to modern data bait. My name is Carissa and I'm going to be your host for tonight. We are discussing a really interesting topic tonight whether or not COVID restrictions are silly. So really excited to get into this. We have two really great speakers. The brief I know he's been on before and we are really happy to welcome Aaron. He is new with us tonight so I'm really happy to have you on Aaron. We are a neutral platform and we host debates on science, religion and politics. So if you enjoy controversial debates consider hitting that subscribe button as we have many more of them coming up. In fact you'll see on the bottom right of your screen right now we have a kick starter going to cover the honorarium for a big debate with Michael Shermer and Mike Jones on whether Christianity is dangerous. If you'd like to help watch that live it's only three bucks and we'll help make this debate actually happen. The link to pledge to that kick starter campaign is in the description box below and you can sign in with your Facebook account if you don't want to make a kick starter account. It's a lot but it's a new idea so we're trying to help explain the kick starter stuff to people in detail so definitely be sure to check that out. We also have the links for the speakers in the description box below so if you really like what you're hearing definitely go and check those out. I'm actually going to give a little bit of time for them to introduce themselves and kind of explain what is in their links. So the brief if you want to go ahead and explain what can people find in your link. Yeah so my name is I introduce myself on my channel is Jay and the channel is called The Brief and yeah it's been a bit of a slow start. Things can get busy at times and we know how all that is we start a project and then life gets busy and we have to step back from it but my hope is to have very short you know 10 minutes or less videos that go through a variety of topics that are current and take a little bit more of a contrarian view on some of those. I feel like the mainstream narrative is pretty well known but I think people are really interested in other takes on those on those news stories. So that's kind of the bulk of it. I do have a Twitter handle kind of somewhat anonymous on there. It's at Chantel underscore Rome and that's on Twitter. This is my way of interacting with the Twitter world a little bit more incognito to be able to engage with people in controversial ideas and it's something I really enjoy. I want to be able to know the truth and if I'm wrong then all the better because then I know the truth and after that. So that's kind of my position and that's what you'd find for me. Wonderful thank you so much again for coming on. Erin if you'd like to introduce yourself as well that would be wonderful. Hey my name is Erin. I'm living in northern California. We're in a lockdown right here. I don't have a specific channel but I decided to come on and discuss this topic regarding how un-silly the COVID precautions are. I'm a bachelor's degree and I work in communications. Wonderful well thank you both so much for coming on. The structure of tonight's debate is going to be 10 minute openings. Jay you're going to actually be going first since you are the affirmative followed up by Erin with his 10 minute opening. We'll have about 15 minutes to an hour of open conversation and we'll have about 30 minutes of question and answer at the end as well. So if you do have a question be sure to put that into the super chat and we will definitely get that too at the end of the discussion. So without further ado Jay if you want to start it off the floor is yours. Excellent thank you. All right I've got a lot to get through and so again our topic tonight are the COVID restrictions stupid. I think so and here's why. COVID-19 lockdown was our first experience in a full denial of freedom. Businesses forced closed schools had locked church the same theaters dead we're told to stay home risking fines if we leave and jail if we don't pay. We couldn't travel we were separated from loved ones this job is essential that one is not this surgery is canceled this one isn't you want to visit her from abroad forget about it the neighboring state only with a two-week quarantine. This is the introduction from a book by Jeffrey Tucker called Liberty or Lockdown.  I'm actually fairly convinced that most people think that this is true intuitively there is an intuitive aspect to it however as with any information war it is very easy to be dissuaded of this intuitive thought and convince yourself that that you're not an expert or that you don't have time to fully understand the nuance of the situation who am I to question these things right this is a great and fantastic tragedy and it is especially tragic when you consider the measured value of the restrictions or lack thereof hit it against the very measurable damage we have caused virtually every level of society especially those who can least afford it to add to this we had an option of implementing a targeted approach that would have done a fraction of the damage and yet a binary choice was given again to invoke Mr. Tucker's book title Liberty or Lockdown. Now before I continue let's be clear about the restrictions that I'm talking about mask use mandatory inside outside anyone older than two from the CDC directly wash your hands use hand sanitizer every time you touch your mask even if you are outside by yourself away from others again from the CDC wear a mask if that's what authorities demand no social gatherings limits on social gatherings limit on outdoor gatherings non-essential businesses closed events shut down religious institutions closed restaurants indoor outdoor dining limits on capacity personal contact services like gyms and salons closed the arts theater museum galleries concerts all shut down travel from the CDC your plans include travel by being by bus train airplane which might make staying six feet apart difficult they then they recommend you not make those plans social distancing curfews healthcare elective surgeries canceled elected procedures canceled cancer screenings dental visits schools closed down college students send home internships shuttered daycare centers closed down educational outcomes affected childhood and after school programs of all types ended that's what we're talking about this is a piece briefly by the new york times i'm just going to quote just a very small part of it it's also hard to tally the indirect fallout of lockdowns a death certificate can tell us that someone died of COVID-19 it cannot tell us that the social isolation of lockdown was a factor in someone's drug overdose there is no nightly ovation for survivors of domestic violence these tragedies have become an ambient backdrop to everyday life present but forgotten very real but ignored perhaps america has simply gotten comfortable ignoring the quiet suffering of others it can be easier to shut our eyes to the outcomes wait for the vaccine and try to move on but doing so would be a mistake this virus is not behind us how to best mitigate its damage is a question of the present not the past so now what are we talking about this debate is going to happen in two ways this debate will be a debate i hope and i believe of factual claims as it should be but then this debate should turn and maybe morph into something a bit more than just facts it should be something much more fundamental it should be about freedom and i'm sure there's probably some people going oh oh my here we go freedom it's got to be freedom uh but for those that check out at this point i'm sorry for your cynicism there's a lot to be said about this idea i would quote birds born in cages think flying is an illness now to my claims of fact step one what was the goal of the restriction step two did the restrictions affect the way that we reached that goal step three what did we trade for the results that we got so what was the goal the old mantra 14 months i mean days i mean months to flatten the curve right but ultimately we're talking about overwhelming the healthcare system and the metrics we would measure would be hospital beds ICU beds ventilators hospital capacity that kind of thing the prediction based off models was that this crisis would reach such levels that we would effectively exhaust our capacity and people would die in waiting rooms and in buses being turned away so that was the goal sorry messed up enough to uh that was cool if it's it's worth noting that this goal is shifted from flatten the curve to stop the spread which certainly seems connected but the sentiment really relates to stopping all of transmission if possible as opposed to keeping transmission from spinning wildly out of control so let's look at the data there's these are current numbers that i pulled as of today and i was trying to get the most recent stuff i don't have time to talk through all of them because there's too much but i'll just hit some um some specific states in arizona as of today the hospital bed capacity is 90 percent that's the same that's the same spot we were um about in july so we're not much different from that point 30 percent of patients are uh in the hospital with a positive COVID-19 test though that is not specific so they might be there for other reasons but that's that's being reported that way i i checked and i would i would imagine there would be some uh immediate group of headlines but you'll have to take my word for it i looked there are no reports of any singular hospital being overwhelmed in arizona period i i looked and i would imagine if they were if there was a hospital that was completely inundated that they were you know bursting at the seams it would be front page news you would see it obviously we would know this but there are no articles now there are many articles that talk about how it could be might be will be an x number of days and weeks it will be but we never we did that that uh goalpost keeps getting pushed back we don't actually see any hospitals being overwhelmed okay so south dakota where you know news reports were healing south dakota a couple of weeks ago is the next like enormous COVID hotspot disregard for COVID you know restrictions was certainly to blame uh you know led to an overwhelming situation uh especially since they have a lot of rural hospitals there but when we look at the numbers currently south dakota's hospital capacity they're at 58 percent and 16 percent of those are COVID patients so we would assume that south dakota's peak two weeks ago from now would hit the hospitals at this point they would be bursting at the seams but again we don't see that okay florida i'm sure somebody's out there like okay now do florida good old florida land of the slow news day antics right so okay so florida where the governor's opened everything up statewide it's crazy it's madness it's a wild west down there okay so the hospitals no not overwhelmed if you look at a cross county average it shows that they all have 20 availability for them based on last year's numbers not a particularly unusual number for this time of year again available icu beds are at 18.5 percent um and i want to take a moment to point something out too that this helps really bring context to this situation in the 2017-2018 flu season we were treating people in hospital like intense in hallways i mean it was there there was a lot of expansion of capacity into field hospitals and other things like that that was during the 2017-2018 flu season um medical staff worked overtime you know they i'm sure they were strained and stressed but there were no lockdowns in regards to that um you know not that it's any of my business right okay so now that being said let's consider the most uh one of the more important aspects timing when were the measures enacted in the i'm gonna do a screen share here in just a second when were the uh measures enacted and what was that effect okay so what we're gonna do here i'll pull this up that was my okay so let's look at when we did things and what happened afterwards so florida removes uh can everybody everybody can see that hopefully yeah okay great so florida removes restrictions uh fouchi says that you know florida is asking for trouble and then when we pick those restrictions being removed relative to other states we do not see the same uh same types of rise in cases so we can go further california versus florida california certainly closed indoor outdoor dining statewide curfews i think they have now they've banned uh outdoor dining um again numbers not commensurate to what we would think would happen um in terms of again flattening the curve or stopping the spread la county again uh mask mandates curfews uh outdoor dining things continue to escalate there does not seem to be any marked effect uh ohio same thing mask mandates happen uh kinetic it finds for not wearing masks and yet we still see these rises and falls that seem to be irrespective of the things that we're doing um we look at minnesota and this one's interesting minnesota had a shutdown order but it occurred after the peak but now they take credit for the fact that the shutdown was helping reduce cases but it was already after a natural peak had occurred um again in kentucky same story up up up you know continued restrictions uh okay i'm going to move on because i know i'm going to run out of time here so i want to kind of close off with some things um we've traded off six point six trillion dollars uh of our money that was as of april 15 so i'm sure we spent much more since then we've given up cancer screenings we've uh there all sorts of metrics in regards to the economy health care crime uh suicides are of domestic violence is up arson is up avagra vated assault the burglies all these things are being cited as metrics related to the pandemic and lockdowns and economic despair so i'll i'll leave it this and i know i'm out of time what does this all mean it means that when you take a terribly complex problem such a brand new virus and focus myopically on a singular variable take all the dials turn them up to 11 and attempt to achieve victory in that one variable while simultaneously ignoring everything else you do something incredibly stupid covid restrictions are stupid you knew this they tried to talk you out of it but now you know again thank you thank you so much j um if we could um go out of screen share we'll go ahead oh yep thank you ah perfect um erin go ahead you're the floor is yours well i just want to thank uh jonah for being here or j and i'm and i'm excited about what uh about what j said here on the uh on his opening statements um so i believe obviously that we need to take these precautions seriously you know i don't believe that um these precautions are silly in any way shape or form we should do our part to wear face masks we should do our just socially distance and reduce that curve um the cdc and our our local and statewide um mandates are for our best uh for our health and are to reduce um or reduce the transmission as uh as j said uh flatten the curve and and and to stop the spread one came first and then the other one um we need to we need to do both i think it's apparent that a second third or fourth wave is upon us and for better or for worse uh the u.s is take we need to take over 19 very seriously it's a serious threat um the curve was reduced in california it was going down however much rhetoric has put uh put doubt in the minds that this isn't more dangerous uh than common ailments like the cold or the flu which are also uh caught through water droplets i believe we need to reduce that curve ensure that we give our hospitals the greatest amount of time prior to uh the developments and through the development of pharmaceuticals um so that we can ensure that if there is a delay um during the rollout uh that there that we have that we have the greatest chance of being able to um support um those that are getting the vaccination those who will get the vaccination and the rest of the people that um could be saved um by using those precautions and by not inundating those hospitals we really need to reduce the death toll and um the effects um the effects um that many may live with uh for years to come after the co-covid 19 um we the the evidence for this and the amount of research that's been done on this virus is is acutely known over this past year or so um and a significant amount of research has been done however the after effects of co-covid 19 are not widely known and um we need to take those in new account when we uh when we're putting on our face masks when we're keeping that six foot distance apart um when we are disciplining ourselves to not uh go to parties or go out and um and mingle or or head over to that um that potluck and um touch all of those utensils that people have touched before we need to make sure that we're doing our best to protect them from ourselves and we need to do it reasonably and responsibly i'm not an expert i don't have co-vid uh 19 and i haven't had co-vid 19 and i've been uh doing all these precautions i've been making sure that i alcohol up um before i touch you know doorknobs and things like that i do my best to wear my face mask and um you know there have been some there have been some close calls with regard to maybe some psychosomantic people being sick but um i've you know i've i've trained i've been in i've been in some training some some environments where um i've had to have interaction with people and um you know they implemented the co-vid measures during the trainings and they were kind of um they seemed at the time for probably some people in the training that they had um they were overbearing i mean nobody likes to breathe through a face mask don't get me wrong i'm not a big fan of of breathing through a face mask but um no one in that course caught co-vid and i was with 17 other people there it's just it takes some discipline and some diligence and i think that the lives of of our friends our loved ones those with comorbidities um i'm not gonna i'm not gonna dowsy you with statistics but i just i believe we need to think about those around us and think about our nurses and our doctors in the hospitals and do everything we can to reduce the um the spread while this vaccine gets rolled out thank you all right thank you so much erin and now we'll enter into open discussion all right um erin talk to me about your your thoughts on and and you know obviously i want to stick as closely as you can and i think it's easy to bunny trail off sometimes to to kind of different sort of sub topics but um so as far as restrictions right because that's what we're here to talk about right um we're here to talk about whatever you want to talk about brother no no no no no no let's let's give the people what they want they came here for a debate about COVID restrictions being stupid so let's let's give them that right um okay so outdoor dining stupid not stupid um depends you know outdoor dining like i've seen depends um okay that's the well the question is what's the science on it right because that's what we should be we should be following the science um i can't i would say that any situation where you're putting yourself six within six feet of somebody else who may or may not have COVID-19 that you don't know who who hasn't been living in a box right for a period of time uh if you're closer than six feet in a even in a closed dining or an open dining situation because i've seen several different kinds right i've seen people sitting in a chair in the in the middle of the field right it doesn't seem it's very open that's very open very and that's not backed by too much science but i don't think there's any any respectable scientists that would say if you're sitting in the middle of a field by yourself you should be wearing a mask right okay so then and then and then we have other situations right we have um we have a building where seating is like in some parts of the country because not all the COVID restrictions are uniform right but yeah no which is i think that's really good too because it certainly gives us a chance to compare and contrast right i was recently in maryland the COVID restrictions in maryland are completely different than california i'm on lockdown right now as i speak about this um i can't go i i can because of a county that i travel to to go to work i can literally not drive through that county because i can't get to i can't get to work because i've been out of this i've been with outside 150 miles from that county so let's go back so i understand it's not uniform so let's go back to your your first question regarding um outdoor dining right so you have some situations where there's like a tent right i don't know if you've ever been in a tent before probably but um i don't know how i don't know how safe that is i don't know how long it would stay in a tent for with other people um who may or may not have COVID-19 so um right so we're talking about like when you're talking about scientific aspect of being in a tent and being served food or for religious ceremony um i would i would say that the the contractability of of and we can i'm gonna go i'm gonna work from the flu and the in the common cold right because that's the closest that we really have obviously the um the after effects of COVID-19 are much more serious in certain cases i know that uh i know that myself i've seen it firsthand but i would say that um if you're sitting in a field and you're getting served food you have a very your your server has a low contractability of getting COVID-19 if you have COVID-19 right so i said a field right now let's move that to let's move that to an outdoor dining establishment where there that is covered by tents right yeah and i would say that that would only represent a portion of outdoor dining i don't think it's all tinted i think there's obviously a lot of you know people that have uh you know an exterior portion of their restaurant that they could use so a tent is an example certainly certainly not the totality of of examples i would say that you're you would you're increasing your susceptibility and the transfer if you're going into an enclosed environment now i don't believe like for example are those tents certified who with the cdc certified those tents i don't know so i i really can't speak but i all i can say logically is if you're going from an outdoor place to a tent you're probably going to be more susceptible because you're in a more enclosed space now let's move inside that building and let's let's take away the 25 cap on the attendees now we're talking about a a situation where you could within a within minutes hours i'm not sure you could you could have or spread over 19 and it really depends it really depends like i mean we could sit here with that's that's my view so you asked about that question and i gave it to you very good i mean my my thought is that uh twofold number one uh the science certainly does not suggest that outdoor dining is a significant spreader that that's something that we do know the other thing that we know is that the l.a county health official that was questioned about this hey why are you shutting down outdoor dining did not have an answer if you i can i'll try to i actually have a full set of notes that i used to prep for this debate which i uh chrissa i'll make available afterwards to everybody that would want it but it i mean there's so much stuff that i've got kind of collated all together but essentially yeah this lady was asked hey like why are you shutting down outdoor dining what are the numbers on the cases that have been connected to outdoor dining she did not have any answer to that and that it was being done out of a as she put it sort of a preponderance of caution but the problem is is that it's not a one-to-one trade-off which is a part of actually my opening statement that i had to cut pretty short but that's the whole point right is that your opening statement you had to cut short i know i know i had too much i i prepared way too much for this debate uh no ultimately we're talking about trade-offs right this isn't a one-to-one kind of thing if we if we enact restrictions so severe that that restaurant closes down all those people are out of work right and people losing their jobs directly related to all types of uh uh you know negative mental health effects uh you know the fact that they might lose their health insurance all those types of things are a part of that equation right and so if they don't have any data to back up the fact that outdoor dining is connected with any amount of significant spread then to do that arbitrarily is to say that cutting them off those people's livelihoods doesn't matter so that that's why i think outdoor the restriction on outdoor dining stupid i really do um so that's outdoor dining i really yeah i i'm very frank and honest i don't i don't think i think the the amount that we would uh do harm for for businesses that are barely hanging on to take that one sort of shred of hope away from them that they have not only changed their entire dining scheme in order to attempt to remain open but now we've just torpedoed that and also i don't this video in viral too real lady had her outdoor dining thing all closed down they spent thousands of dollars to like make that happen and then a movie set ends up being uh across the streets they're filming and catering for the movie set set up in an outdoor dining fashion and was able to provide meals to the cast and crew that would have been identical to her serving food outdoors but it was not allowed because she is a restaurant and they are the movie industry and that's why i think that is also very very stupid she was visibly distraught that how is this possible that her restaurant absolutely cannot serve food safely somehow and that these people in fact can and i think then the you want me to defend the the movie producers and the in the ability because no i don't know i wouldn't defend that no i would say i wouldn't defend it either right i but that's my whole point though is that there shouldn't be a restriction on outdoor dining and the fact that one person was and then all of a sudden another person wasn't makes light of the fact that's stupid because it's an absolute double standard i believe that you're saying it's safe for the movie industry but not for regular restaurants how could that possibly be correct me if i'm wrong but you believe that people are disciplined enough and and or covid is not that big of a deal it's a common flu and i would never say that okay just you know yeah i can't defend i can't defend a catering service in a in a movie scenario because i really can't speak to it because i i'm i don't know the details of the case i don't know the details of the situation completely and um i can't hope to put myself in the minds of a of a business owner that has spent their lives work trying to build a business um and make that successful especially in the food industry where it's so difficult it's very yeah that's a tough tough business for sure so i can't really i can't really put myself i really wish i could i i can only try to have empathy for those those people and i there's other restrictions you could talk about too we can i can't i can't really go round or round about the the outdoor um dining areas i like i said i don't know who certifies those tents to be covid 19 uh free or not free but um i don't think anyone was thinking i don't think anyone was really thinking um about covid 19 when those tents were designed i think that people were just are just trying to make ends meet right and try to survive in an environment the best they can um that is not extremely conducive um to profit and that is uh that's probably setting them up for a lot of dreams being dashed lots of funding being cut off and um there how the government has put in place um some soft stock gaps it seems for that i don't not speaking for the government at all right right but i i they have put some stock gaps in there but at the end of the day at the end of the day as the dominant form of life on the planet i mean when the dolphins come out and they tell us hey we're we're it uh and we can walk out of them but as a dominant form of life on the planet i like to just postulate that we everything born on this planet is born out of competition to include a virus okay and viruses mutate thankfully we have a brain and we have the ability to strategize and work to overcome these kinds of problems we've implemented um ways for people to stop gap measures for those businesses um right but that's that's my hope that's my whole point though is that we wouldn't have to stop gap the restaurants if the restrictions weren't again i'm going off our topic so i'm trying to remain on that but the restrictions weren't stupid we wouldn't have to do that like if you think about all the money that's been wasted um because we've enacted things that make no sense right like another one would be you know to get on another restriction curfews like help help me understand the restriction of curfews and how uh number one it's i would say at all like reasonably enforceable but beyond that what uh you know what's happening you know for a you know say there's a restaurant that um you know because curfews are enacted in a handful of places if there's restaurants that have to shut down at 10 p.m and you know that's that's like that's your spot you could go and like do stuff like how many more people are going to try to uh cram in like you're basically concentrating things more does that make sense like in other words if you take a setting up a curfew creates a set of barriers that all of a sudden you've taken uh what what business could have been spread out over a slightly longer period of time that people are going to max out whatever the limited capacity is of those restaurants there by making things worse right um so like the idea that curfews i i just i don't under i do not understand the methodology behind curfews like what are they trying to prevent uh what are they trying to do in by enact by by enacting those well is i mean it i can't uh just let's let's take a look at the let's just take a look at the issue right so um with a curfew what is happening is they're trying to it sounds like they're trying to reduce the the camera just you know sorry they're trying to reduce the amount of people that are meeting up after work um and traveling to other people's houses and mingling um creating those events um after hours uh curfews would also like if if there's like a county and it has no COVID restrictions and your county does have COVID restrictions and you are trying to prevent people in your county from from getting sick um you enact a curfew that prevents people from traveling during a certain set of hours you know we're really industrious right i mean if our parents tell us not to you know not to do something we figure out a lot of times how to get around that we're always thinking about how to how to game the system in some way shape or form but if i know and i don't if i don't believe in COVID or if i don't believe that it's a threat to me and there and i really want to go to the club and the clubs are closed in my county well i just go two counties over and but with the with the and if that is something that the law law enforcement and the the public um the governments and um the publicly elected uh people uh leadership in that area have deemed um part of what they want to do to enforce um and ensure the health of the people so that people are prevented from bypassing those restrictions um then vote them out okay but but but ultimately what what we're saying though is that you're you're you're positing that curfews are not stupid well they're a tool okay so i'm saying they're they're a poor tool that is not particularly enforceable and you know in terms of people gathering i don't i don't think that okay so let's look at it maybe from a slightly different angle we don't have to stay on curfews for too long it just just another one that i think is kind of more of an outlier like there there might be ones that that are a lot you know we could have more issue with because there's more science or other things to back them up but um i understand what you're saying as far as we're trying to change people's behavior and and what we're saying is that we're not going to stop everybody but we'll stop some people and if we stop some people then that's worth it is that more or less what you're saying you can only work within the scope of of your control right in in other states not california i'm sure that the counties are smaller and so um tools like that are have been used i mean the laws across the country are all different and we can find a good amount of laws that don't make sense sure i mean you go to some states there's some laws on the books that make absolutely no sense i agree i'd agree with that in california those counties are much larger right so it's harder to bypass restrictions if i'm living in humble county and i want to bypass the restrictions on humble county i have to go to i have to go to like trinity county which is over an hour and a half drive or i have to go to oregon or no del nore um so it's it's not one county and it's not one size fits all but it is a control mechanism and you may say it's a poor tool um but it may be a good tool in in certain places at least in here they they believe it's a good tool and i i uh i mean at what point works at what point though would they say okay now the curfews uh now the curfews uh 7 p.m now now the curfews uh you know as they continue to tighten that that's just the sort of the slippery slope but let's let's move on to something else here um brother they weren't a full we're in a full blown lockdown unless you're part of like the 18 oh it could always get worse they you think you're locked down but it's nothing compared to what china did right they like welded people in their homes right they did all sorts of crazy stuff so i saw the videos there all right so so let's talk about let's talk about restrictions relative to uh the trade-offs and so my point being that we you know i listed a bunch of different restrictions and those restrictions have absolutely real effects on a variety of other aspects of life right and so you know the amount that we have spent so far again is something like i mean i i got a number of something like 6.6 trillion was spent as of april 15th and that number clearly has to be higher by now so i you know i don't know what the number is currently but that's between a quantity of easing pvp loans other stimulus money that was sent out to people and other institutions so we paid all of that money and then on top of that we have all these restrictions that affect people negatively um you know let's just i mean i could list off just one aspect of it right because a lot of the debate is centered around well you want to go get your haircut and that's going to kill grandma and so you're an awful person right like that's sort of what it's been boiled down to which i think is really of you know it it's like a twitter battle it's just sort of worthless in my mind like it doesn't really go anywhere right you know it's the gdp of the united states it's uh it's less than it was before the lockdown that's for sure i don't know up in but i mean if you happen to know that's good but i mean i think the point being it's not all what i my point is that it's not all about money that there's actual you know when we talk about statistics right and we talk about covid deaths um like those are people and i think that's fair to point out that they are but in the same token there are people that are connected to statistics on the other side of the equation which you know have to do um some of the ones on mental health that um that i was able to find uh thoughts of uh suicide from surveys have gone up twofold from 2018 uh emergency mental health visits for children are up between 24 to 31 percent accidental deaths what's that accidental deaths what about accidental deaths where are we at with accidental deaths oh um i mean i i'm not sure how that's relevant are you talking about like suicides or i mean why would you bring that up intentional death no right i don't understand i mean what's that accidental deaths okay but cool but help me understand why why is that relevant you were bringing up the you were bringing up the uh the negative aspects that i haven't agreed to that i haven't fully agreed to sure i've been with but i was bringing in i was bringing out uh the the accidental deaths is lower uh this year um than than previously uh and in previous years okay and why is that because we have been indoors or at least um a portion of the country a portion of the world has been indoors for a good period of time okay or limiting themselves significantly whereas they wouldn't limit themselves as significantly in the past okay so i'm certainly willing to grant because i do think that uh a dishonest person would say that that that should be sort of hand waved way but i do think that one of the weird sort of side effects from everything that's been done uh is that people are i believe driving quite a bit less and that certainly has led to less car accidents uh it's sort of weird byproduct but what i would say is that a lot of that having to do with telecommuting has nothing really to do with the lockdown itself other than that people were incentivized to find a way to continue to work without driving uh because of uh you know them not having then go into the office uh so that's something that could have been done irrespective of the virus itself so i understand that they're down but it's sort of like a weird byproduct that i don't really uh it's not that it doesn't count it certainly does but it's something that could have been done anyway in that it's really not you know related to the lockdown specifically um i mean it happened because of the lockdown i'm just saying like it could have happened anyway um so when we talk about less accidents though i would i would rebut with um yes people are doing less but doing less is also not good in that you know there's less people going to the gym there's less people working out certainly things like um you know those relative health aspects that people are no longer able to engage in uh is having a detrimental effect on their health i know um there was a survey done by individuals uh where over 25 25 percent of individuals surveyed gained a significant amount of weight i included right same here right i've gained like the old quarantine 15 right uh but people i i can go away myself if you want but um i think i've actually lost some weight oh good for you that's awesome i i have gained some um but ultimately the people in that survey related that weight gained because of increased anxiety uh related to the pandemic that they were essentially stress eating because of the honestly i think it's has a lot to do with the way that the news presents this whole problem is that it is literally like society ending like every time we turn on the news there's like and more covid cases and these people that like it just continues on and on and the fear that they're sort of promulgating is a mind killer people stop thinking they they get anxious they don't know what to do they're they're trapped in their homes they're eating more those are all really not good things and they they will those negative effects will stack up over time and they're the type of effects that don't go away quickly um you know so you know i i think there's again there's a multitude of tradeoffs that people are not i would i would highly encourage people to listen to um i i'm probably going to mispronounce his last name but jay batachara he is a one of the people at stanford that's done a number of studies a serological studies kind of tracking uh infection rates but he has a background in uh infectious disease and that type of study but he also has a master's a master's or phc i'm not sure which in economics and so he's got a unique perspective that brings both those worlds together and doesn't just say we have to stop covid at all costs but is able to sort of take into account like there's way more costs here than we're we're accounting for and they're very severe and they're wide sweeping and they're really important and again my one of my main arguments is that these restrictions be it as they may can't be considered in a vacuum they have to be weighed against the things that uh you know that are happening because of them your thoughts i give you points for your dune quote beer is a mind killer it is my killer i believe that they're that you know i i i don't know what to think our i don't know what you're fighting is it covid or is it the news because um i i think it's an information where i think that's very i think that's very important for you to that you're sort of pointing that out i do think that it's sort of both but an information war is a large part of that and it's that there are a lot of voices that are not being heard there's a lot of contrarian views that are extremely important i would say that um i i try to be pretty disciplined about the kind of news that i get and i i really want anyone who ever listens to this debate again ever um i would like to encourage you and i'd like to encourage everyone else to warrant their information um i find it very challenging uh in this day and age to you know with the multiple aspects of information that's coming at me whether by social media or by my favorite news aggregate sites um or anywhere so everything is very polarized we've been hearing that term consistently i mean it wouldn't be the social dilemma wouldn't be on netflix right now if there wasn't some people that have that believe that that is actually occurring so you know i will bring out the let me just talk about the news a little bit i would i would just encourage everyone to warrant the information that they're getting right um take it with a little bit of salt now if that's tucker carlson you need to take with a little bit of salt or if that's cnn you need to take with a little bit of salt you need to do your own due diligence well it's not that you know you the answer would be like oh i just want i just want it to be easy guess what kids guess what folks life isn't easy it's it it for some people i'm sure but for everybody else life isn't easy and you have to warrant the information that you get when somebody tells you something whether they're a news report or whether it's your friend you've got to warrant that information and you hope you hope that wherever it's coming from whether it be um a major news site or if it's a a local a local news reporter you would want that information to be warranted but you got to do it yourself you got to make sure that it's not just for the money that they get for the commercials that they put between your interview and the next interview right because they're they are making money right so i don't know if it's news we need to separate both those arguments one is the news and one is um one is covid so i would say that your your mental state whether you're watching news um will it be affected if you're living at home in the lockdown situation probably that's where we've got to that's where everyone has to understand where we're going with this that's that was something that was looking at a long time ago at least for me was hey get ready 18 months for a vaccine here comes warp speed and we're at December 15th right that's less that's not 18 well will i um will i get um will i get the vaccine in 18 months probably probably but we could we could really talk about that i don't know uh carissa if you think that's worth kind of delving into you but um i mean unless i want to keep it on like you know the top of the central to the actual like restrictions if we could just wrap it back to more specifically whether or not this the restrictions are stupid that would be great okay i can i can actually tie those two together i think um so erin just just uh kind of think of this way so um what we do know uh so far is that it is relatively unknown whether or not the vaccines themselves will um give us any ability to go back to normal so the vaccines themselves um seem to be a uh a prophylactic in terms of mitigating uh symptoms but there doesn't appear to be any uh um consensus at all or any kind of definitive information that's that it was that would say um that the vaccine will keep you from spreading the virus so it's it is maybe you could connect it in that way and that even if this vaccine rolls out erin and uh even if you get the vaccine in theory you could still get covid and pass it on to someone else so in regards to restrictions the vaccine is i think relatively moot um you know i don't know if you have a feeling about that but that does i mean that that's how i would tie kind of those two together i mean beyond that i still think that um and i don't know erin i i really am curious on your thoughts like given and there's so much more i could kind of say as far as the tradeoffs do you not feel like the amount of uh money that has been spent the amount of uh restrictions that have been put in place the amount of uh mental health uh physical health um and uh economic health that the country has taken damage from uh is it really is that restriction really uh are those restrictions really serving the country well are they smart let's say let's you know that would be the opposite of stupid right like are the restrictions smart in that way given the tradeoffs i think they're smart given um given the uh the tradeoffs um you do i i think that they're smart given the tradeoffs i asked you before what the gdp of the united states is and i'm speaking um california in the united states gdp is 20.49 trillion the second country that comes up after the united states is china with 13.61 trillion and um so what you're saying though is that relative from a monetary standpoint i'm sorry i'm sorry the reef if we could let him finish his point then then you can respond 100 yes i'm so sorry no you're good so better well then we can go to like i mean even you go to any other other country like japan 4.97 trillion i mean the united states is almost twice the gdp of china um and there are other countries that are suffering significantly more with their lockdowns and they're operating with a lot less funds and a lot less uh finances than the united states if there is any country that has the a good system or a good ability to weather this storm it is the united states now it doesn't help the rest of the world like that that that i'm sure it falls on very depth ears from somebody in in a country whose gdp is not significant right um so what do they have to do i think that we're all suffering in in a very similar way um with regard to being um having to go through the social distancing what countries are just are are implementing social distancing many of them which countries are implementing mask wearing a lot of them it can't the entire world cannot be completely wrong on this um unless you're telling me they are and then i will let's you have it go ahead how about it sure uh okay so ken um the i don't i'm not sure the exact question but i i think it sounds like you're saying is the whole world has the whole world gone mad right that right it either either everyone's right or everyone's wrong and and i would say i would i would call that a false choice let's put it on maybe i'm misrepresent i don't want to misrepresent you what's that put it on a spectrum they're mostly right with the implementation but we've got to agree on implementation what you think is not right and what you think is is silly and what uh you think is not so silly and so what exactly do you feel is silly and what do you exactly feel is not silly because it'd be difficult to um sure so i mentioned okay so again uh there's two different aspects to this right like there's things that are sort of silly because we're not following the science and there's things that relative to their tradeoffs are silly because we're doing so much damage um you know it's like if um there's an analogy some other i don't even need to say it but it's basically yeah if if we're doing more if if the cure is worse than the disease then we shouldn't do it right like that's that would be what i'm at least trying to get at in terms of tradeoffs so when we talk about restrictions that don't make sense uh on their face because there's really no or very little or very tenuous science to even back it up if any those are silly those are stupid not smart um senseless and i would say then some of the restrictions that maybe make some amount of sense or have some amount of science to back them up or are have some type of logical kind of framework i would i would challenge those all but a few in that i think the tradeoffs again that we're we are uh the things that we're trading off is not worth it i just don't and i think and maybe i'll bring this uh into more of a solution kind of uh based argument in that i think we were given a very binary choice right we were said we basically it was like lockdown or just letter rip right just let it run wild and everyone's gonna just go nuts and it's you know it's gonna be you know mayhem so i i think that is that is the tragedy that is the false choice i think people like uh jay baruchara and again i'm sorry if i'm saying i'm probably virtually his name but uh those that have been involved with a particular project called the great barrington declaration i think people really need to look at that i think they need to actually go to that website they need to don't google the great barrington declaration go to the great barrington declaration's website and read what they actually say about themselves because the the the point is is that um that there isn't um there isn't just this sort of singular consensus that there are people uh that think differently on this um and again like i would say that those you know those tradeoffs are just they're just not worth it i just i don't think it's worth um you know kind of trading those things uh as far as solutions sorry i actually lost my train of thought i found it um very quickly um a targeted approach was a third option that no one ever really gave serious consideration to when we look at the deadliness of this disease on the demographic from zero up to a hundred right there that is a hugely different sliding scale where the difference between 18 and younger versus 80 and older is like night and day it's a enormous difference the fact that elementary schools are closed is an absolute travesty there's no science to back that up whatsoever children are not a significant spreader based on the science of this disease and they're not they're not a significant spreader to teachers which would kind of take that particular yes yeah oh i am all right now now we're getting somewhere erin erin erin didn't like that um no it's true the the science behind children uh spreading the disease in a school setting is very very very minimal if any it is not a significant spreader in this particular case and again i'm talking at the very least i'm talking elementary schools there there's certainly is a case to be made um maybe at the high school level i think that actually there's still a good argument there uh that that's not necessarily a significant uh you know issue uh college level maybe that's where the the threshold could get a change but think about this when we locked everybody down and and in addition to that we sent college students home to learn remotely right and you talked about you know what can we enforce we can only kind of do what we can do in the in the framework that we have right and the the ability to control things so we took college students that are probably going to go out and party and do stuff and we put them back in their aging parents homes as opposed to being at college we actually mean things worse doing that that that that move was a terrible move same as where uh new york um made uh people that were covid positive go back into uh long-term care facilities that was a horrendous blunder that uh that uh the um governor there should absolutely be held to account on but wasn't uh that that to me is those are two very very obvious things long-term care facilities and the and the targeted protection of those uh individuals that would have been the smart move but far and away of it you could debate almost anything else uh that i think is undebatable that we have done many many countries have done a very poor job of uh recognizing that a targeted approach to elderly people would have been a enormous benefit that they absolutely should have done that it would have paid huge dividends when you especially when you look at the number uh when you look at the age demographic demographics in terms of debt sorry that was a long rant but you just said so okay um let's go with spreaders right let's talk about the spreaders right so you said that the children um in elementary school would not be spreaders um i i don't think that they're i you can correct me if i'm wrong but um if if you have covid and you're and you're walking around and everyone has been very sensitive to who's got who's getting sick but there are still patients that are asymptomatic and they are carrying covid that could be elementary school students that could be your high school students and you did mention that um talk about asymptomatic may not you said we don't know if it makes if it just handles the symptoms and people can still spread it so what i what i'm hearing you say here is that um that we should target intelligently our our grandparents and those with the comorbidities and that we should care less about the children that could be that may or may not be spreading it and we should not get the vaccine because it may not also help it may not reduce the spread it may it may increase our ability to be asymptomatic and not end up in the morgue but is that what you're saying i'm just trying to get a beat on what yeah yeah so a couple of things i would say number one i do think that the vaccine potentially makes the most sense for people that are let's say 70 plus i think that does make more sense at least in so much that if those vaccines are safe then the the uh the downside risk for vaccine for 80 plus persons much less than them actually getting covid them getting covid is definitely worse uh in that regard so i do think we should look at uh you know if those vaccines are safe you know that data bears out then that vaccine for that population absolutely makes sense vaccines for um people that are uh 18 and younger or especially 12 and younger they have not given the vaccine in terms of their test trials to anyone under 12 so to me that's very very dicey to roll that out en masse and mandate that in any way that would be really really silly i think um what we would also know is that the flu has killed more kids in america this year than covid has and that that's that we need to understand that that the the relative danger for co what's that like your source oh sure both on that one yeah i will pull that up but as i'm pulling that up uh erin tell me your thoughts on asymptomatic spread because that was something else that you had mentioned asymptomatic spread okay so you don't have any symptoms and you're spreading covid and you don't have the the traditional cough or it's not it you look like you don't have you look like you're not sick right um i don't you know if we're just talking about a couple people that end up in the in in the er and then they get out and it's fine um i don't think that that's what we're talking about here i you know i think that this has been it's an extremely real virus uh this isn't a belief this isn't i know i the virus is real i hundred percent agree this is not a religion it's not some you know there's people that say that oh i believe you know it's it doesn't i don't believe in it i don't believe in it and this isn't a virus there are base pairs it it has a gene sequence it and for some people they are more susceptible do we do we absolutely know down to the person who is most susceptible to this do we do we have a numbers on on that we have we have a demographic may have some demographics but the the issue i take with um with the the spreading of of covid-19 is you may survive from it there may be people that that are dying of covid and i absolutely believe it i mean the news does not lie i mean you look across the span in the spectrum of news and you'll see it um that it is a serious problem it's affecting our hospitals and those that don't die from it are having problems um i forget the term what do they call it they're calling it now you may know what the term is but they're they're they have additional problems outside of just the the the once like the flu right we like to liken this to the flu it's not the flu okay you may get sick like the flu but you know this this is not the flu it's putting people in the morgue and even after some people have recovered and i say recovered with air quotes because they are somewhat recovered they depends on who's recovering because if you're talking about a healthy person the the likelihood of them recovering well is actually really really high when you talk about people that have comorbidities that didn't die that are then recovering yes those people do have uh extenuating circumstances coming off that i'm talking about i'm i'm talking about people that are waking up in the morning that have that don't have comorbidities that are waking up um feeling tired lapses in memory inability to do things that they would normally do um i'm talking about the people where they they can't perform a normal job because covid has impacted them like they call them long haulers and the people that you don't just get sick like the flu or a cold and you go back to normal but you are plagued by the after effects of this and the destructive nature of it and it doesn't kill you but it's going to affect your life it may have you know we we talk about the finances right um and i really think that's the last thing that we should be thinking about even though i bring up GDP um and being able to weather a storm but you know there's we gotta i think we gotta look at you know 20 years from now we gotta look at those people that were long haulers and we're gonna have to take care of those people right and there are a lot of people in hospitals right now that are dying of this virus because they either didn't believe that it was a serious threat or they didn't feel that unless they knew somebody personally i've seen that i've seen the social media post well if i didn't has anybody actually known anyone that's been affected by covid i you know like and and up until that point i sit there and i go yes i know people that have been affected by covid i know people personally that um that are long haulers and um it it is extremely destructive of seeing it firsthand like i'm not talking about the first couple weeks i'm talking like months afterwards they can't do i would they can't do what they i would agree i mean i i do think that these uh that people are affected uh you know especially if they have again some of those exist you know if you have asthma if you have diabetes some of these other conditions certainly are exacerbated and your recovery is much much longer i'm not i'm not disputing that i'm not disputing that the virus is real i'm not disputing that some people have been very stupid especially if they have those types of conditions and they decide that they do not care about the risk that may not be a wise thing for them to do uh okay so uh children for uh so let's see here this is actually something that was fact checked by politifact uh younger people for younger people seasonal flu in many cases is deadlier than the virus than the covid-19 virus uh mostly true uh essentially uh the numbers from the uh 2018-2019 flu season 480 flu deaths among children zero to 17 uh in the so far in 2020 uh 90 people have died that are in that age category from covid so it is the flu is substantially more dangerous for younger people than covid-19 um and then that would certainly parlay into this idea that restrictions coming back to restrictions are silly uh and stupid for elementary schools this is not something we should be doing we should we should not be putting a uh you know a six-year-old uh you know that's in you know kindergarten in front of a computer all day and having him sit and not being able to like play with uh his classmates uh at lunchtime there's reports of uh people not wanting the students to to talk because they feel like too much talking while they're eating is going to spread covid everywhere so they have them not talk during lunch i mean these are interactive facets of a person's childhood that are important developmental items that we're just immediately just sort of cutting off and i again i think that again based on the science we're following the science we're following uh what we know that this this uh is not a significant problem and it is causing a significant problem by uh enacting that restriction i would say that is stupid dying and giving grandpa covid-19 are two different things right so a child dying of covid and a child being asymptomatic and being able to path is seemingly pass it on to grandpa and grandma or somebody with covid comorbidities are two different things right and going to your other grandparents and then passing it to other kids and passing it to other people and and then everyone's infected sorry go sorry dying and giving and giving and being able to pass it on are two different things now and and i think that when when you have loved ones that have that are in the hospital and you know that they're they you know everyone wishes they had more time everybody wishes they had more time i i wish that i didn't spend so much time on nintendo probably when when i end up there but you know if you're in a situation where you've been diagnosed with covid and you're in an icu and you're in an er you wish you had more time you wish you could be breathing right and i say it oh go ahead go ahead go ahead i i have a sense to interrupt too much go ahead so i would say that um that developmental trade-off uh is worth it in in comparison to to not to be in a situation where grandpa and grandma or one of your relatives would be able to be there for you in a situation where covid didn't exist they would be there for you and i guess the developmental part of it but i think that we've seen some you know i was recently in a in a in a course and um i know that a lot of people don't like teleworking and hybrid scenarios and virtual classes and stuff and i tell you know what i think i think right now is the perfect time to go to school a lot of people are just staying home and not doing anything this is the perfect time to go to school and i think that we have an aspect that we haven't really even tapped um i'm gonna i'm gonna bring it back to um precautions are silly yeah teleworking and virtual the scenario the virtual scenario um and and working through video chat is a great opportunity right opportunity i would say it's not a restriction now we're doing it right now we're we're working through through a chat right now and it's more because the distance than anything else but there's another aspect of being able to talk in a video chat in the classroom when you're sitting there with other people you don't know what they're thinking they maybe have the greatest idea on the planet um i was in a class recently where um i had both situations because of the bubble situation in the beginning of the course i had to quarantine in my hotel room for a period of time get a test and then i could somewhat interact with the other people in the class obviously with a six foot distance and with masks and everything like that nobody got that nobody got covid at least that we knew of in the class but one thing i noticed between and this this touches upon developmental problems because of covid-19 because you're not interacting with children i noticed that people were more apt in the virtual classroom to to speak and to put in the chat box what they thought when they were going through the instruction basically what was going on in their mind whether it be a quote or whether it be an add-on that they would not have been able to talk about if they were in physically in the classroom and i noticed the change between that and we can you can you can identify that it is that it doesn't matter or that it does matter or that uh there's no value to that but there were some in that class there we were talking about some complex theories in communication and there were several classmates who were extremely bright and they were really brilliant in the way that they brought out ideas and other aspects i didn't really think about in that classroom setting because of the precaution of doing the video interface they could type out hey this quote is from sun do or this quote is from this person and it brought a lot of light to the the conversation that the instructor was when they were they were teaching and then we went into a classroom setting guess what i was robbed of of having that person's opinion because we didn't have a chat box that we their their thoughts could just i could read them immediately so right well i would go ahead go ahead in that sense um that was something that i enjoyed right that was something that i enjoyed from those students and i think that precaution i i don't know how much merit we want to give to that method of teaching and that method of instruction but i i think i thought it was good i think it was beneficial i'm sorry i'm gonna actually jump in really fast here um if you if the brief if you want to um kind of respond and maybe start your kind of closing statement and then erin you can go ahead with your closing statement and then we'll get to questions that would be wonderful but go ahead and respond and yeah no problem um yeah erin i would just say two things number one that uh you know there's a big difference between uh you know more college age students that have had the benefit of all those uh social interactions as children and then are now in a situation that they can navigate an online world that is certainly very very different from the in-person world i would also say that there's a huge age and developmental difference between what needs to go on and happen in an interactive fashion and the way uh some people learn kinesthetically especially at a young age uh like those are big there's a huge gulf in in developmental ages between kind of what you're describing which i don't disagree that uh remote learning has some interesting advantages and yes it maybe breaks down some barriers that wouldn't have otherwise been there but in relation to younger age school children that's very very different not not apples to apples certainly apples and oranges um but that being said i'll uh yeah as far as closing statements um so a couple of things that i think again in i want to bring the debate back to restrictions and again i talked about a few of those restrictions that i think don't make sense from a from a logical or science-based approach things like banning outdoor dining uh curfews to large degree i think um the way that we have not had a targeted approach is really really uh to me that's a tragedy that we have not done that i think people need to uh people need to expand erin you talked about listening to the news and you know vet vet and warrant what you listen to i think people would really be better served by listening to a little bit broader of a appetite of of news and i i think people like again uh you know uh jeffrey tucker i think in his some of his uh things that he talks about with the american economic institute um uh i think jay bata chara i think that uh the there's the researchers that put together the book the price of panic uh which i certainly delved into and kind of looking at the again the other side of the covet debate we need to expand our ability to find these sources of information and be able to you're right see you're right it's not going to be easier and i think that's a really great point i think that's you know really good life advice that uh people are going to have all different types of agenda money can influence things politics all of that but uh if we're not going beyond those immediate easy just give me the headline just give me the first paragraph stuff we need to go beyond that and further than that i think people like jeremy hammond i think people like rfk jr there's people that have different perspectives that are certainly well respected people that we need to hear things like the great barrington declaration people need to look at that for themselves don't google these things go and find the original source get it unfiltered first and then make your decisions based on that um i think i've made a good case generally for the restrictions are in fact stupid i think we all intuitively know this we can recognize that there is a lot of damage being done that those tradeoffs are not worth it that those tradeoffs involve real people being affected in real time and that we can't just hand wave those things away and that there are other options available i think that i really respect and appreciate erin having this conversation with me and i really really hope that people uh have more conversations like this and um again i'm so happy that modern day debate is hosting these things this is super important and i really appreciate you guys thank you so much um and we really have to have you on erin if you want to say anything and then we can get to the the questions um yeah so in the very beginning uh j brought up um um essential jobs tyranny two weeks of quarantine uh the tragedy that damages the this is damaged the economy um the binary choice um he he brought up the flat on the curve and now it's stopped the spread and the um and i think that what he's trying to get at is that there's more intelligent ways of doing um of doing of making sure that the spread doesn't happen and from my point of view um we can't all agree on probably the best way of doing things and i'm sure that the first rollout on in any situation for pandemic for the first date that somebody goes on it always has some problems um so i will concede a little bit to that but overall i think that we see a event where people and children and families um they let their guard down a little bit they become a little bit less disciplined um and we see an event about two weeks later um we'll look at uh an event like um Halloween or Thanksgiving and we see the effects a little bit after that um i would i would argue instead of tyranny just personal and self-discipline if if at all possible and if we can't get that from ourselves so people don't believe that COVID is real then we have the government and our elected officials that can that can try to enforce um or at least towards not um being in a spreading COVID around and and to try to keep us safe so i would um i would just you know i'd like to close with um we're not out of the woods yet but we're getting there and i think the thing that people in America need to know and in around the world anyone who sees this on on YouTube or any of the other forums is you know the hope is right around the corner like it is literally right around the corner um vaccines are the journal just got um approved visor's been approved um and we're going to have more COVID vaccines and we know what to do with i've been saying it since like may we're going to have more COVID vaccines and we know what to do with we just have to hang on a little bit longer for those people with those home morbidities our our grandparents are ailing our ailing uh family members or people that may be of high risk we just got to be a little bit more disciplined and make sure that um you know if we do that we can we can be around them enjoy them and and be with them for another day thank you so much erin um and thank you both so much for coming on um we have a couple questions here the first one is uh from maverick it's a question for the brief um where are the millions of deaths that were predicted follow the science is fine when it is accurate but what about when it is drastically wrong lose freedom for a flu yeah i mean uh my response to that would be i mean he's he's essentially referencing models um there's certainly been an enormous issue with the way that these models were put together um one of the initial models in regards and you can look this up it sounds it sounds crazy but it's um one of the genesis for one of the models that was created in regards to social distancing was actually a high school science project and i know that sounds nuts but um essentially this uh gals and it's not to say that it's completely wrong that if that there there couldn't be a high school science project that's brilliant in that way but ultimately the the the science being put into it was sort of declarative it wasn't um they basically said we believe this is true and if we do this x is going to happen so they created a model that uh adhered to what they declared to be true and that that girl's father happened to be fairly well connected in in some of the scientific or intellectual community and that model is kind of like ran oh you know from that point forward and um these models clearly were terribly flawed i mean if you look at at the very beginning uh michael ulsterholm did a interview on joe rogan where this was in like march 10th and uh they said conservatively but in the next three to seven three to seven months conservatively with lockdowns there'll be 480 000 deaths and like 98 million hospitalizations if the numbers were like off the charts so i i think that's what he's talking about and i agree i think the the problem is the problem is the discussion what we're having right now is an actual discussion of ideas and like vetting those things and so i think he's right if the science doesn't make sense it should be vetted it should be peer reviewed it shouldn't just be uh touted as as gospel and ran with gotcha all right well thank you the next question is from mark read he says to the brief would you be fine with one of your family members dying if it meant not having a lockdown that's a great question um you know again i would say i i don't want anyone to die unnecessarily do people die in america and that's unavoidable yes um um if uh i think again this is the false choice that we've been presented with that i feel like that's a dodgy way of answering this question i don't want to be dishonest of it um i would i'll come at it from an angle they probably don't expect many of my family members if not most are christians and although it would be incredibly tragic and if there was a way to avoid it i think that would be good but ultimately uh we i believe that heaven exists and that they would be there and that even though that's not a i don't condone people being foolish or irresponsible at the same time uh there's something that there's something that goes beyond death in that regard so for me it would be sad but not uh not sort of an ultimate tragedy that would would sort of haunt me all right well thank you both so much for coming on um i've got one i've got one thing uh one point it's the worldwide deaths is at 1.634 ish million uh i just wanted to identify that that's like the worldwide death count and i think that if we just ignored it all together that um if covid doesn't exist or we just you know anything that was related to this conspiracy of covid um the deaths would be a lot higher because we wouldn't have a name and we wouldn't have a medical practice we wouldn't have science that that would attack this as um just another flu and because of the excellent care that people are getting in the united states um and because of the many people that are not going out and spreading uh spreading the virus and and people that are staying home and implementing these practices all hospitals are able to breathe in this environment and they're able to give that life giving care to those people and the more icu beds the more the higher the percentage of or the lower the percentage of icu beds that are available and as it eclipses the ability to care for people i believe that that's when people start to die when they can't get care so um that's what i wanted to add to the millions of deaths on sure i can't remember his name's question gotcha all right well thank you um and i i really appreciate both of you coming on and to the audience i really appreciate you watching um be sure to check out the links in the description if you like this debate be sure to subscribe and like the video um and we will definitely be seeing you for future debates thank you all for uh taking time out of your busy schedules and keep on separating the reasonable from the unreasonable


With that, we have a few minutes for discussion, so what I suggest is that we take the questions and then I'll ask my colleagues to answer the questions they'd like to address. So let's start with Masoud, yeah. Thank you very much, Michel. First of all, let me just say the terrific panel, and I really want to thank all of you for your interventions. I hope we can make the slides available that were used by Professor Flano as well. I have one question for you, and it picks up from your last comment, Michel, which is, how well do you think we are prepared for the next pandemic if it were to strike us in the next 12 months? One thing about COVID is that we developed a vaccine that works within a year faster than at any hit time in history. No guarantee that we will be able to do it for the next pandemic, and the mortality rate was quite low, less than 5%. And that again, no guarantee that the next pandemic will have a low mortality rate. So you just identified, Christian, what is needed? And the question I have for all of you is how much progress have we made globally and regionally to be prepared if the next pandemic were to hit us within the next 18 months? Thank you, Mr. Witt. That will also be discussed in the next session. Monsieur Marc-Ton? Yes, two quick questions. Does the panel draw any lesson from the difference in policies, even in Western Europe, for example, the difference between Sweden and France, for example, no lockdown, at least during the first weeks or even month in Sweden? And going beyond Europe, a complete different policy in Australia, for example. So these vast differences in the Western world, what sort of lesson would you draw from that? Second question is on the refusal of vaccination. The refusal of vaccination can be regional problems in Africa, but also problems in some parts of French overseas territories. And now some sort of sequential refusal of vaccination, for example, the low level of vaccination in France presently for the new repeats of the vaccination that are required and not actually carried particularly by the elderly. So what's the answer to some sort of fatigue as to vaccination? Thank you. Yes, next to you. Thanks, Christian, for sharing valuable information. My question is, how artificial intelligence will help in checking COVID-19 in future? Thank you very much. Thank you. And there are two more questions, and then we'll stop it now. Mr. Dushu, so three questions. Please be brief. Good morning. Thank you very much. While I agree, I mean, we are a think tank that does a lot of work on virus and the growth of it for about 20 years. So the question is more on why we accept the premise of zoonotic diseases. I just wondered your insights, especially Christian, on the gain for function where these researchers are outsourced to labs outside. And the strong belief that we have, and some intelligence and information we have, that the Wuhan was not an accident because we had a discussion with the Wuhan medical office soon after the virus, that it may have been an accident that came out of the lab. So how do you, at a global level, prevent this? Because if you do that, the way to stop it and the cure will be extremely difficult. Thank you. You know that Israel had been, in a way, a laboratory for developing the Pfizer immunity. In a matter of fact, we became to be like a laboratory for all the world. In Israel, it was not compulsory to take the vaccination, but of course it was possible to do it fast because in Israel there is a special construction of the health system. People belong to one of the branches. We have three or four companies which deal with health and every person, every family belongs to one of them. So it was very easy to arrive to most of the people and it works. Now, one of the questions that I have about this, about this immunization and this COVID is there are a lot of people who are spreading up in Israel and all over the world that it is you don't have to be vaccinated, that's wrong, that have a lot of all kind of, all kind of, all kind of, in my opinion, rubbish. And it is really a lot of people accept their opinion and refuse to be vaccinated. The fact is that when we cancel the closure in Israel, so we were in a very bad situation because people who had been vaccinated were okay, but the people who had been vaccinated would come also to the centers and etc. and make people to be, again, having the, what do you think about the possibility to make it compulsory? Last question, second question is, do you think that then in the future the mRNA vaccinations would work also for other, other, other problems in the world? Like cancer and etc. Thank you very much for this futuristic outlook and yes, Israel is a sort of living clinical trial cohort on COVID-19 and the data from Israel is the most precious at population level. Monsieur Dossou, very briefly, please. Because we are going to be late, we are going to take five minutes for the answers. Thank you, Mr. President. It is almost a personal consultation, taking advantage of the quality of this panel. But the medical secret... No, no, no, it's public, it's a pandemic. I am fully autogenic. I have already taken the vaccine four times and I was eligible for the fifth time two months ago. And then we said, no, it's not a concern, don't take it, so I hesitated. So my concrete question, then I went directly by talking about the fifth vaccine. The fifth time, that's it. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you very much and thank you. I'd like either Antoine or Christian to address this because that relates to your point, Antoine, of either continuing waves or continuing ongoing circulation of what we now call a soup of variants. And as we face that, and as we know that immunity is waning in people aged, let's say over 70, within four to five months, and that was shown in Israel with the last booster, what does that imply in terms of continuous boosters? Let's start with this question and then ask... Let's have Antoine and Christian react. Then I'd like to turn to Juliette, Idé and Maha for just the final points. Well, for the question of the vaccine, clearly we have today a vaccine that is not dangerous, which is very well tolerated. In particular, for elderly people, it doesn't even make any reaction, it makes no reaction.  For anyone who hasn't had a reminder in the past six months, it seems to me to be of good politics. There is no higher level of evidence today on the scientific side because the manufacturers run behind the variants all the time and don't have the time to put in place formal clinical trials as powerful as those that had been done at the beginning. But we can today reasonably recommend a vaccine dose to anyone eligible for a vaccine that hasn't had a dose in six months. And then, sorry, go ahead. President? No, just to follow up on this on a more general basis. And this goes with the question in Israel. We have RNA-based vaccines. They are being adjusted to other viruses, possibly on cancer, but this is another story. The problem of these vaccines is that they do not generate a strong cellular immune response. So this is why there is still very much ongoing research on other vaccines for the future, which would provide longer lasting memory. But for the time being, we have this. It can be adjusted very rapidly to a new situation. And this is very valuable. But you must just take in consideration that there is, at the same time, a huge effort of novel vaccines. And I just take this opportunity for the question on artificial intelligence. This is very interesting because artificial intelligence is being tested on the data sharing, for example, long COVID, which is very multifactorial, very much beneficiary of this. But artificial intelligence can only be effective if you nurture it with good data and with accurate data. And then it always comes back to local and regional capacities. Otherwise, you are working on nothing. And one of the things that is currently being discussed is establishing at regional level across the world different hubs that would master some of the basic technologies, mRNA. And Juliet, you mentioned the hub in South Africa. But also, adenovirus-based vaccines also hold inactivated vaccines, because let's not remember. Within one year, 2020, we saw the mRNA vaccines from the US and European industry. We saw the Chinese cinepharm based on inactivated vaccines. We saw the adenovirus vaccines AstraZeneca and the Sputnik. We saw a Cuban vaccine. We saw an Indian vaccine. So within a year, the world, based on existing technological platforms, could innovate and bring effective vaccines. I'm not entering the discussion here of the relative efficacy. But thank you, Antoine, for making the point. And I'd like to make this clear because several people ask that question. Two doses of cinepharm plus one dose of Pfizer or three doses of cinepharm are equivalent to three doses of Pfizer, as far as we know, at population level. Maybe a last turn of hearing the questions. Maybe, Maha, would you say something? Thank you. Clearly very important questions. And again, I reinforce the need for the strongest surveillance systems in every country. The next virus that may be predisposing to a pandemic could be in any country. And investment in surveillance systems and looking into the zoonotic side. So very much a one health support countries need to invest in developing a strong one health system. Thank you. Thank you. Ide? OK. No, we can't hear you. I'm afraid. OK. We can have a microphone for Mr. Chiaot. Juliette. I want to go back to something Christian said almost in passing about the relationship of humans and wild animals. Not just wild animals, but also the environment and our nutritional changes, the distortion of our nutritional changes. Increasingly, I do believe that there are huge impacts of focusing on our microbiomes through an increase in our plant-based intake within dietary in our diets. And minimizing, if you will, distortion and destruction of our environments, wherein we then become exposed to wild animals with viruses that have been causing many of the pandemics we have been subject to over the past few decades. And I think that's only going to increase until we recognize that man has to be a little bit more circumspect in his relationship with the environment. Thank you. Ide? Yeah. Addressing the question, how we should do to future x disease. As I said, I want to emphasize the most important is awareness of public. Yes, because it is unknown violence. People don't know the detail. But they should understand, they should know how to deal these things. As a model to point out, due to the SARS happen in Asia several years ago, that gives some awareness to the public in Eastern Asia. They know something very seriously. That's the point. Even we don't know the detail in future, but the public should know how to deal with this unknown violence. Thank you. Please join me in thanking our panelists for the very good session. And see you in a minute. Thank you.