In the Bubble’s Top 10 Moments

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Description

Andy counts down his top 10 moments of the year, including a look inside an emergency room COVID-19 unit, our “Safe or Not Safe?” toolkit, and Andy’s all-time favorite clip of Zach. We’ll revisit some of our favorite In the Bubble guests like Kumail Nanjiani, Kara Swisher, and Ed Yong. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You may even break out in song. Either way, it’s an episode you won’t want to miss.

 

Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.

 

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Check out these resources from today’s episode: 

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Transcription

SPEAKERS

Arnie Duncan, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, Lana Slavitt, Ed Yong, Dr. Larry Brilliant, Dr. Caitlin Rivers, Dr. Megan Ranney, Sherrod Brown, Andy Slavitt, Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Slavitt, Al Franklin, Connie Schultz, Pete Souza, Kara Swisher, Emily

Andy Slavitt  00:06

Welcome IN THE BUBBLE with Andy Slavitt. This is our episode about remembering. We had a show earlier about surviving, which I think is a really important theme of the year. But unfortunately, we’ve got a lot of people to remember who I think we probably haven’t adequately, mourn accounted for lost. There’s some analysis, which shows that there’s some three and a half million people that lost an immediate family member to COVID-19 this year.

Andy Slavitt 

And it will be important over time that we figure out how to mourn as a country for people. So when we come back in January, we’re going to be looking ahead at what scientists think is coming for 2021, we’re also going to be looking at some of the things you need to do to keep safe over the next few months. And we’re going to talk a little bit about some of the themes that we’ll explore in 2021. But for now, we’re just going to remember the year.

Andy Slavitt

And I thought one way to do that was from our show is just to go back and capture some of the moments that we had over the course of the year. Some of them were quite serious and profound. Some of them were I learned a great deal. Some of them just kind of funny, and just sort of memorable, some of them touching on things that are related to the pandemic, like school and isolation and mental health, and just the strength that exists in this country. It’s a complex country boy, but there’s a lot of strength in it. So we’re going to remember with some of our favorite moments of the year.

Andy Slavitt

Let me start with number 10. This is a podcast episode for May. It’s with Al Franken. And the reason I picked this one is as much because it really captured Zach’s presence on the show. As much as anything else. Zach was asking Al a question. Zach knows Al, Al  knows Zach and Al’s able to be a little bit sassy with Zach. And if you ever get to hear Zach on the show, who’s our 18-year-old son. This hopefully you’ll remember.

Andy Slavitt 

Who do you think is the funniest founding fathers was?

Al Franklin

If Franklin is considered a founding father that we had a very funny founding father.

Andy Slavitt  02:28

Would you consider Franklin Founding Father, Zach?

Zach Slavitt 

Yeah, Franklin is a founding father.

Andy Slavitt 

Yeah.

Andy Slavitt 

Yeah, you were just most recently in school.

Al Franklin

How is he not a founding father for God’s sakes?

Andy Slavitt 

Yeah, seriously. Speaking of Ben Franklin, that’s a Zachary is going to be headed to the Ben Franklin school sometime to the University of Pennsylvania. Zach actually told me here’s a question for you. Can you bear a question from Zach?

Al Franklin 

I would love a question from Zach. Zach you’re doing a great job on the podcast.

Zach Slavitt 

Thank you.

Al Franklin 

I love the facts you come up with

Zach Slavitt 

Thanks.

Al Franklin

I love the research you’re doing. I love that you’re not trying to come off as anything other than an 18-year-old boy. I like that. You don’t try to like, dress it up and go like I’ve got some kind of announcer voice you don’t do that. Just sound like a kind of a bored 18-year-old. Suffering his dad. Go ahead.

Zach Slavitt 

Yeah, who do you think’s the funniest US Senator now?

Al Franklin 

The funniest? Wow, you know, who was the funniest was Lindsey Graham. By the way, that’s not saying much.

Andy Slavitt 

There’s kind of a drop off.

Al Franklin 

Well, I mean, it’s not saying much the funniest US Senator. But Lindsey, I remember once, during the early part of the primary when he was so anti-Trump. I was actually in the bathroom. Senators bathroom. And I said to him, you know, Lindsey, fire Republican, I’d vote in the primary, I’d vote for you. And he said, that’s my problem.

Andy Slavitt  04:08

Onto our number nine, moment from the show. Number nine moment of the show was actually, maybe truth be told one of my favorite interviews, if not my favorite, many people feel the same way. I was an interview with Ed Yong, who is reporter for The Atlantic and absolutely brilliant. And we got into the most heated exciting exchange about what was going on, what people were doing wrong, why we were not able to bring COVID down. And this is just one of the moments from this show. But if you have the time, I’d encourage you to go back and listen to the whole thing. So this is Ed Yong.

Andy Slavitt 

There’s a lot of people with these sorts of observational theories that are by definition flawed around questions we don’t know and I think it’s where people bringing the confirmation bias. It’s like, you know, the president of Purdue saying, college kids don’t get sick, you know, airgo I have no problem having them here. I don’t care if they have cases, or the curve in Phoenix or Florida flattens, and people say, we must have a lot of T-cell cross immunity. And I want to focus on that one in particular. Do you think that is people clutching at a theory and false fitting? Or do you think they’re natural forces that are reducing susceptibility, like T-cell cross immunization or something like it?

Ed Yong 

So I think it’s not a ludicrous idea, right? But I think that there is this natural tendency to grasp the kind of magical solution that is going to lead us out of this without us having to make any effort, right? It’s not an implausible solution, it just happens to be a very convenient one, which means that we should think about it with the critical mindset that is warranted. So with the T-cell so this, for listeners who don’t know the background of this, there’s a few studies now, which have found that somewhere between 20% to 50% of people have T-cells, which are immune cells that kill cells that have been infected by specific viruses.

Ed Yong 

So they have T-cells that react to SARS-CoV-2. So what this means is that some people may have immune cells that are ready to react to a SARS-CoV-2 infection, perhaps because they have been exposed to other milder Corona viruses that are a little that have similarities to this new one. What we don’t know, of course, is whether these cells will actually protect us at all, like I’ve written about this to the immune system is incredibly complicated. And what you think is intuitive is often not actually what happens.

Ed Yong

So those T-cells might do nothing, they could make things worse, they can make things better, we won’t know until we actually do the experiments. And those experiments have not been done, regardless of whether they do anything or not. If they do in a T-cells don’t block infections, they kill infected cells. So they might reduce the severity of an infection, which would be great, but they’re not going to prevent you from getting sick in the first place.

Andy Slavitt 

Right. So they wouldn’t account for lower number of say percent positives in a location.

Ed Yong 

Right. And yeah, I think the thing that I keep on coming back to is that this is an incredibly complex problem with lots of things that go into it.

Andy Slavitt 

Including randomness, right?

Ed Yong 

Yes! So much that.

Andy Slavitt 

Time for the number eight moment on the show. This was a really great one, because I get to do with my awesome wife, Lana. And another couple who we had as guests on the show, Connie Schultz and Sherrod Brown. Sherrod Brown, as many of you know, Ohio Senator. Connie Schultz s a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and we love them both. It was such a delightful conversation. We had not spoken all for as a group before, but we kind of knew each other. And so it was a little bit of a love fest at the end. And I just think you’ll hear Lana and then you’ll get to hear Connie, who is just wonderful. So we really loved this conversation. Hopefully you have as well.

Lana Slavitt  08:42

So Connie, when you were talking about how important it is for potential voters to feel listened to, and to feel like somebody actually cares and understands their lives, it reminded me about how you talked about everyone has a tale to share. And you know, the challenge as an interviewer is to listen and so that you hear that tail. You know, I kept thinking about that in the context of this election that, you know, we need to give people a way to tell their tale. Because if they don’t tell the tale to somebody, then they’re they have no confidence that person is listening.

Connie Schultz 

As Sherrod knows, I’ve been kneeling and keep telling them keep telling they need to be putting more voices, they need to have Americans talking and immigrants talking, you know, and talking about their lives and what it’s been like and, and to close the distance as a concept I always think about as columnist is how do I close the distance with my readers? Well, with Joe Biden, the challenge is how do you close the distance with voters? How do they believe that you see them?

Connie Schultz

And I think in this with how weird this election is, how different this campaign is, one of the ways you show people that you hear them, and you see them is to actually show them and show that you’re listening to them. And their stories. There are so many universal tales, but every person has his or own way of telling him and the thing is if we show people who normally aren’t getting screen time and they are talking on this campaign, We start convincing voters I think that we really do care about them.

Andy Slavitt  10:03

Well, I want to thank you guys. I mean, part of the reason we did this is the two of you individually are heroes of ours. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. So I’ve been a big fan of yours. Sherrod you’ve been you were the favorite of one of our sons, who decided one day he came home he’s taking Polly sighs Dad; you know, my favorite senator is? Sherrod Brown. So, but also, I think, you know, the love batch of you guys is a little bit like Lana and mine, which is it is much about our values being aligned with each other. As I can hear from you guys.

Connie Schultz 

I can see that with you two. You know, it’s actually really wonderful to be couples together, talking about this today because we both admire so much what both of you are doing and I don’t know, it felt really thank you. It’s nice to be able to talk about it with people who understand what we’re saying, of course, share our values, but also who clearly loves each other because we can’t get enough of that right now. Can we?

Andy Slavitt

Thank you so much for what you do. And for coming on today. It’s just been a delight

Sherrod Brown 

And the public service of you for years.

Connie Schultz 

Yes, thanks for the kind words.

Lana Slavitt 

Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

Andy Slavitt 

Our number seven moment on the show is with Kumail Nanjiani. This is from kind of way back in early May. This was a really great fun conversation. Kumail, whose wife has immunocompromised this was going through some challenging times. You know, we were talking about what’s it like to stay at home, people were just beginning to stay at home. And we had a really interesting conversation. So here it is.

Andy Slavitt 

So let me finish on this. What are three things people may not have thought of? That are cool things to do at home.

Kumail Nanjiani

Wow, so okay, sit in a new chair. This is what we’ve been doing. Just like, just like sit in a new chair. You know, like we because we are always on the same exact couch. And sometimes she’s like, I’ll come in and she’ll be sitting on like, the green chair. That’s only for guests. I’m like, “Emily, what are you doing?” She’s like, things just look different here. What are you gonna do?

Andy Slavitt  12:05

I got to ask the judge. Zach, we count that as one? Zach says yes, that’s acceptable for one.

Kumail Nanjiani 

All right. All right. I mean, the other thing is, I know a lot of people have been like rearranging their furniture. I don’t know if that’s helping people.

Andy Slavitt 

That’s very close to the first one. Very close. Do we exactly count that independently? That independent idea? Exactly. It’s the same idea.

Kumail Nanjiani 

Zach thinks it’s the same idea. Okay, hold on one second. Let me ask Hey, Emily. Emily, can you give me two real quick things that people can do that they haven’t thought to do around the house? I already said sitting in a new chair.

Emily 

Can you take a shower in your sink?

Kumail Nanjiani 

Oh, Emily says can you take a shower in your sink?

Andy Slavitt 

Did she even know you’re talking to like you’re talking to your mother. Just like

Kumail Nanjiani 

She thinks I’m telling my mom to shower in the sink. Emily, one more. Have you been under your bed lately? Okay, and she’s put her headphones back in as if she’s like, sure of the success of this.

Andy Slavitt 

I think you’ve given the audience some things to do. Just a great list.

Kumail Nanjiani 

I will tell you what I am doing. You know, back like earlier I bought a bunch of like DVDs and Blu-Rays that are sort of like aspirational DVDs. You know, you buy like some Swedish show three seasons, because you’re like oh yeah I’m cultured. And I’m trying to watch those now. And a lot of that stuff is actually really good.

Andy Slavitt 

Do watch it from under your bed.

Andy Slavitt 

Number six clip is with Dr. Megan Ranney. She was on the show not so long ago, when she was kind enough to agree to record her day in the emergency room in a very hot and heavy COVID period right after Thanksgiving. This clip sticks with me because first of all, it’s just unusual to get a glimpse inside what’s going on. But you know Megan’s composure and clarity and honesty comes through, not only in this clip, but in this whole episode.

Andy Slavitt  14:34

So let’s go through your day. So it’s the day after Thanksgiving and maybe start with your ear at home. When you’re going into the ER in a day like today as an emergency physician. What are you feeling? Are you feeling dread? Are you feeling any fear? What’s it feel like?

Dr. Megan Ranney 

So it feels anxiety provoking every time I get ready to go into the hospital for a COVID shift. I have to be super careful to make sure I have everything I need to make sure that I’m bringing things that can either stay in my car or are disposable. And I have to get myself mentally prepared for what the day is going to be like. It’s really different on the days when I’m working in our COVID-19 pods, or right now just working in the ER in general.

Dr. Megan Ranney 

Compared to normal times. Normally, I’m an environmentally conscious person, I bring a reusable water bottle and coffee cup. Now I don’t do that. I know I’m not going to be able to drink for hours on end because I’m going to be wearing full PPE. And then there’s always that little bit of worry in the back of my head about what if I catch it today?

Andy Slavitt 

Right. So what time do you arrive?

Dr. Megan Ranney 

So I arrived at the hospital around 6:45 in the morning, my shift started at 7.

Andy Slavitt 

What was in front of you? What was it like when you got there?

Dr. Megan Ranney

I’m at the beginning of my shift and signing in. We are full of patients with COVID and trying our best to get them rooms upstairs. I’m geared up in full PPE with my resident talking about the upcoming shortage of nitrile gloves, and getting ready to go see some patients as soon as they’re open beds to see them in. So right now, when you walk into the hospital, the emergency department is full of patients who are waiting for beds upstairs. Because our hospitals are so full, because the nursing homes in the skilled nursing facilities are full.

Dr. Megan Ranney  16:33

There’s just nowhere to put the admitted patients. And so you have a waiting room of folks that are waiting to be seen you have an ER that’s full of patients that are waiting for beds. And you see the numbers just constantly increasing. As soon as you get a bed for someone upstairs, it gets filled with someone else. And they’re all sick. They’re all really sick. Normally in ER is a mix of not super sick and sick and it’s different now. There’s not a lot of those lower acuity patients coming in.

Andy Slavitt 

Number five, I think you’ll recognize these voices. They’re two of America’s great epidemiologists and epidemiology personalities. Farzad Mostashari, Caitlin Rivers, we did a show called Safe or Not Safe, which is actually one of our most popular episodes where we take your questions, post them to them. And we kind of did it game show style. And it was a lot of fun. We’re going to play a little bit of the game. Is It Safe Or Is It Not Safe? So welcome, Caitlin.

Dr. Caitlin Rivers

Thanks. Good to be here.

Andy Slavitt  

Farzad.

Dr. Farzad Mostashari

Nice to be here.

Andy Slavitt

Okay, so now everybody can tell their voices apart. So this will be easier. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to go through emails that were submitted to us, and voicemails that came in, were people asking about very specific questions. They want to know, what are the do’s and don’ts? Is it safe? Is it not safe? And we’re gonna go through a few categories. Okay, from Martha, big question: “When will be safe to date again what precautions need to be taken beyond the usual precautions, I mean, and by date, I mean, everything about dating, meeting, making out, having sex.” All right, Caitlin, 1 to 10. And there’s also a when.

Dr. Caitlin Rivers  18:21

So that’s not going to be safe, because social distancing isn’t possible, but you got to get on with your life. And so what I would recommend is adding yet another dimension to the dating game by making sure that your risk profile matches the people that you’re dating. So if you are very careful, you’re probably not going to want to go out with someone who’s also at the bar every weekend, you’re gonna want to find someone who’s well matched with you in terms of risk.

Andy Slavitt 

All right, you guys are tied into some speed rounds. these are these are quick questions, and the leisure side, movie theaters, safe or unsafe?

Dr. Farzad Mostashari 

Stay home

Andy Slavitt 

Type one diabetic wants to go on a mountain biking ride with a group doesn’t need a mask, yes or no?

Dr. Caitlin Rivers 

Safe.

Andy Slavitt 

With a mask?

Dr. Farzad Mostashari 

With a mask.

Andy Slavitt 

Gym’s, safe or unsafe?

Dr. Farzad Mostashari 

Pass.

Dr. Caitlin Rivers 

Outside, do outside.

Andy Slavitt 

Okay, you guys both did a good job in that round by being very quick, with some very sharp answers. Hard to pick a winner. So this is a bit of an essay question, but let’s see if we can do you know, kind of a brief essay. And Caitlin’s in the lead so Farzad your first.

Dr. Farzad Mostashari

All right. Outdoors. My god, it’s so great to be outdoors. Be outdoors as much as you can. It’s so good for the soul and it’s low risk. The other thing is take the respites when community prevalence comes down, like grab those chances. And then we got to be able to modulate right? When risk goes back up to climb back down. But I would say do those things. And if we can find ways to be in the bubble with people extra point, then I think we should.

Dr. Caitlin Rivers

It’s undignified

Andy Slavitt  20:02

You know, Farzad, no matter how many times you say that, Caitlin’s gonna win, you know, no matter what I just say that I’ve got to give it to Caitlin. But I do appreciate it. It’s been cooked, this was cooked before it started.

Dr. Caitlin Rivers

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Andy Slavitt 

Number four episode is with a guy who’s become a friend since doing the show Arnie Duncan, who is the Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, and we’ve talked about schools or the school should open. And this conversation really is evidence of how narrow I can think sometimes, and I talked to someone who just thinks more globally and bigger. And as you’ll be able to hear here in this Senate clip, the way he made me think about school and going back to school was much different than the way I thought about it and much more generous.

Andy Slavitt 

One of the conversations I was having with a parent was, don’t expect that what you get in return will be the same as what you had, expect you will lose some things. But ask yourself, are there compensating gains? In other words, because of the fact that your child is living through a unique period of time. Can they learn something about themselves as a human? Can they learn something about this country? Can they contribute something, that would be an educational opportunity they’ve never had before?

Andy Slavitt

And yes, they may be four months behind in mathematics. But they may be two years ahead in writing essays and working in teams and communication and something else. And if you take that look, as a parent, instead of saying, what is mine? What do I need? What can I get, but think with a little bit of creativity. That’s what it’s going to take to get through this period.

Arnie Duncan  22:01

All these challenges COVID, George Floyd, everything, is slapping our nation in the face with the massive inequalities that have existed everywhere in every system, education, health care, access to capital, all the cues I’m working on here in Chicago and south and west sides. They’ve been socially distance for decades. This is nothing new. We just didn’t call it socially distance they’ve been redlined. They’ve been marginalized. They’ve been disenfranchised. So what do we do?

Arnie Duncan

Educationally we have to do the best we can for every single child. And again, I worry most about those kids that are falling further and further behind. Chicago has given out 100,000 devices, Boston’s giving out 30,000 devices. In South Bend, Indiana, it’s not just access to devices it’s access to Wi Fi and the internet. In South Bend, Indiana, that parking school buses in communities that don’t have access to the Wi-Fi and to open that out. The idea, Andy that our kids should only learn nine o’clock to three o’clock in a physical building. That idea has to be obsolete.

Arnie Duncan

Every child, inner city, rural, remote, Native American reservation has to have the chance to learn anything they want, anytime, anywhere, 24/7, and you’ll find their passion, find their genius. So closing this digital divide ow, making access as ubiquitous as water and electricity should have happened a long time ago, hasn’t happened. We have to do that now. And try and again, try and mitigate as best we can. Those kids that are falling behind but for the love of access, this never existed in the history of our country.

Andy Slavitt

We are now on to number three. And the number three moment on the podcast actually was just a great moment with Pete Souza, where we talked about one of my favorite moments in politics and public life over the last few years and it was just amazing to relive this moment with Pete who was the White House photographer in the Obama Administration.

Andy Slavitt  24:17

Every probably two or three weeks I watched the Amazing Grace video. I just for the last couple years I found it’s been incredible just I mean the juxtaposition of that man against historic events is a really and you captured so nicely the kind of ramrod strength and discipline and focus that was there at times when the nation really was in a bad spot.

Pete Souza

Well, I mean, to the videos that are in the film of one is amazing grace, but also the second one is pre marks and press briefing room after the Newtown shooting. In some ways, it’s hard to watch. Because he became so emotional. You know, Amazing Grace was something that I do these I had done these public presentations, you know, showing my photographs, while I talked about them when my booking. And I figured out how to incorporate (UNCLEAR). This is where I’m not very technically proficient.

Pete Souza 

But I figured out how to incorporate, you know, a couple of video clips into keynote, to turn my presentation. And I included The Amazing Grace one. And the thing that really struck me go sing it again, was there’s this pause for almost, it seems an eternity, but it’s probably only 10 or 15 seconds, where he gets to the point of his speech, where I knew his F, you know, in hindsight, I knew it was like, the words for Amazing Grace were written down for him, right?

Pete Souza

And he was trying to decide, can I pull this off by singing? I mean, Valerie Jarrett was who was on helicopter with him. When we went to Andrews, I wasn’t on helicopter that day, said that he was he was telling her and a couple other people that he was thinking about singing those words. But to see that video and you see him in the moment, decide can I pull this off that’s the thing that really, really hit me.

Andy Slavitt 

Okay, if you stuck with us this long, we’re down to our number two moment on the show. This was with Kara Swisher. And I had to just ask Kara, whether or not she was getting a little restless, getting a little COVID fatigue, getting a little tired of being at home during this moment, and well, this was her answer.

Andy Slavitt

There’s this sort of notion now of Coronavirus fatigue. And people feeling like okay, I’ve been able to do this for so long, and I can make some adjustments. But I didn’t really prepare to do this forever. Plus, you know, the things I’ve observed aren’t exactly the way things told me they would be you paint a little bit of a picture of how you have reacted initially made adjustments to the pandemic, and then how you feel that changing what you feel like, I’m ready to take risks on this or I’m ready to let up on that or that sort of thing.

Kara Swisher  28:29

But I’m not a giant, big baby. Look, I want to go out, I want to go to restaurants, I literally want to see Top Gun 2. I do, I really do. Not at AMC theaters by the way, but you know, I really do want to do these things. But this is a virus, the virus doesn’t care doesn’t care that you want to see a movie the virus does just keeps on going. And it doesn’t care how you feel about this thing. It doesn’t care that you’re impatient, it doesn’t care of anything. It just wants to keep going and it will keep going. And so you can make whatever ridiculous justifications you want.

Kara Swisher

It will get you if it wants to and if you put yourself in harm’s way, and you may have a different reaction to the virus than other people you may do okay you may not. But you certainly will put other people at risk if you’re not careful. And I think that shouldn’t stop you cold, then you’re I don’t know what you who you are as a person if you’re not worried about your parents. You know, if you’re not worried about people who have immune deficiencies, if you’re not worried about those who have cancer, there’s something wrong with you.

Kara Swisher 

And so I don’t know what to tell you about that you should seek, you know, seek religious or psychological help, go right ahead. But the fact of matter is, you’re not going to get out of it. You can do certain things like go to stores, yes, I’ve gone to stores, I buy things I get in and out. You know we try to minimize that things. It’s not the way we want to live our lives but it’s the way that will get us back to regularity sooner. But nothing’s really going to happen until they get a vaccine let’s be honest, right? You can’t like this is only mitigation.

Kara Swisher

And of course they’re getting into mitigation techniques around that. Just like with you remember with AIDS. There was a really terrible period where a lot of people were just dying, and then they figured out how to treat it. And I think that’s sort of living it was called eventually called Living with AIDS. Well, this is living with Coronavirus, it doesn’t mean it’s cured. It means we figured out mitigation techniques, how to get the treatment down what we did wrong when we were treating. And that’s part of a discovery thing of medicine, medical people.

Kara Swisher  30:20

And I really in admiration of how quickly they sort of begun to understand what works and doesn’t, I’m just astonished that they keep doing this given all the pressures that are on them. But I think you just have to say to yourself, look, most people, many people are in a position of luck that they can shield themselves from this, they can be online, they can work from home, a lot of people aren’t, and you have to start thinking of those people they are not, we call them essential workers.

Kara Swisher 

And Nicole Hannah Jones in a podcast with may call them sacrificial workers, they’re not your sacrificial workers, you know what I mean? And so anything to do to make the people in the grocery store, or someone pumped in a gas station, or someone that has to be at a hospital, or someone that has to help the homeless, and to help them, I think you can take a moment and not have to go to a bar and drink. You don’t have to do that. And I know you’re there, sort of like, I’ll do what I want. But it’s not how society works.

Kara Swisher 

It’s how you know, the very worst chat groups on Reddit work, I can say whatever I want, but you really can’t, you really can’t, you can, but you can’t. And it depends on what kind of person you want to be. So I really want to get out. But I couldn’t have self-control because I’m an adult. And so you have to really have to think about that. And it’s the same thing with these tech companies, they’ve got to really start to find out where they aid Society and where they don’t help society. And that’s, that, to me is the tradeoff that you have.

Kara Swisher

And you can also say, I’ll finish with this. You can say it sucks. And you can say this is you can grieve about it. Like I was thinking my son this weekend. So one he was graduating high school, this is not a big deal. So a little thing, missed his high school graduation. He had to do a drive thru. He was so sunny and happy during it. Like he just had the attitude. Okay, this is what it is. He took it for the best he could and then this weekend, he did a little prom for him and his girlfriend, put up some lights, some crepe paper, they did a prom, you know, look, this is a small thing in a long life that he gets a disappointment doesn’t get to go to a senior prom.

Kara Swisher  32:16

Oh, well, he’s a lucky kid. Otherwise, white kid in America, some money, he’s not good. Things are not gonna go badly for my son, most likely. But this was a small thing that he just did. And he didn’t whine about it. And he didn’t like stamp his feet. And he didn’t feel the need to suck the oxygen out of other people’s lives to do it. He just dealt with it. He made the best of it. He had his adorable prom. Fine. And I think a lot of people can do that. What can they do to make it better for someone else? What can they do to make it better for themselves? And I think people can, if they try real hard, they can figure out a way to be a better citizen.

Kara Swisher

And I think that’s really the lesson here is how can we be better citizens to each other? Not just offline, but online. How can we be nicer to people online? How can we facilitate actual change? And not just hashtag of ism, you know, and that’s what people should be thinking about right now. This is an opportunity to really think about what you can do to impact the world in substantive ways.

Kara Swisher

Thank you. That’s my TED Talk. Welcome to my TED Talk.

Andy Slavitt 

Alright, we can get a drumroll for our number one favorite moment on the show, this was actually from our interview with Larry Brilliant, which was the number one listen to podcasts by quite a bit. They really captured so much of the moment of what’s going on with the pandemic. And as people might know, Larry Brilliant is just a terrific public health and Epidemiology expert. He was part of the cure of smallpox. He’s also just a deadhead, and a really good guy. And he summed up what I think for a lot of people, in many ways is the 30 seconds that captures where we are with this pandemic. So let’s hear a number one moment with Larry Brilliant.

Andy Slavitt  34:06

Tell me if you agree with this, if you solve the political equation, and the people involved, the fact that across the world, whether it’s the Czech Republic, or Greece, or Italy, or Hong Kong or Vietnam, or New Zealand, or China, people have figured out how to keep this virus at bay, contain it to the point where they recognize small number of cases and can jump on them. Doesn’t that indicate that it’s not as if the virus is so evil or whatever word you use, that it can’t be controlled with the right leadership, let alone science. These are just non pharmaceutical interventions.

Arnie Duncan 

Let me help you in a way during the Cold War under Gorbachev’s rule a five-year billion-dollar five-year plan was created to create a super bug called a Chimera. It would be half smallpox and half Ebola, to be either used against the United States to kill 100 million people or to threaten issues against the United States. That would be a virus that would spread as fast as smallpox killed as badly as Ebola. This is not that disease. This is not the zombie apocalypse. This is not a mass extinction event.

Dr. Larry Brilliant

I offer as proof, not necessarily New Zealand and Taiwan and Iceland, Czech Republic run by wonderful women, yet offer as a real example, New York, run by a governor, who is a skeptic at first, who believed the virus wasn’t as bad and that we shouldn’t close down the economy, who had trouble in fact, beginning the necessary steps to stop this disease until he saw firsthand with his own eyes, how bad it was in the hospitals that have no more room for other patients to come into the ICU.

Dr. Larry Brilliant  36:12

And he turned and he switched like every politician who might hear you speaking today, who has been a skeptic and who’s saying it’s a hoax, who’s downplaying it. When Cuomo when Governor Cuomo changed, New York changed. And if you look just at the epidemic curve, you see almost a Mount Fuji, you see almost a Mount Shasta. A curve that incline slope is almost equal to its decline slope. That’s the perfect example of what we can do in every other state in every other city that is now subject to both bad governance and a bad virus.

Dr. Larry Brilliant

We’re facing a really bad Coronavirus. It’s just a virus. It’s just a sack of RNA, surrounded by a bunch of fat. And it has no intentionality. It is not trying to kill us defeat us, it is programmed to infect us. We are smarter than it is. Our science is better than it is. And if it was just our science and the goodwill of American people, absent bad governance, we would have defeated it already. I don’t mean we would have eradicated it. But we would have been much further along into kicking it into the dustbin of history, which is what we will do when we gather our wits about us.

Andy Slavitt

That was Richard Corsi, from our episode on Getting Through Winter Safely. Because beautiful guitar playing and indoor air quality usually go together. Okay, I want you all to have a great and peaceful New Year. In 2021, we’re going to be coming at you with some I think, really great things that some of which we’ve already begun working on. Because IN THE BUBBLE, we just never ever take time off, which is constantly, constantly working. So we’re gonna have an episode that’s coming up around predictions for 2021 by the country’s best scientists, we’ve got a lot of that.

Andy Slavitt  38:31

So it’ll help orient us. The next one will be a toolkit and how we’re getting back to work. So finally, I just want to thank you for a great year and for listening. I want to thank the production team and the whole Lemonada Team for helping us put this show on this year. It’s been very rewarding to be a part of it, in large part due to everybody. everybody’s (UNCLEAR) and Happy New Year.

CREDITS

Thanks for listening IN THE BUBBLE. Hope you rate us highly. We’re a production of Lemonada Media. Kryssy Pease and Alex McOwen produced the show. Our mix is by Ivan Kuraev. My son Zach Slavitt is emeritus co-host and onsite producer improved by the much better Lana Slavitt, my wife. Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs still rule our lives and executive produced the show. Our theme was composed by Dan Molad and Oliver Hill and additional music by Ivan Kuraev. You can find out more about our show on social media at @LemonadaMedia. And you can find me at @ASlavitt on Twitter or at @AndySlavitt on Instagram. If you like what you heard today, most importantly, please tell your friends to come listen, but still tell them at a distance or with a mask. And please stay safe, share some joy and we will get through this together. #stayhome

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