Short Wave - A Short Wave Guide To Joe Biden's Coronavirus Plan

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

With election season underway, we present a Short Wave guide (with some help from our friends at NPR Politics) to Joe Biden's plan to combat the coronavirus. Political correspondent and NPR Politics Podcast co-host Scott Detrow breaks it down for us.Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia and Scott Detrow @scottdetrow. Email the show at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, everybody, today we've got a very, very special guest, Scott Detrow, one of the hosts of the NPR Politics Podcasts. Hey, Detro. Hello. So, Scott, you ready to talk politics? Wait, I thought I was here for Space Week. What do you mean? Okay.

First of all, why would you ever think that? Do you even have a favorite moon, Detro? Do you even know? I'm an Earth Patriot, so my favorite moon is our moon. and I don't know what planets you think are better than Earth. Oh, boy. Stop making everything political, but also let's talk politics. Scott, it is election season.

You have been busy. Yes. People are already casting ballots in the presidential campaign. The debate is coming up in a few days. Election day is getting closer and closer and closer. So yes, there is just a little bit going on. And I can imagine covering the campaign in a pandemic feels significantly different. It's incredibly weird and it never stops being weird. First of all, you're just not on the road that much. And then the few times you are on the road, I've been covering Joe Biden mostly. His campaign is being incredibly careful about the pandemic. So these events that would usually happen in arenas with thousands of people and are still happening that way on the Republican side of things, it's Joe Biden and maybe a dozen reporters. And not only that, all of the reporters are standing in.

in plotted out circles that they put on the floor to make sure that we're all six feet apart. Everyone's wearing masks. We've all been screened. It's just weird. Yeah. And I have to say that I've noticed in all the photos that I've seen of Biden over the last few months when he's been out campaigning, he is masked up. Since the pandemic has began, he has not left his house without a mask. Beginning when he started to do events in May, Joe Biden has made a point to say that this is something he cares about. He is making a policy choice here and he's making a political choice here. The policy choice is that Joe Biden thinks the president should be setting a leadership example

and the federal government should be doing a lot more on the coronavirus. And that's why he wants people to see him wearing a mask. The political side of that is he thinks that's what voters want from a president right now. And even if they still are a little uncomfortable with masks, they want to see somebody who wants to be in the White House taking this pandemic seriously. Right. I mean, we've talked a lot on this show about President. Trump's approach to the pandemic over the last few months. So today on the show, we're turning to Joe Biden and taking a deeper look at his plan to address the coronavirus. I'm Maddie Safaya,

and this is shortwave from NPR. Okay, so Scott, let's dig into some of the specifics in Biden's plan to address the coronavirus if he's elected as president. I know he's got like this seven-point plan to address COVID-19. So let's start with some of his key points. Yeah, well, let's start with masks. As we were talking about, there's something that he wears everywhere it goes. There's something that his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, wears everywhere she goes. And Biden actually wants to see a national mask mandate put in place, you know, whether that's through governors doing it themselves on the state level or something from the federal government. He thinks that this is something that if they're implemented on a broader level could take a big step toward curbing

transmissions. And it's something he's talked a lot about. Yeah. And I mean, as far as where the science is on this, you know, masks are good news. We've known this for a long time with other respiratory viruses like the flu. And for COVID, you know, once we figured out that a lot of people who are sick never develop symptoms, people we call asymptomatic, it became even more clear how important masks are, because you literally just don't know who could be sick. Yeah. And according to you, science people, it's becoming increasingly clear that they offer personal protection as well, or they could at least. Yeah.

And Scott, don't act like you're not a short-wit stand. Like, you haven't heard that on short. I know you're a listener. Clearly, I love Space Week. The secrets out. But yes. But yes, as we've talked about on the show, there is some evidence that even if you do get sick

while you're wearing a mask, your symptoms might not be as bad as if you weren't wearing them. Because basically you get a smaller dose of the virus. So you're protecting yourself, too, as much as everybody else. Right, right. Okay. All right, Scott. So what else?

just like masks, something else that's a big part of the Biden plan that's not really a surprise for anybody. Following what the experts want to see is testing. He wants to see a lot more testing, testing with a much more coordinated national plan. On so many different fronts, the Trump administration has left states to set their own plans, put their own policies in place. Biden wants to create a centralized strategy with a pandemic testing board, helping coordinate things, also collecting a lot of data so we have a better understanding of who is getting sick. You know, Biden and Harris have talked a lot about the fact that we need more data on how and why this is disproportionately affecting black and Latino Americans. So central coordination is a

big part of it. He also just wants to see a lot more tests and have the federal government foot the bill for a lot more tests so that they're just everywhere. Everybody can be tested in a way that a lot of other countries have successfully done. Yeah. I mean, this is another point that checks out, right, in terms of the science. We know that widespread testing is one of those keys to keeping the pandemic under control. You know, you simply have to know how much virus is out there circulating in communities. And you need widespread testing to catch those, you know, especially tricky asymptomatic cases because, you know, people without symptoms aren't necessarily going to the doctor sick where they would get tested. And despite, you know, the administration's rhetoric on this,

many public health experts are still saying we still don't have enough tests. Okay. So that's tests. Scott, let's hit one more point. Pick one, any of them. Yeah, there's one area that I actually was curious what you thought of it was this idea of creating this national federal workforce of contact tracers. We've seen this on the local level, but Biden wants to create a core of 100,000 people

who work for the federal government and just contact trace. Yeah, I mean, to me, contact tracing is kind of one of those complicated ones because, you know, just like everything, it depends on a lot of different factors kind of working together. So, for example, like if testing is backed up or delayed, that makes contact tracing really difficult because the whole premise is find out who's sick, contact everybody who they've potentially gotten sick and isolate those people. So it really works best when a community isn't kind of already overrun with cases. And so, So in that sense, you have to establish those systems kind of before an outbreak, which we've struggled with so far. And then, of course, you're banking on people kind of complying with this. I don't know, Scott, whether or not we could do this strategically on a federal level from, you know, kind of a social and a science perspective remains to be seen. That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I think we've all seen so many examples of how the United States does not necessarily have that mindset of, oh, yes, here is every single person I talk to. here are my phone records that that would make that work.

I think there's also a little bit of political signaling here. Biden has talked so much about wanting to have a Franklin Roosevelt-style administration. And you've seen this with so many Democrats over the years, this idea of having like a big, a public health job core, you know, this type of big mobilization and federal government hiring process that could remind voters of, oh, yeah, kind of like the new deal. Okay, yeah, I got it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it definitely seems like something that would be, you know, fantastic if it could

actually happen, right? In theory, I'm less sure. But it seems like with a lot of these specific policy points that Biden would be approaching things very differently from Trump when it comes to like a governing perspective during a public health emergency. Like it seems like a lot of Biden's plan comes down to federal action rather than truly leaving things, you know, wholly up to the states. Yeah. And this really can be characterized in just a key philosophical difference. and the role of the federal government, the role of the president. Joe Biden thinks the president should act in a way that presidents often do act in public emergencies and public crises like this pandemic, and that is being the person making decisions from a centralized location.

The Biden campaign does not want to see a return to what we saw this spring where you had different states bidding against each other for the same protective equipment and the same testing resources. They want the federal government to say, this is the plan for testing, so that if you're in California or Nevada or Colorado or whatever, it's the same approach. It's not a state-by-state breakdown. Yeah. All right, Scott. Let's talk about another of those philosophical differences here between Trump and Biden when it comes to addressing the pandemic.

And that's in terms of respect and even belief in science and scientific experts. Yeah, there is so much. And I think it's sincere, but I think you can call it a virtue. signaling, if you will. So many of the visuals of these Biden coronavirus events just have a clear goal in mind and a clear message in mind. And that is, I am listening to scientists. He's even brought reporters into the room as he sits there on a big Zoom scream talking to public health experts and scientists. Biden says that that he would listen to the experts. He would put their opinion front and center and he would not try to tailor their recommendations for his political goals, which is, of course,

a massive sub-tweet of the way that President Trump has approached his experts. It's not subtle. Yeah, not subtle at all. You're getting the message. And you've seen that the more and more both Biden and Trump talk about a possible vaccine that could be on the horizon. Yeah. I mean, that's actually where I wanted to go next, Scott.

Speaking of vaccines, where does Biden land here? Because, you know, Trump continues to make bold and unlikely promises about when a vaccine will be ready. What's Biden's deal here? So the Trump campaign has said that Biden is being kind of an anti-vaxxer here, that he's trying to undermine public confidence in the eventual federal vaccine. To be clear, that is not what Biden is doing, but both he and Harris are being very skeptical of what President Trump says. So you have heard a lot from Biden lately saying that he wants to make sure that public health officials are not being muzzled. he wants to make sure that outside experts have a chance to review whatever the final conclusions are.

He is making it clear his concern has to do with political meddling from the White House, not the work that the FDA and the CDC and these pharmaceutical companies are doing. Yeah. Okay, Scott. So big picture. I mean, do you think this plan from Biden will make a difference to voters? Like, I have to imagine the pandemic is important in the election. But you tell me, because I'm wrong all time about politics. Look, we're talking a couple days after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and there's all this conversation of could this become the most important in the issue in the campaign? And I think at the end of the day, this is a massive pandemic. 200,000 Americans are dead. Millions of more are infected. Across the country, kids are not going to school. Parents are

frustrated. Everyone's losing their minds. To me, this election is all about the coronavirus. Nothing is going to change that. And if you look, at President Trump's political standing, it's really become intertwined with, do you think he's doing a good job handling this pandemic? And so much of this Biden plan is, see what President Trump is doing? I'm going to do the opposite. So even if voters aren't reading the lines of all the details of the plan, I think a lot of this will come down to a gut feeling of can Joe Biden do a better job than Donald Trump at navigating this. All right, Scott Detrow. As always, it has been an honor and a privilege, sir, to have you on the show. Scott Detrow, NPR political correspondent.

You take care of yourself out there on the campaign trail. Thank you. And, but really, can I come on Space Week next year? Yeah, fine, Scott. We'll talk about it later. We'll talk about it in the car, okay? Feels like a no. All right. Thank you. This episode was produced by Britt Hansen, fact-checked by Ariel Zabidi and edited by Debra George. I'm Maddie Safia. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR. Activist Aaron Dore tells his flock of pro-gun followers on Facebook that he's tirelessly fighting for their Second Amendment rights. But if that's true, why do so many pro-gun Republicans hate him so much? Aaron Dore is a scam artist, a liar, and he is doing Iowans, no services, and no favors.

Find out on the No Compromise podcast from NPR.