill in some of those an even morevide thorough template of what went wrong and what needs to be fixed for the future. Jeffrey i want to get to that statement you made about how there are things you think that you missed the first time around. Before that, give the listener, those who are watching now give some sketch of your findings in this current piece. It all the links of the chain that collapsed simultaneously . A little bit of column a and a little bit from column b. Role inhave a pivotal what went wrong, but one of the cool points that i hope came across is that trump is part of the story, but not the whole part. Stretched from the nature of our hospitals to understaffed nursing homes, overstuffed prisons to ventilation systems in our building due to underfunding of Public Health. Have pointed at other countries like new andand, vietnam, slovakia other areas that have done better at controlling the pandemic. It is not that there was one universal playbook. Some places did not do enough testing. Some places did not use masks. The u. S. Has failed spectacularly because he failed across the board. We did so many things wrong. Despite the numerous advantages we had going for us, the biomedical expertise and incredible agencies like the cdc. So much expertise and logical have dramatically underperformed. Blame and takes howonsibility for that, but did it come to this . I think that is spectacularly missing the point. If that is the lesson that we draw from this, we will not take this opportunity to fix other vulnerabilities that were very much in play, that we are going to do any better for the pandemic in the future or if we are going to make any progress with the current one. ,ou noted that trump is himself, a comorbidity. Country. A lot in our you chronology, but i am violating that promise. Talk you little bit about something you mentioned, which is not the parts that you got right, which are many, but you suggested you missed several things. Now than what you thought in 2018 . I think so. Americat think that would screw this up to the extent that it has. I think it has truly fumbled in a way that a country of its resources should not. I think it should be a humbling experience for the u. S. In terms of global health, they have long held the position of being a leader. Sports expertise to other nations. It is supposedly rich and developed, yet for all of these worldages, 4 of the population accounts for a quarter of covid19 cases. Even those figures are clearly underestimates because we are unable to adequately test enough people to really get a handle on how widespread this pandemic is. A majornequalities is one. There is no mention of them in 2018, but it is evident to those following it that it should pooroportionately affect whodisabled communities have experienced poor health and Poor Health Care as a result of longstanding issues of racism, of discrimination. That health care has been deliberately pushed away from black communities for decades, not centuries, going back to the end of the civil war im jim crow era. We should have known that covid19 was clearly going to disproportionately impact and kill black people. Not something that i really delved into in 2018, but something that is a central pillar of understanding americas failure now. Issue. Big fear andused so much anxiety. We have long known them to be radicalization engines. They provide people with attention grabbing, engagement hogging content that is often wrong and dangerous and highly in may created. Not only do we have 70 vulnerabilities, but they were all predictable and they have all been discussed by subparties beforehand. Nothing in that piece should be new. Nothing and it had never been discussed before. Together,ut them all you get a recipe for disaster. Back ush Jeffrey Jeffrey let me push back on one thing he said. Tome this on one man blame this on one man. Emerged out of china in 2013. It was when barack obama was president. Elseu really think, all being equal, that we would be five months into the spread to the u. S. , that we would be where we are with barack obama as president . Not there is a vast gulf of difference. Not will to infectious disease, like honestings communication. Respect for science and evidence. The problems that the Trump Administration has manifested over the last several months, holy. , the morning of advice from people who know better. The inconsistent tweeting. Claims. The constant lying and misinformation. These are things that everybody knew. ,ven before the big 2018 piece exactly how trump would behave, come a pandemic, based on his behavior during the ebola crisis and during his election. Control,ive border tweeting irrationally, spouting conspiracy theories, failing to heed the advice of experts, which is exactly what happened. Trump has shown us who he is, right from the start. Do i think that things would have been different, had a more ,videncebased, calm her frankly a more intellectual leader had been in place . Yes, i think it would have been different, but there were still all these vulnerabilities that would have existed and manifested in a smaller way, but still in a real way. Administration, a pandemic would still disproportionately hit people from marginalized groups. Maybe the magnitude and obesity. Etes obama did not offend the curve on those issues. Mr. Yong absolutely. It is interesting that you bring up those conditions because those are conditions that predispose to covid19, that they are also the consequences on a long legacy of discrimination and racism that we talked about. That legacy would have always existed. In some ways, the greater magnitude of the crisis now has exposed some of these fault lines that might still be invisible, or at least were visible to those it negatively infected but invisible to those in a position of privilege and power. Do you really want we can go back to a public status quo, one in which we have competent leadership and the pandemic is not as bad as it could be, or one where we argue that even decent leaders have some work to do. We need to fix that longstanding foundational rock, so it is not just the next performance is acceptable, but laudable. You ay i want to ask question specifically, as an insider outsider, someone who is very much here and american, but outsideruch so has an perspective on American Society. Talk in a journalistic cliche, but this is america, my land of contradictions question. This is a country that has the best science in the world, in many cases. It also has a very large , all the way into the leadership of one of the two Major Political parties, that has a kind of oppositional antiscience standards. Could you analyze why this which developed richly developed country with Technology Companies and the best universities how do you explain to people outside this why the reaction to masking, for instance, is so profound and political . How do you explain this to yourself . Mr. Yong with some difficulty. With a bizarre sense of bafflement. Being a country of paradoxes is correct. Amount onhe Largest Health care. The idea that we should be invested in Public Health and have such massive inequality is perplexing. That we have some of thebest scientists and deepest well of scientific expertise in the world, yet should have should be in a ition so easily pulled. Oliticized it is galling is this idea of america being highly individualistic. A lot has been said about how their rugged individualism has contributed to its problems during the pandemic. Example, being a good with some people saying it is an infringement on their freedom. We have this sense of america being highly individualistic, yet the country was willing to take action with social distancing. We were just restricting our movement during the spring. Heavily political, but they have gone from zero acceptance to majority acceptance. In a matter of months. It is that 25 . It is concentrated in certain areas. We are both in washington. I do not see anybody without a mask. Your point is actually worth noting because you are saying it thats if the country half the country is in thrall to a weird version of individualism. Pockets, but at what point do you have to shrink it down to the point where we can come out of this . It, the the way i see idea that we have gone from zero to majority acceptance in a few months is mind blowing. That has never happened. The idea that we have done that in this particular country is incredible. It almost makes the tragedy imaginese i think what could have happened if you had a leader in position, who said wear a mask, very consistently wear a mask. Meetings, clear and consistent with the people. The American People has made tremendous strides against stereotypes with this longstanding stereotype, despite having such confusing messages from the conservative media and the government. It is almost like they were working for their self interest, against people who were meant to be leading and representing them. Imagine what would have happened if there had been leadership that gave them the right messages. We would be in a very different position. Jeffrey if you had a president who was arguing that demanding masked man is an infringement on freedom if you had a president who said you also have to wear pants. That is also an infringement on your rights to go around without pants. Some of it is so obvious. That is where the tragedy is. The counter arguments, that these arguments are so obvious. Things youhe have a pretty comprehensive list in your story of all of the specific reasons things have gone so wrong here. Analysis of American Society being more responsive than stereotype. I am asking you to do the impossible, which is to protect even the near future. Do you think that we are in any way coming out of this in a way i say this sardonically. Highly functional societies like italy to figure it out. I think it is increasingly tough to predict. April pieces in march and about what we should do. Gulfstruck that the between what we should do and what we can do is best. The distance is larger than i anticipated. The good news is that this is ridiculous,me uncontrollable pathogen that we have no solutions to. We do actually know what works. We know that masks make a difference. Indoor spaces and crowds increase risk of infection. Know that basic Health Measures can make a difference. We know very clearly that periods of social distancing actually work. The problem is, because that period was wasted, because the sacrifice americans made was , things canndered get better. We have many months into this crisis. Situation where people are asking themselves it is almost like someone these people want something new. We have so far struggled to control the virus. We therefore need a big, new thing that will save us. That is not the case. We have tried we did not do the right things well enough, so we need to go back and keep on doing them. One last thing. On top of that, the problem is that we are in this very difficult situation, where there are not good options. Schools, opening colleges, what happens when it gets colder . We are in this difficult situation because we did not do enough in the first place. Jeffrey stay on this for a second because i have heard various people saying the answer to the problem is if anybody everybody in america stays home for four to six weeks, shut everything down again and four to six weeks should solve much of the problem. Do you agree with that . It is short thinking. I do not think people will do it. I do not think leaders are capable of forcing people to do it. It is doing a lot of heavy lifting day. A lot of people simply will not be able to do that for their livelihoods. That community is disproportionately poor, black and brown. We will have the same problems as before. The shutdowns were never intended to fix the problem on their own. Allow us intended to to suppress the virus by buying us time. Peace restricting timelves it only buys that you then have to use. If we go back into it with that mindset, we will once again squander that time. There is no single fit. Whether we have the political will to do that, i do not know. Maybe it comes down to individual citizens making the right choices, looking after each other and deciding who they want to vote for in november, and we will see. Have a lot of questions about vaccines and some of them about. Experiment, d think that we could be in a situation in january imagine that joe trump. Ins over donald can you imagine a situation in which the situation is so bad in the country. The biden another,ation has 10 almost total shutdown or trying to impose a total shutdown . Even if it is to buy time for experts to come up with a solution to the problem . This is barring the development of a useful vaccine. I do not know if we will ever need to go back to such an extreme measure again. Clearly, the cost is enormous. This is a patchwork pandemic. Too not think we will get the point where all of america will be forced to do the same thing again. I do not think it is financially financially or emotionally viable. That wethe long delays are currently seeing, i think president can truly marshaled the scientific expertise at the countrys disposal, which is best i think we have a shot. So many roadmaps have been developed on how to control the pandemic. There is no shortage of expertise. I would hope a new administration would listen to the sociologist talking about paid sick leave. That could make a difference too mucheeding to rely on nickel blitz. It has already been speaking loudly. Susanna asks a question. Vaccine,ust trumps a. K. A. Operation warp speed . Mr. Yong do i think that we will have a vaccine, eventually . Yes. Some of the early signs are promising. Everything everyone in the biomedical community are doing what they can. Ofm not reassured by some the frederick around vaccine development. Safe andto be effective, which requires time. The prospect that it will be surprise, i october do not think we should dismiss that. Vaccine is just one part of the problem. The other involves convincing people that the process was done with all the checks and balances to ensure safety and efficacy, getting it to the most vulnerable populations, instead of the purchased or most popular ones. Getting it deployed across the country, a massive logistical exercise. There is nothing that really convinces me that the country, as is, is up to that adjustable challenge. Many steps. Y even then, we do not know if such a vaccine will provide full, protective immunity against the virus or if it will only be partial, like the flu shot. Help, butvaccine will in the moment game changer that people are envisioning. It is not like some day someone will say we have approved a vaccine, and the next day everybody will get a shot, and the next day we will get back to normal. It the desire for a , it is universal, but it will lead us nowhere. Let me ask you this question. Why is the cdc so disenfranchised during this pandemic . Why has it fallen to Obama Administration<\/a> response to ebola lateeak in the administration of the obama late stage of the Obama Administration<\/a>. I was curious to know what it would be like, what a Pandemic Response<\/a> would be like under a different kind of president. World toll around the source, ando the you did a lot of reporting in washington and elsewhere. Your conclusions were complicated. He said in some ways, you are comforted by what you found out, but mainly, your anxiety level increased a bit. Talk about what you found out in 2018, and that will carry us to where we are now. Thatong the biggest thing , preparedness is this abstract, nebulous concept. People. Down to with a bunch of experts the right know how to deal with the pandemic, and it is also physical, tangible objects. Whether there are enough beds in a hospital, whether there is enough protective equipment or drugs, or manufacturing plants. Fauci,ber the time, tony who has become a household name it is like having a chain. One link and everybody everything breaks. The other amazing idea for the piece i went to the democratic republic of the congo that had experienced an ebola outbreak. People forget and become complacent. There is panic when an outbreak happens and neglect when it dissipates. Seem to be perpetually locked into this cycle of panic and neglect. That is why it is important for us to publish that piece in peace times, when there was no pandemic knocking down our door. This is the moment where we need to find the weak links and ensure that they are fixed. Sorry to sound pessimistic for a moment, but honesty requires me to say that ais an indication compelling piece that was highly lauded yet not heard. Mr. Yong that was frustrating. This pandemic happened, a lot of people asked me and there were many other reporters and Health Experts<\/a> who warned about pandemics for years, if not decades. Do you feel any sort of vindication . No. There is only tragedy. Action thatlls for are unheard. Deeply introspective. For our society. There were things that i feel i missed out and did not discuss in that piece. Cover of ouron the current issue, to write some of those, to fill in some of those an even morevide thorough template of what went wrong and what needs to be fixed for the future. Jeffrey i want to get to that statement you made about how there are things you think that you missed the first time around. Before that, give the listener, those who are watching now give some sketch of your findings in this current piece. It all the links of the chain that collapsed simultaneously . A little bit of column a and a little bit from column b. Role inhave a pivotal what went wrong, but one of the cool points that i hope came across is that trump is part of the story, but not the whole part. Stretched from the nature of our hospitals to understaffed nursing homes, overstuffed prisons to ventilation systems in our building due to underfunding of Public Health<\/a>. Have pointed at other countries like new andand, vietnam, slovakia other areas that have done better at controlling the pandemic. It is not that there was one universal playbook. Some places did not do enough testing. Some places did not use masks. The u. S. Has failed spectacularly because he failed across the board. We did so many things wrong. Despite the numerous advantages we had going for us, the biomedical expertise and incredible agencies like the cdc. So much expertise and logical have dramatically underperformed. Blame and takes howonsibility for that, but did it come to this . I think that is spectacularly missing the point. If that is the lesson that we draw from this, we will not take this opportunity to fix other vulnerabilities that were very much in play, that we are going to do any better for the pandemic in the future or if we are going to make any progress with the current one. ,ou noted that trump is himself, a comorbidity. Country. A lot in our you chronology, but i am violating that promise. Talk you little bit about something you mentioned, which is not the parts that you got right, which are many, but you suggested you missed several things. Now than what you thought in 2018 . I think so. Americat think that would screw this up to the extent that it has. I think it has truly fumbled in a way that a country of its resources should not. I think it should be a humbling experience for the u. S. In terms of global health, they have long held the position of being a leader. Sports expertise to other nations. It is supposedly rich and developed, yet for all of these worldages, 4 of the population accounts for a quarter of covid19 cases. Even those figures are clearly underestimates because we are unable to adequately test enough people to really get a handle on how widespread this pandemic is. A majornequalities is one. There is no mention of them in 2018, but it is evident to those following it that it should pooroportionately affect whodisabled communities have experienced poor health and Poor Health Care<\/a> as a result of longstanding issues of racism, of discrimination. That health care has been deliberately pushed away from black communities for decades, not centuries, going back to the end of the civil war im jim crow era. We should have known that covid19 was clearly going to disproportionately impact and kill black people. Not something that i really delved into in 2018, but something that is a central pillar of understanding americas failure now. Issue. Big fear andused so much anxiety. We have long known them to be radicalization engines. They provide people with attention grabbing, engagement hogging content that is often wrong and dangerous and highly in may created. Not only do we have 70 vulnerabilities, but they were all predictable and they have all been discussed by subparties beforehand. Nothing in that piece should be new. Nothing and it had never been discussed before. Together,ut them all you get a recipe for disaster. Back ush Jeffrey Jeffrey<\/a> let me push back on one thing he said. Tome this on one man blame this on one man. Emerged out of china in 2013. It was when barack obama was president. Elseu really think, all being equal, that we would be five months into the spread to the u. S. , that we would be where we are with barack obama as president . Not there is a vast gulf of difference. Not will to infectious disease, like honestings communication. Respect for science and evidence. The problems that the Trump Administration<\/a> has manifested over the last several months, holy. , the morning of advice from people who know better. The inconsistent tweeting. Claims. The constant lying and misinformation. These are things that everybody knew. ,ven before the big 2018 piece exactly how trump would behave, come a pandemic, based on his behavior during the ebola crisis and during his election. Control,ive border tweeting irrationally, spouting conspiracy theories, failing to heed the advice of experts, which is exactly what happened. Trump has shown us who he is, right from the start. Do i think that things would have been different, had a more ,videncebased, calm her frankly a more intellectual leader had been in place . Yes, i think it would have been different, but there were still all these vulnerabilities that would have existed and manifested in a smaller way, but still in a real way. Administration, a pandemic would still disproportionately hit people from marginalized groups. Maybe the magnitude and obesity. Etes obama did not offend the curve on those issues. Mr. Yong absolutely. It is interesting that you bring up those conditions because those are conditions that predispose to covid19, that they are also the consequences on a long legacy of discrimination and racism that we talked about. That legacy would have always existed. In some ways, the greater magnitude of the crisis now has exposed some of these fault lines that might still be invisible, or at least were visible to those it negatively infected but invisible to those in a position of privilege and power. Do you really want we can go back to a public status quo, one in which we have competent leadership and the pandemic is not as bad as it could be, or one where we argue that even decent leaders have some work to do. We need to fix that longstanding foundational rock, so it is not just the next performance is acceptable, but laudable. You ay i want to ask question specifically, as an insider outsider, someone who is very much here and american, but outsideruch so has an perspective on American Society<\/a>. Talk in a journalistic cliche, but this is america, my land of contradictions question. This is a country that has the best science in the world, in many cases. It also has a very large , all the way into the leadership of one of the two Major Political<\/a> parties, that has a kind of oppositional antiscience standards. Could you analyze why this which developed richly developed country with Technology Companies<\/a> and the best universities how do you explain to people outside this why the reaction to masking, for instance, is so profound and political . How do you explain this to yourself . Mr. Yong with some difficulty. With a bizarre sense of bafflement. Being a country of paradoxes is correct. Amount onhe Largest Health<\/a> care. The idea that we should be invested in Public Health<\/a> and have such massive inequality is perplexing. That we have some of thebest scientists and deepest well of scientific expertise in the world, yet should have should be in a ition so easily pulled. Oliticized it is galling is this idea of america being highly individualistic. A lot has been said about how their rugged individualism has contributed to its problems during the pandemic. Example, being a good with some people saying it is an infringement on their freedom. We have this sense of america being highly individualistic, yet the country was willing to take action with social distancing. We were just restricting our movement during the spring. Heavily political, but they have gone from zero acceptance to majority acceptance. In a matter of months. It is that 25 . It is concentrated in certain areas. We are both in washington. I do not see anybody without a mask. Your point is actually worth noting because you are saying it thats if the country half the country is in thrall to a weird version of individualism. Pockets, but at what point do you have to shrink it down to the point where we can come out of this . It, the the way i see idea that we have gone from zero to majority acceptance in a few months is mind blowing. That has never happened. The idea that we have done that in this particular country is incredible. It almost makes the tragedy imaginese i think what could have happened if you had a leader in position, who said wear a mask, very consistently wear a mask. Meetings, clear and consistent with the people. The American People<\/a> has made tremendous strides against stereotypes with this longstanding stereotype, despite having such confusing messages from the conservative media and the government. It is almost like they were working for their self interest, against people who were meant to be leading and representing them. Imagine what would have happened if there had been leadership that gave them the right messages. We would be in a very different position. Jeffrey if you had a president who was arguing that demanding masked man is an infringement on freedom if you had a president who said you also have to wear pants. That is also an infringement on your rights to go around without pants. Some of it is so obvious. That is where the tragedy is. The counter arguments, that these arguments are so obvious. Things youhe have a pretty comprehensive list in your story of all of the specific reasons things have gone so wrong here. Analysis of American Society<\/a> being more responsive than stereotype. I am asking you to do the impossible, which is to protect even the near future. Do you think that we are in any way coming out of this in a way i say this sardonically. Highly functional societies like italy to figure it out. I think it is increasingly tough to predict. April pieces in march and about what we should do. Gulfstruck that the between what we should do and what we can do is best. The distance is larger than i anticipated. The good news is that this is ridiculous,me uncontrollable pathogen that we have no solutions to. We do actually know what works. We know that masks make a difference. Indoor spaces and crowds increase risk of infection. Know that basic Health Measures<\/a> can make a difference. We know very clearly that periods of social distancing actually work. The problem is, because that period was wasted, because the sacrifice americans made was , things canndered get better. We have many months into this crisis. Situation where people are asking themselves it is almost like someone these people want something new. We have so far struggled to control the virus. We therefore need a big, new thing that will save us. That is not the case. We have tried we did not do the right things well enough, so we need to go back and keep on doing them. One last thing. On top of that, the problem is that we are in this very difficult situation, where there are not good options. Schools, opening colleges, what happens when it gets colder . We are in this difficult situation because we did not do enough in the first place. Jeffrey stay on this for a second because i have heard various people saying the answer to the problem is if anybody everybody in america stays home for four to six weeks, shut everything down again and four to six weeks should solve much of the problem. Do you agree with that . It is short thinking. I do not think people will do it. I do not think leaders are capable of forcing people to do it. It is doing a lot of heavy lifting day. A lot of people simply will not be able to do that for their livelihoods. That community is disproportionately poor, black and brown. We will have the same problems as before. The shutdowns were never intended to fix the problem on their own. Allow us intended to to suppress the virus by buying us time. Peace restricting timelves it only buys that you then have to use. If we go back into it with that mindset, we will once again squander that time. There is no single fit. Whether we have the political will to do that, i do not know. Maybe it comes down to individual citizens making the right choices, looking after each other and deciding who they want to vote for in november, and we will see. Have a lot of questions about vaccines and some of them about. Experiment, d think that we could be in a situation in january imagine that joe trump. Ins over donald can you imagine a situation in which the situation is so bad in the country. The biden another,ation has 10 almost total shutdown or trying to impose a total shutdown . Even if it is to buy time for experts to come up with a solution to the problem . This is barring the development of a useful vaccine. I do not know if we will ever need to go back to such an extreme measure again. Clearly, the cost is enormous. This is a patchwork pandemic. Too not think we will get the point where all of america will be forced to do the same thing again. I do not think it is financially financially or emotionally viable. That wethe long delays are currently seeing, i think president can truly marshaled the scientific expertise at the countrys disposal, which is best i think we have a shot. So many roadmaps have been developed on how to control the pandemic. There is no shortage of expertise. I would hope a new administration would listen to the sociologist talking about paid sick leave. That could make a difference too mucheeding to rely on nickel blitz. It has already been speaking loudly. Susanna asks a question. Vaccine,ust trumps a. K. A. Operation warp speed . Mr. Yong do i think that we will have a vaccine, eventually . Yes. Some of the early signs are promising. Everything everyone in the biomedical community are doing what they can. Ofm not reassured by some the frederick around vaccine development. Safe andto be effective, which requires time. The prospect that it will be surprise, i october do not think we should dismiss that. Vaccine is just one part of the problem. The other involves convincing people that the process was done with all the checks and balances to ensure safety and efficacy, getting it to the most vulnerable populations, instead of the purchased or most popular ones. Getting it deployed across the country, a massive logistical exercise. There is nothing that really convinces me that the country, as is, is up to that adjustable challenge. Many steps. Y even then, we do not know if such a vaccine will provide full, protective immunity against the virus or if it will only be partial, like the flu shot. Help, butvaccine will in the moment game changer that people are envisioning. It is not like some day someone will say we have approved a vaccine, and the next day everybody will get a shot, and the next day we will get back to normal. It the desire for a , it is universal, but it will lead us nowhere. Let me ask you this question. Why is the cdc so disenfranchised during this pandemic . Why has it fallen to Anthony Fauci<\/a> . Crisis,ing the ebola people felt like the cec was the gold standard. All cdchese are was the gold standard. People in the most frustrated out of all of us. Many of them are career Civil Servants<\/a> who have worked hard to protect the country from exactly this sort of thing. To have that agency being marginalized right now is one of the most shocking in this pandemic. You are right. The cdc is widely regarded as one of the greatest Public Health<\/a> agencies in the world. Why the a reason chinese cdc is called the chinese cdc or the nigerian cdc. Is the model of everyses with almost crisis in recent history. The ebola crisis. They were out there reassuring the public all the time. And they the expertise should be the voices of young hearing from. ,here was a three month period whether cdc did not hold a single press conference, while trump without their daily, telling people about hydroxychloroquine and the andthetical curative effect all kinds of nonsense. It is shocking. Do i know that is the case . Some people have written stories about this and gotten some pieces of it, but the fact that the cdc failed to rollout a good diagnostics test early i think part of it is trumps failure to respect expertise. This is a man who does not know very much and does not know what he does not know. He lacks humility to know more. Tell me what the right thing to do is and advise the country. That is what happened. Jeffrey talk about where we are right now in testing. This is part of a larger question, and it goes to your status as someone who is observing the country. Couple questions they used to be this thing known as a cando americans. When you are talking about the distribution of vaccine, i remember covering different epidemic related stories in subsaharan africa, talking about not only getting medicine to people, but that in clean water to people. Remoteld be in the most parts of Southern Africa<\/a> or west africa, and everybody would have access to cocacola products. Somehow the Cocacola Company<\/a> had found a way to penetrate every corner of the globe. We feel this is how i feel why did we feel that something has gone missing . There is this passivity in the the air. There are not even protest. There are protests about george , but mr. Yong why is there no this . T over jeffrey there is a story today about that. I do not understand why frontans have not gone in of their statehouse and the white house and said, this is ridiculous. Think about how bad the response has been, in proportion to peoples expectations. There is a certain amount of countryeant that this could still be struggling with Something Like<\/a> testing. Bafflementt like the leads to paralysis. Just notmericans are used to thinking of themselves, of their country as being quite this inept. Painfulit is a realization. From the accent, i am not from these parts. Jeffrey jerzy, please. Mr. Yong my friends please. Mr. Yong the extreme gap between expectation and reality has almost led to these this emotional shutdown. Who are most deeply invested in it and have the clearest picture of what is going wrong are also the most burned out. Expertshat the pandemic are doing really badly. The people who have been warning since march that this will be really bad, they have been working since midmarch and they are emotionally devastated. They are fried. They are exhausted. They are getting hate mail, do not havehey just the energy. Is people who best see what happening had the least amount of energy, and the ones who are the ones whol are have also been the most cavalier. How to resolve that. The george floyd protest. I argue in the piece that those protests are not about the pandemic, but i think they are inextricable from it. A lot of what we are seeing, the people from other racial backgrounds have participated in this civic theon is not just about racial injustices that they are protesting, but the fact that they have spent much of the year of realizing that Many American<\/a> institutions are broken and there are systematic, festering this exceptional veneer to it. That contributed to the turnout, the changing attitudes that we see in black lives matter. I think america is ripe for systemic change. When you asked me what i see for the next six months, one positive way of looking at it is, now is the time when we might have a shot at these longstanding legacy problems. The systemic failures that have cost us so dearly, this year. To actually do the radical work needed to reimagine a country that is more resilient and equitable. Jeffrey i want to do a few more questions from our audience on subjects that we have touched on already, but i think they are of profound importance. What kind of impact do you believe that we opening schools will have on the rate of infections . There are some who cannot bear the idea of homeschooling while working from home. I caveat this by saying that my reporting efforts have been on other things. Internet is too full of pundit. Have colleagues who have done the work. Based on what i have seen, i feel there is a huge risk. Open up these crowded indoor spaces and you are jeopardizing the lives of the kids and the families those kids will go home to, and crucially, teachers. That youide of that is have problems with kids being homeschooled for so long, not just in terms of the emotional butbeing of parents, people from poor and minority communities, who have disproportionate struggles of but i forgot the first clause of the sentence. There are problems. Meant when i said the costly action early in this pandemic has left us in a position where there is really no good option. It is not the case where either opening schools were keeping them closed where one of them is good and the other is bad. They are both terrible and we whichving to weigh in on is least terrible in different parts of the country. Where in theng country you are. Learning about how it affects children and how it spread among children, and from children to adults. There is so much we do not know. Beis a horrible position to in and it did not have to be this way. Jeffrey that is where the paralysis comes in. Let me go to the last question. There are many questions. Im sorry i could not get to everything. This underlines upcoming election. Wins, what, if biden should be the top new items on . Is administration to do list i have been thinking about this. Are many things that we could do. I think the most important one is to immediately convene an actual Coronavirus Task<\/a> force. Take the best minds in the country, a mix of neurologists, epidemiologists, even calmness, economists, sociologists, get them together. Take all the roadmaps that have already been compiled and create a working, national plan. It should not take long because those people are already out there and fired up, exhausted,. Ut they want to help everything flows from that. If we respect expertise the expertise is out there. I hesitate to say win because it has been so disastrous so far. But we can pull ourselves up from this downwards brian from this downward spiral. Thing that people want to ask you over and over again i have been trying to avoid it. Is uncertainty is what emotionally, mentally taxing. Work, bring it back in a couple weeks. Imagine us a year from guardtill fighting a beer action . Rearguard action . Mr. Yong i do not know. As has been clear from our discussion, i think a lot rides on november. I do not think that a Biden Administration<\/a> will be a magic click your fingers and everything is happy. I think we have seen what happens when you have incompetent, egotistical, narcissistic xenophobes in charge of the government. We have run that experiment, and it has not gone well for us. Maybe things will be better. How will it play out . I do not know. I hope it will be better. I hope for all of our sakes. I miss my friends. I miss my family. World thatuch of the we had. Iv iterate that we cannot go back to normal. That normal led to this. You have to work to build something better. I do not know. Pandemic has the repeatedly defied my expectations, so far. I am hesitant to make a prediction now. The potential is there. We kind of still do this. We can still do this. It is a matter of political bill and resilience, all the things that we talked about. Calley i do not want to it a bright side, but one thing i am glad about is that when the pandemic came, we had you on our staff. People inside the atlantic know this, but my greatest achievement was luring you to come back. He spent a couple weeks writing on the pandemic. Mr. Yong a month, i think you said. Jeffrey i said to come back for a month times eight. I am glad you did. There are millions of readers who are glad you came back. You have been vastly important in helping people understand what is going on around them. To help with humility, understand what we do not understand. Work, and i your hear every day from our leaders who appreciate what you are doing for them. We thank you on behalf of all of our leaders. I do not know why you are not typing your next story already. Mr. Yong oh, i am. I have another laptop right here. Jeffrey i have just been chatting into my computer. Mr. Yong i am doing my part, jeffrey. Ourrey we can have Performance Review<\/a> later. Let me thank anybody from atlantic live for putting this on. Next week, we will do a special dan. On of our story with katrina,piration into 15 years later. You can download that anyplace you download contests. It is amazing podcasts. It is amazing. So look forward to that edification. Invitation. We have an amazing lineup. Thank you for joining us. We will see cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy<\/a> events. You can watch all Public Affairs<\/a> programming on television, online, or visit on our free radio app. Part of the National Conversation<\/a> through washington journal, or through our social media feeds. Cspan. Created by americas Television Companies<\/a> as a Public Service<\/a> and brought to you today by your television provider. Adjourned for the week without passing another Coronavirus Relief<\/a> bill, after negotiations between congressional leaders and the white house reached st","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia601909.us.archive.org\/32\/items\/CSPAN_20200814_070000_Discussion_on_the_U.S._Response_to_the_Coronavirus_Pandemic\/CSPAN_20200814_070000_Discussion_on_the_U.S._Response_to_the_Coronavirus_Pandemic.thumbs\/CSPAN_20200814_070000_Discussion_on_the_U.S._Response_to_the_Coronavirus_Pandemic_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}