WEBVTT - Nightmare of Our Own Creation 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.560 Good morning peeps in Welcome to Okay f Daily with 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:19.040 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording pre recording from my 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:27.400 Brooklyn Silarium. Folks, you know Omnicron is here in the 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.560 United States, and as of this recording, it is in 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:36.000 multiple states. And yet we've heard nothing so far of 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:40.760 the ban being lifted on South Africa or the seven 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.400 other African nations that this country, as well as many 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.519 others around the world, decided, in their knee jerk political 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:54.440 reactions to put together a travel ban. When asked by 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.440 doctors scientists whether or not a travel ban is actually 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.920 a preventative medical measure right if it is effective in 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:09.520 containing COVID nineteen, their responses. Know what actually is effective 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:16.200 outside of a racist and politically engineered travel ban is 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:21.479 instead putting together quarantine protocols for all people that are 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.240 coming into the United States, not just those that are 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.360 foreign travelers. But if you are a fucking American citizen 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.160 and have been abroad and are coming back to the 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.240 United States, then you either need to show your proof 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.200 of vaccination, a recent negative COVID test, your booster information, 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.600 and in fact fucking quarantine because what has been proven 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.160 to work is taking the measures that the CDC had 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.440 outlined back in twenty twenty that actually do work. Right. 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.880 What we have learned is that we are in fact 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.520 a global community, whether or not we want to function 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.840 like one at all. And the reality is this is 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:06.400 that before these bands and restrictions go into place, covid 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:11.160 omicron has already done laps around the fucking globe. So 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.040 maybe you would think that we would learn something from 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.880 our past transgressions because of the Trump administration and actually 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.600 be informed by science and by medicine in the way 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.800 that this administration said that it would be. Except that's not. 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:33.080 What's happening is that again we are having very tepid responses. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.239 We had a very botched rollout vaccination program. And look, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.200 you have roughly close to sixty percent of the country 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.600 right being vaccinated, but we also know that it's twenty 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:47.680 five percent of the country that is never going to 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.280 get vaccinated, and we also know that, yes, Donald Trump 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.920 is to blame for that. One of the questions that 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.760 I had asked of Glenn Kirshner earlier this week was 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.120 if in Mark Meadow's book, right that we learned that 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.560 Donald Trump knew days before he was around then candidate 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.919 Joe Biden, and around reporters on Air Force one and 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.760 just knowingly in the Rose Garden spreading, spewing COVID nineteen. 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.400 How come he is not being held criminally liable or 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:28.720 civilly liable right for doing so. Where we are right 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:33.520 now is in a nightmare of what I believe to 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.560 be our own creation. And why do I say that, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:41.920 because there were opportunities, there were even opportunities post Donald Trump, 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.800 for us to do better, for us to come together 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.720 as a globe battling this health pandemic and recognizing that, 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.800 you know what, pharmaceutical companies making billions upon billions of 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:57.600 dollars while millions upon millions of people are dying. Maybe 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.720 isn't where we need to put our energy resources. That 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:05.320 maybe instead, as soon as we were able to have 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:10.680 the properties, the intellectual properties that would make the RNA, 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.160 that would make the vaccines that we are readily using 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:19.320 in high income countries, that we would decide as a 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:24.760 global community that no one pharmaceutical company should have a 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:32.440 monopoly on making money when we have a virus that 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:37.240 is ravaging the fucking globe that literally had us as 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:42.320 a world shutter our doors for months and months on end, 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.080 thinking that we didn't even know. We're washing fucking cardboard, 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:51.960 We're putting on plastic gloves and double masking and being 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.400 afraid to cross the street and cross somebody's path. Do 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.400 you remember all of the ways that we were acting 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.119 in twenty twenty because we didn't know what the fuck 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.440 was going on? But now, given all the information and 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.919 research that we have been provided with, we are still 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.800 acting in ways that are very knee jerk and as 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.760 if we have had no experience. Over the last almost 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:24.640 two goddamn years. South Africa and their scientists did their 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:30.520 due diligence because they have very advanced genome projects right 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:37.880 to be able to detect this new variant, and instead 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:42.800 of being celebrated for their transparency, right for their initial 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:48.159 documentation of how this virus is working in people in 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.680 those that are infected in these nations, we shut o 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:56.240 our doors and then we turn around and we continue 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:02.839 on with bullshit policy that was created to protect corporations 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.840 and not protect people. And this is again where I'm 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:15.880 talking about trips, right, I'm talking about the international property 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:20.919 decision that was made that says that you can't share 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.320 right that we can't avoid out because the intellectual property 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.680 that was created via Faiza and Maderna is theirs and 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:34.839 theirs alone. But these are government funded, fucking pharmaceutical companies. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:41.120 And we're in a global health pandemic. So when India 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:46.240 and South Africa request, right eight months into the pandemic, 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.279 for there to be a waiver to this policy program 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.039 so that they can receive all the information that is 0:06:55.080 --> 0:07:01.520 necessary to begin to manufacture a vaccine to say their country, 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.760 But instead we're waiting on the philanthropic desires and the 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:16.920 charities of higher wealth nations who are responsible for the economic, spiritual, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.600 emotional damage that has been done to these nations through 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:27.200 their greed and extraction. And now they can't be bothered 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.360 to do the right thing, and there's no way to 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.480 legally compel them to do so because they're the ones 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.760 that are writing the rules, that are telling other dictating 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.400 how other people are going other countries are going to 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:47.360 live by them. How does that make sense? And how 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.960 does that not piss us all off? Because we see 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:56.280 exactly how the fucking ultrawealthy get away with so much 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.960 goddamn shit in America, and it's the same thing that 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.520 high wealth nations do to the lower wealth nations around 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:09.400 the globe. Greed is what is driving all of this. 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.360 It is not the sanctity of fucking life that the 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.680 GOP had the audacity to tweet out last week as 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.160 it pertained to Rob Wade, because it's sure as fuck 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.160 wasn't about caring about the sanctity of life of the 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.440 four teenagers that were gunned down in Oxford, Michigan. It's 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.760 sure as fuck wasn't caring about the sanctity of life 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:32.520 when celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse, a fucking murderer. It's sure as 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.160 fuck is not caring about the sanctity of life when 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:39.640 you are advocating for people to put themselves in harm's 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:44.800 way when you yourself are covered and protected. It is vicious, 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:50.680 it is cruel, it is criminal, and yet no one 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:58.480 is being held accountable. You know, I mentioned a couple 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.520 of days ago, once again the president of Brazil, Bulsonado, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:07.440 whose Senate was investigating him criminally. It will most likely 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.200 not go anywhere because their government is so corrupt, but 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:15.400 so the fuck is ours. Where is the investigation into 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.560 who should be responsible? This was not an act of 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:24.440 fucking God This was an act of negligence, of gross 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:29.160 negligence on the part of the former twice impeach disgrace 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:35.640 president of the United States, who him himself became a 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.320 vector for this virus and once again is just able 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:41.840 to get away with whatever the fuck he wants. And 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.840 you want to tell me to continue to have hope 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.360 and feel like we are moving in what direction exactly? 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:57.640 We are just gobbling up the Greek alphabet in the 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.760 way that pac Man gobbled up those little beads, right, 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:07.079 just going around, munch, munch, munch. Here we go until 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:12.360 Amikron turns into whatever the next fucking disastrous outcome will be. 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.640 And what kills me and what our guests coming up, 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:22.079 doctor Abduel el Sayed will say, is we could have 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.920 been done with this, like we didn't have to have 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:35.120 Alpha and then Delta and now Amikron, right, because we 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.120 could have I just the other day, I was laying 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:43.440 in bed and I can't stop my mind from moving, 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:49.040 and I'm thinking to myself, what would have happened? Where 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.400 would we be right now if Hillary Clinton had been president, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:59.480 if the response of what we could do in this 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.319 country was to come together as patriots, right if we 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.800 were told from the jump, we will get through this, 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.360 and we will do so together as one nation. Right, 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.319 if we had started fucking, you know, tying ribbons around 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.840 trees and shit, right like they used to do for 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:23.680 the soldiers, and we did that in recognition, right and 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:28.280 showing a force of empathy. And then finally, if the 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.920 vaccines then had come and been rolled out, that we 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:36.480 collectively as a nation would be celebrating, right, our ability 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:41.440 to overcome That's what I imagine would have happened in 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.000 my head. But you know, maybe I'm just creating a fantasy, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.720 because it's not as if Mitch McConnell would have died. 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.840 It is not as if, you know, death santists wouldn't 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.400 have been around. So I'm assuming that they would have 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.960 found some way, But at least they would not have 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:00.000 had a leader in the White House that was champion 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:08.840 inning death right. So without that leader, without that megaphone 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:17.800 cajoling his cult, maybe Republicans would not have decided that 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.360 their response to a global health pandemic would be to 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:31.400 tell their constituents to literally go play in traffic. I remain, 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.160 you know a lot of days beside myself where I 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.920 just get caught up, and I think about how things 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.679 could have been so drastically different if fifty three percent 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.880 of white women didn't vote against one of their own. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:56.600 I think about, you know, Ethan Crumbing, the high school 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:02.719 shooter that murdered four of his classmates. And I think 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:08.640 about the letter that his deranged mother wrote to Donald 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.840 Trump saying that she would rather be grabbed by the 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.720 pussy than fucked up the ass by the federal government. 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.040 And thank god Donald Trump for giving me my guns, 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.079 because I guess he was in the room where it happened, 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:30.280 where the Constitution was being written. This is American extremism. 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.800 And you know, folks want to tweet and want to say, oh, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.360 this is going to be Christian Sharia law. Leave the 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:46.280 fucking Islam culture and out of all of this. This 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.800 has nothing to do. You don't need to make comparisons 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:55.040 to other places, right, this is what America has always done. 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.560 But you see, when you keep people ignorant of their 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.320 fucking history purposefully so, just in the same way you 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:08.360 don't teach enslaved Africans how to read, right, because then 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.240 they become educated and you really realize that education is power. 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.600 And the more that they learn about the constitution and 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.000 the rights of this country, the more that they're going 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.960 to ask, well, am I am I a man too? 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.080 Am I a woman too? Am I a citizen too? 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:31.240 Where the fuck are my rights? So we always love 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.200 to compare what is happening to America to the worst 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.720 that has happened in other nations, when we can just 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.720 compare it to the founding of America, where we can 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:46.160 take any fucking generation and pull out and see where 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:54.920 we have always run on the space of violence, of ignorance, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:15:04.200 being bliss. Over seven hundred thousand Americans are dead, and 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.000 you have Republicans in this country still calling this a hoax. 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.880 Over seven hundred thousand Americans are dead. And as we 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:19.600 move through the holiday season, seven hundred thousand families and 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:25.160 friends have missing people at their dinner tables, in their 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:29.880 living rooms, Gifts that won't be put under the tree 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:43.440 because of virus ravage them. But we have Republicans who 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:47.000 believe that the world is suffering right now as a 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:52.480 way to unseat them from power. That's how self serving 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:59.680 and egotistical and disgusting these people are. Like I said yesterday, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.720 this does not end well, folks, because I there is 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:11.080 no nothing to point to in our history that tells 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:20.520 us that, oh, we can have peace, peaceful transition. America 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:26.240 doesn't know peace. America only knows bloodshed, war violence. It's 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:31.240 what is celebrated. You know, every time that I see 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:36.360 somebody with the sticker on their card talking about go 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.280 ahead and take it, and it being a picture of 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:43.520 an ar fifteen. Everything about America is based on some 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:52.280 fucking stupid cowboy John Wayne bullshit, right, And really what 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.120 it is about, if we really want to unpack, it 0:16:55.200 --> 0:17:10.399 is about white male fragility, right, toxic masculinity masquerading as patriotism. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.480 But we've all bought into the lie. We've all been 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:23.359 force fed that story. And so you see these fragile 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:30.320 white men boys arming themselves because that is the only 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:35.880 way that they feel a sense of power. And one 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.480 must ask themselves a question that Tony Morrison asked so 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.000 many moons ago. If you have to stand on somebody 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.879 else's neck in order to feel taller, what does that 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:53.920 say about you? But you see, so long as they 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:59.000 have an active political party that is giving them their targets, 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.439 revving them up in the same way that Donald Trump 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:08.520 and Rudy Giuliani and Moe Brooks and others at the 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.840 stop the Steel Rally revved up that crowd and then 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.840 pointed them in the direction of the Capitol Building and said, 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.959 go take your country back. These people, every single fucking 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:24.080 one of them, are responsible. Our murderers have blood on 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:34.760 their goddamn hands. We are in a place of despair. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:45.480 We are witnessing the fracturing of a nation state, the 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:51.359 anxiety that you feel, the uneasiness, the grief, because we 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:58.600 are all vacillating through those It is how you process death, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:05.960 the stages of grief. And we're still at avoidance where 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.560 we want to pretend that this shit isn't happening. But 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.000 regardless of whether or not we pay attention or not, 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.520 it is and how it ends, I still believe is 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:22.920 up to us. But in action is not an option. 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.600 Burying our heads in the sand is not an option. 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.040 Pretending that something is a hoax when it is killing 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.160 your neighbors, your friends, and your colleagues. It's not an option. 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:38.520 Who do we want to be? What's the legacy we 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:43.159 want to leave behind? Because I sure as hell know 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.600 that I'm not going down without a fight, and I 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.200 don't think any of you who listen to wok af 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.320 on a regular basis are either. But what about the 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:56.639 people around us? We bear a responsibility to spread the 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:01.199 word and to wake people the fuck up. That's the 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.040 burden of being woke. That's a burden of being conscious, 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.840 is to then find the ways in which you can 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:13.199 spread that word, because without that collective action, without that 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:20.840 low level lift, we're gonna be swimming in a sea 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:30.040 of the debris of our democracy and I don't want 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.360 to see that. Coming up next is my conversation with 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:41.439 our friend returning guests, doctor Abdul el Sayed. Folks, I 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.359 am so excited to welcome back to wok A. It 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.840 has been a little bit of time. Welcome back to 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:52.000 doctor Abdul el Sayed, who is the host for at 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:57.520 Crooked Media's America Dissected pod and is our public health 0:20:57.520 --> 0:20:59.720 the doctor. If you are not following him on Twitter 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.920 railing against our public health system, railing against what is 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.320 happening to our democracy, then you are missing out on 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:14.560 really great content. I feel like there is not a 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.480 day that has gone by when we haven't had bad news. 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.280 But I will tell you that the day after Thanksgiving, 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:25.640 when my phone my parents phone because I was home 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:30.320 for the holiday alert. Alert Alert, we have a new variant. 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:36.600 I just want to get what your reactions were, because 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.160 mine was I wanted to throw the phone out the window. 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.760 I was just like, dear God, right like, you know, 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:49.320 we're struggling. We've been we've been stuck at a certain 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.720 number of vaccinations in this country we have given to 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.280 the world. But I will go into my feelings about 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.840 what it is that that should have a look like 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:02.280 a versus where we are right now. But what was 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.800 your reaction to that breaking news? Now? It was DAYJAVU 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:08.560 all over again. I remember back in back in the 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.520 summer when we'd heard about Delta, and the reality of 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.639 this is that these these variants, they are a natural 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:17.560 course of a virus if and when we don't do 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.639 what we can to address it. And so, you know, 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:23.000 the knowledge of a new variant that you know could 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:27.600 potentially be and circumstantial evidence suggests is more transmissible, could 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:32.200 potentially escape some of our immune mechanisms, that that really 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.120 is super frustrating. And then when I heard about the 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:41.480 response that the administration had had gone forward with, it 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.800 just seemed to be the same kind of knee jerk 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.720 reflex response that that fails to make up for the 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:50.560 fact that we in this country have not been able 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:53.280 to mount a real public health response to this virus 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.120 from the get whether it was anything as simple as 0:22:56.160 --> 0:23:01.000 contact tracing or mass scale antigen testing, or the ability 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.560 to upgrade our genomics or valance, or to have a 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:09.520 logical approach to screening and quarantining people who come from 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:11.920 outside this country. Don't just blanket banned people. What you 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:14.359 do is you make sure that if they're coming in 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:16.160 that they're quarantine for a certain period of time, which 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:18.240 of course is what other countries who've had a far 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:20.600 better response I've done, And so it is just deeply 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.280 frustrating to see our country making the same mistakes over 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:29.160 and over again, even as the consequences of our failure 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:33.120 to get our vaccines abroad in a meaningful way, to 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:36.919 invest in manufacturing capacities abroad so that people can make 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:40.760 their own vaccine have rendered a yet again a new 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:43.160 variant that we're now contending with. And of course it's 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:45.920 a global pandemic. So what happens across the world, it's 0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:47.520 going to come back to hit us. And this is 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.680 happening again. You know, I feel a duel like this 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.280 is it is just to me that we haven't learned 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.520 anything over the past year. That's how I felt about 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:03.880 the the knee jerk reaction because I said, when we 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:08.960 have doctors and scientists in South Africa that are doing 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:13.480 their due diligence and being transparent right about this is 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:15.800 what this is what we have found. This is what 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:19.280 we are seeing. And we knew that when that announcement 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:25.880 came out that yes, omicron had already been in seven 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:30.960 nations in Africa, but it had also already traveled to Europe. 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:36.480 And so it's it's it's we continue to make decisions 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:40.280 that are based around politics, right, and who in fact 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:44.440 is expendable, but who is our ally that we want 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:46.800 to be buddy buddy with. And I'm like, to me, 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:51.280 how do they continue to justify right? Like it isn't 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:54.280 just public sentiment. Oh, we see this because we know 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:58.600 that once it we we know that once something is discovered, 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:01.800 wherever it is, if it is in Wuhan, China, if 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:05.119 it is in Italy, if it's in South Africa, if 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:09.720 it's going to get here, right, So why is it 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:12.840 that you think that they continue to make these decisions 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:17.080 and then are not made to be accountable or responsible 0:25:17.200 --> 0:25:20.320 for giving us the public the why. Yeah, that's a 0:25:20.359 --> 0:25:22.400 really important point, Danielle. I mean, the reality of this 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:25.360 is that they wanted to look like they were doing 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:28.040 something to make it for the fact that we have not, 0:25:28.359 --> 0:25:30.600 through the course of this pandemic, been doing the very 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:32.359 thing that we should have been doing from from the 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:37.320 get and these kinds of basic public health infrastructure pieces, 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.920 whether it was ramping up our genomic surveillance early, whether 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:45.439 it was putting in place a thoughtful quarantining approach that 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:47.840 would apply to anybody coming over because of course, the 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:49.440 thing about these travel bans just just to take a 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:53.840 little bit of a bye way here, the thing about 0:25:53.880 --> 0:25:56.879 these travel bans is they only applied to non citizens. 0:25:56.960 --> 0:26:01.800 But it's not like citizens. Somehow we're potentially being infected 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:03.359 with amicron. And here's the thing about it, is not 0:26:03.400 --> 0:26:05.560 like whatever capacities Omicron has, one of them is not 0:26:05.600 --> 0:26:09.960 reading your passport. And so if you create a policy 0:26:10.000 --> 0:26:13.840 that then incentivizes people who could be infected to hurry 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:16.440 on home because they could be next, all you're doing 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:21.240 is activating the potential for that to happen, and unfortunately, 0:26:21.320 --> 0:26:23.840 right we have not been able to do the very 0:26:23.880 --> 0:26:26.800 basic things well from the jump when it came to 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:30.240 this pandemic. Now, look, a lot of that is because 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:33.359 of who was president when this pandemic first occurred, and 0:26:33.400 --> 0:26:36.080 a lot of that is, you know, set the pathway forward. 0:26:36.119 --> 0:26:38.439 And you know, I talked to my public health colleagues 0:26:38.440 --> 0:26:40.560 all the time, and they tell me just how overworked 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:44.240 and under supported they really are. And so it's very 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:47.240 hard once we started this pandemic on the back foot, 0:26:47.280 --> 0:26:50.480 to catch up and really to move beyond where we 0:26:50.480 --> 0:26:53.040 were at the very beginning, because people are leaving the 0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:56.120 public health profession in groves and yet and yet we 0:26:56.160 --> 0:26:58.800 are trying to make up for our failure to do 0:26:58.880 --> 0:27:03.000 the very basic public health things well by putting in 0:27:03.040 --> 0:27:06.199 effect pr over it and looking like we've done the 0:27:06.200 --> 0:27:09.000 thing that we're supposed to do. Travel ban was not 0:27:09.119 --> 0:27:11.880 a thoughtful policy in the beginning, especially in the context 0:27:12.359 --> 0:27:17.240 of an ongoing debate about whether or not US taxpayer 0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:24.480 funded companies should be required to give their intellectual intellectual 0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:29.879 property out to other countries to allow them to manufacture 0:27:30.480 --> 0:27:34.000 a life saving vaccine. In the context of a pandemic. Now, look, 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:36.359 you know, you could argue, well, look it's a company, 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:38.920 they don't have to give their private intellectual property out 0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:41.360 to anybody. Well that's not entirely the case. When this 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:45.439 company was founded by the US government intended to protect us, 0:27:45.440 --> 0:27:48.240 and our failure to do that thing, our failure to 0:27:48.400 --> 0:27:55.600 manufacture enough of our of our vaccines abroad, has left 0:27:55.640 --> 0:27:58.080 people without the vaccines they need and left them not 0:27:58.160 --> 0:28:00.359 trusting what they have that's coming from our country. And 0:28:00.359 --> 0:28:02.600 that's an important point here, don't forget right, there is 0:28:02.640 --> 0:28:05.000 context for this. South Africa is one of the hardest 0:28:05.080 --> 0:28:08.119 hit countries by the HIV pandemic. And yes, it is 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:10.399 a pandemic. We don't call it that simply because we 0:28:10.480 --> 0:28:12.320 devalue the lives of the people who were infected by it, 0:28:12.320 --> 0:28:16.159 whether there were they were LGBTQ people at home or 0:28:16.200 --> 0:28:19.200 black people abroad. But it was a pandemic and it 0:28:19.359 --> 0:28:22.240 was There was a long history of the US denying 0:28:22.280 --> 0:28:27.120 our antiretrovirals to people living abroad, until, of course, there 0:28:27.200 --> 0:28:30.920 was a negotiated agreement to allow South African corporate companies 0:28:31.000 --> 0:28:34.040 to manufacture their own antiretrovirals, which is when the population 0:28:34.080 --> 0:28:36.639 there started to trust them. And so you know, folks 0:28:36.840 --> 0:28:40.520 are pointing to well, South Africa has enough vaccine and 0:28:40.640 --> 0:28:43.640 it is really just vaccine hesitancy. Well that's not entirely 0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:46.160 the case. There's a path dependency to vaccine hesitancy. People 0:28:46.160 --> 0:28:49.360 don't just become hesitant. They become hesitant because of long 0:28:49.480 --> 0:28:53.800 histories of medical chauvinism and denial of basic human rights 0:28:53.800 --> 0:28:56.640 when it comes to medications in a pandemic. And yeah, 0:28:56.680 --> 0:28:59.800 that may keep them from trusting you the next time around. 0:28:59.800 --> 0:29:02.440 And here we are the next time around. You know. 0:29:02.760 --> 0:29:05.320 It was it was you know last week when I 0:29:05.440 --> 0:29:09.080 was for the first time talking mentioned trips right, because 0:29:09.120 --> 0:29:13.160 I kept saying to myself and for folks with a reminder, 0:29:13.200 --> 0:29:18.000 it is trade related aspects of intellectual property rights trips. 0:29:18.840 --> 0:29:23.440