Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woka F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Brooklyn Bunker.
Speaker 1: There are some days, folks, where I just I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, where I wake up and I meditate and
Speaker 1: I try and get into a clear focus space, um
Speaker 1: to start the day off on a good foot. And
Speaker 1: what I'm finding over the last couple of weeks that
Speaker 1: it is getting harder and harder to find hope, to
Speaker 1: find good in what is transpiring. To think that, you know,
Speaker 1: it was just a couple of weeks ago that we
Speaker 1: had Thanksgiving and folks were gathering again, and you know,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, just to think, you know, a year
Speaker 1: ago we were on zoom Thanksgivings and we didn't know
Speaker 1: what was happening. And now we have a vaccine and
Speaker 1: we have boosters, and you know, believing that we were
Speaker 1: working our way back to some sense of normalcy within
Speaker 1: three weeks from Thanksgiving. We are in such a different
Speaker 1: state of being, and the instability of it all, how
Speaker 1: quickly things are devolving with this new variant. We're seeing
Speaker 1: headlines once again of shows being canceled and games being canceled,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you were headed back into work,
Speaker 1: you've probably received emails about that being postponed, and there
Speaker 1: is just this gloom, this desperation, this anxiety that once again,
Speaker 1: it's like hello, darkness, my old friend, it is returning.
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, uh, maybe two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: at this point, I was getting ready to go to
Speaker 1: a holiday party, right because it seemed safe to be
Speaker 1: able to do that, you know, so long as you
Speaker 1: were putting together what you thought were safe COVID protocols.
Speaker 1: Everybody go and get a negative test and you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, show proof of vaccination, and then we
Speaker 1: could gather maybe still not in these large groups, but
Speaker 1: at least in small ones. And I went to this
Speaker 1: you know, holiday gathering of roughly like twenty twenty five people,
Speaker 1: and you know, again it just it felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: slowly things were coming back to this sense of normal,
Speaker 1: or at least a new normal where we put protocols
Speaker 1: in place, but that we were able to gather once again.
Speaker 1: Days following that event, received a phone call was a
Speaker 1: breakthrough infection. Everybody needs to go and get tested. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: at that time I was testing negative and still you know,
Speaker 1: right now testing negative, even though I have come into
Speaker 1: contact with yet not one, not two, but three people
Speaker 1: who have had breakthrough infections. Right now, I am testing negative,
Speaker 1: but the sense of fear that I have just continues
Speaker 1: to build so much so that I am like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to make at home for the holidays,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just trying to get there so that I
Speaker 1: can just go back into my original COVID pod with
Speaker 1: my parents, with my sister and just close out the
Speaker 1: world for the next couple of days, just to give
Speaker 1: my mind my heart some rest and reprieve. And I
Speaker 1: know that you all are feeling the same way. It
Speaker 1: just feels like the pressure continues to mount. And you know,
Speaker 1: in my upcoming conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel,
Speaker 1: it's the last one on one that we will have
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one. You know, he struggles to try
Speaker 1: and find some hope. But essentially what Jonathan offers is
Speaker 1: a really stark warning that the next four to six
Speaker 1: weeks in America are going to be terrible. That you know,
Speaker 1: as I am broadcasting right now, the first reported death
Speaker 1: from the omicron variant has been reported, and has been
Speaker 1: reported in Texas. I think that the news has been
Speaker 1: making false statements when they say that the omicron variant
Speaker 1: is mild. I think that we have no idea and
Speaker 1: by using terminology like mild, what you are giving people
Speaker 1: is a false sense of hope. We have no idea
Speaker 1: what the long terms effect, what the long term effect
Speaker 1: of alpha is, the long term effect of delta, or
Speaker 1: the long term effect of omicron. We have no idea
Speaker 1: why it is breaking around the vaccinations and the boosters,
Speaker 1: but we do know that those that have been vaccinated
Speaker 1: and boosted are less likely to show up on ventilators,
Speaker 1: are less likely to be clogging up our hospital systems.
Speaker 1: But as I'm watching the numbers, the numbers in Tennessee
Speaker 1: and other Red states are in the double digits of
Speaker 1: their infection rates. Tennessee right now is at a seventeen
Speaker 1: point three percent infection rate that is higher than some
Speaker 1: developed fucking nations. Right, And we have just developed this
Speaker 1: sense of anger and fear and resentment towards one another
Speaker 1: as this has all been transpiring because of right, because
Speaker 1: of our initial response that was hailed by the Trump
Speaker 1: administration and Republicans to turn this all into political folly
Speaker 1: for their own gain. Who cares if over eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand Americans are dead because of them? Who cares if
Speaker 1: they had all of the pertinent information to keep us
Speaker 1: safe at that time and then chose not to. No
Speaker 1: one is going to go to jail. No one is
Speaker 1: going to be charged, right. I'm just so tired these
Speaker 1: days of seeing white, wealthy, powerful people do such fucking harm,
Speaker 1: cause such devastation, and nothing happened to them. They just
Speaker 1: get new jobs and are in different positions to be
Speaker 1: able to do the same things over and over again.
Speaker 1: I tweeted this week that I think that Merrick Garland
Speaker 1: may be one of the most ineffectual and week United
Speaker 1: States Attorney generals that we have ever seen. Given every
Speaker 1: bit of information from the insurrection to the coronavirus, he
Speaker 1: has done nothing. This Department of Justice has done nothing. Right.
Speaker 1: We continue to act as if you know, all of
Speaker 1: these deaths are just attributed to God's will, when in
Speaker 1: fact they are not. The political leaders that were in
Speaker 1: charge in twenty twenty failed us, and they knowingly failed us. Right,
Speaker 1: It wasn't oh my god, we have no idea what
Speaker 1: we're doing. We're just trying to do the best that
Speaker 1: we can and people died. No, they received the information,
Speaker 1: they chose not to share it with the public. And
Speaker 1: not only did they not share it, It's not as
Speaker 1: if they were like, oh, we're just gonna zip our mouths. No,
Speaker 1: they did the complete and total opposite of what doctors
Speaker 1: and what scientists were telling them. And that put almost
Speaker 1: a million Americans at risk of death. Eight hundred thousand, folks.
Speaker 1: I keep saying that before the end of the first
Speaker 1: quarter in twenty twenty two, a million Americans, more than
Speaker 1: any other nation, will have died. And we still have
Speaker 1: an entire news network telling people lies while they put
Speaker 1: together their own vaccine protocols, their own booster protocols. But
Speaker 1: what they're putting on air is a complete and total opposite.
Speaker 1: And I ask again, where's the FCC. Why aren't these
Speaker 1: people being charged? Why aren't they being fined at the
Speaker 1: very least, why aren't there big blackout screens before every
Speaker 1: Fox anchor goes on that says this is for entertainment
Speaker 1: purposes only. This content you know is rated you know
Speaker 1: whatever you know, rated and rated f rated whatever for
Speaker 1: its lies, for its misguidance, for its misinformation, all of
Speaker 1: these things. It's like we can't even do the bare
Speaker 1: fucking minimum to keep people safe. It isn't just enough
Speaker 1: to come up with the tools and the tactics if
Speaker 1: you're also not fighting against the continued misinformation that is
Speaker 1: responsible for all of these deaths. It is not enough
Speaker 1: to just say, oh, we need to come together without
Speaker 1: pointing the finger and letting people know who is responsible
Speaker 1: for where we are right now. Jonathan will say later
Speaker 1: in our interview that the lockdown measures that happened in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty would be ineffectual now. And why is that
Speaker 1: Because Amicron is a lot more contagious than Alpha was.
Speaker 1: You see, when we were dealing with the og alpha
Speaker 1: COVID variant, right, you could be you needed to be
Speaker 1: in space with people for ten to fifteen minutes, right,
Speaker 1: which is why we said six feet of social distance,
Speaker 1: which is why we said wear a mask. Because there
Speaker 1: was less virus and it took longer for people to
Speaker 1: be infected. Well, thanks to Republicans, thanks to their push
Speaker 1: back to science, thanks to their complete dismissiveness to facts,
Speaker 1: we got into a political war where they decided to
Speaker 1: side with a virus over the health and wellbeing of
Speaker 1: the public. So when we could have mitigated and or
Speaker 1: squashed COVID out with six feet of distance, with wearing masks,
Speaker 1: and with agreeing collectively to lock down for an extended
Speaker 1: period of time to wipe out the alpha. We didn't.
Speaker 1: Then the delta shows up and guess what it was
Speaker 1: more contagious than the alpha version, that you needed less
Speaker 1: time to be in contact with people. And now omnicron
Speaker 1: and what is that saying that basically you could walk
Speaker 1: into your fucking hallway, you could walk out your front door,
Speaker 1: and there is so much virus in the air, and
Speaker 1: it is so so contagious that it is even more
Speaker 1: so contagious than the measles were. And the reality is this,
Speaker 1: we do not know the long terms effects of this virus.
Speaker 1: What Jonathan will tell us is that it exists in
Speaker 1: your body. You're seeing seeing pictures. And I wish that
Speaker 1: they would have put this as PSAs and commercials in
Speaker 1: the same way that they handled smoking back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. Here's a lung free of COVID. Here's a
Speaker 1: lung with COVID. Here are some of the long terms
Speaker 1: effects of what we know to be true, which is
Speaker 1: brain fog, which is fatigue, right that you continue to
Speaker 1: get sick easier because your body is still fighting off
Speaker 1: this virus. But we're not doing that. We're not taking
Speaker 1: this on and waging a campaign against those that are
Speaker 1: doing their fucking damned this to make sure COVID never
Speaker 1: leaves us. We are going into year two with a
Speaker 1: variant that is out of control, and what we know
Speaker 1: is that as quickly as Delta emerged, as quickly as
Speaker 1: amicronover emerged, that there is going to be another variant
Speaker 1: just waiting in the wings that is going to sweep
Speaker 1: the globe as quickly as Amicron did. And that is
Speaker 1: what it's terrifying me is that I'm trying, right, We're
Speaker 1: all trying desperately to get to this holiday season so
Speaker 1: that we can just have a week of reprieve. But
Speaker 1: what is going to follow that week's long gathering with
Speaker 1: our family and with our friends is going to be
Speaker 1: the winter of despair. I'm not telling you not to go,
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you not to have your family over,
Speaker 1: But what I am saying is send them rapid tests
Speaker 1: so that everyone can test before they come in the door.
Speaker 1: Will that mean that you're one hundred percent protected? No,
Speaker 1: but maybe it can give you some ease. The lines
Speaker 1: in New York are hours long to get tested. The
Speaker 1: other day when I went before the holiday party, I
Speaker 1: stood in line for two hours. I hadn't done that
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty. And now people are standing in line
Speaker 1: once again, going on three, four five hours to get tested.
Speaker 1: Test results that were once coming back in a few
Speaker 1: hours are now taking days because the system is so
Speaker 1: fucking overwhelmed. I wish that I could offer to all
Speaker 1: of you where we were in this cycle that we're in,
Speaker 1: if we were at the beginning, the middle, close to
Speaker 1: the end. But with each new variant, with each news report,
Speaker 1: it just seems like we are doing Groundhogs Day here.
Speaker 1: It's like that movie. It just keeps repeating like you're
Speaker 1: waking up or its Memento, and it's just like didn't
Speaker 1: this just happen? That we just keep reliving over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. The first death has been reported,
Speaker 1: it is not going to be the last. And my fear, right,
Speaker 1: my fear, is that what we are going to realize
Speaker 1: is that Omicron is not as quote unquote mild as
Speaker 1: people are saying that it is, that it just takes longer.
Speaker 1: I'm worried that's all. That's all I can say is
Speaker 1: that I am worried. And you know what I am
Speaker 1: trying to do is I am trying to meditate more.
Speaker 1: I am trying to connect with friends and family, you know,
Speaker 1: just call texts, check in with people to see how
Speaker 1: they are doing. Because I am struggling to get through
Speaker 1: this week. You know, I really am. I am struggling
Speaker 1: at this point in time in using every single good
Speaker 1: tool that I've been using in my toolbox to just
Speaker 1: keep my spirits up. And it feels like nothing is
Speaker 1: enough right now. And so what I say to you
Speaker 1: is this, give yourselves grace. If you are down, if
Speaker 1: you are depressed, if you are struggling to get out
Speaker 1: of bed, sleep longer. If you are depressed, try and
Speaker 1: reach out to somebody just to connect so that you
Speaker 1: don't feel so isolated in your sadness. If you're able,
Speaker 1: you know, get out and walk and stretch, take a
Speaker 1: long shower, soak in a tub, take considerable breaks from
Speaker 1: the news. If you don't have to watch it, give yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, a timer and say I'm gonna watch this program,
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna go on Twitter, I'm gonna read for
Speaker 1: this amount of time thirty minutes, an hour, and that's it,
Speaker 1: and then pick up another task, do something else that
Speaker 1: allows you to have some type of break. And I
Speaker 1: say that, friends, because I am feeling the weight of
Speaker 1: this moment. I have been taking little breaks, but every
Speaker 1: time that I come back, it's like it's worse than
Speaker 1: when I left, you know, And I know that I'm
Speaker 1: not the only one that feels this way. And so
Speaker 1: if you can pick up a book, right, turn on
Speaker 1: a movie, to just go off into another world for
Speaker 1: a bit, it allows us, you know, to bring our
Speaker 1: quartisol levels down, because that's what rises up in our bodies.
Speaker 1: That that is the stress hormone that you know, Meditation,
Speaker 1: deep breathing, yoga, acupuncture, walking, gardening, you know, playing with
Speaker 1: your pets that helps to release, right and bring down
Speaker 1: those levels because when they are too high, friends, they
Speaker 1: can cause a lot of serious illness. Right, if you're
Speaker 1: feeling you know, you're having a lot of sleepless nights,
Speaker 1: try some you know, melatonin, Try some CBD oils right,
Speaker 1: or tease or tincatures. Just start adding a little bit
Speaker 1: more wellness and awareness into your daily state of being
Speaker 1: so that you were not caught off guard by these
Speaker 1: waves of unease, right because they knocked me down the
Speaker 1: other day. I will tell you that I was sitting
Speaker 1: and talking to a friend and you know, we're waiting
Speaker 1: the fifteen minutes as we were taking our at home tests,
Speaker 1: and I burst into tears. I'm just like, I'm exhausted,
Speaker 1: I'm tired. I'm tired of all of this, right Like,
Speaker 1: I thought we were getting to a place where we
Speaker 1: figured out how we were going to be living with this,
Speaker 1: and now I feel like we're back to square one.
Speaker 1: And she, you know, responded, I know, I know, I
Speaker 1: know it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay, because
Speaker 1: that's all we can say to one another. Right now,
Speaker 1: give yourself grace, Extend grace to others, you know, try
Speaker 1: and make the best out of this season. Look for
Speaker 1: moments of gratitude. If you're a prayerful person, do that.
Speaker 1: If you're a meditative person, do that. Sit in silence
Speaker 1: and just allow yourself to level out. We will make
Speaker 1: it through, and we will make it through together. Coming
Speaker 1: up next is my conversation our last Woke Wednesday conversation
Speaker 1: with doctor Jonathan Metzel of twenty twenty one I hope
Speaker 1: that you know, you get some important information out of it.
Speaker 1: Share it with your friends, your networks, your families. The
Speaker 1: more that we can spread this information, the more that
Speaker 1: we can share these shows, the better we will all
Speaker 1: be folks. You know that when it is going to
Speaker 1: be Wednesday, I am so excited to be joined by
Speaker 1: our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metso who
Speaker 1: if you can believe it, this is our last recording
Speaker 1: together of twenty twenty one. We have been recording remote
Speaker 1: for damn near two years and talking about COVID for
Speaker 1: two years. Jonathan. Before we get to where we are presently,
Speaker 1: I want to do a little reflection moment of when
Speaker 1: COVID came on the scene in you know, I guess
Speaker 1: February March of twenty twenty one. It became part of
Speaker 1: our lexicon. Did you believe that we would like? What
Speaker 1: did you think was going to happen? It's funny. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about that exact thing this morning, and several
Speaker 1: memories stood out for me. One was that the night
Speaker 1: before we realized it was a pandemic, but everybody knew
Speaker 1: about it. I was at dinner in a kind of
Speaker 1: random restaurant in Chelsea, and there was a line. It
Speaker 1: was like one of those New York things where it's
Speaker 1: a huge restaurant but there's only one bathroom for like
Speaker 1: nine hundred people, and we're waiting in line to get
Speaker 1: in the bathroom, and everybody's jokingly singing had the Happy
Speaker 1: Birthday song, because at that time, the only thing we
Speaker 1: knew about the virus was if you wash your hands
Speaker 1: and sing the Happy Birthday song twice, that was that's
Speaker 1: what got rid of the virus. And so we were
Speaker 1: all joking and singing Had Birthday, and we were complaining
Speaker 1: that the people in the bathroom were taking so long
Speaker 1: because they had a longer version of the Happy Birthday song.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of a jovial moment of like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's some random thing that's happening to us, and I
Speaker 1: missed those days where like that's all we thought we
Speaker 1: had to do was like wash our hands and sing
Speaker 1: Happy Birthday. And I don't think any of us could
Speaker 1: have seen how that moment in the beginning, And sure
Speaker 1: everybody has stories like this, but everybody was saying, just
Speaker 1: get two weeks worth of food, you know, get enough
Speaker 1: cash if you have to bribe somebody for you know,
Speaker 1: furell or toilet favor for two weeks and and just
Speaker 1: you know whatever. So people were thinking about this the
Speaker 1: way we think about every other illness. Now, I wish
Speaker 1: I could just go back, and like, I wish I
Speaker 1: could just go back and know everything we know now,
Speaker 1: Like it sounds great to be that naive, but now
Speaker 1: it's almost like, I mean, the crazy thing is it's
Speaker 1: it's just um, it's just exponential threat, right, I Mean,
Speaker 1: that's the crazy thing about all this. That Alpha was
Speaker 1: Alpha was terrifying because we didn't have natural immunity, because
Speaker 1: we didn't know the rules, we didn't know what it did.
Speaker 1: But Alpha was like an eight track tape player compared
Speaker 1: to you know, compared to what we have now. Um,
Speaker 1: then Delta seemed like the worst thing ever, which it
Speaker 1: was at the time. It was horrifically fatal for people.
Speaker 1: It was very, very spreadable. But that is like the
Speaker 1: junior varsity compared to now. And so now we've got
Speaker 1: a new as I call it oh micron, which is
Speaker 1: which is just raise the considerably on just how fast
Speaker 1: it spreads, how infectious it is. And so we're in
Speaker 1: the middle of something that we don't know where it's
Speaker 1: going to end. And I think part of the issue
Speaker 1: is that was inconceivable two years ago. Two years ago,
Speaker 1: we felt like everything we knew, every trauma we knew,
Speaker 1: nine to eleven war, civil rights movement, everything had a
Speaker 1: like a beginning and a middle and an end. And
Speaker 1: so to be in the middle of something that is TVD,
Speaker 1: I think is as stressful and as anxiety causing as
Speaker 1: is just the fear of everything that's happening around us.
Speaker 1: You know, It's it's really interesting because you know, as
Speaker 1: we come to the end of the year, it is
Speaker 1: very natural to go through these different reflection moments, right like,
Speaker 1: how did the year treat me? What? You know, what?
Speaker 1: What what's transpired? And I've been going back, you know,
Speaker 1: beyond the beginning of twenty twenty one, two twenty twenty
Speaker 1: because I feel like we're locked in some type of
Speaker 1: crazy loop right now, right where it seems like things
Speaker 1: get better, then they get worse, then they get better,
Speaker 1: then they get fucking worse. So between alpha to delta,
Speaker 1: the thing that I've noticed about the virus is that
Speaker 1: it gets each with each iteration that becomes it becomes
Speaker 1: increasingly spreadable. Right, so from alpha to delta, they're like,
Speaker 1: this is spreading more, this is spreading faster. Then you
Speaker 1: go from delta to omicron and it's just like holy shit.
Speaker 1: You can walk out of your apartment and like and
Speaker 1: and and get this. And it seems to me, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: that do you feel like it's becoming inevitable that everyone
Speaker 1: is going to contract COVID at some time? Because I
Speaker 1: can tell you that for the friends that I have
Speaker 1: who are vaccinated boosted, there are a number of people
Speaker 1: who have contracted it now who have either had no
Speaker 1: symptoms to mild symptoms to being knocked out for days.
Speaker 1: And these are people again that are vaccinated and boosted.
Speaker 1: So are we just at the stage of this where
Speaker 1: it's inevitable that this is going that this is going
Speaker 1: to continue to mutate, Which you say that it mutates,
Speaker 1: it's mutating every second, every moment, and that that's just
Speaker 1: what we're going to be living with. Well, I certainly
Speaker 1: think you're right. I mean, the devirus is always competing
Speaker 1: with itself for which can spread faster. We're above Measles
Speaker 1: territory right now, and so whatever wants to beat out
Speaker 1: the big oh as I call it, is going to
Speaker 1: have to get you through your text message or your
Speaker 1: email or something, because this thing is just in the air.
Speaker 1: And so part of the issue is You're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: it is spreading much faster. But I cannot say this
Speaker 1: strongly enough and we've been talking about this for a while.
Speaker 1: Don't get the virus right now, even though it's an
Speaker 1: inevitable even if it feels like everybody is getting it
Speaker 1: around you. It's so important right now. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why that is now. You can't help it right
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm doing outdoor dining tonight, and I don't
Speaker 1: know with omicron, like what how does it spread outside?
Speaker 1: We don't know that yet. I have to go down
Speaker 1: and get my mail. Like every everyday risk becomes every
Speaker 1: day becomes a risk, and so it's always a calculus.
Speaker 1: But I can say that that is not a reason
Speaker 1: right now to let your guard down. And I say
Speaker 1: that for a couple of reasons. Number one is that
Speaker 1: even if people's symptoms are mild, now, we don't know
Speaker 1: what oh micron does for long COVID. And that's the issue,
Speaker 1: right This virus lives in your body like shingles or
Speaker 1: some other stuff. You know, it lives in your body,
Speaker 1: and so we don't know what the long term effects are.
Speaker 1: Even if it's mild, it could still have long term effects.
Speaker 1: And so you don't want a virus living in your body.
Speaker 1: That's number one, So keep masking, keep doing all the stuff.
Speaker 1: Number two is number two is like, right now is
Speaker 1: a bad time to get sick, because honestly, everybody's getting sick.
Speaker 1: And so as we know that testing centers are overflowing,
Speaker 1: the clinics are overflowing, the hospitals are overflowing, hospitalizations when
Speaker 1: at fifty percent, and so you also don't want to
Speaker 1: get sick when everybody else is getting sick if you
Speaker 1: can help it. So those are those are the two
Speaker 1: arguments I think against getting COVID right now, which again
Speaker 1: I really strongly think people shouldn't do. The flip side
Speaker 1: in the long run is I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to We're gonna encounter this at some point,
Speaker 1: and so again now is not the time, not the
Speaker 1: time to do it. But I just keep thinking about
Speaker 1: like during the Spanish flu, for example, the people who
Speaker 1: like played it the most safe, kind of like me,
Speaker 1: didn't have any antibodies to anything. They are the ones
Speaker 1: they didn't do well. The people who were like out
Speaker 1: there toughing it out and stuff like that, they ended
Speaker 1: up developing a natural immunity. Also, now we don't need
Speaker 1: to I mean, it's it's a risk for your life
Speaker 1: right now. But there's going to have to be some
Speaker 1: balance going forward. And again there's new treatment, there's new
Speaker 1: knowledge coming on the way. So now is not the
Speaker 1: time to get sick. But I do think we're going
Speaker 1: to have to go into a state of you know,
Speaker 1: this is just our reality right as we know. So
Speaker 1: it's just every time the virus changes, it changes our reality.
Speaker 1: Can I say one more thing? That was like an
Speaker 1: answer I realized. But the other issue is part of
Speaker 1: the risk is medical, but part of the risk is
Speaker 1: social that every new iteration of the virus, every new
Speaker 1: iteration of the virus, changes the social and political landscape.
Speaker 1: In other words, it made sense to lock down for Alpha,
Speaker 1: but locking down because it really did actually make sense
Speaker 1: because of the way Alpha spread. But the response of
Speaker 1: locking down and masks and all those things set off
Speaker 1: a political chain of events that was incredibly tribalizing and
Speaker 1: really almost catastrophic for our country Delta. Then the virus
Speaker 1: changed its properties, and you could see our politics change
Speaker 1: around it in a certain way. And so I feel
Speaker 1: like with every iteration of the virus, our politics become
Speaker 1: more contested, more tribal, and so it's almost like we're
Speaker 1: mutating along with the virus in a political sense, and
Speaker 1: it does lead us towards some really bad outcomes in
Speaker 1: a way. And so it's not just about the virus,
Speaker 1: is also about the ways humans and political systems and
Speaker 1: infrastructures respond to these mutations. You know. That's such a
Speaker 1: good point, Jonathan, And I really like the way that
Speaker 1: you phrased it, that the fact is that our politics
Speaker 1: are mutating in a way that is just as dangerous,
Speaker 1: frankly as the virus is. And one of the questions
Speaker 1: that I've been you know, asking with experts like you
Speaker 1: and you know, and to colleagues on Twitter, is if
Speaker 1: if politics were taken out of it right, And and
Speaker 1: the thing is is that we keep finding out each
Speaker 1: and every week more and more information about what it
Speaker 1: was that the Trump administration did in order to essentially
Speaker 1: ensure that as many people as possible would get sick.
Speaker 1: Like that that is how I'm framing it, Because there's
Speaker 1: no other way to say that you're given this information
Speaker 1: about a global health pandemic and then you've choosen your choke.
Speaker 1: You've chosen to do the absolute and complete opposite of
Speaker 1: what every doctor and scientist has said that you should do,
Speaker 1: and no one is going to be held accountable for it.
Speaker 1: So I can get as angry as I want, but
Speaker 1: nobody's going to jail for over eight hundred thousand American
Speaker 1: deaths when in fact that they should because there is actual,
Speaker 1: you know, factual evidence pointing into the direction of willful negligence.
Speaker 1: But I say this that if politics were taken out
Speaker 1: of it and we have this new variant right right now,
Speaker 1: would we should we be going into a lockdown? Is
Speaker 1: this a self quarantine situation? Which is which is potentially
Speaker 1: what is going to be happening in New York right
Speaker 1: like we're people are saying, like the bars are empty.
Speaker 1: I think it was David Gore from who tweeted and
Speaker 1: said the bars are empty and the lines for city
Speaker 1: MD are like miles long, right, So are we going
Speaker 1: to be heading into a If politics had taken out
Speaker 1: of it and doctors and scientists had been running the
Speaker 1: show right now, would we be going back into a lockdown.
Speaker 1: It's funny because we know so much more than we
Speaker 1: did when we went into that initial lockdown. We know
Speaker 1: so much more about the virus its effects, and so
Speaker 1: I really don't think that going back into lockdown the
Speaker 1: way we did in twenty twenty isn't the cards, nor
Speaker 1: should it be, because with this version of the virus,
Speaker 1: a lockdown itself isn't going to do the work that
Speaker 1: it did in twenty twenty, and so part of the
Speaker 1: issue is to learn how to why is that wait
Speaker 1: before you go on why why? Just so people can
Speaker 1: understand why wouldn't a lockdown be as effective as it
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty March of twenty twenty as it
Speaker 1: could be. Now this is going to be a horror
Speaker 1: movie territory, But in twenty twenty, with the alpha variant,
Speaker 1: you needed to be exposed for about fifteen minutes, and
Speaker 1: so there was no chance you were going to get
Speaker 1: it walking through your lobby or from your mailman, or
Speaker 1: you give it to your mailman or things like that,
Speaker 1: in other words, distancing people. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: the alpha variant didn't travel more than six to eight
Speaker 1: feet in the air, and so you could social distance.
Speaker 1: There are all these things that were very effective. And
Speaker 1: I can't say this strongly enough. If the pandemic had
Speaker 1: stopped at the end of the alpha variant, which of
Speaker 1: course it didn't, we would be in a totally different
Speaker 1: space politically right now in a way because because because
Speaker 1: of all this, so but so, we had the right
Speaker 1: strategy for the alpha variant, we really did at the time.
Speaker 1: And also we didn't know anything but that that's not
Speaker 1: going to work right now. We've seen that shutting down
Speaker 1: the economy is bad. I mean, I'm thinking bars should
Speaker 1: go give martiniz to people in line at CityMD or something.
Speaker 1: You know, there's got to be a way to keep
Speaker 1: the bars in business. But I think that there's economic effects.
Speaker 1: I also think that given the way that this virus
Speaker 1: hangs in the air, the way that it's transmitted and
Speaker 1: things like that, unless you're I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: like it's probably easier for somebody like me, as a
Speaker 1: single American to like isolate myself a little bit more
Speaker 1: easily or something like that. But we we engage with
Speaker 1: other people, we're dependent on other people, and and so
Speaker 1: I just think that that strategy is going to take
Speaker 1: a back seat in a way, even though in a
Speaker 1: way that chaotic total lockdown, maybe maybe that, I mean,
Speaker 1: in a way we overreacted to that, But now we're
Speaker 1: under reacting to this. I think that's totally possible. Do
Speaker 1: you think we're under reacting to this? I mean, this
Speaker 1: is by far the most dangerous threat we've had, and
Speaker 1: January is going to be the worst month of the
Speaker 1: pandemic by far. There's a chance we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: million infections a day. So so yeah, I think no.
Speaker 1: But I say that, Jonathan, because Yeah, the thing that
Speaker 1: I think people keep hanging onto with this is that
Speaker 1: the symptoms are mild, right, that we're not like, while
Speaker 1: hospitalizations are going up, and again this is a with
Speaker 1: large regard to unvaccinated people, but vaccinated and boosted people
Speaker 1: are still getting this, but they're not dying at the
Speaker 1: same rate, and so like, is it wrong to say
Speaker 1: that while this is more contagious, it's not as lethal
Speaker 1: or do we or has it not been around long
Speaker 1: enough for us to really say that it's not as lethal? Okay,
Speaker 1: let me just preface this by saying, I'm a happy person.
Speaker 1: I love puppies. Daffodils are amazing. I love I love
Speaker 1: a sunny day in a warm wheat field. So I'm
Speaker 1: not a total downer, except when you say, oh, the
Speaker 1: big O is mild. Talk to me in two weeks.
Speaker 1: Talk to me in three weeks, because that's really going
Speaker 1: to be the issue. The information came out right away
Speaker 1: that this was this version was mild quote unquote bad
Speaker 1: word choice, and the reason was because it was where
Speaker 1: it was spreading in South Africa, was people were not
Speaker 1: getting hospitalized or dying as much. Now the reason that
Speaker 1: was happening we don't know for sure yet, but part
Speaker 1: of it is that everybody there had had COVID probably
Speaker 1: multiple times, or been exposed to it many, many times,
Speaker 1: and so they had a kind of form of natural immunity.
Speaker 1: Plus about half the people were vaccinated, and so in
Speaker 1: a way, that was a very particular setting. And in
Speaker 1: a small study in London they found that it was
Speaker 1: no less and sometimes even more dangerous than the delta
Speaker 1: variant for people who were at least in this one
Speaker 1: town in London. And I think that's what Denmark is
Speaker 1: going to show also. And so the question of is
Speaker 1: it more mild, I think is not quite certain yet.
Speaker 1: I don't think we know, And I think that the
Speaker 1: question is if people have been dramatically exposed to earlier
Speaker 1: versions of COVID and also were vaccinated, it's certainly going
Speaker 1: to be mild for them. If they're NFL athletes who
Speaker 1: are in incredible shape and getting tested every single day
Speaker 1: and have all been vaccinated three times, it's probably going
Speaker 1: to be mild for them. But for America, I have
Speaker 1: to say, we are facing something really major in the
Speaker 1: next four to six weeks, and hopefully this is a
Speaker 1: mild version. I hope that's great, But I would also
Speaker 1: say that there's enough data right now that's not pointing
Speaker 1: that way that we should not just jump out and
Speaker 1: have a you know, a micron party and everybody get it,
Speaker 1: because we don't know yet, and we also don't know
Speaker 1: what the impact is for long COVID, So there's enough
Speaker 1: of a red flag there that I think just thinking
Speaker 1: of it as mild is not the time to let
Speaker 1: your guard down, you know. And I the reason why
Speaker 1: I say that because I'm mimicking what mainstream media is saying, right,
Speaker 1: I'm mimicking what every news you know, station and show
Speaker 1: has been saying, which is that it's spreading rampant. I
Speaker 1: think Fauci had said the the O variant has already
Speaker 1: overtaken delta. We are at seventy three percent. I think
Speaker 1: of the infections are of the omicron variety. And the
Speaker 1: reality is, though, Jonathan, this is this is where I
Speaker 1: think things are getting really troubling, is that people like
Speaker 1: myself are like, I cannot wait for this week to
Speaker 1: be done just so that we can have like a
Speaker 1: little bit of like for me, I will not be
Speaker 1: watching the news for a week. I will be with
Speaker 1: my you know, with a small portion of my family,
Speaker 1: because we have already decided that Christmas is once again
Speaker 1: not going to look like we thought that it was
Speaker 1: going to look unless everybody is doing rapid testing at
Speaker 1: the door and did a PCR beforehand and like what
Speaker 1: have you. But the reality is is that emotionally, I
Speaker 1: think we're all hanging on by a fucking thread. You know,
Speaker 1: Biden is speaking tonight to the nation, and he's not
Speaker 1: the most no charismatic guy, but I will say that
Speaker 1: now is a time to talk to humanity, to share humanity,
Speaker 1: because I think we've fallen into a trap which is
Speaker 1: on both sides. Right when you hear somebody is not
Speaker 1: getting the vaccine, we jump to the conclusion that they
Speaker 1: just want the virus, or that they're a bad person,
Speaker 1: that there's a very strong moral component to that or
Speaker 1: and certainly our politics makes you think that way, and
Speaker 1: and vice versa in a particular way. And so a
Speaker 1: lot of people are suffering right now, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people are feeling a kind of PTSD and a
Speaker 1: kind of sense of letdown about the future they imagined,
Speaker 1: about the about the fact that we've worked so hard
Speaker 1: just to get to this point, no matter what side
Speaker 1: of this spectrum politically you're on, we worked really hard
Speaker 1: just to survive to this point. And the fact that
Speaker 1: now we're facing this situation again is profoundly demoralizing. And
Speaker 1: so I really think Biden needs to speak to that
Speaker 1: human component. Right this is not a time to cast
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen plenty of blame in terms of
Speaker 1: political decisions and just everything about Twitter and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's right there, there's no mystery, but right now, like
Speaker 1: we don't have a language for shared trauma, for shared humanity,
Speaker 1: for this sense that, like I teach college students, they're wondering, like,
Speaker 1: what is the future what is the future, what are
Speaker 1: the world? What's the world going to look like? And
Speaker 1: I think everybody's thinking that in terms of just this
Speaker 1: and the next phase of their life. And so in
Speaker 1: a way, we need that kind of language right now,
Speaker 1: in part because we don't know where this is going,
Speaker 1: but in part because like we're all experiencing it and
Speaker 1: there's no there's no venue or language to talk about it.
Speaker 1: So I hope, I hope he rises to the occasion tonight,
Speaker 1: and if not, I hope somebody does. Yeah, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, you know, shared trauma is right right. I
Speaker 1: have been talking to so many you know, so many
Speaker 1: people over the course of the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and I just can't believe where we were on Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one to where we are, you know, as
Speaker 1: we head into the Christmas holiday, how rapidly things have unraveled.
Speaker 1: The last question for you, Jonathan, is around this four
Speaker 1: to six week lag that we're looking at. And we
Speaker 1: heard from jensak White House Press Secretary that this is
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, a long winter of death
Speaker 1: and illness for the unvaccinated. But again, it is not
Speaker 1: just the unvaccinated that are getting sick that they are
Speaker 1: breakthrough cases we have, you know, just this week, Senators
Speaker 1: Warren Booker have breakthrough cases of COVID. What is your
Speaker 1: message for people as we're going into this gathering season
Speaker 1: where there are you know, travel is up thirty four percent.
Speaker 1: You know people are going home, you know they're making
Speaker 1: the choice to be with their family. It's been a
Speaker 1: really long tough time. UM. What is your advice to
Speaker 1: those to those people as we move into what you're
Speaker 1: saying and what we know to be true a really
Speaker 1: precarious UM part of this this new surge. Well, I
Speaker 1: really think it has to be we're all in this together.
Speaker 1: I mean that that really it seems almost naive at
Speaker 1: this point to think about that, UM, because this has
Speaker 1: been so politicized, UM, and and there has to be
Speaker 1: a way to step back from that. I just think
Speaker 1: that I just I really think that I'm tired of
Speaker 1: fighting about this. I know people who are not vaccinated,
Speaker 1: and they're not bad people. They're they're they don't we
Speaker 1: don't agree about political stuff, and and I feel like
Speaker 1: their politics is leaving them in a very different different
Speaker 1: recnation than mine. But I just think we've we've we've
Speaker 1: this level of fear as led to a kind of
Speaker 1: demonization which is reinforced by all the algorithms through which
Speaker 1: we engage with each other, social media and things like that.
Speaker 1: And there has to be a way to get back
Speaker 1: to some kind of language of empathy. And I believe me,
Speaker 1: can't even believe these words are coming out of my mouth,
Speaker 1: you know, on the guy who wrote dying a whiteness.
Speaker 1: But I think that we're facing a tsunami, a tidal way.
Speaker 1: But the next month is going to be really hard,
Speaker 1: and if we don't get some common national resolve in
Speaker 1: some form or other, in some way, we are really
Speaker 1: going to be facing some really dire situation. And I
Speaker 1: think that also on the flip side, what sociologists call
Speaker 1: social capital is what we need right now. We need
Speaker 1: a sense that our neighbors are looking at for us
Speaker 1: and vice versa. And so in a way, now is
Speaker 1: the time to think about is there a way to
Speaker 1: break down this stuff and think about some language of
Speaker 1: common good that again, because I think we are we're
Speaker 1: facing you know, a Pearl Harbor kind of situation, um
Speaker 1: at nine to eleven kind of situation. Whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: moment brought us together and it seems impossible to imagine,
Speaker 1: but in a month, that's where we're going to be.
Speaker 1: And so I really think that that now is the
Speaker 1: time to start thinking about is there a way we
Speaker 1: can break out of this fingerpointing mess we've gotten ourselves into?
Speaker 1: And how is that even possible? Jonathan, I just don't know,
Speaker 1: I really am I know, you know, it seems it
Speaker 1: seems impossible. Yeah, um, it does. It feels impossible. It
Speaker 1: seems completely overwhelming. Uh And I really I wish for
Speaker 1: everyone to be as safe and as healthy and as
Speaker 1: thoughtful as possible as I know all that listened to
Speaker 1: woke af have been an r but my god, Pearl
Speaker 1: Harbor nine to eleven tsunami, you couldn't have picked, like,
Speaker 1: you know, any good movie or any good you know,
Speaker 1: good Gremlins too. Uh Well, Jonathan, I wish for you
Speaker 1: as the year comes to a close, some time for peace,
Speaker 1: some time for relaxation and recharging, because something tells me
Speaker 1: that twenty twenty two is going to be an extension
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one, which was an extension of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty and that we're going to be in this for
Speaker 1: the long call, So take whatever break it is that
Speaker 1: you're giving to yourself and I wish you some form
Speaker 1: of happy holiday season. No same, I mean, I'll just
Speaker 1: be here hunkering down in Brooklyn. If anybody out there
Speaker 1: in television America as around, we can go for a
Speaker 1: walk in four Green Park or something. But no, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just be here, you know, um working my way
Speaker 1: through my m my stockpiled peanut butter from the first
Speaker 1: round of eld stuff. So thank you, Jonathan. As always,
Speaker 1: we appreciate you and your insight and have just a
Speaker 1: lot of gratitude for the last two years of conversation
Speaker 1: with you. Hope that we can continue. We absolutely will
Speaker 1: take care. That is it for me today. Here folks
Speaker 1: on Woke f daily as always. Power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.