Speaker 1: This is Red Pilled America. I'm angry just like you
Speaker 1: about what bureaucrats like doctor Fauci did to us during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. That's why all week we've been rebroadcasting episodes
Speaker 1: from the COVID era to remind you to never forget
Speaker 1: what they did to us and our families. Episodes like
Speaker 1: this one titled Under the Rug, which was originally broadcast
Speaker 1: on February nineteenth, twenty twenty one, at a time when
Speaker 1: shows were being deplatformed for stories like this. And if
Speaker 1: you want to get Red Pilled America ad free, go
Speaker 1: to Redpilled America dot com and click join in the
Speaker 1: top of the menu. Now on with the show. The
Speaker 1: arrival of COVID nineteen triggered a panic in America.
Speaker 2: This college student, stricken with COVID nineteen is making an
Speaker 2: urgent plea.
Speaker 3: He claims he's being forced to quarantine without basic applause, and.
Speaker 2: All across the United States, school of buildings sit empty.
Speaker 4: Its COVID cases surge across the US. More than thirty
Speaker 4: states whire people to wear face masks in.
Speaker 1: Public quarantines, violence, death mandatory masks, food shortages, closed schools,
Speaker 1: closed churches, businesses, shut down, election integrity, and profiteering. Americans
Speaker 1: have seen it all. But with all the chaos unleashed
Speaker 1: by the virus, what will be the biggest cost from
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. I'm Patrick CARELCI.
Speaker 5: And I'm Adriana Cortes.
Speaker 1: And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 5: This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
Speaker 5: We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1: Stories Hollywood doesn't want you to hear.
Speaker 6: Stories.
Speaker 5: The media mocks stories about everyday Americans that the globalist ignore.
Speaker 1: You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
Speaker 1: and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Red Pilled America. The coronavirus unleashed chaos in America the
Speaker 1: likes of which we've never seen. But through all the turmoil,
Speaker 1: what will be COVID nineteen's biggest cost? To find the answer,
Speaker 1: We're going to tell the story of Trevor Till, a
Speaker 1: story the University of Illinois probably doesn't want you to hear.
Speaker 5: It was March twelfth, twenty twenty, and like the rest
Speaker 5: of the country, the people of Illinois were about to
Speaker 5: enter unprecedented times.
Speaker 2: I've asked our news stations to take this press conference
Speaker 2: live because it's important that we have an opportunity to
Speaker 2: speak directly to the people of Illinois. At this moment.
Speaker 5: Democrat Governor of Illinois JB. Pritzker made an announcement that
Speaker 5: would bring his state into the national coronavirus panic.
Speaker 2: I want to begin tonight by announcing new guidance regarding community, social,
Speaker 2: and sporting events in the state of Illinois. I've spoken
Speaker 2: with the owners of all of our major sports teams,
Speaker 2: and I've asked them to cancel all of their games
Speaker 2: or play without spectators until May first. All of the
Speaker 2: owners that I spoke with told me that they completely
Speaker 2: understood and were more than willing to comply with this guidance. Additionally,
Speaker 2: I'm asking that all community events that organizers expect will
Speaker 2: attract two hundred and fifty or more people be canceled
Speaker 2: or postponed until May first. This includes personal and social events.
Speaker 2: I'm mandating that events of one thousand or more people
Speaker 2: be canceled or postponed immediately. With regard to schools here
Speaker 2: in Chicago and around the state, we are not closing
Speaker 2: our schools, but we are monitoring the situation On a
Speaker 2: day to day basis.
Speaker 5: But in just twenty four hours that monitoring changed his policy.
Speaker 7: Breaking news just a short time ago, the Governor of
Speaker 7: Illinois announcing all schools in Illinois starting Tuesday will be closed.
Speaker 7: Those closures will last until March thirtieth at the earliest.
Speaker 7: Parents are now scrambling to figure out plans for the
Speaker 7: state's two million students.
Speaker 8: And this was a much different message than we heard
Speaker 8: from him yesterday and even from the mayor this morning,
Speaker 8: both of them saying they would not be closing schools
Speaker 8: in Illinois, but individual districts have made those decisions, and
Speaker 8: the governor said, after looking at new evidence and what
Speaker 8: has been happening around the world, that he wanted to
Speaker 8: be precautious and take these measures to save lives. The
Speaker 8: governor saying he wants to flatten the curve to lessen
Speaker 8: the impact and alleviate the burden on the healthcare system
Speaker 8: to try to slow the spread of this disease. He
Speaker 8: is encouraging social distancing and said he was worried about
Speaker 8: students bringing the virus home to their parents and grandparents,
Speaker 8: and also teachers and other staff in the buildings being
Speaker 8: exposed to this as well.
Speaker 5: Governor Pritzker and his maskless team made a plea to
Speaker 5: the people of Illinois.
Speaker 2: Please this weekend, if you can stay home, if you
Speaker 2: are able to telework, do so. If you don't have
Speaker 2: to travel, don't. This isn't forever. This is a sacrifice
Speaker 2: in the short term to help our hospitals, our healthcare workers,
Speaker 2: our testing laboratories, and our vulnerable and elderly residents.
Speaker 8: Then he does hope that this two week school closure
Speaker 8: will be all that it takes. We did ask if
Speaker 8: this could go into the month of April, and he
Speaker 8: did not answer that question directly, saying they are taking
Speaker 8: this one day at a time. Lastly, he says he
Speaker 8: would rather be criticized for doing too much than doing
Speaker 8: too little.
Speaker 5: Illinois was not alone. States all across America began taking
Speaker 5: the monumental step of closing down their schools. It was
Speaker 5: a big hit to high school seniors, especially students like
Speaker 5: Trevor Till He.
Speaker 9: Was in so many clubs and so involved in everything
Speaker 9: in school.
Speaker 5: That's Trevor's mom, Lisa Moore.
Speaker 9: He was the class president, He was a president of
Speaker 9: National Honor Society. He was an Illinois State scholar. He
Speaker 9: was the captain acrosse team. He was a po vaulter.
Speaker 9: He was the drum major, He played the trombone. He
Speaker 9: was in choir. He was the president of the Spanish club.
Speaker 9: He was in drama club. He was the lead of
Speaker 9: the play in the Fall, and then he was the
Speaker 9: male lead in the musical.
Speaker 5: Trevor's high school was in Seneca, Illinois, a small town
Speaker 5: of roughly twenty five hundred people about seventy miles southwest
Speaker 5: of Chicago. At the time time Illinois schools were shut down,
Speaker 5: Trevor was just coming off the lead role in his
Speaker 5: school's musical rendition of The Music Man, the nineteen fifty
Speaker 5: seven Tony Award winning Broadway musical.
Speaker 6: With One Tenos, and they were followed by Rose and
Speaker 6: Rose off The Finest Birds.
Speaker 9: He was the music Man. He was awesome.
Speaker 5: Trevor was an extrovert that loved school. It was his
Speaker 5: life force. So when Seneca High School got shut down,
Speaker 5: he was hoping it was just for a couple of
Speaker 5: days or maybe a few weeks. Again, Trevor's mom, Lisa.
Speaker 9: When he first came home and we didn't know what
Speaker 9: was happening in the very beginning, you know, it was
Speaker 9: just gonna be okay, we're home for a week or
Speaker 9: two weeks.
Speaker 5: But then Illinois Governor Pritzker did what so many of
Speaker 5: his peers did across the country.
Speaker 2: To avoid the loss of potentially tens of thousands of lives,
Speaker 2: we must enact in immediate stay at home order for
Speaker 2: the state of Illinois. So that is the action that
Speaker 2: I'm announcing today. Left unchecked, cases in Illinois will rise rapidly.
Speaker 2: Hospital systems will be overwhelmed, protective equipment will become scarce,
Speaker 2: and we will not have enough healthcare workers or hospital
Speaker 2: beds or ventilators for the overwhelming influx of sick patients.
Speaker 2: I fully recognize that in some cases, I am choosing
Speaker 2: between saving people's lives and saving people's livelihoods. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: you can't have a livelihood if you don't have your life. Therefore,
Speaker 2: starting tomorrow evening, Saturday, March twenty first, at five pm,
Speaker 2: until the end of April seventh, all our residents will
Speaker 2: be subject to a stay at home order.
Speaker 5: At the time, schools were telling student athletes to continue
Speaker 5: their training.
Speaker 9: They kept saying, keep running, you guys, keep working out
Speaker 9: at home, and you know, keep going because as soon
Speaker 9: as we get back, we're going to be starting, you know,
Speaker 9: track season and everything, and baseball and you know, all
Speaker 9: of our spring sports.
Speaker 5: By the end of April twenty twenty, it was becoming
Speaker 5: very clear that the coronavirus was not as deadly as
Speaker 5: the experts predicted, especially for children and young adults.
Speaker 10: You may remember what they first told us back in
Speaker 10: February and March. They said, we have to take radical
Speaker 10: steps in order to quote flatten the curve. Well, six
Speaker 10: weeks later, we're happy to say that curve has been flattened,
Speaker 10: but it's likely not because of the lockdowns. The virus
Speaker 10: just isn't nearly as deadly as we thought it was.
Speaker 10: All of us, including on this show. Everybody thought it was,
Speaker 10: but it turned out not to be. Hospitals never collapsed
Speaker 10: outside of a tiny number of places. They never came
Speaker 10: close to collapsing, at least not from an influx of
Speaker 10: infected patients. Instead, something remarkable happened, something amazing, really without
Speaker 10: parallel in American history.
Speaker 6: The opposite happened.
Speaker 10: Thanks to the lockdowns. Hospitals have he come to collapse
Speaker 10: why from a lack of patience.
Speaker 5: Yet, even with the positive data coming in, governors were
Speaker 5: expanding their shutdown orders.
Speaker 7: The major news from Governor Pritzker this afternoon is a
Speaker 7: month long extension to the stay at home order for Illinois.
Speaker 2: It was expected and now it's official, the Governor extending
Speaker 2: the stay at home order until May thirtieth.
Speaker 5: Trevor's high school closure went from two weeks to a
Speaker 5: few months.
Speaker 9: His classes were on zoom, and he hated it because,
Speaker 9: like I said, he was ultra involved and liked to
Speaker 9: be in class and had a great report with his
Speaker 9: teachers and he's like, mom, this just stinks, you know,
Speaker 9: just and just doing all his work from home and
Speaker 9: his bedroom and a computer. Just he didn't he hated it,
Speaker 9: you know, he's like, I feel lost. My life's there,
Speaker 9: you know, in high school. And kept trying to encourage
Speaker 9: him and kept saying, well, we don't know how long
Speaker 9: it's going to be. Hopefully you'll get to go back,
Speaker 9: and then it just dragged out obviously longer longer, and
Speaker 9: then it was like problem looked like it was gonna
Speaker 9: maybe happen like late May, and then that got canceled.
Speaker 9: So that was a big bomber from and we didn't
Speaker 9: know what was going to happen with graduation.
Speaker 5: Trevor eventually did have a ceremony, a modified one. Only
Speaker 5: his parents were able to attend, no extended family or siblings.
Speaker 5: He had two older brothers and two older sisters. Missing
Speaker 5: out on almost every big senior moment must have been
Speaker 5: an enormous downer for millions of high school and college students.
Speaker 5: It was for Trevor, and he had a hard time
Speaker 5: keeping busy.
Speaker 9: In April, when I saw that there was going to
Speaker 9: be no track season for sure, and I saw Trevor,
Speaker 9: you know, I knew he was sad about everything. I said,
Speaker 9: I suggested, you know, and his dad did too, that
Speaker 9: he got a job, something to do to keep him busy,
Speaker 9: because he was such a busy kid. So he did
Speaker 9: get a job at Minards, which is like a Lows
Speaker 9: or a home depot.
Speaker 5: He started the job in April twenty twenty, and.
Speaker 9: So that helped, you know, because he was out again
Speaker 9: amongst people, and mostly younger people worked in the garden center,
Speaker 9: so he made some new friends there too.
Speaker 5: However, Trevor was still missing the camaraderie of those final
Speaker 5: days of high school. But there was a light at
Speaker 5: the end of the tunnel. College. He was an honor student,
Speaker 5: so going off to higher education was a foregone conclusion.
Speaker 5: Trevor ied the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. It
Speaker 5: was a much larger school than he was used to.
Speaker 5: His graduating class at Seneca High had about one hundred people.
Speaker 5: U of I typically has around fifty thousand students, seventy
Speaker 5: five hundred of witch are freshmen. Trevor may have been
Speaker 5: down about high school, but at least he'd had the
Speaker 5: college experience on the horizon. Welcome back to red pilled America.
Speaker 5: So Trevor Hill had just experienced the shutdowns during the
Speaker 5: final months of his senior year. He missed out on sports,
Speaker 5: plays and just the general camaraderie of high school. But
Speaker 5: there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 5: He'd gotten into the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and
Speaker 5: they were promoting normalcy at the college. Then in mid
Speaker 5: May twenty twenty, news hit about a college system in California.
Speaker 11: We've learned the chancellor for the California State University System
Speaker 11: announced today that at least in the minimum, the vast
Speaker 11: majority of in person classes for the fall semester have
Speaker 11: been canceled. The schools will be shifting their focus to
Speaker 11: online courses in the wake of the pandemic.
Speaker 12: Students attending cal State schools likely won't see the inside
Speaker 12: of a classroom until twenty twenty one. The California State
Speaker 12: University System is the first group of schools in the
Speaker 12: nation to move nearly all classes online this full In
Speaker 12: response to CO nineteen.
Speaker 5: The cal State University Chancellor gave his rationale.
Speaker 3: We got to this decision because the health and wellbeing
Speaker 3: of our students and employees is the most important factor
Speaker 3: in any decision that we make.
Speaker 5: With almost half a million students, California State University is
Speaker 5: the largest four year university system in America. Their decision
Speaker 5: carried weight in academic circles.
Speaker 13: And Tom, let's go back to California. We mentioned the
Speaker 13: country's largest public university system. Cal State has decided not
Speaker 13: to reopen campus and just move classes online this fall.
Speaker 13: What do you think that means? I mean in terms
Speaker 13: of a signal for other universities around the country.
Speaker 14: Well, it certainly could be a precedent. The cal State system,
Speaker 14: as you know, is half a million people, twenty three campuses.
Speaker 14: It says it's been losing hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 14: because students are not on campus. Universities up and down
Speaker 14: are struggling with when they should reopen and how good
Speaker 14: of an education are they providing if it's online Like.
Speaker 5: Millions of other college students, Trevor was wondering how his
Speaker 5: target at college, the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne, was
Speaker 5: going to handle the coming school year.
Speaker 9: He wanted a big school. He wanted a bigger school,
Speaker 9: you know, coming from a smaller high school, he just
Speaker 9: thought he wanted something bigger, just to you know. He
Speaker 9: wanted to be in marching band, you know, that was
Speaker 9: one of the things. And u of I had a
Speaker 9: good marching band, and it was only two hours from home.
Speaker 9: You know, as we waited and waited closer and closer,
Speaker 9: we weren't even sure if he was going to go,
Speaker 9: if they were going to open the dorms, what they
Speaker 9: were going to do.
Speaker 5: Then came a glimmer of hope.
Speaker 15: U of I is playing to hold in person classes
Speaker 15: this fall the Champagne or ban of campus. It will
Speaker 15: also allow students to live on campus with restrictions. The
Speaker 15: school says it will follow state guidelines.
Speaker 5: In mid June twenty twenty, the University of Illinois announced
Speaker 5: that it's Urbana Champagne campuses were going to open. The
Speaker 5: chancellor of the school system stated, quote Fall twenty twenty
Speaker 5: will be an on campus semester with as much in
Speaker 5: person instruction and residential occupancy as restrictions of space, health
Speaker 5: and safety allow end quote. UYUC, as it's called, was
Speaker 5: bucking the trend of many other large universities. The college
Speaker 5: aggressively promoted the twenty twenty school year and began hyping
Speaker 5: the possibilities. It highlighted the fact that two alumni of
Speaker 5: the school started YouTube. It announced the Fighting a Line
Speaker 5: Night football season would continue. It posted video tours of
Speaker 5: the majestic campus, an in person college experience at the
Speaker 5: biggest university in the state. For Trevor till it was
Speaker 5: just what the doctor ordered.
Speaker 9: You know, I told him you don't have to go.
Speaker 9: You can stay home as dad told him to. You know,
Speaker 9: we can figure something. No, No, I want to go.
Speaker 9: I want the college experience, you know, I want to
Speaker 9: do it.
Speaker 5: Trevor was an extrovert honor student yearning for the education
Speaker 5: and companionship that UIUC was offering. He applied to the
Speaker 5: university and got in late August twenty twenty. His mother, Lisa,
Speaker 5: traveled with him to his dorm room, and it was
Speaker 5: understandably a proud but emotional day for his mother. Her
Speaker 5: fifth child was leaving the nest and entering the big,
Speaker 5: cruel world on his own.
Speaker 9: So I moved him into his dorm August twenty first,
Speaker 9: and you know, we saw his roommate's name and he
Speaker 9: was from India, and I said, I bet he's not
Speaker 9: going to be able to come, and he didn't.
Speaker 5: It was a very subtle sign for what was to come.
Speaker 5: The day before the deadline to cancel registration at UIUC,
Speaker 5: the chancellor of the school made a promise to the
Speaker 5: incoming freshman.
Speaker 16: On behalf of our faculty, students, and staff welcome. I
Speaker 16: am Robert Jones, and i'm the chancellor here at Illinois.
Speaker 16: Well for each of you. What that really means is
Speaker 16: that I am responsible for ensuring you had the kind
Speaker 16: of education experience that we promised when we invited you
Speaker 16: to join us.
Speaker 5: But when school started on August twenty fourth, the campus
Speaker 5: experience didn't really align with what the school was pitching.
Speaker 9: Everybody obviously wore masks, they discouraged the kids to hang
Speaker 9: out together. Their tables for eating were outside until it
Speaker 9: was like forty five degrees in the morning, and then
Speaker 9: they finally moved him inside. So there was no big
Speaker 9: you know, clubs on the quad day you know usually
Speaker 9: in college where you walk around and see all the clubs,
Speaker 9: and none of that existed that this past year, so
Speaker 9: it was difficulty. I kept asking him and he said
Speaker 9: it was hard for him to find clubs and find
Speaker 9: this and find that. But he did join a few things,
Speaker 9: but again it was all zoom meetings, and he kept saying,
Speaker 9: it's just not the same thing, and I said, I know, honey,
Speaker 9: you know, just hopefully it's going to open up soon.
Speaker 9: More things are going to open up soon.
Speaker 5: Trevor hoped that maybe his dorm meetings would be opportunity
Speaker 5: to connect with other people.
Speaker 9: And again they were zoom, so there was no real
Speaker 9: chance to get make any relationships or you know, make
Speaker 9: new friends. He only had two classes in person and
Speaker 9: those were his history classes. And because of his AP
Speaker 9: and college credits from high school, he was like in
Speaker 9: you know, mostly juniors and seniors were in his class.
Speaker 9: So he said, Mom, you know, we're wearing masks we're
Speaker 9: sitting six feet apart. You know, people kind of like
Speaker 9: say hey or stuff like that, he said. But the
Speaker 9: older kids all know each other, you know, so it's
Speaker 9: not like it's easy to you know, make friends, you know,
Speaker 9: when I'm the new guy and everything. And he said,
Speaker 9: I try, and I say hey and hi, but you know,
Speaker 9: it was just there was nothing for fostering new relationships
Speaker 9: at all.
Speaker 5: It was not at all what Trevor was expecting, and
Speaker 5: it didn't sound like what UIUC's chancellor had promised incoming
Speaker 5: students either. The chancellor was calling the university's model a hybrid,
Speaker 5: a mixture of both in person and online instruction, but
Speaker 5: the Chronicle of Higher Education didn't agree. It categorized them
Speaker 5: as primarily online. If most of the classes and even
Speaker 5: door meetings were online, group gatherings and extracurricular activities were discouraged,
Speaker 5: and many of the things that students would expect of
Speaker 5: campus life were not offered, why would the university even
Speaker 5: have students come back to the campus at all. Well,
Speaker 5: the answer could be that the school was embarking on
Speaker 5: a massive experiment.
Speaker 1: As the coronavirus panic began sweeping across America, a small
Speaker 1: group of scientists a UIUC were tasked with the challenge.
Speaker 17: As mentioned, I was asked back in March to build
Speaker 17: a team to try to stand up and strategically deploy
Speaker 17: scalable COVID nineteen testing as part of our university's comprehensive
Speaker 17: effort to reopen as safely as possible.
Speaker 1: That's Martin D. Burke, a professor of chemistry at the
Speaker 1: University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne.
Speaker 17: One of the first things I realized is this all
Speaker 17: about safety, safety to empower our community, and so we
Speaker 17: called it our Shield effort to reflect that focus on
Speaker 17: safety as our very first priority. The second thing that
Speaker 17: we quickly realized is that testing was going to be
Speaker 17: critically important. But testing is not a silver bullet. It
Speaker 17: was going to require a comprehensive program to wrap around
Speaker 17: that testing capability, to figure out who to test and
Speaker 17: how often, and to rapidly communicate the results of those
Speaker 17: tests in a way that can help people get isolated
Speaker 17: very quickly and get the contact tracing started fast so
Speaker 17: that we could eliminate the spread of the virus.
Speaker 1: Doctor Burke said that the coronavirus nasal swap tests at
Speaker 1: the time were problematic.
Speaker 17: This standard process is too slow, it's too expensive, and
Speaker 17: it has too many supply chain bottlenecks in order to
Speaker 17: be able to do fast and frequent testing on scale.
Speaker 1: So he and his team came up with a way
Speaker 1: to test saliva for COVID nineteen in FIVECVE And.
Speaker 17: So my colleague, doctor Herber Rother, led an extraordinary team
Speaker 17: of students and postdocs at the University of Illinois at
Speaker 17: urbanash Champaign to go after a test that was directly
Speaker 17: from saliva to the PCR test and thereby cut out
Speaker 17: the time, cost and supply chain bottlenecks that were limiting
Speaker 17: the capacity for fast and frequent testing on scale.
Speaker 1: To do this, they converted their veterinarian labs into COVID
Speaker 1: testing facilities.
Speaker 17: This allowed us to then on our own campus perform
Speaker 17: these tests in a way that allows us to get
Speaker 17: the results back in a fast and frequent manner.
Speaker 1: Besides potentially speeding up COVID detection on campus, if they
Speaker 1: could prove their testing process could be scaled to large populations,
Speaker 1: the venture could also be lucrative, very lucrative. Think about it.
Speaker 1: In Illinois alone, there are roughly three million people enrolled
Speaker 1: in k through twelve public schools, public universities, and long
Speaker 1: term care facilities. If each test costs a twenty dollars
Speaker 1: in each time you test that group of people, it
Speaker 1: brings in sixty million dollars, and if it rolled out nationally,
Speaker 1: the revenue potential could be mind boggling. In July, the
Speaker 1: Shield team performed a trial run testing the saliva of
Speaker 1: volunteer graduate students and university staff. However, to prove their
Speaker 1: test was really scalable to meet the demand of an
Speaker 1: entire state or more, a much bigger trial run would
Speaker 1: need to be undertaken to test the limits of their procedure.
Speaker 1: As chance would have it, the SHIELD team had access
Speaker 1: to a larger population the entire student body of UIU S.
Speaker 1: With most colleges shifting to online for the coming school year,
Speaker 1: many were wondering how UIUC was planning on bringing kids
Speaker 1: back to the university safely. With just three weeks before
Speaker 1: the first day of school, the Associate Chancellor of UIUC
Speaker 1: announced the university's plan.
Speaker 18: We've offered students the option you can either come back
Speaker 18: to campus if you want. If you come back to campus,
Speaker 18: though you have to agree to earn that privilege. So
Speaker 18: there are things that we're asking students to do. The
Speaker 18: obvious ones about wearing facial coverings and observing social distancing.
Speaker 18: And one we announced today is that you need to
Speaker 18: be willing to undergo testing for COVID twice a week
Speaker 18: throughout the semester.
Speaker 1: It was an ambitious testing schedule and one using a
Speaker 1: process not yet approved by the FDA, But with just
Speaker 1: four days before the school was to start, the Governor
Speaker 1: of Illinois called a pressor.
Speaker 2: The University of Illinois has just today received emergency use
Speaker 2: authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to run their
Speaker 2: saliva based COVID nineteen test at the University of Illinois
Speaker 2: or Bana Champaign Lab. This news puts the University of
Speaker 2: Illinois and the entire state of Illinois on the cutting
Speaker 2: edge of testing innovation as a national player. And let
Speaker 2: me just say to President Colleen, the State of Illinois
Speaker 2: looks forward to being your biggest customer if ongoing research
Speaker 2: continues to yield positive results. This has potentially game changing
Speaker 2: implications for our statewide testing complex, as well as for
Speaker 2: testing on a national level. We're already working to deploy
Speaker 2: this to more public universities across the state over the
Speaker 2: next weeks and months, and exploring rolling this out to
Speaker 2: do testing potentially for K twelve schools and even more
Speaker 2: testing at our long term care facilities as well. The
Speaker 2: potential here is enormous.
Speaker 1: On that same day, the university published a news release
Speaker 1: with the headline reading quote Illinois rapid saliva test for
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen now operating under FDA Emergency Use authorization end quote.
Speaker 1: The media aid up the announcement.
Speaker 19: Owner JB. Pritsker tell us what he's calling a game
Speaker 19: changing saliva based COVID nineteen test developed at the University
Speaker 19: of Illinois. A person spits into a test tube and
Speaker 19: results are back in hours.
Speaker 12: A potential game changing development in the war on COVID nineteen.
Speaker 20: A breakthrough saliva test developed at the u OFI that
Speaker 20: just won approval from the FDA. The idea here is
Speaker 20: they heat up saliva and they're able to get test
Speaker 20: results in hours, not days. It costs very little, and
Speaker 20: the opportunity and potential, doctors say sky high.
Speaker 21: The test developed by scientists at the University of Illinois
Speaker 21: at a Rantish champaign, winning FDA emergency use approval. It's
Speaker 21: currently being utilized on the u OFI campus, where students
Speaker 21: are returning for the fall semester this week. Results can
Speaker 21: be accessed on an app that can then be shown
Speaker 21: at campus events and establishments that require it.
Speaker 1: Could this FDA authorized test be the answer to all
Speaker 1: schools reopening. The Shield team organized business entities to prepare
Speaker 1: to sell the test not only within the state of Illinois,
Speaker 1: but also to other states and even internationally. After school
Speaker 1: opened on August twenty fourth, media interest in the development skyrocketed.
Speaker 6: Joining us now is the president of the Universe, the
Speaker 6: Illinois System. It's Kalen. Nice to have you with us.
Speaker 6: Let's talk testing here because you guys came up with
Speaker 6: your own test. I think school began earlier this week.
Speaker 6: How is it going? And tell me about how many
Speaker 6: people you are testing.
Speaker 22: We've tested today to one hundred and twenty one thousand individuals.
Speaker 22: We're testing everybody on a campus at Illinois ABTA Champagne
Speaker 22: twice a week and it's going really well. We don't
Speaker 22: like this virus. We want to crush it, and that's
Speaker 22: what we're doing, and we're doing a massive scale.
Speaker 9: The test is FDA.
Speaker 22: Approved through Emergency UTHS authorization in a bridging capacity, so
Speaker 22: it's very accurate.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of colleges and universities watching you closely.
Speaker 4: The University of Illinois conducts up to twenty thousand tests
Speaker 4: a day, that's two percent of all COVID tests done nationwide.
Speaker 4: Students are tested at least twice a week, with results
Speaker 4: coming in in as fast as five hours.
Speaker 1: The university now had an FDA approved test that was
Speaker 1: being administered at least twice a week to its on
Speaker 1: campus students, but there were some problems. Problems that would
Speaker 1: lead to a tragic result.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So, by the beginning
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty school year, the University of Illinois
Speaker 1: at Urbana Champaign had an FDA approved COVID nineteen test
Speaker 1: that was being administered at least twice a week to
Speaker 1: its on campus students, but there were some problems. First,
Speaker 1: even with all of this testing, it wasn't really opening
Speaker 1: things up for the students to have more in person classes,
Speaker 1: or just the freedom to live the campus life that
Speaker 1: many were expecting. Trevor complained about this to his mother, Lisa.
Speaker 9: I COVID tested the kids two or three times a
Speaker 9: week every week, so they knew if and when anyone
Speaker 9: was sick. But that didn't do anything, That didn't open
Speaker 9: anything up, that didn't give him any more freedoms. I
Speaker 9: don't even understand the point of all that testing. Then.
Speaker 9: It was ridiculous, but.
Speaker 1: There was a point. You see, the students could kind
Speaker 1: of be thought of as guinea pigs in a sense.
Speaker 1: They were being used to validate the university's saliva test because,
Speaker 1: as it would be later revealed, it wasn't really FDA approved.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned, just a few days before UIUC opened,
Speaker 1: Illinois Governor Pritzker stated that the school's saliva test was
Speaker 1: being used under authorization from the FDA.
Speaker 2: The University of Illinois has just today received emergency use
Speaker 2: authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
Speaker 1: And he wasn't the only one that was saying that.
Speaker 1: The university's president made the same claim.
Speaker 22: The test is FDA approved through emergency use authorization. In
Speaker 22: a bridging capacity, and.
Speaker 1: So did the university's chancellor.
Speaker 16: I think we all would agree that the FDA emergency
Speaker 16: use authorization it's extremely exciting.
Speaker 1: The problem was it wasn't true the FDA had not
Speaker 1: authorized their saliva test. About a month after the semester started,
Speaker 1: someone at the University of Illinois stealthily changed the original
Speaker 1: news release about the schools saliva test, removing from the
Speaker 1: headline that it was being administered under an FDA emergency
Speaker 1: use authorization. It wasn't long before the change quietly leaked
Speaker 1: into the local press.
Speaker 23: Well, you of I thought they were originally connected to
Speaker 23: Yale University through a bridge study, a school that does
Speaker 23: have emergency use FDA approval, so they thought their test
Speaker 23: was FDA approved, But that isn't the case. The FDA
Speaker 23: reminded them their type of testing is referred to as
Speaker 23: a laboratory developed test. This doesn't change how the u
Speaker 23: of I test, but means the school won't be able
Speaker 23: to roll it out to champagn Orvana until they get
Speaker 23: full FDA approval. The u of I says, even though
Speaker 23: there was a mix up, they have always followed guidance.
Speaker 1: Sometime in September twenty twenty, the FDA called the university
Speaker 1: and asked them to stop using terms suggesting that their
Speaker 1: saliva test was FDA approved because it wasn't. In a
Speaker 1: written statement, the FDA spokesperson stated, quote, the University of
Speaker 1: Illinois is not authorized under an umbrella emergency use authorization
Speaker 1: and they have not had an emergency use authorization end quote.
Speaker 1: The test that was credited for allowing UIUC students to
Speaker 1: attend in person classes wasn't FDA approved. As the revelation
Speaker 1: was quietly making its way into local news, Lisa Moore
Speaker 1: came to visit her son.
Speaker 9: Trevor, that was there October fourth, and took him out
Speaker 9: to dinner and you know, spend time with them, and
Speaker 9: brought them some pajama pants and sweats because he was,
Speaker 9: you know, in the morning. It's called going to breakfast
Speaker 9: and everything.
Speaker 1: Apparently the dorm set up breakfast outside to reduce COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen spread.
Speaker 9: And so I saw him on October fourth, and he,
Speaker 9: you know, he seemed.
Speaker 1: Like himself, as was their normal routine. They'd talk in
Speaker 1: text throughout the week. She'd tell him she loved him
Speaker 1: and she was proud of him. But two weeks after
Speaker 1: her visit. They spoke on a Sunday night, so I
Speaker 1: told him.
Speaker 9: I'd see him on the thirtieth. And then I told him, well,
Speaker 9: when you come home for Thanksgiving, you got to bring
Speaker 9: everything because they're closing the dorms until January twenty second.
Speaker 9: Okay mom. He's like, yeah, that sounds good. And I said,
Speaker 9: maybe we could dig a ride down to Florida while
Speaker 9: you're home and see Pa. Yeah, that would be good.
Speaker 9: I said, maybe you could, you know, go back to
Speaker 9: Minards for a month, you know, make some extra money
Speaker 9: and you know, something to do too, see your friends.
Speaker 9: He's like yeah, he said, just normal, Just normal, and
Speaker 9: then that was it. That was the last time anyone
Speaker 9: spoke to him. He checked into his dorm at ten
Speaker 9: after ten on Sunday night.
Speaker 1: Over the next couple of days, Lisa texted Trevor like
Speaker 1: a mother does, cheering him on. He didn't respond, which
Speaker 1: wasn't abnormal.
Speaker 9: His dad, I guess, had tried to call him, and
Speaker 9: then he called me or texted me and asked me
Speaker 9: if there was something wrong with Trevor's phone, and I
Speaker 9: said not that I'm aware of, no, And so he
Speaker 9: went down there because he lived an hour away and
Speaker 9: did a well being check, and they found him gone
Speaker 9: in his room.
Speaker 1: Trevor had hung himself. The young man was so isolated
Speaker 1: at the University of Illinois, He had such limited contact
Speaker 1: with anyone on campus that he was likely hanging there
Speaker 1: lifeless alone in his dorm room for two and a
Speaker 1: half days. Lisa said. Detectives told her that after reviewing
Speaker 1: his phone and computer, Trevor's last recorded activity was around
Speaker 1: one am early Monday morning, a few hours after they'd talked.
Speaker 1: It took his father to come looking for him to
Speaker 1: find Trevor in this unspeakable state. The dormitory's Resident advisor,
Speaker 1: or RA, for short, lived just two doors down.
Speaker 9: He didn't even see the RA. They're the person that's
Speaker 9: supposed to watch over everybody's well being. When I was
Speaker 9: in college, we had floor meetings every week, and I
Speaker 9: thought it was for social But now as an adult,
Speaker 9: I realized it was well being checks for the RAS
Speaker 9: to make sure everyone was adjusting, doing okay, being away
Speaker 9: from home, and looking for any signs or symptoms of anything. Well,
Speaker 9: how do you do that on a zoom meeting when
Speaker 9: you haven't probably even met most of these kids in person,
Speaker 9: and when you did. It was wearing a mask, so
Speaker 9: you can't really see facial expressions. And I'm not blaming
Speaker 9: the ra but I just don't think that they were
Speaker 9: well equipped. The school probably shouldn't have opened the doors.
Speaker 1: Before Trevor took his life. His mother says he was
Speaker 1: desperately trying to make a connection with someone, anyone on campus.
Speaker 9: Umber fourth. He did tell me that he had volunteered
Speaker 9: to be the president of his dorm. He did tell
Speaker 9: me that. So he was trying to do things. And
Speaker 9: I said, money, that's great, I said, so do you
Speaker 9: get to meet in person them with the you know,
Speaker 9: the the officers. No, at Zoom, he said, but you know,
Speaker 9: at least it's more people to meet and talk to.
Speaker 9: And I said, he said, yeah, we're you know, we've
Speaker 9: met once or twice. Now we're going to you know,
Speaker 9: have some good ideas for the dorm and activities. If
Speaker 9: we can do these things, you know, it's odd. So
Speaker 9: he was trying.
Speaker 15: He was trying.
Speaker 1: Trevor's family was allowed to give him a burial service,
Speaker 1: a real privilege in this god forsaken time. His family
Speaker 1: and hundreds of his friends poured into the service to
Speaker 1: pay their respects. The succounted kids from about twelve high
Speaker 1: schools from around our area that made it to Trevor's funeral.
Speaker 1: One young man who only met her son once during
Speaker 1: a week in activity, drove five hours to be there.
Speaker 24: Console us in there so that we may confidence and
Speaker 24: hope until why you were called.
Speaker 18: We are gathered to our.
Speaker 24: Heavenly home in the company of all your saints, in
Speaker 24: light through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Speaker 4: And the.
Speaker 1: Daily Eliini, the university student newspaper, wrote nothing about Trevor's
Speaker 1: death on their website. We reached out to the school
Speaker 1: and the student body president for comment on this story.
Speaker 1: They didn't respond.
Speaker 9: After it happened, my older son had corresponded for me
Speaker 9: with the school and asked for the portion of the
Speaker 9: tuition and that I paid for back, and they just
Speaker 9: gave me a pro rated amount back.
Speaker 1: Tuition, room and board for Illinois residents could run about
Speaker 1: thirty four thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 9: I literally had to get very ugly on an email
Speaker 9: in December to one of the higher up chancellors and
Speaker 9: said it was rude and told them I hope that
Speaker 9: they could sleep at night, because when I try to
Speaker 9: sleep I see my son hanging in your dorm. And
Speaker 9: they finally decided to release the rest of the funds,
Speaker 9: but they did not go out of their way. I
Speaker 9: did receive note two notes cards from his history professors,
Speaker 9: and honestly, I haven't even read him yet. I have
Speaker 9: a hard time reading things that people write to me
Speaker 9: about Trevor right now because it just breaks my heart.
Speaker 9: But otherwise I haven't heard very much from You Will
Speaker 9: buy at all. It brushed it under the rug.
Speaker 1: What the school was not sweeping under the rug, however,
Speaker 1: was the benefits of its salibatist.
Speaker 3: One in fifty COVID nineteen tests in America happens at
Speaker 3: the University of the Winnowing every day. I want to
Speaker 3: be very clear here, not one in fifty tests on
Speaker 3: college campuses in America. One in fifty tests in America
Speaker 3: happens at the university.
Speaker 4: We have not had a student hospitalized, and of course
Speaker 4: that means that there have been no student deaths.
Speaker 1: Which leads us back to the question what will be
Speaker 1: the biggest cost from COVID nineteen. The answer is our kids' future.
Speaker 1: For a solid year, our leaders did just about anything
Speaker 1: they saw fit to keep us safe. They took away
Speaker 1: our right to assemble, our right to free speech, our
Speaker 1: right to worship, our right to decide for ourselves. They
Speaker 1: trampled all over our God given rights, and they did
Speaker 1: it all while our kids were watching. That became their
Speaker 1: new norm, and it was just too much for some
Speaker 1: to take. There's a hidden cost to safety. Sometimes it's death.
Speaker 1: Our leaders have scarred our youth and in the process,
Speaker 1: America's future, the length of which we're just beginning to grasp.
Speaker 1: The drive to keep us safe has left a trail
Speaker 1: of bodies on the road, and it looks as if
Speaker 1: one of them was Trevor till By almost every measure,
Speaker 1: this was a young man with a bright future ahead
Speaker 1: of him. But the isolation at a university that sold
Speaker 1: itself as the campus life students expected appears to have
Speaker 1: been the tipping point. And there's been many others that
Speaker 1: couldn't take the isolation as well.
Speaker 8: Four days before his thirteenth birthday, Brad and April Huntsable
Speaker 8: son Hayden died by suicide last Friday.
Speaker 23: Spencer Smith left a note for his parents, writing about
Speaker 23: feeling locked in the house.
Speaker 9: Then he took his own life.
Speaker 5: He was just sixteen.
Speaker 4: Years old.
Speaker 1: Let's pray for these families and vowed and never let
Speaker 1: our leaders do this again. Because they got a taste
Speaker 1: of unbridled power, and there's little dea they'll try to
Speaker 1: use it again.
Speaker 17: We should expect that over the next couple of weeks
Speaker 17: we are going to see an uptick in cases, and
Speaker 17: hopefully there is enough background.
Speaker 21: Immunity so that we don't wind up with a lot
Speaker 21: of hospitalization.
Speaker 5: Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's owned
Speaker 5: and produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adrianna Cortes of
Speaker 5: Informed Ventures.
Speaker 9: Now.
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Speaker 5: Thanks for listening.