Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. After months of lockdown, people are beginning
Speaker 1: to come out of their houses. Many are coming out
Speaker 1: to protest. The death of George Floyd has set off
Speaker 1: demonstrations across the country. Protests in the midst of a
Speaker 1: pandemic raise unprecedented and unclear questions about both science and ethics. Crucially,
Speaker 1: they center on the question of transmission outdoors. How does
Speaker 1: the CSARS cove two virus move outdoors and how do
Speaker 1: the circumstances of protest affect that transmission. To analyze these
Speaker 1: pressing questions, we are joined today by doctor Menisha Jutani.
Speaker 1: Doctor Jutani is an Associate Professor of medicine specializing in
Speaker 1: infectious disease at the Yale School of Medicine. She's also
Speaker 1: an attending physician at the Yale New Haven Hospital, where
Speaker 1: she's been instrumental in leading the infectious disease efforts. Addressing
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen Minsha, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: You've been following the question of how the stars covy
Speaker 1: two virus spreads very closely, and then in the middle
Speaker 1: of the scientific effort to make sense of this very
Speaker 1: very important question, we suddenly were faced with the protests
Speaker 1: about the death of George Floyd, and we're in a
Speaker 1: completely new universe where the question of transmission is being
Speaker 1: filtered through a new form of social interaction that it
Speaker 1: hadn't occurred on this scale previously. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: an advanced course transmission with ethical dimensions as well as
Speaker 1: scientific dimensions. I want to start by asking you about
Speaker 1: the scientific dimension. What do we know about outdoor transmission
Speaker 1: of this virus? To begin with, science on outdoor transmission
Speaker 1: is still evolving. What we know so far is that
Speaker 1: in series of outbreaks that have been identified from China
Speaker 1: to start and other areas of the world, including Japan,
Speaker 1: it appears that most transmission is occurring indoors, when people
Speaker 1: are face to face and spending more than ten minutes
Speaker 1: of time, let's say, talking to each other. This is
Speaker 1: the highest risk of exposure. Now, what we've seen happen
Speaker 1: is that families and the household setting is probably the
Speaker 1: number one way that this virus is transmitted. Part of
Speaker 1: that is because that's where people have been stuck. People
Speaker 1: who got infected were at home and they were with
Speaker 1: each other, and so they went on to infect each other.
Speaker 1: And people buy and large have not been wearing masks
Speaker 1: in their own homes. The next way that we saw
Speaker 1: that this virus was transmitted, probably in highest proportion, is
Speaker 1: in transportation settings. Again, this makes sense that people are
Speaker 1: on a train for prolonged period of time. Let's say
Speaker 1: you're taking an hour ride from the suburbs of New
Speaker 1: York City into New York City or Boston or other
Speaker 1: big cities of the like. If you're in a setting
Speaker 1: where you are with a group of people for a
Speaker 1: prolonged period of time, potentially sitting side by side, face
Speaker 1: to face, maybe you cough, maybe you're talking on your phone,
Speaker 1: and the person next to you is getting that transmission
Speaker 1: of virus that This is the second, probably most common
Speaker 1: way people have been infected. So getting to the outdoors.
Speaker 1: Outdoors has been the lowest risk identified mechanism of transmission.
Speaker 1: So in one series that was looked at, there was
Speaker 1: only one person that was clearly identified to risk of
Speaker 1: outdoor transmission. Most transmission events that have been able to
Speaker 1: be tracked have been to some sort of indoor setting,
Speaker 1: which gives us additional confidence that the outdoors is likely
Speaker 1: a much lower risk place where people can get COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: I was very affected by the Wuhan study that you
Speaker 1: were just describing, where by my reading of the study
Speaker 1: and correct me if I get it wrong. They looked
Speaker 1: at seventy five hundred individual cases, and only one of
Speaker 1: those cases could they show definitively had been transmitted outdoors.
Speaker 1: I had recognized it's only one study. I recognize it
Speaker 1: was the winter, and that most people also may have
Speaker 1: been under lockdown, so that may be the reason it
Speaker 1: was such a small number. I did have an instinctive
Speaker 1: reaction to that, thinking, wow, it must be pretty difficult
Speaker 1: to transmit the virus outdoors. Why what is it about
Speaker 1: being outdoors that has this effect? I mean, the most
Speaker 1: obvious thing to me is a layers and is there's
Speaker 1: a whole lot of air outdoors. I think there are
Speaker 1: several factors. Number One, most of the time when people
Speaker 1: are outdoors, they tend to be further apart from each other.
Speaker 1: Not always. There are certain contexts like the recent rallies
Speaker 1: and protests, when people are in closer proximity to each other. However,
Speaker 1: a lot of times if people are even if they
Speaker 1: are going to public pools or they are going in
Speaker 1: a park or they're watching an outdoor concert, they tend
Speaker 1: to be a little bit further apart. Secondly, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: the air is blowing, and that may be part of
Speaker 1: the reason that this infection cannot perpetuate as much in
Speaker 1: the outdoor setting. People have postulated that while maybe win
Speaker 1: could make it worse, that you have aerosols that are
Speaker 1: in the air and it can blow from one person
Speaker 1: on the end of a field to another person on
Speaker 1: the other end of the field. Although in theory that
Speaker 1: is possible, I think from what we've seen so far,
Speaker 1: I suspect that the science will be able to show
Speaker 1: us over time that droplets that are generated through coughing
Speaker 1: or talking or singing, or all the activities that we
Speaker 1: know through human projection of voice that occur that win
Speaker 1: an air and just sort of the natural barriers that come,
Speaker 1: whether it bay trees or leaves or benches or other
Speaker 1: things that get in the way of these droplets along
Speaker 1: the way, maybe more likely to break up those droplets
Speaker 1: and make the particles less likely infectious or non infectious
Speaker 1: at all. Turning to the protests, What were the circumstantial
Speaker 1: events or what have been so far that would potentially
Speaker 1: change this calculus, again on the scientific not the ethical level.
Speaker 1: So if your tear gased, is that likely to cause
Speaker 1: you to aerosolize? I mean, you cry, you cough, maybe
Speaker 1: you sneeze. I don't think crying is an aerosolizing event,
Speaker 1: but the others are right. Certainly the coughing, chanting, screaming, talking, loudly, singing,
Speaker 1: these are all very clearly aerosol generating events. Now, I
Speaker 1: would say there's some protests I've seen where people are
Speaker 1: not wearing masks, but by and large I have visualized
Speaker 1: even firsthand, is that almost everybody is wearing a mask,
Speaker 1: and that is certainly good. However, the thing that we
Speaker 1: don't know is that the outdoor data that has been
Speaker 1: collected so far, at least in the one case that
Speaker 1: you described in that study that we talked about again,
Speaker 1: was a person talking face to face with somebody else.
Speaker 1: If we have a setting where there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are together and you have multiple aerosol
Speaker 1: generating events happening all at once, will the risk go up?
Speaker 1: We just don't know the answer to that. We are
Speaker 1: living in a real life, real time natural experiment. That
Speaker 1: is what's going on right now, and only the facts
Speaker 1: are going to show us what happens. And I don't
Speaker 1: think it's necessarily in the next week or two, because
Speaker 1: in my calculus, in the next couple of weeks, it
Speaker 1: might be that some people will have asymptomatic infection, that
Speaker 1: some people will have mild cases of infection, may or
Speaker 1: may not go to get tested, but it depends what
Speaker 1: they go and do after that. Are they going back
Speaker 1: to individual units where if they did get infected, potentially
Speaker 1: they're staying quarantining or not engaging as much in public
Speaker 1: life as maybe they were months ago, And if they
Speaker 1: did get infected, maybe that'll be the end and that'll
Speaker 1: self terminate the cascade of infection versus people who are
Speaker 1: going home to maybe multigenerational homes where a month from now,
Speaker 1: not just a week or two from now, but a
Speaker 1: month from now, we now see people who are older
Speaker 1: and debilitated or have multiple other chronic conditions now coming
Speaker 1: to the hospital and getting a spike in hospitalizations at
Speaker 1: that point. So I think that's what we are living
Speaker 1: with and we just have to wait and see what happens.
Speaker 1: Now you set something that actually makes me think the
Speaker 1: science is going to be a lot harder than I
Speaker 1: had originally imagine it would be, for the following reason.
Speaker 1: If we could see a result in two weeks, let's say,
Speaker 1: then I think a good statistician looking at national data
Speaker 1: and matching where people live to where there were protests
Speaker 1: of different sizes, could begin to draw an association and
Speaker 1: interpret the natural experiment that you describe. But if it's
Speaker 1: going to take a month, I'm concerned that there's going
Speaker 1: to be the possibility again, just from an analytic perspective,
Speaker 1: of a conflation between the fact of the protests and
Speaker 1: the fact that so many places across the United States
Speaker 1: are gradually opening up and began to do so at
Speaker 1: almost exactly the same time that the protests began, namely
Speaker 1: the very end of May and the beginning of June.
Speaker 1: And if that's the case, maybe a very very skilled
Speaker 1: statistician could begin to pluck out data from the noise.
Speaker 1: But it actually sounds to me like it's going to
Speaker 1: be really hard to do if it's going to take
Speaker 1: a month. That is my exact same concern. I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that it's going to be very very difficult
Speaker 1: to sort that out when you're looking at broad strokes.
Speaker 1: What you could do is look at specific, smaller subsets
Speaker 1: of the population and smaller groups. One thought I've had,
Speaker 1: for example, is that there are many physicians that have
Speaker 1: also been protesting. On Friday, there was a large movement
Speaker 1: for white coats for Black Lives, and there were many
Speaker 1: physicians who were out there. Now, if these physicians have
Speaker 1: been using Personal Protective Equipment PPE in the hospital, and
Speaker 1: we've seen that when you use PPE, the risk of
Speaker 1: transmission is quite low. In fact, we know that the
Speaker 1: PPE works. That's what our first experiment has shown us
Speaker 1: that in fact, we can be protected as healthcare providers
Speaker 1: if we use it. So the question is if these
Speaker 1: people are used masks in protests, if they are using
Speaker 1: PPE in the hospital, and maybe are re engaging in
Speaker 1: society a little bit. With some of the loosening of
Speaker 1: restrictions that have happened in certain areas, you might be
Speaker 1: able to say, well, okay, if these people are getting
Speaker 1: screened and tested maybe on a more regular basis, because
Speaker 1: that's also part of what we're doing. Do we see
Speaker 1: associations with people who went to a protest versus those
Speaker 1: who did not. That's a very defined group of people
Speaker 1: where maybe you might be able to get at that question.
Speaker 1: But if we just look at sort of the epidemiologic
Speaker 1: way that we might look at some of these questions,
Speaker 1: I think exactly what you highlighted is going to be
Speaker 1: very difficult to tease out. So there's the potential for
Speaker 1: challenge in that. I like your experiment idea to look
Speaker 1: at medical professionals who went to the protest, but I
Speaker 1: can immediately think of a confound which is that they're
Speaker 1: going to be disproportionately likely to use PPE correctly and
Speaker 1: to maintain social distance at the protest tests because they
Speaker 1: are medical professionals. So you might be able to make
Speaker 1: a comparison between them and other medical professionals, but that
Speaker 1: won't necessarily give you any external validity for trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what that means for the rest of us.
Speaker 1: When we went to the protests, I totally agree, and
Speaker 1: I'll speak as a protester myself. I stood on the
Speaker 1: way periphery and I did not go near chanting crowds
Speaker 1: myself because I felt that that was a safer way
Speaker 1: given what I know, without having to necessarily be right
Speaker 1: in the middle of the protest. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. So I'm fascinated when you talk about your
Speaker 1: own experience at the protests that, notwithstanding your very clear
Speaker 1: analysis that the data suggests that risks of transmission outdoor
Speaker 1: are actually arguably pretty low, that nevertheless, were concerned enough
Speaker 1: about chanting and singing to stay on the periphery and
Speaker 1: to avoid loudly chanting protesters. And I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: I guess a personal question. Is that because you on
Speaker 1: the whole or a person who likes to make assurance
Speaker 1: double shore and be safe, or was that your assessment
Speaker 1: that rationally speaking, everybody in the crowd actually should have
Speaker 1: not chanted very loudly and not sung and stated a
Speaker 1: greater distance from each other. Did you have an instinct
Speaker 1: to want to warn everybody else about this too, Yes,
Speaker 1: I did have an instinct to want to do that.
Speaker 1: But I know also that people are entitled to their
Speaker 1: right to do what they feel is appropriate in the
Speaker 1: moment in time that we're in. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to deny that I would have liked to participate in
Speaker 1: that way myself, but as a public health measure for
Speaker 1: myself if I am asymptomatically infected, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: put others at risk. And so there is a way
Speaker 1: to show civil disobedience and to show protests even in silence,
Speaker 1: and I felt that I was able to do that
Speaker 1: in a way that was comfortable for me. But I
Speaker 1: also understand people are in a very difficult position right
Speaker 1: now and are entitled to do what they feel is
Speaker 1: right for them. But I have encouraged people to try
Speaker 1: to maintain distance, not scream, shout, or saying or chant,
Speaker 1: as a way to protect themselves and protect others because
Speaker 1: I do fundamentally believe that the outdoors is so much
Speaker 1: safer than anything indoors, So protesting outside I think can
Speaker 1: be done in a low risk environment. I cannot say
Speaker 1: that it's no risk. I tell people all the time,
Speaker 1: if you're a very anxious person and you are worried
Speaker 1: about risk, you should just stay home and stay indoors. However,
Speaker 1: if you are trying to engage in a way that
Speaker 1: feels comfortable to you and in a way that at
Speaker 1: the moment we think is the safest what I've described,
Speaker 1: which is to try to exhibit silence, wear a mask,
Speaker 1: keep distance, and still protest. That is what I would
Speaker 1: advocate for. I think that people will be seen and
Speaker 1: heard even in silence. One of the really complex ethical
Speaker 1: issues that you've already alluded to, but I want to
Speaker 1: ask you more about, is the question of medical professionals
Speaker 1: white coats protesting in their white coats. White coats for
Speaker 1: black lives is sometimes the slogan that's used, and that's
Speaker 1: raised an ethical question about the consequences not just for them,
Speaker 1: but for everybody of engaging in protest in a situation
Speaker 1: where there is at least a possibility of transmission. Karl Bergstrom,
Speaker 1: the epidemiologist and statistician whom we've had on the show,
Speaker 1: has been posting, not without a lot of opposition, on Twitter,
Speaker 1: that he wants to remind people that you're not only
Speaker 1: carrying risk for yourself in a situation of epidemic, but
Speaker 1: you're actually imposing an externality. You're creating a risk for
Speaker 1: other people if you're engaged in risky behavior with respect
Speaker 1: to transmission. How do you think about that concern? In healthcare,
Speaker 1: there has been systemic racism for a long time. I've
Speaker 1: spoken to students, residents, fellows, attending physicians who have experienced
Speaker 1: racism in their careers for decades as a South Asian American,
Speaker 1: as a woman of Indian descent, I've had many comments myself.
Speaker 1: I've been called Gandhi as a young person in a
Speaker 1: mall on nine to eleven. My husband, who's also of
Speaker 1: Indian descent. We lived in New York City and our doorman,
Speaker 1: who saw us every single day, wouldn't allow him in
Speaker 1: the building and told us to go back to where
Speaker 1: we came from. I believe that as a healthcare professional
Speaker 1: to stand up for patience and providers that have experienced
Speaker 1: this kind of racism in their lives, and as a
Speaker 1: medical educator to say, if I'm a bystander and see
Speaker 1: something that's wrong, I'm not going to stand for it,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to stand up for somebody who maybe
Speaker 1: is having a hard time speaking on behalf of themselves.
Speaker 1: I want to make a point to say that I
Speaker 1: will do that, and I'm going to stand on the
Speaker 1: side of what I think is right. And this is
Speaker 1: a critical juncture in our country. And as much as
Speaker 1: I'm on the side of protecting people from COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: there is a confluence of events that is happening right
Speaker 1: now and we have to recognize what is going on.
Speaker 1: And so I have struggled with this myself. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: how can I go about and express what I think
Speaker 1: is an equally important message to get out there at
Speaker 1: the same time as trying to prevent a potential huge
Speaker 1: second wave. The way that I see that being able
Speaker 1: to happen is I went to one protest. I went
Speaker 1: in my white coat. I showed people around them that
Speaker 1: should something happen, I am a white coat. I am
Speaker 1: ready to help those that might be in need. But
Speaker 1: I'm going to stay on the periphery because that's what
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable with. I don't want to put other people
Speaker 1: at risk, and I don't want to be at risk
Speaker 1: because I need to keep doing my job. I need
Speaker 1: to continue being able to be a physician taking care
Speaker 1: of patients, and continue being an educator, educating trainees and
Speaker 1: educating the public. So I think there is a conflict here,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, we all are
Speaker 1: human beings and we all have to stand on the
Speaker 1: side of what we think is right. In this moment,
Speaker 1: when I hear the phrase systemic racism in the context
Speaker 1: of health outcomes, I tend to think of the long
Speaker 1: range consequences of slavery and segregation in the United States
Speaker 1: and economic inequality, primarily for African Americans, and the consequences
Speaker 1: that that has had for the health of African American people.
Speaker 1: And the COVID nineteen epidemic is a perfect instantiation of this,
Speaker 1: and that's the reason that African Americans seem to be
Speaker 1: around three times more likely to die of COVID than
Speaker 1: white people. That's a question of the effects of that
Speaker 1: kind of systemic racism. And so I think for those
Speaker 1: who have expressed trepidation around the protests, one of the
Speaker 1: things that they've been saying is African Americans might be
Speaker 1: disproportionately likely to be protesting in Black Lives Matter, and
Speaker 1: African Americans are disproportionately likely to be contracting and becoming
Speaker 1: ill from the disease. And here, I guess what I'm
Speaker 1: wondering is is it your instinct that the risk of
Speaker 1: transmission aren't so great in protests as to make this
Speaker 1: as pressing a dilemma as some people would like to
Speaker 1: make it out to be. I think that's a difficult
Speaker 1: call on a question. And the reason I say that
Speaker 1: is because I'm extremely concerned about outbreaks to come, particularly
Speaker 1: in communities where the current prevalence of infection is still
Speaker 1: high and rising. So there are many communities where protests
Speaker 1: are happening where the incidence of infection is quite low
Speaker 1: or getting even lower, and so I'm less concerned in
Speaker 1: those communities, but still extremely concerned. But I also fully
Speaker 1: respect the need to protest right now, and everybody has
Speaker 1: to take the risks that they think are appropriate for them.
Speaker 1: But from my vantage point, if you wear a mask,
Speaker 1: if you try to prevent touching your face, if you
Speaker 1: watch your and try to protect yourself and others by
Speaker 1: not screaming, shouting, or yelling while maintaining distance, I think
Speaker 1: you can still have an equally effective protest. And I
Speaker 1: know that that is hard to do. I know what
Speaker 1: I'm asking for is almost impossible, and that maybe I'll
Speaker 1: convince a few others to protest in that way, but
Speaker 1: that the majority of people won't want to do that,
Speaker 1: And I understand that, and I respect that decision, but
Speaker 1: I do feel that the risk that you're potentially putting
Speaker 1: others too, and you yourself are putting yourself at is
Speaker 1: potentially significant. I fully acknowledge that the outdoors is better,
Speaker 1: But we don't have the science of riots and protests
Speaker 1: to say that we can extrapolate the data we have
Speaker 1: so far to these settings. I don't think is accurate,
Speaker 1: and so I think as an infectious disease doctor, as
Speaker 1: an epidemiologist, I'm going to be on the side of
Speaker 1: cause I'm going to be on the side of putting
Speaker 1: into place the measures that can most likely result in
Speaker 1: the least number of infections, not no infections. I'm not
Speaker 1: expecting that, I'm just expecting to reduce the number. Fast
Speaker 1: forward a month. Imagine, just for the sake of argument,
Speaker 1: that we haven't seen a substantial spike in cases correlated
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form with the locations of protests.
Speaker 1: Imagine a best case scenario. Would you then think that
Speaker 1: it would be plausible for public health officials to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's the summer, the beach is really pretty safe because
Speaker 1: it's not as extreme as a protest, and there's no
Speaker 1: tear gas there, and pools are outdoors and therefore reduced
Speaker 1: transmissions substantially, and outdoor restaurants should be opened, and we
Speaker 1: should basically treat the summer while we can as before
Speaker 1: the fall comes and we are all indoors in high
Speaker 1: transmission environments, again as an opportunity to get out there
Speaker 1: and live a little bit of life. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: a scenario like that, and if the data doesn't spike
Speaker 1: by then, do you think you would be comfortable making
Speaker 1: recommendations like that. I think I might. I think you know,
Speaker 1: I'd like to see where we go. But I think
Speaker 1: in an ideal best case scenario, if that's the case,
Speaker 1: I think I would listen to your local public health
Speaker 1: officials and governors and people making regulations for your local
Speaker 1: districts because every area is going to be a little
Speaker 1: bit different, and the nuance and reasoning in different areas
Speaker 1: are going to be different. But for me personally, if
Speaker 1: we see that, I'll feel even better about what I
Speaker 1: recommend people to do in terms of the outdoors. But again,
Speaker 1: what I've seen is that most of these places people
Speaker 1: have been wearing masks. So if you're going to be
Speaker 1: up close and personal with somebody, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: tell you to take your mask off. I'm going to
Speaker 1: say keep your mouth gone, which is hard in the
Speaker 1: summer and being outdoors and all that. But if you're
Speaker 1: on the beach, and you're spread out and you have
Speaker 1: your mask off and you're not necessarily getting all on
Speaker 1: top of other people. I will absolutely feel comfort with that.
Speaker 1: I think I would say again, it's not a no
Speaker 1: risk situation, it's an extremely low risk situation. I hope
Speaker 1: that we end up there. I really do, because I
Speaker 1: am concerned about December January February, our typical flu season spike,
Speaker 1: and to have the mental health of the American people
Speaker 1: be in a place where they're ready for our next
Speaker 1: typical flu season, to have had time where they got
Speaker 1: outside and reengaged with friends and family and had some
Speaker 1: time to be able to maybe reduce the anxiety, fear,
Speaker 1: and preoccupation with getting infected. It would be a great
Speaker 1: way to give people a little bit of a release
Speaker 1: before going into the next season. But I think, as
Speaker 1: you've kind of alluded to, none of these things are
Speaker 1: going to be all or none, light on, light off.
Speaker 1: It's going to be Can we phase a little bit
Speaker 1: in the direction of loosening things up and enjoying what
Speaker 1: we can while we can in the summer, and then
Speaker 1: potentially locking down, clamping down a little bit more when
Speaker 1: it's going to be cold and people are going to
Speaker 1: be stuck inside, and that's when disease transmission usually we
Speaker 1: would anticipate is going to be higher. Anyway, thank you
Speaker 1: Manasa so much for this detailed analysis of the science
Speaker 1: and ethics of transmission and protesting, and thanks for your
Speaker 1: amazing work, and thanks for joining me. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me listening to doctor Jutani's a very
Speaker 1: cogent analysis. I think there are a few pretty straightforward takeaways. One,
Speaker 1: at least as we know from the data, transmission of
Speaker 1: the virus outdoors seems to be extremely unusual. Two, that
Speaker 1: same body of data can not yet be safely extrapolated
Speaker 1: to the circumstances of a protest, because that data was
Speaker 1: collected in winter in China, under circumstances where many people
Speaker 1: were in lockdown, and when there were not protests, with
Speaker 1: people singing, chanting, coughing, and engaging in other aerosolizing events
Speaker 1: potentially in proximity to each other. Third, the difficult ethical
Speaker 1: question of whether protest is appropriate under circumstances of pandemic
Speaker 1: is very much inflected by an empirical prediction without knowledge
Speaker 1: of exact science about how likely it is for the
Speaker 1: disease to spread. And I thought that Menetia was particularly
Speaker 1: insightful when describing her own decision to go out in protest,
Speaker 1: but to do it from the periphery of the crowd
Speaker 1: and to avoid chanting and singing. Fourth and last, in
Speaker 1: a month or so, we may actually have some preliminary
Speaker 1: sense of new science about what mission looks like under
Speaker 1: circumstances of protest. And maybe, just maybe, if we're lucky
Speaker 1: and we don't see significant disease spike in the next month,
Speaker 1: it might be possible over the summer for us to
Speaker 1: conclude that spending time outdoors, albeit with masks, places us
Speaker 1: in relatively low risk of transmission. But it's too soon
Speaker 1: to know that. We won't know that till sometime around
Speaker 1: the July fourth weekend. We will continue to follow closely
Speaker 1: the question of how the virus spreads and what is
Speaker 1: safe for people to do outdoors over the course of
Speaker 1: the summer. Until the next time I speak to you,
Speaker 1: Be careful, be safe, and be well. Deep background is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia
Speaker 1: Jane Cott, with research help from zoo Win and mastering
Speaker 1: by Jason Gambrel and Martin Gonzalez. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is composed by Luis Guerra. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg, and Mia Lobel.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. I also write a regular column for
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Opinion, which you can find at Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash Feldman. To discover Bloomberg's original slate of podcasts, go
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. And one last thing,
Speaker 1: I just wrote a book called The Arab Winter, The Tragedy.
Speaker 1: I would be delighted if you checked it out. You
Speaker 1: can always let me know what you think on Twitter
Speaker 1: about this episode, or the book or anything else. My
Speaker 1: handle is Noah R. Feldman. This is deep background