All Episodes

May 15, 2020 20 mins

California was one of the first states to issue stay-at-home orders and it could be one of the last to fully open. There are many signs that coronavirus restrictions could be in place for the long haul. The Cal State University program plans to cancel almost all in-person classes in the fall. In LA County, safer-at-home orders have been extended indefinitely, even as some restrictions have begun to relax. Colleen Shalby, reporter at the LA Times, joins us for more.

Next, big social media platforms have been pretty quick to stop the spread of misinformation during the pandemic, but last week we saw the first true hit conspiracy video of the coronavirus era. It was called the “Plandemic,” and it got over 8 million views on Facebook and YouTube. The video has since been removed, but not before making a star out of discredited scientist Dr. Judy Mikovits. Casey Newton, Silicon Valley editor at The Verge, joins us for what to know about the “Plandemic.”

Finally, a fun conversation with Mike Love of the Beach Boys. While isolated at his home, he wrote a new song called “This Too Shall Pass” to encourage positivity and also raise some money. All proceeds from the song will go to Feeding America’s COVID-19 Response Fund to help food banks feed their local communities. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and co-founder of the Beach Boys, Mike Love, joins us to talk about his new song and live music after coronavirus.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday May. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the daily Dive. California was one of the
first states the issue stay at home orders, and it
could be one of the last to fully open. There
are many signs that coronavirus restrictions could be in place
for the long haul. The cow State University program plans

(00:22):
to cancel almost all in person classes in the fall.
In l A County, safer at home orders have been
extended indefinitely. Colleen Shalby, reporter at The l A Times,
joins us for more next big. Social media platforms have
been pretty quick to stop the spread of misinformation during
the pandemic, but last week we saw the first true
hit conspiracy video of the coronavirus era. It was called

(00:44):
the Plandemic and it got over eight million views on
Facebook and YouTube. The video has since been removed, but
not before making a star out of the discredited scientist
Dr Judy mcavitz. Casey Newton, Silicon Valley editor at The Verge,
joins us for what to know about the plandemic. Finally,
a fun conversation with Mike Love of the Beach Boys

(01:05):
while isolated at his home he wrote a new song
called This Too Shall Pass to encourage positivity and also
raise some money. All proceeds from the song will go
to Feeding America's COVID nineteen Response Fund to help food
banks be their local communities. Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame inductee and co founder of The Beach Boys, Mike
Love joins us to talk about his new song and

(01:25):
live music after coronavirus. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in. All retailers are able to reopen for door
to door, for doorside pickup and deliveries at the door,
with the exception of those who are located in indoor
shopping centers and malls, and manufacturing and logistic businesses that

(01:49):
supply the lower risk retail businesses may also now reopen.
Joining us now was Colleen shall Be reporter at the
l A Times. Thanks for joining us, Colleen, Thanks to me.
As a lot of states around the country are starting
to reopen, there's a lot of signs that the coronavirus
restrictions are here for the long haul. In California, we

(02:11):
were the first state to close, and it seems like
we could be one of the last to reopen fully.
Earlier this week, there was headlines all over the place
from Barbara Ferrere saying basically that stay at home owners
would extend possibly through July. And you know, everybody caused
a big ruckus on that the California State University System

(02:33):
isn't going to do any in person classes in the
false semester. There's just so much going on that seems
like these restrictions are going to stay with us for
some time. Colleen tell us a little bit about it.
California has been taking a pretty cautious approach. But I
think what's really interesting is that we are seeing varying
responses at the county by county level. So a handful

(02:53):
of counties that are growing are easing up restrictions. Some
restaurants are allowing me for dying in right now, versus
other counties like l A County, which is the most
populous in the state that's still being hit hardest by
the amount of infections and the death toll, is keeping
restrictions loosening some while still trying to do it in

(03:14):
the most cautious way, I think, to prevent a resurgence
and outbreak. And that's kind of where some of the
mixed messaging is we have the governor as their own
set of guidelines and this phase reopening that we're going through,
and you drill it down and we're talking about like
l A County. As you mentioned, they're not hitting any
of those guidelines just yet. They haven't met any of

(03:35):
those thresholds to reopen stuff yet. So we might see
some reopening and some parts of the state, other parts
maybe not. So, you know, Newsom when he initially revealed
this order basically had kind of clear guidelines for what
the counties needed to follow, and at the time, a
lot of counties went beyond the order and have since
started to kind of dial back. And now that Newsom

(03:58):
is lifting restrictions even further, you've got some counties that
are allowed to continue on and to kind of loosen
things in a much broader way. And then you have
l A County and many of the San Francisco Bay
area counties that are not totally eased up, even though
the state technically is allowing it, although Newsom has said
that many of the allowances are not for the counties

(04:20):
that are still being pretty significantly hit. So in that
regards in l A County, we've got retail businesses that
are opening for curbside pick up. We've got beaches that
are reopening, but only for active recreations. You've got trails
that are reopening, but groups are still not allowed. So
they're really trying to reopen the economy slowly and in
this way knowing that people are being pretty hurt. Businesses

(04:41):
are occurring right now, but while doing it in this
very cautious way, I think, because there's this real possibility
that if they go too quickly, since we haven't seen
a study decline over fourteen days, that things could spike
back up. Let's focus a little bit on l A County.
As I mentioned earlier, the county public Health director Dr
Barbara A. Ferrare said that, uh, you know, she told

(05:03):
the Board of supervisors that they would have to extend
the safer at home orders that we're supposed to expire
on the and then she caused a fur when she said, Hey,
this is gonna be going on for another few months
or indefinitely. We're gonna have to practice this. And as
I mentioned, it causes big confusion because we are starting
to reopen certain aspects of it, and you know, everybody's
eyes just kind of rolled when they started hearing that.

(05:25):
They're like, oh no, we're in for three more months
of this. But that's just kind of the reality that
since Los Angeles County is one of the bigger hotspots
for the state, they have to take a more cautious approach.
Barbara Frerare commented further on this yesterday joined the l
A County briefing, saying that there's no end date to
the health officer order, which, as you mentioned, it expires tomorrow,

(05:47):
but it's since been extended. And really what's happening now
is that we're being told that small gatherings are still
not allowed, you know, events are still not allowed, but
there are these flight modifications that we're going to continue
to see. So while you could go to your favorite
bookstore if it has now reopened for curbside pickup, you
still can't go inside. And that's different from some other

(06:09):
counties which have not been as impacted and are loosening
us a bit further compared to what's going on here
in l A County, And you drill down even further.
L A Mayor Eric Garcetti just put the new rules
out there that every resident is required to wear a
face covering just when you leave your home. So any
retail business, exercising your neighborhood, writing, on any public transportation,

(06:32):
you need some type of face covering. And that's a
bit of a change in the language from what the
county officials have said. Even today, Barbara Ferrera said that
all residents need to have a face mask on them
at all times, but she seemed to imply that if
you're doing solitary activity like you're going for a run,
you perhaps you do not need to wear that face mask.

(06:53):
But that, again is a little bit of a confusion
in the language, even from officials from the city versus
officials at the county level. So I think things keep
changing day by day, and the messaging keeps changing, and
I think everyone is trying to keep up. But there's
definitely a very cautious approach here in California. Though, how

(07:13):
many counties are we looking at that have met some
of these thresholds to reopen. I know it's only a
handful of them, but what are we looking at there?
So there's been at least twelve counties that have reopened,
I mean to be except that they're allowed to working
with nwsom's office, and there's at least thirty others that
are trying to work with NEWSOM to figure out how

(07:34):
they can go about doing that. So there's quite a
few and it's expanding that will reopen over the coming
days or weeks. But l A County and some of
the San Francisco Bay counties are the ones that are
kind of been instructed that they can't go too far
just yet. And I think that that could be even
more confusing where you've got one county that's maybe more
fully reopened, and you have people that either work there

(07:57):
or live elsewhere or travel to and from that min
know the rule of a different county. So I think
now what's going to happen is that everyone just needs
to pay attention to what's going on throughout the state
if they have any intention of going outside of their boundaries.
Colleen shall be reporter at the l A Times. Thank
you very much for joining us, Thank you for having me.

(08:24):
So they give you all the warning on up DEVO,
the immune therapy. That's a new chance for new life.
And when you look at the little picture at the bottom,
it says they live twelve months versus the nine months
joining us now is Casey Newton, Silicon Valley editor at
The Verge. Thanks for joining us, Casey, thanks for having me.
Whenever something like the coronavirus pandemic happens, whenever there's a

(08:47):
big world event or something huge happening, there always tends
to be some type of hoax or conspiracy theory attached
to it. And these times, especially when we're all stuck
at home and on the internet so much, these things
generally tend to pop up. If you'll remember, back in February,
there was this whole thing spreading on YouTube and Facebook
that was alleging that five G cellular networks were playing

(09:10):
a role in spreading the virus. But right now, this
is past week, this other kind of conspiracy theory slash
hoax thing popped up. It was a video called the Plandemic,
and it featured a woman named Dr Judy Muskovitz, and
she was alleging things about Dr Anthony Fauci, who was
on the Coronavirus Task Force team. There's all sorts of

(09:30):
craziness in this video. Casey, tell us about the video
and then we'll get into how it went viral. So
the video is conspiracy theory as you note, and the
basic idea seems to be that some shadowy elites are
conspiring to use the pandemic to sees power, maybe make

(09:53):
money by creating vaccines. And the star of this twenty
six minute clip that went viral is a woman named
Judy Mikovitz who has become a kind of hero to
the anti vaccine crowd. She's a discredited scientist who published
a book in April called Plague of Corruption that sort

(10:13):
of depicts her as a truth teller fighting scientists who
aren't willing to accept inconvenient facts, and so far right
publications began to promote her book, and this documentary that
is forthcoming will apparently be taking an even closer look
at these sort of baseless conspiracies. This video has since

(10:35):
since it kind of blew up, has been taken down,
but tell us about some of the crazy accusations in it.
I mean, one of the things that keeps popping up,
and I think it was the main thing that really
got it pulled down was they were saying that wearing
a mask will literally activate your own virus, and that
is the thing that got it taken down. Platforms like
YouTube and Facebook generally do not want to remove content

(10:57):
from the network, and they tried to enable a maximum
of free speech, but they do make an exception for
stuff that is actively harmful. And while a lot of
this video plandemic is just kind of conspiracy, is saying,
don't forget a lot of people are making money and
other people are going to become more powerful, that's not
why it got taken down. It got taken down because,

(11:19):
as you say, it warned people against wearing masks, you know,
saying that it would reinfect them, which of course there's
no basis for that whatsoever. But you can imagine if
a lot of people watch that and believe that it
could have a really negative effect on public health. And
Dr Judy mikovits for herself. She does have a degree
in biology from the University of Virginia, a PhD in

(11:40):
molecular biology. She worked on the National Cancer Institute. Then
she started getting into work about chronic fatigue syndrome and vaccines,
and this is kind of where she was derailed a
little bit. So like in two thousand nine, she had
published research saying that a mouse retrovirus caused chronic fatigue syndrome,
which got a lot of attention, but it was discredited

(12:03):
a couple years later and the journal ultimately retracted it,
and then in this sort of like weird side story,
she was actually put in jail on charges of theft,
which apparently involved computers disappearing. Those charges were dropped, but
the whole thing was a scandal and she was kind
of sideline and lost her scientific career. But after that

(12:24):
she sort of drifted into this anti vax crowd, and
because of the credentials that you mentioned, the anti vaxers
have sort of lifted her up as this brave truth teller,
even though what she's saying is largely nonsense. So let's
talk about how something like this goes viral. The usual
players come up. Obviously, Facebook and YouTube have a huge

(12:44):
part in this just because of how big the platforms are,
but there was a lot of Facebook groups that were
sharing this, and then beyond that, even as you mentioned,
there's a lot of mistruths in this video, but it
also takes time for their fact checkers to go through this,
so as he's mentioned, they didn't take it down right away.
It kind of was circulating around for a while while

(13:05):
they were trying to do some of that fact checking.
The way that things go viral on Facebook and YouTube
is always changing based on things that the platforms do
to try to stop bad stuff from happening, and sort
of like as soon as they fixed one problem, another emerges.
So over the past year, Facebook has put a lot
more attention on groups, getting people to join groups, kind

(13:26):
of moving you away from that news feed. And there
are a lot of conspiracy groups, anti vax groups where
this video clip was very popular. And what happened is
people were sharing it in the group and what they
were sharing was actually a link to YouTube. And so
from those Facebook groups, they were able to send seven
point one million views to one video within a period

(13:47):
of between thirty six and forty eight hours. So just
within that short period of time, Facebook drove all of
that traffic to YouTube, and so it was kind of
an unwitting tag team between the two platforms sent this
thing viral. It did take a while for the platforms
to fully understand what was in the video. The video
is twenty six minutes long, it contains a lot of

(14:09):
claims and they had to go through it sort of
point by point and ultimately make the determination that it
had to come down. But it sort of speaks to
this quote that is attributed to Mark Twain that the
lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can
put its shoes on, and that was definitely the case here.
Casey Newton, Silicon Valley editor at The Verge, thank you
very much for joining us. It's my pleasure. I wonder

(14:42):
how long the less as the saying of this two
shell pess So let's get it back to having fun fun.
Joining us now is Mike Love, legendary Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame inductee, Grammy Award winner and co founder

(15:04):
of The Beach Boys. Thanks for joining us today, Mike,
Thank you Oscar for having me on. You just released
a new song called This Too Shall Pass. It is
about our lives right now during this coronavirus pandemic, and
it's just a fun way to encourage some positivity during
this time. You wrote this. You had John SteamOS come

(15:24):
out on the drums for the video that you guys
made for this. Tell us a little bit about the
song and why you wrote it. Well, I was thinking,
you know, this year the Beach Boys had the biggest
year ever of our career, I believe it or not,
with all these concerts lined up, and all of a
sudden it came to a screeching halt. So I was
sitting at home and my studio and Lake Tahoe, which

(15:46):
is overlooking beautiful lake and everything, and I was thinking
about how much we are all going through. So yeah,
I just started writing out a little poetry, a little
poem about we all remember when school is out is
a cause for celebration, and nobody ever even thought about
closing down entire nations, and and so on and so forth.

(16:06):
And I also wanted to give a shout out to
the first responders in the National Garden, doctors and nurses
working real hard, which I did. But I wanted to
come up with a message of this will pass. People
are wondering how long it will last. As the saying goes,
this two shall pass, and pretty soon we'll get back
to having fun, fun, fun in the sun. I was
just picking up on something we did in the mid sixties.

(16:29):
I did want to mention that all of the money
that is raised from people buying this and all will
go to Feeding America's COVID nineteen Response Fund, and that
helps food banks across the country support their communities during
this pandemic. A lot of people have been impacted by
this and losing their jobs, and it's hard to feed
their families and themselves. So it's a great cause that

(16:51):
all the proceeds go to all of this. But you
mentioned about this too shall pass and we will get
back to it, and I firmly believe that we will.
Speaking of the music world, how do you think this
is going to change live music? Not sure, and we're
waiting for clearance, and it depends on what state you're in. Actually,

(17:12):
we had a whole bunch of stuff lined up in
l A like the Hollywood Bowl on the second, third,
and fourth July. All camps are all gone, and we
had June in Europe, but that's postponed until next year.
So we don't really couldn't tell you if for sure
when we'll be able to get back to doing a
normal concert. However, we're going to be very appreciative when

(17:32):
we do. We're going to appreciate it even more. I've
always loved the live music part of a more than recording.
I mean, the recording is great, and it's great to
make a great sounding record and stuff, but in this case,
this two show passed. We did it in seven different locations.
We didn't even see each other in person. You talk
about social distancing. So I call our keyboard player, Tim,

(17:54):
who lives in Vegas and got the tempo on the
key of what we're gonna sing, and then we send
it to our musical director, who put together a basic
tract in Lakeland, Florida, where he lives. Then send it
on to a couple of our guys who live in Nashville,
and then out to California and my son Christian, and
of course after I did my thing in my home
studio and lake tow we sent it to John Stamos,

(18:16):
who did the drums and he produced the video which
you can see on YouTube and stuff. So it was
really weird. Seven different locations to come up with this song.
Was it was different? Last question, how do you feel
about the country reopening? Do you think it's time? I
know you in the song you even say be safe,
be careful, do what's advised to do by the health

(18:38):
experts at all. But do you feel that it's ready?
Do you feel we're getting towards that point at least?
I honestly do, because I think if people are just sensible,
like maybe We're a mask if you go to a
ball game or whatever kind of game and or a
concert and maybe they take your temperature or something like that,
you know, on the way in. I mean, there's a
lot of treatments that are coming on word to have

(19:00):
come on board. Maybe there'll be a vaccine and stuff.
But the meantime, I think we can have life a
little more like we're used to, being able to go
to a basketball game or a football game and and
a concert and stuff like that. Just be sensible, that's
all right, And I just want everybody to remember that
everything that is made from this new song, this two
Shall Pass will go to Feeding America's COVID nineteen response fund.

(19:24):
Mike Love, thank you so much for joining us to day.
We really appreciate it. Thank you Oscar for getting the
word appreciate it a lot. That's it for this week.
Join us on social media at Daily Dive Pod on
both Twitter and Instagram. Leave us a comment, give us

(19:45):
a rating, and tell us the stories that you're interesting.
Follow us on I Heart Radio, or subscribe wherever you
get your podcast. This episode of The Daily Dive is
produced by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Sarrentina. I'm
Oscar Ramirez and this was your day. He died

The Daily Dive News

Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
I Do, Part 2

I Do, Part 2

From Executive Producers Jennie Garth, Jana Kramer, Amy Robach, and T.J. Holmes. Did you think you met the love of your life and marry him, only to realize it was actually “thank you, next?" Did this jerk cheat on you and leave you feeling alone and hopeless? Don’t make the same mistake twice... Get it right THIS time! Is it time to find true love…again?! If you loved the Golden Bachelor, SILVER just might be your color. Older and wiser, 50 and Fabulous, and ready for a little sex in the city. Everyone has baggage, but you’re not bringing it on this trip. Second Times The Charm. I Do, Part Two. An iHeartRadio podcast...where finding love is the main objective.

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.