Speaker 1: It's Thursday, March nineteen. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily
Speaker 1: coronavirus update. A little bit of perspective as we faced
Speaker 1: this coronavirus pandemic. It is a disaster that has no
Speaker 1: modern parallel. Even some of the worst events that have happened,
Speaker 1: like natural disasters or terrorist attacks, happen in one place
Speaker 1: at one time. But this is a health threat hitting
Speaker 1: the globe all at once, and it will affect us
Speaker 1: in many profound ways for some time. Brian Walsh, future
Speaker 1: correspondent at Axios, joins us for why this is an
Speaker 1: endurance race with no clear end yet. Thanks for joining us, Brian,
Speaker 1: Continuing our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. This is really
Speaker 1: something that's going on that has no modern parallel for us.
Speaker 1: A lot of times when you hear coverage of this,
Speaker 1: people are going back to the Spanish flu of n eighteen.
Speaker 1: That's one of the earliest things we can kind of
Speaker 1: compare this to. Maybe people millennials and surrounding generations have
Speaker 1: just no experience with anything like this, and we're start
Speaker 1: and feel the effects of it. There's lockdowns happening in
Speaker 1: different states and cities. Bars, restaurants are closing. All of
Speaker 1: this stuff is happening, and this is going to kind
Speaker 1: of change how we operate for the time being. The
Speaker 1: economy is going to suffer because of this. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that's going to happen as a result
Speaker 1: of trying to mitigate the spread of COVID nineteen. Brian
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about this, what are we
Speaker 1: in for? I actually think you're right that there's really
Speaker 1: no personally feel actuallyas now witho our modern memory, like
Speaker 1: we may want to go back to traumatic events like
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina or nine eleven, but the important thing to
Speaker 1: remember there's those events where geographically limited, limited by time,
Speaker 1: you know, the attacted the people who were in the
Speaker 1: disaster area or around New York obviously during nine eleven.
Speaker 1: But this is truly global. There's no real place to
Speaker 1: escape both the direct effects of the virus itself. Eventually
Speaker 1: it's a continued to spread and certainly no real place
Speaker 1: to escape the social distancing measures that have to be
Speaker 1: put in place to combat that spread. So that global
Speaker 1: nature is really something we have in face. And I
Speaker 1: go back all the way to the Spanish flood pandemic.
Speaker 1: Surely they're similar, is there, But it's a very very
Speaker 1: different world, much more glibly interconnected. Much we're higher standards
Speaker 1: of healthcare, so we expect more so what we're in
Speaker 1: for both. I think however long this actually takes, and
Speaker 1: then the impact that will have following it, it's not
Speaker 1: something we have any experience with. You can hear definitely
Speaker 1: in the way that President Trump is starting to get
Speaker 1: a handle on this situation and his team. I think
Speaker 1: the administration is getting better and handling this now. You know,
Speaker 1: they have a singular focus. They have a very good
Speaker 1: team behind them, and they're following the recommendations of the experts,
Speaker 1: So I think they're starting to get a handle on it.
Speaker 1: When the administration has a lot of things going on,
Speaker 1: sometimes things tend to be a little wacky. But right
Speaker 1: now with the singular focus, I think they're starting to
Speaker 1: get a little bit better. Obviously, leadership is key and
Speaker 1: all of this. You mentioned in your article that something
Speaker 1: instructive for us could be going back to World War
Speaker 1: Two and how we operated then tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about that. I think that's really what we're two.
Speaker 1: Might be the best example you can go back to
Speaker 1: and that's not much because of the disease itself, but
Speaker 1: for the total public mobilization that the response to war
Speaker 1: to really require the American public obviously not just the
Speaker 1: millions of Americans who were drafted or volunteered when the
Speaker 1: service and actually fought and they died, but those here
Speaker 1: at the home of what we had to do in
Speaker 1: terms of changing our day to day lives. That we
Speaker 1: have to deal with, rationing of public goods at gasoline,
Speaker 1: of food, even here in New York City where I live,
Speaker 1: gratually the dim out the skyline of the city to
Speaker 1: reduce the risk of ships being picked up by submarines
Speaker 1: actually during the war, and that lasted for three or
Speaker 1: four years, and it was totally transformative, and well, the
Speaker 1: public did get behind that. It wasn't quite as easy
Speaker 1: it looks back in retrospect, and it took effort, it
Speaker 1: took fighting to really get to that point. But that's
Speaker 1: kind of what we need to do with And of
Speaker 1: course what it really requires us right now mostly to
Speaker 1: do is stay at home, not go out, don't be
Speaker 1: part of a change of affection. But that's gonna be hard,
Speaker 1: because it's really going to require us to give up
Speaker 1: most of the things we think of as daily life,
Speaker 1: and that's definitely gonna be too. I mean, would just
Speaker 1: did a story about kind of this quote unquote generational
Speaker 1: war that's brewing over the coronavirus. You know, young people
Speaker 1: feel like it doesn't affect them the same way, you
Speaker 1: know when you look at mortality rates and how severe
Speaker 1: the symptoms are. So they're doing lockdown parties and they're
Speaker 1: still trying to be out and about and do things.
Speaker 1: And I want to have the faith that everybody will
Speaker 1: come together eventually, but yeah, it does take a little
Speaker 1: bit of time there. So what's next in all of this?
Speaker 1: It seems like the economy is going to suffer greatly
Speaker 1: because of this. You know a lot of sectors are
Speaker 1: closing down and suffering because travel restrictions and all that.
Speaker 1: So what's next? What are you looking forward? The only
Speaker 1: global sort of didaster We kind of have that sort
Speaker 1: of just like this, other than I think more like
Speaker 1: World War two is actually a big local recession. Something
Speaker 1: they spread the crown in the world, like a contagion
Speaker 1: really impacts this changes daily life. Difference here is that
Speaker 1: it's going to be incredibly immediate. You're not just talking
Speaker 1: about the unwinding you get during a downturn slow down.
Speaker 1: You're talking about just demand job businesses essentially being vaporized
Speaker 1: over the next few weeks as people stops the new money,
Speaker 1: stopped going, stopping able to do anything. Really, it's hard
Speaker 1: to really even prepare for that. I think. Just what
Speaker 1: you're seeing from the Trump administration with the measures they've
Speaker 1: talked about the last day or two, talking about sending
Speaker 1: out checks to Americans is getting people a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: is a testament of just how extreme that's going to be.
Speaker 1: You're gonna really need to float people to keep them going.
Speaker 1: And while we're only seeing the beginning of that, that's
Speaker 1: going to really be going hand in glove with the
Speaker 1: speed of the coronavirus itself. You know, this one to
Speaker 1: punch that that's going to be hard to endure, I think,
Speaker 1: and that's very different even then a hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: when you didn't have a global economy that was so
Speaker 1: connected and so quick to get thick. Essentially, when something
Speaker 1: this happens, and I want to read the bottom line
Speaker 1: from your article, it says there's no escaping the public
Speaker 1: pain to come We're just beginning an endurance test that
Speaker 1: has no clear end and not to alarm anybody, because
Speaker 1: the vast majority of cases do experience mild symptoms if
Speaker 1: you have COVID nineteen and all that, but this is serious.
Speaker 1: You know, we have to practice all the social distancing
Speaker 1: to help mitigate that spread. And you know, we're looking
Speaker 1: at the health your system in America here people are
Speaker 1: talking about a ventilator shortage that could be coming. This
Speaker 1: is one of those things, as you've been saying, kind
Speaker 1: of how when we operate on the global level like this,
Speaker 1: or when something is affecting us that way, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't just necessarily borrow stuff from other countries because
Speaker 1: they're going through just the same exact thing exactly right.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not again like a hurricane where
Speaker 1: you can send aid from the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: the rest of the country, tell people out or shelter them.
Speaker 1: Everyone's going to need to be looking after their own
Speaker 1: needs while sort of doing their part for the public.
Speaker 1: And I you know, I understand that people it takes
Speaker 1: them time to fully get that because absolutely you're right
Speaker 1: that the vast majority of people will probably not really
Speaker 1: face direct heel threat from this fire. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: can get why it takes time to realize that, but
Speaker 1: it really does require that sort of coming together. And
Speaker 1: this is the endurance test I talked about, because it
Speaker 1: is simply a certain amount of public pain. It's going
Speaker 1: to vary from person to person, but we're all going
Speaker 1: to have to undergo some of it. And that's where
Speaker 1: the test will be of us as a public, us
Speaker 1: as the whole country, really us as a whole world,
Speaker 1: for whether we can endure that, because it's going to
Speaker 1: take a lot of time. You know, we don't know
Speaker 1: how much time. It could be a matter of weeks,
Speaker 1: be a matter of months. I mean some of the
Speaker 1: upper limits go beyond that, which is really hard to contemplate.
Speaker 1: But that's what we have in front of us marathon
Speaker 1: race that doesn't have a clear finish line, and we
Speaker 1: just have to keep running in the meantime. Brian Walsh,
Speaker 1: future correspondent at Axios, Thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you. This has been your daily coronavirus update. You
Speaker 1: don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can
Speaker 1: check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday Friday.
Speaker 1: So follow us on I Heart radio or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast