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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast. George

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Speaker 1: Nori with you, Jay Wesley Richards with us the price

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Speaker 1: of panic and there is panic still out there. Jay.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I remember when this first started, and there

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Speaker 1: was a little tiny story I had back in December

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Speaker 1: that talked about how one person had gotten sick in Wuhan, China,

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Speaker 1: eating a quote unquote tainted bat from a wet market.

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Speaker 1: Then about a week later we found out there was

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Speaker 1: a viral lab in Wuhan. I have put together my

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Speaker 1: theory that this thing started there. What do you think

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Speaker 1: about that? Yeah, we think the same thing if we

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Speaker 1: were to guess, and so we actually looked at the

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Speaker 1: sequence of the virus, and of course there are these

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Speaker 1: rumors that maybe it was engineered. So the short separate questions.

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Speaker 1: There's a question, Okay, where exactly did it come from?

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Speaker 1: Did it come from the wet market, where did it

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Speaker 1: come from the really the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And

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Speaker 1: then is it natural or is it artificial? We think

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Speaker 1: it could be artificial, but there's nothing in the sequence

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Speaker 1: of the RNA of the virus that suggests that it

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Speaker 1: looks it's very much like known viruses that come from

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Speaker 1: these bats. But these bats aren't from the general area

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Speaker 1: of Uhan, they're not native there. But we know that

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Speaker 1: this lab uses these bats in their research, and in fact,

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Speaker 1: the State Department just a couple of years prior to

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Speaker 1: this event actually had had issued a report saying we're

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Speaker 1: worried about the security protocols for the Wuhan Institute of Virology,

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Speaker 1: and so we honestly think that the most likely scenario

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Speaker 1: is that it actually accidentally leaked from the institute. Of

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Speaker 1: the wet market story is the sort of thing that

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Speaker 1: is we think that's really designed to appeal to American

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Speaker 1: prejudices because anyone that's been in China or Asia, they

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Speaker 1: look exotic to us. You know, I've been to these

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Speaker 1: and you can see them. You know, they're slaughtering the

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Speaker 1: pig in the back, and so it's as fresh as

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Speaker 1: it could possibly be. But these are everywhere in China,

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Speaker 1: and so this idea that it just came from the

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Speaker 1: wet market, we think that's too convenient, especially with this

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Speaker 1: lab right nearby. So if we were betting, we would

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Speaker 1: we would bet that this just unfortunately leaked, and you know,

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Speaker 1: then China had to figure out, Okay, how do they

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Speaker 1: try to cover for it? And one of the things

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Speaker 1: I think they said is they wanted us to all

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Speaker 1: believe the wet market story and a bunch of other things. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: and it spread so fast. Back in January of this year,

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Speaker 1: I said it was airborne. Now, nobody officially was saying

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Speaker 1: it at that time. You know, they were saying that

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Speaker 1: you get it when someone spits on you or something.

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Speaker 1: Then I said, no, no, no, no, it doesn't spread

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Speaker 1: that fast by that. There's not that much human contact

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Speaker 1: that close. It's airborne. It's all over the place, exactly right.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, in January, doctor Tedros, the head of

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Speaker 1: the World Health Organization, was still insisting that there was

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Speaker 1: no evidence even of human to human transmission. And then

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Speaker 1: once they conceded that even until just a few weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: they said, well, the primary way that this is probably

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Speaker 1: transmitted is their surfaces or by large droplets. And so

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Speaker 1: that's the sort of logic of this six foot rule,

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Speaker 1: as it well, if it's sort of large spit and

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Speaker 1: things like that, if you wear a cheap mask, maybe

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Speaker 1: it'll prevent that. Well, there's a lot of evidence now

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Speaker 1: that this is largely transmitted by aerosol, so essentially smoke.

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are tiny particles that, yeah, in principle,

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Speaker 1: they can be captured by a properly fitted in ninety

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Speaker 1: five mask, which almost no one wears, and no one's

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Speaker 1: going to wear it properly fitted, and so that's the

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Speaker 1: basic reality. That's how these viral respiratory viruses tend to

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Speaker 1: get transmitted. And what that essentially means is, look, unless

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Speaker 1: you're going to spread everybody out across the plains in

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Speaker 1: South Dakota and put them in hazmat suits, this stuff

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Speaker 1: is going to spread. What do you recommend in your group,

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Speaker 1: j what do you recommend that we should start doing.

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Speaker 1: What we think that we should do is what Sweden did,

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Speaker 1: with one exception. We think that Sweden's approach was basically right,

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Speaker 1: except they did not focus on the nursing homes. Sweden

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Speaker 1: has a huge number of its population in nursing homes,

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Speaker 1: so a lot of the retired folks in Sweden are

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Speaker 1: sort of congregated together in these large nursing homes. And

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Speaker 1: you know, early on they decided because their public health

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Speaker 1: minister resisted the pressure and said, Okay, look, this doesn't

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Speaker 1: make any sense. We don't have any evidence that lockdowns

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Speaker 1: are going to help. This looks like a you know,

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Speaker 1: it could be a bad virus, but it's not going

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Speaker 1: to be historic, and it doesn't make any sense for

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Speaker 1: us to shut our civilization down over that. But what

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Speaker 1: they didn't do is focused protection, and they now admit that.

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Speaker 1: The Public Health Minister says, yeah, in the future, we're

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Speaker 1: going to know to do that, And so that's what

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Speaker 1: we actually think should happen. The people that we know

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Speaker 1: are at really high risk, do everything we can to

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Speaker 1: isolate them and to protect them, to keep their atmosphere

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Speaker 1: sanitary and clean, and do the kinds of extreme things

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Speaker 1: that you can do for small numbers of people, and

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Speaker 1: then let the rest of us use our private knowledge,

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Speaker 1: our local knowledge about our own particular situation, just like

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Speaker 1: we always do. We all do different things in the winter.

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Speaker 1: If we hear the flu is bad, or if we

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Speaker 1: are weak and have weak lungs, you know, you're going

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Speaker 1: to do something different than maybe a twenty year old

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Speaker 1: football player. But that's actually how it ought to be handled,

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Speaker 1: because really what you want to have happen is the

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Speaker 1: people that are at very very little risk of this.

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Speaker 1: You want them to build up immunity, and so if

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Speaker 1: the large percentage of the population has at least some immunity,

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Speaker 1: then those people that are really high risk are much

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Speaker 1: safer because they're less likely to catch it from someone else.

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Speaker 1: Are the numbers real? Jay? I mean what, I still

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Speaker 1: don't hear any media people reporting on flu deaths. You know,

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Speaker 1: we have upwards of sixty upwards of sixty thousand people

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Speaker 1: die every year, they say from the flu. I don't

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Speaker 1: hear anything about that. I have a feeling these numbers

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Speaker 1: that are we're hearing are inflated and that they've got

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Speaker 1: a whole mixture of all other deaths tossed into that.

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Speaker 1: We absolutely think that's probably the case. Something that honestly

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Speaker 1: I didn't know until we started working on this book,

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Speaker 1: is it even flu deaths. We figure out what those

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Speaker 1: are after the fact. So this illusion this year that

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Speaker 1: you can actually count these deaths in real time, day

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Speaker 1: by day, you know, or looking at these tickers, that's

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Speaker 1: actually not even possible. And so the way we figure

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Speaker 1: out flu deaths after the fact is we basically tabulate

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Speaker 1: all the death certificates, everything that everyone sort of died from.

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Speaker 1: And then they're actually complex but fairly accurate models that

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Speaker 1: allow us to say, okay, what were the excess death

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Speaker 1: for that year, and then a certain number is assigned

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Speaker 1: to flu, but every individual flucase is not counted in

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Speaker 1: that way, and so we know that essentially the coronavirus

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Speaker 1: is killing a lot of the people that are otherwise

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Speaker 1: killed by the flu. I mean, the realities, we all

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Speaker 1: have a limited lifespan, and we all end up dying

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Speaker 1: of something, and so flu often kills us in some

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Speaker 1: complication from the flu kills a large number of people.

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Speaker 1: Something's a flu by itself, it sort of turns into

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Speaker 1: pneumonia or something like that. And so if you have

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Speaker 1: another virus, in this case, a coronavirus sort of occupying

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Speaker 1: the same ecological space is in fluenza, what's likely happened

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Speaker 1: is that a lot of people that might very well

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Speaker 1: have died of the flu died of this this year.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to know that in twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: we're going to be able to look back. So CDC

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Speaker 1: is going to have good numbers and we're going to

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Speaker 1: be able to cash that out. Unfortunately, right now, all

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Speaker 1: the incentive is to attribute absolutely every possible death, in

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Speaker 1: every possible sickness to the coronavirus. Everyone is sort of

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Speaker 1: invested in that, either public health officials, it's certainly the media.

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Speaker 1: They're invested in that, and so they are almost certainly inflated.

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Speaker 1: We're confusing dying with the coronavirus, you might have died

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Speaker 1: of absolutely anything. In fact, they're people that died suicide

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Speaker 1: that because they tested positive or are tagged as a

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Speaker 1: coronavirus death. That's going to have to get washed out.

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Speaker 1: And so there's kind of two hundred thousand deaths that

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Speaker 1: we're hearing about. We think it's actually the realities it's

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Speaker 1: going to be much lower than that, but we're not

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Speaker 1: going to be able to nail it down probably for

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Speaker 1: a year. Jay Johnson and Johnson has delayed its vaccine trial.

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Speaker 1: This is now the second pharmaceutical company to have some

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Speaker 1: kind of problem. Yet, you know, we hear words that

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Speaker 1: they might mandate a vaccine. Who in God's name would

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Speaker 1: want a vaccine when it's not tried and true, that's

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Speaker 1: exactly right. I mean, look, if this were Ebola and

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Speaker 1: everybody was looking around and saying, okay, I've got a

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Speaker 1: you know, a thirty percent chance of dying unless I

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Speaker 1: do something. Okay, then that's a different risk calculation. But

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Speaker 1: if you're twenty five years old, you're just basically at

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Speaker 1: no risk of death from this coronavirus. And so the

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Speaker 1: idea that I'm going to take this vaccine for a coronavirus,

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Speaker 1: which by the way, we have never approved, the FDA

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Speaker 1: has never approved a vaccine for a coronavirus, and you're

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Speaker 1: going to take this thing it's untested, that was produced

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Speaker 1: in a matter of months, that the risk is just

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Speaker 1: it's astronomical. And so I certainly wouldn't do it for myself.

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Speaker 1: I'm in my fifties, I wouldn't do it. And if

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Speaker 1: I were in my twenties or thirties or forties, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: there's no way that we're going to do that. And

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Speaker 1: I think that we need to not be imagining that

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Speaker 1: a good vaccine is going to be right around the corner.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean like people talking about it. I wish

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Speaker 1: the President wouldn't talk about it because it sort of

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Speaker 1: gives another argument for maintaining the lockdowns. They'll say, well,

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Speaker 1: vaccine is just around the corner. Let's just keep everything lockdown.

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Speaker 1: And keep the kids out of school until we get one.

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Speaker 1: That's a crazy strategy. Would you open up all schools

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Speaker 1: oruld you open up all concerts? Would you open up

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Speaker 1: all sporting events to one percent population? I would absolutely

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Speaker 1: open up all the schools. I think that honestly, I

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Speaker 1: think that that's the sort of thing that ought to

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Speaker 1: be at the discretion of local cities and states. It's

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Speaker 1: good that we are able to try different things in

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Speaker 1: different places. It's good, for instance, the government to Santis

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Speaker 1: and in Florida was able to he looked at a

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Speaker 1: lot of the same science. He actually consulted the scientists

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Speaker 1: and he decided, we're not going to shut down the state.

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Speaker 1: We're going to protect nursing homes and we're going to

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Speaker 1: focus on that. And so I think it's good that

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Speaker 1: you have these kind of a bit of local control

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Speaker 1: to be able to do different things, because a city,

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Speaker 1: in principles, should be able to bob and we've given

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Speaker 1: new evidence when you're trying to do things is centralized,

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Speaker 1: trying to do it at the federal level or even

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Speaker 1: at the state level, you can't really adjust to those things.

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Speaker 1: And as we've seen in some parts of the country,

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Speaker 1: the coronavirus seems not to have much of effect. Of course,

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Speaker 1: it hit New York and Connecticut in New Jersey really

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Speaker 1: really hard, and so I think it makes sense that

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Speaker 1: maybe in New York, under certain circumstances, they'd want to

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Speaker 1: limit large numbers of people in large concerts, at least temporarily.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't make sense that should be imposed upon everyone. Well, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And I'll tell you Jay, what I think is the

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Speaker 1: dumbest compelling thing I've ever heard, and that is you

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Speaker 1: must wear a mask walking into the restaurant, but you

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Speaker 1: can take it off when you sit down. Now, obviously

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Speaker 1: you can't eat with a mask on, but my point

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Speaker 1: is if you have to wear it, if you're mandated

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Speaker 1: to wear it walking in, but you can sit down

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Speaker 1: at a table, take it off, and as long as

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Speaker 1: you're at the table it can be off. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that makes no sense. It either works or it either

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Speaker 1: works or it doesn't work. It's one or the other.

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Speaker 1: And the reality is that when it comes to mask

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Speaker 1: the last thing you want to be doing is taking

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Speaker 1: them on and off. There it's filtering stuff on its

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Speaker 1: outside surface, you're touching it on your hands. It's really honestly,

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Speaker 1: I think it's just pure hygiene theater. And it's another

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Speaker 1: one of these things that we've gotten sort of forced

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Speaker 1: into doing. And now a lot of officials are invested

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Speaker 1: in that, and frankly, a lot of people. I have neighbors,

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately in our neighborhood and Suburbert and Washington, DC, we're

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Speaker 1: walking around in the middle of the sunshine and neighbors

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Speaker 1: will scal at us because we don't have masks on.

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Speaker 1: We've we've kind of internalized this thing. Unfortunately. Where do

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Speaker 1: people get your book The Price of Panic? Anywhere books

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Speaker 1: are sold, Barnes and Noble and Amazon dot com. You

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Speaker 1: can just actually google the name The Price of Panic. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you believe Poles, Joe Biden is going to slaughter

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Speaker 1: President Donald Trump in the election. I think it's going

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Speaker 1: to be very very close. I could not predict right

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Speaker 1: now who I think would win. But there's no question

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Speaker 1: that COVID nineteen has helped Joe Biden and has hurt

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. What do you think, absolutely, I do think

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Speaker 1: that's true. I'm as skeptical of the polls now as

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Speaker 1: I was in twenty sixteen. I'm more skeptical now that

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Speaker 1: we've had two sixteen in the rear view, I've seen that. Sure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: really strong incentive for Trump supporters actually not to tell

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Speaker 1: pollsters that, but I do think. I mean, the reality

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Speaker 1: is that the president had historically low levels of unemployment,

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Speaker 1: the economy who's going gangbusters, and then of course the

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Speaker 1: lockdowns just shut that down. I think. On the other side, though,

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden, so far as I can tell, his policy

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Speaker 1: position on this is that the lockdowns are devastating and

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Speaker 1: that's President Trump's fault, and therefore we need more lockdowns.

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Speaker 1: So far as I could tell, that's his position, and

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Speaker 1: so it's not that he has a stronger position. Amazing

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Speaker 1: is well, who's going to have the guts to take

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Speaker 1: these lockdowns away? Well, honestly, I think President Trump is

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Speaker 1: just about there if you look at the things he's

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Speaker 1: been saying in the last couple of days. In fact,

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Speaker 1: he took notice that the Special Envoy for COVID nineteen

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Speaker 1: from the World Health Organization three days ago actually said

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Speaker 1: he said publicly, we think governments need to quit using

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Speaker 1: lockdowns as their primary strategy. In fact, the main thing

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Speaker 1: the lockdowns have done is devastated economies that have specially

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Speaker 1: devastated the poor the media is mostly not reporting that

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Speaker 1: in the United States. But I noticed President Trump noticed

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Speaker 1: it today and said exactly right, and called for democratic

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Speaker 1: governors to open up. And so at least from what

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Speaker 1: he can do, it is bully pulpit. As the president,

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Speaker 1: he can at least badger governors that are locking down.

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Speaker 1: But of course, also only in our constitutional system, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be up to the governors to do that. Jay,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't believe some of the major news networks, Cable

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Speaker 1: Network specifically, when this started in this country back in January,

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Speaker 1: daily results of infections and deaths scrawling across the screen

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Speaker 1: every hour on the hour, all the time. And I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at this and I'm going crazy. And again I

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Speaker 1: saved myself. At no time have they ever in their

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Speaker 1: history reported on flu deaths with crawls and scrolls and

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Speaker 1: bulletins and things like that. And I'm saying to myself,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna destroy people's minds with this stuff. I think

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Speaker 1: you are exactly right. I mean, honestly, it was that

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Speaker 1: conviction that led us to buckle down and write this

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Speaker 1: book in three months. Essentially is because we realized, Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're dealing, yes with a viral contagion. But the real

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Speaker 1: story of twenty twenty is this social contagion, and it's

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Speaker 1: a social contagion that was aided and embedded by the

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Speaker 1: mainstream media and by the immediacy of social media, in

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Speaker 1: which we had these things brought directly to our eyes.

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Speaker 1: Some weird outlier event that's maybe a one in a

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Speaker 1: billion event. Suddenly there's a video of a man dying

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Speaker 1: on the street in China. Everyone sees it, and we

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Speaker 1: think that's going to happen everywhere. This idea that you

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Speaker 1: can even count the death in real time is illusory.

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Speaker 1: But to do that to the population all day, every day,

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Speaker 1: it was bound to lead to a panic. And that's

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Speaker 1: why still the Poles say that about half of the

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Speaker 1: population are saying, well, they're scared to go out. They're

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Speaker 1: certainly scared to go outside without a mask. That's who

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Speaker 1: we blame for that. I think ultimately we've got to

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Speaker 1: blame the mainstream media that has programmed us to think

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Speaker 1: this way over the last several months. Every month, two

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty some thousand Americans die from everything. Every month,

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Speaker 1: just in America, two hundred and twenty thousand Americans are

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Speaker 1: dying from heart attacks, car crashes, suicides, falling out of bed,

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Speaker 1: you name it, they're dying. They don't report that, of

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Speaker 1: course not. You know, we take this for granted, and

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Speaker 1: that's the sort of thing we could whip ourselves into

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Speaker 1: a panic all day, every day if the media decided

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Speaker 1: to focus on any one subset of those desks that

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Speaker 1: you just mentioned. They decided to focus on this, and

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Speaker 1: most people aren't walking around with that perspective. We don't

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Speaker 1: really know how many people die every day, or every

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Speaker 1: month or every week, and so we don't have a

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Speaker 1: way of putting it in perspective, and so we end

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Speaker 1: up overreacting, and so the overreaction ends up costing more lives,

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Speaker 1: more of our fortunes, more of our psychological well being

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Speaker 1: than the virus itself. That's the true tragedy of it.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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Speaker 1: one am Eastern, and go to Coast to Coast am

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Speaker 1: dot com for more