February 22, 2022 • 37 mins
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Things Discussed in Episode:
- There’s No Justifying Our Children-Last COVID Policy
- Mask Mandates Don’t Need to Make Sense - The Atlantic
- ‘We’re doing everything we can to survive’: As the US looks to move on from Covid-19, high-risk and disabled Americans feel forgotten
- We’re Entering the Control Phase of the Pandemic
- Talk to the Public Like You Would Talk to a Patient - The Atlantic
- THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE STUCK IN PANDEMIC LIMBO
- Peyton Manning on SNL (Emily in Paris)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Boettger (00:00):
You're listening to the pandemic podcast.
We equip you to live the mostreal life possible in the face
of these crises.
My name is Matt Boettger and I'mjoined with once again.
My great, good lovely friend,Dr.
Stephen Kissler.
Stephen Kissler (00:11):
Lovely.
That's wonderful.
That's not what I get there,especially when I look like I'm
like emerging from the cane as Ioften do
Matt Boettger (00:18):
so you can watch it live or watch it later.
I'm here with Dr.
Stephen Kissler, anepidemiologist at the Harvard
school of public health.
How are you doing fine, sir?
Stephen Kissler (00:28):
Hey, I am doing all right.
It's it's good to see you.
It's you know, it's, the weatherhere is finally warming up a
little bit, which is great.
And yeah.
With COVID cases are going down,which has even greater.
So Sue things are
Matt Boettger (00:39):
great, right?
You can go outside and the COVIDis going down.
It's crashing here and all thegood news.
You're going to get a coldwintry blast.
Next couple of days.
I know it's gonna hit a lot ofpeople.
It's going down like 10 degreestomorrow.
Yeah.
Stephen Kissler (00:52):
Yeah.
It's it's I think so.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Matt Boettger (00:56):
It's not over.
So we had a beautiful day here.
It's like 60 degrees to the boysat walking.
They were not used to it.
They were like sweating.
Like it's so hot.
I'm like, it's 59 degrees.
We're not quite hot yet, butnonetheless, so that was good.
One bit of fun news.
I wanted to tell everybody, thissounds like a shock.
So we're almost two years intothis pandemic podcast.
I think it's like March 4th orfifth or six would be two years.
(01:17):
And I got to see.
Kissler for those of you whohave not been, you know, been
listening only recently.
He was a long time guest for awhile.
Stephen's brother, he's a doctorat university color hospital.
And I haven't seen him sincebefore the pandemic.
So it was like two weeks ago orwhat a week and a half ago, I
got to see him in face, face toface at a coffee shop for the
first time.
And it was really, reallyawesome.
(01:39):
So didn't get to see Stephen,you're still way up in the
Northeast, but hopefullysometime we'll reconnect.
So it was good to see him.
And I think there's a number ofthings, so we've got another
great.
Five-star is by far the bestcovet podcast.
This is from.
Cat 2 7, 8, learn something newevery time.
Thank you.
Cat 2 7, 8.
I really appreciate it.
Here's my goal.
We have 13 left to get to 200.
We'd love to get there by March6th or fifth, whenever our two
(02:01):
year anniversary.
So if you can get five minutes,two minutes, one minute, leave a
little review would greatlyhelp.
If you want to support usfinancially$5 a month or a
one-time gift, you can do thaton patrion.com/pandemic podcast
or one-time gift Venmo, PayPal,all in the show notes.
So, what do we talk about now?
I mean, it's like, it's, COVIDcases are plummeting.
(02:26):
Everybody's going back tonormal.
You have mass mandates releasedeverywhere, I think, except for
Hawaii, at least for the U Swe're talking about the us here
who Hawaii is to the long kindof the holding strong on that.
But I would imagine they'llprobably release those
relatively soon.
There's a lot of stuff.
So I think maybe we need tofocus on the transition and
talking about, we've mentionedthis a handful of times, right?
(02:47):
But now it's like serious,unless something else happens.
I'm hoping that's not the caseof this actually is a transition
to some sense of normalcy foran, you know, a period of time.
And I want to start with this.
There was a email from a ladynamed Wendy.
So thank you for.
Us and it was a great, great,I'm assuming you're from the UK,
Wendy.
I have no idea.
It sounds like that.
(03:07):
Cause it was really focusing onthe scientists kind of basically
epidemiologists the scientificcommunity in the UK versus that
of the U S so I want to pitchthis cause I think this might be
a good segue into.
Talking about what's next?
How do we live with this?
Because there's always a bit ofconfusion about what to do with
do next.
And Wendy's email really there'smuch more to this, but she kind
(03:30):
of showed how well the UKscientists for example, are
pretty hesitant when it comes todiscussing.
Really advocating for vaccinesfor children.
Right.
And kind of, there, these aremore hesitant apparently than
the U S is the U S a little bitmore for it and really strongly
kind of advises it, whereas UKdoesn't and clearly both are
(03:53):
looking at the research.
Clearly, both are trying to makethe best sense of out of all of
this in light of what's what'sgoing on right now and what
might be next.
And I want to just throw it toyour way.
I mean, I know without a doubt,I'm sure you've talked, spoken
to email texted, tweeted, whoknows some UK scientists.
And how, w you know, where doesthis kind of discrepancy come
(04:13):
from?
It's not really huge.
It's literally just one isadvanced.
Advancing the cause for vaccinesones, he's like, ah, sure.
Get it if you want to, but we'rereally not recommending it
because we think that they thinkthat the costs might weigh,
outweigh the small benefit forthat demographic.
So start with that.
Let's just talk about how thosetwo camps, how do you guys
relate to one another?
What's this discrepancy comingfrom?
(04:35):
Talk to us about.
Stephen Kissler (04:36):
Yeah.
So there's, you know, there area couple of things that come to
mind with us, you know, and thefirst is that when we've talked
about this, a number of times onthe podcast before, but how the
recommendations that are givenfor public health.
Are rooted in science, but notexclusively based in science
(04:57):
that they're, you know, they,they, they have a foundation in
science, but then they alsoreflect a given societies
preferences and tolerance ofrisk.
And.
Just the different ways that youweigh things that really can't
be quantified very easily.
And so, you know, I, I can sortof talk subjectively to this a
little bit because I mean, Ilived in the UK for about five
years.
And so I got pretty sort of anintuitive sense for you know, in
(05:22):
very broad generalizing strokes,the sorts of differences
culturally, when it comes toFacing a medical risk that
exists between the U S and theUK.
So, you know, one of the thingsthat really struck me when I
moved to the UK is that healthand safety is is like a top
priority in anything that youdo.
So, when I went to the UK,started my PhD I went to like
(05:42):
two full days worth of trainingabout Research safety basically.
And some of it had to do withlab work, but most of it, I
mean, I, you know, I type at acomputer all day.
Right.
And so we had like seminarsabout ergonomics and about like
how to like, just be, keepyourself safe and healthy about
like, you know, the differentpossibilities for fires.
(06:03):
If you like.
Hit your computer up too much.
If you plug too many things intothe wrong outlet or whatever.
Right.
And so, so it's interestingbecause it's like far from being
like cavalier that I, I found myexperience in the UK to actually
have sort of like health andsafety sort of at the forefront
of their minds.
But a lot of that was from apreventive mindset.
There's this real deep sense of,of the need for pre.
(06:24):
And I can trust that some to myexperience here in the U S where
you know, and again, again, thisis like super generalizing.
This is totally subjective andnot based in any sort of
evidence other than my own life,but but I feel like, you know,
here we do sort of likesometimes play into the
stereotype of kind of shootingfrom the hip a little bit.
And it's like, okay, well, youknow, you want to do that.
All right, good luck, you know,Godspeed and see how that turns
out for you.
And then, you know, the flipside of that is that I think
(06:46):
that we often rely oninterventions in the sense of
like, Drugs and pharmaceuticals.
We really like taking somethingwhen something goes wrong.
And so, so, so it's interestingbecause I think that in a sense,
the, the, the UK, my experiencethere was that they seem, they
tend to be a little bit moreconservative in terms of
prescribing things includinglike drugs and antibiotics, and
then also like, recommendingvaccines.
(07:07):
And they tend to weigh thesethings a little bit differently.
Whereas here in the U S I thinkthat we're Yeah.
I tend to be a little bitquicker to say like, yeah, give
him the drug, give him thevaccine, you know, this is what
we should be doing.
And just like really having alot of faith that, that
administering some kind ofpharmaceutical intervention is
probably going to be a goodthing.
So, so part of it is, I think isprobably rooted culturally to
some extent.
The other thing, you know,thinking about what's happening,
(07:29):
you know, with the UK isrecommendations is also this
element of time.
And I think that this issomething that we could probably
pay a little bit more attentionto.
Here in the U S which is the.
The recommendations are reallybased on an understanding of
where the pandemic is right now.
As you mentioned, the, the, therecommendations may well change.
If we get a new variant, if casewill start to increase because
that's when the cost benefitratio is really going to shift,
(07:52):
kids do have a high risk ofbiochem.
From COVID-19.
But the issue is that if yougive all kids a vaccine, and if
COVID cases are very low thanthe relative, like the absolute
risk of it, getting myocarditisis higher for the vaccine than
for COVID.
But if we start getting a majorCOVID outbreak that completely
flips on its head, and then itmakes a lot of sense to give
kids to that.
(08:13):
And so, with that in mind, youknow, we're no longer in a
situation where vaccine suppliesare scarce, especially in the U
S and the UK.
And so they have a lot of trustthat like, if a new variant
emerges chances are they'd beable to reverse this
recommendation, get itadministered as quickly as they
need to, to protect those kidsfrom serious outcomes from
COVID-19.
But right now I think the, theassessment is, is that it
(08:34):
doesn't make sense.
And that's a pretty nuancedstatement to send.
And so I think here, they'resort of like, tending towards,
you know, just saying, yeah,it's recommended everybody
should get it.
It seems like it is safe andeffective and it very much is.
But there's a little bit more ofa bias here, I think, towards
that kind of intervention.
So that's perfect.
And
Matt Boettger (08:50):
that's a great segue, Stephen, could we talk
about.
Before we started recordingabout these two articles coming
from the Atlantic, which Ithought it was somewhat comical,
but also, Hey, it's journalism.
It's fabulous.
And this is two articles wasthere's no justifying our
children last COVID policy.
So in, in a nutshell, I'll putthese in the show notes, read
them.
I think they're really, reallygreat articles.
(09:10):
Just really saying, Hey, the,the, the idea of imposing masks.
On children at school and thenreleasing them everywhere else
makes absolutely no sense.
There's no logic behind it.
And so, and they tried to lookfor the logic and they said it
was illogical.
And then there was anotherarticle within, I think days
later that said mass mandatesdon't need to make sense, same
(09:32):
place the Atlantic in a reallyfascinating article.
The reason why I think at thesegue is that one of the, one of
the first article about theyjust couldn't find a logical
reason to keep mass forchildren.
They use an example of the CDCin how.
Where you were, where you weresaying is where I think nuance
may be, could be placed backinto the CDC more, a little bit
(09:53):
more available talking abouthow, like, when they
recommended, you know, boostersfor, I think 12 and older, they
just made it universal and how,like they were saying, well, you
know what?
The ad that seems almostdiscredit a number of things and
discredits, maybe the efficacyof the first.
By just saying it.
So it kind of makes that kind ofscare like a, wait a minute, the
first two don't count, notunderstand the nuance of maybe
individuals of like saying,well, it depends on your
circumstances where we have,like you were saying, Stephen,
(10:14):
like, where are we at in a waveor lack thereof.
And so that lack of nuance seemsto maybe make that credibility
fall apart for the CDC.
And so you're saying, well, thatmay be something we could learn
from, from the UK of adding alittle more nuance to our, to
our public policies.
So,
Stephen Kissler (10:30):
yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So I think, I mean, I, and I,and it's so tricky because the,
that nuance can get lost at somany different layers.
I mean, sometimes it just neverexists in the first place, you
know, from, from the ones whoare making the recommendations.
But a lot of times it also justgets filtered through the media
or through, you know, socialmedia or whatever.
And a lot of the nuance that is,is in fact, there just gets
filtered out.
And so the message that we endup hearing.
(10:52):
It's not nearly as complex as itshould be.
So I think, you know, the, the,the responsibility for this
doesn't really just rest on anysingle person's or single
institution's shoulders.
But I think, you know, the factis that there is a lot of nuance
that, you know, we can, we cando a lot better with both
communicating and acceptingnuance.
And I think, you know, this,this question of masks in
schools is a really interestingone because what it also points
(11:13):
to as another sort of, logicalapproach to addressing issues
during the pandemic that I'veseen repeat itself again and
again which is.
Something some issue like masksor a certain type of vaccine
recommendation and point out aninconsistency.
And then but what often happensis that you say you, you know,
(11:34):
the, you point out theinconsistency and then you argue
for.
One change.
But in fact, there's almostalways two changes that are
possible.
So in this case, you know, youcould say that and I agree that
it's, it's kind of inconsistentto say, we need to have masks in
schools, but we're not going tohave masks anywhere else.
And so, you know, one option isto say, okay, well, we shouldn't
have masks in schools theneither because if we don't have
(11:55):
anywhere else than what's thedeal, but also this might be
pointing towards.
Well, maybe, you know, maybe weshould be thinking about masking
at certain times in other placestoo.
And maybe, maybe schools aresort of the last thing that are
helping to remind us thatactually this is, you know, this
is a useful thing in certainplaces at certain times.
And we should be bearing that inmind and we should be having an
open discussion as to when aremasks appropriate and when
aren't, they absolutely it'sinconsistent, but how do we make
(12:17):
it consistent?
There's a lot of different waysto do that.
And so trying to be reallyopen-minded about, about what
those possibilities might be.
So I think, you know, for me,that's, that's real, the main
upshot of this is that as we aremaking this really important
transition from sort of crisismanagement into at least a
period of time when we'reprobably going to be in more of
(12:38):
a sort of control and managementphase of the pandemic and who
knows how long that will last,but may it last forever.
And but.
Inevitably, we're going to haveinconsistencies.
We're going to have decisionsthat were being made for reasons
we ourselves don't fullyunderstand.
And it's only by reflecting uponthe state of things as they are.
And then starting to think abouthow we should adjust to those
(13:00):
things that we will finallyreach that consensus.
We don't, I think holdingourselves to like consistency at
the societal level.
At all times it's just much toohigh of a bar and I think it's
something we should always bestriving towards for sure.
But.
It's okay.
If it's not, because that'swhere, that's where creativity
comes from.
That's where creative socialsolutions come from is when
people do things in differentways.
(13:21):
And you say like, Hey, that'sworking and that's not, and this
is how we can sort of reconcilewhat's going on for a more.
Sort of policy.
So I think we're, we're stillsort of in the, in the, in the
evolution phase of thesepolicies, we're still trying to
figure out what they're going tobe as we transition into this
next stage.
So all of the diversity that wesee in how different people in
different institutions orapproach are approaching it, I
think is actually reallyimportant.
And.
Matt Boettger (13:41):
That's helpful.
I think a good, good piece ofadvice of, I mean, he's looking
at my own life of howinconsistent I am in my own
personal life of, I try to bereasonable.
I try to think through things,but nobody can be this way.
Nonstop.
We all are this complex web ofemotions and intellect and, and
history and environment and allkinds of stuff.
And so on an individual level ofit's that.
(14:02):
To maintain consistency in yourown life.
It that's on an exponentiallevel and he talked about on a
society and a societal level.
So I think that's helpful tokind of give some compassion
towards the CDC and other placesare striving to give that as
much as possible.
Going back to mass mandates.
Don't need to make sense again.
I love this article.
One thing I loved about this isit really kind of focused on the
(14:23):
point of.
These masks in schools mandates,or like the last place by which
we can, it can be imposed.
Right.
And that's probably one of thereasons why it's maybe still
being done and not arbitrarilythis, this author to know is he
or she, I need to look at thatand mentioned how well it does
kind of make sense, even that'sthe title.
Whereas, you know, bars,restaurants, they're letting go
(14:46):
of all their mass mandates andschools are this last place that
that's kind of Harbor of mask inwhether it's illogical or not.
But the fact of the matter isthere is a truth to be said that
if you're having somebody who islike a grandma or grandpa, more
than likely, they're going to bein more contact with the school
than a bar.
Right.
And so just by that level ofloan shows that this still is a
(15:06):
place by which we can have adiscussion and talk about.
Utterly irrational makes sense.
And like you said, the fact thatit's still, there is a reminder
that we're not fully out ofeverything yet know granted, we
want to move towards normalcy,but it is a reminder that we
still need to have thesediscussions because once all
that is gone, I would imaginewe're so frustrated.
So burnout, so exhausted out ofsight, out of mind, right?
(15:30):
In until something happens andthen we just look for a pill to
fix it as soon as possible.
So that's helpful.
That's helpful.
Okay.
So a quick update on the, the,the, the little, the BA two
variant, you know, I read anarticle just a few days ago up
in the show notes that it couldbe more dangerous.
It sounds like this is acredible research.
It was done on like a lab.
(15:52):
Right or mice or durable.
I'm not sure what it was.
So this is me being the layperson and I just read it,
thought it was interesting.
And when to throw it back to youto say, is there any kind of
word on your end about.
What BA two might be lookinglike kitten propose any kind of
hiccup in the spring or summeror not.
Stephen Kissler (16:09):
Yeah, so, I mean, I think this is another
one of those areas wherethinking about reaching
scientific consensus is reallyimportant.
So as, as you said, there wasthat study that suggested that
in.
And I'm, I'm not actually surewhich kind of fuzzy animal it
was, but it two generated moresevere outcomes of disease.
But that actually contrasts witha lot of evidence that's coming
from places where BA two iscurrently spreading in humans a
(16:32):
lot.
And there's actually really nodiscernible difference in rates
of hospitalizations and deathswith versus.
The a one being the sort oforiginal Omicron variant.
And so, you know, there's,there's, there's a lot that
separates you and me from adurable and a hamster.
And you know that yeah.
And I, I believe it or not, youknow, that's not just on the
(16:53):
physiological scale, but butwith physiology, you know, it's
like there's these viruses areconstantly changing the, their
receptors, the things that makethem stick to cells and enter
into them.
And just by random chance, youmight, you know, get something
that works really well for onespecies and really poorly for
another species.
And so, while those kinds ofstudies are valuable, That
(17:14):
translating these things acrossspecies is, is notoriously
difficult.
And so, so, you know, I thinkthat the, the weight of evidence
is that even if there is adifference in severity, it's
probably slight and is probablynot going to make a huge
difference on the populationscale, you know, we'll have to
keep watching it for sure.
But I I'm not too too concernedabout that at the moment.
Now it does look like BA two isprobably a little bit more
(17:36):
transmissible than BI one, whichis just mind blowing to me.
I mean, like how much more canthis thing ramp up?
Infectiousness it's unreal.
But the leap and infectiousnessis much, much smaller than the
leap from Delta to Omicron.
And that's part of why, youknow, we've seen BA two bubbling
along here in the U S for monthsat this point, but nowhere
hasn't really taken off tobecome the dominant lineage.
We're starting to see upticksespecially here in the
(17:57):
Northeast.
And I expect to see that aroundmuch of the rest of the country,
but it is.
Utterly different than theinvasion of the initial Homer
crown wave.
Right.
Which was just like thisabsolute explosion of cases.
And so, so yeah, so I mean, it,it sort of seems like, you know,
between Delta and Omicron thevirus like replaced its engine
from like a lawnmower engine tolike a Hemi, you know,
(18:18):
super-duper V8, whatever.
Whereas this is just sort oflike doing some.
Yeah, it took it in for atune-up and you know, it was as
a little bit more infectious,but that's kind of what we're
dealing with right now.
Furthermore, you know, in, inSouth Africa we saw a huge wave
of BA one another, starting tosee some BA two.
And even though BA two isincreasing there, the overall
number of cases I believe isstill declining.
It's declining at a slower ratethan it was before, but they're
(18:40):
still going down and we'll haveto watch that closely.
But again, like none of theindications that I'm seeing are
suggest that BA to.
It's going to be catastrophic,the more severe or catastrophic,
the more infectious it's justkind of like, the SQL you know,
the
Matt Boettger (18:55):
good, good.
And I heard, I would imaginesince it is kind of like, well,
at least it doesn't have its ownGreek alphabet yet.
Right.
It's just a, that it means it'ssimilar enough to those who
maybe got BA one that they'd berelatively immune to.
Stephen Kissler (19:09):
That's right.
Yeah.
And you know, there is one ofthe things that I have seen in a
lot of labs have been looking atthe antibody cocktails, the sort
of neutralization antibodiesthat are sometimes administered
to people who go to the hospitaland BA and BA to do different,
some important ways for that.
There are some things that wereeffective against BI one that
are not against BA two.
And actually I think vice versathat some of the things that
(19:31):
weren't effective against BA onenow, Effective against BA two
again.
But by and large, it seems likethe immunity from BA one does
seem to, you know, on the wholetransfer over to BA two as well.
So it doesn't mean you can't getreinfected.
We know that that's, you know,that happens all the time with
SARS cov two.
But you know, each exposuregives you some protection and it
seems like, you know, they'revery closely related.
(19:51):
And so BA one does seem to giveyou at least a pretty decent
amount of time.
Matt Boettger (19:55):
Great.
Great.
Now, as we move into thetransition to just living with
this and making it become anendemic and just becomes part
of, you know, kind of likeliving with the flu, when the
articles that I read, as wellas, as, as us pushes to a pre
COVID reality high-risk anddisabled Americans feel
forgotten.
So I read this and it was areally powerful article that I
read.
But, you know, my question isthis is, this is not something
(20:17):
new.
Clearly there's been otherdiseases.
Before 1918, where we're mass,the last time we were mass all
everywhere as a, as a, you know,and so I guess my pitching this
back to you, like, what do we doas a transition?
I feel like this is less maybedescript descriptive than
prescriptive, or I don't knowwhich way to say it, but it's
(20:37):
the flu I would imagine has thesame kind of intensity for
people who are vulnerable, whoare on the, you know, who have
immune compromised systems.
Is this more of like, okay, It'snot necessarily a COVID question
or is it more just a wake up oflike, oh, what have we been
doing the past 20 years with allthese things?
And maybe this is something weneed to address as a public
policy to help these people whosuffer greatly.
(21:00):
And I'm sure during the winterseason feel a little bit more
unnerved
Stephen Kissler (21:04):
than we.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I would in, in mymind this, this was one of the
most valuable and important sortof like media articles that's
come out in recent months.
So once again, ed young from theAtlantic knocks it out of the
park.
You know, he's been one of myfavorite science writers
throughout the pandemic and andthis one is nice because it's,
it's also actually compared tosome of his previous ones.
(21:25):
It's relatively short.
It's pretty quick read.
And, and super illuminating.
And so, you know, I, Isympathize and agree a lot with,
with, with what's been presentedin this article.
I think it's just superimportant because you know,
you're, you're right.
There are there are a lot ofpeople with compromised immune
cells.
Who have been facing, you know,like an increased risk from
(21:46):
everything for ages.
And I think, you know, it's soeasy to forget about disability
and about vulnerability and allof these different things.
In many ways.
I think our society, especiallyin the Western world, especially
in the U S has just completelystructured around shielding us
from death, from suffering, fromdisability.
And And that's, you know,that's, that's not good.
(22:08):
And, and, and one of the thingsthat COVID has done is it's
really brought some of thesethings to the forefront and some
really important ways.
So, you know, as, as youmentioned, like we, there's,
there's part of the question oflike, you know, we haven't
really.
Done much in terms of publicpolicy to protect these groups
in the past, you know, is,should we be doing anything now?
And I think, you know, it, againgets back to that idea that
(22:31):
like, you know, there's, there'sthis inconsistency and there are
two routes, you know, one isthat like, oh, well we didn't do
anything before.
We probably don't need to doanything now.
Or it's like, well, maybe weshould have been doing something
before.
And you know, maybe, maybethat's the way to correct the
inconsistency.
And so, you know, I, in thearticle.
Yeah.
It says that, you know,precisely none of these people
(22:51):
who are interviewed, who areimmunocompromised suggested that
we should be going into any sortof like permanent lockdown.
You know, they, they recognizethat they have a medical
condition that puts them atgreater risk from literally just
living life.
But but there is really thesense, you know, the thing that
really stood out to me was thesense of just being forgotten of
people just not really caring.
And, and it's, I've seen thisall the time and that drives me
(23:13):
up a wall, but this sort oflike, using sort of like the
elderly and immunocompromised tosort of this throw away line for
the exception to everything ofCOVID and it's like, well, okay,
like when did we, when did westop caring about the elderly
and the immunocompromised,right?
Like when did they become anasterisk that we can sort of no
longer.
You know, that we can just sortof say, oh, well for this group
over there, you know, thesethings might differ, but we're
not going to necessarily say howthey differ.
(23:33):
We're not going to say, youknow, what the actual change in
risk is going to be.
We're just going to sort of doour due diligence by saying they
exist and then sort of move onwith our lives.
And I think, you know, I thinkthat's just is a, is a huge,
huge injustice.
So with that said you know, wemake the comparison between
COVID and flu as well.
And you can think about it from,you know, for a person who's
immunocompromised.
It's basically like beingunvaccinated to a large extent.
(23:54):
And so.
COVID is a lot more severe thana flu for, for somebody who's
totally immune naive.
And so the risks that they'refacing is now not just from flu,
but also from this additionalrisk of COVID-19.
And I think that's important,you know, that, that there's,
you know, this just sort ofratchets up that risk of being
out in the world for peoplewhose immune systems are
compromised.
And so.
So I think that, you know, Idon't know yet what the answer
(24:16):
is to this.
Once again, I mean, I don'tthink it's realistic to say that
we're going to be able toeliminate all risk from everyone
or even to distribute riskequally among individuals.
I mean, it's just the sadreality of the world that like
people face different risks inlife for all sorts of different
reasons.
You know, w we should always bestriving to improve the lives
(24:37):
of, especially the people whoare most vulnerable, but you
know, that's, that's yeah,that's that that's, that's the
project of the entire humanproject, you know, that's not
the project of a couple ofyears.
But in the meantime, I thinkjust like recognizing that there
are a lot of people who areimmunocompromised, and even if
you're not, you will be one day,you know, that's what happens
when you get older.
And so just recognizing this isnot something abstract, this is
(24:57):
not something rare, even, youknow, that there are a lot of
people who we probably don'teven know who are around us, who
are immunocompromised.
And just recognizing thatthey're an integral part of our
world and trying to be a littlebit more mindful of, of.
The risks that they suffer goingaround the world from
day-to-day.
So, yeah, read the article thatarticulates all of this about a
thousand times better than I wasable to just now, but
Matt Boettger (25:18):
yeah, that's great.
And I mean, sorry, for those ofyou who are hearing a bunch of
sounds in the background of mineboys got raised cars yesterday,
and so I was slower.
So I apologize, but that's thenature of where I'm at right
now.
I'm in the basement.
We have wood floors above.
So I think that puts it in agreat perspective.
And thanks for sharing that.
Just the idea of that.
I mean, it's.
You know, let's move to thisidea of controlling COVID in the
(25:39):
future.
What am I look like?
You know, I mean, just as a sidenote, I totally just, this has
probably no relevance, but ithas saddened me.
I'm a person, you, you as well,a person of faith and come from
particular tradition and thetradition has a longstanding
hold, you know, being me beingCatholic and, and of really
caring for those in the margin.
And it was, it was, it was hardfor me in, in, in many circles
(26:01):
around me who didn't feel thatsame way to consider.
As a, as a place where we couldreally double down and care for
those in the margins.
And elevate them and protectthem.
I'm at costs that might, thatactually might cost a little bit
of suffering on ours.
So there was a big, it was a bigeye-opening moment.
I'm not saying that was sharedby every institution or every
Catholic, but it, but it wasn'tmy circles and it was hard to
(26:22):
swallow.
So I, I appreciate you bringingthis up to the surface that this
should be a universal focus forso many people.
But coming into the, into thesense of, of control and how to
begin to control COVID as wemove this to an endemic, what do
you think this looks like now?
I think for you, or maybe I'mpitch it to you as maybe more
like in the U S cause I feellike it's a dummy, a very
different world, not to be likePeyton Manning joke, but like,
(26:43):
you know, I don't feel the SNLwhere you talking about Emily
and Paris and then it went viraland anyway, it was hilarious.
He was, it was the interview.
Peyton Manning, like, what'd youthink of the Superbowl?
I was like, oh, I heard it wasgreat.
And they like, well, you heardit was great.
Like, well, I got caught up inEmily and Paris.
And so it's, it's a huge joke,but nonetheless, we, so we
started watching Emily and Parisand it was like, it's, it's an
awesome show.
And like you said, it reallyopened my eyes to the cultural
(27:06):
difference of even like Franceand how they think of like,
like, oh yeah, we really do usAmericans really.
Don't like to talk about deathor hard things and we like to
escape it.
Right.
Entertainment.
It's a very different reality.
So it imagine how.
Control our environments and beshaped largely by our culture.
Like you said, like also whenthe sense of we maybe are not so
(27:26):
into prevention, maybe why wehave diabetes and in a very
unhealthy way, we have atendency, right.
Generalizing to focus on afterthe matter and how do we fix it
and how do we get medicine andthat kind of stuff.
So.
And the U S particularly, how doyou look like the next best
steps for controlling this?
Now, given that there is a largeamount of people who are not
going to want to do much ofanything, because we're kind of
(27:48):
done with this.
So we want to push it tosomebody else or something else.
Stephen Kissler (27:53):
Yeah, gosh, you know, it's I think that this,
this question sits on all sortsof different levels.
You know, we can talk aboutepidemiologically, which, you
know, we have to some extent inprevious episodes too, about,
you know, what, what doescontrol mean?
And like, how do we think aboutyou know, relative risk and
comparing the risk from COVID tothe risks of other things that
we face.
Day-to-day like the risk of fluand car crashes and different
(28:15):
sorts of things.
Like how do we sort of bringthat into.
You know, probably ideally asimilar level because in a way,
you know, we've, we've gottenused to living with a certain
level of risk.
And part of the difficulty ofCOVID-19 is that it's increased
our risk of.
Dying of hospitalization.
And and so, you know, again,the, the options before us are
to control COVID until it comessort of falls back in line with
(28:38):
the risks that we were alreadyaccepting, sort of bring it back
down to the status quo or tothink about like what it means
to live now in a world.
It's just a riskier place to bethan it was before.
And I don't think that those arenecessarily exclusive.
I hope that they're not, youknow, I think that, you know,
that we still have a lot of workto do to prevent COVID cases
where we can and to bring, youknow, the, the The impact of
(29:01):
COVID down as much as we can,both at the individual and at
the societal level.
But also, you know, seeing thisas a much more general kind of
wake up call of precisely this,this issue.
And I think, especially this iscommon in America where it's
like, we don't, don't reallywant to think about death and
about dying and about risk andabout, you know, and in many
ways that's sort of seen as likea morbid or a tablet.
(29:23):
Kind of thing, but you know,just kind of recognizing it,
trying, trying to take this asan opportunity to readjust our
our own relationship withsuffering and death and dying.
And to recognize that like, youknow, we've, we've been living
in a time in history that isjust absurdly Different than
(29:45):
anything that has come before interms of the reduced risk from
dying from infectious diseaseor, you know, like, even just
accidents and toxins and things,you know, we have so much more
knowledge that we've really beenliving in this, you know, hugely
privileged time in history.
We can frequently forget aboutour own death and the death of
(30:06):
those around us and, you know,and it's wonderful, you know,
like I'm not, I'm like, that'sgreat.
And that's, you know, that's,that's what I've thrown my
entire professional weightbehind is sort of furthering
that progress.
You know, that's, that's reallygood, but I think that, you
know, we can get, get caught inthe in the trap of Just because
we've made so many strides topretending, or at least, you
know, living as if none of thesedifficult things exist at all.
(30:29):
And I think that this has reallyshown us that that's not the
case.
And that, you know, we may wellbe living in a decade or two,
you know, like the comingdecades may, will be more risky
for all of us than the previoustwo decades.
And that's going to be one ofthe first times in recent memory
that that's been the case, youknow, and that's a really hard
pill to swallow, but But but youknow, as, as we think about
(30:51):
transitioning to this endemicrelationship with COVID, I think
there's, you know, there's a lotfrom the policy perspective,
from the epidemiologyperspective, but I, the thing
that really interests me rightnow is sort of like, how do we
all know.
Sort of bear this, this newreality and sort of from like a
psychological spiritualperspective, how do we
understand that transition andwhat does it look like for our
(31:13):
society to sort of, justresponse to this crisis that
we've just been through and thatin many ways is an ongoing and
will continue to go on at somelevel for probably years to
come.
Matt Boettger (31:23):
Yeah.
I mean, to have that kind ofawakening of a mortality, and I
would feel like just practicallyspeaking.
You know, even though I would, Iwould say prime generally the
most, the world probably looksat us in some sense of, you
know, I feel like kind ofinfants and our, the way we
behave at times.
And they think that theadvantage, I guess, is kind of,
you know, I'm thinking like ofthe Tesla, right?
The Tesla was, was created it'sbattery, it's automated.
(31:43):
You can, you can send the carcan drive now, granted, you
can't just like fall asleep.
I'm not trying to advertise anykind of stuff, but it kinda, it
kind of a rings to the Americanears.
Like, oh my gosh, a Tesla, I candrive.
I can go to the bar and getwasted still, and then it's
still drive home.
Right.
You know?
So it's like, And again, we'renot advertising, we're not, we
don't want that to be the case,but like, there's this
temptation again, you know,everything that fixed so we can
still maintain our life andsomething else.
(32:06):
I mean, I think that's ahardship and a difficulty, and I
don't think really it's, it'sethically the correct way to
pride process things.
However, the gift, I think theopportunity in this is maybe
like, okay, we're America andnobody wants to wear masks
anymore.
Maybe nobody will care anymore.
And we'll just walk around.
What do we do now?
You know?
And I think putting I wouldimagine.
There to be a lot of resourcesbeing put into technology that
(32:27):
does it for us, right.
Air filtration, all these kindsof things, and, you know, really
advancing these kinds of thingsbeyond measure to at the cutting
edge so that we can still be ina bar and restaurant and then
feel as if nothing's going tohappen to us.
Because guess what, we, wedeveloped the filtration that we
can actually go with COVID andit'll suck it out of us.
Right.
And and we don't have to worryabout a thing, you know,
Stephen Kissler (32:48):
Yeah, exactly.
I, you know, and this is maybe,you know, going going off, you
know, further on something thatI have absolutely no
qualifications to talk about atall.
But but I do think, you know,going back to some of the themes
that we were talking about atthe beginning of the pandemic
about some of the culturaldifferences between different
places, I think, I think you'reright.
That certainly living in the UK,being in Europe, there was sort
of this deeper sense of arootedness of a Yeah.
(33:10):
Even just a acknowledgement andmortality in the sense that, you
know, there, the, for example,the memorials to the people who
are lost in world war one andworld war II were just
everywhere.
And and, but, you know, yeah,you were saying that like the,
the, the view of America's issometimes sort of childish.
And I have to say that like,Probably my perception of the us
(33:30):
and its sort of global standingwas probably more critical
before I left for the UK.
Then when I lived there and cameback in the sense that, you
know, I was I sort of saw thatyouthfulness as kind of a
negative thing, but after beingthere, you know, I came to
really appreciate that.
Like for, for all of the trapsthat our youthfulness as a
nation causes us to fall into.
(33:51):
There's also this reallyremarkable.
Energy and edginess and swaggerthat kind of comes with, you
know, being a relatively youngnation as well.
But we're sort of like on thecusp of our maturity as a
country, I think, you know,especially, you know, if you
think about relative to some ofthe political systems that have
been set up in Europe for, forsuch a long time.
And so, you know, I think that,that, that's another thing that
(34:13):
I think as a country, thispandemic sort of offers a new
reckoning for us, where it'slike you think of about our
personal lives and our, ourmaturing, you know, happens sort
of.
Start since usually broughtforward, especially by crises,
you know, when something awfulhappens or when something great
happens, but when there's majorturning points in life, you
know, that's when we, asindividuals really mature.
And I think that that sort oflike, forces us to question now,
(34:33):
you know, we, we have been sortof this.
Scrappy young nation for awhile.
And now there's sort of thisreally critical point where we
have to kind of decide whatwe're going to be about and what
is the process of our maturinggoing to look like?
And there are a lot of differentways that it can look and, you
know, people can mature well andcan mature poorly, but The fact
is they do one way or anotherthere's no, you know, and and so
(34:55):
I think that's, that's reallythe question that's facing us
now is that you know, what dowe, what do we do with these
pieces, recognizing you know,who we are, who we've been, and
that it's different thananywhere else in the world.
But, and so our path forwardneeds to be also different than
anywhere else, but also needs toreflect like who we are and who
we want to be in relationship aswe move forward.
So that's great.
(35:15):
Yeah, maybe I had too muchcoffee this morning.
There's
Matt Boettger (35:18):
give me some of that coffee.
That's awesome.
That's great.
No, that's a great way to endon.
I remember.
I mean, I love my dad andenslaved.
I remember when I was really,really young.
I had all this enthusiasm andenergy about, oh, I'm gonna do
this, we need this and this.
I remember we were, I was in theback of the car.
I was like, one day you'll getolder and you'll see things more
clearly or whatever.
I don't know, wasted it.
Like, that'd be like that.
I think.
There's clearly some wisdom inthat, but like, I kind of really
(35:40):
echo to me what you just said islike, oh yeah, there.
Yeah.
The U S is a scrappy youngenergizing, and here's the older
folks, older countries lookingat us and either a encouraging
us because after all our energyprovides some really cool
advancements, but also there'ssome pitfalls to are, are, are a
little blinded towards lookingat the things that scare us.
And, but we've been, we're beingfaced with a huge moment right
(36:03):
now and we are being forced togrow up.
And we don't want to lose who weare, but bring it, we'll bring
to the table and becomesomething even more mature.
So.
That's awesome.
Stephen.
I hope a level of listeners getvalue.
I got a lot of value from whatyou just said.
So I appreciate a lot of foodfor thought for the next couple
of days.
So we will end on that fabulousnote.
These scrappy young dudes aregonna sign out.
And we'll be back in a couple ofweeks, but in the meantime, if
(36:25):
you want to reach out to usmatt@livingthereal.com, do you
have an email like Wendy?
Did.
I love them for Dawn to Stephenand even mark, even though he
don't know who he is, maybe.
And he'll be back on.
I know he'll be back on at somepoint in time, and then if you
want to get a hold of Stephen ST E P H E N K I S S L E R in
Twitter.
I really recommend you followinghim on Twitter and his.
That he has a tailored, it'sbeen fun to, to in really
(36:48):
eyeopening to follow those,those tweets.
If you wanna support uspatrion.com/pandemic podcast, or
Venmo PayPal on the show notes.
And if we could get 13 morepeople deliver review by March
six, I think that's the date.
That'd be our two yearanniversary.
That'd be cool.
That'd be awesome.
I think.
That's good.
So the next time we're on, we'llbe around the two year mark.
(37:09):
So won't be as fabulous and asintense as our first year, that
was too much work for me in asuper fund, but we'll just keep
on carrying on.
All right.
Have a wonderful two weeks andwe'll see you all.
Or you'll hear from us in twoweeks.
Take care and bye-bye.
You're listening to the pandemic podcast.
We equip you to live the mostreal life possible in the face
of these crises.
My name is Matt Boettger and I'mjoined with once again.
My great, good lovely friend,Dr.
Stephen Kissler.
Stephen Kissler (00:11):
Lovely.
That's wonderful.
That's not what I get there,especially when I look like I'm
like emerging from the cane as Ioften do
Matt Boettger (00:18):
so you can watch it live or watch it later.
I'm here with Dr.
Stephen Kissler, anepidemiologist at the Harvard
school of public health.
How are you doing fine, sir?
Stephen Kissler (00:28):
Hey, I am doing all right.
It's it's good to see you.
It's you know, it's, the weatherhere is finally warming up a
little bit, which is great.
And yeah.
With COVID cases are going down,which has even greater.
So Sue things are
Matt Boettger (00:39):
great, right?
You can go outside and the COVIDis going down.
It's crashing here and all thegood news.
You're going to get a coldwintry blast.
Next couple of days.
I know it's gonna hit a lot ofpeople.
It's going down like 10 degreestomorrow.
Yeah.
Stephen Kissler (00:52):
Yeah.
It's it's I think so.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Matt Boettger (00:56):
It's not over.
So we had a beautiful day here.
It's like 60 degrees to the boysat walking.
They were not used to it.
They were like sweating.
Like it's so hot.
I'm like, it's 59 degrees.
We're not quite hot yet, butnonetheless, so that was good.
One bit of fun news.
I wanted to tell everybody, thissounds like a shock.
So we're almost two years intothis pandemic podcast.
I think it's like March 4th orfifth or six would be two years.
(01:17):
And I got to see.
Kissler for those of you whohave not been, you know, been
listening only recently.
He was a long time guest for awhile.
Stephen's brother, he's a doctorat university color hospital.
And I haven't seen him sincebefore the pandemic.
So it was like two weeks ago orwhat a week and a half ago, I
got to see him in face, face toface at a coffee shop for the
first time.
And it was really, reallyawesome.
(01:39):
So didn't get to see Stephen,you're still way up in the
Northeast, but hopefullysometime we'll reconnect.
So it was good to see him.
And I think there's a number ofthings, so we've got another
great.
Five-star is by far the bestcovet podcast.
This is from.
Cat 2 7, 8, learn something newevery time.
Thank you.
Cat 2 7, 8.
I really appreciate it.
Here's my goal.
We have 13 left to get to 200.
We'd love to get there by March6th or fifth, whenever our two
(02:01):
year anniversary.
So if you can get five minutes,two minutes, one minute, leave a
little review would greatlyhelp.
If you want to support usfinancially$5 a month or a
one-time gift, you can do thaton patrion.com/pandemic podcast
or one-time gift Venmo, PayPal,all in the show notes.
So, what do we talk about now?
I mean, it's like, it's, COVIDcases are plummeting.
(02:26):
Everybody's going back tonormal.
You have mass mandates releasedeverywhere, I think, except for
Hawaii, at least for the U Swe're talking about the us here
who Hawaii is to the long kindof the holding strong on that.
But I would imagine they'llprobably release those
relatively soon.
There's a lot of stuff.
So I think maybe we need tofocus on the transition and
talking about, we've mentionedthis a handful of times, right?
(02:47):
But now it's like serious,unless something else happens.
I'm hoping that's not the caseof this actually is a transition
to some sense of normalcy foran, you know, a period of time.
And I want to start with this.
There was a email from a ladynamed Wendy.
So thank you for.
Us and it was a great, great,I'm assuming you're from the UK,
Wendy.
I have no idea.
It sounds like that.
(03:07):
Cause it was really focusing onthe scientists kind of basically
epidemiologists the scientificcommunity in the UK versus that
of the U S so I want to pitchthis cause I think this might be
a good segue into.
Talking about what's next?
How do we live with this?
Because there's always a bit ofconfusion about what to do with
do next.
And Wendy's email really there'smuch more to this, but she kind
(03:30):
of showed how well the UKscientists for example, are
pretty hesitant when it comes todiscussing.
Really advocating for vaccinesfor children.
Right.
And kind of, there, these aremore hesitant apparently than
the U S is the U S a little bitmore for it and really strongly
kind of advises it, whereas UKdoesn't and clearly both are
(03:53):
looking at the research.
Clearly, both are trying to makethe best sense of out of all of
this in light of what's what'sgoing on right now and what
might be next.
And I want to just throw it toyour way.
I mean, I know without a doubt,I'm sure you've talked, spoken
to email texted, tweeted, whoknows some UK scientists.
And how, w you know, where doesthis kind of discrepancy come
(04:13):
from?
It's not really huge.
It's literally just one isadvanced.
Advancing the cause for vaccinesones, he's like, ah, sure.
Get it if you want to, but we'rereally not recommending it
because we think that they thinkthat the costs might weigh,
outweigh the small benefit forthat demographic.
So start with that.
Let's just talk about how thosetwo camps, how do you guys
relate to one another?
What's this discrepancy comingfrom?
(04:35):
Talk to us about.
Stephen Kissler (04:36):
Yeah.
So there's, you know, there area couple of things that come to
mind with us, you know, and thefirst is that when we've talked
about this, a number of times onthe podcast before, but how the
recommendations that are givenfor public health.
Are rooted in science, but notexclusively based in science
(04:57):
that they're, you know, they,they, they have a foundation in
science, but then they alsoreflect a given societies
preferences and tolerance ofrisk.
And.
Just the different ways that youweigh things that really can't
be quantified very easily.
And so, you know, I, I can sortof talk subjectively to this a
little bit because I mean, Ilived in the UK for about five
years.
And so I got pretty sort of anintuitive sense for you know, in
(05:22):
very broad generalizing strokes,the sorts of differences
culturally, when it comes toFacing a medical risk that
exists between the U S and theUK.
So, you know, one of the thingsthat really struck me when I
moved to the UK is that healthand safety is is like a top
priority in anything that youdo.
So, when I went to the UK,started my PhD I went to like
(05:42):
two full days worth of trainingabout Research safety basically.
And some of it had to do withlab work, but most of it, I
mean, I, you know, I type at acomputer all day.
Right.
And so we had like seminarsabout ergonomics and about like
how to like, just be, keepyourself safe and healthy about
like, you know, the differentpossibilities for fires.
(06:03):
If you like.
Hit your computer up too much.
If you plug too many things intothe wrong outlet or whatever.
Right.
And so, so it's interestingbecause it's like far from being
like cavalier that I, I found myexperience in the UK to actually
have sort of like health andsafety sort of at the forefront
of their minds.
But a lot of that was from apreventive mindset.
There's this real deep sense of,of the need for pre.
(06:24):
And I can trust that some to myexperience here in the U S where
you know, and again, again, thisis like super generalizing.
This is totally subjective andnot based in any sort of
evidence other than my own life,but but I feel like, you know,
here we do sort of likesometimes play into the
stereotype of kind of shootingfrom the hip a little bit.
And it's like, okay, well, youknow, you want to do that.
All right, good luck, you know,Godspeed and see how that turns
out for you.
And then, you know, the flipside of that is that I think
(06:46):
that we often rely oninterventions in the sense of
like, Drugs and pharmaceuticals.
We really like taking somethingwhen something goes wrong.
And so, so, so it's interestingbecause I think that in a sense,
the, the, the UK, my experiencethere was that they seem, they
tend to be a little bit moreconservative in terms of
prescribing things includinglike drugs and antibiotics, and
then also like, recommendingvaccines.
(07:07):
And they tend to weigh thesethings a little bit differently.
Whereas here in the U S I thinkthat we're Yeah.
I tend to be a little bitquicker to say like, yeah, give
him the drug, give him thevaccine, you know, this is what
we should be doing.
And just like really having alot of faith that, that
administering some kind ofpharmaceutical intervention is
probably going to be a goodthing.
So, so part of it is, I think isprobably rooted culturally to
some extent.
The other thing, you know,thinking about what's happening,
(07:29):
you know, with the UK isrecommendations is also this
element of time.
And I think that this issomething that we could probably
pay a little bit more attentionto.
Here in the U S which is the.
The recommendations are reallybased on an understanding of
where the pandemic is right now.
As you mentioned, the, the, therecommendations may well change.
If we get a new variant, if casewill start to increase because
that's when the cost benefitratio is really going to shift,
(07:52):
kids do have a high risk ofbiochem.
From COVID-19.
But the issue is that if yougive all kids a vaccine, and if
COVID cases are very low thanthe relative, like the absolute
risk of it, getting myocarditisis higher for the vaccine than
for COVID.
But if we start getting a majorCOVID outbreak that completely
flips on its head, and then itmakes a lot of sense to give
kids to that.
(08:13):
And so, with that in mind, youknow, we're no longer in a
situation where vaccine suppliesare scarce, especially in the U
S and the UK.
And so they have a lot of trustthat like, if a new variant
emerges chances are they'd beable to reverse this
recommendation, get itadministered as quickly as they
need to, to protect those kidsfrom serious outcomes from
COVID-19.
But right now I think the, theassessment is, is that it
(08:34):
doesn't make sense.
And that's a pretty nuancedstatement to send.
And so I think here, they'resort of like, tending towards,
you know, just saying, yeah,it's recommended everybody
should get it.
It seems like it is safe andeffective and it very much is.
But there's a little bit more ofa bias here, I think, towards
that kind of intervention.
So that's perfect.
And
Matt Boettger (08:50):
that's a great segue, Stephen, could we talk
about.
Before we started recordingabout these two articles coming
from the Atlantic, which Ithought it was somewhat comical,
but also, Hey, it's journalism.
It's fabulous.
And this is two articles wasthere's no justifying our
children last COVID policy.
So in, in a nutshell, I'll putthese in the show notes, read
them.
I think they're really, reallygreat articles.
(09:10):
Just really saying, Hey, the,the, the idea of imposing masks.
On children at school and thenreleasing them everywhere else
makes absolutely no sense.
There's no logic behind it.
And so, and they tried to lookfor the logic and they said it
was illogical.
And then there was anotherarticle within, I think days
later that said mass mandatesdon't need to make sense, same
(09:32):
place the Atlantic in a reallyfascinating article.
The reason why I think at thesegue is that one of the, one of
the first article about theyjust couldn't find a logical
reason to keep mass forchildren.
They use an example of the CDCin how.
Where you were, where you weresaying is where I think nuance
may be, could be placed backinto the CDC more, a little bit
(09:53):
more available talking abouthow, like, when they
recommended, you know, boostersfor, I think 12 and older, they
just made it universal and how,like they were saying, well, you
know what?
The ad that seems almostdiscredit a number of things and
discredits, maybe the efficacyof the first.
By just saying it.
So it kind of makes that kind ofscare like a, wait a minute, the
first two don't count, notunderstand the nuance of maybe
individuals of like saying,well, it depends on your
circumstances where we have,like you were saying, Stephen,
(10:14):
like, where are we at in a waveor lack thereof.
And so that lack of nuance seemsto maybe make that credibility
fall apart for the CDC.
And so you're saying, well, thatmay be something we could learn
from, from the UK of adding alittle more nuance to our, to
our public policies.
So,
Stephen Kissler (10:30):
yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So I think, I mean, I, and I,and it's so tricky because the,
that nuance can get lost at somany different layers.
I mean, sometimes it just neverexists in the first place, you
know, from, from the ones whoare making the recommendations.
But a lot of times it also justgets filtered through the media
or through, you know, socialmedia or whatever.
And a lot of the nuance that is,is in fact, there just gets
filtered out.
And so the message that we endup hearing.
(10:52):
It's not nearly as complex as itshould be.
So I think, you know, the, the,the responsibility for this
doesn't really just rest on anysingle person's or single
institution's shoulders.
But I think, you know, the factis that there is a lot of nuance
that, you know, we can, we cando a lot better with both
communicating and acceptingnuance.
And I think, you know, this,this question of masks in
schools is a really interestingone because what it also points
(11:13):
to as another sort of, logicalapproach to addressing issues
during the pandemic that I'veseen repeat itself again and
again which is.
Something some issue like masksor a certain type of vaccine
recommendation and point out aninconsistency.
And then but what often happensis that you say you, you know,
(11:34):
the, you point out theinconsistency and then you argue
for.
One change.
But in fact, there's almostalways two changes that are
possible.
So in this case, you know, youcould say that and I agree that
it's, it's kind of inconsistentto say, we need to have masks in
schools, but we're not going tohave masks anywhere else.
And so, you know, one option isto say, okay, well, we shouldn't
have masks in schools theneither because if we don't have
(11:55):
anywhere else than what's thedeal, but also this might be
pointing towards.
Well, maybe, you know, maybe weshould be thinking about masking
at certain times in other placestoo.
And maybe, maybe schools aresort of the last thing that are
helping to remind us thatactually this is, you know, this
is a useful thing in certainplaces at certain times.
And we should be bearing that inmind and we should be having an
open discussion as to when aremasks appropriate and when
aren't, they absolutely it'sinconsistent, but how do we make
(12:17):
it consistent?
There's a lot of different waysto do that.
And so trying to be reallyopen-minded about, about what
those possibilities might be.
So I think, you know, for me,that's, that's real, the main
upshot of this is that as we aremaking this really important
transition from sort of crisismanagement into at least a
period of time when we'reprobably going to be in more of
(12:38):
a sort of control and managementphase of the pandemic and who
knows how long that will last,but may it last forever.
And but.
Inevitably, we're going to haveinconsistencies.
We're going to have decisionsthat were being made for reasons
we ourselves don't fullyunderstand.
And it's only by reflecting uponthe state of things as they are.
And then starting to think abouthow we should adjust to those
(13:00):
things that we will finallyreach that consensus.
We don't, I think holdingourselves to like consistency at
the societal level.
At all times it's just much toohigh of a bar and I think it's
something we should always bestriving towards for sure.
But.
It's okay.
If it's not, because that'swhere, that's where creativity
comes from.
That's where creative socialsolutions come from is when
people do things in differentways.
(13:21):
And you say like, Hey, that'sworking and that's not, and this
is how we can sort of reconcilewhat's going on for a more.
Sort of policy.
So I think we're, we're stillsort of in the, in the, in the
evolution phase of thesepolicies, we're still trying to
figure out what they're going tobe as we transition into this
next stage.
So all of the diversity that wesee in how different people in
different institutions orapproach are approaching it, I
think is actually reallyimportant.
And.
Matt Boettger (13:41):
That's helpful.
I think a good, good piece ofadvice of, I mean, he's looking
at my own life of howinconsistent I am in my own
personal life of, I try to bereasonable.
I try to think through things,but nobody can be this way.
Nonstop.
We all are this complex web ofemotions and intellect and, and
history and environment and allkinds of stuff.
And so on an individual level ofit's that.
(14:02):
To maintain consistency in yourown life.
It that's on an exponentiallevel and he talked about on a
society and a societal level.
So I think that's helpful tokind of give some compassion
towards the CDC and other placesare striving to give that as
much as possible.
Going back to mass mandates.
Don't need to make sense again.
I love this article.
One thing I loved about this isit really kind of focused on the
(14:23):
point of.
These masks in schools mandates,or like the last place by which
we can, it can be imposed.
Right.
And that's probably one of thereasons why it's maybe still
being done and not arbitrarilythis, this author to know is he
or she, I need to look at thatand mentioned how well it does
kind of make sense, even that'sthe title.
Whereas, you know, bars,restaurants, they're letting go
(14:46):
of all their mass mandates andschools are this last place that
that's kind of Harbor of mask inwhether it's illogical or not.
But the fact of the matter isthere is a truth to be said that
if you're having somebody who islike a grandma or grandpa, more
than likely, they're going to bein more contact with the school
than a bar.
Right.
And so just by that level ofloan shows that this still is a
(15:06):
place by which we can have adiscussion and talk about.
Utterly irrational makes sense.
And like you said, the fact thatit's still, there is a reminder
that we're not fully out ofeverything yet know granted, we
want to move towards normalcy,but it is a reminder that we
still need to have thesediscussions because once all
that is gone, I would imaginewe're so frustrated.
So burnout, so exhausted out ofsight, out of mind, right?
(15:30):
In until something happens andthen we just look for a pill to
fix it as soon as possible.
So that's helpful.
That's helpful.
Okay.
So a quick update on the, the,the, the little, the BA two
variant, you know, I read anarticle just a few days ago up
in the show notes that it couldbe more dangerous.
It sounds like this is acredible research.
It was done on like a lab.
(15:52):
Right or mice or durable.
I'm not sure what it was.
So this is me being the layperson and I just read it,
thought it was interesting.
And when to throw it back to youto say, is there any kind of
word on your end about.
What BA two might be lookinglike kitten propose any kind of
hiccup in the spring or summeror not.
Stephen Kissler (16:09):
Yeah, so, I mean, I think this is another
one of those areas wherethinking about reaching
scientific consensus is reallyimportant.
So as, as you said, there wasthat study that suggested that
in.
And I'm, I'm not actually surewhich kind of fuzzy animal it
was, but it two generated moresevere outcomes of disease.
But that actually contrasts witha lot of evidence that's coming
from places where BA two iscurrently spreading in humans a
(16:32):
lot.
And there's actually really nodiscernible difference in rates
of hospitalizations and deathswith versus.
The a one being the sort oforiginal Omicron variant.
And so, you know, there's,there's, there's a lot that
separates you and me from adurable and a hamster.
And you know that yeah.
And I, I believe it or not, youknow, that's not just on the
(16:53):
physiological scale, but butwith physiology, you know, it's
like there's these viruses areconstantly changing the, their
receptors, the things that makethem stick to cells and enter
into them.
And just by random chance, youmight, you know, get something
that works really well for onespecies and really poorly for
another species.
And so, while those kinds ofstudies are valuable, That
(17:14):
translating these things acrossspecies is, is notoriously
difficult.
And so, so, you know, I thinkthat the, the weight of evidence
is that even if there is adifference in severity, it's
probably slight and is probablynot going to make a huge
difference on the populationscale, you know, we'll have to
keep watching it for sure.
But I I'm not too too concernedabout that at the moment.
Now it does look like BA two isprobably a little bit more
(17:36):
transmissible than BI one, whichis just mind blowing to me.
I mean, like how much more canthis thing ramp up?
Infectiousness it's unreal.
But the leap and infectiousnessis much, much smaller than the
leap from Delta to Omicron.
And that's part of why, youknow, we've seen BA two bubbling
along here in the U S for monthsat this point, but nowhere
hasn't really taken off tobecome the dominant lineage.
We're starting to see upticksespecially here in the
(17:57):
Northeast.
And I expect to see that aroundmuch of the rest of the country,
but it is.
Utterly different than theinvasion of the initial Homer
crown wave.
Right.
Which was just like thisabsolute explosion of cases.
And so, so yeah, so I mean, it,it sort of seems like, you know,
between Delta and Omicron thevirus like replaced its engine
from like a lawnmower engine tolike a Hemi, you know,
(18:18):
super-duper V8, whatever.
Whereas this is just sort oflike doing some.
Yeah, it took it in for atune-up and you know, it was as
a little bit more infectious,but that's kind of what we're
dealing with right now.
Furthermore, you know, in, inSouth Africa we saw a huge wave
of BA one another, starting tosee some BA two.
And even though BA two isincreasing there, the overall
number of cases I believe isstill declining.
It's declining at a slower ratethan it was before, but they're
(18:40):
still going down and we'll haveto watch that closely.
But again, like none of theindications that I'm seeing are
suggest that BA to.
It's going to be catastrophic,the more severe or catastrophic,
the more infectious it's justkind of like, the SQL you know,
the
Matt Boettger (18:55):
good, good.
And I heard, I would imaginesince it is kind of like, well,
at least it doesn't have its ownGreek alphabet yet.
Right.
It's just a, that it means it'ssimilar enough to those who
maybe got BA one that they'd berelatively immune to.
Stephen Kissler (19:09):
That's right.
Yeah.
And you know, there is one ofthe things that I have seen in a
lot of labs have been looking atthe antibody cocktails, the sort
of neutralization antibodiesthat are sometimes administered
to people who go to the hospitaland BA and BA to do different,
some important ways for that.
There are some things that wereeffective against BI one that
are not against BA two.
And actually I think vice versathat some of the things that
(19:31):
weren't effective against BA onenow, Effective against BA two
again.
But by and large, it seems likethe immunity from BA one does
seem to, you know, on the wholetransfer over to BA two as well.
So it doesn't mean you can't getreinfected.
We know that that's, you know,that happens all the time with
SARS cov two.
But you know, each exposuregives you some protection and it
seems like, you know, they'revery closely related.
(19:51):
And so BA one does seem to giveyou at least a pretty decent
amount of time.
Matt Boettger (19:55):
Great.
Great.
Now, as we move into thetransition to just living with
this and making it become anendemic and just becomes part
of, you know, kind of likeliving with the flu, when the
articles that I read, as wellas, as, as us pushes to a pre
COVID reality high-risk anddisabled Americans feel
forgotten.
So I read this and it was areally powerful article that I
read.
But, you know, my question isthis is, this is not something
(20:17):
new.
Clearly there's been otherdiseases.
Before 1918, where we're mass,the last time we were mass all
everywhere as a, as a, you know,and so I guess my pitching this
back to you, like, what do we doas a transition?
I feel like this is less maybedescript descriptive than
prescriptive, or I don't knowwhich way to say it, but it's
(20:37):
the flu I would imagine has thesame kind of intensity for
people who are vulnerable, whoare on the, you know, who have
immune compromised systems.
Is this more of like, okay, It'snot necessarily a COVID question
or is it more just a wake up oflike, oh, what have we been
doing the past 20 years with allthese things?
And maybe this is something weneed to address as a public
policy to help these people whosuffer greatly.
(21:00):
And I'm sure during the winterseason feel a little bit more
unnerved
Stephen Kissler (21:04):
than we.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I would in, in mymind this, this was one of the
most valuable and important sortof like media articles that's
come out in recent months.
So once again, ed young from theAtlantic knocks it out of the
park.
You know, he's been one of myfavorite science writers
throughout the pandemic and andthis one is nice because it's,
it's also actually compared tosome of his previous ones.
(21:25):
It's relatively short.
It's pretty quick read.
And, and super illuminating.
And so, you know, I, Isympathize and agree a lot with,
with, with what's been presentedin this article.
I think it's just superimportant because you know,
you're, you're right.
There are there are a lot ofpeople with compromised immune
cells.
Who have been facing, you know,like an increased risk from
(21:46):
everything for ages.
And I think, you know, it's soeasy to forget about disability
and about vulnerability and allof these different things.
In many ways.
I think our society, especiallyin the Western world, especially
in the U S has just completelystructured around shielding us
from death, from suffering, fromdisability.
And And that's, you know,that's, that's not good.
(22:08):
And, and, and one of the thingsthat COVID has done is it's
really brought some of thesethings to the forefront and some
really important ways.
So, you know, as, as youmentioned, like we, there's,
there's part of the question oflike, you know, we haven't
really.
Done much in terms of publicpolicy to protect these groups
in the past, you know, is,should we be doing anything now?
And I think, you know, it, againgets back to that idea that
(22:31):
like, you know, there's, there'sthis inconsistency and there are
two routes, you know, one isthat like, oh, well we didn't do
anything before.
We probably don't need to doanything now.
Or it's like, well, maybe weshould have been doing something
before.
And you know, maybe, maybethat's the way to correct the
inconsistency.
And so, you know, I, in thearticle.
Yeah.
It says that, you know,precisely none of these people
(22:51):
who are interviewed, who areimmunocompromised suggested that
we should be going into any sortof like permanent lockdown.
You know, they, they recognizethat they have a medical
condition that puts them atgreater risk from literally just
living life.
But but there is really thesense, you know, the thing that
really stood out to me was thesense of just being forgotten of
people just not really caring.
And, and it's, I've seen thisall the time and that drives me
(23:13):
up a wall, but this sort oflike, using sort of like the
elderly and immunocompromised tosort of this throw away line for
the exception to everything ofCOVID and it's like, well, okay,
like when did we, when did westop caring about the elderly
and the immunocompromised,right?
Like when did they become anasterisk that we can sort of no
longer.
You know, that we can just sortof say, oh, well for this group
over there, you know, thesethings might differ, but we're
not going to necessarily say howthey differ.
(23:33):
We're not going to say, youknow, what the actual change in
risk is going to be.
We're just going to sort of doour due diligence by saying they
exist and then sort of move onwith our lives.
And I think, you know, I thinkthat's just is a, is a huge,
huge injustice.
So with that said you know, wemake the comparison between
COVID and flu as well.
And you can think about it from,you know, for a person who's
immunocompromised.
It's basically like beingunvaccinated to a large extent.
(23:54):
And so.
COVID is a lot more severe thana flu for, for somebody who's
totally immune naive.
And so the risks that they'refacing is now not just from flu,
but also from this additionalrisk of COVID-19.
And I think that's important,you know, that, that there's,
you know, this just sort ofratchets up that risk of being
out in the world for peoplewhose immune systems are
compromised.
And so.
So I think that, you know, Idon't know yet what the answer
(24:16):
is to this.
Once again, I mean, I don'tthink it's realistic to say that
we're going to be able toeliminate all risk from everyone
or even to distribute riskequally among individuals.
I mean, it's just the sadreality of the world that like
people face different risks inlife for all sorts of different
reasons.
You know, w we should always bestriving to improve the lives
(24:37):
of, especially the people whoare most vulnerable, but you
know, that's, that's yeah,that's that that's, that's the
project of the entire humanproject, you know, that's not
the project of a couple ofyears.
But in the meantime, I thinkjust like recognizing that there
are a lot of people who areimmunocompromised, and even if
you're not, you will be one day,you know, that's what happens
when you get older.
And so just recognizing this isnot something abstract, this is
(24:57):
not something rare, even, youknow, that there are a lot of
people who we probably don'teven know who are around us, who
are immunocompromised.
And just recognizing thatthey're an integral part of our
world and trying to be a littlebit more mindful of, of.
The risks that they suffer goingaround the world from
day-to-day.
So, yeah, read the article thatarticulates all of this about a
thousand times better than I wasable to just now, but
Matt Boettger (25:18):
yeah, that's great.
And I mean, sorry, for those ofyou who are hearing a bunch of
sounds in the background of mineboys got raised cars yesterday,
and so I was slower.
So I apologize, but that's thenature of where I'm at right
now.
I'm in the basement.
We have wood floors above.
So I think that puts it in agreat perspective.
And thanks for sharing that.
Just the idea of that.
I mean, it's.
You know, let's move to thisidea of controlling COVID in the
(25:39):
future.
What am I look like?
You know, I mean, just as a sidenote, I totally just, this has
probably no relevance, but ithas saddened me.
I'm a person, you, you as well,a person of faith and come from
particular tradition and thetradition has a longstanding
hold, you know, being me beingCatholic and, and of really
caring for those in the margin.
And it was, it was, it was hardfor me in, in, in many circles
(26:01):
around me who didn't feel thatsame way to consider.
As a, as a place where we couldreally double down and care for
those in the margins.
And elevate them and protectthem.
I'm at costs that might, thatactually might cost a little bit
of suffering on ours.
So there was a big, it was a bigeye-opening moment.
I'm not saying that was sharedby every institution or every
Catholic, but it, but it wasn'tmy circles and it was hard to
(26:22):
swallow.
So I, I appreciate you bringingthis up to the surface that this
should be a universal focus forso many people.
But coming into the, into thesense of, of control and how to
begin to control COVID as wemove this to an endemic, what do
you think this looks like now?
I think for you, or maybe I'mpitch it to you as maybe more
like in the U S cause I feellike it's a dummy, a very
different world, not to be likePeyton Manning joke, but like,
(26:43):
you know, I don't feel the SNLwhere you talking about Emily
and Paris and then it went viraland anyway, it was hilarious.
He was, it was the interview.
Peyton Manning, like, what'd youthink of the Superbowl?
I was like, oh, I heard it wasgreat.
And they like, well, you heardit was great.
Like, well, I got caught up inEmily and Paris.
And so it's, it's a huge joke,but nonetheless, we, so we
started watching Emily and Parisand it was like, it's, it's an
awesome show.
And like you said, it reallyopened my eyes to the cultural
(27:06):
difference of even like Franceand how they think of like,
like, oh yeah, we really do usAmericans really.
Don't like to talk about deathor hard things and we like to
escape it.
Right.
Entertainment.
It's a very different reality.
So it imagine how.
Control our environments and beshaped largely by our culture.
Like you said, like also whenthe sense of we maybe are not so
(27:26):
into prevention, maybe why wehave diabetes and in a very
unhealthy way, we have atendency, right.
Generalizing to focus on afterthe matter and how do we fix it
and how do we get medicine andthat kind of stuff.
So.
And the U S particularly, how doyou look like the next best
steps for controlling this?
Now, given that there is a largeamount of people who are not
going to want to do much ofanything, because we're kind of
(27:48):
done with this.
So we want to push it tosomebody else or something else.
Stephen Kissler (27:53):
Yeah, gosh, you know, it's I think that this,
this question sits on all sortsof different levels.
You know, we can talk aboutepidemiologically, which, you
know, we have to some extent inprevious episodes too, about,
you know, what, what doescontrol mean?
And like, how do we think aboutyou know, relative risk and
comparing the risk from COVID tothe risks of other things that
we face.
Day-to-day like the risk of fluand car crashes and different
(28:15):
sorts of things.
Like how do we sort of bringthat into.
You know, probably ideally asimilar level because in a way,
you know, we've, we've gottenused to living with a certain
level of risk.
And part of the difficulty ofCOVID-19 is that it's increased
our risk of.
Dying of hospitalization.
And and so, you know, again,the, the options before us are
to control COVID until it comessort of falls back in line with
(28:38):
the risks that we were alreadyaccepting, sort of bring it back
down to the status quo or tothink about like what it means
to live now in a world.
It's just a riskier place to bethan it was before.
And I don't think that those arenecessarily exclusive.
I hope that they're not, youknow, I think that, you know,
that we still have a lot of workto do to prevent COVID cases
where we can and to bring, youknow, the, the The impact of
(29:01):
COVID down as much as we can,both at the individual and at
the societal level.
But also, you know, seeing thisas a much more general kind of
wake up call of precisely this,this issue.
And I think, especially this iscommon in America where it's
like, we don't, don't reallywant to think about death and
about dying and about risk andabout, you know, and in many
ways that's sort of seen as likea morbid or a tablet.
(29:23):
Kind of thing, but you know,just kind of recognizing it,
trying, trying to take this asan opportunity to readjust our
our own relationship withsuffering and death and dying.
And to recognize that like, youknow, we've, we've been living
in a time in history that isjust absurdly Different than
(29:45):
anything that has come before interms of the reduced risk from
dying from infectious diseaseor, you know, like, even just
accidents and toxins and things,you know, we have so much more
knowledge that we've really beenliving in this, you know, hugely
privileged time in history.
We can frequently forget aboutour own death and the death of
(30:06):
those around us and, you know,and it's wonderful, you know,
like I'm not, I'm like, that'sgreat.
And that's, you know, that's,that's what I've thrown my
entire professional weightbehind is sort of furthering
that progress.
You know, that's, that's reallygood, but I think that, you
know, we can get, get caught inthe in the trap of Just because
we've made so many strides topretending, or at least, you
know, living as if none of thesedifficult things exist at all.
(30:29):
And I think that this has reallyshown us that that's not the
case.
And that, you know, we may wellbe living in a decade or two,
you know, like the comingdecades may, will be more risky
for all of us than the previoustwo decades.
And that's going to be one ofthe first times in recent memory
that that's been the case, youknow, and that's a really hard
pill to swallow, but But but youknow, as, as we think about
(30:51):
transitioning to this endemicrelationship with COVID, I think
there's, you know, there's a lotfrom the policy perspective,
from the epidemiologyperspective, but I, the thing
that really interests me rightnow is sort of like, how do we
all know.
Sort of bear this, this newreality and sort of from like a
psychological spiritualperspective, how do we
understand that transition andwhat does it look like for our
(31:13):
society to sort of, justresponse to this crisis that
we've just been through and thatin many ways is an ongoing and
will continue to go on at somelevel for probably years to
come.
Matt Boettger (31:23):
Yeah.
I mean, to have that kind ofawakening of a mortality, and I
would feel like just practicallyspeaking.
You know, even though I would, Iwould say prime generally the
most, the world probably looksat us in some sense of, you
know, I feel like kind ofinfants and our, the way we
behave at times.
And they think that theadvantage, I guess, is kind of,
you know, I'm thinking like ofthe Tesla, right?
The Tesla was, was created it'sbattery, it's automated.
(31:43):
You can, you can send the carcan drive now, granted, you
can't just like fall asleep.
I'm not trying to advertise anykind of stuff, but it kinda, it
kind of a rings to the Americanears.
Like, oh my gosh, a Tesla, I candrive.
I can go to the bar and getwasted still, and then it's
still drive home.
Right.
You know?
So it's like, And again, we'renot advertising, we're not, we
don't want that to be the case,but like, there's this
temptation again, you know,everything that fixed so we can
still maintain our life andsomething else.
(32:06):
I mean, I think that's ahardship and a difficulty, and I
don't think really it's, it'sethically the correct way to
pride process things.
However, the gift, I think theopportunity in this is maybe
like, okay, we're America andnobody wants to wear masks
anymore.
Maybe nobody will care anymore.
And we'll just walk around.
What do we do now?
You know?
And I think putting I wouldimagine.
There to be a lot of resourcesbeing put into technology that
(32:27):
does it for us, right.
Air filtration, all these kindsof things, and, you know, really
advancing these kinds of thingsbeyond measure to at the cutting
edge so that we can still be ina bar and restaurant and then
feel as if nothing's going tohappen to us.
Because guess what, we, wedeveloped the filtration that we
can actually go with COVID andit'll suck it out of us.
Right.
And and we don't have to worryabout a thing, you know,
Stephen Kissler (32:48):
Yeah, exactly.
I, you know, and this is maybe,you know, going going off, you
know, further on something thatI have absolutely no
qualifications to talk about atall.
But but I do think, you know,going back to some of the themes
that we were talking about atthe beginning of the pandemic
about some of the culturaldifferences between different
places, I think, I think you'reright.
That certainly living in the UK,being in Europe, there was sort
of this deeper sense of arootedness of a Yeah.
(33:10):
Even just a acknowledgement andmortality in the sense that, you
know, there, the, for example,the memorials to the people who
are lost in world war one andworld war II were just
everywhere.
And and, but, you know, yeah,you were saying that like the,
the, the view of America's issometimes sort of childish.
And I have to say that like,Probably my perception of the us
(33:30):
and its sort of global standingwas probably more critical
before I left for the UK.
Then when I lived there and cameback in the sense that, you
know, I was I sort of saw thatyouthfulness as kind of a
negative thing, but after beingthere, you know, I came to
really appreciate that.
Like for, for all of the trapsthat our youthfulness as a
nation causes us to fall into.
(33:51):
There's also this reallyremarkable.
Energy and edginess and swaggerthat kind of comes with, you
know, being a relatively youngnation as well.
But we're sort of like on thecusp of our maturity as a
country, I think, you know,especially, you know, if you
think about relative to some ofthe political systems that have
been set up in Europe for, forsuch a long time.
And so, you know, I think that,that, that's another thing that
(34:13):
I think as a country, thispandemic sort of offers a new
reckoning for us, where it'slike you think of about our
personal lives and our, ourmaturing, you know, happens sort
of.
Start since usually broughtforward, especially by crises,
you know, when something awfulhappens or when something great
happens, but when there's majorturning points in life, you
know, that's when we, asindividuals really mature.
And I think that that sort oflike, forces us to question now,
(34:33):
you know, we, we have been sortof this.
Scrappy young nation for awhile.
And now there's sort of thisreally critical point where we
have to kind of decide whatwe're going to be about and what
is the process of our maturinggoing to look like?
And there are a lot of differentways that it can look and, you
know, people can mature well andcan mature poorly, but The fact
is they do one way or anotherthere's no, you know, and and so
(34:55):
I think that's, that's reallythe question that's facing us
now is that you know, what dowe, what do we do with these
pieces, recognizing you know,who we are, who we've been, and
that it's different thananywhere else in the world.
But, and so our path forwardneeds to be also different than
anywhere else, but also needs toreflect like who we are and who
we want to be in relationship aswe move forward.
So that's great.
(35:15):
Yeah, maybe I had too muchcoffee this morning.
There's
Matt Boettger (35:18):
give me some of that coffee.
That's awesome.
That's great.
No, that's a great way to endon.
I remember.
I mean, I love my dad andenslaved.
I remember when I was really,really young.
I had all this enthusiasm andenergy about, oh, I'm gonna do
this, we need this and this.
I remember we were, I was in theback of the car.
I was like, one day you'll getolder and you'll see things more
clearly or whatever.
I don't know, wasted it.
Like, that'd be like that.
I think.
There's clearly some wisdom inthat, but like, I kind of really
(35:40):
echo to me what you just said islike, oh yeah, there.
Yeah.
The U S is a scrappy youngenergizing, and here's the older
folks, older countries lookingat us and either a encouraging
us because after all our energyprovides some really cool
advancements, but also there'ssome pitfalls to are, are, are a
little blinded towards lookingat the things that scare us.
And, but we've been, we're beingfaced with a huge moment right
(36:03):
now and we are being forced togrow up.
And we don't want to lose who weare, but bring it, we'll bring
to the table and becomesomething even more mature.
So.
That's awesome.
Stephen.
I hope a level of listeners getvalue.
I got a lot of value from whatyou just said.
So I appreciate a lot of foodfor thought for the next couple
of days.
So we will end on that fabulousnote.
These scrappy young dudes aregonna sign out.
And we'll be back in a couple ofweeks, but in the meantime, if
(36:25):
you want to reach out to usmatt@livingthereal.com, do you
have an email like Wendy?
Did.
I love them for Dawn to Stephenand even mark, even though he
don't know who he is, maybe.
And he'll be back on.
I know he'll be back on at somepoint in time, and then if you
want to get a hold of Stephen ST E P H E N K I S S L E R in
Twitter.
I really recommend you followinghim on Twitter and his.
That he has a tailored, it'sbeen fun to, to in really
(36:48):
eyeopening to follow those,those tweets.
If you wanna support uspatrion.com/pandemic podcast, or
Venmo PayPal on the show notes.
And if we could get 13 morepeople deliver review by March
six, I think that's the date.
That'd be our two yearanniversary.
That'd be cool.
That'd be awesome.
I think.
That's good.
So the next time we're on, we'llbe around the two year mark.
(37:09):
So won't be as fabulous and asintense as our first year, that
was too much work for me in asuper fund, but we'll just keep
on carrying on.
All right.
Have a wonderful two weeks andwe'll see you all.
Or you'll hear from us in twoweeks.
Take care and bye-bye.
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