WEBVTT - Live Interview 5/19/21: Michael Lewis and Geraldine Brooks 0:00:15.276 --> 0:00:26.556 Pushkin. Hey, there against the Rules listeners. This is Catherine Girardou. 0:00:26.956 --> 0:00:29.796 I'm one of the producers on the show. We're still 0:00:29.796 --> 0:00:33.356 working on our next season, coming out this fall. In 0:00:33.436 --> 0:00:36.876 the meantime, we'd like to share a conversation between Michael 0:00:36.916 --> 0:00:41.116 Lewis and journalist author Geraldine Brooks about Michael's new book, 0:00:41.396 --> 0:00:44.556 The Premonition. It's all about the experts who saw the 0:00:44.556 --> 0:00:48.276 pandemic coming and did their best to stop it. In 0:00:48.316 --> 0:00:51.076 case you missed it, check your feed. Michael read the 0:00:51.116 --> 0:00:55.716 first chapter here. A few weeks back. Geraldine Brooks covered 0:00:55.796 --> 0:00:58.996 crises in the Mid East, Africa, and the Balkans as 0:00:58.996 --> 0:01:02.356 a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. She also 0:01:02.396 --> 0:01:07.236 wrote the two thousand and six Pulitzer Prize winning novel March. Here, 0:01:07.476 --> 0:01:10.396 recorded as part of the Live Talk Los Angeles series, 0:01:10.876 --> 0:01:18.356 is her conversation with Michael. Michael, your wonderful nude book. 0:01:19.036 --> 0:01:22.436 On the back cover has just one quote, and it 0:01:22.596 --> 0:01:26.276 says I would read an eight hundred page history of 0:01:26.276 --> 0:01:29.796 the Stapler if he wrote it. John Williams, New York 0:01:29.796 --> 0:01:34.276 Times book Review, Pretty pretty great quote. You haven't yet 0:01:34.316 --> 0:01:37.356 given us the saga of the Stapler, but you have 0:01:38.276 --> 0:01:43.356 had a protean range in your work, from money to politics, 0:01:43.516 --> 0:01:49.636 to sport, to fatherhood to science and data analytics and 0:01:49.796 --> 0:01:53.196 now the pandemic. But all of your other books have 0:01:53.316 --> 0:01:57.676 been looking at events that have already occurred, and this 0:01:57.756 --> 0:02:01.076 is the first time that you've written a book where 0:02:01.076 --> 0:02:04.756 the events were crashing down around us as you wrote. 0:02:04.836 --> 0:02:09.956 What was that like? Fun? Like totally extrating? And I 0:02:09.996 --> 0:02:11.636 know I'm not supposed to say that, but let me 0:02:11.676 --> 0:02:14.556 just say that it required it. The only reason I 0:02:14.596 --> 0:02:16.596 did it is I found it. I took it just 0:02:16.676 --> 0:02:19.156 a different approach than I usually take. And the only 0:02:19.156 --> 0:02:21.476 reason I took a different approach than I usually take 0:02:21.836 --> 0:02:23.676 is I was ready to write a book with a 0:02:23.716 --> 0:02:26.476 different approach when the pandemic happened. And the approach was 0:02:27.556 --> 0:02:30.396 I have this character. He happens to be a college 0:02:30.396 --> 0:02:33.196 football coach, but it doesn't matter. And I haven't written 0:02:33.196 --> 0:02:35.636 the book, but I have this character that I'm so 0:02:35.756 --> 0:02:41.156 interested in. I don't care what happens, that whatever happens happens, 0:02:41.436 --> 0:02:44.076 and I'm going to write a very character driven work 0:02:44.076 --> 0:02:46.836 of nonfiction narrative and let the story is sort of 0:02:46.916 --> 0:02:49.636 unfolds as it happens and whatever it is it is, 0:02:49.956 --> 0:02:54.676 and just trust the character. So the pandemic happens just 0:02:54.716 --> 0:02:58.676 as I'm getting going on that, and I wasn't thinking, oh, 0:02:58.236 --> 0:03:02.836 just port that approach onto this, but I was thinking that, 0:03:02.996 --> 0:03:05.316 like I wrote this book about how the Trump administration 0:03:05.356 --> 0:03:07.276 is going to muck up any kind of management problem 0:03:07.356 --> 0:03:09.116 they have because they don't care about the federal government 0:03:09.276 --> 0:03:12.876 as a management tool. This is the bad thing that happened. 0:03:12.876 --> 0:03:14.716 They have to imagine maybe I should look into it 0:03:14.996 --> 0:03:17.916 and like into my lap drop, I think three of 0:03:17.916 --> 0:03:20.396 the best characters I've ever had. So I thought, and 0:03:20.916 --> 0:03:23.676 that thought that I can just follow these characters and 0:03:23.756 --> 0:03:27.956 let the characters just take me wherever they go, followed 0:03:27.956 --> 0:03:30.916 by another one that the characters have already given me 0:03:30.996 --> 0:03:34.916 my ending. And that was because because around June they 0:03:35.036 --> 0:03:38.396 basically said, it's over here that you know this thing 0:03:38.476 --> 0:03:42.196 is now we failed, and the story of the beginning 0:03:42.196 --> 0:03:44.036 of the pandemic was in a way the story of 0:03:44.076 --> 0:03:46.716 the pandemic for them, and that the end of the 0:03:46.756 --> 0:03:51.836 story for them was there's another one coming. This is one, 0:03:51.956 --> 0:03:54.636 but there's another one coming. So when I had that 0:03:54.716 --> 0:03:58.996 kind of stake in the distance to navigate too and 0:03:59.036 --> 0:04:01.516 I knew that the characters what was going to happen 0:04:01.636 --> 0:04:05.116 from kind of June July on. With the characters, who's 0:04:05.116 --> 0:04:08.756 going to be of kind of peripheral importance to the story. 0:04:09.156 --> 0:04:12.236 It was a matter of some indifference the details, the 0:04:12.316 --> 0:04:17.596 details that followed. How did they drop into a lap? 0:04:17.756 --> 0:04:23.876 Charity Deane, for example, absolutely marvelous character. And you haven't 0:04:23.916 --> 0:04:27.396 often sented a book on a female character. It was 0:04:27.436 --> 0:04:29.636 really interesting to see you do it in this case. 0:04:29.916 --> 0:04:32.796 Can you tell me how you came upon her? So 0:04:32.876 --> 0:04:35.796 before I do, I gotta ask you, Geraldine, can I 0:04:35.836 --> 0:04:43.116 write a woman? Certainly write this one? All right? So 0:04:43.236 --> 0:04:45.476 Charity is the last bit of the story did fall 0:04:45.516 --> 0:04:47.556 into place. When I meet Charity, I know I have 0:04:47.636 --> 0:04:50.876 a book. The other two are very important, are the 0:04:50.876 --> 0:04:53.396 two main characters, and they came in the following order. 0:04:54.956 --> 0:04:59.196 Five years ago I wrote Flashboys, and a San Francisco 0:04:59.276 --> 0:05:01.796 money manager asked me to go to dinner, and I 0:05:01.836 --> 0:05:04.556 thought it was to talk about Flashboys, and because he 0:05:04.596 --> 0:05:06.836 was a friend of the friend, I went and when 0:05:06.836 --> 0:05:08.836 I got there, he kind of grabbed me by the 0:05:09.116 --> 0:05:12.236 dollar and said, I have a character you were going 0:05:12.276 --> 0:05:14.316 to write a book about, which, of course I thought, 0:05:14.316 --> 0:05:16.436 these are false pretenses, and he says, isn't. His name 0:05:16.516 --> 0:05:19.756 is Joe Dici, and Joe Ici is a biochemist and 0:05:19.996 --> 0:05:23.876 kind of like badass virus hunter at UCSF, And so 0:05:23.916 --> 0:05:25.596 he wouldn't let me leave until I said, I'd go 0:05:25.676 --> 0:05:27.596 have a sandwich with Joe Dici. And I went and 0:05:27.636 --> 0:05:29.596 at a sandwich with Joe Dici, and I said, oh 0:05:29.676 --> 0:05:32.956 my god, he is a character. I'd love to write 0:05:32.956 --> 0:05:35.996 about him, but I got a d in biology my 0:05:36.036 --> 0:05:38.796 sophomore year in high school. I have no chops for 0:05:38.836 --> 0:05:42.596 this subject. There's no real connection with anything I've done. 0:05:43.116 --> 0:05:44.756 I would I don't even know how to do it. 0:05:44.996 --> 0:05:49.916 But we started a relationship, and so he would come 0:05:49.956 --> 0:05:52.476 back to him, but he was there already, and he 0:05:52.596 --> 0:05:55.396 ends up being very important. The second thing that happened 0:05:55.556 --> 0:05:58.596 was when our kids got tossed out of school, and 0:05:58.676 --> 0:06:00.556 I realized, this is like something I need to pay 0:06:00.556 --> 0:06:05.316 attention to. I called my jungle guide for the previous book. 0:06:05.356 --> 0:06:08.716 The fifth risk, his name's Max Styre and he should 0:06:08.796 --> 0:06:10.756 be the most famous man in America. But he has 0:06:10.836 --> 0:06:14.556 eight hundred and thirty two Twitter followers, and I can't 0:06:14.596 --> 0:06:17.716 I can't figure it out. But he is engaged in 0:06:17.796 --> 0:06:23.156 this quixotic, passionate quest to fix the federal government from 0:06:23.156 --> 0:06:27.236 outside the federal government. And as a result of this quest, 0:06:27.756 --> 0:06:29.676 he has gotten to know more about the federal government 0:06:29.676 --> 0:06:33.156 than anyone on the planet. And I called him and 0:06:33.236 --> 0:06:35.836 he said, if you're going to write about this, you 0:06:35.876 --> 0:06:38.356 got to talk to my uncle. Who's your uncle. His 0:06:38.436 --> 0:06:41.636 name is Richard Danzig. He was a former US Navy secretary. 0:06:41.676 --> 0:06:44.516 He said, my uncle's just passionate on this subject of pandemics, 0:06:44.596 --> 0:06:46.756 and he knows more about it than anybody. So I 0:06:46.796 --> 0:06:49.716 called him, and Richard Danzig says, no, no, no, no, 0:06:49.796 --> 0:06:51.956 it's not me you need to talk to You need 0:06:51.956 --> 0:06:54.916 to meet the Wolverines. Who the hell are the Wolverines. 0:06:55.636 --> 0:06:58.196 And the Wolverines turn out to be this like secret 0:06:58.236 --> 0:07:01.236 group of seven doctors who've known each other for fifteen years, 0:07:01.276 --> 0:07:03.276 who worked in the White House and are positioned all 0:07:03.316 --> 0:07:07.396 over American Medical society, who turned out to be like 0:07:07.476 --> 0:07:09.916 the single best group of people whose eyes to watch 0:07:09.916 --> 0:07:13.316 the event through. So that gets me to Carter Mesher, 0:07:13.356 --> 0:07:16.476 who's the kind of the Savonne in the Wolverines group. 0:07:17.276 --> 0:07:19.196 And here at this point, it's sort of like maybe 0:07:19.236 --> 0:07:22.116 this is a book like I've got Wolverines, I've got 0:07:22.196 --> 0:07:26.436 Joe Ici, I've got a backstory about how pandemic preparedness 0:07:26.516 --> 0:07:32.716 came about. All this stuff. They all Joe Ici, three wolverines, 0:07:33.156 --> 0:07:35.836 and a former member of the Obama administration who I 0:07:35.876 --> 0:07:38.876 was talking to too, who is helping Gavin Newsom build 0:07:38.876 --> 0:07:42.156 a computer model to analyze what was going on in California. 0:07:42.476 --> 0:07:45.956 All said, you gotta meet this woman named Charity Dean 0:07:46.396 --> 0:07:49.636 because she's she's like, she's the one who knows in 0:07:49.636 --> 0:07:53.036 the whole state of California. So I sent an email 0:07:53.276 --> 0:07:56.156 to the California state government and they wrote back and said, 0:07:56.236 --> 0:07:59.316 Charity Deane has no interest in talking to you. And 0:08:00.196 --> 0:08:03.076 I took that at face value for about three weeks, 0:08:03.076 --> 0:08:05.276 and I thought, like, why wouldn't she want to talk 0:08:05.276 --> 0:08:07.716 to me? You know, that's odd. So I got her 0:08:07.716 --> 0:08:09.916 cell phone number and she's I got on the phone, 0:08:09.956 --> 0:08:11.636 she said, who said, I don't want to talk to you? 0:08:12.516 --> 0:08:15.756 And that that was the beginning of a of a relationship. 0:08:15.836 --> 0:08:19.156 So that's how the characters fell into my lap. And 0:08:19.196 --> 0:08:21.636 then the fact that they all kind of come together 0:08:21.676 --> 0:08:24.236 in some way that was that was Lanya. I didn't 0:08:24.236 --> 0:08:27.276 plan on that, I must say. When I got to 0:08:27.356 --> 0:08:31.756 the Wolverines in the book, I was reminded of Mark Twain, 0:08:32.076 --> 0:08:38.076 who said fiction must be plausible. Truth needn't be that's 0:08:38.116 --> 0:08:41.076 the advantage. That's why I can't write fiction, because I'm 0:08:41.156 --> 0:08:44.196 much better with things that seem Why would you? Why 0:08:44.236 --> 0:08:47.636 would you? Why? You don't need to make it up. 0:08:47.716 --> 0:08:50.396 But tell us a little bit about Charity Deane and 0:08:50.476 --> 0:08:56.316 her struggles. So Charity Dean first, the character first, the 0:08:56.396 --> 0:09:00.236 person she grows up. She's the Taro Westover story, and 0:09:00.316 --> 0:09:04.636 that she grows up in a evangelical rural community that 0:09:04.876 --> 0:09:08.876 raises girls to breed children and nothing else. She's pulled 0:09:08.876 --> 0:09:12.396 out a science classes whenever like evolution comes up. She 0:09:12.556 --> 0:09:15.436 is told she shouldn't go to college by the church elders. 0:09:15.476 --> 0:09:18.556 The church runs the family life. She lives in fear 0:09:18.676 --> 0:09:22.756 of them at the same time, from a very early age, 0:09:22.876 --> 0:09:26.996 partly because of the biblical passages about the plague, partly 0:09:27.116 --> 0:09:31.076 because missionaries come from Africa and talk about diseases in Africa, 0:09:31.356 --> 0:09:34.756 partly just her own curiosity. From like the age at ten, 0:09:35.196 --> 0:09:39.276 she starts to get obsessed with disease, with communicable disease 0:09:40.116 --> 0:09:43.116 on her own, like for fun, reading books about the 0:09:43.156 --> 0:09:47.796 bubonic plague, making like styrofoam models of viruses, and hanging 0:09:47.796 --> 0:09:51.316 in from her ceiling. She's like on a collision course 0:09:51.316 --> 0:09:54.956 with an education in microbiology and has to fight to 0:09:55.116 --> 0:09:57.796 get it. She gets a lot of grief for going 0:09:57.836 --> 0:10:00.836 to college. She finds a scholarship, She grows with real poverty. 0:10:01.356 --> 0:10:04.796 She gets basically excommunicated from the church when she does 0:10:04.836 --> 0:10:07.036 so well in medical school that the husband that the 0:10:07.116 --> 0:10:09.676 church has wanted her to marry says he's not getting 0:10:09.756 --> 0:10:12.356 enough of her attention. So she leaves the husband and 0:10:12.396 --> 0:10:16.396 she continues with the medical degree, and it walks the walk. 0:10:16.516 --> 0:10:19.716 She goes to Africa and gets malaria while she's treating people, 0:10:20.156 --> 0:10:23.396 so she ends up in Santa Barbara in her during 0:10:23.396 --> 0:10:27.076 her residency and discovers this role called the local public 0:10:27.116 --> 0:10:31.236 health officer, which she didn't actually know existed, and neither 0:10:31.276 --> 0:10:34.316 did I, but there was. There's this person who has 0:10:34.356 --> 0:10:37.156 this job to, among other things like you know, making 0:10:37.156 --> 0:10:39.916 sure we don't get sick in restaurants or in swimming pools, 0:10:40.436 --> 0:10:45.436 also control communicable disease, and from that moment she's collided 0:10:45.476 --> 0:10:47.396 with like the things she was put on earth to do. 0:10:47.996 --> 0:10:51.596 And what interested me about her as a character, Like 0:10:51.716 --> 0:10:55.036 what kind of like instantly riveted me was when you 0:10:55.076 --> 0:10:59.756 went to her house, the walls were all decorated with 0:10:59.876 --> 0:11:04.436 various signs, all trying to remind her of basically who 0:11:04.476 --> 0:11:07.276 she needed to be, and all of them one way 0:11:07.316 --> 0:11:09.996 or another. We're telling her you need to be brave person. 0:11:10.476 --> 0:11:13.316 Now that was a message that she had internalized from 0:11:13.516 --> 0:11:16.996 time she was very young. But she has to relearn 0:11:17.116 --> 0:11:19.716 the lesson when she becomes a local public health officer 0:11:19.796 --> 0:11:23.396 because she's constantly in the position of doing things that 0:11:23.516 --> 0:11:27.996 cause controversy political or social, that put her job on 0:11:28.036 --> 0:11:31.756 the line, and she has no backup. The CDC is 0:11:31.796 --> 0:11:33.796 not there to help. In fact, their CDC is often 0:11:33.836 --> 0:11:37.836 there to obstruct. Local politicians got their fingers in the wind. 0:11:38.796 --> 0:11:40.676 And as she said, after a couple of years of 0:11:40.716 --> 0:11:44.116 doing this job, her model, her mantra became no one's 0:11:44.156 --> 0:11:48.356 coming to save me. So but at the character thing 0:11:48.396 --> 0:11:51.156 that was so great and like runs through the book, 0:11:51.356 --> 0:11:54.636 is that it's not that she's fearless. She's full of fear. 0:11:55.076 --> 0:11:57.556 Like she has more fear than eight people put together. 0:11:58.196 --> 0:12:01.276 She fights the fear. It's sort of like this willed bravery. 0:12:01.396 --> 0:12:04.036 She sees this thing as like bravery, as an acquired trait, 0:12:04.956 --> 0:12:09.556 and practices it in disease control. The act of having 0:12:09.636 --> 0:12:13.076 practice it for some long period of time builds these 0:12:13.156 --> 0:12:17.716 muscle memories and these six senses about what to do when. So, 0:12:17.836 --> 0:12:20.996 in a way, at a very local level, is being 0:12:21.036 --> 0:12:25.316 created the kind of character you would want fighting a pandemic. 0:12:25.836 --> 0:12:28.876 But she's she's the low person on the totem pole. 0:12:28.916 --> 0:12:33.036 She says, no status, no one recognizes her. So I 0:12:33.036 --> 0:12:35.276 could kind of go on and on. Why don't I 0:12:35.356 --> 0:12:38.116 hit a pause button right there? On Charity Deane, Right, 0:12:38.196 --> 0:12:41.516 I think you've given us exactly the right level of 0:12:41.996 --> 0:12:45.196 introduction to be intrigued by her that I do want 0:12:45.276 --> 0:12:48.636 you to do the same for Joe DREESI, And I'm 0:12:48.636 --> 0:12:50.476 going to point you at what I would like you 0:12:50.596 --> 0:12:59.916 to tell. Oh, All right, coming back to Jodoreesi. He 0:12:59.996 --> 0:13:04.476 hunts viruses wherever they appear, not just in people, and 0:13:05.436 --> 0:13:09.316 he's been so effective at it. He gets very weird call. 0:13:09.396 --> 0:13:11.396 He calls his phone, the red phone. It says, like 0:13:11.436 --> 0:13:14.396 when there's some problem in the world and someone has 0:13:14.396 --> 0:13:16.396 that no one's figured it out. They usually called the 0:13:16.396 --> 0:13:19.396 red phone, and the call to the Red phone in 0:13:19.396 --> 0:13:21.756 this case took the form of a letter he received 0:13:21.796 --> 0:13:24.556 from a woman who was kind of scantily clad apparently, 0:13:24.836 --> 0:13:27.716 and had a boa constrictor around her neck. And she 0:13:27.836 --> 0:13:30.716 said that Joe Ici that her boa constrictor was named 0:13:30.796 --> 0:13:33.996 mister Larry, and she was now terrified for the life 0:13:33.996 --> 0:13:37.636 of mister Larry because boas everywhere we're dying of some 0:13:37.756 --> 0:13:41.436 strange disease. It's a tribute to jod Erici that he 0:13:41.476 --> 0:13:44.716 didn't just throw the letter away, but it sat on 0:13:44.756 --> 0:13:46.716 his desk for like six months because he thought it 0:13:46.756 --> 0:13:49.996 was so strange. And then finally, like one day when 0:13:49.996 --> 0:13:52.196 he had a moment, he called someone who might know 0:13:52.356 --> 0:13:54.316 is like a veterinarian or so he knew, and said, 0:13:54.436 --> 0:13:57.436 is it true that these boas are dying? And he said, yeah, 0:13:57.516 --> 0:14:00.196 zoos are having problems all over the place. And so 0:14:00.396 --> 0:14:05.396 thus begins Joe Jice's quest to figure out this snake pandemic. 0:14:07.316 --> 0:14:09.036 You can take whatever that what I'm about to do 0:14:09.196 --> 0:14:12.156 say and just poured it right onto human pandemics. But 0:14:12.316 --> 0:14:15.436 he's created a technology which is now evolved since he 0:14:15.516 --> 0:14:19.476 created it to take the genetic material from any living creature, 0:14:20.356 --> 0:14:24.516 separate out what belongs in that creature, its own DNA 0:14:24.556 --> 0:14:28.276 from whatever happened else happens to be inside, like a virus. 0:14:29.836 --> 0:14:32.916 To do this, of course, you need to know the 0:14:33.156 --> 0:14:37.036 genome of the animal. So there is the human genome 0:14:37.036 --> 0:14:41.436 project that's happened, right, The snake genome project actually never happened, 0:14:41.836 --> 0:14:44.676 so he had to create this first. He starts by 0:14:44.716 --> 0:14:47.716 creating the Snake Genome Project and sequencing the genome of 0:14:48.916 --> 0:14:52.476 snakes so he knows what their genetic material is. Then 0:14:52.476 --> 0:14:55.076 he goes to the San Francisco Aquarium and gets some 0:14:55.196 --> 0:14:59.516 boas and some pythons and extracts DNA and then he 0:14:59.676 --> 0:15:02.396 pulls out he puts it on his chip and he finds, 0:15:02.436 --> 0:15:05.116 oh lo, and behold, oh my god, these boas have 0:15:05.196 --> 0:15:07.316 this other thing in them. They both have this other 0:15:07.356 --> 0:15:11.236 thing in them that quite possibly be causing an incredible illness. 0:15:11.596 --> 0:15:15.236 It's an adenovirus. My biology is shaky, but it's a 0:15:15.356 --> 0:15:18.876 virus that he said. It's an ancestor of ebola. It's 0:15:18.916 --> 0:15:21.676 got Ebola in it. It's kind of a curious thing, 0:15:22.116 --> 0:15:25.596 he said. It's actually been detected in dinosaurs, so that 0:15:25.596 --> 0:15:29.116 it's that old a virus, So then he has to 0:15:29.156 --> 0:15:32.316 prove that this is what's killing the boas. And the 0:15:32.356 --> 0:15:35.876 way you prove that a virus as there is creating 0:15:35.876 --> 0:15:38.876 the disease is you get a healthy animal and you 0:15:38.956 --> 0:15:43.156 inject it with the virus. So he distills the virus 0:15:43.716 --> 0:15:46.156 and he goes with three post docs into the San 0:15:46.236 --> 0:15:49.596 Francisco is getting absurd, I know, but this is it 0:15:49.596 --> 0:15:53.236 gets better. Did the San Francisco aquarium When you tell 0:15:53.276 --> 0:15:55.676 the story, sis, do you know how you inject a 0:15:55.756 --> 0:15:59.396 snake with a virus? And I know? He says, well, 0:15:59.436 --> 0:16:01.476 you have to inject them in the heart because the 0:16:01.556 --> 0:16:04.516 veins either don't exist or they're hard to find. And 0:16:04.596 --> 0:16:06.636 the heart. The problem with the snake's heart is it 0:16:06.716 --> 0:16:08.876 moves up and down the body, so you need a 0:16:09.116 --> 0:16:12.556 Doppler radar. You need one post doc holding the Doppler radar, 0:16:13.316 --> 0:16:17.156 other ones holding the snake, which isn't happy, and someone 0:16:17.196 --> 0:16:21.716 else to plunge the needle into the snake's heart. So 0:16:21.756 --> 0:16:25.196 they do this with pythons and with boas, and sure enough, 0:16:25.636 --> 0:16:29.196 the boas get ill and die, just as they're doing 0:16:29.236 --> 0:16:34.036 around the world. But the pythons survive even though they've 0:16:34.036 --> 0:16:36.036 got signs of the virus in them when he first 0:16:36.076 --> 0:16:40.276 tests them. Well, that's where it gets really interesting because 0:16:40.396 --> 0:16:42.636 he can now tell zoo directors when you get a 0:16:42.676 --> 0:16:44.396 new boa, you've got to isolate him and test him 0:16:44.436 --> 0:16:48.196 for this virus. But the question is why are these 0:16:48.236 --> 0:16:53.076 pythons surviving. They're an older species, and he has the 0:16:53.196 --> 0:16:56.596 idea that, oh my god, they're surviving this thing that's 0:16:56.716 --> 0:17:01.676 very like ebola. We've never found the reservoir species of 0:17:01.676 --> 0:17:03.756 ebola in the way that the like covid has a 0:17:03.756 --> 0:17:06.316 reservoir species of bats, and the reservour species of species 0:17:06.316 --> 0:17:09.316 in which the thing replicates it doesn't kill, so it 0:17:09.596 --> 0:17:13.076 happily survives. He says. They've they've they've exported, you know, 0:17:13.316 --> 0:17:16.556 zoos of animals out of Africa and tested them for 0:17:16.596 --> 0:17:18.876 a Bola to see if they can find this species 0:17:18.876 --> 0:17:24.636 that's harboring abola. He says, maybe it's pythons. So any 0:17:24.676 --> 0:17:27.196 other human being would have left their research at the 0:17:27.236 --> 0:17:30.636 point where they find the virus and identify the pandemic. 0:17:30.916 --> 0:17:33.356 Joe like takes it always tastes it like eight steps further, 0:17:33.956 --> 0:17:39.236 he calls the Maximum Security US Army Lab in Maryland 0:17:39.596 --> 0:17:44.276 and says, I want to inject pythons with the live 0:17:44.556 --> 0:17:48.476 ebola virus and see if they survive and then if 0:17:48.476 --> 0:17:51.636 the virus then replicates inside them, because I think maybe 0:17:51.676 --> 0:17:56.076 we've found the reservoir species. And he said, what came back? 0:17:56.196 --> 0:17:58.396 It was like a bizarre request, but it was from 0:17:58.396 --> 0:18:01.636 a MacArthur Genius Award winning person at UCSF, so they 0:18:01.676 --> 0:18:04.276 have to listen to it. They say it takes like 0:18:04.636 --> 0:18:08.036 months for them to get through all their checklist about 0:18:08.116 --> 0:18:10.796 what might go wrong, and he says, like on the checklist, 0:18:10.996 --> 0:18:14.116 it's like what happens is after you have injected the 0:18:14.156 --> 0:18:16.876 snake with the ebolavirus, if you leave the room and 0:18:16.956 --> 0:18:18.996 come back and the cage is open and the snake 0:18:19.116 --> 0:18:22.996 is gone, just says you run like hell, you know 0:18:23.396 --> 0:18:26.676 it's but they finally do it. They finally do it. 0:18:26.756 --> 0:18:31.596 Some incredibly intrepid researcher in Maryland gets live ebola, like 0:18:31.676 --> 0:18:35.076 if he scratches himself, he's a garner, injects it into 0:18:35.156 --> 0:18:39.356 the heart of a live python, and sure enough the 0:18:39.436 --> 0:18:42.156 snake lives, and they're just at the moment they have 0:18:42.196 --> 0:18:44.836 to ask the last question in that snake is the 0:18:44.916 --> 0:18:48.476 bowl of virus replicating, and at just that moment, the 0:18:48.556 --> 0:18:51.476 CDC shut down the research project because they said the 0:18:51.556 --> 0:18:55.116 lab was engaging in unsafe practices, so they never got 0:18:55.156 --> 0:18:59.316 the final answer. And it bothers Joe immensely. And that 0:18:59.476 --> 0:19:01.636 it bothers Joe Emsley tells you a lot about what 0:19:01.676 --> 0:19:05.036 you need to know about Joe. Well, that is the 0:19:05.036 --> 0:19:09.236 perfect segue from the here I love the way your 0:19:09.276 --> 0:19:16.756 mind works to the villains of the piece. We'll get 0:19:16.756 --> 0:19:27.556 back to those villains right after this. Okay, back to 0:19:27.596 --> 0:19:31.156 the interview. Geraldine just asked Michael about the villains in 0:19:31.156 --> 0:19:34.996 the book, and there was one line that I don't 0:19:35.116 --> 0:19:38.196 use highlighter on books. I'm just not that kind of 0:19:38.196 --> 0:19:40.476 a girl. But if I did, I would have run 0:19:40.516 --> 0:19:43.836 a highlighter over it. And that was Lisa Coonan at 0:19:43.876 --> 0:19:47.036 the CDC when she says it had to be so right, 0:19:47.276 --> 0:19:51.116 it was not wrong. Yeah, this leads us into the 0:19:51.156 --> 0:19:55.916 failures of the CDC. Can you talk about that. Yeah, Now, 0:19:56.036 --> 0:19:59.916 Lisa Coonan is a lifelong CDC employee. She's now moved 0:19:59.916 --> 0:20:02.556 on and has got her own consulting firm, but she 0:20:02.676 --> 0:20:05.916 was devoted to the institution. So this is this is 0:20:05.916 --> 0:20:08.436 not a CDC critic who's saying this is just like 0:20:08.516 --> 0:20:13.116 someone who is observed her colleagues. And what I think 0:20:13.156 --> 0:20:16.076 all of my characters find just in the course of 0:20:16.116 --> 0:20:20.036 their leading their lives, is that the institution, whatever it 0:20:20.156 --> 0:20:25.196 once was, has evolved into something that is not equipped 0:20:25.636 --> 0:20:30.676 to fight a disease, to control a disease, because controlling 0:20:30.676 --> 0:20:34.316 a disease is controversial and political, and it also requires 0:20:34.316 --> 0:20:38.596 a kind of clairvoyance that if you wait until the 0:20:38.636 --> 0:20:40.996 first person in the United States has died of COVID 0:20:41.196 --> 0:20:43.756 to announce that COVID's a problem in the United States, 0:20:44.596 --> 0:20:49.036 in that time, the virus has replicated exponentially and it's 0:20:49.076 --> 0:20:52.276 all over the place. You need to act before the 0:20:52.556 --> 0:20:58.796 anybody sees the danger. And that's controversial and requires a 0:20:58.876 --> 0:21:02.956 kind of leadership. And what Charity Deane first and foremost 0:21:03.156 --> 0:21:07.316 discovered was whenever she was in a hot situation where 0:21:08.116 --> 0:21:11.196 there was a decision needed to be made and lives 0:21:11.236 --> 0:21:15.316 were on the line, and it happened over and over 0:21:15.396 --> 0:21:18.996 and over again. The CDC is meant to be her backup. 0:21:19.236 --> 0:21:22.756 They're there to support the three thousand local health officers 0:21:22.756 --> 0:21:25.316 in the country, but the CDC would come on the 0:21:25.356 --> 0:21:27.916 line and basically say in so many words, you're fired 0:21:27.916 --> 0:21:30.836 if this goes wrong. No, no one's ever closed a 0:21:30.956 --> 0:21:33.676 doctor's clinic because they suspect the needles are dirty. And 0:21:33.676 --> 0:21:37.676 that's why everybody in Santa Barbara has HEPC. You know, no, no, 0:21:37.956 --> 0:21:42.356 we won't authorize changes on the campus of UCSB after 0:21:42.436 --> 0:21:45.436 one kid gets meningitis, even though he's about to lose 0:21:45.476 --> 0:21:48.916 his legs, because there's no evidence that what you're proposing works, 0:21:48.996 --> 0:21:51.996 even though it makes a lot of sense. So when 0:21:52.036 --> 0:21:54.196 she said no one's coming to save me, she met 0:21:54.196 --> 0:21:58.396 the CDC and she got to the point with them organically, 0:21:58.556 --> 0:22:01.836 I mean organically, and I said that because when she 0:22:01.956 --> 0:22:04.796 starts her career, the CDC are kind of like gods 0:22:04.796 --> 0:22:07.916 to her. She thinks that that maybe her lifetime ambition 0:22:07.996 --> 0:22:10.956 is to be the head of the Sea DC. But 0:22:11.396 --> 0:22:13.636 over and over she has these encounters that leader to 0:22:13.716 --> 0:22:16.436 the position that she has to ban the CDC from 0:22:16.436 --> 0:22:20.636 her investigations in order to save lives and push their life. 0:22:20.676 --> 0:22:23.876 She says about the CDC, she said, I was just 0:22:23.916 --> 0:22:26.276 so disappointed that the man behind the curtain turned out 0:22:26.316 --> 0:22:29.756 to be such a pansy, and that she just felt 0:22:29.756 --> 0:22:32.636 they were cowardly when they were dealing with these situations. 0:22:32.436 --> 0:22:36.196 It's really tragic because I think if you if you 0:22:36.236 --> 0:22:39.596 look around the wall to where did this go right? 0:22:39.996 --> 0:22:43.276 You look, I look at Australia being Australian, and you 0:22:43.316 --> 0:22:48.036 know there's essentially no COVID in Australia and why because 0:22:48.396 --> 0:22:52.916 the dude who was in charge was trained at the CDC, yes, 0:22:53.116 --> 0:22:57.476 twenty years ago. He goes he comes back to Australia 0:22:57.596 --> 0:23:00.756 and he has a pandemic plan that he learned at 0:23:00.756 --> 0:23:04.916 the CDC, and he jumps into action and he's supported 0:23:04.916 --> 0:23:08.956 by the political leadership to do it, contact tracing, massive testing, 0:23:09.756 --> 0:23:13.476 and they shut the disease down in this ja. Yeah. No, 0:23:13.756 --> 0:23:18.436 So the ironies get richer and thicker the more the 0:23:18.516 --> 0:23:22.676 more of this story. You know, America eventually especially invented 0:23:22.716 --> 0:23:25.836 the strategies being used around the world, and the CDC 0:23:26.076 --> 0:23:30.316 exported them and then didn't embrace them itself. To finish 0:23:30.356 --> 0:23:33.596 the punchline on almost all of Charity Deane's local health 0:23:33.636 --> 0:23:38.316 officers stories is that a year after she does all 0:23:38.356 --> 0:23:40.436 the things she ends up doing to shut down a 0:23:40.756 --> 0:23:45.156 meningitis outbreak on the UCSB campus, she gets a call 0:23:45.316 --> 0:23:49.836 from a college health officer in another state saying, we 0:23:49.876 --> 0:23:52.476