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The World Health Organization said five years ago declared the cause of the COVVI-19 pandemic. This has introduced generalized closures, mask mandates and vaccines and huge social and economic damage. William Brangham spoke with the authors of “In Covid’s Wake: how ours for us has failed us”, a new electronic book that is very critical in the way the United States reacted to this crisis.
Notice: Transcripts are generated through the device and the human and change by precision. They can involve errors.
Geoff Bennett:
Five years ago, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the Covvi-19 Pandemic, which introduced generalized closures, masks and vaccines mandates, and had a massive social and economic impact.
William Brangham talks to the authors of a new electronic book that strongly criticizes the United States has responded to the crisis.
William Brangham:
This new electronic book is “in Covid’s Wake: how our policy has failed us. “
And it looks back at how critical American institutions, the government, academia, and the press among them, performed during the pandemic, and how their response inflamed distrust, cracked down on dissent, and cost the country tremendously.
Its authors are two political scientists from Princeton University, Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee. And they join us now.
Welcome to you both.
One of the main themes of this book, as it seems to me, is that, in the early, crazy days of this pandemic, as our leaders were debating lockdowns, how to respond, that any dissent over or real debate about the costs and benefits of those actions was squelched.
Stephen Macedo, Co-Author, “In COVID’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us”: Well, it’s interesting.
In March 2020, as the lockdowns were being enacted in the United States and across many Western countries, there were dissenters who spoke up in March. Some very well-known people warned that these measures were unlikely to be successful and would be very costly.
And then consensus seemed to develop in April and May that these kinds of strategies enacted by the Chinese and that had been implemented in Italy, national lockdown and across much of the United States, that that was the correct strategy, that everyone needed to be on board for it, that there needed to be a sense of vital unity, that government, the academy, science, journalism all needed to pull together, and that this was what we were going to do and that this is what we needed to do.
And, indeed, at that point, voices of dissent became scarce. Social media companies began removing some postings that were at odds with government messaging, and dissent dwindled over the summer and into the fall.
William Brangham:
Frances, one of the things that was a real revelation to me was how you document in the book that, prior to COVID, that there was a good deal of analysis done about what happens if a respiratory virus does emerge.
And the consensus or some version of a consensus was that lockdowns are not that effective and that they would cost society enormously.
Frances Lee, Co-Author, “In COVID’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us”: Yes, there had been a tremendous amount of work planning for what to do when the next pandemic arrived.
And we take measures at the beginning of the pandemic that were in contradiction with the recommendations. They had been in some cases. There was a report through the World Health Organization of November 2019 that tested what was known for all non -pharmaceutical interventions proposed.
William Brangham:
These are masks, closures, isolation, tests, tracking and this.
Frances Lee:
Business closures, school closures, proved what is known about the effectiveness of each of those measures. And in all areas, the report indicates that the basis of the evidence of the effectiveness of each of them poor.
Therefore, it is so surprising that you get six months later and those measures are used worldwide, political resolution, manufacturers that say they adhere to science. And, of course, it is evident that all these measures have great costs.
Therefore, as political resolution manufacturers weigh their alternatives, there are advantages, but safe costs.
Stephen Macedo:
I mean, there is one thing, in those early pandemic plans that are applicable to this question, namely, those plans warn that science, that government officials, civil officials feel tempted to adopt these measures, those strict blocking measures, to show that they are in charge, Forarray.
William Brangham:
Say, hey, we had that.
Stephen Macedo:
Yes, exactly, to take control.
And those first plans are categorical to advise the mavens and public physical conditioning officials who are sincere with the public based on thin evidence for them and the certainty of costs. He was ignored.
Then, of course, there was the World Health Organization, a project that went to China, returned after spending a week there and approved the Chinese blocking strategy without qualification, and said that the global total attached to this strict blocking direction to eliminate the virus.
There was a prediction that came out here, founded on mathematical models of Imperial College London, which predicted 2. 2 million deaths in the United States until August 2020 if we have not implemented those measures that led to a kind of panic, I believe, and the lack of rationally the prices of those measures and the probability of their success.
William Brangham:
There are many public fitness experts who look at our delight and say, either in the warmth of the moment and in what we learned later, that keeping other people away, that social distancing was first an essential detail of the protection of other people.
And what am I? What is your opinion about it?
Frances Lee:
Well, it is a theory that, if we can separate people, that we can buy the time before vaccines have been available. But he had not been attempted at the giant scale.
And I think that what was overlooked this plan to make plans was the vital component of the force of paintings that deserves the paintings, either Isarray.
William Brangham:
The so -called workers.
Frances Lee:
The essential personnel constitutes approximately a third of the force of paintings that had to continue making their paintings in the user of the locks.
And so, the virus will have to continue spreading under those conditions.
William Brangham:
When you look at how other states have reacted here in the United States, we have noticed other incredible responses, some use very strict policies, others are a bit more loose.
What evidence of how those states have worked?
Frances Lee:
There were locks in the United States; 43 governors have issued orders from the House of Representatives. Where to see divergence in politics in the United States is in the reopening process.
Democratic states have remained blocked 2. 5 times more than Republican states. Even if democratic states have begun to reopen, they have maintained more restrictions than Republican states. But when he looks at the accumulated accumulated mortality at a time when the vaccine deployment has begun, there is no difference between states that have followed cocovid policies and states that were more lax.
We cannot conclude, which means that these measures do not work, but that means that there is a lack of evidence that they work.
William Brangham:
Especially in the soft of what we now know as the psychological, economic and educational position for children, for people, for companies throughout this country.
Frances Lee:
And also budget costs, the mandatory amount of loan to finance closures. It is more or less equivalent as a component of GDP with what we spend on the New Deal and the 2009 monetary rescue.
William Brangham:
Does your fatherhood of this electronic book give us a concept of how we have to do things if it is maximum, probably when the next pandemic comes?
Stephen Macedo:
Yes, I would say so.
I think we have to make sure that we are open to dissent and that we are open to dissent when it leaves the other side. One of the things we discover is that pandemic has polarized very. The democratic states were on one side. The Republican states were on the other side.
We deserve to have been more open than the complaint related to the other side. I think that applies to science. Science has politicized, journalism, unfortunately. And I think that even universities, to some extent, doubted to ask difficult questions about our delight on the covers due to the partisan inflection of some of those problems.
William Brangham:
There are many other elements in this book, social networks, freedom of expression, as you say, the debate about masks. I can’t get here.
I thank the two. The electronic book is called “in Covid’s Wake: how our policy has failed us. “
Frances Lee, Stephen Macedo, thank you very much.
Stephen Macedo:
Thanks William.
Frances Lee:
THANK YOU.
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